New Year, New Meaning, New Life?

So that's it! 2013 is wrapped up in a pretty "Red Box" snapped tightly closed and placed into my "Year Cupboard". The first day few days of the New Year are my days of 2013 recap, a summary of what I am thankful for. These days are sort of like the American Thanksgiving holiday in which I give thanks to the highlights of the previous year.

This year's highlights included:

My exemplar marks in the final exams. 
My growing amount of Twitter followers (follow me @In_Ambers_World)
The Girls chess team attaining 4th place at Our Chess National Competition
My personal growth.

What is 2014 for me? 

2014 for me is a year of mental and spiritual growth, a year in which I will FINALLY develop the routines and skills I wanted to in past years. 

It is a year in which I will stand for what I believe in and in which I will open my mind and broaden my horizons. 

Resolutions anyone?

I am probably not the only one in the world that struggles to keep up with their resolutions, but this year it is on my long long list of resolutions and I will persevere.

Each year is physically write a list and each year I lose said list. I have put certain principles in place to adhere to this year, hopefully they work. 

I will most definitely participate in NaNoWriMo again because I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am looking forward to my senior years at high school and hope that they will not fly by as fast as the previous ones did.

2014 is a "bursting suitcase" that I have to pack up before next year and I look forward to it.

But before I say goodbye, why the metaphors? you may ask. 

The metaphors make the year sound more exciting. I urge you to try it.

But for now it's goodbye readers...

Amberly M. Oosthuizen

Recaps and Full Sets

Hello faithful readers,

I firstly want to apologize for not posting for so long it's just that:

I'M CURED OF MY WRITERS BLOCK! Yay!

Now that it's back I am considering participating in the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Competition in November this year. My teacher, who is an avid reader of my other blog (addsomethingcosy.blogpot.com), suggested it to me and I hope I can do it.

Now, I know I promised you guys that I would report back on my weekly challenge on Friday and unfortunately I never got down to it. 

So here is some imagery of my handwriting for the week:

MONDAY:

Monday's handwriting was honestly harder than I expected it to be and looks downright awful!

TUESDAY:

Slightly better but not by much. It was once of the "break" days, because I had piano practice.

 

WEDNESDAY:

I have no idea what happened, my handwriting just deteriorated right in front of my eyes.

 THURSDAY:

Much better! It was the day that left conquered right and the day I almost fractured my hand trying to play two C keys two octaves apart at the same time.

FRIDAY:

Nothing much to say about this one.

But, I'm sure you are wondering what I have been doing the past three days. I have spent three of my holiday days playing Chess as Board 5 for my school's U15 Girls team. There have been some tough opponents but on the whole, we did well scoring gold which enabled us to qualify for Nationals in December.

Enjoy the holidays readers!

Amberly M. Oosthuizen

The Private Stores of a Bibliophile

Hey Readers,

Thought I'd share some insight on my private life as a Bibliophile.

Bibliophile: A person who collects or has a great love of books...

I have loved reading since I was very little and my favorite childhood story was Tonight on the Titanic by Mary Pope Osborne. This was partly because I loved the story of the Titanic.

In my later years I have collected many books- old and new. Some of the shelves at my Grandfather's house are filled with my books of yesteryear. But when I no longer had space there (at the age of 10) my parents gave me a bookshelf. Said bookshelf gave me the scar on my nose when I was just 15 months old.

But what do you do when you run out of shelf space?

This is what I did:

When I ran out of shelf space, I cleared off the stuff on top and used the space. The current books there are the:

-  Fallen Series
- The Hush Hush Series
- The Matched Trilogy
- Pride and Prejudice
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
- The Harry Potter Series

and a few school library books...

However, I used up the space really quickly, so I had to make other arrangements....

I then brought an end table home from my Grandfather's house and stacked books on it.

There are various cookbooks, some of the Lemony Snicket books and sitting on top of it all are my Harry Potter Movies for my PSP. 

But, unfortunately, my table can only withstand so much weight. That is when I finally came to the conclusion that I needed a space that I could stash my library books and some of my personal books and.....



VOILA! 

My locker-shelf was born!













So, in summary, I really love books and they have influenced my life a great deal. They taught me wonderful lessons.

But I am signing off, for now, as I have to go read 70 pages of The City of Bones before I go see the film.

See you later,
Amberly M. Oosthuizen 

Challenge for Week 38 of 2013

It may be a little late in the year, but I have come up with weekly challenges to boost my experience in life. 

My goal for myself this week: Learn to be ambidextrous- again.

The idea came to mind when I was going through my old Third Grade photos this morning. I broke my right wrist/arm in three places that year from falling off the monkey bars at school. I spent the year writing with my left hand and not very well, if I may add.

So this means I need to cut, write, draw, type etc. with only my left hand. This is an exceedingly difficult challenge because I have an art project due this week and I absolutely cannot draw with my hand without the drawings looking like the ones I drew on the walls years ago.

It's a good challenge because I'm working on The Piano Duet from Corpse Bride this week and I'm already feeling the strain in my right hand. Hope I won't be wearing a wrist-brace by Friday.

All in all, looking forward to the week and will have a report back on the challenge on Saturday.

I urge you guys to set yourself a challenge this week and let me know by commenting on this post.

You guys are awesome

Amberly M. Oosthuizen

P.S. This post was written entirely in my left hand.

Redrum, Magic and Fingers

It's Official! I have finally hit the Stephen King phase in my life. I have started with The Shining, the hardback of which I am reading given to me by my dad. I unfortunately had no idea of the swearing in the story. I hope to read Carrie afterwards, before I watch the movie. Speaking of which, Lykke Li's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow featured in the trailer is beautiful yet haunting song. It is a constant item on my playlists and is perfect for the movie.

I have only read the first few chapters of The Shining and I'm already slightly scared. I hope to finish it in a week, and I probably will. I have plenty of time to kill now, as it seems I am suffering from a serious case of writer's block. I really don't want to hit another dead end in what seems to be a short-lived unpublished writing career, with a total of 12 failed novels that never got past chapter 1.

Moving on to the tomorrows that might never arrive, J.K. Rowling has decided to make a movie from one of the textbooks used by Harry throughout his years at Hogwarts, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander. I cannot wait for it because I have missed Harry's Wizarding World, after completing all the films and books last year.

I am also contemplating whether I should injure my pianist hands by playing a three handed piece with just two hands. Said piece is none other than The Piano Duet from Corpse Bride. This is an impossible task for me as I am only Grade 2 piano, but I will try to conquer the piece and maybe I'll play it for someone who actually wants to hear it other than me.

Wish me luck!
Amberly M. Oosthuizen