Monthly Recap: January 2018

Here's what I got up to in January.


Where I Went
Norfolk, England
London, England
Malaga, Ronda, Cordoba, Iznajar, Granada, Andalucia, Spain
Gibraltar
Edinburgh, Scotland

What I Read
The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes - I read this book while I was in Spain. I found it to be a well-written an honest account of a really amazing personal journey that the author had been on. It was just the motivational push I needed for January.

I've set another Goodreads challenge this year. I set a goal of 15 books last year and ended up reading 20. I've set a goal this year of reading 20 books, so I'm hopeful I'll read more books this year (though I can see uni work getting in the way of that...). 

I've been reading about 300+ pages of academic articles and book chapters a week for the past three and a half weeks - since the start of term. That's got to count in some way!

I haven't really been reading this for long, but I just found it and thought I would pop it in this post. I found the best blog ever: http://www.josephrock.net/ I become interested in (obsessed with) Joseph Rock while on my year abroad. I found about him when I was recommended some books by a friend and I found his books in a bookshop in Kunming by chance. So I bought two volumes of his collected articles, which are published in Hong Kong. I read them back in May - they're called China on the Wild Side - and I wrote about them in my monthly review. They were pretty cheap in China, but I haven't found a good source abroad. Anyway, this blog follows the travels of Joseph Rock and this journalist has been cycling from Tibet to Burma. I think he's just started a week or so ago, so I can't wait to follow him.

What I've Been Listening To
Totally obsessed with Diana Wang at the moment. That's pretty much it. This isn't my favorite of her songs, but it's my current obsession.



What I've Been Watching
Chinese film! I'm taking a cinema course this semester. So in addition to the films we've been watching for the course, I'm trying to watch more Chinese films in my free time.

My favorite for the course so far has been 青春祭 Sacrificed Youth (part 1, part 2). In my free time, my favorite has been rewatching Red Sorghum. I'm really keen to watch Farewell My Concubine again. But my all-time favorite Chinese film is 马路天使 Street Angel.

I'm just starting West World. It's insane and I've been told it's only going to be more intense!

Instagram

These were my two favorite posts on Instagram - the first one was from a small town called Iznájar. 

The second was taken on a hike up the Rock of Gibraltar.

On the Blog
I've been writing up posts for current second years who are about to embark on their year abroad to China or Taiwan.

I really enjoyed putting together the main one about travelling in China.

Challenges
To be honest, there have been some bad moments this months. The first was getting food poisoning in London the night I came back from Spain. I was up all night and I don't think I've ever been so sick. I still don't know why I got sick, but I was glad when it passed.

The next in a series of unfortunate events is that my phone was stolen when I was out celebrating a friend's birthday. My phone case also had my student card in. I did everything I could think of to try to find it, but no luck.

Only a few days later I started hearing back from some of the postgraduate programs I applied to and I've either got rejections or radio silence, so it's not looking good for further study.

Finally, I got my exam results - okay... they weren't all bad, but I didn't do as well in all my courses as I wanted to. It might be a hidden blessing, as it's quite good motivation to work really hard this last semester of my degree. I want to work as hard as possible to do as well as I can, since about half of my degree class rests on my exams in May. No pressure....

Highlights
I had a really good New Years. I landed in London on New Years Eve, then I immediately headed to Norfolk, where a friend had invited me to spend New Years' at her house there. I had such a nice evening with loads of new people, delicious food, and fireworks of course!

I also had a really lovely and relaxed 8 days in Spain. I felt like I got to reset myself for the new semester, got to speak some Spanish, and ate so much nice food. I have to say as well that learning that I really love Vermouth. I had no real idea what it was, but they make it in Andalucia and it was super good everywhere we went. Also tapas were a big highlight of the month.

In reaction to the amount of reading I've had to do since starting up classes again, I've come up with a really good organizational strategy for preparing for my classes. I've also had really good motivation and self-discipline this month. I'm feeling good about managing what I have to do every week. I might write a blog post about what I've been doing to stay on top of everything.

Coming up
So. Much. Reading. On top of my normal reading, I'm starting some essays for my classes. I will practically be living in the library until May.

There is one exception, though. I'm going to Paris! I feel so basic for being so excited but I'm going for three and a half days by myself and I can't wait. I'm going to see all the things I have wanted to see since I started learning French