schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2025-05-31 03:45 pm
Entry tags:

Weekend + books (read before the weekend)

One of my favorite things about not having plans and not having to study is that I can do things spontaneously, like meet up with friends to go shopping and have food and then go for a walk to see some sheep and goats that I had no idea were there so my biologist friend could delightedly poke at the dung to find beetles.
One of my favorite things about staying at my friends' house for a few days is that I don't have "I should do chores/clean/tidy" run in the back of my head at all times. I still found things to procrastinate on - an exchange letter, leaving fic comments etc - but overall it was very relaxed. I'm getting better at Beat Saber.

Books I read recently:
The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri: The Jasmine Throne, the Oleander Sword, the Lotus Empire. This series has been on my to-read list for a while and I finally got around to reading it. I enjoyed it a lot! I enjoyed the Indian-inspired setting and the complicated politics of it with many different groups, and I liked the development of the main characters both separately and together. Spoilers )

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett: I enjoyed this much less than the first book in the series, sadly. At one point I complained to LB, who's actually worked at a university, that I thought the portrayal of academia was unrealistic, and he said that it's not that unrealistic provided the character in question is a bit of an asshole. Spoilers )

The Firm by John Grisham: The first non-SFF book I read since April 2022, according to Goodreads, wow okay. And the first non-SFF novel since February 2022. I decided to read it because the lecturer of one of my business law classes mentioned it, and I didn't give up early even though the writing is clunky. In the first half I really liked the slowly growing sense of creeping dread from the dangers the reader sees but the main character doesn't. Spoilers: that was the best part ) I don't regret that I read it but only because now I know.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins: I started with this one instead of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" because I got this one first from the library, but in hindsight I wonder if that was a mistake. It worked on its own but I strongly suspect I missed many connections. Conversely, it's been many years since I read the original trilogy but there were almost too many connections and similarities for my taste, it seemed a bit repetitive. To be fair there's only so many ways the Hunger Games can differ. Spoilers )
schneefink: Gail from Phoenotopia: Awakening next to flowers in a cave (PHOA Gail in Mul cave)
2025-05-29 08:08 pm
Entry tags:

Food and games

I cooked! Literally. (It took a surprising amount of effort not to address a non-existent "chat" here xD) There's a completely arbitrary (and very silly) distinction in my brain about what counts as "proper" cooking, and most of what I prepare for myself doesn't or barely counts. But today I made a pasta-tomato-ham casserole, which undoubtedly is proper cooking, and it was very good.
I really wanted to properly cook something because I'm currently house-sitting and the house has a very well stocked kitchen - I'm envious of their spice selection - but it turns out that not having my own tools, like working scales, and knowing where everything is is a disadvantage and it about evens out. (Most of these spices I don't even know what to do with tbh.)

I've also played quite a bit of Beat Saber already. Got a some expert level completions, but only managed normal for other songs. It's nice to play outside, too.

I've barely seen the skunk I'm house-sitting for, he's still in his winter phase apparently and eats little and mostly sleeps all day, and the one time he saw me he ran away. Nothing to worry about, according to his owners; he's getting old for a skunk, too. Beforehand I was mildly apprehensive about him demanding lots of attention, now I'm more worried that I wouldn't even notice if something was wrong.

Last weekend I played Islets, an indie metroidvania by the same solo dev who made Crypt Custodian. I only meant to try it out on Saturday and ended up playing for six hours, and then I finished the next day with 95% completion. It was a lot of fun! Importantly, movement feels good, and the exploration is fun. I played on easy because there were some bullet hell bosses and I don't like those, but on easy it was fine.
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2025-05-21 09:32 pm
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Pride (2014) + moving to music

L and I are both out of practice when it comes to, uh, sailing the high seas, so when we wanted to watch Pride we walked over to the local library and borrowed the DVD. (The library has two entire #BookTok shelves btw.) Which turned out to be a great choice because we really enjoyed the DVD extra about the actual history. Finding out that there were actual LGSM members walking in the march at the end made it even better.

Such a good movie. Even before I watched it, a gif set of the ending (which of course I can't find again rn) was one of the few things on Tumblr to reliably get me teary-eyed. (The other one being the story of the RMS Carpathia.) Learning about the characters that were based on real people, and their fates, and then of course of the waves resulting from their actions, was a very good finish. (I was slightly embarrassed that I didn't remember where I knew Gethin's actor from until I read Andrew Scott in the end credits.)


