february

[halfcactus]

Trying to take stock of small accomplishments because it feels like I did nothing all month, other than to sink in despondent thoughts and wishes while battling a weirdly long but mild spell of fatigue. Idk if it was back-to-back hormonal issues, or my increasingly irregular sleeping habits (exacerbated by waves of anxiety), but today I feel awake and "normal" for the first time since... January probably. I didn't really do anything special, but I'd like to take credit for that anyway. XD

1) Finally bought a wifi adapter

My computer's been acting up since last year, enough to necessitate restoring from an older backup, but it's sort of been trucking along with nothing more serious than an extremely temperamental wifi connection. Or it was, until the wifi connectivity just straight up give up on life 2 weeks ago lmfao. So I ordered an external wifi adapter, which solved my connectivity issues.

The bad news is that
1) airdrop still causes my computer to crash
2) I'm presently trying to upgrade my OS to High Sierra in case it's an outdated OS issue? And panicking because the progress bar hasn't budged in 3 hours, and the stress/uncertainty is going to keep me up at night. /o\

(I'm typing this on a borrowed laptop, which I want to return soon. I started Disco Elysium on it but I'm just not comfortable gaming on a borrowed laptop, especially since running the game makes it heat up alarmingly.)

Edit: Successfully updated, with no visible consequences on my PS/AI yet.

2) Customized my Music app

(Inspired by presumenothing's Zhou Shen update GIFs hahaha)

I signed up for an Apple Music trial subscription and am considering sticking with it--being able to search songs through lyrics is a game-changer since I'm BAD AT REMEMBERING TITLES.

It's just that the native app's interface is... unusable. I hate it. So I paid for a separate app (Marvis Pro) where I could customize everything haha. Possibly overkill but February!me was just so unstimulated and longing for color. And anyway it has last.fm support which is useful for stats (especially since I switch between apps often), though ultimately I will miss Spotify Wrapped's infographics and shareability.

3) Made a ZXC side account

for the sole purpose of making a pinned Twitter moment. Will I update it? Probably not. I still tweet about him on main. XD But putting ZXC content into categories was a satisfying distraction during a night when I felt like I had a head full of bees. I forgot how much I enjoyed The Day of Becoming You until I saw all of my gifs. And then I missed having a computer that was fully functional for me to livetweet an entire show with gifs.

4) Updated my Goodreads

and finally wrote an overdue review for Salty, Bitter, Sweet by Mayra Cuevas. Which, since I never wrote about it here:
This is a coming-of-age YA novel where the main character is flawed, and meant to be, but I found it an unpleasant POV to be in. There was only so much self-absorption and unchecked privilege I could stand.

Overall, this book is too YA for me but it was fine and had some pretty fun relationships outside the romance (which I wasn't into) and was very centered around relationship between food and memory/identity. In some ways I feel that I am too Asian for this book's concept of food? I think the problem is that the protagonist doesn't seem to enjoy food, so apart from Lala's apple pie, the focus is more on the high art of it and not, like, feeding people or eating.

The code-switching was really enjoyable though and the audiobook really brought it to life.


Misc. notes from my personal liveblogs:

- ch 10: other girls are “predictable” and get into makeup but they "can’t make lemon zest whipped cream". the other girls are "ordinary, artificial cool whip". 😬 (she does grow as a character, but this line was very incongruent with her brand/expression of feminism and it really threw me off)

- i have 0 interest in ambition-driven protagonists who have no adaptive/problem-solving skills. how do you expect to succeed at a high-stakes culinary environment when you crumble at a setback? i was hoping for a creative solution when her family took slices out of her crepe cake, but her friends were the one who salvaged it for her.

- i find it interesting that the MC is very fixated in cooking as a fine art but doesn’t seem to enjoy eating? and maybe that’s why she’s not a creative cook. there’s a very personal aspect and technical joy to perfecting a recipe and replicating family recipes. but maybe that’s why the pov is difficult for me to get into, and i wish we could have explored her inability to stray off the path. it’s interesting!

4) Flower-watching

One of my brother's flowers bloomed this week, which was very exciting! So I've been documenting, mostly to uhhh see how long it takes for the flower to die. I thought for sure it was dying yesterday because it was drooping, but I guess it was just missing the sun. Day 4: still alive

Comments

[lassarina]

Lovely flower!

Fingers crossed the OS update is kind to you. I'm still ignoring the newest one because I don't think FFXIV has assured compatibility yet.

[halfcactus]

Thank you! I think I'll eventually have to get my computer checked, but for now it's trucking on. (That new one is definitely way too new to be stable haha)