August 17, 2025 - bloghan 60

How do you do today? Oh, this week's bloghan? Yes, yes, well. About it. It's more of a checklist today. Yes, yes, that's the best way to describe it for sure. Just felt like I was ticking boxes off a list, getting things done and getting them done efficiently. That is, of course, why I shall present this bloghan more like that. Here's the list:

Tier list of the week

This week's tier list: bullet points and checklist boxes, as provided on Google Docs. Here's the tier list:

Ordered tiers, unordered wthin tiers. Not much to say here really. The square bullet points are very misleading but I guess they're alright for printed applications. Truth of the matter though is that most docs made with GOogle Docs aren't getting physically printed anymore. If you wanted a printed checklist, you're probably better of with the interactive checkboxes and just not interacting with them. The weird points that start with the baseball diamond is just strange and feels off-balance, but at least the ones in B-tier seem to have a more specific niche usage, maybe for like a concert track/artist listing or an agenda for a very focused event. The bullet points that begin with arrows are quite interesting, and I think that the kinetic energy implied by them can actually be more deseirable that the staticness of the regular bullet point in a lot of cases. Yet, the regular bullet point is on top because it just achieves what it sets out to do right from the get go. That is all.

Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)

On Monday:

I got up pretty late and ended up working from home.
Got asked by the antagonizing manager if the newest new project was all ready. It was almost all ready, so I just told him yes because I'll be gone by the time any problems are found. I told him which version of the new project it matched, and he was not happy with how old it was, despite it being the version that the not-manager told me to use. Later on, I'd ask him if he wanted me to start reimporting from the most recent stuff in the new project into the newest new project. He'd say yes at first, then backpedal that completely later. That's because the not-manager decided to make something to automate that process somehow? I gave him a couple commands to help him out with it, but good luck buddy...
Some people on my work rival's team try to get me to do some sort of large generation task, but I tell them that I'm kinda busy (not REALLY) with setting up the newest new project, so it gets assigned to someone else. Bullet dodged. The person who got reassigned to it does contact me for whatever commands I used last time, so I send those over. Feels good, feels good.
I may have gotten those results of the tests that Steve ran for me last week, but I never got an answer if they had actually passed or not. Steve pranked me by saying they didn't acutlaly pass, but eventually revealed the prank part of that statement. Or, so I thought... apparently, someone else was at his desk where he left his laptop open, one of the temps, and they answered for Steve. Of course, they had no idea what I was talking to him about, so now I was getting frustrated because I would really like for these to be in. Steve eventually returned and told me they both passed. Good, good. Wait, no they got me again??? They just lied to my face, whoever this is. I threaten to go talk to another person on his team, and eventually they get Steve to come back on and confirm with me. I want to look at the results with the special program we have for it, but it's stalling out and not actually running. Steve tells me he's going through it too. Oh well...
I take some time during the day to work on updating my resume, but I realize that for this position there's either a bunch of stuff I just can't write on my resume due to confidentiality, or that the stuff I can write on my resume sounds kinda... lame? Like, an improvement by only 0.2% can only be considered a really good thing by so many people's standards.
The not-manager starts having some trouble accessing things in the newest new project, as do I when I try to access it from new windows on my computer. I do a little digging, and I find out the the issue is from two separate typos of mine from last week. Oops. I get the not-manager to fix them on his side for speed's sake.
I let my manager know that those tests he wanted me to run are all done in a rather long message I will acknowledge, and I guess I should've seen it coming when he left me on read.
The new project starts failing all its tests, really badly. People keep adding and adding stuff to it, and it's just not working at all. I found out later that it's because the antagonizing manager wanted his stuff to pass all the tests, so he removed nearly all of the tests (the ones he wasn't passing). His passed, but then everybody's stuff afterwards was only beholden to the few he left in and... well, I'm sure you can see the problem with his idea. My work rival was MAD though, and he was demanding that I fix it. I don't know why he cares so much. He's outta here next week. Then he gets heated at my successor, then my whole team.. ok, that's better at least.
I pass a command over to the not-manager, and I ask him a quick question about the tests thing I was running. See, I wanted to examine one of the more complex logs of these tests to really get at the behaviour I was testing for, but I wanted to see if there was an easier way of comparing these complex logs than having them open in two different windows. I mean, this data was graphical, sure, but it was also just flat out huge? I asked the not-manager if there was a tool for that, and he got a bit concerned with what I was doing and called me. I'm glad that I had that karaoke stuff happen last night because my voice was still rather rough from overexerting it (I blame that one Hozier song), but during this call he essentially told me that because of all the randomness involved in the testing process, it's basically never worth it to directly compare those two files, because it'll show me so many more differnece that aren't really differences caused by my changes, just by randomness. Well, shoot. He asks me what this is all for, and after I tell him the nature of the task and what specifically I am examining/looking for, he tells me the tests I had been given won't actually help me with that at all. He gives me some new tests that will actually cover the case and behaviour I'm looking at so... yeah, sorry to my manager, but all that work and all those runs from last week? Garbage. I get those new runs started right away.
Right after this call, I start cutting three medium onions. It's terrible, only at the start. I have tears running down my face and snot running over my lips because of the sheer amount. I did figure out though that turning on the kitchen fans and anglign my eyes upwards helped a bit, so I didn't start crying badly for the final two onions. Once that 45-minute long ordeal was over, I cut a ginat chunk of butter and started frying them up.
The results of the "work-rival-core" Music League category came out! I came middle of the pack. Ok, ok, very nice! Would've thought I'd score higher, but I guess my song was pretty annoying. That's alright.
As the work day came to a close, I focused all my evening attention into making this biryani. I couldn't get my onions to turn all teh way brown, but the slightly golden yellow was good enough for me. I take my marinated chicken and the powder, and accidentally way too much water, and let that boil away. I let that cook lid closed for a good hour (even sneaking in a little writing while I do it), then for another hour with the lid sometimes closed after I add the tomato chunks. This time, I actually do the advice of soacking the rice before cooking it, but I can't tell if it's actually doing something for me or not? It seems to cook just fine. I do think though that I undercooked the rice by a little too much. You're supposed to let it undercook so that the biryani broth finishes off the rice cooking process, but I think I should've waited with the clean water cooking a tad bit longer. I do the stacking tech at the end of the second hour, placing rice at the bottom of my big pot, then all the stuff with the chicken, then another layer of rice above that, then wait. After an appropriate amount of time though, nothing has changed? Well, ok, something has changed because I can hear hissing coming from the stove everytime I abandon it to sneak in more writing at my laptop, but everytime I look at the pot, the water content doesn't seem to have changed. I have to start stirring it later to get the water to choose between cooking rice or evaporation, and once the water's all out I'm left with this sludge of rice and meat and vegetables that looks and smells like it tastes like biryani, but definitely is not fluffy like it. I give it a concerned taste, and it's the best tasting biryani I've ever made! It's just the worst ever texture biryani I ever made. I mean, how did it come out so sludgy? How did all the meat threads get all so separated? In fact, thinking of the last time I made this dish, how did I get it so that the meat fell off the bone, but didn't actually do that until prompted. With today's meal, it's all fallen off the bone and gotten mixed in with the rice. Well, I can't complain too much. It's going to feed me for a good amount of time, ain't it? I scoop a big portion into my bowl for the day, and pack away all the rest into my various containers, and enjoy the eat.
I go to bed slightly late, but not late by too much. I did manage to put out another caught up bloghan post though. That's good!

