fitia | Entries tagged with assorted thoughts

I'm in the midst of nursing an incredibly lengthy and miserable burnout period that I'm having trouble seeing a way out of. Obviously, I'm constantly holding out hope that I'll find one; I'm (sort of) in therapy again, I'm slowly picking at a digital drawing after several months of no real creative output on that end (wow!); basically, I'm trying to Do Things. Though I'm still stuck in this state of like, up-and-down moods, without ever consistently "feeling good", so it's notttt looking too hot at the moment.

Another symptom of this is that it gets harder and harder to see the point in writing... anything, really, because the insecurity of anticipating audience response (negative, or outright lack of) is genuinely incapacitating when I'm in the dumps. That said, I do tend to feel better after writing something out, regardless of what happens with it, so I'm forcing out a journal entry in hopes that it'll fix me (or at least give me some relief!)

Ability to read has been Dire lately, but I have managed to finish Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery! The experience of reading it, around the end, was actually a lot more miserable than it should've been because a lot of the ending just kept reminding me of my own awful mental state, and the whole time I was like ughhh!!! I should be having FUN here, this is GREAT writing, I am so FRUSTRATED!!! Everything seems tainted by this goddamn burnout at the moment.

But anyways, quick thoughts on the book itself: this is the third full work of Montgomery's I read this year -- after giving The Blue Castle a try, and rereading Anne of Green Gables -- , and it's definitely my second favourite of the three. Despite my Problems. I've always enjoyed Montgomery's prose when it comes to landscape description: she really wrote like she was enamoured with everything she saw, and she was my first introduction to a book getting Gorgeous with it when it comes to language. There's a lot in EoNM that's reminiscent of AoGG, but I think Emily as a character is one I find more interesting than Anne. I like that she has sharper edges to her, and her journey as a child discovering her own love for writing and growing to be more discerning and critical of her work and aiming towards improvement is something that really resonated with me.

Funnily enough, I find both AoGG and EoNM a lot more... adult, and down to Earth, compared to The Blue Castle, which is among LMM's novels actually intended for an adult audience? I've been meaning to write my thoughts on that, some time, but it'll have to wait for when I no longer feel like a pile of sludge T_T

Right now, I'm slowly making my way through a book on the Drefyus Affair, which I'd been meaning to learn about properly for a while now. It was written following the centennial of the year Dreyfus was officially cleared of all false charges against him, and serves as a kind of retrospective of the event's history, how that history was written, and the influence it had on the actual practice of history in France, of gathering evidence, of dealing with revisionism and falsification given the tug-of-war of establishing facts between the dreyfusard and antidreyfusard camps, etc etc. It's also a collection of essays, which each author treating the Affair and its social/cultural/political/historical impact under different lenses. I have a lot of fun with it, whenever I manage to actually sit down and read it. It's been interesting to get more insight into this massive event in contemporary French history.

I made a letterboxd account recently, purely to lurk and read other people's reviews, and God is it really making me resent the whole Social Media aspect of interacting with any sort of art. All these bite-sized, witty comments meant first and foremost to gather likes taking up all the space in the top reviews... it's so annoying. Say something true and beautiful, etc etc. I've thankfully managed to hunt down the users posting longer, more substantial reviews that are actually a pleasure to read, but I am still bummed out for having to spend so long scrolling to find some interesting reviews of movies I personally just happened to watch.

Speaking of movies! I managed to watch a couple good ones last month: I did rewatch the Star Wars original trilogy last month, I watched The Iron Giant (FANTASTIC kid's movie) and The Banshees of Inishering (this one requires a rewatch, but it did leave a lot of food for thought). Once again, though, I am having all of my current media experiences stained by the stupid burnout emotions, which did not make for the most fulfilling movie experiences... can I please be free.

And this is about as far as I can think to write. I've been doing and enjoying a lot more things than this one post would have you believe, and I really do hope I find the energy to talk about them eventually. My brain has been craving some meta/analysis posting for a while now, I just need to cope with all the bad feelings before I can get to that...

I'm Feeling: blah

I'm gonna be honest, this will be a quick one. Haven't been feeling too hot this week, and I've gotten mood dives at a frequency that tends to cancel out brief instances where I've felt fine -- happy, even -- and I'm thinking that writing a bit might help with it. Or not. We'll see!

