Wishing For... {2025 Week #8}

The week started pretty great. I woke up on Monday, early, got the e-reader out and got through a few chapters of Three Body Problem. About 9 AM I sat down and studied French for a few hours, did lots of exercises (my pen even ran out!). Monique gave my mum a printer as a birthday present a few days ago and today I finally set it up. It works great, it's an Epson. 

I updated my missed posts and some days in my diary, then I tried out the scanner feature on the printer by scanning a few of my notebooks. Specifically, their covers. Because I have no pictures for this week either, they scans will be the visual stimulation for this entry.

Kitty cats!

Ancient Muji flipbook.

My fave brand, Our Story Begins.

An oldie.

Ancient!

Very wizard-y.

This one rocks.

Some of these are unused but they are all super old, I bought them when I was still a teen and living in China. Good times. I'm going to make a page for my notebook collection on my site because I have so many and also I'm still addicted to them.

Tuesday was okay too because I studied as well. This may seem like a very mediocre achievement but as someone who struggles to even get started it was pretty good for me. We finished the first season of Minecraft Storymode and honestly, it has no business being that good. Lukas is best boy, according to a consensus of my sister, my brother, and I.

On Wednesday we had an appointment with a new social worker, she's a very nice lady and she helped me to get another appointment at Banque de France. I also have to get an appointment with ALIFS which is another organization that helps foreigners with random issues. 

The cheap and scummy bank option that I was trying to get to work failed. I showed up to a convenience store to pick up the card but the guy refused to give it to me if I didn't have a permanent ID card (titre de sejour). I only have my temporary ID right now (attestation de prolongation) and apparently it's not good enough for a regular and online bank alike. I'm fucking pissed. I'm not gonna lie I wanted to bust a hole through some wall like a white guy but I refrained. It's just getting so stupid. The employment office and the social workers tell me my document is fine for work, study, and the bank but in practice I just get refusal and refusal. Is it like this on purpose? So people can't get their welfare? I don't even want it... I just want to start working already. I'm lucky that I live with my family because I can't get a job without a bank account and I'm not getting any welfare right now either. Yeah, if I was alone I would probably have to do shady and illegal work like many people. Then you get stuck there. I'm mad as hell.

I took the earlier train to Agen on Thursday because my appointment was at 10 AM. I mostly walked around, dropped by the bookstore to get two new pens. Browsed the H&M but honestly everything they had sucked. I'm also trying to buy only second hand now. At my appointment the lady working the desk was pretty surprised that my case has been going on since February of last year and that the banks keep refusing me. They often are. But at least she didn't dismiss me like the last guy and said they would provide some kind of a document that may help. I'm just so worn out already. I;m this close to running into the woods and living under the foliage. Fuck money, fuck banks, they are literally the devil. At least I had a nice lunch at a bakery before my train home.

I found one pic I took this week! It's Simona being insane.

Unhinged.

 Friday was uneventful. I spent a long time adding stuff to my site, like a more easy to use media log. Also finally made my media blog, where I'm going to keep track of stuff I've seen, listened to, etc. It turned out pretty cute.

Frutiger Metro adjacent?

On Saturday my period started and I only had enough Nurofen for a few hours which sucks! Luckily it wasn't too severe but I did still spend the entire day lying down. The good thing about period days is that they are movie days. I watched Bounce Ko Gals and August In The Water, I've been meaning to for a while. We also started season 2 of Minecraft Storymode which was fun. 

Sunday was a little better but I still felt pretty low. I've just been super strange lately. Easy to irritate and not very forgiving. Also feel like I'm let down a lot, I think some of that isn't actually happening but some of it is. We as human beings are super insensitive to the little ways we hurt each other deeply. So why can't I just get over it? Especially when I'm no better. I don't know. Guess 'cuz it hurts.  

This week, I present Susumu Yokota's Three Ripple. He is better known for the more minimal but intriguing Sakura (2000) or the experimental and fantastical Symbol (2004), but Sound of Sky (2002) is highly underrated and worth listening to. It's probably Yokota at his danciest. 

Le Petit Blog #4: Mon Avis Sur Les Films

Bonjour, les lecteurs ! Est-ce que tu aimes les films ? Moi, j'adore les films, en particulier les films des années 2000 et 1990. Ces décennies sont mes favoris, mais j'aime les films plus récents et plus anciens aussi. J'apprécie tous les genres, mais j'aime beaucoup les drames, les films de science-fiction, les films d'art d'essai et les films d'animation. Je n'aime pas les films très populaires, je préfère les films plus obscurs et sous-estimés. Je pense que les meilleurs personnages sont ceux qui ont beaucoup de problèmes et qui ne sont pas parfaits. Dans un autre post en futur, je voudrais écrire sur mes films préférés. 

