Hiding Books: Discussions

I'm hosting the link-up this week because Geraldine is super busy! You can leave your link here any time in the next two weeks. You can still take part as I'm sure we all have something to say on this week's topic. We would love to hear how you juggle real life and blogging :)

Conversations is a new meme by Geraldine and Joan @ Fiddler Blue - all the info is over at Corralling Books! All you need to do is make your own post and link it up here!

The theme for June is Life Away from the Keyboard, and the topic for this week is:

✱ How do you juggle real life duties + blogging?

I'm actually really happy to have a chance to talk about this!

The straightforward answer to this question for me would be something along the lines of "How do I do it? Really well, until... I don't."

Real Life

-- is stupid. It gets in the way of a lot of things, like reading and writing, and blogging. Why can't those things be real life? :( Or CAT VIDEOS. Why not, world?!

But really, sometimes real life wants all my time and attention and yes, it's nice. You need to do both things, right? ...Except when you absolutely have to go to this party/get-together/any social event, and you just want to stay inside and blog/read. Like, I'm not going to enjoy this party, I'm going to be miserable, and you're going to hate me for it, so really it's just better for all of us to keep me away from uncomfortable social situations. Yeah?

Oops. Am I ranting? Sorry.

Being Suddenly Busy IRL

You probably get this one too, sometimes? You get busy, you miss one post, or decide to reply to comments the next day. But then... you have other things to do and you get anxious because somehow you're now behind on everything and there's so much to do so it's probably better to do nothing, so you end up letting things pile up more and more until you're drowning.

Or is that just me?

Just writing that paragraph made me anxious.

Sometimes...

This one's very much about me and my health (as you may know - I kind of struggle with mental health on a daily basis :P) but actually sometimes blogging makes me feel better and helps me cope with the dreaded real life which gets really stressful sometimes. This community is so supportive and sometimes I get to talk to people going through the same things I am, and it really helps. And just hearing nice words from people means so much to me. All of you lovelies have such big hearts and you always make me feel better. I can't thank you enough ❤

I totally focused on the negatives here. And I'm kind of off-topic, and mostly just ranting. Oops. Tell me, how do you manage between blogging and real life? Is it possible to find that balance?

Conversations is a brilliant, new fortnightly meme by Geraldine @ Corralling Books and Joan @ Fiddler Blue. Check the details and get involved!

The theme for May is Blogging Habits, and the topic for this week is:

✱ What pushed you to start blogging and why do you continue to blog?

Hello lovelies! It's the weekend! Are you as happy about it as I am?

Today's topic for Conversations is one of my favourites. I've talked about my love of the blogging community before, but today the focus is a bit different. Although the community may be one of the main reasons I continue to blog, it's not why I started blogging originally ( - okay, it actually is, in part).

But let me throw some other reasons at you, okay?

We All Need Hobbies

Right? It took me forever to realise it, but over the last three years or so, I've slowly given up all the things I used to love - and started focusing on my studies instead. It was making me seriously unhappy. So I started book blogging. I can talk books, meet wonderful people, and talk some more about books. Perfect!

Being a Grad Student is Wonderful(ly Stressful)

I'm always stressed out, especially now that I only have four months left to finish my MSc. I didn't fully anticipate how stressful it really would be, but here we are.

Luckily, I have this wonderful community of book bloggers who wish me well, and are amazingly supportive!

All Weirdos Need Other Weirdos

I'm so weird. Most of you have probably realised this too by now. When I meet someone else who's a little odd too? It's a party, basically.

Things I like (that make me weird [according to normal people])

skeletons (like, real ones)
being in a bone lab alone (it's really nice and calm),
angry feminist rants,
angry rants about how awful people are (title: I Hate People),
talking to dogs like they're people,
spending entire days talking to cats,
pretending I know what the letters IT stand for,
rapping along to anything from Hamilton,
singing random lines from the Book of Mormon *at* people and making them uncomfortable,
ugly-crying because something happened in a book,
randomly bursting into song (I have a musical tune for any occasion),