Leggo

So, I fear this may become a common refrain, but I didn't really do all that much last week. This year is MY year of rest and relaxation, I have decided.

I have been reading a bit though! Slowly getting through Vonnegut's Sirens of Titans for a reread and I'm also reading The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace. A couple summers back, I read Infinite Jest, his 1000+ page book. This one is a lot more approachable in length and also in writing style. I like the way he writes, but it's definitely a bit of a drag sometimes. The concept is basically that this girl, Lenore Beadsman, the daughter of a CEO of a baby food company, works at a publishing company in Cleveland, Ohio, and she's dating her boss, Rick Vigorous. Suddenly, one day, her great-grandmother, who lives in a nursing home, goes missing, along with a dozen or so other residents of the nursing home. Lenore tries to find her. The author went to Amherst, and there a lot of references to Amherst and Mount Holyoke, which is interesting (although all the scenes about Mount Holyoke are pretty sexist, so...)

This week, I also decided I wanted to organize my Legos. Real fans of myself will know that Legos were my favorite toy as a child. My siblings and I had a very elaborate Lego city that was housed in my room. I was kind of randomly overcome with the urge to build some Legos again and also organize something, so I decided I would sort all my Legos by color and then take a look at the instructions that I still have (most of my instruction booklets are very damaged tho...). Right now I'm still in the organization phase, and I've been spending a lot of my days just organizing Legos in my room while listening to podcasts. Invisibilia has been my podcast of choice. I just listened to this episode about a woman who can smell diseases, and she discovered that Parkinson's has a distinct smell -- she was able to smell her husband's Parkinson's decades before he was diagnosed, though she didn't know it at the time. It was really interesting. If anyone else has podcast recommendations, drop them below :^)

Some random fun Lego pieces I found. I was also a big collector of Spongebob Legos as you might be able to tell

Yesterday, Kyra and I went ice skating with her roommates. I haven't gone ice skating since we all went skating at UMass first year, and as you might remember, I was never really good at it...My parents never signed me up for skating lessons when I was kid because neither of my siblings liked skating. I regret never learning because now at 22, I felt very anxious being on the ice. I never really got off the wall, but after a while it started to feel a little less scary. I think you need to be comfortable with falling, but unfortunately, I'm not really good at that hehe. Ah well, thankfully I did not fall this time. It was cool to watch Kyra's roommates skate though, because they were all in ice hockey at Mount Holyoke and one of her roommates is a former figure skater. It may not be a skill that I learn, but I really admire people who are good at it because it's so cool to watch.

And I am officially finally 1000% percent am done with my thesis!! Submitted it to the libraries today :^)

Okay, I talked about Legos for a fat minute, so I guess I will just sign off for now. I only have one cooking update this week: Vichyssoise! Potato Leek soup became one of my favorite meals after I had some really tasty soup at a Christmas Carol-themed dinner party I went to in Washington, D.C. It was very easy to make. I like to add cheese to mine, which I guess is not "authentic" French food, but it's yummier hehe. Hopefully, I'll have more cooking/baking updates next week, just eating a lot of leftovers these days.

Soup!!!

Food from last week. Pasta Carbonara, Ratatouille, and some bacon on the side