Coming Attractions: April

{April 2014 Desktop Calendar via Craftberry Bush} 

Raise your hand if you've ever felt personally victimized by the Gregorian calendar. The month of March came in like a lion, and totally whupped my butt for the ensuing five weeks of end-of-Quarter crying, Finals Week fear-of-God, Spring Break breaking my heart, and yesterday's joyful return to UW's beautiful sunny campus, with the understanding that yet another Quarter's thundercloud of academics would just be lurking over my shoulder. 

I'm not joking, I've been working significantly hard these past few weeks! First there was the Tacoma Weekly Daffodil article, then College Fashion, then there were Finals to take care of, then a College Fashion article again, then a series of articles for the Daffodil Festival's upcoming insert in the Tacoma News Tribune in anticipation for the Parade this Saturday, then an article for the Tacoma Weekly about the Parade as well, and now I've got another College Fashion article due this upcoming Sunday, but I'm going home for Parade this weekend Thursday night, so I can see my Mom before she leaves for Japan for three weeks this Friday, too. 

If I'm not mistaken, I was basically just bitch-slapped by a unit used to measure time. You might have thought my apology post from earlier in March was weak, but guys... I'm limping into April. #saveme

FEBRUARY HIGHLIGHT

{Experiencing the iconic cherry blossoms bloom on the UW campus (before the heinous rush of tourists showed up); Seeing the Veronica Mars movie in theater with my  Dad; Celebrating Spring across Tacoma with Daffodil cupcakes from Celebrity Cake Studios} 

Well, this is awkward. I'm not even capable of doing my usual countdown of my most popular posts, because I only had one for the whole month of March! Egads. At least I can catch up a little bit on my College Fashion posts that y'all might not have seen quite yet... 

March 12th: Neil Gaiman's Stardust. I was kind of loving the attention dedicated to fantasy in some of my most popular CF posts, and decided to stick with it. What resulted is leather skater skirts and unicorn stud earrings, and I'm pretty darn pleased. Fave outfit: "Follow the Star," based on the witches and royals chasing down the fallen star at the same time as Tristran.



March 26th: "Part Two" of Veronica Roth's Divergent. It picks up where my previous article on the subject, from this past August, left off, with creating outfits based on the various factions. Fave outfit: "Candor," featuring sleek shine, transparency, and black and white. Because duh.

these are a few of my favorite links...

1. It seems like my entire sorority is obsessed with Buzzfeed's quizzes...how else am I supposed to know that my spirit animal is Lauren Conrad, that I am most like the iconic Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich in the great pantheon of lunch foods, and that out of all childhood classics, I am Green Eggs and Ham? 

2. This list of "What We've Learned from Young Heroines in Literature" from Popsugar is equal parts nostalgic and empowering! 

3. Retreat by Random House put out a seriously cool infographic that helps you answer the question, "What Do I Feel Like Reading?" 

4. I have a deliriously unnecessary love and affection for stamps, which could only be intensified by the production of a rotating stamp from Kate Spade. 

5. I will always, ALWAYS make time for Team Epic Reads and their weekly Tea Time. (Crumpet hardcore, y'all). So you can imagine my ultimate geekery when I actually got mentioned on air... whether you've seen it or not, fast forward to 19:18 to hear my name! 

quote of the month

Let Me Begin My Three-Part Apology By Saying That I Think You're a Wonderful Human

I have been totally MIA for the past couple of weeks, and, yes, the title of this post is definitely a quote from Zombieland. Both for good reason, and not unrelated, either. Let me explain...

So, during the last few weeks of the quarter, the always lovely University of Washington became a sort of beautiful hell, as the cherry blossoms in the Quad finally came into bloom, and I realized that unless I took some sort of drastic action, I would be receiving a 0.0 in my Informatics class. Shocking and unlike me, I know. That's basically what my parents said to me when I informed them of my scholarly shortcomings. Then, of course, they reminded me that I had to get my butt in gear, or I'd not only majorly screw over my GPA, but I'd also be stricken from social activities and placed on Academic Probation for my sorority if I couldn't muster more than a 2.8 GPA. So, essentially, the culmination of the quarter drew a cumulative "Buck Up, Buttercup" from everyone to whom I complained about it.

Unfortunately, in an effort to catch up in my studies, I was forced to lay some things to the wayside... such as the blog. And reading for fun, in general. 

It was really, really difficult to go from posting every day, to not only not posting at all, but not having any kind of fiction outside of the graphic novels assigned to my Cultural Studies class to grease up the pressure valve to my over-pressurized brain. It was a very difficult and trying time, but thank goodness, as of yesterday at midnight... I'm finally off the hook with Winter Quarter 2014. The First Day of Spring is what I am now considering as my First Day of Freedom, and the First Day I'm Getting Back to My Blog. However, this little sojourn out of the land of books has taught me a couple of things about the way that I read books, and write about them... things I'll probably be discussing more in-depth in the coming week-and-a-half before school starts up again on the 31st.

Other than that, I have emerged victorious from the end of the quarter, having slain the mighty beast called "INFO 101," and I think I'm the better for it. I've certainly learned the extent of some of my procrastinating abilities, I think (I hope). I'm brain-dead and tired and irritated by the fact that the past couple of days have been so damn sunny and that my sister has my Kindle because she wanted to read Divergent before we see the movie this weekend, but I'm victorious, at the very, very, very least. And now, the least the Universe can do, is send me some great reading material.

(Many, many thanks to the lovely followers who kept checking in here day after day, I owe you all something special. Simply inform me of what that something is, and I'll do what I can. ;) )