Okay, yeah!  It's been a while...let's see where things are at.

 

The rest of my trip went okay!  I felt really exhausted toward the end, in like, every way -- honestly think a big part of it was the heat getting to me since I spent a little extra time outdoors.  It honestly felt super surreal coming back, the weather was a complete 180 and I came back home from sunny + dry to a dark, damp, foggy night.  I'm all settled back in now, but that first 24 hours or so was a little weird...

 

That tea place that I mentioned ended up redeeming itself -- the bai mu dan that I had the first time just was really....not it.  Rather than try their king's grade peony or whatever I actually just ended up going for their pressed white tea cakes and those fared much better for me, there were two that I ended up enjoying, I think maybe the last one wasn't as great but eh, I'll take it.  I had some good times there, including one afternoon where I just sat there and felt really productive. 

 

Ended up bringing a knife home, as I was hoping to.  Yeah, I...didn't really need another knife, but I wanted to have something nice to bring home, and I've been using it and enjoying it so far!  Not replacing my favorite knife, but it's nice to use and even made of the same powdered R2/SG2 steel, which I've had great impressions of so far.  Also ended up ordering myself a diamond sharpening stone, I'll have to see whether I like that one better or worse than the traditional water stone experience.  I think it's a little less meditative, but also like....less hassle, and potentially faster?  I'm afraid to use it on my more precious knives, but I'll have to just give it more experience and see what the difference is when I use the different stones.  I'm experimenting with some new techniques too. 

 

I promise you もう迷わない

強くなる…あなたに証すよ

逃げないで　向き合っていく

姿を見せてくれた　to heart

It's a song that I'm pretty sure Kiki sent to me a long long time ago.  I don't think I ever really associated it strongly with her though, it's just a song that I just kinda had and remembered.  Can't help but think of it a little differently now, though, I guess.

The mentor tournament has been continuing on -- the mentees are on week 5 now and there's only one week of mentoring left!  I coached two races this week -- both victories -- and I have two mentees signed up with me for next week as well.  One of the victories this time seemed like it was going to be a heartbreaker as a hardware issue caused us to lose 22 minutes (!) of progress, but somehow we managed to pull it all together and figure out what plays to make to keep us in it.  Definitely one for the books, sheesh, what a wild ride (was on restream, too...).  Sitting at 8-2 now in my mentor-coached races, which is...incredible actually, haha.

I'm continuing to do some additional work here and there on my ALTTPR site.  Currently doing some of the first few rooms in the GT climb (complicated rooms...).  Once we're at the end of the swiss rounds next week I am considering whether I want to put together a tips/tricks video covering common themes or areas of improvement that I've seen throughout various mentees, but...I'll have to see if I have time to edit that all together.

 

Ended up finally putting another Rhythm Quest release out, including a ton of minor improvements and restructuring that I've been doing over the past month(s).  As usual there are still other bugs and stuff related to the new functionality and changes that I'll need to go back to address.  The work just continues like this...

 

I think we have a date for JaSmix!  Assuming everything can go through, of course.  I'm planning to have the event on August 16th.  I actually could have one more workshop in my schedule, but I...don't think I'm up to the task of teaching it.  Maybe if I think of something fun and simple that I could do, but I just don't think I want to dedicate the bandwidth to it; may as well just let the others do their job and teach some cool stuff and I can just sit back and handle the rest of the night, do some privates, etc.  At this point I'll just be happy if the event goes through and runs smoothly.  It's a little too much to ask for me to also put in a workshop...

There's been a bunch of other life learnings too, I don't know if this is the right place or time to really detail them, but there's been stuff about attachment styles and how I work and stumbling blocks or blind spots that I have been carrying in certain situations and all that.  That stuff is still a work in progress, but then again, we all are, right?

 

I received the news that Andrea Gibson -- a poet whose works I'm acquainted with -- passed away recently.  Was a weird coincidence that I had just recorded a one hour compo piece where I had recited one of their poems.  I never knew them on a personal level and I had only ever attended one of their poetry readings, but they have some really cool works and every once in a long while when I'm not busy thinking that I should be digging into my past I end up reaching for some poetry and, them being one of the few poets whose works I'm acquainted with -- more often than not it's their work that I pull out of my friend's bookshelf and see whether I can glean any feelings from.  Like I said, I don't feel like I really =know= them, but they seemed to....I don't know, like, have lived a really special life?  Full of hardships I'm sure, but also full of strength, connection, crazy experiences and life lessons, and all of that.  I guess I don't want to assume too much, I mean on some level you have to think, somebody who wrote all these grand (or not even grand, just like, heartful?) words about their life experience, surely had to have lived such a full life.  But it's not just like, that their poems are all dramatic or whatever, it's more like...wow, this person went through some stuff, but not only that, they came out the other side, and they did even more.  I dunno.  I guess it just felt like this was a pretty cool person to exist. 

