What These Weeks •• Jan 15-28, 2023

Last week ended up being so busy before Lunar New Year that I didn’t have the time or mental energy to write the blog posts I wanted, including last week’s What This Week.

But this week is much easier and shorter as the long weekend took up Monday and Tuesday. Less work, less running around, and a lot of rain happening.

📚 what i’m reading ~

After I DNFed The Marriage Act earlier this month, I took a few days off reading because my brain was so consumed with trying to get articles done for work. Over the second  weekend of January, I started A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin, which is partially for work and partially because I’ve been wanting to read it for ages.

Did I use work as the excuse to buy the special Barnes & Noble box set during Black Friday? Absolutely. But I really enjoyed the story and that’s what matters. It was great to sit down with a cup of tea while reading about magical tea brewing.

After finishing that, I started The Illuminated by Anindita Ghose, a literary fiction novel about identity and women and two generations within a family. I’ve begun to realize that I find generational stories interesting, perhaps because there’s a lot to be learned. Within my own family, there are distinctive stories and traits that come out of each generation, and I think that’s another reason why these kinds of stories appeal to me.

I’ve done a little bit of catching up with some of the WebToons I’ve neglected, but I’m still behind on a few series. I did, however, go through my list of subscriptions and remove notifications for the one I’m not actively following at the moment. At least that makes it less overwhelming when the app tells me I have new episodes to read.

I do need to hurry up and finish another book this month to stay slightly on top of my TBR before February begins and I have to fit in an 800 page book.

📺 what i’m watching ~

Hell’s Kitchen has been on when I’m eating or when I’m too brain-dead to read. Something about eating takeout while watching chefs get stressed about cooking is surprisingly therapeutic even though I could never survive in that kind of environment. I thrive under pressure but not Gordan Ramsey yelling at me.

Over LNY weekend, I started Bonding on a whim. It’s a really short Netflix show that unfortunately was canceled after two seasons, but I thought it was quite nice to have on in the background while I was cleaning my room and taking Bookstagram photos.

The show explores the world of BDSM through the lives of a mistress and an aspiring stand up comic. It’s raunchy and inappropriate but also quite funny and lighthearted at times. Each episode is between 17-22 minutes so I flew through the whole thing in one afternoon. While I like Season 1 a lot more, I did enjoy what the second season set up and wish that it had been given a third season to wrap up some of the storylines they were starting to explore.

After that, I started a Polish Netflix show, Sexify, about three college students working together to develop an app that helps women orgasm more often, whether by themselves or with partners. I’m not really sure if I’m invested in the show after the first few episodes as I think I can tell where most of the plotlines are going. Also the trailer for Season 2 kind of spoiled something big at the end of Season 1 so I think I can safely say that what I think will happen did end up happening.

🎵 what i’m listening to ~

I’ve been falling asleep to Buried Bones, the podcast by Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes. There’s something really nice about listening to professionals discuss true crime. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when the podcasters are normal people like me, but professionals add a layer of polish and depth that I really enjoy.

I’m almost caught up which means that I’ll have to switch back to other podcasts once I’m done, but it’s safe to say that this is a new favorite and one I’d easily recommend to true crime fans.

While reading the end of A Magic Steeped in Poison, I put on an old lofi playlist I used to listen to. Now that I’m thinking about it, I think I put on the one I used to work to rather than the reading one I followed for awhile.

Anyway, the point is that I forgot how much lofi music can help me focus and not get distracted by my phone. I think that in some ways, it also speeds up my reading a bit? I’d like to continue doing that while I’m reading and hopefully it’ll cut down on the number of times I reach for my phone.

👩🏻 what i’m looking forward to ~ 

Since it’s a short weekend, I’m looking forward to the weekend already being here. As of this going up, I’m at a show about trilingualism and hopefully enjoying it a lot.

Generally speaking, I’m looking forward to the less hectic schedule in February. Now that all the art festivals are reaching their tail end or already over, it means less running around turning in articles left, right, and center.

I’d like to actually take some time over the weekend to play video games, seeing as I didn’t end up doing that over the Lunar New Year weekend. Either Bear & Breakfast or Don’t Starve Together because I’ve been missing the trials of surviving hounds and bees.

I’m also looking forward to filling out my reading journal a bit. Now that it’s finally fully set up for the year, I can start filling in some of my annual spreads and notes. The nice thing about kind of falling off from using it last year is that I have plenty of room in the same journal for this year as well. Really saves me space and money.

If I can finish The Illuminated over the weekend, which I hope I can because I’d like a bit of time to write the review for work, then I’ll try to squeeze in a mystery at the end of the month as a little palate cleanser before starting on next month’s TBR. While I can’t really say I’m looking forward to next month’s TBR because of the amount of romance I have on it, there are two mysteries that I’m excited to read.

So that’s it! Two weeks smushed together and this is still late. Hell’s Kitchen is distracting and I’m working on my self-discipline to get posts up when I say I will.