On Tuesday:

I make it to work without any issue, mostly because I could afford to not pack a lunch today. There was to be a barbecue happening today, and that would sustain me for sure. Things with the new project were still looking REALLY bad, still constantly failing, so I couldn't submit any of the reimport stuff I had prepped. Oh well!
My first order of business was completing this stupid AI training thing. Just a legal review of the company's policy regarding it. I had it on mute the whole time, but it had to be up on my screen the whole time to count. That took quite a while to get through, but conversation with other temps made it much more easier to go through. Some of the full-times such as the existentialist, the idealist, and my predecessor talk a good bunch with me and my work rival aobut some workplace feedback/performance review thing they've got to send out to people, and they're trying to figure who to send those forms to. Good luck to them! I'd probably ask the not-manager, my predecessor, and my mentor for feedback on me if I had that form.
Me and my work rival realize we should go say bye to the old man because he's going on vacation and not seeing us after he comes back. It takes us two attempts to go to his cube while he's not talking to someone, but we say our goodbyes (it was mostly my work rival, I was sort of quiet and hiding behind him the whole time) and shake hands. The old man tells us that he'll still be here in a year if we manage to return. I really did like working with the old man, even if he was a bit annoying sometimes with the things he messaged me about in large quantities. But, I do respect his dedication and the deep knowledge and experience he has in the stuff he's assigned to. WE head back to our desks, but one of the managers (actually, the idealist's and the existentialist's manager) comes by our conrner wondering who is leaving. He overheard someone waying "bye" and didn't want to be left out of it. We explained that we only said bye to the old man because he's going on vacation, and he understants that fully.
This manager also sees the triple threat full-times that are in this cube (existentialist, idealist, predecessor) and that they're still talking about the feedback form thing, and he explains to them the details of how it works and what matters. I pay close attention, just in case I get to come back and I'm in this position.
Now, this day started out sunshiney, but it eventually got cloudier and cloudier, until it started raining ten minutes before the barbeque was supposed to start. It was supposed to be a rain or shine event, but I didn't really want to go get food while in the rain. However, I was quite surprised by the fact that the rain just decided to clear up within 10 mintues??? And it was sunny again??? This is JUST like the weather back in my home city!!! How nostalgic!! Also, yippee! It'll be sunny when I have to walk outside for my food. But also, not yippee... I made tea, banking on the fact that it would rain a bit longer than it actually did.
I got slightly caught up with a work item right before the barbeque lines open, so I don't go down right away. I wait for my predecessor to be ready as well (he a had a meeting he just wanted to join but not actively be a part of), and we head down after literally everyone else has gone. Except for Steve and my work rival that is, they have an offboarding meeting to attend right now. We go on down, cross the parking lot, receive our ticket for the meal, and get in line. The barbeque consists of a small steak and a wet-seasoned chicken portion, served on buns, with three or four different types of salads, lettuce, tomato slices, pickles, and a whoel ton of diced onions. I grab a little bit of everything because I intend on getting as much as I can out of this free lunch. My predecessor gets all his stuff first, but now that I look at my plate, I realize that I don't really want to eat this outside. I'd much rather eat inside, where its not windy and theres easy access to a washroom to wash my hands in. After he talks with the newest manager on our team (he's loaded his bun with about half a cup of diced onions??? why does he have so many onions???), we head back upstairs. I enjoy my meal at my desk, enjoying every last bit of it except for the really grainy bean salad. But, my tea makes it feel a lot better for sure. I got a bit messy with my burger as well, due to how overzealous I was with the condiments, but overall? An excellent meal! Although there's some events or something happening down where the barbeque took place, I don't end up going back down there. My work rival eventually leaves and returns with his own huge plate, and we eat together in silence, only interrupted by a brief conversation about skyscrapers in New York City. I'm really going to miss this guy, aren't I?
The rest of the workday seems to flash by so quickly. I end up in the break room grabbing a root beer (I just had a burger, after all!), and I go visit the cell just to chat a little. I do my regular bit of having to expend tons of energy to open a single can of soda, worrying my work rival's successor a lot, and tell him a little bit about why I can't do the reimport process quite yet. He's apparently waiting for those changes so that he can run some stuff that he was asked to try out. Sorry bud... we'll see about later.
Eventually in the corner cube, my work rival starts up that idiotic and annoying little argument about some universities and colleges being harder. Everytime someone walks into the corner to talk or whatever it is, he ends up questioning them heavily about the same thing, to the point of getting people uncomfortable and all. Me and the idealist though? We're slightly trolling him becuase we know it frutrates him when we talk about things being the same in the end with a lot of people ending up in similar paying positions regardless of school, but my work rival just wants to hear about how some schools are better than others. I just don't care. I don't care if your school is better or worse than mine. I care that you're able to pull your own weight in whatever environment we've both found ourselves in, because if we're talking about this then we must be at a similar level. Maybe I won't miss this guy that much...
At this point, that training video has finished, and I had already moved on to actually finalizing the newest new project setup once and for all. Well, ok, only kinda, but I got it to a point where the not-manager will be taking over from where I left off, so... there's that! Yes!
I decide that's as good a time as any to update my manager on my ongoing tasks, sending him two long paragrpahs for the two project design change tasks he gave me last week. In one of those paragraphs, I even asked a question about what to do next. He just said "ok" and that was the end of that text conversation. Well, thanks manager.
AS the day progresses and I do other tasks on my list while I wait for ANY response, the weather turns from cloudy sunshine to light rain, then all of a sudden to potentially flood-causing torrents. It was like the inside of a car wash, and because it caused the corner to darken so much, everyone who was wokring there kinda just left me to work elsewhere. Well, my predecessor did join me eventually becuase it had suddenly become quieter in the corner. Well, quieter in terms of human voices. The regular pitter-patter of rain gave way to very aggresive slamming of drops on windows. Sometimes people like the fanatic would walk in and see this ravaging from the clouds, but they'd run away pretty quickly afterwards. That barbeque could not have been more pefectly timed. But then, only after 10 minutes of this primordial sea maker being around, it just finished as quick as it started. In fact, it started to get as sunny as it ever did on that day, even stronger than the late morning! All this is just reminding me more and more about my home city. I don't miss it all that much, I still don't, but... I'm definitely getting more and more nostalgic for it as time goes by. Is that just "missing it" though? I hope not.
My work rival and the existentialist start talking to me about a game they've started playing together, 'SCP: Containment Breach,' and oh boy do I love SCP! They ask me to explain some lore, and ask if I want to join in on their sessions of this horror game. Hell No!! You will never catch me playing a horror game because my regular life is scary enough. My work rival leaves soon after this, early from work today, due to an exam. Good luck!
The antagonizing manager asks if the newest new project is all setup. Oops! Did I forget to tell him (I did that on purpose so he wouldn't bother me about it and it didn't work...)? Better report to him... man...
People start to leave because it's way later in the afternoon. Most people leave the office an hour before I do, because most people get into the office an hour before I do. It's always been like that, but today I think it sort of got to me becuase I kinda just didn't do anything for the last hour? Just sat there cycling through the same apps, reading over the same pages and files. I was listless, but at least I was in the sun and listless. I almost missed my own regular leaving time, but thankfully I didn't. It turns out that it wouldn't have mattered anyways: that first bus was late. Slightly late, but still late.
Since that first bus back was slightly late, I had to wait a good 7 minutes for the next bus in my connection. 7 minutes!? I'm not waiting that long! I'm just going to start walking back. As I do, I decide to pop into this chain restaurant and buy myself a treat: a Bostom cream donut, easily my favourite. I get it to go and walk out looking so giddy, ilke a kid who just bought his favourite donut. Or something like that. I continue on walking, and I manage to catch a different bus than that one I had to wait 7 minutes for, so overall I didn't spend too much time walking today.
I got home and got to work... on barely any bloghan. I need to figure out a way to curb back my YouTube watching, to stop myself from scrolling Reddit endlessly because it's just going to keep eating into my time. That's not to say I did nothing of worth though: I updated my resume a bit more to apply for a slightly different yearlong project with my group back home, and did some digging into a potential VPN I'd like to buy in the future. I wish I had more to say about these little Google adventures I was embarking, but I was just as tired then as I am now riting about them. There's nothing really interesting to say about them. I guess there's something interesting to say about the fact that I'm struggling to find something to say aobut VPNs. That in of itself is something interesting. But, I don't suppose I really know what else to say about it. Sorry. Last up on the list was research into what songs I wanted to submit to the Music Leage with Blue-haired and Grey-haired, with the category being songs you wnat played at your funeral. Obviously, I chose Lauper's 'Time After Time' because I feel like it accurately depicts what I would try to do to those I cared about after I'm dead, but also because it was played at a funeral I attended once and that context made me tear up to the song. For the second though... how about 'We Are!' from 'One Piece,' but with the lyrics chcanged up so it matches the dangerous conditions back in my home city? Yeah, let's do that! And then, straight to bed! What a topsy-turvy day...

