SNOW! | Korea Adventures #1

Hey guys! Remember that post when I promised you that I would make a post about my "adventures" in Korea? This is it. This is the post. I keep my promise this time. Are you happy yet?

This Korea Adventures series is going to replace the Life Lately series for the time that I'm in Korea. This one will also be more frequent than Life Lately (I hope) because I only post that once in like three months. I don't think this will be a regular thing, but I will try to post as much as I can. If I go to an exciting place or hang out with some friends, I'll most definitely make a blog post about it. So, stay tuned for that!

This post might be quite picture heavy since I did take a lot of pictures around the city. Also, please know that I'm not good at taking photos, so there will be some blurry ones here and there. I just have to put them here because I want to show you guys what the place looks like. Sorry! I promise I will try to take better pictures in the future. But for now, please bare with me.

Okay, then. All of those disclaimers done, let us get started!

Library Books! | Book Talk #2

Heyo! I'm back again with my short reviews on the books I read this year. I've got quite a few reading done this past few weeks. Mostly because I want to do read all the books I can before school really starts again and the assignments kick off. Let's face it, the only things I'll be reading then are probably ones required by my professors.

If you don't know what this is all about, you can check all the deets here. I explained why I start this series, what inspired me to do it, and what this series is all about. You can also check out the reading challenge that I'm doing along with my progress here.

Enough with the chit-chat. Let's get on with the reviews!

About the On Time Thing

You see, I'm a pretty flexible person. I'm not really particular about being on time, but I do try to always be there when I say I'm gonna be there. If I'm gonna be late, I'll let you know that I'm gonna be late at least half an hour before the time that I'm supposed to meet you.

Here's a thing about me: I don't mind it that much if people show up late on my thing. I'll bug and tease them a little and that's about it. However, I'll feel quite terrible if I'm late on someone else's thing. I would probably keep saying sorry that I'm late for the next 20 minutes. I hate being late. I beat myself pretty hard about it.

Maybe it's a cultural thing. For the most part, Indonesians are usually quite relaxed. And if you know the traffic conditions in the larger cities, you learn to accept that everyone's just gonna be late. There's almost no such thing as, "Maybe we should depart earlier so we could be there on time." I'm just generalising here. It's what most of my family and friends do. And me, at one point in my life. Because that's what I'm exposed to.

One time, my family had a party thing in my aunt's place. We're supposed to be there at 12pm and it takes about an hour and a half to get there from our house. At 10am:

Me: "We probably should go in a bit, don't you think? It takes quite a while to get there, you know."
Dad: "It's too early. No one's gonna be there."
Me: "Well, we have about half an hour left to get ready if we want to get there on time. You're not even dressed yet."
Dad: "It's fine. Your mom's still in the shower. Just relax."
Me: "Okay, then."

*thirty minutes later*

Me: "We really should go now or we're gonna be late."
Dad: "It's okay. No one's gonna be there yet anyway."
Me: "What do you mean no one's gonna be there? My aunt who holding the party is gonna be there. My cousins who I haven't seen in a while are gonna be there. Of course, there's gonna be someone at the party. It's a party. It's where people gather to have a good time."
Dad: "Sure, honey."
Me: "You're unbelievable."

You see what my problem is? Apparently, being late is a norm in my dad's head. Don't you know that you can get the best pieces of cakes if you show up on time? Now I have to stick with whatever's left. Goodness.

And don't even get me started on being "fashionably late". What in the world does that bullshit even mean? I'm fine if someone's late because of traffic or they forgot to check the schedule and have to wait for public transport. But purposefully being late because it's "fashionable" is just beyond me. What is it that you accomplish from that? Do enlighten me. Because for all I know, time was invented so that you can be on it.

Whoo. All that ranting got me exhausted. I am in such a ranting mood this month for some reason. I'll try not too be so negative all the time. I am easily annoyed, can't you tell? The story about my dad was very long ago. He can still be very late at times, but I think it's not that bad anymore. Now he's the one getting mad at me because I don't want to get ready when he wants to go out for a dinner or something. You see, dad? Annoying, isn't it?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy me being all salty (again). I'll see you guys next time!

Riz

Settling In | Life Lately #2

Hi guys! I'm so sorry I haven't posted in like two (maybe three?) weeks. As you probably know, I am doing an exchange to South Korea, so I'm taking a little bit of a break from blogging while I'm preparing. Everything was kind of hectic, still is, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. It takes a bit of time, but I'm sure I'll be fine.

Anyway, I'm here now. It's been a while since my first Life Lately, so I figured I'll do another one after my little "hiatus" to let you know about stuff that happens since I last checked in. Here I go, chatting on and on about my life as if someone cares. That was depressing. Let's begin!

