THINGS THAT INSPIRED MY LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNEY

Image by Tessa Kavanagh from Pixabay

Bonjour! I’m back with my last post of the month. I haven’t written a language-related post, so I decided on that subject. This is one of the three major topics of my blog. Today I’ll write about my language learning journey and how I got started. I will not provide tips yet, at least not explicitly. I’m reserving that for future posts.

BOOK REVIEW: PUSHING THE LIMITS BY KATIE MCGARRY

Title: Pushing the Limits
Author: Katie McGarry
Genre: Young Adult, romance
Published on: July 31, 2012 by Harlequin Teen

So wrong for each other...and yet so right.

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible. Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again...

Although I don’t read much YA, Pushing the Limits caught my interest because of its favorable reviews. It’s also promoted quite often on Twitter. This book (and its series) seems to have a large fan following. The cover art also looks great, so I bought the book. (Update Jan. 2020: The series that includes this book has received new covers. They look simpler but are still good.).

Pushing the Limits is written in the first-person POVs of Echo Emerson and Noah Hutchins. And yeah, I too noticed the heroine’s got an unusual name. Noah himself wonders what kind of mother would name her daughter “Echo.” We meet them one day during their senior year of high school. Although they’ve met before, Echo and Noah haven’t spoken to each other. They come from rather different worlds. Noah believes that Echo is the kind of girl who takes what she has for granted. She comes from a far more privileged home. In truth, Echo has as many hardships in her life as Noah does.

ESSENTIAL THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR NEW WINDOWS PC

Hello! This is my first tech-related post. For the past couple of weeks, I've been debating what topic to cover. My blog will not be news-focused, so I'll mostly post tips or how-to articles. For this post, I decided to write about Windows computers. I’m quite knowledgeable in that area.

Since it’s still the start of the year, it hasn’t been long since the holidays. Most people likely got a new computer as a gift. Now they’re wondering how to get started with it. In this article, I will go over the first things to do with a new PC. I’ll be focusing on Windows 10 computers for the purposes of this post. This is basic stuff, so I won’t go into a lot of detail.

BOOK REVIEW: PIVOT POINT BY KASIE WEST

Title: Pivot Point
Author: Kasie West
Genre: Young Adult, fantasy
Published on: February 12, 2013 by Harper Teen

Knowing the outcome doesn’t always make a choice easier . . .

Addison Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, whenever Addie is faced with a choice, she can look into the future and see both outcomes. It’s the ultimate insurance plan against disaster. Or so she thought. When Addie’s parents ambush her with the news of their divorce, she has to pick who she wants to live with—her father, who is leaving the paranormal compound to live among the “Norms,” or her mother, who is staying in the life Addie has always known. Addie loves her life just as it is, so her answer should be easy. One Search six weeks into the future proves it’s not.

In one potential future, Addie is adjusting to life outside the Compound as the new girl in a Norm high school where she meets Trevor, a cute, sensitive artist who understands her. In the other path, Addie is being pursued by the hottest guy in school—but she never wanted to be a quarterback’s girlfriend. When Addie’s father is asked to consult on a murder in the Compound, she’s unwittingly drawn into a dangerous game that threatens everything she holds dear. With love and loss in both lives, it all comes down to which reality she’s willing to live through . . . and who she can’t live without. 

The premise of this book is one of the things that drew me to it. A young woman who can “see” the outcomes of her decisions before taking them? That power is cool! Most of us would like to be invisible or super strong, but Addison “Addie” Coleman’s gift is so useful. Wouldn’t you wish you had it?

At the start of Pivot Point, Addie’s parents drop a bomb on her: they’re getting divorced. Not only that, her father is moving away. So, Addie has to choose whom she wants to live with. In a normal world, the decision would already be difficult to make. Addie lives in the Compound, a closed-off town where only people with special abilities reside. That’s one thing that surprised me at the start. I thought Addie would be the only character with a gift. The abilities in this book are all mind-based. Addie is mostly referred to as a Searcher. Her gift is a special type of Clairvoyance, which allows Addie to see only her future. Laila, Addie’s best friend, has the ability to Erase memories. Other abilities in Pivot Point include telekinesis, lie-detecting, and even phasing.

MY FAVORITE READS FROM THE 2010 DECADE

Good morning! I’m back with another book post. At the end of last year, I listed the best 10 books I read in 2019. Now, we’ve come to the end of a decade. I’ve been reading a lot since 2013, so now I’ve picked the books that I enjoyed most. There was a pretty long list to choose from, making it a hard choice to pick just a few. In the end, I decided to cap the list at 25. It was hard to rank them, as the further down the list, the more equally I like those books. That makes the top 10 to 15 my absolute favorites.

There are a few rules I decided on to make this list. It only includes books I read between 2010 and now. That leaves out a few favorites, including the Harry Potter series. Also, I picked only one book from a particular series to give other titles the chance to be in this list. And yes, I did read all these books. I wouldn’t have been able to write the mini-reviews otherwise. The list starts now:

MY GOALS FOR 2020

Hello! This is me again, back with a new post. I had planned to write a tech-focused article, but it's the start of the year. I thought, why not list out my goals for 2020? I kind of did that in a previous post, though there are a few things I'd like to add. Here it goes: