areolas

Can't believe I haven't posted in so long, but at the same time I think it tracks. I've been busy in general and haven't had the mental energy to spare for journaling.

Next week i have my final project presentation for my class (a dnd linguistic analysis project) and then ~2 weeks after that is the final due date. Today I registered for my final class of grad school!!!!! Mostly I am just SO ready to be done even if I have 0 plans for after

Anyway the past few months I've been having weird pre-period spotting like consistently 10 days before my period and intermittently up to my period starting. It happened in like May and I saw my gp about it who said it happens and don't worry about it. But it happened again now in Feb and now in April like consistently and more bleeding and for way too long.

I made the appointment today to see a gyno for a smear and a checkup bc I've been very bad and actually have never gone before... ever. It's not wise but I have no concerning family history and I'm ace so it's not like I've been worried about a lot of the sexual concerns obv. But still I should have been going. I'm only finally taking medical responsibility for myself after neglecting to for....... my entire 20s.

Anyway I have to get it out because I have to be able to focus on other things until my appointment.

I did some googling (bad!) and I'm trying very hard to not spend the weeks leading up to my appointment convincing myself it's cervical cancer but I mean it's a very real possibility. I know it's much much much more likely just like, hormonal changes of hitting mid 30s, perimenopause?????, maybe polyps? endometriosis? stress even?

idk it's highly unlikely it's cervical cancer and I just have to keep reminding myself of that. Or if it is, hopefully it's early. hopefully they can just take out the whole ute and leave it at that, i aint using it. she's brought me nothing but unpleasantness anyway.

appointment on the 22nd, results hopefully soon after that. I'll drop by with how that all goes, I guess!

oh YEAH ALSO im pretty sure i can feel my mouth trying to produce another salivary gland stone which is painful and unfun and wack so im very much looking forward to that finally happening

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.

Having some serious frustrations and it's putting me in a cranky, defeated sort of place. I don't even know WHY which I think only adds to the frustration making it worse.

I worked on my homework, python coding stuff making a program produce a word count using dictionaries, something I learned about the existence and basics of 12 hours ago total. I just feel like I can't do it on my own and if I can't do it on my own why am I bothering to study it? I found the answer I needed to work out what I need to do, doubted it, only half did it and it didn't work. I asked Tony for help & it was the right answer after all & I just didn't implement it correctly.
I know it's just... this is something I learned about the existence of THIS morning and of course I wouldn't understand the full capabilities and functions of it in order to do my homework tonight but I couldn't help like throw a fit about it. I just need to be kinder and gentler to myself and understand it's not easy. Hold myself to the standards I would hold someone else.

I'm frustrated about my midterm grade, work, the fact I'm getting this degree and I don't know what my job goals are once I'm done. I guess it's that same unmoored feeling you get when you're about to graduate high school and undergrad where you don't know what's next.

Anyway I fell in a big slump tonight and idk. I guess I'm kind of still there. Maybe after a good night's sleep it'll pass. I'll get up tomorrow and have a good breakfast. I don't want to go to my lab at all, my TA makes me insane, but whatever. I'll go. I think just having 0 break from school since last summer is really..... wearing me down a little.

Going home this weekend & also feeling mixed about it. Not that I don't want to, it's just a pain to pack the cat up and she hates being at the parents' house so bad. We're going up into the mountains though for a cookout, hang out by the water etc. I'll feel bad leaving the cat alone all day, but she'll survive. Sunday we'll be swimming & I think that'll be nice and refreshing. I hope!

Writing this helped clear my mind a little bit :) I'll be fine

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.

It's steam's spring sale. I bought a couple of games & tried a demo of another, I haven't liked any of them & returned them all.
Pathologic is supposed to be a classic & I was getting the essence of something interesting, but the gameplay was unpleasant enough I couldn't get past it to keep going. Pathologic 2 is supposed to be less of a sequel and more of a reboot of the game, so maybe I'll try that instead, but not just now. I'm too sick of trying new games and not liking them to be bothered.
Also tried Fear & Hunger which I've heard is good but is one of those I'd need to read like a whole encyclopedia about while playing & idk, that's not something I feel like doing right now either. The environment was kind of interesting?

