~arisotura@TTBP

24 november 2021

well.

feeling tired these days. winter and shitty weather aren't helping, either.

this also makes it easier for my insecurities to resurface, so... yeah.

I'm rebuilding my old desktop from circa-2010, and I'm nearly done with it

it's in the state it was in in 2016. it's also quite decent, I upgraded the RAM and it should be good to go with a new OS.

well.

at this point we also have to give an update on the synesthesia saga

I mentioned feeling sound in my body, and that's not going away. it's even evolving.

it's like my brain is going for some 'sound through all 5 senses' achievement or something.

anyway, the vibrations I feel are less intense, but now it also does temperatures: I sometimes get sensations of cold around my fingers, for example.

I also taste sound, it produces sensations on specific spots of my tongue that have nondescript, generally metallic tastes. weird.

I also feel that sound induces faint perturbation in my visual field, can't really make out any colors or shapes though.

oh well. we'll see how all this evolves, I guess.

noticing that these synesthesias are all induced by sound

I don't know why it's happening to me now specifically, but this may have to do with the fact my brain has a particular relationship to sound

for example: my memory is more auditive than visual. I'm not so good at visualizing or remembering graphical things, but sounds can stick in my mind with remarkable accuracy.

my brain also likes to associate sounds to words, ideas, etc... sometimes it's a mess. I pretty much always have some music or sound playing in my head.

another fun example: a while ago, I was thinking of my grandparents' house, and as I visualized the place, various typical sounds of that place came to my mind.

places also get sounds associated to them. for my current apartment, that is the regular sound the electricity meter makes as it spins, as well as the sound when opening the door.

I am also sensitive to noise, and have trouble following a conversation when there is concurrent sound (other conversations, music, ...). this prolly comes from being neuroatypical though -- I tend to be sensitive in all senses, not just sound. it's, well, like my senses are working too well.

well, I ran out of steam for tonight I guess.

14 november 2021

posting from my parents' home.

I'm here for, well, reasons.

the whole social workers shito is atleast getting somewhere. slowly, but, well...

I might be able to get started on an internship in January. we'll see how that goes, I guess.

somehow I gained another synesthesia. weird shit. I now feel sound.

well, atleast it's not unpleasant, even though I have seen it get intense at certain times. right now, there's mostly just the sound of the AC, and this gives me pleasant tingling in my thighs.

we'll see how long this lasts, I guess. it's not really showing signs of wanting to go away. however, it may be induced by drugs, seeing as it became more pronounced after my last high. but even then, that's weird. I know people who do much more weed than me, and other fun shit, and they aren't developing synesthesia left and right. I guess, already having synesthesia, I might be prone to this? shrug.

also, why only now? I have been doing weed edibles since February and none of this occured -- I would often get some form of sound-related synesthesia, but only while high.

I do them once a week, sometimes twice, but never more. I'm not even getting any tolerance. I don't think I'm abusing the drug, at a rate of about 1g/month.

oh well.

one reason why I do this is that weed helps me with depression, much more than the antidepressants I tried before.

if things are going to be this way, so be it, I guess. synesthesia weirds me out, but it doesn't prevent me from functioning, unlike depression.

the IIfx died. I'll see if I can find out what died... I'm suspecting either the ROM, the CPU, or the FPU...

we'll see.

15 october 2021

gonna keep this short, I'm absolutely tired

been getting appointments with social workers and all, so far it's been good

they genuinely want to help me find a job that suits me, and adapt to my neuroatypicalness, very refreshing

today they talked about a company that refills printer toners, builds batteries and telescopes and shit... fun shit. would be cool if I could be hired there.

friend L talked about going to a nightclub, but one with largely queer folk

I'm interested by the idea

plus, going out in some super feminine outfit could be nice

shrug.

