A chatty weekly vlog ☕️ uni update, audiobooks & an open chat

hi it's emma welcome to this week's vlog i'm starting this week off monday night it's pretty late well it's not that late it's like 8 30 but as you can see i'm home tonight um basically my apartment has been having so many problems so many problems and tomorrow very early they're coming in to do some work and to hopefully fix some of these problems so um i'm sleeping over here and i'll have to stay here all of tomorrow as well so that's that's that's what's up but i'm really excited for this week because today's the first day of march i always love when like the first day of the month lines up with a monday it's just very satisfying but i've just been laying in bed because i'm not feeling the greatest um i'm extremely tired anyway i've been having a few books to keep me company the first is definitely the pickwick papers i was mostly catching up on this this evening because i was a little bit behind but that is so satisfying um i'm just i think 15 pages behind so i'll catch up on that i also read a little bit of legend born by tracy dion tonight because that's our dark academics book for march and april we decided to extend it over two months since it is quite long and all of us in the book club are also engaged in like other book clubs and stuff so hopefully that works for everyone i think it's nice just to have a lot of time and then something i'm so excited about i just can't wait to show you guys is this book um a few people actually a number of people send this to me on instagram and mentioned it to me thank you so much this is called the music of the nights it's by angela j ford and to the best of my knowledge it is a fantasy romance inspired by phantom of the opera look at this this is everything i've ever needed in my life so i just wanted to update you guys before i sit down and start this because that's 100 what i'm doing right now before bed so i'm gonna let you know how it goes but i just wanted to start off the vlog and i wasn't really planning on starting this because i'm reading a lot of things but i'm just too excited to wait show [Music] so [Music] good morning it is tuesday um i had an okay sleep actually evie do you wanna do you wanna tell them what the problem was so basically i don't know if anyone else's pets or dogs or anything have gotten so incredibly needy since the pandemic because they don't know how to be alone anymore since you always have company but this little missy she usually sleeps at like the bottom of my bed when i'm here come sit down we'll tell the story but this time she literally stood on like all fours and just stared at me like this um and she kept doing that she would stand up on the bed and come like so close to my face and just stare at me until i let her come up like literally under my arm until her head was on like my pillow and we were using the same pillow to sleep right but even that wasn't enough and so she you literally do you remember last night you literally tried to sleep on top of my face like you put your head like on top of my head you don't remember i remember i remember you trying to suffocate me it was just like cuddle city because she's so needy now it was just so funny i eventually had to kick her out because i just couldn't do it i couldn't she just wanted to be like as close as possible like fusion it was really cute but i don't know how she's gonna manage it when like people go back to work and school full-time um when this is all over but definitely let me know if like any of your guys's animals um are have changed because they're like they always have company now anyway i kind of have some bad news about this one let's talk about it um i basically did no research on this book i kind of just saw that it was a phantom of the opera retelling and bought it um i did look a little bit into angela j ford and i saw that she has a pretty extensive backlist of fantasy romance so um this being her newest book i think i thought it was gonna be all right but i got through a little bit of this last night about like i think i got to chapter two the writing you guys oh no it's okay there's a dog anyway the writing is just awful it's so awful it's so awkward and stilted i don't think she ever learned how to use commas properly like it's that bad um which is a huge disappointment and i don't know if i'm gonna actually be able to get through this because i just sat there last night reading this and cringing not cringing at like what you would probably normally suppose would be cringed at in like a phantom of the opera fantasy romance retelling but just cringing at the actual writing because it's just so bad yeah i don't know what it is about a lot of authors not being able to like use contractions either like it's just so stilted no one talks like this and basically the premise for this one is that we're following this girl named arya and her father has recently passed away so she has been sent to live with her uncle zorick in um high in this town called high tower okay listen to this the town is called hightower she lives with her uncle in high tower castle because he's very rich and well off i believe she's in the high tower theater group because that's like her job her way to kind of pay her uncle for staying here i've also found so many typos in this book already just like spelling of words and stuff like that i don't know if anyone actually edited this or not but and then there is this myth and this high tower in the town of hightower that