BOOKS

Top 5 favourite audiobooks that I listened to for the first time in 2018 (I’m unable to read books due to my illness so I have to listen to them):

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell
I’d recommend this book to everyone. Technically it would be labelled as a book for older children but it’s such a good read. Immersive, brilliant and beautiful.
 

Taken on Trust by Terry Waite
I’m slightly cheating by including this one on the list because I first read some of it before I became ill. But I didn’t finish it back then and I’d forgotten a lot of it so listening to it afresh this year was a pleasure and of course it has much more significance to me now, given my situation. I think this book might now be in my top 10 books of all time.
 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Although Maya Angelou’s poem of the same name as this book has been my favourite poem since I was 10, I’d never actually read the book until this year. Gobbled it up.
 

The Lone City trilogy (The Jewel, The White Rose, The Black Key) by Amy Ewing
For most of my life I’ve always said that fantasy is my favourite book genre but in recent years I’ve struggled to find any new fantasy books that I don’t get bored with and so I often don’t finish the audiobook. Dystopian YA books have replaced fantasy as my favourite genre for many years now. This trilogy is the first time I’ve enjoyed the fantasy genre in a long while (although it does have dystopian elements too). It’s not high fantasy and it’s not exactly going to win any awards for literary merit but the trilogy was very enjoyable. I didn’t get bored once!
 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I & II Script
I’m only including this because I’d been waiting to read this for so long and, given that I’m a big Harry Potter fan, I was so frustrated that the play had been inaccessible to me because it isn’t available on audiobook. It still technically isn’t available but my older brother found a recording of it for me. I was so excited! I’d managed somehow to avoid all spoilers, so thank you to everyone who kept schtum. Stop reading now if you want to avoid any spoilers! So what did I think of it? At the end I was sort of left thinking “is that it?”. I was simultaneously both relieved and disappointed that nobody big died. When the original Harry Potter books were still coming out, part of the fun and anticipation/excited-dread was guessing which major character was going to die in the next book. I’m very relieved that Hermione wasn’t killed though (well, in the real timeline).
As a whole, the play was nowhere near as good, satisfying or well-plotted as a JKRowling-written Potter book but I guess it has to be seen in the theatre to appreciate it at its best for what it is.
I found Albus annoying. And Hermione would have been a far better Minister for Magic than what was depicted but I’m glad she was the Minister for Magic, like I always said she should be. She would never have hidden the time turner with such a simple riddle though; she’d have made it much harder. It’s a shame we didn’t get to know what had happened to more characters too (Hagrid, Luna, the rest of the Weasleys etc). I especially wanted to know how George was faring without Fred because, even though it’s fiction, I worry about him! I was pleased that Neville ended up a teacher at Hogwarts though as that’s what I always said thought he would be. I think that Hermione and Harry especially would have been at a much higher skill-level of magic than they were shown as in the play and most of their spells would have been nonverbal by that point, especially Hermione, but that wouldn’t have worked on stage, I guess. Overall, I found it fun but a bit insubstantial and anticlimactic. And I was more insterested in the old characters than their children. I might just stick with my head canon.

 
FILMS

Last year was such a bumper year for films that I really loved (see last year’s list of favourites here). In general, this year’s crop hasn’t been as great but here are my favourites out of them.

Best 10 films that I saw for the first time in 2018:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – this was my favourite film of the year

Black Panther [This comment is irrelevant to the film but it amuses me that the sign that they make with their arms crossed over their chest when they say ‘Wakanda Forever’ is the same sign that I use when I’m signalling to Mum that I’m locked in and unable to move my hands to signal/sign to her more and unable to point at letters on my alphabet card to spell words out. Very different meanings!]

Dumplin’

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi – after not liking The Force Awakens so much, it was great that this film was much better.

The Greatest Showman – I’ve still got the songs stuck in my head!

The Princess Switch – DON’T JUDGE ME. THIS FILM IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED.

Kubo and the Two Strings

Swimming with Men – charming little film. Worth it for the joyous, feel-good ending.

The Post
 
Honourable mentions:

Justice League, Home Again, I Feel Pretty, Incredibles 2, Paddington 2, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Skyscraper, A Quiet Place, Rip Tide, Ocean’s 8, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, The Baby Sitters Club, Avengers Infinity War

The most disappointing films that I saw for the first time in 2018:

Thor: Ragnarok
I loved the first two Thor films (Thor is my fave Avenger; well, him and the Cap) but this film almost felt like a spoof of a Thor film. It was way too meta and there wasn’t a good flow to the story; it felt bitty, fitful and cluttered, more similar in feel and humour to the Guardians of the Galaxy films, which I don’t enjoy quite as much as the other superhero films.
I was a bit thrown by Jane Foster, Erik and Darcy not being in the film. Without them, the film didn’t feel grounded and it felt disconnected from Earth. I also didn’t like the random, dismissive one line explanation of Jane’s absence (apparently she and Thor broke up), especially since Thor’s mother saw their love and died to save Jane’s life in the previous film.
The quick and offhand killing off of all Thor’s closest friends was weird. They deserved better. And where on earth was Sif? No explanation as to where she was.
Thor himself seemed to have had a personality transplant from the previous films, almost a completely different person. It was disorientating.
Potentially the idea of Hela could have been interesting but she turned out to be a rather one-dimensional villain.
Plus there seemed to be a case of ‘how many famous people can we get to cameo or star in our film’. I mean…Matt Damon…whaaa? It just got ridiculous. The Benedict Cumberbatch (as wonderful as he is) part felt superfluous too.
Genuinely would like to know the reasons why you all were raving about the film, other than ‘there were some funny lines’ and ‘Jeff Goldblum’.
I did enjoy the Thor-Loki interactions though. Their relationship was always at the heart of things. So I enjoyed those bits.
Overall, I’m glad I saw it but it just wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be, which is why it’s on this list. Disappointing. Why did you all like it so much?
 