I haven't been to nightclubs in forever, and not as a girl, so dunno how that would be

though I'm prolly safe if I go with friends

blarg

25 september 2021

hi

back before the trans shitshow, I lived right next to a pizza truck, and their pizzas were super good

then I had to move and all...

just yesterday I've been hanging around with these old friends, and they still live around that place, so we had to get pizzas

they're still as good! I got the egg-bacon one, which I really like.

was also nice to see these friends, too, it had been a while

I always have trouble with these things, thinking of all the people I should contact, but staying stuck in my routine and never actually doing it...

plus, I always have trouble with relationships in general. I have a hard time determining how strong the bonds are, how much people actually like me, I don't want to overestimate and then feel like an idiot... argl.

I've been talking with my relatives about synesthesia

it's said that it can be hereditary. and it turns out my sister has it, but my parents don't. go figure.

fun shit

I have a hard time keeping a train of thought for this, and not spreading over 5276323 other things

ADHD, huh.

I still haven't attempted to get a diagnosis for it. actually, I'm not sure whether I should go for ADHD or autism, given the overlap between the two, and given I exhibited traits of both when I was a kid. can't I go for some diagnosis that covers both, and they determine what I actually have?

shrug.

I've been writing some code for melonDS lately, but (surprise) I hit a roadblock, and have been ADHDing around since.

the basic idea was to build a FAT image from a given folder, for example for DLDI. that task alone is easily accomplished with fatfs, but I also want it to be smarter: keeping track of which files need to be updated instead of rebuilding the whole thing, reflecting changes on the FAT image to the host folder, etc.

performance wise, it isn't really feasible to go and open all the files and compare the data. so instead I opted to check the last-modified dates against an index of sorts.

that's where shit is tricky.

I first went for the old POSIX API for dealing with the host filesystem. all good and nice, except Windows doesn't have stat(), so that sucks.

I figured an alternative would be using std::filesystem. nice and all, plus there's already a recursive folder iterator, just what I need.

yeah except now the 'last modified time' for a file is returned as some obscure modern-C++ type, and I don't know how to deal with that -- how to turn it into something that can be stored in a file, and more importantly, how to read a value from a file and turn it back into that type, without it explding if the value isn't right.

that's exactly why I don't like modern C++. suddenly everything is some obscure magical black-box, and things explode in really obscure and weird ways if you don't do your things the right way. modern C++ tries hard to become a high-level language, but it can't really escape its low-level roots.

I prefer lower-level code anyway. I like knowing what it does at the machine level, even moreso when the code in question is performance-critical.

blarg.

17 september 2021

hey, blorg. long time no see.

truthfully, there hasn't been a lot going on in my life these days. atleast, nothing really noteworthy.

however: I did get the result for my gender change hearing, and it's positive!

the last big step of my transition is done, finally. I have yet to take care of some details, but there should be no major roadblock at this point.

the process has even been smoother than expected, for example my SSN has been updated without even having to request it.

(first digit of a French SSN reflects your gender, that is why it has to be updated)

tbh, most of the time this took was just waiting for things. changing your gender marker in France requires sending a request to your local court. you're then scheduled for a hearing, which takes 4 months or more. then after that, in my case it took them two more months to take their decision. add to this the time for you to receive the decision letter, date from which you get a 15-day delay for appealing the decision, then another 15 days for the decision to actually be applied. yeah well, takes a while.

this means I can try and get a job that hopefully doesn't suck. I still expect it to be a shitshow, but atleast I'm less likely to be discriminated against for being trans.

plus, I now have social workers who seem actually competent, which is pleasure. unlike some of the previous ones who try to tell you that '350€/mo isn't a lot but you can live on it', which, lol.

a job I would enjoy would be repairing things -- computers, electronic shito, or even appliances. not only because I enjoy that sort of work, but also because reusing and repairing things is going to be essential if we want to build a better world, rather than buying new things and throwing things away all the damn time.

otherwise, there's the avenue of being a coder, but I'm not sure how much I would enjoy that in a corporate setting.

I also did renovation work before the covid shitfest -- all sorts of shit, but mostly painting things. I painted like 27637342 doors, all dark grey. that is also work I can enjoy, but I'm not sure at all that I want to be a construction worker. it's just... the setting, being surrounded by big manly men. and also that if I'm expected to have my own vehicle and drive around, well... ugh.

bleh, you'll figure out something. you got this, Arisotura.

working on the DS is one thing that has always felt colorful to me, for some reason...

well.

turns out I have grapheme-color synesthesia.

that sort of thing has always felt 'normal' to me, in a sense that my brain has always been full of weird shit, so I just lived with it without putting much thought into it...

but now, thinking about it, it feels cool and weird.

