This is my wallpaper for February. It's Allen, the main character, from D.Gray-man. Kind of fits my mood for Valentine's Day. A lot of the month is set up around it, especially at places like grocery stores or in commercials. It promotes amatonormativity, which can hurt everyone, not just aromantic people. It's the assumption that everyone's striving for a romantic partner, it's central (most important relationship), exclusive, monogamous, and part of what makes us human. It ignores little known relationship types, like queerplatonic ones. I would really like to be in one in the future. Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week starts a week after the holiday, so that's something to look forward to. It's perfect timing. Tu B'Shevat is coming up Sunday night. That's our new year for the trees. One of my fave holidays. You get to eat a lot of fruit and nuts (not so much for me, since it's a trigger food), appreciate trees, and more. The month-long holidays for February are: National Canned Food Month, National Cherry Month, National Potato Lovers Month, Barley Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Cherries and potatoes are a couple of my fave foods! I created an author Instagram account: R C MacDonald I've been basically testing the waters this week. Wasn't sure exactly how I wanted it. It's a mix of topics from my books (fantasy, horror, LGBTQ+, Judaism, cooking, etc.), a little on my personal life, and my book stuff. I might just change the 2nd sentence of my bio to: A writer's world. Not as clunky...My book stuff will be things like a stack of my books, quotes from them, book trailers, author business card, etc. The things I didn't create will be from Pinterest and facebook mainly. Of course, I'm crediting them. I'm finding a lot of interesting things on Pinterest for the 'fantasy' part. Beautiful art relating to 'demons' in Alliance. Of dragons, phoenixes, griffins, wraiths, cat demons, etc. Nice eye candy, but when I post them, I'll also give info on characters from the story. For instance, info on Gun with the dragon pics. Or, on Zero with the phoenix ones. That way people get to know the series more. I have plenty of stuff for my colitis, LGBTQ+ stuff, food, some for horror, lots of animals, music/clarinet, and some quotes from other people on boards on Pinterest. Quite a lot of material. I've decided it might be easiest to set a theme every day. This is what I think might be best: Monday for fantasy or writing in general. Tuesday for LGBTQ+ things. Wednesday for horror or chronic illness. (They seem to go together pretty well, oddly...) Thursday for cooking. Friday for Judaism. Saturday for animals or more Judaism. Sunday for music. This will change during holidays or awareness weeks. During those, I could post about them. Like, with Tu B'Shevat, I'll post on that during it. Aro stuff during the week of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness week. It might switch up when I have something to share of my books or personal life, too. People will expect certain content most of the time, which should be a draw for some. I was posting once a day this week, but I think I'll try posting twice a day next week. Probably one in the morning/early afternoon and one at night. Except, I'll only post once on Saturdays, after Shabbos ends. The 2nd post on Friday will be a little earlier than the rest of the week, too. I think I can have quite a lot of fun with this, and not have to do a lot for it. It'll be a view not only into my books, but my personality and identity. I'm posting the same stuff to my author fb page. That might have added things occasionally. Today, I liked many pages as my page. (Fave pages that I already liked on my personal one.) Wanted to see what that would be like. It might be a way for people to get more info on things, as well. Things like Judaism, LGBTQ+ people, IBD, etc. My page could become a resource with that. I couldn't like pages as a page on my phone, which was weird. I've been searching for quotes from Alliance, as well as settings/building descriptions. Found quite a lot for the descriptions, and more than I thought I would for quotes. Plan to fill out author interview questions on Smashwords at some point. Really want to start a vlog, too. That would help with more exposure. Ordered author copies of all 5 paperback versions of my books from Amazon. I thought it would be much more expensive. With shipping and handling, taxes, and printing/manufacturing costs together it's $26. For 5 books, that's nothing. Just with the printing part, they ranged around $3 to $4 each. I thought that part would be more. Very interesting. I should get it Tuesday at the earliest. They make them as soon as you buy them, so it takes a little time to put them together. I'm ok with that. I'm excited about actually being able to touch and hold them. They're like my babies. I do have a print out of the very 1st rough draft of Alliance. I don't think it was all of it. Having that is very different than an edited (without marks all over it) and finished actual book. My memoir, More Than Meets the Eye, is now on Smashwords. It won't be released until the 28th, but it is on preorder. It was approved for their Premium Catalog unusually quickly. I got the 1st approval in about the first few minutes. That's the auto vetter part, where they automatically check the formatting. The 2nd approval is manual and takes a few days for authors who've previously submitted works, and about 2 weeks for new ones. I submitted it yesterday afternoon, and was fully approved early this morning. Probably the fastest approval for one of my books. The only thing I didn't like was they only had a Gay & Lesbian category, not an LGBTQ+ one. Not even a trans one, if they were just split up. Since I'm neither gay nor lesbian, it feels really weird to put it under that. It ignores other people in the community, too. Yet, I did see some authors using it for books relating to other parts of the community. I at least tagged it as LGBTQ. Also, tagged it as agender, asexual, and aromantic. There were very few books under the agender tag, and they were fictional. Similar with aromantic. That might make it easier for people to find. I already have the most page views for its 1st day compared to my other books. There have been 4 sample downloads, too. Got tired of playing Oblivion. It really got boring. I don't use that word lightly. The scenery was great, though. So, I've been trying various games on PS4 Now to find something to stick to. The most interesting one so far has been G-d of War 3: Remastered. It's based on a lot of Greek mythology, which is fun to me. Your character is Kratos, and he is seeking revenge against Zeus. The cinematography is really great. Feel like it's a movie even when it's not a cut scene. There are a lot of puzzles in it, which surprised me (especially with the type of game it is), but that adds another interesting layer. First game I played where you get trophies. That's fun. Got one for killing Poseidon. That was pretty epic. Made the seas rise. Also one for incinerating Apollo. I thought they wanted me to save him, but there wasn't a way to do so. He was imprisoned in part of Hades, near the River Styx. The bramble around him made it look like a prison cell. I managed to ride Cerberus and have him spit fire balls. I thought he would only set fire to the brambles, so I could free Apollo. No...The fire immediately engulfed him, and didn't hit the brambles much. It was pretty horrific to watch him. At least, I got his bow and arrows. I can set things on fire with that. I'm trying to defeat Hades at the moment. I don't think I've actually seen him yet. Just a statue, and his wife Persephone in a casket hanging in front of it. There are also notes written by people that were sent there, people praying to seemingly nothing, and a giant in the forge area. Apparently that giant is a friend of Kratos, but is stuck there. I don't remember his name. Interesting details. At some point, I might play Red Dead Redemption 2. It's the prequel to that franchise. My parent really likes that game, and it sounds detailed and fun. I've decided to stop the Duolingo Scottish Gaelic course. I'm really tired of it, and there's not much content. Half of the units have been leveled out completely, the other half all have the 1st level cleared. Not bad. I'm thinking of starting either Polish or Welsh on Monday. I've been having some bad pain days lately. The type of pain I know that's associated with colitis. It feels like part of my intestines blew up on my left side. It's somewhat hard there. Maybe it's from inflammation? My back and other areas of my abdomen feel really sore. Hopefully, it just needs to heal for now. Going to the bathroom a lot more often again, too. It's better than having a lot of that other stuff, on top of it, before I tapered off of Lialda. Still difficult, though.
