I suppose it would be accurate to sum up 2013 as "the year I moved to Berkeley and had a lot of feelings." I also read a lot of books (no surprise) and watched a lot of American television and only three Asian dramas (yes surprise) and, to judge by my diary, had a lot of feelings about those. I took a semester of Korean (excruciating but also ( Read more... )

Not very creative, perhaps, but seasonally appropriate, and anyway it’s freezing in here. It may be mid-sixties autumn outside, warm light and drifting golden leaves, but I keep waking up expecting snow and red-brick towers and black lamp-posts.

Also I’ve finally begun reading A Game of Thrones and am enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would ( Read more... )

I must be a grown-up. Today I actually thought, Kids. They know a little bit, maybe they know a lot, and they think they know everything.Allow me to explain. (And please keep in mind that this is partly in response to a lot of ugliness about feminism I’ve been seeing around Tumblr, and partly in response to trying to marshal my thoughts on the new ( Read more... )

I am aware of the fact that I failed to post a single entry during May. In my defense, I was apartment-hunting (again) and generally being stressed with work stuff. And stuff.

But! The good news is that I have started a semi-professional book review blog, Clarissa's Bookshelf. It ties into my day job, so it definitely won't replace LJ, but a lot ( Read more... )

Happy Valentine’s Day! Or Happy Pan-Universal Be Who You Are Day (thanks, Kristin Cashore!). I don’t have particularly strong feelings about Valentine’s Day one way or another, except that it is inevitably followed by the Second-Greatest Candy Sale Day of the Year (the Greatest Candy Sale Day of the Year being Nov. 1), about which I do have strong ( Read more... )

Well, and here we are on 12/12/12. We have just finished setting up the small tree that I tramped down the hillside out back to saw down with my own hands. It is unusually seasonal around here and no mistake. I think it will snow tonight ( Read more... )

I've been trying to make my posts more thematically linked and less random, but I don't really feel like sorting through all the thoughts I've had since my last post, so you're going to get an old-fashioned rambly epistolary sort of thing like I used to write back when I had adventures and no job. Here you will find detailed descriptions of food, ( Read more... )

Maybe it’s the California-like weather, but these days I feel better. Instead of looking up at the snowless blue sky and cursing it and going to hide like a troll in my cave, I feel good ( Read more... )

Seems Autumn has barely started and now it’s almost over. We had a few beautiful days, but mostly wacky weather. Sixty-degree winter is no fun, let me tell you ( Read more... )

Autumn is here at last! Tis the season for leaves and apple cider and also, apparently, for single young gentlemen to attempt to score dates at bookstores. I don’t know what it is about the season but there must be something in the water. Other, better socialized people may find getting hit on at work more amusing than I do, or even productive, but ( Read more... )