Here and Now: May

Hello all, it’s time for yet another Here and Now, where I share with you the things and activities I’m loving and enjoying every month! May has been good to me, it’s filled with lovely experiences, and of course great books. Let’s jump right in!

May is a lovely month, and I’ve been particularly busy doing non-book related activities in the past few weeks. I finally finished The Idiot by Elif Batuman yesterday and rating it 4 stars, which has been in my currently reading shelf for a while because of its length. I really enjoyed it in the end, even though in the beginning I was reluctant about its different writing style.

At the moment I am listening to Blood, Sweat and Pixels by Jason Schreier, an audiobook I picked up because my brother finished listening to it. Its chapters consist of behind the scenes information, descriptions and compilations of research and interviews about how a video game is developed, from small indie games made by only one person to a huge, high ranking game that took hundreds of people to develop. To be honest the main reason why I started reading it was because of the chapter about Stardew Valley, which was the only and one of the best games I played last year. So far I’m not loving it, maybe because most of the chapters talk about games that I am not familiar with and ones I’ve never played before, though I think if you’re a gamer or is familiar with the gaming industry it’ll be really interesting for you.

As for my Goodreads Reading Challenge, I’ve been a bit behind because it took me a long long time to finish the super-thick Ship of Magic, which I eventually finished around mid-May. In the end I am on track, which is great but not amazing. If you look at my previous Here and Now psots, you’d see that I’m always ahead of schedule. I definitely will try to remedy that by reading more fast-paced or page-turner reads in the next few books.

Of course throughout the month May me and milions of other people are tuning in for the final season of Game of Thrones. I found the episodes a mixture of amazing production quality, wonderment for the amazing world these people have made, love for all the characters I’ve seen for years, but also slight disappointment (like I’m sure a lot of other fans experience) for how things turned out.

My housemates saw how into the series I was lately, and from all the hype surrounding it, that they decided they wanted to know what all the fuss was about and start watching the first episodes together. It’s really nice to rewatch the show from the beginning, when everything was so different and unknown. This is the first time I’ve really rewatched the show from beginning and to watch it really seriously, and it’s interesting to catch all the foreshadowing and interesting quotes or themes that I missed or have forgotten when first watching it, years ago.

Last weekend my friends and I went to Efteling, a theme park in The Netherlands that is famous to be one of best in the country and really well made. It was such a lovely day out, warm and sunny (though ended up being a bit cloudy), and we had to travel for almost two hours but had a blast in the theme park itself. Overall it was not too crowded, the waiting lines reached a max of only half an hour and the food was great. The rides were wonderful, some of them okay and more designed towards children, but the thrilling ones were also very exciting. I especially loved Python, which was super fun and not too scary, and Baron 1898, which was so so thrilling but felt a little too short. All of us also had a great time playing the Piraña and laughed quite a lot.

Lately I’ve been crocheting a lot as well, and my latest result is something I wanted to bring to my office to spice up my desk but also be functional. And after browsing through free patterns in the internet I decided upon this adorable wrist cushion that happens to be shaped like a unicorn! I had a wonderful time making it, the pattern was really easy to follow and I adjusted it a little by extending the length of the body slightly to be more comfortable for me. It has been a famous topic of conversation in the office and makes me happy whenever I work. Huge, huge thanks to One Zero Crochet for the pattern!

So these are the things I’ve been loving so far!

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