Summer 2014 Bookshelf Tour Part 1: Overview/ Organization

Hey, y'all! So, I've seen lots of booktubers do bookshelf tours, but I hadn't thought to do one until just recently. However, you're actually going to be seeing three bookshelf tours in close proximity to each other! I'm currently living in a dorm room on my school's campus, and the only shelving unit I have are two shelves on top of my desk. However, at the beginning of August, I'll be moving into the apartment I'll be living in throughout my junior year of college, and I'll be getting a full, 5 shelf bookshelf. I probably won't do that bookshelf tour until late August, because I'll be traveling for some of August, as well as preparing for the upcoming semester.

The third bookshelf tour will actually be of my bookshelf at home. I'll be going home for a week next month, and since I have several books there, I thought it would be a good idea to do a bookshelf tour for that shelf. I might hold off on that post until September just because you'll be getting this one in two parts now, as well as the updated apartment one next month. Or I might hold off on the apartment one until September. We'll see.

There will be 2 parts to my bookshelf tour. This one, part 1, is a general overview of my shelves and how they're organized. In part 2, I'll be listing the books I own and whether they're read or unread.

So, this bookshelf tour will only be up-to-date for less than a month, but I wanted to go ahead and do it so that I have it documented. It's partially for my own benefit as well, to remember how I had everything shelved. So, let's jump in, shall we?

So, this is my main shelving and the vast majority of my books. I do have some overflow books, which I'll show near the end of the post, but this is pretty much the entirety of the books I have at school. As you can see, the shelves are very, very, very full. This is why I'm so excited about finally having a full bookshelf in less than a month.

All 3 of these were actually cut from shopping bags. My favorite used bookstore near my campus uses paper bags with these fun sayings on them, and I thought they were really cool, so I cut them out and put them above my bookshelf. 

I'm now going to take it one shelf at a time, saying how they're organized.

As you can see from my little hand-written label, this is my Favorites shelf! These are all the books that I really really love. It also frees up my normal shelves a bit, because these would never all fit.

As you can see, my favorites shelf is mostly just divided by Harry Potter and non-Harry Potter. I'm being just a little lenient with my non-HP stack right now, because a couple books couldn't fit on the shelves anymore. But I do really like them nonetheless.

You also might have noticed this jar. This little jar is my TBR jar. I made it last month, but because of my summer reading challenge, I haven't been able to utilize it yet. Basically, I have all of my unread books on slips of paper inside this jar and each month/ whenever I can't figure out what I want to read, I'll pull one out (with series, I only have the first book in here because it wouldn't make sense to read the second book without reading the first). I also have a couple books in here that I want to re-read, but the majority of the books in here are unread.

We now move down to my second shelf. As you can see, these are mostly organized by size, because that's really the only way to fit everything on there. There is, however, a little method to the madness, and the stacks are divided up in certain ways.

This stack on the far left is all YA series. For some of them, I have other books in that series elsewhere on my shelf, and for others, all that are in this stack are all that I have.

The next stack over is made up of mostly stand-alones, all paperback. There's a little spillover from the previous stack, with a series, but the majority of the books in this stack are stand-alones, or the only book I own in its series.

As you can see, this stack is made up of all normal-height hardcover books. I have it organized so that the bottom half is mostly stand-alone novels, and the top half is made up of books in series. In the cases of all 3 of these series, I own other books in that series in paperback, so those are elsewhere on my shelf.

Then finally, we get to my tall books stack. As you can see, the bottom half is made up of tall hardcover books, while the top half is comprised of my tall paperbacks. Any books taller than these wind up in my "oversize" shelving, which actually reminds me of work because we have a large oversize section in the library I work in.

We now move down to my bottom shelf. As you may be able to notice, this shelf is much more organized than the shelf above it. It's still organized by height, but I was able to also organize by series and genre a little bit better as well.

So, the stack on the far left is the entire Pendragon series in hardcover. The tenth book wouldn't fit on the stack, so I just had to put it beside the rest of the books.

Right next to that stack are my high-fantasy series in paperback. As you can see, there are three complete series, as well as another single book thrown on top.

The next stack on this shelf is comprised of classics and music & psychology books. And yes, I'm fully aware that a few books in this stack are not "classics" but I would classify them as modern classics, so they got put into this pile.

This stack is almost entirely made up of the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events. There is, however, one extra book on the top of this stack which is there solely because it's the same size as the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

 We've now come to my overflow shelving. This stack sits on the windowsill directly behind and to the right of my main bookshelf. Nearly all of these are books for school, except for the three on top.