On Wednesday:

Got up at the normal time, caught all the regular buses, and feeling just a bit loopy.
First thing I do in the office is ask my work rival how his exam went: it went great according to him, which is very nice to hear! But then... why isn't he in the office today?? Well, I guess it's good for me either way...
There's another email from that Supreme Manager of Steve's asking us two to test stuff on some new devices or whatever? I have no idea what he's asking us to test though, until my work rival shares his interpretation: it's all the regular toosl and such his team uses. Ahhh... I see. Now I get it. I've gotta figure out which kinds of tools my team is mostly repsonsible for running and using and all that. Gotcha! Sounds boring, I'll do it later.
The issue of people constantly submitting stuff to the new project and it not being all that tested, coordinated, or integrated is still cuasing it to be failing completely and totally, meaning no one can get a functional look at the projects' files' most recent versions. My work rival complains to me about it. I don't know what he wants me to do about this! I'm just working on my own stuff, having a bit of fun with that direct editing of project files that will actually change how it works. Some of it is generated, but I have to then take that generated portion and trace its impact throughout other files, then make decisions like naming and how things get connected or reconnected. Now this is even better than Absconder!
My successor asks if I can call, but now I'm confused because I swear she's in the office. I don't even have to ask her for clarificaiton before she admits (without being asked) that she's nervous about just coming to my desk. When I tell her that she can, she rushes over very excitedly. This girl scares me. But recently, I've been having a bit of a turnaround regarding her. I had been in the mindset of "I can no longer excuse this, she should know better," but I think that I was giving her too much flak for it. She's still getting used to it all, and her personality doesn't quite conform to the office setting as much yet. She'll bloom rather soon, I believe, but for now I'm going to choose to believe in her ability to learn and grow. There are always pains in relationships, professional or not, and they don't always get resolved right away. But if I can't even go through these pains with her, or even with people in general, that shows that I'm just giving up on someone. I don't really want to do that. I think I can make it. So, to my successor? You're alright, as the kids say. Do the kids say that? I think that's what the adults say actually... anyways, my successor arrives at my desk, and tells me about her recent woes regarding the antagonizing manager, then asks about a new task she got related to the newest new project: she needs to change file paths to no longe reference the last project. Oh, well, I was supposed to do that, and I did a bit of it, so I'll just... slide that list onto you since someone asked you to do it and be rid of the task! Perfect! I don't actually mean this in a mean way, I just could've been the one to do it, but since she was asked to do so it's better for her to do it. Plus, it only helps her reputation if she does it. She heads off excitedly to her desk, after a bit more conversation. That girl... you know, she's a good person to be around. It's just that... I don't really have the same social energy levels as her (but I can pretend I do, pretty well), so sometimes I need a break from it all. If I stay too long in that energy, some of the thing she say might get viewed in a more cynical lens of mine, but I guess hindsight and additional contextual information can heal any misunderstanding.
I work for the next few hours mostly undisturbed. I'm doing the bigger of those two tasks where I'm changing stuff about the project more on the low level, but it's not like I'm glued to my chair the whole time. I have my visits to the cell and the crossword cubicle, the idealist, predecessor, and existentialist have their visits into the corner, I go with Steve at one point to get tea in the break room. Just normal office things, really. My manager send out an email to our team announcing that he's figured out how to completely fix the new project and asking us to be a bit more careful with things, but my stuff isn't near ready enough to be submitted just yet. I get some help getting started on the task from my predecessor, and from there it's smooth editing. Crazy how I can get so much done when my work rival isn't around, huh?
My work rival begins pestering me once again about how things aren't working with the nightly flow stuff, and I once again tell him it's not my responsibility. He starts messaging me in all caps, things like "FIX" and "O II A" and just being overall demanding and a lot. I tell him to calm down. He does not take that well. The idealist is here in the corner with me (I'm the only one bothering to be in the corner today for some reason), and he's watching all this go down with a big smile on his face. Couple of peas in a pod, those two. Eventually, the idealist decides to leave one of my work rival's cleats sitting on his monitor. When I tell my work rival someone left a surprise for him on his desk, he immediately guesses the idealist. Peas. Pods.
There was one other thing with the idealist, and that was the near 20 minute lecture on "microcheating" that he gave me before leaving. Apparently, the behaviour of the pair and the fanatic amounts to this? I don't really know... I mean, a little earlier in teh day I did see the pair give live ASMR to the fanatic, and it wsa oddly sensual and made me quite uncomfortable... but microcheating? What does that even mean?? Huh?? I mean, I remember overhearing my successor ask them some male names before talking about her boyfriend, so I'm pretty sure the pair have people, but..? Is this some hyper-attached thing I'm too single to understand? When he leaves for the day, I'm left reeling at the explanation. I really don't know what to make of it...
I get to a point in this task where I have to remove a whole element from one part of the project. Usually, I only stick to moving elements, changing connections to them, or some sort of naming change. Never had to remove one though. It feels wrong. It feels like I shouldn't touch them, especialyl since part of the name of this element says not to touch it. I ask my manager if I can (he leaves me on read), then my predecessor about what I can do, but my predecessor says I can just remove it. The thing that says not to touch it isn't for humans, but for a tool. Huh.
On another trip around the office, the cable guy spots me and asks if I want to go to the carnival thing in the downtown area soon. Oh, yeah that was a lot of fun last year! I'd love to go! I tell him to plan that out with a group chat though, because I just know I'm going to very busy with a Jeopardy board (and maybe one final crossword) very soon.
Once back at my desk, I stay there until the end of my shift, managing to finish the manual project file editing of the task I was working on right as the clock hit my regular leaving time on the minute. I forgot what that kind of work felt like: exciting, difference-making, dreading the second, more automated half of it. But, that's not for today! I set up some tests to run overnight just to make sure I did it right and headed out.
Once I was back, I tried to set my mind on something productive, I really did! And it did work! One of the first things I did was call the government help line of my home city, to see if they could connect me to someone who could potentially give my group a yearlong projectto work on starting in September. The guy I talked to did not have such a contact readily available, so he gave me the city's internal HR number and told me to ask them to connect me to someone. Well, not what I was expecting but ok.
After that, I tried to get back to bloghan. But you know how I am. A whole slew of avoiding work in order to do something much easier, which was research stuff that had to do with my future: looking up books of cryptic crosswords, trying to find companies and organizations that could give my group (when we get a project, I will explain more about who my group is) a yearlong project for us to do once I got back to my home city, banking stuff and learning how to do investments (I still don't get it), random resume prep and all that stuff, looking into getting a Framework laptops and trackballs, medieval torture methods, common things required for weddings- AGHGHH it's already past midnight!? I don't understand it. How is it that I can feed myself so much just thinking about the future, near and far, and cause everything in my present to stagnate, to falter? Well, it's much too late to discuss that one I think. I better go sleep...

