November 3, 2024 - bloghan 19
A more melancholic week this time, more time spent just sitting or lying about, partly thinking, partly rotting away. Work was good, things I did while out were good, and for the most part, things I did while in my place were too. It's just that I feel like I didn't do much, just sat around and wasted away.
Addition on November 4, 2024: Whoops! I completed this yesterday but forgot to push it to the website. Sorry about that! It will probably happen again, but I really hope not! I added some more details in some of the days to make up for it.
Tier list of the week
This week's tier list: days of the week. This tier list is specifically focusing on how much I like these days, and considering the period since I started working in June. Here's the tier list:
Ordered tiers, but unordered within tiers. I've tried to rate them independent of the tired lens that I've gained from this week and its struggles, but I think a bit made it through anyways.
Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)
Monday was a good day when it came to work. My task using Absconder was due tomorrow, and although the last week had some progress, it was mostly in one issue I was running into which occured early on, meaning that I hadn't worked on the second half of the task at all. I worked on it throughout the day, pulling from other versions of what I've already produced to speed things along. I worked through lunch as well, even as the people around me started playing card games and such. I powered through and managed to get a draft version up and running. My work rival started to talk to me about a game he'd been wanting to get, 'DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO.' He was bemoaning the fact that it was basically $80 (something like that, I didn't check), but that he really wanted to try it. I asked him why he didn't try to pirate it, and he repsonded with something along the lines of "it's a brand new modern game so it'll take months for it to be cracked." I thought the publisher of that probably wasn't SEGA, so I mentioned that it probably was cracked near day one, and indeed, when I got him to check FitGirl, it was already up. He asked me for guidance on how to get the game from FitGirl, but I've never actually used FitGirl, since I prefer older games anyways, and usually the hot releases on Steam aren't the ones I'm interested in. As I looked more into FitGirl and the various methods used to install cracks, my work rival went around the office asking all the coworkers we usually go to lunch with if they've ever pirated games. I never knew that one person could be so tactless and sloppy. Eventually he got back, I told him what I learned, and we settled back into work. By this point, it was the end of the day, so I decided to do all my testing and result-getting for tomorrow. I headed home, and it was quite nice seeing some of the various Halloween setups in front of houses, and also the slight breeze blowing through the fall coloured trees. As I was nearing my place, a song I hadn't heard in a while started playing. That song was the one that got me into 'Love Live!' My playlist of songs from that franchise is about 14 hours long, but that specific song, 'Snow halation,' was one I hadn't heard for 2 months or so. So, as I was walking back to my place, I try to whistle it, as I have before. In the pre=chorus, I missed a couple of the higher notes, which was strange: I've never missed a note in 'Snow halation,' and my range has always fully contained the song. When I got to the chorus, I completely whiffed the main line the song is most known for, and I realized in the moment it was because my throat was closed up a bit, and I couldn't pass enough air out through my lips. I thought a bit more on the feeling in my throat and realized that the sensation of it feeling more closed up felt identical to that of how my throat feels when I'm teary. After this realization, I felt something wet around my eyes, and I put my fingers there and found water. I was confused for a good 15 seconds or so, thinking to myself, "What is this?" Then it sunk in: they were tears. Yeah... that checks out.
