Me as the Piano Woman

Okay, since I never vlog, I decided to record something of just me fooling around on the piano. Yes, I'm one of the people that move around like crazy when playing and, yes, I make weird faces -- but I have no shame. So, Sandy @ Pirate Penguin's Reads, do one too! :D



I know the sounds quality is absolute trash, but my phone doesn't have the best recording capabilities. //understatement. But this video's not to judge how good I am, so I just hope it doesn't burn your ears out (make sure to turn it low first). I kind of jump around: the first two are parts of my past pieces that I stopped last month, the next two are segments from my very new songs (I have five new ones, so it's still almost sight-reading), and the rest are all random sheet music printed from the internet (starting from 6:28). In general, it's sprinkled generously with mistakes, so just watch out for your ears, m'kay?

If you recognize the first of the random songs, major props to you, and the last is my butchering of "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri; it's a gorgeous song, but I definitely cannot sight-read the piano part. And if you can determine any of the other songs amidst the crackling, I'd love to hear what you think they are! I'll post the song names sometime, if you guys are interested.

To the point, I'm posting about music because I won't be here over the weekend. I'm leaving Friday morning for Baltimore to attend All State Senior Orchestra. The gist: string and wind players across the state audition for spots, then the ones who get in drive to Baltimore and stay from Friday morning to Sunday evening, when we perform. It's my first year, so I'm a mix of nervous and excited, though I'm definitely not eager for the 12 hours of rehearsal we're going to have on Saturday... Our schedule is literally "eat, rehearse, eat, rehearse, eat, rehearse, sleep." Joy.

But anyways, that means I won't be posting this weekend. I'll put up the Saturday Network, but save my In My Mailbox to next weekend; maybe then I'll have enough books to do a vlog about it. :) 

For those of you that got the reference in my post title, I'm proud of you. For those that didn't, allow yourself to be educated please:

ALA: Me, My Friend, & A Trusty Bag

So on Sunday I attended the ALA annual conference in D.C. and now I'm reporting back with some pictures. I was supposed to bump into some bloggers like Tara (The Bodacious Pen) and Angela (Bookish Blather), but it was kind of overwhelming and - oops - it slipped my mind to be on the lookout! I did meet some amazingly nice authors though... And these pictures were all taken with my cell phone, so excuse some bad quality.

6:45 AM: Since I can't get my driver's permit until July 3rd, my mom picked my friend Katie up and drove us to the metro.

Picture of Katie I took at the metro station after the long, toilsome day was over.

7:50 AM: We arrived at the metro station in DC and had an amazingly nice duo of librarians (one was from Cali, wow!) walk us to the convention center. Because, of course, I HAD to leave my Google-mapped directions to the convention center at home. Once we arrived, I went to go pick up my badge while Katie registered. Running-around-the-building ensued then as we tried to secure small pamphlet #2 with an exhibit map. I considered getting Starbucks but there were too many early morning caffiene-addicts in line, so we went down, sat near the exhibit entrance, and started highlighting the booths we (or more like I) wanted to visit and signings we wanted to attend.

9:00 AM: EXHIBITS OPENED. Neither Katie nor I had been to any sort of convention before and it was WAY bigger than I expected. We kind of walked around looking like awed ducks. The Scholastic, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and other YA book booths were all in the mid-2000's aisles, so we started heading to that area but were stopped by the Candlewick Press booth. They had Stork, which was on the wishlist I made, and a couple other interesting ones. I almost didn't get Stork because I was waiting for the wolves fellow convention-attendees near the ARC table to move away - until I realized they weren't going to move as long as ARCs still remained. So then my planned method of "asking before taking any ARCs" kind of flew out the window and I dove in there; Katie was a much more aggresive grabber than me. Pretty much all of the booths had clearly labeled their display copies with "display" and the ARCs with "free, please take!" so it made it much easier.

