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If We Were Having Coffee: Slower Weeks

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Sorry for the late arrival of another post. I’ve been so busy lately and just didn’t know what all I want to write about right now. Well, I do have a couple topic ideas, just not sure how I really feel about doing them yet. I hope to have another post after this one coming your way soon. I’m working on something I think you might all be interested in. Will just have to wait and see once it comes out though.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you things have continued picking up at work. Well… a little. Things have been a little slower actually now that I think about it. With Hurricane Matthew coming through, it feels like not as many students were at school this week. Mind you, things still got a little crazy at work. We did have our busy moments. Just not as many as we usually have during any given week.

It’s because of this I feel like I don’t have too much to say about what I’ve been up to. Oh, I can keep you up to date on how I’ve been doing with my caffeine addiction. There’s actually good news on that front. I’ve actually been doing a good job of cutting soda out of my diet. Good as in I’ve gone completely without soda for a while now. I tried drinking my favorite soda the other day Dr. Pepper to see how it tasted after not having it, but it tasted weird to me. So I haven’t really had it since. I then tried drinking Root Beer the next day with basically almost the same results. So I definitely can say I think cutting soda out of my intake is definitely working. Though I’ll admit yesterday when Mom and I went out for lunch with a friend I had some Sprite. More than I planned on drinking. But that’s okay because I didn’t drink any more soda after lunch. I’ve mostly been sticking to drinking water and milk, which I think will do well for me in the long run.

Speaking of this weekend, Mom and I went to a friend’s Halloween Party last night. It was quite a blast too! My Mom made a Litter Box Cake for the party to bring over and everyone else was dressed up in really great Halloween costumes.

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I was also given this cute coloring book to add to what is becoming a vast coloring book collection. It’s got a lot of cute cats, dressed up for various occasions, the type of coloring book I know I’ll enjoy coloring in. Speaking of which, I hope to start doing some more coloring again soon. I’ve been missing it and I think getting another coloring book from someone is just what I need to remind me to get back into the habit of coloring.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that’s really all I have to say. I’m planning on doing a blog post about this year’s presidential election, which is something I’m interested to see what people’s thoughts will be on it. It’ll be nothing anyone will find too surprising, but something I hope you’ll be interested to read.

But yeah, these last two weeks have actually been really slow for me. My grandmother will be coming here this week though so Mom won’t have to take as much time off and so she can see what’s going on at the house. Her contractor is supposed to be continuing the demolition process this upcoming week when my grandmother gets here so I’m looking forward to see what’s going to happen next.

Until then, I hope you all have had a wonderful week!

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Kicking Bad Habits to the Curb: My Caffeine Addiction

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Everyone has some habit or another that is considered unhealthy. A habit that the person tries hard to break only to find themselves returning to it once again. For me, this habit is not coffee, but soda.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a big soda drinker. Growing up, I consumed soda without a thought to how it can affect my health. Yes, soda isn’t the only thing I drink, but it’s the beverage I consume the most above all others. Whenever I find my throat feeling dry or my head throbbing in pain, I go to Dr. Pepper for help. It’s the one constant thing in life that makes me feel better after a long and busy day.

It wasn’t until I talked to a friend of mine that I thought I might have a soda problem. I drink soda without a second thought whenever I find myself wanting it, not keeping track of how much I consume a day. I try cutting back on my soda intake, only to drink Dr. Pepper once again just because I have the taste for it.

But I want to stop drinking soda. Or at least, stop relying on it the way I do. I enjoy the taste of it, but I really need to cut back.

I don’t want to rely on it anymore. Not because I don’t enjoy it anymore but because I don’t want soda  affecting my physical and mental health in any way. As someone with high cholesterol, I don’t want to drink as much soda because I don’t want to put myself at risk for heart disease. I know soda isn’t the only contributing factor for heart disease, but by cutting back on my soda intake, I hope to better even my chances. Here are some ways I believe I can stop myself from drinking too much soda:

