gon

I slept pretty poorly, last night. Woke up at around 4 in the morning and didn't manage to fall back asleep. Was pretty tired the whole day.

Lunch was OK, but mediocre... Lots of veggies, which was nice, but it wasn't very substantial.

I took a nap a bit after 5 in the afternoon and woke a little after 7, then took my walk.

The walk was surprisingly good. I didn't take a longer route because I feared that my exhaustion would prevent me from having fun and enjoying it, but I think I might've been able to. I just listened to Shadow Slave the whole way through, pretty much, and my feet moved on their own. It was really rather pleasant.

Just took a bath. I really need a haircut...

Hopefully I get some better shut-eye tonight.

I've been eating very light, these past few days.

As such, I've been craving something more substantial. Thankfully, I've planned to go have some sushi with a friend on Sunday! I'm very excited! Looking forward to it immensely.

Not only will I have the chance to speak to my friend, but I'll have sushi! Really, what could be better? Maybe if I could have sushi with my friend and my family, I guess, but let's not get too greedy now...

Tomorrow morning, I might go out and buy some apples. We still have some left, I think, but I've really been enjoying my daily breakfast-apple with chocolate milk. I don't want to reach into the fridge one day and not have an apple to grab.

Feeling good.

Went on a longer walk today. I plan to go on a different, though about equally as long walk tomorrow. It was very enjoyable.

Also read quite a bit. I used LNReader's TTS function during the walk, which was really nice. I got to listen to Shadow Slave.

Not hungry, right now.

My legs hurt like I've been run over by a truck! That's hyperbole, of course - I imagine being run over would be much more painful. Additionally, I've never been run over by a truck myself, so I wouldn't know what it feels like.

Enough about trucks.

My legs hurt a lot, after my walk. It was quite a bit harder than usual, but I think it was also quite a bit faster. I probably walked faster on instinct, for some reason, which put more strain on my body. That's not a bad thing, of course, but it does result in more fatigue, which is something I'm not paying the price for. By the way, is that last sentence grammatical? It feels wrong, somehow.

Whatever.

My walk was, once again and as foreseen by the Gods, delightful. Case in point:

I know what you're thinking. "Gon, you're the greatest photographer of your generation. Also you're really cool and awesome." While all of that is true and correct - thank you, by the way - even I suffer from indecision, from time to time. Feel free to let me know which of these pictures you think is best; the previous one, or this:

These photos are just 25 seconds apart, by the way. Pretty cool, I think.

I felt really hungry during my walk. I was feeling a little hungry before I went out, but just a little. After some 15-30 minutes of walking though, it really hit. I felt kind of weak and sluggish, but I could still walk fine, so I just kept walking and listening to my videos on my headphones. It was an enjoyable walk, overall, as previously stated in this very post, by yours truly. Upon arrival back home, I was hungry no longer! Great success, I suppose. Drank like a liter of water - I say "like a liter" like I don't know it was exactly a liter... It was a liter - and then took a bath. I'm writing this in my jammies.

Feeling good.

I've finally decided to pick this back up.

I did manage to lose the weight at first, which is great, but I want to go even further down! I think I can do it. I'm excited.

Today, I succeeded. It's very hard to resist stuffing myself constantly, but hey, I can fight it.

Took a long walk today and it was lovely.

Took this picture:

Very nice~

Ate a mackerel sandwich today, too. I love fish.

I've been craving fresh veggies...

I have some frozen ones - which I'll definitely eat tomorrow - but I've really been fiending for some mushrooms or something, or kale, or spinach. I'm not sure if we have potatoes, but if we do then I'm definitely making mashed potatoes too.

Went on a walk today, by myself, since my brother isn't here.

It's been raining, these past couple of days, and today as well. Yesterday, I felt that the weather was so bad that I couldn't go on a walk, so I decided that today I had to go no matter what. I still had to cut my walk short and take a different route than usual, but at least I went out. It took about 33% less time than usual, which sucks, but it was still fun.

I did get rained out pretty hard, but not that hard. I'm not at risk of catching a cold.

Hopefully the weather turns for the better.

My brother and grandma went back home today. I stayed back...

Unfortunate, perhaps, or not. I'm trying to make a life for myself so, hopefully that works.

