A few things, I guess.

It's been a lot of rando stuff with the Mentor tournament.  Mostly a good thing!  Although funnily enough it's led to me being a little less active in actually just playing the weekly reddit seeds and everything.  Too busy working with mentees and coaching them through races and all.  Managed to put out a new bite-sized rando video though, which is good!

Progress on Rhythm Quest...continues slowly.  I alternatively feel like I'm spending like zero time on it and making no progress, but then I'll sit down and do stuff that I'm really happy with.  Recently I managed to basically almost finish up everything with level 6-3 (just did the backdrops and palettes today), which is a great step in the right direction as there are only 2 more levels in the main campaign to take care of!  Of course there are a billion other things to do and I'm sure a lot of the earlier levels (some of which are years old now...) can use some improvements, but it's still going to be a really big milestone for me to have all 30 main levels in some form of complete.

I've been hanging out at Far Leaves here and there (twice this past weekend actually), but will probably try to make it out to Teance next time to see what that is all about.  I didn't go do any dancing in the past week but didn't really regret it; I did end up making it out to WnY earlier this month anyways.

Last night/this morning unfortunately I suffered from some very random anxiety.  Really came as a surprise as I didn't think that I had a bunch of stuff swirling around internally but I really didn't have a good time in the middle of the night, was just super unsettled randomly, which is unfortunate.  Hopefully tonight I'll rest more peacefully.

I've been struggling to make progress on writing letters, but I honestly feel like I've been saying that for like the past year or so (maybe not super surprising).  It's still a problem.

In more pleasant news, I finally booted up and started playing Read Only Memories: Neurodiver.  Should be a fun game/story to play through from time to time, and something for myself to really look forward to, in the absence of anything else more "interesting" in my life right now in that vein.

I guess I need to work on getting a little bit closer with Sayuri?  Hard to find the right time...but yeah, I guess that is something I need to do.  Probably could stand to drink some more tea at home, too...

Sometimes I wonder if it was my destiny to be a boy, despite it all.  I mean, of course, sometimes I also wonder if in another world, it was my destiny to actually become Sayuri in the end.  Or maybe even in this world.  But then something went askew somewhere along the way.  We don't really live in that world.  Maybe it wasn't meant to be.

But like I said, I also think sometimes, about whether I was always supposed to be a boy all along.  A shallow reading of it would be something like how I'm supposed to serve as this example for others or whatever.  But I don't think that explains the destiny thing.  And I honestly don't...think I serve as an example for others.  Just the impression I get, other people don't seem to want to be like me.  Which doesn't really bother me, I mean, if I wanted to do the same thing as other people, we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are now, right?

But I think it goes deeper than that, too.  Of course, being a girl would feel like "reclaiming a part of myself", but in another way, being a girl would also feel like succumbing to pressure.  It would mean giving up something as well, and I don't just mean the obvious things.

In the same way, that I think it's important for me to "pass up on opportunities", to not speak up, to not approach people, to sit there and wait, to be quiet, I think it's always been important for me to do things my own way, to be true to myself.  It's not just that I'm trying to be contrarian, but rather, it almost feels like being a girl is, for me, the easy way out (even though it's really the harder way in most ways...).  It's a means of running away, maybe.  Or at the very least, giving up on something.  Giving up on the hope that maybe Sayuri is not the only one who could be beautiful.

Yeah, I'll never be my idol.  Maybe I'll never live with the stars.  But the life I have here in the tower isn't so bad, is it?  Just a bit lonely, waiting all of these years.  Well, I guess I'll just keep on waiting.

The weekend is off to kind of a weird start.  Not bad, just weird!

Yesterday was also interesting I guess, had a rough start to the day and then decided to just do a "reset" of sorts and just sleep through the afternoon.  Played some rando (went well, was fun!) and even managed some Rhythm Quest work at night, but I wanted to try and plan to start on level 6-3 today to make sure that I felt good about achieving some real concrete progress.

Today I worked a bit on prepping A Day in the Life of Death for localization (got a request from a volunteer translator), made lunch of course, but then I ended up spending the afternoon on "sad time" which meant a bunch of poetry and songs and going over past letters.  It wasn't something that I super anticipated but I guess it was, you know, just time.  It happens, it's a good thing to get to every once in a while.  I flipped the FB switch for good measure, though it's largely a meaningless gesture.  But anyways, here we are.

What's weird is that somehow even though my day was all helter-skelter and I was like half multitasking, I still managed to make some good progress on level 6-3.  Didn't finish it or anything like that but I actually managed to create something pretty coherent sounding and actually....a really good chorus/drop section that really came together somehow.  I'm actually super amazed at how I manage to have success even when I'm half-distracted and doing these things while on a casual voice call, really makes me appreciate just how much time and practice has gone into making my workflow natural.  It's not like I'm "dialing it in" in terms of using the same instruments all over the place either, there's an attempt to use different sounds and such, but yeah, somehow it's going well.

