The first of many monthly summaries! This is mainly for me, cause I want to remember what I did each month, but is also a pretty good showcase of my interests.

Gamedev

As I wrote about in Prototyping for the sake of it I did some small prototypes this month. Even if I didn’t complete the challenge I’m still pretty happy with these prototypes.

I also started working on a secret project…

Reading

I stepped up my reading quite a lot this month. Storygraph provides a nice little graphic that summarizes my reading this month:

Wrap up Storygraph summary

Como Agua para Chocolate

Read this mexican magical realism book for school, but was trapped by it. I first became interested in it when I found out its format: each chapter is a recipe, and the narrator interrupts the recipe often to tell the story. And it's executed pretty great. At later points it became just a tiny bit annoying, but the story was just so full of drama and bizarre stuff happening all the time I just couldn't stop reading it.

Percy Jackson: The Last Olympian

The 5th book of the Percy Jackson series, and the last one before I switch to The Heroes of Olympus (there's some new Percy Jackson books, but they take place after that series). I LOVED this one, probably my favorite of the series. I read it in basically just a few sittings of an hour to 2 hours and finished it at 2 AM because I couldn't sleep and just _"wanted to read one chapter to get sleepy"_. Of course, one chapter turned into many more.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I really liked this book. It's a bit weirdly written, though I'm not sure if that's because of the translation or not (original language is japanese), but it's a nice neat and most of the times emotional book, though still lighthearted. There's more books from the series so I might check them out in the future.

Movies

This month I started doing I had already tried once before. I close my eyes, then randomly pick a movie from the Netflix app. This “game” got me to watch LOL (2012), the lowest rated movie in my Letterboxd. But I also watched Brokeback Mountain, re-watched Hotel Transylvania (which isn’t the best, but was fun), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (not the worst movie I’ve ever seen) and more.

My Letterboxd diary of the month showing all the movies I watched My Letterboxd diary this month. Definitely the biggest list in months

The highlights of this month were:

Brokeback Mountain

This movie left me feeling empty inside. The performances of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are fantastic. The story is devastating, and amplified by the soundtrack made by the AMAZING Gustavo Santaolalla (VIVA ARGENTINA CARAJOO). It was a bit slow for my taste, but I still really liked it.

Shaun of the Dead

This one I just watched because I’ve been meaning to watch more Edgar Wright movies. It’s not my favorite of his (Scott Pilgrim will probably always be), but it was still hilarious and very entertaining.

Star Wars Episode V

With 2 friends we’ve been doing a tradition where we hang out, cook lunch, then watch a Star Wars movie. Only one of us has seen all the movies and is kind of a big fan. Instead, it’s my other friend and I’s first time. We started watching them from Episode I, and we finally got to THE moment of the series (or ONE of the multiple iconic moments). Anyways, we ate egg fried rice and enjoyed the movie even though we were a bit tired.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day

Honestly, I’m not sure about the rating I gave this one. It’s very unique and I loved the style but it didn’t make me feel much, at least not as much as the reviews made it seem. I’m between a 3 and 4, so 3.5 seems pretty appropriate.

Gaming

This month in retrospect

This month has been one of the best of the year for me. I’ve done a lot of improvements and continue to do so. Here’s to another great month!