I feel colors when reading numbers (and also letters, but it works better with numbers). and that's weird-- I don't actually see the synesthetic colors, my vision is unaltered, but I still feel that the numbers are colored. dunno how to explain it.

this sort of thing makes series of consecutive numbers (like the DS memory map, for example) feel satisfying to me.

and, who knows, maybe I can use this to my advantage... worst case, it makes my perception more colorful than the normal, which is nice in itself :P

my left eye still hurts, sometimes.

I had a branch hit it like 10 months ago, and that might have damanged it. I should probably be concerned at this point.

well, it doesn't hurt all the time, just 'wakes up' sometimes, and the eye functions completely fine. dunno what to think of it.

other concerning thing, the skylight in the bathroom is leaking, and I need to borrow a ladder so I can check it out.

plus, that skylight seems to be 100 years old. the surroundings are all moldy because the insulation is piss-poor.

oh well.

26 march 2021

I had my gender change hearing! wooo

I will know the result in two months, but it should be positive

(it better be)

aayyy

20 march 2021

long time no see, blorg

how did this hair get here.

blarg.

anyway I'm high as fuck

so don't mind me

I need to pee, too

seeya

let's see

am I any less high?

using the computer is confusing in this state

hm

music sounds awesome tho

it goes on for hours for maximum enjoyability

and this is quite laggy

maybe less high now indeed

still pretty ADHD-y

the youtube volume thing doesn't go all the way through??

what.

who coded it.

mh

idk what to put here for now

17 february 2021

what does Arisotura do when she needs more RAM? simple, make more!

long story short is that the IIfx somehow came with mismatched RAM sticks - 5x1MB and 3x4MB. since the RAM sticks have to go 4 by 4 in this machine, I only had 4MB of usable RAM.

so, just buy some more sticks, right?

peh.

the IIfx uses some weird 64-pin RAM that is only used by itself and by some LaserWriter or something. so basically, it's rare and expensive af. there are some 'new' sticks being sold on eBay (basically NOS memory chips soldered to a new PCB), but these are a tad expensive too - might get a 4x16MB kit, but not sure.

anyway

I took the extra, lonely 1MB stick in what I had, and decided it would be sacrificed. in a machine where these have to go 4 by 4, what is one lonely stick good for anyway? I don't know about the LaserWriter thing, I don't have one.

I got a cheapo 30-pin 4MB stick, making sure its chips were pin-compatible with what my sacrificial stick had.

I removed the chips from the sacrificial stick. then, one of the connections had to be modified to accomodate the new chips. not too bad.

then just remove the chips from the 30-pin stick and transplant them, right? :D

yeah well, have fun soldering these fuckers. the space between them is too tight to use a soldering iron. I had to use carefully applied solder paste and hot air.

then verify all the connections and you're good to go...

the resulting frankenRAM works fine, and my IIfx now has a whopping 20MB of RAM.

I have to see what I'm doing with this IIfx next. I have a few ideas, but I need to finish it... maybe get a 4x16 RAM set, or make one (basically get PCBs and get the required chips off a bunch of cheapo RAM sticks). fix or replace the defective floppy drive. work out something for the video -- the video card I have, albeit rusty, works fine, but only supports interlaced video modes, which my equipment doesn't really like.

then I can try getting an install going, on either the provided HDD or my SCSI2SD.

and of course, the case -- derusting the RF shields, maybe retrobriting the actual case...

welp.

10 february 2021

hello blorg. long time no see.

well

you know that Mac LC I was having trouble with?

I finally managed to fix the power supply and now it works like a charm.

but that also inspired me

I got a Maxell-bombed IIfx, the motherboard was actually not too damaged, and I managed to repair it

I still need more RAM to be able to use this, as well as some solution for the video output -- the video card I have outputs interlaced video, which my LCD doesn't like.

