List!
- So much snow today! It's hard to tell exact accumulation because it's all shoveled and plowed into piles, but I'm thinking we got about two feet. I went to work this morning, and then got sent home around 10:30. I think only 4 people from finance came in. The accumulation wasn't really the worst part, though. All the snowflakes were really tiny and it was coming down really fast, so it was very close to being a whiteout. Also, I got a huge ice build-up on my windshield wipers on the way home, which sucked. But I made it there and back safe!
- Shoveled out the car around 4 o'clock, but it's still snowing, so we'll see how getting out in the morning is. Supposed to get 4-6 overnight, which is pushing it for getting out without shoveling some more, especially since I'm parked on the street. I'm kind of hoping that they'll just tell me not to come in tomorrow, but I realistically doubt it. Fingers crossed anyway!
- Finished a bunch of things since my last post!
- Transistor was a fun game, although I might have liked more detail in the story. It was very much fill in the blanks storytelling.
- Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh was good, if a bit slow, but I may be overly influenced by nostalgia, so don't take my word for it.
- Listened to Apropos of Nothing by Peter David. Humorous and satirical fantasy, but also much darker than I expected it to be. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to, but that's because it hit my sadistic sense of humor. Not recommended for those easily triggered, but if you like black humor, might be worth checking out.
- Also listened to Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger. Cute little lesbian romance set in the same universe as her other books. Might have been better if I'd known the characters ahead of time, but still enjoyable in its own right.
Current things:
- Right now, am listening to Everfair by Nisi Shawl. Lots of 3 star reviews for it, and I think I understand why. It jitters from character to character, but accomplishes very little in the time that it gives each character, opting instead to talk about events that have already happened from that character's point of view. Not bad, but certainly easy to lose the thread of things, and sometimes not very stimulating. I've still got a lot of the book to go, though, so that could change.
- Reading Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Slow start, but now that I'm further in, I'm loving the characters and the setting. Far more focused on the social issues and politics of the time than I was expected, but the characters are fantastic. I keep forgetting that they're not real people.
- Also overdosing on One Piece Pirate Warriors 3, which is a Dynasty Warriors-style game but with One Piece. I tend toward completionism with video games, so it's killing me. XD So much fun, though. I played 4 and a half hours today, and am thinking about squeezing in a few more games.
- So much snow today! It's hard to tell exact accumulation because it's all shoveled and plowed into piles, but I'm thinking we got about two feet. I went to work this morning, and then got sent home around 10:30. I think only 4 people from finance came in. The accumulation wasn't really the worst part, though. All the snowflakes were really tiny and it was coming down really fast, so it was very close to being a whiteout. Also, I got a huge ice build-up on my windshield wipers on the way home, which sucked. But I made it there and back safe!
- Shoveled out the car around 4 o'clock, but it's still snowing, so we'll see how getting out in the morning is. Supposed to get 4-6 overnight, which is pushing it for getting out without shoveling some more, especially since I'm parked on the street. I'm kind of hoping that they'll just tell me not to come in tomorrow, but I realistically doubt it. Fingers crossed anyway!
- Finished a bunch of things since my last post!
- Transistor was a fun game, although I might have liked more detail in the story. It was very much fill in the blanks storytelling.
- Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh was good, if a bit slow, but I may be overly influenced by nostalgia, so don't take my word for it.
- Listened to Apropos of Nothing by Peter David. Humorous and satirical fantasy, but also much darker than I expected it to be. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to, but that's because it hit my sadistic sense of humor. Not recommended for those easily triggered, but if you like black humor, might be worth checking out.
- Also listened to Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger. Cute little lesbian romance set in the same universe as her other books. Might have been better if I'd known the characters ahead of time, but still enjoyable in its own right.
Current things:
- Right now, am listening to Everfair by Nisi Shawl. Lots of 3 star reviews for it, and I think I understand why. It jitters from character to character, but accomplishes very little in the time that it gives each character, opting instead to talk about events that have already happened from that character's point of view. Not bad, but certainly easy to lose the thread of things, and sometimes not very stimulating. I've still got a lot of the book to go, though, so that could change.
- Reading Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Slow start, but now that I'm further in, I'm loving the characters and the setting. Far more focused on the social issues and politics of the time than I was expected, but the characters are fantastic. I keep forgetting that they're not real people.
- Also overdosing on One Piece Pirate Warriors 3, which is a Dynasty Warriors-style game but with One Piece. I tend toward completionism with video games, so it's killing me. XD So much fun, though. I played 4 and a half hours today, and am thinking about squeezing in a few more games.
- Current Mood:
geeky
And another week! I'm not sure what is going on with my nights, but I feel like I get home, browse the internet for a few minutes, maybe make dinner, and then it's 7. And then I choose something to do, glance at the clock, and find that it's 9 or 10. It's pretty frustrating.
I did manage to achieve some of my goals this week. I finished Portal of a Thousand Worlds on Monday night. It was kind of mediocre, and certainly a disappointment. For most of the book, there wasn't any kind of unified plot and I just wasn't sure what the story was driving toward. That made it kind of hard to be invested in it. I did like a lot of the characters, but he switched between them a little too often, so it was hard to get attached to most of them. I also was disappointed because, although it's billed as a fantasy novel, it was very light on the fantasy aspects. There was a dragon, and there was the portal that only appeared at the very end. It felt much more like an alternative history. The ending was really good though. He managed to bring everything together in a manner that I found really satisfying. I wouldn't say I hated it, but my expectations were kind of high, so I was sad that I didn't like it more and only gave it 3 stars.
My next book is Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh. The next Magical Space Pussycats podcast is going to be on it, and since I own it, I thought I would read it before I listened. I'm about 80 pages in and really enjoying it. I follow two of the three podcasters on Goodreads and Youtube, so I know that they didn't love it, but there's something about Cherryh for me. I loved her Fortress series even though I thought objectively that the writing style was weird and the plot kind of slow. Something about it clicked just right for me. I also really liked her Faded Sun Trilogy. I didn't like the Chanur books as much, but my expectations are still pretty high for Foreigner. Somehow, it feels similar to the Fortress books, which is probably why I'm so excited. I hope I'm not disappointed, although the number of books that I'd have to read to catch up on the series is intimidating if I do end up liking it.
I finally finished playing Witcher 3 last night! Such a good game, but so long! I played around 100 hours. I did most of the quests, explored a lot of places, and generally had a good time with it. The ending was pretty satisfying for me, but it will definitely be a good long while before I even think of picking up the DLC for it. I'm ready for something much shorter.
I picked up the Humble Bundle this week as well, mostly because I thought J was kind of longing after it. Our Steam accounts are linked so that we can share the vast majority of our games. I also gifted him a couple of the ones that he was more interested in. I still haven't added most of them to my Steam account. I'll have to get on it this weekend.
I really want to focus on playing some shorter games for a little while. I'm idly playing Stardew Valley and some other casual games, but I want shorter games for story right now. I started playing Transistor tonight. I love the aura of it, and I'm super-intrigued by the plot, but the combat was crazy hard. I've got a combat guide pulled up and I'll need to read it tomorrow because I'm not getting it. I think it's much more strategic than I prefer, which will be hard for me. I'm more of a hack and bash person. I don't play games for the combat, so I'm really not interested in strategy for it. Anyway, I'll definitely have to get a better handle on it to get anywhere.
After that, I'm considering playing Tomb Raider or Ori and the Blind Forest. Then maybe Bioshock? Or the second Shadowrun game. I just don't want to spend the next five months on the same game like I did with Witcher. It was worth it, but I need to feel like I'm making progress for a bit now. I really want to play all three Mass Effect games, but I'm not ready for the length of them yet, so they'll have to wait.
I'm just about finished with my 31 day video series of yoga! Of course, it's taken me significantly longer than 31 days, but part of that was being sick and then hurting my back. And then the other part was just that I don't always have the willpower to get myself to do it on a day-to-day basis. Anyway, that means that tomorrow I get to go and buy a book! I'm not sure what I'll get. My plan is just to go to the bookstore and grab whatever looks most exciting. I feel kind of bad letting myself do it, actually. I've been stressed about money, and I went ahead and spent some money to buy myself an iPod Nano, which is probably bad. But I need to be able to reward myself for exercise and keep myself motivated if this will ever become a habit. So, a book it is.
