June 15, 2025 - bloghan 51
I am so so so sorry ofr this one being a week late. But you must understand... I had time. In fact, I seemed to give myself a lot of that, even when I did not, in fact, have time. I'm sure you'll sort of understand when I share what happened this week in particular:
Tier list of the week
This week's tier list: email sign offs. Here's the tier list:
Ordered tiers, unordered wthin tiers. Now that my communications course is (basically) over, I can safely say: I feel really awful, and I feel really "just OK" about this tier list. Honestly, an email is for being polite and keeping a record of a conversaiton, and for tearful goodbyes you can't have in person. Those are my main use cases, and each of these greetings is assessed based on their usage in any of those. A lot of them, to the surprise of no one reading this (it better not surprise you, at least), are simply too unprofessional or meaningful in my view. I will only make an exception for "Ciao" becuase of a cockatoo I met in Italy once. And also, whenever I use it (never) it makes me feel powerful. I like that feeling.
Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)
A cloudy morning with a chance of rain greeted me in the morning... not a great sign for how this week will go. I got all ready on time, struggling a bit with the new condiment I was using on my sandwich. I'm trying out honey mustard instead of mayo because I'm tired of mayo (also I think my jar was starting to go bad? and probably has been spoiled for a month? oops...), but for some reason it was really difficult to get stuff out of the squeeze bottle. Once at work, my main focus was on getting the new project tests to pass. The comparison tool miraculously passed over the weekend!!! I don't know how but it did! I didn't even know it could pass. I spent a good while preparing my materials for Nozomi's birthday today as I worked, a somewhat boring process. For lunch, a small group of us had to go up to the fourth floor; the first was completely filled, and all the new temps were taking up the second. Now, as for my judgment on the honey mustard: it was pretty good! The next sandwich I make with it had to either use white bread or more honey mustard. I can taste it, and it's good with the ham and Swiss, but it's still just a bit too hidden.launch was sort of quiet and awkward. We weren't talking much, and at such a small table too. There wasn't even enough space for my work rival, the cable guy, and the fanatic to sit with us, so they had to go off to their own little table. Once I went back down, I was only at my desk for a little bit before deciding I needed to get up. I wanted to go ask my successor or my work rival's successor if they would talk to my work rival's manager about the ride she'd be giving me to tomorrow's event (and... them too, I guess). My successor was currently on her second hour of lunch, but my work rival's successor told me he would ask! Almost as soon as I sat back down at my desk, my work rival told me that his subteam's meeting was starting soon. Now, I've been invited to that meeting a bunch of times, and I've gone pretty regularly. But I am completely irrelevant to it! So why should I go??? I've even finished my task for her before I got in today! All this to say, I didn't go. Instead, I decided to call Steve (he was work from home today for some reason??), just for fun. And also because it would show me as in a call, just in case anyone in that meeting was looking for me. I opened by telling Steve how much I missed him today, and he let me know that it was his very busy tourist weekend that caused him to be so tired and spent that he couldn't come in today. Man I wish that were me. Instead, I'm stuck with this dumb report. Which isn't really as bad as I first thought it would be, but if I choose to make it bad, then it will be. We talked more about the event tomorrow and how our workloads are, closing with a promise from Steve to plan out a day for us and my Japanese coworker to go see a baseball game. Man, that guy is great. Reliable, funny, smart. They should make more Steve-type people in the world. I was about to start writing some bloghan, maybe working a bit on my report too, when the fanatic came to my desk asking if I wanted to go get some bubble tea. I mean, sure. I could use a walking break from just staring at my screen and trying different things one at a time to get these tests working. After a quick conversation with my equivalent about his plans to add a minor in writing to his credentials (sounds cool! wish I could do that...), myself and him, the fanatic, the compatriot, and two of the new temps headed out (two of the girls, but not my successor, as she was still taking lunch). On the walk there I talked about how my father wants me to buy a house, barn, and 3 acres for $600,000 in a rural area of my home region, which quickly became a conversation about my equivalent's potential writing minor (as you know). At the actual shops, everyone except my equivalent headed towards this one specific one. Only me and the compatriot weren't getting a drink, so we hung out outside as the others made their orders, just yapping about what was in the area. The karaoke place I went to last summer was nearby, and I brought it up. Man, that was such a fun night... I want to do it again, and soon, but this. Overbearing. Long. Complicated. Report. Assignment. It keeps getting in the way. One more week. I just need to get it done. I have an entire long weekend (we have Friday off) to work on it. Somehow, the conversation turns to 'One Piece' and digital media piracy as we all leave, and as I dramatize just how "poor" I am, the new temps look at me strangely. Their look of confusion is so perplexed to the point where the fanatic asks if they've met me before. You know what? I may have dropped the mask of normalcy there for a second, but I think I was totally justified in doing it. Frankly, I should be doing it more! That's what me and my equivalent discussed on the way back to the office at least. Getting back to my seat, I was surprised when my work rival walked in with his... uh... I don't really know if they are OFFICIALLY dating or not, so I'll call her my work rival's situationship I guess? So yeah, she's back at the company in a full-time position, so... I guess this means my work rival will be away from his desk even more often. Good for him? Good for me? I guess?? I don't know what to think about this really, so I guess I just won't. I went for a quick visit to the cell to see if my work rival's successor asked about the ride plans (he did! I'll get a message about it soon it seems), and intended to leave after receiving a "strong" mint from the stoned (it was the most normal mint ever). I got a little stuck with dealing with my successor's issue of conflicting setup files from me and my manager, then trying to figure out if that meeting she got a notification for was important or not (it was, for her). After she was occupied with that, I could leave. As I headed back to my desk, I was greeted at the corner by a whole gaggle of temps, new and old. They seemed to be the new ones of the fourth floor, who came down here to scavenge the companies scrap electronics for... something? They found some camera stuff and a shredder and a Nintendo DSi Dev kit? I chatted with them a bit about the backstory of the strange drawings on our whiteboard, and the shyest of them left a cute cat with human feet and a bra before they all headed up. It was also around this moment where my predecessor and my work rival told me that I was brought up like 3 times during that meeting. OH no... of course the one meeting I decide to skip because of my "irrelevance" was where I was relevant three different times. Guess I'm getting a new task soon... The rest of my work shift was spent writing bloghan, and shaking my head at the thought of my work rival spending all his time at work with his situationship. There was abit of talking with my predecessor, with my Japanese coworker, but as soon as the clock hit the right time to leave, I left. When I got home, I reheated the popcorn my landlord gave me yesterday (did I mentino she gave me popcorn? she gave me popcorn last