Hate Comments + Taking a True Hiatus (Sort Of) + Dragon’s Loyalty Award

Hi, everyone!

Lately I’ve sort of been feeling really uninspired to blog hence all the scheduled book reviews. Since the end of the semester is slowly creeping to an end anyway and I know that I’ll soon be swamped with end of the course assignments and final exams, I will go ahead and say I’m taking a break. But then again I’ve already been saying I’ve been on a “hiatus” for a while now according to my blog’s sidebar disclaimer, I guess. As other bloggers have pointed out, my breaks are never true ones anyway. But I think this time I’ll be even more absent then usual even for me. I’ll still continue to schedule the usual posts and remain present on my Instagram and Goodreads accounts, but I won’t be replying to comments on my blog until May-ish. And I’ll do the best of my ability to still check in with the blogosphere and leave mini Summer bombs here and there. But those will be sparse, too.

Along with my semester coming to an end soon and the fact that I think I’ve fallen into a true blogging slump, I also got my first hate comment back in February. I created several drafts titled as “Hate” but I never could bear to actually publish them. February was actually a pretty rotten month for me because I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I would in one of my classes (Organic Chem II is just ugh), my speech class gave me so much anxiety, and I had a bunch of family (that I didn’t really like) living with me and my dad. So when my first hate comment showed up on Xingsings it just felt like everything was so wrong.

(I knew it was going to happen sometime along my blogging journey… and it was only one comment… but it was still unpleasant to read all the same. I understand that people will have different views and opinions. But why do they have to word things so harshly? Also, the comment that I got wasn’t even an opinion about my post or the books I talked about in it, but it was about me as an individual. Anyway, enough ranting. Have any you guys received any negativity on your posts?)

Edit: I saw some of the comments you guys have already been leaving. And I just wanted to let you guys know I’m definitely okay!! I don’t want you guys to think I quit blogging for a bit because of that. I love blogging and I’m actually extremely proud of the place I’ve created with Xingsings. So you don’t have to worry or anything. The hate comment was back in February and it wasn’t a big of a deal when I got over it. Thank you all for staying so dependable and supportive. Thanks, as always. – Summer

But, of course, I soon got over all of that. I started doing better in Speech and studying harder in Organic; my family members (there were 4 of them) finally moved out; and I just deleted that hate comment from my blog so I wouldn’t have to see it. But after all this, I think it’s about time I recharged for real. So, in short, I’m taking a true hiatus for a bit (still posting, not replying to comments on my blog, still dropping Summer bombs on other blogs, etc).

Time to recharge! (All credits to the original owner.)

Versatile Blogger Award (2nd and Last One)

This was my first week back to school and, gosh, I’m already swamped with assignments. Since starting college I’ve always had a full load of sciences (meaning usually all my courses are the core sciences), but this spring I’m taking a history (of science and technology) and classics (Greek/Latin mythology) course. The majority of classes I took before had only three to five exams and homework that was not graded and was done at the students’ own benefit (but I didn’t do it all the time), so I’m finding that it’s crazy the amount of reading we have to do for the non-science classes I’m taking this time around. But hopefully the classics course will get me reading some classics and some other text I never got to in high school English and Latin classes. It’s going to be a lot of work I’m not used to but it should be fun nonetheless.

Anyway, I wanted to share an award post with you guys today. (Oh and this is a scheduled post. I literally have 20 scheduled posts in my queue to be published for the next couple of months. And if you guys didn’t already notice my disclaimer on the side of my blog, I wanted to say that I won’t be replying to comments as fast as I usually do because of school. But I’m still going to be blog hopping and trying to stay updated with all of your blogs as much as I can. I think that’s the best balance right now with my current schedule.)

