spontaneous train ride & a chess obsession | Bi-Weekly Update

New book posts:

• End of Year TBR (2020)
• The Dark Academia Book Tag

Other books I’ve been reading:

• None, because exams coming up. Ah, scratch that, I read the short Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (m/m, fantasy with myhtology & fairytale vibes).

Added to TBR:

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• The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (mystery, thriller, dark academia): a group of old Oxford uni friends (or frenemies), a cabin in the Scottish Highlands & murder
• The Truants by Kate Weinberg (mystery, thriller, dark academia): untrustworthy characters, manipulation, a mysterious star professor
• Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (fantasy, sci-fi, lgbt)

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• Dearly by Margaret Atwood (poetry); it’s a new release and I didn’t realize as suddenly I saw pieces of her poetry all over
• Maurice by E. M. Forster (classics, lgbt; m/m)

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• Harleen by Stjepan Šejić (graphic novel): found it as one of the goodreads award nominees
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (fantays, magical realism, greek mythology): found it as one of the goodreads award nominees

Three things on my mind:

• I might have woken up one thursday morning, opened my eyes and thought “I want to take the seven hour train and bus ride back home, in the middle of studying for exams, and exchange this tiny room in a flat of fifteen to be in the house alone” then did so the next day, but I did not expect the immediate return of stress-baking as a coping mechanism. Or my suitcase-wheels breaking off, meaning I had to drag it through the snow in soaking wet, cold sneakers. Then, on the train I learned my tiny village of 940 people is having it’s first outbreak of corona virus (don’t know how bad yet) and also all the snow made the power go out in the whole village, meaning my dinner was one nice, cold pita with nothing on. Still, I don’t regret the decision one bit (yet), even though my poor body is hurting all over because my joints wasn’t well to begin with because of the newly discovered ~rheumatism~.

• I’ve started procrastinating by watching chess again. I don’t really like to play regular chess myself, only to make the calculations while in-game or just watch the play if it’s rapid or blitz chess as it’s mesmerizing how fast it goes, as well as very apparent when a player realizes they’re in deep trouble. I mean, as a norwegian, of course I have to follow Magnus Carlsen’s play, but he truly is interesting to watch more so because he seem to understand the next move so quickly, no matter the pace of the chess.
• This fake-deep correlation struck me; I’ve started to think of this past semester as a blind chess game, constantly trying to remember all the moves of the people around me for the past ten days and then do the calculation of whether I’m safe enough around them as someone in the corona risk-group.

• Let’s end with some positives; I got the power back in time to play among us for the first time ever, with friends. It was terrifying as a non-gamer. This house has a bathtub that I’m spending too much time in already, procrastinating and trying to return some heat to my body surrounded by this snow. My local store is bringing food to everyone’s door both because of how the elderly shouldn’t have to wander in the heavy snow and because of the corona outbreak, so I used this on the slight chance I could’ve brought corona from the city and I’m so happy they’re making it easier for everyone to isolate themselves. And also enabling the stress-baking. Cheers from me, the wine bottle I left last summer and the bread in the oven. I’m also so excited to hug my mom when she arrives.