I RETURN (maybe?)

HELLO WORLD ARE YOU STILL THERE? It's been a while I know. What, five months? Psh, whats that in the history of the universe - just a quick flash, right?

But yes, I have returned from the world of studying for MCATs. I took that deathly exam and did ok? I think? (I won't know for another month.)

"So what's going to happen on Ravens and Writing Desks?" you ask (and if you don't, you should). "Are you going to have a return party? Are you going to post all the reviews of books you read while you were away? Are you going to tell us about what's happened to your WIP's and plot bunnies? Are you really really back for good now? Because that maybe? in the post title is suspicious."

Behold, my answers:

Party?
YES SURE LET'S PARTY RIGHT NOW HAVE SOME CAKE



Reviews?
No, unfortunately not. At least not a bunch of them. Actually I've realized I don't like writing reviews all that much? So maybe occasionally I pop a review in, but it won't be a regular thing.

Writing Updates?
YES! I'm going to do Beautiful People and talk about my writing projects and everything. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SHARE.

Umm... what next?
Ah yes. The suspicious maybe. Honestly, I have no idea what is in the future for Ravens and Writing Desks. It won't be as formal a blog as it was before*, with regular posting and reviews and features. It was fun when it WAS like that, but I've changed as a person, the book world online has changed, and the way I interact with the book world online has changed.

*was it ever actually FORMAL? Ha.

When I first made this blog, I was about to start my senior year of highschool, and I had never really been a part of the communities of the internet in any way. Also, though I didn't know it and therefore wouldn't have admitted it, I was kinda lonely. I had friends, yes, but I didn't see them as much as I had used to. The book blogging world, and, later, book Twitter, became a place for me to rant and ramble and fangirl to people always willing to rant and ramble and fangirl right back. There was a picture going around Twitter a few weeks back about "pocket friends" - how your online friends are basically friends in your pocket, always there to support you when you need it, always easily accessible at any moment. And the pocket friends that I made my first two years of blogging (last year of high school, first year of college, both years where I was kinda lonely but didn't realize it) were so, so wonderful, and so so important to me. I still talk to lots of them. (Shoutout time: Cait, Kate, Brett The Girl, Brett The Boy, Lily, and Cassie are just a few but I feel like I'm missing about 99% of you amazing people.)

But guess what has happened since then? I've made so many real life nerd friends who are also awesome lovely people and that I see every day. Now I'm not saying they're better than all you amazing internet friends, but what I am saying is that I'm not so lonely in my real life anymore. I don't find myself needing that immediate support from pocket friends on as constant a basis as I once did (though it's still so nice to know it's there <3). Basically, my purposes for using the internet and the communities on it have changed a bit - I'm here because I WANT to talk to you lovely friends and share my stories and adventures and hear yours, instead of because I NEED to in order to dissuade my loneliness. If that makes sense?

I'm really hoping this doesn't sound selfish or derogatory of online friendships, because IT'S NOT I PROMISE. I'm such a lucky person with so many amazing friends omg - both in real life and online (and some online friends who've become real life ones! Which is crazy awesome).

So, coming back to the original question - what does this mean for Ravens and Writing Desks? It means I'll definitely still be posting, but not with the goal of making this blog a perfectly organized and popular capital city for my internet world. My world spans more evenly between internet and real life now, and this blog is not, somehow, suited to be capital anymore. (This is a weird metaphor for social networking and I'm not sure if it works but ok deal with it.)

This post is getting rambly, so I think I'm going to resort to bullet points, but thanks for letting me sort out the depths of my soul. :-P

• No more stressing out about whether I'm a "good" blog
• No more reviews unless I really really feel like it. (This also means basically no more ARCs or any kind of review copy except in certain special situations.)
• Random writing updates even if I feel that few people care
• Probably random life updates that even less people will care about
• Writing novels takes higher priority than writing blog posts (it used to be the other way around)
• No regular posting schedule. If I don't post for a while, that's ok. 
• Basically no structure at all. I DO WHAT I WANT.

This last one is going to be hard for me because I'm an organized person and a teensy bit perfectionist. Also, it's hard for me to not think even a bit about "the views" because nice numbers always give fuzzy feelings. But I think it needs to happen for me to stay sane. This semester I've got a lot on my plate and blogging's going to get a way lower priority than it used to. I think that's the healthiest thing to do. And of course I will always be on twitter and instagram (my new favorite thing omg). 

THANK YOU so much for reading this if you made it this far. Thank you for being my internet friend <3 I appreciate you more than you know.

