~belacqua@TTBP

17 september 2025

Dan has bookmarked this page, so hi, Dan, if you're reading this! Lots of love.

I saw Chocolate Milk the pigeon again today- he was eating some food that another park goer was tossing out for the birds. Also saw what I think might've been a dark eyed junco, maybe.

No kitty visit today, the roommate is sick. But Isi is taking me out to go get a slice of birthday cake at a cute bakery nearby, so that's nice to make up for it. There'll always be more kitty visiting time in the future!

The trip was really nice! It was a cozy little bakery, and he swapped the birthday cake slices so I had the pink one. :3 He also got me a salted caramel latte, which was a nice contrast to the sickly sweet cake. He's out of town for the next month or so, travelling across Europe to check off more countries on his goal to visit every one that's reasonably feasible in the world to- and in the New Year is looking to buy a condo, but he'd still be downtown. Starting November we can basically lock in Wednesdays as our hangout time, which is super nice. He said he has a great time and enjoys hanging out- since I'm one of the few people he is in regular contact with in real life. It's nice to have a friend in the city!

16 september 2025

Had to sort out some dreadful admin news first thing in the morning, but it should be sorted by sometime early next week- I'm just waiting on processing time, at this point. Isn't that just the worst possible way to wake up? But at least it's scratched off my to do list. The one good thing about ironing out bad news pre-emptively is that you have plenty of time to get towards them, and at least the jolt of action sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Smeared on some lychee perfume and some of the new lip tint I was gifted- I think the brand name is Roman, or something like that- but it's a pretty berry-ish tone: cooler and brighter pinks tend to look nice on me, much to the misery of all of the pastel lip colours I longed for as a teenager. Dark tones look kind of jarring on me- the contrast is too high, I think- unless you're deliberately going for a gothic look.

My bank had a funny little notification of it being my birthday week, which cracked me up- of course that particular entity would keep careful track of numbers and personal data.

I'm mostly looking forward to a relaxed evening in- my cake and dinner with family won't be until the evening, due to their having a dentist appointment that couldn't be rebooked- but I'm not complaining, I love cake, and it falls on the weekend, so I can eat myself silly on it without too much fear of ough ouf ouch tummy hurtie, or whatever.

Going to meet up with a friend after class tomorrow. Going to meet a pet cat I've heard so much about! Hopefully he isn't too shy, but I'll keep you all updated. (Apparently at least one person was reading these- which was neat, they signed my guestbook thingie. Feel free to say hi! I'm still getting used to using tilde.town, but I do peek through things occasionally on a mosey around town. I really need to get back into using the IRC more, but it takes up so much 'active attention' due to the disappearing notifs, kinda like how I've been procrastinating watching Hannibal season 2 because of the gorgeous filming. So beautiful. But not something I can throw onto the background and multitask! Art like that deserves my full attention. Similarly, if I'm going to be live chatting- I'd like to be an attentive, present conversational partner: though the focus for that is vanishingly rare, give how busy my schedule has become.)

Off to jot a reply to P, then. Much love.

15 september 2025

Very sleepy. Woke up slightly before my alarm, and had a good few moments to enjoy to myself, in the cold, darkness- snuggled tightly in a wrapped blanket and pressing my face against fresh pillowcases I'd just put on. They're a cute sort of kittenish fawny brown. My brain has been oddly slow to bootup today, but I've tended to some tedious admin related work, updated my bullet journal, and did a dabble of normal diary related journalling, and gratitude journalling.

I've slowly been working out what works best for me with the latter. A small, pocket format, in a pretty, durable book that I can toss in with my often encountered items like chargers, keep it lined and well spaced out- no dates, or count downs: just a tiny page number, keep it limited in scope: and it tends to be less intimidating, ergo, it actually gets done.

Very sleepy. But it's nice to slowly compile things that've sparked off even temporary happiness. It's good to keep a conscious eye out for that sort of thing. But it's a very private exercise- I'm still thinking about how, or if, I even want to share them.

Next week I have to sit down and chat with Tabitha about things we've had pencilled in for about a month. Change is on the horizon. I can almost taste it.

Also, my birthday is coming up. Happy twentyfifth to me, soon.

I hope that the universe treats you well. And even if it doesn't, which it so often fails to do- I hope you're able to find the grace to treat yourself with the kindness and compassion you deserve, nonetheless.

An update later in the evening: I managed to get my semester's worth of readings done for my one reading heavy course. Very pleased with that. And right on schedule, or even a bit before it- I'm getting quite savvy at splitting time and capacity down to hairs. Even did a bit of laundry. Should be easy to stay on top of for the rest of the week/weekend...

P and I made birthday plans. Makes me a very happy camper.

Was also gifted some liptints- lip products are just about the only makeup I can be bothered to wear. Yippee!

