January Monthly Review and Reflection

Hello!

While I know it is February and I know it's time for a new update.

This update will list all the books, movies, tv shows, and more that I watched and finished in January. But I also wanted to add some personal things that has been going on in the past month as well.


Let's start with the personal things.

For those that don't know, the reason why I wanted to limit how much I post on my blog is because I find the things I was writing not worth it anymore. Then I found my calling... book reviews. But I want to expand my blog to more than just that.

Alright, at the same time, I was dealing with a pain in my right hip that kept causing me not to focus on things and kept me awake as well. In January, I vowed to do anything to get rid of that pain. So after finally getting a doctor to order a MRI test (long story short, insurance wanted me to do other things), I was able to find out why I was dealing with pain. Apparently, there is a small hip labral tear o my right hip. Now, I haven't taken surgery just yet, but there is still a strong possibility in the future that I will be getting surgery. However, the doctor suggested an injection because the pain that I was feeling didn't add up to where the tear was... And yes, I got the injection. Now I don't want to jinx it much but it has helped a bit better than expected. I don't go back again until March so I won't post an update on this until then.

And I was having trouble with my liver enzymes going up... so far, that's back to normal as long as I don't take any pain relievers over the counter. Now you know why I've been dealing with pain in my right hip.

I am thankful for the doctor finding my hip problem after so long. I am holding off the decision for surgery until the future or if it's needed.

Now I read a total of 4 books: They are Unseelie, The Hermes Protocol. When Faith Meets Therapy: Find Hope and a Practical Path to Emotional, Spiritual, and Relational Healing and Bliss Montage. I only reviewed two of these books on this blog. The other two, I reviewed on Goodreads only. I am currently reading Ocean's Echo which is not my favorite so far. It's an okay read. I haven't decided whether or not to do a review on my blog as well as Goodreads yet... but we shall see.

Movies... I don't remember all of them, but I really enjoyed The Yin Yang Master movies. I really love movies from China because they have beautiful stories and more.

TV Shows: Willow was wonderful. I really hope they make a season 2 of the show because it deserves one. New Amsterdam finally ended which was sad, but a good way to end. Big Sky ended as well and I thought that was a good ending for it. I have started other shows and trying to finished more shows which through the year, I will mention those.

I just stated playing a new game called Star Ocean: The Define Force... it's actually pretty good even though it only got 7 out of 10 rating from other reviewers.

So... that's the monthly review and reflection.

For the new month, I am looking forward to doing more to my health and reading more. I am also challening myself with two letter writing challenges. I will mention more of those for another monthly review and reflection in March.

Until then, I will enjoy the month.

Writers/Authors Who Are Awesome

Pick out three, creative people who inspire you. If they collaborated to make a product, what would the product be? If those three people created something awesome with all their skills, what would it be? Create that and then share your process and inspiration.

This going to be author/writer edition of this idea.

The first person would be Holly Black. I would love to work with her to make a lore of the fae in Kentucky. I'm sure she would love to learn more about the Tommy Knockers. She already creates something awesome with her skill but I would love to see her expand the fae to more adult like.

The second person would be Jonathan Maberry. He has made amazing books such as Rot and Ruin. These books were the best thing about zombies for YA. I would like to work with him by making a different perspective for zombies. Or anything else. I want to add a magical effect to the world of zombies by adding elves and more. I would like to see him do more projects. I noticed he has another book out that I haven't read yet, but planning to do so one day.


The third person is Victoria Aveyard. She is the author of Realm Breaker series and Red Queen series. I would love to work with her at making more stories about swords but crystals. I think she is really good at what she does.

And so this is all three of who inspires me. I know there are more out there but that is for another time.

You are welcome to give me an idea for this random topic above. I did got this from having different blog ideas so you are welcome to use the topic for a creative person who inspires you too.

A Fun Cyberpunk Book! A Review to The Hermes Protocol by Chris M. Arnone

      Title: The Hermes Protocol

Author:Chris M. Arnone

Rating: 4 stars

Review: When I won this book from bookishfirst, I was surprised and happy since I don't read a lot of science fiction novels.

This book was actually fun to read! From the very start, I had a good laugh as the main character (whom I learn why she is like that), tries to do her job and only keeps getting into trouble after another.

I am sure the book is not meant to be that funny but either way, it was a fun book to follow.

Everything about this book screams cyberpunk and futuristic elements.

I just wanted more with this book. I love how the book kept using pronouns because I can see that using pronouns would be important in the future.

