August recap: Eclipse
- 🏋️♀️ I went up 2 kgs in July and decided to do something about it: CICO, Calories In, Calories Out. I have discovered a brilliant calorie-counting app called Cronometer and decided to go to the gym! Already lost 4kgs after only one month using the app! I blogged in a little more detail about it.
- 💾 Coded a simple but useful plate calculator for my cable machine / functional trainer. The plates have numbers but no labels for weights. And the weights depend on if you're using one or two stacks (2:1 ratio), accessories etc. I made an excel calculator years ago, but wanted something I could quickly check WHILE in my home gym, on my phone, resting between sets. Javascript to the rescue and my calculator has been way more useful than I imagined!
- 🪢 Bought a set of cheap resistance bands to take with me to Brazil. I'll be there for one month and don't want to come up with excuses and undo all my progress. I'm going to make my life as easy as possible, so I don't bail out when it comes to workouts and logging calories.
- 🎹 I am back at the piano too! And practicing for about one hour a day! I used to say I couldn't fit even 30 min of practice, but the truth is… I was doomscrolling and watching tv, and now I just sit at the piano bench and work on my pieces instead.
- 😎 The ECLIPSE was amazing, incredible, something I won't ever, ever forget! I blogged and shared some photos.
Blog
No desire to blog AT ALL. I'd rather be outside! I posted a Calvin comic strip and a page from my sketchbook and that's it.
Piano Progress
- Finally done with étude no. 111 of my method book (Russian School of Piano Playing). I have not been able to reach 200bpm, but I did get to 160 across the whole piece, and can do 200 in some sections. It's good enough so I moved on from this.
- Worked on piece no. 114 Chinese Song. Such a lovely little thing.
- Worked on sight reading a ton of material!
🍿 Movies & TV
- He-Man: Masters of the Universe!
- The Devil Wears Prada
- The Devil Wears Prada 2
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day. One of the things I love the most is going to the Cinema during a heat wave, getting a huge diet coke, and just forgetting about the entire world for 2-something hours in that nice, cool, AC.
- Freaky Friday. This was way funnier than we expected, it had some great moments.
- Freakier Friday. This was less funny than we expected, the comedy was definitely NOT on point, way too physical and exaggerated, but it had some good moments.
- Spider Noir. I liked this. It has a slow, old-timey pace, good superhero lore. I watched half of the eps. in black & white and the rest in color.
- Code 3. Surprinsingly good! I think the poster does the movie a disservice, it is definitely not a cheap comedy with characters screaming all over the place. Give it a try, it is a thoughtful, intense movie.
- The Invite. One of THE WORST movies of my life. I don't get all the imdb reviews saying "oooh this is so intelligent", "oooh the dialogues are sooo deep". NOPE. Dialogues were absolutely shit and NOT deep and NOT interesting. Just because people are talking about sex, that doesn't make it instantly avantgarde and interesting. It honestly left me wondering about the level of literacy and education of those reviewers, to think so highly of a pretty mediocre, cliché movie. Have seen similar (identical?!) movies at least a dozen times before.
- Started watching Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.
- Finished watching my 2nd c-drama, Love in the Clouds. It was nice.
- Started and finished my 3rd c-drama, Pursuit of Jade. It started strong and I was hooked. Then it went downhill, I found myself watching eps 28 to 37 in 2x speed and even skipping every scene with the main couple. The ending absolutely SUCKED.
- Forced myself to start my 4th c-drama, Love Between Fairy and Devil, but kind of gave up on ep. 3 because I absolutely HATE the female lead voice and affected acting. I hated it so much, I think I'm completely over any c-drama, k-drama, j-drama, whatever. It looks like all that love and obsession I felt was just a phase after all.
- Started watching Criminal Minds. Nothing like a good cosy murder to put a smile on my face. Watched all of season 1 and am almost done with season 2.
📚 Reading
- Finally done with Agatha's They Came to Baghdad. A really fun read!
Updated on 2026-09-10 to add more photos of the Eclipse day!
Updated on 2026-10-05 to move Eclipse content and Weight loss content into their own posts.
Comments