I love hot chocolate! It's a decadent treat when it's really cold and/or windy out. It's nice with mini marshmallows. Not long ago, I decided to add enough whipped cream on top of the marshmallows to fill it to the brim. It was amazing! The whipped cream and marshmallows cooled it down enough to drink it as soon as I wanted to. Not much of a wait. I tend to wait until things are at or close to room temperature. (Mainly because cold or hot food hurts my teeth.) Plus, it made it even more decadent. I decided for Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course to not force myself to the next league. It's really competitive. I might add some time before going to bed next week, but I don't think I'll earn enough xp to get to the next league, even with that. Sad. I'm still breezing through the course. Made it to level 4 of Phrases 3. Getting less things wrong. I tend to get it wrong when I forget a letter, or a word that I had in my head but didn't type out. That's pretty good. Still doing something related to promoting my books every day. Had a free book one for my memoir on Amazon. It finished at #2 in the LGBTQ+ memoirs/biography top 100 best sellers free kindle section. Not sure how many LGBTQ+ related ones are on there, and free at that, but it was great to see. It was ranked #35 in the general memoir/biography free kindle section. That seems even better, considering I think there are a lot more ones in general. 'Sold' more than I thought I would, too. Yay! I'm just nervous about haters reviewing it, or even finding me. Also, created a facebook page for it. My cookbook's ebook is having a countdown deal, at the moment, on Amazon. Soon, there will be a UK one. That one hasn't been as great. Sold one copy, at least. Updated my facebook author page, and a bunch of the book pages on there. I'm going to create an author Instagram page soon. I looked up ideas/tips for it, and there's so much I can do. I think I'll link up that one to the fb one, so I don't have to post twice. I do have more ideas for the fb one itself now, too. For Instagram, it'll follow themes/genres of my books (like food, horror, whimsy/fantasy, animals, LGBTQ+, etc.), my own pics to give people a view of my world, and stuff about my books specifically. Sounds like it'll be fun. I have a ton of things I can share from Pinterest to it. I'll of course credit anything that I didn't create. They suggested I post something on there at least once a day. That can be easy to do. I'll post book trailers, cover art, quotes, etc. on there, too. Just won't be as often as the other stuff. Some authors really show off their personality on there. Added stuff with fb could be sharing things from there related to my books. Like, memes. Maybe specific ones for each book, and could share posts from pages that those books 'like'. I'll post trailers to Youtube, as well. Pinterest might be good for sharing pics of things I've made from the cookbook. I might create a twitter author profile, too. I can share things from various other posts on there. Not sure about Tumblr. Another suggestion was to take pics of stacks of books. For some, that's what they've finished for the year or other amount of time. For others, it's of their own books. Many of them are simple with just showing the books stacked, but others add things related to the themes in them. Like, a skull, fake coins, and fake jewelry on top and/or around it for a pirate series I saw. That's fun. I want to do something like that. Maybe only have the stack...I never ordered the author versions of my books. I want to for other reasons, too. For instance, having the paperback of the cookbook will be better than using the photo album full of recipes it was based on. You can see it better, it's not as clunky, and more. For authors, the price is how much it is to print/make and tax. Cheaper than regular price. I've read some people buy hundreds of (author) copies of their books for things like book signings and giveaways. That seems like a lot of money, however I now have an idea of how other authors might do that. Wouldn't be able to do something like that unless they really picked up. I'm going through Alliance again. I'm searching for quotes to share, and setting/building descriptions. With the descriptions, I might draw them out. Maybe I'll use those for the background of its book trailers. It's either using those, or old nature pics I've taken, or free fantasy stock pics online. I'd really prefer something I've made, rather than other people's pics. I'm finding more quotes than I thought I would. I'll do the same 2 things with the sequel. For Sweet Endless Terror's trailers, I think I'll have a description of each story, drawings relating to them (like a heart, knife, ribbon, planets, etc.), and/or maybe a few quotes from each. I can share those parts separately on Instagram, too. I could explain certain terms in the memoir trailer. I'll have pics of what I made for the cookbook one, and the name of the dish. Maybe describe it. I saw something about a site that has free music you can use for vids. (They're legal, and the artists made those tracks to be free to use.) So, there's lots to do for all of them. If I start a vlog on Youtube, that could help, too. The mysterious symptoms I've been experiencing since February are getting better. Yay! So, the tapering off of Lialda seems to be helping. However...My colitis symptoms are worsening. More trips to the bathroom, awful abdominal pain, horrible nausea, and more. It's better than having the other stuff as it was before on top of that. It's still difficult to go through. Hopefully, it won't get too severe with the colitis symptoms. Youtube: Boku no (My) Hero Academia:
For Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course, I finished all levels of the Colours unit, and started the 2nd level of the Home one. This is the last unit before the 2nd checkpoint. There are only 2 more sections. Ended up at 9th place in the Obsidian League today. Hopefully, I can stay in the top ten by Sunday. Yesterday, I updated the description for Alliance's facebook page, made a post about it being on Smashwords again, completely revised, and being free on there. (Here's its facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/alliancebooks/) I changed the name of it today, and posted about Alliance: Dawn, too. It was a page just for Alliance (first book), but I'm turning it into one page for the whole series. Good to have everything in one place. I'm trying to do a little of promoting/getting the word out every day. I have a lot of ideas, which seems like it'll be overwhelming. If I do little chunks every day, it won't feel like that as much. Today, I also republished, updated, and posted to both Sweet Endless Terror and My Mother's Treasure Trove of Recipes' facebook pages. Here's Sweet Endless Terror, and here's My Mother's Treasure Trove of Recipes. I think I might create a new author page, considering I don't like my current one, and I want to start 'fresh' with that. I still need to make one for More Than Meets the Eye. I also read that another way to get pages noticed is by having your page 'like' another page. That actually sounds fun. I could base it on what the books are about. For example, the cookbook page can like food, cookbook, cooking, etc. related pages. Sweet Endless Terror could like horror stuff. Seems like they can take on their own personalities, which is an interesting concept. After I get through all that, I'll make an author account on Instagram, and another on Twitter. Not sure if I'll make separate ones for the books on there. Seems like a hassle. However, I can see making one for the cookbook on those. Maybe one on Pinterest for that, too. I plan to make and share some of the dishes from it. I think a good way to promote that is to let people know what some of it will look like. After doing those things on fb, I checked the pageviews on Smashwords. A couple of them really got a boost right away. Very interesting. The more people that see it, the more likely they might buy it. My memoir's free promo on Amazon started yesterday. 4 people 'bought' it. That's more than I thought I'd get the first day. None today so far. It's ranked as #12 in the Gay & Lesbian Biographies & Memoirs section. Odd that they don't have an LGBTQ+ one, and cram everyone into that. I'm not gay or lesbian...Pretty cool they ranked that high, though. It's #158 in the Kindle Store's (ebook) Memoirs. That's interesting. Might be interesting to see what happens after I make a page for it on fb. I just realized, this morning, that many of the symptoms I've been experiencing since February may be side effects of the Lialda. No one has been monitoring me with that. I have a feeling it's changed, my body's rejected it, or something. The side effects I found online line up with a lot of my mystery symptoms. Myalgia (muscle pain), joint pain, hair loss, malaise, sneezing a lot, feeling weak, swelling in hands, severe back pain, and more. It makes too much sense, and I'm wondering why no one (doctors) suggested that some of this could be the Lialda, and looked into it. I've been taking a half dose since Tuesday. The back and muscle pain seem to be getting a little better. I'm wondering if I should just taper off, like I'm doing, and then stop taking it. Not get the next refill. I'd rather have the possibility of having a flare (not sure if I'm in one or not), than feel those other symptoms. Those symptoms combined have been hell. I still suspect a couple of my symptoms are actually related to another autoimmune disease. (I did test positive for that.) Having the other symptoms cleared up might help with pinpointing it in the future. Youtube: Fairy Tail:
