Harry Potter: The Epic Finale

SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 AND DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED!

A smattering to share

So this weekend has been a really good one. And this week should be equally as good. As I've mentioned here before, this summer I'm doing a big pleasure reading campaign. To date, I have read fifteen books. I've still got seventeen on my list to read. No, not this entire summer. I'll probably get through five or six more before school begins. Especially once I sit the MPRE and get that out of the way. Plus, at that point, I'll also be only working my weekend job. I haven't read this many books in a long time. Last year I read the Percy Jackson series and maybe one or two others. Still, that's only six or seven. I am really loving being able to discover all these new series and continue ones I've picked up previously. Of course, once I finish the list, I'll have to wait a year or more for new installments. I've got eight series to wait for. Only one of those is non-sci-fi/fantasy, too. Which is kind of impressive. I'm not 100% sure of the break down but I think only 3 of them are young adult series. The rest are all adults. Which for me is kind of odd as I really like young adult novels.

As for writing, I'm nearly halfway through the first draft of Shanna O'Guinn (family saga set in Northern Ireland). After starting two other novels this year and stalling out a little over the 10,000-word mark on each, I'm quite pleased with the progress I'm making on this project. I've also been thinking about what I'd like to write for National Novel Writing Month this year. It's likely going to be a kind of futuristic sci-fi with sword fighting, political assassinations and winged badass leather-clad women. Currently called A Broken Hallelujah. I'm also planning in August (again, once the MPRE is completed) on getting back to revising Euterpe's Song. If you haven't heard, I'm turning it into a young adult novel from a middle grade. I've already added about 3,000 words in word count. And I'm only on chapter 3! I'll definitely be able to beef up the storyline. Then probably in like October-ish (hopefully) I"ll be able to start querying it.

In a more temporally proximate line of thinking, I'm only 4 days from seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I will be going to 3:10am showing at the theater up the street from my apartment because the 12:01am showing was already sold out. Yes, you read that right. Three o'clock in the morning. And then I'm going to work that day, too. Now I know I"m not a college kid anymore and I never did pull all nighters (the awesome folks of the Boston Wrimos will tell you crashed near the end of our twenty-four hour write in last November) but I've got a plan. I'll get home on Thursday, the fourteenth (between 4:45-5:00) and sleep probably until ten o'clock or so. Grab something to eat and maybe watch Suits. Then I'd like to get to the theater around midnight (hopefully they'll be letting us into the theater at that point in time. I'm bringing a book (I do have to keep up that campaign, plus it's a 3 hour wait). I'll be reading The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry. I'll get home from the movie around 5:30 or so and probably nap for a bit. Til maybe seven o'clock, then get to work by 8;30 per usual and work until 4:30. I'll come home, sleep for a bit and hopefully get up and watch Torchwood at ten and then go back to bed and be up the next morning to go to work. I've been planning this for weeks so I really hope it works out properly. I've read a few reviews of the film and they are positive. I'm really hoping they do the parts of he book justice that they've not done so well in the past (i.e. Snape's memory in the fifth film was pretty pointless).

The last thing I'd like to share is that I recently bought concert tickets to see Hanson play the House of Blues here in Boston on October 9th. I saw them at this venue two years ago and it was all right show. I couldn't get out of class so I was a little late to venue so didn't have a very good spot in line to get a good spot within the venue. This time I'm getting there early and getting in line. I want to be near the stage damn, it. I'm also bringing a friend from school. This will be her first Hanson show so hopefully it will be a great experience for her

Summer: A Preview

So I thought I would take a little time to just decompress and let you all know what's going on with me for the foreseeable future (aka the summer). I'm actually going to be quite busy. I am working full time for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. I'll be working in the Enforcement Division, so I'll be evaluating claims of discrimination (mostly in employment but some in housing as well). It's pretty much what I did last summer for the EEOC, but at the state level. We finished day 2 of training today. It is really intense. At my previous job, I didn't really get much orientation. I just jumped right in. But since we have more responsibilities with MCAD, we have intensive training. Not to mention there's thirty of us in the office. It is really cool because there are people from various law schools and colleges around Mass. as well as a few other states. It's a diverse group so I hope to make some new (and lasting) friendships over the course of the summer.

But that's not all that's happening on the work front this summer. I'm also working at the front desk at my law school's library on weekends. Yep, I'm working seven days a week right now. It may change once I get into full swing at my full time job and see how tired I am. I'm getting paid at the library which is nice but I need time to myself too. Working at school, though, allows me to see friends from school who are taking summer classes or studying for various state exams (either the bar exam or the MPRE). I will be studying for the MPRE (to be taken in August). I'm hoping I do well on the first try as it's a pain to submit everything again to take the test again. I know the law fairly well thanks to my ethics class so I'm currently cautiously optimistic.

I will also be blogging a Summer TV Rewind for More TV, Please!. For those of you who followed me last summer, you'll remember I blogged the first series of BBC's Merlin for MTVP. I enjoyed that experience, as well blogging the occasional episodes of Glee and No Ordinary Family as well as the freshman run of Body of Proof. So I decided I would blog a different show this summer. I thought about doing series 2 of Merlin (to keep it consistent) but then I decided that I would change things up. So I will be blogging the first series of BBC's Robin Hood. Notice a theme? Yes, I love some British TV shows. A lot of them in fact. If it weren't only three episodes, I probably would have seriously considered blogging series 1 of Sherlock (on a side note, they are now filming series 2!). I discovered Robin Hood over the Christmas holidays and fell in love. A few of my writer friends had been talking about it and then I got a Netflix subscription and found all three series were on instant watch. So, naturally, I marathoned. It is a fun retelling of the old story of Robin Hood and his band of Merry men (and a couple women in this case). it also makes it rather adult in that the romances are a little more flirty than would be for a children's show. The fight scenes are really well choreographed as well. So I will likely be posting up a post at some point when a few of the recaps have gone up on MTVP.

In semi-related TV news, I thought I'd share what shows I'll be watching this summer. Most of them are shows I've watched for a while (White Collar, Warehouse 13) but I'm adding a few new shows. This past spring I got in Eureka so that will be joining the schedule. It's a fun and quirky show that is cheesy but kind of interesting an I've come to find I really care about the characters (and it made the crossover episodes with Warehouse 13 make so much more sense). Obviously, I'll be watching Torchwood: Miracle Day (series 4). For recaps of that, you can visit More TV Please! as Jen will be blogging that. The other new show I will be adding this summer is Alphas. It will premiere on SyFy on July 11 at 10pm (with a 90 minute pilot). I hadn't really considered watching this until very recently. I saw some press on it on one of my trusty TV news websites and I realized that one of my favorite interns from Bones is one of the core cast (it so happens his character on Bones died so he could be on this project). It's good sci-fi drama (much like X-Men). I'll give it a shot because it has a lot of great genre people (including producers and writing staff from other shows I've watched).

And lastly, I'm doing a rather intense reading campaign. First, I am re-reading the entire Harry Potter series prior to the July 15 release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I am nearly done with Order of the Phoenix, leaving me only Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows to get through in the next month and a half. I am anticipating success. I am also reading The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series and the latest in Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series (The Jefferson Key) and Kelly Meding's latest in the Dreg City series (Another Kind of Dead). My ultimate goal is to read at least 14 books before I have to start doing homework for the fall semester.

So, that's what I am going to be up to for the summer. I'll be one busy bee but that's not such a bad thing if you ask me. I like to keep busy. So, I hope you join me in some fun TV watching and check out some of the books I'll be reading if they interest you.