The rest of the weekend is probably going to feel a bit weird too!  I'm waking early tomorrow for a yacht trip of some sort (hah!) then I'll have to work on an early dinner and then finally make it out to that WCS event that I've been meaning to for months.  Sunday I've got some obligations as well.....hopefully it doesn't end up feeling like my weekend slips wholly away from me.

But eh, maybe even if it does, maybe that's not so bad after all.  Monday isn't the =most= terrible thing, now, is it?  Speaking of Monday, I actually scheduled some time on Monday to get a little closer to Sayuri.  That should be really interesting....not quite sure what to expect from it.

As far as other updates...I finished my 32-heat runs of Hades, so I'm officially putting that game down (again) probably for good.  As I mentioned last time, after a while it really just became mostly about finding the right heat modifiers to put on each run.  Turns out that 40% increased enemy speed really isn't THAT bad and ended up being the pick for some of the weaker weapons (Zagreus Sword...), letting me weaken some of the other heat modifications like extra damage and extra shields.  Once I really "figured it out" as far as those modifiers go, it was just a matter of not getting too screwed over by bad luck or anything, and then it was just fine.  I ended up doing a crystal beam run on 0 heat as a sort of "victory lap" and that was quite fun, I got pretty much every single boon that you'd want in a crystal beam run, so that was fun watching Hades just melt away.

I successfully took my mentee to a victory in my first mentored race this year, so that felt good!  My decisions kind of all paid off as well, which of course isn't always going to happen, but felt good in the moment.  Feels good to start off strong I guess.

Yeah I dunno, it's really a mix of feelings that I have I think!  Like, I'm both unexcited and excited about life at the same time.  Feeling like I want to meet new people and also like I don't want to meet anyone.  Feeling like I'm tired of doing work but also feeling good about doing work.  It's a weird spot for me to be in, but I'm just sort of rolling with it for now.

The less I write letters, though, the more I continue to worry that a part of me is continuing to die.  It's not even like a huge deal, like I wrote a letter just last week or whatever, but it's still bothering me.  Like, that side of me has taken some really harsh blows over the past few years.  Can it really be nursed back to health?

Soooo I mean, it was an alright weekend, really.

I made it out to a new tea place that I've been meaning to check out, and it's actually wonderful!  They don't quite have the variety of white teas as the other place does, but that's honestly fine, as either way my favorite white tea is the one that I have at home, anyways.  This new place is nice in that they give you your own kettle and you can just sit there for as long as you want and keep brewing more of your tea.  I was there for about two hours last time, I imagine I'll be going there to just hang out and spend some quiet time from time to time now, it seems like a great place for that.

The ALTTPR Mentor Tournament is really underway now and some people are starting to actually play their matches as soon as [checks watch] today!  There's a lot of good energy going around as people try to work on soaking in as much knowledge as they can.  Hopefully I can help my mentees improve and feel like they get something nice out of the experience -- maybe even take some wins along the way.

I've been continuing to do 32-heat runs of all of the weapon aspects in Hades.  I've managed to actually do ALL of them except for one so far...the last one remaining is the Zagreus aspect for the Sword, i.e. the first weapon that you start the game out with, and probably the weakest/worst weapon in the game.  So far, honestly, after re-learning how exactly to play the game, and how all of the enemies function and all that, these 32-heat clears have been less about boon builds and more just about trying to make sure that I can pick the right combination of difficulty modifiers that stack up to 32 heat without making it impossible.  The time limit, in particular -- a lot of weapons I can make it through with just 5 minutes per biome, but for some weapons I had to crank that up to 7 minutes, which of course meant that I had to add 3 extra heat somewhere else, maybe through making the enemies faster.

The melee weapons have definitely all been harder than the ranged ones, but I'm more used to it now, so it's been manageable.  There have been some runs where I just kinda lucked out into a good build, but more often than not it's either I get through with not that many problems and end up with a lot of resources to beat the last boss with, or I don't even make it there in the first place and end up just running out of time and life way before that.  Anyways, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that I can make things work with this stupid sword...

The sadness still comes and goes, it's a little unpredictable, actually.  I think today I felt it a little more than usual, since I didn't really "get a ton done", as opposed to yesterday when I put in some hours toward Rhythm Quest and all that.  It's not like I just lazed around and did nothing today though, I did an ALTTPR mentoring session, prepped some letters for voter outreach, and filed my sales tax return, and of course cooked my two meals for the day.  I think part of it is the Rhythm Quest thing, but also part of it is just that I simply AM sad.  There's not really a way around that.  The best I can do is just to take care of myself and keep doing the things that I know will help me be happy.  Hopefully I can find myself doing those things.

Sin exists because I'm giving up
Punishment exists because I want things too much
I'll leave everything behind
And travel, keep traveling through the cycle

If tomorrow comes, will I be able to smile?
Will I be able to smile like I did on that day?
I wish, I keep wishing
That not one thing will be lost