areolas

lovely saturday

2024-07-28T17:39:41Z

Yesterday was a saturday to be remembered. Not because anything new and thrilling happened, but just because it was just a very satisfying very calm quintessential saturday, to me.

First was dnd, featured some lore, some plot, some roleplay, a lengthy struggle to open a simple barred door, combat, and a stupid end to that combat. They polymorphed my giant bird (a roc) into a sheep and threw it off a sheer 500 ft drop to its death. Dnd rules are you take 1d6 damage for every 10 ft fallen - we calculated about 17k damage. Guy had 3hp as a sheep, 200hp remaining as a bird. Didn't stand a chance. It was so funny, so dumb, and so exactly dnd.

After, we went out to get hot pot at this new place ~30ish mins away that just opened. I completely gorged myself like i always do when it comes to hot pot, but it's just so good, i get excited. I regretted it only a little. It's a good full though, unlike something heavy and greasy, it's a bunch of soup and fresh veg and some meat, rice, and dipping sesame sauce. I know food is food mostly but it's a clean feeling full, somehow.

Then we came back, sat with fennec, got into elden ring and chatted with friends online. I stayed up too late, but it was a satisfying day start to end.

Today I've been playing elden ring and crocheting some, I'm going to start final exam review and that's about it. Trying not to stress about an international shipment I have to get together tomorrow that I've been struggling with for 2+ weeks now. I told the team repeatedly THEY have to make the label but bill US and they don't want to do it. They want me to make the label and I'm having a hell of a time getting it working, don't even know why. it's so annoying & now they're pressuring me like we need this THIS WEEK. whatever, man. I told you how to do it 3 weeks ago & I have 3 days off this week.

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busy busy but slowing down (for now)

2024-07-25T23:10:56Z

Today was my last class meeting!!!!! It was a surprise announcement, since we still are in session next week technically. But he's giving us Tuesday off to work on our last homework assignment and Thursday is our final exam (online, at home, open book). Tomorrow is my last lab and then I'm FREE! For three-ish weeks. My last assignment is very close to being done, there's one more element I can't quite get working. I'm hoping in lab tomorrow I can get help from my TA with it.
I'm irritated I filled out an OMET for my professor but not for my TA - his is a separate job and should also stand under review. I had a lot to say about how his teaching style could be worked on and improved. For one thing, read the assignments and understand them before the moment you are in front of us. He was constantly telling up wrong things and correcting us for things that were not part of the assignments as written. Second, telling students "oh this part is so easy" is not encouragement and especially not when we're struggling. Hearing where we're struggling and following it up with "this part is so easy" doesn't help, it just makes it sound like what we're struggling with is easy, and we're dumb to struggle with it.

Anyway though! Tonight I'm going to prep for dnd this Saturday (we're getting so close to done with Curse of Strahd, which makes the rewriting I was doing of the sessions on here even harder lol). I'm excited to finish but nervous. I need to make sure the final battle is worth all the build up. I'm still inexperienced in regards to that, and I just want everyone to feel satisfied in the end. They're going to the Amber Temple next which is also a ramp up in combat, so if I can make that compelling I'll feel good. I just think that like..... the book as written is often not very good, and so I'm doing the best I can with what I was given.
Ideally I get my homework finished entirely tonight so I don't have to get help from my TA, JUST have to run it by him and get final approval.

After that, Elden Ring. i finished Horizon Zero Dawn and described it as the world's okayest game. It was fine. It was fun to play. It was pretty. It didn't make me like.... feel much. It didn't inspire an emotion in me lmao. The big twists I saw coming miles ahead.... but it was ok.
Elden Ring is.... an obsession. Full blown. There's no part of me that ever expected I would like a game of this style. I basically always wrote them off bc it didn't even look fun and people who played them just liked to suffer. But it's SO good. It's so pretty, I can see the creators' visions of finding beauty in the grotesque. The fighting is challenging but it's not punishing. It's fun. Finally getting past a boss is so rewarding. Exploring is so fun. I love it. I can't get enough. My eyes open in the morning and I think about how i want to play Elden Ring.

Big week next week! Hozier concert monday night. I took off Tuesday to recover & took off Weds and Thurs as well for my exam.

oh I finally replaced my falling apart brown boots. the replacements are okay, but not nearly as cute. I'm upset.

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just post something for the love of pete

2024-06-30T03:14:45Z

I've had the "post an entry" page on dw for like, a month now. basically since the exact moment I finished writing about fan expo bc I wanted to write about other things going one.

