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Entry tags:
well, maybe isn't smart
Daily life: Very summer-doldrumsy for various mostly trivial reasons, 没办法。A little torn between "I want the chance to go out and spend time with people" and "but that would mean I'd have to, like, go out and spend time with people." Also our vaccine cards came, which might mean being vaccinated sometime in August or maybe September...?
On the upside, Y commemorated the rainy season by getting me a gorgeous Art Nouveau-ish stained glass umbrella (I mean, it is not made of stained glass, it just looks like it), a great comfort on rainy days.
Music: Holly Cole, an old favorite. "Everything I've Got Belongs To You," which I first heard sung by Blossom Dearie, is a wonderful drop-dead song, and "You So-and-So" is kind of halfway between a drop-dead song and a torch song. Lots of other good stuff too.
Books: Rereading The Language of Power, the most recent of Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series (next volume when...). The overall arc is exciting, but I like all the small-scale character work too. Poor messed-up Reeder and his private tragedy. Lorren and Eamer's recounting of their first meeting, three quarters of a century in the past, never ceases to be delightful. And what was the word in the song that Rowan couldn't read?
Chinese: Still very slowly watching The Rebel (at my current speed it's going to take me well into September to finish it all, I'm only on episode 12). Although spoilers suggest I will hate him later, and he's clearly supposed to be awful in both personality and ideology, I find Wang Shi'an (the deputy station chief) kind of endearing: he sulks and complains and loses his temper pettily and compared to the blaze of patriotic devotion (however misexpressed) everyone else lives in, it’s just so relatable.
Also, the Grammar Wiki gave me a wonderful wonderful sample sentence. First there was a sentence about how there are between 170,000 and 200,000 foreigners (外国人) in Shanghai, which at least pre-corona seems quite likely; the next card was this.
Writing: For good or ill I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on book 1 revisions (it would be appropriate in one sense if it were an oncoming train, but I hope not). Whether they have accomplished their purpose I can't tell, but I'm also beginning to feel more prepared to outline book 2 properly rather than plunging in at semi-random as I did before. I have a couple of delightful ethical dilemmas now prepared for the characters...
Photos: Our landlord's parsley plant, ducks on the job in a rice field, a turtle at leisure, and so on.
Be safe and well.
On the upside, Y commemorated the rainy season by getting me a gorgeous Art Nouveau-ish stained glass umbrella (I mean, it is not made of stained glass, it just looks like it), a great comfort on rainy days.
Music: Holly Cole, an old favorite. "Everything I've Got Belongs To You," which I first heard sung by Blossom Dearie, is a wonderful drop-dead song, and "You So-and-So" is kind of halfway between a drop-dead song and a torch song. Lots of other good stuff too.
Books: Rereading The Language of Power, the most recent of Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series (next volume when...). The overall arc is exciting, but I like all the small-scale character work too. Poor messed-up Reeder and his private tragedy. Lorren and Eamer's recounting of their first meeting, three quarters of a century in the past, never ceases to be delightful. And what was the word in the song that Rowan couldn't read?
Chinese: Still very slowly watching The Rebel (at my current speed it's going to take me well into September to finish it all, I'm only on episode 12). Although spoilers suggest I will hate him later, and he's clearly supposed to be awful in both personality and ideology, I find Wang Shi'an (the deputy station chief) kind of endearing: he sulks and complains and loses his temper pettily and compared to the blaze of patriotic devotion (however misexpressed) everyone else lives in, it’s just so relatable.
Also, the Grammar Wiki gave me a wonderful wonderful sample sentence. First there was a sentence about how there are between 170,000 and 200,000 foreigners (外国人) in Shanghai, which at least pre-corona seems quite likely; the next card was this.
Writing: For good or ill I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on book 1 revisions (it would be appropriate in one sense if it were an oncoming train, but I hope not). Whether they have accomplished their purpose I can't tell, but I'm also beginning to feel more prepared to outline book 2 properly rather than plunging in at semi-random as I did before. I have a couple of delightful ethical dilemmas now prepared for the characters...
Photos: Our landlord's parsley plant, ducks on the job in a rice field, a turtle at leisure, and so on.
Be safe and well.