Le Petit Blog #3: Quand J'étais Professeur

Bonjour tout le monde ! Aujourd'hui, je vais écrire un post sur mon ancien travail. Avant 2019 ou 2020, j'ai travaillé comme professeur d'anglais. Généralement, j'ai enseigné les enfants d'âges entre 5 et 16. C'est un métier dur. J'ai travaillé en Chine pour beaucoup d'années et ce temps me manque. J'ai aimé les moments quand j'ai pris le bus pour le centre-ville et quand je suis allé déjeuner après un matin occupé. Cette ville me manque vraiment. Quand j'ai quitté la Chine, j'ai arrêté mon travail comme professeur et j'ai commencé mon travail comme animateur 2D. Maintenant, je pense si je travaillerai comme professeur encore. 

Love Is For Suckers {2025 Week #7}

I had very shifting moods this week. Hot and cold. Totally powerless and apathetic and literally filled with ambition a few hours later. I haven't done much outside, we went to the recyclerie once but there was nothing good again. I did figure out how to get manga on my Kindle finally though. Now I can finally read them without burning my eyes out. Phone screens really wear me out.

I made Tonkatsu this Thursday for dinner for the first time because everyone was apparently sick of chicken. It turned out pretty good with the sauce and all. I kind of miss making little lunch boxes to take with me to class like I did about this time last year. 

More importantly, on Thursday I finally bought all the ingredients for my mum's birthday cake. Yes, her birthday is on Valentine's day. I never celebrated it because it was always her birthday for me. I do love the aesthetics of Valentine's something about the cheesiness and comfort of hearts, pink, red, and chocolates. 

On Friday it was her birthday, first she took a long bath with some trinkets my sister got her like a bath bomb and stuff. Then I made a big breakfast for everyone and my brother went out and bought pastries. Because everyone's sleeping schedules are shit, we all got sleepy at lunch time and took naps. After we started to prepare the house of guests and dinner. Every time we want to spend a birthday with just family we somehow end up having 10 people over. It's kind of annoying.

Anyway, I made the cake and through it in the fridge. It was a Mango White Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake and it turned out really well! Like a dumb ass I forgot to take pics of everything. Anyway, me and my mum prepared a nice shepherd's pie and we got a bunch of snacks and drinks ready. People started arriving at about 7 PM. It was pretty nice and all the food was awesome. However, the party started to really stretch into the night... I am a bit ashamed but I went upstairs and had a lie down. When one of the guests came looking for me I pretended to be asleep. So immature! But my social battery was completely flat.

The weekend was uneventful, we did finally order pizza on Sunday like we planned to for a while. We also re-watched Nanny Diaries, it's a pretty fun film and also the rich people in it are a very special kind of horrible. Before that we went for a walk over the town bridge closer to where the farms are. We also took the cats for a short walk closer to our house. It's getting warmer so we can go out with them more often soon. I've been super ditzy these past few weeks, short and bland posts, no photos, I'm going to try to do something more exciting next week. It's good for my own brain. 

This week, a sad and angsty banger from Avril Lavigne's second album Under My Skin. I saw her live once when I was like eleven and had a period where I thought I was too cool to listen to her so I'm happy to report that that time has passed. Here's Together:

Cyber Girl {2025 Week #6}

A very late post, but my motto will always be a better at some point in time than not. Late is usually an understatement. I can't lie, it was a very lame and boring week. Stuff I was expecting to get done was not but I took some time to work on my site which went well.

 Since Monday I was gathering buttons for my fanlistings collective page. You ever spend a ridiculous amount of time on tasks that don't exactly contribute anything to your life besides making you just kind of happy doing them? That's kind of how I felt going through every category on the Fanlistings Network. Did it take way too much time I could have spent studying? Yeah, but I had fun. The pages turned out super cute though so I am happy with that.

The main page.

The joined fanlistings.

I was a real computer girlie this week, pretty much focused on making stuff for my site. After the collective I posted my media page. It's not totally done but I was really happy with how it turned out, it's really giving the Gen X Soft Club that I love a lot. I actually have to write some reviews for all the movies, TV, music etc. that I have watched or listened to.

