forestofglory

I intended to wait less time before cross posting these. Oh well, it's here now

Day 11
So I'm not sure how big the overlap of people who know about Mo Willems Pigeon books and Nirvana in Fire is -- but if you are in that group you owe it to yourself to read "Don't Let the Strategist Plan the Party" by aegtx
200 words of pure delight!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/67708406

Day 12
I'm enjoying how this year #DecRecs has been turning into a mini low stakes year in review project for me as I focus on reccing things I loved this year.
And this year I have watched a lot of chinese reality show so today I want to talk about The Truth season 3!
The Truth is show where participants play and game that's like a very elaborate cross between a murder mystery dinner party and an escape room. There's puzzles and mysteries and tunnels to crawl through
This year they really leaned into my two favorite things about the show -- the costumes and the group dynamics!
The costumes are so much fun! Wildly over the to, colorful and with fun themes! And this season featured even more of them than last season with at least one set per case!
Here's the cast in one of my favorite sets

And the teamwork! In season three they manged to have the same six people in all but one case: Bai Yu, Jin Jing,
Dilraba, Liu Yuning, Zhang Linghe and Zhou Keyu. So several people I like by themselves -- but the whole group together is great! loved watching them tease each other and think through problems together!
Quick content note: many of the offscreen backstories involve upsetting things like child death or queerphobic violence. They also at one point discover a (fake) skeleton of a child in a suitcase.
I had so much fun watching this show! I don't usually watch things as they air but I eagerly awaited each new episode of The Truth Season 3 and watched all the behind the scenes extras!

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Here's the latest batch of DecRecs!

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I’ve taken to scheduling myself a weekly tea and Classical Chinese study date. It’s good to have some scheduled time for this.

Most of the time when I drink tea I just make a big mug of tea, and drink that at my computer, while I read the internet. If I’m feeling more fancy I’ll make the tea in one of my small teapots instead and drink it out of a fancy teacup.

But for my tea dates I will get out my tea tray, gawain and tea pets. (I have two little rabbits now a while on call Bao and a dark gray one called Sesame) I take the sewing machine off its usual table to make space. Then I move the kettle out of the tea corner where it generally lives, and bring it to the table. It’s a good set up that feels a bit special.

For studying I try to do something that takes a bit of focus that I might not get to. It's a good time to practice my handwriting, or work on writing out a translation from the text book I’m studying. But sometimes I also use one of my study apps.

I really like this practice. It gives me some time to make tea in a way that requires more focus, and it also gives my language study more structure which is very helpful since it is all self directed.