July 13, 2025 - bloghan 55

Like last week, this week mostly felt like a checklist of days. Also like last week, it felt strange, off. But also, just normal? Like what I did was not very different than a normal week in terms of effort, but in content, very much so? It was abnormally normal. Here's what normal abnormalities happened this week:

Tier list of the week

This week's tier list: 'Deltarune' chapters (as of July 2025). Here's the tier list:

Ordered tiers, unordered wthin tiers. You've already heard my thoughts on Chapter 3 of 'Deltarune,' how I don't like how much of a departure it was from the other chapters. Chapter 4 though? Not only did it mark a return to form, with slight form changes added in that complemented that form instead of outright throwing it away or including it hastily at the end like Chapter 3. Chapter 1 and 2 were great because I loved how it was like an RPG, but little twists made it distinct and more fun to fight, while still retaining little mini-bits like in 'Earthbound' and a sense of exploring the world to its fullest. Even outside of the Dark Worlds, you can still sort of see what your characters interacted with from the Light World. My other main gripes present in Chapter 3 that I didn't really notice in CHapter 4 were difficulty spikes. Yes, Chapter 4 seemed harder than Chapter 1 and 2, but definitely not much more unreasonably harder compared to Chapter 3. As for story stuff, Chapter 4 really does outshine everything else, and I feel as though Chapter 3 did more muddying of plot than any other chapter. And yes, I get that there's supposed to be a whole mystery and all going on, but... maybe I'm just a Chapter 3 hater and it's a bias affecting my judgement. Nothing more to say after that, I guess.

Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)

Now you might be wondering why I said that this week was an abnormal strangeness, and it's because my manager was on vacation the entire week, and all submissions to the newest project were completely blocked. What this meant was that all I could do was minor prep at work, since all my other tasks were not that. So, did I do that minor prep? NO! All of it was spent on bloghan's past. That's not to say there were zero interesting things to happen, but since the majority of my waking time is spent at work and I didn't have much of it to do there, well... this one is going to be short, but it actually will be this time, I swear. I hope you're not getting tired of the checklist style of recent bloghans but... Maybe that's what life culminates to in quieter days. Now just like last time, there were conversations and work and all that that go unmentioned in between these checked items, but to be honest most of it is not very interesting if it goes unlisted.

