2012 Looking Ahead, Back and Things I'd Like To Do

So I'm a bit late with the 2012 resolutions, as everyone seemed to have theirs ready weeks ago. The problem is: I'm not really one for new year's resolutions. I am one of those persons who needs to actually accomplish those goals once set and I didn't really want to add the stress of not meeting them to the stress of juggling work, a social life, reading and blogging. And with the high expectations I have of myself, I just usually don't feel like adding to them at the start of the year. That said, I think I might just make some this year ;)

Looking Ahead
2012 will be the year I graduate from Med School. Which is exciting and scary and making me want to run around in circles from the sheer hugeness of it. This also means it will be the year I go jobhunting and assuming I land one, get to work for about 60 hours a week at the very minimum. Which means I will have even more stress juggling ALL THE THINGS.
I am excited and terrified at the same time, I keep reminding myself that I will FINALLY be a legit doctor and that makes up for most of it.

2012 will also be the year I expect that the boyfriend and I will buy a car. I don't think I've actually owned anything that expensive or moneydraining before.
If all goes well, it will also be the year we move to another apartment or small house, but that may have to wait till 2013. If we move to another place, it will also be the year I will convince my boyfriend to get a dog. Or a bunny if the dog-plan fails. My boyfriend isn't convinced we need pets at all, but I want something fluffy to pet and feed and love and I've always had pets at my parents'!

Looking Back
2011 was a year of many things:
I found out what I want to do with my career after Med School.
I found out what I definitely NOT want to do after I finish Med School (research *shudders*).
It was also the year I read 178 books. I don't think I will ever be able to reach this number again, but it makes me immensely proud and slightly dizzy from the sheer amount of it!
It was the year I convinced myself that it's ok to DNF a book that is not working for me instead of pushing myself to finish it even though it's got me actually disliking reading.
It was the year I decided to step into the 21st century and join Twitter.
It was also the year I met wonderful new blogging friends and further got to know others: Alexa (who loves the same books I do and shares my passion for cute dresses, good food and tea), Alex (the only one I can talk to about ANTM and who freaks out with me over it! As well as Gossip Girl), Kelly A. (my A Song of Ice and Fire reading buddy, who sadly doesn't have a personal blog anymore), Sarah (who shares my love for Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy and who I love to disagree with on the topic of ereaders ;) ), Jess (who has already made me buy a couple of books through her recommendations) and last but certainly not least Jana (who is a fellow Austenland fan and is half Dutch, which is just plain awesome). I'm thankful to have gotten to know you all and all the other wonderful people in this blogosphere!

So those were all good things that happened in 2011.
Of course not everything was rainbows and unicorns, most importantly there was a huge change in my group of friends I've known since high school and I had a hard time with that. One decided to step out of our group for the time being, one I decided to give up on because she doesn't really seem to care and I'd rather spend my time on people who do and one tried to return to our group after an absence of 4 years and pretended like everything was ok when she really hurt me back then (yeah, it doesn't really work like that, at least not for me).

What I'd like to do in 2012
I want to make this non-stress inducing, so I'm not setting goals, just things I'd like to do/try:

-Continue with the series I started in 2011: I am so bad with just reading review books and I need to let myself spend time on those books I've been craving for a year.
-Read books that I bought for myself: while I love all the opportunity of reading so many books for review, I have a whopping 149 books that I physically own that are waiting for me to find the time to read them on my shelf. I need to feel less guilty for slipping those in, cause I BOUGHT (or made other people buy) them and I want to read them.
-Not wait more than a week after finishing a book before I review it.
-Spend less time stalking NetGalley and request less books: because seriously, the sheer amount of them is overwhelming.
-Do other posts than just reviews: I sometimes participate in memes and I've recently starting doing Daisy Updates, but I'd love to do discussion posts, because you know, I haz opinions and all that.
-Leave more comments on other people's blogs: I love receiving comments myself, so I should be commenting more as well.

I think that's enough for now :) I would like to say I could try to buy less books, but seriously, that's not a goal I can hope to accomplish. Especially not when 2012 will be the year I start making money and won't need to budgetize as much anymore.

So, what are your goals/things you'd like to try? Any other suggestions? Or tips on how to achieve this?

Happy New Year!!

I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year!!
I'm kind of wondering why I'm awake, as it's 11AM and I went out with friends last night till 5.30AM... Yes, I slept a little over 4 hours, I'm not sure how that happened...
Today will be a day of lots of my boyfriend's family and food and all that, so I'm hoping to get through it without falling asleep at inconvenient moments.

I hope you all have a lovely day!!

Happy Holidays!!

I wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas if you celebrate it and I hope you will all get to spend time with your loved ones!

I am going to my parents' house in a couple of hours and on the second day of Christmas we will be at my boyfriend's parents' house. Probably eating lots of food and just having a good time :)
Every year I try to make it a rule to not be on the internet during Christmas, but to just spend time with my family. I sometimes make an exception, but mostly I won't be around. So see you on the 27th! Best wishes to you everyone!!

Daisy Update

I am feeling kind of lazy today, so instead of recording the IMM I had planned, I am doing this again :)

So, I had a pretty good week! I had an unexpected extra day off from work, cause there wasn't enough to do, which on one hand sucks cause I need the money, on the other hand: it's cold and I don't really want to go outside when it's cold. So I got to sleep in a bit on Thursday and then stay snuggled up beneath my blanket with my tea and book. This made me ridiculously happy.

