Archive
Friday Fun! (Exercise and Zombies)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope you all had lovely weeks and are enjoying your Augusts. Remember that scientific studies have proven that you’re more likely to have a bad Friday the 13th if you believe in the curse, so just don’t believe it. ;-)
I’ve had a busy, but fun week. As a way to try to strategize against my anxiety until my doctor’s appointment next month (where I’m hoping to finally get some anti-anxiety meds), I’ve been seriously increasing the amount of physical activity in my week. If I’m exhausted then maybe I’ll be too tired to be anxious, eh? Well, it worked in uni anyway. So I started doing the 30 Day Shred
One of my pepper plants is blooming! But the blooms tend to wither up after one day and die. I have no idea if this means I’ll be getting peppers or not. Are the blooms supposed to whither? Anyone know?
So I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the increasing zombie trend. (If you haven’t heard much about it yet, trust me, you will be). Where is this obsession with a global pandemic coming from? I think maybe, on some level, everyone knows that the way we’re going right now isn’t sustainable. We have too many people using too many resources. A key element of a lot of the zombie lit is that it wipes out the population to a sustainable level, and the survivors are forced to return to the ways of our ancestors–growing their own food, going to sleep when it’s dark out, being physically active, etc… So people clearly know that two of the main issus are overpopulation and over-use of resources, and yet most people do little to nothing about it. What used to be a key element of our survival as a species–the instinct to reproduce as much as possible–is now our downfall. Whereas we used to lose a lot of people in childhood (seriously, as a history major I can tell you, kids were so disposable, some families named all the boys the same name because statistically only one would survive. It was that bad), now you pretty much have a really good shot at living a long, healthy life as long as you live in a western nation. And of course there’s that problem on top of the overpopulation problem. We currently have plenty of resources, but they’re unevenly distributed. I’m not saying there’s something wrong with there being some variance in the levels of comfort, but it’s so incredibly wrong that we have some people with multiple million dollar homes and an entourage they pay for and clothes that cost thousands of dollars while other people are living on the street or in dirt huts or are starving to death. And the thing is, I think everyone knows that the world is fucked up, but we’re tired and we’re beaten down, so we just figure the world is coming to an end, may as well have fun imagining it. My friends and I started talking about whether banding together to fix things was possible or if it’s just too late. One of my friends thinks it’s just too late. I’m inclined to agree with her. I think there’s just too many people who would rather live in happy ignorance than face the facts they know and make drastic changes to fix it. Of course, that’d be a lot easier if so much of the population weren’t debt slaves…., but that’s another rant for another post.
Anyway, so that’s what’s been going on here this week! Lots of physical activity and lots of philosophical discussions, lol. Oh also, I bet you’ve figured out by now that there’ll be a review of a zombie book next week. Those of you who follow me on Twitter already know which one. ;-)
What do you guys think about zombie lit? Where’s the popularity coming from?
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Being in Your 20s)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry for the relatively small number of posts this week, but I do hope you enjoyed them! Things will be back up to snuff next week. I’ll have at least two book reviews plus my very first product review for you all in spite of the fact that I have a rather large homework assignment due next week. Yay!
Last weekend was pleasantly relaxing. I went shopping with one of my friends, primarily for shoes, as I tend to wear through mine like nobody’s business. I blame the large amount of walking that’s necessary when you live in city. I also saw Dinner for Schmucks (definitely worth the ticket price) and had Thai food. Yum, Thai food!
Last night I was hanging out with two of my friends and we got to talking about our experience with being in our 20s so far. We all started our 20s highly idealistic and determined to change the world (samples: hippie tendencies, tv is evil mentality, save the planet, etc…) only to now have fizzled a bit on that. We got out of university and encountered the real world and the real world kind of beat down on our aspirations. Now we don’t want to save the world; we just want to be happy. I’m wondering if the next phase of our 20s will be some sort of moderation between the two: helping the world but striving for personal happiness and improvement simultaneously. That sounds like a happy medium to me, but I guess we’ll see. Anyone currently in their 20s or someone older who wants to reminisce on the experience? I think it’d be interesting to hear.
I hope you all have lovely weekends! Anyone have any special plans?
