THE HOST

I have recently finished The Host by Stephanie Meyers from my good friend Amanda Conrad's shelf on Shelfari. Let me tell you; it's a very long and confusing book...at the beginning. Once you get into it, it goes by so fast, and you can barely stand to put it down! Many people have had similar things about Stephanie Meyers' Twilight series. I guess that's just an excellent quality Stephanie Meyers has in her writing.

The Host is currently one of my favorite books. Why? First of all, it's a love story. And who doesn't love a good love story every once in a while? I could read a love story any day, and be perfectly fine. The second reason I love this book is because it has a good story line. It's all about Aliens taking over the world. That may make it seem like another one of those Sci-Fi books, but really it's just a fiction book tied in with a good love story. The third reason I like this book is a reason I've already mentioned: once you really get into it you can't put it down! Seriously. At the beginning of the book (as I've heard many people say) its very confusing and hard to understand, beacuse it starts in the middle of a scene in the hospital, and you have no idea what's going on. Of course it's all confusing, because the main characters are Aliens, and they do a bunch of weird stuff.

Ok, so this is basically what happens in the book: The Aliens come to earth and take over. Turns out, the Aliens are simply little "souls" that could fit in the palm of your hand. They can't survive long without a host (duh. The Host. Makes sense). They've already overthrown dozens of other weird planets humans never discovered, and they then came to earth. They would find a human, knock them unconcious, and insert a soul through the back of the neck. The soul would then take over the body, and the human would eventually fade away. Well at least they were supposed to...

One soul named Wanderer is placed in a host girl named Melanie. Melanie is very stubborn, and refuses to leave. She is always stuck in the Wanderer's head (well, actually it's Melanie's head, but...ya). At first they detest each other (why wouldn't they), and the Wanderer can see all the memories that are Melanie's. Wanderer soon finds memories of a man and a boy (Melanie's lover and her little brother) and Wanderer soon shares the love for them that Melanie has. They go out to try to find them, because there were tons of undercover resistant groups of humans not yet captured by the Aliens. They soon find them in the desert, and join their group. The group doesn't trust Wanderer (they know she's an Alien) and it takes a while for them to discover that she is really on Melanie and them's side. Jared (her lover) and Jamie (her brother) are in that group, and she ends up falling in love with another man, Ian. I probably shouldn't say much more, but it is a REALLY, reall excellent book! I totally recommend it. Just try to squeeze through the beginning, although its tough to understand, and you'll be glad you did!

Swine Flu

As many of you may be, I am pretty much terrified of getting the dreaded "Swine Flu". Let me relate to you a short story illustrating my fear...

A few months ago, when everyone was freaking out about the Swine Flu in Mexico, my 11-year-old sister, Sarina got sick. Of course, being the dramatic person I am, immediatly diagnosed her with Swine Flu, and got to work. I first got on my beloved computer, and quickly made dozens of signs and posters and notices to hang all around my house, inside and out. If anyone came to my front door they would have seen "BEWARE OF SWINE FLU" written with chalk all up the walk way and on the porch leading up to my front door. On the door they would see a poster with the most ridiculous picture of my sister I could find and the words "BEWARE - THIS HOUSE IS CONTAMINATED WITH THE SWINE FLU. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. FROM: YOUR FRIENDLY HOUSEHOLD DOCTOR". They would then come inside and see two display tables at my door. First a bar stool table with a bottle of hand sanitizer, Lysol, and Klorox wipes, along with a sign reminding them about the dreaded Swine Flu. Next was a donation jar for the medical bills for my poor sister. If they continued walking through my house they would find signs next to every bathroom sink reading: WASH YOU HANDS, OR THE SWINE FLU WILL DOMINATE YOU, or something like that. Also, on every door of every room there were 2 signs. 1 that said: BE REASSURED; THIS ROOM HAS BEEN DISINFECTED WITH LYSOL. The 2nd said: BEWARE. THE SWINE FLU VICTIM MAY HAVE ENTERED THIS ROOM. TOUCH NOTHING AND WASH YOUR HANDS. On my sister's bedroom door was a huge poster reading: BEWARE. SWINE FLU VICTIM'S LEIR. DO NOT COME WITHIN 6 FEET OF THIS ROOM. IF YOU CAN READ THIS SIGN YOU ARE TOO CLOSE! One of my favorites was the random signs on the couch, at a certain spot on the table, at the computor desk, reading: BEWARE. DO NOT TOUCH THIS AREA; IT HAS BEEN INHABITED BY THE SWINE FLU VICTIM, AND IS WAITING TO BE DISINFECTED. These signs could be found in the most random places, and it really cracked me up. I would follow my poor sister everywhere with Lysol, spraying everywhere she walked, and everywhere she touched. I swear, we must have gone through at least 3 bottles of Lysol during that time period.

Then came dinner. I was left at home to babysit my little brother and my sick sister. Ew. I had to feed them dinner, and did I want to get Swine Flu? No. No way. I got me and my brother face masks from downstairs, gloves, and goggles. It was a great sight. At dinner my brother and I were safely eating at the table, while my poor sister was isolated at a mini table across the room. Her fork, bowl and cup were all disposable and wrapped in napkins. She had a bell to ring if she wanted anything, and I wouldn't let her leave until I had time to disinfect everything. I made her stay in her room the rest of the night with a whistle for room service calls, and I wouldn't let her have dessert. Swine Flu victims can't eat anything cold, or anything chocolate, I decided.