night an hour after midnight) in my air fryer, then relaxed for a bit. I worked a bit on bloghan right after, hoping to get to my final report when... Blue-haired and Grey-haired wanted to play 'Deltarune' tonight? Oh, well, why not? I can work on both at the same time! I wanted to shower first though, and as I left to do that, I encountered my landlord. She told me about how the washing machine had tilted to the side (I was wondering about that..! so it wasn't intentional), and taught me how to properly wash and dry sheets, and how to balance the washing machine drum like she forgot too. Then, I got a long lecture about making sure that water doesn't get on the walls in my washroom, because it can cause smelly black specks to appear on the walls. Uh oh. I have no idea how long those have been there for... and I don't think there's much I can do about it now! Maybe next week... After I finally had my shower (and this time, was more careful with the whole water thing), I joined the call with Blue-haired and Grey-haired and tried to multitask. And failed. Miserably. Absolutely zero progress on the final report, barely any on bloghan, just terrible. I wasn't having very much fun with chapter 3 of 'Deltarune' either. The way that the chapter is laid out is to blame for most of it. It's so much more restrictive feeling in the way that you play the game, and the little innovations in "how you play the game" just feel so gimmicky. Like, way more gimmicky than the other chapters. And the way you get to the recurring secret content in this chapter feels so contrived. Does it really need to be made this difficult and detailed? I know that the creator sad this chapter would be markedly different than the others, but it sort of annoys me just how far it is from those chapters. Yeah, near the end you sort of get back to the expected gameplay, but because of the story of the chapter literally having you do most of the gameplay by staying in one single room, there really wasn't that much more added to this end section. I was also veyr slightly annoyed with the way Grey-haired constantly looked up spoilers to guide Blue-haired, and the way Blue-haired bowed to all of it with very little resistance. But this wasn't really their fault. I think it was just a natural consequence of the way this chpater is laid out. All those points I made earlier about how the chapter was made really fed into this gameplay style from those two. At one point, it annoyed me to the point of muting for 10 minutes to just work on other stuff. I'm pretty tired of this chapter, and once we finally ended, I could start catching up to what I needed to do. First, bloghan. Second, washing dishes and dinner (two ham and swiss chicken cutlets!). Third, the final report. I didn't do too much of it, just a bit of formatting and letter setup, but somehow that kept me up pretty late anyways. I would've liked to do more but... well, I've got time.
On Tuesday, I headed to work without bringing my work laptop. It was the day of the event, after all! I got into the office a little bit before the agreed upon time by my work rival's manager, so I spent some time talking to my successor and my work rival's successor in the cell. They had brought their laptops, as if they were doing something important on that day (maybe they would be, I don't know? I didn't bother to check). We didn't talk about much before it came time to go to our ride's desk, and after a bit more waiting, everyone driving in her car had gathered, and we headed out. The weather heading into the office was quite sunny, but as we headed out to the car, it had become cloudy. Everyone else going in this car have been in this city/area for a long time and were surprised by this. In my own home city, that's pretty normal. Now, as we piled into my work rival's manager's SUV (myself and my successor in the back, two full-times on my work rival's team and my work rival's successor in the seats in front of us), I had to formulate a plan. I knew that my successor was going to start up as many conversations as humanly and extrovertedly possible, and I did not want to partake in them if it involved this many people of higher seniority than me. If we were all temps? Sure, why not? But managers and senior staff? No way. So, what was my plan? 'One Piece' the whole time, specifically the 'Wano' arc! I was close to finishing it anyways, and I think it would look better than me pretending to sleep. Also, I am really enjoying this arc a lot, so it's another plus for me! I'm not really too aware of what really happened in that car because of that. My successor did start up a whole bunch of conversations I did not want to partake in, especially with asking the full-times about their marital status and their rent. I think there was something interesting about what it's like working at this company as a temp compared to as a full-time, and my work rival's manager just kinda shared out of nowhere that she feels like a bad mother??? How did they get to that talking point? Regardless, we almost got side swept by a semi at that point, so the topic was dropped for the most part, until my successor dug it right back up. Not what I would have done, but "you do you, girl," as the kids say nowadays. This did cause my work rival's manager to share the name of one of her sons, then realize that it was exactly one letter off of my name. Oh brother. Now I'm being forced into the conversation, as everyone suddenly remembered that I was in the car. I have an even more spotty memory about what they discussed now that I had to be present in the conversation, but I do know it centered around how I was a very quiet person and how funny it was that I was seated next to the loudest person in the office, my work rival. His manager really got a kick out of that. Once I escaped the conversation, I got back to 'One Piece,' but got dragged right back in once one of the full-times talked about hey upcoming vacation to a specific city: my home city. Luckily, it was a multi-leg vacation that would also take her to my work rival's home city, so things switched over to him. His team members all shared that they liked him and that they could always tell when he's on the office by sound, which made sense to me. As much as I bash him for it, he does actually get things done and ask his teams questions about how things work. Even if he said that he feels like his team doesn't like him (I know he's said he think his manager hates him) I really don't think that's true. However, even though I've sat next to him for months, this topic utterly disinterested me, and it was back to reading about Wano Country for me. That is, until my successor said something that shocked me. Remember that comment my work rival made about how he thinks his manager (currently driving me) hates him due to to the stuff she assigns him? Yeah. My successor brings that up. Now, I recognize that my memory of this car trip is a bit faulty, since I was reading 'One Piece' the entire time and trying o avoid being part of the conversation. But I know that I heard the word "hate" in there, somewhere. I'm sure that was what she mentioned. The car was a little quiet, and even though my successor brought up how it probably was a joke (well, it was, wasn't it?), there was not to be more discussion about this topic: we were pulling into the parking lot, as my work rival's manager gave a slightly awkward laugh about what she had just heard. I don't even remember what my reaction was. It was like when my successor told me about her obsession with Mormonism, my mind filled with "WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?" and the sight of her unaware-seeming face. We parked and headed into the building, which looked a lot like your standard warehouse... and still looked like it when you went inside. After a quick explainer by the employees that really just amounted to "yeah you guys rented out the whole place so go wherever," the event truly began. I first went to laser tag with most of the new temps and the people in the car I drove with. I mostly camped near the back and used the little windows to get people across the floor, but I kept getting shot out of nowhere. THere were no mirrors or