Guess What?

I have ears!!!

No, but actually, I got my ears pierced (again).  That one on the left? The halfway-up-my-ear one? 

Yeah, that happened today.  

It's a piercing I've been wanting for a while, and I finally did it today! :)

(and it hurts like a...)

ps. please ignore the "maybe if I smile at it, it'll go away" look on my face.  It was supposed to be a smile.

Day 39

In other news, I finally got that new book I've been wanting!  Just from reading a couple chapters while at my friend's house (yeahh....I'm that girl) I can tell I'm going to love it!
Like stay-up-all-night-reading-even-though-I-have-work-in-the-morning kind of love it.

(It's called "This is How" and it's by that guy...Augusten Burroughs...in case you were wondering. 

(Thank me later)

<3

The Wicked Witch of the West

In the past month or so since I told you guys about my 100 in 2012 Project, I've been reading book after book, waiting for one good enough to share with you guys.

The Time Traveller's Wife, for instance? I adored it, every page.  And of course rereading Harry Potter was wonderful too.  

But I've been waiting for the book that I wanted to tell you guys about. I couldn't have told you what I was waiting for; I just knew that when I read it, I'd know.

Well, this morning I finished Wicked, the first book in a four-part series called The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire.

I'm sure plenty (if not all) of you have heard of it.  It's a Broadway musical, for crying out loud! But I strongly think that this book is worth mentioning.

In case you haven't seen the play, Wicked chronicles the "life and times" of the Wicked Witch of the West from the beloved story The Wizard of Oz, from birth till her well-known death.

And for those of you who have seen the musical, or at least know the gist of it, I promise you that the book has so much more to it than the Broadway rendition.*

Maguire beautifully writes about a world we haven't visited since Dorothy killed the Witch, and in so much more detail than L. Frank Baum did in the original fairytale that we all know and love.

From the first page till the last, I was absolutely spellbound, and I already can't wait until my copy of Son of a Witch, the second book in the series, arrives!

<3

*I'm not saying that the musical, Wicked wasn't amazing. I saw it a few years ago, and I absolutely adored it!

100 in 2012

Reading was always something I loved - I could visit other worlds.  It was almost like a connection with anybody else who had read that book and founding meanings in the words.  

In my past few semesters of college though, I've sort of let reading fall to the side.  Being busy with classes and clubs and new friends, and just the thrill of living away from home has kept me away from it.

Just recently though, I finished re-reading the Harry Potter series, and that meant that I'd been reading constantly.  Or, at the very least on days when I was busy, every night before bed.

I've read somewhere that you sleep better when you spend the time before sleeping reading or writing rather than in front of the TV or on the computer.  And I've found that, over the past couple of months, I've dreamt more.  I've woken up less throughout the night.  And falling asleep in the first place has been easier.  

So, I'm making a promise to myself, and a goal.

The promise is that I will read more this year.  I will always have a book that I am actively reading, and I won't forget about that when I get busy.

The goal is a little more difficult.  It's something that I may or may not reach, but that I want to spend the next ten months working towards.  My goal is to read 100 books in 2012.

So far this year, I've read 9 books:

 -Harry Potter Series (7)

-Milkweed

-The Fault in our Stars

And currently, I'm working on book #10 - The Secret Diary of a Call Girl.  

So how about you?  Do you love reading, or do you find that as your life gets busier, you have less time for it?  Are there any books you absolutely love that I should read?  I swear - I'd LOVE suggestions, so either leave them here, or drop on over to The Bookshelf and let me know what books you've fallen completely into!

<3