This holiday was yesterday. I love cherries, so putting them in a pie makes them even better! Haven't had it in a while, though. Finding a good cherry pie locally can be difficult. They tend to have what I call sugar or 'gel' packets. Basically large globs of sugar. Not the best. Sometimes those are good, but really shouldn't be there. They mess up pecan pie often, too. Either too few nuts, too dry, too much filling, etc. I sadly can't have that anymore, even if it's one of my faves, too.
This week hasn't been great health-wise. Monday, I had one of the biggest migraines I've had in a very long time. The 'aura' for mine are often auditory. Usually thudding sounds. When it happens, it also feels like blood is spurting from my head. There's a lot of pressure, too. That part usually lasts a while, and gets really annoying. Not really painful. As soon as it finally stops, the massive painful headache starts. At this point, I'm also sensitive to light, certain sounds, cold (more so than usual), and certain foods. Usually this phase doesn't last long. Maybe a few hours. This time was different. The headache finally died down on Wednesday. However, the after effect was stronger than usual, too. I get sick to my stomach, feel like I'm in a fog, still sensitive to a few things, and fatigue sets in like I had been through a marathon. This phase usually lasts for an even shorter time than the headache. I was still in it when we went to the local trans support group that night. Another headache, that felt similar to the migraine one (but there was no aura beforehand), started after having the banana cream pie for dessert at Shari's after group. The bananas in it were still frozen. Might have triggered it? It was bizarre.
It felt like I was finally starting to recover around noon yesterday. A few hours later, I decided to try a new game on the PlayStation 4 called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. A detective/horror game. Sounded fun. However, the clues had text that would light up near them. If you clicked 'inspect', what he thinks/observes comes out as text quickly and swirls around. Occasionally repeating over and over. Sometimes, it wants you to find a certain clue by clicking '???', and then those question marks swirl around wildly. They combine when you've found something. There's some jerking around of the camera, too. It eventually made me so nauseated, I came very close to throwing up several times after I stopped playing. Stomach was really upset for a while, and felt like the acid was burning through it. So, I laid down, trying to calm it down. Felt like I couldn't look at a screen (like the computer or iPhone), couldn't color in my 'adult' coloring book (it's a book based on designs of a tattoo artist, which is usually fun), or really much else; for fear that I'd throw up or start another headache. So, I just closed my eyes and sat there. Eventually, I had fallen asleep for about 2 hours. Felt better afterwards. Today's been pretty good so far, but I'm trying not to trigger anything. Trying to be kinder to myself, too.
I'm thinking of looking into chest binders again. I don't think the one I have worked too well. I also stopped wearing it when my health issues got worse, and it was hurting more. Things don't seem as bad as they were when I was on Lialda (that's not to say things are fine. I still have awful health stuff), now. So, I thought it'd be an ok time to look into it again. Plus, they're bothering me more than usual lately. I'll go with a different brand this time. I have an Underworks one. I've heard gc2b and Shapeshifters are good, so I'll look at those, along with any other brands I find. I want something long, so it stays put and doesn't roll up or anything. Similar to my current one. I don't want the weird string feeling rubbing up and down my back, and the weird puckering it does around the neck area. Maybe something that gets me even flatter? I don't know.
Sunday was the start of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. I've been posting something aro related for every morning post on my author account on Instagram. A couple of people have stopped following me during it, but I've decided not to care about that. This is a part of me, and if people don't like it or don't want to be informed, so be it. All the better, actually. I've gotten a lot of likes from fellow aros on a lot of those posts, which has been nice to see. Some have added a couple of those posts to their stories on there, tagging me as well. My evening posts are still following the pattern I'm trying to set. For normal weeks, I've 'assigned' certain topics for the days of the week. Some having 2 topics for the day. That makes it more interesting, I think.
I also recently found out that there's an aro ace flag. It was created at the end of 2018, so it's rather new. 2 shades of blue for being aro ace and the aro ace spectrum, and our experiences. Blue was chosen because it is between the aromantic green (in that flag) and asexual purple (in that flag). White for wholeness, as well as aro aces who are aplantonic (don't experience platonic attraction), nonamorous, or not seeking a partnership of some sort. Yellow is for love and relationships that exist outside of conventional romantic and sexual relationships. Orange is for community. It's in between green and purple in the other direction on the color wheel. Much more colorful than the current aro and ace flags, which is nice. I think it looks snazzy.
There's also an oriented aro ace flag. I saw this a while before this 'new' aro ace flag. An oriented aro ace is someone who experiences other attractions strongly. Many go by this for queerplatonic relationships. Before I heard about this, I read that people were just saying what their 'queerplatonic' attraction was. This seems to encompass more, though. There are many other types of attractions. I'm an oriented aro ace. Specifically, a pan aro ace. My strongest is platonic, although I might rephrase that as queerplatonic, since it feels like something even more (hard to describe). I have potential to be attracted to people of all genders this way. I would love to be in a queerplatonic relationship or qpr in the future. The problem is trying to figure out how to get a partner for one. It's not like dating, and that makes me cringe. I'm slightly romance-repulsed, although not as strongly as my sex-repulsion. Probably more romance-averse...I have read about some people that are trying to create a site that's based on finding queerplatonic partners, and for aro aces specifically. I don't think there truly is anything like that out yet. It's hard, especially because not many know about this sort of relationship, and it might seem...weird at first to others. It's also hard to know who actually wants to be in one. Then, there's if you're compatible, like with most relationships. I've heard that going to aro and ace group meetings has helped many people find partners for it. The closest one to me is in Seattle, and they recently changed the name from Seattle Aces to Seattle Aces & Aros. Through their facebook group, they seem to be sincerely trying to include aros, too. They're not just changing the name. It's not really local for me, though. They only have one meeting a month, but do have events throughout the rest of the month. Some of them sound fun.
Anyways, that flag is also pretty new. Created a few months before the aro ace one. Dark blue is for the shared aro ace experience, grey for the aro ace spectrum, white for orientations within the community (bi aro ace, gay aro ace, pan aro ace, etc.), and teal for non-romantic and non-sexual attractions. It's nice looking, too. Still more colorful than the current aro and ace flags.
Got the author copies of my paperback books last week. So nice to actually see them in print! They're like my babies. They had some scuff marks, which I wasn't happy about. The matte finish on the 4 that had it felt weird, but that might just be because they're new. The glossy finish for Sweet Endless Terror was nice, and really fit well with it. The only other issue I see with them is the font size. I went with what was suggested, but it's bigger than I expected. Might be good for the cookbook, but the others...I'm not so sure. The font's not incredibly large, but maybe it's just a slight size too big than what I'm used to. I think the memoir is the only one that ended up slightly smaller in font compared to the others. Maybe it's the size of the books. If I change the print's font to something smaller, I'll have to change the formatting, change the cover size, etc. It's not a simple change. I'll just stick with it for now. Seeing them all stacked up really shows how much writing I've put out there, too. It's impressive to me to see it all like that, even if they're not really huge books. Alliance is the thickest, like I expected. Alliance: Dawn comes close. Also, understandable.
Youtube:
One Piece:
Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (Toilet-bound Hanako-kun):
Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer):
Boku no (My) Hero Academia:
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom):
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Friday, February 21, 2020
Friday, February 7, 2020
12th of Shevat
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.
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
10th of Tevet
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.
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.
Friday, November 22, 2019
24th of Cheshvan
I've been sick since my last post. Probably a cold. I suspected I came down with something in that one. It's still lingering on. Having coughing attacks, runny nose, and sneezing a lot. I know my body's trying to get rid of it all, but it's difficult to sit through on top of those 'mystery symptoms' I've had for a while now. I also know it can take longer to get over simple things like colds, while on something that works similarly as an immunosuppressant for my colitis.
Made an account and played a little on the PlayStation 4 on Monday. That was my first time on it. We've had it for a few weeks. I played a Sonic game, which was like a blast of nostalgia. I have a Sega Genesis that's still in good condition, and one of my first games was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I think that actually came with it. This one has similar levels, but is mostly 3D. Different options for actions, too. Apparently Sonic has a doppelganger in this one. Also, tried G-d of War. The graphics are amazing. Not sure I liked how often the controller vibrated. I died in kind of an annoying part. My son has to shoot arrows at a giant monster at certain times (have to press a button each time for his shots), and I have to attack that monster on my end (hitting other buttons). The monster kept going after me instead of getting distracted by my son. One of the son's last lines was: "Don't leave me all alone in this world!" Makes it seem even worse. He seems to be constantly looking for his father's approval and praise, too. Sad. He doesn't get it much. I want to download Morrowind, but it looks like they don't go back that far in the Elder Scrolls franchise on there. (I could be wrong.) They do have Oblivion which was a sequel to that. I don't think I ever played it. It might be similar. That'd be fun. I didn't go back to it after Monday, because I've felt worse since then. Maybe this weekend.
Finished editing Alliance. It was the 2nd time in a row. I hadn't edited it since I published it until recently. So, about 5 or 6 years in between. Long time. There were so many mistakes, I'm calling it a revised edition. I shaved off 3,000 words. Looks like it'll be a smoother read now. Not sure how many pages less. The print is made from a template that's for around 300 pages, and I think it was a couple of pages over that. It's now 298. Ebook is now 206 pages. I think it was quite a lot more beforehand. It's still my longest book out of the 5 that are out, from what I remember. After that, I immediately started editing Alliance: Dawn, the sequel. I like how this one is laid out more, it's jam-packed with stuff, and there doesn't seem to be as many mistakes so far. Although, I feel embarrassed that I misgendered my main character towards the beginning...It's like stabbing my baby. (It was just in one sentence, but still...) Hopefully, no one brought that up in the reviews. I haven't looked at that stuff since I started all this editing. At least I caught and corrected it. This one started with 147 pages for the ebook, and 220 pages for the print. Not bad. It's also 9,000 words less than A1 ended up with. Easier already that way. I went through all of the 2nd chapter today. I seem to be cruising through it.
Still correcting/editing the drawing of Junko in Photoshop. (Again, Junko's a character in Alliance.) Straightening and thinning out the lines, and taking out things that shouldn't be there at the moment. I don't know why, but I seem to have given her a human ear in addition to her cat ears. (She is a cat demon.) That was easy to correct. I can't believe I forgot to draw her tail. It dawned on me a couple of days ago. I could think of it as hidden behind her. She does have a knee out, so maybe it's behind that. I could draw it as a side thing in the future. I might draw her previous cat form, too.
Finished Duolingo's Dutch course. I'm unsure as to which language I should start next, so I'm taking at least a week-long break from it. (Might be 2, depending on how I feel.) Here are the ones I might learn next: Hindi, possibly going back to modern Hebrew (it doesn't have vowels written out, which makes it a little more difficult than what I'm used to), Gaelic, Welsh, Thai, or Vietnamese. Quite a mix. So far, I've recently gone through these Duolingo courses: German, Italian, Korean, and Dutch. I used HelloChinese for Mandarin after the German course, which was probably one of the best language courses so far. They recently had a huge update adding twice the amount of units. I might go back to that someday. I tried Duolingo's Russian course, but it was too glitchy. I thought it'd be fun to familiarize myself with that again, since I took it in college. Loved it back then. I feel lucky that Duolingo has so many options, and they add languages every few months. Some languages are great on there, and some...not so much.
Another anime I'm rewatching is Vandread. It originally aired in 2000. I watched it in my college's anime club. Probably around 2005. It was already 'old' by then. However, the concept I think was ahead of its time. It plays with gender a lot. It takes place in the future, where men and women have been segregated to 2 different planets for a few generations. They fight each other occasionally. The women have no problem with keeping up their population, since they've figured out a way to have children without men. If I remember correctly, they can only have girls, though. I think the men are having a harder time with that. The women don't seem as militant, either. Both genders have created their own fables of each other. Men depicting women as monsters. Women depicting men as aliens. The main character, Hibiki, gets stuck on a male battleship after female pirates take over it. He wasn't even supposed to be on it. Someone bet him to steal a high-tech robot, so he snuck in. He's just an engineer. A few of the other men that were supposed to be there get stuck, too. It's interesting to see their initial reactions to each other, considering they haven't met the other gender before.