I've just been SO BUSY it's hard to even take a moment to sit down and like, think my thoughts and then put them into words. Summer semester has been going well, though I'm broke as shit because of it. I'm gonna have to borrow money from my parents again for the fall semester, I'm sure of it :( No added debt to my already substantial debt is nice but.... man. rip to me standing a chance to save like, any money.
In a similar line of thought, though, I was able to apply for a public service loan forgiveness federal program bc of working at a publich university. 120 "qualifying payments" and then total forgiveness. I'm still in review... so I'm not sure what qualifying payments really count as. Does the repayment pause from covid not count? Idk... ideally it counts and then I'll be only 2 or 3 years away from that? Which means I'll have been working at Pitt for ten years???? Insane, I never would have imagined it.

Anyway I'm in an undergrad summer class, but luckily there's one other grad student in there, and she's from my program so we already had some familiarity. We've gotten closer in this class & have worked together here and there. We're learning Python & programming & man, it's a lot of information and a really fast pace. I'm doing okay though! Luckily Tony already knows Python pretty will and I've had him around holding my hand during my very tough homework assignments lmao.
My TA is NOT great, he is obviously good at Python but he is not a teacher type. Not encouraging, not very helpful, doesn't listen to questions when they're asked... idk he's frustrating. It's been a great motivator for getting my assignments up and working before lab hours on Friday. They're used for fine tuning weekly assignments, so if you have it up and running you just have to show him & you can leave.

Other than that it's been a usual summer. Too hot. I want to live in a house with air conditioning so badly lmao. I love this apartment. It's the nicest place I've lived on my own and that's why I put up with the rent raising yearly since 2018, but man. HOT.
Donovan is in town from Oklahoma, it's so crazy that I've hardly seen him in a whole year and he's a full 11 year old obnoxious pre-teen. I went home several weeks ago and omg, that's a whole other story. But anyway I went home then and prepped a dnd oneshot to play with him and my parents together & it was fun! He was invested, he did the work, he wasn't deep in the roleplay but he asked the NPCs questions and was invested in the plot and the puzzles. He was sooooo into the combat and doing cool attacks and stuff. He's already asking to do another one before he leaves.
Last weekend he stayed at the apartment with me Friday to Sunday & it was good! He's a little shithead but not like, an awful person. My dad has been so cranky about him being at their house all summer bc he's such an uptight weird freak. Swear he never used to be like that, but he's so..... god. If he's like this now I hate to think on how he'll be as a proper old man. Anyway like yes he's annoying lol he's 11, you just have to be like "anyway, enough of that" and he generally just moved on. Anyway we went shopping around Pittsburgh. He loooooved Kawaii Gifts & everything we found in there. We watched Kiki's Delivery service that night and he was so enchanted, it was so cute. When I told him it was 35 years old he was like WHAT!!!! BUT IT LOOKS SO GOOD STILL. I sent him a list of all the other ghibli movies to watch, so I hope he does.

Anyway. That weekend I went home for our dnd weekend I did a bad bad bad bad friend job. I forgot the date and missed my good friend Shannon's bachelorette party :( I felt so bad, like doodoo trash tier friend. I've been friends with her since starting college in 09 & we've never grown apart. & her fiance is great! I went to her pole dance class showcase the next week though & bought her drinks after to at least try to make up for it. She seemed fine anyway, I called her to apologize the day of & let her know my mistake.

We played strahd dnd this weekend for the first time in almost 3 months! 22 session so far, level 8, I think we'll get to maybe 30 sessions. They ran into some combat today & we stopped short since it'll be a high level, difficult fight, probably a bit long. Excited to get back to it!

WHEW, that's the major stuff. My midterm is this Tuesday but it's all multiple choice and T/F, no writing code. At home test, open book. Every question from the chapters in our book, so as long as I have all the answers to those, I'm golden. He warned us the program notes how often we change tabs but lol it won't know if I'm looking between my laptop and desktop. I took off work monday and tuesday to """"""study""""""" but I have all the answers noted down so I'm just gonna chill instead. I need the time off after the business of fiscal year end. and I can't stand those people lmao i need a break.

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long time no write (again)

2024-04-28T17:07:23Z

god bless it's been a long long time since I've come here for a post. No good reason, either! The end of the semester was a little busy, but not so much that I couldn't pop in for a quick update. My head is finally clear enough now though to do it, so I won't dwell!

No final grade yet for my class, but I think I did pretty well overall! I feel good about the final project I turned in, and I think I did pretty good on my last exam too. We'll see! I get a two week break now and then I have to go right back to it for my summer undergrad class. Something computing for the humanities where I'll be studying Python which is valuable! Hopefully I'll click with it & I can take it with me to some future job.

