a completely normal and healthy amount of time

小暑， 大暑。

Let’s see. It’s been just over a month since I last wrote [anything], which seems like a lot of time but also so little time. I’ve been kind of busy and kind of just… very tired. I don’t want to dwell or revisit anything, so we’re going to swiftly move along.

I recently got a book from the library: “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk. I don’t recall why this was on my to-read list, but I suppose we’ll find out. The books I got last time that I have yet to read are Umberto Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum” and “Numero Zero”. The former was a recommendation (implicitly?) by a uni friend. The quotes she pulled from it I found interesting despite my lack of knowledge, and also I wanted to prove a point. I think the point was that I am interested in other people’s works and inspirations and interests, and I do research the things people say even if I know nothing, and that my feigned apathy is only a defense mechanism. I truly do care about a lot of things. But I can’t let other people know. If people know that I have goals and wants, then they can take that away from me. So anyway, that’s why I checked out some books from the library.

As to why I haven’t read them yet… aside from being busy at home, and the usual energy-depleting stressors, it’s been really hot this week. 33°C hot. And also! I am in the midst of watching, like, five TV shows. I’m going to put my usual disclaimer here: I hate mainland Chinese dramas but I also love them. I’m not certain if what I do can be considered analyzing them or simply commentating, since I rarely end up with anything productive to show for my days-months-years of obsessing, but hey. Who knows. Maybe just this once I’ll come up with something [interesting]. Irregardless, I have recently been thinking about and dreaming of and watching 鹤唳华亭. This has been on my to-watch list (I have a lot of lists) for a long time, and a friend online also recommended it to me. On the website I log my watched shows, there’s a review that says that people with depression should not watch this. Yeah, it’s an exaggeration, but even at only 15 episodes in, I have already Cried. A little bit. And that is great news.

One thing I’ve been a bit worried about (tangentially related to all of the above) is that all my academic writing has been only loosely related to [literary] criticism and/or analysis. From what I remember most, I’ve mainly written research papers for art history (not super related), introductory essays for artists and their works, Artist Statements, and philosophy papers (which were objectively not good). Also, I fear that academic writing has made me sound incredibly dull. I’ve become afraid of convoluted sentence structure and figures of speech. Can I even write something that reflects upon everything I’ve consumed? I’m not even good at enough at Chinese to watch non-modern shows without subs. Am I sure I understand everything?

Well, realistically, no, and also I don’t care. I’ll write what I want when I want. As long as I’m having fun with it, I don’t really care that much what others think. As for writing, I’m pretty sure the more I write, the better it’ll be eventually. Now that I’m out of school, I can write whatever stupid things I want. Ideally I’d like to capture the insanity I wrote with when I was 12 (and began taking everything a little too seriously) (actually that’s not true. When I was 9 I wrote a whole story about the Tang dynasty on the back of a 11x17ish calendar sheet) (aka I have always been slightly insane, and also I should use footnotes for these posts).

Anyway. For continuity’s sake, I read the post right before this one. I have indeed turned 22 (unceremoniously) and received my diploma (it’s oddly large). I have also ordered a new phone finally. My current one is from late 2018, which means it’s been with me through my entire undergraduate degree. That’s not really that long of a time, but a lot happened. Also, I’m unnecessarily dramatic, so even changing phones is a big deal.

Before I end, here are some other Current Updates:

• Listening to this on repeat in between episodes of Depression. I feel like there’s a loose connection but I haven’t gotten that far in my thought processes yet.
• Laboriously waiting for more episodes of 庭外 (partly because of the vague references to 白夜追凶)
• I finished my sketchbook! It’s time to get a new one. I think B5 is the best size for me right now.

I think I’ll leave off here. Maybe next month there will be something to show. Until then.