Summing It Up: April 2016

Hello, friends! As most of you know, April was such a hectic month for me. I rarely take real breaks from the blogosphere but I just didn’t have enough time to devote my efforts to my blog or visit other blogs. I started studying for my finals the second week of April and school just dominated my life for a while. But it’s all over now, so I’m officially back! I’ll be catching up by replying to comments and blog hopping soon! Probably not today though since, after this post, I’m going out to eat with my friends to celebrate finals finally being over. 🙂

(And I want to say a quick thank you for those that wished me luck on my exams! Several of you even direct messaged on my other social media accounts, and I’m so touched. My exams went well. Thank you! T.T)

But how have you guys been? What were your Aprils like? I’m so happy to be back and able to catch up with what everyone’s been up to!

Anyway, onto a recap of what my month has been aside from academics… XD

APRIL BLOG POSTS*

*in publication order, not by favoritism

• Summing It Up: March 2016 [Wrap Up/Favorites]
• The Aeneid [Book Review*] 3 Stars
• Top Ten Tuesday: My BBFs (Best Blogger Friends) [Bookish Meme]
• Unteachable [Book Review] 2 Stars
• Metamorphoses  [Book Review*] 4 Stars

*I’ve decided to not cross post all of my reviews from my Goodreads anymore. Just because some of them are more school related and probably not as relevant to share on here.

Such a shame that I only posted three posts in April (technically two since one was just March’s Summing It Up), but I guess it’s all about priorities, lol. I was able to fit in some reading though-even if they were mostly for school. 😅

FAVORITES

Even though I only posted three posts on the blog, I was still reading a lot and, no surprise, The Winner’s Kiss was certainly my favorite book of the month. I’ll be writing a review for that one sometime soon (hopefully)!

As you guys know, I am a HUGE Studio Ghibli fan so I got some custom Studio Ghibli bookmarks from my favorite bookmark shop, Happy Hello Art. I am in love with how they came out. Feel free to get a closer look by clicking the photo to enlarge! 😉

Hehe, so I finally caved and bought the UK editions of A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows. I also got Night Owls, which is actually the UK version of The Anatomical Shape of a Heart, a book I read and enjoyed last year as well. I have reviews for both of those on this blog, which you can read here and here respectively. They were much cheaper than they were originally when I looked a year ago. (ADSoM was $20 more!)

The original video I shared on here got taken down for copyright issues… so here’s a movie poster instead!

I watched Hotarubi no Mori e (Into the Forest of Fireflies’ Light) for the first time this month (in the beginning before I started studying hardcore) and I was BEYOND AMAZED by this animated film. It’s only 40 minutes long and IT IS STUDIO GHIBLI GOOD, GUYS. You need to see this movie in English subtitles (make sure to turn closed captions on!). I found a pretty good quality one on Youtube and linked it right here for you all. It’s only a click away now. 😉 I highly recommend it! (I even contemplated creating a review because I was that taken by it. But it’s too short for that, I think. I may do a anime watch list, which talks about the anime I’ve watched so far in 2016, later this summer though.)

And it sort of goes without saying, that I loved the soundtrack for the movie (Hotarubi no Mori e) so, so much. It’s just so beautiful. T_T

If I had an anthem for my nonexistent love life, Dear No One would be it! Plus, I adore just about everything with Tori Kelly. Her voice. 😍 This certainly was one of my favorite choreos I watched this month. But Mina Myoung’s choreo for Dr Pepper and Koosung Jung’s Over Time have been on replay as well, hehe.

And I wasn’t going to add this but I was watching it just as much as Yoojung Lee’s choreo for Dear No One. It’s May J Lee’s choreography for Body On Me. This is actually an old choreo from last year but I thought I’d share it, haha.

I love Keane so much and I don’t know how it took me this long to find Lily Allen’s cover of their song of Somewhere Only We Know. But I’m glad I finally found it. It has a slightly different feel to the original song and I love it just as much-well, almost. I’m the type that enjoys the original song more normally, heh. Also, brother bear!! I’ve never seen the movie but I recognized it immediately. Because a lot of the movies I watched as a kid had a Brother Bear trailer. XD

Another song I’ve been listening to a ton! I sort of felt like my senses were overloaded with academic material this month, haha. So in a way it was fitting. XD I recommend listening with headphones! 😉

Oh my gosh, I love this song a lot. You Know Where to Find Me was on infinite repeat this month. The composition is breathtaking. So many segments of the song shouldn’t have worked together but the mixing was incredibly and seamlessly done. Just genius, omg. (Yeah, I am totally listening and fangirling to this song as I compose this draft post.)

Such a sweet and feel good song I thought I’d share. I discovered and really enjoyed this one in April! Definitely my favorite Korean listen since I always have to have one of those. 😛

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So that’s about it! My April summarized: not a lot of blogging, a ton of studying, and a lot of non-bookish favorites. XD Talk to you all soon! 😀