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I just finished the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. There are 4 books in this series so far, with the fifth book due in May 2010. I can't wait for it to come out, mostly because I want to know what happens next. Will Dimitri be changed back? What will happen between Adrian and Rose? How was she going to get Victor out of jail? All these questions are buzzing in my mind. I love the first 3 books, but the 4th book was a downer. I'd read reviews saying that it was the weakest book of the series so far and I hate to admit it, but I agree. The first few parts were pretty much a bore. I skimmed through those quickly until I got to the part when Dimitri appeared.

Dimitri...well, I'd been rooting for him since the first book. I wanted him to be with Rose. But after he turned bad, there was no semblence of his former self that wanted me to still be on the Dimitri and Rose boat. I think the major part was that the bad vampires were painted to be really ugly in the book and his desires for draining human's lives did nothing for me. I couldn't believe that this was the Dimitri that I had fell in love with in the first 3 books.

Which is why I wonder if anything will happen betwee Adrian and Rose. Adrian seems like he could be good for her. In ways, he reminds me of Dorian from the Dark Swan series. But it's frustrating because Rose doesn't like him as much as she likes Dimitri even though Adrian is in love with her. So the possibility of them happening is very low but I don't really want that to happen.

I wish she'd brought in some of the other characters in the 4th book as well instead of introducing new ones. Probably it fitted the plot of the 4th book, but I missed the camaraderie between the main and sub characters.

Ugh I really wished Dimitri didn't turn bad. It totally killed my image of him.

I shifted back to hall just now. Today the air conditioner was supposed to be usable, so I bought the card and topped it up with cash and all that. Then I switched it on and went to read a book. A couple of hours later, my room still isn't cold. UGH. I asked around, apparently it's not supposed to be like this! UGH, I can only tell the hall office about the problem tomorrow after work because it's closed now.

UGH. I wanted to feel the cold draft from the air conditioner. I came back to hall for that!

I started and finished, well at least from what is currently available, this series called Dark Swan by Richelle Mead. Wow. I forgot how it was like to just engross myself in a good book. Now I can't wait for 2011 to arrive because that's when the next book is supposed to be out. Gahhhhhhhhhhh. When I read, everything becomes forgotten. I become part of the world that the book has craftily created for me. Everything else loses its importance, my priorities become nothing.

Sometimes I lose myself too much into the book and it takes a while for me to switch back to reality.

So it's finally 2010. I don't see it as a big deal really. Just another number, just another year. Why do people celebrate the passing of a year and the approach of the next? If years, dates had not been set in the history of mankind, today would just be any other day like the many days that have been since time began.

I spent the first hours of 2010 trying to load a new series to watch and then watching Eugene play Ninja Gaiden on his PS3. He'd come over to wish me Happy New Year but it didn't really register with me. What's another year? I never thought I would make it this far, to be honest. Never thought I would still be here and about to graduate in fact and go and start the life that I never wanted, never thought about, never wished for.

The life I'm leading now is so much different from the life I'd imagined myself to have. I wanted to do something that I'd wanted, study fashion, study art, start my own business, be my own person and not rely on anyone, get my own place. But it's all so different. Sometimes things don't work out and I have to figure out the next best thing for myself.

I'm still unsure of it, whatever is best for me, until now and probably for the next few years to come. I feel that somehow I will always be trying to find out more about myself, to understand myself more and understand what I want. I know that a part of me will remain that 14 year old who still believes in dreams and fantasies, in magic and good versus evil. Right now that part of me is the strongest because I'm delving back into a world of dreams and mythical creatures, of power and magic, of good versus evil. A momentary lapse.

I actually bought a book for the first time in like who knows how long. It's weird. I'm obsessed with Twilight yet I didn't get the book, though I end up reading and rereading it over and over again.

I used to be a bookworm, but eventually I stopped reading because I couldn't find the newer books of the series I was interested in and didn't really want to start on other series because I didn't know if they would be good enough for me.

I finish the book in a day. In some ways, I like it better than Twilight. In other ways, it's probably much less believable/real as compared to Twilight even though the latter does concern vampires. I think the setting has something to do with it.