Monday morning: I find out that another former temp from last year had rejoined the team as a full-time, another one of the guys that my work rival was super close with. I'll call him the existentialist, even though he messaged "yes" when I asked him if everything was going to be ok. Curious...
Also Monday morning: I want to start getting ready for the reimport I'm going to have to between projects, but since there's been a month's worth of changes between the projects, it's a bit daunting to get that started. I ask Steve for some advice on how to get all the files that have changed, but it was rather impractical.
Monday morning, for that one meeting: there's a meeting scehduled by a full-time who is essentially directly supervising my successor. This full-time is the one who essentially scheduled this meeting, and it's about passing down the tasks I won't finish (or actively just kinda maintain) to my successor because she is... well, succeeding me. I get to the meeting room 5 minutes early, expecting the full-time to arrive on time and my successor to arrive about 2 minutes late. My first guess is completely correct, and that full-time walks in right on time, greeting me politely before getting to work on her laptop as we wait. 3 minutes pass, and I ask her a question about submitting things to the project which she answers briskly, and its back to silence. At 5 minutes in, the full-time says that she's going to go get my successor from the cell. As she leaves, I can't help but slyly grin and laugh a bit to my self, all quiet. I can't believe it happened twice! The full-time comes back 1 minute later, saying that my successor is nowhere to be found. She apologizes on my successor's behalf, and asks if later in the afternoon works for me, which it does. We head out from the room after that, with me going back to my desk. Eventually, my successor came (more like fastwalked) up to my desk panting (to be honest, in the moment those panting sounds sounded very fake to me... maybe they weren't but that was just my intuition), apologizing for no-showing. Girl, you should be apologizing to the full-time, because my time is not nearly as important at this company compared to her. She eventually left, and while the other temps in the corner had some choice words to say... you know, I don't really know what to think anymore, except "just two more months."
Monday morning, right before lunch though: the idealist asks me for a command that will do something but fast, and I try to troll him with the slowest variation of it. My work rival has none of it though, and eventually gets me to send him the actual fastest version. Aw man...
Monday, lunch: In the lunch room on the first floor, the existentialist asks me if I want to go to he burrito bowl place. He apparently has these food credits from the company that he can use for about a week, and I take him up on his offer. We drive in his rental and catch up for a bit, talking about how things are back home (we are from the same home city), recent events with the temps since he's been gone, and the most important, his plans and thoughts upon returning to this city. In short, not much has changes back home, he's annoyed with how buddy-buddy the work rival is making him with all the temps, and he hates this city but likes the job. After taking the long way around to get to the restaurat and have some trouble finding a parking spot, a struggle during which I talk about myself and my recent improvements in mental health and all that (you can read more about it in the Song of the week section), we go in and order our burrito bowls. I accidentally order the special limited time chicken bowl instead of the regular chicken bowl I intended to order, but for the first time, I remembered to actually request all the free ingredients I could! Finally, a stacked bowl... and this one was on the house too! Well, not the house of the restaurant, but the company I work at. On the way back, the existentialist talks more about his frustrations with being wrapped up in the high school-esque drama of temps as soon as he came back, and I can't really blame him. I'm getting pretty tired of it too, with the more hateful (I know it's morelike strong disdain but... frankly, you most likely weren't there for it, reader) rhetoric being spread by my work rival and the compatriot about some of the new temps already being pushed upon him. Also, the existentialist doesn't really care for meeting every single new temp, because he is a full-time now, doing full-time things, making full-time money. And I get that too! I do still appreciate him looking to the old temps though, the one's he left behind a year ago. We did have a friendship back then, and we still share a connection to where we lived befroe this company was part of our lives, and I'm glad he still wants to participate in it. As we walk back inside of work, I realize we didn't grab any forks at all. Well, that's not a problem, we can find them in the break room... oh ok, so the second floor break room doesn't have any? I want to go look for forks elsewhere, but the existentialist gets caught up in a conversation with the not-manager in this very room, so I awkwardly look at photos in the break room with my predecessor until the existentialist is ready to leave. We head downstairs to get the forks, then back up to the existentialist's desk for the day. After he gets caught up in another conversation, one which I awkwardly wait through by sitting at his desk and staring at the food, we finally take out the food, and I take mine to my desk. What a great date!
Monday, after lunch: I start to eat, and I see that the manager who antagonizes me has messaged me to start setting up the next project... oh boy, another one already? I guess they were talking about doing two projects at once this next cycle... alright, I'm going to ignore that and work on bloghan instead. But the number of the project he gave me was weird, so I start asking around to try and verify, but no one knows...
Monday, as I eat lunch: my work rival tells me that we got a new task from that old guy, about some sort of thing that we made? What is he talking about? My work rival and I have never been asked to collaborate on something before... and what is he actually doing right now? I read more into it, and it seems like it really only is relevant to me and my Absconder work, so I begin to solicit information from him, and let my work rival off the hook. I essentially get a new joint task with him, to set up some changes to the new project that are really only in my work rival's team purview. He needs help making it becuase it's brand new, and it's best to do it in the earliest cycle of a project.
Monday, also as I eat lunch: I tease the gregarious about the existentialist being back, and that he took me out on a date on his first day back. Oh, and I ask her how her team handles project numbering, but her intel is not very useful to me becuase she is on a different team. I guess I should've thought of that.
Monday, right before the meeting I didn't know I had: my predecessor visits me and lets me know of the meeting I didn't know I had, with my work rival's entire team. I don't want to go, but now that I've accepted work from that old guy on my work rival's team, I just know that I'm about to be brought up. The meeting was actually quite surprising to me, as this is the first time that I've seen my work rival's team all in-person, all attending a meeting. The meeting was basically entirely irrelevant to me, and most of the time I was starting to theorize how I should start on teh task the old guy gave me, and messaging the old guy (who was in the meeting room with me, by the way, across from me) for clarifications. There was a point where my work rival's manager brought up some slides displaying the initiatives she was planning on presenting at the upcoming initiatives meeting, and one of them referred to something I did? BUt when I read and listened to waht she was describing about my work, I realized... that's not what it does at all??? What is she talking about? She had to step out to get a drink of water because her voice was getting severely scratchy, and I quitely asked my work rival about why my work was being presented as such. He answered very loudly so that the entire room could hear him say that it was because my work gave some sort of inspiration for an initiative, not that it was the initiative, and it was the way that his manager worded it that made it confusing, getting a laugh out of everyone in the room.
Monday, at the tail end of that meeting and right after it too: I had to talk with my work rival's manager about some folders that I would need to get setup on both new projects, and she kept asking me if I understood and got the message fully, which is out of character for her. I learned later it was because that manager who antagonizes me was pushing her constantly about this.
Monday, time for the rescheduled meeting: I walk to the meeting room, thinking to myself that it would be kinda funny if my successor was late to this one too. That did not come to pass, as she showed up 10 minutes early. I realize that I forgot my notebook containing my tasklist back at my desk, so I leave my laptop there to avoid anyone thinking I forgot the meeting. By the time I got back, the full-time was there and we could start the meeting from this morning. I really only had four Absconder works and a work ticket I might not finish, and after I went through them, it was resolved that there would be another meeting with me later specifically about that ticket (great) and that my successor would make a presentation on my Absconder stuff (sure, but why??). When the meeting ended, I left right away, just in case my successor tried to drag me into another weird talk in a room post-meeting.
Monday, after that meeting and until the end of the workday: I met with the old guy once again, and he asked me if there was some sort of Absconder in place that can help him with setting up docs and spreadsheets and all that for that one part of the design he was working on, the one that was blocking anyone from submitting to the new project. I promised him I would create something that would give him the info he needed, since it sounded like a task I could easily adapt my existing Absconder works for. I worked fervently, because I actually did not give myself much time to do this, but I managed to finish the entire flow right before I left, running it and providing it to the old guy. Never thought I'd be speedrunning Absconder, but I guess I can just do that now?
