journal

november

11.11.2024

i'm mostly updating this because i need to experiment with some code that i feel like should work but is destroying my shrine-in-progress when i try to implement it but i think that's because i'm using VSC and not an actual internet-connected thing like neocities, so if you see weird stuff going on on this page just ignore it.

the second reason i'm updating this is because i saw an echidna in the WILD while on a walk right after my last journal entry! i was on a long long walk about 2 hours out from campus and suddenly the noisy miners started going batshit, screaming their little birdy heads off. i was really worried that i was about to encounter a snake because i was in prime snake territory so i walked very carefully and kept my eyes peeled and when i got the the shrub they were all screeching from, there was an adorable spiny little guy! i'll attach some photos because finding this thing was truly the highlight of my life! unfortunately, life had to balance itself because when i got back into town, i caught the attention of some guy. he was walking behind me and i didn't realise that he was talking to me and just thought that he was having a really awkward phone call where he was failing miserably in that interaction. oops. eventually he caught up to me and was like "i didn't mean to scare you but i just wanted to ask how you got that scar on your arm" which really threw me on account of listening to him say that and apologise for asking earlier but not thinking it was directed at me, but also because that scar is really really faint and i didn't think anyone but me could see it (just below my elbow, about an inch long). i said that it was from a long time ago and that i couldnt remember, but this was a crucial mistake because now i had allowed a conversation to happen. this man did not leave me alone for BLOCKS and i was equally dodging questions and giving false info, as well as REPEATEDLY refusing to give any contact info because no, i do not want to "hang out sometime" and talk more. thankfully at some point he mentioned which direction he was going in, so I just stopped after the next crosswalk, waited until he finished with whatever he was saying, and then said that i was going in the opposite direction.

alas, the same thing happened with a different guy exactly one week later. makes me think that some kind of pickup artist convention recently happened lol ;-; i have a face that makes people ask me for directions, so i thought that this guy was another case of that, but quickly realised i was wrong. guy #2 was kinda more aggro with trying to get contact info and when i would back up and say no (again) he would just get closer. i started walking away, he said he was going that way too, and so i told him i was going to the library in the other direction (said "no", "no", and "seriously no" to the resulting attempts to get my contact info) and speed walked off to hide out in the bookstore for like half an hour to make sure he wasnt going to be waiting near the library. also both these guys were definitely in their thirties :((( makes me not want to go outside auughjtkjnr.

october

29.10.2024

one exam down, 3 essays to go. been listening to a lot of news lately and just generally feeling constantly angry about everything. also reading/listening non-newsy news about the environment and enshittification of the internet in general but especially google. thinking about all the plastic my groceries come in and feeling ill! for the most part i only buy produce if it's loose and not plastic wrapped (i think strawberries and spinach are the only exception since arent sold loose style. sad!). been feeling especially pissed off with milk, both with type of milk and also packaging style. the only non-plastic containers that non-dairy milks come in are tetra packs, which are good in some ways, but practically unrecycleable. there arent really any non-plastic yogurt containers, and i could switch to a cardboard thing of oats rather than the shitty soft plastic kind i'm buying now, but the cardboard boxes cost more while having less food anyways. now that i am finally getting paid for my research assistant work though, I might just bite the bullet and make the switch. i wish small quantities of rice were sold in non-plastic bags. I can't quite bring myself to buy the bags that are the size of an overgrown toddler as i simply do not have room for that lol. i admire it though! my old roommate would buy those and it made for a great tool to prop up the slouching mini-bookself in the kitchen that i guess must have had a missing bracket or something.

