did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?

1. Days just zip past.
2. I made blueberry and orange bran muffins yesterday, and they came out fluffy and moist and just what I wanted. We took some round to Andrew's parents' place for afternoon tea, where they were gratifyingly well-received. (I've since bought another orange, for lo, I am weak.)
3. The further in I get, the more of my Chinese-learning time is spent on revision. I guess that's inevitable.
4. I accidentally started listening to a BDSM m/m novel, which is helpfully confirming for me that even when it's done in a way most calculated to work for me, it doesn't. (I've always been slightly unsure if my DNWing it was just a sour-grapes hang-over from people leaning into the power-imbalance in White Collar in a way that didn't work for me.)
5. I'm desperately seeking good Detective L subs, if anyone happens to know where I can find some. The ones in my downloads are sufficiently hard to parse that they're an impediment to watching more. ETA: The Youtube subs are much better than the ones bundled with my downloads. \o/
6. ETA: At the suggestion of my Taiwanese language exchange partner, I'm having a crack at learning Bopomofo (aka Zhuyin), an alternate transcription system. Because what I needed was another app. ;-) (She suggested it would help with my pronunciation, and after some resistance and consideration, I think she's probably right.)

Pandemic life
I very much appreciate a) places that have signs encouraging or welcoming masking, and b) the two people who cancelled seeing me last week and another who wouldn't make plans, all due to colds.

Previous poll review
In the Holey t-shirts, Batman! poll, 77.3% of respondents wear their holey clothes around the house, 63.6% attempt repairs where possible, and 27.3% toss them.

Hugs won the ticky-boxes with 68.2%, followed by ghost butterflies (38.6%) and then life-eating hobbies (34.1%). Thank you for your votes!

Reading
In theory, Andrew and I are still listening to Memory by Bujold, but we mostly listen while doing the dishes, and lately I've been doing the dishes in the morning before Writers' Hour. We'll get back to it once UK daylight savings kicks in, I imagine.

I started a re-listen of Ancillary Mercy (research for podficcing) and then couldn't stop. Adjoa Andoh's voice is my happy place.

And in written reading, I have two library books out, but have only read a few pages of one of them. Still going on my Chinese graded reading, though. I just finished a retelling of Butterfly Lovers (which I presume was one of the inspirations for Sungkyungkwan Scandal, and which I'm fairly sure I've encountered in a different incarnation too). Some of the grammar was a little beyond me; I might revisit it sometime to solidify, but next up is The Peach Colony based on this fable.

I had ordered a bunch of Mandarin Companion graded readers in paper, but the initial one-month delivery time got extended to two months, so I cancelled them.

TV
Andrew and I finished Bad Monkey, as fun as I remembered, and then watched The WonderFOOLs (Netflix), about three small-town losers who accidentally acquire superpowers-with-caveats. Lots of fun, great character work, and I even enjoyed most of the fight scenes (rare for me).

We're also in the final stretch of Live Up To Your Youth, watching at a rate of one episode a night. All the characters are diverted from their artistic endeavours at the moment, so I hope that means it will turn around and end in triumph for most of them.

We watched the first episode of Detective L, a Holmes-y detective show set in 1930s Shanghai. The female lead, a rookie police cop, is excellent -- I'm looking forward to seeing more. But it's on hold for now in favour of the latest season of Slow Horses, which we started last night. (Andrew wanted a break from subtitles.)

We've also seen the first episode of Youth, an empty-nester sitcom/sex comedy, which is a bit cringey (as per the genre), but we'll watch more.

On Saturday night, we took a break from our regularly scheduled programming and tried Breaking and Re-Entering, a Taiwanese comedy heist movie on Netflix, about a team of thieves trying (for reasons) to return the money they'd just stolen. Great cast, fun dynamics, I would have nommed it for Yuletide if I'd seen it sooner.

Still watching White Collar with my sister. The problem with rewatching something I've recapped is that I remember too much of my old nitpicking.

I lost interest in Hidden Love towards the end; it was always fluffy, but it became almost unwatchable by the last few episodes. Have now started Never Too Late, which is an age-gap friendship between two women, with Bai Jingting playing the younger woman's love interest (they have as-yet-undisclosed Fraught History). I'm enjoying him being goofy and wandering around outside in his pyjamas.

Online life
I haven't been around much at all the last couple of weeks. *flails* But I nominated for koreanfandomsex and Yuletide, so I should think about sign-ups. (I haven't written anything in so long. Can I still? Meep.)

Writing/making things
I had another recording session last week, with the aim of podficcing a couple of my favourite of my Guardian fics. It didn't go as smoothly as the first try -- higher expectations and longer stories. I will edit them and post them at some point (well, I didn't finish the longer of the two, so I'll have to go back to record the rest if I want to post it; but the first one at least). Right now I'm not feeling very motivated, and also am a bit shy about releasing my voice into the wilds of AO3.

Life/health/mental state things
I had a covid jab on Friday 2 Oct, for the record. Things are okay. I'm still not getting enough sleep, but what can you do. Had physio last week for a leg issue. Spent an afternoon stuffing envelopes for the Green party. Yesterday I was copying Chinese stuff from phone screencaps into an exercise book (about eight pages' worth), did not take breaks, and now my wrist is understandably grumpy with me.

My days feel very full, but with day-to-day stuff (exercise, Chinese, etc); I don't know how people with actual commitments in their lives get by.

Language Learning
I feel like I've lost some steam (listening to Ancillary Justice instead of ChinesePod all the time has broken whatever the language-learning equivalent of "the vivid and continuous dream" is). But I'm still going. Currently getting a lot of sample sentences about missing the boat, the boat is about to leave, it's time to go catch the boat, etc, and trying not to take them metaphorically. ;-p

Food
I made blueberry muffins, but they came out too cake-like for my taste, and also too solid. I've bought some bran and am going to try this recipe for attempt #2. (And either freeze half or send a bunch home with Andrew.)

Goals
Somehow... somehow... I need to carve out enough time to sort through all my stuff, ditch about a quarter of it, and then spring clean.

Good things
Chinese! And discovering, to my amazement, that I do actually have a reasonably good memory. Heading into spring. Walking along by a stream, looking for eels. Asian dramas. Andrew and Halle and friends online and off.