This was a science fiction book that I wasn’t sure I was going to like, but from the first few lines, I was hooked. I love books set in the future, where crazy things have happened to the world.
In this particular book, Andrew Wiggins, or “Ender” has been a part of a government project from the day he was born. He has been living with a monitor connected to his body, that monitors every move he makes, every thought he has. The monitor is then removed, and he is watched to see how he’ll do when he thinks he’s entirely alone.

Ender goes through hell in this book, as he is chosen to be trained as a military fighter. They are training young children to fight in an impending war against aliens, whom they’ve nicknamed the “buggers”. There is a lot going on in this book, and far too much to write about. It breaks your heart to read about this little boy, who never gets the chance to be a kid. He never gets to sit with his family and open
holiday gifts , he never gets to just play. The “games” the children play in battle school are all training sessions for the real thing.

I was surprised to learn that this book was written in the 80s, before personal computers were all the rage. The book deals with laptops, called “desks” and the author’s insight into future technology was almost eerie. It’s a great book about morals, and nature versus nurture. While it is sad in parts, I definitely think it’s a book worth reading, or listening to in my case!

I love it when the writers of Grey’s change up the way a show is filmed. One season the showed the end of a rather horrific scene where blood was spraying all over Lexie and she was trying to stop it, and then the show did a Quentin Tarantino and went backwards to tell the story.

Last night’s episode went from present time backwards, but from many different points of view, hence the name, I Saw What I Saw. In this case, they were trying to determine why a patient died, and two board members and the chief of medicine were interviewing all of the doctors who worked on her. It was a great episode with the way it was told.

However, with the absence of George and Izzie, and also Meredith, there was a lot missing from the show. It didn’t have that something that it used to have. Hopefully when Mer comes back, and Izzie as she’s rumored to, things will be ok. Izzie and Alex better patch things up. How weak sauce is it to not talk to your own husband and explain yourself?

Hopefully next week’s episode will show a little less rivalry between the Seattle Grace and Mercy West doctors and a little more spicy Grey’s that I’m used to watching.

I definitely won’t be doing a week by week of this show, because it’s just too packed full of awesomeness for me to be able to give any kind of justice to the show.

For those of you who haven’t seen the promos (they are everywhere, with good reason) here is the basic premise of the show: Everyone in the world blacked out at the exact same time, for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. And all hell broke loose. As the world picked up the pieces, people started to compare stories of what they saw when they blacked out. It turns out almost everyone had a vision of the same day, six months in the future. For some it was the fulfillment house they’d be dreaming about, or they landed that job they had applied for. For others, it was the end of their marriage. For one main character, he doesn’t have a flash forward, and he is convinced he is going to be dead in six months.

As these stories keep coming out, the main characters watch in horror, or delight, as the futures they saw start to come true. The show is intense and super addicting, and I absolutely love it. Apparently it’s from the LOST creators, and I think I really need to watch that show now too. Anyone else check out FlashForward? What do you think? Do you think that our futures are predetermined, or do we have the ability to change them?

The Mercy West doctors are here. I love how Seattle Grace “ran out of blue scrubs” so now the Mercy West docs are in orange. So it’s obvious the blue vs orange dynamic.

My heart hurt for Callie, when she realized her father wasn’t there to reconcile but to “pray away the gay.” I’m glad they patched things up, and I absolutely loved the scene between Arizona and Callie’s father. “I love your daughter, and I fight for the people I love.”

I can’t BELIEVE they fired Izzie! What happens now?! That was all she had going for her, to keep her strong. I’m mad that she jumped to the conclusion that it’s Alex’s fault and that she left him. After all that he did for her…she’s leaving him? He tried to keep her job for her. After all the hype from last season, I was like, what now she’s leaving the show? But then I did a little digging and it looks like she’s on a five week maternity leave to spend time with her new baby. So that’s a relief! Because Izzie and Alex are meant to be together, and the show just wouldn’t be the same without the two of them.

I appreciated the breakdown that Cristina has in front of Meredith. I love it when the writers make Cristina vulnerable. She really needs a cardio god to come into play. It makes me wonder, especially after watching Private Practice, are they going to send over PP’s very own McHandsome, Sam Bennett? He would be a great addition to Seattle Grace, but he’s also pretty sensitive. I don’t know if that will blend very well with Cristina and her dark and twistiness. I wonder how long they’ll let Cristina suffer before they let her shine in the surgery room again.

