I'm Joining Another Challenge!

Yup, I'm up for another reading challenge! This second challenge of mine would be the TBR Challenge or To Be Read Challenge. I have a very, very long list of books that I haven't read yet, so it's perfect if I just join this challenge. I have been quite lazy in my reading but I'm definitely catching up now. I hope to read at least two books a month. But, I have to set aside some time for my studies.

Anyway, for this TBR Challenge, I will TRY to read the following books:

1. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
2. Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
3. Shopaholic Ties The Knot by Sophie Kinsella
4. Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella
5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
6. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Alternates:

1. A Countess Below Stairs
2. I Capture The Castle
3. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
4. Queen Camilla
5. The Memory Keeper's Daughter
6. An Amazing Story
7. Party Frock
8. A Northern Light

There's my list! I'll start reading in April 2008, which is tomorrow!

Wah lau! I Have To Answer 50 Questions!

1. Last person you had a deep and meaningful conversation with?
Deep and meaningful ah? With myself.

2. Where was the last place you went?
The food court near my uni. Went there for dinner!

3. If you could be with your first love, would you?
Wah, so fast ah….no comment.

4. There's no question no. 4!

5. Who was your first crush???? Same as above.
Don’t remember.

6. What was the last thing you highlighted?
Highlight with a highlighter? My notes! It was so difficult for me to comprehend, so I highlighted the important parts.

7. Who is the last baby that you held?
Baby….my nephew lah!

8. Do you know of any twins with rhyming names?
Cat and Chris!

9. Are you ticklish?
Yeah.

10. Have you ever worn a crown?
What kind of question is this? Don’t remember lah.

11. Last time you saw fireworks?
Chinese New Year?

12. Who is the last person you hugged?
My nephew! He’s very cuddly.

13. Do you have a black dog?
No, I don’t own any pets.

14. Do you have a little black dress?
No.

15. What are you wearing right now?
T-shirt and Capri pants.

16. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My friend.

17. Do you like coffee?
Yes, the black coffee with sugar.

18. Are you missing someone?
Miss my nephew!

19. Reason behind why you last cried?
When my father was admitted to hospital.

20. How much cash do you have on you?
Around 50 bucks but they’ll be gone somehow.

25. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
No rolls.

26. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to change a regret?
Tough decision. I think I’ll change the regret.

27. What’s on your mind right now?
I’m wondering what other weird questions there will be in this tag.

28. Do you have a deep dark secret?
Everyone has secrets.

29. Do you wish you were with someone right now?
Yeah, very lonely in the library.

30. Who was the hottest teacher you ever had?
HAHAHAHA!!! None, I think.

31. What was the last thing you ever got grounded for?
I haven’t been grounded for a long time. I think.

32. What was your childhood nickname?
Hah! It’s my deep, dark secret.

33. Do you have any strange phobias?
I’m afraid of heights. And I hate to see slimy creatures like worms, leeches, etc. I hate to hear high-pitched sounds too.

34. Have you ever played naked twister?
No. (This is 18-SX tag, is it?)

36. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
Ghosts? I still have that fear now. =/

38. Is there anybody you just wish would fall off the planet?
Yes.

39. Do you crack your knuckles?
No.

40. What’s one thing that can always be found in your refrigerator?
Orange juice.

41. What color are your bed sheets?
Blue.

42. How many kids do you plan on having?
No idea.

43. What did you do today?
Played with nephew, drove to uni, collected exam slip, handed in choosing major form, studied(!!!), read a book, and went online!

44. How would you like to die?
Don’t know. Not a painful death.

45. Have you ever been in love? As distinguished from puppy love?
I’m in love with myself.

46. When is the last time you went out of the state (province)?
Last year.

49. Do you judge people?
Yes, unfortunately.

50. Generally, in life, what makes you happy?
When there’s no homework, no assignments, no responsibilities!

What is this??? There aren't even 50 questions! Well, that's okay with me. Now, I'd like to tag:

Erlynda
Princess Shin

If you want to do this tag too, you can do it! Have fun answering questions!

Interview With Linda Wisdom!

50 Ways to Hex Your Lover was an incredibly fun read and I was very excited to know that I can interview the author herself! Here is my review of the book.

And here is the Q & A session with Linda Wisdom!

1. What inspired you to write 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover?

LW: It was more like this witch popped up inside my head and said "Have I got a story for you!" I knew the class of 1313 would be expelled from the Witches Academy for wrongdoing, but they would be returned if they behaved for 100 years. Except 700 years they're still out there. And that Jazz would be this totally fun person anyone would love to hang out with. She pretty much wrote the book for me.

2. Is Jazz based on a real person?

Friends have told me she sounds a lot like me. She's who I'd want to be.

3. Which character did you enjoy writing about the most?

I loved Jazz, naturally and Irma was a hoot, but the fun one was Dweezil, Jazz's boss. He's a creature all his own, so politically incorrect he's a riot and there's secrets about him that Jazz is still trying to figure out. It's obvious he never had any friends.

