home & what comes next xx.viii.2022

it's been a really tumultuous two weeks. i found out that not only did i get rejected from the school i applied to, i also had to return to my home country within a week or else i risk being barred from re-entry for the next 5 years. i'm a bit heartbroken. i can no longer go see my partner freely, my future is a bit more uncertain, and i have to go back to retail for a bit. i worry that maybe i should've stayed in grad school, but i also think it would've been a waste of time. sure i'd get to stay, but i'd be broke again once i left. ironically enough i think i'm too introverted to succeed in humanities programs. at least now i have the freedom to study what i want, i guess.

i had to drive roughly 24 hours to get home and to say i was exhausted is an understatement. a week of nights where i got 4 hours of sleep coupled with a drive like that put me on my ass. in the past three days i've been home i've slept at least 35 hours. i move in to my new place tomorrow with some old friends. hopefully i don't have to burden them too long. they have no rooms but let me stay in their unused living room. it has no doors but it beats living with my parents, i suppose.

i've spent a lot of time trying to plan what to do next. ideally i'd like to move back to the country i just came from and while i'll try my best to get there it isn't certain. i'm not good with self-discipline but i'm going to try to hold myself to studying web development between 10 and 6 on days where i don't have work. i'm struggling, but trying. my goal is to be living far from here by this time next year.

i guess if one good thing came out of this its that i no longer need to stress out about getting into school again. i'm here, i'm alive, and i'm going to be both of those things for the forseeable future. if i can just tough out learning for the next few months i'll hopefully be able to get my life back on track.

sorry if i'm rambling. my brain is as a scrambled egg from the past few weeks. now that i have more time and less stress maybe i'll finally revamp the site layout (lol)! i'll try to, at least. i'm not sure what to do, but i'll figure it out (maybe). the big issue is going to be changing all the iframes. i'd like to believe there's a way to do that that doesn't involve rewriting all the html and css but i think that's probably a bit too optimistic.

it's 6pm on saturday. is it too late to say have a great weekend? i hope you have a great [whenever you are reading this] :).

heavens' legend btw vi.viii.2022

i play a lot of ffxiv and just cleared the newest ultimate today! didn't get an orange parse but i think it's pretty subject to rng so i'm not pressed. it took us 144 hours(!) total to clear it. that's one thing off my mind. we'd go like 12 - 20 hours a week every week since may (with some (3) exceptions), so it ate up a lot of my free time.

it's been a weird few weeks. some background on my situation -- i'm currently living outside of my home country. i am here on a student visa given to me by the school i attended from last fall to last spring, but i've since dropped out. my visa allows me to switch schools, but that's predicated on my being accepted into the school that i've applied to. if i'm not accepted, i will have to move back to my home country (which i would prefer to not do). anyways, i should hear back next week. to be honest, the only reason i'm applying to the school is so i can maintain my status (and subsequently get a work visa next spring); i'm confident a few more months of independent study would make me employable. i feel like the entirety of the rest of my life is kind of contigent on what their decision is. i'm taking a part-time course in the summer to maintain my status in the meanwhile, but i've finished the coursework for it so i'm literally just waiting around for an answer as to what's going to happen to me.

if i'm sent home, it is unlikely i will be able to get a job and return to this country. i've built/i'm building a pretty okay life here. i've got my partner and a handful of acquaintances and i think once i'm back in the workforce i'll be able to have a comfortable life here. going home means i will lose all of those, and i will be unable to return for several years since i'll have broken the terms outlined in my student visa.

i would prefer to stay here. it's what i want. but i thought about it and i do miss certain things about home. i miss my family, i miss my group of friends, i miss what things i left behind. i know that if i remain here i'll rarely see my family, as those i care about do not have passports. it's likely that i'll never see my friends again. they've already sort of moved on and built lives with each other but without me. which i'm not mad about of course -- i've not been home for an extended period of time.

i guess i feel like i'm facing two possible forevers -- one here with my partner and one back in my home country. i prefer the former, but it's still scary to me.

i'm afraid of what my forever is.

as an aside, whatever happens i'll try to update some stuff on the site soon. i learned a few new css tricks so maybe i'll just toss out the whole site and keep the things i like. i'm a big fan of the teeth, so that'll probably stay.

have a great weekend!!

chance encounters & getting old xxiii.vii.2022

i went to an anime convention for the first time since 2019 last weekend! my partner needed help selling some things (and it was a good excuse to leave my apartment for a bit). i caught a cold (because of course i did) but i think i'm getting better.

i happened to see someone while i was there who had a patch from another convention i also attended in 2018. i had never seen this person before, but i thought it was really strange that i could've been within feet of them four years ago, and here we are on the other side of the continent, once again mere feet away from each other.

i got to wondering how often things like that happen; how often have i been in the same room with someone i don't recognize? our lives briefly intersected in 2018 and we never spoke, and then years later they converge again for a brief moment. i don't remember what they looked like. you could've been in the same room as someone hundreds of times and never even commit their face to memory! i'm just rambling i guess. i thought it was interesting.

that aside, it was kind of weird being in that scene again after being out of it since college. i was alone most of the weekend, so i had a lot of time to people-watch. overall i think i had fun, but i felt like i didn't really belong here anymore.

one of my favorite things about cons was hanging out with friends and hyping each other up about whatever cringe media we were hyperfixated on at the time. but this time i couldn't recognize any of the characters people were cosplaying or buying merch of. it kind of made me sad. like, i know the majority of characters are from genshin, demon slayer, spy x family, etc but i don't really have an interest in those shows. what's the point of going to social events if you have no common ground to use as the basis of socialization, you know?

i think what really hurt was seeing people doing things that i used to enjoy -- walking around as a group, helping people get into costumes, excitedly talking about new releases, telling in-jokes, meeting up with friends you never see -- they're stupid little things but seeing others experience them made me some combination of happy-at-a-distance and sad. longing? i'm not quite sure what the right emotion is. it's like "ah, how happy they are in the moment! i wish that was me!" kind of thing. idk.

i miss my friends i guess. i wish they could've come too.

i am sick and need to get some sleep! i hope you have a great weekend :)

not-quite-a-test entry xi.vii.2022

i put off adding this section because i wasn't sure how to dress it up in an eye-catching way that appealed to me... but then i remembered this is a website and i can edit it any time i want!

been thinking a lot about what to put on this site the past couple of days. i feel overwhelmed by what i'm capable of and what i can do presently. i'm still not sure of what shape i want this site to take and how to shape it. do u think whatever god is felt the same when it made man?

i have a lot of thoughts these days so i'm just going to put them here as they come to me.

if you're reading this, i hope you have a great week :)