schneefink

I'd like another two days of weekend, please. Yesterday was, uh, kind of a wasted day (the bad cycle of "I don't feel like I have the energy to get myself some food, etc. etc." - hadn't had one of those in a while), and today was busy, and I would like to sleep for ten hours. Maybe I will actually manage to go to sleep early, instead of maaybe going to bed early and then spending more time on the tiny internet. Last week at work was very busy and next week will be very busy and the week after that will be very busy, with plenty of unpleasant meetings coming up, and I found out I failed my last exam (as I mostly expected) so spring will be even busier. I don't even really want to take a vacation because then it'll be even worse when I get back.
Meh, I'm whining again. At least I got cake for my birthday, that was nice, and some pretty flowers and other nice things.

I also played more Hollow Knight. …maybe I should look for HK icons.( Spoilers: Grimm Troupe DLC ending, final boss, lore questions )

I have several Yuletide fics bookmarked and I planned to finally get started on my rec list so I can post if before reveals (not sure I will find time tomorrow), but after more than ten hours at the office today all I wanted was to sit down, chat a little with DD who finally returned from vacation, and then finally start playing a new game without feeling guilty about it. (Guilty is not exactly the right word, the problem was more that I didn't trust myself not to spend too much time playing if the game turned out to be great. The past three days, instead of starting a new game, I instead went back to "Ori and the Blind Forest" and finally got the map to 100%.)

I played about an hour and a half of Ring of Pain, a creepy ~roguelite card game, and got to level 13 (of 16 main levels, I think, and then there is probably a boss fight(?).) That probably sounds more impressive than it was, I mostly died a lot earlier and I only got that far because I was sneaking past everything, which would not have worked against a boss. I enjoyed it, I like the atmosphere. There's not a lot of story so far and I don't think it'll keep my attention for long, but it's fun for now and can be played quickly and in small chunks, which is convenient.

Now I have a week's vacation! (I kept having to stop myself from thinking that taking a vacation right now is very bad timing because there's so much work to do at the office. That's always true.) LB and I wanted to go skiing but sadly that won't work because of the weather, so we'll see what we'll do.

I spent two thirds of the weekend in bed and when I woke up today I still had a fairly bad headache, felt dizzy when I moved too quickly, and my ears and throat hurt too, so I decided not to go to work today instead of sitting at my desk all day doing nothing and feeling miserable. And yet I guiltily asked myself if I wasn't just using this as an excuse to stay home, after all many of my coworkers came to the office when they were feeling worse.
...I think I underestimated how much I've been brainwashed by the capitalist system, shit.

I also hoped that I could at least use the opportunity to take another walk when it's nice out, but sadly it's raining today, which will ruin the last remains of the snowmen built when we had beautiful snow a few days ago.

I finished the rough first draft of my Yuletide fic, which I'm very excited about. I thought that it would probably work best not to touch it for two or three days before starting to edit it, but I'm also impatient and want to finish it immediately... I did try starting a treat instead but it got out of hand immediately and instead of fun adventures I was suddenly writing angsty family drama, idk how that happened. Not sure I can salvage it but maybe I'll try.

Oh hey, another lockdown! What a complete surprise - not. We have more infections in Austria than ever before, despite the existence of the vaccine, because not enough people get fucking vaccinated. (It's hard not to say things to my unvaccinated coworkers that would make for a very unpleasant work environment. I try to be understanding but jfc, it's not easy.) At least the plan is to make COVID vaccinations mandatory starting in February.
Home office won't be mandatory, so I'll still be going to the office. I've already started wearing a FFP2 mask the whole time but now everyone has to do it. Uni classes will be online again, Christmas markets will be closed, everything non-essential closed. I'm angry and frustrated and stressed.

I have very sensitive ears, and from late fall to early spring I basically never leave the house without a headband to cover my ears because I tend to get earaches as soon as it gets even slightly cool and windy. As a kid for several years every time I went swimming I got middle ear inflammations, which was not fun. (It finally stopped after my mother got me homeopathic pills, which means she still struggles with "I know scientifically homeopathy is bullshit but it worked.") I still got pretty bad earaches when I got water in my ears, so I only swam with earplugs, which are very hard not to constantly lose in the water. It wasn't that much fun, and I was never the most enthusiastic swimmer, and when I swam I mostly made sure to try and keep my head above water. (Also I don't really like swimming in pools, I much prefer natural bodies of water.)
Last year I decided to try swimming on my back without ear plugs on a whim, and my ears only hurt a little. So this summer I suddenly thought that hey, maybe I could try breaststrokes like you're supposed to, with my head below water. I'm still struggling somewhat with my breathing, and I'm sure the rest could also be improved, but today I swam with my head down the whole length of the water and back - with short breaks in between - and afterwards my ears didn't hurt at all. Maybe I grew out of it? Idk, but I'm glad, and now looking forward to maybe learning some proper swimming techniques. I just watched a few Youtube tutorials so next time I will probably overthink everything and end up with way too much water up my nose again.