14 september 2025

Wrist is killing me. Think it's just a stress injury from all of the writing by hand I've been doing- it was a pretty drastic adjustment period.

I guess it's also the universe's way of telling me to cool it, since Sundays are loafing around days- though I do get some light admin work done, mostly to make my week ahead easier for myself. Still have a spot of laundry that needs to be handwashed- (delicates are pretty annoying to wring out with a dead wrist), though I did find out excitingly, that my writer's group is running a journal centric event at the end of the month for their big writing event of the year.

I'm still not totally decided on whether or not I'll participate, because I've been struggling so hard as is to even find time to write while I'm establishing and settling into a new routine, but it's like Dan said- if you aren't careful to keep up a life outside of it, it will eat you alive. (And there are plenty of warnings about people who find that they don't have much of a life at all by the end of it... So it's good to be consciously mindful, especially because life is really just a big ol' Sims game of balancing various needs against your aspirations tab, and one needs a bit of mental loafing around to not completely burn out, especially since it'd been a rough year.)

Had some chunks of cheese and marinara sauce for a breakfast snack. Shockingly, even with the mini breadcrumbs, it was only 100 calories if you ate the whole thing- which, I didn't scoop out all of the sauce, since the ratio of ingredients in the snack pack is totally skewed, but it's nice to whet the appetite. And eating treats on the weekend that I really shouldn't during weekdays amuses me to no end. Special time limited snacks...

Not sure what I would write for the big writing event, either. Could go back to my Bluebeard novel I had outlined entirely, but it doesn't compel me. And that's the silly, indulgent part of being a hobbyist writer: you get to focus only on what draws you in, rather than applying the same project management skills I've gained from shepherding myself through academia to something that isn't grinding my way through the academic slog with demands of papers, regardless of passion. (Though my writing always was worse for those than in a creative lens.)

People don't have the same twenty four hours in a day. Even if you set aside the variable of sleep, the capacity you have for action fluctuates wildly on an individual basis. Most days, I'm lucky if I get one big item off of my to do list done. I'm just not the kind of person who can really effectively multitask. (And the science says vanishingly few, if any people, really are.)

Sundays are meant to be my recharge day, the same way some people find solace in attending church services. They're to soak in doing a little bit of nothing, so that I have more energy during the week to draw from. I've already done a bit of work on Saturday, which I try to avoid. And the workload really is quite reasonable. But it's just... Frustrating, to want to do things, and not have the energy for it. Because of needing to hold other things in higher priority, or because you need to eke out the meagre rations of whatever juice you've left in the tank after a long day.

I've debated not commuting in on the work days I set aside, but it's good for me to put on real people clothes, sit in a different, quiet, environment, and generally maintain some semblance of boundaries around working hours. Even if I do normally work on things at home as well, after showering post commute, and slumping my way through dinner.

Wrist hurts. I'm tired. Sunday's just for picking out clothes for the week.

13 september 2025

Had a really good slice of cheesy bread. Did laundry, deep conditioned my hair, and studied for a bit.

12 september 2025

Made up some matcha in my insulated thermos, and shaking it around is kind of fun. I snoozed in a bit, mostly loafed around, and I'm really just sort of exhausted and worn out from Thursdays. A combination of being overly social and having long class blocks, one of which was permeated with dread, will do that to a person, I guess.

Very tired. I had a nice couple of bites out of an oreo creme donut the other night though, and that piece of spinach pizza with mozzarella and chunks of tomato on it was delicious.

My hands and wrists hurt a whole hell of a lot, and I'm not sure if that's just from adjusting to writing more by hand for my classes, or if there's something else afoot- I didn't really write all that much in my diary- haven't as of late, and time has been thin on the ground for digging into any of my Iron Valley playthrough. Time has been stretched weirdly, as of late- both scant in the moment, and dragging on forever, when you look at the calendar date. I'll take it as a good sign of being present in the moment, or whatever.

11 september 2025

Found a cup to pop my tea into for my evening class, so I'm excited about that. Also finally put a small, adorable dandelion Paperblanks pocket book I've had to years to good use, as a personal reliquary for small sparks of happiness- no particular dates attached, or count downs, aside from some discreet, tiny page numbers, to avoid focusing too much on keeping up a pattern. It's a small shrine of sorts, not a daily obligation: just when something sparks enough joy to provoke me to write inside of it.

I'm getting used to waking up at unholy early hours of the day, which is both a good and bad thing. Good, for weekdays. Bad, on the weekends- though it does give me more time to add in things like laundry into my schedule and still feel fresh and ahead of the morning on things. It's my night class today, so I'll be very tired by the end of it all, but happy to step into my 'long weekends,' though I keep Fridays as still scheduled for work days- just far more chill and at home.

