Currently, my life is mostly filled with swimming, books, and friends. Completely ideal. But I think I need to get out of my comfort zone and get back to being productive, learning skills, and creating things.
Read
Girl, Wash Your Face & Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis // ★★★☆☆ // My mom gave me both of these self-help books and told me to read them. Hollis’ advice is basically work hard and have a good attitude. Nothing revelational. Wouldn’t really recommend anyone to spend their time on it. I found her first book Girl, Wash Your Face more interesting as a memoir. I hadn’t heard of Hollis previously and was curious about her untraditional career. (Full review here)
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple // ★★★★☆ // Read this book with Sadia! It was my first time reading with a book buddy and it was so much fun to be able to react to the story with someone instead of waiting until the end to write up a formal review. It was especially fun to read a book as silly as this with someone. It started off as a suburban drama and quickly escalated. (Full review here)
The Little Book of Sloth Philosophy by Jennifer McCartney // ★★★★☆ // A cute pocket book that was surprisingly wise about mindfulness and reclaiming the word “lazy.” It’s filled with advice, fun facts, cute illustrations, and quizzes, but underneath the light humour is deep intention. (Full review here)
The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister // ★★★★☆ // This is a coming-of-age story of a girl disrupted from her fairytale childhood when she searches for the secrets of her past and discovers the realities of a world beyond what she’s known. Experiencing this meeting of fantasy and reality reminded me of Disney’s Enchanted. (Full review coming May 15)
The Distance Home by Paula Saunders // ★★★☆☆ // This was a cover borrow from the library. It’s a dysfunctional midwestern family saga. Part of what kept me intrigued about the story was how the narration would sometimes jump from the present to the future, and I would wonder how so much could change for a character in one life. But when I got to the end, I didn’t feel like I understood the characters’ motivations as much as I would have liked. (Full review here)
So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport // ★★★★☆ // Newport argues that “follow your passion” is about the worst advice you could give, and instead, you should “be so good they can’t ignore you.” As someone who doesn’t know what her passion is, I found this perspective incredibly refreshing. (Full review here)
To be read
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling // I started rereading the Harry Potter series for the first time starting last October but took a bit of a break after the fifth book.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho // This book has been on my TBR for ages. I’ve heard so many people say that this was the read of their childhood. I was reminded by Mckenzie that this was on my TBR, and now I’m finally planning to start it with Sadia this weekend!
Beartown by Fredrik Backman // The blurb didn’t especially intrigue me, but bookstagram can’t stop talking about it, so I borrowed it from the library.
Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang // This is carried over from previous month’s TBR. A collection of stories set in China and America. To be published on May 14.
Recursion by Blake Crouch // This is a sci-fi involving technology that preserves memories. I haven’t read sci-fi in awhile, one of my favourite genres, so I’m looking forward to this one! To be published on June 11.
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom // I’ve known about this book since middle school but never got around to reading it. I know that it’s a favourite for many. Found this book in hardback for $2 at a used bookstore so I swiped it.
Movies/TV shows
I haven’t been watching very much on Netflix this month, so I don’t have too much to report on, except that I watched Beyonce’s Homecoming! (I’m going to copy my thoughts from my comment on Demilade’s post about what she’s watching hehe:) I hadn’t seen Beyonce’s Coachella performances before, or any Coachella performances, so I was really intrigued. I loved the behind-the-scenes the documentary showed us, and have so much respect for what she does! I mean, we all know that Beyonce is insanely talented, and I think most of us recognise that Beyonce works hard, but I also think that many people overlook just how hard she works because they attribute it to innate talent.
I watched Captain Marvel with my family in theatres, which was a solid superhero movie. Afterwards, I remembered that I hadn’t yet watched Avengers: Infinity War, so after my brother’s insistence, I finally got around to that. Now I’m ready for Avengers: Endgame! No concrete plans yet, but I’d like to watch it eventually.
