volume 1 | currently

Watching ... Oof, a lot of things that I've started and haven't really finished, like the musical film A Week Away that Netflix released. I watched (part of) it at the hilarious recommendation of Jake Triplett and his roommates, and I gotta say, it captures Christian camp vibes astonishingly well, in spite of and perhaps especially because it's cringy. Also on my current watch list for TV:

Big Sky (Hulu) is based in rural Montana and has been airing weeklyish on ABC and then posting to Hulu early every Wednesday morning. I've been doing my best to keep up with it. I thought the previews looked cool, and there aren't a lot of movies or TV set in the more rural parts of the western U.S., which is where I'm from. I admittedly hate the way the two lead female characters are written, and am still waiting for the day when female characters don't satisfy the two usual tropes (i.e., doormat or pushy know-it-all).

This is Us (Hulu) is excellent at capturing family dynamics. Even though Kevin is often selfish, I identify a lot with his role in the Pearson family, and always end up rooting for him.

Riverdale (Seasons 1-4 on Netflix) is the show that just gets crazier and crazier with every passing episode. Seriously, how do you start season one with the murder of a teenager and end the middle of season five with a possible abduction by aliens? In spite of the progressing insanity, I am somehow hooked. I guess it's called a thirst trap for a reason.

Shadow and Bone (Netflix) reminded me I really needed some more epic fantasy in my life. The show is not what I expected, but I love it, and I'm now fully committed to reading the Grishaverse trilogy. I'm only halfway through the fifth episode and don't have time to sit down and watch the rest for now, but I can't wait for that day.

Jane the Virgin (Netflix) I randomly restarted like three days ago, and I love it just as much as the first time I watched it. There's something really comforting about rewatching one of your favorites.

I finally "recommitted" to watching Arrow (Netflix) in full in January. I ripped through the first five seasons embarrassingly rapidly, then got stuck toward the beginning of season six, when SPOILER Oliver decides to pass on the Arrow mantle to his friend John Diggle (of whom I am not a fan) END OF SPOILER. I have mixed feelings about Arrow because it glorifies toxic relationships, and Oliver usually seems like the only one on the show with any emotional maturity. We'll see if I ever make it all the way through season eight.

I started Ginny and Georgia (Netflix) one night several weeks ago while making dinner, and thus was only sort of paying attention. I think I made it through most of the first episode. First impressions: Ginny is annoying.

I have found WandaVision (Disney+) to be vastly overrated, but I've also grown apart from the MCU since Phase One ended.

The not-very-family-friendly The Great (Hulu) presents a satirical view of Russia during the time of Catherine the Great, and its cynicism and the not-very-family-friendliness often makes me sick, so I've been stuck on episode five for several months and am not sure I'm going to ever finish it.

After three episodes, I did not develop an emotional connection to Schitt's Creek (Netflix), but I do appreciate that the episodes are only twenty minutes, and I should really try it again.

Listening to ... Movie scores and classical music so I can maintain focus on work, and a lot of podcasts. My all-time favorite is the Ghostrunners Podcast with Jake Triplett and Brad Ellis. It's "a comedy podcast about nothing. Like Seinfeld, but less Jewish." Check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You won't regret it for a second.

Weather ... It's springtime in western Oregon, which means an alternation of rain and summery 80-degree days.

Reading ... The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan. My friend Greg got me into the Wheel of Time series, which is a Herculean undertaking into a beautifully constructed world. So far, this book has been the best of the series. I said they require a Herculean effort because each book is approximately the length of The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Eye of the World took me three months to read.

Loving ... Therapy. My first psychotherapist was absolutely the wrong fit for me, and ended up reinforcing a lot of problematic beliefs I had built up for myself. It took me over a year to brave finding another one. I have desperately needed someone to help me deal with thorny family stuff who isn't my older sister (sorry Hallie). Thankfully, I think my new therapist was heaven-sent and is the perfect fit for me.