I wished they had fleshed out certain characters as well before killing them off.

I found this very interesting article on ohnotheydidnt 

We're loving angels instead: Publishing craze goes celestial

Heavenly creatures are taking over from vampires as the next big thing in books and Hollywood

By Susie Mesure

Sunday, 27 December 2009

Angels, it seems, are not just for Christmas. Authors and film-makers are rushing to bring out books and movies starring celestial beings to cash in on the latest publishing craze.

Not that readers should expect redemption from the slew of new stories hitting the shelves. Many of the winged protagonists have a darker side that publishers hope will tap into the booming supernatural genre, which Stephenie Meyer set alight with her Twilight vampire series.

Booksellers are already reporting strong interest in many of the new fallen angels titles, including Lauren Kate's Fallen and Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush, which hit the bestselling lists on its debut. WH Smith has tipped angels to be a "strong trend" for it next year, while Waterstone's said that fallen angels – so called because they have had their wings clipped for being bad and then they fall to earth – had "struck a chord" with its children's buying team.

"These angels appear as normal angels but they are very dark. A bit like vampires. But instead of sucking blood they suck human energy and life force, which they need to survive," said Megan Larkin, Usborne's fiction editor. She has commissioned the children's author L A Weatherly to write a trilogy about renegade angels, due out next autumn.

As with vampires such as Twilight's Edward Cullen, the new angels are igniting strong feelings from their opposite sexes in the human world. Cindy Hwang, executive editor at Berkley Books, a Penguin imprint that publishes J R Ward's "Covet" series, said: "Angels appeal because they are larger than life, more beautiful, sexier and more sensual creations. Fallen angels have the same flaws that ordinary people have, which is attractive. If someone can tame such a powerful being and get them to fall in love with them, then that's very seductive."

Analysts expect the new paranormal love interest further to buoy the young adult publishing category, which has seen sales rocket this year on the back of demand for vampire titles.

Fallen angels are also emerging as a major theme in Hollywood, with next month's Legion, starring Paul Bettany as an errant messenger, the first of several similar movies in the pipeline. Earlier this month, Disney picked up the rights to Fallen, which is handily the first in a four-part series, and Will Smith is working on an adaptation of Danielle Trussoni's Angelology for Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Ms Hwang said interest in angels, which last surfaced in the early 1990s, had been rekindled by the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world in 2012. "People are thinking about the apocalypse. That's why the angel craze this time is darker. The ambiguity reflects how we feel about the world," she added.

Rose Fox, fantasy reviews editor at the trade magazine Publishers Weekly, said: "If these stories are particularly compelling at the moment, perhaps it's because the world is full of questions and fears right now. Readers who blame themselves for their misfortune may find comfort in stories of angels who broke rules or failed at tasks and are given second chances. Readers struggling with uncertainty may enjoy the idea of a cosmic plan."

That uncertainty has also rekindled interest in more traditional angel books, featuring guardian angels rather than fallen ones. The most popular is Lorna Byrne's Angels in My Hair, which has sold about 60,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. Judith Kendra, publishing director at Rider, said: "These are usually stories of great comfort that touch on all of our feelings of vulnerability now that we all live very individual lives away from our family. People like to feel there is somebody or something watching out for them and trying to help."

Legion

God is angry with humankind and is taking his revenge via an army of angels sent to wipe the world clean of humanity. Can Paul Bettany, who plays a fallen angel, right, stop them? In cinemas from 5 March.

An Angel Healed My Heart

Glennyce Eckersley believes that angels are all around us. An Angel Healed my Heart, released earlier this month, is her collection of "true" stories about encounters with angels.

Covet

In J R Ward's bestseller, good and evil are fighting for supremacy in the ultimate endgame. Only Jim Heron, a carpenter turned fallen angel, can save the day. Or can he?

Fallen

Here, the classic love triangle features Luce Price, an alienated girl at a reform school, who is torn between two young men, unaware that they are fallen angels.

Angel's Blood

The vampire hunter Elena Deveraux has been hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael. But this time she has to track an archangel gone bad rather than a wayward vamp.