Reviews incoming!

I still really want a digicam, preferably a Sony Cybershot type. But I just can't justifying buying it right now, maybe for my birthday. My mum's birthday is next week and my sister's is two weeks after. I have to prepare presents for her quick. 

I also binged season 1 of Project Runway, it's got me totally addicted. There is a very specific subset of trashy reality TV like Project Runway and ANTM that have me hooked. I think it's the outfits. We also started playing Minecraft Storymode as a joke with my brother and sister and we were totally surprised by how much we actually liked it so my apologies to MCSM. We especially like Lukas and Petra, they are easily the best characters.

On Saturday I finally figured out Zonelets for the blog for my site. I just copy stuff I write here over there, a kind of mirror for this blog. I also set up utterances to work with a Github repository in order to have comments on individual posts. It works, I tried it out, but no one has commented yet.

The home page of the blog.

It was a pretty uneventful week but it somehow still ended up being draining. I don't want to socialize much but also being cooped up all day is really bringing me down. Time to find a better middle ground. This week I'm leaving you with Fefe Dobson's In The Kissah. This entire album is perfect top to bottom and is contagiously fun. Fefe should have really been as big as Avril, I think.

Le Petit Blog #2: Mes Chats

Bonjour, mes lecteurs~! Cette semaine, je veux écrire sur mes chats. Maintenant, j'ai deux chats, Simona et Yoshi. J'ai nommé Simona et ma sœur a nommé Yoshi. Simona est très petit, plus petit qu'un chat moyenne. Yoshi n'est pas grand, mais il est très long. Simona est un peu moins intelligente, mais elle n'est pas paresseuse, Yoshi l'est. Ils ont habitaient avec nous depuis mai 2023. Cette année, ils auront deux ans. Ils vivent à l'intérieur, mais nous les promenons quelques fois par mois. Ils sont très drôles, en particulier quand ils se battent. Je les aime beaucoup, la vie n'est pas la même sans les chats.  

Simona (gauche) et Yoshi (droit).

 

Claire Sandwich {2025 Week #5}

Hello again. It has been strange. This is the week I had a try out for a temporary job in the next town over. More on that later. It's been raining a lot, which to me, is a mood booster. I'm still thinking and thinking about movies all the time. I already decided that I would write something this Thursday but we'll see how that actually goes. Anyway, Monday was the rainiest day of all, I went to the store optimistic that it wasn't that bad but as I was going back, with a heavy ass bag, it poured like we were flooding. Our area is actually often under threat of floods so that's not good. Anyway, I bought a cute photo album to store the many photos I got from my childhood stuff box. These are actually from uni. The photo album doesn't actually have sleeves though because I'm a dumbass who forgot to check. So now I have to buy some special photo stickers to slot my pics in.

The starry cover.

 

My bestie in Budapest.

Only two photos fit per page which is tough but also is more dramatic which I kind of like. The two pics are of my best friend in high school, Yuka. We are both not avid social media users so we usually just text on WhatsApp but ever since my phone broke in December we haven't been able to chat which sucks. I need to contact her through some other way soon.

On Tuesday I was mostly just anxious about the short work trial I would be having on Wednesday. I have no chill and stress about everything before, during, and after. I did do more writing for my projects and I do need to speed up all the pre-production of my visual novel in time for Nanoreno in March.

At last, Wednesday arrived and I left to the next town at about lunch. We arrived earlier to put all the printers into Eric's car, he was the leading guy in the activities planned for the day. Yeah, I forgot to mention but the job is being an assistant to a teacher who teaches a short class about 3D printing to kids. I don't know anything about 3D printers but I have taught kids a lot, but usually English. 

It was awkward as hell. There was no structure, no teaching part and trying part, it was a mess. I seriously hate working like that because it feels like there is no organization. I don't blame Eric, it's not his full-time job or anything. But I was super stressed out. The kids also did not care for what I was saying in my broken French at all. There was this one kid that was super nervous and shy, I relate. It wasn't bad overall but I just felt it was not productive. We had a bunch of printers malfunction, some models failed to print or broke, and Eric had to explain how they worked to the kids very briefly and over and over because the kids all came at different times. Well, at least now I know how to use a 3D printer. If I get paid to attend next time as an assistant, I will go. But I ain't doing this for free again. Also because I felt pretty useless. I wasn't given any tasks so I was just hovering and helping when I could which feels like not doing much...

