Monthly recap: August
August is already over? What even!?
*cough* Actually August was one of my slower months as you can see from the huge number of blog posts I didthe lack thereof. Like seriously, two posts!?
I have an excuse! (sort of)
I did find a bunch of new music and I almost drowned when my online classes started (needless to say, to my shame, math was quickly pushed to the backburner. Gotta work on not doing that, I know).
Also, I've been drooling over the beach webcam. Mom and I are flying over on Monday, and the rest of the fam will join us on the 7th. Aunt Cendei is coming with us this time! She's gone with us two other times, but skipped last year.
Stats and other bloggy news:
138 posts (counting this one)
848 comments
33 followers through Google (if you're following by email I have no idea how to keep track of you)
176 views is the record for one post
51 views is the highest for one post this month
24,958 pageviews all time
Pageviews by country:
Out of curiousity, who was in Russia?
August happenings:
1. I finished both my public speaking and federal government classes! I had a week of breathing room (actually, I spent that catching up on math because that's about flown out the window for the past couple weeks) before the fall semester started.
2. Lydia left for Colorado to go to a thing called Summit for two weeks (website here).
3. Christian and I helped out at Aunt Cendei's place.
4. We gave Aunt Cendei a few chicken and duck eggs with hopes that we could get a few chicks and ducklings before we left on vacation.
5. I became a "real college student" when I made myself a cup of coffee in the afternoon, which ended up being a bad idea because I didn't fall asleep until after midnight.
6. We had a cold snap where we had like a week of temps under the 80's! In August! And it rained! Whatever happened to July and August being the most dry and hot months of the year for us? I mean really, I made hot chocolate.
7. The online campus had a few hiccups that resulted with none of the students having access to any of their courses for the first day and a half of classes. Thankfully they were able to straighten it out before any of the deadlines.
8. The ducks found out we have a pool, so now they mostly stay in their pen.
9. Lydia was asked to speak for a part of the graduation ceremony at Summit. She did awesome, and only had a few hours notice which she couldn't use because she still needed to pack, eat dinner, and get ready for the ceremony. She said she thought about what she wanted to say, but that she didn't have any notes and that it was mostly impromptu.
10. When Lydia came home from Summit we all met her at the airport. We also met one of her roommates (she had a connecting flight), a few other friends who all live within about a two hour (at the most, I'm guesstimating here) radius of us, and also the family of one of her friends who we then invited to spend part of the afternoon with us before we left for Church. So that was pretty cool.
11. Camp NaNo Cabins closed.
Revelations:
1. If you can believe it when somebody tells you you're ugly, you can believe it when somebody tells you that you're beautiful. (There, I just solved everyone's self esteem issues.)
2. (I didn't actually come up with this, but it's really cool regardless) When you're talking with Jesus, only one of you is going to change and it's not going to be Him.
3. A world without art:
"Art is the expression of creativity and/or imagination, without it we would be rather dull, don't you think? By our ingenuity, we have created many different things; from the most basic item to beautiful chandeliers, computers, buildings, even paintings. Without these things, we would be without culture. Imagine it. Everyone would act and dress the same as everybody else. Everything would look the same. Navigating streets would be a nightmare."
I can go from deep and thoughtful to humorous in 2 seconds.
4. After nearly ten years of research in the field, I have come to a groundbreaking realization:
It takes the same amount of time to put a newly washed plate in the dishwasher crooked as it does to put the same plate in straight.
However, when the plate is in crooked, the next person to put their plate in must first straighten the offending first plate before he/she may put in the second plate, thus doubling the time spent for the second person loading his/her plate AND THROWING OFF THE BALANCE OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!
5. If you're out of store-bought hot chocolate, cocoa powder and sugar are a good substitute- just make sure you put in enough sugar or else you're in for a bitter surprise.
Awkward:
1. My Google+ is a weird compilation of somewhat cryptic bits of whatever you want to call it, random updates, blog posts, and if you go down far enough- cringe-worthy pointlessness.
2. When the people who ended up sitting behind me during the entire public speaking class have some very *ahem* colorful (I guess is the word?) language.