  1. Limiting/keeping track of my soda intake: Instead of quitting drinking soda cold turkey, I can start off by keeping track of the amount of soda I drink each day. I can do this by limiting my soda intake. By having a set number of soda to drink each day, it’ll be a little bit easier for me to stop drinking soda completely if I decide to go that route. For this reason, my goal is to try and drink one can, bottle, etc. a day. I think by allowing myself this amount, I’ll still be able to have some soda if I need it, but it will also prevent me from drinking soda just because I want it. This will allow me to better monitor how much soda I consume each day and do my best to control the amount I have.
  2. Replacing soda with other beverages: In order to better control my cravings, I’ll start drinking something else whenever I find myself wanting soda. In most cases, this’ll be either water or milk. Water is a good substitution for me because it can help me manage my weight and keep me hydrated throughout the day. While a high intake of milk can increase the chance of prostate cancer and ovarian cancer, milk is a good source of calcium and is better for me to drink than soda. I can replace soda with milk and water by drinking either beverage whenever I feel tempted to have soda to drink. By replacing soda with these beverages, I believe I’ll be better able to limit my soda intake and be on the right path to consuming less soda.
  3. Not buying soda: Whenever I go out to eat or to the store, I typically end up spending money on soda. I think not buying soda for myself at home or whenever I go out will help decrease my soda intake in the long run. I also think this will be a benefit for my wallet because the cost of soda is much higher than water. Not having soda at home will also make it easier for me to avoid the temptation of drinking it. And not having soda when I go out will save me money I could spend on something else.

I hope that by keeping track of my soda intake, replacing soda with milk and water and not buying soda, I’ll be on the right path to reducing the amount of soda I drink each day. I know this path won’t be easy and that I’ll find myself straying from it from time to time, but I know I can do it. I know it’ll be challenging but by doing this, I hope I’ll be able to reduce my calorie intake and decrease my chances of heart disease. I know the amount of soda I drink isn’t healthy and want to do the best I can to reduce the amount I consume. And I believe these steps will lead me on the path to success.

 

5

If We Were Having Coffee: What A Busy Week

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Hello everyone. How are you today? Hope you’re doing well. Since we’ve entered the month of October, I’ve decided with my coffee posts to do images of coffees that are Halloween related in some way or another. As a way for me to get into the Halloween spirit so to speak on my blog. Halloween is my favorite holiday so I want to celebrate it in whatever way I can here.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you this week has been a busy week at work. I’m not going to get into any of the specifics, but it’s been pretty stressful. Things out of my control happened and I felt like I walked into bad news every day I came in. Some of the things that happened have me feeling ashamed and frustrated that they happened, but are being handled the best way they can.

I’m sorry I can’t get really get into more detail other than that. I can tell you it’s not necessarily something me or my coworkers have done. It’s something that’s happened at my college that has everyone around campus talking, wondering what’s going to be done about it. It’s stuff out of our control, things we couldn’t predict happening. But nonetheless, it happened and we are doing the best we can to move on from it.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you I’m still working on the fifth chapter for the Creators Academy course I’m taking. I’m not sure what I want to do it on just yet. I’m thinking of possible topics, but just haven’t come up with one yet. I know my last one was about Harry Potter so I’m considering doing something about it again, like maybe talking about the Harry Potter podcast I’ve been enjoying or something. But haven’t exactly decided if that’s what I really want to do or not. Until then, I’ll keep looking and see what happens. I’ve also found out I’ll be given another mentor again. Don’t know why I keep getting different mentors, but I’m still looking forward to this whole process and am excited to see what I’ll be writing next on this site.

Speaking of writing, I’ve found a Flash Fiction Challenge I’m really looking forward to doing. I think I know what I’m going to write about, just not exactly sure how I want to go about doing it yet. Considering its more of a nonfiction post, I’m still trying to think of how to tell this personal experience of mine. It’s something I want to talk about, but not sure how others will feel about it so I’m still trying to figure that out before I write it. But I am planning on doing this challenge in the near future even if it ends up being finished later. Would rather write this one accurately and late than finish it on time and it be completely false. So I plan on working on that sometime in the foreseeable future. Fingers crossed it’ll turn out the way I want it and others will enjoy it too.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve finished reading When She Woke, with the review posted on my blog for all of you to enjoy. I enjoyed it, but there are some things with it I have a problem with. I’ve also just started reading this book called The Imperfectionists yesterday. So far, it seems like an interesting read, something I’d enjoy. But will just have to wait and see once I’ve finished.