A little mid-week break here. Key made a blog post on their site recently answering the Blog Questions Challenge 2025. You know my ass cannot resist a questionnaire so here comes my attempt at responding to these questions:

Why Did You Start Blogging In The First Place?

I cant remember shit. Seriously. If I didn't keep a diary I would have very obscure and random memories, like what happened in a music video a friend showed me 10 years ago or which actor was in which long-forgotten TV show from the 90s, but no formative memories of my own. No dates, no timelines. My memory would be dumb references and memes I saw somewhere once. Terrible. A blog is the best diary... the internet is nearly forever!! And with time stamps and pictures.

What Platform Are You Using To Manage Your Blog, And Why Do You Use It?

Take a guess, buddy! That's right, blogger. I think the fact that it is borderline abandoned by Google is what drew me in, as well as nostalgia for it because I'm pretty sure we used it for some kind of school project eons ago.

Have You Blogged On Other Platforms Before?

A long time ago I sort of blogged on... Quizilla. I miss that piece of shit website so bad. I also had a blog that my uni paid me to maintain during my exchange in Finland which was funny. 

How Do You Write Your Posts?

Just straight into the Blogger text editor. It has an awful spell check that doesn't understand my writing style but also at least my few readers don't have to read the words 'absolutely' and 'seriously' misspelled. I am bad at spelling, okay?! 

When Do You Feel Most Inspired To Write?

When I have a bunch of pics I want to post too. It makes me feel sad when my blog is empty of pictures. Does this mean that I need to hide behind fun or pretty imagery to make up for my poor quality of blogging and uninteresting life? Who knows! Don't think about it! Good? Good.

Do You Normally Publish Immediately After Writing, Or Do You Let It Simmer?

 I serve that shit as soon as it's done in the oven. Sometimes... it is not totally cooked and maybe I should have given it a second. Typos everywhere that I have to go back to shamefully and fix.

What’s Your Favorite Post On Your Website?

 My most popular post is probably my Week 51 post from 2024 (wow, 58 read, I'm basically famous!). It's actually not a very happy entry so I can't say it's a favourite at all. If I had to pick, I'd probably say 'So This is The New Year' from the first week of this year. It was a good week with a fun trip and New Year presents, oh yeah!

Any Future Plans For the Website? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?

I'm probably going to use Zonelets at one point to "move" this blog to my main site. I think I'll always post here first to make this my sort of work book for my blogging. I changed the look of this blog recently and I'm probably going to leave it how it is for now.

Your Turn!

No one has to actually do this even if I tag them of course haha, but whoever read this blog post, I tag you. If you feel like doing these questions write me a comment so I can check out your version! Would be really cool if Krish took a jab at it but if you're not in the mood for it don't even worry about it.

Anyway, back to the week. Thursday was spent at home, mostly working on stuff on my computer. Actually most of the week was on the computer! It's because I'm working on my site a lot. Thursday was a little more for my blog, I checked out TwinkieChan's blog again to browse her outfit pics because I felt really inspired by them. She has such a fun and cute style.

TwinkieChan's blog.

On Friday I finally played some games on my super cool new PC... Mirror's Edge from 2008, not exactly a benchmark type of game but I love it. During dinner we watched Alien: Romulus and the human-xenomorph hybrid at the end was so nasty!

Saturday I finally went out. In the morning I went to the thrift store closer to me and got a cute flannel and skirt. I love flannel, plaid, gingham. Me and Tom met up at the other thrift store at 3PM and we browsed a bit, mostly laughing about how crazy some of the shoes were. I found a cute little poncho. For the longest time I thought I could resist, but yeah, I like ponchos! 

After we walked around a bit and later went to his house. We hung out for a bit and then played some Resident Evil Revelations 2. Moira is a funny character. Next time we wanted to grab my brother too and play all together. We played on the Switch, and I'm not gonna lie, the controllers kind of suck. I think I might buy one in the very distant future but since Nintendo are so annoying about homebrew right now, I don't really see the point. I left about 7PM and froze my ass off on the way home even though the day was warm.

I wasted a lot of Sunday watching random videos (I only watch YouTube on weekends) and seriously regretted that. I'm feeling super low energy since maybe the middle of January. For my site, I started working on my fanlistings collective page. I totally lack all the backend skills to make the fanlistings functional so I'm just doing what can be done. 

This week was kind of scattered and made me feel pretty disoriented. I hope I can feel better next week. This week I am still hooked on Elliott, particularity the song Away We Drift. Please give it a listen.