Tuesday was supposed to be our D&D day with my coworkers, but guess what? Work rival didn't show the whole day... without telling anyone! He was there yesterday, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he would be there tomorrow. I would confront him, or even ask him to choose commitment to our game or not play (it's being a bit disruptive and a regular occurrence, even though he's the one that wanted it the most), but I do have to sit next to this guy for months to come, so I think I'll just leave it for now. I got many well wishes from family and friends on my phone, since today happened to be my birthday. I mostly worked on ironing out the little details of my Absconder task, making sure it was up to the quality that the director wanted. I also got called over by my manager to discuss my results, and he seemed pleasantly surprised that I was essentially finished, and that I just needed to clean things up with it. I guess that makes sense, what with me rarely updating my manager and my director on what I'm up to unless I finish something completely or if they ask me. Once lunchtime rolled around, every one of my coworkers who I usually take lunch with walked up to my desk, and one of them asked for the group if it really was my birthday that day. I don't know how my other coworkers found out about it, since the only one who knew for sure was my work rival, and he was out of the office. I couldn't figure out a clean way to deny it, so I said "yes," and that was that. At lunch, I worked more on the Absconder task, and one of my coworkers asked if I was going to celebrate or if I had any plans. In all honestly, I don't really see what there is to celebrate when it comes to me, but I just said "I'll be making a meal I loved when I was younger." Better to leave it at the latter over the former, I suppose. I also got an invitation to give feedback on a different coworker's short story, something I would keep putting off until Friday. Lunch was otherwise very uneventful, so I continued to work, and finally finished my task about an hour before I was done for the day. As I was writing up the email contianing prelimnary info on it, the director walked in to ask how it was going, and I told I was all finished. He looked at what I had gotten, told me I did some good work, and thanked me, then left. He said that all in a tone of voice I've not heard him use, one that sounded impressed, so I think this whole one week dealine thing really worked out! I have finally returned to his good graces. Right after he left, the coworkers I ate lunch with came in, and they told me they got me something: it looked like a slice of a very nice tiramisu cake, and some sort of brown cup with white frosting (with yellow specks) on top of it. Each had two long sticks embedded in them, with a tiny paper cutout of a flame taped onto them. They said I should blow it out, and to make a wish. As I was about to do that, I was very, very aware of the eyes on me, so I lied and said I couldn't do it if they were looking: if they had ketp looking, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from giggling and tearing up. They looked away, I felt bad and told them I was joking, bit my cheek really hard, and blew out the "candles." They explained that they got the cakes less than 15 minutes ago, and they were all gathered in their group cubicle preparing the cakes and the "candles" when the director passed by. He didn't ask, they didn't say anything, but they did swear they heard the director give a "hmpm" and a little head shake. They gave me the back, and I packed away the tiramisu cake for later (I have yet to eat it at time of writing), and I began work on the cake in the cup. They then told me that they saw this cake with "the cutest" pumpkin icing sculpture on top, and they felt like they had to get it too, in addition to the tiramisu. I must confess: I absolutely despise pumpkin. The taste of pumpkin activates my gag reflex pretty readily, and I can barely eat it. That being said, if I was offered food involving pumpkin, I'm not going to turn it down, or throw it out. I will just stomach it, and be glad I got food in the first place. So I did that with the cake, with all its pumpkin chunks. The actual cake base was all pumpkin too, and the brown cup turned out to be a cup made of dark chocolate. I couldn't finish it before my bus came around, so I packed it in my lunch container, and headed out. On the way back, I felt torn. I didn't really expect all the wishes, the cakes, all that. In my mind, I was just kinda circling over it all, wondering about whether I deserved, if I was capable of accepting it, if I was capable of giving it in the future, and a whole lot of other questions. I got back to my place, and my landlord saw me walk in, and told me she had something for me. I was a bit confused: did she know about my birthday as well? It turns out that she had recieved a package earlier in the month, and was asked to give it to me on this day becuase it was my birthday. The package was from family back home, and my landlord gave me some fancy chocolates as well, just from herself. This all made me feel even worse about myself: it had only been recently that I told myself that it was OK for me to be live and to live, but this level of appreciation? It's not something I feel like I should have. I ended up in a voice call with some friends from back home too: one got that new game I had my eye on, 'Sonic X Shadow Generations,' and she got the edition that came with a lore book in the form of Gerald Robotnik's diary. I quite like the lore of 'Sonic the Hedgehog,' and recently, the lore of the 'Sonic' franchise seems to be getting tied together consistently (finally), so we spent a good two to three hours going over each page, reading and discussing the ramifications of new reveals, and how it was nice that fragments of the diary spread throughout the games as an easy way to drop lore without care for consistency were collected into this diary, which really helps tie things together, and makes it more believable that Gerald Robotnik was involved in all these events. Another friend joined in near the end of the diary, began being very disruptive (in imitation of the one who got the diary), and finally settled down and listened in to the last page. Afterwards, the diary reader began actually playing the game, and us other two just kinda talked. I got gifted a game (the first 'Danganronpa'), the call ended, and I stayed up pondering about how things are, how they've been, how they will go, and how some things were always meant to be.
