Diary
2025/08/23
I finished my summer internship near the beginning of this month. I'm kind of tired of revisiting it at this point (I had to write a paper about it and everyone older than me in my life constantly asks me about it), but I'll summarize by saying that it went well, and that I will have a job when I graduate. I'm pretty sure that I can put up with doing this type of job full-time.
After my internship was over, my fiance and I went on a trip to a nearby city. We mostly spent our time walking around, eating in restaurants, and shopping. It was almost unbearably hot for two of the days that we were there, and we had elected to stay in a university dorm because hotel and airbnb prices are insane, so we suffered without AC. We still had fun, though. We ate breakfast twice at this amazing traditional English breakfast restaurant, got ramen and Indian food, and managed to eat some actually good pizza (all the pizza places around where we live suck). We went to a museum, and had fun walking around the downtown area and the boardwalk. I found a few nice souvenirs for myself, too.
Things I bought on my trip:
- Latios Banpresto plushie from the Japanese import store: Latios has long been one of my favourite Pokemon, so seeing a plush in the wild was exciting and made me want to take it home. The consequence of this is that I now want a Latias plush to go with it.
- Manga - I Wanna Be Your Girl by Umi Takase, Volume 1, from the bookstore: A romance manga about a trans girl and her best friend starting high school. I've finished reading this one; it was alright, and the characters are cute, but I think I got tricked by the trans representation into buying a manga that doesn't have the best writing or art. The story is kind of Trans 101 at points, which is fine, but I've already taken that course (lol). I'm not really into melodramatic high school stories anymore as someone who is approaching 30, so this was a bit of a dumb purchase on my part. I think working toward completing my Wandering Son collection would have been a better use of my money. We'll see if I end up buying the rest of the books; I might just read them online.
- Manga - Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou by Hitoshi Ashinano, Volumes 1 and 2, from the bookstore: A slice of life / sci-fi / iyashi kei" manga about a robot who runs a cafe in a quiet, peaceful post-apocalyptic Japan. The OVA adaptation of this series is gorgeous, so I wanted to read the manga. I've read the first one and half of the books, and they've been a relaxing read. I really like the artwork and the characters. Alpha is so cute and full of joy; I aim to love life and appreciate the little things as much as she does. This is a series that I definitely want in full on my shelf, so I'll be buying the three remaining volumes as soon as I'm able.
- Manga - A.I. Love You by Ken Akamatsu, Volumes 1 and 2, from the thrift store: I haven't started reading these yet, but they're apparently about a man who programs an artificial intelligence so well that they fall in love. Ignoring the fact that this is actually possible in the dystopia that we currently live in, this might still be a silly and fun read. This is from the same author as Love Hina, a harem manga that I used to hate as a teenager, but I'm a bit more laid back now and am willing to try it out. I also just really like thrifting manga.
- Pokemon figures from the thrift store: TOMY figures from the 90s and a Burger King toy of Charmander. My fiance and I collect these old airbrushed Pokemon toys. They're way overpriced online, so it was cool to find these for less than $2 each.
- Japanese candy from the novelty candy store: I've eaten it all already, but I kept the plastic containers for now because they're pretty. It tasted really good, so I'm sad I can't get them locally.
- I also bought a Nendoroid but I forgot to include it in the picture.
Yes, I realize that this shopping haul makes me look like a weeb.
School is starting up soon and I feel like I didn't get to do as much drawing, webcrafting, or writing as I wanted to this summer. Oh well...
Until next time.
2025/07/07
Today I went for a really nice walk with my fiance in the woods. We noticed some old folks crouched over on the side of the path. Once we rounded the corner we realized they were picking some wild strawberries. It's wild strawberry season now, and I have been picking a few whenever I see them and snacking on them. We found another patch a short ways down the path from the old people, tried one each, and decided they weren't ripe enough. I told my fiance I thought the old folks were German tourists, since I apparently thought I heard them speaking German, but I don't remember anymore. Near the end of our walk we found another patch of strawberries; this one had plenty of big, ripe ones, so we snacked on one or two before continuing on our way. Then we went to the grocery store and bough some local cultivated ones.
