It didn't really hit me until a couple of days ago that it's the month of Elul. I did make a post earlier this month with it in the title, but I didn't think much of it at the time. On the Jewish calendar, it's the month before Tishri. Tishri starts with Rosh Hashanah, or our New Year. It's lit. 'Head (of) the Year'. That's also the beginning of the High Holy Days (aka Days of Awe). It's a very important time for us. That ends with the end of Yom Kippur or our Day of Atonement. That's the most important holiday on the calendar. Then, later that month is Sukkot (lit. Booths), which is an 8-day long harvest-based holiday. A lot in one month. A lot of people do things to 'prepare' for it during Elul.
I usually blow the shofar every morning during it. Except for on Shabbos (Yiddish for Shabbat). It's something my mom did with me, too. It's supposed to symbolize 'waking up' our souls for the coming holidays. It's a little thing, but I like to do it. There have been years where I completely forget about it.
I'll probably 'attend' online services for the High Holy Days. The New York City one that I occasionally go to online is really good. Their synagogue is impressive. They also have interesting speakers in between services. There are only a couple of iffy things for me, but that's not bad. There are other congregations around the country that live-stream their services, too. It's a pretty cool thing. My immune system is still weird, I'm not comfortable (because of certain people) going to either local synagogues, tickets for going to HHD services are usually expensive, and it gets really warm and stuffy during them in person. That last one is because the synagogues are usually packed for every service. There have been years where there weren't enough seats. Everyone seems to feel that that is the time out of the whole year that they must go. Hence, why going online is probably the best option for me. I kind of feel like I'm there, too. The NYC one even has a pdf file online of their machzor or HHD prayer book. I might print that off beforehand. The last couple of years I've had to guess with some of it, since I didn't have it in front of me. It's pretty nifty that they've thought so much about their online audience. They even have a phone number you can call to hear the service translated in different languages like Spanish, German, Russian, etc.
I managed to 'start' Shabbos like I used to last Friday night. Sang the blessings over the candles, juice, and bread. Didn't have grape juice, so I used cranberry raspberry juice. Didn't have challah, so I used the Norwegian bread that I like so much. It was a little different. Haven't done that in at least a year, I think. I also bensched after dinner. It's when we go through the Birkat Hamazon or blessings after eating. I forgot some of the melodies at first. If I do it more often, I'll remember. I also had my own service after that, using the prayer book I have at home. That was nice. I didn't do Havdalah, which is a ceremony that ends Shabbos. That's ok. I got to quite a bit. It felt good. Hopefully I can continue with Shabbos stuff again in the future. Make it a habit again. Good to do just before the HHD.
The air quality has been much better. It felt really cold a couple of days ago. The high was 60 degrees. Didn't feel like summer. We went from being in the high 80s to that...such an extreme. I'm much happier with it being chilly. Just wasn't really prepared for it. I love fall weather, and it seems like that's coming up quick. Today got up to 76, and tomorrow will get up to around the same temp. After that, it'll be in the mid to high 60s. Much easier to live with. Feels like we're finally getting a rest from the hot weather. Hopefully it won't come back until next year.
Both Alliance and Sweet Endless Terror have Select terms that end today. So, now all 3 of the ones I wanted out of Select will be by tomorrow. (The 3rd being Alliance: Dawn, which ended its term a couple of weeks ago.) I'm thinking of not turning on my computer until the beginning of next month. I want to make sure another heat wave won't hit in the meantime, and since it'll be close to a new year for me. Anyways, I won't prepare those 3 for submission to Smashwords until then. Once I do submit them, I'll have to wait a little longer for them to be approved for their Premium Catalog. Once that happens, it'll be distributed to a lot more places. It might end up being mid-September by then.
After submitting them to Smashwords, I'll go back to writing Alliance 3. I've already forgotten most of it. I'll probably have to read what I've written already beforehand. To get back in the mindset. Can't wait to get back to it, though. Last year I ended up staying away from writing in July and August, too. I think this time I actually stopped in June. I've only stopped this year and the previous one because of the heat and smoke. It's not good for my desktop computer, and when it's on it generates quite a bit of heat. It's in my bedroom, so it ends up making it more difficult to sleep when it's hot out. I have more ideas for books, too. Will be nice to finally get to them after I finish A3. Not sure how long A3 will end up being.