I also decided to watch the original Hunter x Hunter. That started in 1999. Saw some of it with that anime club, but we stopped to watch something else at some point. I never went back to it. So, it's one of those that I 'dropped' but am going back to now. I forgot about it and there were so many new interesting shows coming out. HxH is a pretty long series, especially if you put that first series (62 episodes), plus an OVA that's 30 episodes long, plus the series that started in 2011 (148 episodes) together seems like quite an undertaking. (That's not counting a couple of movies.) Nothing like One Piece, but still a lot. I'm willing to try it again.
Youtube:
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler):
Fairy Tail:
One Piece:
One Punch Man:
Made an account and played a little on the PlayStation 4 on Monday. That was my first time on it. We've had it for a few weeks. I played a Sonic game, which was like a blast of nostalgia. I have a Sega Genesis that's still in good condition, and one of my first games was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I think that actually came with it. This one has similar levels, but is mostly 3D. Different options for actions, too. Apparently Sonic has a doppelganger in this one. Also, tried G-d of War. The graphics are amazing. Not sure I liked how often the controller vibrated. I died in kind of an annoying part. My son has to shoot arrows at a giant monster at certain times (have to press a button each time for his shots), and I have to attack that monster on my end (hitting other buttons). The monster kept going after me instead of getting distracted by my son. One of the son's last lines was: "Don't leave me all alone in this world!" Makes it seem even worse. He seems to be constantly looking for his father's approval and praise, too. Sad. He doesn't get it much. I want to download Morrowind, but it looks like they don't go back that far in the Elder Scrolls franchise on there. (I could be wrong.) They do have Oblivion which was a sequel to that. I don't think I ever played it. It might be similar. That'd be fun. I didn't go back to it after Monday, because I've felt worse since then. Maybe this weekend.
Finished editing Alliance. It was the 2nd time in a row. I hadn't edited it since I published it until recently. So, about 5 or 6 years in between. Long time. There were so many mistakes, I'm calling it a revised edition. I shaved off 3,000 words. Looks like it'll be a smoother read now. Not sure how many pages less. The print is made from a template that's for around 300 pages, and I think it was a couple of pages over that. It's now 298. Ebook is now 206 pages. I think it was quite a lot more beforehand. It's still my longest book out of the 5 that are out, from what I remember. After that, I immediately started editing Alliance: Dawn, the sequel. I like how this one is laid out more, it's jam-packed with stuff, and there doesn't seem to be as many mistakes so far. Although, I feel embarrassed that I misgendered my main character towards the beginning...It's like stabbing my baby. (It was just in one sentence, but still...) Hopefully, no one brought that up in the reviews. I haven't looked at that stuff since I started all this editing. At least I caught and corrected it. This one started with 147 pages for the ebook, and 220 pages for the print. Not bad. It's also 9,000 words less than A1 ended up with. Easier already that way. I went through all of the 2nd chapter today. I seem to be cruising through it.
Still correcting/editing the drawing of Junko in Photoshop. (Again, Junko's a character in Alliance.) Straightening and thinning out the lines, and taking out things that shouldn't be there at the moment. I don't know why, but I seem to have given her a human ear in addition to her cat ears. (She is a cat demon.) That was easy to correct. I can't believe I forgot to draw her tail. It dawned on me a couple of days ago. I could think of it as hidden behind her. She does have a knee out, so maybe it's behind that. I could draw it as a side thing in the future. I might draw her previous cat form, too.
Finished Duolingo's Dutch course. I'm unsure as to which language I should start next, so I'm taking at least a week-long break from it. (Might be 2, depending on how I feel.) Here are the ones I might learn next: Hindi, possibly going back to modern Hebrew (it doesn't have vowels written out, which makes it a little more difficult than what I'm used to), Gaelic, Welsh, Thai, or Vietnamese. Quite a mix. So far, I've recently gone through these Duolingo courses: German, Italian, Korean, and Dutch. I used HelloChinese for Mandarin after the German course, which was probably one of the best language courses so far. They recently had a huge update adding twice the amount of units. I might go back to that someday. I tried Duolingo's Russian course, but it was too glitchy. I thought it'd be fun to familiarize myself with that again, since I took it in college. Loved it back then. I feel lucky that Duolingo has so many options, and they add languages every few months. Some languages are great on there, and some...not so much.
Another anime I'm rewatching is Vandread. It originally aired in 2000. I watched it in my college's anime club. Probably around 2005. It was already 'old' by then. However, the concept I think was ahead of its time. It plays with gender a lot. It takes place in the future, where men and women have been segregated to 2 different planets for a few generations. They fight each other occasionally. The women have no problem with keeping up their population, since they've figured out a way to have children without men. If I remember correctly, they can only have girls, though. I think the men are having a harder time with that. The women don't seem as militant, either. Both genders have created their own fables of each other. Men depicting women as monsters. Women depicting men as aliens. The main character, Hibiki, gets stuck on a male battleship after female pirates take over it. He wasn't even supposed to be on it. Someone bet him to steal a high-tech robot, so he snuck in. He's just an engineer. A few of the other men that were supposed to be there get stuck, too. It's interesting to see their initial reactions to each other, considering they haven't met the other gender before.
I also decided to watch the original Hunter x Hunter. That started in 1999. Saw some of it with that anime club, but we stopped to watch something else at some point. I never went back to it. So, it's one of those that I 'dropped' but am going back to now. I forgot about it and there were so many new interesting shows coming out. HxH is a pretty long series, especially if you put that first series (62 episodes), plus an OVA that's 30 episodes long, plus the series that started in 2011 (148 episodes) together seems like quite an undertaking. (That's not counting a couple of movies.) Nothing like One Piece, but still a lot. I'm willing to try it again.
Youtube:
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler):
Fairy Tail:
One Piece:
One Punch Man:
Thursday, November 14, 2019
16th of Cheshvan
My birthday was on the 7th. Went to a Thai place for dinner that night. Managed to get the last order of tofu spring rolls. They run out of those really quickly. Often there aren't any left by the time we get there for dinner. Got the most mild chicken pad Thai without the 'garnish'. A lot of the garnish is tough on my gut, especially when it's not cooked. I have issues with nuts, too. They throw quite a bit of peanuts on it usually. Understandable, but not good for me. It was pretty good. Felt like I got the 'meat' of it without the 'fluff' this way. Got their grilled banana rice cake for dessert. It normally comes with coconut ice cream, but they were out. They tried to give me mango sorbet instead. Definitely not the same. They had to take it back. I love the banana thing. They wrap a banana in a rice cake, grill it, and then drizzle coconut syrup on top. Looks nasty (bug-like), but is amazing!
During the day, I had my own laid-back celebration. Played Fate, which is an old rpg. Made it to a level deeper in the dungeon. I think I'm the furthest I've ever been, at level 42 of it. My character level is probably the highest so far, too. My reputation is Famous at the moment. There are apparently more levels to that. I like that they have pets. You can choose either a cat or dog at the beginning. Then, at some point you can find fish that will turn your pet permanently into some sort of monster. Normally, if your pet eats a fish they turn into a monster for a certain amount of time. So, technically, there are more pet options. I still have a cat. Named her Rosie, so it's like the real Rosie is with me. She's really strong now, too. There's the option of male or female characters, however they both wear the same things and there's really no advantage to being either. With all the armor and such on mine, you can't tell what gender they are. I like that aspect.
After that I watched some of my fave youtube vids on the big TV. That was fun. It was nice that AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) made a thread wishing me a happy birthday. Hung around the forums there for a while.
Saturday, I went to the Oak Table for brunch. That's one of the places I really wanted to go to for my birthday. To me, it's a great place to celebrate things like birthdays. Really good food and they have some spectacular signature things. Some of it is really worthy of taking pics of, like their apple pancake. It's like a huge souffle with apples inside and caramel/cinnamon pieces or crust on the outside. There was a long wait. (One of the few things I hate about going there.) I got their smoked salmon eggs Benedict. I can't have regular eggs Benedict, since it usually has ham. This had an English muffin, smoked salmon, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. Came with 4 small pancakes. It was delicious. The eggs Benedict itself was probably the perfect size for a breakfast. Very filling, too.
After that, we went to the Naval Undersea Museum. Hadn't been there since my teens. For planning my birthday, I wanted to visit things like museums that I hadn't been to in a while, and some things I never have. That list ended up much longer than I expected. That's ok. Gives me ideas to go to places in the future. There's a lot of stuff at the NUM. Some of it seemed too cramped with things.
Saw Doctor Sleep at a local movie theater after that. It's a sequel to the Shining. Basically about what happened to Dan after the events that took place there. It was better than expected. Despite her being a villain, I liked Rose the Hat. The actress has an interesting background. I also liked Abra. She seemed stronger than Dan is as an adult (she's a teenager), and sometimes smarter. The actress who plays her was really good. I liked the nods to the Shining movie throughout. For example, the music played when they were heading to the hotel. Ghosts from the previous one. I read even the Overlook Hotel set had to be entirely redone to look like the original, since the original had burned down.
Monday, my parent and I went to the Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center. The aquarium was smaller than I remembered. I think it's been 7 years since I was last there. Didn't have my iphone at the time. (Didn't have a smart phone at all.) They had all gender restrooms. That was cool to see. Had a turkey sandwich with potato chips at their cafe. It had an everything bagel (had seeds, so not the best for me), artichoke aioli, roasted turkey, spinach, tomatoes, and olive tapenade. Really good.
The PSC seemed to have dropped in quality. Hadn't been there in probably a longer time than the NUM. I remember the dinosaur exhibit was in a larger room and had more things. I especially remember that because when my Girl Scout troop (I think it was actually with troops from around the region, there were a lot of us) slept over there, they put us in the dino room. (This was in the 90s.) It was big enough to hold so many people. What I saw on Monday wouldn't have been big enough. That was an amazing trip back then. It was a little scary to sleep next to the animatronic dinos at the time. I'm glad some of them still move. We also went to a laser light show, the planetarium, and watched movies at the theater, as well as had free reign of the rest of it. It was an awesome experience back then. Anyways, the nutrition/health area wasn't the same either. I was disappointed with the naked mole rats' enclosure. I think we saw them the first year they had them. They were in a deep table filled with dirt, and you could look at the sides into their chambers. I think there were things poking out of the dirt on top to get a better look. It was cool and interesting to see. Now, they're in something that looked like it was for hamsters, gerbils, domestic rats, etc. It looked sad. They weren't kicking up and digging in dirt anymore either. It was like pieces of paper. Didn't seem right. The butterfly exhibit was nice. The butterflies kept resting on the path, which made it difficult to walk along. One of them landed on top of my head. My colorfully dyed hair probably made me look like a plant. I would have liked them to land on my hand or something instead. A place I can actually see them. I don't regret going, despite the quality decreasing.
Another thing that was on my list was the MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture), which is right next to the PSC. I remember it as the EMP (Experience Music Project). It's apparently been renamed a few times. I've never been there. My parents did once. Sounds like it has more than just music related exhibits. I read that they have a horror exhibit, a new one on Minecraft, a fantasy/sci-fi one, etc. They still have music ones like one on Kurt Cobain's influence on music, Jimi Hendrix, punk, rock, and more. Sounds like it's really packed in there. Maybe sometime in the distant future I'll go there.