I could technically use Mondays and Tuesdays in the same way, but the quiet workspace on campus is good for me, as is keeping a routine of waking up at a particular time, and putting on real people clothes, seeing sunlight, getting in a bit of walking- and just generally haunting the department. It's nice. I quite like it. And you can't beat the peace and quiet of hogging such a space to yourself.

I've been so busy. It was a good time in my life to detach from toting around my cellphone- because lord knows I barely have any time to keep up to date on notifications, not if I want to actually talk with people and engage properly. My sense of time is somewhat improved, but my diary is still my anchor.

Life is good. Busy, but good. And that's a good way for things to be.

10 september 2025

Had a lot of fun at the zine workshop: I wound up making one centered around my original character that I write with a friend, and really delighted in the joy of found poetry and shredding up bits of colour paper to get that rumpled edge effect.

Frantically busy and social day. Helped set up the morning coffee chat supplies- had a very yummy vanilla oat milk creamer in my matcha pod, and another fantastic chocolate chip cookie. Even got the reading done, and some day of assigned stuff to lighten up my load moving towards the new week.

Need to catch up on laundry. Quite tired. I have a late night class. Thinking of heading in for the pizza and survey in our department room before class- and I have to hand off some zines to one of my cohort classmates when I see her, either then, or in class.

Pretty satisfied with today. Brother pointed out how I'm busy, and he gets that- which, yeah, thank goodness for asynchronous hobbies and communication, I'm so MIA as of late.

9 september 2025

Decided to crank open the terminal before getting tucked into the day. Kind of really devastatingly annoyed that I lost out on a two whole hours of sleep because of someone else's banging about, but on the bright side, I did manage to go to sleep a fraction of a bit earlier, so I have had enough hours to not be totally useless for the day. Grimaced at the sun on my commute on in. Someone was blaring music on the bus, and frankly, 9AM is entirely too early for those kind of shenanigans. Just a dour grimace and a held breath as I scuttled into the building.

At least there's sunlight. I have a feeling that things will be quite a lot more gloomy come winter, but in the meantime, the wrap around windows are quite nice, and there are pillars here and there that make it a little more bearable while being put on full display in the panopticon. My hair kind of dried weird and crunchy, which is annoying, but I'm having a Zoom meeting later today, so it really is what it is. At least I wore one of my favourite pink t-shirts, and it's nice, being able to better see my necklace, as compared to when it's buried and lost against the black of my usual tops. And wearing my most comfortable pair of joggers has to count for something, they're practically pyjama pants.

Later tonight I was thinking of making a pitstop to pick up a binder, and maybe a new notebook- I was surprised by how many reading notes I wound up taking, and I wanted to keep at least one journal for my notes with my supervisor, when I see him next week. Not sure if I'll really wind up feeling up to going to the zine jam on campus, but it would be nice to at least try to enjoy my time and make the most of the experience. A few more people in the office space today, though it's still thankfully, very quiet. It was a good call not to take my mechanical keyboard in, I'm already quite a loud typer as is... And I chipped a nail in the bathroom the other day, while hanging up my backpack, which was super annoying, but thankfully it broke at such a point that it's not really a big deal, since I can just round it off and not have to worry about the painful quick of the nail being exposed. I've always had some luck in that regard, since my nail tends to break horizontally, rather than vertically.

I'm really tired. I packed along some tea and matcha to perk myself up through the middle of the day, but the wake up slump is pretty brutal. Got some work done at home too last night, which I didn't anticipate having to do, but it was alright- I kind of enjoy the process of notetaking by hand, anyway, and it helps that it's really only relevant for one class, at the moment.

I think it was a good move to open up the terminal and yap before settling in. Sometimes I just need a bit of a transition point before I can really dig into something, and while I did promise P those replies when I got to campus- I don't want it to become something that I dread doing, so putting myself into a better mindset to tackle them is for the best. And the timezone difference really helps- I'm always early and ahead of schedule anyway, which is something that I find works out a lot better between me and people on the West coast, as compared to writing partners who share the same timezone, even if the conversion math for live events almost makes them not worth doing at all. For play by post though, where extended delays are fine, and expected even in the medium, it really works out nicely. Pixeldust wears down nicely on the nails.

I'm starting to see the benefit in playing lofi hiphop beats to study to. It's a nice measure of time. Mellow. Though I do still prefer actually drafting creative prose to good tunes, sorry not sorry. :-)

And it's nice to be able to play Starbrew Cafe as a little treat in between long sessions. Sometimes you just need to turn your damn brain off, to give it a chance to reboot. Might as well pop in my earrings, smear on a little perfume- I find that both of those things really helps to boost my mood. Sensory delights. Well, that- and brushing my teeth again after a morning coffee. No one likes coffee breath.

