My Love for Mark Wahlberg

Now, I'm sure we all have celebrity crushes that we either shout to the high heavens or silently worship behind closed doors. I absolutely ADORE Marky Mark.

Who doesn't just fall in love with that smile?

You're welcome, ladies and gents. And a big thank you to God for making this man a real life thing that I am allowed to look at. I can't lie, that photo is definitely my lock screen right now. No shame. This year I had the crazy PHENOM idea to watch every movie he's been in cause I'm class-A creepy. I'm making a list of all the movies (according to imdb) Mark Wahlberg has been in and crossing them off one by one until I'm done. This post--that I'm not sure if I will regret writing or not yet--will be my active tally.

The Gambler (filming)

Ted 2 (announced)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (post-production)

Lone Survivor

2 Guns

Pain & Gain

Broken City

Ted

Contraband

The Fighter

The Other Guys

Date Night

The Lovely Bones

Max Payne

The Happening

We Own the Night

Shooter

The Departed

Invincible

Four Brothers

I Heart Huckabees

The Italian Job

The Truth About Charlie

Rock Star

Planet of the Apes

The Perfect Storm

The Yards

Three Kings

The Corruptor

The Big Hit

Boogie Nights

Traveller

Fear

The Basketball Diaries

Renaissance Man

The Substitute 

I'm sure my friends who I will force into having Mark Wahlberg Movie nights with me are going to LOVE this. Only 29 to go! 

xx

Five Things I Couldn't Get Through College Without

If you didn't already know, I am a full time college student and I take my academia very seriously. I'm studying engineering right now, therefore many of the classes I take just drown you in stats and figures and math stuff. Without a doubt being enrolled as a student full-time is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. College is draining financially, emotionally, and physically. Don't get me wrong, I love it! But occasionally it gets tough. So these are my top five things I probably would be a mess without while I'm at school.

1. A Good Backpack

If you know me at all, you will know without a doubt that I am a brand name whore. I love nice things because nice things last. Don't get me wrong--I am definitely a bargain shopper and the clearance rack is my best friend! For my first year at school, I carried a basic Jansport backpack that had a cute pattern and one or two pockets for pencils. I thought it was fine, and for my first year it did work well for me. But my first year, I didn't really study or carry a lot with me. I was fortunate enough to not have to take a heavy load my freshman year with classes, so my backpack wasn't anything special. Well, I continued to use this backpack my first semester Sophomore year and I realized that this backpack was not cutting it. It was thin and not very sturdy or padded, and since I carry around my laptop (my baby) with me almost everywhere I started to notice the issue. It also had very skinny straps, which cut into your arms when you carry a ton of books and binders all day. So, for Christmas, I asked for a nicer backpack and I got to open a beautiful North Face Hot Shot Backpack in black. This is seriously the perfect backpack for me. It has multiple pockets for all my things: my calculator, pens, pencils, chapstick even. The spot for the laptop is nicely padded and keeps my baby secure. I don't know how I lived before I had this backpack because it keeps all of my things so structured, I adore it.

2. A Planner/Agenda

I think I'd get lost without my planner. I don't necessarily care what kind of a planner it is, as long as it has a cute design and plenty of room to write in what's going on in my life. Because if it's not in my planner, it doesn't exist. I put everything in there: tests, birthdays, quizzes, homework, breaks, when I'm going home, etc. I will forget everything if I don't physically write it down, so I invest in a semi nice planner every year and by the end of the semester it looks like I destroyed it because I literally don't leave home without it. Literally, not figuratively. 

3. My computer

This one is kind of obvious. You just can't go to school anymore without a computer, it's an absolute necessity. Absolute. All of my homework is online. All of it! I have quizzes online. And now (even though I protested it and am NOT okay with it) I have tests online! You can't do anything without this baby and even if you think you can get away with not buying one (doesn't have to be a MAC, but I am biased because I love mine.) and just use a Library computer, you can't. Those computers are literally always taken unless it's 1 am and only strange people are at the library.

4. A Tumbler or Water Bottle

Staying hydrated is the most important thing you can do. I try to drink at least 8 cups a day, but I often falter. Dehydration is common among young adults and it can affect your health in a huge way. I am a huge fan of the double walled containers because the condensation doesn't get all over my things. Right now, I carry this one from Think Geek, and it's a Doctor Who TARDIS. Which is obvi, a win. But I'm also a big fan of Tervis cups, and you can customize those. I'm just a fan of straws right now.

5. Headphones

I'm not personally a fan of large headphones like the Beats by Dre, but you have to have something. My go to are the ones that came with my iphone. They're sturdy and they stay in my ears, plus they have the cool touch thing to control the volume. Headphones are needed because no one wants to sit in the library without headphones inviting people to just come talk to them. It shuts you out from the world which, when I'm doing things at the library, I don't want to be bothered. I don't have time to be bothered. I also use them at the gym (when I go, so rarely) because no one wants to listen to the crappy music that the gym plays.

