#I am probably being exposed to COVID today from one of my coworkers since he couldn’t afford a test or whatever

[tovarishch-dyke]

my chef telling me that my last two weeks in my kitchen job should be really happy and bullshit like that, but in reality it’s going to be miserable and it will end with a brunch shift the day before my first day at my new job.

[nyrator]

been feeling like venting, so just some random vents- then afterwards, JSRF ramblings because I just beat that game

turning 29 at the end of the week, not looking forward to it- turning 30 next year terrifies me

mother’s funeral was friday, got that out of the way relatively painlessly (other than having to spend an extra 800 dollars just to bury my sister with her, about $4500 by the end of it

gofundme raised about $2000, other donations about $1300 last I counted (probably higher), so most of it was covered

yesterday my mother’s 70 year old best friend held a party at a bar for my mother’s friends and I was obligated to go, bunch of crazy old women talking like sailors, drinking and smoking pot and laughing about all the drugs they did and all the times they got raped (yeahhhh), the only person I was comfortable around was the best friend. And then the party ends two hours late, we’re getting kicked out of the bar, and this friend falls bending down to grab a picture of my mother that she dropped, smashes her face into the floor, and collapses with a pool of blood under her face, unmoving, right in front of me. I couldn’t get the words out that I’d go and pick the photo up for her before she went to get it, and I regret it

Thankfully, she only had a concussion and a broken nose, she started responding after about a minute of just lying there, but it messed me up, I think.

I’ve been debating if I want to start drinking. I never tried before, mainly because my father was an abusive and violent alcoholic. The other reason is because I’m afraid what I’d do to myself if I had no inhibitions in place, I feel like I’d be very dangerous to myself.

neck has been stiff for two days. Probably slept on it wrong. Also keep feeling like I get different symptoms of covid every so often after exposing myself to the public (that bar was packed with old people who wouldn’t wear masks and had no concept of personal space). Today my throat’s been sore and I can barely breathe.

my boss told me I can go back to work as soon as the funeral’s finished- not sure if I should call her to remind her or wait for her to call me, she texted me last week and I told her the funeral was on friday. But my coworker was also wondering and asked me today, and I didn’t know what to tell her, since my boss doesn’t want me to let her know just yet because of how limited they’re open (three days a week, four hours a day)

relationships are very hard

I’m a terrible person who does the bare minimum to help someone who’s terribly lonely and depressed, and it’s like I’m backed into a corner in desperation from being unable to do anything about it. I’ve caused so much harm to this relationship that I wonder if there’s any way it can survive sometimes

It’s always the case, though- I can’t get myself to do more than the minimum effort it takes, and my social anxiety prevents me from ever initiating anything, which has cost me so many people that I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. And I can feel that awful, selfish bitterness inside of me, that part of my father and my sister that’s in me that I try to suppress, and I hate it.

my diet is going well enough, lost over five pounds since starting it late August. But it’s mostly because I just dislike eating, so eating in portions is easier for me. And then there are days like today, where I just don’t eat at all. Just ate one slice of bread, 30g of peanut butter, and a small cup of ice cream today, and I don’t even feel hungry. Normally I try to get some food in me, but today I’m just too disgusted to even try to make dinner.

My sleep’s also been weird, still. Been going to bed later and later again, but can’t stay asleep. Usually only sleep in bouts of 3-4 hours, then just lay awake until I’m half asleep long enough that I feel the urge to give up and get up. It’s been like that for weeks now, I can’t remember the last full night of sleep I’ve gotten.

In lighter news, finally got back to playing JSRF. Beat it the other night after 24.5 hours of game time, just have a few more challenges left (did everything from Dogenzaka Hill to the Bottom of the Sewage Facility so far), got all graffiti and souls possible before beating the final boss. Played it via emulator (which worked great except for crashing when entering the graffiti selection occasionally) with a Switch Pro Controller, felt really good. I own it and the original Xbox for it, but just am spoiled by a PC experience, I suppose.

The gameplay is great, but the level design leaves a funny taste in my mouth. Aesthetics are worse than JSR for me, while music... it’s tough to say, it’s different than JSR, but really grew on me. Sometimes it felt more like noise (I remember the Sewage tracklist not speaking to me too much at first with the more ambient-ish tracks), but it did grow on me a lot. Baby-T was my Garage theme the entire game, such a great track.

Naganuma’s music in the first game was definitely the weakest of the original’s OST (still good of course), but in Future I feel he really stepped up his game. Teknopathetic is one of my favorite songs in the new OST.

speaking of favorite music, here’s mine from each game:

Bout the City

Dragula

Magical Girl

Miller Ball Breakers

Mischievous Boy

On the Bowl (A.Fargus Mix)

Rock It On

Super Brothers

Yellow Bream

Aisle 10

Baby-T

Birthday Cake

Count Latchula

I'm Not a Model

Like It Like This Like That

Rockin' the Mic

Statement of Intent

Teknopathetic

The Scrappy

(shout outs to Girls from the one JSR CD, haven’t listened to much of the other exclusive songs to it, but Girls was good)

but yeah, my minor gripes with Future

Linear level design was a bit painful (missing a jump and not being able to backtrack a lot was bleh), and the later levels were very painful (the sewage area and the rooftops are come to mind, skyscraper to a lesser extent but I liked the skyscraper one a bit more), but at the same time, they force you to get good, which I can appreciate, so hm. Still, a checkpoint system (especially since there are save points) or unlocking shortcuts would be a bit more convenient, if not entirely necessary.

