Twists

This week was a bit of a mixed bag but the good news is that I am off on Monday. The first holiday since January! I'm looking forward to the long weekend to restore. Here is a bit of a summary of my week in bullet points (of course haha):

• My daughter's last day of school was last Wednesday, which is awesome for a few reasons. First, she passed the first grade! I'm really proud of her and so happy her teachers were so supportive to her. Second, I'll be able to have a little extra time in the mornings before work which I hope can help me recharge. I usually juggle a lot in the AM before waking up my family so indulging more in my hobbies will hopefully be restorative.

• Gratitude. I hear cicadas in the evenings now. Has something tiny and silly made you so happy that your heart feels like it will burst? I feel the joy of hearing cicadas in real life is that for me. Also, I bought a temporary screen to install on my kitchen door to keep it open as long as I wanted without worrying about bugs or birds sneaking inside the house!

• Energy levels. I had a rough patch on Wednesday where I think I let stress get the best of me. Probably a mix of anxiety and heavy masking for meetings and the frustration of one meeting in particular. I ended up sleeping it off because I couldn't stay awake. Shut downs are frustrating! But I think it helped a bit. I feel calmer.

• This week I helped an old colleague by doing a portfolio review for her. It felt great to help a friend and I was honored because I always have looked up to her work!

• Books. I read one called When I'm Dead by Hannah Morrissey. It was not my favorite ngl. There were a lot of incongruous things and it was a bit cliché (like the author has to emphasize continuously how much of an inescapable hell hole the town is but the main characters are upper-middle-class O_o). That one will be donated as part of Project Shelf Control. Yesterday I started a slim Japanese novella called Slow Boat. It's good so far! I've also been faithfully doing the Dracula Daily entries, yay!

• Music. YouTube played me a performance by the first K-pop group I listened to (B2ST/Highlight in 2014) and it made me feel so nostalgic! Their live vocals were also impressive. Also fun (it's Friday, darn it), is How Sweet by NewJeans (Bubble Gum by them is pure City Pop goodness, and finally on Spotify ^_^)

• Favorite conversation of the week. My friend and I had an epic discussion about... our favorite cliche plot twists! Here are a few we brought up (capitalization intentional :p). I recently read a book with 3 of them, because, why not??

  • NARRATOR IS A GHOST

  • THE MURDER VICTIM IS STILL ALIVE

  • NARRATOR IS DRUNK ALL THE TIME AND NO ONE BELIEVES HER

  • IN REALITY, THE NARRATOR IS IN AN ASYLUM THE WHOLE TIME

  • GRANDMA IS REALLY THE MOM

  • THE KID IS THE MURDERER BECAUSE SHOCK VALUE

• Plans. None! I do hope to watch a Studio Ghibli film this weekend. I made ChatGPT rank their movies from most to least cozy so I can watch the squishiest, most relaxing movie possible :p