With being in such crowded areas, I seem to have come down with something. It's not like it's really horrible (although worse than yesterday), but I keep sneezing, coughing, have a stuffy nose, sore throat, and am dizzy. That's kind of a risk of doing stuff like that, since my meds work similarly as an immunosepressant would. Adds a bit more stuff to what I'm already dealing with. Feels like a punishment for having fun...
I decided yesterday to try a new 'schedule' with eating. Eat every 1 1/2 hours, splitting my meals in half. So, for instance, having cereal with milk for a 'first' breakfast, then a banana 1 1/2 hours later. Basically the main part, then my usual fruit later. For dinner, the main part, then dessert later. With the 'extra' times, I added having water. I'd end up getting more fluids this way. I've heard it's easier to digest things if they're a little at a time and frequent. Many people with colitis do a similar thing. This way I get the same amount of food, too. I don't really get hungry, either. Half the time, I don't feel hunger (even after not eating most of the day), but this helps even more with those other times. It really is like snacking all day. Getting up late and days where I eat out at restaurants or spend it mostly out somewhere will be different. I'm not sure why I didn't think about it this way when I was first told to eat smaller and more frequent meals. Might help with my dysphagia (trouble/painful swallowing), too. Less food to worry about at a time. This respiratory thing has been messing with my dysphagia. It's hard enough. Having a hard time even taking my pills.
I've decided to rewatch some of my fave anime and give another chance to ones I dropped. I still have some of my usual time 'slots' vacant. For instance, nothing on Mondays, and some days with just one episode of a current anime. I prefer 2 or 3 different anime, one episode each, daily. Most anime is a little under 20 minutes without the openings/endings. Really not much. I decided to go with oldest ones first. According to the date they were put out. Yesterday, I watched an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. That came out in 1998. Really old school, and it apparently has some LGBTQ+ elements. One of the first ones that was open about it. I love CLAMP, even if their style is a little weird. It's an all-female manga creator group. I think this was one of their first projects. The characters in this one appear in other series like Tsubasa Chronicle. In fact, at least that, Cardcaptor Sakura, and xxxHolic are considered to be in the same universe. I only dropped CS before because it seemed too long. The original is 70 episodes long. The sequel was in 2018 and 22 episodes. Must have been an anniversary thing. There are a couple of movies, too. It's not as long as some of the others I've watched.
Watched the first episode of Excel Saga. I absolutely loved it when I watched it back in college. I think that was in 2005. It came out in 1999. I think my ex-boyfriend introduced it to me. It has similar humor as Gintama, or I should say Gintama does. Since it's older. Probably got inspiration from it. It seems to have influenced a lot of other anime, too. Like, there's a common trope where a character dies by being hit by a truck. One of the first times Excel dies is by being hit by a truck. (It's in the first few minutes, so not spoiling it.) I like the Miss Universe character. She has the ability to bring characters back to life. She's constantly busy saving them. I remember the one that died the most often was Hayatt. She's an alien and apparently the atmosphere on Earth makes her sick. She's constantly coughing up blood. I remember the last episode was controversial, because there was a lot more violence, sexual jokes, and all around craziness than usual. It actually never aired on Japanese TV, and was sneaked into the DVD. I saw that and it was really outlandish, but fun in a weird way. The whole series is certainly not appropriate for kids. They parody a lot of things, like Gintama does, too. ES is short compared to CS, with only 26 episodes. Shorter than I remembered.
In addition to CS and ES, I watched the most recent episode of Radiant 2. It's getting intense. I'm wondering about Seth's past or who he really is more now.
I only have about 2 more units left of Duolingo's Dutch course. Not sure which language I'll do next. Cleaned up more of the drawing of Junko in Photoshop. Finished editing chapter 17 of Alliance. Only 3 more chapters. Managed to practice my clarinet yesterday. It's harder with being sick this way. Did advanced solo pieces, and some jazz.
The most recent chapter of Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) was way too short. In fact, it felt like an abrupt ending. There was a big cliffhanger. I like that Meirin's backstory is finally being revealed. The other servants had theirs shown a while ago. So far, it's showing her childhood and eventually will get to how she met Sebastian and Ciel. She's extremely farsighted. Her parents died not long after they immigrated to England (I think they came from Ireland, although they haven't said yet), and she was forced to live on the streets as a little kid. She survived with other homeless kids by shooting pebbles from a slingshot at a long distance, and hitting earrings/jewelry of the rich women just right for them to fall. Her friends would chat up the women and steal the jewelry when it fell, then they'd exchange them for money. They were able to eat because of this. She was treated like one of the boys. Looked pretty masculine, too. I think she was forced into being an assassin, and then Ciel was just one of her targets later. She did mention she was an assassin. She prefers to be a sniper, but she fights in other ways as well. She's a cool character.
During the day, I had my own laid-back celebration. Played Fate, which is an old rpg. Made it to a level deeper in the dungeon. I think I'm the furthest I've ever been, at level 42 of it. My character level is probably the highest so far, too. My reputation is Famous at the moment. There are apparently more levels to that. I like that they have pets. You can choose either a cat or dog at the beginning. Then, at some point you can find fish that will turn your pet permanently into some sort of monster. Normally, if your pet eats a fish they turn into a monster for a certain amount of time. So, technically, there are more pet options. I still have a cat. Named her Rosie, so it's like the real Rosie is with me. She's really strong now, too. There's the option of male or female characters, however they both wear the same things and there's really no advantage to being either. With all the armor and such on mine, you can't tell what gender they are. I like that aspect.
After that I watched some of my fave youtube vids on the big TV. That was fun. It was nice that AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) made a thread wishing me a happy birthday. Hung around the forums there for a while.
Saturday, I went to the Oak Table for brunch. That's one of the places I really wanted to go to for my birthday. To me, it's a great place to celebrate things like birthdays. Really good food and they have some spectacular signature things. Some of it is really worthy of taking pics of, like their apple pancake. It's like a huge souffle with apples inside and caramel/cinnamon pieces or crust on the outside. There was a long wait. (One of the few things I hate about going there.) I got their smoked salmon eggs Benedict. I can't have regular eggs Benedict, since it usually has ham. This had an English muffin, smoked salmon, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. Came with 4 small pancakes. It was delicious. The eggs Benedict itself was probably the perfect size for a breakfast. Very filling, too.
After that, we went to the Naval Undersea Museum. Hadn't been there since my teens. For planning my birthday, I wanted to visit things like museums that I hadn't been to in a while, and some things I never have. That list ended up much longer than I expected. That's ok. Gives me ideas to go to places in the future. There's a lot of stuff at the NUM. Some of it seemed too cramped with things.
Saw Doctor Sleep at a local movie theater after that. It's a sequel to the Shining. Basically about what happened to Dan after the events that took place there. It was better than expected. Despite her being a villain, I liked Rose the Hat. The actress has an interesting background. I also liked Abra. She seemed stronger than Dan is as an adult (she's a teenager), and sometimes smarter. The actress who plays her was really good. I liked the nods to the Shining movie throughout. For example, the music played when they were heading to the hotel. Ghosts from the previous one. I read even the Overlook Hotel set had to be entirely redone to look like the original, since the original had burned down.
Monday, my parent and I went to the Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center. The aquarium was smaller than I remembered. I think it's been 7 years since I was last there. Didn't have my iphone at the time. (Didn't have a smart phone at all.) They had all gender restrooms. That was cool to see. Had a turkey sandwich with potato chips at their cafe. It had an everything bagel (had seeds, so not the best for me), artichoke aioli, roasted turkey, spinach, tomatoes, and olive tapenade. Really good.
The PSC seemed to have dropped in quality. Hadn't been there in probably a longer time than the NUM. I remember the dinosaur exhibit was in a larger room and had more things. I especially remember that because when my Girl Scout troop (I think it was actually with troops from around the region, there were a lot of us) slept over there, they put us in the dino room. (This was in the 90s.) It was big enough to hold so many people. What I saw on Monday wouldn't have been big enough. That was an amazing trip back then. It was a little scary to sleep next to the animatronic dinos at the time. I'm glad some of them still move. We also went to a laser light show, the planetarium, and watched movies at the theater, as well as had free reign of the rest of it. It was an awesome experience back then. Anyways, the nutrition/health area wasn't the same either. I was disappointed with the naked mole rats' enclosure. I think we saw them the first year they had them. They were in a deep table filled with dirt, and you could look at the sides into their chambers. I think there were things poking out of the dirt on top to get a better look. It was cool and interesting to see. Now, they're in something that looked like it was for hamsters, gerbils, domestic rats, etc. It looked sad. They weren't kicking up and digging in dirt anymore either. It was like pieces of paper. Didn't seem right. The butterfly exhibit was nice. The butterflies kept resting on the path, which made it difficult to walk along. One of them landed on top of my head. My colorfully dyed hair probably made me look like a plant. I would have liked them to land on my hand or something instead. A place I can actually see them. I don't regret going, despite the quality decreasing.
Another thing that was on my list was the MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture), which is right next to the PSC. I remember it as the EMP (Experience Music Project). It's apparently been renamed a few times. I've never been there. My parents did once. Sounds like it has more than just music related exhibits. I read that they have a horror exhibit, a new one on Minecraft, a fantasy/sci-fi one, etc. They still have music ones like one on Kurt Cobain's influence on music, Jimi Hendrix, punk, rock, and more. Sounds like it's really packed in there. Maybe sometime in the distant future I'll go there.
With being in such crowded areas, I seem to have come down with something. It's not like it's really horrible (although worse than yesterday), but I keep sneezing, coughing, have a stuffy nose, sore throat, and am dizzy. That's kind of a risk of doing stuff like that, since my meds work similarly as an immunosepressant would. Adds a bit more stuff to what I'm already dealing with. Feels like a punishment for having fun...
I decided yesterday to try a new 'schedule' with eating. Eat every 1 1/2 hours, splitting my meals in half. So, for instance, having cereal with milk for a 'first' breakfast, then a banana 1 1/2 hours later. Basically the main part, then my usual fruit later. For dinner, the main part, then dessert later. With the 'extra' times, I added having water. I'd end up getting more fluids this way. I've heard it's easier to digest things if they're a little at a time and frequent. Many people with colitis do a similar thing. This way I get the same amount of food, too. I don't really get hungry, either. Half the time, I don't feel hunger (even after not eating most of the day), but this helps even more with those other times. It really is like snacking all day. Getting up late and days where I eat out at restaurants or spend it mostly out somewhere will be different. I'm not sure why I didn't think about it this way when I was first told to eat smaller and more frequent meals. Might help with my dysphagia (trouble/painful swallowing), too. Less food to worry about at a time. This respiratory thing has been messing with my dysphagia. It's hard enough. Having a hard time even taking my pills.
I've decided to rewatch some of my fave anime and give another chance to ones I dropped. I still have some of my usual time 'slots' vacant. For instance, nothing on Mondays, and some days with just one episode of a current anime. I prefer 2 or 3 different anime, one episode each, daily. Most anime is a little under 20 minutes without the openings/endings. Really not much. I decided to go with oldest ones first. According to the date they were put out. Yesterday, I watched an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. That came out in 1998. Really old school, and it apparently has some LGBTQ+ elements. One of the first ones that was open about it. I love CLAMP, even if their style is a little weird. It's an all-female manga creator group. I think this was one of their first projects. The characters in this one appear in other series like Tsubasa Chronicle. In fact, at least that, Cardcaptor Sakura, and xxxHolic are considered to be in the same universe. I only dropped CS before because it seemed too long. The original is 70 episodes long. The sequel was in 2018 and 22 episodes. Must have been an anniversary thing. There are a couple of movies, too. It's not as long as some of the others I've watched.
