Sugar Overdose {Week 19}

Happy May 4th to all celebrating. May the force be with you! I actually barely celebrated sadly, I'm having another crazy week between jobs and appointments and all that shit. Plus my memory is just so awful still. Forgot to scan this week's layout at the start of the week so we're not getting a before and after type of situation this time. 

On Monday I almost missed a meeting with my social worker as I confused the days and the time of the meeting. Very lucky that the office is just a few minutes away so with a little awkward speed-walking it was almost like I was never late in the first place. Waiting on the last of my salary and the actual salary sheet from our boss meanwhile. I won't lie, I'm a little annoyed at having to keep asking for it. It's that delicate balance of wanting to insist but also not coming off as rude to the person that's holding the quality of your life for the next month in their hands. The worst.

Cave dweller.

In other news, I know that Artfight is doing something a little different this year, there's no vote on the themes because it will be their 10th anniversary. I joined the site in 2020 but only started attacking people in 2022. It's gonna be my 5th year but for some it's a nice round decade! Some of the themes I wish I hadn't missed were: Sun vs. Moon (2017), Dream vs. Nightmare (2019), and Steampunk vs. Cyberpunk (2021). They were floating around the idea or re-doing an old theme but I'm glad they decided to go with something totally new. Basically, this is all to say that probably in mid-June we'll get this year's theme and I'm already excited. Have you ever partaken in Artfight? Have you won and if so, how many times? What teams were you on? I've been on team Wither, Vampire, Seafoam, and Crystals.

On Tuesday me and Mo finished Halo: Reach. I liked it mostly because it was fun to run around with a whole team of Spartans instead of just Master Chief. I liked Kat and Jun the most. RIP Kat. It moved me so that I feel an urge in me to make an AMV set to a nu metal song out of the cutscenes.

I've also been playing the 2005 NFS Most Wanted and having a good time with the music, so I did that on Wednesday some more. Had a Taylor Lorenz video on at some point later and I won't lie I'm becoming incredibly disappointed about her position on AI. I used to really trust her on the intersection of policy and tech but she's been nearly shilling AI, data centers, and so on recently and it feels so disingenuous and out of character. When it comes to AI, I don't care how "useful" it is, I hate it and want it fucking out of here! So I'm probably gonna stick to journalists who are more honest on the topic. Still, a real let down.

On Thursday me and Mo went to help out at Noel's. We're gonna do a bunch of tasks for him but mainly we're building these special stone and metal cage fences to withstand flooding. He's in the flood-heavy area of our department so it's gonna be some serious construction. It's a little hard but mostly time-consuming and also confusing at the start but we were in a groove soon enough. We are probably the most incompetent employees Noel has ever had but lucky for us he has a patience of a saint. Though I've never felt more like a bimbo with some of the tools. I just haven't used an angle-grinder since high school, okay?! At home I watched Scarface because the Al Pacino marathon is never over.

There is always the perfect GIF on Tumblr...

On Friday I woke up with a migraine which was annoying for the rest of the day. While we were at work my mum and two family friends started building the structure for our future rooms on the third floor. It's looking good, some beams and plasterboard are already up. 

On Saturday I went out during the day with my brother and sister and we had some lunch. Then we dropped by the grocery store where I found a super cute hair clip and a My Chem CD on a discount. At home I made more fake melon sodas, i.e. just lemonade with food colouring and ice cream. Honestly, the ice cream melted so bad but they still looked kinda cute. I also made pancakes and sadly the strawberries slid off before we could take a pic so they look a bit like a kawaii headcrab. If you're wondering if this is too much sugar, wonder not. It certainly is.

Sugar overdose? Yes.

The strawberries are escaping...

Sunday was a lazy day, we re-watched You've Got Mail. I honestly do not like that movie but both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks' apartments in the movie are amazing. Just the whole 90s New York thing is pretty great. The love story? Snore!

I have some more photos from a few travels, this time...

Flashback Trip #2: 2019 Tallinn

My mum has a life-long friend who's from Tallinn. I was also childhood friends with her daughter but we hadn't seen each other in a long while. After they heard that I had an exchange year in Finland they asked if I'd come and visit them in Estonia and of course I said yes.

I can't claim to be an expert but if you're traveling the Baltics or the Scandinavian countries you can probably find some good deals on ferries and ships across the Baltic Sea. We took a super cheap day trip to Stockholm with V a few weeks before this trip so even though I hate traveling by water I felt more alright with it this time. Most of the trip you can see land or other ships so it's not like you're in the Atlantic or something. I'm actually sad I forgot to take some pics in the actual ship because it had a huge viewing deck with an enormous glass panel where you can chill on a couch and watch the sea. The trip to Tallinn is quite short so I did not get a bunk or even a seat and had to just wander the ship during the trip.

