Making myself read, and making myself to go out

When I'm not volunteering at a historical house for the marketing manager, I go to network events. Talks at the Google Academy, parties at a pub, and panels about historical romance. It's not so much network as it is about knowing the industry, but I'm just about there to meet people. It makes me feel productive when I'm not procrastinating from doing my dissertation or writing cover letters. 

I hoarded a lot of free books from Book Expo, and I bought a couple for myself on Kindle and as a physical copy. Trying to go through the pile of YA from Pan Macmillan but, well, there's just so much I can tolerate from reading in a 1st person pov sometimes. But next on my list is "The Girl King" by Mimi Yu and "Darius the Great is Not Okay" by Adib Khopram, as they're going to be the coming fall's darlings in having more diverse authors. I finished reading "Solo Exchange Diary: Sequel to My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness", and "Call Me By Your Name" both of which is timely for UK's pride month in July. 

I'm listening to podcasts a lot. "Mostly Lit" which is like a book club by a trio of BAME professionals who are in publishing in one form or another, and having strong opinions about philosophy, films, and the book they're reading. The most recent episode has the grandson of Nelson Mandela as their guest for Mandela 100, which is really cool, and before that it was Gabourey Sidibe, when she was in the UK to promote her autobiography. I'm also listening to "Stuff You Should Know" to keep me company, and I try to keep up with "This American Life" but I feel recently it's sometimes hit and miss. I'm behind already on Critical Role, because trying to keep focus on a four hour podcast episode can test my ability to pay attention sometimes. "London Book Reviews" podcast also has some pretty neat authors speaking, and the actual physical bookshop itself is really cute. "Alice Isn't Dead" is also something I'm catching up on too, in anticipation for the book that's going to be released in October.

I haven't sat down to play FFXIV in a long time, not just because I felt tugged around by other strong powers, but also because I suspect that my computer might be reaching its limit on playing MMOs at the lowest settings. Which is a shame because I've been milking Heavensward still and still haven't started going into the next installment. I did finish playing "Transistor" and the Atelier of Dusk games recently, and am going through a replay of the Ace Attorney games. Visual novels has claimed me for a while, playing "The Arcana" and "Regency Love" because I really do like impassioned indie studios making a labor of love that isn't a fairly pared down anime visual novel app. 

Hopefully once this dissertation is done I can revisit past games and books I enjoyed. Persona 4 and a proper game of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Maybe trudge through FFXIV without fear of destroying my computer. Lot of netflix to watch. But now I'm just trying to get productive in a heat wave, and it suuuucks.