Welcome to the 'happyblog' page. In this webpage, I will put all of my less serious entries, from here on out, as well as those I wrote previously.
2nd May, 2024
体重を少し減らそうと思ってる。ネットで読んだ"intermittent fasting" というダイエットみたいなもんをやろうかな…それとおやつを食べないようにすること。
大学用の勉強は全部できたんで、今から9月までは夏休み。でもだらだらしてはあかんやな！町中のタトゥーパーラーと連絡して、できたらその一つでバイトかmentoringをやってもらおうと思ってるんだ。最近はもうaiばかりだから、digital美術に関係ある仕事はもう絶望。刺青とかは実際の人間の体にマークを付けることができるから、そんなのはaiに盗まれない機会がずいぶん高い。よーかった！
25th April, 2024
I submitted a really important piece of coursework last night, so a lot of academic pressure has finally been lifted off my shoulders. It was driving me plumb crazy to deal with SO MUCH STUFF!!!! But I've been feelin' pretty okay for today. Dinner's being made by yours truly, a simple affair which won't require much preparation, and the rest of the week will be chill. No big responsibilities.
The song "Sabor a Mi" by Eydie Gorme is a tune I've been enjoying lately. It's relaxing and has really sweet, if kinda sad lyrics, and it's good to listen to before I go to bed. The academic year is pretty much over now, which is crazy, it went by so fast. But I'll get a long summer break. Can't think of much else to write, really.
14th April, 2024
I am really into sitars lately. I've been looking at people playing them on-line, there's all sorts of videos, and there's shops all over the country that sell them.
17th March, 2024
A good weekend was had by yours truly, a nice change in routine. Yesterday afternoon was a lunch out at a gastro-pub with my father, sister and grandmother, as a late celebration for Mother's Day. Had lots of nice conversation and nice food, even a glass of red. Tried an oyster for the first time, and discovered that I LOATHE the very concept of such shellfish, but all the other food was wonderful. Dad and Granny got a good laugh out of my reaction, I think! After lunching, we went to the music charity store around the block, and I bought three CDs...RadioFutura's "Veneno en la Piel", Ana Belen's "A la Sombra De Un Leon", and an instrumental koto album. Digging Ana Belen's album as I write, my favourite song so far is "Lobo Hombre en Paris", or Wolf Man in Paris. Very cheesy 80s stuff, ha ha ha. But I've always had a soft spot for that kind of music.
Today is a much more quiet day, as is the case with most Sundays. Woke up late, ate breakfast and watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad, I'm currently halfway through series 4. Went on a little walk about an hour ago, and picked up two snails, brought them home, and they now sit in a little dirt-filled tank on my desk. Plenty of water to drink and cucumber to eat. I kept a few snails a couple years back, so my experience in handling them is certainly not novice-level. It gives me a reason to look forward to each day. I ought to get working on some stuff for my Documentary Illustrations module soon.
10TH MARCH 2024
Mother's Day today, and my older sister's birthday. We telephoned her earlier and had a brief but pleasant conversation, and Tsuki made scones with raisins for afternoon tea, and the mapo tofu I made is on the stove for later. Tomorrow shall be college, and there will be plenty of work to do. Nothing bad has happened so far today, and hopefully it will stay that way. I tried drawing earlier, but nothing properly came to mind for me to draw. Suppose it's the Sunday Blues.
Tomorrow after college, I need to head to the local shopping mall to pick up some photographs I got developed, the ones I took on holiday, and I'll pick up some black hairdye too. I really like having jet black hair, the kind that's visibly artificial, but nice all the same. Perhaps an eyebrow pencil too, while I'm at it.
Oh yeah, and when I was on the trip, I made friends with this one girl who spoke proper Spanish, but it turned out she was a major loser. Homophobic, infantilising when I told her I was Japanese (saying stuff like "aww Japanese people are so cute!", and really, really racist, to the point where she straight up said the N word as an example of her so-called sense of dark humour. She doesn't know I'm a dyke, hahaha. Though if she does find out, and tries to pull the "well I'm fine with it so long as you don't flirt with me" card, I'll just tell her that I only like pretty girls. Sad thing is, she was genuinely quite charismatic and fun to be around, save for all that nastiness about her. But yes, the trip was a thrill, and I brought back some turron as a gift for the family, which they are enjoying.
15TH FEBRUARY 2024
Today's weblog entry is being written on one of the Macintosh computers outside one of our lecture rooms, and it is quite tricky to use. For one, the screen is very wide, so the lettering is quite small, and the keyboard is quite flat, with a lot of excess keys for things like 'command' and 'small squares'. It's quite early, class does not start till 45 minutes, so there is plenty of time to kill. The month is already halfway through...
On my right side is a large south-facing window, and the sun is piercing through the gaps in the blinds. The desk is white, this computer is white, and so are the walls. If it were not for the decorations and artworks plastered up, it would be enough to drive anyone mad. Listened to Linkin Park on the bus to college today, 'Points of Authority' is a new favourite. Things at home have been calm this week, which is nice. After lectures today, there is a small talk about a college residential trip coming up soon, for which I have signed up, and after that, Connor and I intend to play ACNL together, perhaps in the library. I hear someone approaching. I wonder who it is?
8TH FEBRUARY 2024
Sitting in Documentary Illustrations class and zonked out of my head. Social battery is so low and I am SO sleepy. Had a weird weird dream last night about skateboarding and Chris Chan, woke up feeling so strange. We made art about domestic abuse, but I'm not sure whether my depictions do the subject justice. I'm so excited to get into bed tonight. Board games with Sam and Ginnie yesterday was good fun, we played something called 6nimmt and it was a thrill. Taught them how to play bozumekuri, and Sam likened it to gambling, which is a very fair interpretation, ha ha ha. Tomorrow is drawing explorations class with Stephen, a real thrill, though a lot of my fellow classmates don't seem to like him. I think he's a swell tutor, though, and on Saturday, Granny will be coming to visit for the afternoon :-) we can cook something fancy for the occasion, and I shall also take that opportunity to interrogate her (lightly!) for one of my projects this semester.
6TH FEBRUARY 2024
KING CHARLES HAS CANCER!!!!!!!!!! EVERYONE CLAP AND CHEER!!!!!!!!! I hope it gets him in the end, karma's going to chase him down I hope. I loathe the royal family and I wish nothing but despair and inbred ugly children upon them all. Did you know that the old loser spent close to 100 million of TAXPAYERS MONEY for his own retarded coronation? And he had the option to use his own money, of which he has PLENTY. Anyway, later today I'm going to the mall where I used to work, because I'd like to get a big hoodie from the second-hand clothes store. And tomorrow, Ginnie and I are going to Sam's house to play board games together, which is real exciting.
24TH JANUARY 2024
今日のウェブログは頑張って日本語全体で書きまーす！時間は午後12:35、ゆっくりな水曜日。大学の授業はないから、ただパソコンの前に座ってネットを使ってるばかり。一時間後ぐらいにお家を出て妹と町中で待ち合わせする予定。以上かな！
23RD JANUARY 2024
College has finally started up again!! I've moved this weblog to a more discreet part of my website, so fewer people can find it (AKA my mother). I'm cooking dinner tonight. There's not much to write about today :-P Once Tsuki gets home, I'll start cooking. I cleaned our room a bit today, and threw out more unnecessary stuff. Dad's huffing and puffing in his studycorner again. Mum's asleep in bed, as always. She hardly ever leaves it! I've put some stuff in the laundry, so my backpack and dark clothes are in the washing machine right now. I've noticed that my vision is a bit more fuzzy than it used to be lately, but I'm not a hypochondriac, so I won't worry too much about it. If it gets worse, I'll go see the opticians or something.