Boku no (My) Hero Academia:
Dr. Stone:
One Piece:
Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer):
Tsuritama (lit. Fishing Ball. Kind of miss this anime. It was so trippy. Not sure if I like the ending song/part of this amv, but the rest of it's good):
Magi (this makes me want to watch more of the series. I think I only watched the 1st season a while ago, and one or two episodes of the 2nd season.):
Today, for Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course, I finished the last level (there are 5) of the Food 2 unit, and am up to the 3rd level of the Colours one. Made it to 5th place in the Obsidian League. With making it to 3rd place yesterday, it was the highest I've gotten in that one. Maybe I'll stay in the top ten by the end of the week. I think Diamond League is next, and it's the highest one. For the last couple of weeks I've ended up at around 16th place, so I've stayed in the same league for a while. People seem to be using it more in this one. Much more competitive. 3 of my books (Alliance, Alliance: Dawn, and Sweet Endless Terror) are now both on Smashwords and Amazon. All 3 made it into Smashwords' Premium Catalog which distributes to online retailers like Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble (not their brick-and-mortar stores), some libraries, Scribd, etc. They only deal with ebooks. They can be bought on Smashwords itself, too. All 5 books (other 2: More Than Meets the Eye, My Mother's Treasure Trove of Recipes), with both their revised ebook and paperback versions, are on Amazon. I might be able to get those other 2 on Smashwords by the end of February. Their Select terms will have ended by then. When books are in the kdp (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select Program, they're exclusive to Amazon. They're pretty strict about it. It automatically renews to a new term, unless you uncheck a box. They will still be in it until that term ends. Kind of like a contract. The interesting thing about all this is Amazon distributes to a lot of different places for paperbacks (as long as the author/publisher agrees to it), but doesn't for ebooks. Smashwords distributes to a lot of places. More than Amazon does for paperbacks. So, with both, I'll have much more exposure this way. I've made Alliance free on Smashwords, and its ebook on Amazon is $2.99. I wanted to have it as free on there too, but $2.99 is the lowest they'll allow for this one. It's a rather big book. Paperback version is $12.99. Again, one of the lowest prices I could set. Alliance: Dawn is on preorder, and will be out through Smashwords on January 29th. However, if people see it on Smashwords, they can buy it in a presale. I set that up yesterday. Only people who get it on Smashwords will be able to buy it and get it immediately. They won't have to wait until it's officially out on there and wherever they distribute to. It's set at $4.99. I'm following what was suggested of having the 1st book in a series for free. I'll do that until either Dawn is published on there, or a little after. I think the sequel's at a reasonable price. Sweet Endless Terror's ebook is $3.99 at both places. However, yesterday I also set up a coupon for it on Smashwords. It's public, so it'll go into their Special Deals Catalog. Only people who see it on Smashwords will be able to use it. They encourage people to share the coupon link, too. (That's: https://www.smashwords.com/books/presale/1000407) I've set that for 50% off for a month, which if people use it, is $2. The paperback on Amazon is $11.99. Another good side to Smashwords is I get more of a percentage for royalties than with Amazon. If not in Select, I think they only give authors 35%, with it, it can be up to 75%. With Smashwords, the lowest amount is usually 78%, and depending on how expensive it is, it could increase. Seems backwards, but I'll definitely take it. There seems to be more freedom with their promos and such, too. Decided, since they're still in Select, on using Amazon's promos for my other 2 books. More Than Meets the Eye's (my memoir) ebook will have a free book promo from the 23rd until the 27th. (It's $4.99 at the moment, and paperback is $13.99.) My Mother's Treasure Trove of Recipes (cookbook) ebook will have 2 countdown deals. One in the US marketplace from the 27th until the 3rd. 2nd one in the UK marketplace from the 3rd until the 10th. The price (in the US one) right now is $5.99. ($14.99 for the paperback.) It starts off with a big discount (80%), then slowly reaches full price by the end of each 'deal'. With all these promos, it feels like something will be going on with them almost every day. I'm still going to need to do more. I also checked out my author profile on Goodreads. I don't really use that site often. Turns out there were 2 author profiles for me, but I could only access one. I think it might have been because of paperback and ebook versions of things. They get them confused. Anyways, my main one is R. C. MacDonald, but the other one was R C MacDonald. There wasn't much difference, and you're not allowed to have 2 entries. I didn't create that 2nd one. Someone else must have. They have some people that create author profiles if they think the author isn't on there themselves. It's to cover more in their listings, not really acting like they are the author. Still, weird. So, I sent them a message about it yesterday. They emailed me this morning, telling me that they merged the 2. So, it's all under my main one, R. C. MacDonald, now. Yay! I also tried to changed the gender on my profile. I didn't realize at the time I created the account that I was agender, so checked off female when I created it. That's incorrect. They only have 2 options, and I'm neither. I clicked the 'Select' option. That seemed to make the gender part disappear after saving it. However, if I want to edit something else, I have to constantly put it as 'Select' before saving. Otherwise, it goes right back to female. I noticed later on my phone that it still says female, but on my desktop it's off. I might message them about this, too. I'd rather it not be there than to be forced to choose things I'm not. They could just have 3 options: male, female, other. Other can make it easier to include everyone else, although it also feels like the 'others' don't matter as much as the 1st two. Still problematic, but better. I think on MyAnimeList they recently (1 or 2 years ago) gave users a 3rd option of non-binary, which is what I picked on there. That might be the best way. Some haters really did not like the change, but more and more people are setting their gender to that on there. I wish more popular sites would switch to something like that. Found out there's a lot of confusion with the health insurance coverage itself. It's a really big mess, especially for dependents. It's not just affecting me. They're giving me some time to help sort it out, but in the meantime, I'm not covered. It's like being in a state of limbo. They want me to fill out a form, talk to my primary doc, have her fill out forms, and they'll also go through my records. Once approved, they'll reimburse us for anything that would have been extra while I wasn't covered. I don't think they (ones who switched everyone to the new plan) ever got the approval letter for me to be a dependent back in 2013. They deemed me disabled, thus eligible/accepted, because of the bipolar 2 and other mental health stuff at the time. It's supposed to be good for 10 years, then they reevaluate. It seems Kaiser Permanente has been hiding it for some reason. They told me, as a dependent, that I couldn't see it. My parent couldn't see it either, despite them telling me she was one of the few people who could. It's absurd. Hopefully, with all this extra paperwork and my records, they can find it. I have a lot of other health issues now than I did in 2013, too. I have a better case for it. I still needed to order my meds. I first used the Kaiser Permanente mail-order pharmacy, like usual. I wasn't informed of it, but they cancelled my order, since I wasn't covered. One good side is they managed to get my primary doc to order a few more refills of lamotrigine. There weren't any before that. I consider it the most important med. Keeps my bipolar 2 in check, balanced, and makes me seem 'normal'. It's the only med that's worked for me. I'd really not want to mess too much with my mental state by not taking it anymore. My doc apparently has to see me once a year for it, and to test how it's affecting my liver and other organs. She can't order more until I do. However, she didn't ask me to make an appointment this time, and I don't think it's been a year. I only found out about the cancellation when I called them. So, I decided to try their in-person pharmacy. Lamotrigine is the same price as when I was covered. $9. Pretty dang cheap. Cheaper than what other meds were set at while covered, that being $10. It's surprising, because I'm taking the highest legal dose. I got that. Thank goodness I have the next batch now. On the other hand, lialda, which is for the colitis, is super expensive. With KP, without coverage, it's $250 a month for the dose I'm at. The pharmacist suggested that I look at GoodRx online to compare prices and get a coupon. I decided to do what she suggested. At many places, it easily is over $1,000. The cheapest I found, with a coupon, is $91. Better than $250, but still seems expensive. I'm not even sure if the lialda is working. I've never been tested to see and how it's affecting the rest of my system, which I'm supposed to every few months for pretty much all meds related to colitis. It's