Going to be going back down south a bit this weekend, which should be good, since it's been so long.  Not sure if I'll stay an extra day and stop by Dancebreak or whatever (I've been so MIA at dance stuff...), but either way it should be good.  I'm planning to stop by Teance again finally tomorrow, really looking forward to hanging out there.  (actually reminded me to sign up for the next upcoming tea social...)

 

What else...it's getting toward the latter part of the month so it'll be time for me to start working on another pixel art piece soon.  Looking forward to that, hopefully it'll turn out okay?  I watched The Colors Within / Kimi no Iro, really enjoyed it!  Fun, joyful, kind of touching, not too heavyhanded, pretty, all things that I really appreciated.  Keyboard-wise, I had been using my usual two boards for awhile (and will probably go back to them), but the past couple of days I actually pulled out the Evo80 for a change of pace.  Variety is nice!

 

Chicky stuff continues to be interesting; the "training setting" is now off on the treadle feeder and I'm notttttttt 100% sure dumbchicky has managed to figure out how to get her food out of it, but I know at least white chicky has.  We're still having rodent issues; pretty sure the whole chicky food situation contributed quite a bit to it, but at least we're taking a bunch of the appropriate measures now, and we're learning more and more about how to keep everything safe.  Heh, just thinking about how if I ever have duckies again it'll just be even more learnings...guess the pet stuff never ends, really.

 

Been having this weiiiirddd funky combination of feeling like sometimes I'm super lazy and not really great about my normal rhythms, but also been being pretty productive at the same time?  It's a little weird, but I'm rolling with it for now.  Contrary to what you might think, I don't feel the need to always be on exactly the same rhythm as I normally am.  Progress is still progress, work is still work, fun is still fun.  I still manage best I can to take care of all the different things...

Showing up for yourself means understanding that you deserve love even when you don't think you do

Showing up for yourself means learning about what makes you undeserving of love, too

Showing up for yourself means dragging yourself outside even when you feel like hiding under a rock

Showing up for yourself means letting yourself stay home even when you feel like you should be dragging yourself outside

Showing up for yourself means taking care of your body, putting on your best even when nobody else can see it

Showing up for yourself also means staring at your hideous face in the mirror afterwards

and telling it "I love you"

even when you don't believe it.

You'd do the same for someone else

Wouldn't you?

And even if you wouldn't

that's okay too

 

Deep down, you'd want someone to do it for you

even if you feel like you don't deserve it

right?

I'm doing ok, here, in this place away from home.  As much as I like to always keep the same pace and do the same things, it's hard to argue that taking a little break away from myself isn't good every once in a long while.

My last trip out of town wasn't super "relaxing" in that I was basically always doing stuff every day, though I still managed to take a day on my own to go pet cats and drink tea and everything (wonderful!).  This time I may have some more time to do...okay, normal stuff that I'd probably do if I was out and about at home too, catching up on some work, maybe writing a letter, maybe getting a head start on this month's pixel art, blahblahblah.

There's a tea place here, too, though my first experience there left me feeling half-dubious.  I'll give them one more shot to see if it'll be a nice place for me to stop by again, but I miss my home tea cafe(s) already haha.  It's too bad, too, I think both of the spots that I went to during my last trip were really nice, particularly that second one.  But I guess nowhere is perfect, really.  Maybe I should have brought some of my own tea with me, I guess...

The mentor tournament has continued to be fun I think!  I'm starting off the season strong with 6 victories and 1 loss (heh), somehow I'm actually catching up to that crazy 8-1 record that I had at one point last year before the losses started rolling in.  In my mind the mentees are kind of at the point where their journey and destiny is really under their own control; you can (probably?) really see the difference between mentees that just keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, versus people who put in the work and really learn how to execute every screen in the game well.