17TH JANUARY 2024
Learnt a good new cooking tip today: Oregano goes well with lamb, while basil goes well with beef. And sage can be used with pork, though I knew that already. Tomorrow I'm going to a pancake house in town with some friends from highschool, two of whom I haven't seen in about a year and a half. College starts up next week, which I'm really looking forward to, for I miss my friends a lot!! And it gets so dull around here with just my family. Our classes are set for Monday, Thursday and Friday, which isn't so bad.
8TH JANUARY 2024
A normal day today. Mother cooked dinner, which was really nice - thinly sliced pork with edamame in soysauce and ginger seasoning, roasted melanzane with pine nuts and raisins in olive oil, and avocado-tomato salad with garlic and tajin, served with white rice. I've spent most of the day at this computer, working on another website for collegework, but it's being made with the Adobe Portfolio template, because we're not allowed to use HTML or CSS. Which makes sense, because there's lots of kids in my class who don't know how to use that stuff, so we have to be on an even playing field. The templates are dead ugly, but there's nothing I can do about that, hahaha.
Maybe I'll go outside tomorrow, and do something fun. I'm supposed to be on a diet as one of my New Years Resolutions, so if I do end up studying at a cafe, I'll get something light and low in calories, like an iced tea or something. NOT the American kind of iced tea, where they sweeten it with about a pound and a half of sugar per glass, till you've got something that resembles the sugar water you give to invalids. But something with little sugar and most importantly, a good, complex aroma to it. I suppose I'm the type of person they call a 'gourmand', a word I learnt about a year and a half ago. Listening to a Walter Donaldson jazz compilation album.
Ugh, I wish college would hurry up and start already! University holidays are quite long, which sounds really nice in theory, but gee does it get boring after a while. I've been on this winter break for almost a month now, and we don't even start until sometime in the final week of January. Tres ennuyeux!
29TH DECEMBER 2023
Happy late Christmas from my dusty corner of the Internet, it was awesome for me this year. My grandma came to visit for the holidays because she knew it might get a bit tense with just my mother and the rest of the family together, and we're really glad she did. I'll go through the Christmas period chronologically, so I can write down everything good that happened.
On Christmas Eve, I went to the train station to pick up my grandma, and lost my mobile phone in the process :-/ But it was all okay, I managed to ring the home phone to let Dad know about the situation, and Grandma helped me choose a new phone to get on the way home: it is a TCL OneTouch, with big buttons AND a camera to take photos and record videos on! Once we got home, I set about constructing a black forest gateau for the evening's dessert, and it turned out SO GOOD. Real damn big and actually kind of scary to look at on account of the fruit syrup looking like actual blood, but regardless of its sanguine appearance, the gateau was delicious (and I had it for breakfast in the few days after). My mother cooked pasta for dinner, which was really nice, and after an evening bath, Dad made hot chocolate and we all sat down for the annual viewing of "Muppets Christmas Carol". A bit of a whirlwind day, huh?
Christmas Day was extra busy. I woke up at a pretty reasonable time, so Granny and I helped Dad with making the Christmas dinner, which turned out really nice. I'm assuming that anyone who's been reading these weblog entries has kind of already figured out where I'm from, but this next thing will make it really obvious for sure. Our dinner consisted of roast turkey and stuffing, pigs in blankets, Brussels sprouts, roasted vegetables, bread sauce, and cranberry sauce, and it was fuckin' delicious. All the old folks had wine, of course, but I settled with a can of Coca-Cola (seen too much booze during college to really enjoy it, hahaha). A little while after dinner, we opened gifts, and I recieved the following: Cash, Rose scented handcream and body spray, a notebook, a bath bomb and a 'singing bowl'. I bought a Limp Bizkit T-shirt with some of the cash, which I'm wearing right now, repping my favourite band B-)
17TH DECEMBER 2023
Listening to "Love You To" by the Beatles, I love the sitar. It seems hard to play but I love the sound it makes. I HATE THIS ESSAY!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRR AUGH BARKABRKBARK BARK IM GOING WACKO MODE
It's due in two days exactly. How boring!
12TH DECEMBER 2023
One week left until the deadline for my essay on jazz subculture and style. It's 1700 words, which isn't a great deal, but still quite a big thing to focus on. Anyone reading this has probably figured out by now how much I like jazz, especially the older stuff, but somehow it was actually kind of hard to start writing it. Whether I can chalk that up to general procrastination, or my weird melty brain last week, who knows. I'm normal now though, and I'll be going back home for the winter break in just a couple of days, which'll be nice.
Listening to Graham Kartna, he makes good music. Nice and janky stuff.
4TH DECEMBER 2023
It's my mother's birthday!! And here I sit in my Digital Arts class again. We just had the absolute WORST PROJECT of our lifetime and I just finished presenting it. It was an unfinished, unpolished utter shambles of an outcome with no real final product and I felt sick to my stomach standing up there with the microphone clutched in my clammy white hands. If I had the opportunity to work on that project all by myself, it would still have turned out wretched though. Groupwork is important, indeed it is, but it was just the specific conditions we were set to work in that just ruined it for us. AUUUGHHHHH AUUUUUUGH. GOD DAMN IT!
On a happier note, it's nearly winter break, and that means it's nearly Christmas! Mum said we should make pomander balls, which I had never heard of up until she mentioned them. Upon asking her to elaborate, it turns out that a pomander ball is an orange studded with cloves, and that you use it to make the house smell nice. She showed me some pictures of it on the computer, and it reminds me of a Christingle, so we'll probably end up making both.
28TH NOVEMBER 2023
MY TUTOR LITERALLY JUST STOLE MY CHAIR. So I'm KNEELING writing today's entry, hahaha! We're in contexts and cultures class, and I've got to write an essay about style and subculture, 1700 words long, so I'm going to focus on jazz and the style/fashion around that. Cab Calloway and swing, that kinda stuff. I've got an endocrinology appointment after this class, which hopefully won't be one of the ones where they make you hold your piss in for scans or whatnot. I haven't seen my endocrinologists in a while, so I'll bet they'll be asking a lot of questions regarding life and stuff, as well as my health. Listening to keygen music as I write this entry, and I forgot how good it was. I remember hearing it a lot on this website called Sploder a lot too, but it's nice to be aware of its origins. The world's changed a lot since that era, for sure. Sploder was a good site. You could make your own games on it without knowing any programming, and I remember being OBSESSED with it back when I was 9 or so. Since FLASH got killed, the site's pretty much useless, I'm not sure if it's even still running. I feel a little bit zonked.
24TH NOVEMBER 2023
Bored as all hell, sitting in the college library. We've got a lot of work to get done, so I haven't been able to fiddle with this site much. The internet connection in my dorm went bust, so I can only access the net here, which I thought would be a big hindrance but it actually hasn't really changed anything. People are very reliant on internet these days, which is fine of course, but when things like this come up, you oughta see the way they freak out!
