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My life, financial readjustment, future arts, plans & VRChat
4 months ago
Heyo to my friends and watchers here on FA. Welcome to Colin's journal! Im here to announce for updates, life events and rarely tag journal meme. ^.=.^
We are already in the month of May, eh? It surely doesn't feel like it but man the time has gone way too fast. There are several announcements and life updates. It's gonna be TL;DR journal but I feel it's important to talk about it with you guys to keep in mind. I also linked it to this journal from my BlueSky account because of limited characters. So here we are, those are things I want to talk about at below is...
My username changes and my surprise to current FA staffs:
I recently changed my old FA username to new username PeppermintDrake (I have been using this since 2016) but my FA link remained with my old username in it until FA admin fully upgrades it in the future. It surprised me that new and current FA owner, admins, and mods is now competent to keep us communication for updates as well taking things more seriously. It's been a long time since last time they did something like that. They also did set up the future of FA site upgrades roadmap ever since Dragoneer passed away last year August and new owner took over. I applaud that to keep the site alive in modern internet hellscape we're in due to Ais and lots of problems leaving this site one of the few last bastion of true art/gallery based sites.
My major life updates and my minor financial readjustments:
As some of you guys may know that my job as Educational Assistant (EA) in casual position (substitute) for my district's school board (EA is not a teacher. It's just a main job to support students with special needs under teacher's direction in public schools, secondary schools, and Ed services so we have an entirely different roles. We're just below teacher hierarchy in school jobs so my paycheck tend to be less than teachers but at least it's a very good pay). Sooo, Summer Vacation is fast approaching starting at the end of June meaning my work doesn't operate during those two months until resumes in September for the next school year. Thankfully, I get entitled to have Employment Insurance from government for at least 4 months to keep me afloat during those two summer months of not working and another two months of working till November. It's a quarter less than my average paycheck but it's better than nothing really however I don't spend a lot during those months for that reasons and reserving it for my travel upcoming.
There's three more of that subject. Housing and rents in Canada is beyond ridiculous expensive so my current wage of almost $30/hr doesn't keeps it up and I'm still living with my parents. Thankfully my parents is very supportive and already knew I'm Gay and Asexual so it made my living situations a lot of better and allowed me to stay with them as they knew there is no way ppls like me are able to afford housing. I always help parents with some of expenses on groceries to things we buy in the current cost of living. Due to housing and rental costs situation which left me an option is to travel to visit countries and seeing friends because why not? I need to get that big chance. Travel is part of my life, freedom on my own away from my parents for 2 to 4 weeks, and deep passion so I tend to travel to visit countries in at least once to triple times a year depending on how much money I can afford to pay. On July 20th, I'm going on a cruise to UK, Ireland and North of France for 12 days and I already paid off as what I always do in my past travels. Travel ain't cheap but I don't give up that passion to cross off my dream travel bucket lists throughout my lifetime and I always do budget responsibly as I have more experiences on that.
There is a completely new one that will goes over top of my needs, wants, bills, artworks, and annual travel is a new car. That is unfortunate inevitable that my van I borrow from my parents for free for 12 years (18 years old van) is on it's last legs and becoming too costly to repair. It forced me with no option and really need it for work is to buy a new used car or brand new car for the first time ever in my own money. Meaning there will be new financial expenses (car payment loans) over top of needs, wants, artworks, and travel spending required me to do some readjustments on my spending to ensure budget accordingly. Few of my future artworks, travel plans, and wants items (aka Switch 2 for example) will be significantly reduced so you guys will notice my less than usual posting new artworks (Except giftarts and 6+ long overdue paid commissions I'm still awaiting). Hopefully new used car or brand new car will last me for years to come in current crazy car markets, manufacturer quality declines, etc.
My country just elected our new Prime Minister last week so hopefully within couple years they will solves the housing crisis, cost of living, wages, protect our country from threats from US, make our economy stronger, and much stronger trades with EU along with other countries. Maybe life better? Who know, will see about it.
The current and future of commission artworks, animations, and VRChat:
FA is now back online after almost a week or so. I recently uploaded two new artwork and animation yesterday sooo check them out in my gallery if you guys missed it! As what I mentioned above here so you guys may expect a bit less artworks from me for foreseeable future until car loans fully pays off. I'm from Canada so my currency exchange is pretty weak against USD, EURO, GBP and those artists tend to sell in those currencies for the good reasons (Artists needed it to meet their needs during recent economy turbulences and trying to survive it). Resulting of those artworks, 3D, animations etc more expensive to pay ($100 USD is like $140 in CAD for example and I have to pay that) and I become more selective on artists I want to comm including duo comm with friends/mutuals. If you see me uploading more new artworks than what I stated meaning most of them are 6+ long overdues and some of the others are giftarts.
