Night Island

I got up way too early this morning, but I'm holding up surprisingly well considering that I didn't go to bed early last night even though I was exhausted. However, I may be getting a cold. It's either that or allergies. Either way, I should take it easy because I am supposed to be singing with my social justice choir on Saturday for our concert.

Speaking of which, I had a rehearsal with them last night--that's why I was tired. I feel like in the few months since my semester ended that I've forgotten how to be around other people who I don't know well, and my social anxiety has been acting up again. Still, I think that I did pretty well overall, and I'm trying to give myself props for just showing up. Most of the other members have degrees in music, which can feel pretty intimidating because I can't even read music and don't even know anyone nearby who can. I always have a good time with them, though! There are many openly queer folks in the choir, and it makes me happy to be surrounded by all these beautiful queer people and allies living their best lives.

I also finished watching Good Omens yesterday, and I fully intend to make a separate post about that with all the spoilers. For now, my short, non-spoilery reaction is that I loved it!

So much for posting more consistently. I'm posting this so I can get back into the habit and because I tend to get easily distracted. I have been reading and commenting here, though.

- Post about the fic that I've been reading. Yes, I've actually been reading fic again!
- Get caught up with sunshine_challenge.
- Finish reading the chapter of that fic I was in the middle of.

On a positive note, I have been meeting my exercise goals pretty consistently on most days and coping with the summer heat pretty well.

I realize now how seemingly ominous it is to post about getting Covid and then stop posting for a year. Even if my last post was about getting better, anything could have happened. The good news is that we all survived Covid, but...

( CW for death, Covid, and mental health )

I'm much better now, but it was a real struggle getting through last year. I stopped doing a lot of things (like visiting DW), but that wasn't good for me in the long run. I'm back because I missed this place and am unhappy about what is going on with Twitter and Reddit these days. At any rate, I am glad to be back and will have a happier post soon because some good things did actually happen to me since my last post, but I want to save them for their own entry.

What did I miss?

My mom has Covid. She's a few days shy of 65, but she is vaccinated and boosted. She will probably be okay, but my grandma and I have also been exposed now. My birthday is on Monday next week; this is the worst birthday gift I've ever received!

In other news, I did sign up for getyourwordsout. Anyone else? Wish me luck!

I realize there is a bit of mood whiplash between these two announcements, but I wasn't sure how else to put it and wanted to end on a lighter note.

Well, I enrolled in my fall classes yesterday. I also finished the assignment that I was working on over the weekend. I wanted to have it done on Saturday, but oh well, I'm getting work done at least. I was going to start my next assignment today, but I slept poorly the last two days and had to get up early for my very first Zoom meeting, so I thought I'd take a break today. My deadlines are bearing down on me, though. I think I have a little over a month to get everything done, but my brain is panicking about getting it all finished in time. I know it's probably just the anxiety talking because I should be able to get it done early.

My family is currently driving me crazy. Let's just say that they're getting into some wild conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and pushing a nutritional supplement that the president allegedly takes. They're mostly fine, but self-isolating with them could be better. I miss my classes and going out in general. I really need to start working on a plan for moving out after I finish grad school.

I'm just popping in to say that I'm still here, and I've managed to avoid Covid-19 thus far. I'm really glad that I did not enroll in in-person classes this semester, but I am doing some independent work that definitely has a deadline. I'm struggling to work from home and stay focused. Fortunately, I am making progress today even if it isn't as much as I had hoped. I'm not as far along as I would like because I was sick for most of February and my mental health has been crappy. Overall, I'm doing much better than last year, but I know 2020 is a harder year for the world, and I am not immune to the weight of collective anxiety.

I was doing pretty good at first, but the situation really hit me sometime last week. I have been taking this threat seriously since Disneyland announced they would close after Friday the 13th, but the severity of how our world has changed took a while to sink in. There is so much suffering and fear going around. Everything I wanted to do to distract myself from my normal existential dread has been canceled or postponed--which is a small price to pay to keep everyone safe but still disappointing. So, I have turned to the Internet to stay connected, and that's why I'm here again.

Well, that other entry, as so often happens, did not come to fruition. -_-; The title of this post is brought to you by the song of the same name by Joseph Fink, which was used as the weather in an episode of Welcome to Night Vale. The song sounds a little nicer than my actual morning, though. This is from one of the earlier episodes, but I've continued to listen to WTNV faithfully even after the fervor died down a few years ago. Mostly, it has been out of habit and love of the world, but some of the recent episodes have been surprisingly great. The second novel, It Devours, is one of my favorite things to come out in the last few years out of anything.

But that's enough about older fandoms that are past their expiration date. Back to reality, boo.

I have reached the halfway mark in my final semester as an undergraduate. Come December, I will be done with my undergraduate career forever. Graduate school will probably come next, but the point is that I'm done with this chapter of my life finally.