I agreed to house&pet-sit a couple of times for friends that are leaving for a three week vacation next week, so on Monday I got the introduction to the house. I expected that I would most look forward to spending time in the garden and/or pool, and also take advantage of the fancy kitchen, maybe the Xbox Gamepass or Switch, but that's before I got the introduction to the VR glasses. Now I suspect I will spend a significant amount of time playing Beat Saber. You have lightsabers! And move to the music! Idk maybe the shine will wear off quick but I'm really looking forward to playing.
schneefink: a tiny person on a huge bird before a dawn sky (Skyjacks griffin)
2025-05-08 11:09 pm
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Birds and Cardinals

My gf and I went on a guided tour about bird voices today. I had a good time :) Even though my body is clearly in ~vacation crash mode, as in "oh I can relax now? Excellent, you don't need that energy anyway, I can go back to being (half-)sick."
The guide said there are even more birds audible in the morning than in the evening, but it was more than enough for me, I already struggled enough with telling them apart and remembering their calls. There might be a handful I might be able to recognize now maybe, like the chiffchaff and the spotted woodpecker, and some others I'll suspect a lot, like the blackbird and the chaffinch and the great tit and the blackcap (I didn't even remember hearing about that last one but they clearly sing frequently and prettily.)
For fifteen minutes it was also much harder to hear the birds because of the church bells, I didn't even realize that was longer than usual until about halfway through and then someone said why.
We also saw several wild boars! Saw them quite well even, since I conveniently had binoculars with me (borrowed from my mom.) And we saw a caterpillar that seemed to float in the air above the path, meters away from any trees.

I'm glad I managed to watch Conclave before the actual one happened ^^ A very pretty movie. Good cinematography - if I knew more about movies I would probably have better words for it, but I liked how they used colors and space. The ritualistic environment was also very good. I already knew who would become pope in the end but none of the details. It took me a while to be able to tell all the faces/characters apart at first but I managed in time to follow the plot.
Spoilers )
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2025-05-07 01:00 pm
Entry tags:

Astalon 100%, exam tbd

After my February exam I decided to prepare better for my next one. It helped a lot that this time all the classes were a few weeks ago and not months. But then various things happened that were great but had unfortunate timing, and on top of that I got sick last week. Ugh.
Fortunately despite that I think the exam today went well :) I won't find out for about 1.5 months but I'm optimistic.
Now I don't have another exam until October and no classes until July, very nice.

I did finish Astalon: Tears of the Earth last week. Astalon standard mode 100% )
schneefink: (FF Kaylee in hammock)
2025-02-22 10:18 pm

I do not have to get up early tomorrow yay

I'm very tired. Both weekends since my exam have been full of classes for the next exam; tomorrow is my first day off in a while, and I already made plans with my family and with friends so while nice it's not going to be a free day either. At least I can finally sleep in for a little bit. LB wants to go ice-skating tomorrow but I told him I don't think I'll have the batteries for that, even though it's a shame.
L is on a short notice two week work trip, silver lining that that's happening while I have little time anyway. I'm very glad for modern communication.

A few quick reviews:

New Hades II major update! I played several hours after the last major update in October, so I was surprised that this time I only played a couple of runs. I think it's because with the last boss they added I also loved what they meant for the story, while the new new boss is a cool fight (I won on my first try but only because of god mode and it was still very close) but a less interesting character. And the few new plot progression dialogues I got were a reminder that naturally I remember less after not playing for several months, and that's even more relevant in Hades II than it was in the first one because the plot is a lot less straight-forward and there's also quite a few character and relationship developments that I want to watch closely. I might change my mind (and there's at least one more major update planned before the full release), but right now I think I won't play that much more in EA for now; but then probably start a new save in version 1.0. I'll definitely have an advantage because I already played over a 100 hours (though also an adjustment to not have all the upgrades anymore) but they're still changing boons anyway so figuring out the best combos now would only be temporary anyway.
I don't regret having played in EA so far though, I've had a lot of fun and I got to discover things myself and already have many cool theories about how the story will go.

