Witching Hour {Week 40}

Two words: migraine week. Seriously, like all week. I haven't had spinach or chocolate all week, anemia takes over and  this is what happens. Just kidding, I'm not a doctor so I don't know why exactly migraines happen to me, or to anyone for that matter. Did you know scientists don't know what exactly causes migraines? Wild. Mine is probably just a little fun side quest due to iron deficiency. All the advice I always get is go out, breath fresh air. And I like doing that but the thing is my migraines always start after I've been out all day. Normal ibuprofen and stuff never helps, I used to take really strong stuff (sumatriptan) but haven't been to a doctor in a while to get a new prescription. My usual solution is sleep and hope it's better in the morning. So, just letting you know that what I've been doing a lot of this week.

Let it begin...

Monday was class as usual except Maria was absent. Tuesday will be a weird day, we'll have class in the morning instead of the afternoon and she said she'd drop me off. I wanted to double-check with her but I guess I'll do that tomorrow. Kind of a typical day, I've been catching up with a few more films so I have 31 in time for October. I'm really close.

Tuesday I took the early train. Was kind of nice to get to class, study, and head straight home. I like my outside time before class, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's just so long! Maria said she'd drop me off and we had a nice chat about a bunch of stuff we will do after the course ends. She wants to work with retired people or with kids, maybe as a chef at a school. She also gave me a really cute bracelet, because she makes a lot of crafts. It has the Hamsa on it so now I'm protected from everybody's bad vibes, don't come for me.

On the way into town.

The bracelet.

On Wednesday it was officially October! Hurray! I made my first entry for my Halloween event, Teen Scream films on videoclub2000. We're starting with the worst and working our way up. Also met with a girl I'll call Salem, who's like 15 and wants to improve her English, even though she already speaks it great. No idea how my mum met her, likely through Salem's mum, but this was basically an ambush on my sister. They are in about the same age range and my sister hasn't been having a lot of luck with friends at her school so I guess this was what my mum schemed. I had no idea this angle of attack was happening and neither did my sister who pas pissed!

Well, Salem was really nice and they actually had a good chat because they both like video games. We all had a pizza and just talked about stuff. So the crazy thing is that Salem has 7 other siblings, the oldest is in her late thirties. No offense or anything to her parents, but y'all ever heard of condoms? Okay, obviously I don't know everyone's situation but with how much I get judged for choosing to never have kids, I think it's not such a big deal if I judge people who have so many kids on the privacy of my lame blog. And I'm judging.

Thursday was a full day, I arrived sort of late cuz my usual train was cancelled. No one was having an amazing day, everyone was pretty tired from just life. I didn't pack a lunch so I went and bought the really cheap microwave pasta. It's honestly sad food and with what I've learned from Stolen Focus, it totally sucks for your attention. Guys, my attention is already a wet crumbling cracker. It only gets worse from here...

Friday I was just happy that it was Friday. Seriously, I was celebrating. Weekend! Weekend! That was until a migraine started. It started on the train, it persisted in the shower, and it knocked me out cold at 7PM. Unreasonable hour to go to sleep. I was hoping since I fell asleep so early I'd get up at like 6 or 7AM on Saturday. I sure did, but the migraine was still there and I felt completely like shit. So I kept falling in and out of sleep until 11AM. Just awful.

The light looked cool.

'Twas not a very productive weekend. I did do more of the Halloween event, socialized a little on 32bit, and caught up with Alice's blog. Felt pretty terrible most of the time, hopefully it gets better by Monday! My mum, sister, and brother took the cats out for a walk but I didn't go because moving my head hurts. Ouch, just end already!

End of week 40.

This Week I'm Excited For...

At the end of next week, it's gonna be CD store day. Not sure what I'll do to celebrate. Something! Also excited to catch up with my Teen Scream blog, as I'm a day behind, and find some time to do some casual Inktober. Oh! Most of all I'm excited to not go on YouTube at all. Let's see if it actually happens.

Song Of The Week...

This week we're back to some more After. They recently released a new song with the cutest music video, Outbound, and teased another upcoming project, I think it's an EP. I'm pretty excited. They've totally grown on me. I think it's the unironic love for this style that is so infectious. I've been playing it all week.

