Teaching:

NA

Learning:

Geography and Romanian. Enjoyed this week's somatic movement workshop. One thing I guess I learned was that I get more out of these sessions when I leave my camera on the whole time. The journal prompt at the end brought up some feelings, mostly around the theme of self-acceptance etc. and what constitutes my actual life as opposed to various idealizations and aspirations. 

Listening:

Still keep coming back to that WPSE s/t. It dawned on me at some point this week that these songs don't really do much for/to me emotionally, but for whatever reason, they spark a lot of imagination. The past few days, I've been especially into this song:
So many tracks on this album, as on a lot of his other recent stuff, are about driving through mountains and stuff at night...this one is too, but the energy feels a little different, lighter somehow. I really like it. I'm also wondering if my recent infatuation with these songs has to do with my recent infatuation with the Raven Cycle, and this one scene that lingers in my mind a lot, of Gansey and Blue driving into the mountains together late one night. I feel like I should be ashamed of what's become of my taste but whatever.

Anyway, this song isn't my favorite sonically, but it includes most of my favorite lyrical elements and WP motifs: the blending of the magical and the mundane, the diaristic insider references to people and places. I feel like I want to write a whole story about this song.
Also been spending more time with the saoirse dream s/t, and I love it a lot. Dynamic and moving and funny and catchy and just really good. And samples! I love samples!

Reading:

Making slow progress on Sașa Zare's novel Dezrădăcinare, but so far I like it a lot. Diary-style autofiction about a young queer woman from a small village in Moldova who moved to Cluj for university and is now staying in a small village in Romania to try to write. Lots about her fraught relationship with her mom. Anyway, I'm impressed with how smoothly it's been going so far, and how seldom I've had to look up words. I mean, sure, I'm zooming past a few that I don't know if I can figure out the general gist of the sentence/passage in which they appear, but still. This book is huge so I'll probably be at it for a while.

Watching:

BBT, still. This show is *so weird* about sexuality and gender. Like, Amy's weird quasi-sapphic infatuation with Penny (which the writers seem to have dropped), the episode when Howard gets dosed with estrogen from the cream he's been applying to his mom's back, the recurring "jokes" about Howard and Raj being a gay couple...it's just relentless. And for all that, it's become something of a comfort watch. What the?!

Writing:

Speaking of the Raven Cycle, finished a transfemme Gansey drabble sequence that I'm pretty happy with. Also keeping up with the RPs; happy the cyberpunk one has transitioned to a lighter/goofier scene after some heavy action and trauma. I sort of got an itch for a new RP this week luckily didn't really pursue anything. I feel like I've got enough to occupy me.

Other:

Kind of a whirlwind week. Settled in for a couple days after coming home from the U.S. and then headed out to this "Marxist summer school" thing in a small village a few hours from here. T. had a presentation to give there, and I tagged along and had an okay-ish time despite the lodgings being sub-ideal and most of the presentations being pretty uninspiring. I feel like I don't even know where I am politically anymore, and while on some level I admire the people who organized and participated in this event, I just felt like it wasn't my world. Anyway, happy to be back home, in our own little world.