Monthly Recap: October 2020

I'm so glad October ended because, although it wasn't as distressful as September, it was mentally exhausting. 

As you may know, if you follow me on Twitter, I'm out of a job now, a piece of news I've had since September 29 when my boss told me she would close the bar at the end of October. Losing the job is not the bit that hurt me the most though. After refusing at first because it would have been too much of a commitment, I eventually became interested in managing the bar when customer after customer told me how they'd be more than happy if I were to become the new "owner", because everyone knows me already and because of my people skills. Sadly, I didn't meet the requirements, so I had to let it go. And yet it wasn't as terrible as going to work for an entire month knowing that I would be unemployed soon, or as embarrassing as working the morning shift for two entire weeks and seeing customers leave because we no longer had breakfast food. Words really can't describe how shitty I felt in those moments. There were these high school kids who would stop by every weekday and have breakfast with a croissant and a coffee and it just broke having to send them away. The only positives are that it was really heartwarming to see how many people became fond of me during this year and a half, and a customer telling me that I make the best cappuccino he's ever had.

On the upside, my boyfriend Daniel Ricciardo finally got his first podium with Renault on the 11th, I drew him doing a shoey to celebrate him and he totally ignored me. And got another one today, but I guess that should the news for November's recap. My German is slowly improving, I've started writing a novel and by starting I mean I wrote a depressing opening line, and I survived a week without coffee. 

Book-wise, I finished Little Women which is now giving me mixed feeling about Greta Gerwig's film, and Roberto Saviano's Gomorra which was just as dreadful as the film. And I also started yet another tedious James Bond novel — there's no way I'm reading the entire series by the end of the year. 

TV-wise, I finished Arrested Development and what a disappointment that was. I sat through four seasons of Bates Motel but I'm hating each episode and end up spending most of the time either on Twitter or Instagram. I watched Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor and I will never thank Mike Flanagan enough for making such a brilliant series. It is such an atmospheric, unsettling and emotional ghost story as well as a romance and it completely broke me. Not to mention how obsessed I am with Victoria Pedretti now. And finally, I watched German Netflix's original series Dark. If you haven't seen it already, I highly reccomend you do so because it's one of the best series I've ever seen. It is compelling from start to finish, I didn't find it at all confusing as some people said it would be and the acting is downright terrific. And since it's in German, it's also been helpful with my learning. 

Unfortunately, I've kind of fallen out of love with movies lately. I don't know what it is, but I rarely feel like watching a film and I find it very hard to be focused for the entire film. But the later probably has to do with the shitty films I usually watch. That said, I only watched four films last month, and here they are.

Inception (2010) | Rewatch

Plot: A thief (Leonardo DiCaprio) who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O. (Cillian Murphy). 

I really loved this film when I first saw it years ago so I knew I would end up watching a great film when I decided to rewatch it. But it was kind of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, it's got a great plot and acting and it's pretty tense throughout but it's not as flawless as I remembered. Rating: 4/5

Django Unchained (2012)

Plot: With the help of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz), a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) sets out to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington) from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). 

I honestly thought I had watched this film before but turns out I only saw bits and pieces. Anyway, it is a very tense and suspenseful film, it has the right amount of drama, and the plot is pretty unpredictable. I absolutely loved Waltz and Foxx and their characters, and I was actually rooting for Foxx and Washington's character to get back together. Rating: 4/5

The Ring (2002) - Review

Rebecca (2020)

Plot: A young newlywed (Lily James) arrives at her husband's (Armie Hammer) imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the shadow of his first wife, Rebecca, whose legacy lives on in the house long after her death.

I was really looking forward to this film because of its cast but Netflix yet again disappointed me. I just couldn't get into it and lost interest after half an hour. The only reason I finished it is that I always finish films. Also, the cast was too pretty to look away. Yes, I'm that shallow. Rating: 2/5