{October 2025 Start}

Well, well, well. Spooky month is upon us. It's probably my favourite month of the year, or maybe it's November. It's hard to pick. So far, I'm feeling pretty good. Here's the plan of the month as of now:

Goals

1. 31 Movies Halloween Event on videoclub2000

2. Blog every Sunday

3. Screenshot daily bentewee outfits

4. Pass my B1 exam

5. Do some Inktober

6. Deftones fanlisting

7. Halloween costumes 

{September 2025 End}

And so September ends. A very productive and scholarly month for me. I went back to class, just generally waded around in the atmosphere of autumn, watched a lot of films, got sort of back into a reading habit, and got started on my employment journey at last.

Goals

1. Employment office meeting

Done! Waiting for a follow-up meeting after my course ends. 

2. FT/Social Worker meeting 

I didn't get a message about this yet so it's still upcoming. 

2. Blog every Sunday

Not exactly every Sunday, but close enough. 

3. Ergo Proxy fanlisting

The layout is complete but I still didn't hear back from TAFL. 

4. Quiz Ring

Still working on it, postponed to November. No rush. 

5. Log into Bentewee daily

I did and had a lot of fun! I got 1250 ribbons which was such a great surprise. 

6. COTY 2026 Calendar 

Tried a variety of style and character design options. 

7. Watch lots of movies

28 movies total, 23 new films. 

8. Video Club blog maintenance

There wasn't much to do but the small changes I wanted to make I did. 

9. CDwORLD inprint issue 2 form

Moved issue 2 to the spring of 2026. 

I Used To Be An Adventurer Like You... {Week 39}

One hell of a week, eh? I don't know, maybe you had a calm or very satisfying week. I would say the quality of the week for me was just fine but the business was off the charts. 

I mean, I'm not talking intern at a fashion magazine in a 2000s movie busy, but not totally slacking as I feel is my norm either. I actually felt really overwhelmed again but it felt like a milliliter easier this time. What's the secret? The autumn? The cold? Everything, all together? I've been reading a pretty good book about attention that's both so eye-opening and harrowing at the same time, it really put some shit into it's right place for me. Mentally, mentally. My life is still a mess, duh.

On Monday I skipped class due to bad cramps. Ugh, I hate the first day of my period, I basically become a vegetable. Okay, as much as the pain sucks and with how much I tell people that I'm so annoyed that I have to take time off from stuff... I seriously love sick days. Just kicking back for a second and if someone hassles you, they can't, because you feel like shit and that makes them a total asshole. I like to take advantage of my own suffering. 

Due to my state I was able to watch a bunch of movies in preparation for my October blog project. This will be a recurring...issue this week. You know how it is: I clearly don't have enough problems which is why I need to make more.

We finally got Skyrim in the mail and booted it up. We have officially lost our sister to the Elder Scrolls. She's been on the Xbox basically every day as soon as school ends. Before anyone thinks this is irresponsible and bad for her, I was there once, okay? I would get back from high school or whatever, mad and depressed and disappearing into Watch_Dogs or Assassin's Creed Black Flag for a while was like a cure. Plus anything that gets her away from Roblox, man. And since it's on the TV we get to have fun together. Honestly, everyone should own at least one shitty old console.

Our insane set-up. I cast fire hazard.

Literally dropping everything.

I felt better on Tuesday and all drugged up on Nurofen. Class was swell. On Wednesday I visited the Catholic recyclerie for the first time even though we've been in our town for 3 years now. They were always closed. Some cool stuff, posted about it on finnymemo. Drew some and slapped a new portfolio just in case because Thursday was my France Travail meeting...

I got there early, came into the building about ten minutes before my appointment and pressed some buttons on a machine that told me to wait. 20 minutes pass. I wait. 30 minutes, I ask the receptionist what's up? She says everything's fine, just wait. Okay, 40 minutes pass. Still wait? Yeah, just wait. Okay... Dude, 45 minutes. And because of a technical error. Whatever, I'm not in a rush or something.

Um, the lady I'm with basically disappears for another 20. I just read on my Kindle. She shows back up and says since my language course schedule is so busy right now I should just finish my course and then have another meeting about work. Dude! So, that's that. They scanned one paper for which I had to wait like... 2 hours? Speed of France, man.

Anyway, at least it got done and it's all free so I'm gonna stop whining, I think. The really annoying thing was that I got stuck in this town for like 3 hours because I missed the train I wanted to take. But! It was still a good day, doubled by the fact that my brother finally heard back from the immigration organization responsible for us. It's good news, he'll get the same residency permit like me and eventually be able to do everything I am able to: study, look for work, get welfare, etc. Man, some really good people are working out there. Thanks.

