Promiseland

[Fetian]

Damn. The NYT has cease-and-desisted the creator of the Connections archive into taking it down, so I guess that's out of my daily puzzle rotation :\

[Fetian]

Annoyingly! I had a bunch I was sitting on because I haven't had brain to do them lately and now I guess I'll never be able to

[Fetian]

ExTremely tempted to skip class today

[Fetian]

So I went to bed at a reasonable hour -- I've been pushing myself toward going to bed earlier so I can get stuff done during the day -- but I still ended up sleeping until like 1:30. I did wake up briefly at around 8 but that was too early.

Hmm. I believe the kitchen heater has been going on in the morning, I wonder if that's causing me problems. Because I've been waking up sweaty, and I hadn't really thought about it but that doesn't actually make sense with our current weather patterns

Anyway, woke up later than I wanted and basically immediately jumped into pre-studying today's Japanese lesson. We learned the 〜たり、〜たりする construction, which is basically "Do things like x, y, etc" 昨日はテレビを見たり、ゲームをしたりしました -- "Yesterday, I watched TV, played video games, and such". In short: you conjugate the first verb to ta/da form, add ri, conjugate the second verb to ta/da form, add ri, then add a conjugated suru depending on what else the sentence is communicating -- like conjugating for "I want to... x, y, etc" or "I did in the past... x, y, etc" or "I will, politely... x, y, etc". For some reason most of the other students really struggled with it? I'm not sure why, even listening to them asking about it and getting answers.

Disruptive Student asked a couple of people in DMs if they would be his partner for the final project (no), then posted this to the zoom chat:

Who doesn't have a partner yet I am willing to help and work with whoever just as long as you are nice anyone who insults me I will work by myself.

Shockingly there were no takers.

And I got a DM from a student who isn't in the discord asking if I would be his partner, but unfortunately I am already spoken for. I did mention in the discord that he had asked, so maybe someone there who doesn't have a partner will grab him before he or they end up with Disruptive Student. I do hope he doesn't end up getting lumped into someone's pair to turn it into a three-person group, which might happen if the numbers don't number.

One page of homework plus one page of kanji practice. Once again I am not stressed about it, even glancing at the page I know offhand how to answer the questions.

Tonight ash and I watched some Guess the Musical youtube videos and then Taskmaster bloopers and then an old Make Some Noise. It feels like an early night, but it's not, we wrapped up around 9 o'clock.

I have been practising skateboarding again, and again I've started doing it as the weather has turned hostile toward that type of activity, but right now that's just getting on and off it and squatting on it to build up the muscles and muscle memory. When we get some sunny days I'll see about going out and actually trying to ride the thing

This is also great to be doing with a brand new pair of shoes, so I can fuck those up. Skateboard grip is basically sandpaper, so, you know, it does wear shoes down.

I don't think anything else of note is happening. I need to eat more food, and I'm gonna watch youtube and play video games until bed. A podcast I like has a new episode up, so I get to listen to that as I'm getting ready for bed!

[Fetian]

Oz keeps getting really excited when I open my container of sour rainbow belt candies because she thinks it's lunch meat

[Fetian]

Even after showing her that it's full of sour candy she still hopes maybe, just maybe, there's also lunch meat in there

[Fetian]

Similar sleeping patterns to yesterday, but today when I woke up at 7 AM I knew I was liable to end up sleeping in past 1 PM so I stayed up for a couple hours doing internet things and reviewing Japanese. Also Cael got scared of a truck outside again and hid under the covers, which was adorable

So, did wake up a bit ago at 1:48 and now I'm gonna eat food and drink caffeine and read the internet until I wake up properly. I have the SAD lamp on to help. It's very, very rainy outside.

Things I absolutely need to do today:
-Homework
-Shower/shave
-Record a thing for ash

And that's as ambitious as I'm getting right now

[Fetian]

Oh good, my statement for the card Oz's vet bills are on came out so I have confirmed that the bill that was set to accumulate ridiculous amounts of interest has been paid in full and I don't need to worry about it anymore. The other bill on it has until June before it explodes, and it's a low enough amount I should get it knocked out in a couple months

[Fetian]

Sigh.

So I've never really liked earbuds, because I have small ear canals and so earbuds have always hurt to wear, but I last tried them ages ago and a lot has changed? And no one makes quality versions of the kinds of headphones I do like (clip) so I thought I'd give earbuds another chance -- I could put smaller pads (or whatever they're called for earbuds) on them and maybe they'd actually be comfortable to wear?

Well. I kind of hate them.

They're not super comfortable but they're not super uncomfortable, either, but also they're like wearing ear plugs and I can hear my own breath when they're in, which drives me nuts. I'm going to see if I get used to them but I'm not optimistic. Should have known better, I guess.

I like, specifically looked for ones that didn't have noise cancelling because I don't want them blocking out outside sounds, too. Annoying

[Fetian]

Today ash planted the blood orange tree in the ground near the pool (I helped a little) - it's apparently not been doing great in the pot, so he wanted to get it planted before the season got too bad for that. He also made some progress toward transplanting the yucca, which has been growing out onto the patio to try to get out of the shade of the tree it was planted under, also over by the pool where it'll get almost full sun.

I read more Sideshow to him while he made dinner, and we actually finished it! It felt like a pretty satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, and I honestly have become a huge fan of Tepper's writing. I will want to reread the trilogy again at some point because it feels like the kind of book series that I need to read more than once to fully get everything out of it that it has to offer. Next I have a short story anthology I'm going to read him for our palate cleanser between epics, and then he wants to do the next of the Dark Tower books.

We watched Hot Fuzz, which was fun, I enjoyed it more than I had when it came out. Then a few youtubes and he went to bed. I see Shaun has uploaded a new video so I'm going to watch that and play video games or something, I haven't decided yet. Continuing to try out the earbuds, they do hurt a bit but I think part of that is that i have a scab in my ear that one of them is pressing against. I think possibly I can get different tips? Reddit says foam tips might help with my issues, and generally just trying for something even smaller and/or slimmer.