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Friday, April 26, 2013

Riley Girl Cover

For those of you who don't know I have been working with a graphic designer to make a new cover for my book Riley Girl. 

His name is Tony Vandercar and he's really awesome. His website is at: http://www.girardgraphics.com/

Today he sent me four possible covers and I wanted to share them with you.


NUMERO UNO



TWO


THREE





I saved my favorite one for last!

FOUR


Which one is your favorite?
You can comment below or visit Riley Girl's facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Riley-Girl/221906627954069


Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Post Where Everything is a Zombie

Here's a fun fact about me:

I like zombies.

I like zombie shows, zombie movies, and I even have a zombie poster in my room. I call her Lucy.


I'm not morbid (well, most of the time) but I just enjoy horror movies. When I was little, I used to watch zombie movies with my dad and we bonded that way. One of my closest friends, Petra, and I have zombie movie marathons because we're just that nerdy.

My favorite show, besides Downton Abbey, is Walking Dead. So when AMC came out with an app called 'Dead Yourself,' it immediately became a priority in my life to zombify all the people around me.

I became slightly obsessed and unfortunately had to delete the app about 4 hours after I got it because of my inability to focus on any other task.

But I saved my favorites for my blog, of course! 

Zombie Job


 Zombie Matthew

 Zombie Noah

 Zombie Mayflower

Zombie Flannel

 Zombie Germ-ex 

Zombie Me (in a scarf)

I hope you enjoyed my creepy, fangirl post.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Why My English Class is Making Me Super Sad

We read the Pit and the Pendulum in my English class. For those of you who don't know, it's about a victim of the Spanish Inquisition who is tortured. He faces either death by jumping into a pit or being slashed to death by a pendulum.

It was written by Edgar Allen Poe, so you know right then it's going to be darker than all the 50 Shades of Grey combined. Poe's stories always involve torture, death, torture and death, or burying people inside walls.

He is one of my greatest inspirations.

Getting back to the point. Anyway, after we read the short story my teacher assigned us a project. About torture. I got women's rights in Muslim countries. I have spent many hours reading about domestic violence, rape, and really really sad stuff that these women go through.

It is very, very sad.

I can't even look at pictures for my project because of this overwhelming sadness.

I don't want to give you the gory details or show you the pictures, but I just want to let you know how real gender-based violence is. Women around the world are tortured and persecuted. They do not have medical rights or are allowed to drive cars, make decisions, or even uncover their faces in public.

There are many things I don't even want to write about because they are just so awful.

To find out how to stop gender-based violence you can visit:


http://www.amnesty.org/en/womens-rights/background-information
 OR

http://www.amnesty.org/en/womens-rights 


Both of these websites give ways you can help women around the world in gaining freedom and ending torture. If you do not think it is an issue that matters, I urge you to read this article about a 16 year old girl from Morocco:


http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/bias-penal-code-puts-women-and-girls-danger-morocco-2013-03-01



Monday, April 8, 2013

University of Yoga Pants






About a week ago I went to visit the University of Iowa. The drive was only about two hours. When we got to the campus, I started to look out my window in excitement.

Everywhere I looked this is what I saw: Yoga pants.
To the left? Yoga pants.
To the right? Yoga pants.
Students walking to class? Yoga pants.
Yoga pants. Yoga pants. Yoga pants.


Tight, black pieces of fabric on every girl (and in few cases, boys) as far as the eye could see. I mean, I have nothing against yoga pants, but it was slightly concerning. If that many women are all wearing the same thing, there has to be some underground movement or planning going on. An exclusive club maybe, who meets during class or before sunrise.

Either way, there were a plethora of yoga pants.

If you like yoga pants or seeing people wear such clothing, UOI is the place for you. 

Nevertheless, I journeyed onward to the little seminar. Over 500 juniors from around the United States had come to the University to see if it was for them. Seriously, there were people from all over the place. The college staff handed out awards to people who had driven over 1,500 miles.

The first thing we did was go on a bus tour. My mom and I sat next to each other while Josh sat next to a nice Asain man. They became friends.







My favorite part of the bus tour (besides the impossible punsof our tour guide - well done, college student that I shall never see again. Josh said that he thinks I'd be great at leading tours. I guess I finally know what I can major in now) what was this sentence even about?

Right. My favorite part of the bus tout was this:

Magnificent.

It may just look like a regular building to you because it is a regular building. However, pretty sweet things happen in the building. It's home to University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop which is one of the best writing programs in the country. The entire United States of 'Merica, people. 
That place would probably be the coolest nerd hangout for me.

I can already picture myself there.

After we finished the bus tour, we had to sit through a really long boring thing. And then another one about the Honors program. And then we had some lunch in probably the most confusing cafeteria I have ever set foot in. Because of the cruel cafeteria's confusion (ALLITERATION) we were late to the majors fair.

But it turned out okay because we then decided to go buy me a t-shirt. I have determined that it will always be a tradition for me (by me, I mean my parents) to purchase an item of clothing from every university I visit. I got a green t-shirt that says IOWA.

----

I want to take this time to mention that I was in much pain during this trip. About a week before I had decided to get my ear pierced, about half-way up. I got my ears pierced when I was 8 and it went fine so I figured another one wouldn't be a problem.

Well, it got infected. And it hurt. My ear was swollen and red and felt like I was actively being mauled by a lion or getting my hair pulled by Owen (which is probably worse that the lion). So I was trying to enjoy UOI, but I was not feeling like myself at all. It was kind of a bummer.

----

After buying a t-shirt, we went on our own walking tour. The campus was beautiful and it was a really nice day out. Students were riding bikes, playing frisbee, and one was even dancing on the street corner. 





Overall, the university was really beautiful and I think I'll apply there in August. But, it's a back-up school. The tuition is 40,000 a year and the best scholarship that's offered is only 10,000.
Lame.

As always when we visit a college, we get Noodles and Company, which is probably one of my favorite parts of every trip.


 And I decided to use chopsticks.

I tried to use chopsticks.