Keeping In The Skeptic Brings Out The Geek

          Greetings from a 3rd floor apartment in Rama 3! I've been living here for almost a week now due to the precautionary hypernoia of my parents - mostly mom (sorry to point the finger). Okay, yes, I admit that the front of my house is no longer dry, but I still strongly believe that our efforts of moving the sentimentals to the 2nd floor will have been in vain. But that's okay. An underfurnished livingspace creates the perfect platform for redecorating. Which I'm honestly really excited about. Especially now that Thailand has an IKEA.
          But I don't want to get ahead of myself. Only God knows when things will be back to normal, when thinking about the interior design of your house doesn't make you look like a callous stuck-up. So let me keep it current with how #ThaiFloodEng has changed my daily life.
          I've been keeping myself busy, and not. With Nitade repeatedly pushing back the reopening date, I've been couped up in my "new home" without HBO, StarWorld, unlimited internet, and musical instruments. This has forced me to return to my former #1 hobby of reading. That just sounds so beautiful.  And I'm reading exactly the types of books I used to: classics, factbooks, and historical fics (missing murder-mysteries). I love the feeling of boosting up my literacy. 

From bottom to top:
1. Last Friday's Guru mag 
2. Have not read yet. But won't be able to put down for sure.
3. Still pondering the paradox of time travel.
4. Motoki, my fellow "hafu", gave me this last week. Very skillfully chosen. I can relate so much to the main character, the Book Thief. And I used to have a Holocaust fiction phase in middle school. Almost finished.
5. Today's purchase. Very amusing. Good for when I need an intermission between #2-4.

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          I feel that I've also leveled up in photography since "evacuating". There's just something about being in the middle of an unfamiliar situation that makes me want to press the shutter button at every little thing. As if I hadn't already been shooting manually, my camera settings are even more customized. Noobs, stay away from my Canon! I usually never publish stuff unedited, but this post contains only raw photography.

Technique was dead-on for this self-portrait.
ISO 1600 with flash. 1/20 Shutter.  F5.6.
Customized high contrast.
A vehicle in motion.
Newly dyed hair.

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          I even shot and edited a 30-second video featuring a gecko's heartbeat. But I'm not going to air that here, or else you'll realize how lame I am and never read my blog ever again.
          Other things I've been doing that are of the unusual are attending a funeral, frustrating myself with Microsoft Spider Solitaire, and dining out! Dining out every night is a big deal for me since I come from a family where everyone cooks.

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          On the other hand, how I've NOT been keeping myself busy is by not volunteering for flood relief as much as I could be, making no effort to contribute to family income besides abstaining from shopping, and making no effort to improve myself as a debater besides showing up for selections. Wouldn't hurt for me to give a little more damn about water levels and flood politics either. Unfortunately, the paperbacks and hardcover on my desk right now completely consume my interest.