I'm also getting other things, for other evil projects. right now I have a few possible projects, and that feels good.

I need to do things that stimulate me, that I enjoy one way or another. I can only sit around doing nothing for so long before I start breaking down.

we need to realize how important these 'hobbies' actually are

esp in a world where we define ourselves by our position within the capitalist machine

how violent it can feel, as a kid, to have these hobbies be considered meaningless, miserable little timewasters

to have them taken away from you because you didn't do well enough at school, or whatever

to have these activities be considered a mere treat

when they're actually essential to our mental equilibrium, and often let you develop useful skills

who doesn't like it when I'm able to fix their thing

speaking of

currently trying to fix the floppy drive that came with the IIfx. am I ridiculously stubborn with this? probably. like for the LC's power supply -- I could have just hodgepodged a modern 2x4 power supply into the original case.

it's a bit harder to find old Mac floppy drives tho, and they tend to be expensive.

but, I like trying to fix things, figuring out how they work, etc

as long as it's not some stupid black box where any fix amounts to 'throw it away and buy a new one'

a broken device is inviting you to try fixing it. it's a form of challenge.

like a few days back, when I visited a friend and we tried to get her laptop to work enough that she could recover data from it (there was no HDD or SSD to take out and read from another device)

basically it wouldn't boot after it got liquid spilled on its keyboard. so I went in with zero expectations...

before soon, the thing found itself disassembled, and I was trying to get it to boot, but it was stuck trying to reboot over and over again... I thought it was dead. but that didn't seem right, the motherboard looked perfect, no corrosion there.

eventually it occured to me that the keyboard might be causing these issues, seeing as the power button was part of it, and the keyboard membrane looked crusty... so I disconnected it, and disassembled it to find the pins that go to the power button. shorted these pins on the motherboard, and, lo and behold, it came to life.

and it seems to be working well, so I ordered a replacement keyboard, and we will put it back together to its original form.

12 december 2020

actually, I ran into issues with the Mac's power supply. sometimes it would just not start.

but, in trying to diagnose it, I made a stupid move and blew some components. so, while I'm waiting for replacements, well... I'm sitting around on my ass.

I've had enough trouble with this power supply. in the meantime I did a bigger hunt for cap gunk and cleaned up more of it, I think I got it all. if replacing the blown parts doesn't do the trick, I will just fit another power supply in there and call it a day.

I got all the other things I was waiting for (scsi2sd, VRAM upgrade, ...), so I can't wait to play around with all that.

this might be happening after Christmas, seeing as I'm going to visit my parents for Christmas. haven't yet decided on a date, I have to see how other thinsg are going to work out.

heh.

28 november 2020

sorry for the lack of updates these days

I had to find ways to keep myself busy during lockdown to avoid falling into existential crisis and depression

dunno if the antidepressant is helping there, but I feel okay-ish.

it's still making me a bit tired I think. and reducing my appetite.

so I got some very modern computers to mess around with. among which, a Macintosh LC that did not work at all.

bit of nostalgia there, these 68k Macs were the first computers I ever used. mom even told me that I knew how to use the computers without even knowing to read -- I had just memorized that 'menu X line Y does Z' and such.

anyway, we had some nifty games on these, some of them that only ever had 68k Mac versions.

later the Macs were given away to the local school, iirc, and we had PCs instead.

so, as I was able to get my hands on one of these again, I wanted to see if I could get it going again.

given my limited electronics and soldering skills, would I be able to make it work at all? the answer is yes, apparently.

the thing needed new capacitors, as is common with electronics that old. the power supply wasn't working correctly, which was why it didn't turn on at all -- the motherboard was actually working fine when connected to an ATX power supply, minus having no audio.

the power supply needed some cleanup and rework to get going after the recap. eventually I got it working reliably.

I had more trouble getting the motherboard working after my cleanup and recap attempts, but eventually, doing things properly made it work.

I still had no audio though. had to do a bit more troubleshooting and fixing to get it working.

all in all, considered where we started from, not bad. I'm still waiting to get a scsi2sd to replace the dying HDD.