4. Does Jazz have parents? If yes, would they be a witch and wizard?

Jazz grew up in a fishing village along the Irish Sea. Her father was a fisherman and her mother your stay at home mom. How the witches are found and brought to the academy will show up in a future book.

5. How long did it take to write this book?

I had the book partially written when I sold it so all in all, I'd say about 4 1/2 mos.

6. Who is your favourite author(s)?

How long do you have? Yasmine Galenorn, Annette Blair, Jim Butcher, Candace Havens, Anton Strout, Michele Bardsley, Sherrilyn Kenyon and many more.

7. What books do you like to read? What books did you like to read when you were a child/teen?

I love paranormal and mysteries. My parents gave me a ton of different fairy tale books, including some with fairy tales from other countries, so I loved them. Also Nancy Drew and historical romances.

8. Have you always wanted to become a writer?

Very much so. I was always writing my own stories.

9. Wow! You’ve sold more than 70 novels! How do you feel about that? What was your first book?

Sometimes amazed I'm still writing. My first book was a traditional romance, Dancer in the Shadows which came out in 1980.

10. You have another book coming soon, which is Hex Appeal. Will there be many more of Jazz’s adventures?

Jazz will show up in my third book, Wicked By Any Other Name which features Stasi, one of her witch friends and my editor has asked me to come up with more Jazz ideas, so I'd say yes.

11. Why is magickal spelt as it is?

It's an old fashioned way of spelling it and fit the witches.

I hope it's not a lot of questions!

Oh no!

:) My very first interview with an author!

Finished Hex Book!

Yup, I've finished another book. Haven't been online for around 2 days and that's good! Been catching up on my reading - both for school and for fun. Yesterday, I finished 50 Ways To Hex Your Lover by Linda Wisdom. She'll be guest blogging on my blog later.

Wow, there'll be another book after 50 Ways To Hex! Hope I can read that later! Anyway, I'll write my review on 50 Ways as soon as I can. Been really sleepy today cos for the past few days, I was preparing for my group presentation, which was yesterday. Yea!!! I'm done with all my presentations for this semester. Now all I have to do is concentrate on studying and yeah, attending my Spanish class.

Oooh, I'll be receiving 2 books and it's because of BookMooch. I'll be getting Shopaholic Ties The Knot and The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Yeah, I know I can get them at the book store but what to do...I enjoy receiving books in the mail!

So, okay then, I think I'm going to write the 50 Ways review now. And I might watch 'Ice Princess' on TV later! Oh, and wishing you a Happy Easter! Good night!

What I Read About Gender Stereotyping

When I used to watch my favourite fairy tales when I was younger, I didn't see the gender inequality in them. For example, in cartoons like The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and so on and so forth, do you realize that the women are being portrayed negatively?

Let's look at Little Mermaid. She's young, beautiful, has a fantastic singing voice, and a princess. Later, she falls in love with a prince. The only obstacle is that he's human and she's a mermaid. He then almost drowns after a shipwreck and the mermaid, Ariel, saves him. Okay, that part is fine. It shows a woman of being capable of saving a man's live, but then she's a mermaid, so she can swim way better than the drowning prince.

Anyway, the prince wakes up, hearing Ariel's beautiful voice only but doesn't see how she looks like. After that, Ariel willingly exchanges her voice for a pair of legs so that she can meet the silly prince again. Now, is Ariel thinking right? She must be very confident if she thinks that she will win the prince's heart even though she won't be able to talk?

Unfortunately, the prince doesn't fall in love with her. He falls for the witch instead! The witch already has the mermaid's beautiful voice and she's using it for herself. Of course, the prince thought it was the witch who saved him because he recognised the voice.

And then, they planned to get married in such short notice. Now, you will go 'Poor Ariel' right? Well, if you watch the Disney movie, it'll be a happy ending. Ariel gets her man after all. But in the real Hans Christian Andersen version, the prince doesn't fall in love with her. Read the story here. She's supposed to kill him in order to save herself but since she loves the prince so much, she decided to just die.

I guess gender stereotyping occurred a very long time ago. My coursemates and I agreed that what the mermaid did was plain stupid. Why give up everything just for a prince who doesn't love her for who she is? It was quite fun analysing these fairy tales and looking at them differently for the first time. Sigh...gone were the days when we would just watch the fairy tales and smile delightedly at the happy endings.

If you haven't realized yet, gender stereotyping is almost everywhere, especially in the media. Magazines, movies, songs, etc have stereotyping in them. So far, I find that this topic is the most interesting in my course. The other topics are painfully boring and I can't bring myself to read the required readings for them. But for this gender stereotyping thing, like I said, it's remarkably interesting.

When you're bored and have nothing to do, pick a movie, cartoon or not, and watch it critically. Perhaps you could list out all the stereotyping in it - whether it's gender, race, religion, etc.