On Thursday:

Making my way into the office at the normal pace, on the normal buses, noticing how my shoes are oh so worn. That's... that's not good! I'll have to fix that next week I think.
I restarted my progress on the merge thing, even though things were still a little tumultous with the new project stuff. While my manager did get it all fixed recently, it was still constantly getting broken and getting fixed. Well, I guess there is one part of the reimport of my work rival's team's files I haven't done yet... the spot merges of certain files that aren't just "bring it over." I've done some of them, but not all. So, I continued with that, and everytime my work rival saw me do it he asked why I was bothering to do it manually. Some things just require a careful touch, a detailed eye, you know?
My work rival and his situationship were visiting the whole time too, which was sort of annoying since the situationship would often take my chair, or my desk, or my monitors, whever I wasn't around. But, she did bring cookies that were extremely tasty, so I couldn't be too annoyed... they are better cookies than my predecessor's wife even!
The cable guy also makes the group chat for the fair or carnival or whatever it is thing, but when the idealist sees that he didn't get invited to it (probably because you don't even talk to the cable guy...), he got my work rival to invite him in. Then, out of play (read: fake) anger, he decided to invite some sort of bot to the chat that ended up inundating us with a bunch of computer usage info we already knew. Then, the memer and the stoned got in the chat and started spamming memes, distracting from the messages from the cable guy at the top of the chat asking who wanted to go. When the memer and the stoned stopped, I replied to the cable guy's original message to bring it to the forefront, but way later on in the day the idealist decided it would be the funniest thing ever if he invited as many people as he could to this chat just to gum it up with people, udner the guise of "I don't want to be exclusive." He raised the amount of people in that chat by about 200%, to the point where it just stopped us from being able to effectively organize anything. My work rival thought this was so funny, I was mad on the cable guy's behalf, and the cable guy was flat out just confused. Sometimes, it really is my work rival or those closest to him being the reason why we can't have nice things...
The idealist also came by a lot just to visit us in the corner. And the amount of gossip that he, my work rival, and my work rival's situationship would take part in was just... I didn't know it was possible to have this much drama in an office setting but thinking on all the things they said... yeah, most of it is present, even if what half of what they were saying was not true. The most memorable example was the microcheating thing again, where they talked about the fanatic's recent behaviour around the pair and vice versa. I guess my work rival has been feeling... actually, I don't know why he has a problem with this?? I just don't care, but I guess it must be affecting some sort of group dynamic that my work rival is sensitive to, due to how much time the fanatic is spending with the pair over the rest of us? That must be it. Right? Well, my work rival is unconvinced, really thinking that it's actually all going both ways. But the girls in the pair don't seem like the cheating or microcheating sort, if you can really even call this behaviour of "entertaining visits from one guy a lot" that. And also, they have boyfriends if my successor's words are to believed (she didn't know I was listening so there's no way she would've lied). The other three gossips here couldn't believe I was saying this, but once they heard the bit about my successor they believed it... that is, until my successor came to visit me to tell me about something she had done. The antagonizing manager had been bothering her a whole lot for the last little bit, and she was ranting to my work rival's successor about it in the cell, which is right next ot the break room. Now, she can be a bit of a loud person, and as they were coming up with negative connotation words to describe the antagonizing manager (they eventually settled on "villain"), they learned that he was actually in teh break room for some amount of time. He probably overheard them. Well, I think he probably didn't (and if he did, he wouldn't care I'm sure), but she was stressed out of her mind because of it. Well, she was about to get one more thing to stress about as she got pulled into this gossipy conversation and pushed to talk about the pair. She was strangely very reulctant to give away details, which I thought was odd for her. Usually she's quite liberal with those kinds of things. I tried to help her out a little by stating what I had overheard that one time, trying to give her an out because if she was putting this much effort into hiding something, it must be something very confidential. I don't think it worked at all though, because the pressure got to her just enough so that she revelaed something extremely private about one of the girls in the pair, that really caught all of us off-guard. For the three other gossipers, it was because of the fact that she revealed, but for me it was the fact that she had revealed that fact - one that really REALLY shoud've bene kept secret. Ultimately, that secret doesn't actually change anything about the situation we were discussing, and whenever someone brought it up I tried reigning in the conversation back to the initial topic. My successor felt so insanely guilty for revealing that to us, swearing us all to secrecy but... the damage has been done. I at least try to cover up and obfuscate the conversation by constantly bringing up that I had a valid and reasonable point with my assumption at the time that I made it (the beginning of the conversation and when I did the overhearing months ago) because I had limited information at the time, but pretty soon they just decided to not care about that point as much and talk the whole topic down to death. I had to sit though this constant gossip (I tried not to participate in it much more after that particular incident) for the rest of my work shift, until my work rival went home.
But there were also times where I didn't have to sit through it, at least! They brought the ice cream truck round one more time today, and me and the idealist went down for it. The line wasn't very long as the day was on the cloudier side, but I got a very creamy vanilla-chocolate twist and liked it well enough. The memer though... well, he got a slush for some reason, and it was bright bright green. He HATED it. Why did he even order it??? He joined the line again, but the guy in the truck recognized him and told him "no seconds." Hilarious!! I would learn later that the memer went back with a bit of a disguise (a hat, a different hoodie, sunglasses, other stuff), but the ice cream truck guy saw through it and turned him away once again.
There was also the regular Thursday meeting for that prety old project. Me, my work rival, his successor, and my predecessor all went to it, but even though we got there at the appointed time, the door was locked. My work rival opened the door a smidge, and saw the director and my manager in there along with others. Uh... did they start wihtout us? I know we aren't relevant to this meeting, this old project, but... I mean, we usually get here before them. What's going on? Eventually, my predecessor messages one of the managers in there and he tells us a bit later to come on in. Apparently, this same group of managers had a meeting for an unrelated thing that just so happened to be in this room, one hour before. Yet again though, the meeting was a complete waste of my time to attend, though I did get a little more merge work in. I think I'll try and find some excuse to not go next week.
Went to where Steve was temporarily sitting (he just doesn't want to hang out in the corner anymore, and I understand why: it's inundated with my work rival and the cronies, constantly!), and we went to get tea together. It's sort of become our little tradition in these last few weeks, because for some reason Steve really likes watching me make tea??? I mean, it's not that hard to pour the little stream of hot water onto the English breakfast teabag so that it pops up above the three milk you added ever so slightly. One of the girls in the pair seems to think less of me for using three milk (I live my life, you live yours, ok? if it's loved, it's alright!), and my co-DM thinks the same as me: it's nothing special. But Steve likes it, so he comes with me to watch me make tea. I uh... sure. When we get back to his desk, he shows me the YouTube video of '100 ANIME SONGS in 30 MINUTES!!! Piano Medley' that he's been listening to for a while, and he seems genuinely happy and hyped by it. I'm not really one for such a wide spread of media in a medley, but he still sent it to me anyways. Thanks Steve?
I also went outside at one point to make a call to my home city's HR, just to ask about them connecting me with someone who could give us a yearlong project opportunity. It didn't take too long to get connected, explain my case, get harrased by a bug and really confusing the HR lady outside with the noises I produced from that scuffle, and get a ticket going. She asked if I had a pen and paper handy; I went outside with just my phone to make this call so no, but I told her to email me the case number. Well, that was easy!
As people began to leave, in my last hour of work I managed to finish all my merges. Now, all I had to do was submit it... well, I'm sure that maybe tomorrow things will calm down enough in the new project for me to do that, or maybe next week? We'll see... My last little thing of work I did was to work a little bit on getting a little directory indexer, one that automaticaly provides such an index when a user navigates into a directory. I had to struggle a good bit to even get that "automatic upon directory change" part even working, but once I did? Wow, did it feel good. I think this idea's got potential... ah, but before I got the chance to start putting in some descriptions for tools and such in that directory, it's time to go. What a headache of a workday... at least some stuff got done...
Once I got home, after some relaxation was a call with Blue-haired. Grey-haired was not able to join us today, so this session consisted mostly of us having some awkward conversation (me especially, because I was so sleepy!), and me watching him play 'Balatro.' When he did clear a run (by running it into the ground by getting greedy, in a way only Blue-haired could), I asked him what was next because I was feeling too tired to even watch 'Balatro.' We tried to figure something out, and eventually that ended up in me buying and installing a game I've had my eye on for maybe a week: 'Is This Seat Taken?' It's a pretty calm puzzle game where you have to place these littel shape characters in different settings: an office, a move theatre, a bus, a party, etc. The trick is that each character in each puzzle has these little tics and preferences, and you have to find a way to satisfy each one's needs. For example, maybe one character is really smelly, and another character can't stand bad smells. You have to make sure in your seating arrangement that those two are far enough from each other so that the second is not bothered by the first. It sounds simple enough, but when there's limited spots and everyone has 2 or 3 conditions, the challenge ramps up. Still, it's not prohibitively hard to the point of frustration, and not trivially easy to the point of posing no challenge at all. It makes you work for the solution just enough to feel satisfying, and its got a perfect enough difficulty to actually get you to think on something, but never restart a level out of rage. We played through a good chunk of the game, about 40% of it, and we had a blast! It was nice to relax too. I mean, I love 'Balatro,' I love my adventure games but... I don't want action all the time. Sometimes, I have the feeling of wanting to play, but also with the feeling of wanting to relax. I don't really think I experience feelings of wanting to play a specific game (when I don't currently have an obsession with a patricular game, that is), more so feelings to play a certain type of game. Sometimes I want action, sometimes I want something more strategic/turn-based, and sometimes I want to solve puzzles. This game perfectly scratches the "puzzle-solving" plus "relaxing" itch. Me and Blue-haired even got to brainstorm on some solutions together, something we haven't really done together in a while. Though, there was somethign concerning I saw during the game... My game theory aobut it is that this story surrounding the main character Nat's dream of becoming a film star is just a cover for the real story: a story about how all the strangers that Nat meets are all just trying to manipulate and abuse her for their own benefit. All the evidence is there if you go digging into the game's dialogue, but... well, I guess maybe I should get back to relaxing, huh? Once we had had our fill of that though, we ended the call and I looked at just how much time had passed. It was quite a long time, and it had kept me from a lot of bloghan work, but I didn't regret a moment of it. After dinner, some research into investing stuff, accidentally working on my work laptop a bit more (on that indexer, of all things! of all things!), and looking into this old music artist I really like (Kubbi, whatever happened to you?), I headed to bed.

