Book Review #28 ~ Little Women

Raar. Hey guys, I'm back with another book review. This one's on Little Women. I just happened to be reading this book for my book project at school and I since it's such a well known classic, I thought I just might share this with you!

Little Women ~ Louisa May Alcott
Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy March are four sisters living with their Mother in New England. Their father is away serving in the civil war, and the sisters struggle to support themselves and keep the house running. As the girls grow older, each faces her own personal moral challenges and inner struggles. Jo tries to tame her tomboyish ways and learns to be more ladylike while pursuing her dreams of being a writer. Meg, the eldest, tries to put aside her love of wealth and luxury in order to follow her heart. Beth, a shy creature, tries her best to conquer her bashfulness, while Amy has to sacrifice her aristocratic pride. Each of the family members go through twists and turns as they try to overcome their inner "demons" and do their best to support their family in these hard times.

I thought that the book was very touchin. It was a completely different genre and mood of story from which I would normally read, but I thought that the book was alright. I didn't like that the book had no major plot with violent, unexpected flips in the story. (I usually read adventure of fantasy. You know, the swashbuckling pirate or the brave and beautiful woman who just happens to be a CIA agent.) It was merely everyday problems that the characters faced, so I must say that it wasn't a particularly captivating or exciting story. If you described the whole novel in one word, it would be "ladylike." The novel was prim, polite, and proper.
This is one of the very few books which I am not sure to whom to recommend. Stereotypically it is said that ladies would like this book, but being a 'lady' myself and not really falling in love with the book as some others do, I'm quite confused. I suppose that it would depend on your personality. This book does offer a lot of good advice, so people who like that kind of thing would absolutely love this! All in all, I thought that the book was O.K.
Thanks for tuning in again~!

The Getty Villa

So today some family friends flew over from Korea, and we went together to see the Getty Villa. The weather was absolutely fantastic. It was not too hot and not too cold, making our visit quite pleasant.
As we were driving, we had no idea when the entrance for the Getty Villa would pop up, so we were eyeing the streets closely. We had to violently swerve into the entrance because it was so small... But the entrance was very beautiful. It had an Italian winehouse kind of feeling to it, what with the stone path leading all the way up to the Villa.
I would say that the Villa itself looked like a mansion that only the richest of the rich would live in; the building was so beautiful!!
When we got into the Villa, there was a countless amount of rooms to view. All rooms were filled with sculptures, and each sculpture was an elaborate, dazzling work of art.
There were so many sculptures that I loved, and it was overall a beautiful place.
I've got to say that of all the sculptures/exhibitions that were part of the Getty Villa, I liked the Pompeii exhibit the best. It was quite interesting because it had many casts made of the hollow figures of people left in the ash when the volcano exploded. It held my attention because many of the figures were doing everyday things when the lava swept over them, killing them instantly. It was a very cool exhibit!
Not only was the interior of the building amazing, the outside was breathtakingly beautiful too. There was a particular pool that was absolutely amazing. I have to say that it wasn't exactly a pool; it would have to be much deeper for that...
Anywho, there were two figures made of a shiny black stone sitting on rocks as if sunbathing on either side of the long pool, and it was delightful to look at.
All in all, the Getty Villa was amazing, and I would definitely recommend this place for everyone; it's a wonderful place to visit!!

Detoxing

So I started this fruit detox thing a couple days ago...
I'm confined to a strict diet of fruit, vegetables, brown rice, and freshly juiced (in our juicer) fruits and vegetables.
I'm not allowed to have anything containing salt or sugar whatsoever, so for me as a kid, it's not exactly the easiest thing to do.
I've managed to stay away from all things unhealthy so far, but I have to admit; the cravings are killing me. It's so bad that I'm starting to crave things that I don't even like. I can't walk through a grocery aisle without finding a million things that I want but can't have. I just have an uncontrollable desire for all things bad.
Surprisingly, however, I'm not hungry or lethargic because I'm eating just fruits and vegetables. I'm quite energized, and the vegetable juice that we grind doesn't taste too bad. (It just isn't the same as the sweet/salty, mouthwateringly delicious artificial taste that you get with things like cookies and chocolate and french fries.)
But this detox really helped me realize how almost everything I ate in my everyday life was unhealthy. (Tasty, but unhealthy.)
I still have a couple weeks of detoxing ahead of me, (Yes, I'm going fairly hardcore this time) so I will really need to work at it to achieve my goal. Hopefully I won't be tempted to the point where I charge into the candy aisles in the grocery store and rip everything that I want off the shelves and devour it right then and there... :)

