Youtube Channel and Video!

So after more than half a year, I finally posted another video on my channel!  Yay!

Ta-da!

 

 

Also check out my channel and the rest of the New Catholic Generation Videos!

The Divergent Series

I've been a bit into dystopian fiction lately, and I recently received this series for my birthday.  Now I've read that book on my Chocolate Book list that falls under Milk Chocolate!

And since lately I've had time issues anyways, I decided to review this as a series instead of book by book.  Also, uh, I tore through the books so fast (that's three 500 page books in little more than a week.  Yeah.....) that I kind of have trouble remembering where one book ends and the next book begins.  Like, did Tris know her Mom was Dauntless during or after 'Divergent'?
Anyways, let's get to it!

Oh, yeah, I should probably do a quick plot summary.

The Divergent books are set in (guess what?) the future in a wrecked Chicago.  Society is divided into five factions which are supposed to keep the city peaceful.  Children grow up in the factions of their parents and when they are 16 they go through an aptitude test which is supposed to help them decide which faction to enter.  The main character is Tris Prior, who leaves her Abnegation faction for the Dauntless.  She discovers from her aptitude test that she is Divergent, which is, she is told, very dangerous, and she must keep it a secret.  During Dauntless initiation she meets fellow Divergent Four, or Tobias.  They discover that the Erudite are planning to destroy the Abnegation faction, and then it's all down-hill from there.

I have to say, these are very fast-paced books.  Even though each book is around 500 pages long, the author doesn't ramble.  Which gives you an idea of just how much happens in these books.  The books are in the first person, which normally means you get a lot of reminiscences, but you don't get any of that.  Which completely fits with Tris' personality.  She's not the kind of dreamy eyed, rambling girl.  The last one swaps back and forth between the first-person perspectives of Tris and her boyfriend Tobias, which really confused me at first because I didn't realize that whenever the perspective swaps, a new chapter starts at the same time and under the chapter number it tells you whose perspective it is.  Silly me :P

I know I'm reviewing the
book, but visual aid anyone?

As for the characters, the characters were good, but not crazy uber good.  Tris was a very interesting character with a good story arc.  She starts out almost like a little girl at first, but during initiation she matures a lot.  During most of the second book she seesaws between trying to fight the Erudite and being depressed about all the horrors she's seen (and done).  By the end of the book she's gotten through the initial rough patches (with the help of her boyfriend of course), and her story ends with a very bittersweet, heroic ending.  And although sometimes I'm sarcastic about her having a boyfriend and how that's so typical of most modern heroines, Tris' relationship with Tobias is different from most modern boy/girl relationships.  They protect each other, and Tris is definitely not entirely dependent on him.  There are some times when Tris totally ignores Tobias' advice and what he asks her to do.  Tris makes a lot of hard choices, and while she's definitely not perfect, she does the best that she can in the tough spots she gets stuck in.

Trust me, he's not just a pretty boy

Tobias, the other main character, is also interesting, but not quite as complicated as Tris.  He has abusive parent issues that plague him and make him constantly question his self-worth.  Tris helps him to see that he is not worthless, which is another reason that their relationship is different from other guy/gal relationships: It's not just that Tris depends on Tobias; Tobias depends on Tris too.  They lean on each other for support.  Tobias was uber protective of Tris during 'Insurgent', but Tris got it through his head that she really didn't need or want protecting.  Oh, and I forgot, his nickname is Four, but I call him Tobias, because, well, that's what Tris does most of the time.

None of the other characters are really relevant enough to talk about here, maybe I'll do a post with some thoughts on them another time.

But what about the villain?

Okay, so if you've only read the first book, stop reading this post, because it contains mucha spoilers.

In the last book you find out that several generations ago after several wars the U.S. government tried to eliminate all the bad aspects of human nature by removing certain people's genetic tendencies towards a certain trait: i.e., removing the gene for cowardice, or aggressiveness, or, well, you get the idea.  The only problem that the government didn't foresee was that if you removed one genetic tendency, you also removed another and brought out an even worse one.  The people who didn't have a genetic tendency towards cowardice for example, also lost their sympathy and became ruthless.  Anyone who had been genetically altered like this was labeled Genetically Damaged.  Their memories were reset and they were placed in 'experiments' (major cities that had been devastated by previous wars) that were designed to be self-sufficient in the hopes that after a couple of centuries the genetically damaged population would become genetically pure again.  Genetically pure people were the Divergents. 

