I hope typing up this entry keeps me from falling asleep. If weird rows of letters appear in this entry, picture me with my head on the keyboard, snoring loudly. (And don't laugh at me. I've had two horrible nights because my cold is keeping me from getting enough sleep.)

Anyway, I thought a "This was the first month of 2010" entry was in order. Since I've done a few things. Which I usually do too, you know. But not in the first month of 2010. (Oh dear, I can see the incoherent coming on. I'm sorry, guys.)

Well, first of all, I've been to two musicals, namely Elisabeth and Wicked, which was extremely awesome, as well as to some musical show, which is called Musical Highlights, where awesome people sing awesome songs from awesome musicals. It's pure awesome, you see. I haven't been to the cinema during this month at all, but I'll go next week or so to finally see Holmes and Doctor Parnassus is also waiting to be seen.

( Cut for rambling. )

I've been tagged by sigune , and since things like these are the perfect remedy for Wicked Grief (it was my last show in Stuttgart on Friday - I don't want Wicked to go to another city!), here goes.

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it".

( I hate calling people. )

I tag bellabronte , eternal_vows , hanelissar , laliandra , playwithfyr , ravelqueen  and spilled_coffee . If they're feeling up to it, that is.

Happy New Year, guys! I hope you all had a great time celebrating or doing whatever it was you did. :) I was at a friend's in Cologne with a few friends from all over Germany, and we had loads of fun. We watched movies, had Raclette and at midnight we went outside to watch a stunning display of fireworks. The air was so thick with smoke after some time you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. :D Of course, we did also drink some alcohol and wrecked some furniture, as is custom at a real party.

It was really awesome, although I did only get about two hours of sleep (we all did - I mean, apart from our friend who was merrily snoring away; but we don't blame her). I'm recovered now though. ;)

Now on to my book list. I wanted to post it on the 30th before I was headed to Cologne, but lj ate it up about five times and then I was too frustrated to try again. Hopefully, it's going to work now. *crosses fingers* It's the first time I kept track of what I read throughout the year and it was really exciting to see the list grow. So, here goes, in chronological reading order.

( Books I Read in 2009 )

37 books on the whole - that must be some 20 books more than what I read in 2008, I think. And I'm also very content with the diversity of my list. I even read a historical novel this year - of my own free will. ;)

Perhaps there is going to be a 2010: Books I Anticipate post. Stay tuned!

So, since I've made this vow never to miss as many films as I did this summer, I went to the cinema four times during Christmas break. I love going to the cinema so often! It does almost squelch that urge to buy musical tickets every two days and it is a lot cheaper. :)

( Movies I Saw )

Apart from the movies at the cinema, I saw the German movie 7 Zwerge - Männer allein im Wald, then Nightmare Before Christmas, The Grinch and Kungfu Panda. And since I got some new DVDs, I'll watch Narnia 1 & 2, My Fair Lady and Sweeney Todd soon.

( Movies I Anticipate )

Wow. I've become a cinema addict again.

A very merry Christmas to you all! (And look at the shiny new icon I got myself for the opportunity.)

I hope you all had a great day (or will have one tomorrow). I spent Christmas doing all kinds of great things with my family. After a rather unspectacular morning, we had lunch, wrapped the last of our presents and decorated our Christmas tree (it looks very pretty). Then we went to church where the service mostly consisted of us singing Christmas carols. Not that I had any objections - I love singing and I love singing Christmas carols! The only problem was that I didn't know half of the songs and there was no sheetmusic for those, whereas we had the sheetmusic for almost every song I knew. I rather enjoyed myself anyway. :)

When we got home, I danced around the living-room with my little sister to some German Christmas songs (Christmas is a party for Jeeesus, we're dancin' round the Christmas tree - that's a rough translation for your amusement :D), then chopped up some vegetables for dinner with my mum. And after that, it was present tiiime! (Uh, don't get me wrong. I do not think that presents are the most important thing at Christmas, but- it's a thing I rather like.) I unwrapped: Narnia (all seven chronicles bound together), the Narnia: Prince Caspian DVD, Lord of the Rings (a beautiful, beautiful edition I have been wishing for since I first read LotR with yucky used books from the library), as well as Sherlock Holmes - The Complete Stories. (Both Narnia and Sherlock Holmes are the two most enormous books I have ever seen. I wonder how long it will take me to read through them.) I also had a secret Santa present to unwrap, which was the Sweeney Todd DVD. All in all, I am a very happy girl. I'll also get His Dark Materials some time later since my mum ordered the wrong edition and is now keeping it to herself and ordering the other one for me. Well, anyway, we then had dinner and after that, we watched The Grinch - something I have been wanting to do for aaaages and never found time for. So we combed through the house in a search for the DVD and all cuddled together on the couch (well, apart from my mum - and my sister also did leave after some time. Guess they just don't know what they're missing.). 