I Learnt About Copywriting!

I attended a copywriting workshop today. It was pretty interesting. The speaker is a copywriter from Australia. His talk was quite short and I wished it had been more. He used Microsoft Power Point to help with his presentation. Plus, he showed us numerous interesting TV advertisements from Thailand, Australia, England, and also Malaysia. There were some which he just wouldn't show us, as he said that we were a mixed audience and he thought that it's better not to show them.

Wow! Thailand advertisements are really creative and funny! All of us laughed a lot when they were shown. The most memorable advertisement was the one promoting some kind of B-cream, I think. It's a 4-series advertisement about this girl who changes her image so that she can attract her 'soulmate'. She doesn't realize that her real soulmate is her best friend! That was a really funny ad!

Then, the Vodafone advertisements were darn funny, too. The 'Talk for 60 minutes, pay for 3' advertisement. If only I can find those ads on the Internet! I'll go search around.

Ah! Here's one:

Wah...if you want to download the ads, you need to pay! Anyway, viewing it is quite slow as the downloading or speed is slow and the video doesn't play smoothly.

The Vodafone's ads are simply hilarious! The 3-minute conversations, those you have to watch. And if possible, watch the Thai ad about the facial cream thing.

During the workshop, we had to get into groups and then come up with our own copywriting ideas on a product. My group had 12 people but only some people were actually participating and giving ideas. The rest were just quiet, sadly. We did ask them to contribute their ideas but some said, No idea lah.... That's not an excuse!

Well, at least I got to watch really good ads during this workshop. It was worth it.

BookMooch? Wow!

Why didn't I join BookMooch before??? Yeah, I've heard about it but I don't know why I didn't just joined! I checked and there are 25 other Malaysians who are members there. Not bad, huh? But, I think that more Malaysians should join BookMooch.

What's BookMooch? Of course, it has something to do with books. It's where you can get free books and give your old books away! Before you are eligible to get/mooch a book, you need to list 10 books in your inventory first, then only you can get any book you want.

So, instead of throwing your old books away or you find it hard to sell off your books, just list them in BookMooch. Perhaps somebody from another country is searching endlessly for that particular book and you could make his/her day. If you don't want to send your book to another country, it's okay. You can choose to send your books to Malaysians only. But, to make it more fun, don't be so kiam siap/kedekut/stingy. If somebody from Australia wants your book, send it! Later, it'll be their turn to send their books to you, so there's no loss.

Well, are you ready to do some book-mooching? Wait no more!

Currently Reading...

50 Ways To Hex Your Lover by Linda Wisdom! I've just started Chapter 3. What's the story about? Well, it's about a witch who was banished to Earth. She's also in love with a vampire and vice versa but they have problems in their relationship.

I have to get started on reading for exams too. Exams are only a few weeks away and I wonder if I have time to read EVERYTHING, which seems incredibly impossible actually. Hah, never mind. I'll only read what I like to read. In short, I'll only read what I can.

Spanish class tomorrow. For a while, I've been struggling with my Spanish as it's become more difficult. But now I understand the way it works and when to use certain verbs and all. Tomorrow I hope my teacher will let me go off early as I have a copywriting workshop to attend!

The Devil Wears Prada And I Wear Bata

Yeah! I can finally continue reading my story books again! 3 of my assignments were already handed in and my BM presentation is also over! Not much to worry about now except for small quizzes and of course, the ever-dreaded exams, which are about 3 to 4 weeks away. In the meantime, I am free to blog and visit other people's blogs. Also, I'm not so interested in writing paid posts anymore. We'll see how my mood goes!

I'm now reading The BFG by Roald Dahl. A few days ago, I was reading The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger but forgot to bring it with me to uni so I might as well BFG now. It's good that I'm reading BFG now. I have to catch up on some children's books that I never had the chance to read when I was younger. My sis advised me to read various books written by various authors but I always stuck with Enid Blyton books. It's only when I was older that I began to explore other authors' works.

And speaking of Roald Dahl, my friend and I were debating as to whether he's still living or not. I just did a search on him and here's the Wikipedia page on Roald Dahl. The Roald Dahl homepage is extremely interesting too. I like the cartoons there. For the complete list of books that Dahl wrote, check this out.


I hope I can finish reading The BFG before tomorrow when I'll be going home. Then, I can continue reading Devil Wears Prada! I've watched the Prada movie and adore Meryl Streep's performance as Miranda Priestly! Whoa, isn't she the boss from hell??? Plus, a movie can't exactly follow a book, can it? Certain parts have to be changed.

I'm searching for a decent cover of The BFG now. Some covers are too small, some are too big, some have the 'Search Inside' logos on it! That would be in Amazon.com's website. Ah! Gotta do my Spanish! Adios!

I'm A Literature Nerd!

This quiz is pretty interesting. Lots of questions so it could be quite accurate. Try it and see what kind of Nerd are you!

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Drama Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Social Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Musician
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Good luck!