Wednesday was uneventful at work and back at my place. At work, I worked on trying to reduce the time it took for my Absconder task (the one I finished yesterday) to produce results. When I finished it yesterday, it took about 20 minutes, 6 minutes of it being the Absconder setup, and the other 14 minutes being the actual task. Things taking that long is pretty normal here to be honest, but the director did ask me to try and get it to operate under ten minutes. I spent some time doing that, and my work rival asked me why I was still working on it, since I finished it yesterday, right? When I explained this whole time length issue, he immediately tried to come up with solutions... and then found the solution, bringing that 14 minutes of actual task to 45 seconds. He then gloated about this for a couple of minutes, then went out for some otther meeting. I went by another cubicle with other coworkers I know, and told them about what just happened, and how he's not going to let that one go for the rest of the day. It turns out that it explained to them why my work rival had walked past them saying "I'm actually the GOAT." One of these days, it'll be on sight. When I got back to my place, I was still feeling all this internal conflict. The package from my family was still there, unopened, and my landlord gave me a letter that came in the mail a day late, sent by them as well. I didn't really want to do much with the surrounding world, so I decided to play the next case of 'Ace Attorney: Justice for All.' This case introduced a new character, Pearl, and she is adorable and if anything happened to her, I would have many problems and despair inducing moments. We also got introduced to Franziska von Karma, and yet again, she makes the court system in the land of 'Ace Attorney' seem like a joke by straight up bringing a whip to court and lashing out at the judge, the witnesses, and the defense, literally??? I really do like her character though, the whipping is pretty funny, and her "Objection!" voiceline is very charming, as is her demeanour (slightly toned back Manfred von Karma!). The new mechanic where you can basically do a cross-examination outside of court by using psychic energy to see their lies materialized as locks was interesting, but I'm not sure if I like it yet. The end result of the case was cool, but I'm not really satisifed with how we got there.
Thursday at work started with me finally getting to restart work on the Absconder task assigned to me by the guy I once had beef with. This guy isn't even a manager, but he basically acts like one, so I don't know if he's gunning for the manager position, or if he's just getting overworked for the pay of someone lower. Like "the director" and "my manager" and "the manager of my work rival," I should give him a name... maybe "the not-manager?" Yeah, the not-manager. The not-manager had a Absconder task for me, and I completed a lot of two weeks ago, but two weeks ago was when the director wanted me to shift all my focus onto this higher priority stuff for my work rival's subteam. It happened that today was the day that the not-manager asked for an update, so I explained my absence and presented him with what I had. I'm still waiting on his response to see if it's what he expected. The rest of the day was more of the same, waiting on responses, and trying to find things to do in the meantime. Throughout the week, I had started to solve the NYT Mini crossword, then try and rewrite all the clues in the cryptic style, as practice for myself. Since some of my friends in the workplace were interested in those (because they saw me do them and I taught them the basic anagram and hidden word clues), I gave those practice mini cryptics to them, and... well, my work rival gave up after finding the one hidden word clue, and the others also only found the hidden word one. I guess my clues are just too hard? I'll drop them here if you're interested: first one and second one.
