So I went on a long hiatus for a while before finally posting my review of the Jackbox Party Pack 5. Part of this can be blamed on the fact I had to finish a major dissertation for my Masters coursework (two picture books on serious and complex themes such as bullying and bereavement, plus a 7000 word reflective essay). But I have to be honest with myself, the summer holidays themselves played a huge role in it too, despite it supposedly being a time when you can relax (unless dissertations are involved, of course).
One of the earliest posts I made was why the winter season enhanced my mental health issues, with a small reference to the summer. Well, the summer season makes the winter season downright tame in comparison. At least I can cope with the cold temperatures that winter offers, as well as the fact that it comes off as rather peaceful at times when you're not stressing out about other things.
I could have posted this during the summer itself, but again, my mind was not in the right place at the time. Either way, here are a couple of points I'd like to make about the summer season itself.
Woeful Weather.
The weather is definitely the worst part. Most of the time, it's essentially hot weather that can turn into weeks of heatwaves. This also makes sleeping at night an absolute liability - I've had to toss off several layers just to cool down and it still wasn't enough at times. Oh well, at least 2020 was somewhat better than 2018 in that regard - that year, the heatwaves continued into early September.
Some people say that it's better in the summer than the winter because you simply turn on the air conditioning to sort it out. Well...I don't have that. To put it into perspective, the house I live in is a small one and my mum complains that air conditioning will just fan the heat all around the house. I don't share their sentiment, but that's the way our house has always been since then. Opening the windows sometimes makes it better, but then there's the risk of the outside being muggy and causing the rooms to get humid too.
And when it's not like that, you get the lightning storms outside. Thankfully, our house has not had a lightning-induced power cut in years, and there weren't as many this year, but there's still the fear that it may happen. This is despite the fact that I should be at least thankful for the fact that we're actually getting rain for once after the heatwaves.
Noisy Neighbours.
Two houses away from mine are a family with at least three kids. During the summer, they play outside more frequently, and it gets LOUD. This is another reason why I don't always keep the windows open. I could put on headphones to avoid having to hear them, but sometimes the audio on my laptop sounds less than stellar through them and my mental issues mean that I can be rather particular about what I want. Additionally, the kids sometimes get way too rowdy and it ends up with one of them crying as a result - mainly the youngest child.
Now I know some people will accuse me of being selfish for making this complaint, that these kids have a right to play outside. They do - but they don't have to be outright obnoxious about it with the screaming that makes me think that one of them got hurt. Besides, the neighbours who are part of the same semi-detached house as my family have children who play outside too and in a more responsible manner. They can get noisy at times too, but no screaming from them fortunately.
Anyway, that's my venting done. Thank goodness it's autumn now - the weather's a lot cooler and the neighbours will not be causing as much as a racket now. If anything, the fact that a pandemic was going on this year and limiting what people could go only served to remind me of the problems I just discussed. Somehow, it doesn't feel the same during the other seasons.