anything, so I couldn't figure out what was going on until I saw red lights above me. There's a second floor??? For the remainder of the game, I searched around the back of the room looking for a ramp or staircase (for a while, my work rival's manager would follow me around, shoot me in the back, follw me more and shoot me right on cooldown... too bad she can't sprint like I can!), but couldn't find it before the round ended. I was second last overall on the leaderboard. Oh well... After this, I spotted some of the old temps by the lunch area, where I saw the compatriot playing billiards against someone I didn't know, and a bunch of others too, like my co-DM and my Japanese coworker. I relaxed and talked with them all for a bit before we all moved to do other activities: laser tag with all the temps of my generation, where this time I joined my team to take a solid position on the second floor and oppress everyone below us (that is, until they charged up the ramp and turned the second floor into aboveground trench warfare). This game was a lot more fun though, as I felt more... tactical? The addition of a second floor really elevates the experience by so much, and it really does make you think in a different way, in a different dimension. MorIt puts you more in the mindset of strategy and tactics, which I think is a great positive for laser tag. After 1 round of that, a lot of the guys went off to the basketball court for a game of handball, and I made my way back to the lunch area just ot chat. Laser tag had unironically gotten me really sweaty. THere was still a lot to explore, but I had some time. Lunch was called as I was chatting with the other temps, and as we lined up for the food, I realized that all the food was prepared frozen food from a warehouse store. Eh, I don't care THAT much about it. My work rival though? I know he'll be complaining for days. It was just a bunch of random foods: mini burgers, random veggies, microwave wings, even pizza? All of us sat in the lunch area along one of the long tables, with all the old temps sitting in a cluster a tthe very end, and the new temps sitting farther down the table, somewhat separate from us. My work rival sat at the head of the table, with myself, the fanatic, the compatriot, Steve, the gregarious, my co-DM, and my Japanese coworker nearby (where my equivalent was, I do not know). The conversation began with talk mostly centering around which activites everyone had done so far, what they were enjoying about the event, and the food (at this point, the speakers were playing Kendrick of Lamar's 'Not Like Us' for some reason), but that quickly becmae a conversation of how everyone got here. Some people got rides from their own managers, but my work rival was very insistent on me telling him eveyr single detail of my car ride with his manager. I shared a lot about what I learned, but slightly hesitated when it came to revelaing what my successor said about my work rival to his manager. However, my work rival heard that and pressed me just a little bit, and I folded (I know, I know, I am personally very weak). Every one of the old temps around me (except my Japanese coworker, who didn't seem to follow the chain of who said what) was horrified. My work rival was the worst. He became... not belligerent, but something approaching that. He was mad. Mad mad. Telling a manager that, especially only a couple of months before you end your work term and start fishing for a return offer... saying that kind of thing, that can cost people their current and future jobs. Everyone's horror softened into shock, then discourse and quiet bedlam arrived, before being overtaken with judgement and anger. I explained to them it was probably a case of my successor just not knowing better, and even petitioned that she did try to backtrack it a little by saying "it was probably a joke" afterwards, but my work rival essentially labelled her as "Our Enemy" and most of the group around me agreed. As we ate further I tried to steer the conversation in random directions to escape the awkwardness, but it just kept coming back. People were starting to calm down now though. I'm still not sure if I did the right thing by revealing what happened in the car to my work rival. Is it fair to tell him what other people say about him, especially to his manager? Or should I keep those kinds of things to myself, even if I know it could hurt him? Although, I suppose what my successor said could hurt him, just not his feelings, but his job prospects... telling him would allow him to try and course correct at least. Eventually I managed to convince him that I would talk to my successor about it, becuase I'm sure it's just a matter of her not knowing better, and he decided at that moment that he was going to try and hitch a ride back to the office in his manager's car. Well, good for him, I guess. My work rival began to feel tired of the recently heated frozen food and was about to throw it out, but with one stern look and statement from my co-DM he suddenly got "inspired" enough to finish the entire plate. What a guy... Almost everyone went off to do other activites, while I was left at the table with my co-DM and the gregarious. I asked them for some advice on the conversation I would have to have with my successor, and after getting some good advice, I finished up all my food and headed off to do something else. First I did another round of laser tag, this time with all the temps of my generation. This time, I went up to the second floor of the arena, which ended up with a whole string of aboveground trench warfare with its own no man's land forming on that floor. My team ended up winning though! Yippee! After this, our group split up a bit, with a lot of us going to the arcade. It was kinda small, felt like an afterthought of a room shoved into a corner, but they did a lot with the space. Classic table hockey (that was broken), a 'Dance Dance Revolution' machine, a bunch of fighting and racing arcade games, multiple foosball and air hockey tables, and one of those hoops machines. I ended up doing a couple rounds of 'DDR' against my co-DM (lsot every time to her, of course), then one against my work rival's manager (smoked her, of course), before we had to abandon it because we set it to one-player mode and couldn't figure out how to get it back to two-player mode. My successor actually appeared in this arcade for a bit, but since it was so packed, I decided to wait a little longer before talking to her. After a round of air hockey against my co-DM (I managed to shoot it off into the distance somehow), we all left the arcade. Fun for sure, but a little stuffy and dark. Maybe that's how arcades back then were like? The next activity was some weird fusion between bumper carts and lacrosse, which I was not very good at. The steering was so non-intuitive and I get bumping into my own team members. At least when I got a little bit (not very much) better at it, I just blocked the gregarious from advancing for a while. But... my team was silently mad at me for constantly throwing. I am not going back into that arena. That sport made me want to take a break, so I went to the lunch tables where I saw my equivalent just scrolling on his phone. We didn't really talk, just watched people play table tennis and pool and darts. Ten minutes later, she spotted me: my successor. We exchanged pleasantries about how fun this all was, then I pulled her over to the wall and talked to her about what she said in the car. Now while she denied what I thought she said and stated she actually said something much less abrasive to the work rival's manager (again, I don't have perfect memory of what she said, but I know bits of what I heard), she seemed to get it after I explained further. My co-DM and the greagarious's advice was actually very helpful, so thanks to you two! The overall lesson to my successor is to just be more careful when talking to managers, but my lesson was to be more careful about what I say to all my coworkers. I always knew that news spread around the office quickly, but now that it had happened so closely to me, I realized I had to be more careful about it. Now my successor was more worried about going off to