Detours,
disappointments
and devotions

One year of neocities.

It's been a year since I created this webpage. I set up a lot of lofty goals for myself that, while not necessarily decided at the start of this year, were supposed to be faced with some level of regularity. I managed to keep at least a skeleton of a schedule for a good portion of the year, until two events got in the way: injuring my hand while bike riding and finding myself unnecessarily working more hours than even NORP standards for much longer than I wished. The former event kind of fixed itself (though I still feel sequels) and compromised only piano practice. The latter was disruptive on a catastrophic level and seriously compromised much of my progress for the second half of the year.

I don't consider myself some kind of leading figure in my field. Far from it. I keep to myself, do nothing outside the workplace to further my abilities and deliberately avoid more networking than the necessary to stay employed precisely so I don't become too much of a reliability. I got pressed between multiple offerings on what was supposed to be a temporary arrangement but I was held down for much, much longer than I thought. I ended up becoming a fulcral piece of each place's workflow. I tried to quit one place and was offered the kind of raise that doesn't often fall on anyone's lap, so I stayed. I tried to quit the other and was offered a bigger raise. And so on. For multiple reasons, I fear having all avenues of employment closed off to me for at least half a decade, so I felt pressured to take them all at once. It was exhausting and I hope I don't have to do it again, but I'm at least thrilled I proved myself I could take so many and kept everyone pleased with my performance for so long. As I write this (began on Dec. 1st), I have quit entirely and have now plenty of time for myself. Not enough to salvage half a year.

Japanese practice became steadily less frequent to the point I'm doing it on average every 3 days and it's not much more than grinding vocabulary over and over.
Not the best way to achieve fluency. I've been watching a couple of things without subs and understanding most of it (such as assault lily fruits) but apart from that
I've been awful at keeping a rythm since August.

Piano practice was going smoothly. I managed to get to the point I could play the first 20 hanon exercises in succession at the highest tempo. Unfortunately, practice has mostly been put on hold since the riding accident and was left by the wayside because I was too busy and my hand still doesn't feel like it's fully healed. At this point, I am facing the ever growing possibility that, in stupidly not seeking medical attention, I may have permanently injured myself. I have attempted some practice before and it's not highly impeditive, but I feel like if I try to make certain transitions I'll feel it in my hand. There's always this slight painful sensation that feels like it'll get worse if I play too much. ---- Actually I went and practiced a bit after writing this portion and it wasn't painful. Too bad I haven't practiced in quite a while, because my movements are a little slower. That and the fact my house is terrible at conserving temperature. It's always either hotter or colder than outside. I seriously have to play with gloves in the winter and I've had days in the summer when I play almost naked.

Despite it all, I still managed to keep with my weight loss goals and can safely say I'm back at high-school levels once again, both in terms of resistance and muscular development. I say "muscular development" but it is absolutely nothing special. I went from atrophied mess to barely functional. That's a win in my book, but I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that I've only come this far. Then again, I did work out much less in the second half of the year. The highlight of my physical improvement was, without a doubt, recovering my ability to perform the full bridge. I am not ashamed to admit that the feeling of attainment and how good it felt to flex and align my spine like that made me moan. It's amazing.

I'd publish pictures of my current body just so you can see I'm not underestimating myself (and even as a warning to those who think they can get jacked with the kind of routines I'm doing) but I have no camera. Seriously.

As for academia... Another area that suffered but in which I have a precious bit of time to be able to salvage. I probably am in bad standing with my coordinators and most likely won't be able to turn that around. Their displeasure, if any, with my performance is wholly legitimate. This might be my last chance at pursuing a higher level of education and I may have just blown it.

Oh well... One out of four isn't all that bad. At least I got somewhere!... I expect to work no more than 15 hour work weeks, if at all, for at least half a year.
The second half of 2022 will be threaded much more carefully.

And then my webpage.

I've been particularly inactive since about March (when I hurt my hand) and just as I got better I began my hellish journey through the world of serious employment. I have a couple of pages in a 99% complete stage but I've held back on publishing them. The reason is tied to some feedback I've gotten from some people.

I've had a number of civil e-mail exchanges with some people who have decided to get to me as well as some replies on sushigirl, and the general feeling I've gotten from people is that my webpage is overly negative, in a confrontational, even bitter, manner.

While I can't deny that I'm a very opinionated individual and that there's a lot of wrong things to name and many enemies of Humanity to single out, I don't want my webpage to be entirely consumed by that. I'm trying to keep a balance between funny, interesting, personal and exorcism, but the exorcism portion has taken over a dominating share of my webpage. Those are easy to write. I have at least two anime reviews in the works, but they require much more work and I find myself constantly rewriting my texts in an effort to make them easy to follow and straight to the point without missing vital information I want to convey. Oh and scouring through gigabytes of screenshots in search of the best ones isn't easy. On the other hand, I have two pages for my social media section, but those are truly negative outrage jerkers that would make my webpage a true space of negativity and spite. Although I want to put things in my webpage that I like to talk about, I also want to entertain my readers. I want you to feel that spending your time on my webpage is a net positive. I don't want you to leave my webpage with a frown on your face. I know I can't please everyone but I'll still try my best.

I don't know how 2022 is going to fare for my webpage. I'm going to prioritize more positive and fun stuff and that takes a lot of time to refine. Meanwhile, I have academia to salvage and lord knows how long that will take. One year? Maybe more. The only thing I know for sure is that I wanted to have more things published than I currently have.

Here's to more lazy times to enjoy, together with you!

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