10|05|2024

Today I took the day off to go to a book fair with my mom and this is my small haul. I will have to say I got a bit overwhelmed by all the people there and all the sounds and general chaos so now I am exhausted, but I am happy with my finds. My mom gifted me this beautiful illustrated edition of The Silmarillion (which I'll be honest is in my long term tbr but I am glad I got my dream edition). I also found The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires for which I have been on a hunt for weeks and I was not expecting to find there. And finally I got a collection of short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman by this published I love. They make such curated and beautiful editions I am obsessed with their books and I plan on slowly collecting them since they mostly specialize in collection of short stories by various authors who often write gothic and horror stuff (aka my absolute favourite thing). I am pretty sure the vampire horror will be my next read, but I still have a few chapters of A Psalm For The Wild Built to read before I move onto something else.

Reblog this and tell me in the notes what you are currently reading and what you think of it so far

much like the minotaur I am a creature in some sort of situation

09|05|2024

The sun seems to be back after a night of thunders and lightnings. I hope it will hold up for the rest of the week because I desperately need to get started on my vegetable garden. The patch of garden is all ready all I have to do is to set up the supports for the tomatoes, and then get and plant everything. Ideally it will be the task of the weekend, and I cannot wait to get it done so that then I can start to figure out a new routine to take care of the garden while I also do everything else I have to do. I should also tend to my herb garden, but with all the rainy days we've had I haven't really had a chance to do it yet. I might go check in on all my plants in the weekend as well. I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed this week, I have very little energy and so much to do, and especially my social battery is out. I will spend most of the day out tomorrow and I really hope I can hold up to that. I don't even want to think about next week, the idea of having to commute again and probably meet people feels even more overwhelming. As usual I try to focus on one day at the time, but sometimes it's not easy. Today I had a couple of emails to send to professors, who will hopefully answer sooner rather than later. My work on the English lit paper slowly continues, and I honestly can't wait to get to the writing of it. I still need to read and annotate quite a few sources, but I aim to finish it by the end of next week.

today's productivity:

read first thing in the morning

emailed profs to get informations

continued reading and annotating articles for my English lit paper

general overview of the next month-ish and general study plan for the upcoming weeks

started to do what I have to in order to get my graduation diploma

📖: A Psalm For The Wild Built by Becky Chambers

just sent an email to my English lit professor to slightly change the topic of my paper and asking if he could confirm that's okay and I know he will propably not care and say it's fine but still that makes me anxious

they don’t prescribe visits to Rivendell for rest and healing like they used to

I have not kept it a secret that this semester commuting has been really rough on me. By the time I get home in the middle of the afternoon even if I only had to sit in a hour and a half lecture I feel like an overcooked noodle. And the mornings aren't any easier, my anxiety has been spiking a lot lately, and that messes me up completly, and it's particularly hard on my stomach. Let's just say it's a very demanding period of my life both physically and emotionally and I have been doing my best to get through it with ups and downs, but most importantly by trying to properly take care of myself. I decided to compile a list of small things that have been helping me, both for future reference as well as for people who might be dealing with similar issues.

Prep everything I can the night before. I don't leave the house until more or less mid morning since my class is on lunch time more or less (and this will come up again), so I do have time to do stuff in the morning, but if I have already put everything I need in my backpack, picked an outfit for the day and checked that I have my bus ticket the night before I can have a much calmer morning. Having a calm morning is fundamental for me on any day, so especially when I have a stressful and energy demanding day ahead I want to make sure I don't have to rush, and here is my second point.

Try to have a morning as calm as possible before I have to leave. I am a morning person so I wake up quite early which means I have plenty of time to take it easy. And this means drink my tea as I read my book, prep the last few things I need, like my waterbottle, eat (on which I'll have a later point). Overall my morning before leaving needs to be slow and mostly made of things for myself so again my precious reading time, listening tocmusic as I get ready to get in a better mood and so on.

Taking my meds regularly. It's the logical thing to do, if I am in a period in which my anxiety is worse than usual the number one goal is to be consistent with meds, they are there to help me even if sometimes I forget that.

