1 Semester Down...

Hello everyone! Today I'm expanding a bit outside my bookish comfort zone and talking about something that I've wanted to explore on this blog for a while. I've debated for a while about writing posts that contain my thoughts on various things that aren't book related and finally decided to start with this topic. 

I just finished my last final a couple of hours ago and am now waiting for my parents to come get me. Technically I should be packing right now, but I can't a true college student unless I procrastinate every aspect of my life right? So as the title of the post implies, I have finished my first semester of college 200+ miles away from my "comfort" zone. A part of me is in shock that one semester is already done while another part feels like I haven't been home in decades. 

Looking back, the past couple of months were both difficult and relatively easy compared to what I hear from my friends. Difficult because I am the absolute worst when it comes to adapting to a new environment but relatively easy because I didn't have a bunch of papers and tests since most of my work was focused on practicing piano. I definitely learned about myself, both socially and academically speaking and it's been both rewarding and discouraging at the same time.

One of the hardest things about the whole college transition had to be meeting new people and developing a routine that worked. Before college, a lot of people talked about this newfound "freedom" they experienced now that their parents weren't hounding after them and therefore they stayed out with friends super late and didn't do their homework until the last minute. Personally, I think I was so anti-social at the start of school that I just hid in my room all the time and there was nothing to do but homework and sleep. I ended up spending a lot of time either in my room or the practice room and I think I'm probably one of the few freshmen on campus that have not stayed up past 1 a.m. 

In terms of the easiest thing, it would have to be my classes. I decided to not test out of a couple classes despite taking the AP level in high school and that definitely helped me a lot in terms of academics. In a nutshell, a lot of my foundation classes were more of a review, but that didn't mean I didn't take any difficult classes that made me want to go slightly crazy. 

This post might be a bit hard to follow, but I'll try to keep the rest of my thoughts brief. Other than classes and social life (or lack of), college wasn't all that bad once I developed a rhythm for my everyday life. I was that kid who Skyped her parents every single day because how else am I supposed to practice speaking Chinese? I also ended up Skyping Claudia every single day which helped a lot because at the end of the day, I had a familiar face to relax and unwind with. I discovered that I was very selectively introverted and had to push myself in different situations if I wanted to get to know a particular person better.

After the first month I knew some people and even if I didn't hang out with them every second of the day, I had people to talk to. I came to college missing the relationships I had back home and was discouraged when I couldn't find them here, but I realized that I had over four years to build those friendships at home while I just met these people. Some people are lucky enough to find that group that they instantly click with, but for others, it takes a bit more time.

For my first semester, I was able to find a group of friends that I was able to grow with over the last couple of months while still strengthening the relationships back home. I also found that the close "spend every second together" group that I craved at the start of the semester would have been so socially draining for the introvert that I am and have grown to appreciate saying "see you later" to people and retreating back to my room to listen to music or watch some YouTube.

I definitely had a lot of expectations and fears coming to college and at this point, it's just become a routine. I don't need to check all these goals off my list after one semester, but the ones that I did check have helped me get this far. 

How about you guys? Anybody a fellow college freshmen or have you been here before? Also, what are your thoughts on these types of posts? I didn't pre-script anything so my thoughts might be a bit jumbled but it was definitely fun just typing some thoughts out. If you like these, let me know and I'll definitely do more! 

The cute stickers I've been using in this post are from LINE (not sponsored) but I thought I should correctly credit them.

College Update: I'm Still Alive

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post! It has been ages since I've posted something and I feel so bad for not keeping this blog running. As you can tell from the title of this post, this is my first college post and I've been thinking about doing these more often since I am a first-year and there are a lot of things I think would be fun to share with everyone.

There are a couple of things I thought I'd address in this one to start. First, I am in such a bad reading slump right now I don't even know what is wrong with me. I haven't read more than 5 books a month since June which is very unheard of for me. The scary thing is that my Goodreads Reading Challenge used to be ahead of schedule but now I'm on track. If I continue being in this slump I'm afraid I'm going to be behind very soon. 

Something new that I have discovered about myself is that my identity as an Asian American particularly a Taiwanese American means a lot more to me than I thought. I might do a whole post on this once I get my thoughts together but lately I've just been trying to hone my speaking and reading skills a lot more. So to build up on that, I've been thinking about adding Mandarin text to my posts whether I do English followed by Mandarin translation or an entire post in Mandarin. I just thought I'd play around with it and improve my ability to recognize characters. So let's give that a try...