Speaking of that iPod, I'm glad I bought it. I put it on my Paypal credit account so I can pay it back a bit more gradually without incurring interest. I wanted it so I could listen to audiobooks through the Bluetooth on my car, and it's working quite well for that. I was trying to use my phone previously, but it wasn't working. I had an app I was using, but it would intermittently just stop working. And when I tried to use the regular music app, it would constantly lose my spot. When you're listening to a 9 hour file, that is beyond frustrating. So, yay audiobooks! I know I was doubtful about them before, but they're definitely growing on me. Right now, I'm listening to Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David. I always thought that this was a light and satirical fantasy, but it's actually pretty dark and satirical. There's gang rape, murder, bullying, and, in general, people being asshats, including the main character. I'm still enjoying it, but in a different way than I expected to. And I'm quite glad to be able to listen to it again.
Anyway, that's where I'm at. I apologize if I'm a bit incoherent. I'm pretty tired. XD
I did manage to achieve some of my goals this week. I finished Portal of a Thousand Worlds on Monday night. It was kind of mediocre, and certainly a disappointment. For most of the book, there wasn't any kind of unified plot and I just wasn't sure what the story was driving toward. That made it kind of hard to be invested in it. I did like a lot of the characters, but he switched between them a little too often, so it was hard to get attached to most of them. I also was disappointed because, although it's billed as a fantasy novel, it was very light on the fantasy aspects. There was a dragon, and there was the portal that only appeared at the very end. It felt much more like an alternative history. The ending was really good though. He managed to bring everything together in a manner that I found really satisfying. I wouldn't say I hated it, but my expectations were kind of high, so I was sad that I didn't like it more and only gave it 3 stars.
My next book is Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh. The next Magical Space Pussycats podcast is going to be on it, and since I own it, I thought I would read it before I listened. I'm about 80 pages in and really enjoying it. I follow two of the three podcasters on Goodreads and Youtube, so I know that they didn't love it, but there's something about Cherryh for me. I loved her Fortress series even though I thought objectively that the writing style was weird and the plot kind of slow. Something about it clicked just right for me. I also really liked her Faded Sun Trilogy. I didn't like the Chanur books as much, but my expectations are still pretty high for Foreigner. Somehow, it feels similar to the Fortress books, which is probably why I'm so excited. I hope I'm not disappointed, although the number of books that I'd have to read to catch up on the series is intimidating if I do end up liking it.
I finally finished playing Witcher 3 last night! Such a good game, but so long! I played around 100 hours. I did most of the quests, explored a lot of places, and generally had a good time with it. The ending was pretty satisfying for me, but it will definitely be a good long while before I even think of picking up the DLC for it. I'm ready for something much shorter.
I picked up the Humble Bundle this week as well, mostly because I thought J was kind of longing after it. Our Steam accounts are linked so that we can share the vast majority of our games. I also gifted him a couple of the ones that he was more interested in. I still haven't added most of them to my Steam account. I'll have to get on it this weekend.
I really want to focus on playing some shorter games for a little while. I'm idly playing Stardew Valley and some other casual games, but I want shorter games for story right now. I started playing Transistor tonight. I love the aura of it, and I'm super-intrigued by the plot, but the combat was crazy hard. I've got a combat guide pulled up and I'll need to read it tomorrow because I'm not getting it. I think it's much more strategic than I prefer, which will be hard for me. I'm more of a hack and bash person. I don't play games for the combat, so I'm really not interested in strategy for it. Anyway, I'll definitely have to get a better handle on it to get anywhere.
After that, I'm considering playing Tomb Raider or Ori and the Blind Forest. Then maybe Bioshock? Or the second Shadowrun game. I just don't want to spend the next five months on the same game like I did with Witcher. It was worth it, but I need to feel like I'm making progress for a bit now. I really want to play all three Mass Effect games, but I'm not ready for the length of them yet, so they'll have to wait.
I'm just about finished with my 31 day video series of yoga! Of course, it's taken me significantly longer than 31 days, but part of that was being sick and then hurting my back. And then the other part was just that I don't always have the willpower to get myself to do it on a day-to-day basis. Anyway, that means that tomorrow I get to go and buy a book! I'm not sure what I'll get. My plan is just to go to the bookstore and grab whatever looks most exciting. I feel kind of bad letting myself do it, actually. I've been stressed about money, and I went ahead and spent some money to buy myself an iPod Nano, which is probably bad. But I need to be able to reward myself for exercise and keep myself motivated if this will ever become a habit. So, a book it is.
Speaking of that iPod, I'm glad I bought it. I put it on my Paypal credit account so I can pay it back a bit more gradually without incurring interest. I wanted it so I could listen to audiobooks through the Bluetooth on my car, and it's working quite well for that. I was trying to use my phone previously, but it wasn't working. I had an app I was using, but it would intermittently just stop working. And when I tried to use the regular music app, it would constantly lose my spot. When you're listening to a 9 hour file, that is beyond frustrating. So, yay audiobooks! I know I was doubtful about them before, but they're definitely growing on me. Right now, I'm listening to Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David. I always thought that this was a light and satirical fantasy, but it's actually pretty dark and satirical. There's gang rape, murder, bullying, and, in general, people being asshats, including the main character. I'm still enjoying it, but in a different way than I expected to. And I'm quite glad to be able to listen to it again.
Anyway, that's where I'm at. I apologize if I'm a bit incoherent. I'm pretty tired. XD
How quickly I fall off the posting bandwagon...In the blink of an eye, a week has passed.
Let's see... Work was fairly boring this week. We're implementing a big upgrade to our accounting software on Monday, so the system has been down for about half the week, which makes working really damn hard.
I did manage to finish Lords of Grass and Thunder over last weekend. It was enjoyable, but the pacing issues continued to the end, and it ended up feeling like a much longer book than it actually was. I'm still undecided as to whether I should keep my copy of it or donate. Part of me really wants to keep it because it completes my collection of books by the author, and the other part knows that I'll never read it again and should pass it on. I'm giving it some time until I have to make a final decision.
I started reading Portal of a Thousand World. I'm a little over 40% through. Goal is to finish it this weekend, as the release date is the 14th. I want my review done before then, in the hopes of increasing my chances of getting books in the future. Not that I want to request a ton of books, given the goal of getting through a bunch of physical books, but. It'd be nice to get one once in a while. Unfortunately, I'm not as enthralled by the book as I hoped to be. It's very solid writing with a nice flow, but I'm not seeing where the plot is heading, so it hasn't really drawn me in very much.
Of course, I haven't been in much of a reading mood. My anxiety has been pretty high, partially about political stuff and partially about money stuff. My quarterly car insurance payment was due with month, and I didn't budget well for it, so that was a stressor. And I'm worried about Anime Boston next month - I want to have money to spend, but I don't want to just pay minimums on things. I'll have to work out an ultimate strategy that way.
Oh, and one of the people that we're going with wants to cosplay and go shopping for that tomorrow. I really don't want to spend money on cosplay, especially considering that I don't really like people taking pictures of me. Also, I doubt that I'll be able to find what I want in this area. I want to do a Sophie Hatter cosplay since it'd be pretty easy, but her dress is not going to be just floating around. Either way, I'd really rather not waste money on it, but J already said yes. I'm hoping that snow will cancel us out this weekend, so we will see about that.
We got our first major snowstorm since we moved to this city yesterday. We got probably 8 inches yesterday. My drive into work was shit, to be honest. The highways were still covered in snow and everybody was driving about 20 mph, so it took me twice as long as normal to get in. But at least I made it safely, with minimal slipping and sliding. The snow's pretty much cleared away today, so that's good, but I think it's supposed to snow some more tomorrow.
We also looked at a couple of houses on Wednesday night. The first one was OK, but we didn't really love it. The house was a bit rundown and just didn't feel right in its set-up, and the location was a little too central for us. The second house seemed like it had some serious roof issues and needed way too much work for us. So that's another bust. I haven't seen anything new that I'm interested in, so it may be a while before we look at anything else.
Other than that, it felt like a nothing of a week. I managed yoga on 3 weekdays, I believe, but I wanted more from myself. Most nights, I've blinked and its been 8 o'clock, which stinks. I want to work on playing Witcher 3 this weekend, since I'm pretty close to finished, I think. I need to finish my book. And there's potential cosplay shopping plus definite grocery shopping. J has a test Monday. He had a couple tests this week, including a bigger nursing test that he only got a 76 on. He was really disappointed in that because he felt like he'd done well. I hope he gets into the swing of testing quickly. I hate when he's down on himself. I think the main issue is that he's just out of practice. I'm really good at testing, so I've been trying to give him some advice, but I'm kind of a natural test taker, so it's hard to put that into words.
