Ranting aside, let’s take a look at what I’ve been reading:

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley (Goodreads Link)

Author: Susanna Kearsley
Title: The Firebird
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 7777 - 4/5
Summary:  Whoever dares to seek the Firebird may find the journey — and its ending — unexpected.

Nicola Marter was born with a gift. When she touches an object, she sometimes sees images; glimpses of those who have owned it before. It’s never been a gift she wants, and she keeps it a secret from most people, including her practical boss Sebastian, one of London’s premier dealers in Russian art.

But when a woman offers Sebastian a small wooden carving for sale, claiming it belonged to Russia’s first Empress Catherine, it’s a problem. There’s no proof. Sebastian believes that the plain carving — known as “The Firebird” — is worthless. But Nicola’s held it, and she knows the woman is telling the truth, and is in desperate need of the money the sale of the heirloom could bring.

Compelled to help, Nicola turns to a man she once left, and still loves: Rob McMorran, whose own psychic gifts are far greater than hers. With Rob to help her “see” the past, she follows a young girl named Anna from Scotland to Belgium and on into Russia.

There, in St. Petersburg — the once-glittering capital of Peter the Great’s Russia — Nicola and Rob unearth a tale of love and sacrifice, of courage and redemption…an old story that seems personal and small, perhaps, against the greater backdrops of the Jacobite and Russian courts, but one that will forever change their lives

My Thoughts:

Yes, I’m more so interested in historical books nowadays and reading the summary of this book – a parallel book – I immediately gobbled it up. This book is told from two main characters – Nicola from the present and through Nicola’s gift of catching glimpses of the past, Anna. You know that feeling when you begin reading a book and you just know that it’s going to be a good one? This is the feeling that I got when I started reading Chapter 1 of The Firebird.

Did it meet my expectations? Yes it did indeed!

Nicola is a wonderful character, with a gift that she doesn’t want to use but is prompted to in order to help a dying woman. I enjoyed watching her interactions with Rob as well, you honestly, he’s so patient and a sweet guy. Their relationship is sweet but it isn’t the focus of the story and takes the back-burner as another character, Anna, is introduced. As we began to delve more into Anna’s world, I found myself finding more interested in Anna’s story than Nicola’s unfortunately (hence the 4/5) but I suppose that is because we get to watch Anna grow up into the strong, intelligent woman that she becomes.

Definitely a brilliantly read

The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth (GoodReads Link)

Author: Kate Forsyth
Title: The Wild Girl
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fairy Tales
Rating: 7777 - 4/5
Summary: Growing up in the small German kingdom of Hessen-Cassel in early Nineteenth century, Dortchen Wild is irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the young and handsome fairy tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.

It is a time of War, tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hessen-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, the Grimm brothers decide to save old tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.

Dortchen knows many beautiful old stories, such as ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Frog King’ and ‘Six Swans’. As she tells them to Wilhelm, their love blossoms. Yet the Grimm family is desperately poor, and Dortchen’s father has other plans for his daughter. Marriage is an impossible dream.

Dortchen can only hope that happy endings are not just the stuff of fairy tales.

My Thoughts:

I was EXTREMELY excited for this book! Like super duper excited! I was away at Thursday Island while the book was released and lamented over the fact I had to wait a whole week before sinking into this book. I had absolutely loved Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth and when I heard that she was writing another historical novel, I was eagerly counting down the days.

With so much hype, how did book fare?

I liked it a lot. It was an interesting to read a novel about Dortchen Wild, who I hadn’t even know existed. Dortchen Wild existed – she was actually the wife of Wilhelm Grimm, one of the Grimm Brothers. Yes that’s right, the Grimm Brothers!  Kate Forsyth once again demonstrates her ability to shine the light on the forgotten women in European history.

A warning though – the book does have a turn of darkness in it, which may make some uncomfortable. If you’re familiar with the tale ‘All Kinds of Fur’ (or Deerskin by Robin McKinley – a novel based on the fairy tale) it treads along those lines. Kate Forsyth however doesn’t tread on it for no good reason, or to add some ‘drama’ – in fact, in the after word she explains her reasoning which I found incredibly well thought and researched. Intrigued? Well here’s a copy of the afterword and what Kate has to say about it.

Spoilers ahoy!

