I may just have to accept that I don't have the attention span to journal the way that I used to. I will be the type that disappears, reemerges, disappears, reemerges... but I do enjoy my time here. :) It's not a chore at all.
Oh! It looks like I only was gone for 20 days, though -- that's not so bad. Really, life has just been a continuation + a realization.
The continuation part:
Still a lot of Twitter, kanji study, digital and traditional artwork (like I'm actually surprised my art supplies are being used again.) I got back to my sewing machine and actually finished a great majority of one of my Kurama cosplay costumes!
Crazy to think this is a 90% clothes cosplay, and I have no wig or contacts, even if the over-exposure made me look radioactive? ahaha Anyway, the costume: it's a Chinese dress that was altered and added trimming. It took a few weeks to finish, and I kept getting headaches + having my ongoing fatigue problem. So, with all complicated projects, I have to chip away with patience and forgiveness to myself. There are pictures of my Kurama taken with my Canon Rebel t5i (which Twitter & Tumblr have enjoyed! Bless them!) but I think I will save posting about that for another time soon. My friend Evie has agreed to take some photos of me this weekend, outside! Amongst the flowersssss. God, I hope those turn out well. I don't know how well she handles a camera and I'm nervous about going outside and been seen in my cosplays! lol
Anyhooooo, all the Japan peeps had their Yuuhaku Only event which seems to have been epic and geeky. All the Yu Yu Hakusho love. <3 <3 <3 Tomoko went alone and was nervous about it, but it turned out she had a lot of fun and seems to be devising a possible comic she can share at the next event (in November.) She also made some nice acquaintances, it looks like, which is good because I was starting to worry that she was living kind of isolated, despite wanting to make friends. She's so sweet.
Her manner online and in person is so different, though. I lost my shit when she posted a little video the other day. She is supposed to be 40 next month, looks and sounds like a brooding 16-year-old boy, and has a pretty flat speaking style, yet online her communication style is so warm and bombastic. I tagged her the other day in a post and it was like she'd crashed through a window so we could spray heart emojis at each other. ;DDD
Also, I sent her back a package, yesterday! For ridiculous shipping prices that I don't want to talk about! It cost her the equivalent of $2 to ship me a small package through Japanese services -- that is not what it cost me through greedy American services, let's leave it there.
She was trying to ask me about it last night, though, and after a long day working and having to do adult things (EW, post offices and grocery stores!) I found that I just didn't have the vocabulary to explain details about shipping / looking for shipping, and it lead to a little snag in an otherwise good conversation. My foreign language skills and ability to react just go down the drain if I'm not energized, so I told her I could sense how limited my responses seemed (although she disagreed and seems to always understand me!) I also said that it was frustrating, to be thinking a lot of stuff in English that I can't yet convey in Japanese. As a writer, I don't like pruning my thoughts down to nubs: I like to be on-point, detailed, nuanced, etc. She kind of took it as maybe I wished my Twitter friends could just speak English, and told me that she wondered what it could be like if she could speak English, and I was like "nooo no noooo, the last thing I want to do is speak English with my Japanese friends." The fact that I can't is why I've grown, I just want to grow faster and communicate at higher levels. I don't want her to feel like she's talking to a child. It's also gnawing at me a bit that I can understand a lot more than I can say, yet I'm not retaining grammatical structures that make sense while reading so I can use them for myself. Do intelligent people retain more of this by now?
Otherwise the night was really good. My mom and I nearly fell asleep watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She just HAD to know what happened past the cliff-hangers so before we knew it we had watched four episodes past her bedtime. Meanwhile, I had a matcha latte and sushi for dinner. ;D That was fun.
So yeah, that's the continuation part. But I've got two sections to my life: my actual life and work. And yeah, I don't see my work as part of my life. It's like my life is on hold there; it's a significant chunk of time I wish I could sleep through or otherwise fast forward.
The realization part:
I don't want to keep doing what I'm doing, the way I'm doing it. Time has already slipped by since I graduated. I'm getting complacent living what would be my worst nightmare back when I was younger. I hella respect people who are in food service, and I understand that for some it is very meaningful to work with food and people, but that's not me. What I care about and am good at it isn't being nurtured at work, it's just mind-numbingly boring, to the point I'm sneaking my tablet into the department so I can play Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery in between tasks. I only really look forward to a few social interactions.
After a particularly frustrating shift that started with migraine auras, I sat down and did the math. I have recently gotten a raise, and I wondered what I would be making if I worked only four days a week. My mother decided out of the blue that she wanted to pay back the rest of one of my loans which had a very high interest rate. I had also been hearing from coworkers that they would be all about it if I started an art blog, that they had shown people my art who were interested in commissioning me if I ever was open to it... I came to find that after all of that I could work four days a week and only need to earn an extra $60 a month in supplement income. I've made more than that doing a single illustration.
So I asked for four days! They made sure to warn me the hours I give up might not be available again if I change my mind (which I question because of the turn-out rate in our department recently), but whatever, I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I'm ready to blow my brains out, here. Anyone I've talked to about this thinks it's a good idea. Al and I already brainstormed little business cards and having a corresponding portfolio website.
It's my only little way of doing something I love for a living. No film studio will hire me even to make coffee runs. My BA with honors is meaningless. I'm too tired to finish this bloody book because by the time I've rested and run errands on my weekends, it's back to the work week.
Man, I talk a lot. There's the scoop. I will let ya'll know if my request is actually granted soon on the new schedules.
