February was a great–if stressful–month.
In My Personal Life
I went to a massive Speech and Debate competition at Stanford University. My sister and (we’re debate partners) did really well, and I had a fantastic time. (Except for the rain; the rain sucked.) I took the CAHSEE and assuming I passed it, I can now exit high school (kind of, I still have credit requirements and other stuff to get done). The second half of the month cooled down a bit and gave me a chance to breathe, read, and write. School was still hectic but my grades and I survived it. I signed up for next year’s classes–which was crazy. There were a lot of decisions to make, but I’m happy with the ones I finally made. All in all, life is going pretty well.
My hamster Butterscotch (Scotch for short) died. It sucked, but he was really old so we knew it was coming. We got a new hamster (named Macaroon because he has a white strip in the middle of his brown belly) and he is the most energetic hamster we’ve ever had. He’s adorable and I’m trying not to fangirl…
On this blog I had 18 posts, with at least four a week. Considering how much I had on my plate this month, I’m super happy with those numbers, and I hope I can keep them up as the year continues.
In books
I read six books this month: Love and Other Unknown Variables by Shannon Lee Alexander, Atlanta Burns by Chuck Wendig, Slash by Evan Kingston, and the His Fair Assassin Trilogy by Robin LaFevers (Grave Mercy, Dark Triumph, and Mortal Heart). I also DNFed Spintered by AG Howard. (If a book’s title is a link, it leads to my review of it.)
I started a new feature on this blog called Reread Reviews with Grave Mercy, which I hope you guys liked. I still need to review Dark Triumph and Mortal Heart, but I’ll say right here that I LOVED both of them. That trilogy is amazing.
In school, we finished the Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles. I doubt I’ll actually review it, so I’ll just say here that I was “meh” for Oedipus Rex, I appreciated the symbolic value of Oedipus at Colonus, and I loved the girl power of Antigone (though the plot was still kind of annoying).
In Writing
I added 12,993 to my WIP Devil May Care. I had some crises of confidence over plot and characterization (I might make a separate post about that actually) but I kept puttering along and, looking back at what I wrote, I’m proud of it. That’s pretty much all I ask of myself at this point.
On this blog, I published a short story (Entropy, Human Style) and three individual poems (To Show You Why, My Pet Hamster, and Standardized Life), as well as a collection of humorous poems I wrote after I took the CAHSEE.
Hope you all had a fabulous February and here’s to a great March!
52 Letters in the Alphabet 