Mishmash of Things as They Occur to Me
Dec. 13th, 2021 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I keep meaning to post here and then not because organizing my thoughts to post seems like so much effort, which is just... very this year. (I nearly typed "very 2020" there, so yeah. Anyway.)
I just came back from teaching temari at the folk school in the mountains for the first time since 2019, which I felt okay doing since they did actually institute a vaccine policy, and have kept masking in the studios at all times and food to go rather than communally in the dining hall. It was unseasonably warm for Holiday in the Mountains week, or what seems like it should be unseasonable warmth but is probably normal now, to the point that I only took my big wool sweater jacket from Chile rather than a real coat and it was fine the whole time. Rainy and slightly too chilly to make eating outside pleasant, unlike in August when my mom and I went to take classes post-vaccines and pre-Delta variant, when we ate on the porches every meal and all the studios had the doors and windows open, but I think it was fine anyway. The rain at least meant spending 12 hours a day in the studio wasn't a particular hardship, and my class was full. The students seemed to enjoy themselves and definitely learned a lot. Of course I feel like I could have been more organized with handouts for them, but for having not taught in person for two years and still being in a pandemic? I think it went fine. Hopefully the student surveys agree when I get them in a month or so.
Fandom-wise, I feel like I'm floating. My brain is still largely consumed by c-dramas, but I'm not compelled to write anything. I was actually drawing for a little while there, which was novel and welcome after so long without really doing that type of art for so long, but that faded as well (maybe because I was getting ready for the folk school, we'll see if it comes back), so I've been doing a lot of knitting while watching a random selection of stuff. Currently I'm watching:
Knitting: I finished all the really long ribbed scarves I decided to make to accompany the hats I made for people last year (to use up wool from 2001 that M is allergic to and I've had sitting in a series of closets all this time) and then never put in the mail. Both hats and scarves actually went in the mail this year, and I have reports of their safe arrival. Success! Now I've turned to knitting a blanket for the first time, and determined, somewhat to my dismay, that plain garter stitch really is the right decision for this project, because it's in graduated shades of black & white speckled yarn that the manufacturer called "Paperback" but my brain insists should be called "Newsprint", and the garter ribs read the most like little lines of text. So that's what I've been doing while watching Due South for the past week+.
I just came back from teaching temari at the folk school in the mountains for the first time since 2019, which I felt okay doing since they did actually institute a vaccine policy, and have kept masking in the studios at all times and food to go rather than communally in the dining hall. It was unseasonably warm for Holiday in the Mountains week, or what seems like it should be unseasonable warmth but is probably normal now, to the point that I only took my big wool sweater jacket from Chile rather than a real coat and it was fine the whole time. Rainy and slightly too chilly to make eating outside pleasant, unlike in August when my mom and I went to take classes post-vaccines and pre-Delta variant, when we ate on the porches every meal and all the studios had the doors and windows open, but I think it was fine anyway. The rain at least meant spending 12 hours a day in the studio wasn't a particular hardship, and my class was full. The students seemed to enjoy themselves and definitely learned a lot. Of course I feel like I could have been more organized with handouts for them, but for having not taught in person for two years and still being in a pandemic? I think it went fine. Hopefully the student surveys agree when I get them in a month or so.
Fandom-wise, I feel like I'm floating. My brain is still largely consumed by c-dramas, but I'm not compelled to write anything. I was actually drawing for a little while there, which was novel and welcome after so long without really doing that type of art for so long, but that faded as well (maybe because I was getting ready for the folk school, we'll see if it comes back), so I've been doing a lot of knitting while watching a random selection of stuff. Currently I'm watching:
- HD uploads of Due South, which I'm now realizing I never got to watch all in order, because I kept catching kind of random strings of reruns as a teenager, since it took a while to filter down to a syndicated channel in my area of the country. When I'm done, I have the prospect of a bunch of classic fic to catch up on!
- Wheel of Time - I, for one, am really appreciating all the editing choices being made. Thousands of words have been cut, which is exactly what I wanted, not to mention the focus on Moiraine as the driving character rather than Rand. The new, pointless Perrin backstory of course makes me grind my teeth, but I'm ignoring it with all my might.
- Luoyang - The sets and costumes for this! Their candle budget! Wang Yibo getting to play a character who loves 3D puzzles and finds women coming onto him off-putting and weird! (Not a stretch for him, acting-wise.) The bonding between the inner palace detective and the underworld guy! The fact I still don't really know where the mystery is going to take us! (I really should get VIP access for iQIYI, probably.)
- Rainless Love in a Godless Land - I need to see if there's a new episode of this out that I can access! It consumed me utterly while I was able to watch a bunch of it back to back, and then I had to wait for weeks because I somehow tricked iQIYI into unlocking two weeks of content for me early, and then it fixed itself. :-(
Knitting: I finished all the really long ribbed scarves I decided to make to accompany the hats I made for people last year (to use up wool from 2001 that M is allergic to and I've had sitting in a series of closets all this time) and then never put in the mail. Both hats and scarves actually went in the mail this year, and I have reports of their safe arrival. Success! Now I've turned to knitting a blanket for the first time, and determined, somewhat to my dismay, that plain garter stitch really is the right decision for this project, because it's in graduated shades of black & white speckled yarn that the manufacturer called "Paperback" but my brain insists should be called "Newsprint", and the garter ribs read the most like little lines of text. So that's what I've been doing while watching Due South for the past week+.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-14 07:22 pm (UTC)Yay for watching due South all the way through!
I'm not watching WOT yet because I want to finish re-reading the first book before I do. Though I'm not completely unspoiled as I've seen some GIFsets on Tumblr, and even reblogged them. *g*
no subject
Date: 2021-12-14 07:56 pm (UTC)Back when I was originally reading the WoT books, I would reread the entire series to date each time a new book was scheduled to come out, but this time I decided to just watch the show as its own thing without an immediate book comparison, and I'm pretty happy with that choice. (I never did read the Sanderson books at the end. I think my last read-through was to Book 9, since that's all that was out at the point I was living in Japan and had so much free time in the evenings to read epic fantasy with uninterrupted concentration.) I have to say, the casting of the show is making for some *excellent* gifsets! Not to mention the costumes and sets.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-14 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 01:28 am (UTC)I hope your reread goes well (and speedily)!
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Date: 2021-12-27 03:00 pm (UTC)When you get around to that DS fic, don't miss
no subject
Date: 2021-12-28 01:12 am (UTC)