weekly wednesday blogging challenge

A Sport I Want To Try

This week’s Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge question is A sport I want to try

There’s none that I want to actually try due to reasons of chronic pain and mobility issues. However…

Hi, my name’s Cassie and I have a current hyper fixation on tennis. I don’t know if it’s a short-term hyperfixation, if it’s going to tip into Special interesttm, or if it’s ‘just’ going to be a ‘normal interest’ and I’m trying not to think too hard about it and what it means, and just enjoy the dopamine.

I have watched Wimbledon for a good 35+ years. When I was a wee llama I grew up watching Becker, Agassi, Navratilova, Graf, Sampras etc. I used to watch with my mum, and we sat there on the couch yelling at the TV and quite often supporting opposite players. It lost a lot of it’s shininess since mum died. I’d follow the tournament on the BBC live reporting but that was all – and honestly it got a bit boring for a while there with the same few players winning everything and their styles just weren’t that exciting to watch.

This has been the first year in the best part of a decade that I’ve watched it, that I’ve been interested in the matches and actually cared about them. And what a time to come back to it – there’s this group of new players who are very exciting to watch and I’m falling in love with. It feels so good to have that passion back. I’ve found out how to follow the sport the rest of the year. And now I’m super excited for the Olympic Tennis matches!

Although I am completely gutted that both Jannik Sinner and Sir Andy Murray have pulled out of the men’s singles (for health and injury reasons) because they were two of the four I was invested in. It’s all over to Spain, and Rafa Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz now. And Jasmine Paolini in the women’s.

weekly wednesday blogging challenge

Hobbies I Used To Enjoy

This week’s Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge question is Hobbies I Used to Enjoy and uh… hi, my name’s Cassie and I have ADHD, allow me to introduce you to my hobby graveyard

So, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (or ADHD), for anyone who doesn’t actually know what it is or how it presents, is a mental health disorder that includes a combination of persistent problems, such as difficulty paying attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior. And one of the major traits – especially in AFAB adults – is continually starting new tasks before finishing old ones. It’s a dopamine thing; the ADHD brain is constantly seeking the stimulation that will provide next hit of dopamine, and motivation is… difficult to sustain.

Although I would argue it’s not a deficit of attention – it’s the inability to control attention. If I’m doing something that’s giving the brain the happy juices, I can hyperfocus FOR hours – forget to move, eat, drink, anything.
On the other side of the coin, if it’s something that doesn’t give the dopamine, like idk paying bills, trying to corral the brain weasels is next to impossible – it’s not interesting, it’s not exciting, I can’t do it.

As a result, I’m always picking up new things, trying them, falling in love with them, buying all the things for it (we mentioned impulsivity, right?), making our entire personality about this thing, wanting to do it all the time, and then… discarding them when the next new shiny thing comes along to try. We call this a hyperfixation.

I fell into Duolingo hard. I was learning German, Italian and Welsh. I forked out for the paid account of Duolingo. I bought notebooks. I bought phrasebooks. I bought Richard Scarrey/Usbourne First Hundred Words books in the languages.
It lasted… maybe 6 weeks and all those books are languishing in my spare room.

Stardew Valley. I spent HOURS playing the game, I created multiple farms and multiple characters to play all the different variations of the story. I could literally – and I do mean literally sit for DAYS without doing anything else. Never intentionally, and there were times when I was sitting there thinking ‘Cassie, put the game down and go to sleep’, for example, but I couldn’t because there was SO MUCH HAPPY BRAIN JUICE.
That lasted… maybe 6 months.

Then the same thing happened with Animal Crossing. I played obsessively for 6 months, haven’t touched the game in nearly a year. And I found myself thinking the other week that I wanted to play again – but I don’t physically know how to pick it back up again.

Currently it’s Palia, and has been for 5 or so months. Like, we’re literally talking I UPGRADED MY LAPTOP TO PLAY THIS GAME. In a way, I’m really really glad I had it over the autumn when I was in so much pain with my hip because I don’t actually know how I’d have got through it. I’m still playing every single day and I have a fucking amazing spreadsheet tracking all the quests and stuff I’m doing in the game.

Then there’s the fear of the hyperfixation.

I’ve got one hell of a hyperfixation on Taylor Swift right now – I know I know – but was unsuccessful in the lottery and wasn’t able to buy tickets for the Eras tour. In August 2024. I still don’t know if I’m relieved about this or not because what if I’d spent £££s on tickets but by the time the gig rolled around, I’d lost interest?

Li and I went to Hobbycraft the other month and I picked up a whole bunch of kits of things I want to try – things that look fun. I spent probably £40-60 that day. It’s all sitting in the bag. Because what if I don’t like it? What if I DO like it? What if I try it and I’m no good at it.

And I’m terrified of the day that reading stops giving the dopamine hit.

So yeah. ADHD and abandoned hobbies. sigh I has them. All of them.

book blogger hop · weekly wednesday blogging challenge

Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge & Book Blogger Hop

And, once again, I find myself needing to catch up on both Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge and Book Blogger Hop, so without further ado:

The Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge questions are:

Films to watch when you’re having a bad day
I’m generally not a big film person, I usually turn to TV shows rather than movies although my go-to movies will always be Star Wars and Jurassic Park. TV wise it’s Buffy, Leverage, Stargate and Supernatural.

My thoughts on small talk
I hate it, I find it incredibly painful to do. It’s bland, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s pointless and it’s boring. I’d rather have a conversation about something important or exciting, I love talking with people about the things they care about, or are passionate about.

And for Book Blogger Hop we have:

Have you ever read with a book light?
Not that I recall. I didn’t do the torch under the covers as a kid either – I don’t recall not being allowed to read, even well past my bedtime, I just had the light on. It’s the same now as well, and I do still read well past my bedtime. I do appreciate the backlight on my Kindle though!