Oh, and on top of that, the government has been lying to everyone about, well, about a lot of things.  First off, the government claims that the world was all rainbows and sunshine before the genetically altered people came along, and that all previous wars were the fault of the genetically altered people.  Tris finds out that the government was lying and that there were wars before the genetically altered people came along, and that the government was just using this as an excuse to set up the experiments.  Grrr.....

Good grief this post is looooong, so I'll try to wrap it up quick.

There were very few things I didn't like about the book, one of which was Tris and Tobias' kissing so much throughout the books.  Seriously, the book stands fine on its own without all the gross stuff, okay?  Oh, and in the Epilogue, Tobias scatters Tris's ashes while zip-lining.  Really?  Why does she have to be cremated?!

The Divergent series incorporates several different issues, and I would love to give you all long speeches on all of them, but I'll save that.  Issues such as a new take on racial prejudice (Genetically damged people are treated as inferior to genetically pure), human dignity in general, and also free will.

All in all it's a really good series, and if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Allegiant.

Sorry, for this excessively long post, I don't know what got into me!

Following Gandalf

"For countless people, 'The Lord of the Rings' has provided splendid refreshment.  For that, the author would be glad.  But his deeper desire is that for some it would be an introduction to the mountains."
- Following Gandalf

I've had people tell me that the books I read are too serious.  That may be true.  I read more than just books about books though!

But, nevertheless, you've caught me red-handed.  This is a book about a book.  Actually, about all of Tolkien's books.

'Following Gandalf' by Matthew Dickerson is study of several aspects of Tolkien's philosophy and theology that can be deduced from his writings.  Mr. Dickerson begins his book by debunking the view that the Lord of the Rings glorifies war.  While I agree with his conclusions drawn from LotR and Tolkien's own letters that the Lord of the Rings does NOT glorify war, I wish he had also written a little about how while Tolkien doesn't glorify war, he does show how one's part in war can be noble, as Peter Kreeft does in 'The Philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien'.  I'm not going to get into that here though.  The book also touches on the deeper war in Tolkien's Middle Earth books, namely, the spiritual war. 

Dickerson also writes about Freedom (or free-doom as he calls it sometimes), the true power of the Ring (being the domination of wills), stewardship, hope and despair, salvation in its manifestations in LotR, and 'fate' vs. the guiding purpose of an all-powerful being, in the case of Middle Earth, Iluvatar.

Dickerson ends by asking and answering the question, "Is The Lord of the Rings a Christian Myth?" with an ambiguous 'yes and no'.  I'm not going to give the reasons here though, this is a review of the book, not a lecture on it.

The book was very well written and clear, and easy to understand.  I really liked how Mr. Dickerson had a quote from Tolkien's letters or books to support everything he said.
I really enjoyed reading this book, and I gained a deeper insight into LotR and the rest of Tolkien's writings by reading it.

Now, there are books about books that are fun (like this one) and books about books that are not (I here must mention 'The Philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien', which while an interesting read, wasn't 'fun' in the common sense of the word).  I definitely recommend this book to any Tolkien fan, even if they don't like philosophy or books about books ;)

Oh, and by the way, the quote at the beginning of this post contains the last words of the book.  I thought it was a neat reference to 'A Leaf by Niggle', and a fitting way to end the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here I must attempt to apologize again.  I missed yet another week of Stocking Update :P  I make a solemn promise to post one on Saturday, even at the cost of my life and/or sanity.  And possibly my Chemistry test score.  Do I really have to memorize half the periodic table for a good grade?

Stocking Update: Fail

I think I have learned a lesson.  When your Dad is gone for a month on a business trip, it's all you can do to make sure your Mom doesn't go insane and help her keep the house together.  That's my excuse for not posting in like, three weeks.

But yeah, I haven't worked on the stocking at all since the last post.  So you're not missing anything.  When I do start working on it again I will post stuff.  Hopefully I will be posting stuff again next week.

Oh, and I finished one of the books on my reading list, and will be posting a review soon :)
I also got the Divergent series for my birthday :D and I will review that too.  I probably won't do separate book reviews (for several reasons), but I'll review the series as a whole.

Look out for some posts soon, but in the meantime, have some ice cream!

Stocking Update: Week 1

First week of Stocking updates!  Yay!

So I started the stocking like, two weeks ago, and normally the only chance I get to work on it is on the weekends, and at The Needle Club (a girl's crafty group where I live).  So I don't normally get a lot done.  If it was my younger sister who is crazy about crafts and will sew and crochet all day long, she'd have it done by now.  But I don't have the luxury of that much time :P

Oh yes, and please excuse the low quality of some of the pictures.

Before I started taking photos of this project I finished the stocking front, which was mostly a lot of sequins and embroidery.

Pretty snowflakes!

