suncani

 1. I go on holiday in less than a week and it's kicking up my anxiety a bit. Which is nutty as its just a beach holiday so very simple and straightforward. But then if it was rational it wouldn't be anxiety.

2. Someone recreated the wallace and gromit breakfast machine! This made me smile when I saw it, and though its probably been very carefully edited I'm amazed at how well bits of it work.

3.I always forget how much regular but light casual chat can make my day a bit brighter. I've started commenting more in various discord servers I'm part of and it's just making me feel better. I'd stopped for a while as I felt like I didn't have much to say/ anxiety got the better of me.

 I've been struggling to find cooking appealing or fun much to my annoyance. However on Monday I had both the energy and the enthusiasm to make chicken and mushroom risotto from scratch for dinner. While the thought of cooking still feels more of a chore and less of a joy, i didn't hate it so I think I'm going to try and get the ingredients for a new recipe to cook at the weekend and see what happens.

I'm on the lookout for new recipes so recommendations for your favourite recipe or go-to when you're in a cooking slump would be appreciated. 

I've been going between feast and famine with my reading at the moment. Either I'm just reading fanfic only with no published books or I'll read several in a row over a couple of days. 


Completed

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G Parry
I enjoyed this a lot. While its background is fairly traditional (a girl from a non-magical background forces her way through into training and academia whilst still being looked down on) I liked what it ended up doing with it. The MC's brother was cursed by a faerie at the end of the first world war, causing all faerie magic to be banned. The MC and her friends find a way around this with unforeseen consequences. It was a nice blend of exploring the aftermath of the First World War but through a fantastic lens. While I didn't find it a criticism there's a sharp change in pace about 2/3 way through - previously it's a very dark academic toned story and then with the time jump suddenly it becomes a lot more action focused. I found it made sense for the story the author wanted to tell but readers may find it a bit jarring. 


Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
This was my audiobook whilst I was working/putting together Lego and I think some of my comprehension of it suffered for that. It's a modern mystery that engages with the detective society rules, whilst also having a lot of flashbacks. It was fun enough to  listen to, although I do think it played a bit fast and loose with one of the rules.

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
This was a quick read I picked up when I was in the mood for something light. It definitely fits under the cozy umbrella but does not have romance which is a nice change. The stakes are personal for the most part and a large part of it is about the characters just moving from town to town and the various personal challenges they experience on the journey. 

Currently Reading

Justice for Athena by J.M. Alvey
This is the 3rd book in a series where a playwright in Ancient Athens solves murders on behalf of his patron. The books paint an interesting picture of everyday life and I enjoy finding out whodunnit but they're definitely ones I listen to rather than reading. In this one, someone is killing prominent epic poets as one seduced the murderer's wife away. At the same time, the poets at risk are also preparing for the Great Panathenaia and a 3 day reading of the Illiad 

Inanna by Emily H. Wilson
This has been on the in progress pile for a while. I enjoyed most of what I read, a retelling of The Epic of Gilgamesh but with additional women but having put it down, I'm finding it hard to find motivation to pick it back up. I'll probably give it a couple more weeks before I mark it as DNF. 

Despite anxiety, life goes on. I'd previously booked to join an online beginners Serbian class. Like most people who have learnt a language informally my language profile for Serbian is very spikey. Add in the poor short term memory and I thought the safest option was the absolute beginners, "I have not seen the language before in my life" level.

I was right. Whilst there were vocab I knew, my reading aloud is atrocious. I can pronounce words I know fine. I cannot pronounce words I have never seen before - something other learners who were not familiar with the Serbian alphabet could do. This is a handicap I have worked around for all of my language acquisition - it's grindy but I just have to hear words over and over and over again. 

(Incidentally, this also occurs in English - I know how to pronounce a lot of words but only because I've heard them before. I have a hypothesis this why when I went for a dyslexia test aged 17, I confused them.  Some of my spikey profile matches, other parts don't and the test doesn't take into account words you already know.) 

The class was exactly what I wanted. It's 7 so it's mostly a lot of repetition and short rote conversations. I tried a block of 10 classes about a year ago through italki and it was too intimidating. I don't have the confidence to sit and make conversation - in english or serbian or constantly fail on my own. It is something I might go back to, once I have the core grammar and sentence formation under my belt... or a better idea of what it is I want to practise. 