Now let's party cuz I'm BAAAAAACK! :-)

time to disappear for a bit // *vanishes in a poof of smoke*

You all probably know that one of my main career goals is to become a published author. I talk a lot about it on here - what books I'm writing, what struggles I'm having, what worlds I'm creating. But some of you may not know that I have a second career goal (though if you've been around at all frequently, you'll probably know this too). My university degree is actually chemistry, and in two years (TWO SHORT YEARS!!) I hope to be starting medical school.

Yup. That's right. I want to be a doctor AND an author. Because why not? Who said you can only have one career at a time? I want it ALL.

For the last few years, I've managed to balance all parts of my life rather well - or, not so, if you look at my sporadic posting schedule on here. But what I mean is that I get it all done somehow, even if I don't get it done perfectly, or come out of it entirely sane. I get pretty super grades in school, post (relatively) regularly on here, post daily on instagram, tweet plentifully (if a little too much for my own good), and even manage to squeeze in some novel writing here and there occasionally. *pats self on back*

But, I think I've reached a Thing that requires me to give up a little more than, say, blogging once a week instead of three times. And what is that Thing? Oh, just a little exam called the MCAT.

*dun dun*

MCAT: Medical College Admission Test. Basically one of the major things that determines whether or not I'll get into medical school, and, therefore, whether or not I can become a doctor. Pretty important, don't you think?

And I'm taking mine in January. FIVE MONTHS FROM NOW.

Five months can be a long time, when you're taking a boring class, or when you're waiting for a highly anticipated book to come out, or when you're looking forward to vacation.
But five months can also be an extremely short time when you realize that approximately 150 days are all that stand between you and your future.

So I'm sure you'll understand when I say that I'm going to disappear from this blog for a bit (five months, actually). I've taken unofficial hiatuses before, out of necessity, but those never lasted for longer than a few weeks. I need the next five months to be entirely blog-responsibility-free so I have one less thing to think about. And as much as I love blogging, it's become a slight chore lately, so thanks to you, blogging slump, for coming at this opportune time when I have a perfect excuse to succumb to you. :-)

But saying I'll dissappear ENTIRELY is a bit of a lie, because I'm basically just disappearing from Ravens and Writing Desks. Here is a summary of my statuses elsewhere on the interwebs:

• Twitter: VERY VERY PRESENT. As always. Of course. :-)
• Instagram: Moderately present. I may not keep up my daily post as the months go on, but I will definitely be around!
• Goodreads: Also moderately present (though I'm not much on there anyway even now). It'll be a place to keep track of reviews and reading statuses now that I'm no longer posting on the blog.

So if you're not connected with me on any of the above places - hit me up! I want to stay chatty with you all, and I promise not to groan about MCATs too much if you ask me how I'm doing.

Oh! One last thing! You probably want to know what I'll be doing for NaNoWriMo! (Actually, you probably didn't even think that far ahead, because who is planning for NOVEMBER right now?) My answer is - most likely? I would love to? I hope so? It really depends on how far my studying has gotten and if I can be all motivated and organized and disciplined and stuff. 

So! Farewell! (Though not really because I'll still be on Twitter etc.) I'll post again in January when the monstrous MCAT is over and I'll update you on what the state of the blog is (and, frankly, what the state of my brain is, because who knows, it might be imploded). 

Au revoir! See you elsewhere on the interwebs! 

20 Things You (Possibly) Didn't Know About Me

GUESS WHAT

My teenage years are over. Yesterday (Friday) was my 20th birthday (!!!!) and I am no longer a teen.
This is mildly freaky.

In the tradition of Cait at Paper Fury, I thought I'd do a list of 20 things you didn't know about me in honor of my living 2 decades.

If you've been hanging around here for long enough, you probably know most of these. BUT NOT ALL! So read on to find out my secrets.

1. I like to eat everything - except squash and papaya. 

I even like eel. (Have you ever had eel sushi? If not you are MISSING OUT. Seriously.) But my absolute favorite food is Thai food.

2. I am tall, but not tall enough to not be shortest in my immediate family.

The rest of them are giants. When I am at home, my sister likes to call me a shrimp. When I am out in the World, I pleasantly remember that I can see the tops of many people's heads.

3. The household chore I ABHORE is washing dishes (and second is loading the dishwasher because that's almost the same thing).

I will gladly do laundry and UNload the dishwasher, though.

4. I was homeschooled all the way through high school. 

It was cool because I got to build volcanoes in my back yard and hatch chickens and build tree houses and go to museums on weekdays when they were empty.