I’ve also started watching Criminal Minds on Netflix. I’ve been wanting to binge watch it for the longest time now and figured since I’ve been seeing some of the episodes on TV, I might as well watch it from the beginning.

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So far, I’m enjoying it, like I always do. I know I’ll probably eventually get tired of watching it, but right now it’s very enjoyable to me.

Right now, that’s been it for me. I haven’t been up to much else besides work and whenever I have free time, I read, write or do something else. Hope your week has been good and can’t wait to hear all about it.

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If We Were Having Coffee: A Misfortunate Event

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Hello everyone! How’re you all doing today? These past two couple weeks have been… interesting to say the least.

If we were having coffee, I’d pour my heart out to you about them. As this is oddly enough my thirteenth coffee post, it’s unfortunately going to be a little full of bad news. Just to let you know though, this bad news doesn’t pertain to my blog and you guys in any way. I just wanted to let you know that before I continue.

The reason I haven’t been posting as much lately is because I have a lot going on here at home. On Tuesday last week, my Mom and I came home to a disaster in our house. The septic tank in the toilet in our upstairs bathroom cracked, resulting in a leak that did some water damage to our upstairs bathroom, the living room floor, and the crawl space below our house, which just recently had new insulation put in. This damage means we have to replace the flooring in our living room and bathroom, which has severely impacted our living space.

Because of this damage, a lot is going on here at home in order to get our house back into working order again. We’ve had to rearrange our living room space so we could have somewhere to sit down besides our bedrooms as well as cleaned our house the best we can because of the mess the demolition process caused. The only thing really left to do is get our contractor started on replacing everything that was damaged so we can have our living room and bathroom space again.

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The toilet that caused it all. The only picture I’m going to show because my Mom doesn’t really want me posting about this everywhere. Once everything has been fixed, I’ll be posting more pictures in the future.

But because of this situation, I just haven’t had as much time to write. All of this going on at home is constantly on my mind even when I have free time I could be using for writing. I also don’t have as much space to write anymore, which sucks but is something I’m adapting to in my own way. I’ve decided to seclude myself in my room whenever I want to write at home or in the library at school whenever I’m waiting to go into work. I think this’ll work better for me anyway because I’ll be able to write undisturbed. But now that the initial shock over this leak is over, we are adjusting just fine to our new surroundings. Just need to get the bathroom and living room space fixed up, hopefully looking even nicer than it did before. I’ll continue as my weeks progress to let you know how it’s all going.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you things at work are just as crazy as home. The week this all went down, there was a catering dinner I was helping out with for two nights. During this dinner, there were apparently some issues going on between some of my coworkers that resulted in one of our coworkers quitting. These issues occurred apparently as soon as I left to help out with the catering and have just caused more trouble than its worth.

Having that coworker quit has reminded me of why I’m not content working here. While I don’t mind the work and the people I work with, our managers aren’t exactly what I’d call the best at managing their employees. Especially when issues like this arise and when certain employees don’t handle their responsibilities correctly, resulting in other employees having to pick up the slack. While I don’t personally have issues with the managers, the way they handle their work responsibilities doesn’t always sit well with me. Especially when employees let them know again and again about certain issues and instead of handling them they just don’t talk about it.

But enough about work right now. How about talking about something happier, like let’s say my writing or books I’ve been reading? If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve finished reading The Dark End of the Street, which the review of can be found on my blog. I enjoyed reading it, but I think I’ve read it before because a lot of the short stories felt so familiar. So now I’m reading another book called When She Woke. Unfortunately, I’m dealing with the same problem because all of the character’s names sound so familiar to me, even though I don’t really remember most of the events going on. But I’m still enjoying it anyway because it’s an enjoyable read.

I’ve also finally completed the fourth chapter assignment for Creators Academy, which can be seen here for those interested. I’ve been struggling with this one for a long while because I just didn’t know what I wanted to write about. Well, that’s not necessarily true. I knew I wanted to write about Harry Potter in some capacity. I just didn’t know what about Harry Potter I wanted to write about. Luckily, I was able to figure something out in order to write this story, even if it was talking about the series in a news story way. I know this piece wasn’t at all what I was expecting to write, but I’m happy with it anyway because I haven’t written a news piece since being in college so it felt nice to do it again.