Finding ways to enjoy food when anxiety fucks up my stomach. What happens is that as soon as I have an anxiety spike for some reason I get very nauseous, which is terribly by itself and it gets worse when it makes me struggle to enjoy my food. But I found a couple of ways to work around that in the past few weeks. Eating when I am away from home is much worse so what I do is embrace the little hobbit in me and have more meals when I am at home, and just bring some snacks on the road if I need them. That means I have two breakfasts before I have to leave the house, the last being a bit more filling. And then when I get home no matter how tired I am or what time it is I cook something for myself, something simple, but I take the time to make something good that fills me up and makes me happy. Because having a full stomach does improve your mood belove me. When I am on the road I bring some lighter snacks that can help me if I feel like I need to have something but that will also work well if I have a spike in anxiety and correlated nausea. I usually eat some homemade bread while I walk from the bus stop to my uni, and then snack on some nuts while I wait for the lecture. And I always have an emergency sweet treat in my backpack because that is something that I actually do on a regular basis. This thing has been working very well, I have had less problems with my stomach acting up, and I am definitely getting all the nutrients I need during the day, just at times that are a bit different from my normal routine.

Bring tea with me. It's something I never did before but it's becoming the one thing I won't give up. I either make a green tea or an herbal tea that I drink before the lecture, and it's been so good for me both physically and mentally. It's been super cold so the warm treat is really needed, but most importantly it's been very comforting and calming, so shutout to my dad for suggesting that.

Having little things to look out for during the commute. This mostly consists of me listing to podcasts, and re:dracula has been of great company in my commutes last year so it's nice it's become a bit of a tradition. It's just good for me not to associate commuting with negative things, so now I just percieve it as poscast time which makes it much much better. This also includes texing friends when I feel like I can look at the screen of my phone without getting car sick (again when anxiety messes me up I can get random car sickness), that's good to keep my mind off things and make the commute feel lighter.

Total relax when I get home. Which sometimes means lying in bed with a cup of tea and nothing more. If I have enough brain power I might read a comic, or play stupid midless games on my tablet for a bit. Honestly just things that need as little energy and brainpower as possible because by that time I do not have much energy or brainpower left, and it's okay. I normally use up a lot of energy when going out and it this period of time all tasks require I use even more energy. I can't do much about it other than accept it and do my best to tke care of myself.

Armchair beloved and current cosy read.

05|05|2024

In the past few days I have not been able to study and work on my paper, but it was quite busy nonetheless. I am feeling weird honestly, I get overstimulated very easily and I have a sense of overwhelme that is always a bit in the background, but I can't really figure out why. I am trying to focus on things one day at the time, take my meds and enjoy the small things. After being in a reading slump for a while I decided to reread A Psalm For The Wild Built, and so I am slowly diving back into this comforting book. It was one of my favourites last year, and I can definitely benefit from the calm and cosy vibes of the novel. I have also been listening to a lot of podcasts, Monstrous Agonies being my comfort thing™ lately, but also The Mistholme Museum Of Mystery Morbidity And Mortality (the fact that there will be just one more episode has me in an existential crisis, what will I do without guide????) and of course re:dracula. I decided to do the Dracula reread of the year with the podcast again because it's just too good.

I am going through a mild reading slump and of course my brain is trying to convince me to reread the lord of the rings

More cross stitch updates! In the past few days I've made so much progress!

30|04|2024

Today was quite productive and still I managed to get enough breaks and rest when I needed it. I am very happy about this and I hope I can keep this up. I am still procrastinating in picking a new fiction read because nothing from my unread shelf calls to me at the moment. I do have a couple of non fiction books I have been slowly reading so I am not left without a read, but I would like to finally settle on a good fiction book to escape from reality in my free time. Still I will have to read a lot for uni so maybe it's better for me not to start any new books I cannot keep up with. I am listening to Monstrous Agonies a lot, and I can confirm it has turned into my comfort thingsTM. The way it makes me feel calm and comforted is unreal. I am also very excited for dracula daily to start at the end of the week. I think I will be listening to the podcast version like last year because it was phenomenal. As for actual study updates I have finally started to dive in the articles I found yesterday and I can proudly say I have read and annotated two full articles today. I was expecting to get less done. I still have to write a couple of general notes on my notebook for the last article, but I'll be doing that tomorrow.

today's productivity:

read in the morning (still reading the historical essay because I cannot pick a new fiction book uuugh)

started reading and annotating the articles I found to write my English lit paper (I worked on two today, which feels like a great start)

practiced Irish on duolingo

continued working on my cross stitch project

planned the rest of my week since I will be working on a couple of mornings

I'm sorry that you're getting grammar policed. For the record, as an English speaker, I also screw up on these things.