Watched the first episode of Excel Saga. I absolutely loved it when I watched it back in college. I think that was in 2005. It came out in 1999. I think my ex-boyfriend introduced it to me. It has similar humor as Gintama, or I should say Gintama does. Since it's older. Probably got inspiration from it. It seems to have influenced a lot of other anime, too. Like, there's a common trope where a character dies by being hit by a truck. One of the first times Excel dies is by being hit by a truck. (It's in the first few minutes, so not spoiling it.) I like the Miss Universe character. She has the ability to bring characters back to life. She's constantly busy saving them. I remember the one that died the most often was Hayatt. She's an alien and apparently the atmosphere on Earth makes her sick. She's constantly coughing up blood. I remember the last episode was controversial, because there was a lot more violence, sexual jokes, and all around craziness than usual. It actually never aired on Japanese TV, and was sneaked into the DVD. I saw that and it was really outlandish, but fun in a weird way. The whole series is certainly not appropriate for kids. They parody a lot of things, like Gintama does, too. ES is short compared to CS, with only 26 episodes. Shorter than I remembered.
In addition to CS and ES, I watched the most recent episode of Radiant 2. It's getting intense. I'm wondering about Seth's past or who he really is more now.
I only have about 2 more units left of Duolingo's Dutch course. Not sure which language I'll do next. Cleaned up more of the drawing of Junko in Photoshop. Finished editing chapter 17 of Alliance. Only 3 more chapters. Managed to practice my clarinet yesterday. It's harder with being sick this way. Did advanced solo pieces, and some jazz.
The most recent chapter of Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) was way too short. In fact, it felt like an abrupt ending. There was a big cliffhanger. I like that Meirin's backstory is finally being revealed. The other servants had theirs shown a while ago. So far, it's showing her childhood and eventually will get to how she met Sebastian and Ciel. She's extremely farsighted. Her parents died not long after they immigrated to England (I think they came from Ireland, although they haven't said yet), and she was forced to live on the streets as a little kid. She survived with other homeless kids by shooting pebbles from a slingshot at a long distance, and hitting earrings/jewelry of the rich women just right for them to fall. Her friends would chat up the women and steal the jewelry when it fell, then they'd exchange them for money. They were able to eat because of this. She was treated like one of the boys. Looked pretty masculine, too. I think she was forced into being an assassin, and then Ciel was just one of her targets later. She did mention she was an assassin. She prefers to be a sniper, but she fights in other ways as well. She's a cool character.
Friday, October 18, 2019
19th of Tishri
The dishwasher stopped working on Tuesday. I tried to press the buttons to start a cycle, but the lights weren't coming on. It seemed to be totally disconnected from power. Sometimes it's a little fussy where we have to slam the door a few times to get it to work. That wasn't the case this time. Sometimes it just works itself out. It hasn't. This happened the day before my parent left for a conference in Spokane. I thought it was best to wait until she's back to have it repaired. I ended up hand washing all of the dishes that were in there (it was completely full), and have been washing the ones I've used throughout the day each day. It's a bit difficult with feeling so much pain this week (it's been worse) and my hands have been a little shaky. So far, so good with that, at least. I think hand washing gets things cleaner, but can be a hassle.
I decided I didn't like the new speaker, and set up my old speakers again. That new one was getting annoying, especially with it saying "connecting to..." or "ready to connect" so often. Not being able to control the volume was a deal-breaker for me. Couldn't actually turn it off unless it was low on battery power, either. The old speakers aren't great, but at least I can control the volume and there's no voice to them. I didn't put the floor sub-woofer back. Never really needed it. Hopefully, I can find decent speakers in the future. I probably won't get the bluetooth ones.
Rosie been sick the last couple of days. She was sick just a couple of weeks ago, too. She's throwing up frequently throughout the day. She doesn't usually do it often. Constantly cleaning it up is tiring. I'm starting to get worried about it. She's also been hiding under my bed a lot. I half-thought it might be this 'new' batch of cat food. The bag was over-packed and smelled weird. However, she didn't start throwing up until a little over a week after she started eating it. I don't think that's the cause. Plus, Tasha's been fine. She sometimes takes food from the same bowls Rosie eats from. Maybe she's gotten into plastic again somehow?
I also cleaned out some drawers in my room that were full of health documents, stuff I got from past Pride events, things from places I've visited, etc. I was searching for something, but didn't find it. It wasn't a waste, considering I got rid of a lot of things. I have more space now.
Finished reading Hell's Kitchen. Technically, they didn't have the last 3 chapters available online. However, that covers a side-story. Even the last chapter I read said it was the end. It didn't feel like an ending. It was like they were about to start a new story arc. Something that sounded like it would be really interesting. It seemed like the creator had to end it earlier than they wanted to. I had this on-hold for a few years before finally being able to continue it recently. There were only around 30 chapters up for so long. It's 50 chapters long (53 if you count that side story). I'm glad I got the opportunity to finally finish it. It's one of my fave manga.
I've technically finished Elder Scrolls: Blades. Finished all of the main quest and most of the side ones. I've even finished the special Halloween ones that came with the most recent update. The only things left now are the daily jobs and the Abyss. I can be rewarded through challenges based on either of those. I still haven't completely rebuilt the town yet. It's kind of lost its spark for me, now. I'll still play it, just not often. There's talk that they might add more to the main quest in the future, and there might be more holiday related ones. I like that they've decorated the town in Halloween decorations, turned it into night mode, and the music is different. That music is also holiday themed, of course. It seems like a giant spider threw up or exploded its webbing all over the place. There's snow, lots of jack-o-lanterns at shops, houses have candlelight glows coming from the windows, and there are thorny vines at the entrance gate. Interesting touches.
Started watching Beastars yesterday. It's better than I expected. Really dark (darker than expected) and psychological. It's set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, with the herbivores and carnivores coexisting. The main character, Legosi, is a wolf who looks menacing, but has a very gentle heart. He's a student at Cherryton Academy and a member of the drama club. Many students fear and hate him because of his looks. During the first episode, one of his classmates is murdered by a carnivore. Some of the herbivores suspect him. I'm surprised that the use of CGI didn't look awful. There have been many lately that have tried to use it, but are really difficult on the eyes. Kimetsu no Yaiba was one of the few that used it well. Gave off more of a 3D feel. It wasn't throughout the whole thing, either. This one, I think, is using it in a similar way.
Went through more of Duolingo's Dutch course. Made it through the Society unit today. Next is Business. Managed to edit more of Alliance. Finished chapter 13, and halfway through chapter 14. I've gone through 22 pages of the ebook and 32 pages of the print version this week.
Youtube:
Gintama:
One Piece:
Naruto:
Kimetsu no Yaiba:
I decided I didn't like the new speaker, and set up my old speakers again. That new one was getting annoying, especially with it saying "connecting to..." or "ready to connect" so often. Not being able to control the volume was a deal-breaker for me. Couldn't actually turn it off unless it was low on battery power, either. The old speakers aren't great, but at least I can control the volume and there's no voice to them. I didn't put the floor sub-woofer back. Never really needed it. Hopefully, I can find decent speakers in the future. I probably won't get the bluetooth ones.
Rosie been sick the last couple of days. She was sick just a couple of weeks ago, too. She's throwing up frequently throughout the day. She doesn't usually do it often. Constantly cleaning it up is tiring. I'm starting to get worried about it. She's also been hiding under my bed a lot. I half-thought it might be this 'new' batch of cat food. The bag was over-packed and smelled weird. However, she didn't start throwing up until a little over a week after she started eating it. I don't think that's the cause. Plus, Tasha's been fine. She sometimes takes food from the same bowls Rosie eats from. Maybe she's gotten into plastic again somehow?
I also cleaned out some drawers in my room that were full of health documents, stuff I got from past Pride events, things from places I've visited, etc. I was searching for something, but didn't find it. It wasn't a waste, considering I got rid of a lot of things. I have more space now.
Finished reading Hell's Kitchen. Technically, they didn't have the last 3 chapters available online. However, that covers a side-story. Even the last chapter I read said it was the end. It didn't feel like an ending. It was like they were about to start a new story arc. Something that sounded like it would be really interesting. It seemed like the creator had to end it earlier than they wanted to. I had this on-hold for a few years before finally being able to continue it recently. There were only around 30 chapters up for so long. It's 50 chapters long (53 if you count that side story). I'm glad I got the opportunity to finally finish it. It's one of my fave manga.
I've technically finished Elder Scrolls: Blades. Finished all of the main quest and most of the side ones. I've even finished the special Halloween ones that came with the most recent update. The only things left now are the daily jobs and the Abyss. I can be rewarded through challenges based on either of those. I still haven't completely rebuilt the town yet. It's kind of lost its spark for me, now. I'll still play it, just not often. There's talk that they might add more to the main quest in the future, and there might be more holiday related ones. I like that they've decorated the town in Halloween decorations, turned it into night mode, and the music is different. That music is also holiday themed, of course. It seems like a giant spider threw up or exploded its webbing all over the place. There's snow, lots of jack-o-lanterns at shops, houses have candlelight glows coming from the windows, and there are thorny vines at the entrance gate. Interesting touches.
Started watching Beastars yesterday. It's better than I expected. Really dark (darker than expected) and psychological. It's set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, with the herbivores and carnivores coexisting. The main character, Legosi, is a wolf who looks menacing, but has a very gentle heart. He's a student at Cherryton Academy and a member of the drama club. Many students fear and hate him because of his looks. During the first episode, one of his classmates is murdered by a carnivore. Some of the herbivores suspect him. I'm surprised that the use of CGI didn't look awful. There have been many lately that have tried to use it, but are really difficult on the eyes. Kimetsu no Yaiba was one of the few that used it well. Gave off more of a 3D feel. It wasn't throughout the whole thing, either. This one, I think, is using it in a similar way.
Went through more of Duolingo's Dutch course. Made it through the Society unit today. Next is Business. Managed to edit more of Alliance. Finished chapter 13, and halfway through chapter 14. I've gone through 22 pages of the ebook and 32 pages of the print version this week.
Youtube:
Gintama:
One Piece:
Naruto:
Kimetsu no Yaiba:
Friday, September 13, 2019
International Chocolate Day!
I love chocolate! It's apparently because of Milton S. Hershey's birthday, who was born in 1857. I guess it's more like a Hershey's Chocolate holiday. I guess I'm celebrating by having a chocolate chip mug cookie later. Not a Hershey's thing, though. It's also Friday the 13th. In Judaism, 13 is a very lucky number. So, I find it odd how there's this huge thing about it being unlucky.
On Wednesday, I did get to playing the Sims 2: Seasons. The sim I was playing with got electrocuted trying to fix his trash compactor. I thought he could handle it, but then again he didn't have any mechanical experience yet. I thought he was going to die...It went on for a while. The maid wasn't sure what to do, but freaked out. He looked funny afterwards. I should have just called for a repairman for him. He already has a crush on a guy. I wasn't planning on that. My sims tend to fall for multiple people, though...Oh, and he keeps peeping on the only other neighbor that I created in that neighborhood so far through his telescope. They haven't met yet. That neighbor is supposed to be a 'villain' in the story. (Based on Alliance.) Funny in that sense. The sim I played with is the main character.
Felt awful yesterday. Both my arms were in a lot of pain (more than usual), felt kind of like I had a cold, and didn't sleep well. Makes me wonder if the tacos had anything to do with that 'sick' feeling. Didn't sleep very well last night, either. I think the pain in my arms has died down a little today. I stopped taking Tylenol PM, since they say you shouldn't take it for extended periods of time. Plus, my face felt dry and painful every morning. This may have contributed to having a hard time sleeping. I still feel like a mess.
