Don't let the cave-in get you down

May wasn't a bad month progress-wise. I've finished another 4 goals, two of them were crafting goals, so it's allowed me to start one more goal and turn focus to others of the ongoing creative goals, similarly with my reading goals, I've finished one, so I need to focus on some of the other aspects of reading that were already started.

I'm 5 months into this challenge period and so far I've completed 20 goals and have another 29 ongoing. Over the coming month, I'm hoping to finish another 2 crafting goals by concentrating on just 2 projects and then also finishing one reading and one health and future goal. There is a possibility that I might have an opportunity to make significant progress on another goal, but in case it jeopardises the chances, I'll keep quiet about it for now.

The full list can be found here: List at my journal , but in brief:

Progress = 22/101 completed, 29/79 started, 50 remaining

This month’s completed goals
1. Latch hook cushion of hearts (18/05/2025)
2. Scrapbook 1 of travels – Russia – Mongolia (27/5/25)
3. Listen to 20 books (science fiction/fantasy) (20 /20) (02/06/2025)
4. Watch 10 new series on TV of any genre (not including programmes counted for one of previous) (10/10 1 June 2025)

Welp, I've started a new job! It has happened!

( boring financial things )

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I've only had 1 day of work at the new place, due to holidays and the fact that I was sick for the past 10 days (boo!!!) and asked to postpone my start date by a few days.

But it definitely feels like a level of fancy tech that I've never personally experienced before, with an actual HR department that made sure I'd have all my equipment ready for me on the first day, and a little welcome sign, and some company merch.

There are things I definitely haven't figured out yet, like how to best get to the office to deal with my disability/health issues, especially considering the fact that the laptop I got is much heavier than anticipated (my previous company replaced some of the laptops shortly after I joined and I managed to get in on the deal and get a really great, light computer).

The office itself is really nice, even though the building is sadly in the middle of a construction zone. My previous work was in an extremely central downtown area where you were close to a bunch of greenery and shops and restaurants. This place is tragically kind of isolated in a sea of dust and hazard signs.

I haven't figured out the dynamics of my team/department/org so much yet, but everyone I've met has been nice, and my boss seems to be a pretty great guy, according to reports. He's also been nothing but kind and respectful towards me.

So, overall first day was pretty overwhelming but nice. Tomorrow will be my first day of work-from-home, and I plan to spend most of it reading a ton of documents. And then Tuesday we're having some kind of all-day workshop for the entire team that means I'll need to get super early to the office, even though the workshop will be virtual. But you know, if it wasn't literally my first week I might find a more sensible way to do it, but since I'm extremely new and this seems to be the expectation, I'll be there with bells on lol.

I enjoyed watching bits and bobs of this 1980s BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, dramatised by Fay Weldon (!) -- I saw it recommended on my network though I can't remember by whom. As might be expected of a novelist's adaptation, it makes good use of Jane Austen's own perfect sentences (the screenplay for the 2020 Emma, written by Eleanor Catton, did this too), and it dramatises some scenes you don't get to see in the famous more recent adaptations.

Despite my unswerving affection for Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet, I think this is genuinely the best Lizzy Bennet I've seen -- at first I thought she was too pretty, but she absolutely has the sweetness and archness "which made it difficult for her to affront anybody". Jane is not prettier, which she should be, but she is at least as pretty (though her eyebrows strike me as distractingly modern). But I find the Darcy a let-down: a friend recently remarked that Colin Firth is not good-looking and that is why she doesn't like the 1995 series, but actually this Darcy, who is better-looking, is a reminder of why Firth works in the role. Colin Firth manages to convey the sense that he is fundamentally a decent guy underneath it all and that's why he works; there's a vulnerability to him which makes his Darcy very sweet and human. The 1980s Darcy too kayu lah.

Are there any (relatively) obscure Austen adaptations you'd recommend? In my top tier are the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries, the 1995 Persuasion film, the 2020 Emma and Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. I don't like the Keira Knightley P&P film. And I thought the Romola Garai Emma was, like, fine, though that's mostly because I find Johnny Flynn's Mr Knightley more fanciable than Jonny Lee Miller (though fair dues to both of them for making him fanciable at all -- one of the least sexy heroes Austen ever wrote, only slightly less sexless than Edmund Bertram). I would love to watch a really good Mansfield Park adaptation some day ...