I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to a fun weekend!
Let's see... Work was fairly boring this week. We're implementing a big upgrade to our accounting software on Monday, so the system has been down for about half the week, which makes working really damn hard.
I did manage to finish Lords of Grass and Thunder over last weekend. It was enjoyable, but the pacing issues continued to the end, and it ended up feeling like a much longer book than it actually was. I'm still undecided as to whether I should keep my copy of it or donate. Part of me really wants to keep it because it completes my collection of books by the author, and the other part knows that I'll never read it again and should pass it on. I'm giving it some time until I have to make a final decision.
I started reading Portal of a Thousand World. I'm a little over 40% through. Goal is to finish it this weekend, as the release date is the 14th. I want my review done before then, in the hopes of increasing my chances of getting books in the future. Not that I want to request a ton of books, given the goal of getting through a bunch of physical books, but. It'd be nice to get one once in a while. Unfortunately, I'm not as enthralled by the book as I hoped to be. It's very solid writing with a nice flow, but I'm not seeing where the plot is heading, so it hasn't really drawn me in very much.
Of course, I haven't been in much of a reading mood. My anxiety has been pretty high, partially about political stuff and partially about money stuff. My quarterly car insurance payment was due with month, and I didn't budget well for it, so that was a stressor. And I'm worried about Anime Boston next month - I want to have money to spend, but I don't want to just pay minimums on things. I'll have to work out an ultimate strategy that way.
Oh, and one of the people that we're going with wants to cosplay and go shopping for that tomorrow. I really don't want to spend money on cosplay, especially considering that I don't really like people taking pictures of me. Also, I doubt that I'll be able to find what I want in this area. I want to do a Sophie Hatter cosplay since it'd be pretty easy, but her dress is not going to be just floating around. Either way, I'd really rather not waste money on it, but J already said yes. I'm hoping that snow will cancel us out this weekend, so we will see about that.
We got our first major snowstorm since we moved to this city yesterday. We got probably 8 inches yesterday. My drive into work was shit, to be honest. The highways were still covered in snow and everybody was driving about 20 mph, so it took me twice as long as normal to get in. But at least I made it safely, with minimal slipping and sliding. The snow's pretty much cleared away today, so that's good, but I think it's supposed to snow some more tomorrow.
We also looked at a couple of houses on Wednesday night. The first one was OK, but we didn't really love it. The house was a bit rundown and just didn't feel right in its set-up, and the location was a little too central for us. The second house seemed like it had some serious roof issues and needed way too much work for us. So that's another bust. I haven't seen anything new that I'm interested in, so it may be a while before we look at anything else.
Other than that, it felt like a nothing of a week. I managed yoga on 3 weekdays, I believe, but I wanted more from myself. Most nights, I've blinked and its been 8 o'clock, which stinks. I want to work on playing Witcher 3 this weekend, since I'm pretty close to finished, I think. I need to finish my book. And there's potential cosplay shopping plus definite grocery shopping. J has a test Monday. He had a couple tests this week, including a bigger nursing test that he only got a 76 on. He was really disappointed in that because he felt like he'd done well. I hope he gets into the swing of testing quickly. I hate when he's down on himself. I think the main issue is that he's just out of practice. I'm really good at testing, so I've been trying to give him some advice, but I'm kind of a natural test taker, so it's hard to put that into words.
I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to a fun weekend!
Sooo tired... I had to get up a bit early today, and it has absolutely killed me. I went to an accounting training for work this morning, and it required being at the place around 7:15, which is 45 minutes early for me. And you wouldn't think it would make a big difference, but I am exhausted. Of course, good sleep has been rare lately. The state of the US is stressing me out. So that could be a contributing factor as well.
The training was simultaneously interesting and boring. XD The FASB updates were pretty boring, but important. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the company yet to really grasp the specific implications for us, so that probably didn't help. The compliance training was flat out boring. I wanted to sleep so badly, but I had my direct supervisor sitting next to me and the CFO of the whole company next to her. So no sleep for me. Then there was a presentation on audits for grants, which I was confused by. I think I just didn't quite have the basic knowledge to comprehend all of it. We have a ton of grants, and this was talking about specifically Federal grants, so maybe I should look at the grant listing and try to figure out which grants the info would apply to. That might help. The final training was on fraud, and it was actually pretty great. The presenter was very engaging, making jokes and giving tons of real life examples. Maybe fraud is an area I should think about for the distant future? Or forensic accounting? As I do my work, I'm finding that what I feel is most rewarding is finding and fixing mistakes. I've contemplated auditing, but that's more about checking controls and making sure proper procedures are followed, rather than finding mistakes. An area that bears more thought, I guess.
I feel like I've really dropped the ball on yoga this week, which depresses me. I started the year so strong, but then I got sick and hurt my back right around the same time. I basically couldn't move for a few days, and was severely limited for a few more, so I couldn't do yoga. And now I just feel disheartened. I'm on day 21 of the 31 days of yoga series, and it's 3 days after I was supposed to have finished it. I know I just need to pick myself up and soldier on, but it's hard. I still struggle with any kind of positive mindset toward exercise, so that makes it rough. I'll have to keep working on it.
I've been so proud of J and his efforts toward school these past few weeks. He was so nervous, but I really think he's doing great. He's very devoted about his studies. He's solving the bureaucratic issues that come up in a timely manner, and there have been a lot of them, so that's been great. And he's just generally on the ball. I hope that I can manage our finances so that he can keep on focusing on school and not need to worry about any kind of part-time job.
I was very excited yesterday. I signed up Netgalley on a whim, and requested a number of ARCs. I didn't really expect to get any because I don't have a dedicated blogging site and whatnot, but I got a copy of a new book by Dave Duncan, called Portal of a Thousand Worlds, so I'm very excited about that. I really enjoyed his Mother of Lies duology and his King's Blades series, so I'm hopeful that this will be enjoyable. It's a historical fantasy set in China. I'm a bit concerned about whether it will be culturally appropriative and whether I will appropriately recognize it as such, as that's still an area that I struggle with, but I'm still excited to read it.
I just have to finish my current book, and then I can start it. I'm still reading Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin. I'm not actually sure if I've mentioned it on here, but it's an older fantasy that's based on Mongolian culture. (By older, I mean it came out about 10 years ago.) I'm enjoying it, but the pacing is awkward. There are long stretches where it feels like not very much happens. Also, there's a cousin romance, which kind of squicks me. I can mostly accept it because they didn't know each other as children, weren't raised as family, and didn't know they were cousins until they'd already formed a relationship, but still. On the bright side, I like that sex and romance are really big motivators in it. I've been feeling vaguely dissatisfied with my epic fantasy reads lately because the romances are completely undeveloped and/or nonexistent, so this is a nice change. I have about 150 pages left in it, and will definitely finish it this weekend.
Ah, other exciting news is that one of my friends is going to be moving to my area! She had a job interview today at the place that I work as a teacher assistant, and she aced it. They already told her that she's going to have a job offer come Monday. Now it's just fingers crossed that it'll be a good wage and she won't have to get a second job or anything crazy. So, that was lovely news. I knew her interview started at 1:30, and it was in the building I work in, so we had plans for her to visit after, so when it hit 3 o'clock and I still hadn't heard from her, I was starting to worry, but turned out things were just going really well. :) She's currently looking for an apartment to share with a friend of hers, so she may stay with us for a little while until they find something.
The training was simultaneously interesting and boring. XD The FASB updates were pretty boring, but important. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the company yet to really grasp the specific implications for us, so that probably didn't help. The compliance training was flat out boring. I wanted to sleep so badly, but I had my direct supervisor sitting next to me and the CFO of the whole company next to her. So no sleep for me. Then there was a presentation on audits for grants, which I was confused by. I think I just didn't quite have the basic knowledge to comprehend all of it. We have a ton of grants, and this was talking about specifically Federal grants, so maybe I should look at the grant listing and try to figure out which grants the info would apply to. That might help. The final training was on fraud, and it was actually pretty great. The presenter was very engaging, making jokes and giving tons of real life examples. Maybe fraud is an area I should think about for the distant future? Or forensic accounting? As I do my work, I'm finding that what I feel is most rewarding is finding and fixing mistakes. I've contemplated auditing, but that's more about checking controls and making sure proper procedures are followed, rather than finding mistakes. An area that bears more thought, I guess.
