Touring Local: January

I created this new feature last year, where I talk about the various places and events I went to around my local area, but I only posted it once. I’m hoping to do better this year, so here we go…

Touring Local: January

Have you ever seen a film in an Omnimax theater? The screen curves so it’s like you’re seeing all of the action at once. I’m sure it could be overwhelming for some people, but I love it! My sister got me a pass so I can see any of the Omnimax films this year for free (the pass was $25) so in the beginning of the month, we went and saw two of the films showing. For those that don’t know, these films are all non-fiction and last about 45 minutes.

My sister and I saw Jerusalem first, which was overall narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch (he has a great voice for narration) as well as three teenage girls who actually live in Jerusalem. One girl was Muslim, one was Jewish, and the other Christian. All of these religions love and feel like Jerusalem is their own, so it was interesting to see why these young girls love and appreciate it so much, from their religion to the culture. This was definitely my favorite of the day.

The second film we saw was Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs. While not my overall favorite, it was still a really interesting look at how some of the most famous pharaohs were found in Egypt years later. It also shows how modern day scientists are trying to use mummies (even creating a modern day mummy) to figure out how to cure various illnesses.

I’m not a huge fan of sports, and I don’t really like going to see games live. The one exception is hockey, and I love our local team, the Cincinnati Cyclones. I actually saw two games in January (one with my sister and one with my sister, a friend, and her boyfriend). Both were a lot of fun, even though we only won the first. Hockey games here are high energy and there is always some kind of contest or music playing to keep interest up when the team isn’t playing. If you have a local hockey team, I suggest checking them out!

One of my jobs is at a public library, so I always love to see what types of events are coming up for the adult patrons. I got my mom to go to one last year and now we’re pretty obsessed with the craft type programs…and my sister comes too when she can! Near the end of January, there was a craft night called Glitter Your Game where we made cute decorations for the Super Bowl. The above are little foam number one signs that we covered in glitter and we put football themed paper straws in them to stand it up. These are sitting in a plastic cup of marbles.

Finally, we made these really cute coasters that look like grass. The photo on the left shows what it looks like as I use it on Super Bowl Sunday. The photo below is a look at some of the other coasters that my mom and me made.

My sister attended the event too, but all of her items were taken to her own house. We had the coasters and above decorations out for awhile and it definitely made the day more festive on Sunday, even though I didn’t personally watch the game. The rest of my family did though!

Finally, at the very end of the month, I went and saw Marissa Meyer (author of the Lunar Chronicles) live at a local bookstore called Joseph-Beth Booksellers. I hadn’t been to an author signing in awhile, so this was a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure if Marissa would be able to talk or not, since I knew there would be a big crowd. You had to purchase Fairest from the bookstore in order to get a line ticket. I bought the book online as soon as I could, so I ended up being in the “B” group, which is great since I didn’t have to wait too long to have my book signed by Marissa.

Luckily, Marissa did talk about the series, even reading an excerpt from the upcoming Winter. She even stood around and answered quite a bit of fan questions, so that was great. It made the event better than just going up and getting a book signed.

Let’s see what I can remember of what was said:

*Next year, she has a book coming out called Heartless which is a prequel of Alice in Wonderland focusing on the Queen of Hearts. After that, she’ll be writing a trilogy (I believe) about superheros and super villains and the grey areas between. Super excited!!

*Winter is finished. She mentioned that there was a rumor online that Winter was 800 pages long, and she said that was TRUE!

*She originally had the idea of telling Levana’s story for a short story, but she realized it would be too long, so she put her ideas away and wrote something else. When she was working on Winter, she got out her notes to help her with Levana’s character and went ahead and wrote Fairest. She was really excited that the publishing company decided to publish Fairest.

*Film rights were sold, and she would love for the books to be a movie because she really wants them to make action figures of her characters.

*Someone asked if she made Thorne to be like Captain Jack from Doctor Who, and she said she had no idea who he was until after the fact and others had mentioned how alike Thorne and Jack were. I never thought about it, but once she said that, I realized it was true!!

And finally, here is me at the bookstore waiting for Marissa to come out!