Slow down!! Time is passing too fast!!!
It’s been another few months, and my life is basically the same. Every week looks pretty similar: I work on my thesis, I go to the newsroom, I go to work, I watch TV, I clean the house, I go see a movie. Every day, the thing I look forward to more and more is sleep. That’s beginning to concern me a little.
Apparently adults are supposed to get 7-9 hours of sleep every night, so… yep.
Aside from my life being excruciatingly busy and also somewhat repetitive, it’s been pretty good! My thesis is coming along fairly well, my partners and I are enjoying living together, my garden looks alright, the house is… well, the house is a mess, but it’ll be clean soon — we’ve got another house inspection coming up, so we don’t really have a choice in the matter.
Thinking about the future and the Big Decisions I have to make is a little nerve-wracking, so I’m trying to focus on getting through this year, submitting my Honours, and graduating before I really need to lock in on career decisions and other intimidating stuff like that. I have no idea what a Masters program would look like, or whether I can really afford that if I want to buy a house… ever… so who knows what the future holds!
I have been taking a few photos here and there again, mostly on my Autoboy, which have been turning out relatively well.
A photo from my most recent roll of film.
MUSICAL MOMENT
Once again, I haven’t been listening to all that much new music. However, I did recently hear — for the first time — Deltron 3030’s eponymous debut album, which has quickly skyrocketed to the top of my listening rotation. Lots of great tracks.
Aside from that, I’ve been buying a few CDs off Discogs (mostly the Mountain Goats, including Full Force Galesburg, which has been wonderful to finally listen to on CD!). I’m still keeping up with my daily Mountain Goats book club, based on John’s ‘book of days’, which I do before bed every night. I’m enjoying it a lot, although I am very tired by that point (see the aforementioned lack of sleep).
FILM & TELEVISION
Oh, brother, we’ve been slowly slowly inching our way through Sense8… it starts off so strong, and then kind of loses all its momentum. And the episodes are so long. I think it may have worked better as a weekly procedural, to be honest, but it is what it is. Now, we're up to the final episodes (and the finale, which is two and a half hours long), but thankfully the pace has picked back up.
We’re also rewatching Neon Genesis Evangelion at the moment, which I personally love because it’s got wonderful 90s animation AND giant robots. But it’s also pretty depressing, so after a long day it can be kind of a hard sell.
Movie-wise, I’ve mostly been watching bullshit, basically — Tremors (1990), Toy Story (1995), and Batman (1966) (admittedly, that was really awesome). I saw some great silent films at the cinema with live accompaniment as well, which you can read about here!
I was also looking for something fun to watch while I was a little, uh, spaced out, and I ended up choosing the first Indiana Jones movie, which I hadn’t seen in years. Overall, kind of mid. Bit of a disappointment. And I also rewatched the first Michael Bay Transformers movie recently, and wow, that is a terrible film. Why is it so long? The military propaganda of it all is crazy! I liked the Linkin Park song, though.
Shamelessly plugging my own Letterboxd.
LITERATURE CORNER
I’ve somehow found the time to re-read all of The Murderbot Diaries over the last month or so, which was a great decision! They’re quick reads but very entertaining, and I really enjoyed the latest instalment (Platform Decay).
I also recently read a small Penguin edition of Italo Calvino short stories, including Under the Jaguar Sun and The Name, The Nose, both of which I quite liked in a gothic sort of way. Definitely liked it more than the recent Chekhov I read, in any case.
Right now, I’ve picked up the Gollancz Golden Age Masterworks copy of Jirel of Joiry by C. L. Moore, which I think will be an interesting but maybe difficult read. I like the idea of pulp, but I don’t really like reading it a lot of the time. Funnily enough, it tends to be pretty bad!
You can follow me on StoryGraph here, by the way!
Another photo taken on my Autoboy!
With all that, I haven’t really had time to play video games much, but my partner and I have nearly… nearly…… finished Cuphead. If we can finish the main game, I’ll be content. That’s really the only game I’m playing right now, while I think about what to play next on my Gameboy.
I’ve taken a little bit of time off writing my thesis over the last few days, as we’ve been cleaning for that house inspection, but hopefully I can get back into the swing of things later this week! See you again in another few months…
That's all I have to say, I think.