Lightbringer and Brent Weeks

I'm a red magic drafter!

Take the quiz at Brent Weeks.com

Red luxin is sticky, gooey, and extremely flammable. Reds often work with sub-reds or with mundane tools to make fire bombs. Their skills are used to catastrophic effect in war. Reds are quick tempered, lusty, and love destruction.

The results from your color matching test have also shown that you are one of the elite, a superchromat. The magic you do will almost never fail. Satrapies will compete to recruit you, and you will have a wide latitude in what work you choose to do once you finish your studies. You can expect your patron to lavish praise and honors on you. As a monochrome, you will master your color, and only have to defer to bichromes and polychromes and, of course, the nobility and the satraps who support us all.

Magic in the Black Prism

When a candle burns, a physical substance (wax) is transformed into light. Chromaturgy in The Black Prism is the inverse:  A drafter transforms light into a physical substance (luxin). Each different color of luxin has its own strength, weight, and even smell: blue luxin is hard, red is gooey, yellow is liquid, etc. But even as drafters change the world, the luxin changes them too, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The color change of a drafter's eyes is only the beginning…

 So, I'm in the middle of The Black Prism by Brent Weeks.  I've adored this author for about...two years now.  He's a brilliant writer and his magic system for the Lightbringer Series is absolutely amazing.  I love his books.  The Night Angel Trilogy  is what got me started on his books.  Most specifically...I was cover shopping...again...that has actually gotten me pretty far, though many people don't recommend it.  The red smoke over the stark white background on the cover of the second one (Shadow's Edge) caught my eye and I was led to The Way of Shadows, which is one of my most favorite books every.

I can't sing high enough praise for Brent Weeks - he's an amazing writer, really.  You just have to be able to stomach grit, darkness, and swearing to read The Night Angel Trilogy.  The Lightbringer Series looks as though it will be very good, too. I'm off to get back to work...and my book...

Janelle - Amazing

This song actually meant a lot to me a couple of years ago. Not because someone sent it to me, but because of how beautiful it was. It was also instrumental in what I was writing at the time, as well. In retrospect, it was really something I needed to hear, even if it wasn't from someone directly. This song is very special, both to me and in general. It's - for lack of a better word - amazing. No pun intended. It really is.

Mewtwo & Lugia - The Dream Within

I actually found this song accidentally when I was listening to music from the old Pokemon the First Movie soundtrack on YouTube. I think it's pretty and I like the fact that it's Pokemon....and it helps hold me over until March when the new games come out. I can't wait to get my copy of Pokemon Black.

Sick Again...

I seriously hate this part of being at school.  I keep getting sick.  This is the fourth time I've been sick since last semester.  I got sick on the Wednesday of finals week in December.  Then I got sick during Interim.  Then I got sick a couple of weeks ago.  Now I'm sick again.  And it's one of those colds that I really hate - the kind that makes it so that you can't swallow because of the pressure it puts on your nose and it pushes the mucus down.  I hate that kind of cold.  And the last cold was just like this. 

Thank goodness I don't have a fever, though.  And that I don't have a whole lot of work to do.  I just have to read a bit for Bio, History, and study for tomorrow's Chem test.  Not a huge deal.  It's fairly easy stuff anyway, but it's just a big pain in the rear.  And.  It. Keeps.  Happening.  It's seriously driving me nuts. 

Not fun.  I'm going to go relax for a little while before I get to work.  And hope that the cold clears up a bit...

Another Post About Books...

Since I'm at it, I figured I'd comment on the books I'm in the middle of right now.  I've managed to end up in the middle of like seven books, some of which I've been in the middle of for ages.  I also have a bunch of library books to read...but that's just me.  I read a lot and I always have a lot to read...

I'm actively in the middle of three books at the moment:

Midwinter by Matthew Sturges.  (161/344)  This is a good book so far.  It's quite interesting and it's a book about the Fae, most specifically the war hero Mauritaine, who was condemned to live the rest of his life in prison for supposed high treason.  Now, he has to complete a mission for the Seelie Queen, Titania.  If he does, he and the companions he chooses are free to go and do as they wish.  They just have to get through the Unclaimed Lands without being caught by Seelie or Unseelie forces...it's very good so far and hopefully I'll be able to finish it by Friday so that I can take it back to the library...

The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir. (371/473)  Also a good book.  Some of the basis is ridiculous, but it's still a pretty good book.  This is only the second novel this author wrote, having spent a long time as a historian.  Personally, I'm loving this sort of historical fiction.  I love the Tudor Monarchy and the stories associated with it.  Unfortunately, though, finishing this book will mean that I only have one more novel by this author that I could read, since I finished The Captive Queen a couple of weeks ago...alas...