Monday, way in the evening: as I'm typing away for bloghan, I see that Grey-haired joined a call by herself. I'm curious, because we didn't make any plans for today. I join, and soon after so does Blue-haired, and it turns into a strange drawing stream for Grey-haired. I think Blue-haired was a little mad about this since Grey-haired previously told him she wasn't available today, but... I guess it was fun? A nice distraction, if not anything more. She was doing it because she got a new and unbroken drawing tablet (we'll see how long that lasts, my guess is three weeks), and she wanted to give it a spin. How it worked is that we would give her random requests, and she would mash them together. For example, I suggested she draw the processor in her new tablet and Blue-haired suggested Tenna, so she drew a Tenna-esque personification of that processor. We did four of those drawings, but something was bothering me a lot during this art stream: the intrusive ads in her drawing app. It was so bad. There was that sounded like a wood chipper, and there were the occasional pop-up and all that. I felt bad for her, and it also felt bad for me looking on upon this. She was using the free version of the app, but there was a one-time payment for the premium version, which would get rid of the ads for sure. I was feeling a bit genourous, and she did just get a new drawing tablet, so I thought I would offer to pay that one-time fee as a little gift. She refused, adamantly so, and I was so confused. I told her I didn't want anything in return for it and that I wasn't joking about it, but she told me that I was definitely going to attach strings to it or something and that she didn't want it. I was very hurt by this. I've always been a pretty cheap person, but now that I had a little more financial freedom, even my closest friends couldn't stand receiving anything from me? I asked her about it continuously, and I will admit that I started to get a bit pushy and upset and vindictive about it, and it didn't help that Blue-haired started to straight up ask for money. Eugh. That whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth, but I already we'll forget all about it soon enough...
Monday, dinner time: I did not eat dinner.
Tuesday morning: I walk in to a good couple of messages from the old guy asking about repeats in the results of my Absconder that I made yesterday. My entire morning is spent figuring that out, and it's because things are connected in such a way that it looks like there's a bunch of repeat connections when really it's just highlighting how much lazy routing there is in our project.
Tuesday, at lunch: stayed at my desk to eat it, terrified of future interaction with the manager who antagonizes me. I just have this feeling he's about to contact me for something...
Tuesday, right after that grim feeling passes: the manager who antagonizes me messages me about my progress on setting up the newest new project, and when I tell him I'm still filling out the form, eh remarks (this is in a GROUP CHAT with my own manager and the not-manager by the way) that I'm "still on step 0 then." He's right but WHY??? DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO????
Tuesday, after I calm down a bit: I talk to my work rival about how the gregarious has her birthday coming up, and he talks about how my equivalent is also having a birthday around the same time. Soon enough, the temps of our floor have already planned out a lunch excursion on Thursday to a Japanese place. Very nice!
Tuesday, as those Thursday lunch plans are being made: I try to troll the gregarious into thinking that I get a list of company birthdays emailed to me daily. She sees right through it instantly. Man...
Tuesday, eventually after doing a little bloghan: I finalyl decide to actually start doing this "step 0" and fill out the form for the newest newest project, but getting immediately stopped by being unable to find the name of the project (as I know it) in the provided dropdown menu. Now I have to wait for the not-manager and the antagonizing manager to get back to me about it. AAAAGH
Tuesday, in the last little bit before work ends: my work rival needs help with running those functionality tests for something he's changed, becuase somehow he ran out of space for the results to be stored in. So, I let him do it on my machine. A bunch of people come in and out during this time, including my predecessor and the idealist, and as we all talk about random colleges and universities and the makeup of their student demographics and populations, we constantly tease my work rival by saying the functionality runs failed when they really didn't. Right before he left, it all passed, so it's all good, right?
Tuesday, once I got back: I had to wait a little bit for Grey-haired and Blue-haired to get online, but once we all do, we spend quite a bit of time finishing off 'Deltarune,' specifically getting to the end of the regular route of chapter 4. Great chapter, and a great example of how to write with hype moments and aura that feel earned and deserved. Love how much better this chapter felt in terms of story, fititing into the wider narrative, gameplay, characters, and exploration. This doesn't take the chapter 3 approach in throwing most of it away just for freshness, but instead adapts on what's already been established to bring freshness to familiarity. What a good game!
Tuesday, dinner time: I did not eat dinner.
Tuesday, way after dinner time: we wanted to do the alternate route in 'Deltarune' eventually, and I wanted to see if my old save files from the demo would work... they didn't! I tried to use the online save editor to try and recover them... they corrupted! THen I tried to see if I could use a standard file to replicate my old ones as much as possible... now that would reuqire a time investment that I guess I could've put it. But when I tried it, I remembered something: I'm bad at video games. I was struggling through the whole thing even with all the random extended invincibility frames... I let the gang know that it would have to be Blue-haired demonstrating the alternate route on Thursday.
Wednesday morning, only a little bit into getting into the office: the not-manager and the antagonizing manager can't decide on how I should proceed on the thing blocking me from proceeding on that form, so... uh... guess I'll bloghan? As soon as I decide to do that, they pick an option, forcing me to continue. Man...
Wednesday morning, then a little bit after lunch too, which I ate at my desk: the other temps plan further, switching around the plans and the time and the restuarant we would be going to tomorrow. They lock in a certain number of people with that restuarant, and I make note that if someone wants to go and they can't, I'm willing to give my spot up for them. Everyone in the chat piles on top of me saying I don't need to do that, because they counted it perfectly so that everyone could go. I appreciate the gesture, but... you know what? No. I'm not going to say "do they really want me there" like I was just about to say, just out of force of habit. They made space for me, they planned it out, they included me in the count; they want me there. And I'm glad they do. I want them at the events I plan, so it make sense that they want me at the events they plan. :)
Wednesday, after lunch still: the antagonizing manager and the not-manager finally reach a conclusion on the drop-down menu drama, and I can continue the form. Oh, joy.
Wednesday, just one hour before D&D: Steve's replacement reached out to me for help on a tool I don't really use much. I tried to help him out as much as I could, helping him find files and the support tickets of others who have had his issue, but no luck... didn't work out for him. Oh well...
Wednesday: half an hour before we go for D&D: I start heading over to the compatriot, my equivalent, the cable guy, and my co-DM, asking them if we want to start a little earlier today; they respond with "we want to go out for bubble tea right before D&D!!" WHAT??? Then we're going to have to start late... if we really wanted to finish the campaign (and we have to, because my equivalent is going on vacation soon and will not be back by the time my Japanese coworker has left the company), then why are they stalling now??? Whatever, I'm just going to grab the cable guy (he doesn't want bubble tea), and head down t start preparing the whiteboard with the battle mat. My Japanese coworker is in a meeting somewhere, and my co-DM, my equivalent, and the compatriot head out for bubble tea, so we'll start when the majority of people are here.
Wednesday, D&D time: it's... D&D time!! Once everyone got back (except for my Japanese coworker, so we let the cable guy play his character for him until he got here). The final boss had entered his next phase... actually, it's more accurate to say that the boss fight had entered the next stage of the fight, as the previous boss... well, he was still fighting but he was definitely not fighting like himself due to the weakened state the players put him in last time. I tried to make it engaging with voices and descriptive disturbing imagery and all that, but I'm not sure how difficult the boss fight actually felt for the party. It did bring them all down to very very low HP, nearly 1 HP on everyone. All their resources were depleted: no spell slots, no potions left, that stupid owlbear tech was finally gone. The main villain was about to get their win condition off, the party was isolated from their allies outside the arena, and they were all going to go down at the next attack. There were some interruptions by the fanatic and my work rival as they walked into the middle of the session, but they went as soon as they came. I'll let you figure out who was the most disruptive. They also kept triggering a special ability by the boss to try and put them to sleep so it could heal off of them, so they hadn't made as much progress as they'd like. The most hilarious part was my Japanese coworker. He had used most of his abilities on the previous staget, so all he had was his attack with his regular longsword. That is until the boss cast a magical area of pure darkness in the middle of the arena that no one could see into, so