Speaking of which, I found out my employer is eligible for the public service loan forgiveness program - ten years of eligible student loan repayments (which if you're on an income based program and you owe $0, paying $0 still counts as eligible). I signed up & have to wait for them to approve me and actually calculate how many eligible payments I've made so far. But! I've been at this job 7 years.... if all I have to do to be debt free is finish off 3 more? Hell yeah I'll do it! Hopefully they review my application soon enough.

We've made some good dnd progress. I think we're probably going to be finishing up this campaign in October maybe? If I've estimated correctly. Well, also depending on how often we can play. Two of us are moving states, this summer is busy with travel and I'm still going to be in classes and stuff. I'm guessing 8-10 more sessions, closer to 8 now I think.

This coming week is Fan Expo Philly! I did NOT finish my prey costume, but I'm going to work to finish it for next year instead. Instead we're doing scoops, twin peaks, and nerdy prudes must die. I don't think we'll be necessarily recognizable but that's alright! It'll still be really good. I'll try to remember to get pictures and share them when we get back. that's all for now!

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whoopsie daisy

2024-03-10T18:03:43Z

so.... long time no post huh. It's not even like I've been too busy. I feel like when I'm drowning in work and school it makes me more likely to come in and write a quick post because I'm desperate for the break. I've been less busy the past couple weeks & I've been really wrapped up into spending my spare time reading and working on dnd stuff. We're getting closer and closer to finishing up strahd! But some of the stuff I've been writing down I think is going to be longer than I was initially thinking.

( dnd stuff )

Other updates....
The other morning I was woken up as usual by Fennec being an annoying little creep bc it's almost breakfast time. She often find like hair or dust on the ground to eat to be obnoxious or a couple of times has chewed on those little clear straps on dresses, all to try and get my out of bed to feed her. I always take what I can off of her but she rarely is actually eating anything. That morning though I saw something hanging out of her mouth so I jumped out of bed & of course she bolted. I had to chase her down, grab & drag her across the floor, & rip this thing out of her mouth. It was a thick ponytail holder!!! I have no idea where she found it even. I just tidied up the part of my room she was in & I didn't see if over there. Freaked me out so bad, I'm glad I caught her before she swallowed it. She's been fine since, her usual self.

Been working on my prey costume, my first real endeavor into sewing clothing panels even though I'm not working from scratch or anything. So far it's coming out ok! I just have to actually dedicate the time to it. May will be here before I know it.

We started watching twin peaks & we're completely obsessed with it. We devoured season 1 in like 4 days because we were just so absorbed in the story. We read that the second half of season 2 isn't very good there & we've just hit episode 12 or 13.... and man.... they were right. It's still not bad, it's just not very good either. Shout out to Bob Iger for that one.

Class is still...... eh for me. I have issue with some of the stuff she does. Like during class time we follow along with notes she makes & sprinkled within are little mini exercises we do. We're always behind schedule so she just says to do the mini exercise on our own time.... but then she never follows up with the answers to them. I don't know what's the point of doing them if we don't actually get told the answers??
I missed both classes last week which does suck. I skipped the one just because I wanted to take my freebie but then on Thursday i had cramps and was struck with a period poop right when it was time to leave. So I missed my freakin bus and the next bus didn't come and by the time the next one came I would've been 30+ mins late so I just went home. I feel bad missing even though I'm sure I didn't miss anything lol and even when I do go I just work on other stuff while I'm there.
I have to take a summer course this year as a prereq to finish the rest of my degree. The only thing is that the class I need is undergrad and is outside of my discipline so I need a permission number. However to request a permission number from the dept I need permission from the class instructor to take the class. I emailed him twice (the first time back on Feb 2) and gotten no response. so I emailed the dept head last week & haven't gotten a response. Wtf do I have to do to get permission to take this class I NEED to take??? WHY do I need permission anyway? God's sake it's a required class so I have to take it, end of? It has me so irritated.

That's it! That's basically everything that's been going on. Writing an update was the first thing on my list today, this time change has me on a big delay. I'm taking tomorrow off though so I'll have time then to do stuff too. Woo!

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bad luck sunday

2024-01-28T23:01:10Z

Today was supposed to be my birthday dinner out at my parents house. We had to cancel last weekend bc the weather was too bad and icy, and today when we got in the car to leave it had been clearly rifled through by someone. Nothing was missing though? tony had cash (four $1 bills so not much) but also gift cards, and none of that stuff was taken, but his registration was taken?? It's very weird, but I'm glad it wasn't anything worse, plus he doesn't really keep anything very valuable in there anyway at least.