everyone is scared of because they think it's haunted they think there's this evil spirit because they can hear like music coming from this tower off on like the shore of like the ocean or the lake where the city is but it's just like there was no originality like everything is called hightower and that's also very confusing anyway so ari's living in this castle with her uncle and she performs every night i think she's a dancer but what she really wants to do is sing because her mother was a singer she never really knew her mother and it's the phantom of the opera story but basically she has just spotted in this very like gloomy atmospheric little town she looked out her window and spotted like the tower um of myth and kind of legend and so her plan is to go there and ask the spirit to give her singing lessons that's as far in as i am but so far just very disappointed with the writing i'm still a little bit behind in pickwick so i'm going to be catching up today i'm currently 274 pages through which is pretty good i think i'm on chapter 22 now or something like that but i'm still enjoying it it's just definitely a very long book it's been a little while since i read a long book and as for legend born i read a bit of this yesterday and i'm going to read a bit more of this today this like i said is the one of the other book club picks for the dark academics and this follows a girl named brie and her mother has recently died in a car accident and so brie decides to go with one of her best friends i think her name is alice i decided to go to this very kind of prestigious school because her mother went there but we find out that bree's mom didn't want her to go to the school like at all but now she's here because she's like super super super smart she's very outgoing and the book begins with like this scene where a lot of i think first-year freshmen i don't know if it's actually college or if it's like a pre-college credit i think it's not an american thing i think so but it begins with a whole bunch of first years like sneaking out and going cliff jumping um and then immediately we kind of sense that there's maybe some magic in the air because she meets this guy named selwyn and there might be something going on with him so that's literally as far as i am but i'm gonna be reading more of this today i also started another book because i really wanted to um i really just wanted to start this book because i think i would really like it and i am it's called remote control this is a novella and it's kind of like a sci-fi it's by nady okorafor and it's just so good so far we're set in ghana and we're following this five-year-old girl and her name is fatima and she goes and climbs a tree during a meteor shower and one of the meteors like falls super close to where she is and so she picks it up and touches it and all this green light seeps into her skin um and then later we find out that she is now my mom's home um later we find that it's like transformed her into basically like death's daughter and she basically now wanders through all of ghana and the people fear her because she has these powers her name is no longer fatima her name is sankofa and so she's just oh my gosh it's just so cool she has like this little fox that follows her and stuff like that so i'm really enjoying that too but i think they're back so that means we're gonna go for a walk you ready we're sleepy [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so so [Music] hello it is now friday actually i just had such um a busy stressful week it is friday it's 12 45 right now um so i thought it was just about time that we could sit down and chat and talk and just have a little catch up because there's just been so much going on so yeah i'll go over everything i'm reading in a little bit but this week has just been quite stressful um i was staying at my parents house on monday no tuesday that was tuesday i stayed over monday night and all of tuesday and then i came back here and there's just been like absolutely so many problems with my apartment recently and the building in general as well like both um both having their own problems and stuff like that so it's just made things quite difficult um i won't go into it really but there's just it's like a bunch of different things unfortunately so yeah i've just not been getting like hardly any sleep and i've just been so exhausted because i've had other things on my plate as well and personal things work things and yeah so that's kind of where i've been i haven't really been vlogging my days too much but i'm hoping um things will get fixed they've been in here a couple times twice two or three times um fixing some things so i just hope it'll all get resolved but um i've been living here for almost three years now and yeah i would just i can't wait to get out i'm not gonna lie to you like it does i like the space a lot and i i've worked really hard to make it cozy and homey and cute and like i do like it but just like it's it's kind of like out of my control like the building just has so many problems that like i can't fix so hopefully in the near future sometime i'll be getting out of here but that's just that um that's what i've been very like extremely busy with because i've had to do things in here um and just yeah oh my goodness so i am just i've been walking through my days like a zombie and i've been very just stressed out and my mental health has just oh boy we want off mr bones wild ride um but yeah i'm trying to turn things around today i got up