my Japanese coworker decided his character would tie a rope to the hilt of his longsword and throw it in randomly. So at the very end of it all, he was unarmed. Then, at the end, me and my co-DM pulled out a little deus ex machina (because every good D&D campaign) and brought back a child non-player character that was long thought to be dead, but instead, became very buff. A series of health potions, last ditch attacks, an army pushing back, and an end-condition that reached 90%, they managed to beat the boss! And after granting a little redemption to a former enemy and going through an epilogue where they got to see a few of the NPCs from that slow period earlier this year, we ended the campaign! Everyone had a great time (well, I got the feeling that my co-DM was not enjoying D&D so much in the end, but I think that has to do with the way I sort of commandeered things more and more near the end, so there's not much I can do about it now... I'm sorry), and we all ended up staying an hour later than we usually do, just like we used to back in January. It always feels like a relief whenever I'm part of finishing a D&D campaign (on either side of the table), and even though I don't feel great about if we stuck the landing with this one, I don't think I usually stick the landing with campaigns, but this one with my co-DM? It got pretty close. She also handed me all the D&D stuff from her folder to me as unceremoniously as possible, and after making sure everyone knew how instrumental she was to all for this (because she really was!), I started to head out. I also offered to share all the secrets of the campaign with everyone around but it turns out they mostly forgot the questions they've wanted to ask over the course of the past half-year.
Wednesday evening, right after D&D: once again, I had to walk most of the way back, despite the rain. I could've waited for a bus to chain with another bus, but it would be faster to walk halfway. Because of the rain, I couldn't wear my headphones; that's ok, I'm the only one walking out in this weather so I'll just play my rock music out loud! It wasn't even raining all that bad (it was about 5 drops landing on me every 9 seconds or so), but what was worrying was being unable to see the live bus schedule for the station I was headed to. Apparently, seeing when buses would arrive at stations far from you is a premium feature in the app I use, and the transit agency had previously paid for that feature. I guess the fee increase for using the bus that went into effect at the start of the month didn't do much for them, huh? Once I approached the stop though, I could at least see that I had another "wait 10 minutes, or walk 5 and wait 5" situation. I think you know which I chose.
Wednesday evening, 5 minutes later: I got to the next bus stop, and felt content to wait out the next 5 mintues. It stopped raining then, but there were still rain clouds. The rain probably shifted over closer to where I live, or in the opposite direction. But in the direction of the sun, I saw something amazing: the sunset, poking through the combination treeline and suburbline, with the dark clouds still around, but the blue sky poking through. I can't really give a description that does the sight justice, but to be more abstract about it: this fulfills one of the things I wanted to do in 2025, the goal of seeing a sunset that could house my pain. Because that's what this is, isn't it? A sunset, visible in spite of the rain, overtaking the sky just as it passes, as all things pass. A sunset that happens on a day where a thing I've pursued for a long time had ended, and yet I felt joy in that ending. There is pain in things ending, yes, but as corny as it is to say it, it really was a joy to enjoy it while I had it with all my friends. I don't know if this is something that I really truly understood until now. Ehh... maybe I did experience it before, but this brought it back to the front of my mind even more. When the bus got here and I hopped on, I couldn't help but stare out the window the whole time, just looking for that sunset as much as I could. When turns were made that blocked it out, only then did I let myself look away, and looking out on the side of the bus that still faced stormclouds, I saw a rainbow. This was crazy. Rainy weather, a rainbow, the sunset? I may have my pains, but this sunset was grand and symbolic enough to carry it all, even if just for a moment. At my stop, instead of going straight home like I normally would, I headed to the giant hill a bit of a walk away from my place. I climbed it and looked on at the sunset, accompanied by some other random guy. The clouds seemed to have been parted along the sun's travel path as it set, and the hues of blue blended into the orange with the strangest and smoothest gradient. The rain clouds, struck beyond the conical shape of the sky's outline that I just described, seemed to almost face away from the sun in shame, but perhaps it wasn't shame? Maybe... reverence? I laughed, then began the walk home, upon the green, green grass, not of home. But... for now, I'll call it that.
Wednesday, dinner time: I did not eat dinner.
Thursday morning: as the not-manager and the antagonizing manager discussed one of the date fields in that form (I'm sure they will be arguing and discussing about it for about a week), I mostly typed bloghan and talked to the temps and the full-times we all began to get all chill with. My predecessor wanted to start up a Music League with that same group of people all week, and it finally went live. My work rival was really excited about it, and throughout the next couple of days, he'd go around (sometimes with me) to recruit people to it. In Music League, each week there is a round where you can submit some songs relevant to that week's category. Once everyone's submitted a song, each person assigns each song some upvotes or downvotes (all anonymously). It seems like a really great idea! I'm definitely going to propose this to Blue-haired and Grey-haired!
Thursday, around an hour before lunch time: everyone begins to get reay to start heading out the doors to go to the restaurant we booked, even though we have quite some time before then. Then, I see an email. The antagonizing manager has scheduled a meeting with me???? That wasn't on my calendar yesterday! That got scheduled an hour into the day! And it's exactly in the middle of our lunch plan> i ask for some advice from the others about what I should do, and my equivalent gives some good advice about what I can say to him, but I am left on delivered. By the promised time for leaving the office comes around, I have not received a response, and I'm forced to sit at my desk and watch them all leave. After all that talk about having to sacrifice a spot in case someone wanted to go, I never anticipated being unable to go in the first place. The traitor teases me a bit for it, but the new compatriot shows some empathy (this will be important later). I feel terrible about missing my equivalent's and the gregarious's birthday celebration, but... gah! Why does this manager have it out for me, constantly??? One hour's notice for a meeting right in the middle of the regular lunch period???? This world is so heartless...
Thursday, 30 minutes before that meeting: it's been about 45 minutes since I saw the entire group leave from my window seat; then, the antagonizing manager tells me he will cancel the meeting. Thanks. I end up telling him to not do that, because I've already cancelled the conflict.
Thursday, 1 minute before that surprise meeting: the antagonizing manager comes up to my desk to bring me over to the meeting room, just as I was about to get up and go there. As we head there, he stops to analyze the whiteboard with my work rival's sketches of some of the previous temps, the one with the guy who is not coming back to the company dangling the idealist, the existentialist, and my predecessor from puppet strings. This drawing bothers the antagonizing manager, because none of these guys depicted here are temps anymore. When we get to the meeting room, it's yet another rehashing of that same Absconder work I made. AGAIN! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU??? OK, to be fair, there was more to this meeting than that. The first half was a rehashing, the second half was a proposed extension of some kind. Something to do with going in to project files and renaming things outright, instead of just reading and reporting. It's something a bit nervous about, but I guess I'll look into it?
Thursday, after that meeting: I wait around for another half-hour, just working on bloghan because what else is there for me to do? THe task I just got? Pfft, I don't need to do that! Soon enough, there's another meeting to attend, that one on the project I'm not really all that relevant to anymore. THe regular Thursday one, which is telegraphed to me more than an hour in advance. My predecessor came by my desk to collect me for it (and received a bit of ranting from me about that last meeting), and we also picked up my work rival's replacement too. It was a boring-ish meeting, mostly because I am completely irrelevant to it, but at least this time I didn't pull off the whiteboard stunt in front of the director and the senior director like last time. I ended up starting another cryptic crossword during this meeting, but after completing it early I just ended up doing more work.
