It's My Blogoversary!

I can't believe it's been a year already! I almost forgot my own blogoversary! I remember how I felt like such a spaz writing my reviews at first and not knowing what to say or if anyone would be interested in what I thought or if I should comment on other people's posts or not... And now I feel so comfortable in the blogosphere!

A little while ago, we celebrated our first blogoversary at the Broke and the Bookish, the other blog I contribute to. And Jamie, our wonderful leader, gave us a nice set of questions to answer so as to let everyone get to know us better. So I thought that in honor of my own blogoversary, I'd repost it here and tell you all a little more about me.


So, hi, I'm Daisy, a 23-year-old medical intern. Oh, and I love books, did I mention that already? Like I mentioned, I also contribute to The Broke and the Bookish. The Broke and the Bookish was founded in the College Students Group on Goodreads, I jumped at the chance to be a part of it and loved blogging so much I decided to get my own!
I so wanted to show you guys my awesome bookcases, but sadly, my camera decided to die on me.

1. How Do You Balance Reading and School/Work? To be honest, I don't really. There's not much balance to go around, I either study really hard and sadly have no time for reading. Or I read and conveniently *forget* I should be studying instead. It's gotten somewhat easier now I have an ereader and can just pile books on there in case I go anywhere on weekends or for the commute to and from the hospital. Seriously, it fits in pretty much any purse I own, so I can take a book with me anywhere, I love it! I work about 50-60 hours a week and with my boyfriend sometimes needing cuddles and friends and parents who want my attention sometime, it can get tough to squeeze in reading time. I always try to read before going to sleep and Saturday is my designated reading day, you have to be really persuasive to convince me to do otherwise.

2. Do you have any authors whose books you'd put on an "auto-read" list...no matter what they wrote? So this one is easy: J.K. Rowling. There's no questioning it, if she ever decides to write another book/series/essay/ANYTHING, I'd buy it. I so loved Harry Potter, I can honestly say my life would be less -for lack of a better word- magical if I hadn't read them.
The same goes for Patrick Rothfuss and Suzanne Collins, their books go on auto-buy. And if Jane Austen were still alive and kicking, she'd be on the list too, cause I so love her books. And this is the mind that created Mr. Darcy, who knows what she would have come up with if she'd lived longer.

3. Favourite bookquote? So this one's pretty long, but it's beautiful:

"If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair, forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger--

If you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well-meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early--

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless--

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next."
- Michael Ende - The Neverending Story

This describes my love of reading so absolutely perfectly, everyone should feel like this at some point in their lives I think. I can't imagine a life without books and this exact feeling.

4. Favorite place to shop for books? Hands down the booksales we have every once in a while around here. They are awesome. And they don't make me feel guilty for getting 20 books, cause they're all so cheap! We also have a beautiful bookstore in the town I live in, I can just get lost in there for hours
And I'm lucky enough to have been to London last year and OMG, the bookstores there are just amazing! There are so many more to choose from, it was heavenly, I swear my boyfriend thought I was going crazy :)

5. Do any of your friends, family or significant other share your passion? Well, I have friends who read. My mother reads. I've even convinced my boyfriend to pick up a book this year. But none of them share my passion. I mean, seriously, it's one of the best things about blogging: you guys say 'nice haul' when I'm telling about 15+ books I've gotten from a sale, while my friends and family ask me if I really need them. I do. I need all of them. Also, my friends probably read 15 books a year or something. I sometimes read that much in 2-3 weeks.

5 Random Things About Me:
1. I'm studying medicine, but I hate going to the doctor myself and I always self-diagnose before I got. Which is probably really annoying (sorry!).

2. I speak Dutch, English, French, German and a little Latin. I really wish I could speak Chinese or Spanish, that would be awesome!

3. I make a mean chocolate pie. It's so good even one of my friends who doesn't like chocolate pie (which is weird on a whole unique level altogether), loves it.

4. My to-read list on Goodreads has 824 books on it, 95 of which I physically own. 6 months ago, there were 591 on this list. I've read 79 books since and am beginning to fear I will never see the end of the list. It's exploding and it seems to grow overnight by itself.

5. I love watching Ugly Betty (so sad it ended), Grey's Anatomy, America's Next Top Model and Gossip Girl. I love relaxing with all the drama going on there.

You all still awake? Thanks for taking the time to get to know me a bit more and if I did make you snooze, at least you got a nice little nap out of it right?