I've been having various fandom thoughts -- specifically, on the question of media, politics, and where the former stands when it comes to where you expend your personal energy and outrage for the latter -- but haven't gotten to a point where I know how to word them, yet. Actually, I've had a lot of trouble wording a lot of thoughts I have that I'd like to share, and it's definitely been among the things that's been killing my mood, recently. Could also be due to period cycle hormones at the moment too, to be fair. But man, it's been feeling Not Great in my head these past few days. One of the moods where you know what exactly it is you want that would cheer you up, but you also know that it's not exactly something you can expect out of anyone. Which sucks. It's a matter of accepting it, but it would honestly be so much easier to accept if it didn't all feel so miserable.

I watched Train to Busan for the first time yesterday, and I had such a great time with it! I'd planned to write a mini-review for it on here like I did after watching the first Indiana Jones movie, but the aforementioned inability to write and feel articulate about it hit and so I had to nix the idea. But here are my quick thoughts anyways: really perfectly executed zombie apocalypse movie. The train setting was incredibly well-chosen, for how claustrophobic all the action and the dread felt, and while the characters weren't especially groundbreaking they were competently written and engaging! There were a lot of moments I felt should've felt trite in their sentimentality, but the writing really made them work, and got several heart squeezes out of me. It's a movie that makes you feel really bad the whole way through, but in a good way. No wonder I've seen this be highly recommended everywhere, it really is that good.

Really hoping I get back to the point where my hormones are in better balance so I can go back to like... remembering that there's enjoyment to be had in life more frequently, instead of feeling constantly miserable.

I'm Feeling: depressed

There's a mass strike going on at the moment which is interrupting a lot of business and public services -- including transport, unfortunately. As a result, I'm not making it to class in any way, so! Why not live up to my promise of more frequently posting on here.

You know when I first thought-up the idea of making these posts, they were meant to be a quick way to evacuate some actual thoughts that have been spinning around in my head incessantly during the week, but they kind of serve as halfway life updates, don't they?

I finally finished reading Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, so that's one thing to check off on the personal study on nationalism list! You know, when I'd first gotten it, I don't think I properly checked which edition I'd chosen to read. It was really lucky, then, that I ended up with the one published in 2006, where the 1991 preface and revisions are included, as well as an extra chapter at the end where Anderson reflects on the book's trajectory since its original publication: there he talks about the book's original aim, the state of research on nationalism at the time he'd gone about writing it, before then going on to trace all of its various translations, how they've stuck to or even improved upon his original intent (he mentions that the French translation, among those in which he happened to be particularly involved, managed to articulate a lot of his points in a way he admits he couldn't quite manage in English!), and the circumstances of their publication. I thought that was all pretty neat!

Now I'm faced with my second challenge, after the first of actually finishing a book this month, which is: taking the notes that I probably should've taken while in the actual process of reading. Kind of cruel that the task of effectively processing new information takes so mcuh effort. Unfortunately, I have a poor memory to begin with, so there's no getting around writing down everything new that I learn, especially when it comes to reading non-fiction. Sad.

I'm slowly but surely developing a habit of doing grammar and syntax exercises every day, so that my presently ineffectual and meandering way of communicating eventually gets fixed by reacquainting myself with the basics of the English language. Learning a lesson here about taking a lot of things that are actually skills you can hone for granted. Anyways, I've learned how to diagram sentences for the first time, which actually isn't something I was personally taught to do in school (which might also have to do with the fact that I'd gone to school in French my whole life), and it really does make practicing a lot more fun! Eventually, I'm going to have to find intuitive exercises to do on strengthening my vocabulary and word association, because those are also things I have trouble with. If anyone comes across this and has any suggestions on that end, I'd love to hear them!
I'm also over 2000+ words into this Ace Attorney and politics essay I've made a project out of, one where I am, admittedly, constantly pausing and asking myself: does anything I'm writing actually matter? Which I usually get over by reminding myself that, well, if your average popular YouTube video essayist can spend 4 passionate hours ripping into a TV show they dislike because they simply needed to put those opinions somewhere, then I can use my free time to discuss a topic I am genuinely interested in within my present favourite game series. As always, you can do whatever you want forever!

Been obsessed fairly recently with listening to covers and performances by Takenaka Yudai, lead singer for the group Novelbright. He has such a powerful voice and a very pleasant colour (is that the term?) to it. Recently, he's been on a Korean show in which singers from Korea and Japan compete with each other (from what I've gathered, at least: I speak neither language, nor do I watch the show itself outside of the clips that make it onto my YouTube recommendations), and as of now I'm particularly obsessed with his cover of Endless Rain by X Japan that he performed on it:

Watch on YouTube

(Side note: I really wish I cared for Novelbright's actual music... it's not bad, obviously, but too generic for anything to make a lasting impression. I like Walking With You well enough, but only with the support of an excellent Yudai live performance.)

