Books to read after I graduate

School has been my life for literally the last 8 years.  Minus the two years that I took to serve a mission from '05-'07, I have been in school almost every semester, including summers, since I graduated high school.  I know, I just threw up in my mouth too.  So needless to say, I haven't had a whole lot of free time to read books for pleasure.  Hence why I've been compiling lists of things to do, see, etc. when I graduate, and one of those lists is "Books to Read."  This list is made up almost entirely of books that have been recommended to me throughout the years of student-dom/academic servitude/hell:

1. Catcher in the Rye
2. My Name is Asher Lev
3. Hunger Game Series (Trendy?  Too late?  We'll see)
4. Ender's Game (I know, I may be the only Utahn of mormon descent to NOT have read this book)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird (don't ask me how I graduated high school w/out reading this book.  Whatever, I'm from Herriman, UT.  Don't judge)
6. Jane Eyre
7. Kite Runner
8. Brave New World
9. 100 años de soledad (Jess, eets een Espaneech)
10. A Time to Kill
11. The Witch of Blackbird Pond
12. The Sookie Stackhouse Series (Which I just found out the series True Blood is based on)
13. The Uglies
14. Dracula
15. The Name of the Wind (courtesy of my barber)

This is the extent of my list as of right now - I would like to cordially invite any and all to make suggestions to add to my list.  Since I'm going to be working three 12 hours shifts a week once I graduate, I expect to have some free time to catch up on living.  Readysetgo.

A Beginning and an Ending

I'm doing it!  Right here, right now, I'm joining the ranks of bloggers.  I'm becoming one of the masses of people that have so much to say to so few.  I'm going to send my words out into the interwebs and it's going to make me feel fulfilled.  I love lists, so here's a list of the reasons why I'm starting a blog:

1) I want a place to talk about my opinion on difficult/complicated issues.  Facebook just doesn't cut it.
2) Somewhere to mention the music that makes my soul go boom-badoom-boom-boom-badoom-boom-hey.
3) Keep up/improve my writing skills, since Imma be done wit da nursin' skool in a week.
4) Update the world on my life, because Facebook will probably become trashy and turn into the next MySpace any day now.
5) Honestly, I want somewhere to grumble and bellyache a little.  (I would like to make a note that I looked up synonyms for "bitch" in my thesaurus just now and got "bellyache" and "grumble."  I didn't want to be that person that says the word "bitch" in their blog and turns people off, ya know?  Not on my first post.  Besides, I'm sure some family members are going to read this and I can't let them know that I cuss sometimes.  But look, I'm already improving my writing skills by expanding my vocabulary!)

Please stay tuned for more posts, because I'm about to have much more time coming up here soon.  I'm in the last leg of my program - the final sprint!  I'm almost done!  But obviously I'm super motivated to do my homework and study because instead I'm starting a blog at 2 a.m.  Bless me.