Flow (2024 film): L and I watched that in the cinema and enjoyed it a lot. Great atmosphere, beautiful visuals, kinda, hm, dream-like storytelling that I loved. (At times it almost seemed like the animation had a low frame rate, not that I know anything about animation, but it didn't really bother me.) Not much is explained, which fits very well. L and I had completely different initial theories on the ending and I like both of them.
I thought the animals were very well animated with their body language etc., but I'd be curious about the takes of cat people in particular.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett:
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries )
schneefink: (FF Kaylee in hammock)
2025-01-24 08:52 pm
Entry tags:

Typical study procrastination

I'm having my familiar problems with making myself study, which is very frustrating and anxiety-inducing and so on. But today at least I made some good progress with an online study group and we're planning to meet again, that'll certainly help.

As some more or less productive procrastination I managed to reduce my browser tabs from 935 to 93 (edit: 65.) Not bad! I closed many many rec lists and many posts I wanted to comment on and many articles etc., I might have found cool things but realistically I would never have looked at most of them anyway. And now the likelihood that I'll actually look at/read/watch the remaining ones is much higher.

I went for a walk again today, which definitely did me good, and I was unpleasantly surprised that I didn't make it up the hill without a break to catch my breath so clearly I need to do that more often.
schneefink: (FF Kaylee in hammock)
2025-01-16 10:16 pm
Entry tags:

Bedtime

I'm currently caught in a spiral of not enough sleep -> no energy -> can't make myself go to bed on time -> not enough sleep... Which is bad but happens occasionally and usually a weekend helps. (My recent sickness and a root canal treatment this week surely didn't help.)
But! The timing is particularly unlucky, even apart from the fact that I have an exam in a month, because I have a second date tomorrow that I'm excited for, so this is my post for public accountability that I will now turn off the computer and go to bed.
...I may have written this and then put off posting it for half an hour. *sighs* But actually this time.
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2025-01-10 11:06 pm
Entry tags:

I would check my calendar, but...

I'm one of those old-fashioned people who still use a small paper calendar. Originally a major reason was that I was very scared of my phone as a single point of failure: what if I had my calendar on my phone and then I lost my phone, then I would also lose all my appointments. Better I kept them separate and would (hopefully) only lose one or the other.
By now it's technically the opposite, I could have my calendar on my phone synced to elsewhere, while if I lose my paper calendar the info is just gone. But I got used to using it, and tbh I still like having it separate from my phone, so I can e.g. go through it more easily while on a call to make an appointment.

I used to buy a new pocket calendar in mid-December, and then I got one for Christmas once and since then I always bought them between Christmas and New Years. I enjoyed picking out a new pretty one every year. But I got sick after last Christmas and didn't get around to looking for one until this week - and, shockingly, it seems like there's almost no small pocket calendars left? It's only the second week of January!, but two stores didn't have any left, and another one only had one and that one I didn't like.
Annoying. I'm currently debating if I should check out more stores, if I should try to find one online, or if I should take this as a sign to finally switch to using my phone's calendar function.
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2025-01-08 10:56 pm
Entry tags:

New room problems and old stream notes

Thanks to my mom, who volunteered to come help me on Saturday, my new study room is already looking quite nice! Unfortunately the wifi in this room is much much worse - DD has said it wasn't great but I didn't realize how bad, it keeps cutting off. I got so frustrated that on Monday evening I decided to move the modem from one room to the other since it looks like there is also a suitable thingy near the electrical outlet, but it didn't work and then the wifi promptly also stopped working in the first room when I moved it back. ...my nerves did not like that, wow, I had not realized I was so close to freaking out.
Yesterday I came home late so I couldn't look at it, but today I tried turning it off and on again and it works again! What a relief. Now before I move it to the study room (which definitely needs to happen before my online exam next month) I'll do some more research.
I'm also procrastinating on studying by tidying (among other things), which, could be worse but still. Have I mentioned I have an exam in a month.


I'm enjoying cleaning out my post drafts though. Feels good. This time, some notes I made about Dream SMP videos/vods/streams I watched and didn't post for whatever reason, back in 2022-2023. Solely for my own recollection.