This day also happened to be Halloween, and while I intended to wear a button up flannel shirt and jeans, I completely forgot, and so I was just in my regular sweater and jeans combo. There were these candy buckets all over the workplace, and I grabbed a couple, but I wasn't really feeling the appeal of sweets as much as I once did. I guess I didn't that had changed. Cookies and such are fine, but just straight up candy, less so. After work had finished, I headed back and appreciated the increase in Halloween decorations. On my bus, there was way more people than usual, inlcuding a couple people in costume, like a pirate, and a couple cats. I guess those three were heading to a Halloween party given their age? I've never been to a house party like that, but even if I wanted to go, tonight I couldn't: ther was D&D to be played. This session with "Izuku" and "Harold" was actually quite manageable and not irritating or frustrating at all. They got the recipe, and headed back to town. Since it was Halloween, I decided to add a little spooky episode onto the end of the adventure, involving the murder of five children during a harvest festival. Before the murder, they got some time to explore the town durign the festival: play a bit of cornhole, eat some tomato soup, other things like that. That tomato soup was served to them by one of the later murder victims, something I did to get them attached to the character, and wrench it away cruelly. They collected some clues, but weren't sure of who the culprit was. I'm not surprised, since I don't know either!
Friday was a lazier day. I was still kind of going through it emotionally, so I woke up late, but today was a work from home day, so it was alright. While I worked, I had my personal laptop on, just looking around on the internet while I waited for things at work to run. I realized that there was an esports world tournament going on for a mobile game I played: 'Brawl Stars.' I was a bit curious what top level play looked like for that game, and so I decided to take a quick peek. I ended up staying for the whole stream. The skill on display, they hype in the stadium, the analysis by the commentators, all were really engaging. My main in the game was actually a pretty popular pick, but there were some spicy picks throught the day too which made matches boring when the pick was terrible for the map, or really hype when something off-meta took the other team by surprise and won sets. As someone on my work rival's team asked me for culled results from the Absconder task I finished on Tuesday, I was beginnning to notice something interesting with the way the competitive 'Brawl Stars' scene allowed for skill differences: in the draft and in the mechanics. At the beginning of a set, each team of three bans three characters, and then each team picks which three they are bringing to the set, in an order that winds through both teams. That's drafting, while mechanics refer to the raw actions you do in the actual matches: dodging, aiming, that sort of technique. There was one team who outclassed every other team significantly when it came to skill with raw mechanics, and they seemed like the crowd favourites to win. They typically sucked when it came to drafting, with them preferring picks they were familiar with, even if it wasn't great for the map and game mode. Most of the other teams, especially ones from Europe, were much better at drafting, in a way that would bait out certain picks from their opponents, so that they could punish the choice when the pick came back to them, as well as strategic bans and pick orders that didn't tip off team compositions. I was curious to see which would end up winning: mechanical or drafting. After work and the stream had ended, I didn't really do much else on Friday. I started the next case in 'Justice for All' and ended up ordering two pizzas at half past midnight, and then went to bed.
On Saturday, I pulled up day 2 of the world finals for 'Brawl Stars,' and honestly? It was even more exciting than yesterday's matches. The previous world champions lost two sets to three to a couple of clutch moments, another team completely threw their round by having some of the most awful picks and getting swept in sets, and the team most known for their mechanics barely won their round three sets to two, mostly because of their poor drafting. While it went on, I made my breakfast, swept the floor, mopped all the floor, and got ready to go out. My work rival had invited a bunch of us to his place on Sunday to carve pumpkins, but things came up and he had to move it to Saturday... but it was placed on Sunday in the first place because most people couldn't make Saturday. Once the finals were done, I packed my bag, got on a bus, walked for 15 minutes, and arrived early. I had to wait outside for 10 minutes, when my work rival was out, but it was alright. I sat on a bench with a view of his front door, so I could see when he got back. Somehow, I missed it. After all that was sorted, and I got inside his place, I offered him my USB gamepad. On Friday, he got 'Sparking! ZERO' working on his laptop, and he wanted to try my controller to see if he liked it