anyways. lots of good music at the moment! been a big fan of kaytranada since like early high school but i think "witchy" feat. childish gambino might be my favourite song of his yet. also, god bless megan thee stallion. again, bigger in texas has got to be my favourite song of hers i think. speaking of texas, guess who never got her ballot lolll i requested my absentee ballot back in early september and over a month later, they sent "it" to my parents, i.e. to the wrong damn country. however, my mum opened it to try and like, expedite it over to me but saw that they didnt send my ballot, but were saying that my info was wrong. i can promise you, it was not. i checked beforehand to make sure i was still registered, and i am. however, i checked the site my rejected ballot told me to check (the ballot tracking function so i guess you can see if you have all the correct info) and it said my info wasn't associated with any registered voter!! so i went to the page to check if i was still registered and put in all my info, and that all still looked good so i really don't know what the problem is T_T. my brother in canada applied back in AUGUST and his ballot tracker still says it's "in transit". bitch are you crossing the rockies in god damn conestoga wagons? don't kill me but i'm kinda glad that now i can't vote lol i mean, i wish i could vote for the more local shit, but i don't know if i could bring myself to vote for The Big One. so sue me for being a single issue voter (though the dem's move to the right, or at least more right than usual, means that the number of things that i politically align with with them is dwindling by the day anyways). i was able to vote in the 2020 elections, but my ballot never arrived for the 2022 midterms either. conspiracy! however, i am happy to report that i voted in my local election here last week and got to experience ranked-choice voting for the first time woohoo big fan (not that AusPol isnt fucked too. just saying they've figured out elections better). if the u.s. can't have a total overhaul where we kill every politician squid game style, can we at least get ranked voting? just a suggestion.

20.10.2024

one more week of classes woah. i have been completely filled with despair and apathy lately which hasnt been a fun look. doing all my assignments last minute and i think that that's really going to bite me in the ass for 2 of them. the only time i feel not awful is when i'm outside so i've been going on many long long walks but the thing is, when i'm on walks, i am also not getting school stuff done, so that i end up just feeling worse when i get back to my room because it is now 2 hours later in the day and nothing has changed. i got a bit of work done today on an assignment due tuesday, so i'm finally feeling a bit better about that. i'm so glad that it is warming up now. i'm definitely going to regret lying out in the sun today. I'm already looking a bit pink... i need to get in the habit of putting on sunscreen!

it's hard to not always be outside when there are so many animals out there! when i went out for a walk on thursday, i saw black swans, magpies, magpie larks, eastern rosellas (my favourite), crimson rosellas, pacific black ducks, maned ducks (and 20+ ducklings), hardheads, cockatoos, galahs, king parrots, superb fairy wrens, australasian swamphens, dusky moorhens (+some of their babies), welcome swallows, noisy miners (they really earned that name...), pigeons and then for some not birds, some water dragons and possums! the knowledge that they are all out there makes the outdoors a very very tempting place to be.

got confimation from 2 profs that they would supervise me next year, so that's good. i'm currently working on transcribing the corpus that i'm going to be using as part of the data, so there's some extra motivation for me to work hard on it haha. very relieved that i did really well on my quantitative research course assignment since it was on data manipulation and visualisation with R, which i am going to need for my thesis, so i'm glad to know that i am capable of doing it. yay

n e ways. peace and love to planet earth

september

15.09.2024

Howww has it been 3 weeks since i last updated this site. whoopsies. i promise i'm working on 3 seperate pages behind the scenes they're just taking a fucking lifetime apparently to make any headway. anyways today is the last day of spring break and of course i didnt finish everything i wanted/needed to over the last 2 weeks. oops. at least i've gotten ahead with my readings, but just still have barely started the project that's due tomorrow... i'm sure that will work out...

i stayed with my aunt and uncle for a while last week which was a mixed bag lol. i feel a lot closer to that aunt now because i always thought she didnt' like me because in the past, whenever i would respond to anything she said, she would give me a weird look and the conversation would either immedietly change subject or just end. i thought it was like a "children are to be seen and not heard" sorta thing, which got really annoying once i was an adult, but after spending more time with her and her husband, i'm 99% sure it was just because she isn't used to people responding to her and i think we actually grew quite close over the time i spent with her. I definitely lost a lot of respect for my uncle (for this and for a number of other reasons...) during this trip, but kind of glad to see the inner workings of that part of my family and come to the conclusion that I am not the problem lmao.

they live out in the country which was very cool to see such beautiful landscapes every time we went back to their place. rolling hills permanently misted with eucalyptus oil, cows and herons in every pasture, kookaburras on every wire (no jumping up and down nor any asses on fire). my aunt and uncle have two cows and some chickens (the sheep are no longer with us rip), and a chronic python and spider problem!! i didnt see any snakes thankfully but the first night, i went to turn on the lamp by my bed and nearly brushed hands with a huntsman ;-; ;-; i had been up since 4am for transit purposes but i stayed awake for another 3 hours until midnight just staring at it, googling what to do, and waiting until it was an acceptable timezone in the u.s. to bug my parents about how the fuck i'm meant to sleep with that by my pillow. ended up just sleeping fullyyy under the covers in the boiling heat and praying :') the rest of the time i was there, it emerged from wherever it hid during the day to chill on the top of the toilet, which meant i couldnt piss once it got dark out.

i knew i couldnt really do much for my grandma, so i was mostly just there for moral support for my grandfather. i brought him a small book with lots of photos on the royal flying doctor service from the early-mid 20th century, which he was a part of as a dentist, but due to the lack of resources out in the bush, meant that he often had to do things that verged more into doctor territory than dentist... he seemed to really enjoy the book, which i'm happy about. my poor grandma had seriously taken a turn for the worse since i saw her about a month and a half ago. she was immobile and had to have help with absolutely everything. the first day i was there was the worst, which was very scary. i don't think she was really lucid that day and would just make this terrifying yelp when my aunt would try and move her. she was somehow even smaller and her watch would slip down to her elbow when she would raise her arms to be lifted up. i think the really odd thing was that my aunt (not the one i was staying with) had taken to calling my grandma by her nickname, which i dont think anybody had done for the last 23 years, on account of her nickname being my actual name. she'd also sometimes call her by an even shortened version of that, which is what my parents call me. it definitely felt weird (not in a bad way, just in the way in which your name is suddenly being used to refer to the person who is dying, which is a new experience).

what was meant to be a 1 hour walk turned into a 3 hours walk this morning because of reasons that are embarassing to explain lol but i guess my parents were tracking me (#life360family) because as soon as i got back to my room, they called to let me know that she had died last night/this morning (they weren't exactly sure. time zones are confusing and they didnt want to press my aunt/grandad for details). i know that it was for the best, and my dad said that the last time he talked to her a couple days ago, he came away wishing that she didnt have to wait much longer. i just really worry for my grandad. i think when my maternal grandfather died, that gave my maternal grandmother like,, a reason to keep going for a couple more years. in this case, i think it's one of those situations where he wont know how or why to keep going.

but yeah. she was a great person and i'm grateful for everything she did, especially for how she raised my dad (not to take credit away from my grandfather lol). i can't help being sad, but i'm also so happy that she had a long and happy life, with about 91 of those years being perfectly healthy and even active, with weekly swimming and dancing with her neighbours. she will be very missed, but i know that i can be happy that not a moment of her life was wasted.

august

24.08.2024

training for the research assistant is on wednesday! scary but exciting. still cant believe i got the position #grateful :p. in other exciting news, i was bit by a possum on monday night lol. long story not so short, i was putting up posters around campus for a club meeting late at night bc i always feel weird being seen doing it doing the day and i saw a possum chilling in the grass i was walking by. i stopped to take a picture and then since i have learned that the possums on campus are very chill, i got a bit closer and crouched down to take a vid because it looked cute eating. it was content, but then it started walkking over to me. no biggie, it's happened before when i'm watching possums and they like to see if i have food. but this one got reallyyy close and i froze because it was officially too close for me to be comfortable, but i didnt want to spook it by getting up. it even walked on the posters i had put down on the ground, put its little front paws on my knees, sniffed my hand, and then bit my thumb ;-; funny thing is that i had forgotten that i was recording it and so i do have it biting me on video, as well as the first like 30 seconds of my very quickly getting away after that. luckily it didnt break the skin, but i went home, gave it a good wash, and called a healthline at like 11pm and was told it would be fine. I ended up going to a walk-in clinic on wednesday night (getting there was such a fucking ordeal omfg. i cannot begin my bus rant rn...) to get it looked at and to get a tetanus booster juuuuust in case, but all is well! yay free health care yippee!

on the topic of health care, i applied for medicare back in FEBRUARY and havent heard back, so i for real need to start making phone calls and bothering people. would maybe like to get a gp here because my hands have been hurting in the morning to a very uncomfortable degree. it's making taking notes hard and i'm finding it difficult to straighten my fingers (to the extent that i can lol) in the morning, which i don't think is meant to be a problem for another couple decades, and yet...

alsoo i booked tickets to go visit my grandparents the first week of september. my grandma was saying that she really missed me, and it's my spring break then, so i asked my aunt if i can stay with her. it's weird knowing that, if she's still alive then, it will be my last trip seeing her. i feel so bad for my dad that he cant come see her, so i feel like this trip is just as much for him (if not more so) than it is for me.

but yeah anyways. coming back to continue writing here after a 30 minute break because i forgot lol. today was kinda weird. slept in until like 11 because i stayed up late last night finishing an assignment and i felt like shit today. had a huge headache which finally drove me out of bed so that i could make coffee. usually i hate doing anything, including eating breakfast or drinking coffee, before getting dressed (and if am living with roommates or am back at home w/ my parents, i wont leave my room until i am fully dressed for the day. just cant do it) but today i just felt like such sludge that i had to break my rules to be able to move on with the day. laid down again after coffee, which only helped a little, so after a quick shut-eye session, i got dressed and then made breakfast and a second coffee. looked up place i could check out to get a new backpack because mine has finally and dramatically given up on me and is days away from being fully non-functional. set off some laundry, had a headache tablet because it STILL wasnt gone and went to check out this store that had a potential backpack. got outside and realised that it was really warm which i didnt expect because my room was cold (but it's always cold) and wanted to cry for reasons unknown to me. very jarring because i am not much of a cryer. it surprised me so much that i immedietly went back to my room and regrouped my thoughts and pulled myself togther. changed into a tshirt and went out to try again. the store ended not having the bag i wanted even though online they said they did, but i want to check out more places before i ask them to order it for me or smth. still was feeling very much not well so i got a scoop of mango gelato and sat down in the park so that i could be in the sun. nearly fell asleep sitting up at the park table, but was kept awake bc i was paying too much attention to the people on their first date at the table next to mine. meandered home and walked by so many pubs and restaurants where people were out on the patio drinking beer that i felt such an overwhelming, dare i say, lust, for a cider/beer that i stopped by the corner store and got two cans of apple cider. it's been a while since i drank anything and yeah wow. yummy. very much missing hanging out at bars with my friends but a) every bar here is ridiculously upscale and fancy and expensive because everyone works in the goverment b) i do not have bar-level friends, though this semester is definitely going better than last semester in the friends department lol. lord please grant me the joy of getting drunk with friends again hhhh amen

10.08.2024

I'm getting really good at not updating this page! it's not exactly been an accident though loll. thought that my life was over and it was like if i thought about it enough to put anything into words on here i would see just how pathetic i was/am teeheeee. thankfully my self esteem has been partly boosted by 1) getting my grades back from last semester's exams and seeing that i actually did really well and am not a fuck up wasting time and money larping as a student at my ancient age of 23 and that maybe i am smart sometimes, but mostly 2) i was accepted as a research assistant yesterday! i sent in my silly little abysmal cv which somehow got me through to the interview stage and i charmed the prof with my wit and intellect (and sociolinguist connection.... #nepolinguist. i dont even like the guy i just took a bunch of classes with him...) and she said she'd send me the paperword for the hiring process! crazy. insane. maybe i'm not a complete fuck up and failure??? also been contemplating switching into the advanced program so that i'll do a thesis... not sure what it would be on but i want to stay here an extra semester so that i can take this one specific course lmao but also because an advanced degree sounds better than a basic one i guess. also, y'know, i would be very interested in having the opportunity to study sociophonetics/sociolinguistics in a more in-depth way. however, the 2 profs that are advising the project i'm going to be assisting with are the 2 socioling/phonetics profs that i would be reaching out to as advisors if i do make the switch into the thesis path, so if i fuck this up, it's all fucked. hopefully that will motivate me (not that i need extra motivation, but like, just in case). also side note to say that this semester is already a lot harder like,, damn. good luck, me.

my parents made the trip over here in july, so it was nice to see them again. saw extended family too, including my (paternal) grandparents. my grandma got really sick about 2 years ago and lost soooo much weight. every time i see her, i dont see how she could get smaller, but she keeps shrinking. she was misdiagnosed with cancer back in 2021, but it ended up being a benign tumour on her pancreas that was making her lose weight. medication helped her not lose too much more, but she couldnt gain any back. when i saw her a few weeks ago now, i could see every bone in her body and feel every vertebrae when i hugged her. last monday she got the news that she has less than a month left to live on account of having some more kinds of cancer throughout her insides now, which just keeps popping to the front of my brain throughout the day. i've called her twice since then to check in and say hi and hear her voice. when i called her yesterday, I put my phone on speaker so that i could record the conversation with my laptop. when i tried to listen back to it after I hung up (it was only a 4 minute call. calls are always short lately because she either cant stay awake or a nurse has arrived) i realised how high my voice gets when i talk to family that isnt my parents. i have a fairly deepish speaking voice normally so it was jarring to hear the performance i unconsciously put on to talk to them.

I admit that it feels different this time. my mum's parents died in 2019 and 2021 and even though we had about a week's warning for them both, i didn't feel this way in the lead-up to their deaths. i was really not very close with my mum's parents, even though we saw them about as often as i saw my dad's. their parenting caused a ripple effect of trauma and chaos that is going strong into the 4th generation now and i resented them for it (thankfully my mother moved far away when she was 18 and later went to therapy as an adult so i am #normal. rip to my aunts and cousins and their kids though). my dad's parents have their flaws, but overall i feel very close to them and they feel like an important part of my life. sure, my grandad used to tell my mother than hitting me would fix my stutter, but he moved on to figuring out how computers work so that he could send me emails with poems he wrote just for me, so i think i've gotta forgive him lol. i think when my grandma does actually pass, i'll talk about her a little bit in here, just because i somehow feel like i should write an obituary, if only to catalogue the things i know about her.

ended up being a real downer of a journal entry. i mean, highs and lows i guess. however, now that i have a kinda almost job, that means that i only have 3 more steps until i allow myself to cautiously enter the world of contemplating relationships (remaining steps: 1. get buff. need biceps. 2. get over debilitating fear/disgust of initiating physical contact. 3. find out if capable of having a crush on someone for more than 10 minutes and maybe more frequently than every 2 years). i'll let you know if any progress is made on that front but dont hold your breath.

May

15.05.2024

hiiii long time no see. missed it here. been busy and yet my screen time stats are looking disgusting. felt the shittiest i have in maybe a year or two and was just like,, super low, kicking off my initial disappearance from neocities, and then all of a sudden it was the end of the semester and everything was happening at once. next week is my last week of classes, which is terrifying. however, 2 good things have happened: 1) i watched challengers twice. god damn. fuck. that was good. i can already tell that my most played songs for this year are going to be from its soundtrack. i will definitely be finding that on dvd as soon as it's available. 2) made some reallyyy good food. simmered some chicken in a whole can of coconut milk and then with enough chicken stock to cover the rest of the meat in the pot. lots of cumin, curry powder, garlic powder. lots of chopped ginger and garlic and some red onion and basil. my dad makes something similar on special occassions, but he also makes coconut rice to go with it (i just made regular rice) + he follows an actual recipe. my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

been spending a lot of time looking at the photos and videos i would take when i was going on walks back in [city]. it's fun that every street has a distinct enough architectural style that you can pinpoint where you are from the look of the apartments. i caught myself being jealous that my friend went to the botanical gardens there this weekend because i knowwww that it's lilac and crabapple season and that everthing is getting pretty and green and warm while here the leaves have fallen from the trees and it's been raining. on the other hand, a really cute possum came up real close to me last week so maybe it evens out (it doesnt. i would rather have the lilacs). i did a lot of "pre-grieving" (succession shoutout) in 2022-2023, knowing that i would be sad and bitter to move. i told myself that i wasn't allowed to be angry about moving because the time spent there had been so perfect that i probably used up all the happiness that can be allotted for one life time, that it would only be fair if nothing compared to it. maybe that's a weird cope but i think i need to keep it in mind so that i dont let myself get so sad about it again. that life was then, this life is now.

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