Hello World

Well that was a bit of a break from writing now wasn’t it!

Life has been busy busy busy the last few months (nearly a year!) and this is the first time in ages that I can just take a short break and sit down to reflect on the last few months.

So what exactly has happened in my world since we last spoke?

First off, I am now gainfully employed as the manager of a bookshop in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Franschhoek! It’s been a very busy time setting up a store from scratch and making sure everything runs smoothly. Working in retail also brings a lot of stress, which has seen me gain a couple of kgs since starting work in June. It’s rewarding though. I’ve loved interacting with customers and selecting books for the store. I’m also working with staff that are very easy to get along with, which most definitely helps.

Living in Franschhoek has also been great, although expensive! The community is small and tight-knit, so it’s very easy to start to get to know the people you interact with every day. It’s probably the first time since Japan that I feel as though I’ve become part of a community rather than merely a tourist or visitor.

I’ve been reading a lot again after being extremely unmotivated to read anything other than picture books and short stories. Obviously, working in a book store means I need to read more, but I also think that having a more structured daily routine has helped me to make reading more of a daily habit and a nice way to unwind at the end of my day.

My journaling habit has been somewhat scatter-shot. Since June, I haven’t written much of anything, with my first entries only starting up again here in September. September also means it’s time for me to choose the Hobonichi goods I’ll order for 2023, and this might be the first time I don’t opt for any covers. Instead, I might just order the books themselves, with a Planner, Cousin and Weeks all on my wishlist for personal and work purposes.

I’ve spent less time messing around with Linux on my laptop. My Arch installation has proven to be remarkably stable, with only a recent Grub update forcing me to dig around a bit and sort out the issue by chrooting into my installation. I’m more than happy to keep running Arch as my daily driver.

The off bit of gaming manages to keep me sane as well, with Rocket League and Halo Infinite being the two games taking up most of my time. Once I feel up to it, I might also jump back into Elden Ring on my PS5, as well as the rest of my gaming backlog.

So what’s coming up for me? Lots of work with the Christmas season approaching, but before that I want to try to make October a month of horror books that I can dig my teeth into. I haven’t read much horror since The Only Good Indians from Stephen Graham Jones a few months back. I’ll be sure to post the list of books here and how they turned out once October has passed.

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