Spoiler (A Section from Kate Forsyth Afterword):

“While researching Dortchen’s stories, I read a study by a psychologist about the therapeutic use of fairy tales to help victims of abuse. The psychologist had noticed the key differences between the first version of ‘All Kinds of Fur’ which was written down by Wilhelm Grimm and rushed to the printers in October 1812, and the later, edited version of the story, published in the 1819 edition. Victims of abuse who read the 1812 version always identified strongly with the girl in the tale, and thought that the king she married in the end was in fact her father. The later version very carefully made it clear that the father-king and the bridgegroom-kind were different men. The first story was identified as a tale of incest fulfilled. The second was a tale of incest diverted.

Later, I read a book by the eminent fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes in which he speculated that the reason Wilhelm Grimm changed that particular story, and other incest tales in the collection such as ‘The Maiden With No Hands’, was that he himself had been abused as a child. But why, then, would he have included them in the first place I wondered. It occurred to me that perhaps that it was Dortchen, his future wife, who had been abused, and that Wilhelm, once he realised this, had changed the story as a kind of gift to her. He certainly included a veiled reference to her as a ‘Wild deer’ in the final version of ‘All Kinds of Fur’.”

Any book recommendations?

No. Almost

Well, I decided to go on rural placement this semester and was super stoked when I got it! In 4th year pharmacy we have to go on 2 one week placements for a semester – either rural, hospital or community pharmacy. Placement is basically just like ‘work experience’ I guess It’s been busy leading up to it and whilst I was there, hence why I haven’t been blogging.

Anyways, I decided to go to Thursday Island with my friend, which is extremely remote. It’s way up north of Australia – I live in Sydney – and to get there, I had to catch two flights and a ferry. Phew! We had problems with the airlines in getting there and going back though.

Problem #1 – Lost Luggage

As I mentioned, you needed to catch 2 flights and a ferry. So basically, Sydney -> Cairns -> Horn Island, then catch a ferry to Thursday Island. The flight to Cairns was where I encountered my first problem. We flew with an airline called Virgin Australia to get to Cairns and had checked in luggage. I waited at the carousel for my luggage to go by but as the number of suitcases dwindled and with my luggage nowhere in sight…I knew something was wrong.

Yup, Virgin Australia “misplaced” my luggage.

I wasn’t happy at all, naturally. I had another flight to catch in an hour and had to sort everything out with the airline, trying to politely explain to them that they had fricken lost my luggage and I was travelling to Thursday Island, which, no offence, is a hole and they better get it to me somehow.

They did eventually – though I was with 2 days without my clothes. I was doing work experience for the first day wearing flip-flops – really professional. Of course, I explained it to the pharmacists there and they were understanding. But it still was very inconvenient without having my stuff there!

Problem #2 – Cancelled Flight

Going back: Horn Island -> Cairns -> Sydney

Yeah, our flight got cancelled at Horn Island. This time is was another airline – Qantas. So we were stuck in the airport for a few hours and by the time we reached Cairns, there were no more flights back to Sydney. We had to stay the night in Cairns. That wasn’t too bad, just only the fact that Qantas didn’t pay for our accommodation even though it was there fault that we had missed our 2nd flight. We were exhausted and just really wanted to get home to Sydney

The Overall Experience – Amazing!

Apart from the horrible bad luck with the airlines, I had a wonderful time at Thursday Island! The people there are extremely friendly! Everywhere we went, people smiled and said hello and were quite eager to help us. The pharmacists and workers in the pharmacy were lovely as well. Thursday Island itself I admit is a bit of a ‘hole’ but it was nice and simple, despite the really humid weather. The moment you step out, you’re literally sweating and sticky. There wasn’t much to do but it was beautiful because anywhere you looked, you would either see crystalline, sparkling water or mountains.

We tried out a yoga class there though. It’s situated in such a picturesque place – you get a lovely view of the sea and mountains in front of you. Unfortunately, my friend and I jumped straight into the advanced classes without any prior experience and pretty much died. I have terrible balance and pretty much zero upper/lower body strength hahaha. Though I definitely to want to pick up yoga this year – though maybe I should start with the basic classes

We also attempted to go swimming but by the time we finished work, it was low tide and too hard to reach the water. Apparently, there’s crocodiles too so we just laid on the sand and watched the sun set

Overall, I really enjoyed it!

