9 Things Making My Life Better So Far This Year (Jul. – Sept. 2022)
Wow, so, as you can maybe tell by the date of the post, the third quarter of this year was difficult! Before the school semester started, I realized I needed some time to rest, so I purposely toned down a lot of my usual activities, like forcing myself through exercise routines, writing, and extra language-learning work. After school started, I struggled with transitioning back to fully in-person work, especially since it meant re-adapting a lot of virtual content to the in-person classroom and figuring out how to commute over an hour each way again.
Despite all that, there were still some little things that made this time better than it might otherwise have been. Here they are:
a squeegee
It turns out that cleaning big things like balcony windows or shower walls doesn’t need to take three hours and eighty million paper towels. Instead, it can take, like, ten minutes if you just have a squeegee! It’s maybe a little disappointing that this is probably the best quality-of-life purchase I’ve made in a while, in the shouldn’t my LIFE be a heart-full ADVENTURE where I derive the most JOY from WONDER and LOVE instead of MORE EFFICIENT CHORES??? way, but I can live with that.
this grey puffer vest from Uniqlo
Grey, because it’s neutral and can go with all my outfits. Puffer, because I never know when I’ll move from chilly fall weather to sauna-like indoor workspace or subway car, and so being able to cram the whole garment into a tiny backpack compartment is very handy. Vest, because when I’m cold, I want to warm up my throat and my chest/lungs but usually my arms and head are fine.
The Golden Enclave by Naomi Novik (YA SFF novel, 2022)
This is the final instalment of Novik’s Scholomance trilogy, in which the scope of our protagonist’s moral crusade to change the world expands yet again. I looove the narrator’s voice and personality, and I really like the overarching wish-fulfillment story about how, damnit, if you cultivate the determined optimism to question conventions that don’t serve your society, you can make things better without compromising your integrity.
ergonomic desk equipment
After my arm/nerve pain got much worse, I bought and installed a few ergonomic items, the most significant of which was an under-desk keyboard tray. It does seem to help a bunch with, you know, not totally destroying my arms when I have to spend a lot of time at my computer. If you’re a Canadian looking for something similar, I recommend the company I bought my stuff from, which phoned after I placed my order to go through the specs with me and make sure I was ordering stuff that would work with my existing furniture.
taking a break
As you may have gathered from my opening paragraph, I really needed one, even from things I typically enjoy. It’s tough for me to “let” myself stop working towards what I’ve decided is improvement, and I didn’t always succeed in not feeling guilty or anxious that I was “wasting time.” But in retrospect, there’s no way I could have done anything worthwhile if I tried to work while burned-out–or at least, not anything more worthwhile than recuperating my mental health. What a lovely feeling to honestly want to blog and write and learn and work out again, and I couldn’t have got here without giving myself space to rest.
Kobo’s gift certificate sales
I buy a lot of e-books. So when Kobo offers gift certificate sales that offer “buy a $25 gift certificate and get an extra $5,” that’s basically, “Sarah, would you like a free $5 by promising to spend money you’re definitely going to spend anyway because you have no self control when it comes to books?” Um, yeah?
Codex (speculative writing forum)
I realized over the pandemic that, individual writer friends and critique partners notwithstanding, I missed feeling like I was part of a writing community, so I applied to join this forum for neo-pro writers. In the first months, I was comfortable participating to the extent I feel capable of, whether that was lurking and learning (99%) or responding to a few posts (1%). Even just looking at the forum thread titles, I learned about a whole bunch of new places to submit short stories, and the threads themselves constantly help me calm submission anxiety by letting me put my experiences into context with others’.
If I didn’t want a squeegee to make my top 9 list for the quarter, I definitely didn’t want a PopSocket on it either. Why? I’m not sure, but I feel like my attitude toward them was shaped by seeing them as an accessory for taking selfies for Instagram. Which is unfair toward both PopSockets and selfies/Instagram, so I’m working to change that. Anyway, I got one because of the worsening nerve issues I mentioned above; it really helps me hold my phone with less pain/numbness.
I bought mine at Canadian Tire, but apparently they’re no longer there? Anyway, I can’t/often don’t want to drink an entire can of most beverages that come in cans, such as beer or pop, and certainly not all at once if I happen to be out and about. These plastic thingamabobs snap tightly to the top of a standard-sized can to turn it into a bottle. It keeps beverages carbonated about as well as a pop bottle does (like, they’ll eventually go flat in the fridge but still be good for a few days), and the seal is tight enough that it won’t spill or leak. (That’s probably why you have to fight a bit to get them on or off!)
Honourable mentions:
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer (YA scifi novel, 2021)
Two young men from mutually hostile nation-empires are aboard a spaceship, determined to carry out their rescue mission with honour. Except, something seems off… and only by working together can they figure out what’s really (?) going on. This is a suspenseful book about how easily power and privilege lead to selfishness, but, ultimately, love and caring survive against all odds.
Crowded by Christopher Sebela, art by Ro Stein and Ted Brandt (comics series, 2019-2022)
Come for the “Kickstarter, but for placing hits on people” premise, stay for the messy sapphic relationships between very flawed protagonists.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (SFF novel, 2017)
This story gets billed as “grown-up Scooby Doo gang meets Cthulhu,” but it’s actually, clearly purposefully, much closer to “grown-up Famous Five gang meets Cthulhu.” (Everything is set in “Blyton Hills.” The dog is even named Tim!) As someone who spent my childhood reading about the adventures of Julian, Dick, George, Anne, and Timmy and pretty much never watched the gang in the Mystery Machine, I liked most of this book a ton. The exceptions: as others point out on Goodreads, there are some problematic moments of transphobia that seem sincere rather than parodic of the same in the source material.
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (SFF novel, 2022)
… ask me how I feel about this one after Alecto the Ninth comes out next year. I’ll know then.