really early um i've been trying to get up a little bit earlier i've been loving going for just a morning walk getting out of here um and just getting some fresh air and this morning i got to see some deer which was just incredible i like walked around a corner and they were just right there staring at me um they're so sweet so cute and then i came back here i did some yoga um just by myself i cleaned up and now i've just gotten ready i did some emails and here we are so on top of that um another thing that's been quite stressing me out and not quite it's not as stressful it just makes me feel so sad and so um ashamed and like just to have like an honest chat with you guys like i know so many of you feel the same way and i've talked to so many people and it's just so helpful to talk about it because i've just linked so much of my self-worth and like my intelligence and my value to education and particularly to like legitimate academic establishments and like how well i perform there um you guys know i was enrolled in the what is this winter semester this semester in one class um and i was vlogging a few days of that in january i believe i was taking um 19th century literature which focused on like the individual it was obviously all online all through zoom um and you guys know i've also been dealing with post-concussion syndrome now for a very long time a very long time so unfortunately what has happened with that class is that i've had to drop it and i've just dropped the semester because i was only taking that one class and it's just like it's so hard to even talk about because i still feel ashamed even though i literally like did that to benefit me and my own health and my brain and like what i am physically able to do at the minute dealing with this um but it's just so troubling and so um sad to me that like i still can't separate health and wellness from like my intelligence and my self-worth simply because um i wasn't able to finish this course with the amount of screen time the amount of writing the amount of reading all the assignments all the essays everything that comes with doing an english degree at the minute i just wasn't physically well enough to do that and it's just hard obviously when i did get my concussion back in october 2019 i had to drop my whole year of school and like i just kept like fighting and fighting and trying to go back to class until eventually in march 2020 i just had to drop out completely um and i lost all my tuition for that year for the 2019-2020 year which is still haunting me um but more than that it is just a feeling of like low it just makes me feel so bad about myself and i know like i know saying that that doesn't make any sense because if i broke my leg and i wanted to go play soccer i would not go play soccer and i wouldn't attach that to my self-worth i would just be like i literally have a broken leg but because it's like my brain and because it's education and something like i've literally always put my self-worth into a percentage and how well i perform on standardized testing which is what i've been brought up my whole life to believe it's just really hard to let go of as much as i consciously know that i need to and that that is like the logical right thing to do is just take care of myself which is also why i've just put off discussing it for a little bit because i've been out of class now for a little while but i just wasn't really ready to talk about it because i was feeling just so shitty about it and so like if you're going through the same thing if you have an injury even if you don't if you're just struggling in this climate with like school as it is right now just take it easy on yourself um because i know i know i know how bad it feels um but there are good things that have come out of it um and there are some bad things that have come out of it so let's just talk about both i guess this will just be a very chatty little moment um i just wanted to kind of open up and talk about some things because i know so many of us are literally going through the same thing right now so yeah um we we can do it we can do it even if it feels bad we can do it but um yeah a good thing that's come out of it is that i've now just embraced doing youtube basically full time which is so exciting and the thing with youtube and not being able to do like an online class or whatever youtube i am very comfortable in my well-being and it is an extremely flexible job and i am just so like so thankful and just so over the moon that like it it lets me live and i can say that youtube is my job and it does require a lot of work but like with my brain and with the post-concussion syndrome and just everything that brings all the symptoms all those problems it's something that i've learned to navigate it's something that i know how to do and so i just thought would i rather pay tuition to take a course that's going to make me feel sick and at the end of the day is literally only 0.5 of a credit like is not going to make me graduate anytime sooner or would i rather do youtube which i know how to balance and which i'm very familiar with um what i can do to manage it in the state that i am right now with this injury that's going on and that i'm so passionate about and that i just love doing i don't have to pay for youtube youtube literally pays me and so for me it was a very simple decision and i am very happy with this decision i'm just so grateful that i get to do this and i can sit here and talk and it doesn't make me feel sick and