On Friday:

I get up out of bed, haggardly. I've got to take the late bus today, but since there's no milk, I'm not making oatmeal. This skipping of breakfast means I get to relax a little before I have to rush out the door, but it also means not eating anything in the morning. Guess I'll have to go the restaurant in the bottom floor of the office buulding.
I get on the bus for half the ditance, then off to walk the other half. It's not as good as it's been in other mornings because I'm pretty hungry, but that will be ameliorated soon enough.
I enter into the building from the backside for the quickest access to the restaurant. When I go inside, the two people usualyl manning the tills are at a dining table with these ancient looking laptops. I'm a bit confused at first, but one of them spots me and says they are indeed open. I eventually order a breakfast wrap from them, and after a short wait, I'm headed up the stairs with the wrap in a box in my hands, later eaten at my desk.
I see one of the new guys (on a different floor) from my home city has invited me over to his place for dinner tomorrow. A bit short notice, but I'll see what I can do.
Now, for actual work: I mostly focus on that little index thing that procs upon entering a certain directory. I've got it working at a basic level, just telling you what the things in this directory all do (it was pretty easy for all of them except the thing my work rival made; I had to press answers from him for that one), but I want it to go further: I want it to actually prompt you to choose one of the sub-directories and move you there for you. That one's a lot harde to do though, and it takes me a while to actually get working. But once I do get it working, I'm plagued with a strange error: whenever I activate that ability, the index then removes the command which checks for what directory you're in. So it works the first time, but since it removes the line containing the command for "check where the user is," it will only work once unless you re-source the file with all the passive commands, which is annoying. I try to find out why its doing this: apparently, when it tries to switch to the user's selected directory, that triggers the check for directory command, and our environment does not take too kindly to any sort of recursive usage of this specific command and condition. That's why the deletion happens, and I guess it makes sense to do that. I try for hours to get it to work, trying every single workaround I can, to no avail. At the advice of the existentialist, I decide to scrap this feature of the index moving to you to your selected sub-directory, just sticking to it lisitng and describing what's in each one. He's probably right about it being too needlessly handholdy... well, either way, I'm excited to show this to my manager!
I talk to my work rival's successor (visiting him in the cell right after I make my tea), who's having a hard time with one of his tasks because he needs certain files to be reimported into the new project from the last project, something I haven't been able to do this week (despite being all set to do it) because of the stupid constant issues causing the new project to be in a permanent-seeming state of breaking. My work rival's successor takes this news in stride, with grace, and tells me its alright. I end up offering to let him use my device's version of the files so that he can at least get a start with this all. My work rival does not take this well (he's working form home today so who really cares?) though, lashing out at me over direct messages about how I should just force my submission right into the new project regardless of its status. Yeah, no, I'm not doing that. He gets even more whiny about it, but once I send him a picture implying that he was the crying bald wojak and I was the handsome and chadlike indifferent wojak, he stopped whining and started telling me my jokes were funny. Uh... yeah, that's why I say them?
I also reported the flow thing back to the Supreme Manager of Steve's team (that guy's still below the director though). All the flows belonging to my subteam seemed to work in the alternate machines he provided us, though I can't say they went perfectly. There were some tests that failed, but I don't know if that was because of the alternate machine or not. However, I did all this flow testing on the last project which is basically all finished now; there shouldn't be anything failing, unless its the differences that might exist in the new and old machines that these flows run on. That'll be a doozy for whoever comes after me though.
My successor asks to call me for some personal advice, but the audio of my work laptop isn't working at all. I end up needing to restart the whole thing, and only then does it start working. Funny things, these Windows computers. I'm sure Linux has its own fair share of oddities though. We talk about a situation that took place over these past two days. Yesterday, she had an opportunity to submit some change to the new project, but she hadn't yet tested the change to make sure it wouldn't break things. The antagonizing manager told her she had better submit it while she had the chance, but she hesitated and decided to do it after lunch. When she came back from lunch, she returned to find some somwhat angry demands from the antagonizing manager, wanting to know why he didn't yet see her submission. She panicked, submitted, and because it went untested she didn't know it would break things. When it did, it caused my go-to to have to work overnight to fix it, and she somewhat told off my successor about running the tests before submitting. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, and unfortunately this kind of thing is pretty common at this stage of the project. I couldn't offer her much more comfrot than "I've been there before," and a little bit of helping with interpreting a task she got.
The idealist makes a group chat with the existentialist, my work rival, me, and my predecessor asking about the park visit tomorrow. We're all down, and we decide we'd leave for it at aruond 2 hours after noon tomorrow.
As I stick around in the office, developing that little index tool, I notice more and more people just decide to leave early. I mean, the office was already empty enough to start with, but as I get up more and more to go distract myself as a break, I find there's less and less people to actually talk to. It gets to the point where I just stay at my desk because I've nothing to do but work. And mess around with trying to make a citation for a manga chapter just to see if I could.
OK, that was a lie, I had other things I did: mainly, start planning out the final Jeopardy. First was to determine an invite list by asking Steve and my work rival what they wanted. Steve wanted dinner and all the usual folks, while my work rival wanted a more refined list. I'm... I'm just going to go with Steve's open invite to the floor idea.
An email goes out where the not-manager reminds people he's going on vacation for three weeks. He's not going to see me before I leave! I take a good long time to make a long message wishing him well and thanking him for all his help (with help from my work rival). He gives me a rather kind and encouraging response back, and I get my work rival's predecessor's and Swarm's advice on what to respond with. I settle on the "heart" reaction. See ya, not-manager.
I try to get my work rival to try my index tool, but he just does not play ball. He's "too busy" and I have "a whole replacment temp" I can use for this. Fine, you know what? I'm going to use YOUR replacement temp. That's right. I'll take up his time so you can't. I get him to try, and confirm that it works on other people's systems! Now, it's complete. All it needs now is approval from my manager... but how do I tell him I've been working on this when he did not actually assign it to me outright?
I talk a bit with the pair, but something feels... off? Ah, wait, it's because the fanatic wasn't there. Now they're back to having a little more energy. They offer me a matcha cookie (NO thank you), and the newest new guy walks in to explore the little lab they're holed up in. He touches some sort of camera on a tripod, and the pair tell him that it's someone else's super sensitive setup? They angle it back though, so it couldn't have been that sensitive?? I just head back to my desk after that.
My work rival's successor manages to also get whatever thing he needed the reimport files running perfectly well in my version of the files. The way he messaaged that to me though made it sound like it something broke or was extremely off, but he confirmed it was good news once I got to his desk.
In my final hour at work this week, I end up drafting and sending a message to the Jeopardy group chat announcing the last Jeopardy for next week. It's a bit late of a notice for sure, but I hope that enough people will be motivated by Steve and my work rival leaving that day to attend. Oh, and I guess it being the last Jeopardy too. Also in this final hour, I start going back through my task list to look for something else to do, but as I'm doing it I realize that time's snuck up on me once again and it's time to run for the bus. During that bus ride, I reflect on just how productive I am when there's no one around to distract me. I didn't feel all that lonely either. Just... in the zone.
Once back at my place, I try to get a lot og bloghan done, but unfortunately get distracted by videos on my phone, with a side of caffeine-induced psychosis related to hallucinations of various bugs (ants on the floor and centipedes on my arms) and a whole lot of going through songs I like to find one for the new Music League category, "Karaoke Bangers." Oh, and also figuring out that the new guy on a different floor who invited me to his place is only a 40 minute walk from me. You best know I'm going to go visit his place for dinner tomorrow!
I go to sleep at nearly 5 hours after midnight, but I have a hard time falling asleep. Everytime I put my head on my pillow and turn off the lights, I hear an insect buzzing around and bumping into a wall. But everytime I turn on the lights and investigate, I find no such bug anywhere. Must be another hallucination, an auditory one... I'm never drinking 5 cups of tea in one day EVER again.