Directly to the right of that stack, we come to my final section of books, the oversize/overflow section. A few of these are things like quiz books or list books that aren't really books in the normal sense. Then there are the books that were too large to fit on my main shelf. Finally, some of these books are ones that I didn't really want to display. And, as you can also see, this is where I keep my magazines and a few of my notebooks.


So, there you go, that's the overview of my shelves and how they're organized. You can expect the second part of this sometime next week. As I said, that will be a more in-depth view at the books and whether they're read or unread, and perhaps opinions on them. I haven't quite decided yet. I was close to making this a single post, but I know that I typically only enjoy seeing the overview and organization, and knew that it would be incredibly long with everything on here, so that's why I decided to split it up into two.

I've also created a Facebook page for my blog, so if you want to check that out and like it, you can click HERE. I'll try to keep that pretty up-to-date with new posts and such.

Thanks for reading this! If you like my posts, don't forget to subscribe/follow, since it lets me know that you're enjoying what I'm doing. See y'all soon!

Project Runway Season 12 PREMIERE: UNICORNS!

Ok, so maaaaaybe the episode wasn't titled UNICORNS! but it totally should've been. At the very least, it was our Project Runway word of the week.

So... I made a thing. I think it's clever, but I'm probably the only one.

Welcome to my Project Runway review! First off, sorry this review is so late. I meant to post this like 2 days ago. Anyway, I was so extremely excited for this season to finally get here. It's my favorite show, and during the summertime, I actually have time to watch it the night it's on! Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this up when school gets back, but for now, let's jump right in!

Rather than simply recap the "Road To The Runway" episode, I'll just briefly give my opinions about the designers. Before every season, I go onto the Project Runway site and go through every single designer's page and try to feel out who my favorites are going to be. Being my nerdy self, I actually have a scoring system for different aspects... mostly their personality. Upon doing that, my top scorers going into the episode were : Alexander, Alexandria, Angela, Justin, Miranda, Sandro, and Timothy. My opinions about everyone have changed slightly, so I'll go through them one by one.

Alexander: While I do like him about as much as I thought I would, right now he's just at the mid-top of the pack for me. He seems like a pretty cool guy, so I'll be interested to see where he eventually falls on my favorites list.

Alexandria: For me, she seems very contradictory. She seems very soft spoken, but also seemed to bash everyone in her confessionals! I don't get it! She seems really cool, though and I really love both her personal style and her aesthetic, so for now I like her. If we start getting a Gretchen personality, I will ditch her.

Angela: She seemed to show quite a bit of promise. On her page, she described her design as similar to Michelle, the winner of teams. I really liked Michelle's design, so that, plus the fact that she was in a rock band, really interested me!

Bradon: He seems to be pretty chill and really friendly. He's definitely among my favorites, because he seems to have a great personality, coupled with lots of talent! Right now, he seems pretty humble. Let's just hope he doesn't turn sour.

Dom: When I saw on her page that she loved Jay from season 1 and my boy Jeffrey from season 3, I got excited. But I'm not so sure right now. I have yet to fully grasp her aesthetic, as well as her personality. So, we'll see!

Helen: When I first saw her, I thought Helen would be my girl. Edgy, tattooed, recipe for cool designer, right? (at least, in the eyes of me, the girl who ADORES Seth Aaron Henderson). But when I watched her tour videos, she seemed way timid. Then, on the show, she was totally BAM, in your face catty. I'm so confused. Time will tell if she ends up being someone I support.

Jeremy: I didn't have much of an opinion on him when I first sat down to watch, and I actually spent way too much time trying to figure out where his accent is from. I don't know if it's the accent, but something intrigued me, and although he's middle of the pack for me right now, I'd say he's more on the likeable side.

Justin: He had one of my highest scores going into the show, and he certainly didn't disappoint. I could talk on and on about how he's an inspiration (because he truly is), but I feel like no one with any sort of physical disability really wants to be coddled and patted on the back for doing something in life. And he seems to have a great sense of humor about it, joking that if people are bothering him, he can simply just shut everyone off. That being said, I think it's really cool to see technology like that in action. I've seen videos of people getting to hear for the first time using those and I find it so interesting that even though they speak English, the first words they hear probably don't actually make sense, because they've never heard them. Anyway, I TOTALLY digress. I think he's a really talented designer, and I can't wait to see more of him.

Kahindo: She's probably the most middle of the line designer for me. I don't like her, I don't dislike her, I just kinda have a meh feeling toward her.

Karen: I think I'm going to end up liking her, but it seems like she can get annoying. She seems very happy and genuine and down to earth, but maybe a bit TOO happy smiley rainbows for me.