actually highly recommended by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. I've been taking it for a year and a half. Don't know if it's making me worse. I'm going to experiment with having one pill a day instead of 2. (They're huge pills!) Started that yesterday. Hasn't been long, but so far, nothing different than the last few days. (I think I might be flaring anyways.) I could at some point get the next dose, too. If I keep up the one a day thing, I have about 11 more days until I run out with my current batch. A little nice side thing is one of the cats gave me a present this morning. I have a feeling it was Rosie. It was one of her fave toys, a big stuffed rat. It was left at where I normally sit in the family room. She knows things are going on with me health-wise. (Keep getting sick, feel like I'm flaring; that sort of thing.) She's extremely protective of me when I lay on my bed to watch something, play a game on my phone, etc. Really clinging to my legs with her claws dug in. Good thing there's a heavy electric blanket, and a couple of other layers that I'm under usually. Doesn't hurt that way, but she does get upset when I get up to do something, and tries really hard to make me stay. Certainly has a strong grip. She probably thought I needed that rat. This new anime season has some really interesting ones. There was positive and 'real' (more true to life of what many people experience) representation of an LGBTQ+ person in a recent episode of The Case Files of Jeweler Richard. Very well done. They treated her with respect and seriously. Other LGBTQ+ people were really impressed by that episode, too. One of the main themes has been to not discriminate based on religion, gender, sexual orientation (she was lesbian), what language they speak (Richard is fluent in many languages, so he sees clients that speak a variety of different ones), and more. All things Richard was trying to teach Seigi. Seigi is new to it all, and works for him at his office. Richard seems to be multiracial, although he appears white. The gems are animated really well. They look very close to reality and are beautiful. He essentially solves mysteries of the pieces of jewelry people ask him to appraise. He also gives real info on the gems, and the process in making some of the pieces. Might be boring to some, but I find it interesting. Darwin's Game has been really brutal so far. It's a survival game, so it makes sense. There's a game app that once you open it for the first time, it affects the real world. There's no way to quit the game. You're granted special powers at the beginning, but some players don't know what they are, like the main character, Sudou. We still don't truly know what his power is. There are hints that it has to do with replicating something he touches. Like, a gun or taser. It doesn't seem like that's all of it, though. If you die in the game, you die in the real world. You leave behind an imprint of your body. People not playing the game think that it's some sort of street art. Non-players, like bystanders or police, can get killed, too. There have been a lot of intense deaths. Sudou doesn't want to kill anyone. The only way to not kill anyone is for the opponent to give up. They lose points, and that's added to the other player's points. You can form teams. People in your team won't be forced to fight you. Also, you get the added bonus of more people to fight on your side. Some people have survived by being paid for giving info on other players. Info is valuable, and hard to get. There's some dark humor in it, too. I like that sort of thing. The only thing I didn't like was the very end of the 1st episode and beginning of the 2nd. It was obviously for fan service, but might have also conveyed how eccentric the other main character, Karino is. She's the strongest player in the game. Also, was the 1st player to give up against Sudou. She's never lost a fight until then. I kind of like her, except for what she did in that weird scene. I know she was messing with him, but we really didn't need that. Kyokou Suiri aka In/Spectre has been interesting, too. The main character, Kotoko, was kidnapped when she was 11 by youkai (supernatural beings). They demanded that she become their G-d of Wisdom, in exchange for an eye and a leg. She agreed to it. She basically became a mediator between the supernatural and human worlds. At 17, she constantly has youkai asking for her advice. A college student, Kurou, was dumped by his girlfriend because he wouldn't run away after seeing a kappa. Kotoko teams up with him, falling for him after bumping into each other at the hospital so often. He has a sick cousin, and she has to get check-ups often because of her condition. There's more to him than it seems at first. As a kid, he ate 2 youkai. One being a mermaid, but we don't know the other one yet. The mermaid gave him the ability to heal quickly. He seems to not feel pain, either. Even had his arm ripped off and acted like it was nothing. If he just had eaten the mermaid he would live forever, and look like the age he did when he ate it. That other thing he ate makes him age like normal. Not sure if he still can live forever. He's been reluctant to help her, but seems to be coming around. Uchi Tama?! has been freaking adorable and calming. Looking it up, it's based on a character franchise that started in 1983. Looks similar to Sanrio's characters like Hello Kitty. This is a new take on those characters that also had their own OVA (original video animation) series in 1988, game not long after, anime in 1993, movie, a few more games, and another anime. This one has human-like versions of the animals, that occasionally shifts to their actual forms. Tama's the main character. He's a cat that often goes missing with his friend Pochi, who's a dog. He's friends with all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood. The characters are all pretty unique and interesting. I like the concept of anthropomorphized pets, and seeing their point-of-view like that. They really did capture the same tendencies/behaviors of cats and dogs in the real world well. I think they only show their animal forms when they interact with humans. There was one segment that was super trippy. One of the cats found a portal to another world, ran in and out of it a few times, with ancient cat and dog warriors fighting it out in gladiator attire following him. All this while the dogs were talking about how peaceful it was and about nipples. Being shocked that humans only have 2, and asking about other animals. They seemed totally unfazed by what was happening behind them. Somehow, it kind of goes with how pets are...Like, cats mysteriously disappearing for a while (sometimes reappearing in weird places), dogs being focused on certain things, etc. I'm really liking Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun or Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun. The classic urban legend in Japan is about a ghost that haunts a toilet in a girls' bathroom at a school. There are apparently a lot of different versions of the story. Usually that ghost grants wishes for a price and if you call them a certain way, and is a girl. In some stories, if you mess up on calling her, she eats you or something. In this one, the ghost is a boy. The toilet is in the 3rd floor's girl's bathroom at an old school building. You have to knock 3 times on the 3rd bathroom stall, and say the ghost's name 3 times. He seems innocent and harmless at first, but he certainly has a dark side. He's much more powerful than he appears. His main weapon seems to be a butcher knife. There's a lot of dark humor. The art's quirky, which is fun. Nene tries to meet Hanako to ask for him to make a boy fall in love with her. He has no idea how to do that. It backfires with everything he suggests. Hanako carries a bag of mermaid scales. (Not sure why.) She eats one out of frustration before he could tell her what would happen, and turns into a fish. It also means she becomes a servant to mermaids, in their world. Wanting to turn back and terrified of the mermaid (which looks like an ugly giant fish), she begs him to turn her back. He eats a scale, so that he 'shares' the curse. She turns back to human form, but every time water splashes on her skin, she grows scales. She becomes friends with him, and it seems like she's going to end up helping him with the 'wishes'. A new character showed up, and he might turn into another friend that helps him. Although, he comes from a long line of exorcists, and vows to exorcise him. He's no match for Hanako. Somali and the Forest Spirit's about a little human girl, Somali, and a golem. They go on a journey to find her parents after the golem finds her all alone in the forest he watches over. He turns into a father figure. In their world, humans are rare and are treated poorly. It's full of demons and other supernatural creatures. She has to pretend she's part minotaur. The golem made fake horns that are attached to a hoodie. As long as it stays in place on Somali while they're out in public, no one suspects anything. The art is beautiful. I've also started watching the 2nd season of Ultraviolet recently. It's a Polish detective series on Netflix. Ultraviolet is a group of online amateur detectives. The police tend to hate them because they 'meddle' in their cases, and they solve them faster. I'm a little upset they killed off a major main character so early this season. Now it seems they have a new character trying to take on the same roles he did. I think I like him, but in a different way. It just has a very different feel this season, which can be good. I like the series a lot.