Not having a way to stop auto-grinding, even if just holding down a trigger or something- the way I latched onto rails especially in the sewage area was painful

Points challenges mainly being “find the special points rail and just spamming Y” on it was a bit odd (mainly for the Jet Techs so far, just five minutes of spamming Y...), but I like how the combos feel in this game, especially X combos to speed up. Has a rhythm that’s hard to explain but just feels natural.

Also street challenges should’ve been explained better in general, had to look up most of the special ones (and glitched out the Shibuya Terminal one many times until realizing the fix was just “hop all over each platform multiple times and hope it counts”, the second one next to the tilted platform specifically for me

Mew/Bis/Rhyth’s redesign still hurts, but you better believe she’s the character I used throughout the entire game after unlocking her

Storywise, I think I like JSR’s take better- Professor K being a neutral party and more amusing/less insulting, Onishima > Hayashi, and the character designs and artstyle I overall prefer from the first game

Felt like it tried to add things that just didn’t really work sometimes (Death Ball comes to mind, though I haven’t messed with Versus yet, the story mission was very easy compared to how they hyped it up), and the boss battles were all... strange. Tagging enemies on that roller coaster level, having to grind up to that one Hayashi boss fight over and over and over, then even moreso for the final boss... never got much use out of targeting enemies, spinning circles around them, or things like the railgrab for high jumps or skidding to slow down for graffiti, either, but maybe they have their uses.

But man, the game did feel fun to play, just frustrating to explore, I think. I still like the idea of making Skatered, even more after playing this game. Maybe I could learn modding, or something...

Oh yeah, also got all the pieces of my costume together (minus some eva foam), we’ll see how that goes. Not looking forward to assembling it, honestly, but I can’t back out now. Main regret I think is the tights, being unable to find striped ones (and the solid ones I bought being a bit too see-through, I should’ve bought a size up maybe). Still not confident enough in my makeup abilities, either.

and one last bit of light news- I finally got my Kuja figure, he’s so beautiful and detailed and I need a good place to put him

[uh-lohn]

04.09.20

I don’t know how many more times I need to repeat this, but 2020 has such been an unexpected whirlwind. For most of my days, they’ve felt unstable to me because I feel like I’m not able to take control of everything, like I can’t go out anymore since we’re under quarantine, my emotions have been fluctuating/seem to also be chaotic, and most of all, I haven’t been feeling like myself. I know that this is my last semester of undergrad, so senioritis is hitting me hard, but I know that I’m always determined to self-motivate and shoot for the best. But lately, it hasn’t been like that. I start to dread more for school, and esp for by COMD 475 BECAUSE THE PROFESSOR ISN’T BEING LENIENT DURING THIS HARD TIME FOR US. I’m passing in the class but not receiving the letter grade that I want. 

Everything just sucks. like IT FUCKING SUCKS. I probably mentioned this already but this tumultous time has taken away my opportunity to strut down the walkway for my undergraduate graduation ceremony in May, my choice to go out whenever I want to (except for work), and feeling safe and secured. Since I work at a healthcare place, we can’t close, and so it’s required that we work. I have my asthma, which means I have an immunocomprised system, and that emphasizes the need to be much more cautious whenever I am at work. I follow the procedures of wearing N95 mask and gloves, cleaning the work stations, and maintaining 6 feet distance from customers. Almost everytime I work, I become more anxious. Also knowing how weak my body can get when I am sick terrifies the unclear possibility of how would I be if i were to have the covid....it’s fucking scary. I have had thoughts about quitting because it’s just so scary... It also upsets me that there are some people out there who refuses to listen and take all the precautions seriously and mindfully, like staying at home and only going out if essential, JUST PURELY LISTENING, and BEING MORE CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS. My coworker has told me that she offerred free shipping to a customer or two, and one of them said that they’d want to physically pick up their meds, which infuriates me more. They’re causing more risk and harm to everyone, including themselves. I hate it when people just don’t listen. They’re so inconsiderate about others like me who have an immunocompromised system. I’d rather have more phone calls than more customers coming into our workplace. 

What also sucks is not being able to be with my significant other. We both agreed to not spend time together physically just to be safe. Also, I’ve been exposed due to work, and so it also worries me to somehow catch the covid and spread it onto him. He also knows about my asthma, and so he’s also worried that if he has the covid and spreads it onto me, then i’d be very ill. We’ve been consistently videochatting each other daily, and it helps. But obviously not enough to compensate for both our needs for physical touch and affection. It’s been rough for the both of us going through personal things, and we can’t be there for each other physically to comfort one another.. However, we encouraged each other that we will get through this together.

It’s so crazy that it’s already April, and from today, it would mark roughly 5-6 weeks til I graduate. Ever since last semester, i was looking forward to graduate the most. I constantly dreamt of finding the perfect white jumpsuit and dress to wear for grad shoots and graduation ceremony, taking pictures with all my loved ones, hoping that I’d get into a graduate school (WHICH I DID, AND I’M STILL BEYOND SURPRISED AND CONTENT), and simply celebrating that special occasion. 

I will try to pray everyday for everyone to remain safe and healthy, and that this pandemic will soon be over. I don’t want my summer to be taken away... I pray that a miracle will come, and that we can have our graduation ceremony be back on. I will also try to pray for myself to be get better physically, mentally, and emotionally.