On Saturday:

I got up quite late, just around noon. Made myself some breakfast, some tea, sat down to do a little work, and then: at around 2 hours after noon, I got in a real rush to pack everything I would need and rushed out the garage door (my landlord had left it open, for some reason?) to get in my predecessor's car. My work rival and the existentialist were already in there, and then off we went to the train station. We honestly found it a little hard to talk about things that weren't work, but I had an easy solution to this problem in the form of trying to talk as little as possible, being content with looking out the window.
We get to the station and park. My predecessor doesn't bother with paying for parking because apparently on weekends its free. Oh, well, that's good I suppose. I hope that doesn't bite us later...
We get on the train, which comes pretty quick. Two stops in, we get off the train so we can rendezvous with the idealist. Once we meet up with him, we get on the next train and kinda just talk as we stnad. As seats free up we take them, ending up split between two groups of me with the existentialist and the idealist with my predecessor and work rival. The group of three is pretty noisy and a little disruptive (probably because of who is in it...), while the group of two is nowhere near that level. Instead, we're just kind of quiet. We have to transfer off this line to get to the park, and I already know which way we have to go becuase i can see the large sign pointing the way to the transfer platform. My work rival loudly asks where I'm going because clearly I don't know, but once I point out the sign to him he apologizes. Sometimes with this guy, I really can't tell if I like him or not. I think I do though. At that platform, there's a guy just loudly playing rap music and roaming on the platform, and the idealist REALLY wants to sit next to him. That's why I bring us to a different door on the train once it arrives, and we sit close by, but not next to him. I just didn't want to have to deal with that. I take a seat while the rest of them stand, and my work rival and the idealist decide to do some pull ups on the bars before everyone eventually settles down on the seats by mine. Those four get incited by "dramatic and controversial" discussions that my work rival keeps bringing up, but I don't really want to talk on those so I just read the copy of 'Much Ado About Nothing' that I've been carrying everywhere to pass the time. Eventually though, we get to our stop. I get off the train, then off the platform, the up to street level, then out onto the street WAYY faster than any of the others. They're all walking so slowly, just chatting away at those controversial topics, so I have to stop and look back so that they know where to go. But at last, we're only a block away from the park.
We all walk on to the park, with everyone suddenly remembering that I'd been here before. I'm getting pretty excited, but also nervous like the last time I brought people somewhere here. I'm referring to the aquarium visit a little while back. I love the aquarium here, but I was concerned about my friends not liking it because of all the screaming children. I mean, that bothers me too, but I have worked with kids before so I don't really care all that much. But back to the park, after the idealist started freaking out over some house that looked like one from an MV (what is the weekend? is that like a band or something??), we entered and walked along its edge for a while. I was still walking up a little ahead, but eventually my predecessor decided to pick up his pace to make sure I had someone to talk to. Our conversation wasn't all that notable, just talk between friends that doesn't really need to be quantified. Enjoyable talk, nonetheless. There was a person walking in our direction with a shirt branded with the logo of one of our company's rival. He must've seen my hat branded with my own company, because he crossed the road as soonas he saw us. That somehow got everyone talking alternate companies that were around us, prompting me to walk on ahead once again. Can't we just enjoy our days out?
We start our trek into the park itself after my predecessor visits a washroom. We have to be careful going down this very steep hil, and apparently there are sea turtle eggs buried in it. What??? How did a sea turtle even get up here??? This hill is so steep, if I'm not careful with my steps I could genuinely fall. But, we all make it down to the area of the park closer to the river/lakebank (I have no idea if this is a river or a lake), and while we could keep walking on this sidewalk to get to the zoo right away, we decided to down to the coast.
At the shoreline of this lake/river, there's this flock of ducks just chilling. Preening, swimming a little, standing around doing nothing. There's this hiker lady here just looking out on teh lake, and I feel a bit bad for our disturbance into that peace. I mean, we were being sort of quiet. Except my work rival, of course, because he was just spamming out picutres while saying "OMG quackers! Look, quackers! Has he never seen a duck before? Then, the existentialist jokes "are these the capybaras we came to see?" That gets a small laugh out of all of us, and a VERY concerned look from the hiker lady.
We move on from this bit of shore, then walk on until we reach some sort of fishing and lookout deck. There's a couple people actually fishing here, but we take up the standing slots right in the center. We stand there in good silence for a while, and once the other 4 begin to talk amongst each other, I get back to my regular business of just staying silent and looking out ahead. That last part only lasts for a bit though, as I get entranced by the fishing baits being repeatedly thrown into the water, watching them get drawn on up by the fishers here. They are getting something tugging on the line, but no one actually manages to pick something. After a strange conversation about cigarettes, the greenness of the water (my work rival thought it was disgusting... so THAT'S why he doesn't eeat vegetables!), hookah lounges from the idealist and supported by my work rival, we decide to finally get off this deck and head towards the zoo. We spent about half an hour here. Geez, time flies with these guys, huh?
We begin a long walk towards the zoo, first walking amongst the people sitting on picnic blankets, then going up a rather steep slope, then walking on more and more. We wactually walk so far along the edge of the park that we actually miss the spot where we were supposed to turn! But at the spot where we realized that, there was another turn we could take... right into a dead end. Well... it was only a dead end because it went straight into a forrested area, across which another street should exist. There was the essence of a desire path leading down a slope into this area, a steeper slope than we had climbed up just minutes ago. Understandably, we chose not to take this "path" though, doubling back towards the turn we missed... which actually ended up taking us to another forrested area, this time with a much clearer and defined desire path and not comparable to a sheer drop off a cliff. There was even a guy in very light hiking gear just in front of us. Clearly, this is intended. It actually reminded me quite a lot of an actual hike, with its winding path, the random fork in the road (I'm glad the coin flip took us in the right direction), and the use of literal tree roots as stairs. I was having a great time, but my work rival was struggling a little bit with the slopes. They were pretty tricky slopes, pretty difficult to not just run down and hope for the best, but I edged downwards pretty well I think. Once we were all down the slope, it was simply a matter of walking through a sparse little thicket and a lining of bushy flowers, and then we walked out the forrested area into a parking lot. Hmm... I kinda wish we were still in the forest.
Now we could've headed to the zoo now, but the existentialist wanted to eat something, even if it was just a snack. The idealist and my predecessor agreed, and luckily for them there was an ice cream truck nearby, as well as an ice cream cart. My work rival was not interested, so he sat on a rock. I thought about getting an ice cream, but after looking at the prices I decided against it. My predecessor and the existentialist grabbed a vanilla-chocolate twist from the truck, like the one they brought to work this week, but these cones and portions were much much larger, and were a bit pricy for the amount. That ice cream also melted extremely quickly, and it was literally dripping all over their hands as they got close to the bottom. The idealist went to the cart, and got himself a Spongebob popsicle (no berry candy eyes though, those were removed due to choking complaints). He was shoving this thing down his throat very aggresively in front of all of us, so you know I had to make some somewhat explicit comments as he was doing it, taking all of it. It actually ended up falling off the stick during one long suck, but at least it fell off while it was in his mouth. Now, as for why he bought the Spongebob popsicle of all things? Well, I asked, and he said that now that he's an adult with money, why shouldn't he buy the things he's always wanted as a kid, just to try it out? Huh... never really thought of it that way.
Once we were all done with that, it was time for the zoo itself. It had its exhibits just along the street, and I liked them quite well enough. We all sat in front of the capybara exhibit for a long while, just watching one of them eat and another go for a swim. You could also see an elk or caribou (one of them, no idea which) way in teh back in anotehr hidden exhbit too. Honestly, the capybara was jsut kinda sitting there, but I appreciated just how relaxed they were despite everything going on around them. More people should be like capybaras, maybe. From there, we went to see some llamas, an emu that made a very guttaral sound that "bonded" with the idealist and my work rival, some barbary sheep that were casually just standing ont eh roof of a building, and a whole peacock exhibit that reminded me of the zoo from home, as well as the Swiss long weekend trip to Italy I want on last last May. As we went through the zoo, I could tell the others were beginning to get bored. I get it. It's not a really big zoo in any sense, nor did it seem very well funded. Also, quite a lot of kids were present and being noisy, once again. But I think they still had a good time talking to each other. As we left the zoo and saw the last few and most underwhelming exhibits (a bison standing very very still and the frankly smelly highland cattle), they all started to make late lunch/early dinner plans.