Solitary by Travis Thrasher.  (119/392)  This book was given to me by the author.  He taught the interim course I took a few weeks ago, which I keep meaning to make a post about (I will, eventually).  During the course, he commented that this was his spin on the premise of Twilight (or, as a friend of mine and I call it, Twinkle).  Honestly, this is so much better than Meyer's work.  His writing is better and the characters are very believable...it's a really good book.  I'm not even the kind of person to read supernatural thrillers, but I really like this one.  I'm looking forward to reading more of Travis's work, such as the book I bought from him, Every Breath You Take.  If you haven't heard of him, check out his website HERE, or check out his blog, The Journey is Everything.  He's definitely worth the read.

Red | Who We Are | Until We Have Faces

One of my favorite bands just came out with a new CD, which happens to be their third. I've loved this band since their first CD End of Silence, and I also liked how their sound changed in Innocence & Instinct, their second CD. This song is really great - their style has changed once again and it's a little less blast-your-ears-out, which I know that my wonderful mother greatly dislikes. Alas, my taste in music is not quite the best in some ways, but the bands that I really listen to are Christian, like Red is.

Sometimes, I Don't Know Why I Bother

A pet peeve of mine: people who pronounce words incorrectly.  Example: the silent g in gyros. It's not said with a hard g.  It's silent.  It's also not jyros.  The first and last letters are both silent.  They make no noise.  Saying that, like saying coupon or data wrong, sounds very uneducated.  And, to me, it sounds absolutely idiotic as well as uncultured.  Will anyone listen to this?  No.  Example number one?  My roommate, who happens to be Ukrainian.  Would anyone be proud of me for pointing this out?  I can think of at least one person who would be - my video teacher for my speech class in high school.

This is me being weird, I realize.  It's like me being a grammar nazi, which I do happen to be.  My only problem with that, unlike this, is commas.  I, at least, try my hardest to pronounce things correctly, as I also try to put the commas where they are supposed to go and try not to put them where they do not go. 

I think I've changed my mind.  Forget Japanese.  I'm going to learn Gaelic or Welsh if I can.  Or both.  That would be better.

Mini-rant over.  Now, to go finish my book...

Done!

Finally, I have some relief.  Not a whole lot, but a little.  My Luther paper just needs to be edited, I've got a few other things done...it's really all about getting the little things done at this point.  And studying for the tests I have coming up.  Fun, really.  I'm just glad that I finally have time to actually do things that I want to do.  Admittedly, I have at four tests coming up in the next week and a half or so, so that isn't a whole lot of fun...but, on the bright side, then I'll be basically done with major stuff for a little while.  I can't believe that it's already the fourth week of the semester, though...that means it's almost a third of the way over...yikes.

Anyway, I need to get back to the stuff I have to do for tomorrow and so on...

Procrastination

I shouldn't be writing this.  But I am.  I'm bored to death with the paper I'm working on right now.  I hate writing persuasive papers.  I hate them from the bottom of my heart.  Particularly history papers.  I love my Western Civ class, but I can't stand the papers that have been assigned in that and the history class I took last semester.  Probably because in the first one, I couldn't connect to the biography we were basing it on, and this time, I just don't want to write it because I don't.  I'm also a little freaked out over the fact that I have a psych quiz tomorrow morning and also a psych test on Thursday.  And I didn't know that until this morning because I haven't looked at that part of the syllabus in a while.  Ick.

Still, I should be working.  Which is what I'm going to go do now.  Less than a page to go!

Books I Finished in January

So, I figured if I'm going to be reading all of these books and try to be accountable for a big chunk of them, I had best at least keep track of what I've been reading so far. And yes, I AM procrastinating on my Luther paper. I don't want to write this paper...I'd much rather do my Morgana paper for next week...

Coronets and Steel*
Troubled Waters*
Fire
The Road to Avalon
The Captive Queen

So far, I've only managed to *review two of those, though I do have the review for Fire partially written...I'll get to it eventually...I hope. But still, considering how much I've had to do, I think I've done pretty well.  I've got another fourteen books sitting on my pile at school, plus a bunch of other books sitting on the drawer waiting to be read.  As usual, I'll get to them eventually...before the end of the school year...

Back to watching Duke (Duke University) obliterate N.C. State (North Carolina State University) on the basketball court.  It's 75-46 right now.  The Blue Devils are really on their game tonight.

Darth Vader Kid: The Force

One of my friends posted this on Facebook, courtesy of one of the professors at the college we're both attending. It's absolutely hilarious. Whoever came up with this commercial is a genius.