I've leveled out all the units up to the 1st checkpoint of Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course. Leveled out meaning all of those have 5 crowns, or have gone through all 5 levels of each unit. Started the 2nd level of Phrases 2. There are less units in this section. So, it feels like it's going by quickly. I'm currently at 16th place in the Obsidian League. I doubt I'll make it to the top 10 by the end of the week, but we'll see. I finally finished editing all 5 of my published books yesterday. Wahoo! Still haven't gone back to writing that unfinished sequel to Alliance. (It'll be the 3rd in the series.) Might get to it soon, I don't know. The cookbook, which was the last one I edited, had the least amount of errors. I really just added a couple of words and changed a couple of letters. Nothing big. Kind of made me hungry going through them. Gave me, or maybe reminded me of, another idea to promote it. That being, making a lot of the dishes I haven't yet. I can't really do the complex stuff, but there's a lot of simple and easy things. I can share pics of them to places like its fb page, Instagram, twitter, etc. It'll give a way for people to actually see what it'll look like. There are no pics in it, except for a Passover popover on the cover, but that's different. It's actually harder to publish/format with pics in the manuscript. More expensive for customers, too. The most errors were probably in Alliance. That was my 1st book, so I get that. It was a bit annoying, though. Alliance: Dawn was much better, but still had quite a lot of mistakes. Surprisingly, my 2nd book, Sweet Endless Terror, really wasn't bad. Not many mistakes. I had to add and update quite a few things to my memoir. Things changed, but I didn't add too many current stuff, just changed my thoughts on some of it. Maybe in the future I'll write another one, but that'll be a while. I started checking the formatting today. Wasn't sure if the newer version of Word changed them or something, so I want to make sure. Finished checking both the ebook and print versions of Alliance. I wasn't expecting to finish it today. I have a feeling they'll all go pretty quickly. There really were no errors in formatting. I realized and changed a few things with the front and back 'matter' of the ebook, and a little of the About the Author section of the print. I don't really want to give away my personal fb page, and yet I had it listed. I had both Kindle and Smashwords editions listed at the top, which would not only be too much to look at for the beginning, but both places don't like to have other 'distributors' listed. (Both call themselves distributors, and the authors are the publishers. Gets a little weird considering I have to get approval from them.) Plus those will be specific editions. It just would have made more sense this way. I might have had it different when they were in the Kindle Select program. That's exclusive, and they're strict about it. I might update the extra stuff in the future when I make new accounts on various social media platforms for it. People can actually interact more this way. I'm apparently still sick. It's a lot better than it was, at least. Nose is still runny, woke up with a sore throat that never really went away, abdominal pain, etc. Tried a half dose of the severe DayQuil stuff this morning. First time since Sunday having it. Hasn't helped much this time. Maybe it's just the tail-end of it? Hopefully. Getting a little worried about it. I'm going to try ordering my meds tomorrow. I don't know what's going on with my insurance. There wasn't a denial letter, but I haven't gotten anything about it. I noticed about a week ago that they still have my insurance card on Kaiser-Permanente's site. (Haven't looked back since.) Maybe it still hasn't completely transferred. I know they're covering vision and dental for me already, which I haven't really had either of in a very long time. Another side of this is before I ordered lamotrigine in October, my refills went from like 90 to saying as needed until mid-December. After that, no more refills. My primary doc never asked me to make an appointment to renew those refills for it. She does that once a year. Apparently, she can't approve more than a year's worth (over 90 refills each time doesn't make sense...I order 1 a month), and they have to test my blood to see if it's affecting my liver and other things. Not hearing from her makes it even weirder. I'm hoping if I order them, they can talk to my doc about it before approving more refills. If they can only do like 1 or 2 and want me to see my doc to get more, I will. That med is a lifesaver. So, it's not just the uncertainty of my insurance, but of being able to get an important med, too. Youtube: Boku no (My) Hero Academia:
For Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course, today I leveled out of the Pets unit and started the 2nd level of Weather. Again, there are 5 levels or 'crowns' to each unit. Weather is the last unit before the first checkpoint. So, I'm cruising through it all again, despite now clearing all the levels each time. I think it might end up being 2 months in total with the language. I try to shoot for 3 months with each one, but at least it'll be closer this way. Couldn't get promoted to the next league last week, so I'm still in the obsidian one. Yesterday, I made it to 1st place. Today, 6th. I'm just trying to stay in the top ten long enough to advance. Surprised I managed 1st place on Monday, but that was the 1st day. Edited more of the cookbook. Went through the Cheese, Vegetables, Crepes/Pancakes/Waffles, Passover and Hanukkah sections. Next is Cakes. That was 14 pages of the ebook version, and 32 pages of the print. It really wasn't as much as it seemed, since many sections were short. Started drawing Vincent yesterday, and planning his pose. Hope I don't take as long as I did with drawing the others. In my head, he looks like he'd be fun to draw. I'm still sick with a cold, although much better than a few days ago. I'm trying to stay away from the severe DayQuil (Safeway version) as much as I can. Haven't had any since Sunday, I think. So, doing pretty good with that. Still taking NyQuil (again, the Safeway version) at night. It does give me some relief from the symptoms and helps with sleep. I'm trying to get back to things, too. Hard to focus on things while sick. Apparently I'm going to see a dentist for the first time in around 14 years on the 17th. I'm a little nervous about that, but I probably should see one as soon as possible now that I'm covered. My parent will have the same one. This one will be new for her, too. Her previous one was really rude. Hopefully, this one will be good. I'm guessing they'll do a deep cleaning with mine. I'm nervous that they'll look in my mouth and be shocked by it or something. My teeth don't seem that awful, but I'm neither a dentist nor hygienist. I used to love going to the dentist, because it honestly felt good to have someone poking around in there. Like, an itch I couldn't scratch. Felt really clean afterwards, too. As long as I didn't see much of what they were doing, I was fine. I might ask for them to take off the dental glue that held my permanent retainer. A few years ago, the wire to that broke off a little and became a spike pointing towards my tongue. So, I had a nurse at Urgent Care rip it out. (They will probably not like hearing this.) The only thing left of it is the glue. It's like having hard rice granules stuck to your teeth all the time. Annoying. Started playing an interesting game app on my phone called Obey Me. It's a dating sim. Even though I'm aro ace, I find some of them interesting. One of the artists I follow on deviantART had a few of them that were like parodies of the stereotypical ones. They were hilarious. I also find them similar to choose your own adventure type stories. Interesting to get characters to fall for you, too. Anyways, this one's about you being transported to a demon realm called Devildom. You're an exchange student at a demon school, and it's a year-long program. There's only one other human (which they've hinted might not actually be one) and 2 angels in it. I guess to promote harmony amongst demons, humans, and angels. Interesting concept already. You have to stay with 7 demon brothers, each are an avatar of the 7 deadly sins, in their dorm. One of the objectives, that I've noticed, is making pacts with all of them. Normally, pacts are made in exchange for your soul, but they said have you exchange other things that they really want. So far, each one has lived up to their avatar. (I've only made pacts with 3 of them: Greed, Envy, and Gluttony.) With Greed (aka Mammon in the game), you find his missing credit card, for example. There's mystery, a lot of humor, intriguing plot, and more. The English is surprisingly good considering a Japanese company put it out. They have Japanese voice actors speaking in Japanese but subtitles in English, so you still can understand them if you don't know the language. There are dance games where a 'surprise guest' might appear at the end and might give you presents. As you raise your 'intimacy levels', you get to interact with them more. You also get a special phone in the game that has apps and you can have one of the brothers as an assistant on the 'home screen'. It's a little creepy this way, but cool at the same time. They can call, message you in the messenger, mail you things, etc. Lots of elements to the game. The art is nice, too. Another awesome part is they don't refer to you in a gendered way. The ones behind the game purposefully made it as inclusive as possible. I've seen some gay cis men and trans people giving positive reviews because of it. They either refer to you by your name or as that human, human, you, that one over there, etc. Being agender, it's nice to be referred to without gendered language. Seems refreshing. They're not overly romantic either. They seem more 'real'. Started watching Marianne. It's a French horror/mystery series on Netflix. It's basically about a famous horror writer (Emma) that goes back to her hometown, and finds out the evil spirit of a witch (Marianne) that haunted her dreams, and is in her books, is wreaking havoc in the real world. Seems a little too close to home for me, which adds another scary element. If characters from Sweet Endless Terror became real...that would be even more terrifying. Even some of the demons from Alliance, might be too much. Yet, the idea is fascinating to me at the same time. The change in scenes are separated by pages flipping, and each new scenario is actually a title in one of her books. Things like Going Home when she's on the way to her hometown. She brought her assistant to help her. Marianne wants her to continue writing the series, but Emma wants to stop and write a different type of story. So, it's a bit like the movie Misery that way.