大家好！今天我終於有一個新的博客文章，跟大家分享。大學開始以後，我變了很忙然後不想讀書...好難過哦。我上個月只讀了三本書和只寫了四個文章在博客上。我不知道為什麼我不想讀因為有好多新的書我想讀。真的很奇怪！我希望我能再次開始讀。還有你們有什麼想法我包括中文翻譯的想法。請告訴我在下面的評論！

Alright! That took a lot longer than I thought but I actually really enjoyed how challenging it was to figure out all the words. That's all I have for this update and fingers crossed I read something mind blowing and get back into the swing of post really soon!! Thank you so much for reading!!

Riv Adventures: Lunch at 春水堂

Hello everyone! Today I've got another lunch adventure to share with you guys! It is currently Day 4 of Taiwan and we've been a department store for three out of the four days. My cousin took us to a little restaurant inside a department store for lunch and I went a little picture crazy. 

I actually restrained myself and didn't get bubble tea until the fourth day and it tasted so delicious! I ordered a jasmine milk tea with boba and the boba pearls were so tiny I almost choked the first time. They're like little bullets if you're not careful!

My mom ordered some sort of milk tea and it tasted so bitter in comparison to the bubble tea. She didn't know that her tea didn't come with boba so she ended up ordering two tea cups full of little boba pearls. I wish I got a picture before she dumped it into the tea pot.

As you can probably tell from the mouthwatering photos, the food was absolutely delicious. I shared that gigantic bowl of noodles with my cousin and I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of the Chinese medicine taste but it was still delicious.

My personal favorite out of everything has to be the fried doughnuts though I don't think that's the accurate name for those heavenly golden pieces of dough. The fries were also pretty good (of course) and the taro cake was amazing (but hot).

My sister actually remembered the last time we came here to eat and I couldn't even remember ever eating here. The restaurant itself is really relaxing with the simple wooden fixtures and paintings. The people there are also super nice though we still got some looks for speaking English.

Riv Adventures: Lunch at the Garden Villa

Hello everyone! I'm finally back with another post and I can't even begin to tell you how great it feels to be back. The past week was pure craziness from packing for vacation to graduating high school. My brain hasn't even completely processed the fact that I am no longer a high school student.  

While I continue to freak out internally, I knew that with my trip to Taiwan this summer, I wanted to incorporate some lifestyle/travel posts into this blog so here I am with my first one. I'm fighting jet lag to this get this up on the same day that it happened so here it goes.

Today we went to eat at a fancy buffet luncheon located inside a hotel called The Garden Villa. Once I get my vlog up for this week, I'll link it HERE and you guys can see more of the interior since I forgot to take pictures. But I did get pictures of the food so I guess that's the important part.

They had a pretty good vegetarian selection which was great since Claudia's staying with me for the next six weeks and we were afraid that she wouldn't be able to eat a lot of things. We ended up stuffing ourselves up and I have to confess that I'm kind of in love with truffle butter. They had this little station with a bunch of cheese, crackers, bread, and two different butter spreads. I might have died and went to heaven.

This restaurant also had a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN which gives it immediate bonus points. My sister was stuffing her face with chocolate covered marshmallows. I tried to be a bit more healthy so I decided to cover some pineapple with chocolate and it turned out to be pretty good.

The best part of all the food is definitely the crème brûlée which I remembered loving the last time I came here over two years ago. Since it's expensive and pretty hard to make, it's almost like a luxury food and it tasted absolutely delicious!!

So that's my little food diary post for the Garden Villa! It's not super high scale fancy but since it's in a hotel, there is a certain air of fancy. It was kind of hilarious walking around with Claudia and trying to sneak pictures while speaking English. I'm not sure what got us more stares. 

12 Days of Christmas (Day 5): Riv Adventures - Recital Comeback

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post! So today is going to be a quick one because it's currently 11:18 pm as I'm writing this and I'm so exhausted. So I played at my first recital for the first time in eight years and I just wanted to rant a bit about it. 

So performing is something that terrifies me to no end. 