Thursday, even more after that: the temps returned at some point during that meeting, and they said they brought me lunch! That's great! I've been hungry all week for some reason, but I didn't bring lunch to work today because I Was expecting to go out with them today. I get to my desk and see that it's... sushi. Uh oh. I... can't really ever bring myself to eat sushi. I had a very bad experience with spring rolls when I was younger, and everytime I see a spring roll I always have a little moment of panic; then, I remind myself that I do not need to eat the spring roll, and I feel way better. As for sushi... well, the reason I tell people is that my sister had a similar incident with sushi, and that I had a sort of inherited will with regards to that fear. It's a smooth little lie that's believable enough to the point where people don't ask questions. It's a lie I'd even tell Blue-haired and Grey-haired simply because I don't want to explain it. But, this is the spot for doing that explaining, so... what it really is a very intense fear of raw meats. I have lots of fears, and they frequently stop me from doing a lot of things, but raw meat is one of the few debilitating ones that causes me to have those fight/flight/freeze moments. Stinging insects cause it just the same, but at least my raw meat fear is not to the point of hallucinating bugs crawling on my skin like the stinging insects fear does. I looked at the sushi, the 20 rolls they got, and I just couldn't function. As soon as I looked away from the platter, I felt so much better. To be clear, my fear isn't the handling and presence of raw meat (how else would I make chicken biryani or chicken alfredo??), it's the eating of it. Whenever I detect even a little hint of pink in any meat I cook, I immediately throw it back into the pan or pot and burn it to the point where its more charcoal than meat, just to be extra safe. I'll call people at an hour past midnight just to send them a video of meat I think is uncooked, just to ask if it is cooked. I know it sounds silly, it really is, but it is a genuine fear I have. My work rival was the one who pushed for my co-DM to buy me a lunch (I'll pay her back for the full price, regardless of how much I eat), but I felt so bad about this whole thing. Sushi is expensive, right? And I couldn't even begin to cope with the fact that if I didn't want to be hungry for the next few hours (well, even hungrier), I would have to eat raw meat. I don't care if it's safe or not. They call phobias irrational or whatever for a reason right? I waited and waited, tried eating the soup and realized there were no utensils. Well, alright, there were chopsticks, but I can't eat with chopsticks! I was raised to eat with my hands at home, and I REALLY didn't want any raw meat on my hands in the workplace. On my way to the break room to get a fork, those temps spotted me and asked if I liked the food. When I revealed that I didn't touch it for lack of utensils, they teased me about not using chopsticks. I was kind of hurt by this, because they all knew that I struggled with chopsticks, and they've usually been a bit accepting about that. Wait. Have they? I began to think on it, and no, actually. I don't think they've really ever accepted that part of me. That kinda hurts. That makes me a bit sad. Well... I'm the one laughing the most in the sunlight at the end of the day, I guess. The cable guy offers me a kindness in giving me a wooden utensil set (actually, now that I think on it more, the cable guy's always been way more accepting about my inability to use chopsticks! I guess it's not so bad), so I head back to my desk to start eating the soup and the weird fried dumpling thing. THe weird dumpling things were very good, and I think the miso soup was good? I couldn't really eat it, because the wooden utensil set that the cable guy gave me had a spoon that was almost flat. There was no bowl to it???? That's not evan a spoon!! What is that??? I couldn't even get more than 3 drops of soup per spoonful. My work rival eventually got called to an in-person meeting somewhere, so once his watchful eyes were gone, I offered all the sushi to the new compatriot. He shared it with my co-DM's replacement and the stoner, and they looked so happy while feasting on that sushi. Apparently, it was some really high-end sushi (at least, for the area and the city), and they were thanking me profusely for it, more than they would be usually. Guess I'm the cool senior temp now! I ended up stowing the miso soup in my bag because I just couldn't stand that spoon any longer. So.... I guess I didn't eat lunch? Except for three weird fried dumplings, each about the size of the average male big toe. That's alright though The younger ones around me are smiling because of what I've done, the ones around my age might have a guess at what I've done but can't find much fault in it, and the ones older than me don't know at all. Somehow, I ended up giving up my seat at that restaurant so that others could enjoy the food from there. Funny how that works. But look, guys: I'm still smiling!
Thursday, mid afternoon: I go down to the first floor break room with some of the other temps, becuase it's apparently time for cake? I didn't know they grabbed a cake, but when I get down there, I start thinking of ways to slink off. The cake is tiny, and splitting it amongst 12 people would be a little ridiculous. Also, it was yet another matcha cake, because of course the people from this area of the country are obsessed with odd cake flavours. I still don't get why someone would want to get a cake that tastes like grass. I get that I'm complaining about free food (so workrivalcore!) but... I think it makes it better if I skip out on it so that others who might enjoy the food more can have it. I slunk out quietly after we sang happy birthday, and I don't know if they saw me. All's well that ends well.
Thursday, the time I usually leave: I head out in a rush, and I don't know why I feel so hungry but I do. How strange... as I pass by the crossword cubicle on my way out, they ask if I enjoyed my sushi. After telling them I gave it all to the new temps (not much point in lying to them about it, not much point in telling the truth either). It's still a sunny day though...
Thursday, time for the regular Thursday call: Grey-haired got swamped with work today, so it ended up being me and Blue-haired playing 'Ace Attorney,' this time doing the third case. I never realized just how funny this case was until I watched someone else play it. Just the sheer ridiculousness of what happened, the constant banter between Phoenix and Maya, the bashing of the old lady, and the hidden passion of Edgeworth. Truly wonderful. I really should play more 'Ace Attorney,' but I've got a good lead on Blue-haired so I guess it's ok to take a bit of a pause.
Thursday, dinner time: I did not eat dinner.
Friday, right before my work shift started: I wake up, I login to my laptop, and I cook my breakfast of bacon and eggs.
Friday, all day throughout work: I'm mostly working on random bloghan stuff and random odds and ends at work. There's really not all that much for me to do right now at work since I'm still waiting to hear back on a lot of things. The bloghan isn't doing as well as I'd hoped either, because I did get distracted a whole bunch by just about everything else. I had a simple lunch pretty late, and continued on with my work, my "work" and "my work" for a good while.
Friday, near the end of my shift: Steve sends me his phone number and asks for mine, in case he needs help finding people at the amusement park tomorrow. I tried to play a little trick on the gregarious by telling her that a friend of mine asked for my number and if it meant anything more, but after vague answer number 5 to her questions, I think she caught on to the trick and stopped entertaining it. Man...
Friday evening: due to a miscommunication between myself, Blue-haired, and Grey-haired, I ended up on call with just Blue-haired, and we played some 'Balatro.' I suggested we do a same seed race, but Blue-haired shot it down because I would just win? I mean, I feel like we're just about evenly matched, but ok... His evidence was that I had more stake wins than him, and more playtime too. Well, those are all true, but I still don't feel like that's a skill thing, just a case of what happens when you multiply a low probability by a long time. To prove his point, he suggested something slightly different: he was stuck on gold stake black deck (probably the hardest deck to gold stake), so he flavoured the rest of the call as a little coaching session. I would instruct him throughout a run of this deck on what I would do at each choice junction, and we would try to get as far as we could with it. I gave the standard gold stake advie (spam planets and tarots, start scaling early, play pairs as much as you can, always thin the deck when you can), and somehow he won the run??? Even though he threw repeatedly (just kidding, he played well, just not always in the way I would have), he won! After that little bit of fun, he began to play a little more on his own, and I introduced the idea of the Music League to him. He was a little on the fence when it came to playing it with only three people, but I managed to convince him. I also enlisted his help to pick a song for the Music League I would be doing at work. We stayed up quite late just talking, but eventually, he had to go. I'm glad we had that miscommunication!
Friday, dinner time: I did not eat dinner.
Friday, late at night: I frantically ran around my apartment, packing things into my tiny bag quickly, quickly. Water, headphones, garage door key, different kinds of hats, all that stuff. I had to get up early in the morning to make it on time for the amusement park. I didn't really know how long I was going to stay there, but I did know that there was exclusive access or something for the first hour. Once I was satisfied, I headed to bed.
Saturday morning, bright and extra early: I get up way later than I wanted to. The sleep deprivation is catching up with me, hard. Well, there go my plans of having a relaxing morning with bacon, eggs, and a nice cup of tea. Instead, how about a rushed bowl of oatmeal and that's it? At least I didn't miss any buses, so I made it right on time to the amusement park! There wasn't anything really all that notable about the buses, but I did notice thatthe air conditioning of them as soon as I got off them, stepping into the hot, hot sun. There were also some rowdy boys talking quite loud in my second bus, which I didn't mind all that much, and as soon as they got off the bus they just blitzed towards the entrance for the park. I just laughed. As I walked to the front entrance, I saw more groups of young people running, and lots of large families walking normally too.
Saturday, just as I reached the doors of the amusement park: well, I couldn't see anybody I recognized and wanted to talk to, so I called my work rival. He answered kinda slow, and his voice sounded all tired and scratchy and icky. He sounded really sick and he claimed to be sick too. I believed him, but he told me to find the others somewhere in the park already. Once I headed in, I called my predecessor, and his wife answered! They were running late, so they told me to pick a spot and wait.