Awesome:
1. When you get out of class after only 30 minutes because it was only a test.
2. Having a pool party with some of the young adults/teenagers from church.
3. Small group nights! About twice a month we host people from our church for dinner, fellowship, and general talking and sharing feelings. It's a pretty set group and though that's fine, it's stayed about the same since last October, and none of the new people who followed our relatively new pastor to our church have shown up yet.
4. When you find out that one of the students in Public Speaking knew your grandparents.
5. Meeting some of Lydia's friends from Summit.
Weird:
1. Using a headphone jack splitter so I can use over-ear headphones and earbuds at the same time. Don't look at me like that, the sound is way better and outside distractions are almost eliminated. The only disadvantages are that the clicky thing on my earbuds can't control the volume through the splitter and over-ear headphones are a little awkward to wear when I have my glasses on.
Urg moments:
1. Drinking coffee around lunchtime, but then not being able to fall asleep until after 1 in the morning. That's the thing though, if I haven't had coffee in a couple weeks, I get the weirdest reaction ever. After about 4-5 hours, I get jittery but also droopy. Then, once I forget about it, I get energy for hours.
2. When blogger eats up half of your post when your computer restarts itself even though you saved it multiple times.
Musical finds:
This was a good month for music!
*tries to figure out how to imbed playlist* *spotify refuses to work* *tries to redownload spotify* *spotify pitches a fit*
*restarts computer* *spotify finally cooperates*
I figured out why so many people are obsessed with Hamilton. I wouldn't say it's my favorite, mostly because rap isn't really my thing, but also because there's language. I've tried to avoid it for the most part. The songs from Hamilton in the playlist are clean though, but if you do listen to the whole thing, just be aware of what's in it.
Also! The Hunchback of Notre Dame! So beautiful! Listen to it now! *shoves headphones in your direction*
Don't even get me started on the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn soundtrack! (No, I haven't seen it, just the trailer and a few bits and pieces)
The Ben Hur soundtrack is also gorgeous. (No, I haven't seen that one either. But I really want to, so don't throw tomatoes at me yet)
Blast from the past:
There is no way I'm putting in fifteen links. I'll do a few, the rest are in the archives.
1. I did a tag here.
2. My thoughts on Gulliver's Travels and plot bunnies here.
3. Summer here.
4. I spent the weekend with Aunt Lauren and Uncle Phil here.
Snippets of story:
See, very slow month.
From the slowly growing BatB retelling.
*cough* Actually August was one of my slower months as you can see from the huge number of blog posts I did
I have an excuse! (sort of)
I did find a bunch of new music and I almost drowned when my online classes started (needless to say, to my shame, math was quickly pushed to the backburner. Gotta work on not doing that, I know).
Also, I've been drooling over the beach webcam. Mom and I are flying over on Monday, and the rest of the fam will join us on the 7th. Aunt Cendei is coming with us this time! She's gone with us two other times, but skipped last year.
Stats and other bloggy news:
138 posts (counting this one)
848 comments
33 followers through Google (if you're following by email I have no idea how to keep track of you)
176 views is the record for one post
51 views is the highest for one post this month
24,958 pageviews all time
Pageviews by country:
Out of curiousity, who was in Russia?
August happenings:
1. I finished both my public speaking and federal government classes! I had a week of breathing room (actually, I spent that catching up on math because that's about flown out the window for the past couple weeks) before the fall semester started.
2. Lydia left for Colorado to go to a thing called Summit for two weeks (website here).
3. Christian and I helped out at Aunt Cendei's place.
4. We gave Aunt Cendei a few chicken and duck eggs with hopes that we could get a few chicks and ducklings before we left on vacation.
5. I became a "real college student" when I made myself a cup of coffee in the afternoon, which ended up being a bad idea because I didn't fall asleep until after midnight.
6. We had a cold snap where we had like a week of temps under the 80's! In August! And it rained! Whatever happened to July and August being the most dry and hot months of the year for us? I mean really, I made hot chocolate.