Ready Player One
Terrible adaptation of an enjoyable book.
 

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
[SPOILER WARNING] This is only on this list because I was looking forward to it and it wasn’t what I was expecting or wanting at all. I was really disappointed with what they did to it. People watch Mamma Mia to cheer themselves up, not to be sad and depressed. I HATED that they killed off Donna. Why why WHY. It was too sad for what I was hoping to be a happy viewing experience that would lift my spirits. Was Meryl Streep just not available for most of the filming or something? Otherwise why WHY would they get rid of the main (and most charismatic) character (young Donna doesn’t count; it’s not the same). Realism is not something you’re looking for in a Mamma Mia film. Just give us happy endings for goodness sake!

The worst film that I saw in 2018:

20th Century Women

Films that I’m most looking forward to seeing in 2019:

The Crimes of Grindlewald
A Star is Born
Bohemian Rhapsody
Mary Poppins Returns
Aquaman
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Captain Marvel
Avengers Endgame
Toy Story 4
The Lego Movie 2
Aladdin
Isn’t it Romantic
What Men Want
The Lion King
Dark Phoenix
Shazam!
Dumbo
Wonder Woman 1984
Frozen 2
Star Wars Episode IX
Little Women

TELEVISION

Best of the TV that I saw for the first time in 2018:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Lost in Space (the new 2018 version)
Alexa & Katie
Brothers and Sisters
Scandal
Vanity Fair
The Circle

Best TV that I continued to watch new seasons of in 2018:

The Good Fight
Madam Secretary
Masterchef Australia
Elementary
Michael McIntyre’s Big Show
Hunted
Star Trek Discovery
Would I Lie To You
Richard Osman’s House of Games
The Graham Norton Show
Agents of SHIELD
Sense8
The Big Bang Theory
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
University Challenge
Home and Away
The Handmaid’s Tale

Most disappointing TV that I saw in 2018:
 

 
Doctor Who – apart from two exceptional episodes (‘Rosa’ and ‘Demons of the Punjab’), this series has been poor. ‘Kerblam!’ was fun but the rest of the episodes were pretty dire. It was the first time that I’d ever been bored watching Doctor Who. Sad times.
I was really looking forward to a female Doctor but I think she’s been let down a bit by the showrunner. I also don’t like that they’re treating her differently to male Doctors; she seems to spend a lot of the time, more so than previous doctors, not having a clue what’s going on. Plus she keeps saying things like “I’m not sure who I am myself yet” (during the period of getting to know a new Doctor, there will always be an element of this, but hers seems to have lasted longer than previous Doctors) and she seems to be taking a lot longer than male Doctors to get used to the new Tardis controls. This all rubs me up the wrong way and along with her character not seeming as clever as previous Doctors (they seem to have made Jodie more of an action hero than a cerebral, intellectually brilliant character), and not being as commanding/authoritative as previous Doctors, it all feels a bit sexist. But I’m hoping for the best as she has the potential to develop into a great Doctor once the writers find their feet with her…hopefully.

Best TV documentary of 2018:

Burma with Simon Reeve

 
SPORT

My favourite Sporting Events of 2018 that I thoroughly enjoyed:

The World Cup – what a World Cup it was! My favourite matches were probably England v Colombia, Spain v Portugal, France v Argentina, Belgium v Japan and England v Panama.

The Commonwealth Games

Gymnastics World Championships

VIDEOS

These are some short videos/clips that I’ve seen on Twitter this year that made me smile. I hope that they make you smile too.

I must be one of the few people to have never seen this before today. It is truly joyous. Watch with the sound up. pic.twitter.com/bAm06CRM8R

— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) November 29, 2018

When New Yorkers hear a violin 🤣🔥🎻 pic.twitter.com/HEjW3D3pge

— Junebug (@juneelite) August 4, 2018

 
https://twitter.com/kwilli1046/status/1055528063906267138
 

I’ve watched this about 10 times and have belly laughed every time. I now share it with you to do the same. 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/gEj0FaNTV7

— Thomas J (@TJ_Hewitt) December 17, 2018

 
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1020643243829030917
 

Faith in humanity = restored 🙏💞 pic.twitter.com/moWO4wIADG

— The Dodo (@dodo) November 25, 2018

I love this moment in Christoper Lee's This Is Your Life when it dawns on Lee that Vincent Price is there and this joyful "my god, they flew over the big man?" surprise dawns on his face. Price then proceeds to balance charm, sincerity and self-effacement perfectly as only he can pic.twitter.com/RussRV79mE

— Marty Punkhouser (@NoChorus) September 24, 2018

This otter teaching a human how to pet it gets me every time pic.twitter.com/wzC7hSAkJ2

— Dr. Anna Hughes 🍂 (@AnnaGHughes) November 27, 2018

“He loves me unconditionally, I count my blessings every day.”