My longtime pigeon pal, Chocolate Milk, recognized me after a year apart, and ran right up to me to say hello. Had a wonderful time greeting such a good buddy of the last five years. I love the little guy dearly.

Going to make an effort to attend the whole, or most of, the zine night tomorrow.

8 september 2025

Tested my card access today, and was let in without a hitch- took a jog around our department space to figure out a feel for the lay of the land. Hunted down the usual- access to outlets that work, comfortable seating, water, where the emergency exits where and how the rooms generally connected with one another, and snapping fun photos to share with my brother. Puttering around took up a bit of time, but I'm here for the next five hours or so, after sitting down and getting through my dailies in about half of an hour, to try to grind out some readings. Hopefully I can get about a week ahead on them, but I'm being optimistic! Also confirmed some more bookings, sent off a thank you email, and generally got the admin stuff out of my way for today. Very sleepy. I packed a nice big lunch, but I'm not sure if I'll be hungry before I actually get home. Got up at 9, it is currently about just shy of noon, so I've had a few hours of being up and at 'em. No one else is here so far, except who I think is a prof and would prefer to be left alone at this quiet hour, but I don't mind- I snagged a good view and some natural sunlight at an island station with a charger. Even if it does feel weirdly vulnerable to have my back exposed, even if there is a pillar sandwiching me off from things. The space seems fairly safe so far, to leave your items behind- I tested it with a brief jog to the water fountain, but definitely is not somewhere I'd feel comfortable with splaying my stuff out on sight for hours on end. A quick nip out to the bathroom should be fine, though, even if I do feel the urge to tidy up a bit before heading out. Such are the things trained into you from ages of using the library, where blaring signs announce that anyone can just wander on in- this place is pretty locked down with keycard entry, though, so I don't foresee it being an issue. And I repainted my nails last night, the colour is quite pigmented with a second coat, though the first wearing off has made a pretty gradient effect on my nails, so I'm not complaining. Pixeldust by OPI, if you were curious- a shimmery, light pink, that's sort of 'my nails but cuter.'

Damn it, I forgot to hit enter as I yapped. Well, wall of text aside- I'm feeling pretty good about today. Hopefully the rest of the week is similarly chill. I set some cold water into my cup to steep, so I'm looking forward to enjoying a nice coldbrew green tea by lunch- since it's one of those that specify you can steep it cold, you'd just have to wait a minute or two longer. I usually let mine oversteep- terrible habit, I know. But delicious.

7 september 2025

Getting used to logging into tilde.town without having to copypaste the command, which is nice! Makes it easier to update when I've got a spare moment.

Did a spot of laundry. Pondering figuring out the mobile client, since I saw someone mention they were posting from their phone, which is a cool idea, but I'm not entirely sure how practical it is. Also need to figure out what the charging port situation looks like inside of the department lounge space, since I wasn't super focused on trying to find power sources. Hopefully it's good, because it would be very nice to be able to do my work inside of there... Very little information is available online about the building, unfortunately.

The weekend has felt super slow. I've been sleeping in quite a bit over this weekend, due to being so exhausted after Thursday, but I'm glad I got to a zero hamper (kind of like inbox zero for emails) to start off the week. Also added a 'weekly reset' spreadsheet into my main one, to help me keep on track and save me the tedium of having to re-check/un-check a paper version.

Something about really purposefully disconnecting has been wild in terms of the shift it's made in my life, generally- being more chatty and aware of what's going on in classes, (which, it does help that I have drastically fewer, even if the working expectations are higher), but also just a vague sense of time passing. I have so much more of it available to me, having withdrawn primarily from forms of social media, and mostly just using a chat client to talk to one or two people, one of whom is primarily someone I engage in a fun hobby with, (creative writing.) It's sort of baffling. Having a watch for the security of checking the time, but not the ability to be distracted, has been a novel change. Still getting used to charging my damn watch though, it feels like the battery drain on it is kind of absurd. I suppose this is what people mean by mindfulness?

I have an appointment this Tuesday, and a small task on Monday, though the day is otherwise largely my own. I also want to attend a zine making workshop on Wednesday, so fingers crossed I am brave enough to attend that, when the time comes. Being so self directed has been... unsettling. But week two of graduate school dawns, soon, and I feel pretty good going into it.

6 september 2025

It's a sleepy Saturday, and I've finally experienced the hell that is waking up at your usual ungodly hour on a weekend that you meant to sleep in during. At the least, it's good for maintaining my general sleep schedule, which has shifted quite a lot- from the morning hours that I would normally spend catnapping in, at least during breaks.

