Sewing books and a classic novel

This spring, I have started a new hobby that I thought I’d never pick up. I watched random YouTube videos and was inspired by one of the people who had sewing as a hobby. I think it’s a very soothing hobby somehow. Afterwards, I went on and purchased my very first sewing machine with no basic knowledge on it lol. I plan to play a little more with my machine once I go back to my country for this summer break. But before that, I thought I’d learn more about the basics, which is why I bought a new book on sewing!

This book had the most reviews for beginner’s sewing guide. I went on and purchased it even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to read most of the kanji inside it lol. There are a lot of pictures which helps the reader’s understanding. Even someone who’s not fluent in reading like me can somewhat understand the instructions.

There aren’t a lot of detailed explanations inside sewing guide books that are sold in my home country so I thought this book could be really handy.

I spotted this book in Kinokuniya last time but was hesitant to buy it at first. But I figured out this would be a nice compliment to my sewing book if I decide to go further with this hobby.

The illustrations are really pretty and the patterns are very cute as well. I hope to use one of these patterns for my future sewing projects!

I found these two books in my university’s bookstore. To be honest, I’ve never read Le Petit Prince before but I know it’s a good book since it’s everywhere lol. I decided to challenge my own Japanese ability (it sucks, though) and gave this book a try. The kanji used are quite hard but they have hirgana readings above it so it’s easier!

The book on the right is actually a blank notebook disguised as a novel. I found it really interesting and cute so I went ahead and bought it lol.

The illustrations are basically divided into three different sections. I still don’t know what to use this notebook for or if I’m gonna use it at all. It’s too cute I’m reluctant to use it. Aaagh.

I got this bookmark as a freebie for purchasing the novels. I actually got two since I bought two books, but I gave out the other one to my friend.

It’s easy to use and cute in appearance as well. You just need to drape it over and close the book. Since it’s rubber, it’s hard to fall off so you don’t have to worry about losing it!

That is all for the book haul this time. I can’t wait to burn through all these books during summer break!

Hobonichi 2017 Lineup

The full lineup of the new Hobonichi covers are out here! I had been looking forward for this since they’ve announced that they’ll be releasing a whole new set of covers last month. I even followed their daily sneak peeks on their website just to satisfy my curiosity.

I scrolled through the website yesterday just to immediately fall in love with these two new A6 covers: Sherbet and Polar Bear.

One of my friends said that the Polar Bear looks ghastly from afar… I must admit that he’s right. Lol. However that doesn’t erase the definition of cute from the cover. The Sherbet version is just my favorite combination of colors, baby blue and coral pink. Hobonichi even set the Sherbet cover as their website’s favicon!

The other cover designs didn’t really suit my taste that well so I think I won’t be purchasing any of the Weeks or Cousin covers for the 2017 edition. That’s a shame, to be honest. I was really hoping that they’ll release more of a gorgeous colored or cute designed cover this year, but nope. I’ve also looked at the Mother 2 covers for 2017 and I still think that 2016 versions are way more better as well.

Price wise, it’s quite obvious that Sherbet is cheaper than Polar Bear. And since I’ll be purchasing the Avec version of the journal for next year (yes I’ll be trying the original A6), Sherbet costs JPY 3,996 while it’s JPY 4,968 for Polar Bear. It’s really pricey for a future university student and that doesn’t even include the shipping fee yet! 😥
I hope I could save some money up to buy Polar Bear, otherwise I’ll have to stick with Sherbet. But that’s OK, I guess?

Whether I’ll be purchasing the Cousin journal will be decided based on how much I use the journal for university. I suspect there’ll be a lot of things to write and schedule down but hopefully I can still switch off to A6 so I can save a bit for money for other expenses. That being said, I think I’ll have to be a little more grateful to Hobonichi for not releasing cute covers and killing me instantly inside for not being able to buy all of them. Haha. 😛

Prolonged procrastination

Hello there! Forgive me for being ~~unable~~ lazy to update my posts here. Lots of unimportant things happened and I had no spirit to update even once. Sigh. Even I’m pretty clueless myself about what to post in this entry. Usually I just do anime watch lists (this season’s pretty amazing!) and random boring life reports…

Anyways, my long school break is pretty relaxing except for the times when I had to attend Japanese lessons. We went to Belitung Island last month, it was quite amazing! (Check my IG for pics.) The beaches was truly mesmerizing (and scorching hot!). The food wasn’t that bad as well. It actually suited our tastes. Viva seafood!

During this holiday, I also picked up two new books. The first one was The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin. It’s full of heartbreaks caused by friendship and … jellyfishes. It’s an okay’ read for children (except for the part where this kid stole someone else’s money) as it also tells how to find themselves outside their comfort zone.

The second one was I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. This book was really interesting and time consuming to finish. (The fonts are small and 400+ pages, hell yeah!) I had to say that this was one of the most captivating books I’ve ever read for some time. The genre’s romance, however it doesn’t only focus on girl meets boy story line but rather love in a greater and wider concept. The ending’s really nicely done. I feel I won’t need a new novel to binge read for awhile. Haha.

