Oh when they sent me the previous person's torch they also had a weird judgy comment about the format the person decided to do their torch in, god just, such an unpleasant person. And I know I am myself being extremely judgy about a 15 year old but this 15 year old has inserted themself in my life in a way that is extremely annoying so I'm going to complain about it
If anyone wants to look at my torch it's here, I tried to make it very easy to use and understand though some of the jargon expects some level of familiarity with linguistics. This experience has kind of dampened my excitement for a thing I was pretty proud of so people saying nice and/or insightful things about it would be nice
It does look a lot better on desktop than a phone, but I will be dead in the ground before I start designing for mobile
I’m excited to look through this now that I have a functioning brain. Going to get my morning cleaning and Erik date in, then look at it. (I’d been planning on doing it before, so I could throw thoughts at you before you had to send it in, but as the guy running it made that moot…)
For what it’s worth, I think it would be a good idea to make a public comment regarding time zones and the importance of staying which one the coordinator is in, and which one the documentation is in. That’s something even a 15 year old should have thought about, and it’s worth making that seen in public.
I suppose that also could be seen as kind of shit-stirring, but imho it’s valuable shit stirring.
So obviously I was up pretty late, enough so that instead of getting a couple hours and then having to get up to feed and pill the cats, I stayed up until it was time to do that and then went to sleep for a few hours. That meant I wasn't able to make lunch for people today but I should be able to do it next week, instead
When I woke up I went out and hung out with ash for a bit while he played video games, and then we watched Dave Made a Maze which was a pretty good movie. It's about a guy who made a maze out of cardboard in the middle of his and his girlfriend's apartment and then got lost in it. His friends and girlfriend, after suggesting simply destroying the structure to get Dave out and being shot down by Dave, who is proud of the maze and wants to finish it (there is a throughline of Dave frequently starting projects and not finishing them and being very attached to the maze as the first passion project he actually wants to see through to the end), the friends and girlfriend go into the maze to try to get Dave out. Obviously the maze is much bigger on the inside, and full of booby-traps that kill people with very interesting, craft-y effects (blood, for example, is all ribbons and confetti and streamers). Adventure ensues as they rescue Dave and try to get everybody back out of the maze.
I feel like the movie had too many ideas for the time alotted and didn't follow through enough on any of them (fitting, perhaps, given the titular character's flaws), but it was a good time and the effects and set design were really good. I would have liked it to be a 2-5 episode miniseries, I think, or for it to have just cut down on some of what it was trying to say. Solid 8/10, do recommend. Places do say it's a comedy/horror but I do not agree -- comedy, certainly, but absolutely not horror. Adventure, perhaps, which I keep saying is a genre that is overdue for a comeback.
We watched a CheeseYeen and a Drew Gooden after that, and ash went to bed. I just a bit ago finished and submitted my homework for this week. Definitely going to be an early bed tonight, and until then I'm gonna watch some stuff and hang out with the cats.
Per a random abridged JLPT test I just took, I'm just barely into N4 level!
I should probably dock a few points from myself because some of the questions I got right were based on vibes more than actual knowledge, but still
It was also only 15 questions long
(The JLPT measures Japanese language proficiency for foreign learners, levels are N5-N1 with N1 being the most proficient)
I think I'm finally hitting a little bit of hyperfocus on Japanese again, which is annoying to be happening right as the semester is ending but also, I think, is because the semester is ending and I'm about to have time to actually focus on learning methods that are fun and not just following the Genki books. I don't know what happened with the professor between 401 and this class (I actually do have some suspicions, but I'll be keeping them to myself, I think) but I'm finding this class a lot less engaging, and I don't feel like I'm getting very much out of it that I wouldn't get just from reading the books and doing the exercises by myself. Which is partly a 'you get what you put in' issue, I am Not putting as much effort in to the class as I could or should be, but at the same time. I'm just not really into it right now
Reaffirming my desire to take a semester off, and I may or may not try to take 412 in a year if it's still being offered. But in between I'll do some focused solo study and see where that takes me
Oh no, my penpal apparently sent me a letter back in August that was never delivered! I was starting to worry that she didn't want to communicate anymore, so I'm actually a little happy to hear that, but of course very sad that the letter seems to be lost
She's going to send a new letter, and hopefully that arrives safely. I'm going to also send a postcard her way as a small surprise, now that I know such a thing wouldn't be unwelcome
I struggle a lot a lot a lot with initiating tasks, so that's something I have been working on. And today I successfully un-inertia'd myself enough to take the train to old sac and buy some postcards at the museum! It was a very nice trip, just a little chilly. I listened to Pimsleur lessons on the way there and on the way back I did kanji exercises. Old Sac is starting to get all done up for Christmas, and I took some pictures of things like the tree by the port (such as it is) and the polar express train. I have not fully looked at the pictures yet, hopefully some of them turned out nice
I was a little worried the museum wouldn't have postcards, because they've definitely fallen out of fashion, though I think some people still collect them as souvenirs. Thankfully they did, including a set of very artful postcards designed by a local (ish) artist. I decided to just buy one of each of those, and now I have a small stack of postcards for when I want to send one to someone
Walking back, a couple with what I think were chicagoan accents stopped me to ask if Old Sac had the christmas lights up yet, and I told the husband that there were some decorations but not much, and not really any lights, though there was a big tree up and decorated. I had some pictures if he would like to see? So I showed him the pictures and he decided that they would wait to go to Old Sac, after more decorations were up. He was amused by my instant photos
The train home was Super crowded, we ended up with all the seats taken at one point. Luckily I'd gotten on when there were still some empty, so I was able to sit down
Back at the house, I checked the mail (it would have been so funny if my penpal's letter was in there today, but of course it wasn't), and made myself a sandwich, and have been eating it while watching a nebula video. I will continue doing some Japanese study, I think, but also just kind of chill and rest my legs
This is a trick where the post injects the domain and instance description into the post text, but it works very well with my instance