June Wrap Up + A Day in the Life #37

Soo....I maaaay have been a bit overconfident about blogging/reading more regularly?  Although, in my defense, it's not so much a slump as a holy-crap-are-you-really-working-like-80-hour-weeks?  I'm exhausted guys.  I'M TOO TIRED TO READ.  I'm not sure I believed that could happen. I've been that busy music/school-wise when you actually count the hours up, but even the week before my recital I was staying up til 2 am to cram in some reading!  You know when I consider getting through one of the 8 year old's Disney Fairy books a victory (they are admittedly absolutely delightful and much better quality than I was actually expecting) that things are getting rough haha.  I'm a little over halfway through the audiobook of A Storm of Swords and it's making my head hurt.  I am the QUEEN of giant involved story lines with giant casts!  The Queen I say!  ...but even I can't stand up to the might that is ten narrators spread all over a planet.  I'm actually going to have to study a map of Westeros etc. because I just cannot figure out where anyone is!  It's so confusing!  I feel like I'm the only book blogger who doesn't have a map obsession, but I just don't.  I never look at the maps.  It comes from my complete inability to comprehend how things work in 3-D.  Don't ask, I can't possibly explain.  Needless to say it involves a lot of getting lost.  Anyway, the point is that it's not conducive for an overloaded brain.  But it is good for long road trips and I'll be going on another one soon, so I guess I'll keep plodding through.  At 39 discs, I'm clearly not in any danger of finishing this bloody book anytime soon.  (I considered returning it and coming back to it later, but if I'm having a hard time remembering a storyline after returning to it after 9 OTHER NARRATORS' STORIES, then there's no way in hell I'm going to remember anything that's happened given time and space.)

Holy cow so many things have happened since my last post! (Also holy cow like my last three posts have been wrap-up posts...I MUST FIX THIS.) 

1. I got the barrista/bakery job I'd been wanting!  YAY COFFEE AND PASTRIES FOREVER!!  One of the days I work is a twelve hour shift though and I think it is slowly killing me. Starting at my feet and working up.  But it's great - this place is serious about its coffee and the clientele has been really nice and I like the people I work with.  And of course I get to take home like $60 cakes at the end of the day and have an unlimited supply of coffee while I work.  I seriously haven't gone grocery shopping in like the whole month of June.  It's great!

2. I bought A LOT of books.  A lot. Like seriously, it's like I took the past year's worth of not buying books and went crazy.  This is what happens when you let yourself start with just one itty-bitty thing!  It led to a meltdown about my already out of control book selection.  When you can't fit books into your nine shelves and two suitcases, you know it's time.  So I've been clearing them out to sell/donate/give to the kids.  And of course I decided that meant it was the perfect time to catalog my books as well. It's been utter chaos.

3. I took Sejoon on his first camping trip!  It was his birthday present to me!  (Well not just his presence, he paid for the trip pretty much)  Aaaaand mission accomplished!  He's hooked.  We went to Assateague Island and he wants to make it a yearly thing and is down for camping whenever we both have time (which admittedly probably won't be often. Although I'm probably going to do a night of camping when I leave for my road trip).

 (That's Sejoon's impression of a walrus btw, not how far he can put sticks up his nose)

I have pretty much exclusively gone camping on the west coast for the past 6 years, and therefore haven't used my tent I have here. Fun fact: It is not enough to check that you've got all the parts to your tent and that the poles are broken, apparently when it's been that long (on a tent that's....I honestly don't know how old it is) you have to check for HOLES IN THE TENT.  Yup. I had two giant holes where the "skylights" used to be and OF COURSE it rained the second night haha.  Luckily I had a spare garbage bag, a bag made out of tarp, and am handy with some duct tape so we were (mostly) dry.   Sejoon also got his first taste of s'mores and I don't think I've ever seen someone so excited about s'mores in my life.  And I went camping with my cousins when they were tiny kids haha!  He seriously would start pestering me at like 4 in the afternoon if it was too early to make them hahahaha!  It was adorable, and it's good to be excited about things :) (Personally, I just like toasting marshmallows. S'mores get too messy and too sweet for me)