Last night’s HIMYM cracked me up because sadly, they way they acted around couples is the way D and I can get. Marshall and Lily have been the only couple in a group of singles forever. They’re always looking for couple friends to hang out with, for game nights and group trips. The problem is, they try way too hard, and end up coming across as total creepers. It just made me laugh because while D and I aren’t quite as bad as them, we do get bummed when potential couple friends never call us back, or don’t offer to hang out. The scene where Lily and Marshall are in bed crying into their ice cream containers is hilarious, and I totally felt their pain. Trying to find couple friends and it not working out can feel like a breakup, and you’d need the best weight loss pills just to recover from all the ice cream and chocolate eating.

I don’t think I’ll ever be as wacky as Marshall though and make up a song and photo montag for every single event. D teases me about this because I do one of those videos every year at Christmas, but that’s for family, not people I just met. Ok, maybe I am too much like Marshall.

The other part of the story involves Ted and being the “Sexless Innkeeper” because women only come over to his apartment because it’s right above the bar and it’s a place to crash. They know Ted’s a nice guy and won’t try to seduce him, hence he’s dubbed, the sexless innkeeper. There’s a great scene where Barney does a little poem. Classic Barnicle!

For me this episode was the most highly anticipated moment since I began watching the show. I am a huge Pam and Jim fan, and I think they are so cute together. I have to say I was a little disappointed in this episode though. The writers just went a little over the top with the whole dance scene when the bridal party walks down the aisle. If the scene had lasted maybe a minute it would have been fine, but it just kept going on and on, and it just seemed stupid to me. But the scene where Pam and Jim run away and get married on a boat under the Falls was perfect. I was in tears before long. Also, the toast Jim made during the rehearsal dinner was a tear jerker. Up until he spilled the beans to everyone about Pam’s pregnancy. D’oh. If I had a grandma that uptight, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t invite her to the wedding. Honestly who cares if they got pregnant ahead of time? They love each other and they’re getting married now, that’s all that matters.

Here’s Jim’s speech to Pam at their rehearsal dinner the night before their wedding:

Four years ago, I was just a guy who had a crush on a girl who had a boyfriend. And I had to do the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, which was to wait. And don’t get me wrong, I flirted with her…I just had little moments with a girl who saw me as a friend. And a lot of people told me I was crazy to wait this long for a date with a girl who I worked with, but I think that even then I knew that I was waiting for my wife.

I loved that Meredith got more face time this week on Grey’s. She is given a tough choice. Her dead beat dad that abandoned her is dying and needs a liver transplant. Lexie is devastated because unlike Meredith, their father was good to her, and a great dad. So despite her misgivings, Mer does the right thing and donates to help him. She tells her dad that he wasn’t there for her, that she doesn’t know what it’s like to have a father, but that she does know what it’s like to have a sister, and so she’s doing this for her. I loved that moment, where Meredith shows love for her sister, and shows that she’s grown as a character.

Izzie is put on a cancer patient case, against Owen’s better judgment. She convinces him to do a risky surgery and the patient dies. It hits close to home for Izzie because she is one of the rare survivors. Owen tells her that she has to learn how to separate herself from when she was a patient to being a doctor again.

*Silly sidenote from me, I absolutely love Izzie’s fuzzy short hair. She pulls it off so well! I know it has sad reminders of her cancer but silver lining ok people?

Christina talking to the chief and saying she wants to be cut from the program if she can’t get the right training was pretty bold. I wonder if she will go all crazy like she did when Burke hurt his hand and start doing procedures on her own. I’m guessing there will be a lot of doctors breaking the rules in an effort to keep their jobs.

The new show Eastwick is being called Sex and the City meets Salem. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I do like it. It’s my guilty pleasure show, because it combines cute guys, magic, and girl friends. It’s cheesy, but it’s the kind of cheesy you enjoy.I also really love the ladies’ hair. How do they all keep it so glossy and perfect?

In this week’s episode Joanna is trying to find out the truth about Darryl. It’s weird, all the ladies don’t trust him, yet they always seem to hang out with him. It’s kind of bizarre.

