Chapter 6: Damn You John Green!

*If there are any other Nerdfighters out there, I dedicate this post to you. Especially, to Esther.*

If you don't know about John Green, you're missing out. He and his brother Hank are some of the most influential YouTubers out there who run everything from their own Vlog Brothers channel to Crash Course, SciShow, Project for Awesome, Vid Con, and so much more. John specifically is also a writer and an amazing one at that. I was first introduced to him in the book Looking for Alaska in which the depiction of boarding schools (of which I have gone to two) is fantastic and hilarious. It remained my favorite book of his all through An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson Will Grayson (Note: That is not a double typo, that is the name of the book), and I have yet to read Zombicorns. However, The Fault in our Stars has, without a doubt, absolutely stolen my heart and I will never be the same afterwards. I, being the huge John Green fan that I am, pre-ordered the book ages ago because John made a promise that he would sign every single pre-order (and yes, that was like a billion books, I don't know how that man still has muscles in his hand) but it sat around next to my bed for months before I finally picked it up. The only thing I regret is not picking it up sooner.

John (left) and Hank (right) being awesome Nerdfighters.

The premise is simple, it's about a girl who is dying. Hazel has terminal, practically untreatable cancer. There have been some drugs which have kept her alive up until now, her 16th year, but she and her family know that she's not likely to make it to adulthood. The story picks up with her meeting a boy named Augustus Waters who loves laughing in death's face, sci-fi books, and Hazel, at her cancer kids support group and everything changes from there. They go on an epic quest to find the true ending of Hazel's favorite book and they end up finding a lot more than they were looking for.

This is not an exaggeration!

 There are no words to really describe to you how beautiful this story is. It was funny and sweet and unexpected but all those descriptions really just fall short. This definitely goes on my list of top books you must read in your lifetime. You will not go away from it thinking about life the same way as you went in. Also, just a quick warning - be careful about where you read this because the last third of the book has been known to make people burst into spontaneous tears. I, who NEVER cries at anything, was sobbing so hard by the end that I could barely see the page through the tears. Seriously, I was laying on my back while I read it and there were pools of tears in my ears! Be careful!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (336 pages)

Judgement: Heartbreakingly Wonderful (10 out of 10)

~ Domestic Dimanche ~ The Science of Homelessness

So, pretty much the biggest thing in my life right now is I work here! *points down*

St. Louis Science Center!

Well, ok, I intern but that doesn't mean I don't work, it just means I don't get paid. I actually don't mind though because I'm really, really enjoying it which, quite honestly, I didn't think I would. I'm working in the Research and Evaluations department as a Visitor Studies Intern. This basically means, I'm doing lots of data entry from visitor surveys as well as getting out on the floor and handing out comment cards. Yes, I know, this sounds horrible doesn't it? BUT IT'S NOT! It's actually really fun and entertaining. There is probably something wrong with me if I enjoy coding but oh well! I was so worried I would be stuck all summer doing something I hated but now I'm really just relieved. All the people I work with are super nice and really fun.

Also, this is the guy that guards my office. That triceratops deserved it for trying to access private files.

 Also, fun perk is that I'm encouraged to explore the museum whenever I want to. The other day they ran out of stuff to do so I got to go look at the Star Trek exhibit which, despite my never having watched more than clips of that show, I really enjoyed. They had a lot of neat props and costumes from the show as well as some cool information about the technology of Star Trek and how close we are to making it happen. If any of you guys are in the STL area I would definitely recommend stopping in before it leaves after Memorial Day. Also, every Saturday they're playing the new Star Trek movie in the omnimax. How cool is that? I am also encouraged to go see all the omni shows so I can take a nice 45 minute break and watch some adorable polar bear babies. Quite relaxing!

The other, more troublesome, thing that I have going on right now is I'm essentially homeless! I finally got to move out of the crappy student apartments and I will be moving into my own...next week. So that means until then all of my stuff is neatly piled into boxes and wedged in my mom's apartment. Oh how I hate living out of a suitcase but I've done it often enough, I'm a suitcase pro. On top of that, last weekend I packed up all the stuff in my room at our actual house so I officially have nowhere to call my own for the next couple of days. It was a little saddening actually, I didn't really expect it to affect me as much. Though, by the end I was about ready to throw all my belongings in the garbage if it meant I didn't have to pack another box. We're back again this week to clean up some more stuff for my parents but that should be the last of it. I'm looking forward to some more relaxing weekends later on this summer.

Fictitious Fridays: Etsy Spotlight

For this Fictitious Friday (see, I told you guys it was a thing, there's more than one now!) I'm going to be focusing on one of my favorite Etsy sellers. I kind of just stumbled onto Hesed Books/Bookish Charm by accident but they have proved to be nothing less than excellent.

If anyone wants to get me a present, this is my favorite Tolkein quote ^ 3 ^

I did a trade with the lovely Erin a couple of years ago, sending her one of my origami crafts in exchange for a lovely inkwell necklace that unfortunately it looks like they don't make any more, maybe more in the future...