Friday Fun! (Scott Pilgrim, How I Met Your Mother)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope you all had great weeks and got some time in for reading. To my fellow Scott Pilgrim fans, I hope you got your hands on the final installment already. If not, best get to it before the movie comes out next month, eh? I don’t know if you’re aware, but the movie adaptation of the graphic novels was started before O’Malley had decided how the story was going to end, so the script writers kind of wrote their own ending. O’Malley says he’s happy with the film ending, but I’m curious to see if I will be as well. I was surprisingly happy with the ending of the graphic novel series. Generally I can find something to gripe about at the end of series, but not this time. I’m not sure if the movie can live up to it, but oh the third trailer has me really hopeful.
I was sick the beginning of the week with some sort of stomach thing, so I wound up watching a lot of tv. I started watching How I Met Your Mother and in that sick haze, wound up getting almost all the way through the first four seasons. It’s not a bad show. A few of the episodes are hilarious, such as Slap-Bet. The rest are at least entertaining. I have to admit, though, if I knew the main characters in real life, I would absolutely hate them. That doesn’t make it a bad show, but I doubt that’s the writers’ intention, since they based two of them on themselves. Obviously the womanizing Barney is a character we’re supposed to love to hate, but I don’t think that’s the case with the rest of them. Honestly, they’re all basically those people who just pick on anyone who isn’t exactly like them and apparently have no actual goals in life or morals. It seems like kind of an empty existence for characters who are in their late 20s to early 30s, but oh well. It’s good entertainment, but Friends is still better.
You can tell I spent a substantial portion of the week in bed, as I’m mostly yakking to you about tv shows and movies. Hm….oh! One of my pepper plants appears to finally have buds! I may have blossoms soon! I’m rather stoked.
Are any of you guys Scott Pilgrim fans? How do you feel about the upcoming movie? Any other thoughts on How I Met Your Mother? I hope you all have lovely weekends!
Friday Fun! (Camping and Biking)
Hello my lovely readers! Thank you for being patient with my hiatus last week, and I hope you enjoyed the posts this week.
Last weekend I went camping in Vermont with my friends Nina and E. I love so many things about camping–the fires, the food, the technology free time to talk, sleeping outside, the justification for using a hatchet. We rocked out in the car on the way up, and they also got a chance to meet my family. My brother taught them how to shoot rifles and pistols, and my dad made us dinner one night. They continued on to Canada, and I took a bus back to Boston after visiting a bit more. Unfortunately, the bus was around an hour late, so I wound up arriving at work exhausted the next day.
Yesterday it was finally cool enough to start biking again. My legs only lost a little bit of their strength, so that’s good. My bike fell off its chain for the first time yesterday, and of course I had no idea how simple that is to fix. I spent a few minutes grappling with the chain and getting covered with grease before discovering this lever you can push on to raise and loosen the chain and set it back on. At least I knew enough to put it on the second circle since it was on the second gear. So then I got to arrive on my bus connection covered with grease and got weird looks from the bus driver. It was awesome. I took a risk biking this morning. It’s cool now but is supposed to get up into the low 90s by this evening. We shall see.
Happy weekends, all! How were your weekends? Any good weekend plans?
Friday Fun! (On Thursday!)
Hello my lovely readers! You are getting this week’s Friday Fun a day early because tomorrow’s my birthday, and I took the day off work and will be staying far away from the computer all day! I’m turning 24! I have to say, ever since I turned 20, I just feel like I’m improving with age. Like wine. Only with a lot more work than it takes for wine to get better with age, because let’s face it, they just stick that shit in a cellar somewhere and abandon it, whereas I work damn hard to get better. Anywho.
By some awesomeness two of my best gal pals also have tomorrow off, so I’ll be spending the day with them, getting bubble tea, going to a farmer’s market, and probably hitting up a bookstore too. Of course one of my favorite veg restaurants will also be visited. Because of the fact that my birthday falls on a holiday weekend I tend to get my presents early or late or get informed of what I will be getting. My dad contributed money so I could get my a/c unit, and my brother informed me he’ll be giving me homemade goat cheese he made himself from his own goats. It’s a whole bunch of awesomeness. Also, tonight I’ll be going out to dinner with my third best gal pal (there are three of them), so the celebration is nicely spread out.
I know, you guys do not care this much about my birthday, but I get four days off for it and am EXCITED!! Plus, I freaking love the 4th of July. I mean, one of my majors in uni was US History. Plus! The fireworks! The drinking! The bbq’s! The music! Did I mention the fireworks? The fireworks!!
Ok, that was a ridiculously excited post, but I think that’s warranted if only for the fact that I have a four day weekend. Four. Days. Wheeeeee!
