Calendars, am I right?

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

I recently discovered this wonderful thing called 'calendar'. But what's the great thing about this calendar, apart from telling you what period in time you are in, it also allows us (a.k.a. me, I'm sure there are more aware people out there) to jot down an event or a task we want to do. Isn't that wonderful? So this is what I did this week, I created tasks for myself. Some that I want to do daily, others once or twice a week, others once a month. 

What's great about this system is that it might actually work. I tried all kinds of versions and I discovered that I work better when I set a task to be done some time in the week, not in a definite time slot. It's more open ended, if you will. I also allow myself to not finish a task. That's okay, we all have bad days, or days when we just can't bring ourselves up to do something no matter how small. So I don't beat myself over for missing a task and I'm not punishing myself for not completing it. Unless the punishment is fun.

I just nuked a bunch of my old posts

Maybe 'nuked' is a strong word, I merely reverted them to drafts. About 136 of them. That's a lot, isn't it? I have a few reasons for this. 

They are all old posts of mine. I kept wondering what was it that I didn't like about my blog, and I figured out it was those old posts. I used to be a fairly angry teenager and also still trying to find my feet on here, so a lot of those are me being angry, me talking gibberish or some very badly written reviews. Initially I thought I'd leave everything as is, but I really don't want that kind of negativity on my blog. That's the old me, I'm much more happy and comfortable with myself now so, there, I got rid of nasty reminders. 

I might or might not go through my huge list of drafts at some point and I might or might not re-write some of the posts, maybe some of the reviews. 

January's favourite books

[photography by Brandi Redd]

Watching films is not all I did this month, I read too, so now I want to write about some of my favourite reads. I'm not going to write about the ones I did not like, and this list might not be in concordance with the ratings on my Goodreads account. Thing is, sometimes it's more to a book that just being written flawlessly. I might have rated a book 5 stars, but that doesn't mean it will make it into my top however many books. A 3 or 4 stars book might be higher on my list based on a thing that I thought was brilliant, or something that I found to be unique or outstanding. Or simply because on the vibe of the book and how I think about it a while after I read it. 

That being said, here I my favourite books from this January.

In the kitchen: Cooking tips from an amateur homecook.

 When it comes to cooking and me, it's less cooking and more experimenting. More often than not I just mix together whatever I feel like eating, plus any ingredients I think would go well. So far I've had only one complaint. Of course, I cook only for myself most of the time, and that one complaint was me managing to somehow smoke some cabbage so badly I couldn't bear eating it so I dumped it all in the bin. That was a sad day. 

But wait, I cooked for my best friend before and I usually get positive feedback. Not always stellar, but considering she usually finishes eating what I put in front of her, I'd say that's a success. 

Now that you know where my cooking skills are at, there are some tips I kept seeing around and started following. The results have been amazing and since they make such a big difference I thought why not put them all in one place. So here goes.

Diary of B. High school.

[photography by Barry Zhou]

Following my dear diary post, that I might or might have not forgotten about, my next diary entry is about high school. High school was certainly a time for me to grow up, to learn more about myself, and to shape myself into what I am today. In my initial post I was saying that I don't know how to define high school, that I can only state a few things that I learned along the way. Now that there is some distance between me then and me know, I can actually define it. 

High school, for me, was a time when I only started to learn about myself, when I only started to actually gain some sort of shape. I was still far from me now, but it was an important step in my journey. I can't say I am thinking fondly about it, and I can't say I miss it. It is what it is. 

Stop ruining books!

Woah, I have this in my drafts since September, how did that happen? I have some ideas, but either way, I think it gathered enough dust and it is about time I post this. But first let me just mention from that start that I am not yelling at the authors here. There are a lot of different topics and genres and unless the writing is absolutely awful, anything goes as far as I am concerned. Who I am yelling at is the readers, but more accurately the ones of us (yes, me included) who write opinions or reviews on various sites after reading a book. And I am so mad at some of the reviewers. I have pretty good reasons, too, I'd say. At least me concerned. 

Update: anime, books, and drawing

Can't believe this is my first post this month. I've been slacking. Okay, I have some good-ish explanation. In short I was so not in a state to write anything. I was, however, in the mood to draw. And watch some anime. Not movies. Reading... not quite, a little.

This is a classical case of life happening. Work has been crazy lately. Besides an increase in customers (which is actually not a problem at all) some of the people I work with have gone completely nuts. Some ridiculous things go on, I don't even think you would believe all of it if I were to write it down here. I might do that at some point, preferably when that's not my main income source, but until then, take my word for it: people are nuts! 

Moving along~

Eyeglasses. Or look, individual leaves!

I spend a lot of time on my laptop or staring at my phone, like a lot of other people. There's reading going on various sites, apps and novels (I have a timer on the app I use for books that lets me know when I should take a break, but I always ignore it) so eye straining happens. Because of that my eyes got stingy and red and they even hurt. After I got asked for the umpteenth time if I don't get enough sleep I decided that's it, I have to go get my eyes tested. So I made an appointment. 