I did a spot of laundry, so that's nice- which frees up my Sunday by quite a bit, though I should be aiming to finish off the last of that tomorrow, once things have been given a chance to air dry for some of the more delicates. I have a new favourite 'fancy t-shirt,' as well, since the subtle v-neck looks great with my necklace and the plain colour and thick fabric makes it a suitable enough t-shirt to not be totally silly and playful like all of my graphic t-shirts. I really hardly own any that aren't Sanrio merch, which is pretty wild to realize. But I wanted to dress up at least a little more seriously for the first classes and impressions. Now that those are out of the way...

Going to be mostly relaxing today, I think. I did my reading last night, and I might try to chew through some of the upcoming week's, but I do have time. And Sunday is definitely just to rest and recover, as well as tend to various admin things like uploading and organizing notes, emails, and household stuff like replenishing my iron and Vitamin D pills and picking out clothes for the week to grab and go, and such. Just to make the week ahead quite a bit smoother. It's a kindness to future me.

5 september 2025

It feels like today just sort of vanished away from me, but the bulk of it was spent setting up some organizational systems and tweaking them as needed. I should be good for note backups, and my deadlines are nice and neatly sorted- with a handy email tracker I also set up to make my life quite a lot easier when trying to rummage around and remember what on earth I'm supposed to be sifting out of my inbox at any given point in time. Also got through the week's readings ahead of time for Thursday, though I'll still be working on them primarily for Monday and Tuesday to try to build a sort of buffer in for my most reading heavy class.

Hopefully the access issue has been fixed, since I've been told that it should be resolved at the moment, though it will need to be tested come Monday. It's really just a few more days of headway for the systems to figure out the fritz on their own, so that's good.

Got in a good conversation with Dan and wrote a bit with P, so today was not all doom and despair under the crushing weight of studying, or anything. I also found some really interesting points from the textbook I was sifting through that would come in handy for implementing a more formal structure to some hobbyist group ideas I've had floating around in the background, so it was actually fairly interesting to learn- and the material so far is pretty easy to digest, and I feel confident about my grasp of it. I tried to type my notes, but I think I've sort of lost the ability to- and since I need to retain the information for our term paper, and the group discussions, I think it's best to write them out by hand anyway.

Very tired, again. I slept in quite a lot last night- nearly ten hours straight, which was much needed after such an early and busy day. But today was spent fairly productively. I think it takes me about two hours or so to do the readings so far for this course, which isn't all that bad, seeing as it's my heaviest in terms of the material covered, and that is more or less true on the workload they tell you to expect per credit hour so far.

Many emails were penned. I remember just how many of them were a bane during the academia hellhole of one's email inbox. But I've been making good use of my technology as of late, and pen and paper. So I feel as if, as Dan said- that I've landed on my feet, more or less. Should be hearing from him more consistently from now on, which is also nice. Yay! Yippee! My first week of grad school is now under my belt- and I feel pretty good about it, and how I've been conducting myself throughout it so far. Paring down on distractions and having a game plan going into it was a very good idea for me.

4 september 2025

Busy day. Still having trouble getting into the graduate spaces, and apparently this has taken MONTHS to resolve in the past?! Spent some time with my bullet journal, and trying out a new weekly spread, as well as slicing in weekly appointments and such.

Tomorrow is mostly just grinding readings online to ease up some of the prep in later weeks. And sending off a bunch of emails.

3 september 2025

My first day of graduate school hit me like a truck.

I did enjoy going to our department mixer, though- it was a good chance to get to know some of the other students, as well as the staff: though there was a larger amount of PHD students than I expected. A friend of mine who's already been through the grad school gamut mentioned that that was fairly typical, though, as apparently there's a greater push to attend those sorts of events from their supervisors. (

I spent about two hours extracting and organizing syllabi to make note of duedates, complete with colour coding. It's kind of incomplete, as some due dates are only revealed further into the semester, but for the most part, I've got the bulk of that information organized: both per class, and a master reference copy, so I can be sure that I'm keeping on top of what's rolling my way. It took a pretty chunk of time, but it'll be well worth it, when things get more frenzied. That random advice to make a spreadsheet for this information was excellent, rather than overloading my Google Calendar, which I primarily reserve for class notifications to get me going where I need to go. Very handy to pull up and examine, as well as notate. That's one thing I think I'll keep digital, due to needing to constantly edit it, though I'll consider keeping a monthly tab of items from it in my paper planner.

Speaking of which, thank goodness for the bullet journal system's flexibility: I really took advantage of being able to expand out daily tasks as needed, to pair alongside my weekly view. I'm looking forward to spending time with it this weekend, to set up next week's weekly setup- might experiment with the format I have right now, but limiting my to do list to a few items a day has been pretty sunstainable, so far. Much easier to read and track, as well.

I'm very tired. Well worn out, but in a satisfyingly academic sort of way- I'll sleep well tonight.