I feel like I've really dropped the ball on yoga this week, which depresses me. I started the year so strong, but then I got sick and hurt my back right around the same time. I basically couldn't move for a few days, and was severely limited for a few more, so I couldn't do yoga. And now I just feel disheartened. I'm on day 21 of the 31 days of yoga series, and it's 3 days after I was supposed to have finished it. I know I just need to pick myself up and soldier on, but it's hard. I still struggle with any kind of positive mindset toward exercise, so that makes it rough. I'll have to keep working on it.
I've been so proud of J and his efforts toward school these past few weeks. He was so nervous, but I really think he's doing great. He's very devoted about his studies. He's solving the bureaucratic issues that come up in a timely manner, and there have been a lot of them, so that's been great. And he's just generally on the ball. I hope that I can manage our finances so that he can keep on focusing on school and not need to worry about any kind of part-time job.
I was very excited yesterday. I signed up Netgalley on a whim, and requested a number of ARCs. I didn't really expect to get any because I don't have a dedicated blogging site and whatnot, but I got a copy of a new book by Dave Duncan, called Portal of a Thousand Worlds, so I'm very excited about that. I really enjoyed his Mother of Lies duology and his King's Blades series, so I'm hopeful that this will be enjoyable. It's a historical fantasy set in China. I'm a bit concerned about whether it will be culturally appropriative and whether I will appropriately recognize it as such, as that's still an area that I struggle with, but I'm still excited to read it.
I just have to finish my current book, and then I can start it. I'm still reading Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin. I'm not actually sure if I've mentioned it on here, but it's an older fantasy that's based on Mongolian culture. (By older, I mean it came out about 10 years ago.) I'm enjoying it, but the pacing is awkward. There are long stretches where it feels like not very much happens. Also, there's a cousin romance, which kind of squicks me. I can mostly accept it because they didn't know each other as children, weren't raised as family, and didn't know they were cousins until they'd already formed a relationship, but still. On the bright side, I like that sex and romance are really big motivators in it. I've been feeling vaguely dissatisfied with my epic fantasy reads lately because the romances are completely undeveloped and/or nonexistent, so this is a nice change. I have about 150 pages left in it, and will definitely finish it this weekend.
Ah, other exciting news is that one of my friends is going to be moving to my area! She had a job interview today at the place that I work as a teacher assistant, and she aced it. They already told her that she's going to have a job offer come Monday. Now it's just fingers crossed that it'll be a good wage and she won't have to get a second job or anything crazy. So, that was lovely news. I knew her interview started at 1:30, and it was in the building I work in, so we had plans for her to visit after, so when it hit 3 o'clock and I still hadn't heard from her, I was starting to worry, but turned out things were just going really well. :) She's currently looking for an apartment to share with a friend of hers, so she may stay with us for a little while until they find something.
- Current Mood:
exhausted
It's so weird trying to post this frequently! I feel like I'm really boring. XD Blah blah blah real life, etc. But I'm going to keep trying.
So, we heard back about the house we liked, and the inspection went well and the other buyers are proceeding. Which. Bah. He'll let us know if anything goes astray, but otherwise, it's out. I'm pretty disappointed, especially when I think of how excited J got when we were looking at it. He seems pretty OK with it, but it's frustrating. I feel like I lost us this house because I procrastinated so much on asking about it because I was afraid it was going to be too expensive. I guess now we know, but too late this time.
I did email the real estate agent and ask to look at some other houses that might be OK. We'll see if either is anything that we're interested in. The one had all the old owner's stuff in it when the pictures were taken, although it looks like they were in the process of moving it all out, so I have a hard time envisioning it. Looks like the owners were older people, given the decorating sense. But maybe it'll be easier to get an idea of the house when we actually look at it. Pictures can be so hard to parse.
I finally finished listening to A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan yesterday. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought I would. Part of the problem was that I was listening on my iPhone, using the Apple music app, and it would not hold onto my place. So I was constantly refinding my spot. When you're listening to an audio file that's about 9 hours long, that's extremely frustrating. I'm thinking I may just read the next book, in order to give it a better shot. When things were working out, I did enjoy listening to it. I'm very into the Victorian/Regency/historical fantasy right now, so that probably helped.
I started listening to Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David this afternoon. It's a GraphicAudio (I think?), so instead of just being one person, there are multiple voice actors and sound effects and stuff. So far, I'm finding it kind of distracting, but I want to give it a shot and see if I get used to it.
Only other thing today of interest is that it seems I'm on the verge of translating manga again. I thought about finding a group to translate with a few months ago, but ended up overwhelmed by my apathy toward actually choosing something to translate. Recently, out of the blue, I got an email from Mangahelpers asking if I'd be interested translating under a revenue-sharing scheme. I did something similar with DMG several years ago. It didn't go great with DMG, and ended up leaving when I went back to school. But I'm going to give Mangahelpers a shot. I don't expect to get a lot of money out of it or anything, but I've been wanting to translate, and this seems like a good chance to do so. I got my revenue sharing percentages today, and they're a bit higher than I got from DMG, which is nice. And so far as I can see, there aren't as many restrictions on getting what little money you earn, which was a huge problem with DMG. Also, I'm kind of excited about the series I'm going to translate. It sounds really fun. It's shoujo, so it should be pretty easy. I'm kind of excited to start, although I realize it could easily be as big of a bust as DMG was. Either way, it'll be more Japanese practice for me, which is a huge plus.
So, we heard back about the house we liked, and the inspection went well and the other buyers are proceeding. Which. Bah. He'll let us know if anything goes astray, but otherwise, it's out. I'm pretty disappointed, especially when I think of how excited J got when we were looking at it. He seems pretty OK with it, but it's frustrating. I feel like I lost us this house because I procrastinated so much on asking about it because I was afraid it was going to be too expensive. I guess now we know, but too late this time.
I did email the real estate agent and ask to look at some other houses that might be OK. We'll see if either is anything that we're interested in. The one had all the old owner's stuff in it when the pictures were taken, although it looks like they were in the process of moving it all out, so I have a hard time envisioning it. Looks like the owners were older people, given the decorating sense. But maybe it'll be easier to get an idea of the house when we actually look at it. Pictures can be so hard to parse.
I finally finished listening to A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan yesterday. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought I would. Part of the problem was that I was listening on my iPhone, using the Apple music app, and it would not hold onto my place. So I was constantly refinding my spot. When you're listening to an audio file that's about 9 hours long, that's extremely frustrating. I'm thinking I may just read the next book, in order to give it a better shot. When things were working out, I did enjoy listening to it. I'm very into the Victorian/Regency/historical fantasy right now, so that probably helped.
I started listening to Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David this afternoon. It's a GraphicAudio (I think?), so instead of just being one person, there are multiple voice actors and sound effects and stuff. So far, I'm finding it kind of distracting, but I want to give it a shot and see if I get used to it.
Only other thing today of interest is that it seems I'm on the verge of translating manga again. I thought about finding a group to translate with a few months ago, but ended up overwhelmed by my apathy toward actually choosing something to translate. Recently, out of the blue, I got an email from Mangahelpers asking if I'd be interested translating under a revenue-sharing scheme. I did something similar with DMG several years ago. It didn't go great with DMG, and ended up leaving when I went back to school. But I'm going to give Mangahelpers a shot. I don't expect to get a lot of money out of it or anything, but I've been wanting to translate, and this seems like a good chance to do so. I got my revenue sharing percentages today, and they're a bit higher than I got from DMG, which is nice. And so far as I can see, there aren't as many restrictions on getting what little money you earn, which was a huge problem with DMG. Also, I'm kind of excited about the series I'm going to translate. It sounds really fun. It's shoujo, so it should be pretty easy. I'm kind of excited to start, although I realize it could easily be as big of a bust as DMG was. Either way, it'll be more Japanese practice for me, which is a huge plus.
- Current Mood:
tired
Phew, kind of an exhausting day.
Work was OK, but I never got to ask my supervisor the questions I wanted to - first, she was in a meeting with her supervisor, and then there was a frenzy of getting information about something from the other people in the unit. So, I abstained from bothering her. I'll do that in the morning.