Happy weekends, everyone! What will you be reading? What will you be doing for the 4th? *waves*
Friday Fun! (A/C, Ribbon Cutting, Garden)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope you all are enjoying the long, hot days of summer. I am so grateful that we put in my a/c unit last weekend. It’s been up in the 90s and humid all week, and I would have been pretty miserable sitting in my attic apartment without it, particularly after biking home from work! Besides biking and cooking, I haven’t been doing too terribly much in the hours off of work. Just hanging out and vegging out. Everyone needs a week like that once in a while though, eh?
It’s been an eventful week at work. The intranet that I’ve been working so hard on (along with others from each department in the hospital) was officially launched. Yay! Hopefully this will make everything easier, particularly once our patrons get used to using it. Additionally, ever since I started working here, construction has been going on converting the floor the library is on into an education and research center. My hospital is focusing more in on academics and such. I’m excited about the change, as it means the library is now conveniently located to the Chief Academic Officer, Chief Education Officer, Residency Training, and more. Anyway, this week was the official unveiling and ribbon cutting of the new floor, and people have started moving into their offices already. It’s nice to be on a floor bustling with education instead of construction.
In container gardening news, my pepper plants are growing like weeds (har-har). One tomato plant is still struggling, and the other is going at a fairly normal rate. I did take BookishBella’s advice and fertilize them all. I believe struggling tomato plant grew a tiny bit afterwards, but the pepper plants just shot right up overnight. I’m thinking my kitchen might just be more conducive to peppers than tomatoes. I also planted onions, which seem to be doing alright. Unfortunately, my kitty seems to have an affinity for them, which is super odd as she’s never given any of the other plants a second look. We have to keep stopping her from trying to eat the onion shoots. I’m thinking a few have already been lost to the cause when I wasn’t looking. I do think it’s pretty odd she chose onions of all things to want to nom on.
I’m excited for the weekend, as always. I hope you all have wonderfully relaxing ones!
Friday Fun! (My Dad, Amazon Associate)
Hello my lovely readers! The invasive species removal on the Charles last Sunday was lots of fun! It was overcast, so we weren’t sitting in the direct sun for hours, and the river was so peaceful and beautiful. Removing the water chestnuts wasn’t so hard, but it did give me some splinters and blackened my fingernails, so I wound up with manicured fingernails for once this week to cover it up, haha.
The rest of the week was a bit rough for me. My dad had a triple bypass last year, and when he went in for his annual cardiac check-up they decided to check him in as an in-patient. He had a bit of an angina and other symptoms they were worried about. They put a camera in his leg up through to his heart (a procedure he’s had many times) and checked out his heart. Apparently some of the arteries that used to be completely blocked up now are losing blockage due to the bypass, so they put in stints. After that, they adjusted his meds and warned him he needs to quit his job as it is bad for his heart. He’s now home on short-term disability and trying to figure out if he can get long-term disability or change to a type of job that wouldn’t be bad for his heart. He’s spent his whole life doing machine tooling/carpentry/construction all of which is too stressful for his heart, so it’s unlikely he can find a job that won’t be bad for him. Although it all turned out well, the original phone call from my brother certainly sent me into a panic as we only knew that he’d been checked in, and the last time that happened he wound up getting the triple bypass. Given my mental issues, it takes me a bit to calm down and return to normal functioning after being that level of worried. I’m still a bit off today, but I expect the weekend will smooth the last bit of anxiety over.
In other news, I have a brief blog announcement. After a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to become an Amazon Associate. I waffled on this for a while until I saw that several book bloggers I highly respect are Amazon Associates. Additionally, if a reader decides they want to buy whatever it is I have reviewed, it will be easier for them to do so with one click than by opening another tab and going off to wherever they buy from. My reviewing style will not change beyond adding a link to buy the item. My reviews will stay the honest, cheeky style they’ve always been, and I promise to keep any Amazon links as unobtrusive as possible. I hope you all understand my decision and will still respect me as a blogger.
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (A/C, Rent, Gardening)
Hello my lovely readers! Last weekend saw a heatwave here in Boston that finally convinced me to buy an a/c unit. My brother informed me that the new models use far less electricity than I previously had thought, and my dad offered to contribute some money toward one as an early birthday present, so one was acquired! Of course, the day it arrived was so chilly that I had all my windows shut, lol. We plan on installing it this weekend in preparation for the imminent return of the heat. Long as we can find an electric drill to borrow somewhere.