Saturday, after about 10 minutes of aimless wandering. I encounter a rope barrier guarded by employees of the amusement park, since my company has reserved access to like half of the park for the first opening hour. There's a bunch of other guests who are here, seeming frustrated that this reservation exists. It doesn't help that the park employees are calling out the name of the company that reserved it. I don't really know where to enter, but I feel like these guys might now. Before I make up my mind about going to the employees and asking them, one of them sees my hat, which has the company name and logo on it. He beckons me forward and asks to see my ticket, scrolling to the side to see the company. He lets me in. I kinda wish I got to see the reaction of the crowd behind me, but whatever. I wander more aimlessly until I get to the one specific ride in this reserved section that is actually running, and it's where all the employees of my company are! I will wait here though, because you won't catch me going on this ride, the newest ride that this park has since it opened today. Opened today clearly means it has a higher risk of catastrophic failure today.
Saturday, within that first hour still: I am sitting on a random concrete implementation in the ground, watching all these people I don't really know but who are from my company get on the new ride. One of the managers on my team of the same ethnicity as me spots me and talks to me for a bit about why I'm not on a ride, and later on, the antagonizing manager comes up to me and tells me that I should be in the line, not out by this concrete pillar. Honestly, I'm just waiting to see all my friends from my floor.
Saturday, a bit later: the memer and some of his goon-like friends show up at the exclusive ride, and they really want to get in line right away, with no care for using the locker storage. I offer my services and become the bag-watcher. The cable guy, who will eventually get replaced by the memer, then showed up in field of view, so I called out to him and we got to talking. He's also not much of an amusement park guy, but his girlfriend was on that new ride so he was waiting for- wait, you have a girlfriend??? What???? Well, I guess it's alright if I didn't know that before. Back in my home city, my friend Riko also never gave out any details of his girlfriend, saying that his friends didn't need to know that to be friends with him (he didn't say that exactly, but that's what I got out of it), which makes sense! I guess it was just surprising to me that the cable guy had one, is all. He never really participates in my work rival's open questions (read: instigations) about relationship stuff, so I guess there never really was a natural chance to bring it up. I don't know what I would choose if I had a girlfriend. I feel as though I would be more quiet about it, but secretly desire to be the one getting shown off by her. Ahhhh.... what was I talking about again?
Saturday, even more later: more and more people started to show up. Next was my co-DM and my Japanese coworker, and I collected another two bags as they rushed onto the ride. Then, my predecessor and his wife, the compatriot, the fanatic, and Steve, and yet more bags, yet more (I didn't watch their bags because they decided to use the lockers before talking to me... hmmph). The memer and his goons came back from their original ride, but just as soon as they came to say hi they left their bags with me again so they could ride again. Honestly, lookin at this new ride, I can't believe people want to ride it. It literally jerks you down within the first 10 seconds, and it looks like it hurts your neck a lot too... crazy people. As people climbed up the stairs as part of the line, they would occasionally look down towards me and wave or thumbs up (I received a lot of thumbs down for staying down here, but I'm personally very ok with that). It was also starting to get REALLY sunny and REALLY hot. I was already halfway through my water bottle and I hadn't even been at the park for more than an hour. The cable guy and I began to talk with some random temp from another floor that I will probably never see again. Oh, and some other rando that the memer is friends with? Who will watch his bag for me? Huh, sounds good I guess. At this point, I looked up and saw the coaster with my co-DM and my Japanese coworker return to the starting area, and I couldn't help but start laughing when I saw my Japanese coworker immediately put his head in his hands. Poor guy...
Saturday, when my co-DM and my Japanese coworker reclaimed their bags: I notice that my successor and her boyfriend has somehow joined the line at around the same point my predecessor and his wife did... I really don't feel like socializing with her right now (not because I was mad at her or tired of her, but because I didn't really have the energy for a super-extroverted set of questioning and pushing right now)> The cable guy stood in front of me so she wouldn't spot me. Thanks cable guy!
Saturday, now that everyone had rejoined and claimed their bags (except the memer and his goons): everyone has begun to regroup around the concrete thing I was standing at. I managed to stand up to my predecessor's wife as she urged me to join a line for that newest ride. Honestly, if this was last year, I don't think I would've had the strength of character to tell her. Just as that interaction happens, the timer on the company's hold on the park grounds expires, and a whole crowd of people runs in. And I mean run. The line is filled up compeltely within 20 seconds with people eager to try out this newest ride. They are going to be in that line for 5 hours at the minimum. Some people man...
Saturday, as we left the newest ride: my predecessor and his wife slinked off somewhere, and I left the memer's bag in the hands of the goon he left behind. THe rest of my group, with my co-DM and my Japanese coworker, the fanatic and compatriot and Steve, and the cable guy and his girlfriend, began to walk around thinking on what to do next. My co-DM then saw some of her own personal friends and split off from us. The rest of us began to wander more, but we ended up going on two rides before lunch time. The first was this very simple rollercoaster that didn't go very fast, but replaced that excitement generator with its gimmick of going in and out of a mountain through these pitch black caves. Also, the ride operators insisted on saying "choo choo!" in the most kid-like voice everytime the coaster passed them. The others found this one a bit boring because of the slowness, but I thought it was a fascinating ride. Becuase it wasn't really a pitch black cave. There were lights and shapes of... something. It reminded me of a mineshaft, but I can't actually say it was that. It could've just as easily been an underground war between dwarves and duergar. The way that a rollercoaster can build intrigue and atmosphere, just with some well placed lights and dark cutouts... I want to write something like that one day! After that coaster, we did bumper cars next. We had to take a bit of a weird route to get there, but once we were in line we could at least look at the arena. It wasn't great. For the size of the rink, there were way too many cars, and there were just so much jams where people would spend more than half of the ride completely stuck. In fact, this happened with a mother and her young child in one car who couldn't get it to actually move the entire game. So many people got stuck behind her, so half of the rink was just blocked off and stuck for the entire ride. At least she got to stay in the rink and go again, and not have to go back in line, but that courtesy wasn't offered to the other people who got stuck. Strangely, on this lady's second turn, some random girl got in her old cart and piloted it just fine???? Maybe some manual reset switch was hit or something... when it came to our turn, the cable guy and I decided we would target Steve, but my secret other goal was to actually drive and not get stuck ever. I didn't help myself very well with that goal when I ended up choosing a car that was sandwiched between two others, but once we received power I got out of that position. It was really quite fun to go around the track at a moderate speed. I knew that I would lose control of the vehicle if I floored it, but I didn't want to inconvenience others by going any slower than I was. Also, I could not find Steve the entire time (apparently he was hanging out right behind me so that I couldn't find him and end him), so I spent this ride cruising around and fighting the steering wheel. Yeah, ok, the steering wasn't very fun and it was quite finnicky. I felt my steering wheel go the opposite direction a whole bunch, even locking up occasionally. Ah but it wasn't so hard to overpower and continue on my way, dodging the side-swipers so that I could maintian speed. What a pleasant ride!
Saturday, nearly time for lunch: after that ride, we knew that it was time to head to that courtyard area for the buffet thing. We got there a little early and stood around waiting. It had gotten even hotter, but me and my fully zipped up sweater that I'd been wearing all day were not giving in. Enough people were asking me about if I was hot or not in this sweater that I couldn't admit defeat. The sun may have brougth me much joy and laughter and smiles recently, but you know what they say: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Saturday, once they let us in for lunch: at the courtyard we met up with (mostly) everyone again. I talked a little bit with one of the sons of that manager who shares an ethnicity with me. I still can't quite believe he's in high school given that he looks like he's in 1st grade (I usually exaggerate things, but if you saw this guy? you'd know I wasn't, just this once), but the way he talks certainly reflects his father's influence more than high school ever will. He asked me how I was feeling about work and all that, and later on in this buffet line, his father asked me the same question. And to be honest, I think I've very recently started feeling comfortable with this position. Yeah there are some tough moments, some things which are somewhat hard on my mental and all, but now I feel like I can actually start working on something when it's given to me, and not have to spend a lot of time researching it and asking questions. I feel way more comfortable with how things work here, and I know better about who is in charge of what and all that. I'm pretty satisfied with this job and this life. Back to focusing on the buffet, I grabbed myself a burger bun instead of a hot dog bun, so that I could put some of the salad with the beef patty to imitate lettuce. There was also some very very cheesy mac and cheese provided, and I took a very large helping of it. I felt so fancy and artsy while doing it, picking it up like I was a stereotypical French chef as depicted in 'Ratatouille,' lifting it up very high to the point of nearly dropping it on the ground before making sure to gently let it flow off the spoon and onto the side of my plate, almost knocking that to the ground. Just another day in the life, really.
