It's time for another life update as told through this list of "-ing" verbs! Here we go.

Eating: nothing, since it's after dinner, but I'm craving more Nilla wafers
Drinking: water (what did you expect?)
Wearing: a black dress, cuz it's easy to put on
Smelling: the fact that I need to do the kitty litter, which will probably not happen for another week
Reading: Carrie by Stephen King
Writing: this blog post!
Editing: CUCUY, where I can in between class projects (ergh)
Making: hardboiled eggs every week so I can eat more protein
Listening: to lots of different songs as I try to figure out what my jam is right now
Watching: Lost in Space with my brother a couple episodes at a time 
Bookmarking: Global Voices, most recently
Playing: Dungeons & Dragons and "the creepy house game" at church young adult game nights

In December, I posted a five month update about all the progress I'd made with my chronic illnesses since going to Mayo Clinic at the end of July/beginning of August 2017. It's now been a full year since Mayo Clinic, and it seems appropriate to post another chronic illness update. So here's what's changed since then.

Since December, I've continued to make progress in many ways. The most significant is with my interstitial cystitis. Since I developed it in 2016, I've been at a constant pelvic pain level of at least a 6 (on the Kira Pain Scale, which I know for a fact is skewed upward from a regular person's pain scale). But in April, I started taking gabapentin. At first it didn't do anything, but once I hit the right dose, my IC pain level dropped dramatically. It's now down to about a 3 or 4, the same general level as the rest of my body. While the gabapentin didn't have any effect on my fibromyalgia pain, despite being approved for that, its effect on my IC was something like a miracle. Gabapentin, basically, is to my IC what antidepressants were to my fibromyalgia.

Since then, I've been able to reduce my bladder instillations from once every other week to once a month. I've been able to start wearing skirts again, instead of just dresses all the time, and yesterday I was able to give loose sweatpants a successful test run. I've also been able to add a few more foods to my diet, and I'm much less afraid of setting off a horrific flare if I eat the wrong thing.

Hey, everyone! It's time for part two of my favorite fictional characters update, about my favorite male characters. If you haven't already, you can check out the list of my favorite female characters here.

*Spoilers ahoy!*

​Vision
Vision is a Marvel superhero who has been in the comics since 1968 and was introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2015.

In the MCU, Vision is a synthetic human (an android, but a little more complex than that) whose body was created with synthetic flesh, a computerized nervous system, and the Mind Gem, which, as I said in part one, is an immensely powerful but little understood Infinity Stone. An evil AI named Ultron created the body to be his own, but the Avengers stole it from him before he could finish uploading himself. Then Tony Stark and Bruce Banner decided to upload Tony's AI assistant and friend, JARVIS, into the body's system. The other Avengers tried to stop them, but Thor Odinson used his lightning powers to bring Vision to life, stating that he had seen him in a vision given to him when Wanda Maximoff manipulated his thoughts and that Vision was a necessary part of the universe's future.

Within the last couple of years, I've posted updates on my favorite romantic relationships, TV shows, poems, movies, writing idols, music artists, and more. But one topic that I haven't updated my readers on for a long time is my favorite fictional characters. Yes, I've talked about fictional parents, favorite side characters, favorite villains, and other such topics, but the one post I've written on my favorite characters overall comes from the first year of my blog, 2012. My interests have changed a lot since then!

Favorite characters are difficult to choose, as I'm sure you all know, and there are so many characters that I love who will not be included on this list. Still, I'm going to update you on which characters I now look up to and love most. Since there are so many, this post is going to be a two-parter, with female characters first and male characters next week.

*Spoilers ahoy!*

Wanda Maximoff
Wanda Maximoff, also known as the Scarlet Witch, is a Marvel superhero (and sometimes, villain). She's been in the comics since 1964, and was introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2015.

Wanda has a troubled past. In the MCU, she and her twin brother, Pietro, were orphaned at the age of 10 in a bomb strike. The bomb was originally created by Stark Industries, the tech company owned by future Avenger Tony Stark. After the bombing, the twins became political protestors for peace in their turmoiled Eastern European home of Sokovia.

​During these protests, when they were in their late teens, Wanda and Pietro were approached by HYDRA, a Nazi group then disguised as the Avengers' support team. HYDRA promised to grant the twins the power they needed to "make things right." So Wanda and Pietro became part of a human experiment using the Mind Gem, an immensely powerful but little understood Infinity Stone. In the end, they were the only survivors of the experiment. Pietro gained superspeed, while Wanda developed energy manipulation powers that include telekinesis, telepathy, and mind control.

As of tomorrow, it will have been six years since I started this blog. Can you believe that? (I know I said that last year, but, like, six is even bigger than five, so.)

Per the usual, to celebrate, I'm sharing a roundup of the best posts I wrote this year. Check it out!

About My Writing
Wordy Wednesday: The Prophecy Keeper 10/11/17

It's time for our quarterly humor roundup, where I share 25 of the funniest posts I came across on the Internet during the last three months. Check it out!

​*Spoilers for The Avengers: Infinity War ahoy*

Today's bonus Wednesday post is, unsurprisingly, 4th of July themed! Taking the idea from the ongoing Top Ten Tuesday tag, I'm going to post some (but not all) of my favorite book covers in the colors of red, white, and blue. They're placed in order of publication, coming from my "love the cover" shelf on Goodreads. Enjoy!

All right! It's time for me to share the YA and MG books that are at the top of my to-read list for the summer quarter of 2018. There are quite a few this quarter!