We went and looked at two houses after work. The first one was very nice and put together in a very appealing manner, but was probably too small. It has two bedrooms, but they were pretty minimally sized with room for a bed and not much else. Since we probably would have another person moving in with us, it would likely not be big enough for us. That was a shame because it was very nicely located and everything else about it was great. The second one was very nice as well, and probably pretty much perfect for us. It's bigger than the first one, with a lovely kitchen and bathroom, all new windows and pipes, etc. Also with a nice yard that we would actually be able to garden in. J really was excited about it. Unfortunately, there's an offer in, and the inspection is tomorrow, so I'm cautious about being hopeful about it. If it goes wrong somewhere in the process, we'd definitely like to make an offer. It's at the high end of our price range, but it would probably not need any work anytime soon. The guy who's selling it is a real estate agent and he's going to let us know how the inspection goes tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
We had a bit of Facebook drama this evening. ( Cut for those who don't want the dramaCollapse )
On a related note, I'm thinking I might start sharing more articles on Facebook. I've been off Facebook for quite a few months because I didn't want to hear the hate, but I'm in a position of considerable privilege in US society. I'm white, heterosexual, married, middle class. My only strike is my gender. I feel like I should use that privilege to try and spread thoughtfulness. It kind of makes me anxious at the prospect of potential confrontation, but I want to give people more options for information, at the very least. I posted a couple this evening, one about the process of vetting refugees and immigrants prior to admission, and one about an actual Syrian refugee's experience with the system. The issue will be continuing to do this, as it's got my anxiety up considerably. I think it will be easier on days that I didn't spend half of my night busy with other things.
And it will probably help me confront my anxiety more, which I think is important for me. In general, my anxiety is only a problem if I let it be - if I push myself, I can do the things that make me anxious. And once it's over, I generally feel better, although the prospect of someone saying something negative to me is getting to me right now.
Anyway, still haven't finished my internet rounds, so I'm off. Please excuse any silly spelling errors in here. Apparently I can't spell when I'm tired. XD
Work was OK, but I never got to ask my supervisor the questions I wanted to - first, she was in a meeting with her supervisor, and then there was a frenzy of getting information about something from the other people in the unit. So, I abstained from bothering her. I'll do that in the morning.
We went and looked at two houses after work. The first one was very nice and put together in a very appealing manner, but was probably too small. It has two bedrooms, but they were pretty minimally sized with room for a bed and not much else. Since we probably would have another person moving in with us, it would likely not be big enough for us. That was a shame because it was very nicely located and everything else about it was great. The second one was very nice as well, and probably pretty much perfect for us. It's bigger than the first one, with a lovely kitchen and bathroom, all new windows and pipes, etc. Also with a nice yard that we would actually be able to garden in. J really was excited about it. Unfortunately, there's an offer in, and the inspection is tomorrow, so I'm cautious about being hopeful about it. If it goes wrong somewhere in the process, we'd definitely like to make an offer. It's at the high end of our price range, but it would probably not need any work anytime soon. The guy who's selling it is a real estate agent and he's going to let us know how the inspection goes tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
We had a bit of Facebook drama this evening. ( Cut for those who don't want the dramaCollapse )
On a related note, I'm thinking I might start sharing more articles on Facebook. I've been off Facebook for quite a few months because I didn't want to hear the hate, but I'm in a position of considerable privilege in US society. I'm white, heterosexual, married, middle class. My only strike is my gender. I feel like I should use that privilege to try and spread thoughtfulness. It kind of makes me anxious at the prospect of potential confrontation, but I want to give people more options for information, at the very least. I posted a couple this evening, one about the process of vetting refugees and immigrants prior to admission, and one about an actual Syrian refugee's experience with the system. The issue will be continuing to do this, as it's got my anxiety up considerably. I think it will be easier on days that I didn't spend half of my night busy with other things.
And it will probably help me confront my anxiety more, which I think is important for me. In general, my anxiety is only a problem if I let it be - if I push myself, I can do the things that make me anxious. And once it's over, I generally feel better, although the prospect of someone saying something negative to me is getting to me right now.
Anyway, still haven't finished my internet rounds, so I'm off. Please excuse any silly spelling errors in here. Apparently I can't spell when I'm tired. XD
Well, I didn't do it all yesterday, but I have made my way through most of yesterday's to-do list, so that's good. I still need to do more dishes - hazards of cooking fairly often - but I feel pretty good about things. I do wish that the weekend was longer, but what can you do? And we're going to look at houses tomorrow night, so I'm kind of excited for that.
I just finished my yoga for the day, so all that's really left for today is some reading in Japanese. I think I'll try to translate a page of Read or Die, since I'm not really feeling my current primary manga. It's a fantasy with a feudal system and a lot of the language relating to the government and all that is very hard for me to understand. They whip out all the archaic words and structures, and I'm just needing something a bit easier. I have been doing very well with studying my words, so that makes me happy, even though I often feel that my progress is very slow at increasing my actual vocabulary size. I did have a happy moment yesterday when a word that I learned from my manga was in Read or Die and was integral to me understanding the sentence. I wish I saw more crossover like that because it's very heartening.
I did manage to finish Wuthering Heights yesterday. I ended up giving it three stars. I didn't like the narrative choice of having the housekeeper telling the story, so that took away from it for me. I really hate that style across the board, so that's no surprise. Heathcliff, despite my sympathy for him as a child, was really a terrible human being, and for a while it was hard to watch his machinations. I was glad for the ending, but it was too little, too late at that point. I didn't hate it, but it definitely didn't come near to being a favorite either. I would like to know more of what Emily's thought processes were while writing the book, even though most of the time I'm not terribly concerned about authorial intentions, but I'm probably not ambitious enough to try and seek out the information myself.
With that finished, I'm down to a more reasonable number of books. For nonfiction, I'm reading Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks. I'm kind of surprised by how very academic it is, and I'm not sure why. I have a vague feeling that I read part of something else by bell hooks some time ago (Feminism is for Everyone?), and it was lighter tonally, but I never finished it, so it's not documented anywhere. I'm still early on, so the the introductory premises are still being delved into. I hope it gets a little more absorbing because I'm kind of struggling with it at present.
I'm also back to reading Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin. It's a book I've had laying around forever, and is a Mongolian-based fantasy. I'm enjoying it a lot, but I took a break while I was sick and while my back was hurt because I wanted something less complicated. I'm glad to be back at it, though. I would like to make more progress on it tonight, but I'm also really tired, so I might turn my attention to TV for the night. I'm probably tired because I stayed up late reading the book, so I guess that's natural consequences for me.
My parents visited today, which was good. Haven't seen them since Christmas, so this absolves me of the need to go visit them for a few weeks more. There was a lot of political talk, which was pretty tiring. They're on the anti-Trump side, but it's still disheartening to even listen to others talking about it. And they also brought up that they're updating their wills and gave me some instructions re: absolutely not letting my brother have their house. Which. Duh. I wouldn't recognize the man if I saw him on the street. It's been probably 15 years since we had any contact, and even that was minimal. Why the hell would I give him anything? And either way, they're both in decent health to my knowledge, so I'm not going to think about it too much. I am glad for the wills being updated so there will be written instructions, though.
And now, off to do my Japanese! :)
I just finished my yoga for the day, so all that's really left for today is some reading in Japanese. I think I'll try to translate a page of Read or Die, since I'm not really feeling my current primary manga. It's a fantasy with a feudal system and a lot of the language relating to the government and all that is very hard for me to understand. They whip out all the archaic words and structures, and I'm just needing something a bit easier. I have been doing very well with studying my words, so that makes me happy, even though I often feel that my progress is very slow at increasing my actual vocabulary size. I did have a happy moment yesterday when a word that I learned from my manga was in Read or Die and was integral to me understanding the sentence. I wish I saw more crossover like that because it's very heartening.
I did manage to finish Wuthering Heights yesterday. I ended up giving it three stars. I didn't like the narrative choice of having the housekeeper telling the story, so that took away from it for me. I really hate that style across the board, so that's no surprise. Heathcliff, despite my sympathy for him as a child, was really a terrible human being, and for a while it was hard to watch his machinations. I was glad for the ending, but it was too little, too late at that point. I didn't hate it, but it definitely didn't come near to being a favorite either. I would like to know more of what Emily's thought processes were while writing the book, even though most of the time I'm not terribly concerned about authorial intentions, but I'm probably not ambitious enough to try and seek out the information myself.
With that finished, I'm down to a more reasonable number of books. For nonfiction, I'm reading Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks. I'm kind of surprised by how very academic it is, and I'm not sure why. I have a vague feeling that I read part of something else by bell hooks some time ago (Feminism is for Everyone?), and it was lighter tonally, but I never finished it, so it's not documented anywhere. I'm still early on, so the the introductory premises are still being delved into. I hope it gets a little more absorbing because I'm kind of struggling with it at present.
