A tiny, short update journal.

Behold - I've changed my display name to Excessorium!

Now that ought to give some flair to what I do and post...~

March 22nd over here in Finland.

I'm a year older, again.

It ain't much, but hopefully wearing this imaginary title and emoji will make it even slightly more special of a day for me.

👑 King me.

In my previous journal, I lamented the fact that this year I only submitted so many pictures to my gallery, despite having clearly drawn more than what I had uploaded (mostly due to the images being either unfinished sketches that never went to anywhere or were personal doodles for friends).

With only less than 6 hours before we bid farewell to the Year of the Dragon and welcome the Year of the Snake, I think it might be better for me to upload the pieces I've done anyway.

For what greater shame is there than to not share my works and hopefully bring some joy into people's lives, even if the context within is merely done for personal purposes? Shared joy is doubled, after all.



Outside of that, Happy New Year of 2025 everyone. Make sure to drink responsibly and fire those works up in the sky with safe parameters, and party on~

And here's a hoping for a safer, hopefully more positively surprising New Year for all!

(Had already gone to meet my family when I realized I hadn't made my season's greetings on time, sorry about that! Returned back safely only today.)

December's here. Means it's time to make a quick recap of the year again.

In general:

Admittedly, I've been unusually reserved this year around. At least I feel like I've been, though I think this is mostly the last two months that's been testing me.

Start of the year has mostly been nothing special, even during my birthday. With me living in "day at a time" -lifestyle, each day comes and goes with little sticking to my memory as not much of changes happens or anything exciting occurs. If there were, then most likely it was the usual stress of the life itself that comes bothering me, such as trying to find a job in this economy or having to overthink about the events going on internationally and how they effect one another. Another additional form of worry comes with my health: given my diagnosis I will have to live for the rest of my life with and try and manage it my best that I've written about before, I have to implement changes and make sure I get better - which has been a slow progress full of ups and downs. By the latter half of the year I was more than aware that I've been fumbling in that regard as I started indulging perhaps bit too much with my diet, but thankfully it hasn't gone off the rails as it had before. Still, I have to steel up a bit better.

Summer, however, was personally the best time: not only due to visiting the local LAN-convention that's held over here every June appearing again and enjoying it, but also for visiting my sister after years of not seeing one another. Tampere was definitely a wonderful place in the summer and the landscapes.... woh, no wonder it has the tagline of being "Summer City of Finland", given the landscapes you can see for kilometers and miles on end. Traveling there was expensive, even as I got the tickets on hand months before visiting, but it was worth it in the end. Got to meet her and her fiancé's new dog as well: such an overactive fella, though has a bit of a habit of biting to test us out. My forearms were in bruises for days after, something they're trying to teach him out of. (Still a pup of nearly 2 years at the time, so that can be excused - but when the dog is a mixed breed of german shepherd, belgian malinoise and couple of others, the sheer pulling and biting strength they have is even MORE absurd.)

Still, couple of memories of new locations and events were formed and I'm happy about that.

Autumn was perhaps the warmest I've ever experienced, as the late summer weather extended all the way to the second week of September, which is unusual. As much as I did enjoy being able to go outside with a T-shirt on and nothing else, it did made me wonder how much of an effect our species has made, even as I try to remind myself that there are occasional weird weather phenomenon also going on that comes every so often. During this time, one of the meetings I had at the local work and employment office meetings came to a head as the lack of finding a job was becoming quite difficult, no matter how much I've attended to different programs the folks there had suggested and how much I've tried to reach out different places to no real advances, so it seemed a change of plans was in order. At their behest, I was suggested to seek out if I could advance my options by studying again, to which I agreed to try. My client info will be transferred from one end to the other, so I'm hoping that whenever it starts, it'll be worth it: it would definitely help me to try and figure out a bit more about myself what is it that I'd like to do, something I've been struggling for far, far too long.

Admittedly, it's also during the autumn-winter phase when I've started to realize that I've become bit more anxious, to the point that in October-November, I had been experiencing more anxiety-attacks than ever before. Both having to think when programs would start, the constant waiting time I have to do whenever I've taken part of a program or even waiting for appointments to come when arranging a visit at the health center... around latter half of October I started having strange sensation in my body that slowly turned into a case of very slow-blooming common cold with symptoms of heartburn that felt rather new, so much so that I ended up creating more worries in me that most likely exasperated and exaggerated some of the symptoms more due to stress. Overthinking, especially whenever a worrying feeling kicks in, tends to amp up things for me.