Connor and I had a good time yesterday. It was Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, so there was a special colour TV version of the first Dalek episode on BBC4. The entire time we watched it, we were saying to each other "I didn't know his shirt was blue!" and other things like that. We've had colour TV my whole life, so that moment yesterday is probably the closest you could get to knowing how it felt to see colour TV for the first time after so much black and white. Before the episode aired, we went to a supermarket to get some stuff for dinner, and there was quite a scene in the tinned foods aisle. One of the security guards was restraining this dude who was screaming like hell, shouting, "I WAS GONNA PAY FOR IT MAN!! I WAS GONNA PAY, DUDE!", and when the security guard let go of the man momentarily, the man went and knocked off a whole load of tins off the wall. There was a big crowd gathered around by then, and we were all just watching it go down like an alleyway brawl. We left pretty quickly after that because it started to get a bit scary, especially once the man got violent with those tins, but part of me wishes we stayed to watch the rest of it. It felt a bit like a drama show, in that regards. Tomorrow is Saturday, and I have nothing planned in the slightest. Whatever I do, though, I MUST get some work done for my digital arts class, and my visual communications class. Gee, there's so much to do!
1ST NOVEMBER 2023
Back in residences now, and my computer's visual thing keeps glitching a lot, flicking black squares everywhere (there's probably something wrong with the graphics drive, I'll have to check it out later). Last night was an awesome Halloween, Dad got in two Blu-Rays of The Exorcist and Poltergeist respectively, and they were awesome. The Exorcist was more scary in my opinion, but both movies were sick. A few days before that we watched Cannibal Holocaust, which Dad said he watched when he was younger, and it was SO gory and SO fucked up!! We loved every bit of it. As I sit typing today's entry, the hardtack I made earlier is baking slowly in the oven. I've been interested in military rations for a while, especially all the historical ones like from World War 2 and the civil war. There's this guy on the Internet whose videos I watch, his name's Steve and he makes these long soothing videos all about him trying historical and contemporary military rations from all over the world. To be honest, I'm amazed he hasnt died of some mold disease or something at this point, because some of the stuff he eats looks straight up hazardous.
I gotta get some studying done in these last few days before lessons start up again. This week's been a breakweek, where we can catch up on reading or other academic stuff. Tomorrow we've got a trip to some fancy gardens in another part of town (we'll be doing studies of colour and such), so I'll do the main stuff that needs to get done on Friday and Saturday. Hell yeah.
28TH OCTOBER 2023
Listening to the Deltarune Chapter 1 soundtrack. I'm home for reading week, and besides some retarded bitchfight between my grandma and my mother, everything is nice. Me and my sister played videogames together, which was really fun, and maybe tomorrow we'll do something fun. To be honest, I do like home, but I mostly visit so I can spend time with the little creature. She's gotten taller than me now which means I can't really baby her like I used to, but it's still fun to try. She's just a little guy!
There's a lot going on in the world right now, but hopefully things will get better. Humans are way too cruel to each other, and it's easy to pick sides when you're watching it unfold from miles away, but it must be dreadful for the people living it. All the news I get now is just from the newspapers I see in supermarkets, so I don't know a great deal about it. I've talked about it with my sister before and I think she agrees when I say that all worldly conflicts should be settled out with Street Fighter 2, in a dim-lit room with lots of blankets and soda for them to drink. If that was how wars were waged, the world would be a much more peaceful place.
2ND OCTOBER 2023
I sit writing this in my Digital Arts class. We're on a 15 minute break right now, and to be honest, I can't think of anything much to write about! The tutors just finished giving a presentation about the history of digital art and all that, and there's some pretty interesting stuff in there. Computerrrr! --Sumi 02/10/2023
24TH SEPTEMBER 2023
It has been quite the busy week, full of meeting people and making new friends, as well as navigating myself around the general area surrounding me. Eating relatively healthy, I like cooking food with lots of vegetables in it, and have only eaten instant ramen once (even then, I had it with spinach, beefsteak and an egg).
The barbecue I mentioned previously was very good, I made four new friends, two of whom I am especially solid pals with. Their names are Ginnie and Connor, the former being in the same illustrating class as me, the latter being a second year in a digital medias course. Spent a lot of time that day just talking our heads off about all kinds of things, which was good fun, and turns out, we've got quite a lot in common! Tomorrow evening Ginnie intends to be going to a drinks night at the student bar, and I am not that great at handling such environments, so Connor and I will be spending the evening watching Doctor Who in his room (his favourite television show, of which he knows a LOT about). He is also aware of Tumblr Culture, evident by my greeting him on that first day at the barbecue with "I like your shoelaces". For those who know what I mean, it puts the fear of God into them. It's awesome. I've also made friends with some folks in my illustrating class, those being three chaps called King, Chloe, and Aisha, all of whom are very fun :-D Tomorrow is to be our first proper class together, and we have been instructed to bring our laptop computers into class. Welcome to the techworld, everyone.
Yesterday I met with Tsuki, and it was really nice to see her again, even if I've only been away for a week. We ate at McDonald's and I ended up choosing a sandwich that gave me sweaty hands and a real jittery uncomfy feeling, the McSpicy. I will NEVER in my life eat that thing again. Eventually the misery passed and we wandered around the shopping district, and stared wistfully at the games they had in the second hand computer store. It was a good trip! --Sumi 24/09/2023
16TH SEPTEMBER 2023
Wow, what a DAY. It was my moving-into-dorms day today, and here I sit typing away in my new room. I'm wearing my favourite pajamas, I have a teapot full of night-time tea, and the light above is soft. There's still more than a week until our classes actually start, so I've got a lot of downtime. Dinner was nice, I cooked arroz amarillo and had it with corned beef. Tomorrow I'll soak some beans in the morning so I can use them for later. My housemates seem nice, a little shouty and boisterous, but very decent folk. They seem to enjoy my bug facts, which is always good to hear! Mum wrote me a letter, which was really nice to read through, and I will keep it on my desk always. Tomorrow there is to be a sort of meeting-new-people barbecue just outside the halls, so I'll be doing a lot of socialising, I expect. I'm getting pretty sleepy, so I'll finish my night-time tea and then get ready for bed. --Sumi 16/09/2023
10TH SEPTEMBER 2023
Today I feel like talking about cold weather, and why I love it. I don't really have a set plan for what I'm about to write, so I expect the structure will come across very loose and strange, but I guess that's how it is.
When autumn turns to winter, it grows older, colder. I say goodbye to the sun earlier than I usually do, and by suppertime, he is already fast asleep. In my country there isn't much snow, but there is plenty of rain and wind. The wind feels like it bites at your face, like it's chiding you for not wrapping up properly. It pricks its icy pins across your forehead and down the bridge of your nose, and all up in your cheeks. Would you call me a masochist for liking how it hurts?
Thick scarves that wind around your neck, the tassles on the end are perfect for fidgeting with in your hands. Soft wool of any colour you like, smelling like dust and home. Big heavy coats. My dad's leather coat, he bought it when he was younger, away in New York for a holiday. It feels like it weighs a hundred pounds over my shoulders, pressing me down into the earth. Now I'm more grounded and connected with the pavement than ever before. It's got deep pockets and thick fur lining inside, so you'll never feel the rain seep in. I fell asleep at a friend's house once, and had the coat draped over me through the night. It was one of the most refreshing slumbers I've ever woken from.