I'm also back to reading Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin. It's a book I've had laying around forever, and is a Mongolian-based fantasy. I'm enjoying it a lot, but I took a break while I was sick and while my back was hurt because I wanted something less complicated. I'm glad to be back at it, though. I would like to make more progress on it tonight, but I'm also really tired, so I might turn my attention to TV for the night. I'm probably tired because I stayed up late reading the book, so I guess that's natural consequences for me.
My parents visited today, which was good. Haven't seen them since Christmas, so this absolves me of the need to go visit them for a few weeks more. There was a lot of political talk, which was pretty tiring. They're on the anti-Trump side, but it's still disheartening to even listen to others talking about it. And they also brought up that they're updating their wills and gave me some instructions re: absolutely not letting my brother have their house. Which. Duh. I wouldn't recognize the man if I saw him on the street. It's been probably 15 years since we had any contact, and even that was minimal. Why the hell would I give him anything? And either way, they're both in decent health to my knowledge, so I'm not going to think about it too much. I am glad for the wills being updated so there will be written instructions, though.
And now, off to do my Japanese! :)
- Current Mood:
recumbent
I'm feeling quite scatterbrained today, so I'm going to attempt to update this rather than focus on the things that I feel like I should. XD
Things I should be doing right now:
- My laundry
- Dinner - I'm down to ingredients for just one meal, which needs to be made in the crockpot.
- Dishes - We got a set of new pots and pans for Christmas which we haven't taken out of the box because we haven't been caught up enough on dishes to wash them.
- Reading Wuthering Heights - I'm about 65 pages from the end! I'm not enjoying it very much, so I'd like to get it done. It's alright, but I'm about at the limits of my patience with it and just want it off my currently reading list. I will say that it's interesting that it's characterized as a romance. I don't think it is at all. I'd call it a family drama, if anything, and even that's not quite right. I consider it to be a study of the rippling effects of child abuse more than anything.
- Finishing week 2 of the linguistics course that I'm doing on Coursera - I was really consistent in week one, but I haven't done anything for week 2 until today. It's a really fun course, and I like it a lot, but time has felt very short this week.
- Doing my yoga for the day - I skipped last night because of laziness, and I don't want to wait too long to get the next one done. Skipping a day always makes it harder for me to continue on the day after.
Things I've been doing instead:
- Looking at Twitter and dying a little inside - My account is very political, and the state of my country has me completely devastated.
- Considering starting to study French - J and I are seriously considering the possibility of moving to Canada in the future, and French is a thing that we should know for that.
- Plotting and planning what manga I'd like to read in Japanese next - Never mind that I'm currently reading 3 or 4 manga that I'm nowhere near finishing.
- Getting distracted by the League of Legends game that J has playing while he studies - I'm OK with watching League, but it doesn't have the draw of hockey for me. I don't really know the players or teams, and that makes it hard for me to root for anyone.
- Worrying about the car insurance payment that I have to make next month, and money issues in general - We're almost two months into J being unemployed, and 1 month into him being a full-time student, and paying everything by myself is pretty rough. Plus, I know J is running low on money, and he still has his own bills that I may need to start paying in the near future. I can do it, but there won't be very much wiggle room at all. Kind of regretting buying a car, even though I think it was necessary. The extra $300 a month in bills hurts. I'm hoping that he'll get his W2 soon so we can do our taxes. Not sure if we'll get a refund, given how much more I make now, but I want to give whatever we get to J so that he can pay his own bills for that much longer. I've gotten both my W2s and can get the rest of my info online, so we're just waiting on him.
We've got some houses to look at on Monday, so hopefully one of them will be something that we like. We have a friend who would like to move in with us if we have a house, and that would certainly help with money issues a lot. I'm working on accepting that I will just need to be flexible with my money habits for the next couple years, reassessing things on a monthly basis rather than having a set strategy, and I think I'm doing OK. I just wish that there was something I could do to make it a little easier without exerting myself too much. Partially because I just don't want a second job, and partially because J would feel terrible if I did take on more work in order to get more money - he'd feel obligated to get work himself, and I don't want that. Seeing how stressed he's been by school these past few weeks has really opened my eyes to what a challenge this is for him, more in terms of his anxiety than his academic abilities, and I don't want anything messing that up. We need this.
And I've already procrastinated past the time limit I had set for myself re: goofing off. Oops. Better go do something productive now. :)
Things I should be doing right now:
- My laundry
- Dinner - I'm down to ingredients for just one meal, which needs to be made in the crockpot.
- Dishes - We got a set of new pots and pans for Christmas which we haven't taken out of the box because we haven't been caught up enough on dishes to wash them.
- Reading Wuthering Heights - I'm about 65 pages from the end! I'm not enjoying it very much, so I'd like to get it done. It's alright, but I'm about at the limits of my patience with it and just want it off my currently reading list. I will say that it's interesting that it's characterized as a romance. I don't think it is at all. I'd call it a family drama, if anything, and even that's not quite right. I consider it to be a study of the rippling effects of child abuse more than anything.
- Finishing week 2 of the linguistics course that I'm doing on Coursera - I was really consistent in week one, but I haven't done anything for week 2 until today. It's a really fun course, and I like it a lot, but time has felt very short this week.
- Doing my yoga for the day - I skipped last night because of laziness, and I don't want to wait too long to get the next one done. Skipping a day always makes it harder for me to continue on the day after.
Things I've been doing instead:
- Looking at Twitter and dying a little inside - My account is very political, and the state of my country has me completely devastated.
- Considering starting to study French - J and I are seriously considering the possibility of moving to Canada in the future, and French is a thing that we should know for that.
- Plotting and planning what manga I'd like to read in Japanese next - Never mind that I'm currently reading 3 or 4 manga that I'm nowhere near finishing.
- Getting distracted by the League of Legends game that J has playing while he studies - I'm OK with watching League, but it doesn't have the draw of hockey for me. I don't really know the players or teams, and that makes it hard for me to root for anyone.
- Worrying about the car insurance payment that I have to make next month, and money issues in general - We're almost two months into J being unemployed, and 1 month into him being a full-time student, and paying everything by myself is pretty rough. Plus, I know J is running low on money, and he still has his own bills that I may need to start paying in the near future. I can do it, but there won't be very much wiggle room at all. Kind of regretting buying a car, even though I think it was necessary. The extra $300 a month in bills hurts. I'm hoping that he'll get his W2 soon so we can do our taxes. Not sure if we'll get a refund, given how much more I make now, but I want to give whatever we get to J so that he can pay his own bills for that much longer. I've gotten both my W2s and can get the rest of my info online, so we're just waiting on him.
We've got some houses to look at on Monday, so hopefully one of them will be something that we like. We have a friend who would like to move in with us if we have a house, and that would certainly help with money issues a lot. I'm working on accepting that I will just need to be flexible with my money habits for the next couple years, reassessing things on a monthly basis rather than having a set strategy, and I think I'm doing OK. I just wish that there was something I could do to make it a little easier without exerting myself too much. Partially because I just don't want a second job, and partially because J would feel terrible if I did take on more work in order to get more money - he'd feel obligated to get work himself, and I don't want that. Seeing how stressed he's been by school these past few weeks has really opened my eyes to what a challenge this is for him, more in terms of his anxiety than his academic abilities, and I don't want anything messing that up. We need this.
And I've already procrastinated past the time limit I had set for myself re: goofing off. Oops. Better go do something productive now. :)
- Current Mood:
lazy
I've been sick for half of the week, but I'm feeling almost normal today, which is nice. My nose is almost unclogged, my throat no longer hurts, and if I can just catch up on my sleep tonight, I think I'll be doing quite well.
Some things:
- I haven't had any willpower with books so far this year. I'm maintaining my goal of reading 3 physical books per every one book on Kindle, but I have not been achieving it. I've finished four books so far, and they've all been on Kindle. Oops?
- The first was Planetfall by Emma Newman, which I quite liked. She has a very engaging writing style, and I appreciated the character of Ren quite a bit. I've never read a science fiction book featuring a character with her anxiety, and I liked that it was there. I also really liked the imagination of the premise, which is that a young woman awakens from a coma with the coordinates to 'God's City' in her head, and then leads a spaceship full of people to it. The book itself takes place about 20 years after planetfall, and a lot of it is focused on bringing out the truths of what actually happened. I felt like it was a good mixture of mystery and science fiction, and I'm excited to read more by Emma Newman. (And in my defense, I read most of this one in 2016 and just finished it in 2017.)