immediately apologize to my work rival, but considering how he acted at lunch, I told her to not worry about that. He did say at lunch that any sort of relationship between the two of them was now "reset to zero," so I would handle letting him know that this conversation happened. She agreed to this, and from here I mostly just hung around taking a break from it all. There was a point where they opened up an ice cream cooler with lots of different types of treats in it, and everyone could take one. Now there were two options I couldn't pick between, so I grabbed a coin from my wallet. The full-times on my team looked at me like I was crazy, since this was all free, even telling me so. I looked at them confused, saying "I know," flipping the coin to help me decide. Now, in my head I envisioned this with me being so cool and impressive, but I dropped the coin and had to bend over to pick it up, so I think I just embarrassed myself and made it look like I made up the whole coin flip thing. We can't have it all I suppose. I picked the classic ice cream sandwich and met up with my work rival again, letting him know about the conversation. He was so sure my successor was lying to me with that hedging statement she gave denying she used the word "hate," but at this point I really can't say. I really do believe her, and I really do think it's just a case of not knowing better, and I guess I'm lucky that my work rival decided to drop it then. Most of my generation's temps were still a bit judgy towards this situation, but... ah, whatever. What's done is done. At that moment, all the managers were called on the intercom to the bumper car lacrosse thing for a match. Oooooh! This will be exciting! I saw my manager walk away from the pool table and head there, so I smiled, waved, and yelled out to him "you're going to win, right?" He ignored me. Not even a glance in my direction. My work rival laughed at me for a good 3 minutes after that. Never trying that sort of thing again. The match between managers was very exciting to watch, and a lot more violent too? My manager was controlling his cart very well, and often received passes successfully, but usually ended up bungling the goal shots. That other manager on my team, the same one who once asked me what I've done for the team since I got there, was playing more like me. Having trouble controlling the cart and frequently crashing into his own team, and also constantly throwing. I actually got mad a couple times at him for throwing easy goals! This rush of emotion also did not help with my jumpiness, as I did jump every single time one of the carts rammed into the space by the window I was watching through. The match ended with my manager's team losing by three points. Man... The last hour or so of this event was spent sitting close to the driving range simmulator thing. THe compatriot taught me how to swing a golf club, but I was still very bad at it. I watched as my work rival, Steve, the new compatriot, my co-DMs replacement, and the compatriot himself all try their hands at it. I was done for the day. It was an exciting little event, and now that I got to sit down and watch others do things, I gotta say, ti was a pretty good day. My report was far from my mind at this point, but that was ok! I had time. A lot of the temps of our generation started to collect around us, but once last calls for the event were called, we all funneled closer to the exit. I looked ouside the exit to see... my work rival's manager and my successor talking? Huh? What were they talking about? When I told my successor to not bring this up with my work rival, to just leave this between my work rival and his manager, did she just ignore that and go straight to his manager? I hope it wasn't because she was scared of my work rival retaliating or something. That would make things even worse for him, and despite all the trashing I do concerning him, I know he wouldn't jeopardize his future in that way at all. Even worse, if she was afraid of some sort of work rival retaliation, and she let his manager know that... nah, she wouldn't do that. I mean, I just told her to be careful of what you say to other people's managers about them. I decided to not bring this one up at all. My successor came up to me a little bit after and said that she wasn't going to be riding with us on the way back, but that she'd go with another temp instead... uh oh... well, I think I've done enough damage control for others today, and maybe I made things way worse, but I think at this point it really is up to the choices of my work rival, his manager, and my successor. The ride back was with the same crowd, but with my work rival replacing my successor, and he was chuckling along and laughing and just generally getting along with his team. I was the only one in that car not on their specific subteam, so my strategy of being on my phone and reading 'One Piece' worked well once again. I do marvel a bit at my work rival's integration with his own subteam though. For all the flack I give him, he has acquired quite a bit of knowledge from his time here, and he does actually fit in well with his team, despite seeming lazy from my perspective and louder than everyone else here combined. Sometimes, someone in the car would mention how quiet of a person I seemingly am, or wondering what I was doing back here (the full time sitting next to me actually looked at my phone, but at least she recognized that I was reading and not something more... I don't know, immature?). At the first instance of someone commenting on my quietness, my work rivla immediately cast doubt on that. He started talking about how he had no idea what the rest of his team was talking about, because according to him, I actually talk and chat quite a lot! To that, one of the full times on his team said "Really? Because the only voice I hear from that corner is yours." HA! Even his team is aware of it! I think it speaks to how well they like him, if they can chuckle about it at the end of the day. He talked to them about what areas of the surrounding city were safe or not, and also about if us temps in the car knew how to cook. My work rival said he was proud and not proud about the stuff that he cooks, and that sometimes he shares a bit of his cooked lunches with other interns if he thinks he made something good. Huh? That's strange... I mentioned then that he's only ever done that twice or so, and the whole car laughed. Heh heh... just because I feel bad for what my successor said about you, doesn't mean I'm not going to discredit you at least once. This time though, it's not about how you feel about your work or about the work you do: if it's about your cooking, in a car full of people who cook for others, I think it's ok for me to apply just a little snark in response. Once we got back, I headed back up to the second floor and met up with my predecessor. He didn't attend the event today because he said he'd be very busy with all his tasks, but as we came back he told us he regretted that decision since he overestimated how much he'd have to do. My work rival and I ended up sitting in his cubicle for quite a bit of time, just talking about what we did today: my predecessor's work and my work rival and I's fun. Well, ok. I was on my phone for the first half of this conversation, finishing up the Wano arc of 'One Piece,' so engrossed in the reading that my work rival literally had to tell me to get off my phone so that we could have a real conversation. But I couldn't just do that! I was on the last few chapters of the arc!! How could you ask me to put it down? Once I finished the arc I actually joined that conversation and talked more about the memories made that day. Soon afterwards, my work rival left with his situationship, and a little bit more afterwards I left too. I didn't bring my work laptop, so there wasn't really much more use of being here. I took the bus and walked on the way, and spent my evening doing a very tiny amount of work on my report. I did take quite a while to buy two large pizzas to eat across the week too, just to save myself some time on cooking dinner in these next few days. I did end up going to bed a bit early though because... well, I've got time.