The loving bond this man has with his dog helped take him off the streets – and even saved his life. pic.twitter.com/NyDRkiApKY

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 20, 2017

Top Tory Trolling from Andy Serkis 😂 pic.twitter.com/3jShDqyRjV

— Gerz (@GHNeale) December 9, 2018

 
https://twitter.com/harleivy/status/1073569172536393728
 

This made my day! https://t.co/lcNRMG4fSa

— Eddie Arthur (@kouya) January 5, 2018

This is just so very Cher! Both amazing & utterly bizarre! https://t.co/iCTSzg4Ba8

— Liz Clutterbuck (@LizClutterbuck) October 2, 2018

A first snowfall for Eritrean children new to Canada. #NewcomersWelcome #WelcomeToCanada #RefugeesWelcome #privatesponsorship #BVOR pic.twitter.com/XaWTDGAxfg

— Rebecca Davies (@RebsD) November 10, 2018

WATCH: Here's what a boy did when he was too starstruck to meet the Queen pic.twitter.com/Q5rFrX0BIp

— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) December 7, 2018

Physics is visually SATISFYING.

Ice––on a trampoline. pic.twitter.com/8XvVRaDyiH

— Josh Wolfe (@wolfejosh) December 13, 2018

 
https://twitter.com/lntolisa/status/1077395206654357504
 

Very Smart 😎 pic.twitter.com/6uUz81FTZq

— Capt.Harry (@Captgorowara) May 23, 2018

 
OTHER STUFF

It’s been the year of the fun t-shirt for me and it amuses me to wait and see if any doctors, nurses, ambulance crew or radiographers comment on them. Here are a few:

I got some more tops for Christmas that I look forward to wearing in the year to come:

Things I’m most proud of doing in 2018

* Doing the impossible every day. Somehow surviving with only 2 hours out of 24 hours with my head down on my pillow. FOR A WHOLE YEAR NOW. Working and working so hard that my whole body shakes with the exertion of holding my whole body in difficult and strained positions that very gradually return a bit of blood to my head and neck over 22 hours (if you’ve read my blog posts this year, you’ll know what I’m talking about), in order to stay alive and in order to get vaguely enough blood back to go down safely on the pillow for 2 hours of the day.

* The wonderful Tanya Marlow published some of my thoughts on God and suffering that she thought might be helpful to others and put them into an interview format on her blog. This meant a lot to me and made me feel like I was maybe helping some people too. You can find it here if you would like to read it: http://tanyamarlow.com/jenny-rowbory-suffering/

* I launched the ‘Five By Five’ challenge to raise money for M.E. research and vEDS. Thank you to everyone who participated. If you didn’t quite get around to making a video or said that you would do one and then forgot about it, there’s still time if you want to make me happy. The #FiveByFive challenge is this: video yourself declaring your top 5 favourite things in 5 different categories (books, films, TV shows, sports & songs). Share your video then donate here https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/fivebyfive to raise funds for vital medical research. Nominate 5 others to do it too. Here’s my video explaining the whole things and declaring my own favourites:

 
Happiest moment of 2018:
I SAW MY NEPHEWS YESTERDAY. Felix for the first time ever and Caspian for the first time since he was a baby. I can’t tell you how happy this made me. Destroyed but happy. I’ll hang on to those memories to keep me going.

 
Worst things of 2018:

Where to start? I’m not going to bore you by repeating myself; you can read about what I’ve been going through this year in my other blog posts. Every day I don’t know how to keep going and everything continues to deteriorate but I somehow have to find the strength to carry on. It’s getting harder.

