Wednesday, June 12th, 2030 09:22 pm
The Mass Observation Project (MOP) is a unique UK-based writing project which has been running since 1981, and before that from the 1930s to the 1950s. Every year on 12th May, people not part of the project are asked to contribute a diary of their day to incorporate into the records.

I did that this year, along with a number of other people, and it was so interesting to see what everyone else did, thought I would try my own "mini" version of the Mass Observation Project, and post a monthly "Day in my life" post on the 12th of each month. Other LJers wanted to join in, and on 12th June 2013 a number of us posted our diary entries. But they were all in individual journals, and what was needed was to have them all in one place... and so this Community was born.

It is open to anyone, anywhere in the world, as long as they have an LJ and want to join in.

Membership is moderated, but posts aren't. If you would like to join, please send a message to the community

The rules are very basic:

1. A diary entry is kept for the 12th day of each month, either typed directly onto the pc or written down in a notebook and typed up and posted later.
2. Posts can be any length, but if you need to scroll down more than once, please put some of it behind a cut!
3. Pictures can be included, but please keep them to a reasonable size, and again, if more than one, behind a cut.
4. Each post should be tagged with your LJ name, the year and the month. i.e. hobbituk, 2013, June.

At the moment, the community is set up to be members only able to post and read, but this may change over time dependant on what the community members want to do. There may be polls...!
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Monday, October 6th, 2025 02:38 pm
First, when I was pulling up my panties my thumbnail got stuck somehow on the cotton and ended up half ripped off - ouch! - in what is both the dumbest and most painful injury ever. Then the next day I managed to slip on some clothing on the floor and fall flat down on my face. Fortunately, I landed on my laundry, but still, I can take a hint. My own laundry wants me dead.

(I mentioned this to Jenn and she suggested that if I was wearing my panties they weren't laundry but simply clothing, but this obviously arrant nonsense. They weren't on my body yet, they were just halfway up my thighs, so they were still at least liminally laundry, caught in that weird spot of paradox in between Schrodinger's cat and Xeno's arrow. Also, the salient feature is that they were trying to kill me, not what arbitrary category they fall into while they do so!)

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Thursday, October 9th, 2025 03:18 pm
These questions were originally suggested by [livejournal.com profile] angelicid.

Name five…

1. ... things you can't live without.

2. ... of the best moments in your life.

3. ... celebrities you can't stand.

4. ... books you enjoy(ed) reading.

5. ... items in your purse/backpack/on your desk.

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!
Wednesday, October 8th, 2025 09:57 am
Yesterday I went to the National Gallery in London to see their exhibition Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists.  Georges Seurat began a whole movement of painting by using small dots to create paintings back in the early 1880s. This style became known as Pointillism, and the movement was named Neo-Impressionism. It was considered radical and different at the time, and many other artists began to copy the style, including Van Gogh, Paul Signac, Anna Boch, Jan Toorop and Henri-Edmond Cross.

The National Gallery has brought together paintings collected by Helene Kröller-Müller (with a few collected by others), who founded the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands. As one of the foremost women art patrons of the 20th century, her collection of Neo-Impressionism is one of the most extensive in the world.  Under the cut are many photos from the exhibition because this style fascinates me, and has been a huge influence on modern art today.

Teaser - one of my favourite paintings (usually displayed in the National Gallery as part of their permanent collection). Théo van Rysselberghe's Coastal Scene (1892) reminds me so much of living on the coast in Bergen, Norway, although this is likely painted in the Mediterranean.
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An interesting art movement and some lovely examples. The exhibition is on until February 2026.
Saturday, October 4th, 2025 03:33 pm
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.


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Thursday, October 2nd, 2025 09:32 am
And every once in a while I end up there during the morning rush, which I try to avoid, and find somebody else bitching about how they "always" mess up their order and "always" take forever.

This is true, by the way - or, maybe not literally always true, but frequently true - but all the same, every time I hear the incessant whining I want to turn around and say "You knew what it was like when you placed your order!"

It's not like they're the only place to get coffee and a breakfast sandwich that's not your own home. There are three corner stores, every once of which will be happy, or at least willing, to make your standing order every day or week or however often you like. There's McDonald's right there, there's Wendy's right there, there's a Dunkin Donuts on the boat and another one just down Bay a bit, if you drive. Or, as I said, you can go home and make your own coffee for faster and cheaper, but you didn't do that, so you can't really complain that you're getting exactly what you obviously expected!

(It is my lack of whining, I think, that always gets me out of there a smidge faster. Should they be more efficient? Should they make fewer mistakes? Should I be able to order a muffin without fear that it'll be a bit raw in the middle? Yes to all three, and I've stopped ordering muffins! But they're close and I don't have to cook it myself, and I imagine that's why everybody else is there, so whatever.)

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Friday, October 3rd, 2025 01:41 am
These questions were originally suggested by [livejournal.com profile] ardnaid.

1. Do you ever wonder if the way you see things visually aren't how other people see them?

2. What kind of sounds are the most annoying?

3. When walking through a store, do you shop with your hands by touching/feeling the texture of things?

4. If you could only smell three scents for the rest of your life, what would they be?

5. What sorts of things do you savor when eating them?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**
Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 04:13 pm
Honestly, my worst thoughts about what was going to happen in that meeting of the generals were both so much more terrible and so much less terrible than what actually went on.

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Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 12:46 am
Finished this month

Write 300k words in 2025
Read 12 new fiction titles 2025
Read 12 new nonfiction titles 2025


Progress This Month


Exercise every day in 2025
Weight lift every day of 2025
Brush teeth 360 times in 2025
Shower weekly 2025
Go to fighter practice 12 times in 2025
Art Every Day 2025
Paint 12 times in 2025
Write in Spanish every day of 2025
Write in Russian every week of 2025
Finish my memoirs
Write weekly 2025
Work through a book of writing exercises
Read 2 pages of Spanish every day 2025
Clean 2 minutes per weekday 2025
Clean 10 minutes per week 2025
Cook 12 times 2025
Watch a video in Spanish every week 2025
Watch a video in Russian every week 2025
Read 3 science textbooks
Read 3 social science textbooks
Read 3 history textbooks
Work through 3 math textbooks
Go to temple 12 times in 2025
Monday, September 29th, 2025 09:52 am
First, is my cat not the most beautiful cat you've seen in the past few minutes?

Cut for size )

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Sunday, September 28th, 2025 05:52 pm
and now Callie is angry at me.

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Friday, September 26th, 2025 08:48 pm
but it was a set of two regular palmsized scrubbie brushes for dishes. Which was disappointing, but E made the amazing discovery that they are really fun to smash together, bristle to bristle, so that's all right.

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