So as Joanna does some amauteur detective work with her friend Penny, they discover they’ve been led by Darryl to a whorehouse, where the town reverend is a loyal customer. Joanna gets some prime pictures, and lands her first front page news story. Her crush Will also admits that he’s liked Jo since the first time they met, but instead of taking her right there on the newsroom floor after hours, he insists on being a proper gentleman and taking her for a date. I really don’t know what she sees in Will, he is kind of a tool if you ask me. She could do so much better!

Roxie is being haunted throughout the episode by her daughter’s attempted rapist, who died in a freak accident the previous episode. Roxie feels like it is her fault because she wished he would die, and then he did. All of the ladies are still coming into their powers, but none of them seem to know they actually have them. Roxie starts to figure it out when she later tells a fake psychic to “choke on it” and she literally starts choking. Roxie ends up finally apologizing to Gus’s ghost, because while she is relieved that he’s gone for her daughter’s sake, she feels sorry for his mother who lost her son.

Kat is trying to patch things up with her control freak/alcoholic husband. I can’t make my mind up about this guy. I can see where she’s having trouble. He’s incredibly hot, and sometimes so sweet to her. But then he flips on a dime and turns into this jealous d bag who tells her she can’t have her girl friends. WTH? So she makes up her mind to leave him, and stays over at Roxie’s for the night. Joanna is there too because her house gets broken into and she’s afraid it’s the reverend who say her take pictures of him at the whorehouse.

When Kat goes home in the morning, she finds that her husband Raymond has left her, taking her kids with him. On the fridge is the divorce lawyer’s card, that Darryl gave to Kat a few days before, with the words “go to hell” written on it.

Meanwhile Darryl is in his house, burning old newspaper clippings about a millionaire who mysteriously died, and an old picture of him (the same age as he is now) with three beautiful women, who are now very old. I’m pretty sure he’s some sort of evil warlock guy, but the odd thing is he keeps helping our three main characters. So is he good, is he bad, or somewhere in the middle? I’m guessing we’ll just have to keep watching to find out.

Have I mentioned that since we moved we have an extra bedroom? I’m so excited about it. We don’t have it all fixed up yet, because it’s been the place we shoved all the crap while trying to sort through the rest of the house.

Between midterms, social obligations, work, and getting the rest of the house situated there just hasn’t been time to work on it. I did manage to clear a spot so I could take a picture of the work in progress.

Not so bad at first glance right? It’s got a love seat, with the book shelf full of my favorite books to curl up with. Little reading lamp, kind of fun and relaxing right?

Oh right…there’s all the junk! I managed to hang up that painting plus a map of the US last night. I still have to sort through those bags and find a decent filing cabinet. This is also going to be the office, in addition to the reading room/the project room, and the whiskey bar. Yes…whiskey bar. D rolled in his kitchen island (which won’t fit in our kitchen) and put his different alcohols on it, and annouced that he’ll have poker nights in here at the table, and be able to serve his guests at the bar. I think it’s actually kind of cute, and I’ll post pictures when that’s all organized. But in reality, I’m betting it’s going to be the reading room, 90% of the time.

Is anyone else sick of hearing about these idiots? I get why they started the show, to help make money and provide for their ridiculous amount of kids. They racked in the money and then watched as their marriage collapsed on national television. Now Jon has emptied the bank account and left Kate with a thousand bucks to live off of. Now she’s on the Today show with her sob story about not knowing what she’s going to do, and how she can’t pay her bills, and she’s probably already looking for dental care discounts and other hand outs for the kids. I agree that Jon has been a real sleazebag lately, but isn’t there money set aside for the kids since THEY are the ones who earned it? I’m sure there is legal action she can take. Plus when they were going through this divorce stuff, didn’t she set some money aside?
It just bugs me that they’ve gotten so out of hand with their spending, that she doesn’t know if she can pay her bills? Come on, you make MILLIONS. I don’t feel sorry for this woman, who is too busy going on every talk show on the planet, exploiting her kids on tv, and not willing to let go of the golden paycheck when enough already. The kids need the cameras out of their face. I don’t care if Kate decides to have her own talk show (which will eventually bomb after the hype fades out), but take those poor kids off the air. I’m glad the show is temporarily on hold, let’s hope it’s permanent.

I love how now Kate is all high fashion, and blackberry weilding. The money was for the kids, right?

And this guy. How he got so many nannies, 20 somethings to sleep with him I’ll never know!