If We Were Having Coffee: Current Entertainment Faves & Other Life Things

Let’s be honest, talking about all the books and TV I’ve been loving lately is one of my favorite things to do. I usually save my TV and movies talk for monthly wrap-ups, but I’ve been really enjoying seeing what everyone has been watching and doing at home that I want to share the love today.

If we were having coffee, I’d probably be drinking an iced coffee. The slight warm change in weather has brought out in the iced coffee drinker in me. I went through Dunkin Donuts’ drive-thru twice before stay-at-home orders really set in for my go-to medium iced coffee with caramel. I think the next time I get to treat myself, I’m going to go for the Girl Scout Samoa cookie flavor if it’s still available! My homemade iced coffee is rarely as cold as it should be – I’m often too impatient to wait for it to cool before I pour it over ice. I like making iced coffee with Hamilton Mills French Vanilla K-cups or with Dunkin Donuts Original Blend (occasionally with caramel creamer).

If we were having coffee, I’d talk about all the book podcasts I’ve been listening to on my daily walks. Whether I’m walking alone or with my family, I love plugging into a podcast episode on my hour-long walk. I’ve been listening to a mix of Bad on Paper‘s early and recent episodes and keep adding more books to my TBR because of their recommendations. I’ve also been listening to Sarah’s Bookshelves Live I loved her recent episode with Steph Hockersmith of @PieLadyBooks. I’ve also downloaded a few episodes of The SSR Podcast.

If we were having coffee, I’d talk about how I’m so sad I am about Schitt’s Creek being over. I’m one of the fans who found the show towards its end, having watched its first five seasons on Netflix last summer and fall. Season 6 was so, so good. I really love the way each character’s story wrapped up (and yes, I’m still crying over Ted and Alexis’ final scene). While there is a wedding and some final goodbyes in the last episode, I loved how the goodbyes and wrap-ups weren’t contained to the final episode. I also loved the documentary, “Best Wishes, Warmest Regards,” that aired right after the finale. As sad as I am that its over, I really appreciate the show creators’ decision to end the show when they felt it was right, instead of adding on two more unnecessary seasons just because it was gaining more and more popularity. And no worries, I’ve been pushing this show on to everyone who is looking for TV recommendations at this time (including you!).

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that Booksmart is my new favorite movie. I’ve been wanting to watch this one for so long, and one of my school’s streaming services had it in their catalog- I’m still trying to figure out what class included it in their syllabus. I loved the two main characters (played by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever) and their relationship, the cinematography was amazing (my favorite scene was the doll scene) and it was just comedy done so, so, well!! With plenty of antics in store, this movie is really about friendship, growing up, and trying to prepare for moving on into a new stage of life.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that the best book I read this week was Lyssa Kay Adams’ Undercover Bromance. I just have so much love for The Bromance Book Club world, the Russian of course included.

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ADVENTURES ABROAD: My Trip to Ireland

For the past few years, my new year usually begins in a quiet way, wrapping up winter break and trying to get to all the books I can before heading back to school and ‘real life.’ However, my 2020 started in the most exciting way possible by going on a study abroad trip to Ireland!

I always knew that I wanted to do some sort of study abroad program while in school. Blame it on all the books I’ve read, but I’ve had this growing sense of wanderlust in me for the past few years. I admit that I was intimidated by going abroad, having never travelled outside of the United States before and how pricey study abroad and travelling can be. However, everything seemed to fall into place during the fall semester of my senior year and I decided to apply to my school’s winter break program in Ireland. I have a few countries on must travel-to list, but Ireland has always been in the #1 spot because of my own Irish heritage.

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In short, I am so, so glad that I went to Ireland because I had such an incredible experience. I have a ton of photos featured below, but even they do not fully capture how beautiful everything is there. I’m going to be breaking down my trip more for you below, but I quickly fell in love with the West Coast of the country and know I need to go back someday. It’s true what they say about going abroad or travelling: once you go somewhere, you want to get back on a plane and go somewhere else! I’m hoping my adventures abroad or at a travel feature will become a somewhat regular series here on Fangirl Fury.

And yes, I admit that I’m disappointed with my bookish self for not taking a long a copy of Jenna Evan Welch’s Love & Luck for ALL of the bookstagrams.

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My day spent in Derry was one of the trip’s highlights. As a Derry Girls fan, going to Derrry was one of the things I was most excited about. During the first half of the day, we visited the Museum of Free Derry, hearing from a relative of a Bloody Sunday victim and walking through the museum’s exhibit on civil rights. After the museum, we toured the Bogside murals.