I got Card Shark, a game set in like 1500s France where you're going around cheating people out of money with various card cons lol. I got to play a card game against Voltaire & I do actually quite like that one!

Otherwise I'm having a good long weekend. Sewed more of my costume a bit & did some cleaning. I'm crocheting some bluebells cause I've finally started my gallery wall & I wanted a little vase thing with some little bluebells in there. I took some inspiration from some of the houses in dishonored 2 actually... some kinda creepy dark arts, framed butterflies (responsibly bought, I promise), these little bluebells, and a cross stitch I've been working on a while.

Anyway I'm gonna work a little bit on some classwork a bit I guess. I don't want to but I have an exam next week and I missed those classes so.... I gotta. I talked to a classmate of mine yesterday, we met for coffee to hang out & she had this same class as me & had similar thoughts to it as I do. It's not taught in a way that connects with me and the paper exams don't make any sense.... but! it is what it is and I have to work around it. Being cranky about it won't make it change.

Still haven't gotten any results toward registering for this summer class. This coming week is going to be me doing everything I can to get that sorted with my advisor and the department. It's also.... very irritating

I had my first test in my class last Thursday & it was weird I guess. It was a test about writing code but it was an on paper test. I went into it irritated because it's like......... in real life if I'm writing code in my program where i write it and I forget a comma or a bracket or whatever, when I hit enter it won't run. I'll know I did something wrong. I can re-look it over and correct it lol so like...... why do I have to prove that I can write it out on paper.

Idk so I went into it with an attitude in general which is a problem with me and no one else but I'm fine with that. Anyway class was canceled yesterday bc my professor had a sore throat (which i love and respect, people who show up under the weather in this 2024 world are my enemy) but we got grades back & I got an 85. In line with the class average she reported but my first grad school B!!!!!!! It was bound to happen. A B is still good of course I'm not crying and throwing a fit but it's annoying to be given a test I think is stupid and then get a B on it.

Starting next week a new girl is starting in our department. There's a shortage of desks & I have the fewest days required in office so I'm desk sharing with her on our alternating days. All that means I had to really clean up my desk space bc I was really sloppy and willy nilly about leaving paper and whatever spread all over it. Nothing dirty or anything like that, just receipts and invoices and stuff I hadn't gotten to. I tidied all up and am getting more organized... in my physical space at least.

A while ago I bought this really nice art book someone put together on like nice sturdy watercolor paper with this beautiful pre-drawn line art on it that I haven't painted in even remotely bc it's too scary & the pressure is too high. I realized this week I can probably find some nice watercolor brushes on procreate, scan the pages, & paint them digitally to find what I like & then paint them irl with some pressure lifted. They scanned really well! I'm excited to give the digital painting a go.

after a quiet holiday & and insanely UNquiet return to work I think things are finally beginning to return to a kind of normal.... My inbox as of Thursday was pretty reasonable, and I only have a couple of things I had to leave neglected to work on others instead of an entire handful of things. We really only just today got the apartment back in order, all the christmas stuff put away and cleaned everything.

I took Friday off since my birthday is on a Wednesday next week & I didn't want to take off in the middle of the week. Monday's a holiday, so I just gave myself a nice long weekend and two 4 day weeks in a row instead, it's been SO nice.

33 next week! I feel no particular way about it, but it is weird. It's weird to get into ages I remember my parents being, and like ages where, when they were 33, I was a teenager. My older sister was practically done with high school! They were maniacs having kids as young as they did lmao.

School started back up. I only have on class this semester and I'm feeling mixed about it. I don't think it will be very hard, it's about 50/50 grad and undergrad classmates, and the syllabus looks more or less similar to the stuff I was doing last semester. On the other hand, the pace feels a bit slow and there's no homework and I know that if I allow myself to lull into any kind of boredom it's a very slippery slope. If it's too unchallenging I'll get so bored.