Went to a local Indian restaurant last night for a Dine Out for the county schools. A portion of the proceeds from participating restaurants are donated to the schools. Last year, we went to our fave local Thai place. The Indian one is also another fave. I needed comfort food, and it was on the list. Got my faves: aloo chat (potato and bread salad), chicken tikka masala, and shared some garlic naan. It was nice and comforting. The garlic naan had a lot more garlic than expected. It was huge, too! The aloo chat makes for an awesome breakfast the next day. I always take home a lot of leftovers from there. Another one on the list was a local ice cream place, so we went there for dessert. I decided to try their banana split ice cream. It's banana ice cream with caramel swirls and chocolate shavings. The banana part tasted a little too ripe. Not many swirls. A little too many chocolate shavings. It wasn't bad. A thunderstorm started shortly before we left that Indian place and lasted while we were at the ice cream one. Made for a little excitement. There was quite a bit of lightning. We had a much bigger storm a few days ago. We don't get thunderstorms that often, and when we do they're usually very short lived. It's odd, but like nature's putting on a show.
I did get to studying my Dutch yesterday and today on Duolingo. Finished the Technology unit and started the Passive one today. As of right now, I'm at 7th place in the Sapphire League. If I continue it during the weekend I might get higher up. The 1st chest (or bronze one) is awarded to the one who places 3rd by the end of the week. Not sure if I can get to that point.
Youtube:
One Piece:
Scrapped Princess (I haven't seen this in a very long time. In fact, I remember watching it with my college anime club. I thought it was mostly depressing, and had forgotten about the humorous side of it):
Matantei Loki Ragnarok or Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok (Another one from back then. I really liked this series, and miss it. I suppose I can always go back to it):
+Anima (this one's actually a manga music vid. I liked the manga itself, and this was well put together. I'd so watch an anime version of it):
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon-Slaying Blade):
One Punch Man (this fits a little too well):
On Wednesday, I did get to playing the Sims 2: Seasons. The sim I was playing with got electrocuted trying to fix his trash compactor. I thought he could handle it, but then again he didn't have any mechanical experience yet. I thought he was going to die...It went on for a while. The maid wasn't sure what to do, but freaked out. He looked funny afterwards. I should have just called for a repairman for him. He already has a crush on a guy. I wasn't planning on that. My sims tend to fall for multiple people, though...Oh, and he keeps peeping on the only other neighbor that I created in that neighborhood so far through his telescope. They haven't met yet. That neighbor is supposed to be a 'villain' in the story. (Based on Alliance.) Funny in that sense. The sim I played with is the main character.
Felt awful yesterday. Both my arms were in a lot of pain (more than usual), felt kind of like I had a cold, and didn't sleep well. Makes me wonder if the tacos had anything to do with that 'sick' feeling. Didn't sleep very well last night, either. I think the pain in my arms has died down a little today. I stopped taking Tylenol PM, since they say you shouldn't take it for extended periods of time. Plus, my face felt dry and painful every morning. This may have contributed to having a hard time sleeping. I still feel like a mess.
Went to a local Indian restaurant last night for a Dine Out for the county schools. A portion of the proceeds from participating restaurants are donated to the schools. Last year, we went to our fave local Thai place. The Indian one is also another fave. I needed comfort food, and it was on the list. Got my faves: aloo chat (potato and bread salad), chicken tikka masala, and shared some garlic naan. It was nice and comforting. The garlic naan had a lot more garlic than expected. It was huge, too! The aloo chat makes for an awesome breakfast the next day. I always take home a lot of leftovers from there. Another one on the list was a local ice cream place, so we went there for dessert. I decided to try their banana split ice cream. It's banana ice cream with caramel swirls and chocolate shavings. The banana part tasted a little too ripe. Not many swirls. A little too many chocolate shavings. It wasn't bad. A thunderstorm started shortly before we left that Indian place and lasted while we were at the ice cream one. Made for a little excitement. There was quite a bit of lightning. We had a much bigger storm a few days ago. We don't get thunderstorms that often, and when we do they're usually very short lived. It's odd, but like nature's putting on a show.
I did get to studying my Dutch yesterday and today on Duolingo. Finished the Technology unit and started the Passive one today. As of right now, I'm at 7th place in the Sapphire League. If I continue it during the weekend I might get higher up. The 1st chest (or bronze one) is awarded to the one who places 3rd by the end of the week. Not sure if I can get to that point.
Youtube:
One Piece:
Scrapped Princess (I haven't seen this in a very long time. In fact, I remember watching it with my college anime club. I thought it was mostly depressing, and had forgotten about the humorous side of it):
Matantei Loki Ragnarok or Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok (Another one from back then. I really liked this series, and miss it. I suppose I can always go back to it):
+Anima (this one's actually a manga music vid. I liked the manga itself, and this was well put together. I'd so watch an anime version of it):
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon-Slaying Blade):
One Punch Man (this fits a little too well):
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
11th of Elul
Had a Taco Tuesday night thing yesterday with my parent. We don't usually do that, but it was fun and nice. Since I can't really have the hard corn taco shells, I found little soft flour tortilla taco bowls for myself. Corn is a trigger food (although sometimes I can handle it mashed up), and hard things can scrape up against the scars of my colon. My parent's corn shells came with a taco kit, which had seasoning for the ground beef and taco sauce. We shared that as well as vegetarian refried beans, chopped tomatoes, and shredded lettuce. I added a little smoked cheddar to mine. It was delicious! We were thinking of having leftover homemade sausage Mexican rice on the side, but we were too full. Ended up with enough fixings for another night. That might be tonight. I was surprised those taco bowls had 2 to a serving. They were fun.
It was cold enough today that I put away my fan, and put out/turned on my heater. It's a nice one. However, it uses up so much power that I can't leave it on overnight. It can rotate, which helps heat up the whole room. You can set the temp, an alarm where it warns people and pets if they get too close, and more. I just didn't think I'd need it now.
Played Fate yesterday. Again, it's an rpg. Your character, along with their cat or dog, goes on quests in the dungeon. You can pick either a girl or boy, but honestly they look similar. Plus, they use the same armor, weapons, and equipment, which is rare for an rpg. The further the level in the dungeon, the more difficult it gets. I think I read somewhere that it's 100 levels deep, but I don't know. Their pets help with fights and carrying extra things they find that might not fit in their inventory. They level up, too. There are some shops to get potions, jewelry, weapons, armor, and other equipment in town. There's a penguin that can enchant things, but it's unpredictable. I think I'm at level 40 of the dungeon. That's the deepest I've gone. My character is a level 35. There's also fame titles. I'm currently famous. Don't know what comes after that. I also have a cat named after Rosie. So, it's like she's there with me. My character is pretty well equipped, has tough armor, and a powerful sword. Yet, they died at level 40. It was the first time with that character that they've died. That's how crazy that level was. When they die, you get 3 choices: 'Death' or the Grim Reaper takes a lot of your xp (experience points) and gold, Death sends you to a random level (could be much further down), or makes you leave all of your gold where you died and sends you a few levels up. For the last one, you have a time limit to get back to your gold, otherwise it disappears. I chose that. I actually managed to get to my gold in time and defeated all the monsters on that level. Yay! I'm a little scared to go deeper. I've also noticed the bigger the monster, the easier they are to kill. Don't know why. They're scarier looking, though. There are huge ogres, dragons, griffins, yetis, ones that look like huge brains, and more. The little poisonous spiders are super annoying, there are also tiny imps that stab you rapidly. The unicorns are cool looking, but somehow they made them scary, too. I might play some Sims 2: Seasons next.
Went through all of the Language unit and started the S. Past 2 one of Duolingo's Dutch course. Stumbled a few times on pronunciations of some of the new words. Made it to placing 8th in the Sapphire League. Not bad. Pretty much where I ended up yesterday, but had to work my way back up since other people got to it today, too.
I think I fixed Junko's legs enough. They look better, at least. Added a faint outline of her clothes. That'll cover a lot of the strangeness anyways.
Edited more of Alliance. Made it to chapter 6. 3 pages of the ebook, and 5 of the print. There was quite a messy section that I didn't see before. I'm happy I picked up on it.
Practiced my clarinet. Finished the Irish tunes book, and got to playing some klezmer. The Irish tunes book isn't really a 'book'. It's actually a print out of an email someone sent with the pages stapled. It's really battered looking, too. My klezmer book is breaking down, as well. I love playing klezmer. I'm playing better than I expected this week. My fingers seem to be getting more flexible again the more I play.
It was cold enough today that I put away my fan, and put out/turned on my heater. It's a nice one. However, it uses up so much power that I can't leave it on overnight. It can rotate, which helps heat up the whole room. You can set the temp, an alarm where it warns people and pets if they get too close, and more. I just didn't think I'd need it now.
Played Fate yesterday. Again, it's an rpg. Your character, along with their cat or dog, goes on quests in the dungeon. You can pick either a girl or boy, but honestly they look similar. Plus, they use the same armor, weapons, and equipment, which is rare for an rpg. The further the level in the dungeon, the more difficult it gets. I think I read somewhere that it's 100 levels deep, but I don't know. Their pets help with fights and carrying extra things they find that might not fit in their inventory. They level up, too. There are some shops to get potions, jewelry, weapons, armor, and other equipment in town. There's a penguin that can enchant things, but it's unpredictable. I think I'm at level 40 of the dungeon. That's the deepest I've gone. My character is a level 35. There's also fame titles. I'm currently famous. Don't know what comes after that. I also have a cat named after Rosie. So, it's like she's there with me. My character is pretty well equipped, has tough armor, and a powerful sword. Yet, they died at level 40. It was the first time with that character that they've died. That's how crazy that level was. When they die, you get 3 choices: 'Death' or the Grim Reaper takes a lot of your xp (experience points) and gold, Death sends you to a random level (could be much further down), or makes you leave all of your gold where you died and sends you a few levels up. For the last one, you have a time limit to get back to your gold, otherwise it disappears. I chose that. I actually managed to get to my gold in time and defeated all the monsters on that level. Yay! I'm a little scared to go deeper. I've also noticed the bigger the monster, the easier they are to kill. Don't know why. They're scarier looking, though. There are huge ogres, dragons, griffins, yetis, ones that look like huge brains, and more. The little poisonous spiders are super annoying, there are also tiny imps that stab you rapidly. The unicorns are cool looking, but somehow they made them scary, too. I might play some Sims 2: Seasons next.
Went through all of the Language unit and started the S. Past 2 one of Duolingo's Dutch course. Stumbled a few times on pronunciations of some of the new words. Made it to placing 8th in the Sapphire League. Not bad. Pretty much where I ended up yesterday, but had to work my way back up since other people got to it today, too.
I think I fixed Junko's legs enough. They look better, at least. Added a faint outline of her clothes. That'll cover a lot of the strangeness anyways.
Edited more of Alliance. Made it to chapter 6. 3 pages of the ebook, and 5 of the print. There was quite a messy section that I didn't see before. I'm happy I picked up on it.
Practiced my clarinet. Finished the Irish tunes book, and got to playing some klezmer. The Irish tunes book isn't really a 'book'. It's actually a print out of an email someone sent with the pages stapled. It's really battered looking, too. My klezmer book is breaking down, as well. I love playing klezmer. I'm playing better than I expected this week. My fingers seem to be getting more flexible again the more I play.
Monday, September 9, 2019
9th of Elul
For Duolingo's Dutch course, I finished the School and Relative Pronouns units today. Next will be Weather. I'm surprised to still be in the Sapphire League, despite only being active for 1 or 2 days last week. Hopefully, I can get to doing it every day again.
Managed to get back to drawing Junko. I realized her torso was too elongated, even though I was following a guideline. I had to shorten everything below her waist a little. She's looking a lot better now. I'll make her legs look more anatomically correct next, or at least more proportional. I'll refine the rest of her a bit more, too. Then, I'll add her clothes.
Edited more of Alliance. Made it well into chapter 5. Went through 8 pages of the ebook, and 11 of the print. I think that's the most I've done in a day. Wahoo!
