Fight Evil Read Books or I MET JOHN GREEN IN REAL LIFE!!!

Whoops! I have kind of neglected the blog lately. My bad. Grad school has taken over my life again. Actually, let me rephrase that. Quantum mechanics has taken over my life. Don't worry. I'm still enjoying it immensely!
So I was able to go to the National Book Festival in DC for the first time since I moved here! It was so awesome! There was books and awesomeness everywhere! And I was able to wear my most favorite shirt ever! Fight Evil Read Books!

I finally made it to The National Book Festival!!!

I'm so glad that I went this year! I was able to meet John Green who is an author of contemporary young adult novels! I've actually only read two of his books but I am a faithful follower of the vlog he does with his brother Hank on Youtube. Yes. I am a nerdfighter. :)

John Green at the Q&A session.

If you are not familiar with the term nerdfighter, it is the online community that has sprouted up around the VlogBrothers channel. They do these really awesome things like support cancer charities like This Star Will Not Go Out and by donating money on Kiva to help people in 3rd world countries start businesses. All in the name of decreasing world suck and not forgetting to be awesome.  Nerdfighters are also fans from almost every fandom but specifically Harry Potter, literature, science, and video games.
Speaking of nerdfighters, I stood in line with 1800 of them to have John Green sign my book! 1800 was the count before they started turning people away! Holy cow, right? Everyone in line for John Green were super nice and courteous. It was awesome to look around and see people reading while they were waiting in line. Not to mention they all have an awesome sense of style. You should have seen all of the nerd shirts people were wearing! I now have a list a mile long of nerd shirts I want to buy!
It was so cool being among people who share the same love of books that I have. My boss made me admit the other day that if I wasn't in the sciences I probably would have been a librarian or a serious book blogger. Did you know you can make money blogging about books? Can you say dream job number 4? But back to John Green.
I wasn't the only one excited to see him. Nella was so excited she almost started hyperventilating. Don't believe me? Bam! Photographic evidence.

Do you think she is excited?

Nella and I were joined by our friends Faith and Lindsay. It made it quite an enjoyable experience. I tried to read from my copy of The Fault In Our Stars but I was too excited. The Fault In Our Stars is John Green's latest book about a couple of teenagers who have cancer. I think everyone should read it! Just be warned, John Green writes books that will make you love them at the same time the plot is ripping your heart out. The Fault In Our Stars made me cry! Books don't make me cry. That should tell you something.
I would like to tell you that we waited in line for other authors but it was pretty much John Green for us. Although there were other authors I wanted to see. I wanted to meet Lois Lowry who wrote The Giver but her book signing was at the same time as John Green's. I also wanted to meet Christopher Paolini (Eragon) but he was scheduled for Sunday while I was in church.
Let me tell you about the rest of the day with pictures! Actually, there is not much to tell besides we sat in line and got our books signed.

Despite the large amount of people, we only had to wait in line for an hour and a half to get our books signed.

This is our group in front of the sign that indicated we were in the line for John Green.

Here's a close up of the John Green sign.

We're getting closer! I really like this picture because you can see the barely suppressed excitement. We're like a bunch of kids at Christmas. Hard to believe that we all are in the age range of 23-25.

John Green signing my book!!! He said he liked my shirt! :)

Operation Book Signing was a success!!! All of us with our newly signed books!

My signed copy of TFIOS! It has taken up permanent residence on my coffee table to display the awesomeness.

John Green's signature J scribble. I also got a DFTBA! Actually, only Nella and I got DFTBAs in our books. We deduced that we probably got them because we were wearing nerd shirts which is a good indicator that we are nerdfighters. Oh for those who don't know, DFTBA is a nerdfighter motto that means Don't Forget to be Awesome.

And something just as cool as getting my book signed happened. I made it into the intro of a Vlogbrothers video!!!

Okay, I can't point out where I am specifically but I'm in there! Somewhere. Oh and that's really how the squirrels are on the National Mall.
Overall, it was a great day! It was so nice to take a break from the worries of grad school and chill out with some awesome books and even more awesome people!