OH shoot I should probably do a review of the Wano arc, huh? Here's one full of spoilers, so skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don't want spoilers. It should be no surprise to anyone that I really enjoyed this arc, and I Think it really outdid the last couple arcs for sure. The character work in this arc was phenomenonal: the samurai of Wano, the Beast pirates, and all the other collected allies and enemies had such great characterization. With the exception of Kin'emon's pervert gag (oh, joy...), the characters had some of the best balance between humourous and serious traits I've seen yet from Oda. Now, I didn't mention the members of the Straw Hats in that discussion about character because what I saw from them was slightly different. A lot of Wano characters are somewhat static, and that's alright! We only really interact with them on this island, and I would say that they still do show a little change and growth anyways. With the Straw Hats though, I don't really think I saw much growth of character, but more the results of growth of character. Robin wanted to die as "not a Straw Hat" back in Enies Lobby, but now in Wano we see the results of all she's gone through since then: now she can only imagine dying as a Straw Hat. We see now that she's fully integrated with the crew, because of all that time she's spent with them. We see similar things with Sanji (continuing his whole family ordeal from the last arc) and Nami (juxtaposed against Big Mom because of how mother coded she is), and other Straw Hats too. I really appreciated that we didn't really need to see the Straw Hats develop as characters too much in this arc, but that we got to have a little snapshot of where they are at now character-wise. I'm sure that some of them will progress more and get their check-ins soon, such as Usopp in Elbaph or Franky in Egghead. As for the plot, I think Oda made good use of the length of the arc to tell a good story. You all know how I'm a sucker for the world-building of 'One Pice,' how Oda likes to connect to events past and future through small things that later blossom, and Wano felt like a culmination of many threads, while starting just at many new ones. I really liked the structure of the arc too, but I do think it would've helped if the three acts as presented were more balanced. Honestly, I felt more like everything pre-Onigashima would've fit in the three act structure, and Onigashima and the conclusion presented as something else. Those really are just nitpicks though, becuase I really did enjoy the plot of this arc a lot! Are there small holes or things that a are a littl unbelieveable? Yes, just like the rest of this story. I really do think that most of the fan's complaints about this arc have to do with reading it week-by-week, as opposed to reading connected chapters in quick succession like I would. I thought it presented the major and minor conflicts well, and that they got resolved reasonably. This is only helped by the setting, and it's because Wano (the island) is so large that the largeness of Wano (the story arc) could be so expansive. The variety is very welcome, and having the Straw Hats integrate into Wano by spreading themselves out around the place made sense. That being said, I do wish that we actually got to see more of the effects of industrialization on the land. We kept hearing about how the land of Wano was dotted with factories, and forests and rivers were destroyed or contaminated, but we rarely spent time in the actual wasteland. Sure, we had it at the beginning, but a lot of the time we mostly saw scenes in cities or developed towns. I know that there were those kinds of things in the setting, and I had seen them at the start of it, but I don't really know if it really sank in for the Straw Hats because I never really saw those factories, those wastelands, after the beginning, so it didn't really set in for me as much near the end. I guess that was one of the themes of this arc, but the stronger theme for me was defintely the concept of "growth." I already kind of mentioned it with a lot of the Straw Hats growing their combat prowess or bravery in some way, but we see it in so many characters: Momonosuke, the Scabbards in Oden's flashback, Yamato, Big Mom's Homies. The whole front half of the arc is based on Luffy needing to get stronger, and it's not just the standard "I have to get stronger!" song and dance with shonen manga. I feel like wih a lot of those moments, it's all about gaining something new. It's about gaining something completely foreign to what you've already gotten, jsut to have another tool in your toolbox. But with Luffy's training, this arc and the last arc, it's all baout cleaning up what you've already developed. Going back to the fundamentals of a skill, practicing them, then pushing them ever so slightly until you make a breakthrough and inevitably learn something new from that thing you've already been doing. We see it with his training in jail through Luffy's revisiting of Armament Haki, and we see it in his fight with Kaido through Luffy revisiting Conquerer's Haki, and each time, he's rewarded with some new move or skill. I really appreciated that recognition of gaining new skills by practicing fundamentals. It's something I tried to do with my musical instrument playing, and once I start really focusing on embedded electronics design, I know it's what I'm going to have to do to be hirable in that field. Now, yes, I did just say that "getting stronger training arcs" that just lead to gaining new abilities is overdone, and yes, I did just say that Luffy did one of those "getting stronger training arcs" to gain new abilities, but that's missing the key difference: the norm is to just gain new abilities by practicing the new ability from scratch, while what I really loved about "getting stronger" in Wano was that it looked back at what skills were already present, and focused on refining them. That looking back also connected to another theme, that of the past versus the future. We see this in all the young blood challenging the old blood, and eventually coming out victorious, even though the young blood really didn't know the full extent of the old blood's past. So what are we supposed to take away from this? My whole point with what I liked about training in Wano was that it looked back on the past, while the result of the arc suggests that the carving out the future necessitates carving away the past. Well, rather than launch into more explanation about this, I think it's simpler to just ask "who won more?" Luffy gained so much power by doing both, as he used his knowledge of the past to improve himself and his future, and got rid of the recent past plaguing the area, literally becoming a living legend. Meanwhile, Law and Kid didn't really know all that much of the past, and we didn't really see them grow their skills too much (though you could argue that their Devil Fruit awakenings prove they did). They still achieved victory, just as closely as Luffy did, but did not gain nearly as much. They didn't really take on a large load, a large burden. Luffy had the whole country on his back, but Law