But then on the way out the engine was misfiring, so we had to stop at autozone so he could change out all his spark plugs out in the cold rain. It wasn't related to the break in though, he says last weekend he had the feeling he was going to need to change them out, turns out he was right.

So we're trying again next weekend, third time's a charm hopefully!

Yesterday was dnd day, curse of strahd more. and it went really well! I prepped two specific locations they were planning to go to and we didn't end up making it to either one lmao. they instead had a cookout by a lake where they invited a bunch of werewolves they made friends with & then went by this camp that had some closely guarded elves to break one out who they need to help & who may prove to be an ally. A random unplanned heist! They rolled really well though, surprisingly lol and they polymorphed their elf friend into a rat and just casually carried him out, easy as. Lucky for them, bc one bad roll could have really backfired so badly lmao and had a whole camp of people against them.

The two unengaged players are still unengaged and continue to further cement their not being invited back for future games status. We always plan our playing days in advance and it's always a Saturday, generally always in the same time slot. & suddenly on thursday they were like, of we forgot dnd was this weekend & bought movie tickets, can we start at 4 instead of 2? Which, fine, we've all done this. It's just how they consistently view dnd as like, the least important plan & if anything else comes up it's the first to go. But whatever, we reschedule.
then on saturday I'm working to plan & get everything put together & just after 2 one of them messages to be like "actually we're on our way home now can we start at 2:30". I want to know what they think I'm doing all day lmao just like, sitting idle waiting for them to appear so they can start doing this thing? Of course I told them no, we rescheduled and I've been planning for 4, but I can do a little bit earlier. If they were better players/people to play with I could be more flexible, but they're so consistently inconsiderate like that that I can't be bothered. I'm not some plan to be changed around at a whim based on your day. I'm a person who is putting a lot of work into making a world with characters and stories for you & you can't even bother to put in minimum effort

crochet continues! Here's what a box of 180 squares looks like, and I'm starting to piece it together too

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DND: Curse of Strahd recap 2 - Village of Barovia

2023-12-01T20:54:42Z

3/10/23
So after the events at the death house and still reeling from the shock of Lord Bane's death and transformation into a woman and knowing that there will never be an explanation for that happening, the newly united group wanders onward, away from the house and toward a small village they see just nearby.

The weather is cool and misty, lingering fog visible on the outskirts. It's clear that it's late day outside, but it's so overcast and grey there is no trace of sun to be seen. The muddy path transitions into an old cobblestone road as they follow it into the village. The village itself seems... deserted. There are some signs of life, some of the houses have flicking candlelight visible through the windows and as they enter into the village the sound of distant crying can be heard.

A warm looking tavern comes into view, flickering fireplace light in the windows and smoke from the chimney. They let themselves in and order from the quietly absent bartender. The tavern isn't exactly bustling. There's a man sat alone at the bar, and three women share a table near the door. Off to one side is a bard quietly playing a lute who looks like he doesn't really fit in with this locale...

( Read more... )

On the way to Ismark's mansion, they heard the distant sound of a woman crying He told them it was Mad Mary, who has been crying like that for the past several days. This is a side plot hook they could have looked into - Mary's daughter has been taken by Strahd and is in his castle, preparing to join his group of brides. They asked why Ismark hasn't helped her, and he explained he's been busy with personal dramas (his father, the attacks) and they didn't investigate further.

I remember having an annoyance bc I really wanted them, for this first real game session to hit that point at the encampment and meet madame eva who will give them a card reading that is pivotal to the entire game and the entire plot and as they approach I felt like I was pretty clearly building toward wrapping up the game & one of the bad players interrupted to be like "I think we should quit soon" & I was like, yeah........... I'm building up to the end point..... like it was so mild but I was Annoyed lol

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DND: Curse of Strahd recap 1 - Death House

2023-11-27T19:06:14Z

So I've been playing dnd since 2016/17ish and in that time was dm for a handful of encounters and oneshots to try things out. During the depths of covid I got into dming curse of strahd for a group of new players where we initially started out playing old school RP forum style with text based, but for a bunch of reasons that group fell apart. A bummer bc I had an absolutely delicious twist laid out for several of the players based on their backstory that I simply won't get to ever use now lol (I'll share it at the end of this post)

Anyway I've since started dming curse of strahd for a different group of friends I've known longer and are generally more stable (not mentally i mean like, relationship wise) & I want to recap those in a more narrative style than my hastily written notes in my campaign notebook. Note that there are full spoilers in here if you ever plan to play this game.