I had to buy this card, it's hanging around in one of my books as a bookmark

Their cards and journals are also lovely. The journal I got for my Dad as a Christmas present a few years back. Their prices are very reasonable and the quality is excellent. Go ahead, peruse, enjoy. There's something there for the bookish in all of us!

Hesed Books and Gifts & Bookish Charm both @ Etsy.com

Oh so embarrassingly true...

{Dramatic Plot Twist!}

I'm soooo sorry for the lag guys. [If you'd like I can insert here a list of the reasons why I haven't posted in a good 1,000 years. This will include things like school, having a social life, being too tired to care about anything, writers block, and much more!] To make it up to you I have included this picture of a tiny pig in rain boots. Stare at his adorableness and forget all grudges you bear against me!

So we're friends now? Good, I'm glad we cleared that up. Now, we have some business to attend to. I'm going to be changing a few things around here. "What's wrong with you Sorcha? Your blog is perfect! How dare you make us try something new after your abandonment we-" Woah, woah, woah guys! We're past that remember? Tiny pig, tiny red boots. Let's not start having convenient memories now.

New Changes to ExLS:

1. Quest Length - You may or may not have noticed this already (probably depends on whether you read this on the blog or on a reader) but this is no longer the quest to 10,000 pages, it's the quest to 100,000 pages! Dun dun dun! I realized that in 5 posts I should not have gotten 1/10th of the way through my goal, that's way too fast. So I've upped the goal, mostly for the privilege of being able to talk to you lovely people for a much longer time.
2. Fun Reads Only - I am no longer allowing myself to count school readings towards my goal UNLESS they are something that has already been on my to-read list OR something that one of you guys has recommended for me. Besides, I only have one more year of school left (HUZZAH!) so this rule probably won't even be in play for too much longer (hopefully) but this way you'll probably have some more interesting reviews to read on stuff you're more likely interested in and I won't be such a cheater about it.
3. New Post-y Things - As you guys know we've had one Fictitious Friday and I had intended for a lot more but that didn't work out so well. But it will! I'm planning to post a lot more of those as well as a couple of other new features. There's also probably going to be a Movie Monday where I can talk specifically about movie adaptions of books (which I've actually seen getting better over the last couple of years as well as more numerous) that I hope you'll find interesting. Also, I've decided to start doing Domestic Dimanche (which means Sunday in French; I decided to go with this a. because I like being fancy and b. alliterations with S suck) which will kind of be my free post. I'll use that to talk about things that are going on in my life, anything that's particularly important to me, a hodge podge essentially.

I hope some of these new ideas sound good to you guys. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments or if you have any other new ideas I'd love to hear them. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys around some more. <3

Chapter 5: When Good Monks Go Bad

(We're going to ignore that part where I should apologize to you about my lack of posts for the last month or so. I'm pretty sure we're past that part in our relationship. Plus, I'm sure you've pretty much seen through my B.S. and know I am unreliable as this crazy spring weather we're having.)

I've told you already about my Gothic Literature class and the crazy stuff we've been reading. However, when we got to The Monk by Matthew Lewis the crazy levels just went off the charts. I don't want to give away too much in my review but hopefully I will give enough that you will be influenced to go pick up this book because even though I'm still not sure if I actually liked it or not, it's definitely one of the most fascinating things I've read in a while.

The story follows three distinct couples. There is Ambrosio and Matilda. Ambrosio is this monk who has been sequestered away from the real world his entire life, the furthest he's been into the outside world the monestary is to preach in the attached church. Therefore, he prides himself on his purity and sinlessness. However, he finds out that one of the newer monks to join the ranks is actually a woman in disguise who did it out of a desperate desire to be near him. Matilda has been in love with him for years but claims she is content to just be near him in an unromantic capacity but if he forces her to leave she will have to kill herself. Now with the though of a woman so close, Ambrosio starts feeling things he knows, as a pure monk, he shouldn't.

The next couple is actually the first one you see in the book. Antonia, is much like Ambrosio in the respect that she has been highly sheltered from the world by her protective mother and there is a comment made that she doesn't even know the difference between men and women! (Of course at this point her crazy aunt starts trying to describe it for her which is quite hilarious.) Lorenzo, a young sword she meets in church while waiting to hear Ambrosio speak, is completely captivated by her beauty and is determined to do anything he can to be able to claim her as his wife. In an effort to not reveal too much here, Antonia is the typical gothic heroine, whatever can go wrong, will and her perspective of the story sucks! It's like watching a train wreck.

