So, where have I been? I've been fairly absent from the blog for a while, though this year I'm not in the major blogging slump I was in last year. We'll start at the beginning. In December, I sent off my university application through UCAS and, since January, I've been having all my interviews. I don't think I've spoken about this before, but I'm going to be studying nursing next year. Nursing applications are not like usual applications; in any other course, you apply for your five unis and then you can sit back and wait as the offers come in over the next month or so. With nursing, you send off your application and then you wait for your interviews to come in, and then you wait some more, and then you wait some more. In the mean time, all your friends doing history, English, maths, etc. have their five offers and no one not doing nursing can understand why you're waiting so long. So then, finally, the offer for an interview comes through, you go to the interview, and then you have to wait a further few weeks for either an offer or a rejection based on your interview. Repeat the process five times.
In other words, I've been very busy and just a teensy tiny weeny bit stressed.
So now all my interviews are done, I've got my offers, and we'll talk about all that more in later months.
If you've seen my last post, you'd see it was a playlist post. Because of that, I'm not going to go into too much detail about what I've been listening to recently, but I wanted to talk a little bit about podcasts. Again, I'm not going to talk about them in too much detail because I have a post on them planned for later this month, but I'll talk about it briefly. Recently, I discovered the humble podcast, and I fell in love. I'm podcast obsessed. It started with discovering 'Welcome to Night Vale' in January, and I can't talk enough about how much I love it. It's genius, it's fantastic and you all need to listen to it right away. I started looking for more podcasts to listen to, and I've discovered a few gems that I want to recommend. Firstly, my second favourite podcast, 'My Dad Wrote a Porno'. Honestly one of the funniest things I've ever listened to, I had to stop listening to it in public places because it had me laughing out loud; the second series is coming out in May (I think) and I'm so excited. Other podcasts that I'm enjoying are 'Backlisted Podcast', 'So Many Damn Books', 'Guys We F****d', 'Alice Isn't Dead' (created by the team behind Night Vale), 'The Black Tapes' and 'Limetown'. Expect more detail soon.
So onto books. Obviously, with my reading wrap ups, you know what I've been reading each month so I don't need to go into too much detail there, but I wanted to talk about a few bookish things. Namely, not finishing books. In January, I started reading 'The Bronze Horseman' by Paullina Simons; it's such a highly rated book, so many people love it, it's been said to be a fantastic love story in a fascinating setting, I had high hopes. And, this week, I officially marked it as a 'did not finish' book on Goodreads. I got 33% of the way through on Kindle, which is roughly 277 pages out of 800, and decided that I couldn't take it anymore. The story was so slow, it was taking me ages to read and just nothing was happening; I've read a couple of negative reviews that say the same thing happens basically the entire way through. I was also really disappointed with the setting, the siege of Leningrad is such an awful but interesting part of history and I was really excited to read a book where the main character was living it but, again, reviews said that this topic was barely even touched upon. My main problem with this book, however, was the characters. They're all annoying and infuriating and a lot of the time they just made me really uncomfortable. Right from the beginning, Tatianna and Alexander's relationship felt wrong, I hated it from the moment he followed her home on the bus and every romantic encounter they had made me feel uncomfortable and I didn't want to read on to see how it developed. One thing I can never stand in books is main characters that are annoying and frustrate me through their actions. Tatianna is a classic case of an awful main character. She's so annoying and self-centred and she does the most stupid things. I honestly can't stand her and a main character like that will ruin a good book for me. I just really did not enjoy this book and I see no reason for pushing myself to finish it.
Other bookish thoughts at this moment in time; I marked 'A Darker Shade of Magic' as a 'did not finish' book last year, but all the hype around the second one is making me want to give it another go, which I'm going to do later this month. I'm currently reading 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides, but three chapters in (spoiler alert) two siblings have married each other and that's kind of putting me off it a bit. Right now at this very second in time I'm researching 'The School for Good and Evil' by Soman Chainani as I have the sudden urge to read it. And, finally, I've preordered 'The Raven King' by Maggie Stiefvater and I am beyond beyond excited, I need it so desperately it hurts. (But there's a theory that Adam is going to turn into a tree and dear God I do not want that happening, so, so badly, that cannot happen, please).
And finally, what I've been watching recently. I don't tend to watch that much TV anymore, but recently my family has got really into 'The Night Manager', it's so tense, so good, the cast is great and I'd highly recommend. I've also been watching the new second series of 'Raised by Wolves', written by Caitlin Moran and her sister, which is one of my favourite things out there. The show is based on the Morans' own childhood and is absolutely hilarious, as you would expect. And finally onto what I've been watching on Netflix. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I've been watching (and loving) 'Barbie- Life in the Dream House'; it's strangely addictive and entertaining, and I feel quite sad that I've finished all the episodes. And the last thing I have to talk about today is 'Reign'. I love historical fiction with princesses set in courts, and this is ticking all the boxes for me. I don't mind that it's not historically accurate, I love it, and it's got me really in the mood to read historical fiction of the same nature (recommendations would be welcome). 'Reign' also has Megan Follows in its favour who, as the actress of Anne of Green Gables in the most fantastic film ever, makes me quite emotional every time I see her.
Rosie
No comments:
Post a Comment