And tomorrow, we're going to be at my paternal Grandma's, and the day after tomorrow at my mum's parents'. Looking forward to it. :) Will use the time when all the Big People talk to read playwithfyr 's novel.

Me loves Christmas. :) Hope you're enjoying yours!

I spent the day making icons (and wrapping presents, but that is another story), so here they are: pretty, pretty icons. Or at least I do think that they are pretty.


( 12 Vampire Diaries Icons )

More to come!

Okay, I'll admit it. I don't blog often enough. I come with good tidings though! My horrible one-and-a-half months of class tests and revision have passed. I shall now be at your disposition... for some time. :D

Anyway, much yay for Christmas holidays! I plan on doing many fun things. Tonight, I'll go and see Avatar at the cinema with my dad and brother (I was so mesmerized by the trailer I decided I had to see it). Tomorrow, I'll have breakfast (or rather brunch) with two of my friends and we'll go and see The Way to the Stars afterwards as well as visiting the Christmas market. I also want to see Disney's A Christmas Carol (which I have recently seen the play of - loved it! I have decided that, should I ever have a male pet, I will call it Ebenezer Scrooge.) and The Princess and the Frog (going to see it on Tuesday with loads of friends!), and Sherlock Holmes. Which sadly only comes out at the end of January. *is sitting on hot coals* I told myself that it would never happen to me again that I would miss as many films I want to see as I did this summer. So you all know where I can be found during the next few weeks. (I also haven't seen HP and the Half-Blood Prince. Which is weird. Up to now, I have seen every HP film at the cinema.)

Whoa, okay, the rambling. I'll cut it in a second. So... I'm sure that all of you want to hear what I've been up to book-wise, right? What was that? Oh yes, you do.

( Elegance of the Hedgehog ) ( Kate Daniels Series )

It's seven thirty in the morning. On a Saturday. WHY CAN I NOT SLEEP?

So, since I'm wide awake now anyway and since I owe you this post since... God knows when - I decided I could just as well blog about the wicked books I read lately now.

( Wicked by Gregory Maguire was not such a good idea. )

( A Little Bit Wicked - Life, Love, and Faith in Stages )

On Monday, I went to the cinema with my history class. (Okay, I'm exaggerating here, it was only about half of them.) I love going to the cinema tremendously, and the good thing about going there with school is that I have people with me (I mostly like).

( Ramble, ramble, ramble- I mean, Sophisticated Thoughts on Pope Joan. )

Guys, I don't know what to say. I'm one of the winners of NaNoWriMo 2009. My novel is finished at 50,028 words. (Which is not to say that it doesn't need a hell of a lot of a polishing.) I DID IT. I mean - how awesome is that. I never even would have thought that I would have reached the 50k by the 30th of November, and now look at me!

I need champagne and icecream and my mum to come home.

I'M DONE.

Looky, I'm still alive! And since I'm no use NaNoWriMoing today anyway, I thought updating my lj would be nice, as I must seem to be dead to all of you.

NaNoWriMo is going astonishingly well for me. I've already reached the 35k on Sunday and I plan on hitting the 40k on Wednesday at the latest. Half an hour ago, I was panicking slightly because I didn't know if one of my characters should go to the forest (with a huge, huge army) and discover that someone he left there has died in the meantime, or head towards the ocean to find the guy he's in love with and who's only presumably dead. In order for the plot to provide me with enough... well, plot, to reach the 50k, I decided to let him make that trip to the forest first and then go look for his One True Love. Ain't I a genius? :) Oh come on, admit it!

So... other random things. Driving lessons are going rather well! I have now understood that driving takes some getting used to and that coordinating all of these things all at once is quite tricky.

And did I mention some time that we are doing Shakespeare's Tempest with our school theater group this year? Luckily, I got a part I was rather keen on playing, namely Gonzalo. (Yeah, we're doing it the other way 'round: women play men. Really, that Men Play Women Business was rubbish, I tell ya.) And we have an open day at our school on Friday, which means that we'll do some funny stuff for kids with the theater group, show them how cool we are and stuff, and then laugh at them because they can't join until they're about fourteen.

Being nasty is fun.

