Things are going alright, I guess!

I finished watching Sousou no Frieren!  There were a few points when I was a bit worried that they were taking the series in a different direction and sort of forgetting their themes and what made the show good, but I enjoyed it all the way through and overall it was one of the more enjoyable shows that I've watched in my memory.  Really refreshing and covered good ground that I appreciated.

Rhythm Quest work continues...I caught myself at this moment earlier tonight wondering whether I had done enough work on it today.  Sigh...it's always an eternal struggle.  The year is already 25% over, after all =/.  Well, I'm doing a good job of trying to bounce back and forth and just work on different things here and there, I guess.  I'm starting to work a lot more on bonus levels, which is nice because it's very concrete and fun to work on, but of course there are a ton of other things that need attention, too...

Therapy and life in general have been going well I think!  I had a pretty good couple of days this past week, feels like I've managed to empower myself to fix up some of the things that I've been unhappy with, and in general I think I've been getting more well acquainted with self-love and self-compassion, in various different forms.  Not just the emotional spiritual stuff, but even just the day to day pragmatic taking-care-of-yourself kind of thing.

Carnival of DEATH 2024 is upon us, and I've started trying to de-rust a bit in TGM so that I can hopefully put up a 500 (or even an M rank) in this year's Carnival.  We'll see how I end up doing and whether I manage an M over the week.  I'll just give it an honest shot.

I missed this year's Journey anniversary due to being out of the country.  I was considering the thought of perhaps doing a make-up journey, but perhaps I'll just skip this year.  I think I've finally gotten to the point in my life where it no longer feels important that I catch every single thing that I usually commit to.

Speaking of which, the next Ludum Dare event is coming up in just 2 weeks.  It's been what feels like ages since I did one of these, so perhaps we'll try dipping our toes into the water again.  We'll see, I guess?

I'm slowly feeling the tendency to want to sleep later and later...it's something I'm now having to try and actively stay conscious of.

The trip went okay!  I ate some good food, saw some cool things, etc.

As far as food goes, there wasn't any particular standout highlight, just a few good things.  My takeaways are I might try to make Shkmeruli (a Georgian dish, with chicken cooked in a garlic/butter/cream sauce) at some point.  I had a shrimp ravioli with a...(pumpkin-based?  I don't remember) nice sauce that was pretty good as well, I don't think I'll be replicating that one but it reminded me that the flavor of fresh chives can really add a nice note to a lot of dishes.  I had a really nice pasta alla forma there as well, basically spaghetti in a really creamy parmigiano reggiano sauce, flavored with porcini mushrooms.  Reminds me that my cacio e pepe could stand to use some work...

We did a little indoor minigolf activity -- I basically crushed it, though the courses were a little small, so not a ton of "hard shots" (I made the really hard ones), more like testing your medium/short range putting consistency, which I wasn't the best at, but did well enough.  It got me itching to go to out to Golfland sometime again.  I visited the one in Castro Valley not super long ago, which was an interesting experience.  It's been ages and ages since the one time I went out to the Milpitas one, it might be nice to find a time to go out there and see how it stacks up, and compare it to Sunnyvale (the baseline).  Overall the Castro Valley one seems more difficult due to shorter banks, longer putts, and lots of slightly-sloped ground everywhere.  I like the course design more at Sunnyvale overall.

I did a LOT of cubing practice over the course of the trip.  I'm actually ~25s....ish....now, with some solves actually creeping into the sub-20 range, so honestly not half bad given that I'm still doing 2-look OLL.  My PLL recognition and memory is still really sucky, but at least I managed to learn algs for all 21 cases over the course of the trip.  Now it's just a matter of getting more comfortable with all of them.  I also realized that I'm generally really slow on cross, that's something I tried to work on a little.  And then of course F2L...I think I'm totally fine with just doing F2L with my trusty good ol solutions, but I realized that I need to work on efficiency and learning some better solutions for certain cases and avoid having so many regrips for certain cases.  But anyways, it was super fortunate timing to get back into this for the trip, it really helped me pass the time well.

The plane ride actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Maybe it's because the last time I flew international I had a layover...?   I did some cubing, played some phone games, watched some anime/videos, played some rando, got some sleep.  Just casual chill stuff, nothing too serious.  Honestly I felt pretty lazy about my time on the plane, didn't even pull out my letter writing supplies or anything.  But eh, whatever passes the time, I guess.  I lucked out and had an empty seat next to me on the way there, which was excellent.  Unfortunately, had a big guy next to me on the flight back, but eh, made it work.

It's good to be back home, doing all the normal things, including cooking everyday, streaming rando, etc etc.  My chickens seem to be doing better than before, maybe they're just happy that it's getting more sunny out.  I'm actually sleeping somewhat normally due to jetlag, so we'll see whether I can keep that going or not.  I basically didn't work on Rhythm Quest at all this past week, so we'll see if I can play catchup on that a little.  I worked on it an "ok" amount today, maybe not as much as I would have liked, but I had other things to do, and hey, progress is progress.

