Four books

(I've been writing this post since the middle of November. Yikes.)

This might be the hardest question of them all. I love books. A lot. I think we'll just switch this to three authors and one genre. That's fair, right?

John Green
I have quoted this man a countless number of times. I can guarantee that each and every one of you reading this either read something I wrote that quotes John or heard me quote him in real life. John's books include Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, a short story in Let It Snow, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Paper Towns and The Fault In Our Stars. Though he seems to deny it every chance he gets, John is possibly the best young adult author out there. And while he writes for "young adults," all of his books are worth reading even if you're a "real" adult. John's eloquence never ceases to amaze me. Also, I met him once. It was great.

Jo Rowling
Harry Potter has affected my life in incredibly profound and often inexplicable ways. The first time I read a Harry Potter book was in 1999. I was 8 years old. I've never looked back since. Harry Potter is kind of a huge deal in my life and to some extent probably always will be. I definitely have some weird, evangelical zeal when it comes to Harry Potter. My Hogwarts house of Gryffindor plays an integral role in explaining parts of my personality. When people ask me to share facts about myself, something Harry Potter related comes to my mind every time.

Anthony Horowitz
When I was in, I believe, 7th grade, I started reading the Alex Rider series. They're about a teenage spy, basically a young James Bond. I've been hooked ever since that time; the final book in the series came out March 2011. Besides Harry Potter, these are the books that have taken up the most time in my life; mostly because I started reading them when I was about 12.

Autobiographies of tennis players
So in 7th grade, I really started to love tennis. It was some time in high school that I started reading autobiographies of tennis players, though. I own the autobiographies of John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe and James Blake and have read each of them multiple times. Tennis players are seriously fascinating people; there's something really different and special about them.

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As the semester really winds down, I find myself in an interesting position of balancing fun and studying. It's not terribly difficult but does take some talent. I don't ever put off studying to have fun but I sure do try to pack in as much fun stuff as possible before going home for Christmas. You come to miss your college friends so much while you're away so seeing them as often as possible in the week leading up to break is the best kind of challenge. Luckily, Becca, Ryan and myself have decided to have an epic Google Hangout session some time over break. The Internet sure makes life awesome.

Just last night I bought my ticket to see The Hobbit at midnight with a bunch of my lovely friends. Back in October my plan was to fly home in time to see it with Megan and Maddie, but then my friend Amber got engaged and there was no way I'd miss her reception so I'm sticking around until Saturday. Back to the movie, though: I work at 8 am on Friday morning. It's going to be quite the experience, seeing the movie at midnight, getting home probably around 4 and then having to get up for work just a few hours later. And I will not regret a single minute of that time.

Last YouTube video I watched: Imagine Dragons - Radioactive

Oh, and Imagine Dragons is playing in SLC on March 22 and I am so utterly stoked already and it's more than three months away still. It'll have been just over a year since I last saw them. A year is far too long without seeing that wonderful band live.

On the naming of inanimate objects

I've been talking (read: texting) with Jordan this morning (as always) and we're talking about the different names we've come up w/ for objects in our lives; as in, we give real human names for everyday objects.

I know plenty of people that do this and it's strangely fun to do. My friend Cameron has a longboard named Guinevere. Kate's new car is named Basil. (Okay, so that's not quite a real human name but it's still named.)

My belongings are pretty much exclusively named for characters from books and TV shows. I think my favorite name of a thing I have is my phone, which is named Colin after the main character in An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. My very lovely friend Kate's full name is Katherine, so I made her read that book. From that point on, for whatever reason, her phone was Hassan, named for Colin's best friend, and my phone was Colin. It goes a bit beyond the phones though since we've actually addressed letters to each other using those names. (We boh quite like that book.) At this point I cannot even remember why we gave our phones those names. I wish I did. It's a shame I didn't blog back then.

Well, I should probably finish up this post so it gets posted on time. Since I get home from work at 11 little time is left to write at night, which is when I enjoy blogging the most. I now have five days of work left. It was almost only four but I got scheduled to work on Saturday. It's not a terrible thing because who doesn't need extra money like that but it's still a bit disappointing since I don't get to hang out w/ Megan and Kate. I try to stay positive about working on Saturdays by thinking of what I'll do w/ the extra money. It's really just going towards food and rent and textbooks but I like to think it's really for awesome road trips and other adventures.

I'll be back in Utah in only SIX DAYS. Time sure flies when all I do is work and talk to Jordan.

Last YouTube video I watched: The Invisible Man

Reading & ukulele

Sometimes the only things I feel like I need in life are good books and my ukulele with good songs to learn how to play. Right where I wrote "need in life," I originally had "need in love," which also sounds pretty accurate actually. All the things on my bed right now, besides my pillows/other bed things are: my ukulele, my tuner, four books (Word Freak, Rough Stone Rolling, Clash of Kings, Infinite Atonement), and my Wisconsin Badgers hat. And my blanket is bright orange, my sheets Harry Potter, and my pillowcases blue and white striped & SpongeBob Squarepants. I feel that's a very accurate representation of how I am as a person. Eerily accurate.

This afternoon/evening literally all I've done is read and play uke. I also did play racquetball for an hour so that just exemplifies my favorite things. It's been a good day, though. Over the last week I've played my ukulele at least once a day for at least 30 minutes each time. It's such a great instrument. I've become addicted to playing/singing terribly the song Little Boxes by Walk Off The Earth. It's awesome.

As for the rest of the night . . . Well, that's pretty open at this point. Lorraine wants to hit up a dance party, which could be quite entertaining. If we don't, I'm sure the rest of my night will be spent with Word Freak. I plan to finish it tomorrow, if not tonight. I have the feeling, regardless of my night's events, I'll stay up late reading tonight. I haven't done that in a long time and I'm due for a late night reading session.

It's crazy to think that April is basically over. Only three more days! Blogging every day always goes by so quickly. May is going to be just as awesome though, if not more so.

Last YouTube video I watched: Nannytard's Surprise

2nd last day of BEDA

This morning I had what I thought was a brilliant idea for my post today. And now that I finally sit down to write it: I've got nothing.

The last few days I've divided my time between various activities, like eating, talking on Skype, and finishing up all of 30 Rock on Netflix. I've also done a lot of reading. Being a college student really takes away your time to enjoy a good book.

On the road trip home I re-read Will Grayson, Will Grayson (John Green and David Levithan). Wednesday night to Thursday morning (4 am) I read Anna and the French Kiss (Stephanie Perkins). And yesterday night I started Sloppy Firsts and finished it this afternoon (Megan McCafferty). I'm now 25 pages into the second in the series, Second Helpings. I'm making my way through just a bunch of YA books that I haven't been able to read yet because of college. If you have any suggestions for other good books, leave them in the comments!

Today I also finished splatter painting my shelves! I think I mentioned that my dad put up new shelves in my room. They were bare wood until Monday, at which time I primed them. Then on Wednesday I went at them w/ okra green paint. It was so much fun. I had my new music going and just threw paint all over the place, a little to my dad's dismay as some of the garage, mostly the cement floor, is splattered with bright green paint as well. I did the other side of the shelves today and felt quite pleased with myself. Other than that, I've also planned to turn the blue door that leads to a storage area into the door of the TARDIS. It's not the dark blue color you might associate with the TARDIS but it's blue enough. I'm sure there will be pictures coming soon of that. I can't believe I never thought to do it before, honestly.

Alrighty, I'm eager to keep reading so I leave you here.

Last YouTube video I watched: Peanut Butter Face Question Tuesday