I also went on a little coffee date with a friend today, which was lovely. We have plans to hang out during my birthday week, and I'm very excited to meet the pet kitty I've heard oh so much about. It was nice- we chatted, mostly about House, how life has been treating us health wise, updates on the pets, and the general fuss of moving. Mostly House. It was very sweet, to have it mentioned that I'm known to 'have good taste in media.' And I'm looking forward to exploring town a bit more with said pal. :-)

I'm also on campus for quite a long time on Thursdays: so I'm packing a yummy little lunch for myself, and some treats- granola bars, a strawberry Pepero, as well as a booster of caffeine (some match and dry sugar to shake in my drink container like a maniac). I've been enjoying going largely phone free, as of late.

2 september 2025

Today was my first 'dry run' of being on campus- taking care of some of the admin related tasks: like upgrading my student ID, searching around for my classrooms, making sure that I've got a handle on my bus routes and topping up my card: all in all, a smashing success, even with a wait line of literally an entire hour to get my physical ID printed out to meander between buildings. Apparently grad access to buildings hasn't been emailed over yet, so I'm still waiting on that, in order to snoop around the department in particular.

Very tuckered out. I'm quite sleepy. Tomorrow is my first day of actual classes- just the one, but we'll see: fingers crossed that it all goes well. This is the one mandatory credit that everyone in the degree has to take, so it'll be a good chance to meet my classmates: I am planning on staying behind a bit after classes to say hi, try to be friendly. Also set up some other life related appointments today, so I'm looking forward to that next week... On the Tuesday again as well. Quite the quick intake, really.

I'm exhausted. Had some good pumpkin chunks, though, and I'm planning to have my favourite Korean black bean noodles for breakfast tomorrow. A friend of mine from undergrad is planning on hanging out for coffee after class, so yippee! I'm lookin forward to that. A little intimidated to be going to a brand new to me coffee shop, but it'll be a fun adventure with a pal.

1 september 2025

Finally feeling more settled in. I've got everything that I need more or less where it needs to be, and I've even gone ahead and picked out my clothes for the week. Going to keep Fridays as work from home days, because with the sleep debt I'm going to pile up from Thursdays, it just makes more sense to pace it in that sense. The charging situation is still kind of dire- I never realized how slow my laptop is to charge, and the cable management is a fucking disaster at the moment, but I still have my makeshift mobile work around and I can listen to music off of my phone, at the least. Thank goodness for Lo-fi Hiphop Beats girl and her long videos. Mostly hopping on my laptop for when I want to write a long play-by-post reply, or archiving said replies in batches on my personal site, or hitting up the Neofeels terminal to update my silly bo billy little blog daily, since I've been enjoying that process. Loaded some funds onto my pass, and found my keys where I'd stashed them away alongside my favourite hat, knowing that future me would struggle to find them otherwise: I love it when I do myself a solid like that, especially because I even found a bit of a treat I'd left for myself to enjoy in there. It reminded me of talking to my brother on campus, huddled away in a tiny forgotten corner late at night. Going to settle some admin related stuff tomorrow, and maybe just kind of play around on campus for a bit- figure out my rooms, sit until I really feel like returning: and settle in to get set up for the weekly grind. I'm a little nervous.

Everything I've seen has told me to approach it like a 9-5 the best that I can, and I am taking the suggested amount of courses for students in my position. I was deemed capable enough to enter the program, I should be capable enough to actually address it. And the rigours of academia are a familiar friend, even if stressful, at times. I have a cute little cat cup of caffeine that isn't atrocious and I can make up with cold water in a pinch, and I have my notebooks all settled aside, my September bullet journal set up: a weekly to begin with, and the flexibility to add in more daily musings if I need it. I have a portable, battery-less hobby, I have been maintaining my journalling habit, and a little vial of ink and needle to reup on the go- 26 pages of writing between the solo TTRPG I've been playing and my diary entries ate through the body, which feels like it's more or less what I expect from its typical output. I'm excited, I think. A first day of school on the horizon. And a day to ease into getting my life into order. The new move soon will be frustrating, but not too bad- most of my stuff is still packed up, and I found my darn silicon scrubbie for my hair, so that's nice. Got to be careful about not getting the minty shampoo into my eyes. But I'm feeling good. And I've been keeping up on top of my iron. So that's also great. It'll be alright. Just a little bit nervous heading into the new year. I'm playing it safe, with jeans and a plain t-shirt, but in the second week of class, I'm going to relax into my Sanrio merch: just figured I should dress up a tiny touch to attend my first classes, and get a feeling for how strict or relaxed the dress code is. I mean, it's STEM. It's also engineering. It won't be that bad- it's not like I'm entering a law or business program. But still. Doesn't hurt to try to make a slightly more elevated first impression, I suppose. I've prepared everything that I can. Now it's just a matter of going out there and doing it. It's fine. I've got this in the bag.

