March Round-up

I created this blog almost a month ago, mainly as a means of distraction, as I’ve been going through a lot of crap (sorry) in my life. I still am, but this last month has proven to me that this, blogging, and this wonderful community is what I’ve been searching for a long time, and to be honest – it was kind of a life belt for me. Everything about it is so amazing, and I’m really glad to be a part of it, I just hope I’ll stick to my goals and make this a long-running thing. 🙂

On that subject, I’ve decided to do a post to sum-up this past month, to let you all know what I’ve been doing, reading, watching, what I’m about to read, etc.

Life

Nothing special in this area lol, as I’m still struggling to pull myself out of the aforementioned crap, but I can honestly say it’s getting better. Among other things, I’ve been trying to control my awful habit of quitting things like courses, drawing outside of work, learning languages, friends, that kind of stuff. So far so good!

First thing I did was getting back to my Portuguese lessons, and if you wonder why I’m learning that specific language – the hell do I know, it sounds nice. If you guys ever had the slightest interest in learning languages and you speak English well, or you’re a native speaker, then I recommend you try Duolingo. I’ve been there for 5 years now, and can honestly say I’ve learned quite a good bit, I even managed to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Portuguese. 🙂

I’ve been slacking, it was 68%

Duolingo is above all fun. It’s colorful, has cute images, and it functions more like a game. You have achievements, money currency (lingots) with which you can buy power-ups, and the lessons themselves are modified like a game. And what’s the best thing? It’s completely free! Yay, I love me some free stuff. So, if you ever wanted to learn German, Romanian, Irish, Greek, Japanese, Klingon, High Valyrian, or whatever you fancy – this is THE site to do it. There are currently 28 languages, three more coming soon, and there are variants, like learning English from Spanish, etc.

Books

March wasn’t that eventful in reading either. I’ve read:

Short story

Opal (The Raven Cycle #4.5)

Classic

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee   Review

Fantasy/Magical Realism

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman   Review

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman   Review

Children’s

A Series of Unfortunate Events #1 – #3 by Lemony Snicket

Anthology

The Radical Element by Jessica Spotswood   Review

I’m currently reading/finishing:  The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton (buddy reading with the awesome Cat @ CatFairy Books) and Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings by Linda Rodríguez McRobbie

In the last month I bought: My Lady Jane, His Dark Materials, The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own making, The Bat, The Color of Magic, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Soul Music and Maskerade. The last 5 are Discworld books by Terry Pratchett which I’ve already read, I’m just collecting them now.

ARCs I acquired: The Emerald Circus , The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Tess of the Road, Greatest Magical Stories, and All the Ever Afters.

TV/Movies

I’m going to count the last two months here, because during March I’ve only watched one TV show – Charmed. One of my favorite shows ever, so I’ve been binging it like crazy. I’m on season 4 now, at the time where Prue is gone, Paige is already accepted to the trio, and Phoebe and Cole are blissfully happy. I’m already devastated at the thought of what’s going to happen soon.

In February I binged (is there any other way?) two amazing shows. Dark is super creepy, mysterious and amazing German show (yes it’s in German, use subtitles dammit!), which is marketed as European Stranger Things, which it’s NOT. I love Stranger Things, but Dark is sooo much more! It really messes up with your head, in a good way.

Mindhunter! Have you watched Mindhunter?! This one is of a lesser quality, acting is not superb (looking at you, Holden), but if you’ve ever had an unhealthy obsession with true crime – this is your deal. It’s based on the real-life experiences and the book Mindhunter by an FBI agent John E. Douglas who, through his interviews with and the research of murderers’ MMO’s, was eventually instrumental in development of the modern criminal profiling and creation of the term serial killer. It is set in late 70s, with appearances from well-known serial killers Edmund Kemper, Jerry Brudos, Richard Speck, etc., who are being interviewed by detectives Holden Ford and Bill Tench. Need I add that David Fincher (of Seven, Fight Club, Gone Girl, Zodiac, etc.) directed several episodes?

I’ve watched only a couple of movies: Blade Runner 2049 7/10, The Shape of Water 8/10, Coco 9/10, Ferdinand 8/10, The Cloverfield Paradox 7/10, and Justice League 7/10.

 

Music

I’ve been neglecting music for about year and a half, among other things, so I’m currently out of the loop. The last and only album I got this year is How Did We Get So Dark, by Royal Blood, and I love it. I usually listen to hardcore punk/metal/indie rock music, so if you are anywhere in that orbit, check it out:

I’ve also been neglecting my concert activity, and I haven’t been out in months. But two days ago I went to a trash/punk gig to see the amazing Russian band Siberian Meat Grinder (yes you’ve read that correctly) for the third time. I don’t usually like trash metal genre, but these guys are something else. Their song names like Slay the Dragon, Metal Bear Stomp, Siberian Keelhaul might give you a clue. Suffice to say I had a good time, and some good beer. 🙂

Other

I’ve played only one game this month, the awesome giggle-torture that is Chuchel, and I probably won’t play anything for a while as I don’t have any time to spare. I also bought some blogging accessories (let’s just call it that for the sake of this post) at a Chinese mall, where you can get a bunch of cute stuff for a low price, but you can also discover some disturbing shit, like a salt-shaker in the shape of a penis. I have no need for such objects, but here’s my loot:

At the register I pretended I was buying this for a kid

In April I’ll try to read more and probably review all the books I’ve bought, and I’ll do a couple more TV reviews, maybe some movies too, but books will of course prevail. In the last week of April I’m going on a well-deserved vacation, so there will probably be a post on that too, as I feel the need to update you guys on my adventures too. 😛

What do you have in store for April? Will you read more or less, and which books? Talk to me in comments, and happy Easter to everyone who celebrates on Sunday (or at all), mine is a week later. Enjoy the weekend everyone! ❤