Hope you all enjoyed this post.

xx

My resolutions for 2014

Generally I am not a resolution sort of person. I have never stuck to a single one I've made, but I think that's because I always make them too general. The end goal is too far away for me to really care about reaching it. So, instead of making yearly resolutions, I've decided to make monthly resolutions. This way I won't have as much time for excuses and the goals are easier to see through. Obviously, it would be silly for me to write out every goal I have for every month starting right now in the second week of January, so I'm going to make a small list of goals at the beginning of every month this year. I guess that's a yearly goal.... write goals for every month all year. Haha. But since I'll be in school throughout most of the year, most of the goals will surely be academically related.

So, without much ado, these are my goals for January.

1. Spend time with my family while I'm home visiting.
I often find myself being pulled in many different directions when I come home. I want to visit everyone I love, both friends and family, but I also work and sometimes I find it difficult to manage these three things. I have my dad, who I live with, and see the most often though not for long periods of time. My mom, who I do not live with and should visit entirely more often so I need to stop making excuses and go be with her. My brother, who lives half with my mom and half with my step-dad, who I also don't see as much as I would like to. My friends, who of course don't all hang out with each other (so high school). And my two favorite people in the world, my grandparents. I cannot express how important it is to me that I spend as much of my time with them as I can.

2. Go to the gym at least once a week.
This goal is so attainable for me. Once a week is nothing, honestly. But it's more than I'm doing now. I have a gym membership that I need to start taking advantage of while I'm home and I have one for when I'm at school as well. So, once a week. Not so hard.

3. Save, not spend.
I suck at this one. I don't work while I'm at school so I need to be saving the money I have for emergencies and to pad me for when I go back to school. But instead I keep buying stuff. Working retail does nothing good for me, I swear.

4. Get a job for when I'm at school.
This one is very important, if I don't get a job when I go back to school I think I'll explode. I need to something with my time besides study. And a job would be perf.

So that's all for January. Since I don't go back to school until the 21st of the month, I'll save my academic goals for February. There's only four goals, I really hope I can stick to them. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

That's all she wrote. Night all.

Book Review: The Bloodletter's Daughter

The Bloodletter's Daughter (A Novel of Old Bohemia) by Linda Lafferty

Type: Fiction

Length: 516 Pages

Reading Level: Intermediate

Rank: 4/5

This novel by Linda Lafferty is the story of a young girl by the name of Marketa Pichlerova who is the daughter of the town's Bloodletter (synonym for a type of doctor) and the story of a young man named Don Julius, bastard of Kind Rudolph II.

Honestly, when I started reading this book I knew nothing about it and this is definitely not a book I probably would have read on my own/bought. I recently got a kindle for Christmas from my boyfriend (thanks, babe!) and since I have Amazon Prime I am allowed the use of something called the Kindle Owner's Lending Library. This book was under the popular section so I checked it out. I didn't know how long it was and I was unfamiliar with the author at the time.

I began reading and the first thing I realized about the book was that there were going to be many names I was going to have to familiarize myself with. Being an avid watcher of the Game of Thrones television show, I considered myself capable. The writing style was easy enough to follow, but I would be lying to you if I said I didn't need to read a few passages more than one time.

Another thing I noticed after I began reading was that while the beginning is a little on the slow side, it filled my brain with many questions that I needed answers to. If that doesn't show the beginnings of a good book, I'm not sure what truly does. But I just could to put this book down. I was ignoring my phone and my relatives for a good two days while I had this book unread. 

The characterization of Marketa and Don Julius is wonderful. (Is or are, I'm not sure.) Marketa begins as a simple young girl who dreams of becoming more than what her mother wants for her. Marketa's father, as we know, is a bloodletter. A bloodletter is a doctor who applies leeches to the body of sick patients in order to "cleanse" the blood or balance the humors. This is an old type of medicine. Marketa is his assistant with his clients, catching the blood that the leeches do nut suck up. Her mother owns a bathhouse which, from my understanding, is a place where men and women come to take baths but also the bath maids are expected to offer them sexual pleasure in return. Marketa is sixteen in the novel and a virgin. Her mother has plans to sell Marketa's virginity to the highest bidder in order to provide food for the family.Not many girls aspire to become bath maids, and Marketa is no different. Although, she yearns to learn science and follow in the footsteps of her father, but she is a woman and that just cannot be allowed.

Shifting gears, Don Julius (the bastard) has grown to be an unruly, disrespectful, savage young man. He is known throughout his father's kingdom for his drinking binges along with his follies with the women of every town. He is also very violent and he has hurt many of this servants in rage. This behavior is embarrassing to the king (and a sign of weakness), so he sends Don Julius away to be cared for by a priest and a doctor in a smaller, quieter town.

You can probably guess where this is going. Don Julius is to be cured of his insane ways (they have now started to call him mad). In order to do this, the doctor thinks bloodletting is the way to go. He calls upon Marketa's father to assist him in the bloodlettings and Marketa comes as his assistant. Don Julius becomes infatuated with Marketa calling her an angel, and she seems to calm him and make him far less violent. Though at first frightened by Don Julius, Marketa finds herself unable to stay away from him.