ALSO, I NEED TO MAKE AN ART POST?
-J
Oh! It looks like I only was gone for 20 days, though -- that's not so bad. Really, life has just been a continuation + a realization.
The continuation part:
Still a lot of Twitter, kanji study, digital and traditional artwork (like I'm actually surprised my art supplies are being used again.) I got back to my sewing machine and actually finished a great majority of one of my Kurama cosplay costumes!
(Low quality snapshots for now)
Crazy to think this is a 90% clothes cosplay, and I have no wig or contacts, even if the over-exposure made me look radioactive? ahaha Anyway, the costume: it's a Chinese dress that was altered and added trimming. It took a few weeks to finish, and I kept getting headaches + having my ongoing fatigue problem. So, with all complicated projects, I have to chip away with patience and forgiveness to myself. There are pictures of my Kurama taken with my Canon Rebel t5i (which Twitter & Tumblr have enjoyed! Bless them!) but I think I will save posting about that for another time soon. My friend Evie has agreed to take some photos of me this weekend, outside! Amongst the flowersssss. God, I hope those turn out well. I don't know how well she handles a camera and I'm nervous about going outside and been seen in my cosplays! lol
Anyhooooo, all the Japan peeps had their Yuuhaku Only event which seems to have been epic and geeky. All the Yu Yu Hakusho love. <3 <3 <3 Tomoko went alone and was nervous about it, but it turned out she had a lot of fun and seems to be devising a possible comic she can share at the next event (in November.) She also made some nice acquaintances, it looks like, which is good because I was starting to worry that she was living kind of isolated, despite wanting to make friends. She's so sweet.
Her manner online and in person is so different, though. I lost my shit when she posted a little video the other day. She is supposed to be 40 next month, looks and sounds like a brooding 16-year-old boy, and has a pretty flat speaking style, yet online her communication style is so warm and bombastic. I tagged her the other day in a post and it was like she'd crashed through a window so we could spray heart emojis at each other. ;DDD
Also, I sent her back a package, yesterday! For ridiculous shipping prices that I don't want to talk about! It cost her the equivalent of $2 to ship me a small package through Japanese services -- that is not what it cost me through greedy American services, let's leave it there.
She was trying to ask me about it last night, though, and after a long day working and having to do adult things (EW, post offices and grocery stores!) I found that I just didn't have the vocabulary to explain details about shipping / looking for shipping, and it lead to a little snag in an otherwise good conversation. My foreign language skills and ability to react just go down the drain if I'm not energized, so I told her I could sense how limited my responses seemed (although she disagreed and seems to always understand me!) I also said that it was frustrating, to be thinking a lot of stuff in English that I can't yet convey in Japanese. As a writer, I don't like pruning my thoughts down to nubs: I like to be on-point, detailed, nuanced, etc. She kind of took it as maybe I wished my Twitter friends could just speak English, and told me that she wondered what it could be like if she could speak English, and I was like "nooo no noooo, the last thing I want to do is speak English with my Japanese friends." The fact that I can't is why I've grown, I just want to grow faster and communicate at higher levels. I don't want her to feel like she's talking to a child. It's also gnawing at me a bit that I can understand a lot more than I can say, yet I'm not retaining grammatical structures that make sense while reading so I can use them for myself. Do intelligent people retain more of this by now?
Otherwise the night was really good. My mom and I nearly fell asleep watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She just HAD to know what happened past the cliff-hangers so before we knew it we had watched four episodes past her bedtime. Meanwhile, I had a matcha latte and sushi for dinner. ;D That was fun.
So yeah, that's the continuation part. But I've got two sections to my life: my actual life and work. And yeah, I don't see my work as part of my life. It's like my life is on hold there; it's a significant chunk of time I wish I could sleep through or otherwise fast forward.
The realization part:
I don't want to keep doing what I'm doing, the way I'm doing it. Time has already slipped by since I graduated. I'm getting complacent living what would be my worst nightmare back when I was younger. I hella respect people who are in food service, and I understand that for some it is very meaningful to work with food and people, but that's not me. What I care about and am good at it isn't being nurtured at work, it's just mind-numbingly boring, to the point I'm sneaking my tablet into the department so I can play Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery in between tasks. I only really look forward to a few social interactions.
After a particularly frustrating shift that started with migraine auras, I sat down and did the math. I have recently gotten a raise, and I wondered what I would be making if I worked only four days a week. My mother decided out of the blue that she wanted to pay back the rest of one of my loans which had a very high interest rate. I had also been hearing from coworkers that they would be all about it if I started an art blog, that they had shown people my art who were interested in commissioning me if I ever was open to it... I came to find that after all of that I could work four days a week and only need to earn an extra $60 a month in supplement income. I've made more than that doing a single illustration.
So I asked for four days! They made sure to warn me the hours I give up might not be available again if I change my mind (which I question because of the turn-out rate in our department recently), but whatever, I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I'm ready to blow my brains out, here. Anyone I've talked to about this thinks it's a good idea. Al and I already brainstormed little business cards and having a corresponding portfolio website.
It's my only little way of doing something I love for a living. No film studio will hire me even to make coffee runs. My BA with honors is meaningless. I'm too tired to finish this bloody book because by the time I've rested and run errands on my weekends, it's back to the work week.
Man, I talk a lot. There's the scoop. I will let ya'll know if my request is actually granted soon on the new schedules.
ALSO, I NEED TO MAKE AN ART POST?
-J
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