Week #24 - Dec 11 to Dec 17

2024-12-18

I had my first final exam of the semester yesterday, which explains this late week note. It was an essay exam and I had to hire a proctor in order to write it. I didn't even know that was a thing! But apparently it is so. I went to a small local college and took my exam in an empty classroom. There was the proctor there who supervised my exam. I haven't been in a classroom since my first degree so all of a sudden, it felt real that I am back to school. I don't think I did very well, I've never done well with timed essays. It's just so much pressure! Oh well. It is done now.

Anywho.

The last week was a bit quiet. Over the weekend, I spent most of it studying for finals. We did hold a party for my aunt and one of my cousins (he is not her son, just another cousin I have). My brother cooked karioka. It was deliciouuus. Karioka is like a ball of deep fried glutinous rice. It's more denser than mochi, and its outer texture is like fried bread. My brother made salted caramel to drizzle over it and it was the perfect touch! It was a fun time but a party on a Sunday is never a good idea. I was suffering from Monday blues the day after.

In media news, I'm still reading Anna Karenina. I've switched to reading this full time because I want to finish it by the end of the year. It's 900+ paged book and I'm on page 300 so I might have a fighting chance, hah.

I am caught up on the manga, Ao no Hana, Utsuwa no Mori. It's honestly so good. The last chapter was a bit, hmm for my tastes. The story is coming to an end but I feel like the ending that's coming up is being wrapped up too neatly, especially after a lot of tension. Maybe the last few chapters will turn out differently.

Someone recommended I listen to AKRIILA. I took a listen to one of their latest albums and it's actually really good! She's Chilean and according to Rate Your Music, she makes alt-pop. I'm terrible with genres but I'd definitely say it's electronic club-type music. A lot of autotune so if that's not your thing, I'd stay away.

This week, my top artists were: Mitski, AKRIILA, NewJeans, The Strokes, G-DRAGON, Julie Christmas, Green Day, and Sufjan Stevens. Julie Christmas came onto my radar after @HailsandAles mentioned her. I really enjoy her, she kinda reminds me of Queen Adreena or Daisy Chainsaw. Kind of sludgy metal. Worth a listen!

It's hard to be a good person

2024-12-15

Recently my morals have been tested. I think I'm a little too wishy washy with my values. I have a lot of little if-clauses that I tend to insert, which makes my moral ground, shaky. Fuck J.K. Rowling and anyone who is an unabashed fan of Harry Potter in the year 20204, she's a transphobe. A former member of a band I love just passed away who was a transphobe, but I am sad about his death. I boycott Starbucks because they're anti-union and "neutral" on Palestinian genocide, but it's hard for me to give up eating meat, even though that results in the death of millions of animals. I'm generally anti-violence, but I can't help but feel schadenfreude over the recent CEO murder. I could go on.

Some people may say all of the above is performative. I don't think my actions results in a dent in Starbucks's coffers, I just couldn't forgive myself if I gave them a dime. The real acts of solidarity are even harder. Like taking time out of your day to volunteer, to protest, to build community, to start something grassroots. That requires effort.

Bottom line is that being a good person requires sacrifice, foregoing convienence, being okay with discomfort, going against the grain, putting aside your own needs and desires, and being consistent in all of the above. Which is hard.

This post is brought to you by the video "Solidarity is supposed to be hard" by Elliot Sang, the words of my friend Kiwu about goodness which has swirled in my head ever since, and a post on the fediverse by Maya which I may or may not actually get the gist of but probably proves her point entirely.