People love beverages this time of year. Piping hot mugs of coffee, paper cups filled to the brim with scalding tea. I see them spilt on sidewalks sometimes, those splashes of brown in all different shades. I hope those few sips tasted good to whoever drank from them. Hot chocolate is particularly good with cinnamon powder, or cherry syrup, if you can find it. It makes me rather sleepy, though. The cold makes me sleepy. I could curl up in my bed, protected by the layers of blankets like sediment on the ocean floor. So long as my arms are tucked inside, nothing can get me. Oh, it's so lovely. So very very lovely. --Sumi 10/09/2023
6TH SEPTEMBER 2023
Got a dentist appointment today, costs quite the bit nowadays, but I guess it can't be helped. Listening to Limp Bizkit's Greatest Hitz CD on my new music player, "My Way" and "Boiler" are awesome songs. I might make a webshrine for the band later, they're so cool. Less than two weeks till I move out now, and I'm really looking forward to it...I can cook the kind of food I like, including stuff with loads of vegetables (Dad prefers meat) and legumes. I can decorate my room the way I it to look, and I can finally jack off without the worry that someone's gonna burst into my room and tell me to take out the trash, hahaha! Maybe that's a little too much information though.
My joys about autumn coming back were short-lived though, for we've got a sudden heatwave just now. Dad says that it's what they call an "Indian Summer", but this certainly ain't India as far as I'm aware. Today's going up to 93 degrees, which probably doesn't sound like much, but I HATE hot weather. It's so bright and sweaty and I never have energy to do stuff, yuck. Not to mention, the people in my country are so fuckin' braindead they'll take any chance to go outside and sunbathe, even if it means getting burnt all over their pasty backs and shoulders. Going outside only to see the fattest white dudes with red skin, lying face down in the yellowed grass like corpses, really isn't a pretty sight. But I guess it makes them happy. Better for them to do that than yelling at immigrants, right? --Sumi 06/09/2023
<1ST SEPTEMBER 2023
IT'S AUTUMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Goodbye summer, you are the most wretched season of all, your only saving grace is my birthday, farewell to you. I just finished a quest on RuneScape so I'm feeling pretty happy about that. The dungeon towards the very end was terrifying, but it didn't take very long to escape it. Only a few more weeks till I move out now, and I'm really looking forward to it, even more so now that I've discovered my campus has a free gym.
I went to a museum in the fancy part of town today, and saw all sorts of things, of which I took photographs of. My favourite part was the bug room, though it was pretty lackluster and kept veering off into some section all about crustaceans, which was weird. Even still, there were some awesome little guys in there. Dead little guys, but awesome nonetheless. There was also a HUGE room filled with taxidermied birds, including a recreation of a dodo, as well as birds like the bald eagle and this one particular bird of paradise with really long and shiny head-feathers. Apparently, it can control the feathers, a bit like Entrapta and her hair from She-Ra. That room was really crowded though, so I couldn't spend a lot of time in there.
Most interesting of all though, was the exhibition about the history of humanity, where they had a whole load of skulls and bones from prehistoric humans and their ancestors. There was a life-size model of a neanderthal man, depicted at only a few years older than me, but he looked like he was in his fifties. Strange part was that he just looked so much like some regular guy, save for the fact he wasn't wearing any clothes. His eyes were so lifelike, it was one of those moments where your brain goes, "ah, a person!", despite the fact that it was straight up just some recreation of a guy who's been dead for thousands of years. Oh, well. I suppose that's just the way we are! --Sumi 01/09/2023
24TH AUGUST 2023
Just finished playing some RuneScape, it's pretty late here, nearly midnight, but I'll write a little bit before heading to bed. I've got a weird mix of days lately, some which are good, some which are neutral (like today), and others which just suck total ass. A few days ago my mother stressed me out so much, I bit my arm real hard in front of her (???), as if it would accomplish something. Looking back I'm pretty sure I did it just to try and convey the stress I was going through without having to speak, but it felt really, really outta character for me. And now there's a weird bruise on my arm where I bit myself, uh oh! I'm surprised they never put me in the special needs classes when I was in school, hahaha.
In the last few days, I've been considering whether I want to terminate all my orthodontic treatment. For those folks at home who haven't yet seen my gloriously handsome face, let me fill you in! To summarise 20 years of medical issues, I was born with something called a unilateral cleft lip and palate, which is when the two halves of the face don't join up all the way while you're in utero. This essentially causes a kind of cavity in the nose and mouth area that needs to be fixed up with surgery, if you ever hope to speak and eat properly (both of which, thank god, I can do to perfection). I've had all the functional surgeries done, but there's a whole list of cosmetic surgeries ahead that people can choose to take, because it still kinda messes up the way you look. For example, I've got a pretty big underbite, and a really flat nose, but to be honest, I don't really care about getting it "fixed". Sure, there are days when I get insecure about it, but I know that all the dumb jaw surgeries and rhinoplasties and lip corrections just aren't worth it. I've been told they hurt like hell to recover from, not to mention all the psychological effects it has on your idea of self-perception and all that. There was a time during my adolescence where I totally HATED how my face looked, and how I wanted surgery no matter what the consequences were, but I've grown from that. Maybe I'll regret it when I'm older, maybe I won't. We'll just have to see how things turn out, y'know? All that angsting aside, I should get around to phoning up the orthodontist. Yuck. --Sumi 24/08/2023
19TH AUGUST 2023
Had a pretty nice week. No drama or big stress, just smooth relaxing and having fun. My sister and I went to go visit my grandma at her house in the seaside town down south, we spent three nights there. We went on the boardwalk by the sea on the second day, the rides are pretty expensive nowadays...but we did have french fries! The day before we left was the most awesome, because we went to a butterfly farm and saw SO many beautiful little bugs. From what I remember, there were a lot of swallowtails, blue morphos, some caligo owl-wing butterflies, a HUGE Atlas moth, as well as this bright orange one called dryas julia. There were even some caterpillars, which were so small and so damn cute. We went to the giftshop after, where I bought about ten postcards and best of all, a framed and real-life (well, it's dead) caligo memnon butterfly. It set me back the equivalent of around 4000 yen, but it's so worth it. I have it propped up against a wall in the living room, and I can see it from where I'm sitting right now. Maybe I'll start a collection of framed bugs, though I'll have to get an income again if I want to do that, because those things certainly aren't cheap. Oh yeah, the young geese around my house are familiar with me enough to eat from my hand now. They go crazy for oats and mealworms, and the parent geese don't even hiss at me anymore. I feel like I've made a friendship with them, even if it is food-based.
Today was nice and chill, I didn't go outside, but I was still quite productive, for I've sewed up an old jacket. It used to be a boiler suit last year, but I turned it into an overcoat, and now a light jacket. The fabric's a nice olive green, and made of good sturdy cotton. While I was sewing, I was jamming to a Green Day CD, and my new Korn CD, on my dad's big stereo. They're both pretty cool bands. At some point, I'll sew some pockets into its interior lining, but I've had my fair share of needlework for the next few days. Tomorrow I'll be out in the city, meeting a couple friends from my highschool days. We're going out for Korean BBQ, despite one of them being a vegetarian, and the restaurant seems to be a real good one, all authentic and all that. It's less than a month till I move out now, so it'll probably be the last time we all meet up for a while before going back our separate ways for college and stuff. About a week ago, I went out shopping for all kinds of things I'll need for college, like cookware and bedsheets and towels. I hope to be a real put-together sorta fellow when I'm living in halls, certainly not the ramen-eating filth-dwelling student stereotype. I do enjoy ramen, but it won't be my main source of nutrition, that's for sure. Monday will be a busy day for me too, since I'll probably be cooking dinner, and I also have to return a library book, and book a dental appointment too. My orthodontist wants to fix stuff up, so I need to get a whole tooth removed before I see him next!! Yeowch!!