7. The online campus had a few hiccups that resulted with none of the students having access to any of their courses for the first day and a half of classes. Thankfully they were able to straighten it out before any of the deadlines.
8. The ducks found out we have a pool, so now they mostly stay in their pen.
9. Lydia was asked to speak for a part of the graduation ceremony at Summit. She did awesome, and only had a few hours notice which she couldn't use because she still needed to pack, eat dinner, and get ready for the ceremony. She said she thought about what she wanted to say, but that she didn't have any notes and that it was mostly impromptu.
10. When Lydia came home from Summit we all met her at the airport. We also met one of her roommates (she had a connecting flight), a few other friends who all live within about a two hour (at the most, I'm guesstimating here) radius of us, and also the family of one of her friends who we then invited to spend part of the afternoon with us before we left for Church. So that was pretty cool.
11. Camp NaNo Cabins closed.
Revelations:
1. If you can believe it when somebody tells you you're ugly, you can believe it when somebody tells you that you're beautiful. (There, I just solved everyone's self esteem issues.)
2. (I didn't actually come up with this, but it's really cool regardless) When you're talking with Jesus, only one of you is going to change and it's not going to be Him.
3. A world without art:
"Art is the expression of creativity and/or imagination, without it we would be rather dull, don't you think? By our ingenuity, we have created many different things; from the most basic item to beautiful chandeliers, computers, buildings, even paintings. Without these things, we would be without culture. Imagine it. Everyone would act and dress the same as everybody else. Everything would look the same. Navigating streets would be a nightmare."
I can go from deep and thoughtful to humorous in 2 seconds.
4. After nearly ten years of research in the field, I have come to a groundbreaking realization:
It takes the same amount of time to put a newly washed plate in the dishwasher crooked as it does to put the same plate in straight.
However, when the plate is in crooked, the next person to put their plate in must first straighten the offending first plate before he/she may put in the second plate, thus doubling the time spent for the second person loading his/her plate AND THROWING OFF THE BALANCE OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!
5. If you're out of store-bought hot chocolate, cocoa powder and sugar are a good substitute- just make sure you put in enough sugar or else you're in for a bitter surprise.
Awkward:
1. My Google+ is a weird compilation of somewhat cryptic bits of whatever you want to call it, random updates, blog posts, and if you go down far enough- cringe-worthy pointlessness.
2. When the people who ended up sitting behind me during the entire public speaking class have some very *ahem* colorful (I guess is the word?) language.
Awesome:
1. When you get out of class after only 30 minutes because it was only a test.
2. Having a pool party with some of the young adults/teenagers from church.
3. Small group nights! About twice a month we host people from our church for dinner, fellowship, and general talking and sharing feelings. It's a pretty set group and though that's fine, it's stayed about the same since last October, and none of the new people who followed our relatively new pastor to our church have shown up yet.
4. When you find out that one of the students in Public Speaking knew your grandparents.
5. Meeting some of Lydia's friends from Summit.
Weird:
1. Using a headphone jack splitter so I can use over-ear headphones and earbuds at the same time. Don't look at me like that, the sound is way better and outside distractions are almost eliminated. The only disadvantages are that the clicky thing on my earbuds can't control the volume through the splitter and over-ear headphones are a little awkward to wear when I have my glasses on.
Urg moments:
1. Drinking coffee around lunchtime, but then not being able to fall asleep until after 1 in the morning. That's the thing though, if I haven't had coffee in a couple weeks, I get the weirdest reaction ever. After about 4-5 hours, I get jittery but also droopy. Then, once I forget about it, I get energy for hours.
2. When blogger eats up half of your post when your computer restarts itself even though you saved it multiple times.
Musical finds:
This was a good month for music!
*tries to figure out how to imbed playlist* *spotify refuses to work* *tries to redownload spotify* *spotify pitches a fit*
*restarts computer* *spotify finally cooperates*
I figured out why so many people are obsessed with Hamilton. I wouldn't say it's my favorite, mostly because rap isn't really my thing, but also because there's language. I've tried to avoid it for the most part. The songs from Hamilton in the playlist are clean though, but if you do listen to the whole thing, just be aware of what's in it.