i can edit my videos via audio files with my eyes closed and that doesn't make me feel sick rather than literally like pushing myself and making myself feel so ill trying to write essays and trying to read as much as possible for one course that what what is that going to get me really in the long term nothing because i still have to go back to school next semester so that's kind of where i'm at with that but yeah so i've just really embraced just the youtube thing recently i've been uploading a lot i've been working on a lot of new videos and i'm just i don't know i hope you can tell that i'm just so happy about it and i just cherish you all so much on top of that like i've just gotten gotten i just got to make so many new friends and do so many exciting projects work with companies that i love working with um and just do like really cool things and like still wake up in the morning and not feel extremely sick that i like can't get out of bed kind of thing like it's just been really really good on top of that though like i said i am still dealing with like feeling bad about dropping one course because um i've just always prized like the student part of myself and it's very hard to kind of be without that and to know that i'm just not able to do that right now um but it's something like i'm really really working on accepting and like just doing what i can do because that's all you can do and if i'm not able to do something right now that's okay that is okay um i also got a lot of comments on my last video that i uploaded which currently today is like march 5th i recently uploaded my march tbr and planning what i'm going to read in march a lot of people commented and were asking why do you why do you own books why do you bother owning physical books if you only listen to the audiobooks or saying like you shouldn't waste your time listening to audiobooks it's more important to read physically or being like why do you even have a book if you're just going to listen to the audiobook of it and very simply it's just because some of us aren't able to some of us aren't able to physically read know that dealing with the post-concussion syndrome for almost a year and a half now has taught me that people really don't value audio books and they don't think that is a serious way of reading and i just wanted to tell you if you just listen to audiobooks because you like them if you listen to audiobooks like me because you aren't able to physically read right now or ever please do not let anyone ever tell you that audiobooks is not a legitimate form of reading or it's not a legitimate form of taking in literature because um that's simply incorrect just to answer those questions broadly because some people were super super nice about it i do um listen to the audiobooks of a lot of the books i own simply because i can't read them for myself um of course you guys see me reading in some vlogs and i am able to read for small amounts of time at a day and it is definitely a question of like asking myself would i rather go for a walk right now or would i rather read a little bit because i can't do both without feeling sick um and so it's like a constant battle each day of like picking what things i want to do in my day um and trying to maintain that like balance where i feel alright enough to do those things so most of the books that i own i had before i got concussed and just because i'm not able to physically read them right now definitely doesn't mean that i don't want to read them any less and so i'm not going to not read them i'm going to listen to them even if i do own them i'm still going to listen to them on top of that if i do listen to an audiobook and i have the physical book and i am feeling okay on that day or i feel like i want to push myself i feel like i do want to read with my own eyes a little bit i will 100 like do half and half and split it up and have that audiobook as something that i need to help me it is something i need to help me there should be no shame in admitting that at all um and that's totally okay so sometimes i will read a little bit then i'll listen to a little bit of it and just go as i feel so yeah i just wanted to explain that a little bit please um don't let anyone tell you that audiobooks aren't um legitimate or don't count because they do and um i don't know what i would do without them i i've said that countless times but yeah so that's just kind of where i'm at with everything um just still trying to stay positive and there are so many good things that have um come out of this i know a few of you guys have commented saying that you're suffering with a concussion or you've had concussions or now you have post-concussion syndrome like me and um i am so here for you um i'm here for you no matter what you're going through but like i just because i know um what you're going through i just wish i could give you a hug because i would not kind of wish this on anyone ever i wouldn't wish anything on anyone ever but um yeah and i just hope you're doing okay i hope you're taking care of yourself and yeah so that is the situation with the apartment and with youtube um i love youtube i'm freaking so grateful for youtube and for like this because this is like keeping me sane keeping me happy keeping me creative keeping me motivated um and i just wanted to thank you guys so much again just for existing and for spending time here and for everything you do um and say and are at wherever you are um in life or in the world or anywhere so um that's the