I'll miss them though, even if it's only a week.

I was with my grandma a lot, today. It was fun! I love my grandma.

She made food for us; I had fried salmon and she had turkey meatballs with pasta and a salad. We had french toast for dessert. Well, I did, anyway, she had apple pie I think.

We talked a lot, which I appreciated. The conversation itself was maybe a little more contentious than I'd hoped, but it was still good. It feels good to connect with her, on any level. We have a lot of shared concerns, even if we're two generations apart.

Bought a book for my mom, too. Mother's day is coming up - it's this Sunday - so my brother and I decided to buy her a book she's been meaning to read.

I didn't write too much today, but I did get greatly frustrated by the horrendous paper quality of my notebook. It's so bad. The paper rips so easily and it's so transparent, it's nearly see-through!

I've also been a little upset at my own handwriting. Some letters and some words look really good, sometimes, but some capital letters in particular look so horrible! I'm also rather inconsistent. It's so very frustrating... I guess it's one of those things that I'll never be truly satisfied with; it's not good to chase perfection, because we will never achieve it. Still, I can see just how much I have to improve that it feels rather daunting. At least now I have a great pencil to improve with!

Last night, during my nightly shower, I thought about starting a YT channel where I detail the things I do to improve myself. I think it'd be cool, and it might provide some motivation for me to keep at it. I think it might be too much work, though, and not actually help that much with consistency. I already have this habit of posting, so I guess that personal niche is already filled.

Today, I felt like eating lots of stuff. Yet, I didn't. I ate a normal and adequate amount of food, and a normal and adequate distribution of macro-nutrients, as well! Happy about that. I walked quite a bit too, which is good. I'm gonna go for a late night walk with my little brother, soon, so that's gonna be great and add to my daily step count. I really need to get into more music, though, since he's gonna go back home for a week, which means our conversations will cease! Music shall fill the void, during the walks. I hope so, anyway. Maybe a podcast could be good too, I've been looking to get back into The Magnus Protocol. That could be interesting.

I re-read that poetry section from Orpheu. It's called "Poems," by Ronald de Carvalho, by the way. I mean, look, it's OK. I don't like it very much, it's confusing and I don't really get it. I also don't like the repetitive nature of some poems, like "Reflexes" - the last one - and "Nightly Lamp." I also feel like some rhymes are forced and weak. It's just much worse than the previous section, in my opinion. I might delve into it more in another post, but that's what I have for now.

The next section is by Fernando Pessoa, but it's not a poem. I think it's a play called "The Sailor." Cool! I'll read it tonight, hopefully. It's not too long.

Today was a quiet day.

I cropped a t-shirt. Just chopped it and hemmed it - at least I think so. Didn't make much of a difference, frankly. I don't think I dislike it, but I don't really care, to be honest. It was nice to experiment and do something, though.

I also wrote quite a bit. Uni Kuru Toga, of course. Very nice, still. A couple of hours ago I also decided to try out a different writing grip. I usually use a so-called lateral quadrupod, but I also like a lateral tripod, though the latter does hurt a little, as would be expected - my middle finger isn't used to handling a pencil.

I definitely need a new pencil case... I have too much stuff stuffed into my case.

However, I don't want to buy anything. I was watching a livestream today and the streamer talked about her financial difficulties, a little. She's very cool, but financial insecurity really scares me, to be honest. I have money, but I feel terrible "wasting" it on superfluous things like a new pencil case, especially right after I bought some pencils... Which I didn't need!

Sigh.

At least I'm using the pencils, so there's that.

Oh, one thing about the Kuru Toga that's bothering me is the eraser. The eraser itself is fine, but I can't remove the freaking cap! Well, I can, but it's damn hard. The DelGuard is easy to remove, so is the Rotring, but the Kuru Toga is just STUCK in there. It has a click mechanism, I suppose that's why. Well, I have another eraser so it's not a big deal or anything, but it is annoying. It's not a precious stone, guys, it's an eraser.

I've been listening to this: [playlist] chill chinese rnb ~

It's pretty good, I think. Check it out!

I've been watching loads of fashion content on YouTube, lately.

Ash Callaghan, mainly, but also other creators, such as James Leung. Both are pretty good, by the way - Ash is a bit of a hater, which seemingly turns some people off, but James comes off as a very wholesome person with measured takes and honest opinions.

