Word of the week: Nahm-Kaeng - ice

In my life: We had a holiday for Easter on Monday, so the week was off to a quiet start. We woke up and decided to go for a walk and grab some breakfast while out. I'd heard good reviews about Moonphase so we went to Crow's Nest. The cafe had just opened as we reached so we had two of their savoury pastries and I had a French Earl Grey Latte (so good) while Sathya had his regular cappuccino order. We walked back home and had a lazy Monday at home.

Back to the regular scheduled life program of office and gym on Tuesday but took Wednesday off as I felt unwell. Got some rest and then felt better by afternoon so caught up on some chores. Thursday was spent trying to debug why I was getting a NaN issue in one of our APIs and after some back and forth on what had changed finally managed to figure out a fix for it. Was glad to have a long weekend after that one.

It was Anzac Day on Friday, a day of national remembrance here in Australia. While the day is used to remember & honour the sacrifices made by those who served, the focus here also seems to be on understanding the futility of war and what it took from so many generations. I woke up a smidge too late for the North Sydney dawn service so watched the live broadcast from Canberra for a bit, and then just walked down to the memorial later in the morning.

The weather was pleasant, and I remembered just how nice it was to drive around the previous weekend so asked Sathya if we could rent a car and just drive somewhere. Sathya suggested heading to the Northern Beaches, so we made a little day trip out of it. We went to Narrabeen, Mona Vale Headlands and then Palm Beach and had a good time. Yes, it's autumn and the water was cold, but it always feels so relaxing to be at the beach and listen to the sound of the waves.

On Saturday, after an early morning PT session, we went to Chatswood for a bit. We had some Filipino food, and I did a Kmart run for some exercise leggings - my old ones are a tad too loose for me now. We then went to the Hans Zimmer concert. The concert was great, not only was the music fantastic but the light design and accompanying vocalists were brilliant. John Williams done, Hans Zimmer done, wonder who I can watch up next.

Sunday was quiet, I woke up to some really sore thigh muscles, an effect of all the squats from the previous day. From previous experience I know that not moving makes it worse, so I kept trying to walk around to avoid it feeling stiff. I went to the op-shop for a bit and then popped down to Aldi to grab some groceries that didn't come with our Coles order. I was surprised by the amount of lactose free items that are now available on shelves - cheeses, sour cream, sweet cream, yoghurt etc. - and I bought some lactose free cream cheese to try for breakfast along with the soy and linseed bread.

I thought of writing weekly notes at the end of the day but was really not in the mood for it. While I enjoy writing these and looking back at them, writing these on Sunday feels like too much of a chore so I might actually start writing them on Monday nights instead.

On my screens:

  1. Heesu in Class 2 (Korean, Queer, Completed, Viki): The ending and the adaptation itself seems to have been polarizing. Half the folks love it for how it talks about the queer experience and how all the other narrative threads support it, while the other half seem to really dislike the fact that there wasn't more romance between the queer characters and that they only get together towards the end. I myself thoroughly enjoyed it and think it's a great queer Kdrama to watch. It doesn't have a lot of romance true, but for something that was going to be shown on Korean TV- which has doesn‘t have the best reputation for their LGBT policies - I felt like this was perfect. It was a good introduction to the subject and by avoiding more overt romance it's more appealing to people who generally dont watch such romance shows.
  2. My Golden Blood (Thai, Queer, Supernatural, Ongoing): Show has really hit its grove and I'm enjoying this so much. Glad they finally told Tonkla the truth.

On my bookshelf: I'm usually not a fan of prequels or sequels as many of them are not that well done, but Suzanne Collins has become an exception to this. I enjoyed watching The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes last year. And I'm seeing a lot of chatter related to the new Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping on the Hunger Games subreddit, about how it explains more about Haymitch's behavior in the main series. So, I've started rereading Hunger Games as a preparation for reading this book.

Other than that, I've just been reading the usual fanfic stories. My favorite spy fanfic author has updated multiple times this last week and other fandoms I follow have also been surprisingly active, so it's been fun to catch up on all the new stories.

On my playlist: There was a post a few weeks ago on Reddit talking about the Jimi Hendrix version of Killing Floor. I finally watched the original and then the cover and what a cover it is. Love the opening riff.

On my camera: I wish the camera could capture how beautiful it is when the sun hits the water and the water shimmers. I remember visiting Nainital as a kid and wishing I could capture it and for all the advancements in camera tech since then, it still doesn’t pick it up right. Nevertheless heres to nostalgia - kids playing at the beach.

Thanks for tagging along!