Been having a bunch of talks about friendships and such, we'll see if any of that ends up coming to a head in the near future I guess.

Let's take stock, I guess...

It's been a week since the eventful night of VBall.  I didn't do a full recap, but I somehow didn't really feel the need to, either.  The vague words that I wrote already will have to suffice.

Anyways, I'll be out for a week; we will see how that goes!  As usual, I'm going in with tapered expectations and a hope to "take it easy" and have some time to myself to just enjoy a nice change of pace.  I mean, I guess VBall was an example of life taking my "tapered expectations" and smashing everything around, so I guess anything is possible...

It's been a mix of like, bad habits together with getting stuff done, but at least that doesn't really feel like a battle or anything like that.  I keep on alternating between not getting enough sleep and then sleeping in a lot, but I guess that's not really anything new.  We'll have to see if jetlag does anything about it or not.

I finally finished putting together my 70-minute diatribe about Ice Palace routing, and came out of it with an extremely good understanding of what should be done when going through the dungeon, so I'm happy that that has finally happened.  I still have to go and edit the captions on the video and publish it and all, but it's mostly done, yay!

I felt guilty again about having neglected my chickies, but today I spent some good time with and around them, making sure their bedding was replaced and their food and water topped off.  I'm not really too worried about them, but going up to see them daily is another one of these good habits that I'm going to have to make a more concerted effort to maintain, along with my morning skincare and just being on top of stuff in general.

At least, cooking has been going well, as usual.  I mean, of course, I have a few misses here and there, but mostly successes.  I've been making more purees and soups as of late -- earlier today I did a chicken soup out of the leftover trimmings and bones from a whole chicken that I roasted the other night.  I hardly ever make homemade chicken stock other than when I do poached chicken for hainan chicken; it was actually really refreshing to have.  I tried a corn chowder as well, which wasn't too bad.  I have been finding that the immersion blender I'm using isn't really quite cutting it for getting these soups and curries to really be smooth enough.  I have another one that I'll have to try next time, but failing that the only options might be to just get a more powerful countertop blender, or just a more powerful immersion blender.  Of course the latter is way more convenient, so that's ideal, but we'll have to see, really.

Cubing has just become a thing that I do idly now, I guess.  It's...still really weird to be doing it again.  What's going to be really really interesting is when I actually have the new LL algs in my head and muscle memory, and then start actually being able to compare times to how I used to do.  That will probably be a really fascinating experience.  At least I've been getting lots of F2L practice, trying to develop newer and better habits.

Well, on the plane ride I'll have my fair mix of things to pick from to do.  There will be some rando, of course, probably learning a few algs if I can, and I've got some anime to watch if I so feel inclined.  There's a bit of Rhythm Quest work to do, even, and if I'm feeling extra motivated I can even write some letters.  I downloaded FF6: Brave New World as well, though it remains to be seen whether I actually decide to get pulled into playing that or not.

I guess tonight was life's way of seeing my plans, and giving them a giant middle finger, telling me that it can do better, and that everything I thought I knew so surely can also be totally wrong.  And that maybe I don't have to be so goddamn cynical all the time, if I can only just put aside my standards and aversion to failure and open my life to a little bit of uncertainty.

Why do I keep on deciding that I have such a heavy burden to bear?  Who asked me to bear it?  Surely, not anyone else?  I said in my last post that I felt that I was at peace.  Perhaps that was true, but peace can come both from conquering your fears and also from hiding from them.  That is not to say that one of the two is necessarily better, contrary to popular belief.

It worries me, a little, that the energy of hiding from my fears, of sitting back, of being quiet, calm, collected, and not needing to speak my mind, seems like it's becoming more and more lost within myself.  I know it's still there, but somehow, in so many moments, a different side of me decides to emerge instead.  That side is fine, too, but when will the quiet me ever shine strongly?  Even if only for myself?

Well, that is a question for another day.  For today, I consider myself a bit humbled.  Maybe it's a bit fitting that life told me, in a similar way, almost a year ago, that I should be open to new experiences, and things that I might have otherwise written off.  Of course, a bit after life gave me that reminder, it had also given me a different middle finger, and I retreated to the hole that I've been hiding in for quite some time.  Oh, life.

Today felt good!

I woke up a bit late after sleeping in.  I might have caught a slight cold (?), maybe something going around our household, but it felt pretty mild, mainly just a little bit of fatigue (could explain why I felt more tired than usual lately, or maybe...just vice-versa).  I didn't get any exercise done today, but I've been generally doing good with that elsewhere -- did a booty workout yesterday and played a good session of DDR earlier in the week.  Checked up on the chickies yesterday and restocked them...

Anyways, I managed to start figuring out some travel logistics this afternoon, for an upcoming trip, including ordering a power adapter.  Still need to do a few more things for that, most importantly making some sort of allergy card for myself so I can hopefully NOT have to use my epipen while abroad... and then making sure that I've got my laptop all prepared with a bunch of entertainment that I might want to have on hand.  I'll have my fair share of things to occupy myself, not only on the plane but hopefully during downtime as I'm sure I'll want some introvert time to myself where I'm just not doing anything and am just chilling.  I think there have been one too many times where I've gone traveling without really making a conscious effort to get some of that time in... anyways, I can do anything from working on Rhythm Quest, learning cubing algs, playing rando (of course), or perhaps I might even start a playthrough of FF6 T edition???