enough to get the same model for himself. He got me to try the game, and I didn't really get what was happening. It was cool that it was a fighting game with basically free flight, but it felt really slow since you had to keep still to charge up your powerful moves, and you had to keep still for six to ten seconds at a time. Once I surrendered the controller to him, he made it look all fluid, and he seemed really satisfied with both the controller and the game. There were four of us in the place: my work rival, his roommate, me, and this girl who used to work for our company, who was our only driver. We drove out to pick up another coworker, where the other three dragged me into his aprtment building to "smell the air freshner becuase it's just like in Drake's house." That air freshner was very strong, and it bothered my nose a lot, making me cough a bit too. My work rival decided to leave his door compltely open when we went inside the building, and I'm surprised that there were no consequences. Back home, that car would probably have been stolen from, maybe stolen too. We then went on a 15 minute adventure to find sizeable pumpkins to carve, and we found none. We picked up another guy closer to my work rival's place (he got there by bus), and one person was relegated to sitting in the trunk. They all debated what to do next, while I just sat there, smug in my knowledge that the plan would change, because when it comes to my work rival, the plan always changes. At some point in that car, someone asked the room (the car?) when the last time everyone cried was, and when I said "Monday," they got all concerned, but all that concern disappeared once I revealed that it was over a song I hadn't heard in a bit. We (well they, not we) ended up going to this Turkish restaurant. We go in, and it's really, really loud. There's a guy singing at the front (I'm guessing he's the manager), but we were seated right away by the waitress waiting outside to draw in customers. The singing guy saw us walk in, and saw my work rival's roommate was Asian. So, he played 'Gangnam Style,' and tried to get my work rival's roommate to do the dance. He complied for a bit, and then the signer boosted the volume, and the waitress trying to explain the menu items just started doing the dance??? She was doing that side to side shuffle between both edges of the room, and then the arm lasso thing, and this went on for like 2 minutes. Everyone else in the restaurant was laughing, but I was just confused, and a little bothered. Finally, she settled down, but the music stayed at that volume, and it started to hurt my ears. After a while, we eventually got our food: I got a pide with mixed meats, and it was pretty good! My work rival got an iskander kebap, and he was not very pleased with it. The others tried to have a conversation, but they had to ask the music guy three times to turn down the volume. I just ate in silence. The restaurant was pretty overwhelming, and I spent most of time looking at my food, or looking out the window. It was dark out, and I found myself daydreaming: what would it be like if I was on a date here? What would it be like if I had a date come with me to this gathering? What would it be like if I didn't take this job, if I ended up somewhere where I was the only temporary? What would it be like if I didn't have my left hand? Questions like that. The night proves to be three things for me: cold, dark, and lonely. Thematic to me, in a sense.
We wrapped up dinner, and headed to an escape room. They were my ride home that night, so I went along. I didn't know until after we signed the waiver that we were doing the horror themed one with jumpscares because "it's the weekend after Halloween!" Wonderful. Just great. I'm already a very jumpy guy, so clearly I was the most fit to partake in such an activity. I won't say much about the escape room itself, since those businesses don't really appreciate it when you post those details anywhere (even in this little dusty corner), but they weren't kidding with the jumpscares. After the rules were given to us, we were shown into the room, and it was pitch black. All we could feel is that there were bars in front of us, as if we were caged. We were really confused about if it had started. Were they just setting up, and these bars would come up to let us into the room? We could tell there was some more room in front of the bars, so maybe the bars lifting would signal that the game was starting. A flickering light slowly came on, and we saw a very distrubing site. Walls were splattered in blood (fake, unlike the blood on my floor), there was a mannequin with many stab wounds and a missing foot (it was in the cage with us), and a hanging head with two faces sewn onto it. As we were taking in this sight, lights still coming on, a door opens, and out walks a man dressed in all black with a hockey mask carrying a butcher's mask. He rushes at us, most of the others yell (I jump and sidestep out of sight silently), he shakes the bars, then pulls another lever fully illuminating the room. We manage to get some pieces for other clues, but we take a while, so the guy rushes out the door and slams the