I also got a random PC. it's a stock build from Packard Bell, with a Pentium MMX CPU running at a whopping 200MHz.

it works, but has some stability issues. I cleaned up the RAM slots and reseated the RAM, that seemed to help.

it's running Windows 95. I'll have to see what kind of fun shit I can get into it.

I got the date for my gender marker change hearing. it's going to be in 4 months.

probably not going to be too dramatic. from what I see, it's looking good.

31 october 2020

well, so far it's a half-assed lockdown.

also, first day already saw anti-lockdown protests, atleast here.

not sure how to feel about that. my nihilist side would have me believe that any chaos is better than normality...

the chants I heard would hint that the protests are more on the "right-winger whining about the loss of their individual freedom" side.

but there are also some valid reasons to criticize that lockdown. the fact it's going to choke small businesses. the fact the government is trying hard to 'save the economy', not closing schools and non-essential production.

welp.

I feel tired and stretch-y.

probably the antidepressant acting up.

blrg.

29 october 2020

lockdown 2.0? yup. starting Friday.

must think of what to do and where to spend it. it's normally going to last about on month.

welp.

I was prescribed an antidepressant, vortioxetine.

started taking it, so far it's not hitting hard like paroxetine did to me.

however, my pupils are absurdly dilated right now, and I didn't take any fun drugs. either that's the vortioxetine acting up (apparently it can cause that) or it's just my body being weird (I recall another instance of having dilated pupils without taking anything...).

we'll see how this goes.

24 october 2020

so I got my hair cut.

it's a bit short for my taste, but eh, it grows back.

haven't been doing a lot melonDS-wise. I made some further attempts with the DSi camera shito, but it kept giving me the finger, so I put it on the backburner for now.

not quite sure what else I can try, for now.

also, it reeks of lockdown 2.0 here. it's not been announced, but all the signals are red, and a while ago they were like 'nah we can't have another lockdown, that would wreck the economy' but now they're considering it...

welp.

18 october 2020

your mattress sucks? find another sucky mattress to put underneath!

I can't get the DSi camera to cooperate. nothing I throw at it will make it work.

so, for the meantime, blarg.

16 october 2020

well, due to a misunderstanding, the haircut didn't happen, so that will be for the next week.

now let's see what I can do in the meantime.

maybe work on the DSi camera hardware.

14 october 2020

hey dozens, I saw your mail

sorry I'm responding only now, I'm not good at that whole mail thing

anyway, thank you :)

it's been a while, but things went smoothly

other than that, not a lot to say

the gender marker change request is finally going, after some editing and remaking, but that won't see much progress before 2021

I'm gonna get my hair cut tomorrow, there's atleast that

other than that, I should probably try to look into how to update the remaining things, like my bank info.

well.

23 september 2020

blarg

I feel weak and tired and depressed

for 5 consecutive days

18 september 2020

so I was told I would receive back my request yesterday

what I received was... the notice of receipt, stamped by the courthouse.

so guess this is fine after all? the delivery guy just ticked the wrong box on their terminal thing so it erroneously showed as 'returned'.

welp.

also, surprise, boomers are raging against squats again, and we might get an anti-squat law soon

fuck that shit. what do they think they're doing with that shit? you don't end poverty by criminalizing it.

welp².

16 september 2020

so the request is going to be returned to me. fucking stupid postal service.

now I have to go to the courthouse to give it in person. great

postal service better not lose the request, given how long it took me to put it together.

I ran into a trans friend and we had a big chat

lots of rage against the world. heh.

thing of interest: he said I can, and should, apply for disability income. it's more than base income, and likely less annoying on the whole 'get a job! get a job!' aspect.

I'd still totally accept a job as long as it's enjoyable or meaningful, and not just something you are required to do for your own survival. I just don't want any pressure to 'find a job or be shoved down the poverty hellhole', where you end up in the streets and all.

shrug.

speaking of which, I ordered some CBD oil for a test. it's said to help with anxiety and depression, so I want to see how well it does on me.

that being said, not sure how long I can keep taking that. it's expensive.

well.

14 september 2020

I finally completed my gender marker change request, and sent it

now we just have to wait and pray

blarg

what else is done?

released melonDS 0.9.

dunno, not a lot to say.