I've also been looking at shoes. I have some shoes - 5 that I would consider wearable, 6 if I count my winter boots (which are pretty decent, just not really weather appropriate for some 80-90% of the year) - and it's not that I find that not to be enough, but rather that, well, simply put: 4 of them are falling apart. Mostly at the heel, or, I don't know what it's called. The inner heel? The inside of the shoe that rubs against your Achilles's tendon. That part.

I have two of the same Adidas Run 60s and two of the safe something-something from Decathlon. I've gotten my fair share of wears out of them, I suppose, but I'm finding it tough to replace them. I mean, I can think of shoes to replace them, but I don't want to fork over the cash. However, I've been going on walks these past few days and it's really been hitting me how important it is to have some reasonably comfortable shoes for that. My one pair that's in a good state - though it's also showing some wear in the same area, despite my taking considerably good care of them - are some Adidas Rebound or something like that. They're fine, but they're not really comfortable enough to go on long walks. They're moreso fashion than function, I'd say. I like them, but not that much.

I think I really just need to get some hiking shoes, or something. Maybe I should get Hoka's, I don't know. Running shoes. I'll have to do much more research into this; read some Reddit posts.

Yesterday, there was no electricity for a great deal of the day. It returned around 9, I think, after having gone out just before noon. Thankfully, I got my mechanical pencils in the mail. Oh boy! I love them so much.

The Uni Kuru Toga really is incredible. I've been writing with it lots and enjoying every moment. The DelGuard has become something of a disappointed, by comparison, though I still like it very much. I wish the Kuru Toga looked like the DelGuard, but still worked as it does. Now that would be epic.

I've also pretty much decided to buy a new notebook. A Midori MD A5. It's not even that expensive, really, and I hope I'll make good use of it. Some journaling.

Speaking of which, I looked around the apartment for some pens and found a roller ball, needle tip. I like it much more than the other pens I've been trying out. I believe I've mentioned that I was sorrowfully disappointed with the BIC Gelocity I purchased some time ago, but I'm happy I've found something that performs better than that sitting right there, for free. Nice!

I'll try to include more pen writing.

I got some news from me trying to cancel my grant and whatnot. Turns out, I need the other supervisor to sign the damn thing... Which sucks, because that's the one that isn't replying to my emails. I did manage to cancel my PhD very easily, so that's nice. Just needed to fork over 20 buckeronis. No problem. Hopefully, I get a reply soon from that supervisor and manage to get rid of this thing already.

Also, I got confirmation that I did not get a job I was interviewing for. I'm not sure I'm happy or sad about it... Maybe I'm neutral. On one hand, I need a job, so I want a job. On the other hand, I didn't really want that job, in particular, and there's other jobs that I've applied to that I'm more excited about and I believe I have a decent chance of getting. Hopefully I'm right about that. I almost wrote "write" there, instead of right, by the way, which would've been a little funny, I think, so I'm mentioning it despite having caught myself and typed it correctly, after all.

I read the next section of Orpheu, but I found it so thoroughly confusing that I've elected to wait a little longer, give myself some more time to digest and analyse it, before I write a review.

In the mean time, here's my review of the first 39 chapter of Shadow Slave:

It's just OK. It's cliché and a little dramatic, in the way little kids playing with super-heroes and making up cool superpowers - I kill you with my death-beam! I survive with my anti-death-beam! I kill you with my anti-death-beam-resistant-death-beam! - and not in the Toradora way. Still, it's interesting. I like the concept, though really it's just a LitRPG, isn't it? I think the MC's abilities and "flaw" are really cool, especially the flaw. I've decided to keep reading it; I'll see where it goes and report back.

Also, I'm writing this on Alexandrite. I've been using Photon, lately, but it just has so many little things that make it bad that I can't find it in myself to continue. It looks better than Alexandrite, and it does have some better features, but the features it doesn't have, the problems it does have, those are quite terrible, really. Alexandrite is simpler and uglier, but more functional, and therefore, better (for me).

Got my Kuru Toga and DelGuard today. Used them extensively. Love love loooove the Kuru Toga, and love, though less so, the DelGuard.

Super tired today. Huge blackout, but things turned out fine.