Inside the circle of friends

Previous poll review
In the Music listening habits poll, "all the time" and "sometimes/occasionally" tied for first place with 27.7%, followed by "most days" with 25.5% (within the margin of error, so it's really a three-way tie). "Only in specific settings" garnered 19.1%.

For background noise, 57.4% said they like quiet, and 44.7% prefer music. (I think this says something about the kind of people who like Dreamwidth.) And in ticky-boxes, more hugs won with 89.1%, followed by hugs (82.6%) and lemons on the lemon tree (54.3%). Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
A bit more of Borders of Infinity by Bujold, read by Grover Gardner, and some graded reading in Chinese (the one about the stray cat finding a home, and her adopted mother, the penniless student; now I'm onto one about a doctor impersonating a student so she can go back to campus and feed the cats there, only now she's going on a date with a student? I'm hoping he'll turn out to actually be older too). I am slow and occasionally tripped up by new grammar configurations, but enjoying it immensely.

Cdramas/Kdramas
We finished Miraculous Brothers. Kind of a slow ending, but it was great. Now Andrew and I have started a) The Apartment Job, about a retired gangster (possibly autistic-coded?) trying to rip off the maintenance fund of a huge apartment complex; and b) Agent Kim Reactivated, about a retired North Korean super-spy living a quiet, humdrum life in South Korea, who loses his shit when his daughter is kidnapped. The latter is full of groups of people being terrible so we can enjoy seeing them get beaten up, ie, lots of bullying, terrorising the helpless, etc. It's also cartoonishly violent, quirkily enjoyable, and has So Ji-sub.

Pru and I finished Love Scout (♥ ♥ ♥) and are about to start May I Help You (2022), about a woman who works in a funeral parlour and sees ghosts, and an odd-jobs guy who helps her carry out the ghosts' last requests.

And I'm still obsessed with The First Frost, about two wounded, gunshy people who've loved each other since they were at high school but have a hard time getting past their own defences. (CW: sexual assault, workplace sexual harassment.) It's one of those "every tiny bit of progress feels like a triumph" kind of shows. I'm not sure what I'm going to follow it up with once I'm done.

Other TV
Not a lot of other TV. Legends (UK) once a week with a friend; White Collar and Bluey with my sister; finished Fisk. Watched a few movies: Nonnas (very gentle light drama with Vince Vaughan), Smallfoot (animated yeti (雪人) movie with confusing cultural aspects and unnecessary musical numbers), and Toy Story 5 in the cinema (fun enough, but I always forget I'm not really into the franchise). A bit of The Rest is Politics on Youtube (interviews with Jacinda Ardern, Helen Clark, Volodymyr Zelenskyy).

Audio entertainment
Cross Party Lines, a bit of Dreaming Against the Machine, some Coherent Podcast episodes to help me with political submissions, and a metric ton of ChinesePod beginner and elementary lessons. I'm about three weeks behind on Writing Excuses.

Writing/making things
My writing time has mostly been taken up with the Slo-mo Guardian Rewatch on sid_guardian and political submissions, but I did just edit a flashfic; I might even manage to finish it for this fan_flashworks round. (I wrote it in Chinese first, translated it, and then had to fix the things that I either didn't think of or didn't know how to express in Chinese. ;-p)

Life/health/mental state things
One more political submission over the weekend. That should be it for a while, since the government has (hopefully) run out of time to start more terrible things before the election.

My email inbox is neglected and overflowing. We're in the cold, dark part of the year, and it's inevitably taking its toll. But I'm okay. I'm hunkering and studying and otherwise puddling along.

House
I have quotes from the builder and electrician, and I've paid for the oven. Wheels are in motion (hopefully next month! *knock on wood*). I still need to a) paint the baseboards in the kitchen, and b) choose a new toilet.

Language Learning
My Chinese study continues apace. I got three days of free Premium on Duolingo over the weekend and went hard, but mostly my focus has shifted to HelloChinese (grammar, cultural notes, characters, "immersive lessons") and DuChinese (reading, flashcards). And the podcast (sample dialogues, pronunciation).

Good things
Lunches with friends. The Slo-mo Rewatch. A wealth of language learning resources. Writing. Looking forward to trying out new dishes (and also baking) in the new oven.