This week I finished the Summer 2022 quilt-along from that local(ish) quilt store lol. Well.... I lost the final page of instructions on putting it all together so I didn't do anything fancy and just sewed the squares as they were. It looks kinda wacky, color wise, and it's kind of small. I sandwiched it up and I'm gonna do the quilting and just leave it quite small. Maybe I'll leave it around for fennec to lay on.

Just finished up concluding my second paper of the two and with it being due tomorrow I'm gonna take the night & look at it tomorrow morning at work with some refreshed eyes before just turning it in. He's a very tough grader so idk what to expect, but if I get a B it is what it is. I specifically aimed to not care in grad school about grades as much as I did in undergrad, you still get the masters at the end either way! and I've never once had anyone ask or care about my undergrad GPA! I know it doesn't really make a difference.

BUT it also just turns out that so far I've gotten only As in my classes and it's really easy to get into a mindset of wanting to maintain that. I'm okay about reminding myself though I think. I'm doing this because I want to above all else, and because I really love linguistics.

i'm just glad to have another semester out of the way, I'm officially halfway done with my full program now!!

Anyway, I stressedly made this while I was writing this paper and I got it done so fast as a result.

It's a little plastic shopping bag holder/dispenser with a ponytail holder at the bottom. I think I'm gonna try some kind of granny square bag or sweater next. I want to keep making things but I don't need more things. There's always room for more sweaters though! Thing is I also don't tend to buy the expensive good yarn either... idk! I just wanna keep making. maybe now the semester is over I can get back into my quilt wips

Just stopping in bc it's been a minute... I've been chipping away at a second post from my dnd campaign retelling but it's been slow going since I'm also writing final papers for my classes. It's been fun though, looking back on games we played almost a year ago.

Classes are winding down, I've still had to go in twice a week but both classes are just on final presentations now so it's been a nice break to not have to read and prepare a bunch of stuff. I get to present today on the data research methods used in 3 language attitude studies carried out in hong kong. Super interesting stuff & it's fun bc one of the papers I picked I only belatedly realized has really bad data reporting so I get to go in and be like THIS IS BAD.

Then 2 of 4 deadlines are out of the way.

First paper is almost done, I'll wrap that up today for sure. Second paper is a mess...

It did make me think about going back to hong kong... I only ever went for about a week, I think I'd like to do something a little bit longer maybe. No structure really, just show up and explore around, take the ferry and stuff. If it's still like it was in 2015 I shouldn't need a visa, a US passport gets you entry for 3 months. Or it did back then. I'm thinking about doing it as a graduation trip. I was in the middle of some big plans to go to HK and China in 2020 and you can safely guess correctly that those plans didn't end up happening.

I want to freakin sew and I want to crochet. I want to paint. I want to play video games!!! and dnd!!!!!
Game awards are tonight & there's a rumor growing that there's gonna be a dishonored 3 announcement.

Gotta get a picture of my cat laying cutely under the christmas tree to share

it's finals season again babey and I'm swimming in the depths of it so bad.

It's only 2 term papers and 2 presentations to go along with them, but when you write at the pace I do it's real agony. Thankfully the topics I'm working on are genuinely super interesting. I loved the reading & researching portion lol it's the digesting and writing about them comprehensively part I'm struggling with.

My first presentation is tomorrow, talking about nonbinary/gender neutral approach to language that has been developing in France. I just want to rush ahead to it now and get it out of the way. My second presentation (next week) isn't actually part of my grade, it's just a chance to discuss with my class what I've found in my research, so I'm way less concerned about it. After that it's just about writing and writing.

After Dec 12th I'm FREE. I can go back to playing video games & get to work on some bigger crafty projects I want to work on. I'm so excited to be done omg. I have written out some week by week writing goals so I can be sure I'm keeping up with everything. With some carefully planned breaks so I don't turn into the shining.

Thankfully my period seems to be arriving today and not tomorrow on presentation day. Here's hoping I won't spend my presentation hours agonizing.

Anyway here's an update of what my little christmas lights are looking like:

they are really laughably NOT remotely the same size as each other bc of different yarns but that's alright