- The second book I finished was Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. This was non-fiction about language learning and ape language experiments. I thought it was pretty fascinating, as well as giving a much broader overview of the subject than I was expecting. I was glad that I read it. (Also glad to get it off the to-read list, as it had been there since around 2006. Oh, and I read most of this one in 2016. Not to mention that I leave non-fiction exempt from my rules, as I don't really own a ton of non-fiction.)
- For my next non-fiction, I started reading Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, which is an excellent book about the criminal justice system in the US, and particularly in the Deep South. I knew the justice system had problems, but I had never realized how profoundly awful they really are. This book has been a terrible eye-opener for me, and I highly recommend it. I'm more than halfway through, and strongly suspect that it will be a 5 star read.
- Then I started reading Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin, which is Mongolian-based fantasy, and is a book that I've owned since about 2006 as well. I got about halfway through and I'm quite enjoying it. However...
- Last weekend I was feeling quite depressed, and quite off TV, so I wanted to read in bed until I fell asleep. Only the Curt Benjamin book has some narrow margins that make it a trial to hold it open and read sometimes, especially in less-than-ideal light. So I quite frivolously starting reading Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce, the first in her Immortals series. It was quite cute, and I enjoyed it for a sweet tale of found family. Kel from The Protector of the Small series remains my favorite Pierce character, but I look forward to reading more of Daine's adventures this year.
- I finished that one, only to fall sick on Wednesday, and I came home after a long day of work to the intense desire to read something fun. And I will not say that Lords of Grass and Thunder is not fun, because it is, but it has this writing style that is hard to focus on unless you're quite clear-headed. I was not, so instead I went ahead and read Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire. XD This is the fourth book in the Incryptid series, and probably my least favorite so far. The plot involved Alex going to Australia with Shelby due to a werewolf outbreak. I liked the book, but I really disliked Shelby's father, and wasn't thrilled with the rest of her family either, so. I still gave the book four stars, but it was definitely not my favorite of the series. I finished that one up late Thursday, after calling in sick to work that day.
- The cold I have involves a lot of stuffed up nose stuff, along with a sore throat and general reality disconnect, and it was making sleep difficult, so Friday was a long day. I avoided leaving my office at work. I made it through a nice sushi dinner with J and a friend, mostly because all three of us were sick. The food was good, but a little too rich for our tastes, so probably won't be a frequent stop. And then we came home and the week of sleep-deprivation caught up with me and I got super-grumpy.
- I tried to watch some TV to get rid of that mood. I wasn't in the mood for any of my current shows - Bosch and Free! - so I tried to pick up something new. I watched the first episode of The Emerald City, the new Wizard of Oz reimagining. It was OK, I liked the characters alright, but it had some awful stupid moments re: medicine in a world with antibiotics that really irritated me. I'll keep watching for now, but I'm not convinced I'm going to love it.
- I really wanted a new sitcom-esque show to watch, so I tried The Mindy Project. Watched 15 minutes of it, and DNF'd the first episode. From what I saw, not only was Mindy a complete mess, but she hadn't a single redeeming impulse to make that OK. Not gonna lie, kind of hated her character, and the reviews that I scrounged up mostly talked about vicarious enjoyment of her hot mess of a life, so I'm thinking that the show is a pass for me.
- I tried the first episode of Black-ish as well, and I did like that better, although it didn't pull me in. I'll probably watch it casually for a while, and hope that it picks up.
- Oh, I also watched the first episode of Supergirl at some point this week, and it was great! I might try to watch it when J's able to kind of pay attention, though, as he was pretty interested in the first episode too, which I hadn't expected. He really hates Superman, so I kind of thought he would pass on Supergirl as well.
- Speaking of J, we've been watching iZombie together, and I actually really like it! It has the quirky mystery feel that made me enjoy Psych, but with an actual supernatural twist. I really like all the cast too.
- Anyway, disillusioned with TV, I picked three books off my shelves last night to give a try, and am now kind of reading all of them? They're The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse, April Lady by Georgette Heyer, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I was surprised by how funny I'm finding the Wodehouse - I know, I know, that's what he's renowned for. But so is Pratchett, and he's very hit-or-miss with me. I kind of wish I could watch the Jeeves and Wooster TV show, but apparently it's not on Hulu any longer, so I guess not. I'm not very far on Wuthering Heights, and I'll probably be slowest to finish it. I'm kind of just reading a chapter from each, and if I want to continue, I can. If not, I cycle to a chapter from the next book. It's pretty satisfying, so it seems I'm just in the mood for the British sensibility. Comforting to the sick mind?
Some things:
- I haven't had any willpower with books so far this year. I'm maintaining my goal of reading 3 physical books per every one book on Kindle, but I have not been achieving it. I've finished four books so far, and they've all been on Kindle. Oops?
- The first was Planetfall by Emma Newman, which I quite liked. She has a very engaging writing style, and I appreciated the character of Ren quite a bit. I've never read a science fiction book featuring a character with her anxiety, and I liked that it was there. I also really liked the imagination of the premise, which is that a young woman awakens from a coma with the coordinates to 'God's City' in her head, and then leads a spaceship full of people to it. The book itself takes place about 20 years after planetfall, and a lot of it is focused on bringing out the truths of what actually happened. I felt like it was a good mixture of mystery and science fiction, and I'm excited to read more by Emma Newman. (And in my defense, I read most of this one in 2016 and just finished it in 2017.)
- The second book I finished was Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. This was non-fiction about language learning and ape language experiments. I thought it was pretty fascinating, as well as giving a much broader overview of the subject than I was expecting. I was glad that I read it. (Also glad to get it off the to-read list, as it had been there since around 2006. Oh, and I read most of this one in 2016. Not to mention that I leave non-fiction exempt from my rules, as I don't really own a ton of non-fiction.)
- For my next non-fiction, I started reading Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, which is an excellent book about the criminal justice system in the US, and particularly in the Deep South. I knew the justice system had problems, but I had never realized how profoundly awful they really are. This book has been a terrible eye-opener for me, and I highly recommend it. I'm more than halfway through, and strongly suspect that it will be a 5 star read.
- Then I started reading Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin, which is Mongolian-based fantasy, and is a book that I've owned since about 2006 as well. I got about halfway through and I'm quite enjoying it. However...
- Last weekend I was feeling quite depressed, and quite off TV, so I wanted to read in bed until I fell asleep. Only the Curt Benjamin book has some narrow margins that make it a trial to hold it open and read sometimes, especially in less-than-ideal light. So I quite frivolously starting reading Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce, the first in her Immortals series. It was quite cute, and I enjoyed it for a sweet tale of found family. Kel from The Protector of the Small series remains my favorite Pierce character, but I look forward to reading more of Daine's adventures this year.
- I finished that one, only to fall sick on Wednesday, and I came home after a long day of work to the intense desire to read something fun. And I will not say that Lords of Grass and Thunder is not fun, because it is, but it has this writing style that is hard to focus on unless you're quite clear-headed. I was not, so instead I went ahead and read Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire. XD This is the fourth book in the Incryptid series, and probably my least favorite so far. The plot involved Alex going to Australia with Shelby due to a werewolf outbreak. I liked the book, but I really disliked Shelby's father, and wasn't thrilled with the rest of her family either, so. I still gave the book four stars, but it was definitely not my favorite of the series. I finished that one up late Thursday, after calling in sick to work that day.
- The cold I have involves a lot of stuffed up nose stuff, along with a sore throat and general reality disconnect, and it was making sleep difficult, so Friday was a long day. I avoided leaving my office at work. I made it through a nice sushi dinner with J and a friend, mostly because all three of us were sick. The food was good, but a little too rich for our tastes, so probably won't be a frequent stop. And then we came home and the week of sleep-deprivation caught up with me and I got super-grumpy.
- I tried to watch some TV to get rid of that mood. I wasn't in the mood for any of my current shows - Bosch and Free! - so I tried to pick up something new. I watched the first episode of The Emerald City, the new Wizard of Oz reimagining. It was OK, I liked the characters alright, but it had some awful stupid moments re: medicine in a world with antibiotics that really irritated me. I'll keep watching for now, but I'm not convinced I'm going to love it.
- I really wanted a new sitcom-esque show to watch, so I tried The Mindy Project. Watched 15 minutes of it, and DNF'd the first episode. From what I saw, not only was Mindy a complete mess, but she hadn't a single redeeming impulse to make that OK. Not gonna lie, kind of hated her character, and the reviews that I scrounged up mostly talked about vicarious enjoyment of her hot mess of a life, so I'm thinking that the show is a pass for me.
- I tried the first episode of Black-ish as well, and I did like that better, although it didn't pull me in. I'll probably watch it casually for a while, and hope that it picks up.
