Hunger Games, Dinner Club, and Earthquakes

Currently listening to:

Gunpowder and Lead by Miranda Lambert

Many interesting things have happened in the past few days. I've heard a lot about the book Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and have been meaning to read it for a while.

I found it sitting on the kitchen table--my younger brother had bought it the other day--so I stole it for the night and decided to finish it in one sitting. Admittedly, I fell asleep on it after an hour or two, but I finished it the next day. 

I definitely loved the book. The writing style took a bit to get used to, as it was all written in present tense and the sentences were a bit choppy. Overall, the effect was certainly unique and definitely made us feel like we were inside Katniss's head. At some points the writing seemed too simple and minimalist; I wanted more emotion.  Sometimes it seemed that Katniss was thinking about the wrong things--love when it should have been her family, family when it should have been love. It picked up about halfway through the second book, though. The dialogue was sharp and clever, the characters were full, and the narrator had a strong voice. She stated startling blunt truths, and the writing showed a lot of insight into the human condition. The book ended with a few twists (I'm not about to give them away), which I thought were at first extremely predictable, but I was satisfied with the way they turned out and led into the sequel. This afternoon I went out and bought the sequel, Catching Fire. So far so good, I'm two thirds of the way through. Love triangles usually make me angry, and this one is no exception. I'm a Gale person myself. He knows how to fend for himself, he knows where his priorities lie, and he has never changed. His anger is understandable. And I'm a firm believer that, in order to have a successful relationship, the two must be able to sustain a friendship first. Otherwise, there's nothing but PDA, and when you strip away that, there's not much left. The closer the friendship, the stronger the potential of the relationship, and Katniss and Gale were as close as you could be. So we'll see how that ends up. (And yeah, maybe I just have a thing for brooding dark-haired boys.) All in all, I really like the political basis of this book, and I'm no revolutionary, but I think it rings true in some ways in our country. I'll let you all know when I finish the book. 

It was funny, just as I came to the part about the tracker jackers, a HUGE wasp flew into my room! I relocated to outside to finish the rest. And about halfway through the book, an earthquake hit. Now let me tell you, I live on the East Coast, and earthquakes are basically unheard of. So when I was home alone (of course) and my entire house began to shake, at first I thought it was the garage opening. But no, it kept on going. My next thought was that it was a tornado, so I ran to the shelter. But no. It was an earthquake! We spent the rest of the day waiting for the aftershock that never happened, but they say it can take up to a week. 

All of my friends have either left for college or are this week. I'm one of the last to leave, and it's weird watching all my friends move away one by one, literally dropping like flies. My week has been filled with meeting friends for ice cream or dinner before they go off. Two nights ago we had our last Dinner Club. While we were at school, a few of my friends and I decided that we would form a sort of club, and every month or so we'd all get together at someone's house, cook dinner for each other, share gossip, and watch movies. We were all from completely different social crowds, but we all became friends in Calc class. Under different circumstances, you'd never normally see a group of people like us together. Let me just explain who these people are, so you get the full dynamic. There's Collin, the gay indie filmmaker. He wears skinny jeans and plaid scarves, is attached to his iphone, and knows all the ins and outs of the school gossip. There's Noah, the lax bro, who always wears Sperrys, pastel-colored shorts and a lacrosse t-shirt, and always has some funny news about the athletic crowd. The other boy is Jack, the clumsy one who trips over chairs and sometimes falls off them, knows nothing about fashion but works at a clothes store, and is a genius but you'd never know it. The girls consist of Ella, the artsy painter who usually wears huge tortoise-shell glasses and something handmade,  Ava, the singer and fairy princess who is the most whimsical girl I know and probably my closest friend at school, and myself, Laurel, who is just... me. I play some sports, I write and draw, I dress almost exclusively in Free People clothing, I can be snappy and intensely loyal, and people find me pretty hard to categorize. All in all, we're an eclectic, yet very fun bunch. I'll miss them. 

Updates: I'm taking a year abroad before college this year and I leave on Monday. SO much packing to do! I probably won't be physically writing much while I'm gone, but my goal is to finish the outlines for Meridian and my Harry Potter fanfic (I've finished the outline for the first book, now on to the following three!) So I'll keep you all updated on my progress. If there's anything you want to know about... anything, please ask! I never know what to write about in my posts. 

HP Challenge

Day 6: What house would you want to be in? Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart! Every time I take a quiz, that's where I end up. And people tell me I'm intensely loyal to my friends and not afraid to speak my mind. 

Day 7: Favourite female character: Hermione grows up so much, and she overcomes her greatest obstacle: herself. That's very honorable and probably the most difficult thing to do. 

Day 8: What would be your favourite lesson? Transfiguration or Charms. I see myself as someone who would be good at those. Transfiguration is more calculating, Charms is more about effect. 

Day 9: Least favourite male character: Peter Pettigrew. I have no room for a traitor.

Day 10: Horcruxes or Hallows? They're no good, destroy them both. Keep the Cloak, maybe.