I need to go get food. blarg.

thinking of eventually trying to buy some cheapo crapo apartment. but not before my transition is complete.

some are cheap enough that it might be doable, but, dunno.

on one hand the stability would be nice to have.

on the other hand, I don't want to take a big loan and be chained to a job for 10 years or so.

I also don't really want to be stranded in a random shithole with nothing around and far away from friends and all.

so, dunno.

18 august 2020

long time no update. things have been rocky.

including a few rounds of depression and other shit...

let's see

the cheat interface for melonDS is finally complete, meaning we can release it soon

bahaahhh

I finally have a working printer again, so I did some paperwork I had to do

and started some actual work on the gender marker change

31 july 2020

ohai!

been to the river with friends the other day, it was fairly cool!

and atleast I didn't break off my toenail this time :P

not a lot of things to say, otherwise.

oh, yeah. my contract with State organizations was accepted, so I'm getting 6 months of relative peace in order to finish my transition (that is, go through the gender-marker change process).

speaking of which, well. still collecting testimonies.

printer decided to choose this moment to crap out. the replacement part I ordered didn't work, so I ordered another one...

if that doesn't cut it, this printer will just be handed to a friend who may be interested into taking it apart for motors and shit.

I found another printer anyway, that one just needs new ink cartridges.

muhahahahahhh

I need to get off my ass and complete the work on melonDS, so we can release 0.9.

25 july 2020

haven't posted here in a while.

not a lot to say.

been seeing my parents, finally. it was fairly cool, I even helped them build a new gate for their home.

then had a little round of depression.

beh.

the suture thread is getting eaten away by my body, apparently. both threads broke off, there's still some inside but atleast it's no longer poking out.

given that, I should be able to go to the beach sometimes soon.

08 july 2020

so I was told the suture wire would fall off on its own.

well, it better hurry. the idea of having a foreign body poking through my skin disturbs me a bit.

also, I have some appointment tomorrow. we'll see what that's about.

welp.

04 july 2020

so I started getting new underwear.

how exciting.

it's a small step in my transition, tho. throwing away all the old masculine stuff. my old underwear was worn out to the point of worthlessness anyway.

so there's that.

mostly done healing, too.

I wonder about the surgery stitches tho. those are weird. for each incision I only see one stitch at the end, of some nylon kind of material. so, how will I go about removing them? beh, we'll see.

03 july 2020

arglblarg.

I'm kind of a derp.

probs gonna get some new underwear.

I'm nearly done healing, so...

it's hot.

blarg.

01 july 2020

not a lot to say these days...

gonna try to see if I can visit my parents during July (and also enjoy their swimming pool, heh).

I first need to get an answer from them, tho.

well.

I also need to get decent underwear.

now would be a perfect time for it, swelling is mostly down, so I should have a pretty good idea of how much space my junk is going to take.

I can also try going for a two-piece swimsuit. not a fan of one-piece swimsuits. dunno.

then I can trash all my old underwear, which a) is masculine and b) is more or less worn out, sometimes to the point of uselessness.

marking another step in my transition.

been checking out my friends' new home. it's a fairly cool place.

I even helped them fix the wiring and all, while they were also working on the plumbing... was a productive day.

-

I wish I could go to the sea with them. but I think salt doesn't bode well with recovering from surgery. so, yeah.

in the meantime I can ask them to produce testimonies for a gender marker change...

27 june 2020

so, this is it.

I got the orchi.

recovering and shit.

regardless, that's one thing done.

what's the remaining trans thing? getting my gender marker changed.

and some flavor of voice work...

welp.

24 june 2020

so, this is the day

I'm excited, also stressed about this

I woke up too early tho

what can I do now

asdf

23 june 2020

D-1

it's getting there!!!!

I'm also stressed about several things, but, well

21 june 2020

D-3

asdfadsf

how's it going? still uneventful.

besides finally getting DSi wifi working in melonDS yesterday.

there isn't a lot to do, due to it being the DSi, and most of the things being closed now, but still, you can browse the web on an obsolete browser, update the emulated DSi, install the 3DS transfer utility, and, well...

