posted tagged with #Week-Notes

• I love when you invoke my death (week notes 004)

  Doing

  • Joe and I went to the lake with two friends. We did some kayaking¹ and went swimming, then returned to our house to have a belated birthday celebration for Joe.
  • I played around with Hugo and thought about moving this blog (back) there. I love the bearblog community and don’t want to leave it, but I also want to build a personal site out more. I’m conflicted, but for now, I’m sticking on bearblog.² I also bought a domain without a plan to use it — I love cassieland, but this one speaks to me, and it has an air of anonymity, which is appealing should I pursue my goal to blog more; anonymity feels safer.
  • Joe and I went to visit family, so we’re spending a weekend lake- and pool-side, and I’m reminded for the ten thousandth time of how wonderful he is with children. The biological clock ticks.

  Reading

  • How Did This New Harry Potter Ride Get Approved? by Brendon Bigley. I used to be a tremendous Harry Potter fan but consciously decoupled from the series given J.K. Rowling’s modern social campaign of hate. I’ve gone to and enjoyed Universal’s Wizarding World, but I agree with Brendon’s stance: it is bizarre when Universal leans into the thinly veiled Nazism parallels for their theme park and ask attendees to rejoice in war crime trials.
  • The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler. Handler’s Adverbs is often what I cite when folks ask what my favorite book is, and I loved Watch Your Mouth, too. I need light reprieves from The Odyssey, too, so this seemed an excellent time to round out my reading of Handler’s bibliography. I’m about halfway through and enraptured by the narrative voice. It’s pretentious, as a story narrated by a precocious high school senior should be, without being cloying, and with Handler’s charming humor throughout. I love it so far and have faith that the feeling will continue. I normally hate books set in high school, but this one takes me back to my high school self — somehow, in a good way, which I don’t think I’ve ever felt before.

  Watching

  • Gilmore Girls, season five. Continuing on; we are reaching the point where Joe stopped watching years ago — I had him watch the show with me when we first started dating — so I’m excited to get into fresh content. Unfortunately, the show goes downhill, in my opinion, by season six, so we are in the last of the good.
  • America’s Next Top Model, cycle six. If I believed in guilty pleasures, ANTM would be mine. Fortunately I don’t, so I can indulge all I’d like in junk food TV. I think the first seven seasons are all gold, but I was in the mood for Jade’s antics in six — truly one of the most unhinged individuals to ever appear on the show.
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. An incredible follow-up to a film I loved very much; I agree that the cliffhanger ending undercuts some of the story’s structure, but if you frame it as Gwen’s story — which I think it was in many ways — it’s a lot more satisfying, like a sophomore sojourn into another major character. On a technical and artistic level, it’s a remarkable achievement; the painterly visuals and use of color in Gwen’s universe were particular standouts.

  Listening

  • All Hell, Los Campesinos! My record finally came in. It’s going to take time for me to form an opinion and weight it against their discography — I’ve got to let it sink — but as of right now, I really like it. “Clown Blood” is an early favorite.

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  1. Our friends brought their kayaks and Joe rented one. We would like to invest in our own, but most of our money this summer has gone to home repairs. Maybe next summer. ↩︎

  11 Aug 2024
• clean as paper before the poem (week notes 003)

  Doing

  • I was in school for a few days this week: one for a school improvement team meeting, where we made plans for the upcoming school year that have me really excited; another DEI committee meeting; and an English curriculum planning day. I also started moving some of the furniture in my classroom into place — I’m rearranging for next year.
  • I received a postcard in the mail from Veronique! I love this idea to take the small web to snail mail (and am generally a big fan of her blog).

  Reading

  • what it’s like by kelsey. Less reading and more admiring: is this what the notebooks and brains of the creative and artistic are like? Others admire mine for its neatness and consistency, small, even printing repeated across page and page, the same thoughts over and over again, like photocopies. I love the color, the doodles, the spontaneity kelsey has, and this is what I love about bearblog: the glimpses into the minds of others.
  • Cultural Competence Now by Vernita Mayfield. Continued from a previous week; this week, I read the third chapter for my district’s DEI Committee.
  • The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I’m integrating this book into my curriculum for the next school year. It’s a beautiful, poetic, important text, and I’m so excited to read it with my kids. It’s heavy, and the unit I’ve planned around it is challenging, but I want to be more rigorous in my curriculum, and I think the kids will really connect with Esperanza.
  • “I wanted to be like my dad.” by Kyle (on Blueberry Lemonade). A thoughtful piece on how adulthood shifts our relationships with our parents. It’s interesting — I seem to have the inverse experience: moving out of my mom’s house, I think, brought us closer in many ways. But I still connect with Kyle’s thesis about how our views of parents evolve; perhaps the nature of parenthood is seeing your child grow beyond you.

  Watching

  • A lot of Friends at the Table content on Twitch. Joe is a fan of their podcasts and the folks involved; I’m not into actual play podcasts or anime, so I don’t join in, but I like watching some of their streams. I’ve particularly enjoyed their Stardew Valley series.

  Playing

  • Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. I’m back on my bullshit after watching Austin Walker stream Final Fantasy XI. I’ve played on and off since release, but this week I finished Stormblood (which I’m tepid on) and am working my way toward Shadowbringers (which I’ve heard nothing but praise for). I conned Joe into playing with me too, so it’s been fun to see him go back through the early game quests. I have a lot of love in my heart for A Realm Reborn.

  Listening

  • My Los Campesinos! All Hell record has yet to arrive in the mail, so not that (but it did ship this week and is meant to be delivered tomorrow).
  4 Aug 2024
• ask yourself is that going to bring you peace, though? (week notes 002)

  I’m continuing to try out doing Week Notes instead of monthly wrap ups. So far, so good! As a callback to my livejournal days, I’m trying out using a random quote from something I’m enjoying this week as my title (most likely, and true to my livejournal heart, cryptic song lyrics).

  28 Jul 2024
• Week Notes 001

  I tried out doing monthly media logs and found it difficult to stick to; it became daunting to log everything, and I put the unnecessary onus on myself to also write down detailed thoughts on everything. I’m going to try out shorter weekly notes instead. I want to have a record of and reflect on things that are important to me, so the effort matters, but perhaps this will be easier to maintain.¹ I’m hoping to use this space to share out blog posts and other web content that I’ve enjoyed, too.

  21 Jul 2024