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The second half of the day was spent in Derry City, where we had complete free range to explore the city. Since our bus dropped us off at The Guildhall, we walked through the Plantation of Ulster exhibit and later took some nice nightsky photos. After the exhibit, my friends and I walked across the Peace Bridge, which again prompted for the nice photo ops. We then went into the city, with our first stop at the Derry Craft Village. We popped into a few stores, where I picked up a belated Happy Christmas ornament for my family and a pair of claddaugh earrings for my sister. My must-see stop for the day was of course the Derry Girls mural! After, we walked along the 17th century wall near there and also stopped at St. Columb’s Cathedral. We also stopped at a print shop that sold a ton of Derry Girls merchandise, picking up a postcard for my equally obsessed Derry Girls friend and I, and at an ice cream shop called Joe Jackson’s. After falling in love with lemon meringue pie at dinner earlier in the week, I treated myself to lemon meringue and salted caramel ice cream.

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If We Were Having Coffee: The Fall Semester Edition

One of my goals with each blogging year is to incorporate more lifestyle posts and life updates. I usually talk about some of my life happenings outside of my bookish and fangirl life in my monthly wrap-up posts and some blog and book tags. In 2020, I’d love to dedicate more getting to-know-me posts. But while there are still 3 weeks left in 2019, I am going to be starting this a bit sooner! I’ve seen the If We Were Having Coffee post float around the blogosphere, but I first saw it written by Jamie of The Perpetual Page Turner.

Some of you may have been able to tell from my monthly wrap up posts that life has been super busy since school started again back in August. This semester was super-rewarding while also stressful in a number of ways. I think it’s about time that I’d fill you on a few things that have happened over these few months, what I have planned for winter break, and some of my plans for 2020!

If were having coffee together IRL, I’d probably be drinking caramel or vanilla-flavored coffee. I’ve only had one holiday Starbucks drink so far this season, which was a Caramel Brulèe Latte.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I am currently reading, The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black. I just started this one on Sunday before diving into my final papers again.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my senior year has been my favorite year of college. This fall semester is definitely my favorite semester of college—here’s hoping that the spring may beat it! I spent so much time hanging out with my best friends and I seriously wouldn’t trade this time and memories with them for anything. Some of the highlights include nights out in our college town, apple-picking, our many Halloween celebrations (college students can’t seem to decide when to celebrate when it lands in the middle of the week, so we celebrate two weekends in a  row), and visiting one of my best friends at her school for the weekend.

I don’t want to give away too many details away because I’d like to still keep where I attend school private for now, but this semester I attended class twice in a week in NYC. I was able to learn more current topics and career opportunities in one of my majors and get to visit companies in the industry. I commuted about four hours per week, which made for the perfect reading time (and yes, homework time during peak stress periods).

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If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about my English senior capstone paper on Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give. This was my first time studying a YA book in college, and I discussed the tension between THUG as a novel and as a commercial product. While I ultimately decided not to go down the thesis route given my other commitments this year, I’ll be again discussing THUG and diverse books in my media and communications senior capstone.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my senior year has been the most stressful year of college. I had the most amount of homework and research projects that I’ve ever had in college. My student life basically looked like this in the fall: 8 credit NYC semester, my English senior research class, my last literature seminar to complete my English major, and working two jobs on-campus. When it came to the coursework, I at least really enjoyed working on my senior research and NYC projects. I think it’s finally safe to say that I did not enjoy my seminar on British Romanticism in the least bit, but I unfortunately did not have at lot of options when it came to literature classes this year. I’ve also run into the more “typical” college senior stress, aka trying to figure out what I’ll be doing with my life in May, between applying to internships and entry level jobs and considering grad school.

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Forever thankful to my best friend for capturing part of my presentation on her Snapchat.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about my upcoming study abroad trip in January! My 2020 will be starting in the best way possible because I will be going to Ireland during the first two weeks of the year! Going abroad during college has been a dream of mine and I am so happy that I finally have the opportunity to do so over winter break! Ireland has always been on my travel bucket list because of my heritage. This trip will also mark my first time going abroad. I’m definitely going to be leaving some room in my suitcase to bring back a UK book edition or two… or maybe the entire Harry Potter series, who knows. I’m going to have pre-scheduled content still up on the blog while I’m away, but I likely won’t be able to respond to comments and other blog-related things until I’m back in the US. I also plan on doing a post or two on my trip later in January.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’m trying to read as much as I can in December. I put a bunch of books on hold during Thanksgiving Break from the library in preparation for my winter break reading.