Don't worry anon, I do mess up spelling in my own first language sometimes it is only logical that I do mess up English sometimes

it’s a history not an history

thanks grammar anon

my adventures researching for my English lit paper on Shakespeare (as an history student)

expectations: really complicated literary article on stuff I can barely understand due to lack of backgroud

reality: this paper will now take up the next three pages to explain a dick joke

What do you mean Nightwish has a new album coming out ???? And i have to way until September to listen to it?????

the way my stomach drops everytime axe or sword from the hobbit soundtrack plays

Miti E Leggende Dei Celti by Mila Fois

This is going to be a long one. So, I got this book a couple of weeks ago because of two reasons. Firstly I have been looking for a book on Celtic myths for a long time, and secondly this looked like a very nice and curated edition. It's illustrated with a lovely artstyle, overall it's one of those books that calls to you when you see it on a book shelf. My opinions on the book itself have to be devided in two sections, the first being the actual story so the myths and legeds which of course are traditional tales and not the author's idea, and the way the author decided to work on said stories, presenting them to the public and so on. I have to do this because I absolutely despised the book but I actually liked the stories. The thing is that I am very very frustrated with the author and the publisher whoever is responsible for this, but let's talk about one thing at the time. The stories were fine, it was my first time actually approaching them, and though I didn't love the narration style of the author I enjoyed my time with them. I would love to read another's author's approach at telling these tales, because overall I would love to learn more about Irish traditional myths and tales. I am using the word Irish instead of Celtic because at the end of the day that's what the book should have been called. Yes, most of these stories are Celtic myths, but part of the book is just Irish folklore and it's not addressed, moreover two stories end with Irealand being already christianized? This is one of the first things that didn't make me happy because how can it be a Celtic myth if it ends with their own change of fate? And I believe this introduces well the general problem of this book, it's very imprecise and superficial. I am aware it's not an academic text, but still that is not an excuse for how imprecise it is and it wasn't even a cheap book. There's absolutely no glossary or notes that explain some words that believe me an average Italian person who has never read on the topic before wouldn't know and would have to google (and this is a book made for people who would just like to dive in myths as stories for fun). There's no guide to pronunciation, and that would have been needed even if in a small form, because of course Gaeilge has very different sounds than Italian so why not help the reader? And finally continuing on the imprecisions I think they made a poor choice of translation that needed a note to be contextualized. I am getting into the specifics but the historian in me gets frustrated easily with this stuff, because I don't understand how you can publish something is badly curated and misinformation go on even if it's a small thing, it just doesn't sit right with me especially since the author apparently graduated cum laude with a thesis in history of religions. Anyway the thing is of course fae folk are mentioned and since there is not a precise Italian translation of the term the author used a couple of other creature names that are kinda similar, but not the same thing since we are talking about different traditions. Nowhere in the book there was a note explaining that "hey I decided to use said and said word because of x reason but bear in mind that they are different creatures in such a way". I am so annoyed at how poorly it was curated, the tales are worth it but not in this form, and again the fact that someone who seems to have graduated in the history of religions should not have made these approximations. It feels like betrayal from within your household, there's already so much misinformation and approximation on historical matters, so especially since this is not an academic text but something that anyone would pick up you should be extra-careful in the way you expose things, and the informations you decide to put out in the world.

29|04|2024

In the end I chose to stay home this week and avoid the two lectures of today and tomorrow. It's just what is better for my mental and physical state at the moment, and as soon as I can I will be emailing the professor to ask her if I need to work on additional materials. I was planning on doing that today, but of course my uni has to fuck stuff up and momentarily blocked ALL student's email addresses so I have no way to communicate with the professor until the end of this week. I can't even use another email because the uni email addressess cannot recieve emails from the outside it's a nightmare. WIth this being said my mood was a bit better today and I was also more productive than expected so I am happy about that. Not only I finished my reread of the play, but I also found so many (too many) sources to use for my paper. I also organized said sources and starting tomorrow I will read and annotate them which hopefully won't take too long. I cannot wait to get to the writing part because that will mean I will be close to the end, and I'll be able to move on to other tasks. As for non uni related things I am in a book limbo since yesterday I finished what I was reading and I haven't picked up my next fiction read, and I have no idea what to pick.

today's productivity:

read first thing in the morning (and since I haven't picked yet my next novel I started the day with an historical essay which is great but not necessarily how i'd like to start my days)

finished rereading and annotating The Merchant Of Venice

looked for new sources for my English lit paper (so far I have 17 sources including two books, ya kid has a lot to work on rn)

organized the sources I found and created an attack plan (yes that is how I am calling my study organization)

worked on my cross stitch project

daily Irish review on duolingo

📖:L'Idea Di Medioevo by Giuseppe Sergi, The Merchant Of Venice by Shakespeare