As for more immediate concerns, I should probably be doing other things right now. I have to write 600 words about the partition of India like I know what I'm talking about in my post-colonial lit class. I have to catch up on my responses to the short stories and poems from my creative writing classes. I've been trying to keep up, but I'm always so exhausted when I come home from school, and I can't seem to accomplish very much in the mornings before I leave. Finally, I have to pretend that I know what I'm talking about on my American poetry midterm this Wednesday. It'll probably be fine, but I feel pretty scattered and disorganized.

My poetry has been extremely well-received this semester. It has gone even better than I had hoped. I've only taken one poetry creative writing class before, but it feels like something in my mind has just clicked. I feel like I am flourishing creatively. Yet, none of this creative flourishing has found its way into my fannish life. I would really like to participate in Yuletide for once, but my time management skills say no. I hope I can try to squeeze in a treat or two, but again, my time management skills and finals may work against me.

I've been trying to have some fun this semester without overloading myself. It's so hard to strike a happy medium, though. On Friday, I went to Downtown Disney for a break. As it just so happens, I ate at the new Salt and Straw location on opening day, and I didn't even realize it until afterwards. The store was absolutely swamped, though, so that should have been a clue. I got one of their Halloween flavors called Creepy Crawly Critters, which actually contained real bugs unless my reading comprehension skills are totally worthless. When I was in the store, I thought that "real bugs" was just a joke, but based on their other flavors, it wasn't. So, I had real chocolate-covered crickets and mealworms in my matcha green tea ice cream. I also had a chicken tamale at Tortilla Jo's and a flor de Jamaica agua fresca, which I loved. *_* I'm currently
obsessed with that flavor and anything hibiscus. Downtown Disney isn't quite as fun now that it has all the security and increased prices for the parking lot, but I was happy to be there before the rain hit. I feel like I should be madder at the Walt Disney Company than I actually am.

Yesterday, I went to the grand opening of the Tokyo Central store in Yorba Linda. I've been meaning to go for aaages but never found the time. We ate from the buffet, and I had yakisoba for the first time. It's really good! ^_^

This morning, I woke up and turned my TV on to find a showing of Toy Story on Disney XD. I knew it was on yesterday, but I didn't realize that they'd be showing it again. This movie came out when I was in elementary school, so it is hugely nostalgic for me. I think that I love it even more as an adult, but that's Pixar for you. Toy Story 2 is on now, which I don't think I've ever watched in its entirety. I know I watched part of it on a bus ride during my school trip to Washington D.C., and I've caught bits and pieces when it has been on TV.

I'm behind on the new season of The Good Place, but I've watched the first episode of the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who. I really like her, and I'm happy to see the Doctor as a woman. I have a tendency to think of the Doctor as more male, but I really like the idea of Time Lords changing biological sex and/or gender. It jus makes sense. Watching Doctor Who again makes me want to catch up on the episodes with the Twelfth Doctor that I've missed because I really enjoyed Capaldi. I still have older seasons with David Tennant and Matt Smith to catch up on, though. It just reminded me of how much I love the show's mythos and concept.

Anyway, I was feeling a little depressed before I wrote this, but I guess I just wrote my way out. :3

I also just read Anne Rice's latest Vampire Chronicles book, Blood Communion, because hey, why not? It was short, but it felt like a return to form in many ways. Needless to say, I quite enjoyed it because it wasn't as out there as the one about Atlantis. There were some good parts, and the new characters didn't annoy me that much. However, ( A little bit spoilery ) I may have more to say later.

I had a hell of a time getting this entry to post correctly, so I'm just posting it now even though I wrote it this morning. I'm trying to clean up the typos right now because they make me self-conscious, but I will probably miss some.

Last week, I went on a "date" with an English major who doesn't like to read for fun.

WTF?

I don't know what's the weirdest part of that sentence: that I actually went on a date or that he's an English literature major who doesn't read for fun. Obviously, this is a topic that warrants more discussion, but for now, I'll leave you with this thought as a brief peak into the utter wasteland that is my love life. Until then, I'm going to crawl back into the imaginary world that I've created for myself.

I've been really tired today, and I haven't really done anything all day. I started out by organizing and messing around with my Spotify playlists. There are a lot of good albums that I never listen to, so I have started dumping the albums that I remember liking into playlists separated by decades. Depending on how many albums I can recall, these playlists could end up being massive. This is still better than my old organizational system, which is basically nonexistent. I will probably try to make some genre playlists, but that will have to wait. I'm not sure if I should put Broadway cast recordings in the individual decade playlists or put them into one giant, all-consuming Broadway playlist. I'm leaning toward the latter because of the amount of tracks on albums and the fact that revivals can feature music from decades earlier than when they were recorded.