Although I was able to read more this fall semester than I have in previous years at school thanks to my semi-commuting life, I wish I was able to read as much as I had been in the summer. It was a rough transitioning from reading 14-15 books per month to adjusting back to 4-6. It’s not even so much that I was worried about the numbers, like hitting my Goodreads challenge, but I genuinely missed having more reading (and blogging) time.

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If we were having coffee, what would you talk about? What would be your drink of choice? What are you reading in December? Share in the comments!

Books, Film, & Hopefully More Books: April 2018 Wrap Up

April shall be known as the month where I wanted to read all the books, but my last month of the semester and final papers sort’ve prevented that– I still managed to read 6 books! I’m beyond excited for my summer reading plans, and within those 6 books, I also managed to conquer two Sarah J. Maas books!?! Since I spend a lot of time reading, writing, and with words in general for school, I relaxed a lot by watching TV and movies. And writing blog posts, of course.

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The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides | 4/5 Stars

I’ve been loving bookish Instagram templates lately, and I found The Virgin Suicides through a classics challenge template. This intriguing, but shocking read has definitely become one of my favored classics.

A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena | 4.5/5 Stars

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan | 4/5 Stars

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas (Reread) | 5/5 Stars

Finding Felicity by Stacey Kade | 4/5 Stars

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas | 5/5 Stars

 

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So imagine my happiness when my family decided to get HBO on Amazon Prime during the busiest time of the school year. There’s so much I want to watch on HBO (my friend keeps pressuring me to start Game of Thrones), and I did find the time to watch a few movies, including The House, La La Land, and Collateral Beauty. Zoella’s New York City vlogs influenced my watching of Collateral Beauty, which was my favorite movie of the month (even if it caused me to ugly cry).

I also watched Speech & Debate on Netflix. I was really excited to watch this one because of Darren Criss and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s cameos, and I really enjoyed its cast and humor.

My finals work had me craving some light-hearted TV, which led me to catching on the CW. I’m now up-to-date on Riverdale, and I’ve been loving Life Sentence with Lucy Hale.

Streaming-wise, I watched the first season of Divorce on HBO/Amazon Prime. I’m a huge Sarah Jessica Parker fan and it was fun to see her once again in New York City. And in more light-hearted TV news, I watched the first season of Nailed It on Netflix. I love baking shows, and this one is such much fun, showcasing amateur bakers who try to replicate Pinterest and Instagram-worthy cakes and treats.

 

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Reviews

SCHOOL BOOKS THAT I ACTUALLY ENJOYED: March Mini Reviews

The Little French Bistro by Nina George

My New Favorite Graphic Novel: The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

College YA Meets Music: We Are Still Tornadoes by Michael Kun and Susan Mullen (featuring Music Habits Tag)

ARC Review: All of This Is True by Lygia Day Penaflor

Queen of My Heart: Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

Diverse Reviews: A Girl Like That & The Astonishing Color of After

Top Five Wednesday

Favorite Jokesters

Auto-Buy Sci-fi & Fantasy Authors

Ideal Mash-Ups & Anticipated Mash-Ups

Fandom Items

 

April Snow Showers??: TBB Asks Spring Edition

Monthly Recommendations: Mental Health Rep

Traveling with Fictional Characters and My Favorite Things: The Liebster Award

My Experience Seeing Carousel

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CarouselDuring the first week in April, one of my best friends and I went to see Carousel on Broadway. I have a post about my experience seeing the show, and I can now say that I’ve been to a Broadway preview.

Publishing over 200 Posts- Wrap ups truly are full circle. I probably should’ve mentioned this last month, but Give Me More Spring Breaks: March Wrap Up was my 200th blog post. I’ve actually been doing some spring cleaning on the blog and deleting some old posts, but I’m still over the 200 mark!

Finishing my second year of college- At the time I’m publishing this wrap-up, I only have two days of my sophomore year left! I’ve enjoyed sophomore year much more than my first year, and not just for the fact that I had no written final exams this semester. I did really well in the classroom, had my first internship, made some great friendships, and of course read a lot of books.

 

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What did you read and watch in April? Did you go to any bookish events? Share in the comments!