8 Days till Christmas

I honestly had no idea we are that close to Christmas, but my sister-in-law informed everyone this morning on Facebook. I know that Christmas is next Saturday, but with school and worrying about money, my concept of time is a bit skewed. I am actually looking forward to the holiday, despite not having enough money to spend on anyone. I am also very much looking forward to a 2-week vacation to Arizona, as that is pretty much what got me through the last couple weeks of school and being perpetually behind with everything. 

Today I watched the Twilight: Breaking Dawn trailer and learned that they are trying to break it into two parts. All I could think was "For goodness sake, don't drag this stupid movie series out any longer!" At least with Harry Potter, the final book actually has a lot going on and even though it is very frustrating, I can see the need to divide it into two movies. I have a very love/hate relationship with the Twilight books and movies, as I thought the books were okay, though no great literary achievement. The movies, on the other hand, are mildly entertaining and I must say that I'm Team Jacob even though I know what happens at the end (and am a little creeped out by it). Plus Taylor Lautner is way cuter than Robert Pattinson, (despite being in one of the worst movies ever made The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl which I watched under duress while babysitting) and despite the fact that Pattinson has a decent singing voice and has the plus side of actually being British.

One thing that I have highly enjoyed about being done with graduate school is having more free time to read what I want. So far I've read the first two books in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy and tried to read the third but got bored, and Gail Carriger's brilliant debut novel Soulless as well as Changeless and soon to be reading Blameless. I've also tackled about 5 children's picture books and hope to finish my massive copy of C. S. Lewis's entire Chronicles of Narnia. I had previously read the first 1 1/2 books, The Magician's Nephew and part of The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.