And of course, who isn’t watching Game of Thrones??! Georgina and I have been having our friend Victoria over every Sunday night for dinner and GoT viewings. I’m not going to say anymore about that because I’ll be too tempted to say spoilers!
Music
This month I saw Tom Odell and Bruno Major live!! Definitely the highlights of my month. You can check out my Tom Odell recap here, and my Bruno Major recap is coming next Wednesday, but in the meantime you can check out my Bruno Major recap from last year here.
Songs that I’ve had on repeat this month are “Superposition” by Young the Giant and “Baptize Me” by X Ambassadors ft. Jacob Banks. I heard “Baptize Me” off the GoT soundtrack just four days ago and was listening to it all day that day. I even covered it that morning and had to figure out the chords on my own because they’re not yet up on Ultimate Guitar. It’s my favourite off the GoT soundtrack, but I admit that I may be biased after seeing Jacob Banks live last month, recap here.
I’ve also been into instrumentals, particularly by Sean Angus Watson (rec: “Let Me In,” “Waltz in Sweaters“) and Justice Der (“Passionfruit” by Drake, “Blessed” by Daniel Caesar)
Spendings
Four months into the year, I can now say that I spend pretty consistently on monthlies (obviously), transportation, groceries, coffee, and bubble tea. This month I spent a little more eating out than usual, but only by the cost of one or two meals, which isn’t anything to fuss about. This is only my second month tracking my spendings on books so it’s harder to say, but $15 on 6 books this month is pretty good. I should still probably slow down on the book buying though, because I have yet to read a single book I bought this year (thanks to the library and eARCs).
Monthlies – 59%
Transportation – 9%
Groceries – 7%
Coffee – 2%
Bubble tea – 1%
Food – 9%
Books – 1% // Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng ($5), Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom ($2), Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ($1), The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen ($1), Emma by Jane Austen (25¢). Whilst on vacation in LA, my family and I popped by a used bookstore, and they bought The Reminders by Val Emmich for me ($12), so I didn’t include that in my own spendings. I bought my friend a vintage book on birds ($5), which I did include in my own spendings.
Other – 12% // Flowers, a pack of hair clips from the drugstore, birthday cake, a gift. The gift was the splurge of the month.
Lately
Started off the month with spring break in Los Angeles! I’m out of school now so I don’t have spring break anymore, but my youngest brother does. Our time in Los Angeles was mostly spent eating food at old haunts, and we spent one afternoon at the Getty. We stayed at the DoubleTree by Hilton, and they have really good complimentary cookies.
When I got back to Philly, I popped by Chinatown on the way home and got a few egg tarts, then had an egg tart and instant Vietnamese coffee for breakfast the next day. I want to eat this for every breakfast! And for every afternoon snack!
After spring break, I got right back into swimming 3x/week. Right outside my gym there are a bunch of food trucks. I usually don’t have lunch after I swim until I get back home, but this time I was meeting my friend Victoria at a cafe afterwards, so I got an intriguing spurrito (spring roll burrito) to go.
Julia visited me, Georgina, and Victoria in Philly from Virginia. We caught up over ramen in Chinatown.
The second major highlight of the month (after the concerts) was the final season of Game of Thrones!! Here I’ve documented my Sunday night viewing parties with Georgina and Victoria. The first week we had Chipotle, the second week we had homemade tteokbokki, and the third week we had homemade green curry. Looking forward to the next three viewing parties in May to finish off the show!
To celebrate ice cream weather, Franklin’s Ice Cream bar had a Free Custard Cone event. Like a big girl, I went over and got ice cream by myself.
Caught up with Louise over dinner at Cry Baby Pasta, followed by Tom Odell!
Caught up with Bomi over lunch. I was craving iced Vietnamese coffee so badly.
Made scones in a muffin tin following this apricot rosemary currant scone recipe. I first discovered this recipe last year. They’re my favourite thing to bake! Well, more like my favourite thing to eat ;P
A little haul and a little friend on independent bookstore day.
What was your highlight of April? What are you looking forward to in May?
PS: april 2018, april 2017, march 2019