I joined VRChat last November after I bought new PC, monitor, etc and finished built. I have been playing VRChat for months now and my experience was truly fun but enjoyable. In despite of my deaf with cochlear implant and difficulty to catch words in communication but I'm having so much fun with my friends and mutuals there. They're so nice to me! I have 3D avatar of my sona and it's still in WIP so I cannot wait to share it on BlueSky and here FA when it's done in the future! I may share couple of pics of my avatar on my BlueSky.
Changes to my social medias and contacts:
I was actively on Twitter for many years until Elon came in and ruined everything to the point I left that site and deleted for good last November. That site filled with hates, bots, trolls, garbages, Ais, etc and our post do get throttled often to harm visibility. I joined BlueSky 2 years ago and it's growing tremendously as it's feel like a true old Twitter but better mods as well our controls on what I want to see. BlueSky is now my main active site next to here FA. I also left Mastodon because of dead activity, barely ppls in there, and mod's overly control on what to post/what not to post so there is no point to continue active there. It's no wonder why it scared ppls away. It's now left me with only 3 is BlueSky, Itaku, and here. I do have Telegram for a decade and VRChat I joined months ago but they're only limited to my friends and mutuals. Ahaha Sorry. xP
So, here's my contact outside FA:
PeppermintDrake on BlueSky
PeppermintDrake on Itaku
That's all I have to say for a new updates and future plans! Hope all of you to have a good day! *hugs you all* ^.=.^
My username changes and my surprise to current FA staffs:
I recently changed my old FA username to new username PeppermintDrake (I have been using this since 2016) but my FA link remained with my old username in it until FA admin fully upgrades it in the future. It surprised me that new and current FA owner, admins, and mods is now competent to keep us communication for updates as well taking things more seriously. It's been a long time since last time they did something like that. They also did set up the future of FA site upgrades roadmap ever since Dragoneer passed away last year August and new owner took over. I applaud that to keep the site alive in modern internet hellscape we're in due to Ais and lots of problems leaving this site one of the few last bastion of true art/gallery based sites.
My major life updates and my minor financial readjustments:
As some of you guys may know that my job as Educational Assistant (EA) in casual position (substitute) for my district's school board (EA is not a teacher. It's just a main job to support students with special needs under teacher's direction in public schools, secondary schools, and Ed services so we have an entirely different roles. We're just below teacher hierarchy in school jobs so my paycheck tend to be less than teachers but at least it's a very good pay). Sooo, Summer Vacation is fast approaching starting at the end of June meaning my work doesn't operate during those two months until resumes in September for the next school year. Thankfully, I get entitled to have Employment Insurance from government for at least 4 months to keep me afloat during those two summer months of not working and another two months of working till November. It's a quarter less than my average paycheck but it's better than nothing really however I don't spend a lot during those months for that reasons and reserving it for my travel upcoming.
There's three more of that subject. Housing and rents in Canada is beyond ridiculous expensive so my current wage of almost $30/hr doesn't keeps it up and I'm still living with my parents. Thankfully my parents is very supportive and already knew I'm Gay and Asexual so it made my living situations a lot of better and allowed me to stay with them as they knew there is no way ppls like me are able to afford housing. I always help parents with some of expenses on groceries to things we buy in the current cost of living. Due to housing and rental costs situation which left me an option is to travel to visit countries and seeing friends because why not? I need to get that big chance. Travel is part of my life, freedom on my own away from my parents for 2 to 4 weeks, and deep passion so I tend to travel to visit countries in at least once to triple times a year depending on how much money I can afford to pay. On July 20th, I'm going on a cruise to UK, Ireland and North of France for 12 days and I already paid off as what I always do in my past travels. Travel ain't cheap but I don't give up that passion to cross off my dream travel bucket lists throughout my lifetime and I always do budget responsibly as I have more experiences on that.