* I lost count of the number of ambulance journeys this year; I think it’s probably thirty something trips. Just one ambulance trip would have made me deteriorate, let alone this amount. It’s been a gruelling process of finding out little bits of new information from different doctors/medical professionals with different specialities and trying to piece it all together myself because there’s nobody who has knowledge of all the different medical disciplines involved and nobody who has heard of this particular thing I’m experiencing. It’s been hard being this ill and still having to figure it all out by myself and trying to find solutions. Scans showed that the blood pathways in my head are much altered; the cervical veins have a very abnormally large circumference. Nobody can tell me why this is happening but they think it’s my body trying to compensate for something very wrong. We’re hoping that it’s all being caused by the atlas bone (at the top of your spine/base of your skull), which scans show is abnormally rotated upwards and to the left. The trouble is that everyone has different ideas about how to correct the atlas. There’s the horrific option of surgery, which in my condition is likely to be extremely dangerous, and nobody can tell me for sure whether it would definitely fix the problem with the blood flow, so I’m exhausting all other options first before I even consider it. In November I went to a special chiropractor for Atlas Orthogonal adjustment, which did move the atlas slightly (but didn’t correct it completely or make it straight) but it barely made any difference at all to getting blood back in my head, though it did stop the torticollis. I was told that it takes a while for blood pathways to change after the adjustment so I was still hopeful but the adjustment sadly hasn’t held (it clunked out of position in the early hours of Christmas morning when I twisted my head too far one way while I was working on my head in the extreme positions that I have to hold to bring even a small amount of blood back) but I don’t think it was making much difference anyway. When I continued to deteriorate and become physically weaker after the adjustment (because of the trip there and the exhaustion from a whole year of 22 hours a day of physical exertion of holding my head and neck in difficult positions and from not being able to lie flat like I need to be and not being able to touch my head and neck to anything, including my pillow), we decided to follow another lead. The chiropractor had shown me in my x-rays that my jaw was very misaligned and rotated and mentioned that it might be part of the problem because where the jaws go, the atlas follows. So when, as a teen, I had my four teeth extracted because of overcrowding of the teeth and a brace put in to close the holes up, the jaw was pushed into an unnatural position and not allowed to grow properly. I had the jaw-moving stuff done by an orthodontist while I was at university at around the time that I became ill. So the jaws might have moved he atlas out of alignment and the rest of the spine followed (I have mild scoliosis). If this was the case then this change in the spinal column and atlantoaxial misalignment and subluxation would have wrecked my neuroimmune system and left me unable to get rid of viruses (which is when I first became suddenly ill when I caught a nasty virus in the first term university). This theory is very appealing because it potentially means that I could maybe improve somewhat if I can somehow fix the jaws and if the atlas follows suit and corrects gradually by itself. So in December, way too soon after my week spent with the specialist chiropractor that made me deteriorate from having my body being moved by an ambulance to and fro plus other things, I travelled by ambulance to London again to a dentist/orthodontist who specialises in this jaw-atlas-spine connection theory. It was pretty disappointing because he said that I would feel some difference immediately when he put the brace in but so far nothing has happened and it’s been a few weeks of having the brace on. The brace has also moved my teeth/jaw so that not a single one of my teeth fit together anymore so when I take the brace out to eat, it’s very difficult and painful to chew. Also, when I take the brace out now, not long afterwards I start gasping for breath so I have to try to wolf down soft food quickly in order to put the brace back on as soon as possible. Maybe it has to get worse before it gets better? I don’t know. I have to go back to him in early January to see what’s going wrong, which, if it doesn’t help, will absolutely physically wreck me again. It might be trial and error. I really hope this theory is correct but I just don’t know.

* Moving house (another ambulance) early in the year.

* A pneumatic drill and roadworks outside our new house for weeks when we first got here so we had to move to temporary accommodation (more ambulances!) because the noise was agony and destroying me.

* More gaslighting, trauma, disbelief and abuse from doctors and nurses

* Hospital stays and all that they entail

* New scary diagnoses: AAI and CCI

 
BLOG

Blog posts that I’ve written in 2018:

You (yes, you) need to read what I have to say about the plastic straw ban

Let me tell you a bit about my parents…

The launch of my ‘Five by Five’ challenge and how I managed to do it

A Lot Has Happened

Update on October’s hospital visit and current health

How has your year been? I love hearing your news and how you are. What were your favourite and least favourite things (films, TV, books etc.) of 2018? Let me know.
 
[As an aside, please don’t contact me via Facebook Messenger; I don’t have Facebook Messenger and since about April, the normal facebook app no longer lets me see messages that were sent to me via messenger. So if you’ve sent me a private message since then, I haven’t seen it I’m afraid.]

<p>The post Best and Worst of 2018 first appeared on Jenny Rowbory.</p>

2017 was devastating for me both physically and emotionally but the following films, television, articles (and more) helped keep me going and provided glimpses of light, interest and joy (even though, like everything, they were tainted by acute physical suffering). I hope they will bring you happiness too. I added items to the list throughout the year in order to prevent me from destroying my hands even more by attempting to write the whole blog post at the end of the year.

 
FILMS

This has been a bumper year for incredible films that I’ve loved.

Best 10 films that I saw for the first time in 2017:

1. Hidden Figures
Amazing. This was my favourite film of the year. Loved it.
2. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
After the dull, bland and emotionless The Force Awakens, it was such a relief to experience the joy of Rogue One. This felt like proper Star Wars. Awesome characters that you could actually care about, an exciting plot and plenty of emotion!
3. Queen of Katwe
The story of a young girl living in the slums of Katwe who finds that she is brilliant at chess and where it takes her. Great film.
4. Moana
On first viewing, although I liked the film, I thought that the songs were a bit disappointing in that they weren’t very catchy and not up to the usual Disney standard. But on repeat viewings, the film grew on me and so did the songs. I love it a lot now. I get goosebumps in the bit where Moana sings to the “lava monster”:
‘They have stolen the heart from inside you
But this does not define you
This is not who you are
You know who you are’
5. Wonder Woman
6. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Really good. Plus, how could anyone not love Emma Watson?
7. The Good Lie
8. The Shack
Films never make me cry but this one did!
9. Arrival
I loved the language aspects to this.
10. Sully

Honourable mentions: Lion, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Zookeeper’s Wife, Unbroken, Wild, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Philomena, The LEGO Batman Movie, The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio, Doctor Strange, Sing, Gifted, Snowden, Trolls

The most disappointing films that I saw for the first time in 2017:

La La Land
Me Before You
Passengers
Pitch Perfect 2
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

Films that I’m most looking forward to seeing in 2018:

Thor: Ragnarok
Justice League
Avengers: Infinity War
Wonder
Ready Player One
Ocean’s 8
Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
The Greatest Showman
The Incredibles 2
Paddington 2
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Ant-Man and the Wasp
X-Men: New Mutants

