Quarantine Schenanigans

1. infamous

2. bullion

3. scheming

4. devilish

5. alleged and allegedly

6. variegated

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/aeymj4/i-finally-lost-my-durian-virginity

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8898vx/durian-asian-fruits-orientalism-debate

https://lifestyle.mb.com.ph/2020/06/24/filipina-turns-durian-into-probiotic-beer/

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2020/06/05/thailand-develops-odour-proof-boxes-for-durian-shipping/

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/06/601443/durian-farmer-employs-two-pocong

https://says.com/my/fun/pj-shop-is-looking-for-a-hot-guy-with-6-pack-abs-to-cut-durian-all-day

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/amid-covid19-chinas-love-malaysian-durians-still-strong

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/world/asia/bangkok-thailand-fruit-durian.html

https://twitter.com/amirulruslan/status/1276313332492845056

https://twitter.com/amirulruslan/status/1276088736296472577

1. weevils

2. when people are holding eye contact but can’t pick an eye so their eyes flicker between the other person’s two (i have only ever met people with two eyes)

3. The Gift by The Velvet Underground

4. mispronunciation of “women”

5. nautical prints. this has faded over the last some years, but i still do not plan on wearing little anchors any time soon.

6. men taking off their sweatshirts and their whole goddamn shirt rides up. just hold it down folks, it aint that hard

7. being called pet names - especially baby (middle aged female cashiers are excluded from this rule, but not the baby part)

8. Cans. Ok stick with me because I do enjoy tin cans. But I kinda only like them for the nice noise tapping them makes and the sweet, sweet feeling of cool metal. But they’re kinda obnoxious! The tab opening is too small to really get everything out and liquid always gets stuck in the ridge and I think that’s kinda annoying. And then bc it’s metal you might cut yourself? Wack. Anyways cans ares till ok I guess but I watched one cafe vlog (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9M6_r43HM) where someone put a smoothie in a can for the ~aesthetic~ and it makes no sense and I don’t like it. So I have some mixed feelings on cans now and I felt it appropriate to add here.

9. Polka dot prints! I don’t care when other people wear them but I just. I don’t want them.

10. when people think cats are inherently mean

11. excessive airbrushing. give me flaws or give me death.

12. on the same note as the previous. snow app. whitewashing apps. whitewashing generally.

13. when someone messages near exclusively in all caps. i feel kinda bad about this one but like. why you so excited. please slow down im fucking tired.

14. my spotify discover weekly’s obnoxious ability to give me the least interesting songs

While researching course registration today, I ended up listening to some recommended albums (albeit not with as much focus as I generally would).

First, the Dirty Dancing Movie Soundtrack. Shockingly, it was Beatrice who suggested this, completely throwing a curveball. Recently I learned that when she first watched Dirty Dancing, she loved it so much that she watched it every night for about a week. She consumes media like that; it’s truly bewildering to me. Anyways, it was the Dirty Dancing soundtrack I don’t know what I should say. It’s a classic.

Favorite song off the soundtrack: Love is Strange by Mickey & Silvia (what can I say - I’m simple)

Second, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life by The Wombats. Sara Su suggested I check out The Wombats, but didn’t give me a specific album, so I just went for the most recent one (2018). Plus, I liked the title. This morning Bice and I had a discussion about distrusting beautiful people, so it fit.

They’re a indie-alt-pop-rock (idk genres sorry buddy) band of some white men with song titles like “I Brought a Lemon to a Knife Fight” and “Lethal Combination”. I good mix of edgy and irreverent for me. I think this album might have actually distracted me from doing work? There’s some good instrument and energy in the songs, so maybe it wasn’t the best idea to put this on in the bg while trying to learn how course registration works. Why is everything written to be as confusing as possible? I don’t know! But it certainly doesn’t pair well with the construction sounds/alt pop rock ambiance I’ve got going. But overall, I like their sound! The Wombats, as a group, based off my experience with Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, is a solid 8/10.

If I defer, I don’t have to do an OSAP application for another year, which means more of this shit

OOooH secret cooking update.

Cooking

Last day folks! Here’s today’s wrap up.

