Bookwyrm Breakdown: March + April 2023

It’s been a hot minute, but I’m here to pop out and send greetings!

And uh… fill you in on my life’s happenings for March and April, which is about as sad as February’s and January’s. Just minus the health problems, unless we count work stress affecting me physically in addition to mentally.

But I hope everyone is doing well and taking care of themselves!

March and April Musings

• [10 Mar] A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik ★★★½
• [24 Mar] 2022 Planning + Journaling: Bullet Journal Setup + Digital Apps

• [7 Apr] The Cup and the Prince by Day Leitao ★★½
• [7 Apr] The Curse and the Prince by Day Leitao ★★
• [7 Apr] Because of Us by Nina Arada ★★★★½

Books Hoarded

So I got nothing in March or April, which my wallet and bank account, as always, will be thankful for. (Although it was absolutely tempting to get some books during Independent Bookstore Day, but I’m trying to save here.)

• Always a Bridesmaid by Cindi Madsen (publisher)

Books Devoured

I thought February was a good sign reading wise, but it quickly became not the case at all since I read exactly one book each month.

• Because of Us by Nina Arada
• Spy X Family Vol. 8 by Tatsuya Endo

Not many movies or shows were watched, sadly.

• Iron Man 3 – I’ve heard mixed reactions with most of them being negative so I was wary going in, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting? It wasn’t good (because I pretty much forgot what happened mostly – we’ll blame my lack of brain cells), but it wasn’t bad either.
• Spider-Man: Far from Home – So… I accidentally spoiled myself with Endgame. (It’ll be fine; I’ll hopefully forget it.)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2

I also barely kept up with music as well, but here’s a few releases that I’ve jamming along to (which surprisingly is a lot more when I actually put this list together):

• I’ve IVE by IVE – Kitsch is extremely catchy and I just can’t get this song out of my playlist. Send help.
• Honestly by Limelight
• expérgo by NMIXX – I personally hated their debut song and had a love/hate relationship with later releases (Dice was pretty good), but their latest release is by far my favorite.
• History of Kingdom Pt. VI. Mujin by Kingdom – As always, I have a love/hate relationship with their title songs (something about the production combined with the vocals just doesn’t… it doesn’t mesh well – aka it feels a little off – because I absolutely love the instrumental version), but their b-sides I generally love them all or have a few favorites. This album’s favorites are Love is Pain and Song of the Wind.
• Rover by Kai – As much as Kai is one of my favorite members of EXO, his previous releases aren’t really my type of music to listen to (which is fine). Rover, somehow, is kind of just spinning around in my head as much as Kitsch has.
• Flower by Jisoo
• Nugudom by Craxy

The Breakdown

What catastrophes have the universe handed us throughout the month? Let’s find out. 🧐

The last two months honestly feel like an absolute blur. Not in the sense of, “Time passes by so fast,” (though that’s accurate as well) but more in the sense of… brain fog? I guess. The only thing I really remember clearly is things got bad enough mentally (we love work stress) that I started getting physically sick (won’t get into too much detail here though), so I spent most of my off days in March doing nothing* unless it was to go grocery shopping.

*I miss blogging and visiting blogs and just being a functioning human being with more than a shell of a brain cell. 😭

Other Things I Did/Attempt to Do (But Really There was a Lot of Gaming)

• Become obsessed with Cookie Clicker way too much
• Got Kiwi Clicker while it was on sale (and got a little obsessed but not as much Cookie Clicker)
• Got roped into playing Final Fantasy XV: War for Eos (we don’t talk about the amount of time I spent on this in the past couple of weeks but we will say I was trying to complete an offer for gems to read webcomics and somehow I just can’t get myself away from it)
  • I thought after Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire I would be done with this, lol
• Ran out of my emotional support chocolate (but I got a restock recently!)