If we were having coffee, I’d also like to mention I spent these past two weekends with other people I care about besides family. Last weekend, I spent Friday night at my best friend’s house because my Mom wanted me out of the house while dealing with the mess that’s become our home. While at her house, I had a much needed sleepover, which included watching movies and sleeping in a comfy bed. Just getting to spend some much needed girl time, catching up on life with each other and just enjoying each other’s presence. During the sleepover, I was able to get some much needed sleep along with go with my best friend walking at one of the parks near us. This walk was something we’d talked with each other the week before about starting to do every Saturday morning.

But that didn’t end up happening this past Saturday because my best friend hasn’t been feeling well lately. I know she gets sick a lot though so I already knew we probably weren’t going to be seeing each other because of it. But that was okay because another friend of mine wanted to spend the day with me. So yesterday, we went park hopping once again. Like all of the other times, it was a lot of fun despite how hot it gets here. We also went out to eat at a Korean restaurant for lunch, which was so delicious I brought some home with me to eat for lunch on another day.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that while there’s been some misfortune going on with the house, I feel like things afterwards have finally settled down for me. I hope in the weeks to come I’ll be able to write a little more and that the mess with our house will be fixed and I’ll be able to use my bathroom again. Hope your all doing well this week and are having a wonderful weekend as we get close to the beginning of a new month and season.

 

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If We Were Having Coffee: Another Hard Day’s Work

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Good day everyone! I hope you all are doing well this weekend and have had another wonderful week.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you it’s been another good, busy week at work. I forgot how busy our café gets, but it’s nice seeing all of the students again. Nice seeing familiar faces and becoming acquainted with some of the new student body. It’s nostalgic in some ways to me because of the times when I was at Columbia College.

Being on campus in this capacity makes it hard sometimes because I do miss college. I miss the environment I was accustomed to during my last four years of schooling, the learning, and all of the different discussions about texts in my classes we had. But at times, I don’t too. I don’t miss the amount of effort I put into getting my work complete, the amount of hours I spent working when I wished I could’ve spent more time with the small amount of friends I’d made at Columbia College. I reflect on these things, a little wishing I’d done things differently. But also knowing at this point I can’t turn back and that things worked out the way they were supposed to.

College made me realize how hard I have to work at things to get what I want out of life. As a student, I’ve always struggled with keeping my grades up to good standards. So I’ve always had to work at getting good grades, even when other aspects of life tried to hold me down. College made me appreciate my work ethic and helped me improve it in order to chase after my dreams.

So while I might not necessarily be content with my job, looking at it through this lens has helped make my life a little bit easier. Made me want to continue doing well at my job despite all the difficulties and stress I’ll continue to face while I’m there.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you there’s something I forgot to mention last weekend. I briefly realized it after posting last weekend’s coffee post. I know I’m late to the party in mentioning this because you all have probably already noticed it, but I’ve changed the look of my blog. It’s something I’d been meaning to do because I was discontent with the way it looked. I wanted to make it look more personal, more like something I would want to check out. Something that looks close to the way I want my blog design to look in the future.

So far, I really like it. I think it definitely looks more personal, is easier to grab a reader’s attention, and easier to access. Plus, it looks more personal to me too and I can’t seem to look at it enough. It’s very close to the way I want my blog design to look, minus a few little things here and there that can always be tweaked to my liking. But I definitely think it’s an improvement in comparison to my previous look of my blog. I definitely have an easier time seeing all of my other posts with it and think it’s very welcoming to every person who decides to visit. But what all do you think? Do you like it too? Or are there some ways it can improve? If you have the time, please let me know because I’d love some feedback on what all I can do to make my blog better.

Speaking of my blog and writing, I hope I’ve been doing a better job of keeping my blog updated with new posts. Now, I know I’m not going to always be able to write and publish something new for you all every day. But I do want to continuously keep my blog up to date as frequently as I can. Write as many posts to be published as I can whenever I have the chance. So I’m hoping that’ll continue in the weeks to come and that you’ll continue coming back to check out my posts.

