The Sunshine Blogger Award

Thanks for tagging me, Lara! :) This looks like tons of fun. The rules are: 1. Answer the eleven questions and 2. Ask eleven questions for the people you tag to answer. The theme is sunshine and happiness, so obviously I have to jump in, because who doesn't love sunshine and happiness?

1. Who's your least favourite character EVER? Describe - in detail - what it is that makes you hate them so much. "They're just the worst" or something similar is not acceptable (What? I thought you guys already knew about my bossiness!)

Holden Caulfield.

He drives me crazy.

The worst part is he's not even someone I can hate. He's not a villain. He's not even particularly despicable. So I can't love to hate him. But I can't love him, either. So I just had to read The Catcher in the Rye in its entirety and grind my teeth the whole time. Holden complained way too much. He was whiny and apathetic about almost everything. Anytime an opportunity was presented to him or he was offered help in some way, he turned it down. If he had truly been in a terrible situation that he couldn't fix, I would've been fine with the complaining. But he had options! I'm fine with a little teenage angst in any book, but he personified the kind of angst I can't stand.

2. Do you have any yellow/orange books? What do you want to tell me about them?

I thought I would own more yellow books seeing as my favorite color is yellow, my room is yellow, and pretty much anything that is primarily yellow jumps out at me. But I only own two orange books.

They're not even my favorite covers, but looking at any of my favorite books makes me warm and fuzzy.

3. What does reading smell like to you?

Hot chocolate and the pages of a mass market paperback book.

4. How often do you have doubts about being a blogger?

I don't think I've ever had doubts about being a blogger. It's just a part of who I am now. Doubts about the content I put on my blog is a different story, though. I choose carefully what parts of my writing I share, especially when I'm sharing something from a first draft. But I think that's normal for any blogger to have doubts about something.

5. Where would a book have to be set for you to pick it up immediately, no questions asked?

Hogwarts. ;)

But anything set in London, Paris, or someplace like a library is usually really interesting. Fantasy worlds are always fun, too.

6. What's your reading speed? Do you like it that way, or would you rather it was faster/slower?

It always depends on the book and what else is happening in my life, but I'm pretty average when it comes to reading speeds. I can get a 300-400 page book done in about a week. When it's a shorter book and I really love it, I'll get it done even faster. Sometimes the length doesn't matter because I want to savor a book rather than blaze through it. I guess it all really depends. In general I wish I were even faster because that would mean I could read more books in a shorter amount of time, but I'm okay where I am.

7. Tell me about a quote you can write down almost word for word without looking it up (almost everyone's got one, I reckon). What does it mean to you? What's made you remember it so clearly?

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." It's nothing grand and it's probably not even the best opening line ever, but I love it. I've heard it so many times when listening to the audio that when I remember it, I hear it with Jim Dale's exact inflection. Every Harry Potter quote feels like home to me.

8. At what time of year are you happiest?

April (around my birthday,) summertime (especially during my writer's camps), November (during NaNoWriMo), and December (pretty much all month with Christmas excitement).

9. What childhood toy do you have the fondest memories of?

This one's easy. I have a stuffed cat named Menedy (rhymes with Kennedy) that used to be white but is now gray, used to be able to hold her head up on her own but now flops around, and used to be fluffy but now feels like fuzzy socks that have gotten washed too many times. She's really old. Probably thirteen or fourteen-years-old now. Menedy went with me everywhere I went for years. One time I left her at the library and cried the whole way we drove back because I was scared someone was going to pick up that ratty cat and keep her for themselves. Pick up any Calvin and Hobbes comic and that was me at six-years-old with Menedy, only with a little less mischief and a little more reading.

10. How do you feel about school? What is/was it like for you? Love it or hate it?

I love school! I'm homeschooled, so I've never had the normal classroom experience (except for recently with my college classes, but that's nowhere near the same as middle school or high school), but I've always loved learning. Well, I tolerate math and science, but I love history and English and reading and homework. I like getting good grades and scores on tests. I like writing essays. What else would you expect from a Ravenclaw?

11. If you could change one thing about your blog without having to do it yourself, what would it be?

Maybe the design. I've had the same background on my blog ever since I started it, but I'm too scared to mess with it. Anytime I try to do something tech-y I end up spending hours on it and inevitably I screw it up somehow and have to undo all of my messes. I wouldn't want to risk messing with anything on my blog that could accidentally delete important files or something like that. But it would be cool to change my look sometime.

I tag . . .

Nevillegirl
Boquinha
Dr. Mark
Siths and Jedis
Carly
Rain
Selena

Even if you weren't tagged, feel free to steal this tag for yourself!

My questions:

1. What song never fails to put you in a good mood? Do you have any memories associated with it?
2. What's your favorite comfort food?
3. What TV show (or a specific episode from a TV show) makes you laugh the hardest?
4. If you could only read books from one author for the rest of your life, which author would you choose?
5. Do you prefer to read when it's sunny out or raining/snowing?
6. Cats or dogs? Why?
7. Do you have any posters in your room? What are they?
8. What's your favorite audiobook?
9. What are your top three favorite colors and what do you associate them with?
10. What's one of your favorite diverse books?
11. Which animal perfectly (or as close to perfect as you can get) represents you and why?