This is why when I start a project, I set very specific goalposts for myself. I know ahead of time that I might hate it at some point, so once I reach those goalposts, I stop.
I can avoid the potentially-endless tweaking and adjusting if I know I’ve already arrived at the point where past-me would have been perfectly-happy with. I just follow past-me’s outline to the letter, and innovate only when absolutely necessary.
@rovarsson was really kind to me last night. It’s not the first time he has been- I am still delighted by the silly little kitty picture he sent over to me once, but it’s something I think is worth acknowledging. Thanks for being you, and for extending compassion spontaneously. It really means a lot!
In similarly lighter news, my brother surprisingly made dinner for me. We sat and chatted for a bit about nothing aimlessly, as siblings do- (we both can spiral off into tangents for hours together, recently we’d spoken about tissue matrixes and I explained to him an overview on Hox genes) and then he plodded off to the basement suite to play video games (I can hear him from the balcony upstairs sometimes at night laughing uproariously and being a menace.) I’m still sipping coffee and pondering making an iced coffee for myself after, since I chilled some in the fridge last night.
My mother and I went for a walk in the rain today. She suffers from dementia and the only thing that really seems to get through to her anymore is music.
So we walked around the puddles singing “I’m singing in the rain” with little hoppity dancing steps and laughed.
This is oddly relatable, and kind of reminded me of how I’d been frustrated and tired with some of Sweetpea’s writing, exasperatedly resigning myself to there being fluff and filler lines that were okay, but nothing I was particularly proud of- only to be startled by Mike picking out one of the fluffy filler lines as one he really liked in his lovely review of the game. That took me aback.
I have a really bad case of imposter syndrome. I grew up as one of those obnoxious little gifted kids- (the usual prattling about skipping grades- they pushed for me to go from junior kindergarten to third or fourth grade, and in middle school, wanted to enrol me in university courses: my biological parents refused, and unfortunately the whole brilliant little crumb of a child in the language department meant I never got help for my math related learning disability, because everyone assumed I was simply not trying hard enough/being lazy, I ended up brute forcing my way all the way to eleventh grade in hysterics about something that quite literally wasn’t a lack of effort- ‘twice exceptional’ is a bastard of a label) and because of that, never felt like any praise I got was genuine.
I have boxes and boxes of certificates for highest achieving student in the language arts, won scholarships and awards in relation to it, have a silly little trophy even- and this was across multiple school districts, though my skeptical little mind always figured favouritism could still sneak in if I stayed in a school district too long. I always felt like teachers and even professors often pushed the ‘you should look into publishing, seriously’ angle in hopes of getting a cool story to share with their peers or a dedication or something- not because they saw anything of genuine note.
Sure, I reasoned- they might think I was good, but what did they know? They were used to my peers, and their quality of work. I craved recognition by an authority I could respect. I expected to fall off hard in university- everyone knows that there’s kids who got labelled gifted for reading who weren’t actually all that- they just learned to read early. But university didn’t challenge me either- and I was similarly disillusioned by brilliant professors who made me feel like I’d come to life in debate back and forth in class- but when grading time came, I looked around and I felt like: well, it’s because they’ve been marking God awful undergraduate essays for years. I can pen a halfway decent essay, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at writing.
I got a 98 in a course- but what did that matter, when back in highschool I’d felt more or less like it was just as much a breeze? I can still remember the spiteful ‘98? Where’s the other 2%? What did you fuck up? Where did you get lazy? You think you’re so unique, what for? What have you done? You’ve contributed nothing to society. The only thing you’re supposed to be good at is school, and you fuck even that up! You can’t do a single thing right! Why are you asking for praise for something you should already be doing? Do you think you’re fucking special? That you’re doing anything extraordinary? Any dog can perform tricks when taught. Don’t get full of yourself,’ and so on, when I’d happily showed my biological parents a 98 overall course mark in Language Arts in highschool. So it felt just as empty, just another expected check mark and dead eyed gaze as I filed away another certificate and beaming teacher’s note praising me.
I’d hoped university would fix the feeling. Peer workshops didn’t either, nor did dedicated craft groups. Weirdly, it wasn’t until I hopped onto the forums here, and got a whole bunch of reviews- from really smart people who had no reason to be kind to me, who had amazing taste and extensive backlogs of reviews: who had known enough to know what they liked and discern what was actually good- that I felt reassured that hey, maybe I’m okay at this writing thing after all. It was really cathartic, and I’m still in awe of some of the company we keep on the forums. Super cool place full of super cool people.
Neutral things of the past few days…I hit a depression snag, framing it as neutral to hopefully let myself be a bit more forgiving than usual in regards to this sort of thing happening. I ended up only going for two days of the training outta the week, and now I’m at a loss cause it’s really not what I expected it to be. It’s basically a 7 hours a day 5 days a week job, with the occasional class. I came here to get tips and advice on where to look for jobs and get skills in order to be able to apply for the jobs. I polished copper wire for two days, which I suppose getting your trainees used to a full schedule and labor is good, but I don’t really need that. I can adjust to full time labor no issue. It’s not hard, it’s just really draining. I want to get more skills and figure out where I can apply for jobs and what to say to make myself look good for them!
Positive thing, my girlfriend’s gift arrived! They like knowing about their gifts ahead of time cause their love language is recieving and giving gifts, so I happily told them about it. It’s a blush pink build a bear we named Orchid. She told me I have to snuggle her every night and give her kisses so she’s packed full of love before she gets to her. Not to mention, we called and while it was more so me listening to their beautiful voice, I really did feel a lot better. Just that small amount of verbal communication set to ease a lot of horrible doubts and thoughts that sprung up from my newest depression rut. I can’t wait to see this build a bear compared to them. They usually only get small stuffed animals cause they like beanie babies and the like, and build a bears are like big and meant for years and years of cuddling, so I’m really excited to see how much space it takes up in their arms.