Reads about death and mind

I finally got several books to post about ever since my last book related post. The reasons for the long wide gap of unavailable reads are: 1) I just didn’t have the time to read and; 2) There aren’t so many interesting books being published recently.

Which led to another reason why the books that I read this time was published like two or three years ago. They were great books and I wonder why it just caught my eye right now.

Counting by 7s

The story follows Willow Chance, a genius kid who is interested in plants and medical world. The book tells about her hardships and how she experiences and fights the depression from losing her loved ones together with her newfound friends, Mai and Quang Ha. Literally every character introduced in this book has one similarity in which they are lost and are swimming against the tide to overcome their own challenges.

I love the book for the reason I could relate to Willow and feel what she was feeling. It also presented some kind of lesson about real life situations that a person would definitely experience one day. Overall, this book was really nicely written!

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

This is indeed one of the funniest books I’ve read about death. The story centres around Greg Gaines, his friend Earl Jackson, and his dying friend Rachel Kushner. The first few hundred pages of the book was pretty entertaining and hilarious as it tells the everyday life story of Greg trying to not stand out at school along with his early filmmaking years with Earl. The rest of the few chapters nearing the end of the story was a bit depressing to me because of the ‘dying’ part.

This book may have comments on how similar it is with The Fault in Our Stars because of the ‘dying girl’ part. But this has nothing similar to TFIOS except for the dying thing. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl has it’s own originality and humour.

Psych101

This is actually the very first educational book that I’ve read about psychology. Nothing much to mention except for the amazing list of experiments that is included inside. It may be interesting for people who has high curiosity in science field.

P.S: This book is borrowed from Kiev. (Thanks for lending me!)

Finally, some books

I asked my friend who went on a study tour to Singapore to buy me a Japanese manga. I’m glad he didn’t make a mistake this time. (Hey, I know you’re reading this). I’ve always wanted to have either a novel or manga in Japanese to practice my reading skills. I thought that novel was a little too hard since it lacks furigana, so I decided that manga would be a better choice.

I admit it was pretty hard to properly translate Japanese since they have different phrases that didn’t even existed in English. They have various kind of speeches, too. But reading this had it’s own kind of fun.

Finally, I’ve got my hands on the newest novel of Rick Riordan’s norse mythology series! I’d always loved fantasy myth themed novels. This book, The Sword of Summer, especially, has a really sarcastic dude for a protagonist named Magnus (duh).

The prologue that starts the story is really similar to Rick’s Greek series. The plot line was also similar too Greek’s. I think it’s more of a clone of PJO series, only Norse themed. The story plot was also the same, to prevent the doomsday, in other words, Ragnarok. Well, I was kinda surprised to find Rick to, cough, kill, cough, one of his characters in the book since I don’t really remember anyone dying so early in the Greek series. It was a sad death, but a nice one that spiced the story a bit. Just a bit.

I still think it’s a nice read to kill time. I finished the book in a day. Kinda regretted it because I’m craving for the sequel now. 🙄 I’ll have to wait another year patiently for this …

Midterm break

I wouldn’t actually call it a ‘break’, seeing as we students still have shitloads of work to do that were given by teachers.

I’m also still thinking about the inevitable red mark on my midterm report.

Nevertheless, having three days off (excluding Saturday and Sunday) is till something that I really have to appreciate, since school rarely gave us holidays. I mean, getting a room to breathe was already hard as it is, let alone holidays.

So I planned to make use of that holiday to it’s fullest extent (read: procrastinating). I’ve just finished reading Paper Towns yesterday. It took me around six hours to finish it. I think it’s an interesting book, though it has several loose ends. Then I caught up with Rokka no Yuusha‘s novel right after I finished watching the anime. I’m also planning to read Hyouka‘s novel, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to finish that in my remaining break time.

Respective covers of Paper Towns, Rokka no Yuusha, and Hyouka

As for the fall season of anime, there are three titles that I will absolutely be following! These three are sequels to their respective first seasons that I have been waiting for a long time! They’re finally here! 😀

Anime (from left to right): K - Return of Kings, Noragami Aragoto, Haikyuu!! Second Season — Anime (from left to right): K – Return of Kings, Noragami Aragoto, Haikyuu!! Second Season

Well, anime and books aside, I’m currently trying to brainstorm for slogan ideas about multiculturalism for my homework. I do hope I’ll get a nice tag line for it! Time to sketch for designs!

“Problem children are coming from a different world?” vol. 11

This other day my friend Kevin bought me a Japanese light novel titled Mondaiji. He bought it while he was on a two day trip at Singapore.

I was really excited so I started to open the book. The illustrations were really nice inside. It also has the fresh new book scent.

Then the only thing that I did not expect was that the whole book was not in Japanese, but Chinese.

I asked him whether the only available version was the Chinese translated ones. But then he said he had mistaken Chinese for Japanese, so …

I asked my mom whether she could read those text and she said yes, but she couldn’t translate it as she didn’t know most of the meanings for the characters. Sigh.

I’m just upset that this book is going to waste. It costs S$12.20 !