Have you tried a reel on Instagram
Nope, I don’t generally watch them either although I love watching TikTok videos. I don’t like seeing/hearing myself on video and I don’t know enough about editing to do any of the other kind of videos.
I am figuring out using my book instagram though – I’m using the May Photo a Day challenge as well as trying to remember to post the books I’m reading as I finish them

Have you ever been told that you have an excessive number of books? If so, what was your reaction?
Oh many many times, and that I read too much. I’ve heard that SO many times. I now generally just laugh and I’ve learned over the years that anyone who harshes my squee on that isn’t someone who’s worth having in my life – the people who matter understand that it’s important to me and encourage my love.

life · site

‘Books and ADHD and bears, oh my!’ (Spoilers: may not contain actual bears)

So… it’s been a few weeks since I last posted again, and I wanted to talk a little about why that is and how my ADHD affects my reading.

The biggest thing over the last month has been a shiny new hyperfixation. Hyperfixation, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a trait of ADHD that means intense focus on a particular thing for an extended period of time. After wanting one for a couple of years, I finally bought myself a Nintendo Switch in the pre-Black Friday sales. And promptly fell down the rabbit hole of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is wonderful and I am in love. I have many many issues with Tom Nook – the fucking crook. I signed up for a deserted island, and found that 2 people were moving there with me, along with Timmy, Tommy and Nook himself. Then Blathers – admittedly, he’s wonderful – and his museum moved in. I’ve got my house and done the first two upgrades, currently working on paying off getting a second room. And somehow… somehow I’ve been conned into building a shop for Timmy & Tommy and now… Now I’m building THREE HOMES for more people to move to the island?! I didn’t get a fucking furnished house – no, I got a tent.
I LOVE THIS GAME.

Another way ADHD affects my reading is that – as you’ve probably noticed – I’m great at starting books. The finishing thing? Not so much. And once again, I hit the point where I had over 25 books in progress, all my library books were suddenly due back and I got really stressed out. Reading stopped being fun and I was really overwhelmed, and knowing that I wanted to be writing about the books I was reading made it feel like extra pressure to Do It Properly.
And when I feel like I have to do things properly, it makes it feel like I can’t start it because I don’t want to do it wrong and so there’s no point in doing it.
(Logically, I know there’s no way to ‘do’ my own blog ‘wrong’ – that’s just how the brain feels in these situations).

Added to that, I’ve started the second year of my degree and have been struggling a little bit. I’ve been finding it hard to get motivated to study, and had my confidence knocked by getting a low grade in my first assignment – caused by misunderstanding the question. Being a distance-learning degree, there’s a lot of reading, the more I struggle with this the more difficulty I have reading for pleasure because that voice in the back of my brain yells at me every time I pick up a book that isn’t for school that I should be studying.

I have started reading again in the last week or so, I picked 4 or 5 of the books I was reading and tried to focus on those and have actually nearly finished a couple of them. Woohoo.

But the combination of all of these things, I haven’t been able to figure out how to come back to blogging. And the longer it’s gone on, the harder it’s become to open up that new blog post window and start typing. It ended up becoming this big thing in my head that I didn’t know how to breach.

Obviously, writing this post, I DO want to come back and start blogging about books again. And that’s the thing. I want to blog about books and reading, rather than writing a ‘traditional’ book review blog. I love sharing my love for the books I’m reading and geeking out about them, and enthusing about books. I’m definitely learning I don’t enjoy writing ‘proper’ book reviews, but I do enjoy my paragraph long drive-by reviews. I love doing the weekly link-ups, they’re probably my favourite thing. I just need to figure out how I’m going to make this work for me – because I really do want to find my rhythm, because I really really enjoy being here.

weekly wednesday blogging challenge · www wednesday

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge & WWW Wednesday

I am so discombobulated right now. Time is definitely doing that whole ‘wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-stuff’. I blame the Bank Holidays. As much as I love having that long weekend off work over Easter and two short weeks, and there’s another Bank Holiday and short week next week, and then the week after that I’m off work… but at the same time, I do not know if I’m coming or going!

But! I got a 96% on my most recent university assignment – and it was a pro-forma plan for my end of module assignment so I’m feeling pretty confident going into that. Although struggling a little with motivation and procrastination – it’s due on the 19th, so ADHD brain is all ‘nah, we don’t need to start yet, it’s not due for aaaages yet’. It’s my first extended essay and first long deadline and I’m not quite sure how to handle it. So I’ve got a call with my tutor tomorrow where I’m going to ask her for some help!

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge this week asks Book, movie or TV show you can’t wait for and oh… please allow me flail in a fangirling manner over my sheer nerdy excitement for Jurassic World Dominion. I was 12 or so when I first saw the original Jurassic Park, got the book and fell even more in love. I think I saw JPIII in the cinema like 3 times in 48 hours. I still grin like a fucking insane person at just the theme music, my jaw still drops when we first see the dinosaurs in the park and I will randomly blurt out ‘we have a T-Rex’. I am actually having to pause typing this to stim, because thats how excited I am. I am completely spoiler-free which is my preference, I know nothing about it going in other than that Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum are in it. I have cried with joy at the trailer.
Did I mention that I’m a complete geek? LMAO

WWW Wednesday
What are you currently reading? A Court Of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas, This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan and Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
What did you recently finish reading? The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson
And I DNFed Crocodile On The Sandback by Elizabeth Peters
What do you think you’ll read next? Notes On A Nervous Planet by Matt Haig, Summer At Skylark Farm by Heidi Swain or A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled by Ruby Wax.