Hopefully, this year will be amazing! The 2010s were rocky for me, to say the least. Some really amazing moments, and some of the worst. Being sick at the end of 2019, just goes along with how that year was. I plan to post more often on here, again. I might get into vlogging on youtube. I've been meaning to try it out, but haven't gotten the guts to do it yet. I have a webcam built into my new (I still feel like it is) computer, so it should be easier than doing it on my phone. I want to get back to medically transitioning this year. I'll feel a lot better mentally, which might help me 'cope' with the other physical health stuff. I want a new primary doc, rheumatologist, etc. as well. My current primary doc misgendered me at the end of my last appointment, and made me feel awful about something else. The rheumatologist doesn't seem to know how to order lab tests, which I think is a real problem. Hopefully, I can see a dermatologist and a new gastroenterologist. Plan to do a lot of promoting my books after I republish them. (The revised versions.) Making business cards, author pages/sites, book trailers, and more. So, there's already a lot of things planned for this year.
This is my wallpaper for January. It's Zenitsu from Kimetsu no Yaiba or Demon Slayer. He's annoying at times, but when he's in battle-mode, he's pretty cool. His personality completely changes. Seems like a part of him goes to sleep. He has a lightning-based ability after being struck by a lightning bolt. It affected him so much that even his hair and eye color changed. Thought this was an interesting and elegant one. The month-long holidays for January are: National Candy Month, National Egg Month, National Hot Tea Month, National Oatmeal Month, National Soup Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. I actually forgot to get new calendars until today. Ordered another Jewish Historical Museum one. The museum is in Amsterdam, and many of their pieces come from what was once the local Jewish community in that area. They also have some from around the world. I really like their calendars, and get them most years. Each month they feature pieces from the museum. It's also a good one to keep track of the Jewish calendar. Our calendar is mainly lunar-based, so holidays seem to change every year in relation to the 'regular' calendar. In reality, they are always the same on ours. Although, some years there are added months for a similar thing to leap years, but most of the time it's the same. The regular calendar doesn't list many of the holidays, and some of them can be inaccurate. It also has the parsha or Torah portion for each week, which is handy. I also ordered another elements calendar. I liked that this past year, so why not get it for this one. They go into a lot of detail for each element. The example pics of things with that element are interesting. I'm surprised that Amazon expects them to be here in 2 days. That's really fast. I've been sick with a nasty cold since Saturday. Maybe a little of Friday, too. Although, I just had horrible back pain then. I wonder if it was like a warning beforehand? My back still hurts, but it's not as constant or as intense. This is much worse than when I was sick right after my birthday (Nov. 7th) for a month. I had a breather for about a couple of weeks in between. My nose has been running like crazy, painfully sneezing a lot, coughing attacks, occasionally feeling like I can't breathe, sore throat, and more. It's been so bad, I've resorted to using Safeway's version of DayQuil and NyQuil. Recently started the severe version of the DayQuil, and that's been working a lot better. Using both feels like I'm drugged up a lot of the time, although the illness also makes me feel weird. I've been able to sleep lately, at least. Hopefully, I'll get over this soon. I feel like I'm putting some things on hold because of it. I might try to get at least one 2-mile walk in a day once I beat this. I'm itching to try that again. I found out recently that I have vision and dental coverage now. Wahoo! I haven't seen a dentist in roughly 14 years (since I wasn't covered), so it'll be interesting to see one now. I might shock them. Vision has been weird. I haven't really had it either. They say I might have, but couldn't access it for some reason. Supposedly, I'll still have health insurance, too. I'm a dependent on my parent's plan, and they changed to a new system that goes into effect this month. I saw that I still had coverage documents right before New Year's. Checked it again afterwards, and those documents disappeared. My card was still in their system and other things indicated I was still covered. There was no denial letter, so I'm guessing I simply have to wait and see. I have a feeling it'll take some time for everything to transfer. Makes me anxious, though. Hopefully, it'll be sorted out in the next couple of weeks, since I'll need to order meds around that time. I finished the first level of all the units in Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course. There really wasn't much to it. I try to stick with languages for at least 3 months at a time. It was barely a month's worth when I finished it. So, I'm trying to level out all the units now. There are 5 levels or 'crowns' to each one. Almost done with the Pers. Det. (Personal Details) unit. Only 3 more units until the 1st checkpoint. There are 2 checkpoints. 3, if you count the very end as one. I don't think this will last 3 months, but it'll be better than just a month. I'm now in 8th place of the Obsidian League. There's only one more league. I don't know what that one's called. I've never gotten this far with the leagues. Finished editing the memoir. It had more errors than I expected, but still better than the others so far. The only one left is the cookbook. This should go pretty quickly. Then, I'll check the formatting of all of them. Haven't done much with drawing lately, since I haven't had the motivation with being sick. We normally go to a family friends' (they're a couple) place for New Year's Eve. The same people that host Thanksgiving dinners and Passover seders. Someone that we all knew passed away recently (I was shocked by it), and their dog has cancer (I think). A lot of things at once, so they couldn't do it this year. That's ok. We had our own party. Had snacks off and on from around dinnertime until midnight. Had chips and French onion dip, pickled herring on rosemary crackers, butterflake rolls, gelt (chocolate coins I still had/have from Hanukkah), a 'rainbow chip' (like M&M's, but smaller) cookie, hot chocolate, and sparkling apple cider. (Probably forgot a few things.) Most of it I don't have very often. Forgot that I also got white cheddar Babybel snacks to have a 'new' cheese for the new year. I haven't had that version of Babybel's cheeses. Oh well. I can have it now. Rosie seems to be back to her old self. Eating and drinking normally. As far as I know, she hasn't been throwing up. She's been incredibly loving and purring a lot. She knows I'm sick, and has been trying to help me. She's been trying to get me to eat more than usual. Kneading my legs and cuddling up close to my head, which isn't as normal. Every time I have a painful sneeze, when I'm lying down, she checks out my nose. Cute and annoying at the same time. Tasha's even been more loving towards me lately. Greeting me often, asking to be petted, begging for my food, etc. Youtube: One Piece:
Today in Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course, I finished the Days and Family 2 units. Got through a little of the Sport one. I'm 2 units away from the next checkpoint. There's apparently one section left, unless it expands suddenly after the 4th checkpoint. I'm at 8th place on the Amethyst League. Should be interesting where I end up at the end of the week again. I've been gathering more illustrated references for drawing Vincent throughout the week. Learning quite a bit just from going over them. Found some references for body proportions today. I might look up folds in fabric tomorrow. After that, I'll try to find examples of the clothes he wears. That should be fun. Edited the Cooking and Food chapter in my memoir. It's probably the shortest one. Only 4 pages of the ebook, and 5 pages of the print. Next one is on my family. On Monday and Tuesday, I cleaned out my ears. I tried the suggestion online about waiting longer than it says in the directions each time. Most were actually saying at least 30 minutes. So, that's how long I did it for. I think it got a lot more out than my usual. However, I never got it completely clear. I wanted to do it once a day for most of this week, but things kept popping up. I'll try to get back to it. They say some of the most compacted ears need around 4 days of that at a time for it to clear. (Usually twice a day, but I can only stand it once a day.) I think I hear better now, at least. Rosie had a routine lab work check-up yesterday. Supposed to be only blood work and a urine sample. However, we were at the clinic longer after I mentioned that she's been throwing up for about a week, several times a day, hasn't eaten since Tuesday afternoon, and seemed depressed and lethargic. So, they ran an emergency exam. They couldn't get a urine sample, because she was so dehydrated. She also was drooling profusely, which is another sign of dehydration, apparently. They injected her with a lot of fluids. They warned me that it was so much, it might look like she has a camel hump. Although, they said she was so dehydrated, it might absorb so fast, we wouldn't see that. I didn't notice something like that. They also injected an anti-nausea med into the same area, so it gets slowly absorbed like the fluids. They gave us a med that will boost her appetite. They warned me that it can do the same thing with humans (I really don't need an appetite boost), so I have to use gloves with it. I'm supposed put a 1 1/2" strip of it on a gloved finger, then put it in her ear. I'm not so sure she'd sit long enough for me to do that. She'll probably just flick it off, too. She seemed a lot more herself when she got home. After that, my parent and I were going to go to JJ's Fish House for dinner. Had to park a little ways from it. It was raining heavily. Turns out JJ's was closed, so we had to walk all the way back in the rain. I was close to being soaked by the time we got back to the car. Went to Elmer's instead. Not many people there, but at least it was open. I got one of their specials of the month: Prime Rib Eggs Benedict without mushrooms. I can't have a traditional eggs benedict, because of the ham. This one didn't have any, so I gave it a shot. It had an English muffin, caramelized onions, crispy strips of prime rib, poached eggs, chipotle hollandaise, and chives sprinkled on top. Came with hash browns. Really good stuff, filling, and interesting flavors. Felt comforting, which is what I needed after Rosie's appointment. Also, had their chocolate cake. They only have one dessert now, and it's not even on the menu. Used to have a cobbler in addition to the cake. That was amazing! Sad it's not there anymore. Anyways, the cake came with a line of whipped cream down the side and a small bowl filled with strawberry compote. I mostly just had the cake. It was really rich tasting and like fudge. Today, a little after noon, the vet clinic called to check in on Rosie. It was a little soon to ask, but nice of them. She seemed more herself today. Ate 7 out of the 9 pieces of her Greenies Dental Chews treats this morning. She needs them to help with her teeth. Usually gets 9 in the morning and 9 at night. That's recommended amount for a cat around her weight. They're tuna flavored, which both cats seem to prefer. They love it. She also had a couple of mouthfuls of her regular food right before the call. Not bad. I might not need to use that appetite stimulant med. They said that one of the blood test results indicated that she has internal bleeding. They wanted to take some x-rays to check. We're going to see how things go for a little while first. X-rays can be expensive, too. Maybe she just needs to heal on her own. Hopefully she feels better. Youtube: Miira no Kaikata (How to Keep a Mummy):
Re:Creators:
Boku no (My) Hero Academia:
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) (quite a few spoilers from the manga in both vids):
I love tea! There are so many different kinds out there. I mostly only drink water or tea. More tea than water, at that. Just got some more tea: Bengal Spice, Salted Caramel, and Gingerbread. The 1st one's technically herbal, with no actual tea leaves. It tastes a lot like chai, only more of certain spices. One of my faves. I also like different types of actual chai. The other 2 are seasonal blends. I'm surprised at what blends they can create, and be so close to tasting like those flavors. There's no added sugar or calories, which makes it nice to have a taste without that added in. I also like mint, orange spice, green tea, black tea, chamomile, Earl Grey, cinnamon, hibiscus, jasmine, and more. I usually add Splenda to it. If it's something like chai, I occasionally will add a little milk. I ended up at 5th place on Duolingo's Emerald League. So, I was promoted today to the Amethyst League. Yay! Didn't get a reward besides that this time. Only the top 3 get more. Made it to 2nd place today. Maybe I'll stay in the top 3 until the end of the week this time. In their Scottish Gaelic course, I finished the Hobbies and Travel units, and a little bit of Feelings 2. Found some facial expressions, ears, and eyes examples for drawing Vincent. When out in public, he looks like he has a bit of an attitude, so that should be fun to draw. With people he feels safe with he's softer, kinder, and feels he can be himself. It'd be interesting to draw him again with that difference. Finished editing Sweet Endless Terror. Started editing my memoir, More Than Meets the Eye, yesterday. Each chapter deals with a different topic. First one was on being aro and ace. The 2nd one, that I did today, was on being agender. My views and what I've done for transition-related stuff have changed a little. I was unsure about a lot of things when I first wrote it a couple of years ago. Now, I'm more positive on how I feel about it, my gender dysphoria, transitioning, etc. Interesting to read what I wrote back then. Tried to update some of it without changing it too much. Didn't need to change much for the aro ace one. That was a plus. Finished watching Dr. Stone. It was better than I expected. I like that they tried to add real science to it, although there was quite a bit of fantasy/sci-fi, too. They didn't make Senku, the 'scientist', heartless either. He did many things that only benefited the village rather than himself. The 'mentalist' (he was more into psychology, and fighting with it) turned out to be a better person than he appeared to be at the beginning. A 2nd season is confirmed. Looks like it'll be about the fight between Tsukasa's army and Senku's village finally. This season was mainly a setup for it. The last big project of his was creating smartphones. They weren't really like our modern ones. More like a glorified huge phone (with several pieces) you can haul around places. He said it would be the key to the war, since communication is vital. They'll only have 2 'phones'. I think they're going to need more than that. Tsukasa essentially has brute force and many more people. Senku hasn't revived anyone from stone since the beginning, and the village he found is small. They were probably the only humans on the planet for thousands of years that weren't encased in stone. Many generations of them without knowing other people. They thought the 'stone people' were statues, not actual people. Tsukasa isn't an idiot, either. Should be interesting if Senku and his village can do anything more beforehand and how this will play out. Ordered some things on Amazon yesterday. I really needed some of it. It's handy that way. Last time I got earplugs was 2 years ago. Didn't realize I was going through them that slowly. Probably not healthy that I used a pair for a couple weeks at a time. I wear them every night, because Rosie likes to scratch things loudly after going to the litter box. My bedroom is facing a 3-way stop, so there's traffic noises sometimes. There's also construction work going on really early in the morning. Birds can be really loud. Lots of reasons. I'll try to switch out pairs