 
Best 3 videos/talks I watched in 2017:

Video (12mins): this woman jumped from a train going to Auschwitz, leaving her unresponsive father behind. Decades later, she got a message from him:
www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/i-have-a-message-for-you

Talk: how language shapes our thinking about space, time, numbers, events, colours and gender:
www.youtube.com/language-shapes-thinking/

Talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime
www.ted.com/talks/how_childhood_trauma_affects_health

TELEVISION

Best of the TV that I saw for the first time in 2017:

Madam Secretary – I love this so much. If you miss The West Wing, you might enjoy this show too. Téa Leoni’s character is awesome.
Star Trek Discovery – what a treat to have new and exciting Trek. I’ve really enjoyed it.
The Good Place
The Good Fight
Salvation
The Handmaid’s Tale
Ascension
3%
Parenthood
How to Get Away with Murder
Richard Osman’s House of Games
Celebrity Hunted

Best TV that I continued to watch new seasons of in 2017:

Masterchef Australia – this has been a highlight of my year for many years now. It’s so different from any other Masterchef or cooking show; you’d have to watch it to understand what I mean. Pure joy and excitement.

Once Upon A Time – oh my goodness, THE MUSICAL EPISODE. It was a complete surprise to me but once the characters started to sing and I realised what was happening, I was bursting with delight and my eyes were wide with glee, trying to drink in and savour the joy of the moment. Loved it.

Game of Thrones – in the past I’ve been torn between loving and hating this show but this year it was spectacular. Season 7 was the best season by far.

University Challenge

Doctor Who

Would I Lie To You

The Graham Norton Show

Michael McIntyre’s Big Show – this makes me so happy. The ‘Send To All’ game and ‘The Midnight Game Show’ are my favourite bits.

Elementary

The Durrells

Sense8

Stranger Things 2 – Weirdly, I found the first season a bit slow and not all that great but I really enjoyed season 2.

The 100

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Big Bang Theory

Gogglebox

Home and Away

Have I Got News For You

Most disappointing TV that I saw for the first time in 2017, which didn’t live up to the hype:

Riverdale
Strike – The Cuckoo’s Calling
Strike – The Silkworm
Anne with an ‘e’ – I’m sorry that this fell short. Nothing can compare with the Megan Follows version of Anne of Green Gables, which is my favourite thing ever.

Best TV documentaries of 2017:
Turkey with Simon Reeve
Russia with Simon Reeve
Colombia with Simon Reeve

 
SPORT

My favourite Sporting Events of 2017 that I thoroughly enjoyed:
Swimming World Championships
Athletics World Championships
Gymnastics World Championships
Diving World Championships

 
YOUTUBE

Best 3 YouTube channels of 2017:

1. The Endless Adventure – A young American couple film their travels around the world, vlogging themselves trying different countries’ foods and experiencing their cultures. I particularly love the videos when they come to the UK; it’s fun to see their reactions to our food and culture.
2. PointlessBlogVlogs – vlog of Alfie Deyes
3. TheFineBros (FBE) and REACT – all age groups react to different things (foods, films, retro things, TV, songs etc.)

 
BLOG

Blog posts I’ve written in 2017 that I’m proud of:

Confronting my own internalised ableism:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2017/05/combatting-my-own-internalised-ableism/

The eternal dilemma of trying to Sort myself into a Hogwarts House:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2017/07/hogwartshousesorting/

Fictional male role models:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2017/07/fictional-male-role-models/

Cinema Memories:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2017/09/cinema-memories/”

When you beckon lightning and invite it in for tea:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2017/09/when-you-beckon-lightning-and-invite-it-in-for-tea/

The Best 25 Romcoms and How I Came To Love The Genre:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2017/10/romcoms/

BOOKS

Best audiobooks that I listened to in 2017 (I’m unable to read books due to my illness so I have to listen to them):

My brain has really struggled with audiobooks this year. Plus I can’t seem to find any that I like enough to finish listening to. However, I’m doing a reread (via audiobook) of His Dark Materials in order to refresh my teenage memory of them before listening to The Book of Dust. It’s been wonderful to rediscover the delights of Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife; I got through them quite quickly. I’m having less joy with The Amber Spyglass at the moment and it’s taking me ages to wade through it.

The most interesting articles that I read this year (well, the ones that I remembered to bookmark at least) – I hope that you’ll find some articles here that are of interest to you too:

January:

The Data That Turned the World Upside Down – Psychologist Michal Kosinski developed a method to analyze people in minute detail based on their Facebook activity. Did a similar tool help propel Donald Trump to victory? Two reporters from Zurich-based Das Magazin went data-gathering.​

I wore men’s clothes for a month – and it changed my life

Trump’s biographers talk

How the world’s languages name the rainbow

The new gender prison

February:

From sea to plate: how plastic got into our fish

When It’s Too Late to Stop Fascism, According to Stefan Zweig

Against Normalization: The Lesson of the “Munich Post”

Tom Hiddleston on Taylor Swift, Heartbreak, and Great Bolognese

Sex, Gender, and the New Essentialism

The continuing conflict of married women’s names

It’s about 50 degrees warmer than normal near the North Pole, yet again

March:

Climate change: global reshuffle of wildlife will have huge impacts on humanity

Diseases of the Will: Neuroscience Founding Father Santiago Ramón y Cajal on the Six Psychological Flaws That Keep the Talented from Achieving Greatness

April:

What bullets do to bodies

Receding glacier causes immense Canadian river to vanish in four days

In the Oppression Olympics, women always lose

Sexism in Medicine: women are dying because doctors treat us like men

May:

The big melt: Glacier National Park is losing its glaciers

Don’t Ever Bring Me Red Velvet Cake: the “flavor” red velvet and why it’s trash

Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds flooded after permafrost melts

July:

When will climate change make the Earth uninhabitable for humans?