Man, I wish I had facial hair. I'd look so fuckin' cool. --Sumi 19/08/2023
10TH AUGUST 2023
I am no longer a teenager. How in the hell did that happen?!
Feeling kinda scrungy today, and I suspect that the pot of tea I had at a local cafe is to blame, it was probably overflowing with caffeine. Listening to the Beatles again, this time on Spotify, for someone's compiled a list of all their slow and laidback songs. Not much to write about today, to be honest. I might work on my other website for the time being...--Sumi 10/08/2023
7TH AUGUST 2023
Some pretty cool things have happened in the last few days. As I sit and write today's entry at my desk, I am comfy in my navy pajamas, drinking a delicious taro milk tea with grass jelly and nata de coco, listening to the "A Hard Day's Night" album by the Beatles. My favourite song on that album is definitely "If I Fell". It's so soothing, and the harmonies are so nice!
On Saturday, Dad's friend Joe, Mum's friend Otis, and my friend Zahra all came to lunch at our house, for Dad hosted that day a "Threads" watching party. It was the most miserable film ever and I wish never to watch it again, but at least my friends were there! Dad made the most excellent vegetarian quiche, because Joe is vegetarian, and it had onions and spinach and thinly sliced mushrooms, with TWO blocks of comte cheese (the real fancy stuff that's even better than Gruyere), and we served it with charcuterie and various other sides, like a buffet. Joe brought an apple tart and some fancy wine, and Otis brought some snacks from the Japanese food retailer he works at. One of them was called "Curry Beaver", and it took me a lot of willpower to not make a crass joke about it. Okay, listening to Sugababes now. I know, it doesn't really sound like it's my style of music, but it's nostalgic stuff! I never listened to them when I was younger, but I remember hearing stuff like Sugababes being played at school discos and summer fetes and such.
Yesterday was a real thrill. I woke up at 4AM, really needing to pee, and it took me a little while to fall back asleep again because I was so freaked out by the film from the night before. But the real highlight? At approximately 13:00 PM, Dad and I went to that tattoo parlor I mentioned before, and as of 17:00PM, I was walking back home with the most wicked ink on my forearm, just above the triforce one from May. It is SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! --Sumi 07/08/2023
3RD AUGUST 2023
This morning I woke up at 9AM, which is about at least an hour earlier than usual, because I set an alarm last night. This day is going to feel extra long, but not in a bad way. In a little while, I'm gonna phone up a tattoo parlor in the next town over and ask if I can come book a consultation to get a new design on my arm. I've designed it up already, and it's the sickest thing ever: the tower from St Mystere in the first Professor Layton game. It'll take up my whole outer fore-arm, but not a whole sleeve. Then later today, at around 4-ish, I need to go to my mother's old workplace to pick up some kimchi a colleague made for her. I feel like an errand-boy most days, running about doing stuff, but there's nothing else I really do during the day, so I don't complain about it. One month and a half from now, I'll be in the northern part of the city, finally moving out and away from the boringness of this house!
Oh yeah, my dad's been pretty hopeful lately too. Some big oil company are interviewing him to maybe get a job, and they pay BIG BUCKS, about 3 times what he currently earns at the very least. I won't say much about it, but my dad's been saying that if he scores this job, it'll mean he'll have to move overseas, and out of the house too. I think it'll be a good chance for him, not just the money, but the chance to experience something new and refreshing after these shitty last few months.--Sumi 03/08/2023
26TH JULY 2023
I'm SO full of sleepy tired right now, it's not even 9PM yet but I'm SO sleepy! I just did a big yawn :P It's been about a week and a half since my last entry, and boy howdy, quite a bit has changed. Well, my daily routine hasn't, but my state of employment has, for I quit at the health foods store after suddenly shout-crying in my boss's office, which was kind of embarassing. Lots of stuff from the last couple months just piled on top of each other and I didn't have an emotional outlet for it, I guess. All I can say to summarise it all is, I'm really looking forward to moving out at the end of the summer. Regardless of who ends up living in the same halls of residence as me, at least I'll be putting some distance between myself and all the nonsense that goes on here at home.
I've been writing down a list of stuff that I should buy before I move out, like cookware and cutlery and other such stuff. All of it added up together might be a little expensive, but I have the disposable money for it these days. My goal is to try and buy as little from IKEA as possible, and see if I can get most of my stuff from second-hand stores, for two reasons: one being that it won't be so harsh on my wallet, and the other being that hopefully most of what I find should be of much better quality than the mass-made stuff you get in IKEA. There's also quite a bit from home that I intend to bring with me. When the time comes for me to start packing things up, I shall have to get those big cardboard boxes you find in warehouses. --Sumi 26/07/2023
11TH JULY 2023
Last couple days have been pretty chill, thank the stars. Two of my friends came to visit me after my shift at the mall, and we hung out around the grounds and had Taco Bell for dinner :-) I go insane for the concept of CrunchWrap Supreme. I would gladly give my soul up for those things! Which reminds me, I've been considering maybe getting a melodeon with my next paycheck at the end of the month. It's a diatonic button accordion, and the one I've been staring wistfully at through various sites is a 2-voice D/G tuned one with a black varnish. Only trouble is, they're crazy expensive, way more than the stick dulcimer and even more than my banjo.
25TH JUNE 2023
I feel hollow today. Probably because it's a Sunday, but also because my home life hasn't been the best lately. I'll be out of the house by September, but I've still got a couple months left with my family. At least at college, I'll finally get a break from the suffocating tension that seems to linger in the atmosphere of this tiny apartment.
My mother's got some mystery illness which can't seem to be diagnosed, either because the doctors aren't taking her seriously, or because she's really paranoid about it. That in itself is fine, but my dad really, really seems stressed out about it. He has to now balance his crazy work schedule alongside my mother's health issues, and I get the feeling that he kinda resents her for it. We're going to go outside in a little while; I think he wants to vent about it to me. Which is fine, I guess. I remember about a year and a half-ish ago, my mother's menopause really flared up, so they were arguing a lot back then, and my dad offhandedly mentioned to me that he was considering divorcing her, which made me pretty sad. To be fair to him though, I also kinda sorta think my mother is a tiny bit of a hypochondriac. But I would never say that to her face, because it would upset her too, and she's been having a rough time with her health as it is. Urgh, it's all so conflicting and it makes me just feel empty. It's become really easy for me to just lie down on my bed and stay there for a while, and maybe fall asleep. But there are good things coming, I hope, so it's gonna all be worth it in the end.