Then the fun stuff started!!  The snowman has, well, a snowman butt bottom, so I sequined it and appliqued (fancy for sewing it onto the main body of the stocking) it, and it actually turned out pretty nice.  I had some problems with sequins that wanted to keep falling off, but it looks pretty nice now.

Then I did the snowman arms and mittens.  The arms were pretty easy, just sequin, stuff, and applique.

I never actually got a picture of the arm by itself.  Woops

Then came the mittens.  There's not one, not two, but THREE pieces to the mittens.  And how they were supposed to go on was kind of confusing.  And never mind all that, I also had to have my first experiment and embroidery!!!  O.o  And, yeah, that didn't turn out too well.  I think one of the lines turned out pretty well, but the rest were a mess.

They don't look terrible in this picture, but trust me, they are worse in real life.

I've been told that practice makes perfect, but, uh, I'm not sure I'll ever get anywhere near perfect.

I finally figured out how to put the finger ends of the mittens on, and it turns out I'm not supposed to sew all the way around the edge of the fingers when you applique the mitten fingers on, so that way the snowman can hold his lights.  Yeah........

But all turned out well, and I'm working on sequinning the snowman middle, so that should be on by next week!  But for now, there are two floating snowman arms.........  Hey, if I could I would put the head on next and then we could have a floating snoman snowman head too!

For some reason this reminds me of the Cheshire Cat.....

Experiment Post: Intro

Okay, so I've decided to start a, uh, what should I call this?  An Update Series?  How about I just give background information and maybe it will explain itself.
I'm making a Christmas stocking for my youngest brother, who isn't born yet, but will be in January.  We'll call him Peanut :) It's a tradition in our family (has been for like, almost three generations) to make each other's Christmas stockings, so I have the privilege of making Peanut's stocking!  I'll post updates here every Saturday.  I'll include some pictures and an explanation of my adventures while making the stocking.  Trust me, it gets pretty crazy sometimes, and all I'm doing is making a stocking!!
This is the stocking I'm making:

Pretty cute right?  And simple, which I like because it means less work!  Well, actually I wish there was more detail, because then there would be more fun.
I already started the stocking before I decided to do this, but I haven't gotten too far, so nobody's missed much :)
I'll start posting updates every Saturday, so look out for my first post tomorrow!

Chocolate Book Tag

Yay!!  Two of my favorite things combined!  Thanks to Monica at Spilled Ink for the tagging of me :)

Dark Chocolate (a book that covers a dark topic)

I think I'm gonna have to go with Island of the World by Michael O'Brien.  I could put almost any of his Children of the Last Days series under here, but I feel like this one is the one that best fits the description.  Or maybe I'm just putting it here because the book is so deep and that makes me think of Dark Chocolate?

White Chocolate (a light and humorous read)

While not exactly humorous, this book (or any in the series) is a very light read, and pretty fun too.

Milk Chocolate (a book with lots of hype that you're dying to read)

I've been wanting to read this one ever since I watched the movie.  That was shortly after I saw the Hunger Games, and I wanted to compare the two stories.  Now I really want to read the book, which, as a little birdie told me, my sister is getting me for my birthday :)  Don't tell her I know, I dragged the secret out of Mom.

Caramel Filled Chocolate (a book that makes you feel gooey inside)

 

This is one of the many romance novels I have read that makes me feel gooey inside :) But this one does it the most!

Wafer-less Kit-Kat (a book that surprised you)

 

I was going to mention one of my first sci-fi books here, but instead I'm putting Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale instead.  This book, unlike the sci-fi books which surprised me in a good way, surprised me in a not so good way.  It was just really dry, which surprised and disappointed me, since the prequel was soooooo good.  I was really surprised at how cookie-cutter it seemed, especially after the originality of the first book, Princess Academy.

*Snickers (a book you're going nuts about)

 This is kind of hard, because there are books that I have gone nuts about before that I now am not so entranced with, and there are books that I would like to go nuts over, but haven't read them yet (e.g., The City, Divergent, etc.).  That being said, I... don't really have an answer.

Hot Chocolate with Mini-Marshmallows (a book you turn to for comfort)

 

The Lord of the Rings :)  Need I say more?

A Box of Chocolates (a series you feel has something for everyone)

 

I think I would have to say the Fairy Tales Retold series.  It has a little bit of romance, a little bit of adventure, and a little bit of religion.  The religion part might annoy some people, but it's one of the highlights of the series to me.

Well there you have it!!  My Chocolate Book list :)  Look out for more posts in the near future.

*I king of feel like this should be called Nutty Bar, since you're going nuts over it?