If we were having coffee, I’d let you know I finished reading Nelly Dean this week. I found it to be a much more enjoyable read than I was expecting. Since it’s based off of Wuthering Heights, I wasn’t sure if I’d really enjoy it or not since I didn’t enjoy reading that book in college. But I did end up liking it just because of the way the narrator of the story portrayed the characters and the experiences she faced while living in that household. And now that I’m done reading that book, I’m starting to read The Dark End of the Street, which is a set of fictional stories about crime and sex and how they both go hand in hand. It’s been pretty good so far, though I’ve been facing some serious déjà vu while reading these stories. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I really feel like I’ve read this book before. Mostly because the stories I’ve read so far just seem very familiar to me for some reason. I don’t remember for certain if I have or not, but I’ll keep going and see what happens.

I would also tell you I’ve also been continuing to watch Pokémon Minecraft videos. I just finished the first series of the ones I was watching last night and started on another I think I’ll enjoy. It’s the same Youtuber, but a little different than the previous ones I was watching. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy it as much as I did the other ones, but only time will tell.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you my older sister recommend an amazing podcast to me called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. It’s about looking through the chapters in the series as if we were reading a sacred text, like the Bible and other texts people tend to read in that way. But the two speakers in this podcast are taking each chapter in Harry Potter and having an open discussion about them with regards to a theme they follow and how they as readers can relate to what’s going on in the story and that particular theme.

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From what I’ve listened to of the podcast so far, it’s been nothing short of amazing. I’ve only listened to two of the podcasts, but what I’ve heard gives me hope that the discussions will continue to be more enlightening to me and continue opening me up to love reading Harry Potter more with each passing day. So I hope that as I continue listening to this podcast that I’ll continue enjoying Harry Potter as much as I have in the past.

I would also briefly like to mention my best friend and I are planning on going on walks together Saturday mornings. She had messaged me yesterday night while I was walking with Mom about going to one of the parks here and walking together.

We had briefly talked about doing something like that whenever we had gotten together for the cystic fibrosis walk a couple months ago. It was something we thought would be a whole lot of fun to do, but then never really talked about it again afterwards until yesterday. Since I enjoy walking and she’s been wanting to do more of it, when she brought it up yesterday, I was really excited about it. While Erin and I are really close friends, we don’t always hang out together very often. Mostly because her health isn’t always the best or because I was always working on weekends so I didn’t really get to see her as often as I’d have liked. So when she messaged me about this yesterday, I was really excited because it would give both of us the chance to hang out together a little more often than we normally do and now gives me something else to look forward to on weekends.

I would say I’ve had a good week, all things considered. Hope you all have been doing well and can’t wait to hear about what you’ve been up to this past week.

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My Writing Space

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Image via Pinterest’s Writing Spaces board.

Whenever I think of writing, I automatically think about my own writing space. Everyone who writes has their own place where their ideas flow in, a space where they can be alone with their creative thoughts. But every writer also has their own preferences for when they go to write, whether it be needing silence to get their thoughts down or listening to certain song lyrics. For each writer, doing these things allows them to write to the best of their ability. But not every writer does the same things.

Personally, I don’t really have my own writing space yet. This is because I’ve discovered I can write anywhere I go: in one of the comfy chairs at my old college’s library, my bed, on our living room couch, etc. Everywhere is susceptible for me to sit down and write. As long as I’m comfortable where I’m sitting, I can write.

But comfort isn’t the only thing I need in order to be in my own writing space. I also need to be in the right mental state of mind. For those who know me, I’m a really passionate person. This means I can be very emotional, which can be both good and bad when it comes to my writing. Sometimes, those emotions come out in a way I can safely write about them without a care in the world. However, they can also cripple my ability to write to where I just can’t do it, no matter how much I want to. I can sometimes use these emotions to write something good, but at the cost of feeling emotionally drained, not wanting to write anything more for a little while.