I've made it to the last unit, titled Feelings, for Chinese. I'm almost through their course...It's been fascinating to me. I might still catch up with the review part after I finish it. Then, I'll move on to another language. I'm close to that. I'm still debating whether I want to take the Duolingo Russian course or something else. I'm curious as to how much I remember from taking Russian in college. I loved it. Duolingo's course will probably be better for it than it was for Chinese. I'm also tempted to go back to French, which I took all of the classes that were available in high school. Or, maybe on conversational Hebrew? Or, Italian? So many choices.
Started reading the manga, Code Breaker. I'm unsure if I like it. Despite it being a long first chapter, there's not much to the story yet. Not sure if I like the main characters either. With some manga, I instantly like it after the first chapter. I'll give it a couple more, and if I feel the same way I'll drop it. I still have quite a list of interesting looking manga that I want to read. There's bound to be some duds. This one also has an anime adaptation. I haven't seen it.
Practiced my clarinet for an hour today. I played a lot of an advanced Mozart book, and a miscellaneous solo one. I tried to push myself with some of the most difficult Mozart pieces in that book, and ended up frustrated at times. I wasn't too bad, but what made it frustrating was more of what was written. Like, many were in half time, or something like 6/8. Oh, and changing time signatures multiple times in one piece...Some were agonizingly slow or seemingly impossibly fast. The one piece that he made specifically for clarinets, is especially frustrating. I think Mozart loved to mess with people. Some of it's fun to play, though.
For cleaning, I got to the cat stuff, did laundry, took the trash and recycling bins in, swept my bathroom floor, and cleaned my bathroom mirror. More than I thought I would get to. Rosie wasn't too happy with me cleaning the bathroom. I had to lightly tap her on the butt with the broom in order for her to leave my bathroom. Couldn't sweep the floor with a cat there. She decided to lay up against the closed bathroom door, so whenever I came out she was right there. She didn't like when I sprayed the mirror with Windex, too. She got really nervous and turned up her face. She usually doesn't get 'involved' like this when I clean.
For drawing, I looked up pics of eye/cheek makeup or tattoos. I have a vision of what the Dark Healer's facial art design is, but I have a hard time imagining it exactly when I go to draw it out. Some of the ones I found were very close. Many of them were feminine looking. I want it more masculine, because he's a man. There was a cool masculine looking facial tribal tattoo. I might use a combo of that and others. I'll draw a semi-simple one for his face, since the face is rather small. Then, I'll draw another more complex version by itself. A closeup, essentially. In my head, he has quite a lot of tattoos. A couple on his face, on his arms, chest, etc. Interestingly in my mind, I imagine Doina, who's a Light Healer, has tattoos as well, but they're more hidden. It's not like I demonized tattoos (Dark Healers may be considered 'evil') or glorified them. They're cool and intricate.
Yesterday I went back to watching Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau or Children of the Whales. I put it on hold a year ago, because there were more interesting shows that came out at the time. It had a very slow start, and after watching 2 episodes yesterday, it didn't progress much. I'm halfway through it now, so at least there isn't much more. The art is rather unique, and even though the story has been super slow, it's been interesting. Interesting enough to keep going with it. It seems like they wanted to turn this into something bigger than it ended up being. At least, so far. Maybe it picks up at this point.
So many things happened with Gintama. It was intense. They may have killed off a lot of beloved characters. Everyone kept fighting to save Earth, even after being slashed up. Sadaharu seemed like he faded out of existence at one point. He's a huge alien dog that's Odd Jobs' pet. He came back somehow, though. It seems like they defeated Utsuro at the end. However, the spaceship (I think it's called Heaven's Cradle), made it through Earth's atmosphere and crashed. It's huge. There was a bright light and then the ending credits rolled. What a way to end the episode! Luckily, there was a segment after the credits. Apparently, it was 2 years into the future. It was almost like how the first episode of the entire series started. Except Shinpachi was playing the same role as Gintoki. It was kind of like an inside joke. I hope they didn't kill off Gintoki, and that it's not really like they showed in that last bit. They did mention in the preview that we'll find out who died and what exactly happened after the crash. They also did mention that it'll be 2 years into the future. It feels like it ended already. There's no say on how many episodes this last season will be, but even if it's the usual 12 for seasonal anime, we still have at least a few left. I have a feeling they'd make more than that. So what else is left? (Besides finding out who survived and how things are now.)
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