Kind of like what happened with the my Liebster award posts, which really does seem ages ago, I didn’t think I’d be getting any more nominations. But I did! So I have these bloggers to thank: Trey at Trey Schnarr Books, Alex at Alextheshadowgirl, Khloud at A Bookworm’s Ramblings, and Matt at MatthewSean Reviews. Funny story with Trey… I actually told him that I wasn’t going to be doing another Versatile Blogger Award post since I already made one but since the others tagged me soon after that… I was like why not! So he’ll be showing up on both of my Versatile Blogger Award posts. XD

Note: This is a 2015 award, meaning I was first nominated in 2015. I’m just trying to go through all the awards and tags from my 2015 queue. But I am an tag/award free blog in that I won’t be doing any more tags/awards after I go through the 2015 drafts. Sorry for the confusion!

Summertime Madness Tag

Hello! It’s been a while (a couple of days really) since I’ve last updated this blog and I’m sorry to confess that the inactivity is going to get a lot worse because… school starts back this Thursday for me!

Which also means the summer is almost officially over therefore I thought it’d be appropriate for me to post yet another long overdue post, the Summertime Madness Tag. (Yes, I also decided to post this now lest this be done next summer which would have been way way overdue.) I was tagged by Carolyn to participate. She’s a fellow Vietnamese-American blogger on WP and secretly-ish we’ve been doing a buddy read and reading A Darker Shade of Magic. We both finished it yesterday (8/18/15: well I finished it today actually) and it was such a fantastic story. So be on the lookout for some ADSoM posts in the near future (yeah… I know, I promised a Summer Says post this week but yeah, that’ll come soon too, I hope)!

Gosh, I haven’t even started the tag yet and I’ve already used four parenthetical phrases. I’m so done. Alright, let’s get on to this before I add any more…

Bath & Body Works Book Tag

Hiya! I just came back from the beach yesterday and felt like posting a somewhat summer-y post today. I was tagged by the sweet Analee (thank you!) to do the Bath & Body Works Book Tag, a tag Analee actually created herself (I don’t know how I didn’t realize that until I published this). For those of you that don’t know, Bath & Body Works, is a big chain store here in the U.S. (and I think Canada as well) that sells a lot of, well, bath and body products in various scents and fragrances. So yeah, that should explain the random fragrance names before the questions.

Okay, so let’s get to the actual tag! I’ll do my best to just choose one book for each answer (you guys know how I always manage to cheat with these tags)!

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1. Pure Paradise: A book that was simply perfection.
Perfection? Oh gosh, that holds a lot of weight. For me, it’s The Truth About Forever (no surprise). This was the book that got me into reading Sarah Dessen, now one of my favorite authors. And I love everything about it. The characters (all of them), the story line, the comedic relief, the swoon worthy male MC, the overall deeper message, the lyrical writing, and, yeah, I could go on… It still remains my all time favorite ya contemporary novel, I think. Also it’s such a perfect summer read-all of Sarah Dessen books are.

2. Sweet Pea: A romance/contemporary novel that you really enjoyed.
Instead of choosing my two favorite contemporary reads from this year (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and The Summer of Chasing Mermaids), I want to share a book that I have yet to talk about on Xingsings: Before I Fall. This was my first Lauren Oliver book and I remember reading it when it was first released and absolutely enjoying it. I haven’t read Oliver’s other books for some reason… I’ll fix that one day I’m sure!

Creative Blogger Award

Hello! I was nominated by Marie, Ashley, Raven, and Nancy for the Creative Blogger Award. They’re all avid readers and really nice bloggers; make sure to visit their blogs if you haven’t already. And thank you for the nominations, it was very kind of y’all!

I think the usual award logo/banner is colorful but I found this pretty one created by That Gent.

The Harry Potter Tag

Hi! I was tagged by Shelby @Bookish Royalty, one of my first WP friends when I started Xingsings, to do The Harry Potter Tag. I think Shelby is currently on hiatus and offline, but thank you Shelby! Gosh, this tag was long overdue.

As some of you guys know I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. Consequently, I unconsciously talk about HP in almost all of my posts (I searched “HP” on my blog and 12 posts came up, LOL). So I thought before I get into these questions I’d share with you my HP story and how I got into the series-in case, some of you are new to this blog and don’t know of it.