I practiced my clarinet today. Haven't played it in roughly 7 months. Mainly because of my health. It felt so good just to get back to it. Played much better than expected. I'm not breathing as well as I used to, both my arms are still in a lot of constant pain, and my pinkies are very stiff (making it difficult to play the alternative keys...). All of this makes it more difficult. I was happy to do 40 minutes of it. My target normally is an hour. I went through a little of the advanced classical solo pieces, a jazz book, and Irish tunes. I was nervous about starting with an advanced book, but it wasn't too bad. Hopefully I can get to practicing every day during the week again.
Another aspect that made it a bit more difficult was the new sores in my mouth. I've had this thread-like one inside the left corner of my lip for a while. Had a weird clear blister inside my right cheek. It was scary looking, but disappeared the next day. Last night I found a much scarier looking one on my lower inner lip near that thread-like one. It's wide, black, occasionally has a little white on top, and the edges look weird. I've never had something like that. I only noticed it last night because I accidentally bit down on it. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't hard enough to draw blood. It feels weird. Most of the time it's not painful, just feels like there's a sticky glob of some sort. After having snack today, I noticed there's another sore on the other side of my mouth. This one seems more normal, but thick. So, it feels like there's a piece of food stuck there. Really annoying. I didn't have mouth sores in the past as extraintestinal symptoms of my colitis. I think it's related to that 'new' unknown thing I've been having symptoms of since February. We know it's another autoimmune disease (specifically rheumatic related). I still think it's scleroderma, but I don't know if it's common for patients who have that to have mouth sores.
I decided to drop Possession. It's a Korean supernatural detective show. I was halfway through, but it was getting too painful story-wise to watch. Plus, it's a pretty lengthy show (16 episodes, each about 1 hr and 15 min), and I didn't want to push through that. I'm thinking of watching Darr Sabko Lagta Hai or Everybody Feels Fear on Netflix next. It's an Indian (in Hindi) anthology horror show. It sounds very interesting. Kind of sounds similar to Goodnight DJ.
Tried out another flavor of Betty Crocker's Mug Treats: chocolate chip cookie with chocolate frosting. It really was like a huge cookie in a mug. This one cooked for about 10 seconds less than the cinnamon roll one. Used milk again instead of water. It was great. I don't think it really needed the frosting, though. It's packed with sugar and calories, and I think omitting the frosting would take a lot of that away. I could use the frosting for something else in the future. I've decided to only have it Friday nights (the start of Shabbos), since it's a treat night where calories don't matter as much. There are 4 to a pack, so it'll last a while. Also, have a big thing of rainbow chip cookies from Safeway. I think there are 12 to a pack of that. This way I have roughly 2 weeks worth of desserts for myself. That's not counting occasionally getting desserts at restaurants, or even if I want to try the tea cookies my parent got. Or, if I need a break from the mug cookies on a Friday night. I like that I'm covered on that for a while.
I made pumpkin spice pancakes yesterday for lunch. The mix was from World Market. It was new, and since I like their banana caramel one, I thought I'd give it a shot. Plus, all their pancake mixes are cheap. It was ok. It smelled great, but had a very mild spice taste. They used real pumpkin, but I couldn't really taste it. It probably would have been better with powdered sugar and/or syrup. Didn't have syrup at the time, though. I still have quite a bit of the banana one. Maybe I could combine them for a serving next time. Sounds like they would taste great together. I'm glad I tried it. Hope to try their other flavors in the future. Some of them seem really creative. I have to at least get through the banana one first. Also, tried the pumpkin spice yogurt pretzels from World Market. They were amazing! I'm saving them for snacks during the weekend, which are my treat days. They have a lot of sugar. Not bad on calories, at least.
I searched for some new apps this weekend, as well. Found some Jewish ones, more color by number ones, and a game. Still using a small fraction of my iPhone storage space. The game is called Cat Cafe. You get to own your own cat cafe with cats you adopt, orders to fill from customers, cleaning it, getting thank you notes from customers, toys, decorating it, and more. Both the cats and customers are so cute! They say the cats are based on real shelter cats in New Zealand. Interesting side to it.
With the Jewish ones, I found a daily Torah study app from Chabbad. It's really fascinating. I can try to study a little of it everyday. They have a calendar where you can tap on that day and get the lessons for it. You can look into other days this way, too. The lessons are on Rashi's commentary, psalms, Tanya, thoughts on holidays/time of year or parsha (Torah portion), a daily mitzvah, and one other thing. Quite a lot packed into it.
Redownloaded Jewish.tv. It's also through Chabbad. Full of videos for studying, documentaries, cooking, music, and more. I only got rid of it before because my old phone had ran out of space.
The last Jewish app is one that I also had on my old phone. It's called Sefaria. It's a really vast and valuable resource. They have the Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, Halachah, Kabbalah, Tanaitic, texts on philosophy, liturgy, Musar, and so much more. It's like having a huge library of Jewish texts on my phone. You could even download whatever you want to go through offline. I'm still surprised it's free. They've managed to keep it up through donations alone.
Oh, I also got Yelp. I was using Foursquare for a while, so I decided to try this, too. Swarm, which I still use, is part of Foursquare. I can try it out. Might be better.
Managed to get back to drawing Junko. I realized her torso was too elongated, even though I was following a guideline. I had to shorten everything below her waist a little. She's looking a lot better now. I'll make her legs look more anatomically correct next, or at least more proportional. I'll refine the rest of her a bit more, too. Then, I'll add her clothes.
Edited more of Alliance. Made it well into chapter 5. Went through 8 pages of the ebook, and 11 of the print. I think that's the most I've done in a day. Wahoo!
I practiced my clarinet today. Haven't played it in roughly 7 months. Mainly because of my health. It felt so good just to get back to it. Played much better than expected. I'm not breathing as well as I used to, both my arms are still in a lot of constant pain, and my pinkies are very stiff (making it difficult to play the alternative keys...). All of this makes it more difficult. I was happy to do 40 minutes of it. My target normally is an hour. I went through a little of the advanced classical solo pieces, a jazz book, and Irish tunes. I was nervous about starting with an advanced book, but it wasn't too bad. Hopefully I can get to practicing every day during the week again.
Another aspect that made it a bit more difficult was the new sores in my mouth. I've had this thread-like one inside the left corner of my lip for a while. Had a weird clear blister inside my right cheek. It was scary looking, but disappeared the next day. Last night I found a much scarier looking one on my lower inner lip near that thread-like one. It's wide, black, occasionally has a little white on top, and the edges look weird. I've never had something like that. I only noticed it last night because I accidentally bit down on it. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't hard enough to draw blood. It feels weird. Most of the time it's not painful, just feels like there's a sticky glob of some sort. After having snack today, I noticed there's another sore on the other side of my mouth. This one seems more normal, but thick. So, it feels like there's a piece of food stuck there. Really annoying. I didn't have mouth sores in the past as extraintestinal symptoms of my colitis. I think it's related to that 'new' unknown thing I've been having symptoms of since February. We know it's another autoimmune disease (specifically rheumatic related). I still think it's scleroderma, but I don't know if it's common for patients who have that to have mouth sores.
I decided to drop Possession. It's a Korean supernatural detective show. I was halfway through, but it was getting too painful story-wise to watch. Plus, it's a pretty lengthy show (16 episodes, each about 1 hr and 15 min), and I didn't want to push through that. I'm thinking of watching Darr Sabko Lagta Hai or Everybody Feels Fear on Netflix next. It's an Indian (in Hindi) anthology horror show. It sounds very interesting. Kind of sounds similar to Goodnight DJ.
Tried out another flavor of Betty Crocker's Mug Treats: chocolate chip cookie with chocolate frosting. It really was like a huge cookie in a mug. This one cooked for about 10 seconds less than the cinnamon roll one. Used milk again instead of water. It was great. I don't think it really needed the frosting, though. It's packed with sugar and calories, and I think omitting the frosting would take a lot of that away. I could use the frosting for something else in the future. I've decided to only have it Friday nights (the start of Shabbos), since it's a treat night where calories don't matter as much. There are 4 to a pack, so it'll last a while. Also, have a big thing of rainbow chip cookies from Safeway. I think there are 12 to a pack of that. This way I have roughly 2 weeks worth of desserts for myself. That's not counting occasionally getting desserts at restaurants, or even if I want to try the tea cookies my parent got. Or, if I need a break from the mug cookies on a Friday night. I like that I'm covered on that for a while.
I made pumpkin spice pancakes yesterday for lunch. The mix was from World Market. It was new, and since I like their banana caramel one, I thought I'd give it a shot. Plus, all their pancake mixes are cheap. It was ok. It smelled great, but had a very mild spice taste. They used real pumpkin, but I couldn't really taste it. It probably would have been better with powdered sugar and/or syrup. Didn't have syrup at the time, though. I still have quite a bit of the banana one. Maybe I could combine them for a serving next time. Sounds like they would taste great together. I'm glad I tried it. Hope to try their other flavors in the future. Some of them seem really creative. I have to at least get through the banana one first. Also, tried the pumpkin spice yogurt pretzels from World Market. They were amazing! I'm saving them for snacks during the weekend, which are my treat days. They have a lot of sugar. Not bad on calories, at least.
I searched for some new apps this weekend, as well. Found some Jewish ones, more color by number ones, and a game. Still using a small fraction of my iPhone storage space. The game is called Cat Cafe. You get to own your own cat cafe with cats you adopt, orders to fill from customers, cleaning it, getting thank you notes from customers, toys, decorating it, and more. Both the cats and customers are so cute! They say the cats are based on real shelter cats in New Zealand. Interesting side to it.
With the Jewish ones, I found a daily Torah study app from Chabbad. It's really fascinating. I can try to study a little of it everyday. They have a calendar where you can tap on that day and get the lessons for it. You can look into other days this way, too. The lessons are on Rashi's commentary, psalms, Tanya, thoughts on holidays/time of year or parsha (Torah portion), a daily mitzvah, and one other thing. Quite a lot packed into it.
Redownloaded Jewish.tv. It's also through Chabbad. Full of videos for studying, documentaries, cooking, music, and more. I only got rid of it before because my old phone had ran out of space.
The last Jewish app is one that I also had on my old phone. It's called Sefaria. It's a really vast and valuable resource. They have the Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, Halachah, Kabbalah, Tanaitic, texts on philosophy, liturgy, Musar, and so much more. It's like having a huge library of Jewish texts on my phone. You could even download whatever you want to go through offline. I'm still surprised it's free. They've managed to keep it up through donations alone.
Oh, I also got Yelp. I was using Foursquare for a while, so I decided to try this, too. Swarm, which I still use, is part of Foursquare. I can try it out. Might be better.
Friday, August 30, 2019
29th of Av
Finished the Comparison unit in Duolingo's Dutch course today, and made it halfway through the Kitchen one. Made it into the Promotion Zone for the Gold League. (I'm 8th right now, and the top 10 get to be in the 'zone'.) If I keep it up during the weekend, I might advance to the next league again. Only messed up a couple of times. I was surprised I got all the speaking lessons correct, since a lot of the new words were long and some I've had trouble with pronouncing for a while. Those are getting easier. The Kitchen unit has been fun and interesting. Some of their words for the kitchen stuff sound more fun than their English equivalents.
Finished a rough sketch of Junko's arms and torso. I think I like how she's coming along so far. Might be better than Shadow. I just have to figure out how exactly I want her legs positioned.
Edited more of Alliance. I'm really breezing through it. I've gone through 15 pages of the ebook, and 21 pages of the print this week. I didn't do it on Monday. That's pretty good for 4 days, I think. I'm still finding a lot of mistakes, but some of it's also been just rewording things better.
