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!