Book Corner: Etiquette and Espionage

Hello Readers
I'm not claiming to be an expert in books ( although I read a tremendous amount) or English Literature, so don't take my opinions or critiques too seriously. This is just a quick little post about how I feel about this book.

The book I'm talking about is called "Etiquette and Espionage" by Gail Carriger. This book is the start to a series called "Finishing School" and I can only assume that there will be the same amount of books as there are years of this finishing school.  I have not yet finished this book and got about half way before I could continue, I do plan on it at some point but not now and I'll talk about my reasons why later. I picked this book up in The Works so I could buy some others in a sale, but when I read the back I was more excited for this one. The blurb is below but my copy of the book had a miniature version of this.

"It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners—and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage—in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education."

I didn't realise this was a prequel series to the authors adult series "Alexia Tarabotti" or "Parasol Protectorate" ( the series was renamed) and that the heroine was 14. 

Now I'm happy to read from the perspective of children, teenager and young adults it's just that I started reading the book thinking that person who's perspective was a either an 8 year old with a sleight sense of maturity or an 11-12 year old who was acting a bit childish. I then realised she was actually 14. This surprised me because the advanced words and descriptions used mixed with the character's very childlike view on the word was uncomfortable  to read, you were never sure of the intelligence level of character. I have a 14 year old sister and It wasn't too long ago I was 14 myself, and there was never anyone that age who acted and thought like Sophronia. So that is my main issue with this book, I can't sympathise with the character because it's such an awkward mix of a children's book and a young adult/ adult book that she's too unrealistic and since it's form her point of view puts a bit of a damper on everything else about the book.

The second issue I have is the pace.  So much happens at the very start and it just feels like too much. First time readers  of this world are barely able to process what the world is like before being thrown into a chase where you're constantly having to go back and re-read to understand where everything is, who's doing what, what this is and it's too much. 

Another thing surprised me was the supernatural element. There was no mention of it on the back and I was a couple of pages in when BANG the word vampire is mentioned with no explanation. It just came as a bit of a shock.

I understand that this was the authors first attempt at writing for younger audiences and since I loved the idea of the steampunk word and a spy school so I will read the "Alexia" series first and hopefully that will encourage me to get through the "Finishing" series.

So yeah, I wouldn't call this a review but one day I will get round to doing a real but until then, that was the book I've been reading
Bye
Rainiepie

*edit* I'm aware that part of this post has the background white and I have not idea how to fix it sorry, if anyone knows, please comment or message me :)

Hair Update ( that sounds sooo pretentious :p )

Good Morning!

I haven't posted anything for a while but I thought I'd update with a hair post :) I planned doing a thread about it on BeeUnique forum but I think i'll wait for the one year mark.  So for almost a year now I've been dying my hair blue, at first I used multiple colours and tried all sorts. In August the sun bleached my hair and the dye faded to point where it was barely blue and I died all of my Crazy Colour Capri Blue. 

The colour looks as if it's going to be almost navy blue but I discovered that after rinsing it out it becomes much lighter and is the exact colour I want. 

I'm on the right, first day of new roots between sept-oct

Near base blonde before CC Capri Blue

The green I used

When I died it was almost on a blonde base so there wasn't much resistance between my hair and the colour, the dye lasted for 2 months with perfect colour, the roots just needed touching up and the rest of my hair just didn't seem to fade, it was brilliant blue permanently! I've been doing this up until last month where I decided to touch my roots up with green instead of blue and it looked lovely.

The green- blue mix.

 I went on holiday to sunny California so my hair faded rather quickly, including some blue that had been there for months. 

Me(left) Jude, my sister (centre) and my mum (right) and this was only 5 days fade!

So, the other day, after about 4 more weeks of fade I died the top half of my head blue and the bottom half green. I was expecting the dye to turn out the way it always has but instead after the first wash it went a more teal colour. The stupid pose photo was taken on the first day at night and the second just now, yes I am wearing the same shirt, it's my rub-off shirt, the back neck is very blue. 

Supermodel Pose!!

I like it but I'm confused, did they change the ingredients for the dye? was it because there wasn't a near permanent blue base? was it the faded green? I'm not sure. 

Do you have any experiences with this? Please comment below and tell me. 