Quackity 1 million followers celebration, ft. being hunted by Techno )

Blueberry TV Dream SMP season 2 )

Tommy Exile Arc )

Revivebur visits Phil, Tommy visits Las Nevadas, Mumza visits the server, George visits his nightmares )

The Masquerade )
schneefink: Billy sitting down looking sad (YA sad Billy)
2024-12-30 08:26 pm
Entry tags:

Grumpf

I'm sick and very grumpy about it. whining )
schneefink: (FF Kaylee in hammock)
2024-12-23 11:47 pm

Teeth and fish and princes

Annoying teeth things )

Unsurprisingly I have done very little today after that, mostly reading and fishing on MCCI. I got another screenshot with Etho today, that was pretty cool, after the first one two days ago (I was so surprised that time I completely forgot how to go into screenshot mode and remove the hotbar etc.) And I saw Scar yesterday, that was also cool. I've now made it to level 33 and the first tropical island, and I finally had some better luck with cosmetics today though I still don't have the ones I want most (the forest witch hat, or any of the rods or wings.) Currently I'm wearing a normal witch hat and carrying a beach bucket, with the new eyeblossom cape, and I think it looks cute.


About a month ago I was asking for podcast recs and [personal profile] scintilla10 recommended The Two Princes. I enjoyed it a lot! I really enjoyed the romance between the titular two princes, they are very sweet. I also enjoyed most of the supporting cast, like Joan and Cecily and the Chamberlain etc. Seasons one and two have big adventures with just the right amount of humor to keep it (mostly) light-hearted; season three had a bigger villain (and tbh a bit of a predictable deus-ex-machina ending, though I didn't really mind), but more importantly it's also a musical with some very fun songs.

Season one has the least songs and is occasionally a bit heavy-handed in its messaging, but my biggest pet peeve was queen Lavinia. vague spoilers )
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2024-11-24 11:20 pm

VIECC 2025

I went to the Vienna Comic-Con yesterday with a friend. We spent most of the time walking around the artist alley and also costume watching and it was a lot of fun.

I wore the Jellie helmet and safety vest of my imagineer!Scar cosplay from last year, without the Minecraft balloons sadly because they didn't survive but I did add the "I've visited Scarland" sticker that came with the artbook.
I wasn't recognized once and I didn't see any other MCYT cosplay that I recognized either; though at one point I heard people apologize to a Dave Strider cosplayer for thinking they were TommyInnit (understandable mistake from a distance but less so from up close.)
There were especially many One Piece and Critical Role/LoVM cosplays this year, which was fun to see.

I also bought stuff. Tiny dice as a Secret Santa gift for a member of my TTRPG group, and some things for myself:

I bought washi tape. I have never used washi tape ever but the tiny dinosaurs were just too cute to resist.
By far my favorite is the snake though. It's 3D-printed, shimmery, very flexible, and it feels so good to just play around with. A bit too long as a one-handed fidget toy but great for both hands; my friend and I each bought one (hers is orange-yellow-red) and couldn't stop playing with it the entire time.
schneefink: (FF Kaylee in hammock)
2024-11-11 10:37 pm
Entry tags:

Some whatever

The longer I don't post here the harder it is, so. Some whatever.

some whatever )
schneefink: (Feldgatter)
2024-09-10 09:31 pm
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Scotland, part 2

Part two of my Scotland vacation: traveling around!

First stop: Edinburgh, during the time of the Edinburgh Fringe, which I was very excited for. Edinburgh Fringe )

Further travel details )

Scotland, general thoughts )

Overall it was a great vacation, I had a fantastic time.
schneefink: Jingrui looking inquisitive (NiF inquisitive Jingrui)
2024-09-08 08:32 pm
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Dumb Money (2023 film)

Three days of eight-hour-classes this weekend and it was not as exhausting as I feared, yay. In preparation for an exam in October that I found out I will have to take in February because I missed the sign-up deadline, oops.
For scheduling reasons this was the first of my classes that I could take in person instead of as a webinar and I much prefer that.


I finally watched Dumb Money on Friday. (It was also my first time going to the "cinema on the roof" above the main library and that was very nice, next year I need to check what other movies they are playing there.) It's about the GameStop short squeeze in 2021 and I was very curious about it. It would be a vast exaggeration to say that I "was there," but I did check the subreddit regularly when things got heated back then.

I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I watched it. So much about Wall Street sucks and it is full of assholes, no surprise, but that makes it nice to watch when they get a bloody nose, at least.
I didn't find it entirely satisfying but I think a lot of that were too high hopes and me overthinking.