5. This is my favorite number.

Firstly, my birthday is on February 5th, which, in addition to being splendidly alliterative, involves me blessing the number 5 with my birth. Once I won 5th place in a speech competition as a representative of Illinois' 5th district while staying on the 5th floor of the hotel which was just off of the I-55 expressway.

6. My superpower is reading fast.

And my kryptonite is non-narrative writing (textbooks, poetry, philosophical essays). This is why I used to read more than I do now because DANGIT COLLEGE.

7. I have an absolutely gorgeous sister who is remarkably talented at everything she does.

Her latest attempt at taking over every aspect of life is food blogging, which she obviously does just as well as playing piano, acting, sciency lab work stuff, and basically Hermione-ing through her schoolwork.

8. When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.

A pediatrician, to be specific. But also a writer, because who said you had to choose between an enjoyable, sometimes stressful, creative, relatively lucrative job, and an equally enjoyable, sometimes stressful, creative, probably not lucrative job? I choose both.

9. Traveling the world is possibly the best thing, after books.

I've been to the following countries: Japan, Canada (Quebec and Vancouver, so I've covered both ends), the UK (twice!), Italy, France, Costa Rica, and various US states including Hawaii and Alaska. And now I'm living in Denmark! I'd like to go to Australia and somewhere in Africa at some point so I can say I've been to all the continents.

10. I like dark chocolate better than milk chocolate.

If I didn't, I'm afraid my family would disown me. But I don't like it SUPER dark. 80% is nice? So is 75%? My sister eats 100% because she naturally creates her own extra sugar because she is so sweet.

11. I have only DNF'd four books in my life.

They were: Old Curiosity Shop and Bleak House by Charles Dickens (we have a love hate relationship), The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle (I tried twice! Maybe third time's a charm?), and Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (I think I was a bit young). As you can tell, I definitely want to try them all again at some point. DNF does not equal BAD in my book. I have finished some much worse books than those I have DNF'd.

12. I love to sing!

If reading is my sedentary zen activity, singing is my active zen activity. (And to anyone who thinks singing isn't active, my choir literally does stretches before vocal warm ups so that we are physically prepared.)

13. My favorite color is somewhere in the blue/green range.

See, I don't have a favorite color. I have a favorite color palate. And this is it. I especially like the lighter ones.

14. I'm 100% Ukrainian but I have never been to Ukraine. 

And neither have my parents. We can speak the language and everything. But we have no family there, so that's why.

15. I wrote my first ever novel (i.e. chapter book) when I was eight.

It involved three children going to visit their great-great-aunt in her mansion where she lived with her butler and her maid and large collection of porcelain rabbits. Her butler was extremely mean and didn't like children but suddenly had a change of heart and gave the oldest girl a porcelain rabbit without the great-great-aunt's permission. It didn't seem to get him in any trouble. I wrapped it up quickly because I realized it had no magic in it and what fun are books without magic in them?

16. My middle name is Antonia.

It's Antonia because my dad thought it was pretty and insisted.

17. The sky makes me unbearably happy.


I don't know why, but this past summer I picked up the habit of gazing at the sky. In the daytime, not at stars. I especially love it when it has clouds, but any sort of sky makes me just overwhelmed by the magnitude and beauty of this world and AGH I CAN'T <3

18. My favorite kind of cake is the really fudgy chocolate kind. 

Followed by lemon poppyseed. And carrot.

19. I'm majoring in Chemistry at my University.

Which means - Yes I know how to blow things up. Yes I know how to make luminol to detect blood stains. No I cannot make meth.

20. I have green eyes.

Which makes me a strong candidate for being a YA main character. Though I think I'm more likely that awesome secondary-character friend/sidekick.

Now I have revealed all my secrets! (Or have I?) Tell me 20 or 5 or 100 things about you in the comments! 

Renaissance Fair Frolickings

Last Saturday, I went to the Bristol Ren Faire with my sister and some friends, and it was EPIC. I know this has nothing to do with books or literature, but I'm assuming you lovely readers would like to hear of my adventures. :-) Prepare for AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT of photos. (I mean, "portraits.")

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to go to a Ren Faire, ever since I was a tiny hobbit and found out that Ren Faires were a thing. And finally, over ten years later, I got to go to one. WHY DID I NOT GO SOONER

My friends and I dressed up in all the Renaissancey stuff we could dig out of our basements:

We were greeted at the gate by a very raggedy and toothless old lady, who posed for a picture.

