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Jul. 31st, 2024 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
got_quietJeeze oh man. The crazy season for work is basically over, though, it is not as over as it's usually over due to certain Life Choices. But right on the tail end of it all I managed to pick up COVID and kind of got knocked on my ass for a while, and it's taking me longer than I would like to not just get healthy again, which is kind of sorta done, but also to reset mentally and start clawing back the good habits that I was trying to cultivate before I spent more than a weak barely eating and sleeping all day long. My bedtime is fucked up again, my attention span is low again, my fridge is empty again, I'm just a mess!
So this blog post is sort of an attempt to reset and reassess a little bit. It's not really a half year mark thing, but regardless here are how things have been going.
I did pretty good about eating more vegetarian meals during the first few months of the year. So the last couple of months I've only had a few days that were fully vegetarian. I'll try to get back on the horse but the whole, constantly on the edge of malnutrition thing is a problem.
I have resisted a lot of books that I would have otherwise bought due to the book purchasing moratorium, but I haven't been perfect. I think maybe 5 or six books have snuck into the house even though they should not have lol.
My reading also has not been at a particularly high rate. I recently got through half of Steven Brust's Teckla, and I'm enjoying that book a lot. I think it's a bit of a brave premise. The first couple of books were about being a crime lord and an assassin, and this book is like, "you know, that's maybe not the most spiritually healthy thing to be." The book is not wrong about that lol, but I typically don't expect a fantasy paperback to be willing to interrogate itself like that. I'm curious to see how this one ends.
I also read Woodland Stranger by Jane Buehler. It was unfortunately not good. It wasn't terrible, but just in the mediocre Original Works M/M category. The prose was very stark. Some parts were ok that way, some were way too dry and full of telling. The characters felt kind of shallow as a result. And the plot was frustrating, because it kind of wanted to be an adventure fantasy that dealt with a couple difficult subjects, like war and loss of family and possibly even toxic army culture? But it also realllly wanted to be safe and comfy at the same time, and it was like reading through a moral gauze. I read the book as part of a review program, which is always a little awkward because I want to support authors and see them succeed, but also believe very strongly that reviews are for readers, not authors, so with this program I often find myself trying to be frankly critical without sounding too mean. Sometimes that feels like a hard thing to do.
The one thing I did manage to achieve while sick and laid up was get Chronos on farm in Hades II. I have seen the matrix, his patterns are nothing to me now, and/or I just managed to build my arcana deck up enough and have a better grasp of weapon loadouts to start the fight at a much better advantage lol.
My goal for the near future is to write a couple small things for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomgiftbasket. I thought I'd have more time to do this but COVID obliterated my energy for everything.
And after that I want to finally. FINALLLYYYYY finish all the BLM VNs. I'm so close goddamnit.
So this blog post is sort of an attempt to reset and reassess a little bit. It's not really a half year mark thing, but regardless here are how things have been going.
I did pretty good about eating more vegetarian meals during the first few months of the year. So the last couple of months I've only had a few days that were fully vegetarian. I'll try to get back on the horse but the whole, constantly on the edge of malnutrition thing is a problem.
I have resisted a lot of books that I would have otherwise bought due to the book purchasing moratorium, but I haven't been perfect. I think maybe 5 or six books have snuck into the house even though they should not have lol.
My reading also has not been at a particularly high rate. I recently got through half of Steven Brust's Teckla, and I'm enjoying that book a lot. I think it's a bit of a brave premise. The first couple of books were about being a crime lord and an assassin, and this book is like, "you know, that's maybe not the most spiritually healthy thing to be." The book is not wrong about that lol, but I typically don't expect a fantasy paperback to be willing to interrogate itself like that. I'm curious to see how this one ends.
I also read Woodland Stranger by Jane Buehler. It was unfortunately not good. It wasn't terrible, but just in the mediocre Original Works M/M category. The prose was very stark. Some parts were ok that way, some were way too dry and full of telling. The characters felt kind of shallow as a result. And the plot was frustrating, because it kind of wanted to be an adventure fantasy that dealt with a couple difficult subjects, like war and loss of family and possibly even toxic army culture? But it also realllly wanted to be safe and comfy at the same time, and it was like reading through a moral gauze. I read the book as part of a review program, which is always a little awkward because I want to support authors and see them succeed, but also believe very strongly that reviews are for readers, not authors, so with this program I often find myself trying to be frankly critical without sounding too mean. Sometimes that feels like a hard thing to do.
The one thing I did manage to achieve while sick and laid up was get Chronos on farm in Hades II. I have seen the matrix, his patterns are nothing to me now, and/or I just managed to build my arcana deck up enough and have a better grasp of weapon loadouts to start the fight at a much better advantage lol.
My goal for the near future is to write a couple small things for
fandomgiftbasket. I thought I'd have more time to do this but COVID obliterated my energy for everything. And after that I want to finally. FINALLLYYYYY finish all the BLM VNs. I'm so close goddamnit.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-01 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-02 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-02 02:20 am (UTC)Congrats on the Chronos farming! I'm still bad at the game and haven't felt the incentive to go back and try him much. Though I did get a second kill I think after the patch made him easier.
I'm glad you're enjoying Teckla! That one is a contentious part of the fandom for various reasons, including why Brust wrote it the way he did. I really hated that one way back when but it's been years, so who knows? I wish you luck with the rest of the series!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-06 02:17 am (UTC)I'm curious about the background for Tekla now, but I think I wait until I'm done before I do any digging. Typically the less I know about the context the happier I am.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-05 06:07 am (UTC)Good luck on your fandomgiftbasket endeavors! I meant to try and make some gifts for it already too so I wouldn't be trying to cram it all in toward the deadline but oops I haven't even started yet haha. At least there's still time to work on stuff!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-06 02:18 am (UTC)