schneefink

Yesterday I went running for the first time in months :) My mom signed us up for a run at the end of May so I should start training. It was fun and I enjoyed it, and then today I woke up sick again, so it probably wasn't a good idea just yet…

More Critical Role episode commentary:( episodes 54-57 )

Btw, speaking of the chair, I really enjoyed the #CriticalFools Twitter hashtag, about the real CR BBEGs :)

I bought the Cobalt Soul notebook and it's so pretty I barely know what to use it for. Maybe notes/ideas when our next D&D campaign starts. Which is probably soon – speaking of, I want to get a new dice set for the new campaign, I should start looking. If I had a lot more money I could get the dice set CR Kickstarter reward... (Ten episodes funded, it's going to be great.)

I had a busy weekend, including two seven-hour car rides to get to my grandpa's 80th birthday party and then back again, but grandpa was very happy we were there so it was worth it, and it was a nice party. And then I came back home, had fifteen minutes to put down my stuff, and then went to choir practice before the concert in the evening.

The concert was beautiful. I'm still smiling thinking about it. Several pieces, all built around Mozart's Requiem, and it was so great to sing. A choir of eighty people, the energy was amazing. After the concert I was practically jumping up and down I was so euphoric.

My family was there, all of whom have already sung or played the Requiem several times, and they said we sung it very well :) And four friends of mine came, three of whom hadn't heard the piece at all before, and they all loved it.

It was so much fun. I love singing in a choir, and especially in concerts like this. I'm going to remember this one for a while.
(Bonus, there'll even be a CD.)

I was excited to see that theladyscribe requested "The Seer and the Sword" by Victoria Hanley for the multifandomdrabble exchange. It was my favorite book for many years as a young teenager, and I'd kinda wanted to write something for it for a while, so the drabble prompts were perfect. I wrote two treats and I'm quite happy with both:

See It Again
100 words, gen, time travel: Torina had a plan to save her father.

Who You See
300 words, Dahmis/Vineda Dahmis/Bellanes Torina/Landen, unrequited feelings: Dahmis wanted both Vineda and Bellanes.

D&D session 25(!), and it's also been over half a year. Wow. Not much longer though – they now have an in-game two day deadline (though they're not aware yet of how serious it is) so it can't go on for that much longer. (I think…)

The Bunny Cave side-quest ended up lasting three sessions (encountered: a spider and a hypnotic butterfly, gargoyles, big cave bunnies and cave bunny swarms, a gelatinous cube, a mountain spirit, and then they had a minute to get as much of the gold as possible while the cave collapsed), plus half a session when the Teleport spell misplaced them (the odds of that were 3%, so none of us expected it and I had to improvise everything including a random encounter, but they really enjoyed the fight against the Yrthak.) And after all that the casters still had some spells left over! Not many but still. Hmpf. ^^

Then: more bank heist planning! (After a brief interlude where they debated telling the undead queen that the thieves' guild stole the crown the party persuaded the undead princes to give them, but ultimately decided against it because they were afraid the queen would go after them first. I was relieved ^^ ) The party has two rogues, strangely neither of them is very good at lock-picking or trap-finding… They debated what to do for a long time, even discussed hiring a rogue from the adventurer's guild, until I remembered and then reminded them that they do actually have an ally who's a rogue. (Well. He used to be. He's reformed now and a bard. Still got the skills though.) So they have a plan now (it involves splitting the party but I don't think that's avoidable) and probably next time will be the actual bank heist! *rubs hands*

The EU copyright directive passed in the EU parliament with all articles >.<

I'm half-sick and it sucks, and I have no idea if it'll soon get better or worse or how long it'll take. Mostly a very sore throat and headaches. I have a job interview on Friday and I don't know if I should try and postpone it or not – probably it would be better to postpone because I'll make a much better impression with a clear head, but then I'll have to get a doctor's note (for the unemployment center) and find a different date and that would be annoying, so I'll just see how I feel tomorrow.

I did go to choir practice today even though I couldn't sing because the concert is in a week and a half (aaah!), and unlike normal when choir practice is five minutes from my home today it was elsewhere and 45 minutes away, that was unfortunate. Hopefully I'll remember to go to bed early today. *looks at the time* ...relatively early for me, anyway.