I think that's all I have in mind, for now. I really feel that choosing to use this website more frequently has been a really good thing for me! I really feel like it's lessened the pressure I always feel on other social media to write perfectly, and has encouraged me to write and express myself more frequently. It helps to have less eyes on you, meaning you aren't imagining that everything you say is more high stakes than it actually is.

I'm Feeling: content

I really do need to train myself to write on here more often, so, why not start to try and make a habit of it today? I also need to train myself to stop overthinking all the time. Did you know that it took me five minutes to gather up the courage to write those previous two sentences because I felt that they needed about 5 lines of clarification? Love how my brain works.

I have finally found the motivation to write again, and am primarily working on two different projects which I hope I'll be done with by the end of the year, both Ace Attorney related: the first, a character study fanfic that I've been meaning to write since March, and the second, a really long retrospective essay on my relationship to the series and to a specific branch of fan discourse I've already mentioned so I can evacuate all my feelings on the latter and then never think about it again.

^Related to this: not that I wasn't aware beforehand, but I think I can articulate why I tend to freeze up during my creative process better, now. I have really bad endurance, and tend to fizzle out along with the spark of motivation that initially drives my productivity, and haven't really found good strategies to keep myself going once I hit that point. Endless cycle of "do good creative work for maybe a day and a half, and then lose steam for several weeks until the spark returns". Very annoying. Current solution is "just push through once you feel that motivation slant", but the issue with that is I have this unreasonable fear that I'll never reach the level of endurance that won't put me in the position of having to do that forever, et à force de toujours devoir le faire I'm afraid I'll burn out creatively. Forever. But also that's my anxiety talking, so I'm trying to discipline my brain into just going with pushing through.
I'll be just about done with reading Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities in two chapters, and I've been enjoying it lots! Incredibly thought-provoking and clarifying re: the historical development of nationalism/national sentiment, and is encouraging me to read more about national revolutions in Latin America and Southeast Asia, because those histories are like, embarrassingly opaque to me at the moment, seeing as that they're very globally significant. I have a lot more books on the history of nationalism and the development of the modern Nation State in the 19th and 20th centuries that I'll be wanting to get into after this one, it's been a topic that's fascinated me for a while now.
Been obsessed with this Korean singer's cover of Comment te dire adieu for the past few weeks. Her french pronunciation is really good, and there's something about her rendition that really gets at my sentimentality.

Watch on YouTube

I'm Feeling: contemplative

I've been getting into the groove of living on my own for the first time, and it was definitely scary and stressful at first. But I think I'm managing a lot better, now! I've set consistent habits for myself to build, and have gotten better at setting reachable goals (though the fact that I'm at a point in time where I have a lot of errands to do might be helping with that), and overall, I think I'll be able to make this new chapter of my life manageable.

I actually didn't have anything particular in mind to share when I opened the site today and started writing this, so I'm finding things as I go:

There was a whole week I'd spent on Youtube scrolling through a bunch of K/J-Music performances, and while doing so I happened to find some new singers I enjoyed and whose discographies I'd like to take the time to discover at some point. Chief among them being Sheena Ringo, who I imagine is popular enough that admitting I've only just discovered her probably makes me sound like I've been living my whole life under a rock, lol. I've been loving this song of hers in particular. The music video is really fun, too.
I've also watched the movie Mississippi Masala recently! It was an incredible watch, and got me teary-eyed. Maybe I'll think to write a longer review some other time, I've just realized that I've gotten sleepier while typing this.
Currently, I'm reading La Confession d'un enfant du siècle by Alfred de Musset. I was interested in reading something from the perspective of a Frenchman living in unstable times, post-Napoleon, and the first chapter seemed promising in that regard, but the next parts took a sharp turn towards some unbearable misogyny that I've been having less and less fun the further I go. I'm thinking that if the author doesn't change the subject soon, I'll have to DNF it.

I think that's all for what's presently on my mind. Though maybe I'm also less encouraged to type at the moment because I'm writing this very sleepy and on my phone, and it isn't the most pleasant experience. Should remember to always, always make my Dreamwidth updates while using a computer!

A lot's been happening in my life, none of which I'm feeling very motivated to vent about, so as always I use my nerd space to rant about nerd stuff. I've been reading a lot of Ace Attorney fan takes lately, throughout Tumblr and Twitter, and I've read both interesting meta and... more frustrating discourse that comes up frequently.

