Month in Review(s) - December 2019

December has Christmas! Christmas is awesome! Therefore December is awesome! 😀

...I'm good at logic! (Lol.)

In all seriousness, December wasn't an easy one for me - but was far from the worst one I've ever had (as in, no-one died.)

So, despite the various colds I had (I'm a revolving door of viruses, dearest nerdlets!) and some upsetting problems with my grandfather's grave, December was good.

I love Christmas, ok? Christmas is amazing. 😊

Nerd Church - My New Year's Resolution

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Hey dearest nerdlets! I hope that 2020 is treating you well so far! 

(...or at least hasn't been too sh** already. ...I'm pragmatic.)

Update, 2021 - this statement did not age well



So, I figured I'd talk a little about my New Year's Resolutions... 

...Well. Sort of.

See, to me, NY resolutions have always been a little *waves hands* ...vague.

Like, I don't even know what I'm doing next week, let alone committing 12 months to something, y'know?

So, they're more like an idea. Maybe a goal, or an intention, or whatever.

Nerd Church - Our Roaring 20s

It's nearly that time again - when one year becomes another and we have the chance to make a fresh start

(...symbolically, if nothing else.)

But this year? This year marks the change of the decade, as well as the change of the year.

Yup, it's So Long and Farewell to the 2010s, and roll on the Roaring 20's.

(I'm now singing Panic! in my head, and I have no regrets.)

Were the 2010s that bad...?

Probably.

Especially 2016 onwards.

There's no sugar-coating it, some bad sh** has happened in this decade, especially the latter half - it feels like the world is colder, crueller, place than it was before.

Nerd Church - My Favourite Time of the Year (...Despite Everything)

(Warning: this post discusses bereavement, & other bad stuff that's happened to me at Christmas)


This week has been... difficult.

That's the polite way of describing it, anyway.



I don't want to go into the detail because I'm just gonna get really upset again -

- but basically, there's a serious and significant - though thankfully fixable, although in the long-term rather than the short-term - problem with my grandfather's grave.

So, yeah. That's what I've been dealing with in the week before Christmas.

I guess it could be worse - last year, in the week before Christmas, we buried him.

A few years before that, my other grandfather died on Christmas Eve, followed by his wife, my grandmother, four days later.

Nerd Church - Hope, Politics, and the Zombie Apocalypse

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Something important happened on Thursday, dearest nerdlets!

What..? The UK election..?

Yeah, that happened too.

We now know which brand of f**ked we, as a country, are stuck with *sighs*



What I'm talking about, though, is yours truly watching a truly bizarre, but amazing, film, called Anna and the Apocalypse.

Have you ever thought, 'wouldn't High School Muscial be better if it was combined with Shaun of the Dead... and it was in Scotland... at Christmas...?'

No? Well apparently someone did!

No, really. That is what this film is.

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: Dealing With Self-Doubt

If you've been around my blog at all in the past (love you!) then you probably know that I struggle with...

...Well, that list could take a while, but for the purposes of this post, I struggle with self-doubt.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

So it's probably not that much of a surprise that I also have doubts when it comes to what I'm writing.

(Even blogposts - this is like my 6th attempt at writing this week's Nerd Church, and about the 3rd possible topic I came up with)

Month In Review(s) - November 2019

November was... it was ok.

I spent most of the month with a revolving-door of colds and viruses, so business as usual I guess! 😅

Nerd Church - London Bridge

(Warning: this post discusses the terror attack on London Bridge and related issues)

Sometimes, when one bad news story follows another, when one terrible event after another plays out on our screens, you can get the feeling that the words no longer have meaning.

But the words have meaning if you give them meaning.



London Bridge was an act of hate by someone who had previously shown themselves to be hateful - who had served their time for planning terrorist attacks and training camps.

But that doesn't mean parole, bail, license, is a bad thing.



Not everyone who makes a mistake will fail to learn from it.

People are people, dearest nerdlets. People are people.

Nerd Church - Caffeinated Current Events: What Even Is 2019?

Caffeinated Current Events! Where I drink too much coffee and talk about the stuff going on in the world! That means Trump & Brexit, so this is your fair warning! 

(It'll be as told by me, though, so hopefully bearable!)



Phew! 2019, couldn't you've gone just a little bit easier on us?! 

Crud, after 2016, we've just had one thing after another! Cut us some goddamn slack!

...The US is currently being led by a man who, (and I never thought I'd say this,) has less integrity than Nixon.

How is that even possible...? Does anyone know...?

Nixon actually resigned when he got his hand caught in the sleazebag cookie jar - Trump's just flat-out lying and refusing to budge.

...And I don't think even Nixon would've got away with colluding with Russia and bribing Ukraine.

And somehow people still believe he's innocent and that there's some sort of 'conspiracy' against him - newsflash: if there's a conspiracy, it's for him, not against him #JustSaying.