Another exciting thing: Tuesday I watched 2 of my best friends graduate and become doctors! It was amazing, one of them I've known since the very beginning of college, she was in my introductin group and the other I've known about a half year less. But we've done this whole thing together and it makes me proud to see them looking all pretty in their dresses, accepting their diplomas!

Friday I had a high tea at a restaurant with one of my best friends, who used to be my roommate, we lived together in the apartment I now live in with my boyfriend for 3 years and we don't see enough of each other now. So I was really glad we could do this and it was so much fun! We ate LOTS of delicious food and drank so much tea, it was wonderful :) I also discovered where they get their pina colada tea, which is SO GOOD! Am probably ordering it soon.

I have also officially started my Christmas shopping! I got my blog/Twitter buddy Alexa something, I'm not telling what cause she hasn't gotten it yet. And got my mom a bathrobe to wear when we go to the spa together and I also got myself a little something:



FLEECE PJ PANTS!!! I didn't get the jacket that matched it. But it was the last one and I was so happy when they had it in my size! And they are totally as comfortable as they look (am wearing them now) and very soft :)

The boyfriend and me went to a concert on Friday and a party near his parents' yesterday night, which explains the laziness today. You know what I hate? How they smoke in the bar we went to and then the next morning everything smells so bad! I really dislike smoking, especially in bars when they're not paying attention and accidentally stab you in the hand/arm with a cigarette. Yeah, that also happened yesterday night...

On bookish aspects: I have managed to read 4 books this week and will start another one later tonight, I only loved 1: Between the Sea and Sky, which is adorable! But the others were enjoyable as well.

That's all for me this week, hope you had a good week as well! :)

Daisy Update

I finally took the leap and decided to make this blog a little more personal. Cause, you know, I'm so interesting and all ;)

You may know I'm a med student and now I can officially say I'm in the final stages of this part of my education. I am having a little break right now from interning, because the scientific research internship I had ended 4 weeks ago and I won't start the next one until January. Which means that right now I'm working 20 hours a week as an administrative assistant (which is a fancy name for typing out letters the doctors record on a tape ;) ), cause I need to somehow pay for important things like food, clothes and books!

I am kind of enjoying working part time! But, as of January I will again be interning 50-60 hours a week for another 3 months and then I'm DONE! Which is very exciting, cause then I get to WORK and be all grown-up and all that. Basically I'm tired of having to constantly ask someone else to prescribe the meds for my patients and fun things like that.



Some Dutch culture added in: in Holland we celebrate 'Sinterklaas', which is basically like Santa Claus, but with politically incorrect helpers/minions (whichever you prefer) as pictured above. We always have a sort of Secret Santa for this with my boyfriend's family and that will be this afternoon. I already got the presents, now all I need to do is write the poem to go with it. And then there'll be lots of food :D

While shopping for the presents for this, I bought WAY too much stuff for myself: 3 dvds, A Discovery of Witches, 2 necklaces (cause I can really wear them at the same time..), new black boots, jeans, grey pumps and two belts. That is on top of the four dresses, cardigan and sparkly grey top I bought in the last two weeks. And ALL the books I bought.

As for a bookish update: I read and loved Hallowed by Cynthia Hand, it was full of sadness, but amazing. And if you're into clean romance/historical romance, you should DEFINITELY read The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley, it was AMAZING! I think my review will be up somewhere this or next week.
Right now, I'm reading Jane Austen Made Me Do It, which is a collection of short stories and I'm loving some and not so loving others, but it makes my romantic little heart happy :)

I hope you all have a great week!

Gone for the Weekend!

Hi all!

I just wanted to let you know I'll be leaving for a weekend away with my friends from high school in about an hour, which means you won't hear anything from me until Sunday or maybe even not until Monday, because there'll be lots of this:



Because seriously, what we do together is EAT LOTS OF FOOD.
And this:



And probably this as well:



And there will be virtually no:



Or:



I hope you all have a great weekend while I'm out with the girls!

Some Personal Stuff

I was going to record an IMM today, but all the drama going on with my friends has got me feeling pretty low and I'm not up to being happy and excited about books.
I don't normally talk a lot about personal stuff on the blog, but I felt the need to share this.

For the last two weeks there has been some drama going on in the group of friends I have had since high school. Even though we graduated over 6 years ago, we try to keep in touch and do stuff together, which isn't easy as everyone went off to college and we're spread out across the country.
There was a disagreement and it sort of escalated last Friday and it made one of my friends decide to not be a part of our group anymore. And it hurts. Because we had fun just two weeks ago at my birthday party and well, I think the group will be really falling apart after this. I don't think we'll ever really go back to the way things were before all this happened.

It feels like the end of an era. I know we've been growing apart for some time now and something like this happening was probably inevitable, but it still really sucks, you know? These are the friends I saw every day in high school and we've been through so much together. Some I've even known since kindergarten.

Sorry to bother you guys with my drama, but I needed to get it out. I think I'm just gonna hide beneath my blanket all day and read and watch some TV. Hopefully next week will be better, because I do have some great books to show you all.