I also started working on a new Rhythm Quest level for the first time in quite some time (wooo).  Not a new campaign level, but just a bonus level, as that felt more low-stress, and a good way to experiment with the newest mechanic.  There's not really such thing as too many bonus levels for me to make, so this is a good way to feel like I'm making progress while also getting other people excited about the game (all they want is to have the game in their hands and see more levels.......) and make sure that I don't completely forget how to make levels.  Plus it's just good to bounce around between different aspects of the project from time to time, anyways.

Made some good progress on that...didn't finish, but I had to transition over to doing OHC, which actually went quite well today.  I had released my single yesterday and today I took care of the release work for my monthlies album, so really feels like I'm sort of firing on all cylinders as far as music work goes.

Made dinner as quickly as I reasonably could and spent some time with my housemates before doing a rando run.  I still make mistakes here and there of course, but overall it went well, I felt like it was an interesting seed and for the most part I was happy with how I played it!

Tomorrow's another day; I'll probably hope to do laundry as well as maybe hopefully finish the brunt of the work on my new Rhythm Quest level.  I still haven't started sitting down and re-recording that Ice Palace Routing video, sigh...someday, though.

Viennese Ball is coming up soon!  Fortunately, it's in the usual familiar location (more convenient and better for sure than the other one where we were last year).  Unfortunately I have to make a pretty huge detour for carpooling purposes, so I'm planning to just pack myself a sandwich to eat while wading through traffic or something I guess, and I'll just change later when I'm at the venue or whatever.  Honestly, changing at the venue is something that felt quite nice before; kinda just takes a bunch of hassle off when you can just show up in comfy warm clothes and not worry about anything.

Speaking of not worrying about anything, despite the minor hassle I already mentioned, I'm feeling...overall quite, erm...easygoing?  About VBall this year.  I donno, I mean I guess it's not like I was super stressed out about it last year (besides it being in the weird location...and a weird snafu where I wasn't sure if I could get my car out of the lot), but you know, in past years it was this big thing that I wanted to make sure I was all prepared and equipped for.

I won't be bringing my Journey outfit out for the ball this year; perhaps it's fitting then, that my attitude toward the event seems to have changed somehow as well.  What are my hopes for the ball?  Really, to just relax and enjoy myself, whatever that means.  Honestly, that probably just means "trying to see if I can have fun being with people, or even by myself".  That's rather nebulous, I guess, but I think it's because I've not felt that much of a need to invest in dancing as much as before.

I guess last year was a little interesting because I was in the middle of "figuring out" my dancing.  I had been unhappy with the way that I was dancing for some time and was struggling to really land on how I should be or ought to be dancing.  Of course, looking back on it, everything is pretty obvious in hindsight...

Perhaps something else that's different this year is, oh, actually, the event itself has some odd curveballs (rotary waltz contest at 1:00AM...?), but more than that, well...thinking about those "contests" themselves, I realize that I feel a sort of liberation knowing that I...don't feel any sort of responsibility to the dance scene any longer.  I danced in many of those events (okay, maybe a little presumptuously), out of a sort of funny sense of obligation because, ....okay, I really don't want to get into it here.

I felt a sense of commitment when putting together JaSmix, too.  Like I had this need to give back to the dance community that I had ostensibly been a part of so long (albeit a bit on the outskirts at times).  But I...don't really feel that way anymore.  I guess the passage of time sorta does that, maybe.  Maybe it's because I feel like I already "paid my dues".  Sure, I know that JaSmix was consistently a night with the best dance energy and music among comparison events that I've been to, but I no longer feel like I "need to" keep that going.  If I want to show up in force, then sure, so be it.  But what if I don't want to?

Like...what's really in it for me?

The shifting of the crowd I think is also part of what did it for me.  Like, sure I can be respected or appreciated or whatever, but like, if I stop running JaSmix is it really going to be something that's bemoaned?  Or are people just going to move on with their lives and nobody is going to bat an eye?  People are interested in their own things.  It'd be rude of me to presume what they may or may not want.  If everyone really cared about the same things that I did, maybe I'd feel more of a burden of responsibility for making those things happen.  But I think I'm starting to bring in learnings from other parts of my life -- learnings that frankly, people just don't really give a shit about the exact same things that you do.  I don't really have to ask them about it; it already showed clear through all of their actions.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel sort of at peace with that part of things, when it comes to dance, and Viennese Ball, at least.  The problem, perhaps, is that I feel a little less okay with it when it comes to life.  But you know, perhaps I'm still learning to see things in different ways.  How to accept that not everyone is the same as me, or each other.  We are all different.  It makes us so very alone, until we can find the ways to navigate and construct the bridges between us.