Details )

Watching this reminded me of watching "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," the movie that played a big role in me staying interested in accounting many years ago. (That is one of those movies I'm not sure I want to rewatch because it might not be as good as I remember it being, but otoh it might be very motivating when I need to start studying IFRS.) I do like a good business ~documentary.
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2024-08-25 11:40 am
Entry tags:

Food and baked goods

I met up with a few of my former colleagues to a goodbye dinner (and later drinks) for one of them. I was very happy to be invited, I didn't manage to keep in touch as much as I wanted, and it was a nice time.
I also found out that my fears about how that company might develop were not only well-founded but that apparently things went even worse than I anticipated, so I'm even more glad I left when I did.

I'm currently baking muffins, both as a thank-you to my neighbors for keeping my herbs alive while I was away and as a welcome home gift to my mom who's coming back from vacation but mostly because it's been a long time since I baked anything and I missed it. It's been so long that I forgot I have a new mixer. I don't remember when or how I got it but apparently I have a new mixer, which is good because I've wanted one for a while, so I'm not going to question it.
schneefink: Mu Qing looking skeptical (NiF skeptical Mu Qing)
2024-08-03 11:01 pm
Entry tags:

Pre-vacation jitters

As before every vacation I'm already full of anxiety a few days before I leave, flip-flopping between "I have more than enough time for everything" and "there's so much!!!" I don't know why traveling makes me so nervous, especially since I'm going to a country not too far away where I speak the language. But it's just so big in my brain there's little space for much else. It's usually fine once I'm there, thankfully.

Oops, I just remembered I have to ask one of my neighbors to water my herbs while I'm gone. The chives died already but the rest is still - well not all of them are looking good but they're alive.

I went swimming again today, and the previous weekends as well, I'm pleased that I managed to keep that up. Especially because I haven't used my bike in weeks. In my defense, it's been really hot and humid often. I still have noodle arms though.
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
2024-07-10 11:30 pm
Entry tags:

Not yet melted

For the first time this summer (for some reason) I went swimming in the river near my parents' place. Very nice, especially in this terrible heat, I should do that more often.
Have I mentioned that my new office doesn't have air conditioning? I only have a ventilator under my desk, I'm suffering. At least our boss buys us ice cream frequently.
My window herbs are also suffering, the chives already died. I don't even use the herbs that survived very often, though it's still very nice to have them just in case.

I've struggled with writing recently, so to hopefully overcome my writer's block I signed up for [community profile] battleshipex on a whim. It worked even better than I hoped! I'm on team Mermaid (our odds to win are not very good right now but whatever ^^) and I'm having a great time. I already finished two fics, and I'm working on a third one that I probably won't be able to finish in time to hit any of the tags on the first board that inspired it but then I'll just have to use it for the boss battle.
schneefink: Gail from Phoenotopia: Awakening next to flowers in a cave (PHOA Gail in Mul cave)
2024-06-27 10:11 pm
Entry tags:

Choir projects

At New Year's I was hanging out with friends and we were talking about various stuff and I mentioned that it'd been months since I'd sung in a choir and that eventually I want to look for one again, and that one day in the future I want to sing the Carmina Burana. (My other one-day piece had been Mozart's Requiem and I sang that with my old choir, it was fantastic.) Then a week later F called and said guess what my old choir is singing this semester…

So I joined a choir again! Together with F and A, which was great. The choir did two projects this semester: the first one was Beethoven's mass in c-major, which funnily enough was the first major classical piece I ever sang, but alto back then and soprano this time. (I mostly remember that concert back then because I collapsed midway through. Fortunately someone had some grape sugar and water and I eventually got back on my feet, and my mom who was standing in the row in front of me didn't even notice.) This time we sang it together with another choir in the Mozart Hall of the Konzerthaus. I didn't quite get the "can't stop beaming" euphoria afterwards I've had after some concerts, but it was a lot of fun.

The Carmina was a project together with a school choir, and the soloists and the percussionists were students too. Both choirs and the percussionists could have used a few more practices I think tbh, but LB said it was fine and LB is usually very critical when it comes to classical music ^^ It was fun, and I'm glad I got the chance to sing it.

I decided not to continue with that choir next semester, or probably any other. Overall in the last few months it felt like the choir practices cost much more energy than they gave. Also the choir sings almost exclusively classical music and while I do enjoy that occasionally, overall I much prefer a more varied program. F and A will probably be leaving too for that latter reason, and I haven't really made enough other connections to be an argument for staying. F and A will be looking for a new choir, but I think I'll take a break for a bit, especially since I'm starting exams this fall. I'm glad I had some time in a choir again for a while, and maybe I'll just have to go to karaoke more often to sing instead.