Good news is my eyes are healthy. Bad news is I do need glasses (but not for reading, surprisingly). Worse news is I knew for a while that I needed glasses. 

Masquerade Hotel film

Masquerade Hotel is a long waited film by me. I looked it up all over the place (that being the Internet), but couldn't find it until one day when I just stumbled across it by mistake. I don't even remember what I was looking for, chances are I was randomly browsing films hoping to find something to watch when there it was. I did not hesitate and hit play immediately. 

Diary of J. Long Distance Relationships.

A while ago I said I am thinking of re-writing / translating / whatever some of my previous dear diary posts. Well, here I am, this is the first one. But before I go into my experience with long distance relationships and how I view them, the photo you see on this post is taken by Mathyas Kurmann.

Julie & Julia

Once in a while I go through all the films some of the actors I like have been in and pick one to watch. Usually I read the synopsis, check the ratings and if everything looks good to me, I dump the film on my watchlist. The films can stay on my watchlist for months before I actually watch them, and some I remove without even bothering to try and watch. 

I don't know why I do that. Maybe some of them sound interesting to me when I first find them, but I'm not in the mood when I want to watch something so after I skip them time and time again, I remove them. There are also cases when I don't find a particular film from my list to watch so there's no point in keeping it on the list. 

When it comes to Julie & Julia, the film was on my list for a few months, but it kept calling me. I'm weak for real life inspired films and when I watched the trailer it looked so fun. 

The big cycle of procrastination

(Almost) No one is unfamiliar with this word, but for the sake of it and because I really like the dictionary format, I'm copy/pasting the definition a few paragraphs below. 

People sometimes get frustrated and upset with their procrastinating habits, and they turn to the big ol' Internet for tips and tricks on how to stop procrastinating. For me there seems to be only one thing that actually works, but first let's see what procrastination is and how the Internet suggests to combat it. 

The Agency series by Ada Maria Soto

            

There are those type of novels where you read the synopsis and think to yourself, hmm, this sounds interesting, action filled, funny, maybe cute, and you go read it expecting that. Only that you start reading and the novel is nothing like you expected it to be. 

That being said, if you don't already know anything about this series I encourage you to not read my 'review' and go straight to reading the series.

Haircut? Yes!

Back in March, actually even before that, I decided to let my hair grow. I've had long hair before, I quite like it, and sometimes when I have short hair I think hmm, I would like me some length. So that was my plan. Straightforward, easy, literally no effort. Only it didn't go as I was expecting it to: me just doing whatever it is I do and then, bam, nice long hair. The hair is there and it lets you know it is there.

Antique BL movie

I can't believe I didn't write about this movie here. I was so sure I did, but no. I checked, I double checked. 

Antique is one of my absolute favourite BL films. I watched it when there weren't that many BL films available for me and that probably had something to do with why I liked it so much. Who knows. I had it on my laptop for a while, along with other of my favourites, and re-watched it I don't even know how many times. Even now I wouldn't mind a re-watch. 

Update. New device

Oh, here I am! I think this is two weeks with no new post on here, but I have a half good explanation. 

Initially I planned on not writing anything for one week. I just didn't have anything to write about (now I have a small list) so I thought, meh, I could have a break until I figure out what I want to write about. My break, however, was extended with the 'help' of my laptop.

Dear Diary

This is not actually a diary post, it's more like a trying to figure out what post. Or something.

A while ago I started writing a few diary posts, three to be more precise, and I want to keep writing them, only I'm not sure on how to proceed. I don't want to set a schedule for when to write them, I want to write them whenever I feel like it, but my issue with it right now is what language am I going to use. 

The Garden of Words

The Garden of Words is an incredibly beautiful animation with a lot of rain. I always liked rain, I like the sound, the smell. The best mornings are the ones when it rains and I can stay in bed, half asleep and listening to the water drops falling to the ground. It is so calming, it makes me so happy, and seeing and hearing it in this animated film, it got me feeling just like that.

Water filter > bottled water

The last thing I ever imagined myself writing about is water filters. Actually, water filters never even was an option. But hear me out: water filters are great and I'm glad to own one.

I wish I could say I am the type of person who cares for the environment that much, and while that did have something to do with me purchasing a water filter, that was not the main reason. I try to do things for the environment, like not littering and using my own bag (usually backpack) when shopping, but that's about it. I mostly abide the rules and try being a decent citizen (which, actually, I think more people should do), but that's about it.

The Impostor Syndrome and Me

Lately I keep bumping into this term, the impostor syndrome, and it got me thinking. I knew about it before, I knew it might apply to me too, but I didn't really think about it. And I don't actually keep bumping into it, it's just one of those situation when you see something, think about it and then suddenly you notice it almost everywhere. That's called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Isn't it great how every single thing has a name and someone studied it and now we are able to understand it and act accordingly? Same with impostor syndrome, impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome or impostorism how it's also known as.