After being overwhelemed by the sheer magnitude of the faire (it's seriously like a little village), we found the fairie glen, which might possibly be my favorite part of the faire. My new career goal is to become a fairie.

This one had a spider web and would tie magical string bits onto the wrists of children. 

This was a quaint fairie couple. The yellow pixie would hop around and the orange fellow would just stare at people mysteriously and try to eat stones that the children gave him.

The yellow pixie is my absolute favorite fairie and I want to have one in my garden.

 Next, we went to see some comedians. The best of the shows we saw was a trio called Barely Balenced who did very impressive acrobatics. They called themselves Small, Medium, and Large, and the cutest thing is that Small and Medium are married! (Large is their best friend and personal bodyguard.) 

 

    

Then we went to see the jousts. Our knight was the green knight, Don Vincenzo from Italy - he didn't win much, but he was awesome nonetheless. The MC of the jousts was the Duchess Anastasia, Lady of Chivalry - yet another career goal for me. She was EPICNESS INCARNATE.

We saw both the Queen's Joust and the Fight To The Death (where Don Vincenzo died). But then he resurrected so we took a selfie... I mean, a "portrait":

We ate calzones in honor of our Italian knight. And my sister ate a giant turkey leg, which was very delicious:

This lady lets children paint on her skirt while she tells them stories. Another career goal for me. Can I just live at the Ren Faire please?

We also danced around a Maypole! It was so very exciting.

After some archery, we met up once more with the raggedy, toothless lady from the entrance. Her name is Lady Ettie and she has tea parties with the children. (We also got photobombed :-P )

We found an armory, where you could buy swords and daggers and whatnot. My sister's dream of actually touching a real dagger was fulfilled.

At the end of the day, the Queen's parade passed us by, and so we got to shout HUZZAH! and LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

The Queen's parade attracted some more fairies:

This one was a deer spirit:

We waited until most of the visitors had left, and it was kind of epic to have the faire to (mostly) ourselves. It's surreal. I HAVE to return next year because this was SUCH a great experience.

Have you been to a Renaissance Faire? Tell me about it! If you haven't - would you go? Would you dress up?

Ukrainian Christmas Traditions (i.e. LOTS OF FOOD)

Merry Christmas!

I haven't been reading lately because - present wrapping, cookie making, food preparation, house cleaning, table setting... So if you want book discussions - come back in a few days.

But I thought you might be interested to hear about my strange Ukrainian Christmas traditions. Warning: this post is mostly about FOOD because Ukies love FOOD and we will give you FOOD at any opportunity. So be prepared.

As Ukrainian Americans, we have definitely adapted some of our customs. Technically, the Christmas Eve feast begins when the first star appears in the night sky. Ours begins at lunchtime, because for dinner we go over to my dad's sister's house for more American festivities. 

(This would be a good time to point out that though both my parents are Ukrainian, my dad's side is larger and means that there are more non-Ukrainians in-laws.)

This is our table setting with special Ukrainian plates. (They were actually made in Kent, England, but hey. Whatever.) The little bowl and saucer right on the border between the two tables is for the dusha, or the souls of all the departed family members. We put a little bit of each food into it.

The first dish is this magical grain/honey/poppyseed/walnut sweet soup-like porridge thing called kutya. It's extraordinarily delicious. It goes in those little inner bowls. There's a Ukie tradition to flick a bit of it up onto the ceiling and see how many bits stick. We don't do this, for logical reasons.

via

Next is borscht, beet soup. It tastes better than it sounds, and goes in the outer bowls. Sour cream completes the garnish. You can't eat it sloppily, because then your gorgeous white lace tablecloth will be splattered with red. And beet is like blood - it never comes out.

(Side note: if you want a good fake blood stain - use beet juice.)

via

Ukrainians also like cabbage a lot, and mushrooms. And so we have:

~~Holubtsi, buckwheat pillows wrapped in cabbage leaves, with tomato sauce and ketchup* on top.

via

*Though not traditional, ketchup has been adopted by Ukrainian Americans as quite a useful condiment. For me, borscht and holubtsi don't taste quite right without ketchup. 

~~Pierogies or Varenykiy, dumplings. You pick the filling: cabbage and mushroom? Potato and mushroom? Potato and cheese? Meat and cheese? Meat and mushroom? What about a desert flavor - cherries? If we cannot find you a varenik flavor you like, then Ukrainian cooking is a lie.