I played a little of the Sims 2: Seasons yesterday. That was fun. Created a new character and house. This is in a new version of a neighborhood I'm basing off of Alliance. The one I created yesterday was Shadow, the main character. The only other character in that neighborhood is based off of one of the 'villains' in the story. That one doesn't show up until the 3rd book, I think. The book that's only halfway finished. It feels like I get to mess around with my characters this way. I've also been using a cheat where you can increase their simoleons (their currency) to any amount you want. Making it easier to design their house, get what they want, etc. With Seasons, the sim can create their own garden and enter competitions with their produce. It's fun to see the weather change, too. There are penguins that show up when it snows, and especially if a sim is making a snowman. Sims can die if they get too cold, too hot, get struck by lightning, or stay out in the rain too long. There's more of a variety of clothes and house stuff with the expansion, as well. Adds more dimension to it. It'd be cool to try out the Sims 4 in the future, but this is still fun.
When I washed my hair the 2nd time since it was dyed, there was less color that came out. It still was surprising to watch it flow off me like that. The only time it stained my hands this time was when I was styling it. It wasn't nearly as bad as last time, and my fingernails are starting to look more normal. The staining on my skin has been coming off much faster.
Made a tuna salad sandwich on an onion roll last night. I'm used to Rosie falling over herself to get some. However, Tasha was brave enough to run to me at the same time. She actually begged along with Rosie when I opened the can of tuna. That's rare. Rosie didn't fight her, either. I gave both of them chunks at the same time. Rosie finished hers first and ran over to Tasha. She didn't fight her for it. In fact, it almost seemed like she wanted to make sure she ate it. Tasha didn't shy away. They seem to be getting along even better now. At least, Tasha has become braver and mellower. It would be cool if, at some point, they end up sleeping and playing together. I won't hold my breath, though.
Youtube:
One Piece:
Naruto:
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler): Book of Murder:
Bungou (Literary) Stray Dogs:
Ghost Hunt (It's been a very long time since I've watched this anime. Also interesting to find a Ghost Hunt amv, since it's a relatively old one):
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, Mr. Despair):
Finished a rough sketch of Junko's arms and torso. I think I like how she's coming along so far. Might be better than Shadow. I just have to figure out how exactly I want her legs positioned.
Edited more of Alliance. I'm really breezing through it. I've gone through 15 pages of the ebook, and 21 pages of the print this week. I didn't do it on Monday. That's pretty good for 4 days, I think. I'm still finding a lot of mistakes, but some of it's also been just rewording things better.
I played a little of the Sims 2: Seasons yesterday. That was fun. Created a new character and house. This is in a new version of a neighborhood I'm basing off of Alliance. The one I created yesterday was Shadow, the main character. The only other character in that neighborhood is based off of one of the 'villains' in the story. That one doesn't show up until the 3rd book, I think. The book that's only halfway finished. It feels like I get to mess around with my characters this way. I've also been using a cheat where you can increase their simoleons (their currency) to any amount you want. Making it easier to design their house, get what they want, etc. With Seasons, the sim can create their own garden and enter competitions with their produce. It's fun to see the weather change, too. There are penguins that show up when it snows, and especially if a sim is making a snowman. Sims can die if they get too cold, too hot, get struck by lightning, or stay out in the rain too long. There's more of a variety of clothes and house stuff with the expansion, as well. Adds more dimension to it. It'd be cool to try out the Sims 4 in the future, but this is still fun.
When I washed my hair the 2nd time since it was dyed, there was less color that came out. It still was surprising to watch it flow off me like that. The only time it stained my hands this time was when I was styling it. It wasn't nearly as bad as last time, and my fingernails are starting to look more normal. The staining on my skin has been coming off much faster.
Made a tuna salad sandwich on an onion roll last night. I'm used to Rosie falling over herself to get some. However, Tasha was brave enough to run to me at the same time. She actually begged along with Rosie when I opened the can of tuna. That's rare. Rosie didn't fight her, either. I gave both of them chunks at the same time. Rosie finished hers first and ran over to Tasha. She didn't fight her for it. In fact, it almost seemed like she wanted to make sure she ate it. Tasha didn't shy away. They seem to be getting along even better now. At least, Tasha has become braver and mellower. It would be cool if, at some point, they end up sleeping and playing together. I won't hold my breath, though.
Youtube:
One Piece:
Naruto:
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler): Book of Murder:
Bungou (Literary) Stray Dogs:
Ghost Hunt (It's been a very long time since I've watched this anime. Also interesting to find a Ghost Hunt amv, since it's a relatively old one):
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, Mr. Despair):
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
27th of Av
Managed to get everything on my to-do list done yesterday. That's rare, and feels good. Even if some of it was just for fun. I won't go through all of it on here, though.
Played some of Elder Scrolls: Blades yesterday. The game has only been released for the iPhone. I've been playing it for about a month. I love rpg's. I also loved Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which I played over a decade ago. It was pretty amazing. This hasn't been on the same level, but really awesome for an app. Maybe they'll expand on it in the future? My character is already up to level 33.
You also get to build/customize your own town. The higher the level of the town, the more higher leveled things (weapons, armor, potions, ingredients, etc.) will be available. Mine's up to level 7. That's been much slower to level up. Decorations help, but building houses, smithies, workshops, etc. get more prestige which is basically exp used for leveling it up. All that costs both in coins and materials. So, I'm constantly saving stuff for it as well as for weapons and armor. I like how complex it can be.
The quests are ranked by skulls. The more skulls next to it, the more difficult. There are also daily challenges. I think they have it set up where you can't play it all day, making it less addicting which is good. I don't particularly like that opening chests takes time. It's ok with wooden ones taking only 5 seconds, but gold ones, for instance, take 6 hours to open. If you want it opened sooner, you have to pay with gems. Until recently people couldn't get many of those in a day without paying real money for them. Now, they've opened up many ways to get them for free. Like, quests that have gems as a reward every few hours. Gaining a lot of them when leveling up, too. Some enemies drop them when they're defeated. They're really handy.
There's also an abyss. It's set up with different levels to a dungeon that's made up of caves and castles. Each level is harder, there is no food which replenishes health, there are no chests unless you earn them through exp, you earn other things that way there too, and still can earn coins from enemies. Each time you enter another level, you earn a lot more coins and exp. I think the furthest I've gone is to level 25. It'll be interesting to play a different game every day.
Finished the Future and Recreation units in Duolingo's Dutch course. Only had 2 wrong answers for the questions/sentences. Next, will be the Comparison one. Made it into the 'promotion' zone of the Gold League. It'll be interesting to get into the Sapphire (or was it Ruby?) League again. It looks like they may have added higher leagues. Don't know what those would be.
I don't think I mentioned this before, but I went back to reading Hell's Kitchen roughly a month ago. There were no available updates for a few years. I'm so happy I can come close or actually finish it. I don't think the last couple of chapters are up yet. Might be by the time I get to them. It's a good manga. Plus, it's mostly centered on food, which I love. All the characters are quirky and interesting. It would be a great anime.
I drew Junko's shoulders and neck. It was a little tough to figure how wide her shoulders should be for some reason. I like how they turned out. I also planned how her arms will be positioned and where her waist will be. I'm using many diagrams and pics for reference. The old artist's anatomy book that used to be my grandma's isn't the best. It did help some in the past, though. I also am trying to find my own style for it, but still be semi-close to being anatomically correct. It's a balancing act.
Edited more of Alliance. Made it to chapter 3. Did one more page each of both the ebook and print than yesterday. 5 pages for one, and 7 pages for the other. I'm surprised I got to so much.
Played some of Elder Scrolls: Blades yesterday. The game has only been released for the iPhone. I've been playing it for about a month. I love rpg's. I also loved Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which I played over a decade ago. It was pretty amazing. This hasn't been on the same level, but really awesome for an app. Maybe they'll expand on it in the future? My character is already up to level 33.
You also get to build/customize your own town. The higher the level of the town, the more higher leveled things (weapons, armor, potions, ingredients, etc.) will be available. Mine's up to level 7. That's been much slower to level up. Decorations help, but building houses, smithies, workshops, etc. get more prestige which is basically exp used for leveling it up. All that costs both in coins and materials. So, I'm constantly saving stuff for it as well as for weapons and armor. I like how complex it can be.
The quests are ranked by skulls. The more skulls next to it, the more difficult. There are also daily challenges. I think they have it set up where you can't play it all day, making it less addicting which is good. I don't particularly like that opening chests takes time. It's ok with wooden ones taking only 5 seconds, but gold ones, for instance, take 6 hours to open. If you want it opened sooner, you have to pay with gems. Until recently people couldn't get many of those in a day without paying real money for them. Now, they've opened up many ways to get them for free. Like, quests that have gems as a reward every few hours. Gaining a lot of them when leveling up, too. Some enemies drop them when they're defeated. They're really handy.
There's also an abyss. It's set up with different levels to a dungeon that's made up of caves and castles. Each level is harder, there is no food which replenishes health, there are no chests unless you earn them through exp, you earn other things that way there too, and still can earn coins from enemies. Each time you enter another level, you earn a lot more coins and exp. I think the furthest I've gone is to level 25. It'll be interesting to play a different game every day.
Finished the Future and Recreation units in Duolingo's Dutch course. Only had 2 wrong answers for the questions/sentences. Next, will be the Comparison one. Made it into the 'promotion' zone of the Gold League. It'll be interesting to get into the Sapphire (or was it Ruby?) League again. It looks like they may have added higher leagues. Don't know what those would be.
I don't think I mentioned this before, but I went back to reading Hell's Kitchen roughly a month ago. There were no available updates for a few years. I'm so happy I can come close or actually finish it. I don't think the last couple of chapters are up yet. Might be by the time I get to them. It's a good manga. Plus, it's mostly centered on food, which I love. All the characters are quirky and interesting. It would be a great anime.
I drew Junko's shoulders and neck. It was a little tough to figure how wide her shoulders should be for some reason. I like how they turned out. I also planned how her arms will be positioned and where her waist will be. I'm using many diagrams and pics for reference. The old artist's anatomy book that used to be my grandma's isn't the best. It did help some in the past, though. I also am trying to find my own style for it, but still be semi-close to being anatomically correct. It's a balancing act.
Edited more of Alliance. Made it to chapter 3. Did one more page each of both the ebook and print than yesterday. 5 pages for one, and 7 pages for the other. I'm surprised I got to so much.
Thursday, June 20, 2019
17th of Sivan
The month-long holidays for June are: National Candy Month, National Dairy Month, National Iced Tea Month, National Mango Month, Pride Month, National Camping Month, National Rose Month, National Zoo and Aquarium Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun.
For the elements calendar, it's lithium this month. It's used in batteries, as a mood stabilizer, cars, pacemakers, and more. They have a main pic of the metal. Other pics are of lithium carbonate pills, lithium grease, and 2 different types of lithium batteries.
It's been a while. Much longer than I wanted it to be between posts. (Hopefully I'll get to posting more often again.) Lots of things have happened this month.
Went to our local Pride picnic. Same place as last year, which was a camping/retreat center. It was a nice sunny day. A little odd that they didn't have hot dogs and hamburgers this time. Instead, it was sloppy Joe's and grilled chicken. Don't know what they had for the vegetarian alternative. I had the chicken, and there were quite a lot of other good things. Got to talk with some people I know. At one point, I needed to get out of the sun and went back into the main cabin. (That's where the food, drinks, and bathrooms were.) Hardly anybody was in there. I was having some sort of reaction to the sun, so I just grabbed some water and sat by myself. After that passed, I walked around outside on my own. Got some nice pics. Earlier, I went through the labyrinth with my parent. First time going through theirs. I kind of cheated at the very end. I was right next to the exit, but it seemed to want me to do another lap around it. Too much twisting around for me by then, so I just stepped over the line. There were painted rocks along the way there and actually on the sides of the path of it. There were a lot in the center along with other weird things. Thought it was really cool that they put the trans and ace flags next to the entrance sign. It was one of the first things you see. I'm both trans and ace. Yay! I like how the ace flag seems to be represented more every year. Makes my heart happy. I wonder what other people thought of it? They also had the huge rainbow flag over part of that main cabin building. It's very impressive. The only downside was, at one point, it was pushed to the side which revealed a humongous cross. I think that made a lot of people feel at least uncomfortable. Some left pretty quickly after that. Made me feel uneasy when I noticed it. Also, pushing our flag to the side when it wasn't the end seems kind of disrespectful.