There's a bay and ocean area so we went swimming (or rather Sejoon did...I guess I forgot how far north we are - it felt like winter time Pacific Ocean!!) and kayaking and you can find these little hidden pockets of beaches which was a lot of fun.  Sejoon and I are rereading the Harry Potter series (or in his case reading the second half of it for the first time) so we did a lot of that while we were there too.  There's also wild horses on Assateague Island which is both awesome...and not awesome.  There maaaay have been a moment when they came up to the table where I was cooking oatmeal looking to mooch some food.  And you know, you really forget how big horses are til your trapped against your table by one.  There was a herd of about five of them in our campsite so I squeezed out of the table area and had the brilliant idea to clap at them to make them leave.  Well, I successfully startled them...but forgot a very, very important detail.  When you startle animals into running....they run straight.  So you should probably...not be standing directly in front of them.  I definitely thought I was going to die by horse stampede there for a hot second haha!  In any case, Operation: Convince Sejoon He Loves Camping was a great success.  And it was my very first time going camping without my family! (Aka having other people do all the cooking)  So all in all it was a very exciting and satisfying birthday :D

Best Novel

I am completely unsurprised at this turn of events haha.  I knew pretty much immediately that this book was going on my favourite books of all time list (now you know at least one book on my next TTT!).  If you are a feminist even slightly, you should read this.  (And by the actual definition of feminist - you believe in equal rights for all genders)  If you enjoy satire, you should read this.  If you liked Going Bovine, you should read this. (Although I'm pretty sure more people have read Beauty Queens than Going Bovine, but still). If you like funny/wacky survivalist/government conspiracy stories, you should read this.  Just go read this!

Best Picture Book

Red: A Crayon's Story is about a crayon who is trying to be what he isn't (he's a blue crayon in a red crayon's cover).  It's the perfect framework for any subject, from LGBTQA discussions to simply not being good at something that's out of your control.  It was cute and clear and the five year old just loved reading another book about crayons haha

So...I may have gone on more than just a book buying spree....I've been wanting this Taylor Swift album FOREVER and it was my birthday month..so I bought it...and her Red album.... NO REGRETS.  And this music video may just be my new favourite music video EVER (And with my Korean music videos there is some pretty stiff competition)

I'm not going to lie, my bloglovin feed is terrifying right now.  You know that too tired to read I mentioned? Yeah that applies to  reading blogposts. I did my best to weed posts out while at work but..I currently have 568 unread posts.  Yup.  And that's after bloglovin cleared out like two weeks of unread posts because they were over three weeks ago haha.  So I'm going to have a pretty short round up list this week because my reaction anytime I've gone to read things on bloglovin has been this:

Bookish Discussions

We Need Diverse Books Talks True, Political, Global Diversity in Sci-Fi and Fantasy - Featuring Daniel Jose Older, Joe Monti, Kameron Hurley, Ken Liu, and Nnedi Okafor
Mitchii on me, my emotions, & these fictional characters.
Nafiza muses on why we read.
Janet shares a heartwarming story about reluctant readers and Harry Potter.
Jamie talks about the sentimental value of books.


Specific Books and Authors

Hogwarts Hops The Pond: Rowling Reveals U.S. Version Of Wizards' School - Appropriate level of flailing ensued after reading this.

Sam interviewed Jennifer Mathieu about her new book Devoted, which tackles the consequences of growing up in a Duggar-esque family.

Nonbookish Stuff

Zack thinks women are not defined by size and talks about positive representations of plus-size women in media.

Heather wishes people knew these things about food allergies.
Josephine asks why Indonesia demand female military recruits be virgins? (Thanks to Heather for this one!)

I leave you with these: