Book Review: How to Survive Your Freshmen Year published by Hundred of Heads

ISBN: 1933512040
Published: March 8th, 2006
Publisher: Hundreds of Heads Books
Read from March 18th to 27th, 2012
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Containing more than 1,000 pieces of advice gleaned from interviews with students at more than 100 colleges, this handy guide helps see to it that one of life's more challenging rites of passage is a positive one. The revised and expanded second edition covers age-old dilemmas, including what to take, where to live, how to get a good roommate, how to choose classes, when and where to study, how to fill leisure time, the dating and party scene, choosing a major, vacation and road trips, and much more. This revised edition includes useful checklists, facts, and resources to help students from orientation to summer vacation.

Review:


This book has some great advice for anyone about to enter college.  It was all advice that I'd heard from various places before.  Since it's advice from hundreds of different people, there were often differing opinions, and you could read advice from two different sides.  One person would say you should do something, and another would say you shouldn't.  It's nice to get both sides of the argument.  Like I said though, you can find advice really similar to this all over the Internet or even from real college students you know.  It might be a nice book to keep around and read through, but it's not really necessary if you have other sources for advice.  This book would be more relevant if there weren't a million websites out there with advice just like what's in the book.  Still, you can never get too much advice I guess.

A Wedding

It's almost four in the afternoon as I'm writing this, yet it feels like it's still morning, even if I am tired enough for it to be night already.  (For the first time since spring break started, I had trouble sleeping last night.)  Today has been a really nice day though.  It wasn't long after I woke up this morning when we were heading out to my cousin Ryan's wedding.

The wedding was at some small church out in the woods.  It was really pretty.  The church was kind of up on a hill, and it had windows that looked out on the woods.  We've been having nice weather lately and the woods have begun looking like they usually do during the spring, and it was absolutely beautiful.  The whole wedding was incredibly nice, and I'm really happy for my cousin, but guys, it was really pretty out at that church.

After the wedding we got to spend time with family at the reception.  Only a limited number of the family was there (this is the absolutely huge side of my family that we're talking about), but I hadn't seen some of them in quite a while.  I'm pretty sure that I hadn't seen one of my cousins who was there since last summer.  I always enjoy getting to see family, and Ryan's new wife seems like an awesome person.  I actually got to randomly meet her yesterday.  My cousin Ryan is the son of my aunt who I work for, so I got to meet her when her and Ryan were talking about the wedding with my aunt yesterday.  She seems really sweet.  (Which I guess can be both a good and bad thing when meeting our family considering I think my family is a bit intimidating to some people...  I mean, they're nice and good people, but there are a lot of us and I imagine it would be pretty intimidating to meet everyone for the first time, and she still has a long way to go before she meets everybody.)

I imagine I won't be doing much for the rest of the day.  I may end up taking a nap, which I hate doing, but it's only four and I'm already incredibly tired.  It's definitely not good to be worn out before school even starts again.  I should probably go to bed early tonight in anticipation, but I doubt that will happen.

RIP Chris

Today was shaping up to be just like most of my other days of spring break.  I was just sitting around at home being lazy, but then I got a text from my friend Ji.  As I've said several times before, I hate Facebook, and for that reason, I'm never on it.  Most of the time all I'm missing is petty drama, and it makes no difference.  However, occasionally something huge happens, and I'm one of the last to know because everyone else checks Facebook regularly.  This was one of those times.  Ji informed me of what's been going around Facebook today.

I don't have all the facts.  I don't really know what exactly happened.  All I know is that at some point in the last twenty-four hours a boy who graduated from my school last year committed suicide.  This is at least the third death at my school since I started this blog.  That's far too many when you consider my school has only a little more than 400 students.  My school supposedly has a curse where every class has to lose one student before graduation.  The class of 2011 had avoided the curse, but then this happened.  I'm sure the curse will now be revised to say it can even happen after graduation.  (My class hasn't had any deaths so far...  Let's hope nothing changes that.)

I never really spoke to Chris much.  We rode the same bus for a while, and he even got on and off at the same bus stop, but almost every single morning we stood waiting for the bus in silence.  He usually had his iPod with him, and he'd listen to it while he waited.  We had a couple of classes together over the years.  He was always a really nice person, and he seemed to get along well with everyone.  It is nice to see the school coming together, as they usually do after these deaths, to not only honor the person who passed away but also support those who are affected the most.  These are the times where I'm most grateful that I grew up in this community and attend this high school.

Thoughts on The Host Teaser Trailer

The teaser trailer for The Host came out almost a week ago now, and I have yet to talk about it.  For those of you who have never heard of The Host, it's a book by Stephenie Meyer who's better known for writing the Twilight series.  I, however, actually prefer The Host over Twilight.  I think her writing is better in it, and the romance in The Host is really nothing like Edward and Bella.

The trailer doesn't really have much real footage from the film.  It's essentially Wanderer (the main character) doing a voice-over while the camera zooms in on the Earth.  Then it shows a bunch of pictures of people (ending on Wanderer in Melanie's body) that, to people who haven't read the book, would just seem to have creepy looking eyes.  People who've read the book know that their eyes are a sign that the Souls (the type of aliens in the book/movie) have taken control over that person's body.

The actual video isn't all that impressive, even though I love the way they did the eyes.  Wanderer's voice-over though is brilliant I think.  She really gives almost none of the plot away, but I think I would want to know more about the movie if I hadn't read the book.  I definitely recommend watching the trailer.  I don't want to give what Wanderer says away because I think it has such a great effect in the trailer.  Like I said, I wasn't at all impressed with the video, but Wanderer's voice-over made the teaser trailer absolutely wonderful.  I'm really interested to see how the movie turns out!

Breaking Dawn Part 2 Teaser Trailer Thoughts

I was lucky to see the Breaking Dawn Part 2 teaser trailer for the first time on the big screen at the Hunger Games midnight premiere.  I was really looking forward to seeing it and based on the cheers when Jacob was on screen, I assume other people there were too.  Oddly enough, I only heard screams when Jacob appeared and not when Edward or Bella did.  Maybe I just blocked the others from my mind?

I have to say, the first shot of Bella holding up her hand and looking at it doesn't really show her new "vampireness."  She's talking about not being ordinary anymore, but her hand doesn't look any different.  Maybe if she was really a vampire it would, but she's not and it looks the same.  Maybe I'm being too critical, but I just feel like I'm looking at a normal hand.  It's nothing exciting.  At least the clips of her running actually show proof that she's not human anymore.

And then it shows Jacob walking out of the house and talking to Bella, and of course that made me happy.  I'm pretty sure his line is straight from the book, and I'm almost positive it's from the scene when her and Edward come back after Bella hunts for the first time.  I'm so excited for that scene!

I love when Bella looks up at the screen and opens her eyes to show the audience their red.  It just seems like such an epic moment.  I wonder if that was edited especially for the trailer though.  She seems to be looking right at the camera, and I don't think that would be the first time we'd see her eyes in the actual movie.  I'm not saying that scene isn't in the movie, but it's probably not really how it is in the trailer.

And then after the Breaking Dawn logo, we get a quick shot of Bella hunting which is also quite cool.  Only about eight months until the movie...