and Kid? Not reallly... they fought to exhaustion, and if what I'm hearing about their future is correct, they don't seem to have really developed all that much afterwards. But really, who cares all that much for all that stuff when you've got hype moments and aura? The fights were actually not too bad to keep track of in this one, feelng a lot more fluid and with more telgraphed motion. This is something that bugs me a lot with 'One Piece,' where it's hard to keep track of what's actually happening in a fight scene panel, but I really only felt that near the end with Zoro and Luffy's final fights. Even then, it wasn't nearly so bad as it had been previously. I do hope this is something that continues, and not just a Wano thing because of how Oda really switched up his presentation style for this arc becuase it's an isolationist country that does things differently! Finally, let's talk about my favourite part of long-form fantasy fiction, how arcs interact with the story at large. This one sure did have quite a lot of it. And I loved every last little bit. Everything about Luffy's true abilities and where they come from? That felt so satisfying because of how many allusions there were between him and the Sun, at so many points in the story. All this poneglyph and Ancient Weapons and Ancient Kingdom stuff also coming back, because of its ties to Wano? Also just as as excited to see those elements really come back. Zoro and Sanji had tons of similar stuff too, with more connections to where they and their fighting weapons come from. As for background things happening while our protagonists are stuck in Wano, I appreciated them a lot. It was nice to get a little news about what happened at the Reverie, and also see some characters that had mysteriously disappeared before the timeskip. You can tell that this arc really wraps up a whole bunch of threads set up throughout the world, created by events in the recent past. What's most exciting though is the new threads that it has introduced, this time connected to and connecting between the distant past and the relatively-soon future. Despite all this, I do have one little nitpick. As I've already mentioned, Oda loved to make little stylistic changes to how he does background things just for Wano. For example, he replaced his usual sound effect onomatopoeia for drama, suspense, and reveals (usually akin to drumbeats in my interpretation) with onomatopoeia for notes played by the shamisen, fitting the Edo era Japan vibe that Wano was. Now I saw this as a little nod to how Wano was an isolationist nation, so while we are in Wano, we as the readers are beholden to the same rules as the Straw Hats, that being "try to blend in with Wano natives." My only wish was that we actually never received any of these excerpts of events in the world outside Wano. I thought it would've been much better if we got all that at the end of the arc, after we had left Wano, for the same reasons as the stylistic changes: it's an isolationist country! No one on the island knows about what happens elsewhere in the world, so I think that the readers should be just as beholden to that! Even then, it is only a tiny little nitpick. This arc was great. It never felt like it was dragging on to me, and I don't think the size of the arc or its setting really negatively impacted things too much. You never really needed to know where everything is all at once. You needed to just focus on the dimension of time, not the dimensions of space, which is much more reasonable. I can't wait to read more... but for now, it's late, and I should probably get to bed.
Compared to yesterday, Wednesday was pretty tame. Just another day on the office, a very tired one. The temps were still buzzing with yesterday's excitement, the full times were right back to business, and I feel like I was a mix of both? I had my tasks with new project setup and that comparison task (both not working, by the way), and throughout the day I would get even more emails asking me to do stuff. Something to do with making some new important spreadsheet, some upgrades to one of my Absconder works, all that. My successor called me over to the cell at some point because she thought she had duplicated her computer's file access (what??? how???), but it turned out it was just her misreading what the screen said (oh, that's how). I ended up not joining the others for lunch this day, thinking I would do bloghan or my report during that time... nope! Well, at least it was some amount of work, as I tried and failed to get the comparison tool working, again. It said something about how it couldn't access my colleague's files, but I literally can?? I tested it too. I'm just getting lied to. Maybe I can compare the files in that list and try and replace the ones that are identical on both our computers with just the ones on mine? That might get around the part where it says it can't find certain ones. That's what I end up doing for the last few hours of work, talking through the process with my work rival and my predecessor (they've run this comparison tool before) to see if it made sense. And yet, right before my meeting with my manager that day... another failure, for the exact same reason. What??? I thought I removed those from the list. There was no time to restart another run though. Time to meet with my manager. Just another one of those monthly meetings, and I don't know if I really had much to tell him. I got to the room which my manager booked, but there were two people having and intense-seeming meeting in there: the director of the director, and someone I've never met before. After a quick chat with my co-DM who passed by my waiting self, my manager showed up and asked who was in the room. Once I told him, he looked all awkward, and began searching for another room, almost desperately. Good to know that he feels just as awkward about interrupting his managers as I do. We settled on a room that was right next to where we would originally meet, and although someone else had it booked, they never showed. That makes it alright. I mentioned that I didn't feel like I had much to tell him, but I really did surprise myself. I told him a lot: all the recent stuff for the not-manager, the documentation I still need to write, the Absconder work upgrades that my mentor wanted, the new project setup, whatever that spreadsheet task I got today was (I have not looked at it), this new comparison tool task that wasn't working, Huh... I guess I actually do have a lot to do, just not a lot done. He explained some of the stuff behind the tasks I hadn't really done yet, and tried to help me debug the comparison tool. His suggestion wasn't going to work, I knew it wouldn't, but I gave it a try in front of him either way. After all those work discussions, we didn't end up having time for small talk, just a quick conversation about the new temps as we left the meeting room. Once I got back to my desk, I almost immediately got right back up again: it was time for D&D. I know that I've got that big report due, but I mean come on... I've got time. The session was sort of awkward, with how tired I was affecting my storytelling and