My friends are done with college for the year, which means we'll get to see more of each other again!! On Wednesday I met up with some of them at a park in the city center, and we had a grand old time :-P We played card games and videogames on our 3DSes together, ate gyros, and caught up with one another about how we were, and made a casual joke about that whole group of dumbass billionaires in the ocean. Turns out they imploded, by the way, so there's probably a load of guts and stuff strewn across the ocean floor, each with a net worth of more money than I'll ever see, hehehe. Man, that's a fucked up way to die. But it was a swell day regardless of the misery happening in the Atlantic Ocean, and we'll all be hanging out a few more times through the course of this summer. Life isn't so bad, and neither is the weather! Reminds me of that song "Blue Skies" from the Betsy musical. Blue skies, smiling at me....nothing but blue skies, do I see... --Sumi 25/06/2023
8TH JUNE 2023
Yeah, I've been slacking on this site for a while now. Stuff's been happening a lot, but also, it's pretty much the same! I'll just write down what's been swinging in one big paragraph, so I can get it all out, hehehe. Listening to Seepage's "Break Me", reminds me of the stuff I used to dig in my angsty teen days.
In early May, I visited some pals at their college halls in a city a few hundred miles over, and it was wicked fun. We cooked, went shopping, goofed off, and all around had a good time. Best of all was the tattoo I got, it's a small triforce on my left forearm, just near where my wrist cuts off. Link is left-handed, and so am I, and I'd rather not have a tattoo on my actual hand, so this is the next best place. Maybe when my birthday rolls around in the proper summer, I'll get another tattoo to make it less lonely B^). My boss at work has reduced my hours to around 16 per week (as per my request), so I'll have more time in the following months to sort out upcoming college stuff, as well as focus on my art more, since I've been stuck in a big block for quite a while now. It also means I won't have to deal with the general public as much as before, too! AND I've been building up a new website on the Net lately, a more professional-style one for when I eventually become a worker, and people can see the art I make, and maybe commission me to make stuff for THEM. Later today, I'm probably gonna visit the corner store to get some ingredients for something called "battery acid spaghetti", a concoction of energy drinks and sour gummy strips that is said to be nearly radioactive in taste and appearance. I also got my hands on a copy of Pokemon SoulSilver earlier this week, so I'll play that later today too, maybe while I sip the Drink Of All Evil. --Sumi 08/06/2023
22ND MARCH 2023
Less than TWO WEEKS till the holiday, and it's all I ever daydream about now. What I'll wear on the plane, what we'll do when we get there, what we'll eat, where we'll go...it's just so damn exciting. Something I'm looking forward to in particular is a photo-shoot that one of my relatives is setting up for us, to be done at one of those professional studios as a coming-of-age ceremony of sorts. I'll be wearing an heirloom dress (even if it's traditionally for girls), and all of my family will be dressed to the fuckin' nines. The whole thing's mostly for the joy of my grandma over there, since it means a lot to her that the dress gets passed down through the generations.
I've been getting sick quite a bit, even though we're only three months into the year so far. Hopefully it's just the shitty cold weather doing it, and that there's nothing up with my immune system. I was sick in the very beginning of the new year, if you can recall in my older entries here, and then I came down with Covid towards the end of February, and now I'm recovering from yet ANOTHER cold which hit me in the last few days!! Jeez!! At least I have it now, and not before we go off on holiday. That would really suck. It would be nice if more people would just wear masks outside in this country, but the stupid Western standards seem to totally neglect any idea of self-preservation and being considerate to others.
In fact, maybe I'll rant about that whole thing now. People here where I live (a big city, of course) are getting more and more inconsiderate of the people around them, ESPECIALLY on public transport. On the buses and trains, it's getting increasingly common to see/hear people watching their stupid videos on their stupid smartphones without earphones. You have to spend pretty much the entirety of your journey listening to some dumb techno song through shitty speakers, and people just act like it's normal now?? It's so RUDE!! If I think that the person isn't much of a threat to me, then I'll tell them to wear earphones or turn the sound off, because nobody else does so. It's all TikTok's fault, really. That app is a genuine cancer to society. It's ruined the brains of so many people, especially in my generation, so I always do feel a little smug about knowing how I'll never use it, and that I never have a smartphone glued to my side. Maybe that makes me sound like a bit of a douchebag, but I don't really care. It's a weird superiority complex thing I have about something that ultimately doesn't affect anyone but me, so it's not doing any harm to anyone. --Sumi 22/03/2023
4TH MARCH 2023
I haven't written anything on here for a while. To be honest, there's not a great deal to write about! Every day has some sort of routine now, whether it's work or cooking or something else. I seldom meet up with friends, since they're all away studying, but it's not too lonely. I've got a few close friends from the other side of the pond who I talk with a lot on Discord (known some of them for nearly six years already!), which is always fun. But that holiday overseas is getting closer with each passing day, so it gives me something to look forward to B) I really oughta make a proper list of what to take with me, and what to bring back to my homecountry afterwards.
Listening to Jean Ritchie songs now. I don't believe I've written about it already, but I got a stick dulcimer a couple months ago, tuned to D-A-D just like a regular mountain dulcimer, except it's thin and you hold it like you would with a banjo. It makes a good and clear sound, and is really easy to play songs on. I was gonna get an autoharp, but it turns out that they're REALLY expensive, close to about a half of my monthly wages, as such, the stick dulcimer was my next best choice, and it's real worth it. There's a few songs I'm quite decent with now, but there's still a lot more to learn. --Sumi 04/03/2023
2ND FEBRUARY 2023
I'm writing today's entry in a cafe, one of the fancy new-ish ones with exposed brick and hardwood floors, and it's got a decent connection to the Net, which is always a plus. I should actually be doing some online training courses for my job, but I got a little sidetracked (a pretty common occurence for someone like me...!). My drink is jasmine tea, which I thought would be pretty expensive given that it's from a high-brow place like this, but it cost me the equivalent of under three American dollars! Good thing is, I've got a whole week off of work, starting from a couple days ago. Not a holiday, but still! It gives me plenty of time to chill out and re-charge before my next shift next week.
AND!!!!! In exactly two months, me and my family are going to the other side of the WORLD to visit family.........I'm SO excited!!!! My brain's suddenly fizzled out so I can't really think of anything else to write about, which has been happening quite a bit recently, but oh well. I guess I'll write something better next time...! --Sumi 02/02/2023
29TH JANUARY 2023
Sundays are always busy at work, but I managed to do something I'm actually pretty damn proud of: I gaslit a customer. This is my magnum opus. My greatest feat yet. Nothing can top this. And if you sit down, allow me to divulge the true details of what went down...
Around the fifth hour of the afternoon, just a little while after I had returned from my scheduled break, came into the shop a customer garbed in a neon yellow t-shirt with the Playboy logo printed on top, and just underneath the logo, the word "Playboy" written in Japanese katakana. I cannot remember exactly why, but I was all of a sudden struck by the intense urge to make fun of it. And I must stress, I am very rarely a mean or mocking sort of fellow. But to laugh in the face of a customer would be unthinkable, and most assuredly against every line in the staff rulebook. Thus, I knew at once that I would have to pull quite the trick to make something work, as well satisfy that terrible mean streak in me.