I’ll definitely be doing a Bookworm post this week I’ve just received my copy of ‘The Wild Girl’ by Kate Forsyth. She’s the same author of Bitter Greens that I mentioned last year, which happened to be one of my favourite books of 2012. I’ve finished the book in about a day – and my verdict? Well I guess I’ll save that for my next post

So every fortnightly or monthly on a Sunday, I’ll be reviewing the books that I’ve read. I don’t foresee this going well but I’m going to do my best

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes (Goodreads Link)

Author: Jojo Moyes
Title: The Girl You Left Behind
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 77777 – 5/5
Summary:  What happened to the girl you left behind?

In 1916 French artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his wife Sophie to fight at the Front. When her town falls into German hands, his portrait of Sophie stirs the heart of the local Kommandant and causes her to risk everything – her family, reputation and life – in the hope of seeing her true love one last time.

Nearly a century later and Sophie’s portrait is given to Liv by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. Its beauty speaks of their short life together, but when the painting’s dark and passion-torn history is revealed, Liv discovers that the first spark of love she has felt since she lost him is threatened…

In The Girl You Left Behind two young women, separated by a century, are united in their determination to fight for the thing they love most – whatever the cost.

My Thoughts:

The summary piqued my interest, as it was a parallel book – something that after reading ‘Bitter Greens by Kate Forysth’ (my favourite book of 2012) I was very much interested in seeing as a narrative device.

It was a little slow at the beginning but right after the first chapter, I absolutely adored Sophie Lefevre. I mean a woman who disguises a pig as a baby right under the Kommandant while they were being accused of ‘harbouring livestock’ is my kind of woman. As Sophie’s tale drew on, I felt my heart ache at all the troubles she experienced. Set in the early 20th century, it deals with what small towns and what women in France had to deal with during WWII. I quickly devoured each word, until we reached a cliff-hanger and are met with another character, the female lead from the present, Liv.

Part 2 of the story was a little disorientating at first, for I had become invested in Sophie’s story. I had expected to not like Liv, a recent widower but her story was just as equally compelling as Sophie’s had been. Through her, and the painting, we are allowed glimpses of what happened to Sophie. But she doesn’t serve as just a vessel to continue Sophie’s story – no, I found the aching parallels between her life and Sophie’s very cleverly done.

As the story progressed, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting and hoping that both characters would receive their happily ever after. It was a utterly beautiful, compelling novel that I pretty much read in one day.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (GoodReads Link)

Author: Jojo Moyes
Title: Me Before You
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 77777 – 5/5
Summary: Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.

Quote: “You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”

My Thoughts:

After reading her previous book, I went looking for other books by the same author. My next book of choice was ‘Me Before You’ by Jojo Moyes.

Let me state beforehand that this isn’t a ‘chickflick’, despite what the cover looks like and the summary. It deals with a controversial matter which I won’t state what it is for it may spoil the book. It is a love story though that’s not the focus of the story. It’s more of a coming of age book, an inspirational book.

I found myself captured by this book as well. Lou, the main character, is funny and witty. Will, the male lead, is bitter and sarcastic though understandably due to his condition – he eventually does become quite loveable. I am glad that I didn’t read too much into the reviews or the ending, for I wouldn’t have read the book if I did. And that would have been completely stupid of me Because the characters of this book, much like ‘The Girl You Left Behind’ left my heart aching, laughing and smiling. I absolutely loved this book and kept looking at how much I had to go because I didn’t want it to end.

The ending of the book inspired me, as much as it was bittersweet – it left me wanting to widen my horizons and go explore the world.

Questions

The questions are somewhat related to the issues brought up on the book – without spoiling too much ;)

Oh how ironic was my previous post? Back to blogging? Definitely not. Well I am now going to try. I want to change the direction of my blog slightly – not that it had a direction beforehand – but I want to talk about things that matter to me. That’ll be: pharmacy (unfortunately), web-design, technology…just geeky stuff. Oh and books. Glorious books! I might have touched on those briefly but I never really went into detail because I worried that people won’t be interested. But in turns out that blogging about my life is strangely monotonous because man, am I such a thrill seeker? *cough*.

And a new theme which will be here to stay for a while, hopefully! The previous theme lasted a measly one post before Sky-Song went into hibernation. Hover on the heart, it’s a nifty trick that I’ve learnt And there’s very mellow, sleep-inducing music that you can play with the music player.

So what has happened in the few months that I have gone?