Music

You know I did actually listen to an album today and it was the Birds of Prey soundtrack. Watched the movie, loved the movie, wanted to listen to the soundtrack. The movie finally let women just not put up with any men under any circumstances. The album? Phenomenal. It’s literally just a dozen songs about diamonds and clowns with the subtext “you’re a boss bitch and you’re so so cool which is very sexy of you”. What’s not to like. Also I’d seen the mv for Diamonds by Megan Thee Stallion feat. Normai and Boss Bitch by Doja Cat. Women are very beautiful but also I have to limit my watching of those videos so I a) don’t combust and b) don’t aggravate any body dysmorphia issues. Classic queer existence. Favorite song off the soundtrack: Diamonds by Megan Thee Stallion feat. Normai or maybe Experiment On Me by Halsey. Diamonds is just a very fun good song and I didn’t actually love Experiment On Me, but it pulled me in for some reason.

Today’s song prompt, last of the season, is a song about crocodiles. Violet suggested this prompt because she wanted Crocodile Rock by Elton John, which was obviously the song I chose. Seems like a good song to end on, plus it’s also the last song of graduation - Ollie Zink’s choice for a walk up song. I’ve got plenty more prompts and album suggestions, so I just might keep this section of the blog going. It’s been fun!

Reading

Today in reading: Yumi’s Cells and Miss Abbott and the Doctor. Two of my favorites, but I wasn’t crazy about today’s updates! Ebbs and flows I guess. Anyways reading wasn’t my strong suit during capstone #oops.

Cooking

Hi sisters! Guest post here! I have been listening to lots of music as well and reading many things. I believe that webcomics and subtitles of the untamed count as reading and I will go to war with any Branson teacher who says otherwise. Stay tuned for more guest posts about fanfic, kpop (pronounced kapop- one word), and my post-punk rock dream aesthetic- I put out new videos every Wednesday! 

Music

And once again, I return to full album listening with Rich Brian’s The Sailor. I pretty rarely listen to rap, and I don’t think I’ve ever listened to Rich Brian, so this was a fun tastebreaker to experiment with. This is actually the first album recommendation I’m listening to, but I got a lot from Tika, Rowan, and Violet, so I’ll just keep listening to them after capstone ends. The Sailor is Tika’s suggestion and she’s also the only person who directly asked to see my thoughts, so it made sense to start with her. Hi Tika!

Immediately, I was into it. I don’t avoid rap, unless it’s particularly aggressive or crude, and very much appreciate its rhythm and lyricism. The Sailor (title song) really pulled me in with its style switch. Starts really heavy on the metrics/beats (I do not understand music terminology I’m trying), then switched to something more musical and airy. I’m learning that I really enjoy listening to songs that play with different styles and densities, like Snowcone by Rei Ami and, to a lesser extent, WGSYN? by Rina Sawayama. And it has a seamless transition into Rapapapa. Excellent work. Honestly, my review is very boring, because i just liked this album. I enjoyed listening to it and I thought all the songs were good and fun and matched my energy well. Favorite song off the album: 100 Degrees (I like the chorus vocals) Honorable mention to Curious for the line “Imagine if there was no Drake”.

Today’s song prompt is also from Tika. I should really just make this section’s header “Music (feat. Tika)” because she’s in every post I swear. Anyways, the prompt is your most chaotic song and I was set. I love this song, and I have since middle school when I found it, but it’s also a little weird. Not many songs I know of with an airhorn in the instrumental breakdown. I don’t know why I didn’t do this prompt sooner, because I’ve been looking for an excuse to share this song for months. The link I included is actually the video I found this song through. So I used to play this video all the time in 7th grade or whatever.

Reading

Oopsie. Still ain’t reading. Read an article about wardrobe tracking and more subtitles for The Untamed. I don’t think they count, but this is what I’m reading right now.

Cooking

Music

Bice came home today, so I basically did a fat load of nothing. Didn’t sit down and listen to an album because I spent all my time talking to her, but I did play Jopping by SuperM (which Violet loves) and Love Talk by WayV in the car coming back from ShareTea. Truly excellent.

Today’s prompt is your go to karaoke song, from Bice (on brand). I’ve actually only karaoke once, right before quarantine when I went to see a ballet with Amelia and Anya. Ballet was closed because of the restrictions on public gatherings, so we went to a karaoke place instead. However, it was with Anya, and we’ve been singing this song together since 6th grade. This and I Won’t Say I’m in Love and I’ll Make a Man Out of You and I Just Can’t Wait to be King. We have a type obviously.

Reading

I read nothing today. Some emails, I guess, and Bice suggested that I put the subtitles for The Untamed here, but that’s a bit of a leap for me. I’ll just accept that I did not read today. It happens. I’m not super in the mood for societal commentary right now, but I still keep putting pressure on myself to read it. It’s a privilege to be able to ignore certain experience, and although just reading about them isn’t really doing much to help anyone, actively ignoring those experiences because I’m “not in the mood to read about them” is a cheap excuse. So I am conflicted.