situation with school that is i do plan to return to school definitely i want to finish my degree as long as it takes me but i know lots of people are in the same boat as well and it doesn't matter how long it takes you to finish something it doesn't matter um and yeah that's the situation with audiobooks that's the situation with books right now i'm just going to finish what i was working on answer a couple of emails i also want to do something really exciting because i don't know when you'll see it hopefully soon i don't know when i'll be able to get it out but i'm doing a sponsored video like in the future and i want to do something like a bit different and because it is sponsored i kind of want to like spend some money and do some things for the video with that money um because i have that opportunity to like you know make something because i'm getting something so that's what i'm gonna do and that involves ordering some books favorite part of my day i also own physical books because i am 100 hopeful and 100 know that some day as near or far as it may be in the future i'm gonna read a book again with my own eyes front to cover all in one sitting and i will be the happiest bean on the day that that happens but for right now audiobooks anyway so i'm gonna go order some books and then i will get back to you with what i'm currently reading [Music] all right so i just sat down and i finished ordering up some books and it is now almost 3 30. it is so bad how long that takes me um it's almost 3 30. i just made some chamomile tea i might go for a little nap maybe i can give you a hint actually for the books um that i bought most of them are recommendations from you guys like pretty much all of them are um and i am super excited to read them like these are books i want to get to immediately like i just want to read them i don't know if i'll be able to get to the mall this year but maybe we'll try anyway i think i'm gonna go for a nap and then later tonight maybe like around the dinner rush hour i'm to go out to the store i'm going to pick up some cashews some peppercorns because i'm out of cashews and for dinner i want to have some cheesy gnocchi some cheesy pikanoki and the vegan cheese sauce i always make its main ingredient is cashews or any nut really so yeah and then i put that with some nutritional yeast some salt some pepper some garlic some oil and it's a good time so that's what i'm gonna do right now i'm feeling super super tired so i'm gonna go for sleep and then tonight um i'm actually gonna be getting into a call with my friends which is gonna be so nice all my friends from home so that'll just be so so good so yes until then i'll probably show you dinner and stuff too and i still need to read my pages for today and i'm probably going to listen to the pickwick papers when i wake up so good night [Music] [Music] so all right hi so i just got back from getting cashews and everything like that mission accomplished it's just now gone five after five almost so i thought i would do my reading updates because somehow once again i'm i've managed to like have six books that i'm currently reading so the first one is still of course epic book papers very short update on this guy for this week i got to page two know 325 so really making my study way through this i still have to read my 15 pages for today but um it's definitely been sliding into kind of a more tedious realm for me as of late the last few chapters in this have been very concerned with like the law and different little scenarios that pickwick and his friends find themselves accidentally entangled in concerning the law and lawyers and marriage and stuff like that so i just kind of wish they would drift away from that for a little bit because i'm a little bit sick of the whole that kind of humor because it's not that funny to me anymore but i'm still really loving it legend born i also need to read a little bit more of today i am only 47 pages through but so far i'm really impressed by this i'm really really liking it which i'm so happy about but so i did mention that we are following brie she's attending this program at the university of north carolina i believe with her friend alice they've kind of gotten out of their small town they've escaped and they're now on this big campus for basically the first time in their lives but they make a mistake and kind of break a rule on their first night because they go cliff jumping with a whole bunch of freshmen i believe i think it's just going to be oh so well done and like already the magic and stuff like that because when they're watching people cliff jump and stuff like that brie has an encounter with this boy named boy named selwyn and she accidentally witnesses um some magic that she's not supposed to and kind of gets her first glimpse into who legend born or what legend born might actually be so she's now on a mission to discover like what's actually going on at the school and it's just i don't know i'm really really liking it i'm liking the writing i'm liking just everything about it and it's really impressing me so far so i hope it continues to do so music of the night by angela j ford is definitely another story not no oh no you guys um i i'm gonna finish this because i want to see what happens i don't want to give up on it yet but the writing is making it almost like unbearable um to get through definitely the worst writing of the year so far this takes the cake and yeah i don't know we'll see and then because i can't control myself i started another