So, will they end up together? You'll have to read it further to find out!

In reflection, I do believe the climax of the story to be very exciting and I found myself trying to read faster than my eyes could move. However, the ending or the last couple of chapters had very great potential to be bigger and louder and more exciting. It all came apart at the end for me. Though I have often felt as though the writer hates me and likes to make me crazy with the endings not going how I would like. 

Do not get me wrong, the ending was still enjoyable. It was just slightly anticlimactic. The author managed to wrap everything up in a nice little package and presented it to me in a way that I can always be content with. Though remember how I said I needed to read a few things twice? Well, the ending was one of them. It was a little unclear to me at first because details were glossed (purposefully) by the writer. 

All in all, I really did enjoy this book! The author has a nice writing style, though occasionally a little confusing. If there could be one thing I would change about this book it would be detail. Some things were glossed over or touched upon and then never again mentioned. Personally, I love details, they make a book richer. That's a little bit lacking in the novel as a whole.

Next, I'd like to present a few questions/ticks/things I still don't quite understand from the book.

THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW IN WHITE

This text will be in white so that you'll need to highlight it to read, that way anyone who doesn't want spoilers won't accidentally see something they don't want to!

1. How on earth is Marketa okay with the fact that Jakub slept with her best friend and she's pregnant with his child? WHO IS OKAY WITH THAT? NOT ME!

2. Marketa's mom is a straight bitch, I hate her. Just a complaint.

3. The author seemed to just drop Marketa's dreams and goals to be a scientist and go to prague after the fall. While I understand that she had to go into hiding, I don't understand why she couldn't still enjoy science while she was. She had a lot of freedom still, plus the doctor was still going to take her so that's confusing.

4. Why is Jakub an idiot? Aslo, after their one and only kiss before Don Julius, why is he basically never mentioned again romantically? Of course I wanted them to be together, but the author doesn't make it seem like either of them are that interested in each other until the very end.

I think that's all I have. I hope you enjoyed this review/ found it helpful! Comment below if you've ever read this book or others by Linda Lafferty because I would like to read more from her. Or just some reading suggestions as I am a bookworm and quite enjoy them.

This Just Goes to Show

This just goes to show you what you're getting into with a blog written by me.

So, I finally make a blog today (well, technically yesterday but whatever) and I'm excited about it, right? Obviously, I just made it so right now I'm like "Hell yeah, make it pretty, add pretty fonts, make pretty pictures, edit colors, etc"

It took me, I don't know, about a billion hours just to choose a name. Naturally, right? Cause you want a cute, funny, meaningful, or easily remembered blog name.

At first I tried to think of something trendy, something catchy like "Haute21" or "PinkPrincess" but then I laughed at myself because while I think there's nothing wrong with those names, they completely mean nothing to me and if you met me... you'd know I'm not trendy or 21 or a princess. But I do like pink.

I thought I was a genius because I thought of the name "Orange you glad". I thought I was so funny for that one. Like, orange you glad I made this blog that you're reading right now? But sadly, orangeyouglad.blogspot.com was already taken by another genius with the same idea as me. Great minds think alike, right?

Slightly discouraged, I decided to go along the path of a good quote. This didn't take me long. I just finished reading a wonderful book by Linda Lafferty called "The Bloodletter's Daughter". It was amazing, I'll probably write a post just about it to go in depth about how I feel towards this book. Anyway, this quote from the novel stood out to me:

"You and your books. Ah, what a gift it must be to discover the world in those squiggly lines"

I don't know why it stood out, I just really liked it. So I decided to name my blog after it. And thus, Squiggly Lines was born today (Er, yesterday).  I was so excited to finally have a name for my blog. So on I go with my decorating of my blog, write my first awkward post, make everything look nice.

This is where you really get a glimpse of my true personality. I go to share this blog and type the URL in and boom! It takes me to a completely different blog. And I'm so confused. I probably went and typed it in to my computer three or four times and was so confused. How could two blogs have the same URL? They couldn't, could they?

So for about ten minutes I stared, literally stared at my URL versus the one I typed in and took me elsewhere. 

That's when it hit me. Guys, I made a typo when I named my blog. Instead of typing in the word Squiggly, I typed in Squiggy. No L. So, you guys are at Squiggy Lines, not Squiggly. 

But I decided I'm not going to change the typo. One because the URL I want isn't valid anyway and two because this just shows you me. I'm a dumbass, but oh well!

See you all soon.
xx

Like what is Squiggy? How did I mess that one up?

The First of Many, or Few

Hi.

This is awkward.

I don't know why I've decided to make a blog, but here it is. My first blog. I have no idea what this blog will become. Something, maybe. Nothing, probably. I tend to not stick with things for very long.

Today I just had this feeling that I wanted to make a blog. I wanted to have a diary I could never lose. Something I could come to and just write little thoughts. Tidbits about my life. Things I like, or more likely, things I despise.

If you can't tell, I'm not convinced this was a good idea. But here's to 2014, and a year of me trying new things.

Thanks for stopping by.