A man at work seemed to laugh a little at the implication that I might be burnt out, like, "what, you're only a summer student and you're already burnt out?" How quick we are to dismiss others' fatigue (I'm guilty of this too, but it still sucks). What I really said to him was that I'd been doing a lot outside of work and I didn't make any plans for Canada Day because I felt I needed to rest. To be honest, I always feel like I need to rest lately. My fiance thinks I have sleep apnea. Well, I'm overweight and have a deviated septum, so that sounds right. I'm sure the doctors won't let me have surgery unless I lose a ton of weight first, which I don't feel like I have the energy to do because I work all day and don't get a good sleep... and my living situation is a little... anyway, see the problem?
I watched Arrietty while drawing a revenge for Art Fight and cried at the end, then watched When Marnie Was There and cried for nearly the entire film.
Until next time.
2025/07/04
I had a dream where I was a transgender male wizard in a kind of virtual space that I was trying to escape. I found a dormouse/hamster-like creature and reached out to it. It sweetly crawled into my hands and snuggled against my palm. It was fluffy and had big, round, sparkly eyes. Unfortunately I also had a cat familiar on my shoulder, a lean brown-furred cat with green eyes. At the first opportunity, my cat reached down and bit my dormouse in half. I ranted and raved at the cat, trying to force it to throw up, but when it finally did it was too late, not even my wizard powers could save the poor dormouse.
At that point I think I either woke up or my dream moved on to another topic.
Until next time.
2025/05/15
Wow, it's been nearly a year since I've written a public diary entry...
Needless to say, I have been busy, but not with anything interesting enough to write a diary entry about!
Since we spoke last I completed my 2024 summer internship that I wrote about in my previous journal entry, did two semesters of school, and took on part-time work at the same office where I worked last summer while studying. Now my life just feels like work-study, work-study-chores, eat, sleep, shit, do laundry, cook, repeat. Not to mention the fact that I'm getting ready to move house in a little under a month.
Last summer, both my cats passed away. They were both pretty old dudes; one was 19 and the other was 21. They were around for most of my life so it's weird and sad not having cats anymore. I miss them a lot. I have been considering making a webpage with their photos so I have something on here to remember them by.
I just finished my third year of my degree and am at the end of the second week of this year's spring-summer internship. This is at a company that I have had my eye on for awhile; they will pay for some of my courses and certifications in the industry I'm going into, so I want to get hired by them once I graduate. The job itself is fine so far, even though I feel like I don't know how to do anything yet. Most of my coworkers seem generally nice or at least civil, but there's that high-school-like vibe of judgement that seems typical of office culture. We'll see how it goes, and if I end up hating it, well, it's only for the summer.
Enough of the depressing stuff! It's spring! I am starting to see a higher number of cool bugs when I go outside! There is colour in the world again and I feel somewhat alive!
Desires for summer: I wanna revamp the original characters section of my website and give all my guys detailed profile pages. I also want to write more in here because it makes me feel happy or at least like I've accomplished something. I want to swim and go for a lot of walks and maybe ride my bike for once. I want to draw some personal art pieces and sell the rest of the characters I designed for my gacha. I want to stop giving a shit about what people think about me because the majority of them don't think much in general anyway. This ties into the fact that I want to stop having external validation be a factor when I make art. I no longer care if my stuff is good!! If I die before I write a comic or a book what is the point of any of this shit!!
So I guess an unoriginal, rough, derivative work might be coming down the pipeline. Maybe something will finally show up on my "writing" webpage after 2 years of having it.
I also want to show even more of my art on here. Even old and bad stuff. So the site will continue to expand and become more full, and I will keep trying to improve at coding and hopefully finally lock in and learn javascript in a way that matters...
Until next time.
