Awesome Things That Happened Today
1) My morning class was cancelled. Part of me headdesked because I had stayed up all night yesterday, and the night before, in order to get my paper on early cinema written. I wrote it all, only to receive the notification that we wouldn’t be meeting. But it was good!
2) I finished Derby Girl by Shauna Cross. Solid novel, but I still prefer the movie, Whip It. I agree with praetorianguard the first-person narration made the character initially unlikable… Because we were forced to depend on Bliss for our narrator, she was occasionally frustrating and a bit phony. She just seemed like she was trying so, so hard to be different. The film made it much clearer that Bliss just was different. But it did improve, I enjoyed the aesthetic and it brought me back to my own time in high school. I was much closer to Pash, however—like her, straight A’s and a great uni was my ticket out of New Jersey suburbia.
3) I got to meet up with my friend for lunch, who attends my Specters of Culture class. She originally set up a meeting at 1:20 with her advisor, but because class was cancelled we just shifted our lunch earlier. It’s always nice seeing her—she’s the one who forced Avatar on me and I couldn’t be happier for it.
4) I ran into an old friend on my way to my philosophy class, randomly. He’s changed plans from med school to going to grad school for biology, and decided we really should catch up, so we made plans to meet after the sci-fi club meeting tomorrow.
5) I got full marks on my philosophy midterm, and my quiz. Apparently me and Machiavelli get along really well. At least, me and Machiavelli’s republicanism do. I like his empirical and secular approach to history and politics. The discussion frustrated me a little, because I felt like people were trying to figure out Machiavelli’s personal beliefs, but he was never writing about those—I always got the impression that he was just presenting his arguments, though in a frank, concise way that could be off-putting.
6) I went to Books of Wonder and attended a panel with Justine Larbalestier, Kristin Cashore, Scott Westerfeld, Libba Bray and Suzanne Collins. I got there about an hour early, and was 9th in line, which was nice, since I was also able to claim a chair. What can I say… I love author signings. They’re my favourite fan-event to attend, because so many authors are just such humble, funny, creative people. And the people who attend are also awesome.
6a) Kristin Cashore remembered me from Sirens! I was flattered, since I didn’t expect her to, but she was so kind and friendly, and asked how I’d been doing. Bitterblue is apparently going well. I purchased Graceling at Books of Wonder, which I got signed. (I already have a signed copy of Fire)
6b) I could tell that this event was centred around Suzanne Collins—the poor woman was fielding questions left and right, and almost everyone was there for her signing. I did get to ask her a question—if the publisher will ever release a map of Panem, and unfortunately the answer was in the negative. Suzanne said that to put out a map would give the readers information Katniss did not have, and since the entire trilogy is from her point of view, her answer did make sense. The nerd in me still wants to know, though. I also didn’t blame her that she wasn’t very talkative during the signing, she was doing so many of them! I got both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire signed, and planning to lend them out to friends tomorrow so they can read it. I also got a mockingjay button 
6c) I haven’t yet read anything by Scott Westerfeld or Justine Larbalestier, but I’m feeling that this desperately needs to be remedied in the near future, especially after meeting them. I think I’ll start with Leviathan, which Scott talked about today, and start with How to Ditch Your Fairy with Justine, since that’s on the Sirens reading list. I remember reading the Gemma Doyle books by Libba Bray, I even own them—but I forgot them at my house. Dammit. Libba Bray was hilarious though, I really do want to check out Going Bovine. Also, Michael Grant was supposed to be at this panel, but he got food poisoning. Just heard from a friend that his books are also amazing, so my TBR list just gets longer and longer…
6d) I saw Chin! From Sirens, actually! I was pretty happy to see her, I’d forgotten she’d lived in Queens. I’m a bit tiffed at myself for not bringing my wad of Sirens 2010 bookmarks, since I made other new friends…
6e) I really hit it off with two girls who’d travelled from Philly. One’s a librarian and blogger, the other works at a bookstore. Book people are my people, honestly. They’d also come early, so I chatted with them for a while before the panel, and then got Thai food with them afterward and talked about more books. Any of you read Shiver? What did you think?
7) I peeked on the athanarel community and saw that Sherwood’s books had been contracted! So yes, that’s another awesome thing that I found out today!
