Looking for Alaska by John Green: A Review

Title: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green

Publisher: Speak

Series: Standalone

Release Date: December 28, 2006

Pages: 221 (Paperback)

Source: Purchased

Rating: ★★★★

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

Best 2012 Reads

Hey, guys. It's almost the end of the year, so I guess I will present you my top 12 reads in 2012. This year was pretty good for me in the reading-land. I read around 40 books. That's exciting :)  Here goes the list!

PS: It's in no particular order. Enjoy!

1. The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1)  by Suzanne Collins

 

Do I really need to explain this? Everybody knows this book. It's like the mother of all dystopian new releases. I am kind of late by reading it in 2012. But it's better late than never, right?

2. The Emerald Atlas (The Books of Beginning #1) by John Stephens

It's a middle grade book. The story follows three siblings going from orphanage to orphanage after they are "removed" from their house one Christmas Eve, until one day, they stumbled upon an adventure.

It's really good, guys. I highly recommend you guys checking it out!

The 25 Book Challenge: Finished!

Hiya, people. It's been a long, long time since I posted here, no? I don't really know why. I am so, so, so sorry. Things have just been quite insane here in real life land, I guess. I've been busy with school work. I finished my semester exam a few weeks ago. I've been so busy with my school choir, too. We got so many events to perform in and it feels very nice. We just perform in our school annual event, it went really well. I'm quite happy about it.

So, about the book challenge, I FINISHED IT! Whoa. I don't even know what to say about it. I feel really accomplished. You don't believe me? Well, I have a proof here:

Look at it. Just look at it. How beautiful, I know. I can't even. I know I might be really lame compared to the people in the book community who are doing, like, 100 book challenge. But, I don't care. This is my first time doing a book challenge. EVER. I might as well be proud of what I've accomplished.

This is what I've read throughout the year:

                    

I think that is it for today. I've been planning on getting back into blogging and blog at least as much as I used to. I hope I could do it. Wish me luck! See you guys on my next post!

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!

xo,
Rizka

Zyuranger: A Journey

Oh My Nugget. I can't believe what just happened. I fricken finished Zyuranger. I've watched them all. Every single one of them. 50 episodes of them. This very day. December 15. What.

I know you might think, "Oh, whatever. It's just 50 episodes. I could watch them, too." No, guys. No. Absolutely not. Zyuranger is a journey to me. A very long journey. Here goes the story.

I forgot how I got my first VCD of Zyuranger. I think it was given to me by my cousin or something. I was about four years old at the time. Fricken four years old. I did not know anything back then. So I was just like, "Meh, I'll watch it." Then I watched it and guess what? I liked it. A lot. So, I went to my mom and asked her to buy me more of Zyu VCDs. She said yes.

The very next day, I think, my mom gave the VCDs to me after I went back from school. I was stoked. She only bought 3 of them, so I got 4 in total. I immediately watched all of them. All of them. In one sitting. It's quite unusual to see me inside the house when I was a kid. I usually go outside to play after school. That day, I just sat there in front of my TV. The episodes were in Japanese. There was subtitle, yes. But do you really think a four year old could read that fast? I don't.

After I finished watching them, I was overwhelmed. What a cool story (even though I didn't really understand what it meant. I just knew I like it.) I really, really loved love it. I started to watch them every single day after school. I watched it over and over again. It's just so awesome. I even dragged my sister, who was only one year old at the time, to watch it with me. Showing her how awesome it was.

Then, about twelve years later. I was in my parents' house for the holiday. I was just looking for something to watch in the VCD/DVD drawer.  And then there it was. My old Zyu VCDs. I was like, "OMG! It's still alive! After twelve years! Imma watch them again!" There was only three of them left. The third one is missing. I don't know where it went. So, that very day, I set up our VCD player, plugging off my brother's PlayStation from the TV and watch the heck out of it. I watched it in front of everyone. My mom was like, "Why are you still watching that? You're sixteen." I just rolled my eyes at her. So, I just watched it right there. People coming in and out, looking at me weirdly. Then came my sister from her room. She was like, "I've got nothing to do, so I'm just gonna join you here." My brother and my cousin joined in, too. Guess what? They liked it.

The evening of that day, I looked through the interwebs to find anyone who has a subtitled episodes because obviously, I don't understand Japanese. So I looked and looked and BAM! This person has it. I was beyond happy. It was not finished at the time. He was still working on it. So I downloaded the ones available and watched it on my sister's laptop. Because I didn't bring mine.

A few days later, I went back to the city where I go to school. I eagerly waited every single week for the subtitled episode to come out from that website. Until one day, all of the are out. All 50 of them. I was asdfghjkl. I can't even say anything. And this very day, it's even more asdfghjkl. I don't even know anymore.

I want need to say thank you for all the people that kind of introduced me to this series. Without these people, I would not have twelve years of awesome. The person who gave me my first Zyu VCD. I'm sorry I can't remember who you are. My mom, for buying me the rest of them and letting me watch it every single day. My sister, who didn't understand a thing but watched it with me anyway. And for letting me watch these on your laptop, CHEERS TO YOU! My brother, for accompanying me watching these through the night. MegaAnon for providing me us with subtitled episodes.

Last but absolutely not least, thank you to Zyuranger. It's been a wonderful journey watching it. I got an awesome childhood by watching it. I laughed, smiled, screamed, even cried watching it. And it was wonderful. It didn't make sense sometimes, but it was still a great time. Zyuranger will always has a special spot in my heart. Again, thank you so much for this journey. It was beautiful :)

Keep on fighting, Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger!

With love,

RIzka

Update of Sorts

What's up, people!! It's been a crazy long time since the last time a posted something in this blog. It's full of dust, spider's web and everything. I'm so cruel.

So, I got my report card today. I've never been so nervous in my life. Seriously. The result was pretty good. I'm quite proud of it. I got into the science class. Surprise, surprise. I wanted to get into the language class, but "it doesn't have enough students". WTF, dude?

Anyways, moving on. Lately, I am quite obsessed with dresses and high heels. Oh my goodness, I'm turning into a girl. I mean I only have one dress and one pair of high heels. The dress was for our choir performance for the twelfth grade farewell party and I bought the heels with my mom because I wanted a pair. But, still, the need of having more of those are high. High, I'm telling you. 

Also, I'm now really obsessed (obsession overload!) with web series. They're really fun to watch. From the "regular teenager kind" to the "killing people kind'. Awesomeness indeed. Here are some of my favorite web series. You should totally check them out. They're awesome. You can click the link below the pictures to go to their youtube page.

      youtube.com/lizziebennet                           youtube.com/watchjobhunters                             youtube.com/squaresvilleseries

Lastly, about my 25 Book Challenge. I'm really close to finished. Woot, woot! I'm now at the 22 mark. I posted the books that I have read in this blog. If you haven't notice, there a "page" column on the right side of this blog. You can find "The 25 Book Challenge" page right there. Or you could just click here to see it. Since I'm almost finished, I'm thinking about "upgrading" it into 30 books. Hmm, I'll think about that.

I think that's it for this update post. I'll see you again next time. Love you all!

xo,

Rizka