rilka i started a reread of letters to a young poet i found an audiobook version on youtube actually there's like this whole youtube channel i think that does narrates the different letters so i'm currently still on letter one but i don't know i just wanted to pick this back up i've been reading that calendar of relka every single day and it's been a while since i've reread one of my favorite books of all time so i wanted to go back in kind of wanted to annotate it this time so for some reason here we are again i don't know i'm also reading two other books because i just i feel like i want to read everything and i'm having such a good time with everything i'm reading so the first one is the lonesome bodybuilder by yukio no oh my gosh i almost said yukio mishima he did not write this then latoya they just had the same initials sorry and this is a collection of short stories in very much modern day japan kind of chronicling semi-weird happenings and strange things um a lot of them are in the realm of like the fantastical but put there to kind of discuss very modern issues that people have with gender with relationships there's a lot of women's issues talked about in the lonesome bodybuilder because the title story is about a lonely housewife who starts bodybuilding and who wants to be a bodybuilder which is very much something not approved of um in modern japan and on top of that her husband they're having a lot of issues he doesn't really notice any of these changes i think i'm on like the fourth story in this collection and i'm enjoying it it's definitely i don't think going to be a new favorite and i don't usually get along with short story collections but i wanted to give this one a go and then finally because i've just been wanting to read this book for forever i picked up um gods of jade and shadow by silvia moreno garcia who wrote mexican gothic which i read last year and loved this one is also set in mexico this time it's 1920s mexico and we are following our protagonist who lives at her grandfather's house and she is basically just their servant she and her mother live there and it's kind of like a cinderella story um she's very much made to clean the house all day do everyone's chores she's treated horribly and then one day she accidentally summons one of the gods of shibalba or the world of the dead in mayan mythology and now she's on an adventure with the lord of the dead so i think it's been really interesting i'm super interested in my mythology and i haven't really read have i read non-fiction about it i don't think so but this is just gonna be so fun so interesting i'm really enjoying it so far so that is a pretty lengthy tour of everything i'm reading right now i don't know why i do this to myself i just like it's it's very fun reading different things at the same time and i'm just really enjoying it all so that is that plus the two audiobooks so that is six so very happy with my stack at the minute and now i'm going to make some cheesy gnocchi so let's do it [Music] oh yeah oh no no that's just right now how's your march going [Music] i almost forgot to mention before i close up this vlog but i finally um my video one of the ones i did a book review for dw books um deutsche bella i'll leave it up above and below i did a review about one of my favorite books cloud atlas and i'm just really so excited that it's finally out because i did that a little while ago so now i can share it with all of you guys if you are interested um like i said i'll put the link to the video here it's on their youtube channel as well so yeah i'm just very excited to have been asked to come on and review a book because it was so much fun and yeah i just wanted to share that too and let you guys know i think i showed it on my instagram but i just wanted to mention it here too so if you'd like to watch that review it is there but yeah i just had a really good time doing it hello so it's now a new monday today is march 8th so i'm gonna sign off this vlog and start a new one it's been a week it's been a rough week honestly but we've survived and yeah just thank you guys for the space and for keeping each other company and me company maybe i'll do more of these kind of opening up about certain topic rambles because um sometimes i just don't talk about certain things that i want to talk about but yeah i'm gonna try to keep doing that in the future because it does feel um good and i really like talking to you guys so yes anyway i'm gonna start a new vlog i've got a lot of books on the go so that's what i'm about to do but i just wanted to thank you so much for watching i actually just sat down and filmed my snow country review which also feels really good got this week off to a really good start even though there's so much roof work being done and conveniently they've just stopped now after i finish filming but um yeah i've been meaning to get that filmed for a really long time since january but i just felt like i wasn't happy with it wasn't really ready but it's done now so hopefully that'll be out to you oh maybe it'll be before this vlog because i really want to get it out we'll see who knows anyway hope you enjoyed it if you've seen it and i hope you will enjoy it if you haven't seen it so yes okay i hope you're doing well love you guys so much yep that's about it ciao [Music] you

Channel: * e m m i e *

Views: 31,198

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Id: MunGW8mG_7s

Length: 42min 51sec (2571 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021