New book posts:
Just one post this time. I’m trying to manage my health & catching up to this semester’s workload … seeing as I’m 1/4 into the semester and was so behind bc of reasons outside my control, but I’m truly starting to catch up with my readings & weekly sheets of problems to work through.
Other books I’ve been reading:
One goal this year is to spend less money on books by using the library a lot more. I’ve figured out how to “order” books to my local one now and also which one’s they have semi-regularly in stock, so I just got the Heartstopper vol. 2 & 3 by Alice Oseman and I’m so excited, having just begun to read them.
Added to TBR:
- This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang (young adult): I truly can’t remember how this book got on my radar, it’s baffling, it just suddenly was on my TBR and I’ve lost all thoughts around why
- The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami (magical realism): I’d never heard about this Murakami book before, seems promising.
- The Legend of Korra Turf Wars Part One (graphic novel, lgbt f/f): from the creators of the Avatar Last Airbender spin-off about Korra, this continues where the animated tv series stops and hopefully will motivate me to actually finish the tv series.
- Astrobiology: A Very Short Introduction by David C. Catling: I also am on physics/stem tiktok and someone recommended the oxford’s very short introduction series to people who want to get into something and Astrobiology is definitely one of those things I would really really want to know more about. It’s also like 160 pages.
- Kant: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton. I’m forced to take philosophy (science-related) as an obligatory class next semester and hopefully over the christmas I can read myself up, so I can actually focus on something else instead. I like diving into philosophy ocassionally, but not this “obligatory” aspect.
- Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace by Ronald J. Deibert (nonfiction about tech and safety): either Edward Snowden recommended this book or I found it while reasearching more around one of the themes he talks about.
Three things on my mind:
- We’re all struggling in this mid-corona university daily life, even though my friends in other cities are struggling with a lot more cases. Fortunately my city have barely any at the moment, meaning we’re starting to find an altered normal to get back to. But Thursday was a strange day. So many things went wrong this day that you’re just going to have to take my word for it, but let me explain that until dinner time I had been on campus for the first time in a while getting nothing done because anxiety, taken three annoying calls, half-hour bike ride to an important appointment that got cancelled, was nearly blown off the road with the bike as a storm was passing nearby, got lost on the small roads trying to get home through an unfamiliar, safer way. Oh, I forgot the part where a half-naked very nice man opened his curtains to find me tearing up my fingers trying to remove a baggage strap from my gears as I was running late and lending me his scissors. And then we’re back to the truly interesting part where three roommates found an unopened, old, 200 kg safe being given away and decided to get it. I sat there, truly exhausted and cold, as they discussed it. I had yet to eat anything but a piece of cake because I was supposed to have gotten home a long time ago. Still, I quickly grabbed something to eat and joined several long walks as it’s not every day old & new roommates bond together to get equipment to carry that safe up a staircase and home, through multiple busy roads. It got opened over the weekend, it wasn’t an easy task. It was empty in the end, but the adventure felt worth it. I love living where I do, a year later it is as exciting as ever, even if we also had a frying pan thrown against our very sturdy door yesterday. I’m suspecting the floor above us, and that we have to prepare for a more long-running war. We might have showed up at their door last week investigating the loud noises that had been increasing tenfold lately.
- I’m finally committing to actually read the books of my small uni book club now that we’re not spending way too much time on Lolita, meaning I have to re-read “The Trial” by Kafka and read “Dune” by Frank Herbert. Yeah, I know I already should’ve read Dune as the fantasy geek that occassionally goes into sci-fi territory that I am.
- I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. Go buy an more expensive or interesting coffee type than usual and watch the autumn leaves fall like raindrops from the trees if the wind is blowing. It is what I did today, as my hospital visits won’t get less stressful in the near future and I need to decompress afterwards. It’s gotten so difficult to divide what is free time and not as a student during corona, especially if you like me have hospital appoinments (or equivalent) randomly during the day that keep you from having a schedule that looks anything similar every week. I do need to learn to see this type of activity as of the same value (because it’s actually more valuable) as studying or schoolwork, especially as it’s more taxing. It truly isn’t that easy to be kind to oneself.
aquapages 