There is a completely new one that will goes over top of my needs, wants, bills, artworks, and annual travel is a new car. That is unfortunate inevitable that my van I borrow from my parents for free for 12 years (18 years old van) is on it's last legs and becoming too costly to repair. It forced me with no option and really need it for work is to buy a new used car or brand new car for the first time ever in my own money. Meaning there will be new financial expenses (car payment loans) over top of needs, wants, artworks, and travel spending required me to do some readjustments on my spending to ensure budget accordingly. Few of my future artworks, travel plans, and wants items (aka Switch 2 for example) will be significantly reduced so you guys will notice my less than usual posting new artworks (Except giftarts and 6+ long overdue paid commissions I'm still awaiting). Hopefully new used car or brand new car will last me for years to come in current crazy car markets, manufacturer quality declines, etc.
My country just elected our new Prime Minister last week so hopefully within couple years they will solves the housing crisis, cost of living, wages, protect our country from threats from US, make our economy stronger, and much stronger trades with EU along with other countries. Maybe life better? Who know, will see about it.
The current and future of commission artworks, animations, and VRChat:
FA is now back online after almost a week or so. I recently uploaded two new artwork and animation yesterday sooo check them out in my gallery if you guys missed it! As what I mentioned above here so you guys may expect a bit less artworks from me for foreseeable future until car loans fully pays off. I'm from Canada so my currency exchange is pretty weak against USD, EURO, GBP and those artists tend to sell in those currencies for the good reasons (Artists needed it to meet their needs during recent economy turbulences and trying to survive it). Resulting of those artworks, 3D, animations etc more expensive to pay ($100 USD is like $140 in CAD for example and I have to pay that) and I become more selective on artists I want to comm including duo comm with friends/mutuals. If you see me uploading more new artworks than what I stated meaning most of them are 6+ long overdues and some of the others are giftarts.
I joined VRChat last November after I bought new PC, monitor, etc and finished built. I have been playing VRChat for months now and my experience was truly fun but enjoyable. In despite of my deaf with cochlear implant and difficulty to catch words in communication but I'm having so much fun with my friends and mutuals there. They're so nice to me! I have 3D avatar of my sona and it's still in WIP so I cannot wait to share it on BlueSky and here FA when it's done in the future! I may share couple of pics of my avatar on my BlueSky.
Changes to my social medias and contacts:
I was actively on Twitter for many years until Elon came in and ruined everything to the point I left that site and deleted for good last November. That site filled with hates, bots, trolls, garbages, Ais, etc and our post do get throttled often to harm visibility. I joined BlueSky 2 years ago and it's growing tremendously as it's feel like a true old Twitter but better mods as well our controls on what I want to see. BlueSky is now my main active site next to here FA. I also left Mastodon because of dead activity, barely ppls in there, and mod's overly control on what to post/what not to post so there is no point to continue active there. It's no wonder why it scared ppls away. It's now left me with only 3 is BlueSky, Itaku, and here. I do have Telegram for a decade and VRChat I joined months ago but they're only limited to my friends and mutuals. Ahaha Sorry. xP
So, here's my contact outside FA:
PeppermintDrake on BlueSky
PeppermintDrake on Itaku
That's all I have to say for a new updates and future plans! Hope all of you to have a good day! *hugs you all* ^.=.^
I also felt sorry for half of voters who didn't voted for this shit at all and now being forced to deal with this for the next 4 years.
I don't have sympathy to people who voted Trump and regretted. They have been through this before in 2016-2020. They should know this better. It's the most obviously will fucks them continually and don't gives a damn about them.
US HAD a chance of first female president and she is more suitable to lead. Yet... her voted higher than him (way too less still!) but electoral college gave him presidency.
I hope you enjoy VRC quite a bit, bro. It's quite interesting. As always, be careful in there as well 🤗💗👌🐉
Hehe yes I really do enjoy it so far. Of course i'll be careful. ^^
I'm glad I really did. ^^
I dunno man, this sounds pretty disingenuous to say when this is something that affects literally every publisher and every platform in existence, including this very website I'm posting this comment on (and the site you posted this journal on).
What I'm saying is that specific moderations on Mastodon instances tend to overstep the lines than it already is. Pestering everyone to label it or change things over small thing.
That's what it caused to pushes out majority of ppls decision to join Mastodon (some existing users/artists I witnessed left site as in result of that). Ended up joined BlueSky and still heavily thriving (still way better than Twitter and decent space space for furries to lgbt+). Not as deeply constraint as mastodon's mods and yet most hateful content ended up took down as well labeled.
It was rather quiet and dead active for months leading my decision to leave site. I have too many sites and messenger to maintain so I did sacrificed on some to saves my time browsing online including my mental health.