I’m also finally doing some clean up around my room! It’s a bit messy and I needed to get everything sorted out badly to try and ring myself free of some of the fatigue hooks in me. All in all, today has been pretty slow but after the call from my partner last night and being able to clean up a little, it’s shaping up to an okay day!
I knocked off a first-month goal from What are your New Year's Resolutions? - #20 by aschultz, and it’s only the 14th.
I think just the act of posting the resolution helped me buckle down the last few days. It’s nice to be ahead of schedule for once.
Now get cracking on those 4000 IFDB points.
Chouchou’s summary video came out today and I’m so happy! He did fantastic, and he’s all healed up well and he can finally experience the delight of yummy little cat treats and food all on his own! We’ve been rooting for the little guy for months and months. He was the cutest little fluffball of a baby kitten, and now he’s all grown up! This channel is one of my favourites, I’ve watched like, all of her videos. She fosters rescue kittens, especially special needs little meowmeows.
After giving them about 8 years to age, I have finally listened back to some old albums I did, and have allowed myself to recognize that I did a good job on them.
I successfully updated my computer from Linux Mint 19 to 21.
So I realize this is probably the worst kind of white personal cultural/culinary appropriation, but my mom found a recipe for gochujang cookies (if you’re not familiar, it’s an incredibly delicious Korean spice paste) and baked some while she’s been here visiting me - they are amazing, spicy and sweet and like nothing I’ve ever eaten before.
Got downtown safe! Lots of boring driving, but the traffic wasn’t too bad for a Sunday, and plenty of terrible throwback 90s and 00s R&B and top hits country on the radio to tide me over. Tomorrow begins a new semester… Hopefully I can sleep at a reasonable hour tonight.
Also, I’ve pretty much confirmed my onion… sensitivity? Allergy? All I know is I ate it, was in pain and felt awful, and then vomited profusely in the morning before feeling better. It’s something that’s gotten progressively worse over the last few years, and only like a match stick worth of raw white onion did me in, so I guess no more of those for me! Cooked ones that’ve been absolutely destroyed I can tolerate, but sadface, no more cronch in burgers.
I just heard on the radio that the worst of the rain is over with, and that there will be a dry spell starting Thursday.
Of course, California does need rain, but we’ve gotten so much in a short period of time that there’s been a lot of flooding and landslides. So hopefully we have more measured rainfall in the future.
For me, I’m just happy to be able to take a walk without getting wet!
Me and my friend Isi hung out before he dropped me off for class- it lined up nicely with when he had to go on the subway to go back to the airport again. He had lunch (since he slept through the airplane snacks, so sad) and we chatted about how life’s been, his plans for school/possibly moving back to the country after a year and a half more to finish up his Master’s, and we went on a very convoluted route to find a nice quiet place to sit that I had no idea existed because it was overshadowed by the much larger mall across the street since I was nervous about being in the big mall that’d had a shooting when I was in the foodcourt last time I had ambled down there. Lots of fun! And I got TWO hugs. 
I wish Jade could have tagged along, but it was fun nonetheless!
Thank GOD for having noise cancelling earbuds. They’re sorely needed even with the smaller course sizes of the upper year courses- it’s like physically painful and incredibly agitating to deal with the uproar of chatter that happens during the height of the hour class breaks or before the professor begins- like having dental work done without any numbing (which is an experience I’ve had, funny enough! I’d rather subject myself to that again than listen to ambient noise like that without some sort of muffling- even if it’s just popping in the earbuds to muffle the din slightly. But playing music on noise cancelling completely blocks out my surroundings, thankfully.)
I got a really nice compliment today from a friend- that I have the energy of someone who fosters pregnant cats and bottle feeds the babies, haha. Everyone always thinks I have a pet cat!
Nice. But hopefully just as good?
I just found out some really good friends of mine are expecting a baby! I’m very happy for them, if for no other reason that now we won’t have the asymmetry of my wife and I babbling on about our kid and not being up on books or movies or anything else 
On a less fun note, they’re also moving to the opposite coast, but it’s for a really cool job opportunity and we’ve already done some Zoom hangouts during the pandemic so hopefully we can keep that rolling and stay in good touch!
Hiding in plain sight is oddly exciting. It’s a hallway passage that only leads to a double doored rarely used maintenance hallway and a pair of stairs that lead to the basement for machinery maintenance and stuff, as well as an unlabelled room I assume belongs to some sort of closet, and even though it’s just a hallway down- no one ever looks down (or sideways) while meandering down the main hallway.
It’s got a long row of tables and chairs stored here, all up- and I’ve occasionally spotted students writing here late at night. I’ve always wanted to see what made it a semi popular spot to hang out in, and it’s great! Solid desk to write, some privacy, but still close enough to main buildings and transit lines to not add too much extra time to your commute. I don’t know how safe it is in terms of late at night due to how tucked away it is and the information / help desks and student services kiosks closing, but for a mid afternoon lunch or break- you can’t get better than the hum of the AC, the coolness due to being close to the basement, and privacy since no one comes or looks here.
The bathroom is a bit far, which is one downer- plus no outlets, but for someone who keeps her devices fully charged (I do need to buy a powerbank for my laptop, but I’ve been holding off because I want to buy a new one this summer) it’s not a bad little spot to relax from the noises of campus.
I love exploring and finding weird little corners like this. Makes stuff way more exciting.
Past me has been leaving little treats for myself, like my fully inked fountain pen primed and ready to write, my clothes ready in the morning, granola bars for when I get hungry, a chocolate bar to have a square off of, good coffee and plenty of cold water to cool down with after a hectic commute. I’m currently having a chunk of chocolate courtesy of past me. A little delight!
