Bubbles Burst: Adult Life Begins?

A wonderful sweet card from my dear friend, Liz!

So where were we.... oh right, I finished college like a month ago (what the WHAT?!?). I graduated, and after a couple of small things I'm in the process of doing, I will be a happy person with a Bachelors of Science in Bioengineering and a Bachelors of Arts in German Literature and Language. It's all quite really strange to be honest, but nothing that isn't too out of the ordinary for most of my peers now.

I mean... here's a picture of the back of my head. But I mean, the pineapple on my cap is worthy of an A+ and should be featured on Psych's fan page. 

What was strange was the month gap I had between my internship with the State of New Hampshire Public Health Lab and graduation. During that time I was in a bubble. I managed to accomplish some small house projects, completely redid my closet, watched a ton of soccer, and sleep a ton. While it was great doing that for the first two weeks, it got repetitive and I felt like I was missing something. At first, it felt like I was just out of place at home, seeing as how I've spent the majority of the last four years in New York, surrounded by friends that I've had since freshman year. But there was definitely more to that.
It's so easy to say "Oh, right now, I want to take a break and see where I can go." It's another thing to actually take that time to do some soul searching and just freak out because you don't know what to do or why you decided a break was a good idea in the first place. Needless to say, I figured out a temporary plan for the immediate future, and hopefully it'll set the groundwork for whatever I choose to do soon.

Clearly the antics of a college graduate. Also, why does my camera insist it is 2006?

However, nothing is set in stone and whatever does in the future, I am certain happens for the best. So on that note, congratulations to all the graduates of 2014- high school, college, whatever else there is. Whatever you've just accomplished- it only is the beginning. :)

xoxo
Sheilly

The Silver Linings Playbook

I have a love-hate relationship with first person narratives. I first realized this when I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I loved the premise and the characters but the way it was written detracted from the story. Instead of being able to see the various ways the districts were revolting or even how the 'game' worked and what President Snow was up to, you only got to see and hear Katniss's story. While she's an amazing character, I can't say that it helped the book. Instead the movie flushed out those details.
Back to the point,  I don't think writing in first person is the easy or lazy way out. I find it limits the way a story is being told, and it keeps facts and other events away from the reader. Some stories require the first person, because it's a personal story. But I firmly believe not every story should be written in this format.
I mean... Can you imagine reading Harry Potter as a first person narrative?
This is not to say a first person narrative severely injures a good story either, simply by the way it is written. It can be a major pitfall, but it can be made up in other ways. Incorporating letters, having an interesting narrator, or even just creating an interesting atmosphere adds to the book, which is why I loved The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. The voices within those books are so unique and the stories they told were their own. I'd like to believe that's why their considered classics, and every 11th grader has to read these book in the English classes. The Silver Linings Playbook does exactly what The Great Gatsby did and The Catcher in the Rye.

At this point I'm assuming everyone knows the general idea of this story, due to its movie adaptation being nominated for several awards and winning many, but either way...
The main character, Pat Peoples, believes his life is a movie created by God. He believes that his life's silver lining is to be reunited with his wife, who has left him. After coming back from his stay at a mental institution and he is forced to move back in with his parents. Since coming back, he has no memories of why he was at the institution and for what reason. To win his wife, Nikki, back, Pat decides to become a better person by practicing being kind instead of right. This includes all facets of his life including his physical appearance and his knowledge of literature. Pat strikes up a deal with a woman named Tiffany, in which he would be her dance partner for a competition in order to reconnect with his wife.
This is the plot of the movie and the book, but the book explores the confusion of a mental disorder. This is what I really enjoyed about the story. I loved the way it was told, and it flowed really well. It was written in a way that seemed very natural and understandable. It wasn't heavily descriptive but it definitely wasn't the case of a self-insert story. The characters are incredibly believable, as our their motivations and desires. The book does portray some characters not as likable as some others, unlike the movie.
Some of the themes that are present in the book are not in the movie either, but I believe it would have been hard to portray that. The Peoples' family ties are definitely more intriguing, and the dynamic is brilliant. There's a lot of secrets and hidden stuff going on that Quick was able to reveal in the end. Unlike most stories where there is a major twist in the story, you can kind of see what is going to happen. (If you've seen the movie, the twist is the memory Pat describes within the first 30 minutes of it.) But reading it in Pat's voice and just understanding his train of thought will make you as anxious while reading it.
I can definitely say this is one of my favorite books I've read. It's different and funny but not overwhelmingly so. I love the positive message of the story even if not everyone got their happily ever after.
One favorite passage:

“Why is this dance competition so important to you?” Cliff asks me. I look up at the sun painted on the ceiling of his office and smile.
“What?” he says.
“The dancing lets me be that,” I say, and point up. Cliff’s eyes follow my finger. “It lets you be the sun?”  
“Yes,” I say, and smile again at Cliff, because I really like being the sun, exactly what allows clouds to have a silver lining.

