Hate It When Stupid Things Keep Me From Doing Stuff I Need To Do.

Muse at the Grammys! Watched them last night... must say, they were amazing. Of course, I've loved them since I first played Knights of Cydonia on Guitar Hero:

Good stuff. I could never play as well as this dude, though. And yes, I'm one of the nerds who would go on youtube to look up videos of people beating really hard songs on expert. But at least I was never looking up Call of Duty cheats like *ahem* my brother...

Anyway, life lately's been kinda weird. My cold's all better but I woke up on Saturday not able turn my head to the right! My neck kinked up and it's still a little spazzy... so we'll see how that goes during swim practice today. I already went to my best friend's birthday party with it and got into a giant cake/tickle fight without too much protest, so it should be fine.

AND I NEED TO GET BACK IN THE WATER, WE'VE GOT A FRAKKIN' MEET IN TWO WEEKS AND OUR POOL'S GETTING DRAINED! *awkward silence*

Please ignore the above spaz attack.

So the books I've been reading! I read Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald on the way home from Arizona, and it was REALLY funny.

Two girls, one an uptight Oxford student and the other a laid-back UCSB student, participate in a transfer program and end up with each others' lives. Emily, from Oxford, is looking to forget about a bad breakup and try something new to break free from her meticulously-planned success schedule; Natasha, from Santa Barbara, is trying to hide from the press after she unknowingly broke up America's IT couple and turned herself into America's #1 Hated Skank.

The only problem is, classes are harder than Natasha expects and Emily can't help but do the wrong thing. Neither girl can loosen up in her surroundings enough to enjoy the change at first, until they talk to each other and realize how to blend in.

The thing I liked was it was almost like a cultural study as well as a great novel. You see how two VERY different types of people live and how one can go from one extreme to the other.

Plus, you know, you've got all those great plot elements such as adventure and romance making this a pretty good book.

And the book I just finished: Middleworld by J&P Voelkel.
As far as I know, this book had a completely new premise for kids' adventure fiction: a race through Mayan mythology. Rich and spoiled Max is pretty mad when his housekeeper books him a flight to the jungle of San Xavier to join his archaeologist parents on a Mayan hunt and then they don't show up. But he quickly realizes something more serious is going on, and he'll have to team up with a native Mayan, Lola, to not only find his parents but also possibly save the world from an evil spirit.

This book combines lots of Mayan history and lore with the bratty Max and funny Lola to weave a great adventure story. I've heard there are two more books in the series and I WANNA READ EM! Plus, the artwork in this book is pretty awesome too. Definitely made the story more interesting, although it's so fast-paced you feel like you're in the jungle with them.

And so ends my post. Hopefully I'll keep up with my reading this week on top of double practices every day, so I can post again sometime soon. =)