Oh, and speaking of theater! I've been to see King Oedipus last week, which was a staging done by a group of... six or seven actresses, I think. It was quite interesting, although I thought the atmosphere first set was much too aggressive and I also didn't see a real logic behind the interpretation of all of the roles by women. I mean, I know why they did most of the things they did, but it mostly just wasn't brilliantly passed on to the audience. It's nice to have seen a play again, though.

And only two weeks to go until my third show of Wicked! And did I mention I had some new recordings of musicals? I've been listening to Shrek and Mary Poppins an awful lot lately = LOVE. I'll get to the Dutch musicals later.

Enough randomness. Hooray. I'm still alive. :)

Soo. My mum and I won tickets for a MIKA concert which was organized by a German radio sender. They've been doing this kind of thing for a few years now and it's the first time we ever won. The special thing about these gigs or what to call them is that there are only about 150 people in the audience, so it's really "hautnah", which means you're really close to the stage and it's rather intimate.

The thing I've been saying over and over since we went last night is: "Oh my gosh, MIKA was SO awesome." I really love him and his music, and he's one of the few artists whose music I listen to apart from musicals. His music and his way touch me in an odd way and I'm so glad I saw him live on stage.

Apart from singing, well, brilliantly, he also was really funny. I keep wondering how he can be this good-humoured in spite of his hurt foot which is in a brace.

MIKA: So, tonight you have me and my little friend. Mein... little... Freund.

(You see, his German skills are awesome as well!)

He told us that he's always like "I wanna go hoooome" during Relax which is the first song of the show, but by the second song he doesn't give a fuck. :D He also dazzled us with "the finest trumpet solo" where he actually sounded like a trumpet. Awesome.

And then he did this thing where he told us all to close our eyes "and on the count of three every single person in this room is going to jump". So we did.

MIKA: And now that you've done this, I can tell you how this happened. *points to his foot*

In LA, he obviously told people to keep their eyes closed while jumping or something (I didn't really get that part).

MIKA: And people were going "Noo" and I said "Don't worry, nobody's gonna get hurt!" Well, nobody got hurt apart from one simple. Stupid. The devil taught me right.

I think I'm not much coherent, but please know that his performance was just beyond awesome and so brilliant and why can't I seem to find any synonyms? He seemed a little shy at the beginning, but he got more hyperactive by the minute. It was a great night and I'm so grateful for the radio giveaway.

Edit: Oh, by the way. I really loved all of the people on his band, but the person I liked most apart from MIKA was his background singer. Unfortunately, I can't recall her name, but she was rocking the stage like whoa. :)

I hope people do not hate me for spamming their f-list with my giveaway linkage. :D Anyway, there's a great one going on over at Sharon Loves Books and Cats. You can win five Nancy Holder books, namely (copied from Sharon's original entry):

1. Pretty Little Devils
2. Possessions
3. Wicked: Witch&Curse
4. Wicked 2: Legacy&Spellbound
5. Wicked: Resurrection

I think this is pretty awesome. :) Enter to win here.


(ETA: I would die to know what's wrong with the formatting.)

I thought I'd type this quickly before my mum gets home and is forced to give me a back rub. ;)

Last night, I finished reading Shrinking Violet by daniellejoseph . Luckily, there was noone in the room with me, because I think they would have been a little disconcerted by my rather teenage-y giggles. (I feel that you should know that I tend to get a bit hysterical when reaching the climax of a story.)

The funny thing is: I didn't like the book that much at first. Tere, the main character, seemed a little disengaged to me, not really caring for what was happening to her fellow human beings. But as I got to know her better, I could see where that was coming from. Tere is a horribly shy eighteen-year-old and as she is so shy she doesn't even trust herself to speak in many situations, it's only logical she can't show that she cares as much as other people do; at least not in words. A lot of the things other people express just happened inside her, but didn't get out, so she wasn't as involved with some people as you might have thought.

It was a pleasure to see though how she evolved throughout the story. A thing I liked a lot was her performance with fellow classmates Kayla and Gavin (let's face it, it was clear from the start she would have a crush on him :D) she had to do in front of her English class. The author she chose to represent was Helen Keller and though I've only heard of her once or so, I thought the choice was intriguing and well done.

Anyway: the love story was a little foreseeable. That doesn't mean that it wasn't cute, though! On the contrary: it was pure love. First that crush Tere has on Gavin, then the kiss they share (suh-weet!) and then the radio contest where the goal is to find Tere a date for the prom. (Oh, did I mention she becomes a DJ? No? Sorry... I loved that part but I started to take it for granted at some point!) Now, let me try my evil cackle.

*cackles evilly*

I am not going to tell you who the winner is! DUH! In your face. Uh, I mean. Go read the book. It's worth it. :) (Such a shame to think that it is [was?] about to go into back order. It doesn't deserve it.)