Once they made their decision, split evenly down the middle between a famous fried chicken place (work rival, idealist) and some vegan place (predecessor, existentialist). I wasn't getting dinner with them because I would be going to someone's place for dinner closer to the end of the day. We waited at a bus stop and my work rival and I talked about potentially returning to this place after we end. The bus took a bit to get here, but once we did it dropped us off pretty quickly at the train station. Now the idealist was guiding us, but he couldn't figure out which bus was which, so we ended up walking to the place where the restaurants were. Along the way, my work rival started up his whole "let's talk controversial topics" thing again, such as "is it transphobic to have a genital preference" or "are you straight if you became the other gender and still liked the other gender" (why are you so concerned with this???). I'm pretty sure you can guess my response to this: trying to walk on ahead to avoid talking about all this! My predecessor joined me near the front, and we talked housing... a fine enough topic, I guess. Also, there was just this outdoor cat that walked up to us and nuzzled our legs. Uh... sure. That was cool. I didn't expect myself to freeze up when it happened, but it felt weird to get touched as much like that? I don't really know how to explain it, but I really didn't want to move when that cat was touching me, for fear of potentially hurting it, which I doubt I could actually do. The cat eventually just moved on, and so did we, eventually getting to the street corner with the restaurants. I recognized this place! Last time I came to this park, for the cherry blossoms, I got food at this area too! We split ways after this, and I opted to join the idealist and my work rival in their restaurant.
We enter the fried chicken place, and it's kinda uncomfortably warm. Usually I'm ok with that because of how cold I get, but this was different. It was kinda... clammy-feeling? Apparently this place has Michelin stars too, but I thought that was weird with the amount of flies buzzing around and the amount of food behind the counter that was just exposed for the flies to get in. Well, maybe the cooks in the front were just good enough to not let that happen? My two friends ordered their food, we got seated, talked about relationship stuff for a long while, then the meals were served to them. Fried chicken sandwiches that were absolutely loaded, some waffle fries, extra fried chicken, and coleslaw that neither of them were going to eat. I watched them eat, with the idealist clearly enjoying his meal WAY more than the work rival did. It did look pretty good though, and while I wasn't all that hungry, the work rival told me to eat some of the extra side fries and chicken. I guess he wasn't planning on eating too much of it then. Must've not been impressed. I'm easy to impress though, so when I took some bites, I thougt it was quite a bit above "alright." The meal was mostly eaten, I had to sit through the two's agonizingly long "rate it out of 10" conversation, and I ended up eating the leftover waffle fries. After we've finished up in here, we head out to eventually meet up with the existentialist and my predecessor.
After a quick stop in a convenience store where I get a bottle of aloe water (good memories from high school!) and an awkwardly quick call to ask where they were, we cross the road and wait. I whistle to pass the time, and my work rival asks what song it is; I provide it, and he's about to play it out loud to test my pitch against the actual song, but that's when the other two show up. We take the bus back to a train station, then take the train all the way back up to where we started. During the train ride, I was already feeling the tiredness a bit, so I spent almost all of it just staring out the window and thinking about rather romantic views of my life and the world. But now that we're back, closer by where I rest my head, I could relax just a bit. Honestly, what a great day!
I get my predecessor to drop me off at the friend's house. This is someone from my home city who works at the same company as me, just on another floor. I knew him a little bit before this all, but he had been talking to me online before he arrived in this city about what it was like at my workplace, for itnerview prep, stuff like that. He's the one I talk to the most to catch up on news from our mutual home city, and he looks up to me too. He's a pretty cool guy, very smart in his own right. He invited me over primarily because he wanted to have dinner with me before I left at some point, but also because he accidentally got 1.4 kilos of salmon, and it would be a struggle for him to finish it all off. He welcomes me into his home, which is a rather large 2-floor house he shares with 4 other people. Because of that four way split, his rent is even cheaper than mine! Though, I guess it is at the cost of having three other roomates. He leads me to the dinner table, and I apologize for being way later than I thought I was going to be. This leads into the start of our very long conversation: telling him about where we went today, which kind of transforms into taking about some of the other people form our home city who made it to this company; then, dinner is revealed: he's baked the salmon with tomato slices and spices on top, he's prepared some asparagus beautifully, a nice pot of rice, and a salad with tons of different components (work rival's nightmare!). Honestly, this food that he cooked was so good, I tuned out of conversation quite a few times. Eventually, two of his other roommates showed up and introduced themselves, and we had just a great old time hanging out, alking about all sorts of work and school and home stories. Lots of work stories though, those were definitely the biggest. I'm not usually one for going to people's houses and staying there for hours, but this was actually quite nice. I've been doing it more often too... maybe it's just a sign that I'm starting to become more adultlike? I remember as a kid, I would beg my parents if we could leave early whenever we visited someone's place. Now though? It's sort of a treat to be free enough to do so. I got a little tour of the upstairs floor as well, looking at the giant monitor one of the roommates was given by his company (one of our competitors!), and a little nook with amazing Internet connection that they would turn into a gaming corner. Honestly, these guys seem like they're about to live the life in this house. I mean, what would I even do with a whole house to myself, if I had one? And if it was with my greatest friends? Actually... maybe that would be slightly worse... hmmm... After I checked my phone quietly and saw that I missed the last bus that would take me straight home, I decided to stay even longer just to chat. My main friend here, the one who invited me, asked me to test his roommates on some of the Jeopardy questions I had been doing, and we had a whole fun little game around the "Rhyme Time" category being an absolute brain buster for them, so much so that only a couple minutes after we went through all the clues, one of them headed off to bed. I took that as my signal to start looking up bus lines I could go on, which prompted me to ask how they got to their offices. I noticed on the map that this place was really close to their offices, and they told me that they usually walk through a little park to either get to the road leading up to the office or to get to a bus station that's only a stop away. Lucky guys! When all was said and done, with a little fruit platter completely eaten and all the rumours and gossip from back home and in the office had been shared: that's when I put on my shoes and got walked to the bus station by those two. It was such a pretty little park, and it's a shame it was so dark! The grass was about my height, there was literally a bridge over a tiny creek, and the bugs were eating the two hosts alive. We talked about potential yearlong projects, about club stuff, all these "future plans" sort of topics. I wasn't too nervous about talking these topics through, because I feel as though I've become a lot less fearful about that future. This day, this night, it's proved to me that I can have and make new friends whereever I need to if i get lonely, and that wherever I go because of my drive to achieve some future, I know I'll be able to quickly find some joy in my life somewhere. But, right now, we turned the corner, and out from this lush park area we come out onto a sidewalk facing a busy busy road, just a couple minutes before the bus drives in. This is possibly the last time in a long time I'll see either of these guys (just with schedules regarding how logn I'll be in my home city for and how long they'll be working here), so after a quick picture together, I get on the bus very very late at night, tired but happy I went through everything I did today. THe connection bus comes at the perfect time as well, so there's no need for an extended nighttime walk, and I arrive back at my place just around midnight.
My leg hurt from all the walking and journeying I had done today, but now that I was on a full belly, I could do a little bit of bloghan work, spliced in with multiple hours or so of deciding on a "Karaoke Banger" to submit for the work Music League (I got a bad placement on work-rival-core.. wonder why? surely it wasn't because my song was genuinely annoying like him, right? right?). Though I stayed up as long as I did, nearly to 5 hours after midnight, I still felt energized (somewhat) as I went to bed. I've said it about three times already, but honestly? That was a pretty good day if I do say so myself, I will acknowledge.