Once the customer came forth to the till, and after I had scanned all of her items, I acted. Staring her dead in the eye, a mournful frown upon my lips, I cried aloud, "I'm so sorry miss, but that shirt doesn't actually say Playboy in Japanese!" The customer grew flustered, and responded that she had not known so, and spurred me to tell her what it actually said. Making up a new meaning on the spot was no easy task, but with the luck of the stars on my side, I managed to do so in a way that did not give away my true intentions. "It says 'collarbone'", I replied, my frown now changed to a self-deprecating grin. The customer laughed, seemingly embarrassed, and made one more quip: "Well, I got it off a shady website, so that's probably why!". After a final remark on how she would wear the "collarbone T-shirt" either way, she gathered her items and left the store. Okay, I'm done writing like some stupid fancy Victorian novelist. It was pretty funny, though, even if it is kinda pointless in the grand scheme of things. Anything to make the working day more fun for me, you know? --Sumi 29/01/2023
23RD JANUARY 2023
I'm gonna be working 8 and a half hours tomorrow, all the way till closing time. But Tuesdays never get very busy if we're lucky, so maybe it won't be as crazy. I watched the new episode of TLoU today, and holy crap, it just continues to amaze me. The visuals, the lighting, the acting, it's all just sublime. I won't write too much about it, since it's still an ongoing TV show at the moment, but you bet I'll write essays worth of stuff after the finale. Not much else to say today, to be honest. --Sumi 23/01/2023
19TH JANUARY 2023
I'm on holiday for a week, since it's mandatory before March comes around. I haven't had as much motivation or energy to put a lot of work into this site like I did the last couple months, but I'm definitely not letting this die out. It's too important for me to neglect!
Just a couple hours ago, I watched the first episode of the new TLoU television series, and it is fucking CRACKER. Pedro Pascal is the absolute best person to ever play Joel, and so is Bella Ramsey with Ellie. Through pretty much the whole episode I was saying, WOW THIS IS JUST LIKE THE GAME!!!! And Sarah's death was just as, if not even more, scary and intense as it was in the game. I haven't actually played the game, on account of my bad reaction times (terrible for playing action games), but I've watched a lady on Twitch play it. After some research as well, I've got a few theories as to just exactly how the cordyceps fungus would work in humans too. The real life ants affected by it aren't braindead, they're still conscious (well, as conscious as ants can be), which makes it all the more terrifying when you realise they're just puppets, aware that their sense of autonomy is being taken over by the fungus. And if we apply that same principle to the infected in TLoU, then that's really, really messed up. Oh, and I've got a couple days holiday left before I return to work again. I gotta use it wisely! --Sumi 19/01/2023
11TH JANUARY 2023
Seeing my friends was awesome. They're all college students, so I made sandwiches for them for lunch (probably the first proper meal they've had in a while, hahaha), and then we gathered in my room to chill out :) I introduced them all to "Lady", my 1880s sock puppet lady. I'm a bit tired now so I won't write much today...hehehe! --Sumi 11/01/2023
6TH JANUARY 2023
Happy New Year!! Rock n roll '23 motherfuckers!! Nothing much has happened so far, same old stuff as always. I came down with a pretty gnarly cold a few days ago, which suckerpunched all the energy out of me, but I'm thankfully recovering from it, and feeling way better now. My dad got a whole new stereo set the other day, since our old one was really busted up, and we've got a really good set of floor-standing speakers now. The first thing we played on it was the Blade Runner soundtrack, and man, it was crisp as all hell. Every note and every little thing just sounded so rich and smooth, it was awesome. I've got some friends from college coming over today, so my entry won't be too long. Maybe in my next entry, I'll write all about it! They're a real crowd I love them so much. If you see this guys, rock on!!!!!!! --Sumi 06/01/2023
26TH DECEMBER 2022
Christmas has come and gone, and it was awesome. I've got quite a bit to write about, but it also feels like I can't think of anything to write about at all. I'll just write whatever comes to mind then, hehehe.
I met up with a pal from highschool on Christmas Eve, to catch up on everything, since they were spending a few days back up in our hometown (they study in a town down south). We hated each other like crazy back in highschool, but we've made HELLA amends since then. They're doin good, and so am I :) We got sushi together, which was pretty good. It was one of the few chain sushi places my mother approves of, anything like w*g*m*m* is pure fucken sacrilege. I got a couple things from a small department store, and then we parted ways. Since it was Christmas Eve, that evening, the whole family got together in the living room to partake in our family's tradition of watching "Muppets Christmas Carol". Objectively, one of the best movies of all time! And yesterday morning, I helped Dad with getting the Christmas dinner all set, like I do every year. We have a lot of small, set traditions in this family, like little routines. For gifts, I managed to get everyone what they liked, and I got one of the best gifts I've ever recieved: a 2-disc, 51-song set of Ruth Etting's famous tunes on CD :) I played it through the stereo before lunch, and afterward I ripped it onto my laptop, and synced it with my walkman. I LOVE Ruth Etting's songs, she's got such a nice voice. I can't sing in the same keys as her, since her voice is quite a bit higher than mine, but it's fun to try all the same.
Worked today too, one of the longest shifts. It felt like forever!! Of course, Boxing Day is hectic as hell, and where I work is no exception. IDK why so many people find it absolutely necessary to go crazy in malls the day after Christmas, but man, it was like a damn madhouse up in that store..My general consensus from today is that people will do ANYTHING to get in on the half price sales, even if it means dropping their own babies on the floor to search for their wallets. The baby cried a bit, but that's better than complete silence, I guess. We laughed a bit about it after, though. A lot of customers are just plain dumb as hell. --Sumi 26/12/2022
20TH DECEMBER 2022
SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FRUCKEN!!!!!!!!!!!! SLEEPY!!!!!!!!!!! AUUUUUUUUUGHHHHH OUGHHHHHHH OUGHHHHHHH wauuuu....wauuhhh....goodnight, old pals. Soon I will be SO cosy in bed and ready to face tomorrow (Sparkle On Wednesday)! --Sumi 20/12/2022
16TH DECEMBER 2022
I managed to overcome a pretty big obstacle earlier today. I told my boss I'm on the spectrum, and she took it a LOT better than I expected! Luckily, she's been very understanding so far, and even said herself that she figured I was somewhat bad at handling large social gatherings, especially the Christmas party last Sunday evening (a most intimidating event, it was!). On that same evening, I recieved a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the novel by Orwell, from a colleague as part of the gift exchange. It was an awesome thing to read, no wonder it's one of the most famous books in history, certainly one of those books that give you a new window into the world. My main thing to take from the book though, is: Newspeak does sound like a very interesting way to condense the language. Not necessarily good, of course, but definitely a unique approach, more so than all these newfangled internet acronyms! I talked about the book with Dad for a while after I finished reading it, and he said he might get the movie version with John Hurt in it on video sometime soon, which will be good to watch :D Oh, and I got paid today too, which is pretty swell. I'll save it up for now, though. I'm not planning on doing anything yet. I've asked my parents that their gift to me this Christmas is money for a tattoo, so I shan't have to pay it myself, they get rather expensive, and their income is quite the sum compared to mine. I ought to settle on a proper design for the tattoo, too! It's exciting! --Sumi 16/12/2022
8TH DECEMBER 2022
I've been doing a lot of Christmas shopping in the last week or so. So far, I've bought for my family: some skin lotion for my sister, a book on Impressionist art for my mother, and a book about jazz for my father, as well as a new crime novel for my grandmother (which I've asked the mall bookstore to stock for me). Once I get paid, which should be near the end of the month, I'll get some gifts for my friends as well. Last year I got one of them a Minecraft-themed math book, which they actually really enjoyed! I need to give him his clown statue too, which I bought a few months ago as a souvenir from a city down southwards, but he forgot to take it home when he visited a few weeks after. Listening to ABBA's early tunes at the moment, the song "Love Isn't Easy" is my favourite thus far. I need to do some prep for academic stuff soon, too........ough! Fare well for now then, I guess. --Sumi 08/12/2022