Smoke and Iron by Rachel Caine is the fourth book in the unique YA fantasy series The Great Library, which shows a world where the Library of Alexandria was never burned and instead became an extremely powerful institution, with a select few libraries in the world now controlling access to all the books that exist. It's a really interesting story perfect for book and library lovers. Smoke and Iron releases on July 3rd.

Recently, I've been listing my top ten choices for best YA books in the years before I started this blog. Today, I figured I'd round off these flashback posts with one final list, completing the decade at 2010! So here are my ten most favorite YA books published in 2010.

1) Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. This, the final book in the blockbuster YA dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games, is a stunner in so many ways. Brilliant writing, plenty of plot twists, fantastic characterization--just a beautiful conclusion to a phenomenal series. For those who don't know (who art thou?), The Hunger Games tells the story of a girl in a future dystopia who volunteers in her sister's place to compete in a broadcasted competition where the only way you win is by being the last one alive.

2) Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien. This is the first in a YA dystopian trilogy about a young midwife living outside of the privileged Enclave who faithfully hands over a quota of new babies to the government each year. When her parents are arrested, she enters the Enclave to try and rescue them and, in the process, learns a lot more about the world she lives in.

3) Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John. My surprise favorite of the year, this YA contemporary novel tells the story of a deaf girl who winds up the manager of a band. It's thought-provoking, full of heart, and just really well-done all around.

Back when I first started this blog, I posted a handful of times about my writing idols. Since then, my list of writing idols has grown a good bit. Honestly, there are so many fantastic writers out there in the world, and there's so much I admire about and want to learn from them. I know I'll never be able to achieve what many of these writers have--sometimes you just have natural talent in some areas and natural ineptitude in others--but in recognizing them and their skill, I take the first step towards improving my own writing. So today I thought I'd post an updated list of my writing idols and what it is that I admire most about them.

​1) J.K. Rowling. Forever and always, I will look up to the author of Harry Potter and the ongoing Cormoran Strike series (as Robert Galbraith). She's fantastic in so many different ways. Most of all, I admire her charitable work, her clean and relatable characterization, and her thorough worldbuilding.

2) Hans Christian Andersen. I have a lot in common with this guy, and after reading the full collection of his fairytales, I came to admire not only the beauty and magic of his stories, but also the way he brought deeper meaning, often religious in nature, into them.

3) Neal Shusterman. This author is another one whose worldbuilding I look up to. It's complex and thoughtful and makes me see the world differently. I also admire his creativity in coming up with strange and unique premises for all his books, which include the Unwind Dystology, Challenger Deep, and the ongoing Arc of a Scythe trilogy.

My apologies for forgetting last week's post!

I think it's time yet again to look at the top 25 most played songs in my library and compare them with the 25 top-selling songs right now according to iTunes. Explicit songs will be marked with a red "E."

​1) "Save the World/Don't You Worry, Child" Pentatonix
2) "River" Bishop Briggs
3) "The Avengers" Alan Silvestri, from The Avengers
4) "Young and Menace" Fall Out Boy
​5) "Uncharted" The Piano Guys
6) "So Tied Up" Cold War Kids, feat. Bishop Briggs
7) "Centuries" Fall Out Boy
8) "Human" Rag'n'Bone Man

9) "Champion" Fall Out Boy
10) "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" Lorde
11) "Moonlight" The Piano Guys
12) "River Lea" Adele
13) "Conrad" SOHN
14) "Dangerous Woman" Ariana Grande
15) "Michael Meets Mozart" The Piano Guys
16) "The Fire" Bishop Briggs
17) "Wherever I Go" OneRepublic

Ever since I discovered I can wear skirts again (though it's still uncomfortable--it sets off my heartburn for some reason), I've been compiling a t-shirt wishlist. After all, I have to replace the shirts I got rid of while I was too sick to wear anything other than dresses. It's been super fun, so I wanted to share my finds with you! I doubt I'll end up getting all of these shirts, but I would be happy to wear any of them. Check it out!

A while back, I shared a list of my ten most-read authors. Since then, I've gone through and added all the books I can remember reading when I was younger to my Goodreads. Obviously there will still be many that I've forgotten, but my Goodreads now has a more accurate representation of my reading habits through the years. As such, I thought I'd share an updated list of the authors I've read the most books by.

1) Ann M. Martin. I've read 42 books by The Baby-Sitters Club's author, which is unsurprising. It was one of my favorite series as a kid/tween. Dawn was my favorite character from the original Baby-Sitters Club group, purely because she had blond hair down to her waist just like I wanted, but in the later groups I developed a much stronger liking for Mallory.

2) Ben M. Baglio. Around the same time, Baglio was the author of two other of my favorite series, Animal Ark and Dolphin Diaries. (Both are about young girls working to help save and protect animals.) As such, he comes in second with 34 books read.

3) Meg Cabot. This author of many books across various genres, specializing in light reads for women and girls, came in first in my old post. In my updated list, she's in third with 33 books read. As I said in that post, Avalon High might be my favorite book of hers, although it's hard to choose.

4) Erin Hunter. I've now read 28 books by the author team who created Warriors and a number of other MG animal-centric fantasy series.

Today, I'd like to do another On This Day in My History, where I go through my (copious) diaries and summarize what happened in my life on May 12th each year. Let's go!

May 12th, 2004, Ten Years Old
I made a list of books I wanted to read and wrote nothing else.

May 12th, 2005, Eleven Years Old
All I wrote was "Okay."

​No May 12th entry in 2006.

Hello, readers! Today I'm participating in the Ch1Con & Ch21Con 2018 Blog Tour, an annual tour in preparation for this year’s conferences, which brings original content from the Chapter One Events team to a number of fantastic, writing-related blogs. I'm going to be interviewing team member Katelyn Pettit, so stay tuned!