Book Klub 10, plus other... emotional? things

I'll do the simple things first. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now over a fifth of the way done with this project!

Books Read:

1. Darkest Mercy, Melissa Marr
2, 3, & 4. The Iron King, Daughter, and Queen, Julie Kagawa
5. Cryer's Cross, Lisa McMann
6. Haunting Violet, Alyxandra Harvey
7. City of Glass, Cassandra Clare
8. Crashed, Robin Wasserman
9. Wired, Robin Wasserman
10. Carnival of Souls, Nancy Holder*
11. One Thing or Your Mother, Kirsten Beyer*

*These two, along with Blooded, which is soon to be book number 12, are out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3, which is written by three people total, and they're all listed as authors of the book, but those two are the authors of those specific stories. Blooded is written by Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden.*

So, if you're new to this Blog, I was challenged by two friends, Thorny (not her real name, but we call her that, and privacy reasons) and Lex to read fifty books within a year. I began this project on July 23, 2011. I must update them and you guys on my current progress every Saturday until I've completed it, otherwise, they're going to punish me, and the punishment is entirely up to them.

Also, if you're new, I'll do a little re-cap on each book (Although, I'm warning you, the things I read are more fantasy, like dragons and wizards and angels and such):

Darkest Mercy, of the Wicked Lovely series: This series bored me immensely towards the middle of it. Darkest Mercy is the last book of the series, and I had the courage to pick it up again a couple months after I'd finished the fourth book. From what I remember, this book was alright, but I didn't like the series in general.

The Iron Fey books: These books did everything right. They're about fey, or faeries, and all three of them that are out at the moment had me captivated until the very last page. Once the fourth one, The Iron Knight (I believe) comes out, I do intend on buying it. Also, they also seem a little special to me, as they're near the last books I bought from a store chain I've been visiting since I was little, which is now closed permanently.

Cryer's Cross: This book was short, only about two hundred pages, but I sincerely think it's my favorite out of these so far. It had the right quality of suspense (I sound like such a dork -_- ), and it captured the OCD factor perfectly as well. Or, so one of my friends with OCD says. It had an eery quality as well, which, well, it should have. I do suggest reading this one if you need something to kill some time.

Haunting Violet: This one was, ehhhh, okay, I guess. It was another sort of ghost thing. It was terribly boring for the first seventy pages or so, and then the ending just sucked. Somewhere in the middle it got mildly interesting, I suppose. Obviously, this was a ghost book.

Crashed and Wired: Apparently, I missed that there was a book before Crashed. Oh well. This idea was okay, I suppose -that humans could be brought back to life, in a different body but with the same thoughts, but as machines- but it was kind of dragged out. It didn't really get to the point fast enough, and there was a lot of useless drama going on in it that really wasn't needed for the basic plot.

Carnival of Souls and One Thing or Your Mother (first two books in Buffy 3) : I loved Carnival of Souls. The idea and phrasing were fantastic, and since I'd known Buffy before (thank you, Thorny!) It didn't really bug me to be starting at the third book. The other one was a little, ehhh, emotional and gooey drama, but it Buffy IS supposed to be in high school, and there's certainly enough of that in any high school, just we're all not Slayers. This one was pretty good to, with the idea and all, and I do suggest Buffy the Vampire Slayer, no matter which way you look at it from - TV series, books, whatever.

Now, for what I'm sure you all want to know: Why I'm getting slightly emotional today.

Tonight is a band competition.

Ooh, a gathering of nerd herds.

But, it means a lot to many of us, particularly the upperclassmen. And the nerd herd n00bs just don't understand.

For the past fifteen years, longer than most of the n00bs have been alive, our nerd herd has gotten a superior rating. And I don't think we're going to tonight.

We've tried everything - showing them the video from this competiton from last year, where we all had just a shitload of passion, and we knew what we were doing.

The seventh grade n00bs this year, with the exception of a girl who I seriously thought was in fourth grade when I saw her the first time, who is a piccolo player, and one of the five n00b clarinets, just don't get how much this means. Not just to the seniors or upperclassmen (I'm not a senior. Sadly) this year, but the ones from years and years ago. I think, if we don't get it, we're all going to personally murder the seventh graders. With our instruments, probably. And I don't think any of us are even going to hesitate. (So imagining one of the clarinet players with a piccolo jammed through her neck right now.)

Even BETTER, it's being held indoors this year, and our director's already decided we're going to march it. Which just doesn't work. In the second song we play, we have a company front, which is every kid in the band lined up from one side to another. And we don't fit in a gym. At all.