Me with my childhood friend.

Don't ask about the hair. I don't know why.

Very cultured, yes.

I arrived pretty late and stayed at my mum's friends apartment with my childhood friend. Most of the trip we stayed in the center of Tallinn, it is an extremely small city. But it was very lovely and I felt super relaxed because my mum's friend decided where we'd go during the few days I was there. She also picked out some great places to eat. 

Me with my mum's friend.

Ye old towne wall!

What I liked most was the Tallinn town wall and the Kadriorg Park. It was a chill trip. Like most cities up north, it's not too busy or large but cozy. Also, Tallinn has totally free public transportation. I think you're supposed to fill out some form of document still, but after that it's free! How awesome is that? I also took a bunch of analog photos during this trip...but have no idea where they are.

The end!

This Week I'm Excited For...

The Witch Hat Atelier Event that will be happening in a bunch of French bookstores next Tuesday. I wanna get some free stuff and maybe try and talk to some other fans of the manga. I'm scared that there's gonna be a bunch of kids and my grown ass. Please, let some adult fans beside me show up...!

Song Of The Week... 

Since I've been playing NFS Most Wanted all week there's been a lot of edgy music I've been enjoying lately but one really stuck with me and was on a loop. If you like some great breakbeat please enjoy Stratus' You Must Follow. Pretend you're illegally street racing!

I've Got A PS2! {Week 18}

Phew, another long one! Is this being posted vaguely on time? Sure, sure. I'm now sort of free for a time since the kiwi job is on stand-by, more on that later. It was a long and good weekend too. Some disappointments happened as well of course, but luckily they came at the start of the week. I hate anticipation! 

All is moderately well in my world right now, what do ya know? And yes, I did get a new console for a very nice price. No, not free, because I did not accept Christ but I was this close! I love old consoles.

Week 18.

Mood almost ruined before it even hit 9:30 AM this Monday. I went to see my teacher Aicha to sign up for some B2 classes when the social security issue struck again. Basically, I had a temporary social security number for a long while, I got my permanent one by mail about a year ago and have been using it since. We tried signing me up to classes but for some reason it wouldn't accept my number and when we called CPAM (overseeing organization for this type of stuff), they said I didn't have a permanent number and just had to wait for them to activate it and mail me my insurance card. Dude... the French government could really invest in this thing called... technology. I don't know what they're using up there, typewriters and fax machines, but the wait-times for literally pressing a button are getting a little stupid.

I did ask her if she could find a space for my brother in the A1 course so hopefully that pans out. In my sadness I went to the store and bought a re-usable shower gel bottle with these little things that dissolve in water and  make gel so you don't have to buy a new bottle every time. I'm not a retail therapy kind of gal but I fear I had a moment of weakness. I am happy to report that I did get lucky though and that the gel works and smells great, it's my fave flavour of them all: monoï!

I've been having too much hot choc...

At home I watched Glengarry Glen Ross, it was fine. I've been going to bed very early these days which I'm loving. I feel like I have the whole day ahead of me when I wake up early.

On Tuesday we went to work as usual, this time we'd be continuing the fertilizer. However, the boss forgot to leave us the tractor keys so we were kind of stuck with a 600kg bag that we couldn't move. We couldn't call him either as it was the day that our cell data stops working. Damn! We worked slower than usual but figured out some bag-contraption to carry some of the fertilizer with us. 

While we were gone our mum was supervising the installation of a new heater in our house. We have had so much problems with our old one, the thing was ancient, broke half the time, and our bills were ridiculously high even when we barely heated the house. This new one is ugly as all hell but apparently doesn't rely on gas which is cheaper and more eco-friendly. And we paid a total of 1 euro for it. Hooray! Okay, you win this one, French government. 

On Wednesday we went back to our last day of work for now. The current harvest is ready and the boss hasn't yet gotten the new batch of kiwi plants so we're on stand-by. Means I'll have to look for other work soon enough. 

On Thursday my brother met up with Aicha, there may be a class that starts at the end of May and he may be legible but I guess we'll have to wait and see. 

Now, Friday. Friday was a good day! Not only was it Labour Day, also known as International Worker's Day, in most of the world but it was also a day for the flea and flower market in my town. I was real selective this Friday but found some great things, mostly for my music and movie library and for the summer. 

"My taiyaki...my Dune..."

But the coolest thing we got was...a PS2! Yes, we are now proud owners of a Playstation 2. I ordered in a Free McBoot card for it and soon enough we'll get to play all the exclusives we want. 

She's perfect...

My brother is most excited for Gran Turismo 4 and I wanna play Ico and Yakuza. If you have any PS2 recommendations please leave them for me in the comments!