2ND DECEMBER 2022
Listening to the tunes of Whispering Jack Smith as I write this entry for today, his voice is so soothing. Grandma's coming to visit again tomorrow, and we'll be having some soup I made earlier today for lunch. We all got her some gifts for Christmas, too :) I got one for my mom in advance as well, though it's nothing super special (freebie multivitamins from my job...don't tell her that!) Oh, and that date with that girl from yesterday wasn't so bad. We didn't do anything romantic and just kinda fistbumped each other at the end, which was probably a sign that we're not flushed for each other or anything. I don't know if I'm properly cut out for romance, to be honest. It's complicated stuff, and I'm pretty happy with just being the "funny sidekick" kinda fella, you know? Taking things seriously is difficult sometimes (not in a cringey batman Joker way though!!), so I just make funny puns and hope for the best, hahaha. I'm also considering making another website for me to talk about bugs and other things I'm passionate about. Maybe I can take sneaky looks at the CSS of other people's websites, since I'm not too good at building up my own. Is that a crime? --Sumi 02/12/2022
28TH NOVEMBER 2022
My job's going all cool, all smooth sailin' so far B))) I stopped using that dumb accent by the way, it got stale real fast. I've gotten a lot better at navigating the store now, I know where all the main things are. There's a few items we sell that are straight up impossible to find sometimes, but someone usually helps me out with it :P Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, which means I don't have to help with morning stockups on the shelves, but I still have to do six hours in the evening :// Five days of work in a row, I can hardly catch a break!! All jokes aside, I don't mind the gig. I feel like I'm contributing to some part of society, even if I'm just selling suspicious vitamins to rich old men (they absolutely LOVE to buy "maca", which apparently helps sexual potency, like penis enlargement pills.). And on Thursday, I have a date with a girl I've been talking with for a couple weeks, and I'm nervous as HELL. She's suave and smooth with flirting and all that, which I'm the total opposite of. I'm pretty sure she's seen this website already, uh oh!! I don't even know what most "date protocol" is like, to be honest. Do I get her a gift or something? That reminds me, actually. I should really start getting gifts for everyone's Christmas this year..--Sumi 28/11/2022
11TH NOVEMBER 2022
Worked just 8 hours this week, but I'm settling in pretty well. Navigating the store is easy enough, though the specific items that some customers want are pretty hard to find sometimes. It's just trial and error though, I'll learn the details soon enough. Somehow I've managed to convince everyone that my natural accent is a super heavy Southern one, like I'm from South Carolina or something, and I'm not sure how I should go about it now. Maybe if I slowly wean myself and everyone else off of it like a meth baby, it could work? Switching so suddenly would raise eyebrows for sure. But I might just keep on at it anyway, it's pretty fun to practice, and I think it makes the old people feel more comfortable. Like I'm a character from the old Westerns they watched as kids, IDK. From 8 in the morning, too. At least it's the weekend now, so there'll be plenty of time to mellow out before. Unrelated, but I'm also considering growing my hair out. It's dyed black right now, so I'll keep on dyeing the roots if I need to. I miss having fluffy hair around my face, it's cosy. --Sumi 11/11/2022
6TH NOVEMBER 2022
I decided to check out that Filipino fried chicken branch that rhymes with "Golly Gee" today. There's been one in my city for the last four or five years already, and I've been meaning to go there for a while now, but I kept putting it off. Turns out, it's okay. Nothing special but it's definitely better than something like KFC. The chicken was really crispy but not as hot as I thought it would be (in terms of temperature). The fries were really good, and the gravy tasted a bit like Japanese curry, which was pretty neat. After I ate there, I went to a thrift store and found this cookbook from the 1970s, and of course, I had to get it. There's some really good pictures inside, and I'll definitely attempt some of the recipes too. I got that job at the health foods store by the way, but it's gonna be at the shop in the big mall in the suburb over. My commute will be a lot easier then, since I can just take a bus each way. Uniform's all black like in the Italian restaurant from before, but I don't have to wear a button down! I'll gladly take a plain old t-shirt and baggy pants over formal attire any day. So, we'll see how this new gig works :D --Sumi 06/11/2022
2ND NOVEMBER 2022
Halloween was quite fun, but rather uneventful, save for an interview I had at a health foods store in the next town over. Hopefully I'll get that gig. And I did end up dressing as Nepeta, but only for a little while! Turns out that gray paint really doesn't feel that great on my face, but the end result looked pretty awesome. I carved a pumpkin the day before, and I tried to get it to say "meow" with the shape of a cat on it, but I grossly miscalculated and it ended up saying "mow" instead :(( I'm cooking dinner tonight (palak paneer!), which is a great dish, and tomorrow, I'm seeing two pals for dinner and drinks, one of whom I haven't seen in over a year. I'm excited to see him again, he's had a bit of a rough ride last time I heard of him, but he's doing much better now. Okay, time to go switch the rice cooker on :-) --Sumi 02/11/2022
28TH OCTOBER 2022
My grandma's coming to visit tomorrow, so I'll be making lunch (beef bourgignon, following the recipe by Delia Smith). My cookery skills are getting real solid now, if I do say so myself! And by the way, here's the link to the Barney hate website I mentioned a while ago. It's so funny, you get to shoot him with cannons and run him over with motorcycles.. I hope the link works, but if not, copying and pasting is easy. In three days, it'll be Halloween too! I've decided that I'm going to dress up as Nepeta Leijon from Homestuck; she's one of my all-time fav characters. I relate to her so much!! I bought a pumpkin a few days ago too, so maybe I can carve that on the night before Halloween. A couple years ago, some kids came around to trick-or-treat, though we haven't seen em since. Halloween isn't as crazy over here as it is in other parts of the world, but I still like to have fun with it anyways :D --Sumi 28/10/2022
23RD OCTOBER 2022
Well, don't you know! The country's leader resigned a few days ago, making her term the shortest in national history (and she didn't even die at the end). It's anyones guess as to who's gonna be the next head honcho, but the current two leading candidates are both total grade-A douchebags with egos bigger than their giant fat mansions. I'm also considering adding a new section to this website for writing down all the recipes I dig. Maybe I'll follow that recent trend of writing down one's entire life story before getting to the instructions themselves, LOL :D --Sumi 23/10/2022
15TH OCTOBER 2022
I helped save a snail on the pavement yesterday when it was raining outside. Its shell was kinda cracked but hopefully it isn't too much of an injury, and that it can recover. The little thing was right in the middle of the road, and if it stayed there I just knew it would get hurt, so I picked it up and moved it. I still miss my old pet snails, I hope some of them managed to thrive out there :( I've also deleted my Facebook account, because I've only recently come to the conclusion that having all your info out there for anyone to see, especially someone with a name as unique as mine, is actually pretty scary and invasive. So, I'm going back to theways of remaining as anonymous as I can, and I don't think writing about my duties as snail rescuer will give me away anytime soon, hehehe. --Sumi 15/10/2022
6TH OCTOBER 2022
This is my first entry into this section of my website, and although I probably won't update it every day, I'll see if I can do so at least once a month. Structurally, this website is really starting to come together now and I've gotta say, I'm pretty dang proud of it so far, even if it's not the coolest site out there (the title of which belongs to a barney hate website hahaha). --Sumi 06/10/2022
Sumi's Site...2022 - End of the world