Something Strange in Usain Bolt’s Stride

A mission to the Pacific plastic patch

If ‘white feminism’ is a thing, gender identity ideology epitomizes it

Freed From ISIS, Yazidi Women Return in ‘Severe Shock’

August:

Robert Webb: ‘I was never very good at being a boy’

‘There are hundreds of sick crew’: is toxic air on planes making frequent flyers ill?

September:

The Week My Husband Left And My House Was Burgled I Secured A Grant To Begin The Project That Became BRCA1

Wonder Woman: Let’s Talk About That No Man’s Land Scene

Brilliant, irreverent, indefinable: my poetry class with John Ashbery

October

‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

Glorifying Selflessness In Women Is A Way To Make Us Do All The Work

November

Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies

INTO THE VORTEX: Storm Chasers, megacomputers and the quest to understand superstorms

How the Zombie Fungus Takes Over Ants’ Bodies to Control Their Minds: The infamous parasite’s methods are more complex and more sinister than anyone suspected

When Women’s Rights Are #NotADebate

December:

I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor

Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?

Mimi O’Donnell Reflects on the Loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman and the Devastation of Addiction

Harvey Weinstein is my Monster Too

Why the sexual harassment allegations you read about are the tiny tip of a huge iceberg

‘The difficulty is the point’: teaching spoon-fed students how to really read

 
PERSONAL

Best surprises of 2017:

• For Christmas, my older brother made me a game that I can play on a mobile device. A whole game! I get to be Prime Minister and make choices and decisions that affect the narrative and whether I’ll get elected again. It’s illness-friendly in that I can just play for a few minutes at a time with my thumb, save the game and then carry on playing another day for a few minutes. He spent months making it all up and doing the coding. Wow.

• Dad recorded more of his life story for me to listen to. I love this and find it fascinating.

• The wonderful Tanya Marlow dedicated her new book ‘Those Who Wait’ to me:

Worst things of 2017:

• Further physical deterioration and increased level of severity of symptoms and pain. Being close to death all the time. Every bodily system seems to be failing even more. It’s hard to make it through. I work so hard to stay alive.

• Traumatic and lengthy legal proceedings with cruel delays. Rage, grief and heartbreak that the legal system let a particular paedophile get away with only a couple of months in jail for horrific crimes that caused lifelong destruction, damage and trauma to people. Old, wealthy, white men can get away with anything. Abusers are adept at minimising their crimes, at never truly realising or acknowledging the devastating continuing effects, impact and damage that their crimes have done to someone, at switching the narrative around so that people feel sympathy for them, at playing the victim, at appearing penitent, at absolving themselves for their crimes because they think that God has forgiven them, at manipulating people, and at feeling so sorry for themselves that they feel like a minuscule punishment is enough. A lifetime in prison wouldn’t have been enough. There was no justice.

• A head injury in May that has led to permanent damage, numbness and reduced circulation to the head. If the surface of my head is touching anything, more blood gets cut off and it becomes more numb. A constant feeling that I’m about to pass out. This also means that I can no longer use my ear defenders, which has been a nightmare because sound is agony for me. It has been especially problematic because a bypass has been being built right by us this year.

• I’m always too ill to have anyone come into my room apart from my parents bringing me food and water and emptying the commode. At Christmas though, I usually have my brothers, little nephew and sister-in-law come into my room for a few minutes, even though I have months of consequences, and that’s the only time I see them all year. This Christmas though I wasn’t able to have them come in my room at all. I’m just too ill. I’m very sad; I miss them so much. I didn’t even see Mum over the three main days of Christmas because she was laid low flat on her back in agony (due to her bad back suddenly going). She couldn’t even speak or move an arm or leg or pick up her phone due to being in so much pain. Dad was doing double shifts in both looking after me and rushing back and forth to where my brothers were staying nearby for Christmas. My parents are sad that they didn’t get to see their sons and grandson as much as they wanted and had looked forward to for so long. Their lives are especially tough because they see their daughter (me) suffering so badly every day and they’re exhausted from working so hard to care for me so well and so selflessly. They’ve given everything up for me and are worried out of their minds about me. I just wanted them to be able to have a nice time over Christmas to see my brothers. But we never seem to catch a break!

 
How has your year been? What were your favourite and least favourite things (films, TV, books etc.) of 2017? Let me know.
 

<p>The post Best and Worst of 2017: my year first appeared on Jenny Rowbory.</p>

Best 3 audiobooks that I listened to in 2016 (I’m unable to read books due to my illness so I have to listen to them):

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

 
FILMS

Best 10 films that I saw for the first time in 2016:

Selma
Akeelah and the Bee
Star Trek Beyond
Finding Dory*
Zootropolis
The Man Who Knew Infinity
Eddie the Eagle
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
Captain America: Civil War
The Big Short

*I have never cried during a film in my whole life but with Finding Dory, for the first time ever, I shed two, maybe even three, teardrops. I wonder if you can guess in which scene?