There was also a local cow farmer and his wife who had a food stall that served delicious burgers. The line was absurd though and even funnier than that, he and the wife seemingly were having beef (pun intended). Total rush hour in their little outdoor kitchen and him trying to get her attention while she was giving him the cold shoulder, and us, 20 onlookers trying to pretend we can't see what's happening. Hilarious. 

Saturday was uneventful, I mostly spent it doing cleaning in my room and on my PC. I also did my media log on time on the site but still have to catch up with my blogs here. 

On Sunday I kind of wasted the whole day doing not much at all. Didn't even watch a movie. Disappointing. I did see that a neo-neighbor, Mimi, was trying to join Spacehey so I gave them an invite code. While doing that I caught up with their site, they have a really great nostalgic YouTube videos page so I got lost in those for awhile, especially the rodgerswan channel. We also re-watched the Devil Wears Prada, even though I'm not going to watch the new one in cinemas. This is probably going to be such an unpopular opinion but I don't really like the movie. Sure, in the end Andy learns that she doesn't want Miranda's life for herself... but no one considers that Miranda's abuse of power is totally absurd. It's usually a very male-dominated phenomena (love to see a woman in a male-dominated field!), like great directors that abuse and harass actors, staff, people in their lives etc. but it's all okay because it's what leads to their great art. Yeah, it's a bunch of bullshit. When Miranda says that no one can do her job but her I literally rolled my eyes. They all think that.

A little special segment this week: I left a comment on Ari's blog a few weeks back that had to do with traveling during uni. She mentioned that she would be curious to see some stuff about my past travels. Now, I don't know if anyone or Ari will actually enjoy what I have to say about past travels but here it is...

Flashback Trip #1: 2019 Tampere/Turku with Daniel and V

So, this is not a 100% true trip because by 2019 me and my bestie V had already been living in Finland, Tampere specifically, for about 6 months on an Erasmus exchange. However, Daniel, another bestie of mine, was coming to visit from Budapest for a few days and we would all go to Turku where me and V haven't yet been.

When he first got there, we picked him up at the airport and went straight home: the following day we hosted a BBQ with all our Finnish friends right outside our house. This was early spring so there was still lots of snow but it was getting warmer.

When you lose UNO you go to UNO prison.

We didn't spend much time in Tampere... as much as I love the city there ain't that much to see. We did live right next to lake Näsijärvi so we took him to see it while it was partially frozen. A few months before I walked all over it when it had thick ice. We went about town a bit too. If you're a student it's a pretty awesome place to be: there's hangout spots, student discounts in lots of places, and very pretty nature spots. However, a lot of the uni campuses are way out of the town center and it's annoying when the winter temp is -40. From the hotspots, there's the Näsinneula Observation Tower but we were to broke to go there. And the Särkänniemi amusement park, but it's closed in the winter. There's also a very cute Moomin museum but Daniel doesn't really care for Moomins so we decided to leave all the museum stuff for Turku.

Vulcan represent.

On the second day we took a bus to Turku, Finland has a pretty great and affordable bus system between towns. Turku is a pretty funny city because it just goes on and on along a river, you can basically just walk it all day. First we had a very nice student-priced lunch and then we stopped by a church just because it was open and blashpemed a little.

"Straight to hell with you!!"

Our first museum was the  Pharmacy Museum and the Qwensel House. It was very small but preserved or set-up very nicely.

"Potion-seller, sell me your strongest potion!"

After that we hit up Turku Castle. It is huge! Totally worthwhile and can busy you for half a day easily. There's some models, battle recreations, lots of historical info and very fun stuff like a bunch of knight props that were probably meant for kids but entrained us endlessly.

High five, my liege!

Short king.

Bonk!

'Twas where the maidens talked shit.

Closer to the end of the day we visited the Forum Marinum, a maritime museum. I think I was the only one having fun there because both V and Daniel were kind of rushing me through it. It was just so moody and cool even though I actually hate even the idea of being on a ship in the wide open water.

Bye Turku!

After that we headed back to Tampere and spent our last day just relaxing and hanging out. Daniel was put on a plane and next we saw him when me and V came back from our exchange in May. 

Back to the present! That was the week. Busy and fun. A bit of a let-down in some parts but I think I'll recover.

The end.

This Week I'm Excited For...

So, this is actually happening on the 12th but a bunch of French libraries and bookstores will be hosting a small event for the Witch Hat Atelier manga! Volume 15 is about to be out in France and select bookstores will be doing some small challenges, some free gifts, and a special pen for people who'll buy the special edition during the event. I was going to buy the special edition anyway so this is just a bonus! I was going to bring my sister too but sadly she has an exam on the day. I hope there won't be just kids, otherwise my grown ass will look so dumb!

Song Of The Week... 

Been giving Prozac+'s Acido Acido a good shake this week: just very fun and punchy punk. There are so many great songs but my pick is Ho Raccontato Che. It's very catchy.