Because anxiety, I did ask the professor at the end if she was ok with me being in the class at that level and I wasn't a disruption. She confirmed that as long as I was happy with the pace and wouldn't get frustrated with the repetition, she was happy. 

 Short thoughts now, longer later (hopefully)

I really enjoyed what I did, but I think I might have been over-enthusiastic about how much energy/ability to copy I'd have at the end of it. I was sensible in that I think I only went to 1-2 panels a day, but there was a lot of catching up with people and my step counter tells me I have done at least 11km and that's without me wearing it on a couple of days. 

Worldcon also reinforces how much UK and US (and even to a certain extent England and Scotland) can talk at cross-purposes to each other. The baseline assumptions are so different in ways we don't even realise. 

AuADHD brain is both going a million miles an hour at things I want to write and say, whilst at the same time is struggling to remember that english has actor - verb - indirect subject as a sentence formation so things keep coming out wonky. I wish I could say this is because English is not my first language, but it is and it's frustrating. I'm also having the typical adhd response of working memory just not being a thing, at all. Again, I suspect that this is because I've overstretched it and I need to be resting.

The carrots have done pretty well! I've got a fair amount that i've picked now and hopefully the extra space will let the rest grow a bit better. There were a couple of frankencarrots where two or three had grown together but most were pretty ok, if a bit stubby. It's also the first time I've got a substantial amount of carrot tops so will try and attempt to make carrot top pesto if I can unearth my food processor from the hurried decamping of the kitchen.

Meanwhile in the garden, the newly planted kale is looking a bit sorry for itself, which is either the birds having a go at it, or they looked slightly suspect when I bought them. I trimmed down the last of the broad beans, so hopefully the added nutrients will help them get a bit more established. The borlotti beans are also off to a bit of a rough start as half have been eaten. I've wrapped some netting around them, but might be a case of wishful thinking. 

I may have spent too long looking at Discord last night. I'm also very achy and brain foggy so today is not a great day. The day after office days never are. However I now have a doc's appointment for the follow up so more positive.

My kitchen on the other hand looks like a whirlwind has been through it. While I was away at the beginning of the  month R rang me in a panic to say there'd been a leak from one of the pipes in the kitchen. He got it all sorted and the plumber said everything would dry out. 3 weeks later, it is not dry and there is mould in the (empty) cupboards and under the worksurface. My mom took one look at it and set my uncle on it to rip everything out as it wasn't going to dry out and was a health risk...

Meanwhile I'm here with zero spoons, setting up the kettle and the toaster on a table in another room thinking at least it was all hidden for the time being. 

On a more cheerful note I started watching Dead Boy Detectives which seems to be hitting that sweet spot of silly and (relatively) light-hearted without setting off the cringe so that's my plan for the evening - graft my sock toe stitches and watch that. 

Edit: scratch that, light hearted isn't quite the right word given some of the things going on, light-spirited maybe?

I have not read enough to have a reading Wednesday post (Witch King is still on-going and that's pretty much it. 

I noticed that even though I'm not religious, I tend to use a lot of religious originating phrases e.g thank god for.... or before the heavens open. Whilst on one of my Discord servers thank Gritty is a workable alternative, I'm stuck thinking of other ways. Proof of how subliminal language and religion can be I guess. Alternatives welcome. 

Speaking of heavens opening, it was my mom's birthday yesterday and as her birthday outing we're going to visit Sezincote, a Mogual Indian style house in the depths of Gloucestershire, that's also meant to have quite nice gardens. Apparently it was the model for Brighton Pavilion among others. Fingers crossed it stays dry.

 Once again, I've started up my Serbian language practise. I'm using a mixture of:

- Drops for vocabulary as R likes the pronunciation on there, although friends have told me some of the words on other languages are machine-translated so I generally run them past R first.
- Duo cards to replace Anki for flashcards - Anki frustrates the hell out of me, and I like that this has a variety of ways it tests you on the word with little effort. 
- Ling for lessons - the earlier ones are better as they have grammar points as well, but the listening and having a sentence along with the vocab word is useful. 
- Teach Yourself Serbian for listening exercises, grammar and catch all stuff. I actually find this really hard just on its own as the pace is quite fast and you get a lot chucked at you. It also alternates between Latin and Cyrillic which isn't particularly helpful. 

R is helping - he double checks what I'm learning makes sense and that it's Serbian rather than Croatian and corrects my pronunciation. But especially for grammar, I need other things to support my learning.