Hi all,
It’s been a while since I have blogged. This year has been the worst year of my life and everyone else’s too. I have lost interest in doing everything this year, thanks to the anxiety and stress because of everything that is happening in the world right now. I am still trying to push myself to do something other than just passing time and idling away. We had virus, people dying, racism, floods, wildfires, death of thousands of birds, earthquakes, gang rapes, drug mafia and nepotism – every possible disaster this year. It’s been too much to take in a single year. I badly need a break. I feel like running away and staying on a mountain alone in a cabin or something until this crappy year is over.
First half of the year was spent in playing board games and TV series (check my post here). After that, I got Nintendo Switch and started playing Animal Crossing, Zelda and several other games. My kid who had never played a video game got addicted for couple of months. Now he is bored of it. He is like me in that we are really excited about a hobby until we learn it. Once we are comfortable and familiar with it, we get bored and need a new hobby to pursue. As long as something is challenging, I am interested in learning it.
I am still addicted to Animal Crossing though. Since I am not able to go outside, it’s nice to be outside through the game. It’s like having my own avatar run around trees, lying on a beach, building something and playing with other animals. I don’t get much time to play with a full time job and online school for my kid but I try to play whenever I can.
We played mini golf few times as the kid loves it. We can’t play bowling or any arcade games as they are closed but since golf can be played outside, it’s something that we can do now.
We also ended up binge watching some of my favorite movie series of all time. I had never binge watched these and had watched them as and when they were released. It was nice to be able to see all the movies in a series back to back in a span of few days. Our weekends are just for eating ice cream and watching movies sitting on the couch. Movies can make you forget what’s happening in the real world for sometime as you are invested in what’s happening in the make believe world on TV – whether it is the aliens or dinosaurs killing people.
Some of the movie series we watched in the last few months are –
-
All 5 Jurassic Park movies – most favorite was first/third movie
2. Mummy Trilogy and Mummy reboot movie with Tom Cruise – most favorite was first movie.
3. Indiana Jones movies (all 4) – most favorite was third movie
4. National Treasure movies (2 of them). I watched these for the first time, after wanting to watch them forever –
5. Pirates of the Caribbean (all 5 movies) – most favorite is first/third movie
6. Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (extended editions of all 6 movies) – I don’t like Hobbit movies much but LOTR 3rd part is my favorite.
7. Alien series (4 movies). I had seen the first two movies earlier and saw the last two parts for the first time now – most favorite is second movie.
8. Next in the pipeline to watch are the two Alien prequel movies that I have already seen in theatre –
9. Robert Langdon series (3 movies) – next in my pipeline. I have seen them before but feel like watching again –
Based on my taste, please recommend any movie series that you feel I will enjoy.
I am also reading one or two books every month though I am not able to read anything complicated like fantasy or science fiction. They need more brain power which I don’t have so I am leaning more towards contemporary fiction and a lot of nonfiction for the time being. I am also getting bored of reading books with similar tropes. I am exploring books that are very different from ones I have read before. I am reading more of Japanese contemporary as I prefer that to American/English contemporary for some reason. Their culture is little similar to mine and I can relate to the stories more I feel. I will make a post on all the Japanese lit that I am enjoying this year.
I am trying to teach Piano to my son through online videos. I wanted to send him to classes this year but couldn’t. Even I am learning with him as I wanted to learn Piano from a very long time.
I also started Nature Journaling this year after reading a bunch of books on that topic. I also attended some workshops online and want to get back to painting and nature journaling. Again, I don’t get much time to do either but I try to do whenever I find some time. I have realized that I am most happy when I paint. That is my most favorite hobby and I need to get back to it.
We are also going on nature walks and hikes. I feel better and forget all the worries when I am in a natural setting, away from urban noise. I will do a separate post with books and ideas that I have collected on nature.
These bird paintings were done by me recently –
For anyone who thinks their drawing sucks, read this tweet. It’s okay to not draw perfectly. It’s okay to not be good at artistic things as we do them only because we enjoy doing and not because we need to sell them for money –
What have you all been upto?
Bookish Muggle 