The most disappointing films that I saw for the first time in 2016:

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens**
Midnight Special
Bridesmaids
Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie

**As someone who loved the first six Star Wars films – yes, even the prequels – I was shocked to find that I didn’t enjoy this; it was really bad. Not only did I get bored during the film, I found the new characters bland and it was hard to care about what happened to them. I hated how the old characters’ lives had played out; it wasn’t right. I’ll stick to what I always imagined had happened to the characters in my head and my imagined version of events – much better.

Worst films that I saw for the first time in 2016:

Deadpool [awful – I hated this]
The Wolf of Wall Street [ditto]
A Single Man [slow and boring]

Films that weren’t as bad as everybody said they were and I actually quite enjoyed:

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (extended cut)
Independence Day: Resurgence
Ghostbusters (2016)

Films that I’m most looking forward to seeing in 2017:

Moana
Queen of Katwe
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Beauty and the Beast (new Emma Watson version)
Doctor Strange
Lion
The Circle
The Shack
Thor: Ragnarok
Power Rangers
Arrival
Sully

 
TELEVISION

Best of the TV that I saw for the first time in 2016:

The Good Wife
Falling Skies
The Durrells

Best TV that I continued to watch new seasons of in 2016:

Masterchef Australia
University Challenge
The Graham Norton Show
Would I Lie to You
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Game of Thrones
Elementary
Castle
The Big Bang Theory
The 100
Gogglebox
Michael McIntyre’s Big Show
Home and Away
Only Connect

Most disappointing TV that I saw for the first time in 2016, which didn’t live up to the hype:

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life***
Luther
Stranger Things
True Detective

***Gilmore Girls is my second favourite TV show of all time (Chuck is my first) so I was really looking forward to ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’ and was very excited. But I hated it, I’m afraid. I hated what they did to just about every single character and how their stories played out, especially what they did to Rory. Again, I’m sticking to what I always imagined happened to the characters in my head; my version of events is way better, if I do say so myself. There were a few good moments of ‘oh look! It’s that person! Nice to see them again after all this time.’ But otherwise it was all rather depressing, which the original seven seasons never were. The tone of the new episodes was just all wrong.

 
SPORT

Best Sporting Events of 2016:

1. The Olympics – see my take on my favourite parts here
2. Euro 2016

 
YOUTUBE

My 3 most-watched YouTube channels of 2016:

1. books and pieces – a booktuber with a particular focus on sci-fi and fantasy
2. PointlessBlogVlogs – vlog of Alfie Deyes
3. The Late Late Show with James Corden

 
BLOG

Best things that I’ve written in 2016 (allow me this self-indulgence):

My favourite fictional female characters:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2016/07/my-favourite-fictional-female-characters/

All the things that you never wanted to know about my life with an acute chronic illness:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2016/05/all-the-things-that-you-never-wanted-to-know-about-my-life-with-an-acute-chronic-illness/

My 100 question ditloid quiz in aid of M.E. Research UK and Annabelle’s Challenge:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2016/12/100-question-quiz/
– at the time of this blog post, there are just under two and a half days left to enter the quiz. Remember to get your answers in and donate! I’m really hoping that there will be a late surge in entries so that I can reach my fundraising target.

Words that help me:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2016/06/words-that-help-me/

All the television that I have ever seen:
https://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/2016/10/television/

 
PERSONAL

Best surprise of 2016:

For my 30th birthday, my Dad secretly travelled all over the UK to film at and tell anecdotes at significant places in my life, from where I was born to many of the different places where we’ve lived, as well as filming little bits with my brothers and a couple of other relatives. On my birthday, I was presented with the DVD of this. I couldn’t believe that he’d done all that for me. I felt very loved and special. It was really emotional. Wonderful to see all the places that I hadn’t seen in such a long time and all the memories that came along with that.

Biggest disappointment of 2016 (excluding health-related stuff obviously, which is too horrific to mention):

Due to the combination of (a) being bed-bound and (b) not being able to read books, I obviously haven’t been able to see/read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. As a massive Harry Potter fan, this is upsetting and I’m desperate to know what happens. I hope that either a DVD of the play will be released or that an audiobook will be made. No spoilers until then please! (Although, I think that I may have accidentally seen a spoiler on twitter, which is devastating for me, but I’m not sure.)

 
What were your favourite and least favourite things of 2016?
 

<p>The post Best and worst of 2016 first appeared on Jenny Rowbory.</p>

• SWIMMING

I’ve loved the swimming commentators Andy Jameson and Adrian Moorhouse for ages but they really outdid themselves this Olympics. Of course they’re very knowledgable and they commentate the races excellently but what makes them special is their friendship, which means that their chat (while waiting for races to start) is very entertaining and amusing. They make each other chuckle and I love the general silliness. Their enjoyment of just being present at the swimming is infectious and brings me a lot of joy.

There was also a moment where the camera panned to Matthew McConaughey sitting in the stands and at first they didn’t know who he was. After a while, one of them remembered and said “he’s that actor. The one in Dallas…Dallas something…Dallas Cowboys Club…something like that”. That made me laugh.