Whenever I really feel like writing, I’ll mentally feel the itch to write thoughts down. I’ll imagine myself at some location, either writing by hand or typing my thoughts out on my laptop. I’ll try and imagine what I’m writing about and make those words come to fruition. Whenever these itches occur, I try my best to write right afterwards because I know I’ll be able to do it. Otherwise, those words will fade from my mind into the dark.

While some people prefer silence in their writing space, I can write while listening to music AND write in silence. I don’t prefer one over the other because sometimes I can write and listen to music and sometimes I need silence to get my writing done. It all just depends on my state of mind and the environment around me which one I prefer at the time.

Every writer’s preferences are uniquely theirs. Every writer is unique in what they need to do in order to get their creative juices flowing.

The things I’ve mentioned above are what I need to be in my own writing space. The only thing really missing is just finding the right place for me to sit down and write. While this hasn’t been an issue for me just yet, I still hope one day I’ll have my own space. Because while being able to write anywhere I go is great, I still want my own little place to write. So the places I imagine myself writing will have to do until then.

What about you? Where do you go to write? And what do you need to be able to do to get your creative juices flowing?

2

If We Were Having Coffee: Off to Work We Go

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Hello everyone! I know it’s been awhile since I’ve done a coffee post. But I hope you all have been doing well these past couple weeks.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I went on a mini writing hiatus. I honestly can’t remember the last time I wrote on my blog besides my two recent book reviews. I know I definitely haven’t done one of these posts in a while, that’s for sure. This hiatus wasn’t planned or intentional, just sort of happened and I went along with it. Actually felt nice taking a little bit of a break from my blog for a little while. But at the same time, it’s good to be back.

I miss writing. Whenever I do it, I’m always enjoying every minute of it. But at the same time, I have to be in a certain mindset to do it. I could go more into that here, but I think I want to do a post about it instead. I think it would be a fun post to write too so I think that’s what I’m going to do.

Speaking of writing, I haven’t done too many more posts for Creative Academy either. Mostly because I’m trying to figure out what I want to write about for the next lesson. I have a couple ideas in mind, but will just have to wait and see what happens.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve officially started back to work. This week was my first full week back at the dining hall. Most of the first couple days was spent setting up our café for Wednesday’s opening. But also put in some hours helping on the line and register downstairs too. And so far, it’s been pretty good. I’m trying to be more positive about things in life, work being one of them because I don’t always like my job. It’s not the place I want to be, but it’s better than being unemployed. So I’m trying not to be the way I was when I was at work last year. I think requesting to have weekends off this year will go a long way towards me not feeling quite as discontent there. That along with trying to leave all the work negativity where it belongs: at work. I think just having this type of outlook on work will benefit me there in the long run because I won’t be bringing all of that negativity with me home. We will just have to wait and see if it works, but right now, things have been going well with it. Friday I didn’t work dinner shift because we had some serious storms going on here. The power went out around campus and everything and they figured they wouldn’t need me. We had this type of weather last year where we were out of work for almost a week and I don’t live close by so they wanted me to get home safely. So this weekend came to me earlier than expected, but not going to complain because I felt like I needed it. But so far, things at work have started off pretty well. Fingers crossed they continue to be that way for me in the days to come.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve finished several books since I’ve last done one of these posts. All of the reviews for the books I’ve recently been reading can be found on my blog. But the book I’m currently reading now is called Nelly Dean. It’s a book based off of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a story considered a classic by many but a book I myself just didn’t enjoy in my English Literature class at college. But the good thing about this book is that it’s told from the perspective of a different character than the original, making it more of an enjoyable read for me. It’s also helped make the characters in the classic more relatable to me and actually like them a lot better. So even though this book is about a cast of characters I originally didn’t particularly care for, I find myself starting to warm up to them a little bit now.

Along with reading Nelly Dean, I’ve also been playing video games a little less frequently. I started playing Transistor the other week and have been playing it a little less due to situating myself at work and been interested in playing Minecraft again due to one of the YouTubers I watch who did some videos of playing a Pokémon world in the game. I haven’t started playing yet due to wanting to finish watching these videos, but I know I’ll be playing some of it again soon in the near future. Will probably be doing a post about that too once I start back on it.