It starts out with a heist, ends up with a mystery and action in their hands. So many twists and turns that made me want to read more and see what happens next!

The main comedy relief is the AI voice in the whole book. Believe me, you would just laugh each time you read about it.

Definitely a fun read!
       

Such A Wonderful Book: A Review of Unseelie by Ivelisse Housman

Unseelie by Ivelisse Housman

1. Thank you Bookish First.
2. I am so glad that I finally finished this book.

I really enjoyed this book a lot and love the representation of autism from a autistic author. Everything about the book makes it even wonderful to read more.

When Iselia (Seelie) realizes that she needed to protect herself and her twin sister, they set out on a journey. Although, they did what they had to in order to survive the world around them.

Seelie did what she could to protect her magic because she's a changeling.

One day, while trying to find treasure, they came across some trouble with two people. Only to figure out that this was the only way to find the treasure so they became allies with these two people.

The whole entire book is full of magic, fights and much more.

I won't spoil the ending, but you really have to read it.

I really do suggest this book to anyone. Not only because it's a good book, but a good representation to autism and their struggles with understanding things.

This book is straight up... 5 stars! I cannot wait for the second and final book to come out!


       

What I'm Looking Forward to 2023: New Year's Resolutions

 As I always do every year, I am going to make this as a list by numbers and the reason behind it.

Now even though I am using numbers, there is no order in which these are gonna happen as my motto is that I got all year to start these or I've already started these now.

1. My Health: My main reasoning behind why this is a resolution is because I know that I am getting older and I really need to make sure I stay alive (no bun intended there). I've know all my life that there's something always happening. From the time I was born till I was hit by a car... accidents happened but things do matter to me more than anything. So for 2023, I am focusing on my health most of the time.
2. Be Creative: I want to pursude more creative outlets like: drawing, writing, painting and so much more. I feel like I am always a creative person in some form or another.
3. Read More: I have so many books on my TBR and from where I bought them. I only did this because I felt like I would miss out if I didn't. Especially with how the world is right now. My goal is a book each week. Let's hope I'll do this for real now.
4. Continue to Watch TV Shows, Movies, Anime And More: I do mean this. I seem like I am really behind on a lot of stuff and I seem to find a distraction with my phone. So with this idea, I want to be able to watch something at least more than once a week.
5. Have Better Time Management: And you wonder why I mention that when I want to read more, be creative and watch more stuff... here's the thing, I wanna be able to have a set schedule to do all of this. I don't want to be doing things every single day over and over only to be burnt out. So I want to manage all those hobbies in a better way.
6. Play Games More Often: The only time I seem to play games when I have no shows to watch. So I wanna be sure to play games more often by set schedule for this. I am going to start posting these game plays on YouTube too. So keep an eye out for that.
7. Try to Save Money: I am already trying to this. I feel like I am going through FOMO sometimes. I want to try to change that mood through this year and just only use money on things that are for me.
8. Enjoy the Little Things: I think I try to do this everyday when I am on VRChat. But I wanna move it to the real world as well. It'll be hard as there's no much around here. But I really hope that I find joy in the little things that comes to my life.
9. Complete My Hobby Journals: I have several of them... in fact, I think there's about 5 of them? Each in something that I am interested in. I just want to be able to complete the whole journal within a year and not skip a month.
10. Find What Inspires Me: Again, this is already happening through VRChat. I do a thing on there called World Hopping and take pictures in worlds that are beautiful or inspiring. I wish to continue this through 2023. Besides it's like another home to me.
11. Be More Free: This will be hard since if you all know my situation in the real world, you'll know why. I can understand why it happens but sometimes I need my own freedom. 
12. Be Myself: I'm okay with changing myself but only if it's for me. I want to show myself more to the world so people know that I am a good person.
13. Be Happy: I have decided that I am okay with being single. I have been single for a long time now and well, I learned that I don't really need anybody. I don't want people to come at me asking me why I am single though. That's just because I am happy with the way I am. There's no ifs or buts on this subject.
14. Work More on My Blog and My Wattpad: I have put these together as the ending because it's something that I want to continue on doing for 2023. I hope that from what I learned from being Creative Writing classes that I can use them towards writing more often. I have made a page exclusively to all things writing. I am going to move all reviews and more to this blog. Sure there will be moments that I will post personal things on here, but I'll leave those to when it comes time.