Also! The Hunchback of Notre Dame! So beautiful! Listen to it now! *shoves headphones in your direction*
Don't even get me started on the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn soundtrack! (No, I haven't seen it, just the trailer and a few bits and pieces)
The Ben Hur soundtrack is also gorgeous. (No, I haven't seen that one either. But I really want to, so don't throw tomatoes at me yet)
Blast from the past:
There is no way I'm putting in fifteen links. I'll do a few, the rest are in the archives.
1. I did a tag here.
2. My thoughts on Gulliver's Travels and plot bunnies here.
3. Summer here.
4. I spent the weekend with Aunt Lauren and Uncle Phil here.
Snippets of story:
See, very slow month.
From the slowly growing BatB retelling.
“Did you have to make up that rhyme?” Uan paced back and forth. “Sure she’s the one. Her last name’s Willow, as in weeping willow, thus ‘Crying Tree,’ but who could love a beast? I have a good life now. I’ve accepted my fate- unexciting though it may be by now.”
“I’ll have a talk with her soon,” Mrs. Thrush assured him, “she is almost ready to hear the prophecy. I’m sure she’ll come around.”
“Would it help if I acted as if I weren’t a beast? Tried walking on my hind legs instead of all fours? Stuffed myself into those uncomfortable contraptions Mr. Cox has been trying to dress me in for the past two years?”
Anyways, there ya go!
How was your August?
Muahaha (my phone tried to autocorrect that to all caps pfft) I have hooked another HoND listener! (And the two on that playing are probably my two favorites so nice choices. *thumbs up*)
ReplyDeleteAlso, wow, lots of viewers from Russia o.o
Unashamedly. Some of my favorites too!
DeleteI wonder why? I don't know anyone from Russia, unless my grandparents shared my link with some of their friends I can't think of a different explanation.
<3
Delete*coughs* um... so how did you get the Spotify playlist to work?
If you have Spotify on your computer, go to one of your playlists and hit the three dots icon. This should bring up a couple different options, you're going to want "copy embed code" (or something like that). Go to your post draft and instead of the "compose" icon you're going to switch it to the "HTML" icon (they should be side by side on your screen). Paste the code, then switch back to "compose" and you should see the playlist in your post. Hope this helps!
DeleteI tagged you ;) Mic's Room (http://lovelypinkduckshome.blogspot.com/)
ReplyDelete-Mic
Thanks, I just saw your post. :D
DeleteNO I WILL NOT LISTEN TO THE BEN HUR SOUNDTRACK UNTIL I SEE IT IN THEATERS I SHALL NOT BEND.
ReplyDeletebtw. beyond fantastic post. I love your weird thing cause I've done that before and I thought I was weird so *fist bump*
SO PWETTY THO.
DeleteThanks! So far, I'm the only one in my family that does it so it's fun to find out that someone else does it too.
Yeah I've had people from, like, Trinidad and Tobago, and Saudi Arabia, and stuff reading my blog every month. I'm actually sort of worried if it's like, terrorists or something.
ReplyDeleteOohh....so that's what that jack thingie majigger is for! I never understood that, hehe.
wow, imbedding spotify! Bloggy props to you!
WAAIITTT TOM SAWYER AND HUCKLEBERRY FINN IS A MOVIE?! WHY HAVE I NOT HEARD ABOUT THIS YET??!
*rant alert*
Also, for King and Country has this really, really, REALLY REALLY good song off of the Ben Hur movie (go find that on my blog August recap page...I'm too lazy to go find the link rn, sorry)It's SO good and there are so many inspirational quotes in it, and I'm so obsessed rn.
Yeah, it kinda creeps me out sometimes.
DeleteI think it came out last year. The music is awesome!
YAS! Ceasefire is sooooo good!
Viva la Vida!! I used to be obsessed with Coldplay when I was younger and VLV was one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteMy older sister told me to look it up. I haven't listened to any of their other music though.
Delete