Coffee Shope Watching

I love sitting in coffee shops.

My parents have been gone all week, and I've been staying with my calculus teacher for the week. (Seriously, how often must I be reminded of my nerdiness?)

And today we decided to head over to a coffee shop to get some work done without distractions since we both had so much we needed to get done.
(And no... blogging is definitely not a distraction... this is work, somehow...)

Anyway, I wrote an essay pretty quickly and changed the font a bit to make it fit into two pages, and then I wrote a poem before starting on the second essay.

And then I got distracted people watching.

See, there were so many interesting people there, like the American and Asian couple, and the woman with all the tattoos, and the Canadian, and the woman with the Mickey Mouse shirt, and the awesome guy who knew just about every single person who walked into the café. He spoke to each person in whatever language they spoke, English, Spanish, French. I overheard (eavesdropped) him talking about Russia and Guatemala and Paris, and I am so jealous of all his travelling!

See, I am one of those people that loves travelling and has travelled a lot. I admire anyone with a global perspective and enjoy seeing people that know what the world is like and aren't stuck inside a box. I can't imagine living in the same country my whole life.

I mean, I'm planning my trip to England, and hoping for side trips to Germany, Sweden, and Paris.

I've visited Costa Rica, Peru, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda.

I'm going for more.

I love to travel, and I love the mix of languages and cultures that combine in coffee shops.

In fact, the girl behind me is saying that she's from Holland, and the man talking to her has a peculiar accent, so I don't think he's from the USA, and they're talking about Spain.

I just, I love to see the mixture, because I myself am such a mix of cultures. I like to see that the rest of the world is blended together, too. It's no fun staying in one place being the same person and doing the same things. You've got to step out and do your own thing and see the world!

A quote from the beginning of Fahrenheit 451- my current read:

"When they give you ruled paper, write the other way."

Rambling Rages

I haven't posted in a few days, longer than it usually takes me to update this post, and I feel like I have so much to say. Of course, at the same time, I feel like I don't really have anything good to say. My mind is all jumbled and twisted up and doesn't quite make sense.

So bear with me on this post and try to keep up.

I guess I'll start with the most recent accomplishment: cleaning the house.

Picture from here.

My family has never been big on chores, just washing dishes, and my dad usually cleans the house. But my parents left for the week and I spent all of today trying to clean the house for my calculus teacher, who's going to stay with me while they're gone. (Yes, I am so nerdy that I actually asked my teacher to come stay at my house for a week. Yikes.)

So far I got the patio, the yard, the living room, and the room where my teacher will stay. Unfortunately that means I still have the dining room, the kitchen, and my own room. I guess I am exaggerating a little bit. My house is actually pretty small, and it hasn't taken that long.

But I'm still feeling slightly overwhelmed. Again.

Cleaning, homework, college applications, ESL classes, and that banana peanut butter cake I've been trying to bake for a couple of weeks now and haven't had time.

I wish I was outside in pretty red leaves...

Ugh. So much that I should get done, and then those things that I actually need to do and keep trying to put off.

On a different note, one of my friends (the same one who commented on my lack of weapon knowledge) is now reading through the novel.

Boy is it terrifying giving him the book.

I think maybe this is an irrelevant picture, but...

He's barely started and already telling me that I need to decide on a time period and stick to it, because apparently it's not allowed to have trains and swords.

What if I like trains? Huh? Doesn't that count for anything?

Goodness gracious, it's a fantasy novel; I'm supposed to be able to do whatever I want!

But I guess he has a point, and I guess I should listen. I just don't want to. I want to keep my trains, and I don't want to bring in guns. Guns are stupid. Swords are so much cooler.

On the plus side, he compared my book to Reckless by Cornelia Funke (Not exactly in a positive way) but she's like my favorite author and I take his comment as the highest compliment rather than the insult he meant it to be.

I guess that's enough raging for today. I'm out, to finish cleaning the house and maybe get some homework in there someplace.

Reading Love

I looked at a list of 100 best books. I know there are a ton of those books, and of course they are all opinion and change according to each person. But I would like to think that I've read a lot of these "best books" according to whoever it was that wrote this list.

Unfortunately, I've read about five of these.

Ouch.

This cheerful cat is from here.

Some of them are on my "should read soon" list, but a lot are just ones that don't even look that appealing to me.

But I've given myself November to read as much as I can, and then I'm going to give myself December to write as much as I can while I finish up with Shadow Whispers. Then, January, I will finally let myself begin work on the Shadow Remnants! I can't wait until this, and I'm hoping that I can work on the Whisperers faster and therefore get started on the second book sooner.

Wish me luck.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself again.

This is not December; it's November. National Novel Writing (Or Reading in my case) Month. And I plan on reading as many books off my list as I can.

Yet another top 100 books list.

Number one is I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, and so far I'm loving it.

Make sure to keep checking on my Pages and More Pages blog so you can read my short little reviews as I finish each book.

I really hope I can read a LOT this month!

Picture from here.