Alright, that's all of them. I know the list seems long but I made sure to only include those that seems reachable. There was a lesson I've learned about making things unreachable so yea. I wanna be able to do things that seems reasonable in my opinion.

Well, what do you think? You are more than welcome to leave a comment on here if you wish to know anything or if you have a suggestion for anything.

Until Then.

Places I've Been... To Bucket List of Places I Want To Go

Sometimes, I just sit around and think about all the places that I already have been to and just want to go back one day. However, there are places that I do dream about going to one day... so I will be doing a bucket list along with the places I have already been.

Before, I do start, please be prepare for a long post because I am going to try my best to sort all of the places by continent (North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Europe, and Africa mostly).

I will start with the places that I already been to. Now I will try my very best to remember them all but I am sure 100% that this is not all of the places I've been to. There is no order in these places and I may only add pictures to my favorite places.

Places I've been to:

Virginia Beach. VA:

I have only been here for a few hours and it took my dad over 24 hours to get here. If you ride with my dad, you would know he drives slow. This was the only time I ever see the ocean. At this time, it wasn't as crowded like the picture, but it became my favorite place and more so than ever, I wish to come back here to spend more than a day to explore all of Virginia Beach and what it has to offer.


Nashville, TN:

 I only been to the outskirts of this city, but never really within the city. Something that I always wanted to do is go back and explore the city a bit more. It's not fun when you never get to see anything, but just a trip there and back, only to end up in disappointment. I really love to go back to this place just to see what makes this place... Music City.

 
Cincinnati, OH:

This is not exactly my favorite place, so there's no sense on adding a photo to this place. However, I did enjoy going here once to see a Broadway show called Phantom of the Opera. (If you haven't seen this Broadway show or movie, I highly suggested it. It's really good.) But, I did noticed a few things when I did go there... there's always something you never expect. I would like to back here one day and explore more of the city.

 Lexington, KY:
I only been here a couple of times in my life as a full blown trip. Other times, it was usually for doctor appointments or having to go to the hospital there. Famous for horse parks and UK Wildcats, this is a place I would love to go back to and just explore around this city again.

Then there's all these other places that I have been to, but really want to go back again one day.

• Frankfort, KY
•  Harrodsburg Fort
• Boonesborough Fort
• Cumberland Falls
• Nature Bridge
• Russell Springs, KY
• Wolf Creek Dam with Cumberland River,
• Tunnel down on Cumberland Gap,
• Corbin, KY
• Barbourville, KY
• Knoxville, TN
• Pine Mountain

There are so many places I really want to go to one of these days... and those places are listed below.

• New York City
• Myrtle Beach
• Orlando
• Montana
• California
• Seattle
  
• Portland
• Anywhere Canada
• Anywhere Mexico
• Puerto Rico
• Hawaii
• Alaska
• Ireland
• Scotland
• Germany
• Greece
• Norway
• United Kingdom
• Switzerland
• Iceland
• Sweden
• Italy
• France
• China
• South Korea
• Japan
• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Indonesia
• Australia
  
• New Zealand

Now I would go into detail about why I want to go to these places, but right now, I just want to point out my favorite places that I have been to.

The places I want to go to one day will be part of my bucket lists for a long time. I just hope that one day, these will be achievable. Well... as long as I work hard at it!

Next time, I will go into detail about some more of these places. Until then... see ya in the next blog.

A Romance That You Must Protect - A Review of The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford

I realized that it has been a long time since I last posted.

So I already done the review for a book, all I had to do was copy it xD.

Alright, let's get on with the book and the review.

          Rate: 5 stars

Review:

          Normally, I don't give a book a complete 5 star, but this one begs to differ... as the whole story made you want to sit on your edge, wanting more.

Endla, an island on a lake that is poisonous and a forest that wanders about until it found these magical people.

Leelo, the main character of this book knew from the start that she didn't liked how things are in Endla. She wanted a change but she knew if anything, the forest would try to do something to her or worse.

Her younger brother who is not a magical person has to leave the island or else, he would be in danger.

No outsider is ever allow on this island until one day. This starts on a line of hidden secrets and much more that Leelo soon realized that maybe this island isn't what she really thinks it is.

Overall, I really enjoyed this whole book. I took my time and finishing it up just 2 weeks later. I was constantly thinking about what is going to happen next. What secret is going to come out. Will Leelo be alright?

The author has done a good job with the book and I really enjoy it a lot.
 

Also, thank you bookishfirst.com for this book.