consistency of detail a lot. The party ended up splitting apart, and my Japanese coworker and the compatriot couldn't join until the last half hour. My equivalent was working for most of it, but when he did tune in, he argued a bunch and the logistics of the magical world. Some things never change. The session felt so scattered, partly because I myself was, and because half of us didn't join in until later. Also, very little progress was made story-wise due to the group's ironic case of sudden-onset anxiety and caution. Tonight, I had to get home on my own, so to the bus! I met the cable guy's replacement on the way there, and assuaged his concerns that temps are expected to work this late (that's only if you have a lot due!), but we split quickly because we go different directions. My first bus treated me rather strangely. That bus was supposed to stop at one specific terminal, but the driver didn't stop, saying it wasn't part of the route. What??? It literally is. I see it on my phone, I see it on the LED sign you've got, and I've taken this bus to this terminal before. I didn't argue with her though, just acquired that she would take me one more stop further... Which turned out to be super far away from the terminal. Great. Well, time to start walking to the next bus! It wasn't so bad to be honest, only a small delay. Once I got to the stop for my second bus connection, I helped out a mother and her kid with bus timings (she said her phone was dead, yet had an earbud in one ear?), and spotted something else I'd rather look at: juvenile red-winged blackbirds!! These are my favourite bird species, and I can recognize their call (well, anyone can, it's pretty easy), but I've never seen juveniles before! They make a different call compared to their adult selves, like two little high-pitched pings in quick succession!! I love those birds so much... I got home pretty quickly after that, and you already know how I spent that time. Bit of report work, ate pizza, and a whole lot more getting distracted on my phone. Well... I've got time.
Friday was a company holiday day, so I opted to take my work from home day on Thursday. This was meant to deal with the final report which I kept putting off because "I have time" but uh... hey, wait a minute. I don't really have that much time! Even so, the report felt so boring and unmotivating that I ended up doing work a lot more instead. Although... everything was still failing. Well, not much I can do about that. There wasn't really anything all that exciting about today. In that regular Thursday meeting I was brought up due to that comparison task (which I was actively working on) and my manager spoke about my progress for me again (thank you so much! genuinely, I didn't want to explain what's taking so long), but other than that, there wasn't really anything notable for work. I was mostly trying out different file lists, trimming things to see what was the same between our devices, but... it said that every single file between the two computers was the same? Great. SO it's something more than the files that's different, so I can't just replace definitions in one file list with files from my own computer. It's so frustrating!! It's just going to have to be something that I do next week. I end the work day with a message from the gregarious, inviting me over to my work rival's patio as a lot of other temps are going there right after work. You know what? Sure, why not? She tells me what time to be there and I decide that on the way, I'll pick up some freezies or something for us to enjoy. After I close my work laptop, I do a very small amount of report work. The grade is already back for the proposal: I got a 100% on that too???? That should definitely have been an 80%. What is going on? The announcement of the grades also shared that I get an extension on the report, but I also get a 3% bonus on the report grade if I submit it on the original due date of June 16, this upcoming Monday. Hmmm... what to do? I think I could make a better report with the extension, but the 3% is really tempting. Plus, I really want to be over this assignment and this course in general. Ah, but no time to ruminate over that right now! It's time for me to get dressed and hurry out the door if I want to make it to my work rival's place on time! I rush throughout my apartment and do all the necessary packing and dressing, and run out of my apartment to make the bus. It's a beautiful sunny day, not quite close to sunset, but close enough where you can tell it'll set within 3 hours. What a life. My surroundings have me giggling and laughing out loud about living right now. Can't imagine being like that years ago, but, here we are. Once I'm off my first bus, I start the walk to my work rival's place, which is longer than I remember. There's a gorcery store on the way there, so I drop in and it's so very strange. Why is there a clothing section in the grocery store?? What is this, Switzerland? It was only once I got to the frozen sectino that I realize that freeezies aren't sold pre-frozen, so I called my work rival to ask what I should get instead. He told me to not buy anything. What?? Why not??? I just wanted to do something nice for everyone on a hot day... I left this unneedingly large grocery store and continued walking on to my work rival's place. So much for a nice treat for my coworkers... when I got there and my work rival let me in, he started bragging to me about how this plan came together on the day of, all organized by him, with very high attendance, especially from coworkers who don't typically attend our events. Well, you know what? He got me. He really got me. Good on him. Heading up to his patio, I consulted with the group about my choice between the 3% bonus and taking the extension (I can definitely write 5 to 7 pages in three days, so let's go for that 3%!). They had bought a couple giant platters of sushi which I didn't want to eat (I just can't with sushi), and overall just having a good time chatting. The regular crowd was there, but the stoned and the new compatriot had joined us too! Wow, those new temps really do not want to be around us in general, huh? I guess in my successor's case, some of the OG temps might not want her around but... man, I don't know anymore. There was a little bit of me trash talking the work that my work rival does (very little, ha ha), and a little exploration of the mini gym that was on this patio (so the greagarious will use a stair machine, but not the stairs at work? alright...), and after this: a good old game of 'Secret Hitler,' where I was paired up with my equivalent on the liberal team. I think we played it super well, but we did get thrown off by the team of the stoned and new compatriot pretending to be fascists when they were really liberals (they wanted to troll apparently), and the compatriot and the greagarious actually being the Secret Hitler when we thought the whole time they were liberal. I was surprised that it was my equivalent's first itme playing this particular game, and he played it mostly just following along with what I was saying. It was a liberal victory in the end, though I'm not sure how fun