20th of Adar I

I realized a couple of days ago that I might have arthritis. I kept ignoring the pain and stiffness in my neck (for a couple of days it was hard to even move it), hands, wrists, ankles, and in one hip. It's getting worse, although today hasn't been too bad. I've had a lot of cracking sounds from those areas, too. One of the most common complications of IBD is arthritis. With some forms, it's actually connected to if the person is flaring. So, once they're in remission with their IBD, the arthritis goes into remission, too. I've been suspecting that I'm flaring lately. That would make sense, then. Yet another thing to bring up with my new gastro next month. She probably won't do much about that right now besides order blood tests. She might do more after my colonoscopy. I'll ask her about getting an upper endoscopy, too. 

Today, I got through Alphabet 3 in Duolingo's Korean course. Plus, a little more of Basics 1. Alphabet 3 is really on loan words. I didn't know Baskin-Robbins was a thing in Korea. It kept popping up, so I looked into it. Interesting. Starbucks did, too. That's to be expected, as well as Hyundai, motors, apartment, coffee, and party. Hyundai is actually spelled differently if you write out the Korean in romanized letters. Not sure why it's spelled this way for the English version. They were really pushing the 'party' thing. Ice cream was used a lot, too. Almost done with Basics 1 level 2. 

Read more of MAR Omega. I thought they were going to make Kai into another Ginta, but he has quite a different story/personality. Might even be stronger than Ginta. He thought he didn't have magical powers, but it was sealed until he found Babbo and broke the spell over him. He's apparently one of Babbo's descendants, but Babbo is an Arm or basically a weapon. I think I vaguely remember that Babbo was special in that he was once human, so I could kind of see that. He lost his memories. They didn't regain much of them in the first series. At least, not in the anime. This time it seems most of it's going to be about regaining his memories and saving Kai's hometown that vanished. 

I finished a drawing yesterday. I felt I needed to do something related to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, but didn't come up with anything until last Friday. The idea was something around ice cream, since that's the aro food symbol. The meaning behind it is a bit cheesy, but I like it. We're thought of as cold-hearted, unfeeling, robot-like, etc. In reality, we're warm-hearted, kind, have a lot of other types of love to give, sweet, etc. Ice cream's cold but sweet and makes most people happy. I decided to have that, cake, a decorative spoon or candy all in a waffle cone. The cake is an ace symbol and the 'spoon' has the agender symbol on top. The only other symbol I know is an alien for agender people. Nothing food related. If I was more into it, I might have added a little alien holding it. The cake, ice cream, and 'spoon' are in the flag colors of each. The waffle is in the rainbow flag colors, representing the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. That can have many meanings. I went off a tutorial for the waffle cone, which came out better than expected. Actually, I like how the whole thing turned out. It's not prefect, which is ok. The colors were washed out a bit by my scanner. I'm not sure why it has issues with that. It was also probably the first time I edited something in Photoshop on my 'new' computer. I've had the computer since October, so it's still new to me. Had to get a recent edition of Photoshop, too. I was using a pretty old version on my old computer. Besides the editing, it was done in pencil, ink, and colored pencils. Other people seem to like it, which is nice to see.

I went back to the full body of Shadow drawing today. Figured out his shoes, then started inking him in. I don't know why, but eyes never turn out exactly the way I want them to, and I noticed that again while inking them. Oh well. I'll only get better with them through practice. They don't look awful, just that they're different sizes. Not sure about the folds in his clothes either, but at least I'm trying that. His overall new design is much better than it was. Should be interesting to see what it's like after inking the rest, erasing the pencil marks, and coloring him in. Also, edited a few more pages of Alliance. 

My parent's going to Atlanta tomorrow for about a week. She'll actually be leaving really late tonight or early tomorrow, depending on how you look at it. It's NASP's (National Association of School Psychologists) annual convention. It's great that she can go this time, and should be interesting to go to Atlanta. They're warmer than us right now. Hope she has fun being with her colleagues and friends, as well as explore a bit.