I just finished "The Hyena and the Hawk", the third book of the Echoes of the Fall trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I have a lot of thoughts jumbling around in my head. Which is a good sign! But if I wait for them to settle down I'll forget to write about it so here.

Briefly: I enjoyed it a lot. I loved the characters and their relationships, the worldbuilding was cool, and the plot was exciting. There were just a few elements I wasn't sure about, mostly about the colonization narrative.

( Maniye and Hesprec )

( Asman|der and Venat )

( Loud Thunder and Broken Axe and Shyri and more )

( Worldbuilding )

( The villains )

( Colonization )

I'm curious what others think about this aspect in particular.

Soo I'm pretty sure I'll think of stuff I forgot later but anyway. I'm planning to request it for Yuletide (but my "nominate for Yuletide" list is already pretty long this year and it's February, so I'll see what happens until September.)

Pacing of my D&D campaign, that was originally meant to last only 5-10 sessions, so far:

1-4: Quest 1: The Green Giant (failed)
5-6: Quest 2: Debt Collection (successful)
7-9: Sidequest 1: The Dwarven Tomb
10: Quest 3 – The Kidnapped Professor – begins
11-12: Sidequest 2: The Dinosaur Canyon
16-18: Sidequest 3: The Island of Ghosts
22: Sidequest 4: The Bunny Caves
Projected length: ??? (Less than 30, I'm almost certain. Almost.)

( Highlight of yesterday's session: The Hypno-Butterfly )

Meanwhile when I'm procrastinating on session prep I'm thinking about my character for the next campaign. A swordfighter, this time! Warblade, probably; pretty much anything else is still undecided. I'm more focused on trying to figure out what kind of personality/backstory/personal quest I want, which is fun and more difficult than the mere mechanics. (Our next DM already sent us notes with the important countries and players, the important events of the past 500 years etc. - I'm so glad that that's optional.)

It's March and we had ~15°C today, so my flatmate shut off the heating (because of the noise) and it's cold in my room, but I don't want to turn it on again because it's not that cold and I'm still somewhat afraid of finding out in a few months what the heating costs for this flat are. Bäh. I should at least put on a sweater or something.

Also because when I'm cold I don't sit relaxed, and that's even worse than I previously thought. I've had tendonitis problems for years; nothing helped for long and since it was only ever a few days every month or two so I got used to it. I did regular wrist exercises but they didn't seem to help much either. But a few months ago I realized that it always got much worse before exams, when I'm generally tense, so I started doing regular shoulder stretches, just a few minutes every evening, and ever since it's been a lot better. It's been a few months now and I've had barely any wrist problems :) I'm still being careful, of course, no use getting overconfident, but I think I've identified a big part of the problem. Progress.

Now stop procrastinating on studying self

Tomorrow (so technically today) I'm going on one week of skiing vacation at our grandparents' with LB. There should still be lots of snow on the mountains :) I'm a bit nervous because I haven't done much if any sports in the last few months, I'm sure I'll be very sore, but skiing is the best. (Wrong icon but I don't have one with snow and hockey is at least a winter sport.)

Staying at our grandparents' for a week with LB will also be good for my routine: I'm sharing a room with LB, and I have to get up at a certain (early) time for breakfast and I can't just lie in bed for an hour. I hope I'll get used to it quick and then keep doing some of that when I'm back home. I'll also spend less time online, which means less time for DW/AO3/etc., which is annoying but maybe not so bad every once in a while…

I wanted to go to bed early today so I'm not too tired during the train ride tomorrow (I'd be fine with it but LB told me I'm not allowed to sleep the entire time), which I failed at but I did manage to write two job applications, so hopefully the case worker I'll visit tomorrow will be satisfied. (Probably not though, because I didn't come close to my required number of applications in January.)

…and now I remembered that I don't have accident insurance. Why couldn't I have forgotten that until the day after the vacation instead of the day before. Ah well, I have a helmet and it's been years since I even fell while skiing, it'll be fine.