Fiddled around with my profile settings for the terminal, and now the text entry is a lot more easily readable for me- bumped up the font to a 16pt. I think I still like the generic monospace one that it came installed with, though I'm also considering placing it into Garamond, just to see how that looks. It is my favourite font, after all.

(Turns out that's not a built in option. Monaco is pretty enough, since Palatino does strange things with the spacing. Considering making the background a pale pink, rather than the default black and white, but I sort of enjoy the crispness of the default design. And the color switching is nice not to blow your retinas out at night.)

Still not totally sure how to fix weird paragraph issues after the fact in a manner that isn't nightmarish. I think I should just try to be more mindful of hitting enter a bit more often when I start rabbiting on in my thoughts, hah. Or at least until I find a better solution!

31 august 2025

I'm kind of annoyed, I thought I'd managed to post and it ended up not being saved, which is a total let down.

Moving has been exhausting, but I'm glad that the worst of it's over. A hot shower, even if brief, and a new set of pyjamas, alongside some blessed silence and a bit of good music can mask a lot of woes. But I'm real tuckered out. I have a temporary set up for the moment, but will need to modify it soon.

Tomorrow is labour day, so everything's closed. Just a day to unpack, which isn't half bad, it shouldn't be too much of an ordeal, once I've been given the chance to slouch and settle in.

Started up a playthrough of Iron Valley, since I joined the Solo Sunflowers TTRPG 'bookclub' of sorts. I have an important meeting at the end of September, which is something I'm really looking forward to. I love solo journalling games, and I don't play enough of them. It'll be good for me to get back into the joy of a portable game on the go- powered by one's imagination, of course.

I was stuck solely on mobile for awhile- thankfully, my Bluetooth keyboard connected after a bit of futzing, and I'll go back to that for writing, my laptop charging situation is a bit ridiculous right now, so I'll use it primarily just for music, and updating this Neofeels once a day. I've been enjoying keeping up the streak, and it's a nice way to use the terminal, even when I don't have the time futz around in the IRC, which is oddly attention demanding, since the messages disappear after a set amount of time. Very tired. Will need to archive these, and my writing at some point, when the charging situation is better.

Cheers. I'm back in the big city. How I've missed it here. Saw a cute squirrel as a welcome sign of hello, and the sparkly shine of water off of the lake. Gorgeous.

30 august 2025

Ran the dryer thrice to get the blankets dried. Spent the better part of the evening speaking with friends, which was nice.

29 august 2025

Packing is quite literally the bane of my existence at the moment.

Decanting some of my ink into a plastic vial for the sake of saving on grams of weight and ounces of space was pretty fun though, it did totally make me feel like an alchemist.

The weather was unusually cold today, and I'm still kind of shivering as a result of it. Very happy for the cool autumn, and I hope the weather keeps at it.

28 august 2025

If I never have to pack again I could die happy.

27 august 2025

Today I spent about four hours peeling garlic cloves on a whim. I'm little afraid that I might never be able to get the smell of garlic out of my hands, but at the very least, I am well prepared to deal with any unexpected vampiric encounters, haha.

I also spent about a hour in bed just resting, which was really quite lovely- cozied up beneath the blankets, laying down, and just consciously soaking in the moment, the soft sensations of blankets and pillows and bedsheets, cozied up to restore up some mana, due to unexpectedly using past my assortment of spell slots, as my writing partner put it.

I spent a good chunk of time writing in my journal today, and I'll probably end up filling out my diary before the end of August. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to bring in a slightly lived in diary to campus- I'm already tired, but looking forward to it all. I've missed the structure of academia. And I'll be excited to be able to cozy up in a quiet corner on campus away from all of the big city hustle and bustle late at night, to sit, slow down, and watch the world spin past me.

My birthday is coming up, and I'm excited. I always love my birthdays. They are, after all- a celebration of the fact that out of all of the impossible circumstances and coincidences of fate that coincided into your existence: that you made it, against all odds: a riotous celebration of the joy that is your existence, in the here and now, as you are, and as you will be. Another whole year. Another spin around the planet. Isn't that marvellous? Isn't that a miracle? What a gift, life is. The endurance to persist, the grace to roll with the punches: to live, is to leave doors open, to read more of the story unwinding up ahead of yourself: and your birthday is a happy little day all about you, and no other. An early happy birthday to you, future me. I hope you have a good cake and a quiet moment to yourself during it.

26 august 2025

I've been having such a great time puttering around town. Some wonderful late night chatting with a few other townies, (Nebula, owl, and dozens), about everything from mountain ranges, weather, climate change, what people were studying, indie TTRPG systems and solo journalling games- plus, plenty of wrangling around CSS/HTML in a way that made me really happy and proud of myself.