Week #23 - Dec 04 to Dec 10

2024-12-10

• 🎄 Over the weekend, we went to an event called Simbang Gabi. Basically, a Filipino Christmas Mass. I'm not religious myself, but I always like Simbang Gabi because it feels nice being around the Filipino community. Before the mass is caroling. Caroling is a big thing in the Philippines. I really like Filipino Christmas carols! The entire mass is totally in Tagalog, and I didn't understand most of it, but it's okay, it's all about the vibes. They even served food afterwards. I can't turn down pancit and lechon!
• 🎅 Continuing the festivities, there was a holiday party at work. It was a potluck and we ate a ton of food!! There were a few games like board games and bingo. They even let us out of work early.
• 🛍️ Because I was sick last week, I didn't get to go shopping. Even though the deals are gone, we still went shopping. I have been looking for platform shoes (so I can wear them to concerts, I am short), but came out of the mall empty handed. Unfortunately, I think this is something I would have to purchase online. But, Canada Post has been on strike for the past few weeks, and I hesitate to order anything that would need be delivered. I'm no scab.
• 📺 I watched the first episode of Arcane Season 2. I have to say, it felt a little underwhelming. But, I'm emotionally invested in the characters, so I will keep watching it.
• 📚 I'm still reading Anna Karenina (it's 900+ pages, after all), and Crying in H Mart. I was thinking that Anna Karenina was too big to haul around with me on the commute to and from work, but I managed to do it a couple of times in the past week. I may have overdone it with the reading, though. I managed to get on the wrong train on the way home, and didn't notice for about 30 minutes. Thankfully that meant more reading time, but also, I wanted to get home asap!
• 🐘 Over the weekend, I retired my Mastodon instance on citrus.farm. I have been increasingly dissatisfied in the direction Mastodon has been going in (nothing concrete to point to, just vibes). One of my friends, melo, had been talking about GoToSocial a lot, so I decided to spin up my own GoToSocial instance! On a whim, I decided to buy a new domain name for it:thenighthas.me. The domain name is a reference for a line from one of my favourite Mitski songs, The Deal. I think it worked out quite nicely. I spent a lot of time on the custom CSS, it was a lot of fun.
• 🗯️ The CSS for thenighthas.me is specifically crafted around the avatar and header images I chose for my profile. They're images from the manga Midori no Uta. It's not fully translated yet, but it is a manga that feels especially catered to me. Pretentious university students? Haruki Murakami references? Specifically, Norwegian Wood references? Live music? Love interest is in a band? Pretty art that would be pretty even outside a manga context? Thoughtful and introspective? It checks a lot of my boxes. Another manga I've been reading is Ao No Hana, Utsuwa no Mori. It's about characters from a pottery house. A very cute romance and I really admire how much the characters pour into their work.
• 🎵 I've been obssessssed with the new TWICE song. Every time it comes on, I literally dance in my chair. It's so funny to me how a K-pop group got a Megan Thee Stallion feature on a song, but, honestly, it works so well. Meg did a great job with the verses. It's so damn catchy.
• 📊 Last week, I've been listening to my top 2024 songs of the year (so far) so this week is kinda boring, nothing new. Because of moving to the new instance, I've been listening to a lot of Mitski (specifically, The Deal). The other artists I've listened to (in descending order) are: IDLES, Tinashe, Tom Waits, Green Day, L.S. Dunes, FKA Twigs,and Sufjan Stevens. Tom Waits is an interesting one. I saw a few people listening to him on Fedi and decided to see what the hype was all about. I like his jazz stuff but I'll have to listen to some more!

Week #22 - Nov 27 to Dec 03

2024-12-03

• 🤒 I got sick the day before I had a day off. The day before Black Friday. I don't really buy anything on Black Friday (and I didn't buy anything this year), but I like walking around the mall with family. I usually don't like shopping in malls, it's very stressful. But I like spending the time in a mall. Weird, I know. Sadly, couldn't do it this year. I spent it mostly sleeping.
• 🎮 My friend Joel recommended the game "I Was a Teenage Exocolonist" to me and I spent a lot of my weekend napping off my cold, and lying in bed playing that game. It's right up my alley. It's a life simulator of, you guessed it, a teen living on a new planet. It's very narrative driven, and has pretty art. I'm already itching to play some more (I already finished two playthroughs) but I gotta lock in on school for the rest of the week.
• 🗯️ While sick, I also read a shit ton of manga. What stands out to me right now is Koi no Kiseki. It's not a good manga whatsoever. It's like a very over the top soap opera with no sense of realism at all, but it is so ridiculous that I couldn't stop reading. The art is also not that great, with very 90s sensibilities. A little more seriously, I liked Anata ga Shite Kurenakute mo. Some people may not, it's a very controversial manga that involves cheating. Again, it was like a train wreck I couldn't tear my eyes away from. Something a little more my style was Hana to Hoho. It's a cute manga about a girl whose dad was part of a band. Not a popular band, just an indie one, and they are no longer active. She meets a classmate. He's a fan of her dad's band and she begins to become close to him. No dramatics, it's very peaceful and calm and not overly sweet.
• 📚 I just finished reading the novella Daisy Miller by Henry James, and I really enjoyed it, despite it being incredibly predictable (I've read too many American Modernist novels). I just never tired of the "queer (as in strange) American girl in Europe who dangerously flirts on the edge of improper" trope. And James is more than a proficient author, so he manages to make it interesting. Right now I'm reading both Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I'm a big fan of Zauner's music and I've read her "Crying in H Mart" essay in The New Yorker too many times to count and this book has been sitting on my shelf for at least a year so I decided to read it. I'm enjoying both books so far!
• 💔 It was a bad music news week last week. NewJeans left their company and are now in limbo. Several K-pop groups disbanded. Bob Bryar, the former drummer of My Chemical Romance, passed away. It's been rough.
• 💿 In light of Kendrick Lamar's GNX dropping last week, I decided to re-listen to Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers again, because I don't think I gave it a decent shot. I think I like this release more. Mr. Morale felt a little more introspective whereas GNX is a little more boastful and loud (but still has its introspective moments).
• 📊 My top artists from last week were, from most listened to to least: My Chemical Romance, Green Day, Criminal Instinct, Petrol Girls, Relient K, Luna Li, Saosin, and The Voidz. Ever since the news about Bob, I've been listening to The Black Parade a lot. As for the other artists, I've been listening to some of their albums slowly but surely. I looove the Petrol Girls, some solid feminist punk. Luna Li is a guitarist and her music is very whimsical. Not really my style, I like something with more edge to it, but it's pleasant nevertheless.