I got a new bathroom doorknob. The old one was as old as the house. (I think it's 35-40 years old?) It completely fell apart recently. It's always had issues. The only time it fully locked was when part of it was still in the door (after starting to falling apart), and the wind closed it. Apparently, locking it at the same time. I panicked at that moment, but luckily my parent was able to 'break in' and take it fully out. Looked pretty gross on the inside. It was odd seeing a hole in the door for a little while. I put sticky notes over it to have some privacy. The new one is nice and shiny. Works really well. My parent put it up. There's a slot on the other side of the door, so if there's an emergency and I can't unlock it for some reason, someone could use something like a coin to do it. Nice safety mechanism. Even if I never need it.
Got new sneakers, slippers, pajamas, socks, and an eye mask from Amazon. The old sneakers had bit the dust. They lasted about 2 years, which isn't bad. I got a very similar design this time. It's supposed to be sturdier and the next 'generation' of it. Both the old and new ones are from Skechers. I got it in light blue (looks light teal in a certain light) for the trim and the main body is a mix of black and grey. The old ones seemed more stylish with pink and dark navy (almost black). They didn't have those colors in my size anymore. I think they only had that for the bigger sizes. I forgot how stiff they were at first. It's not the normal type of stiffness. These ones adjust themselves to your actual shape. It takes a little time to do that. With the old pair, once they adjusted, they were one of the most comfortable pairs I've had. It's getting to that point at the moment with the new ones.
I must have had the old slippers for close to a decade. They were really beaten up and falling apart. Weren't really slippers anymore. The new ones are from Dearfoams. Same brand as the old ones. I tried to find a similar style. They still look a bit different. Same color, has a fluffy 'cuff' at the top, and memory foam like before.
The new PJ's are from the same brand as before, and supposed to be the same design. They have a pink trim and the rest is a dark navy. (Seemed match my old sneakers...) I got it in a size too big, so I could be even comfier. It is pretty nice that way. The only other difference compared to the old is the buttons now have a simpler version of the logo. The old one had plain buttons. Not a big difference, but odd.
Now all I need are new jeans. The most recent pair had a huge hole form about a month or so ago. So, I've been wearing my even older ones since. The ones I was only wearing on laundry days. It's a size too big. Also, have noticed that it's fraying at the top. Not sure how long these will last before there are holes.
I went to Urgent Care a couple of weeks ago. I had a nasty pain on my side and fevers off and on. They thought it was a kidney infection, so they gave me antibiotics and saline to hydrate me. I had a lot of bacteria for some reason.
Went to the ER a couple of days later, because I threw up blood the night before. The smell was awful. Worse than regular throw up. It was bright red and took up a lot of the toilet bowl. The taste was very metallic. (I don't think I've ever thrown up blood like that.) Also, threw up some bile not long after. I didn't eat anything for close to 24 hours after my last meal, for fear I'd throw up again. Turns out the antibiotics may have made me nauseous and the Celebrex made me throw up blood. I was already on Celebrex for a couple of weeks, though...Almost every antibiotic I've taken has made me sick. Thrown up a lot with them in the past, too. They saw gallstones, but apparently there weren't enough of them to worry about. They weren't blocking anything either. The gallbladder is on the other side of where I had the pain. I don't think it was that. They were worried about my liver enzymes being high. I never got the results to see by how much. It was enough that she wanted me to have my primary look into it. I was there for most of the day. At least they gave me an anti-nausea med and morphine. I stopped taking Celebrex and the antibiotic after that. Haven't thrown up since. Thank goodness.
Had a modified barium swallow test. That was interesting. The speech pathologist made a big deal when I told her how transphobic my previous GI and that clinic were. She suddenly seemed to change her tone and asked me if I wanted to be referred to by name on file and my pronouns. She then wanted the tech there to message my primary about it even though I said she knew. Despite telling her, she occasionally referred to me as 'gal'. Yes, I didn't actually tell her I was agender, but that was weird. Things were moving too fast to correct her on it. She was a very intense person, although I was late, so she was probably exhausted.
They had me drink a few differently thickened liquids, chocolate pudding, peaches, and a cookie. All with barium mixed in, except the cookie had it slathered on half of it. I was told not to eat the plain other half...The chocolate pudding was actually pretty good. The rest had an off-taste.
They used a fluoroscope, which takes multiple x-rays at once and basically turns them into a video. So, you can watch it in action. The monitor was set off to the side of the platform I was on. I could see some of it through the corner of my eye. My skeleton was black, and what I drank/ate showed up white. From what I could see, it was cool. I like looking inside myself in x-rays and such. It's so fascinating. Like it's another me. I might ask for the x-rays of that in the future.
Anyways, they said that my swallow was perfect. No abnormalities. She was impressed that my teeth were so clean. Interesting, considering I haven't seen a dentist in roughly 14 years. She said it is very common for people with dysphagia to have 'good' moments where there's no sign of it. She wants to look again in a couple of months, and said maybe they'll catch it then.
For now, she suspects I have LPR or laryngopharyngeal reflux. It's like a type of GERD, only it affects the larynx, pharynx, and other areas in the upper throat. The stomach acid travels up that far, irritating and eroding those areas. Often it forces valves to open so food/fluids fall into the windpipe, and/or the acid makes it into the nasal cavity. This can cause a lot of serious issues. If food/fluids make it into the lungs, it can cause aspiration, choking, and pneumonia. Dysphagia's one of the most common symptoms of it. It's referred to as the silent reflux, because unlike GERD, most people with LPR don't have heartburn. It also tends to have different symptoms. Making it harder to pinpoint.
She gave me a lot of info. Things on what LPR means, the swallowing process, tips on managing LPR, LPR diet, and more. It's kind of a dizzying amount of info, especially with the diet and managing it. I couldn't do the diet. I restrict my diet normally (kosher-style, trigger foods of my colitis, things I don't like, etc.), but this would have made it next to impossible to eat. No chocolate, no tomatoes, mostly no cheese (unless it's low-fat and not processed-hard to find), no cream, certain types of fruits, nothing fried, no caffeine (I tend to have a low amount in my tea, but she said that was still too much), and it goes on. I might stick to the suggestion that if a food makes me feel uncomfortable or makes the dysphagia act up; don't eat it.
She also suggested I elevate the head of my bed with either 4"-6" blocks/books or a wedge pillow. I just got the pillow. It's taking some getting used to. It's huge! I'm wondering if it'll soften up over time? Hopefully. I've been adding my regular pillow to it at night when I can't stand the hardness. Helps cushion it more, but then my head's elevated even more and when I wake up my neck hurts.
I'm trying to do the take a small bite then a sip of a drink thing. I tend to forget, though. It makes sense. She also told me to have Tums 30 minutes before every meal. That's a lot considering she wants me to eat up to 6 small meals. (I normally do 5.) I'd overdose. I got Tums Ultra and started taking it 30 minutes before my last meal (snack) of the day. They say the limit is 7 a day. If I followed her advice, I would have roughly 10-12 at least. I thought I'd stick with 2 a day for now to see how it affects me. I got a big bottle of it to last me. I've always just barely tolerated the taste, and it feels like I'm biting down on a piece of chalk. I'd probably have a hard time with more than 3 or 4.
I'm also going back to being more strict with the 'diet' I normally follow. Wasn't too far off lately, though. Calorie range being 1200-1600 a day, making sure I don't eat too much at restaurants, asking for smaller portions, etc. I can eat pretty much anything this way, just as long as I take into account the calories. Calories are like what I have to 'spend' for the day. I've turned it into a game this way. I've designated the weekend, dinner at Shari's after the local trans meetings, and celebrations as treat days. I never say 'cheat' days. I'm not cheating and after following it, I should be able to treat myself. Food isn't the enemy. Calories don't matter as much those days. In the past, I did put a reasonably higher limit during those times. Maybe I should do that again. That might help me feel better overall.
Started doing one of my 2-mile walks a day on Tuesday. It's been a long time since I made it a habit. My norm was actually 2 of those walks a day. Briefly did 3 a day at one point. That seems overkill. I'd be happy to make it to my norm again. It's been a bit easier to start that this week, because it's been cool out. Also, going with somebody, like my parent, helps a little. I normally would blare my music with earphones on, and it felt like I went into another world. I might try to get back into my sit-ups, too. In the past, I started off with 5 sit-ups twice a day. Then, added 5 to both times every week. I made it to 95 sit-ups twice a day at one point. I think that was the most I got to. After that, my colitis symptoms started acting up and it hurt too much. Maybe I can push through the pain this time. Gut might get a little smaller.
I recently sent a DNA sample to 23andMe. I did AncestryDNA before, but this one's much more in depth and there's an added health part. Should be interesting to see what they say about me. They think the results will be ready by July 8th. My parent had hers done before me, which was very interesting to see.
Still keeping up with my Dutch. Made it to the highest league in Duolingo. Apparently it's ruby. So, it goes bronze, silver, gold, sapphire, and ruby. You earn things like sapphires or rubies, depending on the course, so that would make sense. I've often ended up in the top 25 by the end of the week. Not bad. I don't see how people can earn over 1000 xp a week. They're the ones in the top 5. Just finished the Family 2 unit. A lot of words for family members are super close to their English counterparts, or at least sound like them. Things like vader sounds a lot like father. Or, moeder sounds like mother. Other words for them are opa or pa for dad, and oma or ma for mom. Nicht for niece and neef for nephew. Although, those last 2 are also used to refer to cousins. (Nicht for female cousins, and neef for male.) That's weird.
I've figured out how to add shading to my drawing in Photoshop. So, I've been messing with that lately. It's kind of fun. He looks more 3D this way. After I finish that, I'll post it to dA and Instagram.
I've managed to edit Alliance every day this week. Wahoo! I'm already well into chapter 18. There are 20 chapters. Getting close. I might still go over some of the beginning stuff again. It won't be long until I'm done editing it, though. Certainly if I keep it up.
Finished both the 2nd season of The Rain and 3rd season of Slasher on Netflix. For the most part, I liked both of them. Some parts of The Rain were slightly frustrating, but I think that was to add more drama. They didn't need that. Slasher actually surprised me with who the killer(s) was. (Don't want to give away too much.)
I'm almost done with the 1st season of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix. I'm really surprised by this one. It's a little trippy, but good. The actors have been great, the music fits, the cinematography is great, story has a lot of twists, and more. They say a 2nd season will be out soon.
Found a new game for my iphone called The Elder Scrolls: Blades. Done by the same people who did The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. One of my fave games. They're both rpg's, and a lot of Blades reminds me of Morrowind. It's not as fantastic, but for an iphone game it's pretty dang good. Both games have really beautiful worlds. Actually, I think they're supposed to be set in the same world, but Morrowind takes place much earlier in their timeline. The story of that world is really complex. Apparently, the people behind the Elder Scrolls games just had a 25th anniversary of the 1st one. A lot of time to build on it. The art is stunning and music is nice. The only downside is you have to choose if you're character is a man or woman. Same thing with Morrowind, I think. There are several races, which makes it interesting. With Morrowind there was so much to explore, even unrelated to the quests. Blades doesn't truly feel like you have that much freedom, but there's still some side things to see. They alert you when you've found a secret place. That can be fun and annoying at the same time. I think it's interesting that you have your own town, and have to rebuild it after it was destroyed at the beginning. You get to customize it that way. I've read briefly that you can customize jewelry, too.
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