I wouldn't really consider myself someone who is primarily a coder, but there's something deeply satisfying about being able to take a floaty concept in your brain and turn it into reality: even if you know the underpinning is quite simple, it always makes me excited and happy when I figure out how to do something new: like re-sizing status.cafe RSS feeds to make them fit adorably into the tiny box on my Neocities site, or figuring out a workaround with an 'invisible' sidebar to 'float' the feed beside my main content, (tables resize a bit funky, but I'm thrilled that everything works great on my laptop, and is functional, if not the ideal viewing experience on mobile.) Very proud of cobbling it all together from scratch.

Recently also got a haircut- just a bit of a trim for split ends and smoothing it all out, since the academic term is right around the corner, and I'm pretty pleased with how that came out. Some last minute shopping for essentials, and it looks like I'll be driving down right on Labour Day, which is annoying in terms of my schedule for unpacking and such, but still leaves me with a day to unload the essentials and also find my classes, set up my school ID and transit pass, all that good stuff.

I've been waking up with the sun, lately. It's pretty nice, waking up bathed in warm, radiant sunlight- not too hot yet, because the fierce heat hasn't settled in, (and August is losing its bite, as the weather turns autumnal- soon, I'll have an excuse to break out my green beanie, which is a brand new addon, I'm considering adding a handmade patch onto it of some sort), which suits me just fine- I adore cold, snowy weather. One of the things I'm most looking forward to in the winter term is taking a seat on a bench on campus, late at night- when the air is inky blue, and the warm orange glow of the streetlights bounces off the heaps of crystalline snow, and everything just has an inner glow, the world muffled and silent from the blanketing snow as thick, fluffy Hallmark snowflakes swoosh by in soft eddies and curls of wind. Gorgeous. One of my favourite experiences of downtown- alongside the way the neon streetsigns and car lights reflect on grey, wet pavement: how there isn't a true, deep darkness out on the main streets: the lights are always on, and the city always feels alive. Plus, it's a fun excuse to use my Hello Kitty umbrella, which is brand new, pink, and adorable.

Quite proud of myself for all the tinkering around with coding I've done as of late. Had fun suggesting some indie TTRPG games to other townies- Butterfly Court, Of Moon and Leaf, Tangled Blessings: all such fun games, and a good time with newcomers and experienced hands alike.

Coming to the end of my summer journal. I've been thinking about copying down some of my favourite poems from my webshrine into the front of it, as a way to break it in for the term with something special, and to be able to carry around a little piece of soothing comfort in the form of my favourite poems in the front. Sounds rather romantic. If you don't romanticize your life, who will?

25 august 2025

I was very excited to see that my application for the town had been processed- and promptly spent most of my evening puttering around with setting up my homepage here.

Still getting a handle on how to use the terminal- there's a lot of clumsy ending and restarting the session, and futzing around to pull up new options- all good fun!

I dropped an introduction post over on the town's board, (after figuring out how to zoom through posts, yippee!) and my good ol' reliable table HTML element never fails for when you desperately want to add an adorable kitty picture onto your front page alongside a little 'about me' blurb, as I can't quite figure out how to add multiple pages. The nav element has also been putting in the work so far. I'm glad to say that my time puttering around with pure HTML/CSS on Neocities while waiting for my invitation has paid off! It's looking pretty snazzy, for a one page wonder.

I'm up later than I have been, as of late- too caught up in the excitement of learning the ropes. I also had a bunch of the delicious homemade matcha sugar cookies, and a matching, super milky matcha tea this evening, so perhaps that has something to do with it. The rain is heavy and cooling, as August wanes- I can't wait for autumn to come. With it, will be much cooler weather- and an excuse to break out my brand new green beanie, while strutting around downtown in my no-nonsense black leather boots.

I spent some time fiddling around with Inky, this evening, and managed to make the interface pink- and figure out how the Inkberry companion works for previewing the CSS changes. Still wrangling the concept of the Weave around in my head again, but I managed to set a few global variables, and I think I've gotten the hand of the general structure. I'm thinking haunted houses. My writing partner took a lovely early Sunday off, and we're batting around a few cute PBP TTRPG replies at the moment- a fluffy scene babysitting a silly, sweet toddler hanging out with her uncle while playing scavenger hunt, and a fluffy romantic scene between two vampires looking after their pet kittens.

I'm pretty sleepy. It's a marvel where all the time goes. In about a week, classes start- and I'm hoping to maybe use this as a way to capture some of my thoughts and side quests during graduate school. The big city calls- and I've so dearly missed the neon lights. Moving's exhausting, but hey- a new story awaits.