knife on the bars, then walks back, waving the knife steadily. We go through the room after we solve the puzzles that get us out of the cage (I got the solution to both without reading the provided hint!), and found a bunch of things: a puzzle that baited me with capital letters, a sound box that broke and triggered the dropping body jumpscare early, a PC running Windows 7, some squirming body wrapped in white stuff. We escaped with 10 minutes to spare, and left soon after (well, we had some trouble with our locker - the true escape room). We debated in the car what we do next, but our driver told us she had a curfew, so we decided to head back to my work rival's place. We navigated back, and all but us and the work rival went inside, those two going off to find parking. The four of us went in, and I kinda just slipped out of the conversation and started reading on my phone. The two of them going off for parking were gone for a long while, and some of the other guys were getting suspicious, but they walked in soon after. They took so long that she had to go back soon to meet her curfew, but she still offered us all rides home. I got home and I felt so drained. The resturant was the most draining, as I feel like I really undersold how... "extroverted" that place was. I couldn't bring myself to do anything but just be on my phone and go to bed, and think. Somehow, I ended up thinking about my job, and the career path I was on, and I thought something: is this really what I want to do? Sure, it's technically in the field that I wanted to originally, and this company will look great on my resume, but... I don't know. I think I miss a different part of my career class, more creative things, things that disply more skill. I don't know if I can really hope to achieve such a thing in a future position, if those kinds of jobs are rarer to find. If I'm offered a return position at my current company, I'm not sure if I'll take it, if I can get something else that fits more with that aspect of what I want to do. Or maybe all this thinking is something I'm doing because I feel so tired and I don't feel like work tomorrow. Then it hits me: tomorrow is Sunday.
Sunday was mostly nothing. The terrible sleep from last night didn't do me any favours, but I watched the final day of the 'Brawl Stars' world finals for 2024 (I'm sure of it now: mechanics are important, but good drafting from opposition can stretch mechanical mastery to its limit, and sometimes, you break), finally opened the box (a ton of snacks, a pot and a lid, new sweatpants, and some meal stuffs too). I also got the Dolphin emulator for my phone, and tried testing it with 'Sonic Heroes,' something I did not for any particular reason, just out of curiosity. I spent almost all of the afternoon, evening, and night writing this bloghan, and I couldn't stop getting distracted and wanting to move it to later, because the bad sleep made the unmotivated feelings surface even harder. Well, I hope nex week is better.
Future plans
Honestly, I've just felt a lot more unmotivated to do more creative things this week (except for mini cyptic crosswords, but that's something I've been doing while bored at work, and not something I've been doing much of back at my place), but here's what I did end up doing:
- 'Ace Attorney: Justice for All': Completed the second case, just began the third case. How does this keep happening to Maya and the entertainers she likes?
- Door: no progress
- Reading: re-read 'One Piece' up to and finishing the Return to Sabaody arc
- Rin Hoshizora's birthday: All I have to say is remember the phrase "Across the starry sky (3)"
- Cryptic crossword: Didn't finish my bigger version, but I did some practice ones based on various NYT mini crosswords!
This week, I'm probably going to feel just as unmotivated to do things, so this will mostly be a repeat of last week: going to finish case 3 in 'Justice for All', and of course, more reading of what I have been for the last little bit. Maybe I will try to finish writing that cryptic crossword, and some more of those practice mini ones.
Song of the week
'Til I Am Myself Again' (https://youtu.be/LeRb1CiwS6g), by Blue Rodeo is the song of the week. It's just the vibe of this week, how I've felt during all my laying about. It's a song I've been listening to a lot this week, and I've been thinking on the lyrics a lot this week too. While it's not my favourite song (that goes to something sung in my third favourite movie), it's one that I do really love, and really relate to. Some people have gotten concerned with me saying that last part, but it's not all that bad. I really have been feeling the last lines of the second verse a lot this week: "...the half-finished bottles of inspiration / Lie like ghosts in my room." I hope next week will feel better, but the trend seems to be pointing to that not being the case, so don't be surprised if similar vibed songs end up in this section in the next couple weeks.
Until next time
Bloghan 19 may have been a bit of a downer but surely bloghan 20 won't be, right? Right? Hmmm... well, probably not. I hope not, but things don't always work out in the way you hope them to.
- bubbler