Fixation Friday

 Hey look it's Friday here's a list of things I can't stop thinking about.

Postcrossing

I love getting mail, especially when that mail is personal and not just a letter telling me I need to update the warranty on the car I don’t own. I found Postcrossing when I was looking for a pen pal/letter writing community, and fell in love immediately. The community sends and receives postcards all around the world. The only thing you pay for is your postcards and postage! You can even put what type of postcards you would like to receive in your profile—for instance I have requested Harry Potter and cat themed postcards, along with some other silly things I would like to see. I love hearing about how other people live their lives, and seeing just how similar we all are regardless of our circumstances.

Boy Meets World

I found out that Hulu has all seven seasons of one of my favorite tv shows--Boy Meets World! In fact this show was a favorite in my house growing up, and Ali and I never really grew out of our love for it. As soon as I heard about this, I immediately signed up for a free month trial, and started my binge. Last weekend I spent an hour and a half talking about the show with Ali, and if felt like a trip through our lives.snapchats we’ve exchanged that are just screen shots of us watching Boy Meets World in the last two weeks. It makes my heart happy.

I love so many things about this nineties sitcom (especially the relationships between Cory/Topanga and Cory/Shawn), but one of my favorite things is the connection that it gives me to my sister.
I’ve lost count of how many snapchats we’ve exchanged that are just screen shots of us watching Boy Meets World in the last two weeks.

The Read Harder list

 Every year the literary blog Book Riot and publishes a list and of challenges for readers. I use this list to push myself to read things I would not normally pick up, and this week I focused on looking for poetry at the local library. That the specific item on the list is a translated collection with a theme other than love. I have not found a book that fits that criteria yet but I will try some of the other interesting books I found in the meantime, including the popular Milk And Honey by Rupi Kaur.
The read harder list challenges me to experience writing styles I wouldn't normally be drawn to, which is a great way to expand my horizons as a writer.

Outlander

Anyone who knows me in real life was waiting for this to pop up on this list. And I stumbled upon Outlander while I was still packing for my trip to Alaska and quickly became completely obsessed. I caught up on the show quite quickly, finished the first book, and now I’m almost done with the second. I’ll be the first to admit there’s plenty problematic about the series (although a lot of people forget that the series was originally published in the early 90s when talking about what's wrong with it...) and I will probably revisit that sometime in the future, but for now you’ll have to pry Outlander out of my cold dead hands.

Speech Recognition Software

I managed to injure my left hand on the trip home from Alaska. That means both of my hands are out of commission at the moment—one with carpal tunnel and the other with a damaged tendon. As a result I cannot type very much and I definitely cannot write very much. To solve that problem I started using windows speech recognition software, which lets me talk into a microphone and then it translates my words into text. So far it’s working out all right, but finding out that it comes standard with windows 10 was a pleasant surprise. It made me think about accessibility and those who need to overcome permanent disabilities in order to do their work.

Stick around for more on The Last Stand, and more "fixation fridays" as November continues to unfold.