I have trouble dealing with the pressure and an audience of people who are staring at you. I've technically performed in front of a lot of people multiple times in church, charity concerts, choir concerts, etc. but they're just different. In a bunch of them I have other people onstage at the same time which I think takes away some of the pressure, but recitals...

To relive my experience, I was internally freaking out. I was the last one to play since the order was arranged by age and most of the kids were younger than 10. When my name was called, I almost tripped and had to keep chanting to myself: Don't fall.

The actual playing wasn't as terrifying as I had thought. Instead of constantly thinking ahead to what my next notes were, I focused more on the overall dynamics and musicality of the piece. I started freaking out because I couldn't remember the next notes when I was sitting in the audience but onstage everything was blank and I just played.  

So I was actually shaking for an entire hour after the recital but the experience was kinda gratifying. Memorizing 8 pages of music and spending hours on the piece paid off and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Now I just have to do get more practice and then audition season will be here before I know it.

 Let me know if you guys have played at recitals and what your thoughts are! Any tips on those of us who are terrible at performing? 

Foreverly Obsessed,

Day 5 of

Day 4 (Productivity) 

Update: My Long Absence

Hello everyone! This is not an official Life of a Blogger post but the post looked awkward without a banner up top and this one was the most fitting. So October has been a pretty boring month here as up to this point I've only uploaded 4 posts and haven't posted anything in the past two weeks. I'm also falling behind on updating my lists for my videos such as my September Wrap Up.

With that being said, I really don't have a reason for my absence other than the fact that I have just been procrastinating a lot. November 1 is coming up and everyone is freaking out about EA/ED applications which in turn is making me freak out. This doesn't make any sense since I don't have any deadlines on November 1, but all that is to say: I don't have a reason as to why I haven't been posting.

I can't even count the number of times I have pulled up a review post or an empty post with the intentions to write something and put it up and just closed it because I wasn't feeling it. My procrastination is going to come back and bite me, but I'm hoping that after this post goes up, I get my game back on and start posting at least once a week even if I'm drowning in work.

I currently have 2 reviews and a discussion planned so hopefully I can get them all up next week! So there you have it, my not so real excuse as to why I haven't posted anything in two weeks. Fingers crossed I actually get something done!

Foreverly Obsessed,

12 Days of Christmas (Day 5): Life of a Blogger

Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 5 of 12 Days of Christmas! Again, I apologize for being late but school's been crazy with teachers trying to test us to death before winter break. Some posts might be a little late, but don't worry they will still be up! So I haven't done a Life of a Blogger in forever and I really liked the topic for this week. So without further ado, let's get into this!

Before 2014 ends, what do you want to do?

• Finish one fantasy series: Currently reading the last book in the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks
• Try nail-stamping! I've received my stamps already a couple of weeks ago but I've never gotten the time to do a full on stamping design base manicure!
• Start a book that I've been wanting to read this whole year but didn't get to it!
• Make pretty cards for everyone!
• Still gotta finish wrapping those presents...
• Have a BBC Merlin Marathon - I have to relive the pain of the finale and what better time than Christmas break which was when they dropped it on us? 
• Start BBC Atlantis because I have no TV show life right now and it's terrible
• Plan my top books of 2014 which is going to be really hard cause I can't even narrow them down...

So that's my little list of things! Be sure to check out the other entries by clicking the Life of A Blogger banner up above! Oh, I forgot to mention, this is a weekly meme created by Novel Heartbeat! That's all I have for today, see you guys tomorrow!!

Click here to enter the 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway!

Foreverly Obsessed,

2-in-1: Review of Wither + Life of A Blogger: Camping

Wither by Lauren DeStefarno

ISBN: 1442409053

Pages: 358

Appearance:

Summary:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Hey everybody! I am finally reviewing WITHER which is the first book in the Chemical Romance trilogy. I've heard a lot of great things about it from various book bloggers, so I'm really excited to show you guys what I thought. Let's just get into it!

First of all, wow. The story/plot/idea was simply amazing and super creative and W.O.W. I'm not much of a dystopian fan, the genre just never really appealed to me and in some cases that they do, I usually get bored in the middle. This one for the one most part kept me engaged throughout the entire book. I really liked the world building and background knowledge of how the world came to be the way that it is. Everything was really vividly described which is of course, a bonus. I also really liked how the existence of the world wasn't that old. For example, Housemaster Vaughn who is Rhine's father-in-law is still the first generation, meaning he isn't affected by the whole time bomb. It just makes the book feel like where it's taking place is just a little baby, and as a reader you can see it grow through the next couple of books.