My lease is up the end of August, so I wound up discussing renewing it with my landlord. He told me he’s probably going to have to raise my rent due to taxes. A friend reminded me that it’s a renter’s market, so that’s a bit odd. However, I also just remembered that he gave me a deal when I first rented it, knocking $50 off the original monthly amount he wanted, so I guess that evens it out? Either way, I really don’t want to move. I haven’t been in one place for more than a year since I was 15 years old (15 through 18 consisting of switching back and forth between parents’ houses), and it would just be nice to have 2010 be The Year Amanda Doesn’t Move Anywhere. Also, with the job hunt and graduation in January, I’m expecting that my entire financial situation will be very different in a few months, so I’d rather wait to move until that happens. Anyway, cross your fingers for me that it doesn’t go up too much and that I’ll overcome my patriarchy-induced tendencies to not advocate for myself in monetary situations!
In container gardening news, one of my tomato plants is getting tall, and I’m wondering when I should stake it. I’m a bit clueless about tomato plants. The other one is kind of failing to thrive. It looks healthy, but it’s still only 3 to 4 inches tall. I added some dirt and watered it, but I don’t know what else to do. Thoughts on that? The good news is, my pepper plants are doing awesome! I may have discovered my gardening niche. I also just planted some onions (yes, in containers). I’m super excited about that, because they’re my favorite veggie! Unfortunately, two very sun-lacking days followed my planting of them, so I’m not sure if that’ll affect the germination. Next up, I need to figure out some way (*cough* some free way *cough*) to raise my long container for spinach so it’s closer to the light. I’m thinking using empty boxes since that’s about all I have laying around.
I have yet to decide exactly what I’ll be doing tonight and Saturday (but I guarantee some reading and some videogaming). Sunday I’ll be doing some invasive species removal on the Charles River. Stoked for that! What will you be doing with your weekends?
Friday Fun! (Biking, Lost, Holiday)
Hello my lovely readers! This week was the first step in hopefully, eventually biking all the way to work every day. However, an attempt on the weekend showed me that I’m not capable yet of making it the 6 miles (one way, so 12 miles round-trip). So, to work my way up to it, I’m biking to my bus connection, which is just about half-way there. It was a bit nerve-wracking being on the road with cars, let me tell you, but today I found myself having a bit more confidence on the road. Plus, I was able to move up a gear on the bike already!
Sunday was the Lost finale (and if you have yet to see it, you are not a true fan and deserve the spoilers), and of course I watched it, including the two hour re-cap. I appreciated the action on The Island, but I was disappointed with the spiritual direction the writers went. I’d been hoping the whole way through the series that we would discover that the mythology being yakked about by the older generation of protectors/evils was just a way to deal with science they had yet to understand. Instead we get handed a glowy light with no scientific explanation and a happy-go-lucky, feel-good after-life. Also, I never got to see Kate die, what the fuck is up with that?! However, I didn’t hate the episode, and I actually found myself almost crying when Vincent came and licked Jack. So the verdict on my end was meh. I didn’t hate it, but it also didn’t ruin the rest of the series for me. I’ll definitely be re-watching the seasons.
This weekend is a 3 day weekend here in the US for Memorial Day, which means I have Monday off. I’m so excited! I hope at least one day is beautiful out so I can go for a bike ride or a row on the Charles and have a picnic. Happy weekends everyone!
Friday Fun! (Sick, Niece, Sweet Curry)
Hello my lovely readers! This week persisted on being just as busy as the last few. I’m hoping to have a chance for some r and r this week, but we shall see.
Monday I was home sick with some sort of a stomach thing, and slept through the movie adaptation of Witches of Eastwick. Although I only saw the first little bit (and flicked in and out via sleep), I can say the book is set in the 1960s and everyone in the movie looked like they were in the 1980s, so that was weird. Also, every time Jack Nicholson tried to act evil, all I could think of was The Shining, so that was distracting.
On Wednesday, a mere week after invasive heart surgery, my niece was discharged from Children’s and sent home. Although I didn’t get to see her on that day, I had seen her earlier in the week, and she was looking quite good. Thanks again to everyone for all your kind thoughts.
Thanks to a librarian friend on twitter, I was able to make the sweet curry recipe from Vive Le Vegan this week. I quickly discovered that my casserole dish apparently only holds 2 servings, not 4, so had to halve the recipe. It’s so insanely good though. I think tomorrow I will put it going in my crockpot before heading out shopping with my friends Nina and E. I get the feeling it’s the sort of dish that becomes more flavorful the longer it cooks.
Are you guys still in the springtime rush or are you already in the summer relaxation?
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