Cooking

Music

Today Monsta X’s new minialbum, Fantasia X, dropped. So obviously, I listened to it twice in a row before walking the dogs and talked to Audrey about the Fantasia MV later that afternoon. Honestly, not my favorite album! But neither was All About Luv and here we are now. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to love everything MX puts out because I’m a big fan, and being a kpop fan means forcing yourself to love everything your groups do I guess. The album is only 7 songs long (23 minutes) and has a very basic pop vibe in my opinion. High energy, easy to follow beats, quality vocals. Nothing particularly groundbreaking in this album, but I expect it to grow on me in the coming months. Big win: Hyungwon has reached a point where he a) split the title track chorus with Minhyuk and b) learned the choreo well enough to actually participate in the line dance. Also, many of the song titles are in all caps because why the fuck not I guess. Favorite song off Fantasia X: Chaotic. Although Stand Up threw me back into middle school with its opening lines and chords, Chaotic was my favorite. Kihyun’s vocals really made it for me, and also I think I might just really like songs with chaos in the title.

In honor of Stand Up being a nostalgic blast, today I’ll do the multiple throwback-esque prompts I received. A song that makes you think of 2014 (not a clue), a song that reminds you of 5th grade (Bice), a middle school dance song (I think from Violet?), and a song that reminds you of your own growth (Vi). Can’t really remember 5th grade or the minimal middle school dances I went to, so I’ll boil my throwbacks down to one of the top songs of 2014, which I adored, and probably the low point of my music taste, but the high point of the energy levels. I have very much changed from that time but I do still know all the words to both these songs.

Reading

I am not feeling the novel reading! It’s a problem! I think I’m feeling some external pressure to be more productive than just reading all day. I know I’m supposed to be productive doing stuff online, mostly, it feels wrong to walk away from the computer to actively not do work. Of course, I’m not doing work anyways, but a lot of times I feel more guilty actually acknowledging that I’m not doing work and doing something better for myself than just continuing to fuck around online. I also fell out of the habit of just reading in my free time years ago, so it’s been difficult to get back into during capstone. I want that feeling of comfort and peace that came from me using reading as an escapism tactic when I was younger, but that’s pretty hard to achieve when you keep reading books about big boy problems. You can tell I’m not ready to tackle that because I called them “big boy problems.”

Cooking

Music

Today I yet again deviated from my full albums to listen to the 3 1/2 hours (3 hr 31 min exactly) of song recommendations Audrey sent me. I asked some on my friends for album recs and Tika gave me like a dozen different albums while Audrey texted me two large lists of individual songs, so I think I’m pretty locked down for now.

My first impression while putting together a playlist of Audrey’s recs was that I actually recognized a fair amount of them! I had listened to them before, or had them on my playlists, or in one or two cases, had actually shown them to Audrey. Lifecycle of song recs between friends whose music tastes overlap I guess. There were also a lot of artists I’d never heard of, like Kanto, Cafuné, and OnklP. Once I got over my shock at the sheer volume of suggestions she sent me, I was pretty excited to give them a listen.

The suggestions were, for the most part, low energy indie, which is kinda a tastebreaker for me. I listen to plenty of it if I’m in the mood, but lately skip it in my daily listening. Something I do really like about Audrey’s taste is the amount of groove there is in it. Right now, I’m listening to Favorite by Kanto feat. Bumkey, and it’s indie, but it also really showcases the excellent beats you find in Audrey’s playlists. Even if there isn’t a lot of energy in the instruments or vocals, you can find a lot of life in the foundational rhythms. The playlist ended up being mostly indie or indie-adjacent. Plenty of Korean and English, of course, as well as some Spanish and Norwegian, which was neat. Favorite song of the playlist: In and Out by Red Velvet (shocking. I like RV)

Today’s prompt(s) are also from Tika. A song to listen to when it’s sunny and a song to listen to when it’s raining. Both fall under weather related prompts, so I stuck them together because no one can stop me.

Reading

Nothing really earth shattering to announce. Read some Yumi’s Cells and Miss Abbott and the Doctor as well as like 14 Tapas updates. Last night I read some Parable before going to bed, which I’ll do again tonight. The hyper empathy syndrome is a really interesting point to write about. Especially given that I was talking about how I like SFF in part because I haven’t figured out how to acknowledge pain without taking it on yet. And the main character literally cannot see pain without acknowledging it in herself. Forced to feel pain (and pleasure) because of her mother’s suffering. Not a very sideways look at things, huh.

