farewell & foresight: summer/september ’15

farewell, summer!

that was probably the SADDEST sentence of the year. saying goodbye to summer is the worst, but it’s happening and it’s real. these are meant to be monthly wrap-ups, but i’m going to try to squish an entire season into one post! yay me! summer was fairly uneventful in terms of reading and blogging, so it’d be a hassle for me to continue on with monthly recaps during the season. (meaning: 1/ i was lazy, 2/ time is liquid when the temperatures are high and schedules are array). i think i did enough recaps for you to know what i was doing while i was not reading. (i mean, almost ALL OF MY JUNE/JULY posts are weekly recaps from the city. ummmm…? i just like talking about my life.)

books i read:

other happenings on the blog:

• shared my recap of showstopper dance competition
• wrote an open letter to lara jean song (and jenny han)
• celebrated my birthday
• shared my struggles with commenting
• shared the reasons why i love booktube
• shared my adventures in new york ohmygod (part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 is coming soon because i’m terrible at staying on schedule)
• wrote a letter to all the ice cream i loved before
• CELEBRATED MY BLOGOVERSARY (and hosted my first giveaway which is still ongoing and you should totally enter!!!)
• discussed my thoughts on book subscription boxes
• shared ten books in my INTRO TO READING class
• reviewed the PAPER TOWNS movie
• shared haul the books from new york (get it? ALL the books? HAUL the books???)

on replay

for most of the summer, i was listening to classical ballet music. i love it, but i don’t know how to explain it unless you’re a ballet person yourself. for example, i was listening to la sylphides act ii (because we danced to that for our summer showcase), sleeping beauty aurora variation act iii (competition), odile variation from swan lake act iii (also competition), and loads of music from our class that i don’t even know the titles of because they were played by an accompanist. (having a live pianist is the BEST.) needless to say, that was mostly the soundtrack of my summer.

i finished watching DREAM HIGH, a k-drama, and was listening to the OST for a bit. the OST is actually really good because the drama is kinda like high school musical where you’re singing and dancing IN the drama. almost all the actors were professional singers, so the soundtrack was fab. the drama is also quite good and i’d recommend it if you enjoy musicals and not something too dramatic and romance-y. on my commute to classes, i was mostly listening to this spotify playlist (although i didn’t make it through every song):

for the past week, i’ve be obsessively listening to the BADLANDS album by halsey. it was just released and there was a lot of buzz on twitter and tumblr about it, so i though i’d give it a go. i heard one song and was instantly drawn into her beautiful voice and poetic words. i also found out one of her released singles was on the spotify playlist, which is probably why she sounded familiar. anyway, THE BEST. go buy it. NOW. (please?) sydney from a daring adventure also did a wonderful post about it, which had me flailing and squealing.

quote of the season:

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

– All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven

hello, september

i know i was just complaining about summer being over, but autumn is actually my favorite time of year. and I’M EXCITED. somewhat cool weather, leaves changing, pumpkin spice lattes… what’s not to like? i think the best/worst part of autumn is that it’s performance season! we have our annual ballet performance in november, which i love doing but despise rehearsing. there’s also stress for preparing for auditions and competitions in the winter, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

the next month will probably progressively get crazier and crazier. rehearsals are bound to begin; SO MANY books are going to be released (i’m probably going to be anxiously waiting for my copy of QUEEN OF SHADOWS to arrive today and read it asap); i’m officially going back to my normal schedule, aka school and ballet will take over my life; aaand i’ll try to accomplish/do some other things while that’s all happening! time to tackle the month.

goals for the month

• continue using and following my planner! (i might even share some organization tips 😉 )
• try to schedule all my blog posts on the weekends so i can focus on schoolwork during the week
• don’t get behind on your schoolwork, xan. YOU WILL REGRET IT. (random fact: i call myself xan, which is short for xandra, which is short for alexandra. basically, i grabbed the middle three letters of my name.)
• continue doing BBG in the mornings! don’t give up, you’re only a week in.
• keep your priorities straight. please.

how do you feel about summer ending? what are your september plans? let me know!!

xxx alexandra (aka xandra aka xan aka alex???)