(But you won't find the meat filling on Christmas Eve - nope, for this feast, it's all vegetarian as a reverence to the animals there at Christ's birth.)

via

~~Kapusta! Or, pickled cabbage. With mushrooms. Sometimes we put kovbasa (sausage) in it, but not on vegetarian Christmas Eve, of course.

via

There's also tsvitliy, horseradish and beet mush. Wait, that doesn't sound very appetizing. BUT IT IS.

via

And we can't forget babka, the delicious poofy bread in the middle of the table that holds the candle. We eat it afterwards. (You can see it in the middle of the table in the first picture.) (No, not the gingerbread house.)

I haven't named all of them, but technically there are twelve dishes for the twelve apostles. 

Other than food and eating and traditions-related-to-food, what do Ukrainians do on Christmas Eve?

We sing carols. A lot. The Ukrainian culture is very musical.

We open presents under the tree. But that's just a universal thing, right?

We are extra blessed when we sneeze. I don't know why, but sneezing on Christmas Eve means you'll have a lucky New Year. 

We...

I'm running out of traditions that have nothing to do with food. We like food. And I haven't even gotten to the deserts. 

Hey! you ask. But this is all Christmas Eve! What happens on actual Christmas?

Um. Ukrainians don't do much on the 25th, it all happens on the 24th. We went to church this morning. And now we're hanging around the house doing whatever and eating leftovers. My sister is actually doing homework. (Crazy, I know. WHAT EVEN.) We have been known to take out Thai food on Christmas.

I'm going to go off now to take advantage of the free time and read Once and Future King,  or maybe even work on some novels (FINALLY). I hope all your Christmases were wonderful, if you celebrate, and happy happy holidays!

We'll be back to our scheduled bookish program tomorrow. :-)

~Sophia

Tell me about your Christmas/Holiday traditions! What are some odd things you do that your neighbors do not? 

I am leaving you... for a few weeks

Have you ever gotten to that point where every day feels like it should be a Friday? And then it isn't? And then the disappointment just becomes unbearable?

Yeah, that's where I am right now. My family is getting tired of me saying, at least once every day, "I am so DONE with school." But I am! And I still have three weeks to go. 

This is my NaNo graph. Sad, huh?

I need to give myself some extra "free" time in my day so that I don't feel like I am cramming every second of every hour. I'm still doing NaNo, but that has faded away a bit, because whenever I DO have time, I am so tired that I don't want to do something that requires effort. I haven't even been reading lately, because blogging and NaNo has taken up my time. This is NOT GOOD. Reading is what keeps me sane, and my lack of reading may be contributing to my present madness.


My solution: I'm going to disappear from this blog until Thanksgiving weekend. I might even disappear from the internet for a bit. I'll devote free time to NaNo and reading more than I have been, and hopefully feel more relaxed when I have a bit more time on my hands.

The only post you WILL see during this hiatus will be next Tuesday, for my TTT, because the topic next week is Winter TBR, and I really want to write that one. :-)

So - farewell, for now. If all goes according to plan, I will return somewhere around November 29th or 30th, hopefully with a 50,000 word novel written. (Actually, I'm just aiming for 30k, given how this NaNo is going, but 50k would be nice too...)

See you then!

~Sophia

P.S. How is your NaNo going? (if you're doing it)

20 Things You May Not Know About Me

So quite a long time ago I got tagged for this thing, and didn't realize it. Robyn tagged me. (Thank you so much, you awesome person!) Finally, I'm getting around to it. 

1. How tall are you?

5'7". (Or, for you metric people, around 170 cm.)
That's 3 inches taller than the average woman on Earth, and a good 4 inches taller than the average American woman (according to the National Center for Health Statistics, and they sound official, so I'll take their word). So in the eyes of the world, I am Tall.
However, when you narrow down the population to only my household, I am quite a shrimp. My father is 6'4", my mother is 5'11", and my sister is 5'10.5". We remodeled our kitchen a few years back, and it is definitely a tall person's kitchen. I cannot reach the top shelves.
My sister insists I am 5'6.5". Come on, don't exaggerate my shortness. Cut me some slack.

2. Do you have a hidden talent? If so, what?

I never understand this kind of question, because if the talent was truly hidden, why would I know what it was? I am not so humble that I would HIDE my talents. So once I discover a talent, it is no longer hidden. Thus, I don't think I truly have a hidden talent.

However, a talent I'd rather not have is that I am EXCELLENT at forgetting things. I get it from my father. We both get made fun of for it, but at least I can blame him for passing it down to me. He has no one to blame.

 3. What is your biggest blog-related pet peeve?

DISAPPEARING COMMENTS. Usually it's my fault, and not the fault of the comment platform, but STILL. I type a beautifully long comment, and then accidentally refresh the page or click some link, and poof it's gone. Such sadness!