• I went to Queensland for a week with my friends

It was definitely a fun trip and I practically bathed in sunscreen to prevent myself from tanning My colouration is not so Vietnamese that I get mistaken as a Filipino or it’s something about my features (my sister likes to attribute it to my big eyes, but I still have no idea). I darken very easily so in lieu with my pharmacy knowledge about the SPF and how much sunscreen is actually required, I armed myself with liters of suncreen.

Above is an image of the place we were staying

• I passed 3rd year Pharmacy and am progressing into 4th this year.

HOLY SMOKES I AM OLD!! My last uni year before registration year (intern/graduate year). It’s scary and I have lots of decisions to make. I’m not sure if I want to do my registration year with work because…

• I’ve gotten a new manager at work – so far I dislike him.

More like I want to punch him. He needs to learn his people skills – you don’t just go up to someone and say ‘you guys are shit, I need to train you more’ (he said that to my friend in front of everyone, and inferred it for the rest of us). He also needs to learn how to smile – he smiles to the customers etc. but then when he turns to talk to the staff members, he seems extremely cold.

• Purchased a Nexus 7 32GB 3G

Purchased it on Tuesday! I’ve been eyeing it for months and kept waiting to see if the price would decrease. Eventually, I just gave up and went what the heck? Might as well splurge once in a while. I’m absolutely loving it so far. I had been deciding between it and the Nexus 10 version but I’m glad I settled for the Nexus 7 – it’s much easier to hold and more portable

But as per usual as well – each time I disappear and then pitifully attempt to revive my blog, I also create a new theme. Ta da~ Shocking not cyan but with lots of colours which is pretty much my favourite colour scheme as well. Nothing ground-breaking again but I think I’m more a minimalistic designer. It definitely looks better on Google Chrome and resolutions 1368 x 768 and higher~

Back to uni talk (yay?!)

I have mentioned before that this year, my pharmacy course is a little different right? Basically what normally happens is that in a semester (13 weeks) we have four final exams for the four units that we’ve studied.

However 3rd year pharmacy is a little different in that this is what happens – in one semester, it gets divided into two (i.e. 6 weeks). And instead of studying all four units at the same time, we study two for those six weeks, then have our final exams. And the process repeats again for the second half of the semester. It’s a painful, grueling process as it’s constant studying for final exams.

I’ve already done two exams this semester and we’re starting the second half of this one. But this time, we’re going to have four exams as well. One including OSCE.

The dreaded OSCE.

I don’t even remember what is stands for but basically it’s a 30 minute oral examination with 3 stations – a doctor, pharmacist and patient. And each station, you get quizzed in scenarios relevant to the profession. It’s scary because it examines everything that I’ve learnt this year and that’s about over 500 drugs, along with interactions etc.

As you can tell, I have no life apart from pharmacy lol. Sorry it’s been just pharmacy for the last month or so as I crammed for my exams. The glamorous life of a uni student

Hopefully a more interesting blog next time I’m going to return comments now <3

Ransom? Er…well I’ll get released after I finish exams

P.s. Sorry for not replying to comments etc. I’ll be back after Sept. 14th ♥

My holidays have ended and I’m back to hardcoring it at uni which explains my slight absence as I turn on my brain from hibernation. Fun times ahead I’m happy that I’m doing something since I was pretty sure I became vegetable in the holidays.

But yeah, it’s not that fun. Naturally have tons of work and it’s so hard waking up early in the cold here. My immediate thought when I wake up is, ‘urghhh, uni.’ Then ‘I’ll be back for you bed’ before begrudgingly rolling out of bed.

I caught up with one of my good friends from high school in the short hiatus I took from blogging. We began discussing her holiday to America and it had really solidified my resolve to travel overseas at the end of this year. I really would love to go somewhere in Europe,  Asia and somewhere in America. Europe will probably won’t be until I get older and save some more money to properly enjoy it but America/Asia sounds like a good place to start! Where in particular though…hmm. I know I have relatives in California and Texas so I guess I would have to stop by them.  New York? Apparently, that’s overhyped. For Asia, I would really want to go to Japan, Korea, Thailand and Singapore.

Gotta save up!

But I am traveling interstate at the end of this year – to Queensland. I’ve been before but those times were with family. This time I’ll be going to pharmacy friends The only thing I’m worried about is bedding arrangement since we have an odd number of girls and boys going, hahaha

So for those who live in the states – where would you suggest visiting? And for everyone – where would you like to go if you could?

