Snowflakes and Spider Silk

Okay friends, strap in, this is going to be quite a rant about cultural appropriation and all the interactions that have been bothering me lately. I am just sick of hearing from my (predominantly white) friends how indignation at cultural appropriation is so "extra" and unnecessary, so here is my attempt to explain through my south Asian/desi lens exactly what I consider to be cultural appropriation and why it bugs me. Basically it boils down to this: If I get fun of for a certain part of my culture or heritage, but a white person can do the same thing and is applauded for being "boho chic", it's cultural appropriation. If a bunch of white people start profiting off of a part of my culture or start a "trend" without acknowledging the source, that's cultural appropriation too. Golden Milk Lattes This beverage has been making the rounds on all the health-focused hipster health blogs, and is essentially an up-cycled version of a tr...

Sorry I've been AWOL for a couple weeks, I've been flying out all over the country for grad school interviews. This week is my last one (thank goodness, all the traveling and meeting new people is so tiring  even though it's a lot of fun), so hopefully I'll get back into the rhythm of updating the blog regularly. I also have to decide where I'm going soon...that's gonna be tough o.O I wasn't flying around this past weekend, but I did go to my first author event! I've been trying to meet at least one of my favorite authors for 5 years now but something always comes up last minute or I'm not able to get to where the signing is because it's 2 hours away on a Tuesday night and I'm a broke college student without a car. But this year, I'm no longer a college student and  I have a car! Double jackpot. I went down to Huntington Beach on Saturday to see Victoria Schwab on her A Conjuring of Light Tour, and I had such an amazing time. I wa...

Well, here we are, at the end of 2016! Last year I made my first infographic that catalogued some interesting reading stats. I made a new one this year, to look at some of the same things and compare them to how I did last year. Here it is! Some interesting facts : I started and ended this year with Sanderson books , so obviously my year in books was off to a great start and end (Shadows of Self and Arcanum Unbounded, in case you were wondering). I think I have one or two more short stories/novellas to go before I've read everything published in the Cosmere :D I read more paperback and hardcover books this year because I went to the actual library instead of just conveniently checking out ebooks on my kindle.  Listened to more audiobooks than ever because I listen to them at work, about 1 a week My average rating last year was 3.905 and this year's was 3.904, and no one star books in either year. Looks like I have a pretty solid idea of which books I...

I finally graduated! I'm officially done with college! I'm a real adult now! AAAAAAAAAAH Okay so I just finished my first week of work! A lot of the work I'm doing right now is testing all sorts of things and that involves a lot of mindless preparation of different samples and waiting for things to dry or react or heat up. I was bored out of my mind until I realized I could listen to an audiobook while I was just waiting around. It was a fantastic idea...except that I'm going through audiobooks way faster than I expected. I finished a 12 hour audiobook in 3 days. Now I'm working on Way of Kings because it's over 40 hours long and will hopefully get me through a week or two :) I didn't realize how tired I'd be when I got home, because I'm used to a crazy-packed schedule with multiple 12-hour days when I was still a student and involved with different clubs and a dance team and research and all that good stuff outside of class. I figured that ...

Here's my stop on the BFF Blog hop, hosted by Swoony Boys Podcast and Fiction Fare ! Also posting today are The Novel Orange , Don't Fold the Page , The Reader and the Chef  so be sure to check them out! I thought this would be a fun way to get to know other book bloggers and spread the love, and hunting for awesome bookstagrammers was a lot of fun. Most of them are twitter friends who also have bookstagrams, but I found a few new ones tooHere are a few awesome ones I found: A photo posted by Isabella Davila (@bookishbookblog) on Sep 27, 2015 at 2:35pm PDT This one was new to me, but I loved all the trinkets and color coordination that goes into featuring different books! A photo posted by Alison ❁ 19 (@crimeofrhyme) on Oct 3, 2015 at 8:50am PDT I found this one while I was hunting for new bookstagrammers, and I just can't wrap my head around how gorgeous all of these photos are. Just wow. A photo posted by Brittany S. ...

Hey lovely Gentleman Bastard readalong people! Sorry for not having very many GB-related posts this week. In retrospect, hosting a readalong that begins the week before finals was not very smart... Even if we've only started The Lies of Locke Lamora this week, I think everyone has a good idea of what makes someone a gentleman bastard. It's quite a combination...too refined and you're a gentleman, too mean and you're a bastard. I thought it would be fun to figure out which end of the spectrum we fall on so I made a Buzzfeed quiz !  Do you have what it takes to be a Gentleman Bastard? Apologies if it's kind of sloppy...it's my first time making something on Buzzfeed and it took waaaaaaaay longer than I expected haha Enjoy and let me know where you end up :)

I love the characters of Way of Kings because they are so dynamic and interesting and epic. They are always growing and changing, and you're constantly discovering new layers to their personality.  I got to thinking - what if we flattened all those layers and tried to describe each character in a few words? What if we took each of these fabulous characters and tried to find a role for them in the modern day? Adolin He's a pretty-boy who's super athletic and is used to being the top of the (highprince) food chain. No surprises that I think he's most like a high school star quarterback . All that padding looks kind of looks like shardplate...No? Kaladin He is always doing his best to ensure everyone around him is safe and happy, and is constantly training his men and teaching them new skills. I think he's a more epic version of a teacher , since he cares about his "students" and gives them the tools they need to succeed. Shallan Sh...

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish . This week's theme:  Top Ten Movies and TV Shows This is going to be fun! I love reading SFF, so a lot of my favorite movies and TV shows have elements of sci-fi/fantasy. There are a couple that don't, but I love them just as much! TV shows I love Doctor Who - it's all the fun of time travel and space exploration with all the joy of discovering the best humanity has to offer. My favorite episodes are Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Vincent and the Doctor, The Empty Child, and The Girl in the Fireplace. They're the ones that were the most emotional for me, which is what I love about this show - despite all the crazy aliens and special effects, in the end it's about wonderful people and their beautiful stories. Merlin was one of those series that got better and better with every season. I didn't love it at first, but as each season went on, I fell in love...