- Oh, I also watched the first episode of Supergirl at some point this week, and it was great! I might try to watch it when J's able to kind of pay attention, though, as he was pretty interested in the first episode too, which I hadn't expected. He really hates Superman, so I kind of thought he would pass on Supergirl as well.
- Speaking of J, we've been watching iZombie together, and I actually really like it! It has the quirky mystery feel that made me enjoy Psych, but with an actual supernatural twist. I really like all the cast too.
- Anyway, disillusioned with TV, I picked three books off my shelves last night to give a try, and am now kind of reading all of them? They're The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse, April Lady by Georgette Heyer, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I was surprised by how funny I'm finding the Wodehouse - I know, I know, that's what he's renowned for. But so is Pratchett, and he's very hit-or-miss with me. I kind of wish I could watch the Jeeves and Wooster TV show, but apparently it's not on Hulu any longer, so I guess not. I'm not very far on Wuthering Heights, and I'll probably be slowest to finish it. I'm kind of just reading a chapter from each, and if I want to continue, I can. If not, I cycle to a chapter from the next book. It's pretty satisfying, so it seems I'm just in the mood for the British sensibility. Comforting to the sick mind?
Happy 2017! Guess it's time for the best of 2016 book post!
So, most years, I don't pick an absolute favorite. It's usually too close to call, but this year is different. I actually have a very clear favorite. I'm not sure if it's because it's one of my more recent reads, or if it's because it will be an enduring favorite, but there it is. I have a favorite of the year. And without further ado, I give you...
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
I adored this book. Maia is one of those characters that just reached out and grabbed my heart from the very first page. I could hardly put this book down, and when I finished it, I went and sought out some fanfiction because I just wasn't ready to let the world and characters go. I read some wonderful books this year, but they all pale in comparison to this one. If you have any intention of reading it and haven't yet, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Everything else is in no particular order. These were all excellent, five star reads.
How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ
I didn't really expect much from this. I thought it would probably be outdated and irrelevant. That's not really the case. I found myself quickly drawn in. Some of it is outdated, especially around the beginning, but still so interesting. It's horrifying to see some of the ways that women's writing has been historically suppressed. And as I got further into the book, I began to truly recognize some of the tactics. They're still out there, being used against not just women, but also writers of color. I ended up being really glad that I read this, both for the knowledge that it gave me, and for the way that it has influenced the way that I think about these issues.
The Soldier Son trilogy by Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb was one of my favorite authors of my teenage years, but I haven't read anything by her in ages. This was my first try at picking up where I left off, and it was such a wonderful surprise! I really fell in love with Nevare, the main character of this series, and I stayed in love with him throughout. I was also really intrigued by the world-building - it felt really unique from the very feudal European fantasy that is so common. A lot of people didn't like this trilogy by Hobb because of all the terrible things that happen, but I truly loved it.
The Price of Valor by Django Wexler
This is the third book in the Shadow Campaigns series, which has quickly become one of my favorite ongoing series. The characters in this series are wonderfully complex, and I love them all, but particularly Winter Ihernglass. The battle scenes are also fantastic. The politics are complicated. It's also starting to get more magical as the series goes on, which is super-exciting. I already have a copy of the fourth book, and it's very high on my to-read list indeed.
Eona: The Last Dragoneye by Alison Goodman
This is the second book in a duology. I read the first a long time ago, really liked it, and then just never read the second. I'm so glad that I finally fixed that problem. Eona was even better than the first book. It was action-packed and exciting. I loved the character development that Eona had, and there was even a love triangle that I was just as conflicted about as Eona was. It put Alison Goodman on my must-read list, and I hope to read her backlist (it's fairly short) someday soon.
The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
This is the last book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which is a project I started in 2015. I thought it was a fitting and fantastic ending to the series, and I'm so happy that I stuck with it and read it all, even though the prior book in the series had not been a successful venture for me. I ended up giving 5 stars to 5 out of the 10 books in the series, which I think is a pretty good record. I loved the epic scale of these books, and the sheer imagination behind them. The characters were also splendid, with so many to love. For the fan of truly epic fantasy, this is a must-read.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
I am a huge fan of Lois McMaster Bujold, so it should come as no shock that I would list the latest Vorkosigan book as a favorite. This is a very different book than most of her others, but I loved it nonetheless. A very deep exploration of Cordelia as a character, and of loss and moving on with life as themes. Much love.
Golden Son by Pierce Brown
I still love this series, for all its faults. There's a feel of the epic to it that I adore, and the stakes are always so high that I can't help but get drawn in. I feel like Darrow learned a lot in this book, and yet still made just as many mistakes. The world-building and characters are fantastic, and this is definitely one of my favorite series I've read recently. (I really need to get to Morning Star, which I have. There's just so much to distract me!)
So, those are my favorites of the year. I didn't get to all the books I wanted to read this year by any stretch, but I think I made good progress. How about you? What books did you love this year?
So, most years, I don't pick an absolute favorite. It's usually too close to call, but this year is different. I actually have a very clear favorite. I'm not sure if it's because it's one of my more recent reads, or if it's because it will be an enduring favorite, but there it is. I have a favorite of the year. And without further ado, I give you...
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
I adored this book. Maia is one of those characters that just reached out and grabbed my heart from the very first page. I could hardly put this book down, and when I finished it, I went and sought out some fanfiction because I just wasn't ready to let the world and characters go. I read some wonderful books this year, but they all pale in comparison to this one. If you have any intention of reading it and haven't yet, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Everything else is in no particular order. These were all excellent, five star reads.
How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ
I didn't really expect much from this. I thought it would probably be outdated and irrelevant. That's not really the case. I found myself quickly drawn in. Some of it is outdated, especially around the beginning, but still so interesting. It's horrifying to see some of the ways that women's writing has been historically suppressed. And as I got further into the book, I began to truly recognize some of the tactics. They're still out there, being used against not just women, but also writers of color. I ended up being really glad that I read this, both for the knowledge that it gave me, and for the way that it has influenced the way that I think about these issues.
The Soldier Son trilogy by Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb was one of my favorite authors of my teenage years, but I haven't read anything by her in ages. This was my first try at picking up where I left off, and it was such a wonderful surprise! I really fell in love with Nevare, the main character of this series, and I stayed in love with him throughout. I was also really intrigued by the world-building - it felt really unique from the very feudal European fantasy that is so common. A lot of people didn't like this trilogy by Hobb because of all the terrible things that happen, but I truly loved it.
The Price of Valor by Django Wexler
This is the third book in the Shadow Campaigns series, which has quickly become one of my favorite ongoing series. The characters in this series are wonderfully complex, and I love them all, but particularly Winter Ihernglass. The battle scenes are also fantastic. The politics are complicated. It's also starting to get more magical as the series goes on, which is super-exciting. I already have a copy of the fourth book, and it's very high on my to-read list indeed.
Eona: The Last Dragoneye by Alison Goodman
This is the second book in a duology. I read the first a long time ago, really liked it, and then just never read the second. I'm so glad that I finally fixed that problem. Eona was even better than the first book. It was action-packed and exciting. I loved the character development that Eona had, and there was even a love triangle that I was just as conflicted about as Eona was. It put Alison Goodman on my must-read list, and I hope to read her backlist (it's fairly short) someday soon.
The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
This is the last book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which is a project I started in 2015. I thought it was a fitting and fantastic ending to the series, and I'm so happy that I stuck with it and read it all, even though the prior book in the series had not been a successful venture for me. I ended up giving 5 stars to 5 out of the 10 books in the series, which I think is a pretty good record. I loved the epic scale of these books, and the sheer imagination behind them. The characters were also splendid, with so many to love. For the fan of truly epic fantasy, this is a must-read.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
I am a huge fan of Lois McMaster Bujold, so it should come as no shock that I would list the latest Vorkosigan book as a favorite. This is a very different book than most of her others, but I loved it nonetheless. A very deep exploration of Cordelia as a character, and of loss and moving on with life as themes. Much love.
Golden Son by Pierce Brown
I still love this series, for all its faults. There's a feel of the epic to it that I adore, and the stakes are always so high that I can't help but get drawn in. I feel like Darrow learned a lot in this book, and yet still made just as many mistakes. The world-building and characters are fantastic, and this is definitely one of my favorite series I've read recently. (I really need to get to Morning Star, which I have. There's just so much to distract me!)
So, those are my favorites of the year. I didn't get to all the books I wanted to read this year by any stretch, but I think I made good progress. How about you? What books did you love this year?
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