Saturday, lunch time: it's a pretty quiet lunch for us, all things considered. I mean, sure, a lot of the full times here have their families and they're tlaking to their other full time friends, but for once, us temps are actually kind of spread out or not presetn. My work rival, with his whole presence, isn't here. The gregarious skipped out entirely. My co-DM doesn't want to associate with us around her personal friends. My equivalent is on vacation. And of course, it's not like last year because of the absence of some old temps who are now in other places or are full times. But that's all stuff I can say in hinddight. Sitting there, eating this lunch (that I think is good, but in true compatriot fashion, he complains about it to no end) with my newfound friends? It's actually a lot nicer than I'm making it sound. And as a plus, the ice cream isn't frozen to the point where it's shattering plastic spoons or knives (I used a plastic knife because I oringally thought all the spoons were gone by the time I went up for ice cream, ok??). Honestly, I didn't mind how few people I was talking to at this event. If I come back to this company, I probably wouldn't go to the amusement park every year. But as a temp, I've really come to appreciate the company's commitment to providing us with free lunches. I can cook, but I don't have to always! To be honest, us temps at the table didn;t really talk too much either, mostly focusing on eating and disparaging the ones who didn't attend the event today. I also talked a bit more with my predecessor and his wife, voicing some of the positive things I've said above already, with an additional little bit: I've also weirdly gotten a lot more confident just in general? I feel way better about myself in general, my appearance and body, and more secure in the way I act too! I really do love being me now. Sure, I get that I'm not necessarily what other people want (far from it...), but I'm finally in a spot where I can say that it's ok for me to live, and that I want to continue living like this. My predecessor's wife told me that she can tell with the way I carry myself and dress (I haven't changed the latter though???), but was a bit disappointed that I couldn't be pressured into going onto amuesment park rides. HA! TAKE THAT! Anyways, my predecessor and his wife are planning on leaving the park early, and I understand why. It was super hot, and not much with the park has changed really. It was quite nice that most of the regular crowd was diverted from other lines because of the newest ride opening up, but it was still somehow even more crowded than yesterday. Honestly, now that I had eaten... I wasn't all that interested in staying that much longer either. Luckily, I didn't need to ask for a ride back, as my predecessor must've seen it in my eyes or something like that. After some back and forth chatter with a ton of people around our table, us three eventually left... ah, but my predecessor wanted to say hello to some full-times before we left, so we looked around for some people but couldn't find anyone.
Saturday, just before we left: I wanted to use the washroom because my hands still felt a bit sticky from getting burger condiments on them, and I met the traitor in there. He greeted me and asked what rides I went on, and I responded curtly. I sitll don't know what to think of this guy. I hear so many things about him, but how much of it is exaggerated? How much is true? This is the problem with hearsay.
Saturday, the drive back: after a little exploration in the parking lot to find their car and another round of questioning concerned with my sweater and the heat (fly me to the sun, and let me kick its burning gas.... let me show it what I learned in my sun jujutsu class). But at last, in the car, it's time to go. It was a nice visit to the park, but really, there wasn't all that much to say about it? I enjoyed it, but I did not enjoy it enough to stay the whole day. Now that she had me in this car though, my predecessor's wife could begin the question period. However, it wasn't nearly so bad as it might have been a year ago, or if it was my successor, or if my work rival was in the car. I think my skin has thickened a lot over the past year, and I think that people around me see that now. We talked about closeness with our siblings, about our mutual home city as compared to this city, if I would live in a basement or a condo if I came back (basement in the suburbs, obviously!), about coming back to this company in the first place (yes, just to get some experience before going into my desired field), and about if I would be down to go to karaoke sometime before I leave (yeah???? I would???). I do really enjoy the company of these two, so I appreciated that they wanted to help me out and that they wanted me around even after I leave. They drop me off at my place, and I thank them as they leave.
Saturday, pretty much the rest of the day: when I got inside my apartment and started to change my clothes, I decided to just call Blue-haired, just for the fun of it. There wasn't any particular reason, I just wanted to talk. He answered and actually entertained the conversation (surprising!), and apparently I caught him in the grocery store. He had to hang up when it was his time to checkout, but called me back, just as I was finishing off getting ready myself. We got to talking and it was just about anything. Our days so far and what we had done, and that quickly shifted into eachother's interests; not necessarily mutual ones, but also ones htat were person to the other. He told me that he was hearing about a recent 'One Piece' chapter that came out, which was crazy to him because he's not actually in any spaces that were 'One Piece' related, yet he was hearing about it. I had heard about it, and I knew that there was some giant reveal in it, and I got a surprising question from Blue-haired: "do you think I would like 'One Piece'?" He's always said that he'd never try it due to length (I know what you are Blue-haired, that's out of character for you to say..!), but after I told him about 'One Pace' he said he'd want to give it a try. Huh? Huh! Alright, then, let's try it! After giving a short explanation of how many episodes there are in the offical adaptation and how 'One Pace' recuts things, we watched the first episode where we get introduced to Luffy. And man, I was so surprised that Blue-haired enjoyed it as much as he did! We ended up watching a ton of episodes throughout the day, with us ending up all the way in the Orange Town arc. I was so happy to hear him say how much he liked Luffy, and say things about wanting to be a bit more LUffy-like that I really resonated with. Seeing Blue-haired's reaction compared to Grey-haired's was interesting too, as they laughed in pretty much the same places. Blue-haired gave a little more commentary on things, and even gave me a mini lesson on how to read Japanese text and characters during some of Zoro's episodes. He was a hug fan of Zoro actually, and his whole anti-sexist rant at Kunia. Blue-haired was not happy, however, about what Down D. Stairs did in that very same episode. Grey-haired joined our call later on, muted, and turned on her camera to show us she had some sort of alcholoic drink in front of her? She was the deginated driver for her dad apparently, but I feel like there's a better way to say what she wanted to say. Eventually, she left to continue eating, and even more eventually, Blue-haired decided that we had watched enough 'One Piece' for the day. He said he's going to check out more of 'One Pace' later, so I guess I hooked another one! Yippee! After this, we just kinda fell into regular talking. Stuff about school, our upcoming schedules, what we'll be doing after our temp jobs end, what we could do for D&D in the future, and of course, setting up our own Music League. After this though, the call ended. I can't believe we talked for nearly ten hours! I'm glad that Blue-haired and I are close enough like that. I hope we are, at least. Eh, what's the point worrying about it? He would (maybe) say something if that wasn't true within the next year.
Saturday, dinner time: I did not eat dinner.
Sunday: honestly, for a week like this, Sunday felt weird for how blank it was. Like yeah, I was writing bloghan all week this week, and that's what Sunday mostly was too. I woke up late and I had my breakfast and set myself on working on this blog, but to be honest, there were just a lot of distractions that I was facing too. I don't really want to say "yeah, I basically did nothing but bloghan" but... yeah, I basically did nothing but bloghan on Sunday. Sometime during the midday there was some sort of construction or whatever going on in the laundry room (they were installing some sort of AC filter and need to weld it onto some pipe). That caused a lot of distracting noise that kept me from doing so quickly. Also, fumes. I had to hold my breath going to the washroom, and in the washroom too. Oh well, I guess it's only for today. At night though, I guess there was something interesting that I did. I decided to download some new songs onto my phone, the U2 album with their 80s hits and Michael Bolton's 'Soul Provider,' just those two. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty sad that I stayed half my weekend inside, sure, sure. But. I am happy with it anyways. I am happy with my life, anyways. And I don't really need to move up from it. Seeing those around me who have "moved up," well... Sorry, but I'd rather move out and away. That's all I really have to say about this week.
Sunday, dinner time: I had a can of Chef Boyardee for dinner. It was... not great. Never trying it again. But at least now I know what it's like.