Yesterday was the annual (except last year, for obvious reasons) get-together barbecue of my father's side of the family. It was nice to see all the relatives that I usually only see once a year. One of the little cousins got a belated birthday present that was Naruto-themed and was very surprised that I know about Naruto, after all I'm old ^^ (They told me they watch Boruto.)

Today DD and I returned to our apartment. I was exhausted basically as soon as I stepped through the door, not sure why. I should clear out my luggage but I always procrastinate on that. My room is not so big that my luggage isn't an annoying obstacle. I was planning to post this to hopefully motivate myself, but then I started procrastinating too early... Tomorrow.

One of my colleagues finally got her Austrian citizenship yesterday, so today I got her an "Austria starter pack" consisting of Mannerschnitten, Mozartkugeln, Almdudler, and a baseball hat saying "No kangaroos in Austria." (And I will invite her for a Wiener schnitzel sometime soon, of course.) She loved it :)

DD and I are currently house-sitting for my parents (they have a garden!) and today I had to remove way too many southern green shield bugs from their tomatoes. Ugh. I had never seen those bugs before and hopefully won't see them again soon.

Sadly, my childhood public library branch is going to close. Well, technically "move," but as I found out today "my" branch had 22,000 books (27,000 a few years ago) and the other one that had to close had 11,000, while the new library will only have 20,000. (Instead more comfortable furniture and more computers… and a "library of things," which I am admittedly curious about.) I mostly use the online library these days and had not been to this branch for several years, but when I coincidentally found out that it closes (in August! I almost missed it!) I had to pay it another visit. I used to go there very often as a kid and teenager, with a shopping cart so I could borrow 20 books at once, and I knew it very well. The librarian who has worked there for 26 years still recognized me, and I was glad to meet her again. (She is very unhappy about the move.) I can also visit the new branch once it opens sometime in fall, of course, but it's further away. (Yes, not too far from an underground station, but still too far for children to walk to, and they closed both branches nearby, so for children in the area it sucks.)

Too tired for many coherent thoughts today. (Also I think I didn't drink enough, not good.) The new seasons of Tensura and My Next Life as a Villainess just started and that was fun to watch. There's also more ExU, and of course Leverage: Redemption! Really looking forward to watching that, hopefully this weekend. And I want to start another Hades game, and I'm far behind commenting on fic, and tomorrow we'll get fresh fruit at the market again, and all in all I'm hoping for a relaxed weekend and I think the odds are good. It's so nice not having to think of uni classes at all.

- Last weekend was con.txt, which I was excited about, but I ended up missing most of it because of a combination of factors including scheduling errors on my part (i.e. a failure to correctly remember times and time zone conversions) and computer problems. Fortunately I did get to see parts of both the hanahaki disease panel and werewolf torts vol. iv. I still plan to read all the chat transcripts eventually. (Also, someone talk me out of offering a "tax systems in SFF" panel next year because I'm not really qualified yet.)

- I tried to go running more than once a week and my knees complained, and now that my knees are good again my left big toe is swollen and hurts, which is very annoying and means I still can't go running. The orthopedist wasn't sure what it was either but told me to wear different shoes and I have a check-up in a week and a half, we'll see. (He also saw my wrist brace, was not impressed by me telling him that it's a chronic problem, touched my shoulders for about two seconds and asked me "is it always like this or just because of stress?" and didn't like my answer "probably both.") Maybe I can go for a swim this weekend though.

- On Saturday DD and I ended up watching the Italy-Austria soccer match on a whim, and were very surprised how much we enjoyed it. I don't plan on watching more games rn - maybe the final? But it was fun and exciting. Austria did surprisingly well! We even got to celebrate being in the lead for about a minute before the goal was called offside. I never watched soccer much but having learned how to watch hockey is a huge help. In soccer everyone moves slower and the ball is more easily visible than a puck.

- It's so hot! Fortunately it's supposed to be slightly cooler starting tomorrow but still. Making it worse is that there's work deadlines so I'm doing more extra hours, and we still don't have an air conditioner in our room. Today at least we had ice cream in the afternoon, and when I came home DD had made nectarine frozen yoghurt. Another silver lining is that I bought a bunch of summer clothes recently (where "recently" = in the heat summer of 2019, which totally counts as recent when it comes to buying clothes right?, plus one summer dress last week) and at least I look cute.

TMA finished, and I already miss it. The final episode worked for me, which was a relief. ( mild spoilers )

DD has been telling me about it for weeks, but this weekend I finally checked out Superman & Lois and to my surprise I enjoyed it quite a bit. I really like Clark and Lois and their relationship, and Jordan and Jonathan and theirs, and others like Chrissy and Lana are interesting. There seem to be quite a few plots going on and I look forward to how they will develop in the second half of the season (and a bit wary of there being too much but we will see.)

I did not get much done this weekend but I did go for a run on Saturday and a long walk on Sunday in the sunshine, that was very nice. We still don't know the details of the new lockdown – sorry, "easter rest" – that will start next week, but it's unlikely that I'll have home office again. The university already said that there will only be distance learning for the rest of the semester, which is understandable and sensible; but I hate online lectures, I find it so hard to concentrate. Hopefully I will become better at that.