The Unfinished Angel

A flawed angel befriends a young girl in a Swiss Alpine village, inhabited by an elderly population. Cue much joy and happiness all round.

Hush, Hush

Nora Grey unwittingly gives her heart to a fallen angel, Patch, who is also her classmate. Watch out, though: Patch has a dark agenda to get his wings back. Sequel to follow.

Angels in my Hair

An autobiography by Lorna Byrne, a modern-day mystic who grew up "seeing angels" such as the Archangel Michael and the prophet Elijah.


Wow. Angels. Something that I can totally empathize with. This Fallen book looks like something worth reading. Or maybe I'm just hoping for a new Bella-Edward-Jacob type of saga to keep me going.

You know this is going to inspire me to get another wing related tattoo. Maybe do a full pair across my upper back like I've always wanted.

It's been 7 days since my last post. I don't think I've ever had such a long break from blogging. But I guess it's pretty much because nothing of much interest has been going on and I've been preoccupied with something else other than FYP and Twilight. I suppose when school starts proper within the next few weeks, Twilight will be out of my mind, so I want to enjoy it while I still can.

I've caught Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. Christmas Eve was my first anniversary with Eugene. We went to Kushinbo at Suntec to eat before the Sherlock Holmes movie. I got him toys and he got me the sequined jacket I saw at Mango.



I haven't been taking outfit shots so I don't have a full picture of the jacket but it's everything that I've ever wanted in a sequined jacket. It has matte silver sequins all over that I absolutely love. And for the price I can't complain either. I love sequins so this is essentially perfect and fits in my wardrobe.

Oh I also had a hair change. It's something quite drastic for me.

I wasn't really planning to at first. I just wanted to maybe get a cut to get rid of all the frizzy ends and the curls that my hair gets itself into when it grows out. But somehow I ended up doing a soft rebond.

So this is how it looks like now.





It's like stick straight, more straight than I'm ever used to. I'm still trying to get used to it being so straight. I never really wanted to do a rebond and stuff like that because I had a feeling that it would make my hair look limp. And it does look limp. It's much less frizzier now for sure and straighter than ever, but I think it makes my face look big. Well Eugene likes it. He's always complaining about the quality of my hair and how frizzy it is, so now he can't say anything lol.

And the contacts thing? Well Eugene said if I make the effort to wear contacts he'll make an effort to dress better. So I'm trying to get used to wearing it.

Also, due to partial influence from Phyllis I started to wear nail polish again.

So many changes.

Tomorrow the results will be out.

I'm glad I'm not at home most of the time these days. I would not want to hear the crazed screams and yells that my sis throws at my parents for one reason or the other. I do not want to the hear sound of things smashing against the walls or floors. I do not want to hear all these miserable things that make up my family. I'm glad I don't have to deal with it. It's not my problem. I don't know who my parents are trying to kid. They can't handle her. It's their problem if they don't want to seek professional help. They are the ones who have to with her, not me. I just try to keep out of the house as much as possible.

It makes me curious as to how one person can have so much anger and hatred within himself. I used to be an angry person when I was younger so I know it takes a lot of energy and a lot of effort to keep it up. It amazes me how she can spew out outburst after outburst, tantrum after tantrum.

Right now, so much yelling outside my room. Yelling at the top of her voice.

Crazed. The voice of a crazed person really.

Wow. I'm amazed. She really has no respect for parental authority. Never in a million years would I ever talk to my dad like that.

"stupid smirk on your face'

"big fat liar"

"no parents like you, you should be ashamed of yourself"

"stop smirking, so pathetic"

Seriously, WTF. How about no daughter like you, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Seriously, I am ashamed to be part of this family. Ashamed that such a human being exists and is actually related to me.

This is seriously epic.

So much yelling. Stomping around. I am blown away.

Yesterday we went for Play On 2009, a band competition, at Junction 8. Even though we didn't win, it was an awesome experience. We did an original composition by Derek and it sounded really really good. We also got to watch many other really great bands perform, such as Angeloft, Voodoo and The Auditory Effect. Thanks to everyone who voted. I think we were 2nd in the votes. I'll miss jamming when I graduate and leave hall. Hope to be able to do more gigs next semester!