I guess I can continue taking this further, now. the other big DSi feature to implement would be the cameras. not quite sure how to go about that.

we'll see.

19 june 2020

well, day 3.

D-5.

I can't wait.

tbh I feel a little weird about removing a part of me.

then again, that particular part does not appreciate HRT.

on the other hand, my brain absolutely appreciates HRT. it's like night and day, emotionally speaking. being able to have emotions that don't feel fake is priceless.

like how I noticed it a while ago, how I can talk about something and naturally convey emotion through my tone... by contrast to the mostly monotonous voice I had back in the old days.

not to mention the awesome physical effects. boobs, hips, all that.

and actually appreciating the reflection I can see on my screen right now.

besides, what is there to say about that particular body part?

it might still have the ability to inject absurd amounts of testosterone into my body if left unchecked, which would obviously ruin the aforementioned changes and put me back into that 'depressed zombie' emotional state.

getting it removed makes me infertile. I might already be, I don't know how well it resisted these 2.5 years of HRT. well, no big deal there, I'm not planing on having kids anytime soon.

what if I later want kids? we'll see whenever we get there.

I mean, look at the current context. we have big things happening mostly in a tight sequence. yellow vests, a large wave of similar movements worldwide, coronavirus, now the BLM movement...

the world is changing. for the best or for the worst, but things are changing.

I was already unable to predict anything about my future. go back in 2010 and try telling me that I'd end up dropping out of univ, going radical leftist, going through squats, transitioning...

but now? ahahahahahahahhhahahhh

let me deal with present things. like, you know, getting castrated. or finally getting my gender marker updated.

well, this was long.

18 june 2020

orchi trip, day 2

so far, all is looking good!

I got blood drawn and shit.

-

the actual orchi will be Jun 24. until then, the trip isn't going to be terribly eventful.

also, the hospital staff is pretty nice when it comes to transness.

17 june 2020

orchi trip, day 1

finally getting this going, or so I hope. there's a bit of shitshow on the paperwork side, and I hope that doesn't ruin my plan.

anyway, here I am, sitting in a crapo hotel for now. I still have to work out where I'll be staying during this, but it's probably going to last two weeksin total.

fuck everything about the train station I arrived at, earlier.

it's near the local airport, but that's about it. otherwise it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

what is the worst thing?

having to pay 16€ for the hourly shuttle that takes you to the actual town?

or having to down a pack of M&M's because there isn't anything else to eat?

beh.

11 june 2020

hey blorg, long time no see

well, 'long time'...

had that job interview yesterday.

no dice.

well.

I'm still all too undecided about all that.

spending all your daytime working? bleh. you don't get to do your own things, see your friends, basically, be yourself and live.

but, also, you do need things to look forward to, to keep yourself going in life. well, maybe not everyone, but I do. I can only spend so much time farting around on the internet before I fall into depression.

but, for me, things need to either be meaningful or be stimulating, which most developer job offers fail to be.

I spent most of the coronavirus lockdown with my friends, in their squat.

minus some drama, it felt fairly good. having people around me helps me feel better, provided I can also retreat and take some rest alone when I need to.

so, this fuels my ongoing existential crisis.

I'm renting that apartment rn. what were the reasons behind that, again?

stability, reliability. squats are good, but they're unstable and more or less unpredictable. French laws give them some protection, but you know that eventually you'll be packing up and moving again.
having a stable base to properly 'finish' my transition. by that, I mean getting my legal name and gender updated, among other fun things.
the stable base is also good for peacefully solving the existential crisis, although it also becomes part of it.

downsides?

having to pay rent and shit, which kinda requires an income.
living alone.

flatsharing might be a good compromise, living with other people but not being a squat...

I'd just need to fid a group of friends who would be interested. turns out, most of them are squatters, so... yeah.

also, squats are a part of me now.

I lived in various squats for two years -- basically at the same time as I started my transition.

it's not been always easy. it was even pretty shitty at times.

but I can't claim to regret it. I don't.

I learnt a lot from this. more than I learnt during any year at university or whatever.

