Packing books before a move (with pictures!)

I realized grad school was going to be a different beast than undergrad when I got my textbook list. 3 classes, 32 books. THIRTY TWO. They're mostly novels and short story collections, 90 percent of them available in paperback, but still. THIRTY TWO. Not to mention the books I'm bringing for pleasure-reading. I'm going to need to rent a second apartment just to store them.

These are just my textbooks.

One book I bought from an Amazon seller is an old library book.
Hope that library is closed and not missing it!

My textbooks take up almost an entire suitcase!

Finished product: textbooks, fun books, and DVDs. Two suitcases.

I have problems. But I will be prepared!

P.S. Here are the "fun" books I'm bringing with me:
-The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
-The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
-Looking For Alaska by John Green
-Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
[^ those are my staples that I bring EVERYWHERE]
-Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth (in preparation for Allegiant)
-Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison (need to read)
-Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (for reference)
-Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins (my favorite short story collection)
-On Writing Short Stories by Tom Bailey (aka my favorite professor)
-The Stories of Richard Bausch (another short story author I love)
-The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (one of my old textbooks)
-The Art of the Short Story (an anthology I got for Christmas, not an assigned textbook, because I'm that much of a story nerd)


What books do you have to have with you?

What's Up Wednesday (full of pictures!)

What I’m Reading

-Still working through READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN. I’m on section two, which is called Gatsby, so naturally I’m excited! I’m also reading my writing buddy Shari’s novel draft and loving it!

-Looking over my book list for my first semester of grad school and LOVING every minute of it. I’m taking a YA Lit class (I know, luckiest person ever!) and three of my books are: THE HUNGER GAMES, IF I STAY, and THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. I think I had a mini fainting spell. Another upside is I already own (and have read and loved) all three. Buying all the other books for my three classes isn’t going to be pretty (There are 31 that I don’t already own), but I’m too excited to care. I think there are only two or three textbook-style ones, the rest are novels and short story collections, and I recognize some of the authors. I’m so ready for grad school to start!

What I’m Writing

-I knew my RSW goal was lofty for this week, especially since Wed-Saturday was taken up with my friend’s wedding details. I landed at a little under 18K, a bit short of my 19K goal. My goal for this week is to get my word count to 20K. I like nice square numbers like that!

-I’ve also started writing lyrics again (more below), so that took a little time away from my WIP, but it was definitely a welcome change.

What Inspires Me Right Now

-I’ve been listening to Hunter Hayes like CRAZY for the past week. I’d meant to buy his album

forever ago, and he just released a deluxe edition a few weeks ago. It’s all I’ve listened to since buying it. He’s definitely my music obsession of the summer, and I’m slowly falling back into songwriting (whenever I listen to an artist who writes his or her own songs, I always become inspired to write my own). I’m coming out of a two year songwriting hiatus, and it feels really good! I think because my creativity was already stretched to the limit in college as a writing major, I just couldn’t find the energy to write songs, and it made me sad. Songs (and writing in general) are something that absolutely can’t be forced, at least not if you want it to be good quality. But now I’m starting again, thanks to Hunter.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

-WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING! One of my best friends from high school got married on Saturday, and I was one of her bridesmaids. I truly felt honored to get to share this day with her, and she was SUCH a caring and respectful bride to all of her bridesmaids (she let me and one of her maids-of-honor have a hand in picking the bridesmaids’ dresses, we were allowed to pick our own shoes and jewelry as long as they were silver, and our hair and makeup were up to us). She and her new husband got engaged almost exactly a year ago (4^th of July, which everyone thinks is funny because her husband is from England), and I’ve had the most amazing time following her wedding process each step of the way. I definitely cried during the ceremony, though I had to hold it in because it would’ve been a MASSIVE ugly cry. I don’t have pictures from Saturday yet because I was in charge of the bride’s camera, and I was running around like crazy and didn’t think to take my own. The professional photographer took over 2000, though, so I’m sure they’ll surface soon. In the meantime, here’s a couple of my flowers (which I took at 11:30pm when I got home from the day, too exhausted to even step out of my heels).

-Seeing Monsters University. It was PERFECTION. I might be a little biased, since I’m a super reluctant college graduate and am dying to go back. But seriously, Monsters University had GREEK LIFE. This sorority girl was VERY happy. :)

-Trying to drink water. I have one of these tumbler glasses with the built-in straws at work AND at home, because for some reason (I’m polling everyone I meet about this) I’m way more likely to drink something if there’s a straw in it. Plus I tend to get dehydrated a lot, so I need to start really drinking water. Monday, my first day challenging myself to this, I had 5 glasses of water (my cup at home is even bigger than the one in this picture). Woohoo!

-As you can probably tell from this post, I love pictures. So I started a 365 Project and am attempting (<--key word) to take a picture of a day. I think it'll be something cool to look back on when the year blurs together. You're welcome to follow or join in! Let's see how long I last.

What's up with you this Wednesday?

that time I organized my bookshelves...

I've started a tradition of reorganizing my bookshelves after I move back home from college each spring. Books are scattered all over my room, in boxes from school, everywhere. So I pull all the books off my shelves, organize them in a manner only I understand (I don't organize by author, genre, or title: I use personal preference), and put them back.

 

Yes, I own quite a few books.

My summer reading pile(s). Expect reviews of them soon.

That's all for now, my lovely bookworms. What's on your reading list for summer?