Yes, well, things have not proceeded apace.
I’ve had a cold for the last three weeks straight. Or, more accurately, I’ve had two, possibly three, colds, for the last three weeks straight. It is very tiring and I am very done with it, except for the part where I’m still sick and therefore not done with it at all. :p Ted’s had a cold about 2/3rds of that time himself, so we’ve been having a lot of fun! :p
Due to general malaise, we decided not to have our big American Thanksgiving this year, and just had the family over. What I learned from that was it’s not actually noticeably harder to cook Thanksgiving dinner for 40 people than it is for 7, because we made all the stuff anyway, just in not quite (quite) as large quantities. Still, given our levels of exhaustion, we were just as happy to have not thrown a big shindig.
Writing got put entirely on hold between an attempt at holiday shopping on Friday, where I discovered that Black Friday has well and truly settled in here and yet I failed to find anything I was hoping to get, Thanksgiving, and having to get a new book ready for launch early next week. There will be teaser chapters and cover reveals soon! But there haven’t been any new words. And I still have to get Project Two edited and out to my Patreon backers before the end of the month, which…well, I can do it today, I hope, and manage to spend Wednesday and Thursday at least reaching NNWM wordcount goals, if not reaching my own personal goal for the month. Because not even I can write 45K in two days.
On a more positive note, I had a laptop crash the other day and although I got it back up and running, in the midst of it I said “I wish I could get a new Surface Pro” AND SOMEONE BOUGHT ME A NEW SURFACE PRO, so I’m…just…staggered…!!! Moreover, then a friend’s laptop really did crash for good and forever, and I now have my *old* one that I can pass on to *them*, so…I actually started crying, not gonna lie. I was so grateful to be given such a generous gift, and SO GRATEFUL to suddenly be in a position where I could help somebody else, and just…yeah. Wow. *sniffle*
Aside from that, I’ve still got my DuoLingo streak going, although I’m not likely to get through all of the Spanish course before January. I keep having to go back and strengthen my words. :) But I may well take a real life Spanish class after the holidays, because I think that might be fun.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I’M LOVING #CrisisOnEarthX OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
I find Duolingo, though it seems nice enough for amassing vocabulary, worthless for actually learning a language. It tells me when I get something wrong but never *why*. I wonder, though, whether I’m using it correctly, because a lot of people seem to like it and think it worthwhile.
THe website apparently tells you more about what’s wrong with it. Spanish, for me, because I have 4 years of high school Spanish…I mostly know why I’ve gotten it wrong. :)