I've probably talked about this before, but it's always weird to try and coach people through the process of learning.  Like, I feel like most of my learnings have just been a matter of "expose me to something new" or whatever and then I go and learn the thing myself because it's just EASY for me to figure out how the thing works on my own.  Even if it's not immediately obvious, I can just look up the appropriate resources myself, =or= I can do the science on my own.  So it's really weird to think to myself, how am I supposed to interact with, and =help=, people who don't just figure everything out on their own?  My first instinct is always like "here's a video, go and watch it".  And I mean on some level that's valid, right?  The reason we have these videos is to serve as a nice and (hopefully?) concise explanation of concepts, with prepared footage to accompany it.  Wouldn't that be better than some on-the-fly half-baked runthrough that's unprepared?

But of course, like, people don't always know how to diagnose what they're doing wrong, right?  Again, I have to like, understand that rationally rather than experientially because if you put me in the same situation, 9 times out of 10 I =will= be able to diagnose what's going wrong.  Like, if you see something and try to replicate it and it doesn't work, you should isolate different factors, look at the inputs and outputs, etc.  I dunno, isn't that just...basic? (it's not)

It's real hot here, and =dry= too, so I've been trying my best to make sure to take care of my skin.  Tomorrow I get to give that tea shop another chance, but also get to shop for some knives -- hoping to find something to take home, or at the very least buy as a gift!  I'll probably try to get some work done, but I want to vary that work, too, you know?

Life goes on, for now.  We'll see.

Words to Remove from the Dictionary (Part 1)

Good

Bad

 

Right

Wrong

 

Proper

Improper 

 

Defective

Maladaptive

Inadequate

Inferior

Insignificant

 

Hopeless

Worthless

Unlovable

Unforgivable

Coward

Stupid

Idiot

Broken

Pointless

Powerless

Meaningless

Useless

Impossible

Hate

Normal

Perfect

Never

Can people really change?  I mean, of course, people do change, but I wonder sometimes if that change is slow and hard-earned, or whether change is more like something that just "happens" to you.  Like how you can go to bed, but you can't actively "fall asleep", it's just something that "happens to you".  Maybe the difference is more semantic than anything, but thinking about the changes in my life and in other people's lives, it makes me think about how much of it was really under our control at all.

I've certainly become a little more comfortable talking and interacting with people in certain ways.  (Others...maybe still needs some work)  Was that really something that I did out of my own will and power?  Maybe.  I think it's weird because I'm used to looking at things like skills and techniques, like you know, my execution in ALTTPR, or knowing my way around cooking, or even the craft of making music?  These are all things where I can go like, "hey, yeah, I really worked on that, I put effort into both learning and practicing it, and it resulted in growth and progress".  But like, when it comes to the deeper stuff, like social skills or my personality or even the little componens that make up who I am, those are a lot harder to boil down.

Like, yeah, maybe I feel a little more secure than I used to, but like, I struggle to even feel like that's something that I really "worked out", it just feels like I was "lucky enough" to get through the right circumstances to make it happen.  I think some of the stuff about self-care, yeah, sure, that stuff I feel like I've put in work on, both myself and with my therapist, so that stuff makes sense, but the other stuff...it's harder for me to connect the dots, I guess.

The other weird thing is that change is something that traditionally I've just tried to avoid in the first place?  So like, maybe it makes sense after all that it's something that "happened to me" rather than something I really pursued.  But I donno, are there really good examples of how I've seen people change over time out of their own will?

Yeah...yeah, I guess there are.  But like I said, it is slow, and hard-earned.  I think that's why it's hard to imagine, because usually that sort of change takes many years, I guess, and usually starts so early on.  Like when I decided I would try my best to avoid having so many things that were half-done and never-finished.  I was so young when I tried to decide that, it really took many years before I could really go and say that this is something I'm not only good at but am known for.

I guess I see that in other people, too.  People have told me about how they had experiences that made them figure out that they wanted to be a certain way or wanted to learn how to be a different way than they were previously.  It's cool, I guess, seeing that people can actually make it happen.  That if you want to, you can grow, and shift.  I think it's more rare to see now, because people have settled more into their ways, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen at all.  Even someone who claims to want to stay the same as much as me, feels the shifts happening as I try to understand things in a different way.  Maybe I won't change as drastically as I did during some of my more formative years.  But it still happens, I guess.


I've still been feeling a little off, physically.  Headaches and fatigue and all that.  But I've been doing my best despite that.  Finished that Rhythm Quest devlog, did some mentoring, even squeezed in an ALTTPR run and got some voter outreach postcards started.  I'm overdue on some letters still, but that can come in time.  Everything in its time, one by one, steadily.  I can do it.