I'll skip the quick ARC-grabbing we did on the way, but just after we grabbed copies of Clockwork Angel (I was surprised at how calm it was), we saw Ellen Hopkins! Aka amazing author of Crank and Fallout. She wasn't scheduled for anything on Sunday, so we kind of jumped her and asked to take pictures. She took us maniacs in stride though, and she even asked if the booth staff had any copies she could sign for us! Unfortunately no, but Ellen was so incredibly nice and a great start to the day. (I saw her again in the bathroom later but gave a "I might know you and you may see me but I'm don't want this to be embarrassing" smile.)

That's basically what I looked like.

And this is the part where the trusty bag comes in. I WOULD NOT HAVE SURVIVED WITHOUT THIS BAG. Katie and I luckily stopped by just as Harlequin was handing out these cute and BIG bags below:

Trusty bag on right, Vladmir bag on right (from purchasing books at Penguin).

Throughout the day, people kept asking me where I got it and for the directions to the booth. If you're reading this, publishing companies, please remember to splurge on bags at conventions. People want BIG bags for lots of books. No one asked my about my small Vladmir Todd bag, which is cute but small. Good bags = the best publicity.

10:30 AM: Time for Andrea Cremer and Ally Condie's joint signing! Again, we were surprised by the number of people in line. But their books are definitely worth all the attention they garnered. Again, amazingly nice authors and Andrea remembered me from our emails (for hush-hush purposes)! I think I was awkward and smiling way too much but they kinda went along with it.

You can see the too-excited-smile trend for the rest of the day...

We then lined up for the John Green and David Levithan line, which was already spanning across 5 aisles. It went slowly at first, but the Penguin reps then cut out the part where John/David (I feel like I have to say their first names with their last times) would pose with us. So 50 minutes later, I walked away with two more awesome signatures and a four-books-heavier bag.

After, Katie and I listened to Laurie Halse Anderson's reading of Forge for a while then walked around looking at booths. The novelty of free-and-AMAZING galleys was dying at that point along with our arms. We stopped by HarperCollins and saw Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Dash & Lily's Book of Dares and Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution - but couldn't take them. *sniffle*

1:00 PM: Back to the Penguin booth for Elizabeth Scott's signing of Grace. LOL, she's funny and writes awesome books. She immediately commented on my shoulder-killing messenger bag and proceeded to take this picture:

At this point, Katie and I had already grabbed about thirty books - each. We slowly trudged upstairs, stuffed all the books we could into one Harlequin bag, and checked it into the coat & baggage check. SO MUCH BETTER. We then headed off to lunch where we were ripped off on a tiny pizza for $9. I passed on the $4 cup of soda.

2:30 PM: Reinvigorated and back to the exhibits! Katie and I did a couple more signings, picked up a couple more books on my wishlist, then we decided to head back around 3:30. Just as we were about to leave we spotted The Cat in the Hat, so of course we had to take a picture (sorry, it's blurry):

The walk back to the metro was TORTURE, but we made it. All I can say is: I can't wait to drive. 5:30 PM and I'm back at home and never more grateful for a comfy bed.

I'll go into more detail in my In My Mailbox post this week, but here's a quick picture of what I got:

It doesn't look like much from this angle, but I counted for a total of... 40 books! Recall: grabbing-mania at the beginning. Despite all my complaints and sore shoulders, ALA was incredible and I'll definitely have to make it to BEA one day! :D

Survey & ME!

WARNING: To skip any personal content and potential scarring, move to the last paragraph.

Okay, so I've decided to swallow my low self-esteem and dislike for photo taking (I'll subject myself to photo torture at ALA, don't worry!), to make it easier for some fellow bloggers - and you, maybe? - to recognize me at the upcoming ALA conference. The skinny on me: 1) I'm Chinese, 2) I'm 5'6"-ish, 3) I'm definitely not skinny but I do fit in one airplane seat, and 4) I have straight, dark brown hair that appears lighter due to a few blond strands (last year: bleached some of my hair to highlight it reddish-purple, then didn't die it again) and it falls a little more than half-way down my back. I'm also planning on bringing a pair of rectangular, chunky black-rimmed glasses for things that people dare print so small and far away from me.