Ken: He scored pretty low before the show, but I'm not so sure about that. I just don't know yet. We didn't get to see a lot of him.

Miranda: She actually scored highest on my pre-show scoring. Now, it was by only a single point, and there wasn't a ton of deviation, but I do like her. I think she's going to do really well in the competition.

Sandro: At first, he seemed interesting, but by the end of the premiere, I wanted to get rid of him. It seems like they're trying to make him this season's Casanova. But he's not anywhere near as likeable as Casanova... Really, he isn't likeable at all.

Sue: At first, I wasn't so sure about her, but immediately upon seeing her aesthetic, I started warming up to her. By the end of the premiere, I decided that I like her. Hopefully, she turns out some great work!

Timothy: I think Timothy is absolutely ridiculous. So far, he doesn't seem like a great designer, and his "sustainable clothing" thing is going to get old really... wait. It has already gotten old. But I don't want him to ever go away. He brought such a humor to the first episode! Even when the skydivers jumped from the plane and he exclaimed that they were puppies falling from the sky!(At that point, I thought he was precious, not craycray... but he's definitely the latter) I don't expect him to last long, but he MIGHT, just because although HE is cuckoo crazy, his designs don't seem to be.

OK, so since our first episode was so insanely long with Road To The Runway, I'm going to try to keep this short. On Road To The Runway, I loved getting to see some of my all time fave designers, like Anthony Ryan and Mondo- as well as Mr. Verreos, of course! While I didn't watch a TON of season 11 (busy college student!) I did watch enough to decide that I like Michelle's aesthetic, so it was nice to hear her feedback as well.

This season, we have some new twists, which were gradually introduced to us throughout the show.
-During the runway shows, the judges do not know who designed each look. They don't find out until scores are tabulated. This is probably to keep it fair and unbiased.
-Tim will be present, but not judging, at the runway show.
-After the runway show and the initial judging, the judges get a close up look at the top and bottom looks.
-A single time in the season, Tim is allowed to save a designer if he feels the judges made an incorrect decision. This is done after the contestant has been eliminated and has returned to the designers lounge. So basically, Tim can either give them their usual hug goodbye and tell them to head to the workroom to clean up their space, or he can save them at that point.
-The prize package has practically quadrupled. I don't remember all the details, but they get more than 500,000 worth of stuff. I was seriously wondering when Heidi's laundry list of prizes was going to end!

Did I forget anything? It seemed like there were so many changes! So, the episode begins at a small airport. The designers gather together with Heidi and Tim and are told that a past designer will be joining them. The fans got to vote between 3: R'amon from season 6, Valerie from season 8, or Kate from season 11. I definitely support Valerie the most of those, and I liked R'amon as well, even though he seemed like a random choice. Although I watched little of season 11, I knew Kate was the rude one, so I was hoping it wouldn't be her. I knew R'amon wouldn't get it. Season 6 was far too forgettable and he didn't last THAT long. While I felt it was between Kate and Val, I knew it was much more likely that Kate would get it, since she was on the show most recently. Unfortunately, I was right. She popped out of the airplane and joined her fellow designers.

The designers find out that they are supposed to make an outfit out of parachute fabric, and make a mad dash to get the parachute they want. I thought it was absolutely hilarious when Kate totally wiped out! I won't bore you with workroom details, but I will touch on Timothy. I'm sure he made his model feel completely uncomfortable by asking her how she felt about acting. Then he spent a super long time coaching her on how he wanted her to... walk?... down the runway. He wanted it to be like she was being pulled by the handcuffs that bound her hands together. Then, in hair and makeup, he basically told them not to use any styling products at all, be it a straightener or hairspray. So they just braided her hair and were done. And for makeup, he didn't have them do... ANYTHING! The best part for me was that the model didn't even do the crazy moves down the runway! She just posed like one of the moves he coached her on. I'm sure he wasn't happy about that. Also, can we mention how crazy high his heels were? SERIOUSLY. And his model was barefoot. Oh, and he talked about unicorns constantly. I'm legitimately concerned that he believes that unicorns are real.

