What Was I Up To During My Unannounced Four-Month Hiatus?

Two weeks ago, I awkwardly reappeared in the blogophere.

With very few excuses to offer, really. I haven't written a trilogy while I was gone. I haven't been on some kind of cleansing technology abstinence.

I'm not even super-relaxed by the whole hiatus experience.

Feel free to throw things at me but please make them chocolate or at least biscuits.

Here's what did happen during my hiatus:

–{{In April, I:

• post, apologising for disappearing for three whole weeks. Ha ha. Hahahahaa. so cute.
• volunteer at a comic-con. My plans of adding a Winter Soldier arm under my official T-shirt don't work out because I'm lazy. I get photos with a female Loki, a female Winter Soldier, a Gandalf, a Thranduil, and a Rey (who turns out to be my junior leader from a holiday outreach program last year). Gandalf gets the Runner Up: People's Choice award for doing the whole "you. shall not. PASS" thing. 
• read a lot of fanfics, including some from fandoms I'm not even in. (The Miraculous Ladybug love square is just too hilarious, okay? I must have read literally a hundred identity reveal fics.)
• watch season 2 of The Flash (leave the timeline aLONE, BARRY) and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. 
• attempt to do Camp NaNo in 'minutes of study'. I fail.
  
• [whoops]

–{{In May, I:

• introduce my family to Owl City. Siblings love; parents are as yet unconvinced. Father is likely to stay that way. 
• receive a letter from Jessica, which is awesome and so encouraging! 
  
   it's so pretty and she's such a beautiful person!
• attend a program teaching people how to write resumes and apply for jobs. It is free. There is lots of food. I am satisfied. 
• rewatch Iron Man, Avengers, Captain America: First Avenger and CA:WS. For Reasons.

–{{In June, I:

• watch season 1 of Ultimate Spider-Man (ft. Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson and Stan Lee as Stan Lee the janitor. I am sold.), HP 1-3, Sherlock Holmes (the RDJ one), The Force Awakens (rewatch) and The Last Jedi (REYLO). 
• I also... uh... that is, I also... did.....
• haha ha *dies* 
• MOVING ON.

–{{In July, I:

• have a proofreading job. The documents are only 2-4 pages long, but there's literally hundreds of them. 
• watch HP 4-6 and The Greatest Showman (twice, with family; we now sing the songs constantly).
• lead 12 six- and seven-year-olds (and two junior leaders) for three days at an outreach school holiday program. It is Intense. I am Exhausted. See Kenzie's post for her description of what seems to be an extraordinarily similar experience, despite us being in different programs in different countries. 
• listen to a heap more Owl City. See, to start with, I'd been unsure whether I liked Owl City - the softer ones (Fireflies, Fuzzy Blue Lights, Vanilla Twilight), certainly, but it took me a little while to work up to the louder/more electronic ones (Dementia, Deer in the Headlights, Gold, etc).  
• google in response to my brother asking who Matthew Thiesson (credited on Ocean Eyes) is; I discover that he's in Relient K. I've heard of them before, but - for the same reasons as above - Be My Escape had been the only one I could handle. Now, though, Owl City's got me used to more 'rock' (I suppose?) music, and Relient K is my go-to for music when I'm in less peaceful moods. 
• got a new cousin! Still haven't seen her awake yet...
• read fanfics focusing on Darcy Lewis. She's long gone from the MCU, I know... but I love a good "Darcy Lewis, Scientist Wrangler" fic. And if it progresses to "Avenger Wrangler", I won't say no. But another definite highlight of these stories was discovering the phrase "because Science." I now use that phrase a lot. For Science! or simply Science! works too. See: 
  
  
  Darcy considers herself the voice of reason to Jane's starry-eyed love of science even though it involves less destruction than Tony's brand of science. I have appointed myself to this position regarding my sciencey siblings. They didn't know they needed it, but they do.
  

–{{In August, I:

• continue proofreading. 
• embroider a shirt for a friend's birthday. She'd seen me in mine and asked for her own. Whether she was joking or not, this is what she got:
  
• watch HP 7-8, season 1 of The Mentalist (fascinating, but strong content warnings), and Les Miserables (the one with Hugh Jackson; strong content warnings; I couldn't really get into it until the second half? but by the end I cried.)
• finish my TAFE! It was a Cert IV in Library and Information Studies, eighteen months long, and now I just have to knock on the library's door a bit more. Eventually they'll realise they really really want me working there. (Honestly, though, it's the council [they're in charge of hiring] which I have to get past; the library staff know me pretty well and I believe they wouldn't mind having me at all.
  

WELL. There's waaay more information about my life than you ever cared to hear, I'm sure. Consider it a "monthly recap" recap. (It could have been worse. I could have done a post for each month I was gone.)

........

Now, before you ask: I did read books. I just haven't written them here because I feel like I'm already straining your patience and good humour I'm on Goodreads! So if you want to know what I've been reading, head over there.

Also: September's been off to a pretty good start! No more TAFE... and I watched Thor: Ragnarok. So Loki. Much pleased. Very wow. (You may have noticed already, but my gif collection has exploded.)

........

So. What have you been doing? Have you seen Ragnarok? How much writing have you done in the last four months?? Do you read fanfiction? (I used to be snobby... but there's some really good stuff. Can be hard to find among all the rest, though.) Have you ever been in charge of a dozen small children you only just met (and had to do craft with them)??

Children can be intimidating in large numbers. 
Also exhausting.