7 December 2012

Book Beginnings: Forever in Blue - Ann Brashares

'Once upon a time there were four girls. Young women, you might even say. And though their lives travelled in different directions, they loved each other very much.'

This beginning is in some ways kind of ironic at the beginning of the fourth book where the girls are shown to, in some sense, have lost touch with one another. It's told by Bridget though and it's classic Bridget phrasing in my opinion.

This beginning is actually different than the others, in that the other's all introduce the pants before the girls, the pants in the previous books had been more of a deal. This time around however the focus really is on the girls, and it shows in this beginning. They're able to live their lives more without thinking at every turn, 'ooh it's the magic of the pants.'

I'm linking up to Book Beginnings @ Rose City Reader.

Rowen

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6 December 2012

Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares

Girls in pants wasn't really what I'd come to expect from the sisterhood books. It comes I think from the girls all preparing to leave for the year. There was some kind of sense of expectation which wasn't really present in the precious two. It was a big book of love, the more romantic love.

Carmen becomes a big sister! and actually falls in love!!!! It has to be my favourite Carmen story this far into the series. She seemed more like a real person with actual areas to her character in this book, while in the other stories she'd just been angst in human form. 

Tibby got her act together and saw something in Brian, I think it's something she'd unconsciously seen in him since she first knew him, but in this book she put it out there. And y'know what he's nuts about her too! This actually made me really happy as I'd been rooting for them for a while.

Bridget is on her first summer back as happy-times Bridget after the journey of self discovery she went on in book 2. She's back at Soccer Camp too, but this time as an instructor rather than a camper. Guess who she sees? Eric! The guy she slept with in the first book leading to her downward spiral, problem is he has a girlfriend now. Having said that he actually does love Bridget and ends up leaving his girlfriend to be with her! Happy Times!

In fact the only one of the four girls who doesn't get a happily ever after in this book is Lena. This kind of disappointed me as she's my favourite character, the one I can best relate to, but she isn't over Kostos, and she did get the only happy ending of the first book. Fair's fair right? I actually do like her story for this book though, she learns a lot about herself, and her relationships with her nearest and dearest by trying to look in rather than out. 

So all in all a good book, with some much anticipated storylines resurfacing. I would say read it!

Rowen

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4 December 2012

Coursework

I suppose that coursework isn't an unexpected post title when it comes to the blog of a student, but coursework is running my life these days. A month or so ago I got set three pieces of coursework each with a deadline a week apart.

The first of these was a presentation. I hate presentations with a vengeance. I'm not good at talking in front of people, less so a lecture room full of 100+ people. I get nervous, my palms sweat, my cheeks go bright red and my words trip over one another on their way out of my mouth. I actually have volume issues, friends of mine have been known to have trouble hearing me while sitting inches away from me, and in most of my regular social groups people have either learnt to lip read or there's a designated interpreter. I'm actually incapable of ordering my own drinks on a night out, I do tend to pay for them though, and my boyfriend is overfond of the phrase "You're indoors dear, you need to use your outdoor voice."

So although this one required the least work I spent an understandable week and a half fretting my socks off over it. To say I breathed a sigh of relief when it was finished is a very big understatement! 

I spent the next week working on a piece of coursework for my Portfolio Risk Management module. As a brief overview this is a module where we set up a fictional portfolio of around 10 assets and monitor them and perform some basic analysis on them. It's actually kind of fun, but very time consuming and more so when the checker you're supposed to fill in highlights an error in your most basic of calculations when there isn't any causing you to waste 4 hours trying to figure out what went wrong only to take it to a tutor and be told no your working's fine, it just means we'll look.

That was submitted by the deadline of 23:30 on sunday, it always makes me laugh that we get deadlines for this module on sundays. The joys and wonders of online submission, which is really the only way to do things when you need to use excel.

That brings me onto the deadline for this week. It's for a compulsory module called Mathematical Techniques 2, and involves 5 compulsory questions and a 6th optional one which has the great benefit of being able to add to your overall mark without the possibility of costing you any marks because we only got taught the content for it today giving us around 67 hours to complete it before submission. This is by far the hardest piece of coursework I've ever been given and I find myself wondering why on earth I didn't try to do a little more a little earlier. 

So far I've spent hours on it and managed to complete only 1.a, 2.a, and 4.a, Although I have made a little headway with other areas. My friends and I have organised a massive coursework busting session for tomorrow where we hope to make headway! It's been getting me up early and to bed late, so you can see that coursework is running my life.

Wish me luck!

Rowen