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What's New? July 2017

"O, summer fair! I would have loved you, too,
Except for heat and dust and gnats and flies.
You kill off all our mental power,
Torment us; and like fields, we suffer from the drought;
To take a drink, refresh ourselves somehow - 
We think of nothing else, and long for lady Winter.
And, having bid farewell to her with pancakes and with wine,
We hold a wake to honor her with ice-cream and with ice."


Excerpt from "Autumn" by Alexander Pushkin


I can really relate to this poem. Summer is my least favourite season of all the seasons. I hate the weather, I hate the incessant roar of lawnmowers in the morning, and most of all, I hate wasps. But, I'm not here to nag about how much I hate summertime. I'm here for a quick update on what I have been doing this summer.

Well, the first thing I did when I went on vacation was quit drinking... coffee. No more lattes, no more moccas, no more instant Nescafés. The first few weeks were difficult to get through, but it's been over a month now, and I no longer feel like I'm addicted to coffee. I think it's safe for me have a cup of coffee from time to time without falling back into my old unhealthy habbits.

One healthy lifestyle choice led to another, and I renewed my membership at the gym, so instead of sweating on the beach I'm sweating in a small room full of other sweaty women. But, I have my Spotify, and a new pair of cute bicycle shorts, so it's all good.

Most of the time, though, I'm sitting right here, in front of my computer screen. But, instead of binging Buffy the Vampire Slayer like I did last year, this time, I'm actually doing stuff.

Camp Nanowrimo 2017
Lat November, I finished the first draft of my old/new X-files fanfiction, and now I'm working on the second draft. It's going better than I thought. I finally figured out what the story is about, who the main villain should be, and what genre the story fits in.

I started out strong, but at the end of my first week, my old pals, Self-doubt and Procrastination paid me a visit. To get rid of them, I had to use heavy artillery - Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. It's a collection of essays on creativity, published between 1965 and 1990. I love this book. It's autobiographical, but it's full of wisdom and pep-talks, and it feels like Bradbury is speaking directly to you.



Reading
I'm slowly moving down my summer TBR. I've already finished Three Parts Dead, and Zen in the Art of Writing, and now I've started "Deny All Knowledge": Reading the X-files - a collection of essays about my number one show (I'm going to have a very X-files heavy summer).



I also renewed my subscription with Audible, mostly so that I could pre-order the upcoming audio book, X-files Cold Cases, written by Joe Harris, and narrated by all the original cast (who-hoo!). While I'm at it, I also got Stephen King's It narrated by Steven Weber. Weber is, of course, the handsome and talented actor who played Jack Torrance in the mini-series, The Shining from 1997. Or, as I like to call it, "the only good adaptation of The Shining". I'm really enjoying this book, but the audio version is over forty hours long, so it's I'm taking my time with it.



Summer movies
I have a feeling that this is going to be a good movie summer. I've already seen Wonder Woman, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, and now I'm planning on seeing Spiderman: Homecoming, and War for the Planet of the Apes. 





Studying
Yes, unfortunately, I haven't been spared from this unwholesome activity this summer. The finals didn't go as well as I hoped (I flunked), and the re-exam is in August, so it's back to studying anatomy and periodontology for me.






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