I met fantastic people. people I can call true friends.

I'm not closing the door on all this.

it's also likely that given my pre-existing chances of finding a job and getting through it, and now the upcoming economical crisis, I will find myself having to move back to squats one day or another.

'squat partout', as we say.

02 june 2020

I'm going to take a break, after this long coding streak on melonDS.

the Qt UI is nearly good, melonDSi has been merged, the JIT is going to be merged too... 0.9 is going to be big.

BLM, ACAB, death to capitalism.

what else to say?

I finally fixed my bike. not quite, it only has one brake, but atleast it's usable.

still waiting for my new ID card.

still vastly undecided about the rest.

30 may 2020

haven't updated this in a while -- been working hard on melonDS

the new Qt UI is nearly ready tho

other than that, I feel, dunno, thrown into some existential void

coronavirus lockdown put the world into a statis, in a way

and I feel like I'm still in that

it's not completely reopened yet and the future is uncertain

and dunno what I'm going to do at this point

I asked that company about the interview I was supposed to have. they have't forgotten or changed their minds, they just haven't been able to reopen yet.

well.

we'll see.

17 may 2020

I feel better

's been a while I hadn't been coding until 5AM

other than that, not a lot to say

the weather out there is pretty good too

14 may 2020

depression. again.

welp.

it's raining pretty hard outside.

atleast the feeling of being here in this little nest is reassuring, warm, dunno

in slightly better news, I got a date for my orchi

Jun 24, assuming it doesn't get ruined by another coronavirus lockdown

blarg

12 may 2020

I feel better than yesterday, there's atleast that. I don't think I got the coronavirus, but, no real way to know. still no breathing troubles of any sort, no coughing, ...

oh well.

nothing of interest today. other than another stupid Twitter argument.

and getting invited by my neighbor, at random. well, it was nice to meet him and some of his friends.

actually, I'd met him before already and he's a fairly cool guy. we did meet and chat a couple times during lockdown... I meant to spend more time with him, and then, surprise!

heh.

and now guess I'm known for opening a corn can with a hammer and pliers.

:)

11 may 2020

so my home connection has IPv6? fancy.

I feel like shit.

I mean, besides post-lockdown 'what do I do now??' feelings and mild depression.

physically, I'm feeling weak, tired, for no real reason. and a little diarrheous? if that's a word.

did I catch the coronavirus?

would not be terribly unlikely these days.

we'll see how this goes, I guess.

for now, I don't have any trouble breathing, or that kind of shit, which is coronavirus trademark, so that's good.

blarg.

10 may 2020

well, let's give this another try, shall we?

might put up the old ones back somewhere, but, shrug. those turned into a neverending wall of depression.

aside from that, not a lot to say.

coronavirus, lockdown, these things. lockdown is ending tomorrow, here.

I guess I'll be able to get certain things done, like finally getting that orchiectomy, or generally 'finishing' my transition.

seeing as I'm somewhat functional for once, I actually did the paperwork to get my name changed. that was earlier, during January.

it was treated real quick -- two days, took longer for the response letter to arrive to me. anyway, it was accepted, so now, Emily is official.

then I took an appointment to submit the paperwork for a new ID card (which some organizations will require to update my name in their systems).

been there before. getting these appointments takes like one month. so in the end, I filled and submitted the paperwork, and... lockdown happened.

so I haven't been getting news about my new ID card. no idea when it's going to be ready.

then I'll be able to get my info updated at various other places, which is more weight in favor of a gender marker change once I get there.

once that is done, along with the orchi, I will be able to consider my transition finished. minus still having to take HRT, but eh.

then there's also the whole voice thing.

dunno what to think of it, actually.

compared to last year, my 'default' voice has actually gotten softer and a bit higher pitched. and I'm able to produce a voice that sounds reasonably feminine to me, but it's hard to judge with a crapo microphone.

I need to actually train myself to use that voice and I guess I should be good.

I hope the coronavirus crisis will bring positive change.

dunno, but lockdown opens quite the window for questioning what has always been normal to a lot of people. capitalism, producing all sorts of crap for the sake of profit, pollution, etc...

we'll see.