1 Nov 2026

Weeknotes 47

Hello again, old friend.

Cringetober

I’m excited to be done with my Cringetober drawing challenge, which I participated in for all 31 days. Upon finishing it, I’ve decided that I’m not going to do this again next year. I probably wouldn’t have aimed for completion if I hadn’t set a goal way back in January to do so. While I’m glad I pushed through and accomplished my goal, it taught me that this isn’t for me.

Messy digital painting of a top-down view of two Marathon shells lying dead in a pool of bright blue blood against a bright yellow floor.
day 29: ARG. screenshot from the marathon cryo archive launch trailer, which was unlocked via an ARG

I think daily drawings required too much attention from me that I wanted to spend elsewhere—even if I spent only five minutes drawing something, the task would loom over me the entire day. And most days, I put in the bare minimum effort, because I didn’t feel enthused about drawing.

Ink sketch of Kaiba from Yugioh
day 27: kids show

Next year, perhaps I’ll try a different drawing challenge, but it won’t be a daily one. Same with Plein Airpril—I’ll likely do it again, but also without the daily goal.

Digital sketch showing Florence with long red hair, posed with her eyes closed and arms folded, leaning against a reflective surface, where she’s reflected three times—showing her face in two reflections and her back in the third, against a black background. It’s sketched with only flat colours for her hair, skin, and dress.
day 6: album redraw. Ceremonials by Florence + The Machine

This website

I’m working on a redesign.

Cropped screenshot showing a horizontal nav bar of tabs against a pale green gingham background. The colour scheme is pink and green against white and pale yellow.

It’s based on my current reading page design, which I’ve been quite enjoying. I want my website to be cute and channel the stationery vibes that I have been so obsessed with all year.

Of course, thinking about redesigning is far easier than actually redesigning, so I don’t know how long this will take. I’m a bit hesitant to even share a screenshot, because me talking about things before they’re finished is a great way for me to never finish it.

Media

Watching

Not much still! I saw Street Fighter, which was aggressively mid, and Forgotten Island, which had a fantastic and scary villain design.

I’m hoping to watch You Can See Everything and Wildwood soon. Everyone is talking about the former and I believe the latter will reaffirm my belief in art.

Playing

Time is a flat circle, and I’m playing Maplestory Classic. Will it be less grindy than it was 20 years ago? Who knows! One fun thing now is that I am an adult with adult money, so I could buy cash shop items if I wanted to. Who’s to tell me I can’t spend real money dollars on game cosmetics.

Maplestory screenshot. I'm a level 10 Swordman, sitting on my folding chair in Perion.

Thinking about doing party quests makes me miss Destiny raiding.

Reading

I’m slowly making my way through my horrible library backlog, while also recklessly visiting used bookstores at every opportunity. I love the concept of buying books. Reading books I own? Hmm, I dunno, what if I didn’t.

In October, I enjoyed:

  • The Haunting of Hill House — big surprise, Shirley Jackson is fantastic
  • Morel’s Invention — a weird little novella, and also my first NYRB classic (didn’t know this was A Thing until recently) and a book I bought brand new when I was halfway through reading a library copy.
  • Rosemary’s Baby — the sense of dread I felt for Rosemary… I thought I was immune to being scared from audiobooks because Mexican Gothic did nothing for me, but Mia Farrow’s fantastic narration here made me feel so uneasy about the events.
  • The Shining — a reread. The same parts still scared me!
A restaurant table with Morel’s Invention on my ereader, and a plate of delicious cheesy pasta
truly every day I am thinking about the next time I can go out to eat pasta, drink wine, and read

I’m currently struggling to get through the fantasy tome The Strength of the Few, and hope to finally tackle the nonfiction books I have stacked on my table…

Other

  • Vancouver is officially out of sync with the US west coast. We didn’t change our clocks today, so now we’re basically on Mountain Time—one hour ahead of California, and two hours behind New York. It’s very confusing. This does, however, make having meetings with my manager in Europe easier.
  • All I’m thinking about these days are the winter holidays. I need her so bad.
  • I need to eat more soup