more often this time. This probably had compounded my ear issues, too. I have Eustachian tube issues. Basically the tubes in my ears are backwards. Creates all sorts of issues, and has gotten more severe over the years. It produces too much earwax, air pressure changes hurt (makes it fun on planes and being in a car going up through the mountains), sometimes my balance is off, and other things. Sometimes it gets so bad, I can't hear. I've been told to use an earwax cleaning kit at least once a month, if not more. I end up doing it maybe once every few months. Not good. Plus, with those earplugs packing it in more, it's a recipe for disaster. With the kit, you add several drops of a peroxide (and something else, can't remember) solution in an ear, wait for a while with your head tilted, then tilt your head the other way to let it 'drain' over the sink (it 'melts' some of it, which is what most of the fluid is), then flush it out with a warm water filled bulbous syringe. Repeat for the other ear. I decided to get another 'kit', and that I'd try to do it more often. I haven't actually gotten my ears clear in a very long time. I usually manage to get some of it out, at least. I plan to leave the solution in my ears longer in the future. I was doing it for 7 minutes each ear. Apparently, if your ear is really compacted, it's recommended online to leave it in for at least 18 minutes each ear. So, I'll try that. It's painful yet eventually a really nice feeling when they're completely clear. It makes a fizzy popping sound just before. I can hear so much more after, it's almost too much. I also ordered a purse. My current one is a couple of years old. I think I got it around the time I got the earplugs. It's the same kind/style/color. It's really a great purse, so why not get the same thing again? It's tough, the zippers have stayed intact, it can hold a lot yet flatten to almost nothing, good over-the-shoulder messenger-like one (I prefer those), color's nice, etc. The only problem is the material starts to pucker and fray after about a year and a half. It'd be good to have one without that again. I decided to try Nyquil Saturday night. I wanted some relief from that weird cold/cough. The coughing attacks often happen while I'm in bed. Although, I still get them occasionally during the day. Sneezing a lot still, too. Back hurts sometimes because of it. That first night, I slept well for the first time in a long time. Last night, I was good until around 4:45am. Started hacking again. At least, I still got more sleep than usual. Hopefully, it'll work like the 1st night tonight. It really burns...Has more alcohol than I remembered. I used to use Delsym instead. That doesn't have alcohol and tasted like orange soda. This covers more things, though. I don't have to take Tylenol with it, because it has it already. Apparently, it also has the main ingredient that's in Delsym.
Today, I finished the About Me and Phrases 3 units, and started the Body one in Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course. I'm starting to get the hang of how they say things. A lot of the words aren't pronounced the way they appear. Some letters turn silent, some turn into ph/f or v sounds, de sometimes is pronounced as je (or something similar), e can sometimes be like ye, and it seems some words add a letter that's not written. Like, Alba, which means Scotland. It has an 'ah' sound between the l and b. There are patterns that I'm seeing, though. Makes it more interesting. At the end, I was at 6th place in the Emerald League. They seem to be more with it in this one. It'll be interesting to see where I land on there at the end of the weekend. I finished shading the drawing of Junko on Wednesday, then posted it to deviantART and Instagram. I think she turned out better than Shadow. Surprised someone put it in their fave collection on dA, and quite a few people liked it on Instagram. I started looking at design ideas for Vincent yesterday. Found some hairstyle examples and hair color codes. Today, I looked at eye shapes and sizes. Next, I'll look at eye color codes. I'm doing a similar thing, but more detailed, of what I did with Junko. Made a separate 'notes' doc on my phone, then find and copy/paste pics of examples or tips on drawing certain features (divided by category) to it. It's like a special character sheet for him. I didn't look at color codes for Junko beforehand. This way I might already have an idea for that long before I start coloring. Looking at some of these examples and how-tos, I feel like I'm learning more about it, which is a nice plus. Today, I finished editing Paralysis from Sweet Endless Terror. It was 11 pages of the ebook, and 29 of the print. There's only one more story left. I apparently pushed myself too much with doing 2 2-mile walks a day. Had to stop to rest a little after Monday. My feet were on fire, and something was going on with my back. Both of which have only started to improve greatly today. Maybe I'll try the 1 a day thing again? I really want to get back to it. Not only that, but my cold symptoms have intensified. Had a hard time sleeping last night because of the coughing and feeling like stuff was stuck in my throat. Cough drops didn't help. I've had this 'cold' for a month now. (I don't think I've ever had a cold that lasted this long.) Trying to force myself to do those walks might have made those symptoms worse, too... Recently there was an executive order that sparked a conversation on whether Judaism is a nationality. Judaism is many things, but it's certainly not a nationality. Like I've read from some comments, Judaism doesn't really fall under what the modern Western concept of religion is. It's more. It is a religion. It is a culture. There are many ethnic groups under the umbrella. For example, Ashkenazi have ancestry of Jews from Germany (Ashkenazi lit. means Germany) and eastern Europe. Sephardi come from Jews that came from Spain (lit. means Spain) and the Mediterranean. There are Kaifeng Jews (from China), the B'nei Manashe (from India), Ethiopian Jews, Mizrachi (from the Middle East), etc. Lots of groups from around the world. Each one has their own 'flavor' to traditions, customs, and foods. Even to how some speak the prayers in Hebrew. Plus, some ethnic groups created their own languages based on Hebrew and common languages around them. Like, Yiddish and Ladino. There are different diet restrictions for Passover. Some Sephardim (plural) make fun of Ashkenazim with how much stricter we are. It's also a philosophy. We've had many famous philosophers in the past. We're taught to question everything, which might be why many of us are scientists, too. We don't have a blind faith. There are even atheist Jews. Some are even Orthodox. There's mysticism, Kabbalah, (not everyone is into it) we even have certain ways to meditate, and something similar to yoga as well (not exactly and not as well known). There are many different branches of Judaism depending on observance and certain values. I'm a Reform Jew, and within that observance can vary greatly. It's basically what makes sense to you, and rationalizing things more. (There are core concepts that we agree on.) Also, we're very into social justice and tikkun olam or 'repairing the world'. Some branches aren't into that or interpret tikkun olam differently. I have thought about being Modern Orthodox. I feel a little in line with them, as well. Not completely, and I can't really be as observant as they are, but there are some things that 'speak' to me. There's also a culinary tradition to Judaism. There's just so much to it. So, yeah, technically the religion category doesn't really fit. However, it is not a nationality. My nationality is American. I could say my ethnicity is half Ashkenazi and the other half mostly Celtic. That would be accurate. If it's deemed as a nationality, it hearkens back to the Nazis and Russia when they declared it a race/nationality, and therefore they were not true citizens of the countries they were from. The dual loyalty idea came out of this, too. Really freaking scary stuff. I needed to write about this somewhere. A facebook status didn't seem quite right, but on my own blog seems perfect. Youtube: Hataraku Saibou (Cells at Work):