So what were my favourite swimming moments?

Adam Peaty, Team GB’s only gold medal in the pool, is an obvious contender. He is always electrifying to watch. There were some great silvers too from Team GB.

Katie Ledecky, of the USA, was on a whole other level to the other swimmers: magnificent dominance.

I always love watching Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. As a fan of swimming, I’ve followed their progress for a very long time. It was really emotional watching them swim for what might have been their last time (well, at the Olympics anyway). I’m glad that they got gold in the relay together. I’m sad that their era is over. Though Phelps might hold on until the World Championships.

Another favourite moment was watching the 35-year-old Anthony Ervin (USA) win gold in the 50m freestyle, consequently followed by one of the funniest moments of the Games when he punched the water in celebration and nearly (accidentally) clobbered Florent Manaudou in the process. Manaudou’s face, having just come second to Ervin, was priceless. Also, it’s always nice when someone older than me wins gold. Last Olympics I was 26 and lots of athletes were the same age as me. This time round, I’m 30 and it’s really weird knowing that most of the competitors are younger than me. It doesn’t feel real.

Another wonderful moment was when Phelps, Le Clos and Cseh all got joint silver in the 100m butterfly. I enjoyed the medal ceremony and seeing those three rivals hold hands and step up to the silver podium together; watching their faces was very funny, especially after all that brouhaha between Phelps and Le Clos.

I also love that the commentators always mention Alexander Dale Oen (the talented Norwegian swimmer who died of a heart attack) at some point in the proceedings. I like that he is remembered.

• GYMNASTICS

I adore watching gymnastics. It is spectacular and breathtaking. This Olympics, it had the added advantage of mostly being on at a reasonable time in our time zone so I got to watch a lot of it live instead of catching up on iPlayer the next day (which I had to do with the swimming and athletics).

My highlight was Max Whitlock. The bronze in the individual All-Around final was great but getting to watch his two golds on the Floor and Pommel Horse live were my very favourite moments in the whole Olympics. They were so unexpected and the wait was so tense. Those golds were what I needed when I was having some really bad days.

Nile Wilson’s bronze on the High Bar was a joyful surprise too. The same with Amy Tinkler’s bronze on the Floor.

Of course, we can’t go without mentioning Simone Biles. She was supreme. A privilege to watch.

Christine Still and Matt Baker’s commentary was a pleasure to listen to, as always.

• DIVING

I was sad that I missed watching our gold medal in the synchro 3m springboard final. It was exciting to subsequently watch Jack Laugher get a silver in the individual 3m springboard though. I also got to watch the 10m synchro diving; I was happy with the bronze but I had hoped for more. Then, of course, Tom Daley didn’t get into the final for his individual event, which shocked everyone. I was disappointed because I didn’t watch the semi-final in order to save my strength for watching the final but that never happened.

Leon Taylor was a fun and informative commentator as usual. And then there was the whole green water saga too.

• TRACK CYCLING

Cycling is a sport that I don’t find interesting enough to watch the heats. I won’t even watch the semi-finals if there’s no British interest in there. I find it immensely exhilarating and intense to watch the medal races though. I won’t mention all our gold medals (there were many); I’ll just include my four favourite bits:

– I loved the funny face that Bradley Wiggins pulled on the medal podium during the national anthem. That made me smile.
– The Men’s Keirin final. Wow. Drama drama drama. I love drama. It had to be restarted twice and the first time was a long, anxious wait for us Brits while we worried that Jason Kenny would be disqualified. It all turned out okay though, resulting in a satisfying and historic gold for Jason Kenny.
– Laura Trott. No explanation required.
– Kristina Vogel of Germany. Part of her saddle broke clean off by her powering to victory. Sad for Team GB to get silver but what a moment.

• ROWING

Lots of golds. I love when we get gold. I didn’t watch the heats or semi-finals but I did watch the finals that Brits were in. Tense and exciting.

• ATHLETICS

Athletics, along with swimming, is usually my favourite sport to watch. The athletics this Olympics was all rather sad for me though because it happened in the early hours of the morning. I went to catch up on iPlayer but it was spoilt because before I could press play, the still display picture of the video had the winner emblazoned on it and there would be a big caption saying the main headlines/results. I tried squinting my eyes so I couldn’t see these things before I pressed play but to no avail. It just wasn’t the same watching the races, already knowing who was going to win. All the thrill was taken out of it. So I didn’t watch as much athletics as I usually would have.

Still, Usain Bolt was super-duper and I enjoyed seeing Asafa Powell in the relay. The 400m world record was astonishing too but Mo Farah’s two golds were the highlight for me. The double double. I was desperately disappointed for Jessica Ennis though, narrowly missing out on the heptathlon gold.

• HOCKEY

I usually don’t watch hockey at all, even though I used to love playing it for my school and for a women’s team before I became ill. However, since Team GB were in the final and it was on at a reasonable time, I watched. I’m so glad. GOLD. Fantastic.

I’m sad that it’s all over now but it did bring me a lot of happiness. Thank you, Rio 2016.
What were your favourite moments?

I’ll just leave a screenshot of the medal table here:

<p>The post What was my experience of the Rio Olympics? first appeared on Jenny Rowbory.</p>