Fortunately it seems that whatever was affecting me for two-three weeks has now died down, but it still made me worried. The inevitability of me becoming older is kicking in.


Art-wise:

This has been the worst year when it comes to me uploading my drawings. On this site alone, I only ever uploaded three pictures.

While I have been drawing and doodling, I've realized that most of the images I've drawn that I have not uploaded were done under certain reasons/excuses:

A) Drawings and doodles done in Discord chats and streams that were only for the eyes of close friends and acquaintances, so showing them to anywhere else would create unforseen problems

B) Practice sketches and doodles that wouldn't be "interesting" to look at, let alone not "good enough for me to upload", so I never post them.

Some of the drawings and doodles I've made fall into the former, but looking back, why shouldn't I upload them? Perhaps it's just that I fear when I draw things for friends, it'll cause people that I don't know come at me asking for free requests or commissions, something I've not been mentally okay enough to do for a long while, so it'll create a cascade of more stress that I have to escape from. The ones that do land on the latter, perfectionist tendencies still do sort of kick in where I (or part of my subconsciousness) demands the kind of image or quality I see in my mind's eyes, in my imagination, but haven't been able to create it exactly (either due to getting tired, frustrated or otherwise unable to finish the image in a way I want to), so I don't post it up at all.

When in fact, I should post them anyway - it's a delight in general, so why should I neglect and dry people who follow me from the things I do? Why do I have to be ashamed of myself or demand too much out of myself, when "done, not perfect" -rule is more important than making another unreasonable demand of myself?


Afterthoughts

2024 is/was the Year of the Dragon. Something I wanted to sort of celebrate because I do like me dragons. A lot. Yet ultimately, the year turned to be mostly neglected due to me not doing much of anything, and at worst became a case of where I was really trapped in my own thoughts for far too often - and it visibly affected on things I could've done.

When Dragoneer passed away earlier this year, it further cemented some bittersweet and downright disheartening sensations that overshadowed the positives. The year has been also stressful for many people and having to be able to only hear them and try giving them some words of wisdom and HOPING that they'd have some effect made it feel even worse, since I often felt like I couldn't provide more than that and even then fearing those gestures were ineffective at best. Doesn't really help that I have a habit of becoming very reclusive and drawn back whenever something bothers, stresses or infuriates me. Like a tiny animal that retreats back to it's nest whenever something threathening comes along the way.

With Christmas coming, I can sort of see what I need to do and have an understanding of some kind of it, but I often worry that I don't have enough strength to push through without feeling like I have to dip out either because "I don't feel like it" or "I don't have the energy for it". It's a thing all of us have to endure, so I'm not the only one in this, but it often feels like a burden of an individual.

I suppose that in the end, I just need to take my lessons from these events and try and do better - preferably in ways where I don't demand too much out of myself yet not too leniently so that I just twiddle my thumbs around. Just have to take my time and the occasion to do something different. It's not all doom and gloom, even if the events make it seem like they are.



Kind of bittersweet way to end this note on, but there's always the tomorrow to look up to. One step at a time, after all.

Well that was quite the wild ride these past few days...


Anyway! In the light of this, I decided to briefly just update my profile a bit. In fact, I'm most happy of the custom banner I made for myself: now my page looks more like "me"~

(Not that there's anything wrong with the default banners, just wanted to give that custom banner approach a bit of a go ever since the staff made it accessible back few years ago.)


May do bit of occasional adjustments here and there if I notice anything missing, but beyond that, I'd say this looks fine.


That is pretty much all. Now back to your scheduled browsing and perusing~

It's a hard moment to wake up to news of someone as important as Dragoneer having passed away.

But what makes this extra bit heavier is the fact how I was able to talk with him in one of the Discord channels he was residing in. Being able to exchange words and learn more about him, both his view on life, personal struggles and the experiences he's been through was a genuine experience in on it's own. Friendly person, even amidst the hardships he was going through at the time. Part of me genuenily wished he could've made it through the last few struggles...

This site may not be up to date compared to many other websites out there, but one thing is for sure: he made sure this website was a home for many who got their introduction into the furry fandom as a whole. Mine included: a lot of things were happening at the time when I first joined in (2006, to be exact), most of which I had yet to fully grasp at that moment in time, but through it all, I grew and got to meet many other people of different skills, different backgrounds, with different inspirations and different moments in life that would allow them to explore and discover more about themselves.

Without this website, I have no idea where I would've been exactly in this world.


Thank you, Dragoneer. Be at peace.

*Ding goes the level-up indicator*

That is all for the time being. King me.