Cooking

Music

Today I returned to full album listening with Fountains of Wayne’s album Fountains of Wayne. It came out in 1996 and it’s pretty much “Bice’s album” to Dad. He used to play it for her all the time, and she remembers it. Probably fed into her love of garage rock and post-punk. But anyways, I liked it. I already had Leave the Biker and Sink to the Bottom on my main playlist, but I hadn’t really heard anything else off the album. I like the plotlines and characters they work into the songs. As much as songs written from a personal experience get attention for being so RAW and ARTFUL ugh the emotion, I really like fictional songs. Except that one Velvet Underground song about a creepy ex boyfriend who mails himself to his ex girlfriend and gets stabbed through the skull when her friend opens the box. That was creepy and I do not like it. Off setting, especially because it was narrated (no singing) with a persistent, repetitive rhythm the whole time. Favorite song of the album: Sink to the Bottom.

In other news I have asked my friends for more song prompts for the rest of capstone. Today’s is from Tika: a song that makes you wanna dance

Reading

Thursday is creeping its way into my favorite webcomic update days. It might be because Lost in Translation and Muted both update today, and they are also the two comics I started reading most recently. I’m generally most excited about the series I read the closer the the start of them I am. A honeymoon period, I guess. I Love Yoo updates Thursdays as well, but I think I fell into a bit of an interest lull. Honestly, given that i regularly check about 80 different comics (I just counted), it makes sense that I’m not deeply thrilled about them all. I try to go through and clean out my subscriptions every once in a while, but there are a lot of series I really like.

Cooking

Today I made potato leek soup. Maria and Violet both love it, so I wanted to give it a shot even though I really don’t like leeks. But it actually turned out really well! I don’t think the leek flavor was super strong, which probably helped me handle it. I made a huge mess though and didn’t get around to making and crepes or pancakes. In Sweden, it’s traditional to have potato leek soup with pancakes for Thursday dinner, hence why I made it for Thursday dinner. Too bad about the pancaked though!

If you’re reading this, I’ve completed it and given a song for each of the days. So here’s them all conveniently linked. Plus, a lil playlist of them for easy listening. But it won’t be easy because the whiplash might kill you.

Music

No album today, just a lot of random songs. Listened to my playlist “drift compatible” in the car with Violet and bopped to Fireflies by Owl City with her. Then she showed me Sam Something’s new song, which I liked. I’ll have to ask her what his name is tomorrow though, because I really can’t remember what it is. Rina Sawayama’s MV for Bad Friend came out today as well, and I’m super excited to watch it. I missed the viewing party this morning but that’s alright.

Day 30 - a song you want to share

↳ last song of the challenge!

Reading

I started Parable of the Sower today. I think there’s some thing really nice about SFF because it lets you look at problems sideways. So if you’re like me and easily get overwhelmed by intense emption or trauma (I haven’t figured out how to process other people’s pain without taking it on yet), you can hear about it in an indirect way. Which is a selfish, unfair way to hear about trauma, but hey, it’s what I’ve got. This is a book that Ms. Ye gave to the Afrofuturism class before Thanksgiving break in case we had time to read it, so I’m excited to read it now. Ms. Ye really highly recommended it. I made it through the foreword by N.K. Jemisin this morning. We’ll se how far I make it tomorrow.

Cooking

Spent 4 hours making dumplings today. As per usual, I burned myself and had a slight breakdown, but it was really fun! I spent a bit making three different fillings - pork (rib and bacon) with carrot, chives, pepper, and white pepper; chicken with shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, green onions, Chinese five spice, toasted sesame oil, and oyster sauce; and shrimp with leeks, bamboo shoots, salt, pepper, white pepper, horseradish, and red pepper flakes. Vi and I watched some atla and sat wrapping dumplings in premade potsticker wrappings with 0 experience. We figured it out as we went, so the folding at the top was pretty dense and messy in most cases. We could’ve looked up folding techniques, or maybe called Bubbe, but we didn’t. Violet did end up calling Bubbe after I’d started cooking, just to chat, but it meant that I got my Chinese grandmother’s advice on cooking dumplings like 15 minutes after I’d already started cooking. I cooked them in TWO woks because we have two woks as of today (inaugural cooking of the new Cantonese one). That didn’t really work because they couldn’t both fit on the stove but I made it work with Dad’s help. It produced, as Violet and I both put it, “a lot of fucking dumplings” and then we ate them all and it was good.

It’s hard to tell the quantity from that photo, but that tray is a couple feet long.