Book Review #28 ~ The Dark is Rising

So I finally got to finish this book over the weekend after reading for a week or two. I thought that it was a fairly good book and worthy of showing my precious viewers, so without further ado, here is:

The Dark is Rising ~ Susan Cooper

When Will Stanton turns eleven, his entire life changes. He discovers something special about himself that he had never known before. He is one of the Old Ones, immortal beings dedicated to keeping the world out of evil's clutches. He is overwhelmed by all the new events that are happening and all the new information being hurled at him. However, time doesn't allow him to stop and catch his breath, and so he is immediately enveloped into a hunt for the six magical signs that will eventually be a great help in the final battle between the light and the dark. And so Will finds himself caught in an overwhelmingly exciting, terrifying, and fascinating chain of events during the twelve days of Christmas as he musters up his strength and courage to face the forces of evil.

This book had a very large amount of imagination in it, so it was quite interesting to see what the writer would so cleverly place in the story next. However, I wasn't completely absorbed in the book as I was with some others I had read in the past; mainly because the searching of the signs was a surprisingly brief process-much shorter than what I had been expecting. It was also because the signs were quite easily found. Yes, with some amount of struggle, but not too much; the signs simply appeared. But overall, I was quite satisfied with the book.
I hope that you will enjoy the book too!

Back to School.

So I have been back at school for a week now and I really miss summer.
Oh gosh, I didn't realize how great it was until it was taken away from me! All those days sleeping as late as I want and not having to worry about homework was great. Now it's back to rushing to get to school on time in the mornings... -_-"
Anyways, school has not been so bad so far. The amount of homework is reasonable and my teachers are all to my liking, so I expecting that this year will be a great year...
As for summer, looking back, I really did have a fantastic break. We went to so many places and made lots of memories; although time flew by, I enjoyed every minute of my break.
And on the other hand, for school, I'm really looking forward to making my last year in middle school memorable. I will be moving up to high school next year and since everyone (including myself) has high expectations for my academic life, I will be spending the next couple years busy busy busy with my studies. What fun.
Anyways, I hope that all of you had a wonderful summer break and don't have too much of a stressful year in front of you; good luck!!

A pile of lucky charms for good luck. I know a lot of us will be needing it~~

Huntington Library!

After reserving our free day tickets for the Huntington Library a month before, we finally went to the Huntington Library yesterday.
It was beautiful. For those of you who don't know, the Huntington Library is not just a library, it consists of many gardens and has art collections/museums in it too. The admission for adults is usually $20, but we reserved our free day tickets (free days are the first thursday of every month) a month before and entered for free.
We had heard a lot about the Huntington, and saw that it had been spoken highly of all over the internet, and it didn't fail to please us.
The entire place was so big, it was hard to see everything in the couple hours that we had before closing. There were so many different gardens, including Japanese Gardens, Desert Gardens, Chinese Gardens, Australian Gardens, and so much more. They were all very beautiful and lush with plant life; it probably needed an immense amount of upkeep for all of the plants to survive.



The Japanese Garden





The Desert Garden

The gardens had everything from ponds to open fields and small trails. There were even statues here and there that were beautiful works of art.
Unfortunately we didn't get to see everything since closing time was very soon.
It was very hot out yesterday, and since there was so much ground to cover, we were sweating and our feet were hurting by the time we finished looking through 3 or 4 gardens.
Since it was near closing time, we decided that we would leave the rest of the gardens for another trip in the future (hopefully?) and visit the art museums.
I love looking at art, and all the furniture was very interesting. It was somewhat like a mini version of the Getty. The most famous painting that is kept here is 'The Blue Boy' by Thomas Gainsborough.

The Sculptures on the North Vista Lawn. There was a row of sculptures going down the grass lane and it was just so beautiful.

So that marked the end of our trip, and I've got to say, as tired as I was, it was beautiful and I loved the beautiful scenery, sculptures, and paintings. It's definitely somewhere to visit!!

Mt. San Jacinto Travel Journal

So I decided to do an illustrated travel journal, but that was before I found out how hard it was to draw and travel at the same time. The trip itself was quite physically exhausting, but I managed, having an hour or so of free time each night. I hope you enjoy!

The cute notebook that we got from Korea. This is what I use as my travel journal.