Before the year ends, I am going to be uploading a fair amount of drawings that I have not been uploading into my gallery this year.

Partly the reason why I haven't been doing this is because of the stresses that I had to deal with as I mentioned in my previous journal and other parts because they've been mostly random doodles I ended up doing during Discord voice-chats, so uploading them without any proper context or planning would've felt like a waste.

A serious mistake on my part. Come the New Year, I shall try fix that by being bit more proactive on that regard. Emphasis on "try": I'd rather not promise anything if I cannot commit to it fully.

I hope you had a fine Christmas, you all.

Oih, that last journal's been up for bit too long, hasn't it? A proper update is in order.

Work

My last location where I worked at seemed to stay as my last place as part of my employment program: ever since it came to an end at the start of December, I tried to search for other places to work at, sending applications to places I was recommended. But as is usual to my luck, none responded back nor had any available spots to take me in. By May of this year in a meeting held in regards to my program, we came to a decision to end it as the progress had halted completely.

New plans had been laid out and few suggestions had been given what to do next, one which I sent an application for, only for that to also be declined. Had to wait for 4 months before the response came in, so a lot of it is just pointless waiting for response. One could say I could've done something more to boost up my capabilities reaching something else, but honestly? I'd rather not put too many irons in the works and then have to juggle with multiple fires at once - rather focus on one thing at a time and then make the necessary moves if plans change.


Health

This one is unfortunately a bit bigger one.

Back in late February/early March I've been having a strange feeling in my left arm. After being worried about it for a two weeks, I decided to get it checked out at the local health center. A week later at the appointment, I was told to get a blood test and test my blood pressure as a precautions. My next appointment would come almost two months later (which is ludicrous in my mind, but unfortunately something a lot of places and countries are experiencing nowdays - hopefully something will be done about it that benefits everyone in best of ways possible).

A day after my employment program meeting, on May 25th, I was delivered the news that pretty much hit me harshly: I've now been diagnosed as Type 2 Diabetic. My insulin levels were far too high and pretty much past the threshold, according to doctor (cholesterol levels being quite high as well).

While heading back home, I was constantly questioning myself: "how could I let this happen to me?", "why didn't I do anything to this so much sooner?", "why did I let myself go off this badly?". Ultimately I knew the reasons: my overweight that's been building up over the years, my lack of care of my diet on what I consumed and how much I consumed, lack of physical activities... that combined with my depressed, apathetic, self-defeatist mindset is a poisonous combo and the ultimate cause of this. "If only I could've done something more about it early upon" did ring a lot as well as anxiety and worries how I could treat myself from hereon out, but I knew that pleading with myself was not going to do anything.

This summer became my "Year of Improvement": starting since day one, I've focused on what I've been eating, how much I eat and when I eat, as well as what other things I can do to improve my health in general. Even took on a visit at exercise counceling to get myself going, since I need to make physical activity become a more prominent part of my lifestyle to my otherwise static, nearly 24/7 sitting at the computer approach.

Upon my last doctor's appointment back 6th of this month, I've come to know that my approach was not in vain: my blood test values showed major improvement, with most values having gone back to normal all over again. Not only that, but within the span of nearly 4 months, I've managed to lose a whopping 21 kilos (46 pounds). Both me and the doc were surprised beyond belief and I still cannot believe how small changes like these had been impacting me positively.

While it doesn't cure me of my diagnosis, it'll make it so much more easier and better. Meds have helped a lot, but this? Unbelievable. Shame it took this kind of a wake-up call for me to get something done about it... but I'd rather not ruminate on that. I do hope that I'll be able to withstand the coming months, which is when I will be tested a lot: with days getting colder and darker, seasonal depression may end up putting me through a ride and test me how I'll be managing my diet and mentality to get more physical.


Art and other general, miscellaneous things

I've been keeping bit silent about my health as I wanted to focus on getting myself on the right tracks and get used to the new life I have to live with now. I haven't been drawing nearly as much as I wanted to and I know there's a backlog waiting to be uploaded just to show that I've been doing things. Prior to this, I've only spoken with few trusted friends and folks about this. Only now I decided to be more open about it now that I know where I'm at with my progress.

Beyond that, I hope to find something that allows me to get to the working environment. Still have to battle with that and figure out what is it that I truly want out of myself and how to balance that with my lifestyle changes I'm working on with.


That is all for this time around. Do take care of yourselves out there. And if there's anything you should take away from this, then let it be this: if anything comes, don't hesitate to take care of it when possible.

March 22nd. Another year added to my age/level.

