#198 - what now?

gross yeah? sun's shining today after three days of rain. i liked the rain, sorta. as far as rain goes, i like it when it comes down hard, decisively, confidently. not like when it just whimpers and drizzles off and on. so this weekend was kinda cool (when i had no where to go at least, when i had to drive home from ala moana in it, that wasn't so cool... couple of scary moments on moanalua road, but all's fine). but even though the sun's out today, i still probably won't go in the water for awhile... just look how gross it is...

so all that rain gave me lots of time to myself this weekend, which was very cool. aside from vball (wahine beat purdue in the regional semi's but then got *whipped* by stanford to fall short of the final four yet again... but not that it mattered, all season long it's been penn state, stanford, texas, and nebraska way above everyone else, although i really thought washington would take down nebraska, but oh well, so it's a perfectly justifiable final four... and i still think penn state's gonna go all the way... easily) i did some final christmas shopping at ala moana (but only ended up with something for myself... oops) and i read like a mad man. i finished all of that twlight series... wow, four and a half books in three weeks when i hadn't read 1/3rd of a book in the previous four years... obviously i liked it, but i do have many many comments... if you didn't read it yet, then avert your eyes for a second, if you did read it, high-light below to see my commentary:

- after the first book totally hooked me on the series, it got way too slow in the second book, i must be "team edward" because the second book was a total bore and i was just running through the pages until he returned, who cares about jacob black? what a bore... but as soon as bella took that cliff-dive the book got exciting again and it only took like one night to get through the rest of the book
- the third book was better, but i really had no interest in that love triangle thing, seemed dumb to me, and i really wasn't interested in reading about werewolves anyway, but the third book had it's moments at least, bella's narration was getting kinda dull (so i was very glad when some of that narration switched in the fourth book, with good humor too), still, i like the vampire fights so i'm glad the conflict got back to that in the storyline
- wow, the fourth book was just weird! yikes, i wasn't prepared for the story to take such funky turns. i mean, c'mon, a mystic pregnancy? geez... so i was REALLY glad when the narration switched to jacob, to add some levity. i still don't like that whole twist, plus... eww! she's like 18? anyway, it got way too weird
- also... are you kidding me?! "renesmee?!" ugh! i couldn't read the name on each page, i cringed. what a horrid, horrid, name.
- after that it got a little to comic-book-ish for me. more like x-men. still, there was a lot of action and things happened fairly quickly so it was an easy read, and just knowing that i was getting to the end of the series was satisfying. plus it had a happy ending, so that was kinda nice, i've been in the mood for happy endings recently
- so i definately liked the first book the best, in fact, i think i could have read that one by itself and been satified with the entire storyline, but it was cool to read through the whole thing...
- i DID check out midnight sun though... and i REALLY liked that one. i think that might actually be my favorite out of all the books, i think that it showed real integrity on the part of the author to be able to write that first book from two perspectives, made her be real honest about her insights and obviously showed foresight (not like other writers who throw in facts and dialogues seemingly incidentally), it's too bad that one won't be published, i'd definately buy it

so after reading through all that, now i gotta ask myself, what am i gonna do next? what i gonna do with all that time that had been spent reading? how will i again attain that clarity of thought that calmed me down from reading? will i pick up more books? will any other books catch my interest? i know that i'm very picky, so will i be able to abide any other writing styles?

well, if you guys have any suggestions, i'm open to at least trying some new books. this twilight one really caught me by surprise though, it's not that i have never TRIED reading other books, it's that i'd run through about ten pages and either be bored out of my mind or completely irritated at the writing (something about the tone perhaps, or the persuasion in the words, or repetition... that's a big one). we'll see what happens... until then, i'm REALLY yearning for that piano now... i think that might solve some of this "what's next" problem... i've got a bunch saved up, but i'm not sure how much i'd had to fork over to get a good piano, not just some student model, i mean, i don't have a big place so i'd only be looking for some upright, but if i'm gonna buy one, i want quality. yeah, that'd be real nice...