Moving on to the Runway!
Alexander: I really liked his design, but the fact that it was riding up in the front probably kept him from being in the top. I actually forgot his was parachute!
Alexandria: I thought hers was OK. There was certainly no reason for her to be so cocky, though!
Angela: This was just really unfortunate. It was really ill fitting and just looked like some huge, cheap raincoat.
Bradon:I really loved this. It was probably my favorite thing that walked the runway.
Dom: I'm surprised this avoided the bottom. It was boring and unflattering. Hoodies usually aren't PR material.
Helen: I liked her dress. I wasn't wowed, but it was OK. I was kinda confused though, because the whole dress was white and blue, but there was this hint of reddish brown on the chest. On purpose? Accident? Who knows!
Jeremy: I actually really liked his look! I liked the contrast of the really busy pant and the basic white top.
Justin: I thought his dress was really cute. It was as if she was wearing a tie!
Kahindo: I wasn't sure of the point of the pleats, but I liked her color blocking. 
Karen: I would have liked this... if it had fit! It was way huge and like a bag on her model! The unfortunate thing is that I think she meant to do that! She seems to like things that are too baggy. That concerns me!
Kate: I thought it was cute. Simple, and not the most original thing I've ever seen, but cute.
Ken: His construction of that collar was fabulous. I'm not sure it was a good idea to have two ruffles though. The inner one didn't seem as wow. He's clearly really talented though!
Miranda: I'm actually not totally sure why this wound up in the top in the first place. It wasn't THAT great. Sure, it was well made, and OK, but not a wow. And she broke the rules quite a bit.
Sandro: His poor model had to use those random ropes he threw on her JUST to cover up her good china, since it was completely popping out of the bathing suit! I'm having flashbacks to season 7's "hardwear" (see my pun there?) challenge and Emilio's washer and string bathing suit. Just NO.
Sue: That rouching was really great, and the color and the way that the dress fell were also amazing. 
Timothy: I thought that bits and pieces of both the back and front were good, but it was like they were two different dresses!

Top:

Sue

Bradon

Sue: The judges loved her rouching and the effortless-looking draping
Bradon: The judges loved the train in the back, and although a couple questioned the strings in the front, they showered praise on him.

Top/Bottom

Miranda

Miranda: At first, Miranda was in the top, but when the judges realized how little of her fabric was actually parachute fabric (but really, how did they not realize this earlier?), they decided to make an example of her and put her in the bottom for not really following the instructions.

Bottom 3:

Angela

Timothy

Sandro

Timothy: They didn't understand any of his reasoning, and thought he was contradicting himself.

Angela: They also thought it seemed like some sad, ill fitting coat.

Sandro: They felt like although the taste just WAS NOT there, that the construction skills were. Because although it showed the good china, it was intricately designed.

Bradon is declared the winner. With as much as they praised him, it would be ridiculous for them to give the win to anyone else.

Sue is in. Miranda is given a slap on the wrist, but is safe. To my annoyance, Sandro is also in. The bottom two is Timothy and Angela, but it is Angela who is declared out.

Just for fun, I figured I would give y'all my ridiculously early predictions for order of elimination. Although my own bias will probably play a small part, the majority of this will be how talented they appear to be/ their character.

15-Karen- because her baggy dress was SO bad
14-Kahindo- because so far, she seems pretty forgetable
13-Timothy- because he has a big personality, but that can't get him far
12-Sandro- because eventually, bad taste catches up with you
11-Helen- because the mean girl never wins. And she doesn't seem that great
10-Dom- because she doesn't seem as unique and at top 10, that will become obvious

This gap represents the talent gap that I believe exists between those above and below...

9-Alexander- because I like him, but I'm not sure the judges will.
8-Alexandria- because she's over-confident, without QUITE the chops to back it up
7-Justin- because of potential sympathy card, fairly ok designer. I want him to go further though.
6-Kate- because the comeback kid never wins
5-Jeremy- because he seems talented, but not quite finale material
4-Ken- because of his amazing construction skills and drive to win
3-Sue- because of her talent, construction, and aesthetic
2-Bradon- because he's proved to be a force to be reckoned with, but remained humble
1-Miranda- because she has a strong point of view and pushes boundaries.

Honestly, in my opinion, anyone between 3-9 could be shaken up and moved around. But I feel like those in 10-15 need to be weeded out. Also, I think either Bradon or Miranda could win. Or even someone else from 9 down. And I actually just realized that I chose this episode's top 3 as my 3 finalists. WOW haha! Anyway, I don't think this is necessarily who I WANT it to be. I really like Bradon and Miranda, but I think I'd rather see Justin in the finale than Sue. But that's just because he's really funny and seems to be a great guy. But I also am liking Jeremy and Sue. Ken wouldn't be anywhere near as high if I was ranking solely on where I want people to land. Also, Timothy would be a lot higher, because I want to laugh at him for as long as possible!

Also, I'll make a post just dedicated to this, but would anyone be interested in reading a blog about past Project Runway seasons? I've seen pretty much every episode 5 times, and re-watch constantly, so I could definitely blog a season at a time if anyone wanted to read it. Project Throwback, anyone? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my super-late review. I'll hopefully see you back here MUCH sooner after Episode 2!