I just want to go the the Museum of Natural History

I'm not asking for a lot.

I found an app that allows you to bookmark the exhibits you want to visit and then add them to your own custom tour. Then when you're at the museum, you just hit "start at the nearest exhibit" and the GPS walks you through the entire thing. I have a tour planned. It's just a matter of actually going now.

I THOUGHT they had a bambiraptor skeleton there, but I didn't see it listed so I'll have to do some more research because that's something I really want to see.

I also have to figure out how to get to the museum from Penn Station. I've been going to the city all my life and I still have no idea how the subway works. I will probably never understand it.

K-drama fans

Have you ever watched a K-drama (or ten) and heard/read one of the characters say, "This is making me crazy!" or any of the many other phrases repeatedly spoken on each K-drama series? If you're like me, you probably picked a few of these phrases up just from hearing them repeatedly. And if you haven't, you're probably wondering exactly how to say them, or maybe even how to write the words in hangul.

Talk to Me in Korean knows how our minds work and they have released a new lesson on their website, Korean Drama Phrases Volume 1.

As soon as I saw this one, I bought it. $4.99 and I can learn how to write the sentences I've been hearing over and over again since I started watching K-dramas. It's perfect.

This lesson comes with a 52 page PDF file that includes 20 different phrases, vocabulary based on those phrases and sample sentences using the vocabulary. It also includes a vocabulary and grammar index and a vocabulary quiz (answers included on the last page) so you can test your knowledge of the material when you are finished studying. (I love that they included a quiz, I hope they do this for all their downloadable lessons in the future.) Two MP3 files (totaling over an hour) are also included to help you learn the correct pronunciation of each word and when it is appropriate to use these phrases.

If you are interested, you can purchase this lesson from TTMIK here.

Requiem by Lauren Oliver

I finished reading Requiem by Lauren Oliver on the day of its release and I held off posting about it because I really wanted to sort my feelings out about the ending before saying anything. I am glad I waited because my initial reaction was the one Lauren Oliver wanted, according to a video she posted this week about why she chose to end the series the way she did.

Requiem picks up shortly after where Pandemonium left off. Lena is traveling with the Resistance, including Julian and Alex, trying to find a safe location to stay and also attempting to join forces with other people who want to fight back against the "zombies." (Just to be clear, these are not flesh-eating zombies. They are people who have received the cure for amor deliria nervosa--love.) The Wilds are no longer a safe zone for the uncureds, which is difficult enough to handle, but imagine being there with your supposedly-dead first love (you know, the one you never REALLY got over) and the boy you promised to stay with while your first-love was listening. That is essentially what Lena is struggling with throughout the majority of Requiem. Survival and the fallout of a "disease" she did not want to be cured of.

If you think Lena has it bad, just wait until you read the chapters from Hana's POV. (Not that you'll feel too bad for her during most of Requiem, after reading the Hana novella.) Her story focuses on her wedding preparations to Fred Hargrove, who is running for mayor after his father is killed. She is arrogant. And content with her new life and social standing. Until the car she is in almost hits one of Lena's cousins one day. Then she begins having dreams again, even though she has been cured. She slowly starts to unravel and as she does, she finds out that the man she is supposed to marry has a few secrets he's been keeping from her.

For anyone who purchases a first edition of Requiem, there is an Alex short story that explains what happened after he was shot and captured, how he escaped the Crypts, and how he eventually managed to track Lena down.

Overall, Requiem was a very interesting read. It was never boring, it kept you wanting to know how the series would end...But during the last twenty pages or so, panic sets in because you think, "There's no way Lauren Oliver can possibly wrap everything up with so few pages left!"

And that is where the controversy over Requiem comes into play. From this point on, there are SPOILERS. Turn back now if you don't want to know the ending to the Delirium series.

Unlike other dystopian series, I think it really is okay to focus on the love triangle here because Delirium is about love, at its core. About how far you are willing to go to protect the freedom to experience love. It only makes sense that after everything Lena, Alex and Julian have been through, people want to know what happens to them.

Well. You never really find out who Lena ends up with, even though it is heavily implied. And initially, I liked that better. For one, because even though this is a story about the freedom to love and be loved, there's still a larger story at hand and Lena still has more to fight for, so even though I just said it's okay to be invested in the love triangle, it makes sense that Lena cannot commit to anyone at the moment. And for another thing, I love Alex and Julian so much that I did not want to read about Lena having to leave one of them heartbroken. This way, I can just imagine it however I want on any given day. And that is what Lauren Oliver said she wanted to accomplish with this ending. She wanted people to be able to continue this universe in their minds and their hearts and if she had written a less ambiguous ending, it would have all been laid out for us and it really would be over. I am [mostly] okay with her reasoning, in regards to the love triangle. However...