Organizing music on Spotify is a big thing for me because I own very little music myself. When I was growing up, I bought almost no music aside from anime CDs. I listened to Japanese music almost exclusively until I was about 15, except for when I was listening to the radio in the car. By the time that I started listening to English music more often, I had already discovered the joys of music piracy and downloading. I built up and lost my mp3 collection several times over because I never backed anything up. Eventually, I stopped downloading mp3s and switched to streaming via... Last.fm in 2006, I think? Now that I think of it, I think I started listening to Yahoo's Launchcast personalized radio first... does anyone remember that? I always thought I would re-download my old collection from iTunes, but based on the volume of music that I had listened to over the years as well as my changing tastes, I never did. So, basically, I'm trying to get together all the new and old music that I've ever loved and can still enjoy in one place.

Anyway, I got really tired after that. I blame it on waking up several times during the night and having a dream about turning into an evil witch with my best friend from elementary school. I don't know where exactly that came from, but it felt pretty vivid at the time. I have taken to listening to audio books and podcasts while I'm trying to fall asleep, and I frequently fall asleep with them still playing. I was listening to the Welcome to Night Vale novel last night, so maybe that is to blame.

The only other thing that I can blame for being exhausted today is that I have been active more often than usual in the past two weeks. It all started with Portland. The week before last, I was in Portland for a few days. That involved a lot of walking and getting lost on public transportation. I walked 4+ miles each day, and I was able to eat at a cool British pub called The Raven and the Rose, so I was pretty happy.

On Thursday of last week, I went to Catalina for my grandma's birthday because they offer free boat trips to the island for people celebrating their birthdays as well as one guest. It felt like I spent most of my time riding around on the back of a golf cart and listening to music, but I did end up walking 3.3 miles. I also bought a unicorn necklace because I am clearly an eleven year old girl on the inside. XD; Altogether, it was a good day, and I spent the ride home out on deck to experience the wind and sea spray while staring at the sea and darkening sky. It has been so long since I've been out to sea like that, so I regret nothing.

On Friday, I stayed home for most of the day, but I went to Fullerton in the evening to get coffee at the Night Owl. Then, I found out that my aunt was making tacos, so we went over there for dinner.

On Saturday, I went back to Fullerton to try a pizza place called Fuoco. It was good but way more authentic than I am used to. Then, I went to the Tranquil Tea Lounge where I ordered a white tea and mochi ice cream. It was the first time I had mochi ice cream before, and I loved it. Overall, I walked 1.5 miles that day.

On Sunday, I went to Torrance with my family to visit an old neighbor of theirs. I used it as an excuse to stop by Mitsuwa for the first time. I did not realize that that place was so big! I wish I had more time to spend there, but I did get some snacks as well as a discounted tea set. I want to visit the one in Costa Mesa since it is about the same distance as the one in Torrance. Overall, I walked 1.3 miles that day.

So, it's probably not the walking that has made me tired because I've actually felt better on days that I've walked more. I'm guessing that it is the social interaction and maybe just being out. I think that this is the same thing that makes me feel so exhausted during the semester because I can be out for only a few hours and feel drained. That is why it is so hard to balance my classes with anything else. I don't interact with people a lot, but just being there can make me feel self-conscious and nervous... it is not fun. It is worst at the beginning of the semester, especially if I don't know the professor. Usually, it gets better after a month or so, but I still carry a lot of stress and tension with me which can be very draining.

Last but not least, I did not start my new writing goals because I have felt tired and distracted. I decided that I should get started on a day when I actually feel good, but maybe that's just an excuse. It's so hard to start things and find motivation.

I stalled out on the snowflake_challenge last week, but I have every intention of seeing it through again this year. I don't like doing multiple days under cuts in one big entry, so I will probably continue to do them in individual posts and won't try to catch up before it's over. I probably won't post more than two entries per day, so there's no need to worry about spamming, either.

In the absence of posting, I haven't exactly been idle. ( Theme park blather )

Then, I woke up the next morning and realized that the deadline for chocolateboxcomm was that Saturday. Since that was my one successful exchange last year, I didn't want to break with something that could soon become a tradition, so I panicked and threw together a sign-up at the last minute. I... probably requested too many different pairings and fandoms for my own good, but it's just so fun anticipating what random surprises I might receive. Of course, it was a pain to scramble to throw together a letter for all those pairings in such short notice, but I did it and sincerely hope it doesn't suck.

I got my assignment on Monday. I'm both excited and nervous about it because I want to produce something good. I was already planning on treating my recipient before I got the assignment, so I already have an idea and have written some of it out. The trouble is pulling it all together and making it into something that lives up to the expectations in my head. I think canon review will help because I feel uncertain about writing for this fandom and want to get the characters just right.

During all of this excitement, I've been trying to keep up with my reading and writing goals for the year. I still have some comments that I need to reply to as well. I also started binging the podcast Wolf 359 last week, so I should make a post on that soon or whenever I'm caught up.