UGH

/backdates

( Note to self )

Ffff I'm cranky because haa, starting today like this. And then I got to work and found out that my officemate is sick. Which means she'll probably give it to me. And knowing me, I'll get sick over the weekend. OH JOY. Can you tell how thrilled I am? Absolutely thrilled.

Reading Wednesday

Finished reading: Frogs in the Rain Barrel by Sally Ito. After some of the previous volumes I've read through by other poets, this one was kind of a balm for my mind - while not all of her work clicked with me, Ito's work is close to my taste. It has a simple elegance, a sort of... just-right-ness, with lots of imagery that is vivid but not florid. I like best the works centred around relations, around immigration ("Roots"), also the ones with a strong sense of place - such as "Night in Prospector's Valley", with its lines like so:

it is like a bear,
this darkness -
as if we had bedded in its very fur,
nestling in what we fear most
of this wilderness

Simply lovely. There are others that are good, but not to my taste, not because of the quality but because of the subject - there are quite a few works in this collection that deal with Christian themes, and since I'm not of that religion, nor am I deeply familiar enough with the Bible to appreciate the references from an ancient literature standpoint, those ones aren't really my thing. They're just as well-crafted as the rest, though. So, while I won't be buying this one, I can see myself taking it out from the library again....

Currently reading: Haven't made much headway in Amsterdam: A History, mainly because it's a big fat book and I don't like taking it with me on the transit, which means not much reading has been getting done, heh. Still enjoying it, even if the author's attempts to shoehorn it into a general point are kind of clunky.

Also reading: I haven't had much time to get deep into Chinese Poetry: From Ancient to Contemporary yet, but what I've read so far has been great. Usually it's about 50-50 whether I'll bother reading the preface + introduction in things like this, but considering my unfamiliarity with the subject, I felt it necessary. Rather glad that I took the time to do that - the explanation of the challenges of Ch-Eng translation, and how it applies to poetry in particular, was pretty interesting (and makes me wonder what difficulties there might be for other languages... because I'm pretty sure Hauge would have read the works of Li Po in Norwegian. I wonder what those poems might have looked/felt like...) But aside from that, I've been flipping through the rest of the book when I have a moment or two, and coming across works that I like very much. One in particular, Spring Gazing by Xue Tao, gives me ideas (or inspiration) of the kind that I might have been looking for. ("I pull a blade of grass and tie a heart-shaped knot / to send to the one who understands my music"... Hmm... HMM :D Gee, I wonder.)

Reading next: Probably Ed Riche's Today I Learned It Was You. The summary on the back gives me pause - it... sounds like the kind of book that I would not ordinarily pick up; apparently it's partially a satire about "overzealous rights activists". What I consider "overzealous" is not necessarily what other people would (I fit in fine online, but offline, my views would be considered scandalous in this conservative city) so... I don't know. Are we talking 'overzealous' as in, say, PETA? Or 'overzealous' as in something that I would consider entirely benign? I can't be sure. But since I've liked all the other works I've read by this author, I'll give it a try. You can't always trust that the actual contents will be reflected properly in summaries, anyway. And if I don't like it, then at least I didn't pay for it, and I can just dump it in the library dropbox without forcing myself to finish it.

It's cold (again)

☆ Blah blah blah it's cold. This is really cramping my style. Throwing off my groove, if you know what I mean. Fit for neither human nor beast. If it hasn't warmed up to at least -25 by the weekend, I'm going to scream, because staying inside like this makes me absolutely stir-crazy! (Which is why I keep bringing it up and complaining about it - sorry, sorry.)

☆ Needless to say, this has thrown a wrench into my Pokemon Go playing. Nooo, my streak! It's all gone! But I'll just have to build it up again later, I guess. I've only succeeded in hatching one (1) of the new babies, which is disappointing. Hard to hatch those eggs without the walking, eh. :V SIGH. Not to mention, I run into performance issues when it's this cold - battery life is noticeably shortened at -20, so when you double that, well... it's proooobably not good for the device. Just, y'know, hazarding a guess here.

☆ Speaking of Go, man, that game really helped me realize that I'm at my best when I get at least 5k of walking outside per day. Preferably more, closer to 10. I mean, I already knew that I feel better when I get some fresh air, but I didn't have any kind of distance/time as reference. Anyway, it's a real pain in the ass, because [/gestures outside at this FROZEN NORTHERN WASTELAND] ...and trying to do my walking on the treadmill just isn't the saaaame, ugh. IT'S SO BORING. Even with music/books/podcasts/whatever. Give me fresh oxygen please.

☆ Pokemon Sun continues to be enjoyable. I'm continuing to be slow as molasses as it. But I just ran into Gladion for the first time, so that's neat. I... think I would have been all over him if this game had existed when I was younger, pf. Angsty emokid with a tragic past and a bad haircut! Yep. He'll probably be more sympathetic later, but right now I'm just like, ahaha oh how my tastes have changed. Cheerful sweetiepies are more my type, now - Hau, in other words. <3 <3 ...I kind of have some vague ideas kicking around for Hau/Sun futurefic, but I think I'll let that percolate for a while - because of time partitioning issues, and just in case the game throws me some kind of curveball.

☆ Plans for the remainder of the week: work on Chocobox Exchange fic, read some more stuff, try not to freeze to death.