Week #21 - Nov 20 to Nov 26

2024-11-26

🐲 Server migration

I migrated Bookrastinating to a new server last week. Its contract is expiring next month and I wasn't happy with the amount that I was paying, so I thought it was a good time to change hosts. It was a bit of a debacle. I tried to import a SQL dump into the database and it wouldn't work for a bit, so I had to go in and edit a lot of the SQL to get it to work. And even with that, there turned out to be lingering problems. It seemed that not all of the database migrations applied correctly. So a few days after the server migration, I had to fix that too. I'm glad that's over. Now the website is a bit more snappier and I can save some money.

🍩 Dozens of doughnuts

Recently a new mini-doughnut place opened up and my brother ordered literally dozens of them. Thankfully we were expecting visitors and the donuts were small (like a little larger than a Tim Horton's timbit). They were soooo good. They tasted like Filipino donuts. We ate so many. Thankfully we had a lot to share. My cousins came over the next day and we shared some leftovers with them. We don't often talk to cousins from my dad's side so it was a nice time to bond. It was like three hours of talking though, which was a lot for me, hah.

🏆 MAMA 2024

Last week was the annual Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) show. It says Asian in the name, but really, it's a K-pop awards show. I didn't bother watching until the 3rd day because one of my favourite K-pop artists was performing for the first time in several years: G-DRAGON. He's part of the boy group BIGBANG and they were one of first groups that got me into K-pop. He's a huge cultural icon in K-pop and his comeback was much awaited by fans (including me!).

When GD appeared on stage, I couldn't believe it. He performed his new song, Power (which, honestly, is not my favourite) and it was a lot of fun. Then he brought out Taeyang and Daesung and the crowd was seriously so loud, probably the loudest they got that night.

The three of them performed Bang Bang Bang and a snippet of Fantastic Baby and I was so hyped. I was like squealing and singing and dancing along in my chair. My mom even knocked on my door to see if I was okay. Yes, I am a grown adult woman. BIGBANG is one of the only K-pop groups who could do that to me, honestly. It was so fun and I loved it! It was worth staying up late for.

🎹 Music night

I'm a closet atheist, so my mom dragged us to an event at church and I went along anyway, but I was glad I went. It was a music night where people from the parish showed off a particular musical talent. There was dancing, instruments, and a lot of singing. Really, barriers break down when it comes to music. You often forget how people are still people and how at the end of the day, at least people can connect on one, truly universal, thing: music (or if you want to be more general, art). I was able to see some old friends too. I used to be really active in church so it was nice to say hi to some of them. I really haven't talked to any of them since I moved out (and since moved back in) from my parent's home. I have some talented friends, I wish I had a musical talent! Alas, I can only listen to music.

💿 New release: GNX

Kendrick Lamar dropped a new album out of the blue: GNX. I really liked it. I think my favourite tracks on it are Reincarnated, peekaboo, and heart pt. 6 .I'm usually not a huge fan of rap, but I can make an exception for one of the coolest rappers of our time. There is just something about Kendrick's voice that I really like, it's nice to listen to and then his lyricism is really top notch, too. I also took the opportunity to listen to Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers again because I feel like I didn't give it a proper listen. I honestly think I prefer that over GNX but the new album is still solid!

📊 Weekly listening

In order from most listened to least: Green Day, Kendrick Lamar, XG, G-DRAGON, Little Big League, Coheed and Cambria, My Chemical Romance, AFI. I can't stop listening to Green Day's American Idiot 20th Anniversary Deluxe Version that came out this year. I forgot how much I loved that album. AFI was a surprise to me. I read somewhere that Davey Havok thinks AFI is better than My Chemical Romance. I like both so I was like, y'know what, I'm going to give AFI some love. I've been listening to their latest album. I liked the singles from it when they first came out, but I ended up liking a lot more tracks from the album!