So I turned 20 last week. My family didn’t do much only because at the moment, we’re experiencing some family troubles. It’s an on-going and probably never-ending issue that I touched upon this post here - if you listen to the song within that post, it pretty much sums my circumstances. My sister and I had initially left to live with my aunty and uncle but that itself rose some other problems and then we eventually got guilt-tripped by our mother to return. And thus the cycle starts again.

But yes! I am 20 now~ I know to some readers that’s pretty ooooooold hahaha. Funny thing is, I’ve been told time and time again that I look younger for my age (*cough* 14-16 *cough* I guess it’s because I’m petite) but I definitely act much older for my age.

And here’s a little something that I’ve been working on:

I haven’t manga-coloured in months and was pretty surprised that it turned out somewhat okay looking. It was from two different panels in Pandora Hearts Chapter 74 (gah, that chapter killed me!) but I combined them together. Honestly, Pandora Hearts is amazing I love it

Why have I been staying up and waking up early despite being on holidays, you may ask? My hosting site (Three-Words.NET) has been going through a server move and I’ve been running around making sure that everything went smoothly. It’s all done for now. Thankfully!

I just realised my birthday is a week away! (July 13th). It falls on a Friday in Australia – ‘Bad Luck Friday‘. When I had been in primary school, I had once told someone in my class that my birthday that year was going to fall on ‘Bad Luck Friday’. The girl had then told me that it was ‘cursed’ and that I was bad luck. Me, being the gullible six year old that I was, believed her and had refused to celebrate my birthday that year *shakes head*.

I finally got my copy of the book I was talking about previously - Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier! I haven’t started reading it yet though – only because my sick, numb brain doesn’t feel like it yet lol.

But speaking of books – Book Depository is having a sale! 10% off. It was only for those with the Solstice Bookmark holders but you can grab the code here. In light of this and my desire to read some more books, I’ve decided to hold a giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you would like to recommend me a book, here’s something to help you:

Stuff that I enjoy:

• A strong, likable female protagonist
•  Light romance
•  Compelling characters and plot
• Fantasy elements – this is not really necessary but just a preference. A good book is a good book and doesn’t really matter what genre.

Stuff I do not enjoy:

• Mary Sue characters. Big NO NO.
• Overly complicated love triangles. Or love triangles in general
• Instant love
• Recycled vampire/werewolf/fae/paranormal characters and plot lines

Remember to read the Terms and Conditions and enjoy!!!

But I’m done and you know what that means? Party time! ♫ Ah no, it’s more like ‘omg I’m freeeeee!’….’okay, there’s nothing to do T_T’.

On the day I finished my exams, I went to watch Brave. It was a toss up between that and Snow White and the Huntsman but I think after an exam, it’s nice watching something light and fluffy so we went with Brave.

I loved it! I mean it may not have been completely ground-breaking but it was funny, light, heartwarming and perfect for post-exam syndrome. It deals with ‘mother and daughter’ relationships and I think it’s the ‘female’ version of Finding Nemo. I enjoyed Merida as the protagonist – she’s a good strong heroine. I think it’s great that they finally portrayed a heroine who’s endgame is not (typo before! LOL) just to get married.

During my exam period, I also managed to pick up a nasty cold. Stress = lowered immune system. Doesn’t help that I work in a pharmacy and have all these people coming in and coughing. Some people actually don’t even cover their mouths when they cough and I have to stand there, counselling the patient about how to take the medicine without pulling a disgusted face as it’s not professional. The moment they’re gone, I’m running to get the hand sanitiser and disinfectant spray and pretty much use half the spray lol. I’m pretty good now, though I still have the sniffles here and there.

I’m going to tell myself that I’m going to make use of my one month holiday but I’m pretty sure I’ll just be bumming around at home I’m eyeing some books to engross myself with.

I was in the book store the other day and Jo Spurrier’s debut novel Winter Be My Shield caught my eye. She’s an Australian author (so like Bitter Greens, you probably won’t be able to find the book) but I checked out some reviews on Good Reads and the book seems interesting. High fantasy was one of my favourite genres growing up. Here’s a link to the Google Play Book. I’ll hopefully buy the book within a few days and keep you updated with how it is