4. What's your biggest non-blog-related pet peeve?

Pessimistic people. Pessimism.
I am most certainly somewhere on the scale between realist and optimist. Don't rain on my logically organized parade, you pessimists!

5. What is your favorite song?

Oh, come on! Really?
I don't have ONE favorite song. Or even one favorite band. Or even one favorite genre. I am totally a mood-listener. Broadway's always a safe bet, as is anything Maroon5. Or Pentatonix. Songs with clever lyrics will also immediately get raised in my opinion, as will songs with logical and sensible lyrics (hard to find). But not having either of these doesn't mean a song is out. I'm easy to please, when it comes to music.

6. What is your favorite Etsy shop that isn't yours?

Uh, I have no Etsy shop. So.

There are tons of shops that I DO like, that I have stumbled upon in my internetings, but I usually only stop by once, and then forget to bookmark, and then lose forever. They're usually all nerdy - either science nerdy or lit nerdy.

Currently, I love Megan Lee.

7. What is your favorite way to spend free time when you're not alone?

I think everyone knows this answer. It has to do with pages bound together and deciphering weird symbols that form words and escaping into other worlds.

8. What is your favorite junk food?

I... rarely eat junk food? My mother is a very healthy chef, and so, living at home, I eat what she makes. Perhaps... chips. Any kind.
Also, chocolate doesn't count as junk food because the chocolate available in our house is not crap. It's this:

  

Go try it. My family scorns the ill-quality of Hershey's.

9. Do you have a pet or pets? If so, what kind, and what are their names?

No pets in our house. We've had beta fish before, (and a dog when I was two!) but currently - nope.

10. What are your number one favorite nonfiction and fiction books?

For nonfiction it would probably have to be Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman. And for fiction, there's a tie: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

11. What is your favorite beauty product?

HA. Like I wear beauty products. I don't need products to make me beautiful.

No wait - I do have a favorite thing - it's called SLEEP. Why wake up early to do your makeup when you could just sleep another twenty minutes?

There's a reason why it's called Beauty Sleep.

12. When were you last embarrassed? What happened?

I get embarrassed a lot, but - as I mentioned before - I also forget a lot. With the embarrassment, it's generally a survival tactic - I have to forget the embarrassing situation so I don't spiral into a pit of embarrassment and fail at social interaction. So, because of my forgetting skills, I can be a very social person despite occasional embarrassments.

Short answer: I forgot.

13. If you could only drink one beverage (besides water) what would it be?

Hmm... I think I'll settle on lemonade.

14. What's your favorite movie?

Not answering this one, because I don't have ONE favorite movie. But a few that are up there on the list are The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, and The Intouchables (this last one is a foreign film and is SUPERB and HILARIOUS and.. just go see it.).

15. What were you in high school: prom queen, nerd, cheerleader, jock, valedictorian, band geek, loner, artist, prep?

What was I? I was Sophia, duh. Homeschoolers believe in individuality and not in boxing people into specific identities.

16. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

There are a few options here - and thankfully, I'm already living in one of them! Chicago is a magnificent city, and (in my opinion) the best city in the US. For multiple reasons - but that's for another day.

London would also be spectacular. I LOVE London. (For different reasons than why I love Chicago. But they are equal on my list.)

And frankly, I wouldn't mind living in Quebec City, either.

17. PC or Mac?

Currently (and historically), PC. But I don't have my own computer, so I'm totally open to getting a Mac. I tend to not take sides in these sort of things.

OH - give me advice on what laptop I should get. I'm looking into getting my OWN this December.

18. Last romantic gesture from a crush, date, boy/girlfriend, spouse?

HA. 

That is all I have to say.

19. Favorite celebrity?

Uhhh... let's go with Emma Watson. Because she's been really awesome lately.

20. What blogger friends do you secretly want to be best friends with?

I feel like this is the popular answer, but I really want to be friends with EVERYONE. I've made some spectacular blogger friends over this past year, and I WANT MORE. It's so wonderful. 

So - let's be friends and do awesome bookish friend things together!

Now, the important question: whom am I tagging?

Two special individuals:

1. Skylar at Life of a Random

2. Lois at You, Me, and a Cup of Tea 

Also, if you would like it - take it! It's free! Share the link with me in the comments!

Or, if you feel like just answering a few of the questions in the comments, that's cool too. OH and don't forget - PC or Mac? Which one should I get?

~Sophia