3 Dec 2023

Weeknotes 8

Two weeks after my last weeknotes, I was thinking to myself, hmm I should start on my next entry, and then I thought, no, it’s too early, and now it’s been a month since the last.

Redesign progress

it’s…going. Slowly. I feel distressed that I started more than a month ago and I’m still not done. I’m trying to will myself to get it to a point of good enough, hit publish. Sometimes I feel like I’m letting myself down for not making things perfect the way I want things to be. As a professional designer, I should make my personal work good. But also, as a personal website enjoyer, what brings me a lot of joy is the freedom to make frequent, messy changes and do what I want. And usually that side wins out. So. Good enough is good enough for me.

Yesterday I did a whole bunch of file reorganizing and pruning. I moved things into folders and deleted stuff I wasn’t using. It felt good!

The redesign is still half-finished, not just merely imperfect—there are whole untouched pages—but I’m trying to lower my standards so I can tackle the remaining tasks without feeling overwhelmed. I’m sick of my current design and want it to be gone.

Media

Highlights reel. The comprehensive log is in the diary, as usual.

Things I watched

  • Only Murders in the Building (season 3): this series is so much fun. It’s both very funny and also very touching. The musical numbers are delightful.
  • More Wes Anderson: Isle of Dogs, The Royal Tenenbaums, and a rewatch of The French Dispatch. After watching The Royal Tenenbaums, I now understand the references in those Wes Anderson AI parodies, with the cast names and centered shots. Patrick Willems talks about this at length in a really excellent video essay that I appreciate even more now.
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark: I feel like watching this was similar to my experience of watching the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man—it’s a product of its time and I felt overly critical of it because of its reputation. Perhaps upon rewatch I’ll be able to enjoy it for what it is instead of overanalyzing everything. The action was fun though! Side note—Temple of Doom is the only other Indiana Jones movie I watched, and idk if I’m brave to watch it now even as an adult lol. It scared me when I was younger and I didn’t know until recently that it’s a particularly dark movie.

Music I liked

  • Look for the Light from Only Murders is sooooo gorgeous
  • Taeyeon released a new mini album, which is lovely. I adore the title track Mr. X.
  • I was listening to some old IU songs and forgot how good You & I is. Maybe I felt more lukewarm on it when it first came out (in 2011!) because it followed Good Day and was compared to it, but listening to it now so many years later, it’s lovely.

Spotify Wrapped also came out, and there weren’t really any surprises on mine—most listened genre is pop; the French movie music I kept looping (i.e. like 4 songs) were in my top listened songs; there was a lot of Taylor Swift. I hope to write a fun little Media 2023 post so I’ll talk about this more then.

Things I played

  • I started Pokemon Violet while in Montreal, though I didn’t play much of it.
  • There’s a new season of Destiny 2, so I’m currently scheduling my entire life around it.

Things I read

I finished Pet Sematary by Stephen King this morning. I read this gradually over a couple of weeks. It’s a slow burn, and there’s a pervading sense of dread. It made me too nervous to read at night, so I mostly read it during the day and in public. I liked it! The only other King book I’ve read is The Shining, which I found scarier—but perhaps that’s due for a reread too.

I just got 11/22/63 from the library again. I read a tiny bit of it last year and I’m excited to read a non-horror King book.

In other things

  • I went to Montreal and came back! I plan to write a fun little Montreal recap over the holidays. (I have so many blog posts I want to write, lol.)
  • December is upon us, which is equal parts distressing (where did the year go?) and exciting (new year, new me; holiday break means no work means time and energy to do personal stuff?; I am going to couch potato so much.)
  • I feel like I didn’t read much on the internet. I saved a whole lot of things to my to-read app though.