There is no closure. Sure, the Resistance made some headway in Portland, but the entire country still believes in the cure, so what happens next? Don't you think the troops will come for them? This is where the ending falls short for me. I need to know how they plan to end the cure once and for all. I want to know who survives. And I want to know what happens to Julian regarding his disease. The series feels incomplete without some sort of outcome either way, whether the Resistance wins or the zombies win. The good thing about how Requiem ended is that if Lauren Oliver ever wanted to continue the series, she could (and I'm really hoping she will one day because I am not ready for it to be over).

All of that being said, I still think Requiem was an incredible book. Lauren Oliver has ruined my life with this series. And I mean that in the best possible way. It is beautiful and heartbreaking, and any book that can evoke such strong emotions from its readers is doing something right. It was perfect and as happy as I am to finally have read the trilogy's conclusion, I am really sad to see it end.

Resident Evil 6

I had an entire review planned out for Resident Evil 6 last month. And then I just...Didn't care enough to pull all of my points together and make it look presentable and organized. Not because it's a bad game. I actually enjoyed it (more so on single player than co-op because my co-op partner was my ex). It still doesn't feel like a Resident Evil game, which is disappointing. And it can't live up to other TPS like Uncharted and Mass Effect (the gameplay and story just aren't up to par). But it is still enjoyable and it is a HUGE step up from Resident Evil 5.

So here are the notes I wrote down while playing.

*You can FINALLY walk and aim at the same time.

*Leon isn't as obnoxious as he was in Resident Evil 4. He's actually likable.

*It's nice to see what Sherry has been up to since Resident Evil 2.

*It's amazing that Chris, who was always my favorite character in the series until Resident Evil 5, managed to become an even worse character in RE6. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, I cringed. If they didn't tell me he was supposed to be Chris Redfield, I never would have known it was the same character from Resident Evil and RE Code Veronica.

*Of all the campaigns, Leon's is the closest to the feel you get from the older games. Jake's campaign has a lot of sections that require you to use stealth, which is interesting because you don't see that a lot in this series. Chris' campaign felt like a generic shooter, it was boring and unimaginative and I could not wait for it to be over. Ada's campaign was, in my opinion, the most difficult. You do not have a partner (unless you find someone to play with online, but otherwise, she's on her own) and in the first chapter, you're hit with a bunch of the more difficult enemies you face throughout the game. In one chapter, there is a section that is particularly puzzle-heavy, but it's still not challenging and I don't ever expect to see much more than the "combine the two plate pieces together to open the door!" puzzles we've been seeing since Resident Evil 4.

*The cemetery in Leon's campaign feels like it was taken directly out of Silent Hill Homecoming. But it's not as scary.

*The cover system is the worst thing I have seen in any game. EVER. If you are near a wall and you press L1 to aim your gun at someone, you'll take cover instead. It is ridiculous.

*Professional difficulty is nowhere near as unforgiving as it was in Resident Evil 5 and I was really disappointed because I liked how challenging it was before.

*Your eyes need to adjust to the dark in this game. They FINALLY implemented the idea they've been talking about since before RE5 was even released. Too bad Uncharted 3's multiplayer beta did this already. Still, it's a nice detail.

*You cannot save on your own and the autosave system is horrible. I lost my progress once because I reached a checkpoint and assumed it would be safe to quit out of the game. Nope. It's not safe to quit until the game actually says "saving" at the top of your screen. And those saves are few and far between.

*RE6 does not come with a manual. Apparently, this is common with newer games? I think it's unacceptable. When the in-game tutorial doesn't explain the cover system or how to use first aid spray and you have to look it up on GameFAQs, something is wrong. Include a manual next time.

*Co-op still feels unnecessary and tacked on since the only actions you really perform together are pressing circle to open a door.

*Each campaign is between four and five hours long, most of which you'll spend watching cutscenes. You'll perform one action and be thrown back into a cutscene and it completely takes you out of the game. It seems like they were more interested in making a movie than a game and if that's what they were going for, they should have just used RE6's storyline for that CGI movie they released last year instead of the one they actually used, because it was terrible. (I actually felt sorry for the lickers in Resident Evil Damnation. That should never happen.)

*The romantic subplots are horrible and the endings to each campaign (especially Leon's) feel so out of place in the Resident Evil universe.

And aside from ALL of that, my biggest complaint is that Resident Evil 6's failure to commit to either survival horror or a third person shooter is its biggest downfall. Capcom needs to decide where they want this series to go in the future because it's in this in-between phase ever since Resident Evil 4 and it's not working. Choose one or the other. Resident Evil 6 was NOT a bad game (even though I had a huge list of complaints about it). But it is plagued with all of these issues because they don't even know what genre they're working with anymore. Pick one and make it work next time.