Questioning ... The structure of graduate programs. This part comes with an admission that is difficult for me to make: I have now failed my linear algebra Ph.D. qualification exam four times. Even more frustratingly, my score is almost always the same, and I never show any improvement. After the last two fails cost me hours of my life spent in tears or cursing myself for my stupidity, I've come to wonder what the point of quals is anyway -- just to figure out who the mentally healthy people are in my graduate program? This article is illuminating if you want to read further on the subject.

Working on ... My master's paper on local and global existence of solutions to an aggregation equation. It’s the biggest math project I’ve ever worked on by far -- only 26 pages at the moment and somewhere close to 6,000 words, but in the next three and a half weeks will probably be in the range of 40-60 pages and 10,000+ words. I’ve been able to delve into some topics of real and functional analysis that are utterly beautiful, as well as understand cutting-edge research in analysis, which is all I’ve ever wanted to do since I learned what analysis was.

Drinking… A medium iced Annihilator from Dutch Bros. It’s my absolute fave.

Writing … Uh, this blog post. I haven’t been so mentally invested in anything in a long time. It’s a good feeling.

Driving to … My hometown tomorrow to celebrate my younger sister’s sixteenth birthday, Mother’s Day, and my nephew’s first birthday. It's around a four-hour drive if I take it easy on the gas pedal and stop a couple times. Four hours is a great length to catch up on a lot of podcast episodes.

Admiring … How much I’ve changed for the better in the last year. Perhaps I haven’t changed much in personality, but I have implemented so many beneficial and responsible routines into my life. I think therapy really helped me with that. So did embracing the anti-diet mentality and setting up a long, relaxing bedtime routine.

Embracing … Going to bed early. This time last year, I was having some of the worst insomnia of my life. It led to me developing bad sleep hygiene, including deciding that the only way I could fall asleep without tossing and turning was to take 3mg of melatonin and watch a TV series until my eyelids were too heavy to watch anymore. This usually led to me turning off my phone at 3am. Now I go to bed before 10pm, fall asleep by 11, and (usually manage to) refuse to bring my phone to my bedroom during sleeping hours.

Overcoming … A lack of boundaries, with people and with myself.

Idea … My book. Idk if anyone reading is an OG follower of any of my blogs (I used to do book reviews and fashion content, way back in the day), but once upon a time I was deep into writing a fantasy epic. Very recently, I started thinking about my book again, after taking off the better part of six years. I am incredibly glad for the time I took away from it. I always had huge dreams for this book, and had the feeling that those dreams were too big for a teenager to adequately express (I was thirteen when I started the first draft, and nearly seventeen when I finally finished it). I'm still worried I don't have the emotional maturity to write something I deeply want to touch people, but having gone through the most difficult three years of my life from 2018-now, I hope I am more well equipped for it. 

Shopping … at Maurice’s. I spent a lot of money there after my third stimulus check came in because, thanks to lockdown weight gain, I needed to replace a lot of stuff in my wardrobe. The good news is that Maurice’s is very friendly to many different sizes.

Cooking … more. 

Wanting … To someday live near my older sister and her precious baby Clara. 

Learning … about me. Since I started therapy, I’ve learned that I have a sensory processing sensitivity and, more importantly, that I almost certainly have the inattentive form of ADHD. It explained a lot of things, including things about my past that I have internally struggled with since I graduated from high school or before. In some ways, the diagnosis makes life and relationships more difficult, because I’m resentful of people that never noticed so much about me and thus inadvertently prevented me from getting the help I could have already gotten. At the same time, having an explanation for why I acted in ways that I always felt so much shame for is incredibly comforting.

Fitness … from YouTube.

Looking forward to … A day when I can experience simple joys and creativity more frequently.

Wearing … High-waisted leggings. Because who came out of lockdown wanting to wear jeans all the time?

Disliking … How annoying incessant phone notifications are, particularly those from whining people.

Making … Time for myself.

Waiting on … The intensity of this term to end so I can enjoy some time to myself and my apartment. It needs a spruce-up.

I deeply struggle with introductions and endings to every blog post, because I sincerely don’t want to commit to posting weekly or even monthly, so it seems like abruptly ending a post without a proper goodbye is easiest. . . .

Ok bye.