( The discourse in question, so I can complain a bit )

But anyways. Aside from that, I've been doing some interesting reading/research:

I finished a book called Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Identity and Empire by Stephen Arata a few weeks back, which is a historical literary study on degeneration theory in the late nineteenth century: specifically, it discusses an analyzes narratives of "decline" as depicted in the popular literature of the period and as written by famous authors, all concerned with writing about anxieties of class, the body, and the empire in different ways (whether in a critical approach, or in a demonstration of the author's own anxieties). I thought it was a pretty engaging and fascinating read, especially when it came to the examination of the various authors. I especially enjoyed the chapters on Oscar Wilde and Robert Louis Stevenson, the latter especially for how he argues for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as being a critique of the bourgeois class, reflecting Stevenson's own cognitive dissonance over potentially rising into it with his professionalization as an author. I think people should check this one out if they haven't!
I haven't finished Titus Groan since I last talked about it (I'm so slow at reading... sob) but I'm definitely beginning to rank Mervyn Peake up there as one of my favourite prose-writers. He has such a clever but unexpected way with words, and it makes up for much of the ways that his writing is (at least, to me) pretty unsubtle. He just makes it work! I wish my vocabulary was as extensive as his.
God I wish it were possible to learn new languages instantly in order to make research for my writing projects that much easier. That said, I've been finding some really cool detail tidbits on cultural aspects of the first Sino-Japanese War and the Boer War for something I'm currently working on. Here's a fun link to a picture + woodblock print of the Meiji Emperor's procession to Tokyo, where he eventually moved in permanence, after the end of the former. Here's another picture someone uploaded of older members of their family during the celebrations in London after the relief of Mafeking. I love looking at the more human details of history.

I always have a difficult time posting things, not through lack of anything to say, but because I feel like I have to polish my thoughts to an irreproachable degree before they're allowed to leave my head. Unfortunately, I am also a perfectionist, and subject to frequent fits of anxiety, so you can imagine how much of an impossible standard that is to set for myself.

So I'm going to try something new? Just laying down in bulletpoints whatever I've been thinking about during the day, the week, or the month, and then maybe coming back to them later if it happens to be something I want to develop further.

Here they are:

Recently, I've had to DNF The go-between by L.P. Hartley. I'm not sure if this is through genuine lack of interest, because technically, I'm not uninterested in it; I found the first chapters and their approach to the inconsistency of memory, the certainty of feeling without the objective recollection to back them up, to be pretty fascinating. Maybe it's because I've been tired recently, due to packing and going on vacation to my home country, but reading it eventually became incredibly soporific, and I couldn't find the energy to wait until it engaged me again. It's something I've been worried about, because it's been for a while that I've been slow at reading, and I keep getting scared that I've simply lost the ability to read anything more challenging forever, but I've since started reading the first book in the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake and it's definitely keeping my attention much better. Maybe that first book was just too boring.
I've picked up replaying The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles again, now that I've freed up some time for it, and it's been a fun, if frustrating experience so far. I'm on the second game now, having just finished the second episode, and it's brought back all my annoyances with the story's political narrative. Ace Attorney has never been profound commentary on law, but I've always felt that TGAA's decision to include more mature topics -- classism, racism, nationalism and political treaties -- ends up revealing all the more clearly where the mainline series' politics fail. The narrative has always been unequivocally pro-carceral justice, and while I could perhaps look away from it in the mainline, when you choose to include plotlines that deal with the specific vulnerability to law enforcement many people experience due to their positionalities (class position, racialization, nationality, etc), then not straying from a moral storytelling structure that always endorses police power and the power of the Law (even if you can acknowledge that mistakes are made) kind of lessens your ability to make poignant commentary.
I've been wondering if I happen to be too anti-social and pessimistic about fan engagement. I always make it a rule for myself to keep an open mind to different interpretations, but sometimes it feels like to join in certain circles without sounding too much like a pedantic crank, I'd have to compromise a lot of my own honest, thought-out feelings about my own readings. I've always felt that fandoms aren't particularly receptive to critical engagement, or at least that the sites on which fandom is mostly done doesn't offer space for discussion that doesn't read as inherently antagonistic. Maybe I should simply loosen up, and try to form links with people in my interest centres regardless of how they choose to engage with the canon, and I'd certainly like to, but I would always feel something lacking in how I myself would like to enjoy a fan space. I suppose there isn't any way out of it than to create that favourable environment on my own? I'll have to look into how I could manage that.

I'm Feeling: contemplative

Me ^_^

Fitia

Nerd Zone

Entries tagged with assorted thoughts

Navigation

Assorted thoughts update #6

Assorted thoughts update #5

Assorted thoughts update #4

Assorted thought update #3

Assorted thoughts update #2

Assorted thoughts update #1 (for real this time)

Assorted thoughts update (test)

Me ^_^

Syndicate

I talk about:

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags