 |
| Week 20. |
Monday was a work day but I was busy thinking about Tuesday and the Witch Hat event. My nerves were shaky: I was still worried that it would just be me and a bunch of pre-teens. It's why I originally wanted to bring my sister, as a kind of meat shield (and also because she loves skipping school). But alas, she had an exam and couldn't cut class to go to buy a manga with me. If you think it's pathetic for a 27 year old to live life like this you are correct. I don't have an argument at all.
Tuesday morning my brother went to another meeting with Aicha to get a spot in her class. We took the same train and I arrived pretty early before the bookstores were even open. About a half-hour after they finally opened (I didn't want to bother the employees as soon as they stepped into the store) I decided to drop in and see what was happening. It was only me, so already I began to suspect that something was amiss. I talked to the cashier and she told me that the new volume wouldn't be in until after lunch and my train was at lunch, so I was a bit screwed. Luckily, she told me that there was another store that also had the event and the volume.
 |
| I've arrived! |
It's a very cute bookshop, if you're ever in Agen I recommend you visit it. It's called Dans ma Libraire and it's got a wide range of stuff but sadly has a very shit website. When I got there I asked when the event would be and apparently it was at almost closing time later in the day. This obviously wasn't on any of the adverts... anyway, I got what I came for which was the collector's edition of volume 15 which for some reason did not want to get scanned. Still, it was mine in the end and I got one of the event's items (the one I really wanted), the dip pen!
 |
| It's beautiful... |
I met Mo on the train. Grabbed him by the shoulder and he jumped like 5 meters. Apparently when he got to the town where the classes will be there was a bunch of cops outside the station. He got stopped and ID'ed. I asked if anyone else got stopped and he said yeah, some other white guy. There's some criminal running about that's in my brother's demographic. Then again, I assume like 80% crimes are probably committed by some white dude aged 20-30.
My period started on Wednesday so I skipped work and also didn't burn myself with the hot water bottle this time. Was very unproductive, did make my summer bucket list though and I'm pretty happy with it but who knows how it will actually go. I tried not to make any huge plans this time to avoid last year's problem.
 |
| Summer 2026, baby! |
Thursday was much of the same but by Friday I was well enough to go work. The usual was happening: we were making more metal cage-fences filled with rocks. It was pretty good. We also had plans to hang out with Tom right after work but for some reason my cramps suddenly came back. I marinated at home a little and we made it to his house an hour late. He hooked up his PS3 to the big screen and we fucked around in Black Ops and Advanced Warfare.
 |
| Now that's advanced warfare... |
Uneventful weekend. The cats have been getting lazier which is a very bad sign: it likely means the heat is coming on. I don't want it to... I hate the heat, man. Like, if you think I already don't have any brain function (you'd be right) I have negative brain function in the heat. It's actually horrible...
 |
| Pretty clouds. |
Soon I'll run out of flashback trips to include here in the blog, because I managed to misplace a bunch of photos somehow from my time traveling during uni. We'll see if I can dig anything else up...
Flashback Trip #3: 2019 La Rochelle (+Charente-Maritime) with Mum and Mum's friend
Sometime in the late winter (or early spring?) of 2019 my mum and her friend were visiting France all the way from China as this friend was looking to buy a house in France and my mum tagged a long as a kind of consultant or something. This was years before we ever even considered living in France (and in fact, this friend was a major reason as to why we could even come to France in 2022). I was studying in Finland at the time and had a week off so I decided to travel to France via some incredibly uncomfortable and cheap flights and spend some time with my mum and see the south of France.
I was on a very serious budget so I took the cheapest flight out of Tampere that stopped in Stockholm, I had a short layover after which I flew to Paris. From there, I took a Flixbus from hell. A 12+ hours bus ride from Paris to La Rochelle that was luckily going through the night, though I barely slept with an incredibly pushy neighbour beside me the entire time. I got there in the very early morning.
 |
| Duck. |
 |
| Tower!! |
I met my mum and her friend in La Rochelle, which is a very cool seaside town and where Cousteau's research vessel, the Calypso, was held in the late 90s.
I don't remember much about all the little towns and villages we stopped in later as we'd traveled a lot by car. I often dozed off or listened to music and didn't even notice where the road took me.
 |
| Me with my mum's friend. |
 |
| Near a camping area. |
 |
| At some random gas stop. |
The entire trip was about 4 days after which I took the flight back, it stopped in Oslo and then I was back in Tampere. Most of the trip consisted of going house-hunting, eating at some local small restaurants, and going on walks all over totally new towns. It was a weird trip because I rarely ever travel by car but since our friend was driving it was lucky that I got to just sit back.
And that's all for this week and this very, very late entry. Another good time to repeat my favourite mantra: better late then never, always, always.
 |
| The end. |
This Week I'm Excited For...
Not much, maybe to have some time off to get my life in order. I have a lot of stuff to get done and a lot of things to finish up for other people. I'm really letting some people down right now with my tortoise speed so hopefully all that...
Song Of The Week...
Again, I don't know if I had a distinctive song of the week but a lot of Midnight Club LA has been on my mind lately so I'd have to say that Dundy Lion by Markus Kienzl is my current choice. It's very moody and has that little motif that's so, so good it will totally become an earworm.