Moving on, characters. This is probably going to take up the bulk of this review because they're just so important, at least in my eyes. So first, it's only appropriate that we talk about Rhine. She was kidnapped by this "society" who takes girls off the streets/homes/etc and sells them to wealthy men to keep the population of humanity from dying out. At first, you really admire Rhine for the backbone that she has. She has one set goal and that is to find her way back to her twin brother. Along the way, she does get a bit frustrating. Let me explain, one minute she's plotting her escape, the next she fawning over her husband who she supposedly despises. It does get confusing and after a while, you just want her to make her mind up. Which she eventually does, so at least that's a positive side.

Next is her hubby, Linden. Honestly this guy is way to sheltered. He doesn't know that Rhine and her sister wives were kidnapped and sold to him, he thinks that they chose to become brides. He's also very ignorant to what goes around his house especially regarding his father who is waaaaay creepy. Housemaster Vaughn is not someone that I would like to meet in real life. I actually pictured him as like a crazy hermit surrounded by dead bodies and going in a frenzy trying to find a cure. He gave me goosebumps, big time. Since we're talking about the men in the story, let's also mention Gabriel. I don't quite know how I feel about him because we really don't know much about him. He appears, takes care of Rhine, they fall sorta in love, and then they run. He's very vaguely mentioned and you don't exactly get to know his character, so I don't know how I feel about Rhine running with him...

Lastly, the sister wives. Jenna I love, Cecily not so much. Jenna is like this older sister who got that super backbone that Rhine sometimes loses. She's very determined and her personality gives her this air of sophistication and grandeur that you're instantly attracted to. Cecily on the other hand is whining most of the time, throwing herself on Linden for attention, and portrayed as the annoying younger sister. She also has a very askew look on the world that contrasts with Rhine so you don't really get to understand her that well. But she is very young like 12/13ish so you would expect her to be a bit childish. 

The ending was quite predictable although I must say that one part of it did surprise me. This book did make me tear up, I won't mention where and like I said before gave me major goosebumps. Highly recommend and I will definitely try to get my hands on the rest of the series. :) If you've read this please let me know your thoughts beloooow!!

Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.

Life is much different from the days when there were lilies in my mother's garden, and all my secrets fit into a paper cup.

3.7 out of 5 stars

Keep Reading to see my post for this week's topic of the Life of A Blogger feature: CAMPING!

Life of A Blogger: Guilty Pleasures

Hey everybody! Today I'm introducing a brand new feature to the blog :) I came across this after reading Singing and Reading in the Rain's post on being an Introvert vs. Extrovert. This feature was created by Jessi from Novel Heartbeat and I thought I'd give it a go. These are posted every Thursday so sorry that I don't have a Quoting Thursday this month. >.< Anyway, if you haven't figured out from the title, the topic this week is *drumrollllll* GUILTY PLEASURES

Wow um...that's a hard topic to start on.  Hm...let me think about this. Okay, I think I've got this but they are in no particular order!

Reading on weekend mornings
Well reading in general, but I love sneaking a book into my room and waking up around 8ish but staying underneath the covers until 10 reading.

Listening to music
I don't think I need to explain, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Eating chocolate
I tried not putting this as the first one . You know that feeling when you eat a piece of chocolate that you're not supposed to eat? Yup, it feels so dangerous, but the chocolate tastes 10x as good but only eat one piece!

Staring out the car window
You know what I'm talking out? Just sitting in the back of the car with your music playing and taking in the scenery as they whiz by.

Writing in a journal
It's a simple and sometimes mundane thing to do, but in the future when you read back on previous entries, they are sure to make you wistful and smile.

Burning a candle
And just staring at, it's just so cool and I could probably do it for like an hour...and burn some hair...

So those are some of my guilty pleasures that I could think of off the top of my head. Oh, also another piece of exciting news!! We finally have our BLOG BUTTON up and running! Took a while because I'm technologically stupid, but I've figured it out! It's on the side so please pick it up if you would like! Here's just a blown up version of what it looks like :)

So pretty~~~~ Anyway, that's it for this post! I'll see you guys in MARCH!! 

Foreverly Obsessed,
Riv