(November 26 – December 2)
I’ve been thinking a bit more about time this week; specifically our perception of it. The passage of time seems particularly erratic to me at the moment. Waiting a week can feel like forever, but I look back over the last month and can’t believe how quickly the time seems to have passed. Yet, I also look back at everything that’s happened in the past month and it feels like it surely took place over several months.
I’ve also been thinking about how we use our time, how we fall into our routines and how easy it is to find that trivial things (like answering emails) end up falling by the wayside. I hadn’t truly realised that I’ve slipped into a comfortable routine over the last year or so.
However, while I maintain that routines are valuable things, I also believe it’s important to break them from time to time. It’s important to value the present, and to make time for occasions that are unique and non-repeatable—such as spending time with friends—over the things that can easily be deferred, such as watching the next episode of a show on Netflix.
Watching
Another perfectly fine episode of Doctor Who this week (“The Witchfinders”), but yet another instance where I found myself disappointed at the unnecessary bolting on of an alien menace. I realise this is Doctor Who, and we expect monsters and aliens, but this is at least the third story where there was enough drama in play without the need for a scary monster to drive things along. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for Alan Cummings’ performance as King James, this episode would probably be entirely forgettable. I wonder if we’ll end up seeing him again …
For Fridate horror we visited The Orphanage, which was not exactly what I expected. There were scares aplenty, but it turned out to be more of a story about a mother and her son—and came with a bizarrely grim/happy ending.
Over the weekend I watched Next Gen on Netflix with the Kinderbesten—it seemed good, but I was too busy getting popcorn, etc, to properly take it in. For Saturday night, the Elderbeast wanted to watch Spider-Man: Homecoming, which we did … only for him to bail on me halfway through and go to bed. Oh well, at least it meant I got to go to bed early.
For Sunday, inspired by a very prominent reference in Spider-Man: Homecoming, we watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. This might only be my second or third time watching this film, and it definitely gets better each time. I’m surprised at how late it comes in the John Hughes canon (after The Breakfast Club) but it’s got the perfect balance of comedy and feels. I really enjoyed revisiting this one.
Reading
I formalised my temporary separation from It this week by downloading and starting the audiobook of Leviathan Wakes, the first book in The Expanse series. I’ve had plenty of recommendations for this series over the past few years (even if the TV adaptation left me a bit cold) and it was exciting to have the option of listening to it first time around instead of reading it.
So far it’s good. I’m finding the narration pretty flat compared to my recent listening experiences, but it’s not getting in the way of the story—which is pretty engrossing so far.
I’ve also made a little more headway into Bird Box. Not much has changed in the story so far. I’ll have to make speedier progress or I risk getting bored.