Nerd Church - Think Before You Speak

Social media. 

Love it, loathe it, or (like most of us) find yourself somewhere in between.

Whatever you feel about the ol' socials, sh** escalates fast online!

I... kind of think that a lot of the escalation is related to people not having some sort of filter between their reaction and their mouths/fingers

- (talking and typing - I mean talking and typing. Minds out of the gutter nerdlets!)

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Month in Review(s) - October 2019

October... what can I say about October?

October was a month, that happened, I guess! 😅

...complete with colds and a lot of work-stuff. But meh *shrugs* it was fine. Just an average month, really! 😅

Nerd Church - Why I Love WW1 Poetry

Morbid li'l goth-emo child that I am, I LOVE World War One poetry.

I read it all year round: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenburg, Ivor Gurney, Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke...

*sighs happily*

So, seeing as how it's Rememberance Sunday, and it's the 11th of November tomorrow, I figured I'd let you in on the beautiful jewel of life that is WW1 poetry.

(Note: when I use the phrase 'WW1 poetry' I mean English-language WW1 poetry, mainly from British soldiers, with the odd Commonwealth soldier chucked in for good luck.

I'm sure that other nationalities also wrote poetry in a variety of languages and styles, but the WW1 poetry I and most people in the UK are familiar with is that I've just described.)

Nerd Church - Whose Dystopia Is This? A Discussion of Marginalisations in Dystopian Fiction, Focussing On Vox by Christina Dalcher

(Warning: this post discusses persecution of marginalised groups, sometimes in detail)


Dystopia, as a genre, is largely based on the oppression – either knowingly or unknowingly – of groups of people.

...Usually in a way that seems extreme in the context of the author’s cultural background, or else involves sufficient robots and sh** to convince us that this world is The Future™.

Nerd Church - 39

(Warning: this post discusses human trafficking, modern slavery, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and the tragic deaths of 39 immigrants)

For those of you outside the UK, who may not know, 39 immigrants were found dead this week in a lorry in Essex.

They were probably Vietnamese, but the details are still a bit fuzzy..

Nerd Church - Have A Little Consideration! (...And Treat Your Neighbours Right)

I think that some people - not everyone, but some people - need to re-evaluate their common decency, and the consideration that they may or may not have for the people around them.

Because sometimes, people do sh** that ain't a lot to them, but is, in fact, a big deal to other people.

Image by Prawny from Pixabay

My neighbours have dogs.

They're lovely dogs. Adorable af.

But they like to chase cats. And I have cats.

Month in Review(s) - September 2019

September! 

(This wrap-up isn't late, it's casually timed 😎)

September was cool.

I had another cold, but that's pretty much my life tbh.



I also had my birthday! Woo! Birthday!

Although, I did have a few mixed feelings this year...

Nerd Church - Dyscalculia (Part 2: The Real World)

Dyscalculia is a maths learning difficulty that affects a lot of things that other people find easy and/or straight-forward.

Today, I figured I'd give you a real-life example of how Dyscalculia affects me.

You can catch up on my first post about Dyscalculia, which includes a lot of general info., here.

Image by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay

A real-world Dyscalculia example: catching the goddamn train

Nerd Church - Dyscalculia (Part 1: What Is Dyscalculia?)

I've mentioned in passing before now that I have a learning problem - condition, disability, whatever you wanna call it - called dyscalculia.

So I figured it was about time (ha, you'll see why that's a pun soon,) that I let you know what that entails, and why that means I struggle with a lot of things that most people find easy.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Disclaimer time: I am not a medical, educational, or neurological expert. I’m a Welsh chick with a blog.

So, what is dyscalculia?


In its simplest explanation, dyscalculia is the maths version of dyslexia.

It affects numeracy, rather than literacy, and also affects a lot of things related to mathematical ways of seeing the world that most people don't actually associate with maths.

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: Writing Vs Self-Care

While my aim is to write every day (y'know, like all the advice seems to say you should if you wanna be successful as an author,) some days I just can't.

That's not strictly true - I usually end up writing something in a day: blogging, tweeting, e-mails, work stuff, etc.

But I don't always manage to work on my work-in-progress (WIP) every day.

Nerd Church - An Unpopular Opinion On the 'Don't Feed the Trolls' Campaign

There's a new campaign in the UK using the previously informal hashtag of #DontFeedTheTrolls.

The Center For Countering Digital Hate advises that you don't engage with trolls. 

Ignore, block, report. Rinse, repeat.

Now, that's certainly not a bad option for dealing with trolling.

And you should ALWAYS feel that you can use the mute, block, report options, or some variant thereof, if you want to.

Cos you owe no-one, and you need to protect your mental health. Take care, ok?




So, what's my unpopular opinion?