The last group is Raymond (a friend of Lorenzo) and Agnes (Lorenzo's sister). They are the couple who are always making plans and always failing. The first thing you learn about them is that Agnes has become a nun out of despair of Raymond's abandonment but now they have reconciled but she cannot just leave the nunnery. Oh, and he gets her pregnant in the cloister gardens. Then she goes into this big annoying spiel about it's all his fault and he should have protected her virtue cuz she's a weak woman, blah, blah, blah. It takes two to tango lady! (Lewis had some interesting ideas about women and if you don't know that yet, you will by the end of this book.) Anyways, the Prioress finds out and flips her lid and fakes Agnes' death. Raymond spends the majority of the book doing everything he possibly can to find and free Agnes.

Like I said before, still not sure if I actually liked this book or if it just fascinated me. There's so much going on and everything moves so quickly from bad to worse you just can't look away. If you read it, the ending will definitely surprise you. Just remember, in all Gothic novels, the bad guys always get what's coming to them. And how!

(Yes, the creepy bastard in this picture is Ambrosio. Foreshadowing anyone?)

The Monk by Matthew Lewis (496 pages)
Judgement: Fascinatingly Disturbing (8 out of 10)

Ficticious Fridays: In Which Harry Potter Sings a Ditty

I still remember the first blissful notes of Wizard Rock (or wrock as it is more commonly referenced). I was about 12 years old so it had been two years since I'd discovered Harry Potter purely by accident one night when I was kicked out of my bed and slept under the living room bookshelf. My sister was going to art school in the city and getting to have a sleepover with her in her dorm. Oh the wonders of iTunes sharing, and my world was forever expanded!

There's no shortage of creativity inside the Harry Potter community. A simple google search will yield pages and pages of fanfiction (some of which should be read with caution), fan art, jewelry, clothing, poetry, films, costumes, furniture, and of course music. I've been a devoted HP fangirl since that initial reading (a self proclaimed Ravenclaw if you must know but sometiems I wish I was a Hufflepuff) and having gone to religious schools most of my life, I've spend a good deal of my time defending my passion. However, now that I'm older I realize it's not so much about the stoires themselves (though I'll always hold up the books as an example of great literature) but it's important because of the impact it had on its fans. It inspired us in so many ways and connected us together, one of the few books to create a true community.

So after all this rambling I should get back to my intended topic: wrock. Harry and the Potters were the ones that first taught me a book could be so much more than a book. They were the start of the whole movement, teaching us you don't really have to have a whole lot of musical talent to make unforgetable songs and inspiring a whole new group of musicians to pick up where they left off.

I'll post below a list of my favorite wrock bands. I hope my fellow HP fans among you will enjoy and get as inspirited as I have. Nox!

- Harry and the Potters
- The Remus Lupins
- Tom Riddle and Friends
- The Moaning Myrtles
- Gred and Forge
- The Whomping Willows
- The Quaffle Kids
- Ginny and the Heartbreakers

Chapter 4: Gothic Introductions

A possible reason for my sudden influx of posts is that I have recently started school again. For most this might cause a decline in reading but as an English major I find it quite the opposite. One of my more interesting classes that I've enrolled in is a study of Gothic Literature. Having gone to my first two classes I've realized how little I've known of this genre up until now. My only exposure so far has been Poe (and who doesn't like a little Pit and Pendulum?) and assorted Victorian poetry. To me, the word Gothic brought up pictures in my mind of ghosts and monsters and damsel's-in-distress (a la the intro sequence to Masterpiece Mystery which I used to both love and fear as a child). However my first forrays into the genre have revealed some things I wasn't quite expecting.


The first story I read was The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve and I hated it. Granted, it was an early Gothic novel and one that was trying to be minimalist about its Gothic elements but it was soooo boring. It really felt like one of those old courtly romances where all the characters are stock and perfect and way too obsessed with honor to do anything interesting. There were tiny glimmers of supernatural with a few ghostly visitors but they didn't even inspire interest in the characters, let alone me. I can see how it was important for setting up the boundaries of the genre but if I have to go through another 30 pages of epilogue and castle hopping I might go mad.

The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve (176 pages)
Judgement: Dreadfully Dull (1 out of 10)

The next one I read, which I later learned should have been the first if I was to read chronologically, was The Castle of Otronto by Horace Walpole. This, was a crazy book! If you're looking for complete ideas and fulfilled plot points this is probably not the book for you but there is certainly a good deal of excitement to be found, especially noting the giant helmet that falls from the sky and crushed a boy about halfway through page two. This became almost a humerous meme in my Gothic Lit class, along the lines of "Well, it wasn't like being crushed by a helmet but..." The author was a bit all over the place and it had a feeling of being unfinished but there was a lot of fun and humor (sometimes probably intentional). There were ghosts and spirits and miracles galore as well as love triangles and fights and revenge. It had the distinct feel of a Shakespearian play and I would suggest it as a fun, light read to anyone who's a fan of the bard. All in all, not one of my favorite books but definitely not the worst I've ever read for a school assignment (see above).

The Castle of Otronto by Horace Walpole (176 pages)
Judgement: Ridiculous but Readable (6.5 out of 10)