So here's the story of the Death House! (from 2/17/23 and 2/24/23)
( Read more... )

I have some thoughts about Poppy, but I'll bring those up later in another update I make, this one is beyond long enough & I'm sure no one will read it anyway but since I'm writing it mostly for myself, it'll be good to brainstorm a little bit....

So about those twists I had in mind for the first group of CoS that has long since dissolved.
PC1's father abandoned them with their mother and left them destitute. Driven to desperation, their uncle (iirc) killed their mother and cannibalized her. PC1 killed their uncle in revenge & is out to do the same to their father, who they blame for the entire thing.

PC2 was raised with a sister by parents who were collectors of rare items. In childhood, their house was broken into for a robbery and her sister was killed when she fought back. The killers fled and were never seen again.

CoS is kind of uniquely difficult to work in character backstories because Barovia exists in sort of a pocket dimension in a way, cursed land long since separated from the greater continent. There are a handful of NPCs who are plot-important, but also relatively easy to assign your own needs to if you want.

Kasimir is one of only a handful of wood elves left in Barovia, treated poorly and borderline held hostage because of a complicated history with Strahd directly. I rewrote this history a bit so that, when my players met him, things were roughly the same as written in the book. He wants to resurrect his sister and needs help gaining entrance to the Amber Temple to do so.

In the process of gaining their trust, it comes to light that he used to be able to leave the land of Barovia, but after he got caught having an affair out in the world that privilege was taken away from him violently. He had a family he loved and he regrets that he doesn't get to see them. His child must barely remember him now blah blah blah. It wouldn't take a particularly high insight to spot that he looks a bit similar to PC2. He didn't abandon them, he was stolen away from them.

Ideally this wins some sympathy. It's entirely possible PC2 isn't swayed and is driven so wild by a need for revenge they kill him anyway, but I don't think that's how it would have gone. I wanted them to bond and find interest in him on the way to Amber Temple, which is a long hike up into freezing mountains.

Again, ideally, along the way they get to talking about themselves & Kasimir mentions his own burdened past. He isn't just out to resurrect his sister, he wants to atone. He is one (of many) who killed her (she had an affair with Strahd). It's one of his many mistakes. In his time of freedom in and out of Barovia, he was working with the Vistani, who ultimately work for Strahd. He's not proud of this. He conned people, robbed from them. He even broke into a house once and, by accident he swears, killed a little girl when she attacked him. Yep! PC1's sister.

It takes a lot of things lining up so perfectly for this idea to come out the way I hoped, but now it never will because that group doesn't play anymore lmao. But I was proud of this one!

Anyway I'm writing this during the work day when I should most certainly be working on both my job and also my classwork o well o well

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end of semester crazies

2023-11-27T04:07:05Z

I was going to make a long post of crochet pattern dumps of patterns I want to make like I did with the quilting ones, but I realized I generally save the patterns as a PDF on my desktop anyway. Might share the lineup of next in lines though just for fun. I bought my first clothing pattern this weekend I wanna try out which I've never done before.

Also got to chatting with my family. We used to go all out for a halloween party every year with themes, hand crafted decorations, food all made by us, costumes all out and everything. We haven't since covid, first bc of covid obviously but since then bc we've just been too lazy to go that hard. On top of wanting to avoid the conflicts caused by not inviting specific family members we don't want to see.

We still might not do the full party next year, but we do want to go full theme on the decorations outside though so I gotta start planning like.... now. I gotta make a full ass enoch from otgw for a maypole outside. I know how I'm gonna do it in theory I just... have to make sure it'll work.

I have 2-3 weeks of the semester left & I'm goin NUTS. Two papers to write I'm trudging through, a presentation this week and another one next week. Thankfully next week's isn't actually graded, just a sharing of the info we've found, but I've been so caught up on this week's (which is graded) I've barely looked at it. I took a vacation day this week tho so I can just not think about work for a full day & get stuff done. I was at my parents' this weekend for the holiday & it's so hard to work there on school stuff

I have dnd tomorrow (as a player, with the dingbats) which I'm looking forward to a lot as a brief break away from all the work I've been swallowed up in. I have hardly played any video games since idk September? I wanna CHILL. I think the dnd game I've been running might be my next sort of storage update here, a recap of our progress & plot so far & some of my thoughts & plans.....

anyway thank god i have enough cbd gummies to last me until winter break

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