Other than all of the above mentioned, I haven’t done too much. Just settling back into work, attending my best friend’s son’s birthday party yesterday, and going to work on another job application today. Hope you’ve all had a good week and can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to!

 

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Book Review: All Is Not Forgotten

All Is Not Forgotten Book Cover

Rating: 3 stars

In the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut everything seems picture perfect.

Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault. But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, prefers to pretend this horrific event did not touch her perfect country club world.

As they seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town – or perhaps lives among them – drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion.

I thought this book was a pretty interesting read. It definitely didn’t turn out the way I expected, but it was worth every minute I spent soaking up the content.

The issues talked about in All Is Not Forgotten are pretty controversial. For starters, Jenny Kramer, who this story is about, gets raped at a party. Everyone in their small town knows about it and is scared because they don’t know who did it. But then, when her parents find out about the incident, they want her to take this drug to make her completely forget it ever happened. So within the first few pages of the story, we as the reader are given two controversial topics: rape and drugs. Then, we are introduced to the narrator, Jenny’s psychiatrist Dr. Forrester who tells us about how he wants to help Jenny get her memory back from that night. This made the book even more interesting to me because the narrator’s unique perspective in the tale gave me a better understanding of memory recall and other psychological terms and how mental illness played a role in helping Jenny with her memory. I found all of these topics interesting to read about in this book because they are very controversial and rarely talked about that I wanted to get a better understanding of these issues and how they all connected. It helps that I find psychology interesting too so I know that made me even more interested in finding out what happened next.

I also enjoyed reading this book because I found the point of view to be very interesting. In most books you tend to read, the story is told from the point of view of the main character because they are the ones mostly involved in the action throughout. But in this story you get the perspective of the psychiatrist Jenny and her family goes to see, whose view on the subject is obviously very different from the families because of his psychological background. I find it interesting because he’s the narrator you don’t expect but also he tells the story in a way for the reader to get a good understanding of what’s going on and why certain characters are acting a certain way. He’s pretty much in the head of all of the characters so the information you get from him is what he’s been told by his clients.

However, if I’m being honest here, Dr. Forrester is definitely not my favorite character. While I know the information presented to us is reliable, I still question the narrator’s perspective on what happened. Even though we know who committed this vile act, I still believe the narrator is pretty unreliable because he took some questionable actions in the story. While I understand why he did those things, those actions made it even harder to trust his character and actually made me dislike him even more. If I’m being honest here, I actually wanted him to be found out so that for once he got a taste of his own medicine.

The reason Dr. Forrester is my least favorite character in All Is Not Forgotten is because he’s a big douche. While his perspective in the book adds a good insight into the story, he comes across as being very arrogant. When explaining everything to the reader, he treats us like a child, which is something I really can’t tolerate. He also just acts like he’s the only person in the story who knows exactly what’s going on and who did it, which really gets on my nerves and frustrated me. Part of this arrogance comes from that he thinks he’s the best psychiatrist in town just because he seems to be the only one people there come to for their needs. So while I enjoyed reading this book because the content kept me interested in wanting to find out what happened next, Dr. Forrester’s character sometimes made it hard for me to want to continue reading.

Another issue I had with this book was the ending. I felt like the author choose an easy target to be the rapist in this story. While it made sense for this character to have committed the crime, I think the path the story was on before was a whole lot more interesting. I think having that person actually been responsible would’ve really made the story a whole lot more interesting to me because I could definitely picture him doing it. I also think it wouldn’t frustrate me quite as much because this character being the rapist just continues to feed Dr. Forrester’s big ego, which I honestly think needed to be taken down a couple pegs.

While I enjoyed reading All Is Not Forgotten, both of these issues made me enjoy the book less. But despite these issues, I thought this book was a great psychological read and find it to be a great segment into reading about more controversial topics.

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If We Were Having Coffee: Catching Up On Life

If We Were Having Coffee Image Ten

Hello everyone! Sorry for not doing one of these posts in two weeks. I’ve had a lot going on the past two weeks that I wasn’t available to do one for you. Hope you all are doing well this week and are having a lovely weekend.