Future plans

Here's the results of last week's plans:

Bloghan catchup: only did one week's worth... man...
Door: no progress
D&D campaign: all done! All done.
Fasting week: well, I did this, if you don't count one slice of toast with lots of peanut butter as dinner.
Amusement park: yeah well I went but... well, read Saturday's section above.

I really don't have much I plan on doing this week. I mean, I should probably prepare for a multitude of calls with Blue-haired and Grey-haired, and there's going to be gaming of some kind for sure. But... I think we all know what I'm really going to focus on: bloghan, bloghan, bloghan! AAAAH! This is starting to get ridiculous...

Song of the week

'Vienna' (https://youtu.be/wccRif2DaGs) by Billy Joel is the song of the week. I've recently been going through this change, triggered by my new laughing condition, videos on human behaviours in the modern age and "how brains are wired," and the experience of really enjoying living alone. And I don't know why, but I've felt a lot more comfortable recently with not reaching all the things I want to do right away. That's what this song talks about: slowing down, living for a while, knowing I'll reach things when I reach things. I still have to work towards it yes, but that's what I'm doing just with my life right now. I don't need to activate the thrusters quite yet, but adding fuel to the fire will help with that later on. And it's not just career stuff too: relationships, love/romance, school, clubs, artsy projects, technical builds... so much to do, but I don't have to do it while I'm currently pressed down upon by more pressing things that need to get done. Vienna will still be around in the future for a long time, as I'm told.

Until next time

I'm sure soon enough things won't feel like a checklist of a week, but I'm starting to get afraid. Is this what life is like in the future? A repetitive series of scenes in your life, with only minor variations and pleasant joys only captured in a differ between this week and the last? Hmm... actually, maybe that's not so bad? See you next week, when I check you off my list too!

- bubbler

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