I'm not entirely sure why my cellphone thought my room was a strange tint of yellow, but there it is. I HATE HATE HATE taking pictures and am extremely out of practice, so excuse the awkward smiling - that's me trying not to scare anyone away. ;)

On to more important things, I have two surveys up that I would love for you to fill out! The first is a three-question, multiple choice demographics survey, the second is slightly longer and is a content survey. I'd love if you did one, though I would love you infinitely more if you did both! If you fill out both, please comment below for an extra entry into my 700 followers contest (honor system!). It's TBD but it will be international and will be up as soon as ALA is over.

Questions, complaints? Or want to comment about how dorky I'm looking? Do so below.

Cake. Is. Awesome.

I have NO idea why anyone would be interested in this, but I made my FIRST cake today! It doesn't taste the best... nor look the best... BUT I AM STRANGELY PROUD OF IT! It's a fudge marble cake that tastes much closer to nothing, but that's okay, the buttercream icing sort of covers it up. For sprinkling sugar on it with my bare hands, I am pretty-freaking-PROUD *puffs up chest with importance*.

...

Okay, I'm over it now. I realize I should not grow up to be a cake chef. (Does anyone else watch Cake Boss? If I had my own cake boss, I would not be fitting into these shorts right now.) Sorry, I had to share -- but you can have a piece if you'd like. :)

AND CAN YOU DISPUTE THIS POST TITLE? I think not.

To make this post somewhat book-related, check back tomorrow for my post in Shannon Delaney's Start Your Day with Serial Tour! 

The Holidays: My Xtreme Activities

I just realized there are tons of In My Mailbox posts... What? It's the weekend already?! Lol, I'm so out of it because of the holiday season. Anyways, I'm going to put off my IMM until next weekend, when I'm back home and have more to share, so in the meantime I'll just be posting some of my day-to-day holiday doings and occasional reviews. That being said, on to what I did yesterday (I would have posted it yesterday, but it was too late)...

I mentioned this in my last post, but I had to go watch Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel with my little sister and cousin. And my only thought is: awwww! Seriously, you need to watch that part where the Chipmunks and the Chippets (the girl chipmunks to the right) meet and fall in love. Their eyes are HUGE. Can you spell adorable? Because I'm pretty sure it's C-H-I-P-M-U-N-K. I'm putting the trailer at the bottom for those of you that haven't seen it yet but want to. Not only is the movie cute and hilarious - what else do you expect from the Chipmunks? - it also teaches some good lessons about family and accepting who you are, so I definitely recommend taking the kid(s) out to see it!

The theater was in the mall, and, yes, there was a Borders too!! We spent a few hours there - basically me looking for books to buy and the little monsters reading books. Plus, my little two-year-old cousin made me chase her in circles around the picture book section while I worried about her ripping an unsuspecting panda out of a book. Intense. Then, in the afternoon, after watching the movie, I managed to spill a mound of the leftover popcorn while waiting in the checkout line. Ahh, I'm such a klutz! My little sister and cousin were somehow delusioned into thinking they could finish a large AND a medium-sized popcorn - think a big bucket and a huge bag - in addition to a large Coke. Did that happen? Not exactly; all that happened was that we were all nausous from eating too much buttery popcorn but were too cheap to throw the popcorn away. Since, after all, we did shell out $15 on popcorn alone... So I'm left to hold the popcorn while trying to balance the books I bought on our morning trip to Borders, my wallet, the Borders rewards and gift card, and the new book I want to buy. And, woosh, the popcorn bucket slips out, and the popcorn spills all over the floor. I'm left to scoop down and pick it up, all while blushing furiously, while the two little monsters laugh and move up in line. I think the Borders employee was sort of laughing at me too. Not nearly my most embarassing experience ever, but still. The only thing that saved my day was that I bought some books, yay!

As for today, my once-removed cousin is arriving, and I think we're all just pigging out again and stuffing our faces with food. Another person here = another person to play Monopoly, lol. But enough about my boring life, did you get any awesome books or do anything fun? Please feel free to leave a link to your IMM post, and I'll make sure to check it out! :)