Happy Homecoming!

Here's a little song to get the weekend started off, Keegan is really into it these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYlVzGUpT0k

Book Club was fun this week! We met at a place I had never been to called Feast! which is a dining section of Main Street Market (http://www.feastvirginia.com and http://marketstreetmarket.net)

I branched out on the suggestion of Nora who has been raving about her fig preserves and got a chicken, cheddar, and fig chutney panini with a side of tomato pesto soup. It was really good! We discussed the book we had read for October, Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan. The group was split over all. I think that this book hovers around the edge of the YA genre which turned some people off the novel. There were some great parts that we all agreed upon, like how the author uses metaphors literally - one character, when she is nagging or angry, has bees fly out of her mouth and attack the person she is yelling at. Someone read online that the author based this mean character off his grandmother and that he dreads the day his mother reads the book and says, "You were too kind to her!"

For November we are still doing The Goldfinch and for December we decided on Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani. Apparently it takes place in Virginia and has been turned into a short film that will be playing at the Charlottesville Film Festival. I would go see it but I will be in California visiting my baby cousin!! (and everyone else out there).

I just finished this morning City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare which I do not recommend to anyone except possibly 15 year olds. Obviously I loved the book as it was 730 pages that I read in the past two days. This is the sixth, and final installment I think, of the Mortal Instruments Series. There's a lot of demon fighting and teenage sexual tension. There was a movie made of the first book, City of Bones, that was pretty good all in all!

I also read Lexicon by Max Barry this week. I thought this book was so cool and this one I do recommend! In the novel people are selected for special training based on their ability to persuade and resist persuasion. Called "poets" these agents learn not only how to persuade by being friendly, scary, etc. but by using the tiny sounds that words are made up of against others. There's a part where one main character is breaking down the word sounds that people with liberal political views respond to verus people with conservative views. SO FASCINATING. Although there are some unbelievable parts to the story, there are some really interesting ideas being tossed around that I think are applicable and important in today's society. At one point someone says something along the lines of, "people will resist a census, but give them an empty social media page and they will give you more information than you know what tot do with." 

I have not been up to much this week besides working a lot and figuring out my student loan repayment plans (NOOOOO)

Yesterday before work I did make this shirt though!

design was definitely copied from HowlingBird but I worked there for a year so I feel like it's acceptable. I'm super excited to wear it!

I have the next two days off work - going to do some grocery shopping today. It's Keegan's cousins 6th birthday tomorrow, so I think we are going to stop by her pool party for some cake :))

The coolest thing happened to me yesterday! I was walking to the library with my books in my MHC tote bag and a woman stopped me on the street, gave me a hug, and said she had graduated from Mount Holyoke in 2010! We exchanged phone numbers and are going to try to hang out soon, she's a grad student at UVA. I feel so lucky to be part of such a welcoming community of alums. As happy as I am to be away from Mount Holyoke, and for all the issues I had with the school, I really am glad I chose to go to college there. I think I like it better from a couple hundred miles away though!!

It's homecoming this weekend which means I will avoid driving through town at all costs. I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend!

xoxogoat