So my hopes aren't too high at the moment.

~Murderous KK, Land of a Thousand Nervous Dances, Somewhere, USA.

Book Klub 9

HOLY SHIT I FORGOT TO MAKE THIS.

It's two in the morning at the moment. And I'm sick. Fun, fun.

Books read:

1. Darkest Mercy, Melissa Marr
2, 3, 4: Iron King, Daughter, and Queen, Julie Kagawa
5. Cryer's Cross, Lisa McMann
6. Haunting Violet, Alyxandra Harvey
7. City of Glass, Cassandra Clare
8. Crashed, Robin Wasserman
9. Wired, Robin Wasserman

I'm reading the third Buffy book right now. The one that actually has three books in it. Yes, I am counting each one as a seperate book. I've already cleared it with Thorny.

Can I sleep now? I hope so.

~Disease Infected KK, Land of a Thousand Dances, USA.

Glorious Things Happen At School. Obviously.

I'm telling you some things that happened this week. The hilarity. Totally. -_-

Well, it's TUESDAY (apparently. I thought it was Monday all day. According to my English teacher, that's wrong. Pity I have English last period). Already some weird shit has gone down.

Monday. We had a Monday night football game. Thus meaning Monday was a nine-period day, making room for a Hell High pep-rally. (No, I have no fucking idea how to spell that correctly. DEAL WITH IT, DAMMIT)

I have to admit, our pepperallys (I'm just going to spell it a different way every time. Feel free to get annoyed. Actually, it's encouraged.) are usually loud, if you sit in the nerd herd section, like myself (Coral Reef Gang? Hell yeah.). But they're also fucking weird.

The one yesterday featured them taking all of the section leaders of the band (Whoo! Good for me, for being a total slacker!) and having them sing and improvised song. The piccolo section leader and clarinet one looked at each other, laughed, and said, "Rain, rain, go away, at least until the instruments are put away."

The other section leaders kind of stood there and then they all ran back into the stands. It worked for the cheerleaders, whom I'm positive are out to get us by now. More on that later.

Then. Oh, but then.

They had everyone in MY grade (everyone. I know, at least, if I hadn't gone, everyone in my section would have beaten me. And no, you still aren't honored with the privilege of learning how old I am.) go out into the middle of the gym with the cheerleaders (and the cheerleaders who are in my grade obviously had no clue what was going on either).

THEN (oh, but then. [Thorny, I love you. In every homosexual way possible. Guess I should explain. Thorny was relaying this story onto a friend at the Monday night football game, and she said "then, oh but then" as many times as possible. There. Okay?)] They had all of us take our shoes off. It's probably my ADD talking, but I'm pretty sure the gym instantly became filled with humidity and a general stink. My class ran the mile yesterday, so I'm pretty sure we have SOME sort of excuse. Anyway.

And what, exactly, did the cheerleaders do with our shoes?
Threw them all into the middle of the gym. Our gym is mainly a basketball court, so the middle is more or less the center circle where you jump at the beginning of the game. Learn the rules of basketball, dammit.

So. There was roughly 140 shoes in that little tiny circle.

THIS includes shoes that are identical, as the cheerleaders were wearing their shoes, a couple soccer girls had on their cleats, and a lot of (girls') basketball players had put on their sneakers at the end of eighth period. This include moi.

Then, oh but then, They split us up into groups. By sport. Even though I could have been with either basketball, soccer, or softball, they put me with basketball, since that was the type of shoe I had been wearing. There were a couple people with relatively the same dilemma. Then you had the awkward kids who weren't in anything who got clumped together.

THEN, ohhhh, but then. They had us do a sort of relay race. One person ran, grabbed two shoes that may or may not have been their's, saw if it was anyone in their lines', and chucked them back if it wasn't. Then the next person would go, so on, and so on.

Also, I need to say, no one ever participates willingly in these peprallies, which is why they force us into it. Because the Coral Reef Gang is threatening. Even the one who I'm nearly positive was on drugs at the one game. Story for another night.

Us basketball players ended up winning though, because they put us all together, and everyone was wearing their basketball shoes. So we just had to grab two basketball shoes, call out the sizes, and give them. The soccer players nearly beat us, but two of them hadn't been wearing their cleats, so they were harder to find. xD

Later on, at the Monday night football game (the fail of all sorts. Each and every one.) we plated -not a rival team- a rival band.

They usually provide a sort of competition. Not this year. Not at all.