I’ve never been much of a reader and it was that way for the majority of my childhood. It wasn’t until the summer before 5th grade, when I was eleven and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released did I enjoy reading. (My dad’s smart logic was to get me the most hyped book of the summer. It worked though!) But yes, I ended reading the last HP book first. Naturally, I was hooked… and so confused. So I ended buying my paperback box set and breezing through those in two weeks, which was mighty fast for a non-bookworm now that I think about it. Therefore, you can say HP was the magical turning point in my childhood, in regards to reading that is.

Now that I’m older and have reread HP many times, I have found parts to not awe me as easily. However I still believe the HP books are timeless reads that any reader at any age should give go if they haven’t already-or you can just watch the movies, up to you. Speaking of movies, since I joined the fandom later I’m totally guilty of watching the movies prior to reading the books as well…

But yeah. I thought I’d share that because it only seemed appropriate in this post. Plus, this’ll become an easy post to find if I every need to explain how HP changed my life. LOL. So onto the questions!

The Reader Problems Tag

Hi! I was tagged by Briana and Joey (thank you both for tagging me!) back in April to do The Reader Problems Tag, and I’ve finally decided to post it! Hopefully you all will learn a little more about me through this post. I’ll try my best not to be so roundabout, haha.

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1. You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?
Ahh, my TBR is quickly reaching that number… Just kidding, but no joke my TBR is piling up mighty fast! XD I always decide what to read next with intuition and feeling. So I grab whatever book that comes to mind, whether it be one from the TBR, read/reread, or library shelf. I’m actually a huge rereader; and (this is insane) my goal is to read and review every single book I’ve shelved on GR, including the already read ones.

2. You’re halfway through a book and you’re just not loving it. Do you quit or are you committed?
I would just continue. Even if I don’t like a book, I often finish it. However, skimming is certainly allowed in these circumstances.

Siblinghood (Sisterhood) of the World Bloggers Award

Hello! As I mentioned in a few of my last posts, I’ve been hoping to get to some awards/tags these next couple of weeks. So here I am with the Sisterhood Siblinghood of the World Bloggers Award. I was nominated by Joey, Erika, Tiffani, Casey, Carolyn, and Maria. Thank you guys! They’re all great book bloggers with very different reading tastes and blogging styles; check out their blogs if you haven’t already!

Joey actually made this into the Brotherhood of the World Bloggers because he wanted to recognize some male bloggers. Since I’m also going to nominate some male bloggers I decided to just go ahead and make this the Siblinghood of the World Bloggers, but feel free to call it whatever you want!

The Reading Habits Tag

Hello! I’m back with another tag (oh man, I have so many in the drafting stage that need to be published). Back in April, I was tagged by the sweet Analee to do The Reading Habits Tag. She’s a daily book blogger and I’m always amazed by how fast she reads. Her blog is lovely, make sure to give Book Snacks a visit!

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1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading?
I pretty much lounge around anywhere to read a book, but I often read in my reading room (the room where my bookcase is) because there’s natural sunlight in there. Also the bed because that area’s always comfy.

2. Bookmark or random piece of paper?
My dad often sends me gas cards (especially ones from Wal Mart because the gas there is cheaper, at least where I live) and they make perfect bookmarks. They’re cute and thick enough for you to find your place quickly the next time you pick the book up.

I scanned a couple of my favorites to share with you guys, haha. Cute animals always sell, huh? I mean PANDAS ARE SO CUTE!

I joined Twitter! And The Random Questions Tag

Hello! So guys I joined Twitter sometime last month but never really told anyone. Now I’ve decided to go public about it, so yeah. If you want to take a look, that’d be awesome! I’ll also try to follow you if I recognize you, of course! (Or you could just let me know in the comments, that would help!)

So I felt super weird to just make a post about Twitter, so here’s another tag. Sorry, but not sorry.

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I was tagged by Joey to do The Random Questions Tag…back in March. (Even with this past week being full of tag posts, I’m still not caught up.) Make sure to check out his blog, there’s lots of bookish content and cool randomness (the good kind)!