If we were having coffee, I’d like to let you know what all I’ve been up to since we last spoke. I’d tell you about socializing with some old and true friends. I’d tell you I went to my best friend’s husband’s birthday party on a Saturday two weekends ago and got so drunk that I was hungover the next day. But I’d also tell you the party was fun and that I had a good time seeing my best friend once again. I’d also tell you about seeing my old friend from middle school that following Tuesday that I haven’t spoken to and really spent time with since high school. I’d tell you we were playing Pokémon Go because she’s become as addicted to it as I’ve been. I’d also like to mention I also saw her husband and daughter who I met briefly once a December a couple years ago. I’d tell you we all had a good time, and that it felt nice catching up with her, just like old times. We talked a lot about the stuff we did when we were younger, but also talked about how much things have changed over the last couple years. But also said we definitely need to do this again, and made sure we made plans to hang out together.

On that Tuesday after we hung out, I went to our Neighborhood Association National Night Out. My Mom is a part of the association as secretary and the person they had set everything up did a really good job. Unfortunately, the event didn’t last too terribly long because it began to pour minutes after it all started.

I also saw my sister the following Sunday after missing the opportunity the previous weekend to spend time with her. We met up near the college she attended, grabbed breakfast and walked around campus for a little bit. It looks like they are doing some construction around campus for the bridge program students, which really had Laney in quite a tizzy. But it felt nice to see my sister again, even if it was only for a brief moment.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’m sorry for not writing as many blog posts. Part of the reason I haven’t done quite as many is because I’m not sure what I want to write about on my blog next. That, along with using the new platform and taking the online course, for which I’ve already written two new posts, I’m hesitant still about posting the same material on two different sites. Mostly because for the class I can’t do that so I’m just treading carefully right now. Though I think I know what I want to do, or what I plan on doing, to say the least. Since I’ve been taking the online class, I originally wasn’t planning on doing any posts on that site until I completed the course. However, I think this might be counterproductive to me. Because if during the time I’m taking the course I decide to write video game reviews, I want to post them both on the site but on my blog as well. Not because I don’t want to post any of my other posts on my blog, but because I normally like having my video game reviews on my blog and would prefer to keep it that way, if I can. And the posts that I’m doing to complete the course are usually more specific in nature, I’d prefer to keep them on the site than have them both here on my blog and their site. So instead of sharing all of the posts for the course on here, I’m going to share them on my Twitter, and then at the end of the course talk about my whole experience with it and what I learned from it on my blog. Then from there, put whatever posts I decide to write on Now Loading onto my blog too so that you guys can still read what I’ve written. I hope that isn’t too confusing, but just know I’ll still be blogging on here, but I’ll probably only be doing reviews or some of my own writing unless I can think of something that I don’t want to post about on the other site.

In other news, I’d briefly like to mention with that I’m going to start playing some other games. While I’m still playing Pokémon Go currently, I’m not really playing too much else at the moment. I just started playing Transistor yesterday, which I’m pretty excited about because I’ve been wanting to play it for a while on Steam, but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. So that’ll probably be the next game I post about on my blog while still deciding what I want to talk about for assignment three at Creators Academy. I think I’ll probably do my next assignment on The Hunger Games again like I’d planned on doing, but still trying to figure out what I want to talk about with it. But I’m also interested in playing No Man’s Sky at some point, though I’ve been hearing there’ve been a lot of issues with it on PC. So I’ll probably wait until the PC issues are fixed or until I can get a PlayStation 4 to play it because I don’t want to deal with those issues on my computer, if I can avoid it. Plus, I want to get a PlayStation 4 in the near future anyway so I might as well save up my money and wait until I’m back at work making some money to get it.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve finished reading both Shadow Mountain and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I enjoyed reading both books, but for very different reasons. You can see the reviews if you want to know more. But with the Harry Potter book, just be warned that my review has a lot of spoilers about what happens. So if you don’t want your reading experience to be ruined, I’d suggest you to wait until after you’ve read it to check out my review.

I think that’s it, that I can think of right now. I know I have a lot this week going on because my work is having a meeting this Thursday and I’ll be hanging out with my friend and catching up again tomorrow. But I’ll let you know how I’m doing again in my next coffee post. Until then though, I hope your all doing well and have had a wonderful weekend so far.  

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