All of them, except for ONE trumpet player, had music. We have seventh graders in our band marching without music.
None of them were instep, some of them not even on-time.
Their guard wasn't together, but neither was ours, really. No one cares about our guard but the guard.

Then (oh, but then) we were in the stands, playing seat music. Mainly so none of us had to watch the football game (our team is drastically bad this year. I'm pretty sure the band would be better. All we'd have to do is get a little midget kid the football, then get our percussionists to either carry him or throw 'im. Either way is fine with me.), but also so the cheerleaders don't blow (I'm sure they do at night anyway) their lungs out. So they can dance instead of ruining their vocal chords.

So, in the stand music, there is a song called Land of 1000 Dances. Or Maybe it's Land of A Thousand Dances. What's the difference?

Their band plays it first. But they're awfully slow. And boring.

It took all of three seconds for our senior drum major to get up on her stand and say, "Okay, guys, Land of a Thousand!"

The first time, we only played it normally.

Then they played it again, maybe a little better, with their cheerleaders or majorettes or something in the top row of the stands, dancing. We don't even have room in our stands to do that.

Our band, the whole band, stands up. And whenever you have a rest, you were required to dance. Otherwise you would get beaten. Severely.

THEIR band plays it again, with some type of song infront of it. We had no fucking clue what it was.

Our turn. We got our brass section (particularly our lead trumpet) to play the whole of Charge before we all busted in with Land of a Thousand. And so went our night.

The best part? The cheerleaders had to dance every time we played Land of a Thousand.

I was going to talk more, but I've decided sleep is the better option.

Adieu!

~KK, member of the nerd herd, Land of a Thousand Dances, USA.

It's Still Saturday, Goddammit. (Book Klub 8. I think)

I was a party, sooo not in the mood to talk about books. If you're looking for something I cared about, look to the post below. I'm just writing this so Thorny and Lex can't punish me. e.O

Books finished:

1. Darkest Mercy
2. The Iron King
3. The Iron Daughter
4. The Iron Queen
5. Cryer's Cross
6. Haunting Violet
7. City of Glass
8. Crashed, Robin Wasserman

I'm reading Wired by Wasserman at the moment. Not too far into it, I got sucked into the Harry Potter crap on the website of the devil; facebook. On the bright side, I got Ravenclaw 340 points.

Oh, APPARENTLY, there was a book before Crashed called Skinned. To which I say fuck you, Google!
I might get around to reading it. I have a huge stack of books sitting on my desk at the moment though, so... Probably not.

If you want something with actual quality or good writing, please look below. So not in the writing mood at the moment.

School stories later, I promise! Just not at the moment.

~KK, who has walked into the wrong homeroom... four times now? Somewhere, USA.

School Stories From Hell High

You know. It's late. I have no caffeine in my system. The school's flooded, so I don't have to return tomorrow. What does that mean? Making a blog post about school!

These stories are in no particular order. Some of them are really short, others are long and elaborate. Most of them aren't.

Fainting in English Class

This was me personally. I don't know what it is, if I'm sitting or laying down for a long period of time, my vision goes black and I get really dizzy. This has been happening since I was, like, 12, and I doubt it's particularly serious. If it is, oh well.
So, earlier on, I don't know, two or three years ago, English was my eighth period class. We were there for about forty-five minutes or so. So the bell that signifies the end of the period rings, and I grab my bag off the floor, and I stand up. After that, I don't remember specifically what happened, my friends filled me in on this later.
I guess I fainted, and apparently, cracked my head off the desk.
Next thing I know, I was in the nurse's office (the nurse happens to be my friend's mom). She just kind of looked at me and shook her head, then waved me on to basketball practice. But according to my friends in that class, my English teacher had carried me from his room, upstairs, down the steps and to the nurse's office.
I heard about that one for a WHILE.

The infamous Coral Reef Gang

This was recent. Over the summer. At band camp. YES. YOU'RE GOING TO HERE BAND CAMP STORIES. KEEP THEM TO YOURSELVES. I COULD GET SEVERELY PUNISHED FOR THIS. Like any of the band members follow my Blog. But we do have a motto, "What happens at band camp, stays at band camp." But... we'll make an exception. Because I love you all. And I wish you would seduce me. Not really. You're all filthy and disgusting from sitting here jerking off to whatever kinky internet porn you're into.