On Friday I had an existential crisis in the middle of class. We had to fill in a sheet for our future professional projects; basically what you wanna do with yourself in the future. I was at a crossroads as usual. The truth is I wanna sit at home, write and draw comics, make games, websites, and whatever, be some kind of artist recluse. However, that is not really a job... and isn't exactly contributing to my community... and it ain't exactly paid. The closest thing would be a freelance illustrator but I'll be real... I don't wanna. I don't want to network, I don't want to self-promote, to entice, to do all this not because it's like bad or something but because I just can't do it. 

The other thing that I could probably do all the time is teach art or English to kids. But... kids are usually the devil. But more importantly... what if I fail these hypothetical kids in some way? Ugh. Being a teacher is also such a thankless, hard, and poorly paid job. So these are the only two things I can see in the future and as I sat there weighing them... I cam to a strange conclusion. I thought about what it would be like one day: I'm a fluent French speaker, I have colleagues I see every day, I talk to a lot of people, I pass my skills unto others, I run like an art club or some shit after hours, I work at the same place for years. I sit there, thinking of myself like that and the weirdest feeling comes over me. Tentatively, meekly, I kind of want it. Isn't that super weird? Maybe I'm rushing into things. 

Anyway, at home I cooked up some burgers and we watched Snatch, Guy Ritchie literally never name a good movie after that one. 

POV: You are in heaven.

On Saturday we biked to a recyclerie a little out of town and I found some old mags and a very cool edition of the original Star Wars trilogy. I made a cinnamon crunch loaf, it burned but was honestly pretty good. 

Please ignore the burnt area.

We finished the Marine campaign of Alien vs. Predator on the 360 and we were so in the mood for more Alien we decided to re-watch Aliens. So good, man. Yeah, if you didn't know Hicks and Ripley get married and adopt Newt and Bishop and live happily ever after. If someone tells you something other than that happens to them they are lying.

Cryptid.

I've been having some serious migraines recently and went to bed twice with ones so bad I actually couldn't even look at light. Hate it. On Sunday I spent a while trying to translate the settings of my new camera, it's totally in Japanese. While I was doing that I came across some commercials for my model and I'm telling you now, that's gonna be me. Yes, I will have gravity defying photos flowing out of my camera as me and the girls go shopping in a weirdly liminal city with no distinct features. Let me have a dream, dammit.

I did not take advantage of my free day and instead tried to find information about the publication of Mori Girl Lesson. I've been into Mori Kei/Girl for like years... but only now I brave trying it for myself.  

'Tis the end of the week.

This Week I'm Excited For...

In the middle of next week I'll be starting my stupid little Halloween event. Be spooked. Now that Alice hinted that I may be receiving some stickers I am also excited for that!

Song Of The Week...

I have had some Grant Lee Buffalo tracks hanging out in some mixes but for some reason none of them really struck such a strong chord with me until Fuzzy. Very morose, it's also part of my autumn mix.

Hope It Gets Colder {Week 38}

Late again. Just when I thought I was finally on schedule my plans fall through! Anyway, the blog will always update...even from beyond the grave! No, it won't. But wouldn't it be nice? 

Before I get into the week I have to say that this was almost a post with no pics because I realized as I was snapping some stuff with my camera that I couldn't transfer any of the pics to my PC! More on how I resolved that later... this week started as such:

Week 38.

Alice had sent me some very cute stickers and I finally got the courage to use some of them. School is in full swing, for me also even though I'm 26. I go to language school, okay?! I picked the very scholarly looking ones (the backpack, ruler, sharpener, pencil, eraser, calculator, and apple). Using any of the stickers Alice gifted me is so hard... what if I stick 'em in bad or want to use them for something else?! I'm struggling out here. 

Guess what? I can finally upload all the pics I took with my new camera! Here's a preview:

Chillin' in the kitchen.

My mum.

Anyway, the week itself. On Monday I went to class as usual. An old friend, that had a wedding last summer, texted me and we had a nice chat. In French! She's a native speaker so it was mostly me trying very hard. I'm pretty behind on my special movie watching quest for this October but I believe in myself. 14 movies to go!