I just finished reading About a Boy by Nick Hornby. I had to read it for English class, but I admit that it was one of the few books I had to read for school I actually liked. It didn't totally blow me away, but it was okay. Maybe my expectations were too high; I wouldn't even have to puzzle over the reason for too long. It's there, on the cover.

"Hugely entertaining" The Times
"Such a good book" Daily Telegraph

See what I mean? :) 

Anyway, I watched the film a rather long time ago which means that I don't remember it very much. I could recall almost nothing of the plot. I know, though, that I liked the film a bit better than the book, but I couldn't really tell you why. There were some sparkling moments in the book though, ones I really loved. Like the singing with your eyes closed moments. I also think that the relationships between the characters are very well done, and I've really warmed up to them; what I thought especially good was Will's evolution and that I liked him no matter what, and I liked him a lot.

I think this is Nick Hornby's strength - characterization. He really makes you want to know people like the ones he writes about in real life. And though I sometimes wasn't captured by the plot that much, the characters kind of made up for it.

I think I love classics a great deal. Up to the moment when I picked up Dracula, I had never read many classics, apart from the ones I had to read for German class. I thought most of them were profoundly boring; and then Dracula changed my opinion of classics thoroughly.

About two minutes ago, I finished Jane Eyre. Reading this book was rather like a journey (a bit like Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex) because it tells Jane's life from when she is a child to when she has become a grown and married woman. I can't even tell what I loved most about it, because love it I did. The language and style are adorable, with this ancient feel about them; the customs and traditions of that time are interesting to me and the relationship between Rochester and Jane is, to put it in a modern term, cute. :)

And the characters. Jane is, of course, great. But I also love Rochester, and I loved Bessie a lot as well. Diana and Mary seem like the bestest creatures one could meet and St John, though he has his quirks and is very weird and actually not really likeable, won me over almost at once as well.

This is not a very sophisticated or long entry; I promised to write one, but there's not much I can say apart from my little cries of joy and glee about having read this book. :) As I have probably mentioned more than once, there is a musical, and it's one of my favourite musicals ever. This is what really made me want to read Jane Eyre. And it was definitely worth it!

That's all for tonight. Also: sorry for any mistakes, but I'm rather tired, and my English tends to get a little blurred by tiredness. ;)

Because this is still not a Jane Eyre entry. I promise to write one later, though, after having bought the last ingredients for my Wicked cupcakes which I'm going to make tomorrow. (Everybody cross your fingers they'll turn out fine 'cause they're for the cast.) I can't wait to see Wicked the day after tomorrow in Stuttgart again. :)

As of now, I have two links to great giveaways once more. The books both sound awesome in my opinion. The first giveaway is over on Passages to the Past; the book you can win is Godmother by Carolyn Turgeon; you can enter to win it here. It's one of those books where you don't even care what they're about because they look so beautiful you want to have them no matter what.

The other giveaway is hosted by Suzie from Confessions of a Wandering Heart. She's giving away a copy of A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris. Enter to win it here.

Good luck. :)

Sooo... I still have not finished reading Jane Eyre. There are but 20 pages left though, so expect another blog entry soon. :) Tonight, I have my driving theory thing, but I hope to have the time to read and blog afterwards. In other news: I have rabbits! I got this fancy idea in my head to get two from the animal shelter, my dad made a rabbit hutch in one day (because he had to leave on the next for two weeks) and now they're here! They're cute as pie and seem to be settling in very quickly. :)


On to the contest linkage! The Eclectic Reader is hosting a giveaway on her blog for her 1st Blogoversary. She's giving away six books with a paranormal theme; you have to be a follower of her blog to be entered, though!

What do you mean, "we hadn't realised yet"? Really, I'm not following you there.

Anyway, as it is, there is another great giveaway! This one's hosted by Sarah Quigley, author of TMI. She's giving away a tremendously cool prize pack and here's what's in the bag:

• a signed copy of TMI
• a $10 gift certificate to Cold Stone Creamery
• ridiculously cute cupcake earrings
• strawberry cupcake-flavored lip balm
• a bag of Hershey’s kisses
• a journal for spilling all your best overshares (safer than blogging–just ask Becca!)
• an adorable brown and pink polka-dotted fruit_drop pen
• a matching fruit_drop pen case
• signed TMI bookmarks to give to your friends

(Copied from Sarah's blog.)

Awesome, huh? (I for one have always wanted to taste Hershey's Kisses since first reading of them.) You can enter the contest here.