the game was for everyone, since we didn't really let my work rival and his situationship (fascist) do much in the game, nor did we let my Japanese coworker and Steve's team (liberal). Oh well, I guess that's just how a good liberal game goes. After this, it was time to leave, since I had that regular call with Blue-haired and Grey-haired to get to. I walked, since the usual people that offered rides have recently decided to not do that anymore (that's alright though, more walking for me!), but the plan was to catch a bus to take me most of the way... which I missed. What should've been a 20 minute journey ended up taking around 50 minutes instead, as I walked all the way between the two cities. Yeah ok, so walking in the sun like that with a black sweater might not have been the best walking experience I've ever had, but whatever! It's fine! I was drenched in sweat and boysmell, permeating every thread I was wearing, but I'm glad I did that walk. I'm glad I went to this little social gathering. Once I get home, I change out of everything and hop on call with Blue-haired and Grey-haired for more 'Deltarune.' We play for a long while, and I suffer greatly for the bit I've chosen for one character that I voice (he only speaks in Google translated Japanese and Blackbeard laughs). We did manage to finish chapter 3, and while I have quite a few gripes with it (a lot actually, but I've actually shared almost all of them already), I do think the implications of chapter 3 on the story overall were actually great additions, but the way that the secret boss encounter was designed... yeah, no, I don't like that. It's supposed to be a secret boss, but the only secret thing about it is how to make it barely bearable to fight. I don't really think the difficulty spike between this chapter's boss and secret boss is reasonable, and I think the same for the difficulty spike between the last secret boss and this one. But, at least I got to have some fun with voicing this character and giving them a bit! The bit with this secret boss? MILF hunter. Now, I was a little bit worried about how long I was spending playing this game when I could be working on my report but... well, I've got time.
That's why on Friday (also Mari Ohara's birthday! Just thought I'd mention it, even if it hasn't been 2 years since I last talked about her), I ended up wasting pretty much the entire day away, focusing on cleaning and laundry and games. Like, did I really need to wash my sheets on that day? No, no I did not. But you know how it is with brains: if there's something easier to be done, we will naturally gravitate towards doing that instead. I didn't even start working on the report even a little bit until a couple hours before midnight; that's how avoidant I was of it. This day too, I ended up on call with Blue-haired and Grey-haired, after a whole lot of convincing from Blue-haired that I could definitely finish the report based on what I had already done today, and then using Saturday and Sunday. Well, I guess I could also do some report work during the call as well, right? Well, guess what? I couldn't! As we played through a little bit of chapter 4 of 'Deltarune,' I was hooked on looking at what was happening in the game. I couldn't focus on that report at all. At elast things got better over the last two days. I'm sorry to report that I have nothing interesting at all to say about this weekend. It quite literally was all about the report. Very little distractions, a whole lot of looping songs like 'Black Knife' by Toby Fox and 'Doctor' by George Buzinkai, and basically finishing the entire thing! The whole time, I was regretting how lax I was throughout this week, but I managed to do everything except the executive summary throughout the two days. It ended up being about 23 pages of work, but I think I can say it is work that I am proud of. An entire (simple) social media audit of a chritable organization, done in a couple days... I wish I had done it throughout the week more, so I could actually enjoy this weekend, but hey. It got done. Good job me. I ate the last of my pizza on these nights, and barely had any food for lunch excpet ice cream sandwiches and pierogies with honey mustard, but it still got done! The finish line is in sight. I went to bed reassured that I could finish on time, and of course, I was exhausted. Man, I'm going to need to take another sick day to get it really completed... well, I've got time.
Future plans
So I guess I kinda got "invited" to one little thing, but I still think I managed to get most of this done, even if it was on a Sunday. Here's the results of last week's plans:
- Final report: while I didn't end up pacing myself very well, I did finish almost all of it. All that's left is the executive summary.
- Door: no progress
- More 'Deltarune': yep, we finished chapter 3 and we're now on chapter 4!
- Nozomi Tojo's birthday: What can I say but "Ah, our wish is running (2)"?
This week, I'm probably going to take a break from a lot of writing stuff. I want to focus in on work a little more, and I also want to start making one of two 'Jeopardy' boards that I'm going to be running two weeks from now. Before any of that though, I'll need to finish off this report tomorrow, and I'll probably take a sick day to do so. And I guess I'll need to visit the grocery store at some point this week to get food for tonight? Oh and that get-together I've got planned with some friends from my home city, You and Ruby? Well, that's a Friday or Saturday, so... I've got time.
Song of the week
'Don't Forget' (https://youtu.be/YLeid-bIRQA) by Laura Shigihara in 'Deltarune' is the song of the week. Yeah so the third and fourth chapters came out 10 days ago, but ever since my course ended, I've been putting in the hours. This game's first chapter came out in 2018. What were you doing in 2018? I was in high school! The sheer amount of... waht do you call it? Brain time? I'm going to call it brain time because it's the only term I can think of right now. The sheer amount of brain time I've spent thinking about this game (and trying to beat chapter 2's secret boss) and theorizing about where it's going, how its overarching plot will intersect with the themes, how the various cryptids of the community will play into it - ah! I didn't forget any of it since I first played it, and I sure won't now. As for the lyrical contents of the song, it actually reminds me a lot of last week's song of the week. Of the people I know now, and the people I will come to know in the next year (and if I'm lucky, the year after that, however unlikely that is), I know I won't forget our time together. I'll be thinking about this for years to come, and we all know how interconnected dreams and memories are. With you, forever, in the dark that I will live and sleep in soon enough.
Until next time
Again, very sorry about this one being a week late, and the next one also probably being late as well. I just needed a break from writing. I'm sure you all understand. Now that I know how to professionally communicate, I hope that it becomes easier for me to unprofessionally communicate with you all! Hee hee hee! See you later!
- bubbler