See you soon

Rainiepie

College Work

Good Day Dearies,
My college requires information for a video project we're doing, if anyone is reading this within the first three months of this post being published I would really appreciate it if you could take this simple survey. The questions are very basic and are asking for preferences.

Part one:
Part Two: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LJKLV5T 

Thank you. 
Rainiepie

Friendship

03.10.12
Saturday was my birthday party. It was a sleepover like it is every year. I invited 9 people and one invite was late, they were to be at my house at 5:00. At 5ish Emily B, Lydlz and Laura came then half past Flisty came, Ashleigh came at 6ish and CJ came at 6:30ish then Emily C came at 1amish. So 7 people came, Tash couldn't because the invite was too late and it was her sisters part, understandable, and my best friend Jade couldn't come because she had a date at thorpe park the next day. Now you may have noticed the 1amish arrival earlier, that was Emily she was had to babysit her younger brother but she waited and still made the effort to be there for me; CJ came late because of work, she still put effort into coming here, Ashleigh had work the next day and didn't want to be tired so she left at 12, Lydlz had work the next day, she sat an alarm to wake up well before 9 when she had to leave. Those three people put the effort in to be there for my birthday and my best friend didn't, I did get a text from her though, in the morning when she drove past. I said she could of stayed and been picked up on the way and she claimed she didn't know they would be driving past to get to thorpe park when one year she came to one birthday party late because she just came back from thorpe park, she knew it was on the way she's been there loads. She could of also left early it started at 5 she could of had plenty of time before she had to leave. She told me she couldn't come the day before the party and she knew 2 weeks and 1 day in advance when my sleepover was and there was an on going. I'm upset. I've been crying on and off because Jade hurt me, now she may of forgotten the journey but still I can't help it. Me and Jade have been friends for about 6 years  and people say when you leave secondary school your bound to get more and more distant but we didn't think that would happen too us. Ever. We even went to the same college, yet it's happened. I spend more time with people who's names who I don't even know or even in my class than I am with Jade.

21.11.12
So what was written earlier was something I forgot about, but now i'm adding too. The thing with my party was me being petty and after talking to her I realise that. Since my birthday Jade lost her great grandmother and her grandfather, I tried to be there for her both times, but I was unaware unti too late and clashing schedules stopped us. I miss her, very much, even more than I did when when first started dating. We were so close. If someone told me a secret and I promised to never tell anyone, I would still tell Jade, we were so close we joked that we were one and everything had to be shared. I have no idea is she had the same feelings as I did, but we were so in sync it was like we were one person and I loved it. Teachers would say one of our names, expecting one or both of us to answer, regardless of which name was being called. If one was there then so was the other, until Jake, exams, holiday, college and now new friends. It isn't just her I miss, I miss Everyone but I'm seeing them more than Jade and they don't even go to my college. On the plus side I've become very close with Laura, who is an absolute star :) she has her flaws I need getting used too, same as everyone, I hope she feels we can be close aswel.
Just finishing a draft.
Rainiepie
xoxoxo

Blue hair !!! finally !

Okay... so the count down didn't work... I'm terrible, I really am. Anyway in the end I didn't dye my hair on last exam day because 3 days before I was told that if I went to the leavers presentation (14 days after my last exam and I officially left school) then I would be banned from going to prom even though I bought the £21 ticket. So it was 6 days ago, 6 not 5 because it's 2:00 in the morning, That I dyed my hair three different colours for my first time dying hair in three hours. Of course in these three hours i also had to dry and curl my hair -which never got done- get dressed and do my make up. The dye never got to develop properly but the pictures i got at prom show it freshly died. I also made a post on Beeuniques forum but i'll just copy and paste what i wrote and then do as many pictures as I can