Let's Talk About The 5th Wave Movie

Heads up, this is not a review of the film, just a little rant. The words typed down below are only my opinion. You are free to agree or disagree with it. And I welcome a discussion on this topic in the comments, but please be nice to each other if you don't share the same view. Just a little disclaimer. I don't want to start a fight. *hides in the corner*

Also, this post will contain spoilers for the book and movie of The 5th Wave. So, if you have not read or watched it, please read with caution. Or don't read it at all. It's all good. Unless you don't really care. Then proceed.

I'm Going to Korea!

Yes, you read that right. South Korea, in case you're wondering. Yay! I've been dying to tell you guys about this but I'm waiting until it's fully confirmed, and now I can officially say that I'll be going. This is not for a trip, mind you. Well, not entirely, at least. It's for a student exchange program that my uni's holding and I'm so excited about it!

It's A Start | Book Talk #1

I'm starting a new series. Again. I don't know what I'm thinking. This came to me as I was binge watching Ariel Bissett's videos. I love her content and how she isn't afraid to voice her honest, sometimes brutally so, opinions. She puts up a lot of really interesting discussions about mostly modern literature and they're really worth checking out if you love those kind of things. Or if you love books in general, really. Just check it out. She's great.

On her channel, she doesn't do monthly wrap-ups like most booktubers do. Instead, she's got a series called 'Book Reviews' where she talks briefly about what she thinks of the books that she's read. She said that sometimes she doesn't have that much to say to put up a full length review for a book. So, she accumulates short reviews every couple of months to share her opinions about what she read in between one review video and another. Does that make sense? I hope it does. You can watch her latest Book Review video by clicking here. She explains it better than I can. clicky, clicky.

Because I'm not very good at writing lengthy reviews, I decided to do the same thing. Review a few books in smaller chunks to share my thoughts on them. I think it will make it easier for me to keep track of what I'm reading. I also think that it will help me with my reading challenge in one way or another.

Okay, enough with the rambling. Let's get on to the reviews!

2016 Reading Challenge

If you haven't noticed, there's a new tab on the top of my blog. It has been there for a couple of weeks. So you can check it out after you finish reading this post. Click click, people.

The reading challenge is from a PopSugar article which you can check out here if you want to print it out for yourself. It is basically a list of categories that you can check off as you read something that match it. Simple as that.

I attempted this challenge last year and failed ever so miserably. So, I want to try again and see how I go with this one. There are 40 challenges in total and since I set reading 40 books as one of my 2016 goals, I can read one book for each challenge. I opt for 40 because it was my goal for 2015 and I failed. I have always read more than 40 books since 2012 and it was a slap in the face for me that I failed the reading challenge last year. So this year, I'm trying for a redemption. I hope I can get it together. *fingers crossed*

This doesn't mean that I'm gonna read based on the categories in the challenge. You know I'm not that dedicated. I'm still going to read whatever the hell I want, but it would be great if most of them could help me check off the boxes. Maybe once in a while I will read something that fits the categories to branch out. I tend to stay in the YA or Middle Grade bubble most of the time and I think it's time for me to read something different.

You can tell me if you are participating in any reading challenges in the comment below if you want. I'm interested in what you guys plan to read (or currently reading) in 2016.

I'll see you next time!
Riz

Hashtag Goals | 2016 Resolutions

More like "resolutions", you feel? No, you probably don't feel. What I'm saying is the word "resolution" has always been kind of vague to me. Plus I never really take my yearly resolutions seriously anyway. I mostly use it as a guideline of what I want to achieve instead of something that I have to stick to. I don't beat myself too hard if I don't check it off by the end of the year, but I do make sure that I at least try to have it crossed out.

My resolutions for the past couple years has always been really vague. Be more organised? What does that even mean, past me? So this year I'll try to make it more specific so I could measure my achievement. And actually feel like I've achieved something, you know?

So here are my goals for 2016:

It Has Been A Good Year | 2015 Favourites

It's 2016. Wow. Nothing's really changed or improved just yet. But it was my dad's birthday a few days ago but I can't be with my family then which was kind of sad. Although, we talked on the phone for a few minutes (and it's freaking expensive) which was nice.

2016 has been going for a few days now. It's not too bad so far. I read a few books already, starting the year strong. Well, most of them are graphic novels but they are sooo good. They're like the chocolate chips cookies of books. I love them quite a bit.

Anyway, I've told you that 2015 was such a lovely year for me in my last post. I also talked about the wonderful memories that I had during the year. Now, I can't possibly not share my favourite things as well, can I? Well, I can but I'm telling you anyway so suck it.