It just occured to me, to tell you this one, I'll have to tell you someone's name. Don't kill her in her sleep, okay? Well, actually, you can, just wait until after the football season, when we have to march in band.
So, our section leader, whose name is Coral (DON'T MURDER HER. WE LIKE HER. VERY MUCH. IN A DIRTY WAY. JUST LIKE I LIKE TAPPING THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON.) wore these, like, scarf things on her head at band camp. I forget their main function. I guess they were headbands more than anything. But our band director gives us a break and starts talking over his microphone that he has hooked up to speakers, so we can all hear him when we're playing or backfield or something. So everyone's sitting down, put their instruments or flip folders down, some of us throwing grass at each other, and he starts talking. Tells us a story from the olden days when he was in college, and then he says, "So, Coral's been rocking a different do-rag every day of band camp. She's converting her innocent section into a GANG."

I'm not even sure if Coral heard that. She didn't really react. So then he says, "Hmm... what should we call the piccolo gang?"

It took all of three seconds for the clarinet section leader to suggest The Rainbow Gang. Because, you know, us piccolos are full of gay pride. Even though all of us are female and a greater majority have boyfriends. I'm not included in that majority. Unless my pleasuring piccolo counts as a male.
Just kidding. That would be disgusting and probably painful. Plus, I have to blow that thing.

But the band director refused that one. So my friend in the percussion section (Or the section of assholes except for two) suggested The Gang That Would Never Hurt Anybody Ever. But that was, apparently, too long.

So then Coral suggests The Coral Reef Gang. So, since I'm assuming she'll be section leader again next year, we're going to be the self-named Coral Reef Gang for a couple years.

The Port-a-potty Of Dooooooom

Another band camp one. From two years ago.

Band camp is generally five days a week, seven or eight hours. Obviously in the summer before school starts.

It was one of those long afternoons, outside in the heatwave, wondering how our instruments didn't melt. Our director must have taken some form of pity on us and gave us a break. Given the group of upperclassmen that year, bad idea.

One of the low brass players went into the bathroom. And outside at band camp, that means a rickety, suffocating, disgusting port-a-potty.

I already said a lot of the percussion section are assholes (I am so unsure how to phrase that sentence). So, naturally, a senior and a junior also went over to the port-a-potty.

Three guesses what happens next.

Boom. Port-a-potty's tipped over, and not onto the grass or some random patch of land. No. Onto the SOFTBALL batting cage.

So the kid leaps out, and our drum major was like, "You okay? No shit on your pants or anything?" The kid was fine.

The kid who tipped it -the junior- wasn't allowed near it the next year at band camp.

However, my batting instructor didn't understand why I wouldn't go near the back of the batting cage for a couple weeks after that incident.

That's all I can think of at the moment. It's four-thirty in the morning (I think the clock at the bottom is still off. I'm not positive though). I bid you all goodnight.

~KK, who's come to the conclusion that all she likes about Hell High is band, Somewhere, USA.

Book Klub Something or Other

I swear, I'm going to remember these numbers so I don't fuck myself up. I just am not checking right now, and this is getting written as fast as I can in my injured state (long story short, the first three fingers of my left hand cannot bend or move in any way, shape, or form).

I didn't intend on forgetting to write this today. Actually, I intended on finishing a book today. That didn't happen.
Also, I promise I'll get something up about school WHEN I can use all fingers of my... being. I am so not correcting grammar or spelling right now.

So. Books finished:
1. Darkest Mercy
2. The Iron King
3. The Iron Daughter
4. The Iron Queen
5. Cryer's Cross
6. Haunting Violet
7. City of Glass, Mortal Instruments Series, by Cassandra Clare.

I have, like, 50 pages left in Crashed by Robin Wasserman. These books are really fucking weird, I'm not going to lie, but they're well written, and have a good concept, so I like them, I guess. Sorry. I said these. Once I finish Crashed, I'm going to read the next one in the series, entitled Wired, and after that either a Buffy book I found and picked up for three bucks, or the next Mortal Instruments book, if I can get my hands on it. I'll hopefully have time to stop by a Wal*Mart tomorrow, but that doesn't guarantee I'll get it.

I have to go back to furiously working on a Civics project now. Grrr.

Highschool: Hell High
School Mascot: Mutant
Name: KK
Grade: Zombie-rank
Homeroom: Mr. Dumbass Director
Location: Somewhere, USA.
Favorite Class: The study hall where a kid got thrown at a window.
Least Favorite Class: The one with the Dumbass teacher... oh wait, that's all of them.
School Pride Factor: -164
Run-ins with the DOOM SQUAD: 4. So far.

I might explain some of that later. Possibly.

Bye!