Now, you may think I am mean, and an overreacter, but guess what? I didn't get the Swine Flu. No siree. I made sure everything was nice and clean, and took the proper precautions to keeping everyone away from the victim. I made hand washing charts, and if someone didn't wash their hands as many times as the chart said, I made them hug my sick sister. Now that the Swine Flu is coming back, guess what I have to do? Make all new signs and post them in my Dad's office! Ya, my Dad has Swine Flu - nasty, huh? And guess what else? Right now my little neighbor is over here, holding hands with my brother and sister and sharing lip gloss! SICK! I kicked him out! I don't care if he thinks I'm mean; first of all he's 3, second he looks like a swine, and third I DON'T WANT TO GET SWINE FLU! Tonight I have my signs all ready, and I'm prepared to visit my Dad's office with my Mom.

If you learn anything from this blog, remember that I WILL NEVER GET THE SWINE FLU. NEVER! NEVER!!!!!

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

For anyone out there who is going to even think about arguing with this, I'm just going to tell you right now that Halloween is one of the best holidays there is. That's right, almost better than Christmas.

Who wouldn't love Halloween? Seriously. It's full of excitment and surprises; you never know what's lying behind the next corner. You never know what's going to jump out at you, or what's going to happen next. Where the maze is going to lead you, or what turn will take you where. I love it. People can be so creative at Halloween time!

So first of all, there's Trick-Or-Treating. Of course that's fun just because you get to be immature, and get tons of candy before the night's through. And costumes are the funnest! I love picking out the coolest/weirdest costume ever! Last year I was a ninja with Sierrah Taylor. We had ninja swords and everything, and even stole someone's pocket knife out of their pocket at my ward Halloween party. Totally ninja, right? Haha.

Then there's the haunted houses. By far the best part of Halloween, along with Frightmares at Lagoon. They have the chainsaw guys, the haunted houses, the weirdos, the decorations, the whole works. There are 4 haunted houses. The first one (and also my personal favorite) is The Funhouse/Clown House. You are forced to wear these 3D glasses. There are strobe lights everywhere, and if you don't stick close to your group you're sure to get left behind with all the creepy clowns waiting in the corners...
The next haunted house was called Deception, full of optical illustions, and scary mazes with strobe lights. Now listen to how mean my friends are: they were too scared to come into Deception, so they made me go in by myself, on crutches! I couldn't beleive it. But at least I had a good time, excluding the part where I got lost in a maze with a chainsaw guy...
The next house was a Haunted High School. I thought this one was pretty fun. It had a bunch of class rooms with creepy teachers trying to make you donate body parts for class experiments. One of my favorite rooms was the lunch room. They had lunch trays with body parts on them and this robot barfing into a garbage can with real green barf! Ew!
The last Haunted House was a haunted junk yard. It's pretty much like the baby haunted house, but the begining was scary because there was this guy in a mask just sitting on the fence. Then, when we got really close he jumped out at us! It was a blast!

So...this Halloween I think it would be totally fun to make my own haunted house in my basement. It sounds so funny. I've already started planning. I want to like stretch a tarp over my stairs and make everyone slide down into my creepy basement. Then they would walk around a little, and finally climb out a window or something. Ha ha. I can't wait.

ABOUT...writing.

I'm just going to tell you right off the bat how I feel about writing: I love to write. Love it. I love to write when ever I can, where ever, whatever, however, and ya. I just love it. I really do.

I know a ton of people's Moms that force them to write in journals so that they will be able to remember the things that happened to them, or whatever. They go out and buy them a journal and a pen, put it in front of them. and make them write every week or whatever, just because they want them to. That is not the case with me. I have written in a Diary pretty much my whole life. Notice I say Diary and not journal, because journals are more like, "Today I did this. Then I did this. After I did this. The End.". Diaries are more, "Let me tell you how I feel about this and this and this. Oh! And guess what happened to me today! I was so embarressed! Then I got mad because of bla, bla, bla. And yesterday I went to this. It was amazing! Let me describe it to you! I was so facinated!". Ya. Diaries have more feelings, and plus, girls always write in Diaries, just because they are dramatic girls.

Ever since 6th grade I have written more than once almost every week until the Diary was full. Before that I just wrote in little books are whatever. But since 6th grade I have really cracked down in writing in my Diary each week. Not only do I love to write, but I want to have something to look back on about my past and the things that I did in my childhood and stuff. Even now I look back in my 6th grade Diary and laugh at some of the things I wrote and did. I can't even imagine how grateful I'll be when I'm 20, or 30, or 40 or even 70, that I wrote in a Diary every week. I also like to paste things in my Diaries, like pictures or drawings, or little papers and cards I get. They are really fun to look back on.

So far I have filled 41/2 Diaries, not counting the ones before 6th grade. I made a deal with my parents that everytime I filled up a Diary, they had to go buy me a new one. I LOVE picking out Diaries - a new, different one each time. My first Diary was a hardback, spiral bound quilt Diary. My second Diary was a small, leather pink Diary, with a magnetic latch. My third was a hardback, blue and brown swirly Diary. My fourth was a white polk-a-dot Diary with a lock. My Diary right now is a leather Diary with music notes on the front. It is so beautiful, and I love to write in it! So far I've filled exactly 100 pages!

I write all sorts of things in my Diaries, and some are really personal. I love filling them up, picking out new ones, and looking back on them! They are so fun for me, and give me an oppertunity to express myself, and get all my feelings out on paper! I love Diaries, and I love to write!