On Sunday:

I got up kinda early but still didn't get out of bed until after noon. I made breakfast around an hour later.
I did my laundry, then hopped onto my laptop to do some bloghan. I wasn't getting very much progress though, probably because I was feeling so tired.
I picked up my grocery order a couple hours later, and that served as my signal to hurry it up a bit. By that, I mean it signalled me to go take my laundry from the washing machine and hang it all up. I also washed that maroon dress shirt right after this large load, to avoid getting all that dust and lint on it like it does everytime I wash it with other things. My plan is to wear that for this upcoming week's Jeopardy event.
I attempted to get back into bloghan stuff, but I got a little bogged down by Jeopardy and cryptic crossword things. I realyl wanted to get to those this week, but the weekdays just kill my bloghan progress and motivation.
I decide that for my lunch I will make toast with smoked salmon cream cheese and a whole bunch of cinnamon candies on top. I eat the candies separately though. I'm probably never going to get smoked salmon cream cheese ever again though. It tastes alright, but I know I would enjoy herb and garlic way more.
I return to working on bloghan.., yeah just kidding, I started going through multiple iterations of this crossword fill, trying to get a good and symmetrical one that fits with my theme, which ends up inflating my crossword into a 15x5, form the original plan of 7x7. Well, I never said I didn't want this one to be a challenge!
It was cloudy all day today, except for the very beginning of the evening, where it got harshly sunny out of nowhere! I decide to eat one of the ice cream sandwiches I bought in the sun as a little break. This is like my seventh little break of the day.
I work into the late evening, struggling with bloghan 59 as I also try to get a satisfying fill for the new cryptic. It takes me a while, even a little bit into dinner (more of the biryani, I have about two servings left now), but I figure out a fill that I'm happy with by rethinking and elevating how I place the theme words for this final one. Once that's done, I able to easily bring bloghan 59 to a wrap.
I take some time to wash all the dishes I let pile up over the weekend, because I'm going to need them for tomorrow. I can't coast on what's been conveniently unused forever!
At nearly three hours after midnight, I start on bloghan 60, but I realize midway through that I've forgotten an insanely important detail in bloghan 59, so I go back and make the relevant addition. Phew. I debate if I should do an all nighter for it, and I decide on staying up as long as I need to to complete as much as I can today, and some more tomorrow. After that, I go to sleep, around 5 hours after midnight.

Future plans

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

Bloghan catchup: I got so close, yet so far.
Door: no progress
Jeopardy board for my work rival and Steve: I have more category ideas, and one full category, and an announcement, but still nto many clues.
One last cryptic: I made a fill, but also it kinda grew into a 15x15 crossword. Hoo boy...
One last biryani: done! Really wasn't all that much work.
Downtown visit to the zoo I missed that one time: did this, very nice, very nice.
Get fully caught up on 'One Piece': I'm there! Read up to chapter 1157.
Deep clean: going to have to be this week... what a pain...

This next week, I've got to write a Jeopardy board and a cryptic crossword. I've also got some shoe shopping to do with my predecessor to replace the ones with giant holes in them. Next, a weekend visit to the aquarium is in order. I've got some clothes I'd like to donate to the local clothing drive bin thing too. One last chili while I'm over in this city too. Anything else...? Oh, yes, the "reusable" shopping bags that I've collected, I need to get rid of them somehow. Probably donate them to a food bank? And of course, the deep clean's gotta happen soon. That's all for this week.

Song of the week

'Reach for the Summit' (https://youtu.be/qx1PcEgmFHY) by Lena Raine is the song of the week. I've never seriously played 'Celeste,' only ever tried it on Blue-haired's Switch, and I really don't feel like playing it ever. I don't really like platformers of that style to be honest. More frustrating than its worth. But I admire the game for that simple fact. It's a game about struggle, abuot being so frustrated on your way to reaching your goal. And yet, that's what I'm doing now. I'm slowly making my climb, slowly reaching the summit, finishing the work that I need to get all finished. It's a prety hard climb, but it's one I took on willingly and one I will climb through to the bitter end. The peak, the summit, it's right there. I can see it, it's just still that much farther away. But I'm there, just off by a bit. Bit by bit, I'll hit it.

Until next time

Well, here we both are at the end. I like to imagine everything else above as a whole session of me blabbing on and on at someone about how my week was, but this section, the 'Until next time' section? It always feels like more of a conversation to me. But, I think I don't mind that so much. I quite like talking with others actually. Why shouldn't I talk with others? I'm excited to talk to some of you all soon, and while a bit scared, still more excited for sure. Well, that's then, this is now. See you next week!

- bubbler

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