Drabble Geeks

Geeks…Being Total Geeks.

Category: Books

Bored Out of My Mind: Check

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Have you ever read a book that was highly recommended, and you just hated it from beginning to end? Well, that’s what happened to me when I read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

This book came highly recommended by a productivity podcaster I listen to. I am listening to the backlog, but I’ve been enjoying it. I have also read a couple of the other books said podcaster suggested, so I thought I would give it a try. To be honest with you, I was bored out of my mind. The book could have been 100 pages shorter. I was literally this dude’s journey to discovering how to use a checklist that works. I thought I would get tips and tricks out how to make my protocol better. In a way, it did give me that, but in others… Well, let’s say I got a really boring story that I did not remotely care about in the slightest in return.

In conclusion, make a short checklist to the point, specific, and made up of things that you may end up forgetting. There: I just saved you a couple of hours. Do something more interesting with that time that I did. I wish I could get it back.

Only What’s Needed

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As I’ve started undergoing my graduate school journey, I’ve been trying to decide if I should and how to keep up with the multitude of projects that I take part in on top of everything that school has. As part of that journey, I’ve been reading books on how to be productive and how to get the best done and living with less, now that I’m paying for everything. On the books I’ve read was Essentialism: The Discipline Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

I usually dislike self-help books with a burning passion. For whatever reason, the voice comes across as if the author is way above the “little people.” I did not feel that way at all. McKeown was done to earth with his writing style and put things in a simple and digestible way. I also like that the way he would suggest actions who be feasible and an easily functioning way. While this book didn’t tell me how to keep up with all of the projects that I want to to do, it did teach me how to say no to the things I really really don’t want to do. I still say i won with this book.

Remember the Lost Soul Pt 2

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Second book of the series in the bag, and I don’t really know what to think. Honestly, the title of this book tells you all you need to know about the story line it’s going to take. The Return is about the return of our protagonist to the world of the living. For whatever reason, this didn’t really feel like a portion of the main story, but more along the lines of an OVA, something the that bridges to stories together. To be honest, not a lot happened. There was a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. At the current moment, without having seen anything about the last book, I’m not sure this book is necessary to read. It was convoluted with no real focus. There was a religious aspect that was used in a way that I felt was problematic it a way that I cannot exactly describe. You would have to read it to understand honestly. For now, you can go without reading this book, if it is necessary to understand the last book in the trilogy, I’ll let you know.

Getting that A… in the middle of a Pandemic

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This semester of school has been a trial for me. I graduated December of last year before everything got shut down, so I was a true novice when school started. My solution to my problem… read a books instead of asking someone for tips to get through this time. The book I read was Teach Yourself Hot to Learn: Strategies You Can Use to Ace Any Course at Any Level by Saundra Yancy McGuire.

If anything, this book reminded and refreshed me of my my study skills that I forgot the semester I was away from school. A lot of the strategies I was “of course I should be doing that. Now that I read it it’s so obvious.” As we are in the area where tests and midterms are starting to show, up I would definitely suggest reading this book, even if you think you study habits are up to the task. This gives you a way to refine your habits and learn something new about learning. It can’t hurt. I need all the help I can get passing these questions.

Power of Sleep

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I want to think that the one known secret about getting stuff done in your life, is to not get anything done for a while. And by that, I mean sleep. Now that I’m in graduate school, I’ve become pretty obsessed with reading books that might help me in the long run. One such book I was suggested was Why We Sleep: Unlocking to Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker.

I’ll be honest with you guys, but sleeping wasn’t really on my radar when it came to being productive in grad school. If anything, undergrad taught me that I really don’t need sleep during the week and that I could catch up during the weekend. I have a terrible time going to sleep when I really want to and just lie there and think about all of the stupid decisions I have ever made in my life. If anything, I would say that this book made me anxious about trying to sleep. Based on the research, I would say that it is horrifying, not sleeping, even though I get lots done when I’m sleep deprived. I’m trying to acquire habits that will help me sleep better. So far, I have to report, I have no clue how that’s working out for me. I’m a night-owl, so I feel that I’m fighting myself on this front, but I will continue trying. If anyone has more tips on trying to go to sleep, I am of open ears. Getting proper sleep is one of my next goals in life.

Remembering the Lost Soul Pt 1

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I have finally gotten around to reading a book series that I have been meaning to. This omnibus has been sitting on my bookshelf for years, and I gave finally started going through it. The series is the Remember Me series by Christopher Pike. The first book is aptly named Remember Me.

The book starts with the reader finding out that our protagonist, Shari Cooper, is dead. It’s an interesting way of introducing a character, but it did instantly capture me into the story, wanting to know what happened, which is great considering the plot of the book. Shari doesn’t remember how she died, so she goes through this book trying to figure it out. She follows her friends and family around trying to find out what happened to her and meet interesting characters along the way. I wish that I could tell you a bit about them, but they’re huge spoilers for the story overall. Just know that cool ghost powers are discussed, but no true haunting.

If you are interested in mysteries, I would greatly recommend this. It is also interesting to solve a mystery from the dead person’s perspective. I honestly don’t understand why this is a series of books right now. It seems like it is better off as a one-off book, but I’ll just have to continue and see.

Not Your Typical Vampire Pt. 4.5

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Next up in rereading a couple of books, I’m reading the short novella that takes place after the fourth book (review linked here). It was an interesting read in two ways. First, I read a Christmas themed book in the middle of February. Second, was a completely useless side plot that introduced another love interest who wasn’t interesting at all, and I honestly found it extremely stupid. If it had stayed with the main plot, I would have been happy. Being that I have read the next book in the series, I totally get that that singular plot could not be made an entire book, but there was utter nonsense that I had to practically skip through. It was mind-numbingly stupid. All you really need to know is that Sam, our vampire mom protagonist, found another medallion, and the end.

Not Your Typical Vampire Pt. 2.5

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Since it had been a while since I read the Vampire for Hire series, I decided to start from the very beginning and then get back to where I was. While doing that, I discovered short stories and other books that branch from this series. I will start with the first short story that takes place after the second book.

This short story, titled Vampire Nights explores the mindset of our vampire protagonist, Samantha Moon. Some of her struggles in being a parent, a woman, and a creature of the night come to the forefront as she talks with an old man that happens to knows many of the challenges in her life. It’s heartwarming and something that Sam needed after all the crap she was up against recently.

One to Save Them All: Pt 2

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This is a continuation of my reading of The Fallen series. Part 1 can be found here. There will be spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

Read More “One to Save Them All: Pt 2”

A World Without Birds

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As someone who wants to help save the environment, it’s actually quite surprising, that this is my first time reading the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. As the book that started the entire Environmental Revolution for the United States. It actually was not at all what I was expecting. It might have been because I’m not really interested in the impact that humans are doing that affect humans, it did not affect me as much as I was hoping. In my eyes, there are enough people focusing on human health, while I just want to save the animals. They are too cute not to want to save. There were moments where I just didn’t care enough about what she was saying. While we were discussing the book in class, I would mention and think about all the good things she was doing, but at the moment, I just wanted to hear about what was going on with the animals. If that makes me a bad person, I’m not ashamed. I love me some animals.