I went to a school were dying your hair unnatural colours wasn't allowed so i haven't been able to dye my hair since i was 11. I have dyed my hair red and black using box dyes from tesco, and those were my first times dying all of my hair. When I was younger my mum would use a Directions dye to do strips once a year.Once in the summer holidays  i dyed the underneaths of my hair pink but it didn't come out and i got into a lot of trouble so knew i couldn't get away with doing it during the holidays. Thats my hair dying history and now after a long long wait I dyed my hair!!! I did the bottom and front bit atlantic blue ny Directions and the middle bit Lagoon blue by Directions and the top bit Fishbowl by Special Effects i'm pleased with how it turned out unfortunately i didn't take good pics before it started fading i dyed it 6 days ago today. OKAY i found pictures of me at prom,the day i dyed it, and i chose the ones that showed of my hair so excuse my face. Okay so i can't upload photo's because they're JPEG not JPG and i haven't made 30 posts yet because i'm quite so i can't link to the video i made  My youtube is Rainiepie if you want to find it but it's taking forever to upload though so i don't know when it'll be done :/

As soon as it was posted I saw a billion SP's 

okay and here is the video:

Exams

K so i only had to do 13 exams during may and june and i now have 7 left . I'm going to post a countdown on here i think :) Since it's in the am it's technically 20 days until my last exam and i am free to die my hair blue 'll post a seperate blog about that later :p it may be too long for some people to read though :p
Good luck to everyone doing exams out there
Rainiepie.

Revision Timetable.

On monday 16th May school let us go on something called revision time table. This means the majority of our exams were starting of course some subjects including two i did finished before this date such as art, BTEC subjects and drama. Unfortunately my year is the Guinea pig year were they try out a whole load of stuff and see if it fails.
 During previous years , year 11 would have something the students called Year 11 Prank Day , this day would consist of year 11's going crazy to celebrate their last day of full school day ever as after this certain day, they would go on study leave. This means they can choose wether they will go to class or 'revise' at home. Then near the end of exams they would have their ROA ( year 11 leavers ceremony) where parents would watch and then about a month later would have prom and then the year is finished. This year they are trying this idea of Revision Timetable -which so far is failing-  where students will not have an official last day of school they would go to their lessons as usual and then would stop going to those lessons when all exams of that subject is over therefore stopping people from skipping school and not working.
Now, our entire school life we saw year 11's stop school early, many of us already have free lessons and are now, for the first time in their life they are allowed to leave school grounds during anytime of the school day and the weather is finally starting to get warmer after months of winter, this combination doesn't exactly make us want to follow these new rules. So many people don't.

Today i saw my best friend for total of 2 minutes whereas before i would of had 3 out of 4 lessons with her. Of course we had an English exam at 9:00 this morning but as we were doing different levels of the paper she was in a separate area to me. Also today the olympic torch went through wells during out predicted exam time and we would just be able to catch it if we ran when we left the exam. The exam started and finished  later causing confusion on wether we missed it or not. During this panic and with my phone being locked up i wasn't able to contact her until later. when i did manage to phone her i arranged to meet up during break but instead had to guard unattended bags ( don't worry they weren't bombs, they belonged to friends) so i couldn't. And then lessons started. My friend needed to go to both of her remaining lessons but she hung around town with her boyfriend instead. I missed her. I am also worried about her. Today was frantic I admit but this isn't the first time she skipped to go with her boyfriend instead of revising when she needed to. If they were confident in their grades then they can afford to go to town ,but the highest set my friend is in ,is set 3 ( set 1 top set, set 5 lowest set) in science she's gone to one lesson and revised it properly twice with our other friend-minus boyfriend i might add- and didn't understand a lot from the one lesson she turned up to. She can't afford to do this and i am really worried her grades will suffer... but perhaps i am simply jealous that she is spending more time with her boyfriend than me. And my friend is smarter than me so she will probably be fine i just can't help but worry.

Anyway back to the point I was making before i started rambling. The power we have to leave and the lovely weather and lovely fields we can go to make it very difficult for us to go to lessons and this new Revision Timetable thing is defiantly not working. I'm not perfect at this, I am not going to biology (  my teacher talks more about his personal life than science) or spanish ( my teacher pushes the foundation people to the side of the classroom and ignores us) and i admittedly would either take a break or leave early but today i went to the green in town and laid down while one of my friends tested me on vocab but time was still wasted. I just hope i won't give onto temptation of not going to all of my lessons. I also heard rumours that the school were going to do something really harsh to stop people from skipping i hope they don't .

Typical me the point I was going to make after all this just ran away from me :p ah well I had a rant and a moan. I'm good. :p

Best wishes

Rainiepie