Tuesday was another day of class, been reading a lot. I think I forgot to mention it in my previous post but I've finally felt brave enough to start Jason Molina's biography. Honestly, the more I learn about some musician or creator I like, the less I usually like them. But it's not really about liking them. If their art is so important maybe it's worth unraveling the worst about them, even if it ends in you never touching their art again. So far I've just been surprised about Jason Molina, at least his childhood. Kind of weird. He collected knick knacks, random debris, and trinkets and kept them almost altar-like. That's word-by-word what I did as a child too. Weird. There's more important stuff but for some reason I just didn't see that coming.

Outfit for class.

On Wednesday I had a day off but I actually felt pretty terrible. Took a nap for like 2 hours, flanked by cats on all sides, after we watched the Cube with Mo and Marta. On DVD! So we browsed the bonus content too, duh. Before that Mo left super early, at like 6 AM, to go to Bordeaux to do document stuff but the train got stopped not even halfway to the next town. Because of an unattended luggage. Anyway, he had to get off at the next town and luckily Monique picked him up. He also took the time and swapped the French copy of Skyrim for Alien vs. Predator. Mum's friend Audrey also dropped by and we had a chat. It's funny when you can chat with your mum's friends, like a real grown-up. You know with the amount of time I have to bring up that I'm all grown up, I feel like it's doing damage to my reputation of serious maturity. What reputation? I need to stop making shit up.

On Thursday our teacher, Aicha, was taking time off so we had a replacement teacher and a whole class on environmentalism and sustainability. It was pretty good until she made us watch a video, it was honestly way too difficult for most of the class but we had a fun time glancing at each other in pain. Finally it was over when the teacher decides to tell us: 'Okay, let's watch it again!'. I'm so glad my train leaves a little early. One of our classmates also really cracked us up because she has 5 pencil cases. Like, I thought I packed a little much but she's breaking new ground here.

On Friday Maria drove me to class as there has been a two-day strike going on and I wasn't sure if the trains would run as usual. She's such a nice lady. We had a different replacement teacher today and we covered the symbols of France, important holidays, and French values. It was pretty great because those that I didn't know I was able to guess pretty easily. I'm really broke now though so it's been kind of hard.

On Saturday we did a little of the cleaning job, it should hold us over til next month. I didn't feel amazing but did some research into the Alien TTRPG. Everyone in the family loves Alien so I was thinking that on some weekend I could surprise them and run an Alien session, probably the Chariot of the Gods scenario. I've played DnD with two different groups but I've never actually DM'ed. But since it's my family it's not like they're gonna know any better. Haha. I am evil.

I finally cleaned my room up nicely enough to take some pics, so, please welcome to my humble abode...

First, my work area.

Random shit on my desk.

Behind my monitor.

DVD collection shelf.

My fave mangas.

Traffic mirror we got at a flea market.

My bags hang on the door.

The bed area!

I don't even like Black Hawk Down that much, but free poster.

Under the bed. One day: TV, PS4, pillow fort.

My CDs.

My beloved green cabinet.

The closet situation.

The pants box.

Hello!

Some handbags.

On Sunday we went to Tom's to play more Eternal Sonata. That is one long ass game but I am determined to finish it. I did not sleep well because I got my period in the middle of the night. Worst time ever.

I ran into a really dumb situation with the camera. First of all, it's a Cybershot so it only takes the moronic proprietary Sony Memory Stick Duo. Fear not for I have an adapter for my PSP. I plug it into the camera when I realize... I don't have my SD card reader... shit! But I do have a cable that connects the PSP to the PC. So this is how the dumbest transfer process ever currently works: I take the pics onto the internal camera memory because I can't figure out how to have it save directly to the SD card. Then I manually move the photos to the SD card on the camera. After, I plug the SD card into the PSP and then plug the PSP into the PC. Transfer the pics. Easy as pie. Okay, I need to at least get an SD card reader to simplify some of the process. But this is the method meanwhile.

I'll be suspending 'Image of the Week' for a short while as I haven't felt inspired by any online pics recently. I'll hopefully take fun pics myself in the next few weeks and have those be genuine pics of the week of my own making. We shall see... 

End of the week!

This Week I'm Excited For...

Maybe not exactly excited, but I'll be happy when it's over: my meeting at the France Travail office will be on the 25th. I just want it to be over...!

Song Of The Week...

I have made a somewhat jangle-pop autumn mix and one of my top songs from it has to be 'Doin' You' by The Connells. The whole album is amazing but this has to be my fave on it right now.