Bossypants

Disclaimer: I completely love everything Tina Fey has done and love it blindly. So rather than this being a "What a great book!" and thoughtful this will unfortunately sound like a fangirl love letter to Tina Fey. I'm not sorry.

After reading The Fault in our Stars, I needed something that was hilarious because that book broke my feelings. (If you're interested in how it broke my feelings, read here!) I found that Bossypants became more than just a memoir and was inspirational, silly, incredibly quotable, and very relatable.

"To say I’m a troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair."

I've always been told that someone's a great writer if you can hear their voice through their writing.   Reading her book, you can definitely hear Tina Fey in it. Best example? Read the chapter "The Secrets of Mommy's Beauty" and tell me you don't hear Tina Fey reading it in your head. The most prevalent theme in her book is about her job as a writer. She starts from how she worked at a desk job and poured all her money into improv classes, and builds upon that. But not linearly, she breaks it up between her home life, stories about her family, and random Q&A's with the internet. It's the way she can change the topic is great, and something I've always admired in watching 30 Rock.

"‘The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.’ This is something Lorne has said often about Saturday Night Live, but I think it’s a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go."

Speaking of 30 Rock, her chapter about the show will make you love it even more. She introduces the writers of 30 Rock and a little bit of their background, and you can see some of the similarities with the ones shown in the show. After reading Bossypants, I've noticed that 30 Rock has a very improv-y feeling. The jokes per scene, sight gags, and how the characters play off of each other does seem very SNL-ish, but not overtly so.

“One afternoon a girl walked by in a bikini and my cousin Janet scoffed, “Look at the hips on her.” I panicked. What about the hips? Were they too big? Too small? What were my hips? I didn’t know hips could be a problem. I thought there was just fat or skinny. This was how I found out that there are an infinite number of things that can be “incorrect” on a woman’s body.”

And like a lot of Tina Fey's works, there's a lot about being a feminist and views on women. Throughout her chapters dedicated to improve, her stint on SNL, and working on 30 Rock, she talks about women and their role in the media. How women aren't seen as funny, getting women to turn on each other, etc. We've all seen this, especially if you've seen Mean Girls. (Which surprisingly was not mentioned at all during this book. Please for book 2?) But some of the most inspirational bits about her view of women was that it's all encompassing. It's okay to be progressive and work 70+ hours per week. She wrote some real truths about how it's okay to cry, how you shouldn't be mean to people to get things to happen your way, among other things. As someone who likes to be nice to people and cheery, that was so good to read because so often I come across people who seem to just want to ruin my mood. 

Anyway, other little tidbits I noticed/want to mention:

• The fact that Tina Fey seems to swear in every other sentence was actually great. She used it in a way to be funny, and not annoying. Although, I can see that putting some people off. 
• As I mentioned before, Fey didn't mention Mean Girls. Which is strange because that's what made me hear of her first. I mean I don't know what she could have written about, but I'd love to hear what she thought about writing that movie and how big of an influence it's had on us. 
• "Don’t concern yourself with fashion; stick to simple pieces that flatter your body type. By nineteen, I had found my look. Oversize T-shirts, bike shorts, and wrestling shoes. To prevent the silhouette from being too baggy, I would cinch it at the waist with my fanny pack. I was pretty sure I would wear this look forever. The shirts allowed me to express myself with cool sayings like “There’s No Crying in Baseball” and “Universität Heidelberg,” the bike shorts showed off my muscular legs, and the fanny pack held all my trolley tokens. I was nailing it on a daily basis. Find something like this for yourself as soon as possible.” -- One of my favorite passages ever actually.
• Tina Fey can't drive and that makes me feel okay. She went out of her way to mention this, and I figure if she's successful in life without a driver's license, than so can I. (Who's thinking bad logic? Anyone?)

Anyway that's just about it. Sorry for the word vomit. (This might be my longest entry yet? Oh man) The next book I'll probably talk about is going to be The Silver Linings Playbook. I'm almost done with it actually. (On the last 100 pages.) So yay! :)

Voldemort Appeared in my Cheesecake and other things....

This summer has been a conglomeration of trying to figure out what I'm going to do after I graduate college, working out, reading a ton, and occasionally visiting a couple of friends here and there. What I love about the summer is that it is continuous stretch of relaxation and peace, but sometimes it does feel a bit too long. Blogging seems a bit redundant at that point because I'm not doing much of anything.

College me is a lot more exciting than summer me.

Regardless, I'll keep updating with books I've read this summer. (I'm working my way through Bossypants by Tina Fey, and picked up a couple of plays that I've been meaning to read for a while.) And some other silly stuff.

As for the most exciting and possibly downright disturbing event of the summer so far:

Voldemort appeared in my cheesecake.

Creepy right? Well, I've got a glorified stick that I've fashioned into a wand. If Voldemort shows up, I can just stab him with that I guess. 

That's it for now!