It's a bit early over my end, so my train of thoughts are bit slow at the moment. Will probably make a journal later on for other updates. For now, time to take it easy.

Time for some retrospective writing here.

In general

You know how two years ago we thought that year was shittiest of all time? I'd argue that year 2022 is just the sequel of it and even worse.

The fact the year started almost immediately with Russia waging war against Ukraine that's been presumably in the works for a longer period of time (which a certain figure is still considering it to be nothing but "special operations" without declaring it out as an all out war) put too much stress to the entire world, especially as we were still under the effects of the covid-pandemic (or coming through it). The effects of this pointless war for control were not only putting quite the strain on many countries (especially Europe), but also both calculatedly malicious and stupid:

- Malicious in the sense that with this move, the aggressor country could put pressure not only on the west, but also on the countries that were dealing energy resources with them, which most of the European countries were relying upon, only to find themselves now in a bit of a critical situation when they decided to withdraw from any and all future plans to deal with them, as if to put them into a hostage situation.

- Stupid in the sense how it became clear how the manpower of the aggressor country was greatly overestimated, how much it started to create new rules and laws against it's own citizens, how it crippled trust and connections with the rest of the world (even with those it's allied with) and caused an unnecessary halt in the wheels of progress in general - without mentioning the pointless number of deaths this has created on both sides.

This has also caused at least two countries to try and join NATO as a result, which in itself turned into it's own kind of circus when one country tries to deny the access for no other reasons than having their own personal leverage involved.

Beyond the war itself and the talks of the energy crisis that has resulted in all of Europe itself, the only other more remarkable thing that's been on everyone's topic especially on the latter half of the year has been mostly the way how Twatter was bought out by Elon Musk, how poorly he decided to run it and how much more awful it's turned as a result of his childish tomfoolery. Whatever happened during summer and starting autumn is kind of lost on me as I was still searching for places to work in at.

Personal

My program with finding places to work at and to gather both experience and certainty as to what field of occupation I would find most interesting has stepped up into another variation which began near the end of last year. With more time to spend and find places as well as more chances to try different things, I took this program quite close to my heart as it is an important next step.

Unfortunately over half of the year I was seeking places to work at with no success or luck whatsoever: most places that I was trying to get to at first were either filled, did not respond, weren't interested or couldn't take me in for a reason or another, leaving me in the frustrating position of having to send applications left and right as well as try and call in for a time for an interview which never came. Only twice I was able to get to any interviews at all, with the first one leaving me feeling rather successful (even though I didn't make the cut that time due to the place hiring summer employers instead) and the other being a disaster (needless to say: they were asking actual people who already had years of experience, not trainees, so it was bound to be a pointless interview to begin with).

Fortunately I managed to find a place eventually at the late August as a video editor. My time at the establishment was fine, with the workers there being absolutely friendly with all sorts of backgrounds where they came from. If not for them or the employers who were also friendly and aware of things AND for the atmosphere they provided, I would've ended up struggling a bit: I came to realize after a while that perhaps the media field ain't for me, as it's highly contested occupation where you have to put your best on timely manner. I'm not a competitive person myself, so being on a rush to finish things or be pushing for something has never been my forte.

With the news of what's been going on in the world combined with the pandemic that was still going on, me trying to find a place to work and me finally starting working, I've had less energy to draw anything. I feel like this is the year I drew the least, with even less uploaded online to my gallery. There are even more doodles that I've made, but never turned them into completed images or anything I could upload due to not being impressed myself, which still seems to be a thing I have to fight against. It kind of sucks to be running on such a low energy and interest in regards to drawing, especially when I tried to make this year into a "Year of Self-Improvement": if anything, it's shown how easily I give up on things if I get frustrated or tired, which in turn stagnates me completely.

It's as if I'm becoming complacent as a result of it. An awful spot to be in. I really ought to improve myself further, but how could I make sure I won't get tired of working towards it without giving up?




....and that's pretty much all I have to recap upon. There might've been so many other things on my mind, but I've either forgotten them, found them pointless to bring up or didn't have the same importance right now as they might've had days, weeks, months ago.


As an addendum of sorts to finish off this journal: I find it odd how things that were "the worst" from before somehow manage to become even "worse" the more we go into the future. Even the way how I started this journal indicates that, as if to brush off how awful the actual pandemic was now that two nations at war has taken over it. Either we forget the just how awful something was back in the day or we've become used to the issue at hand that when something even worse comes in, it'll take the spotlight.

....it's... odd.

Holy shit it critmas! Again!

Currently away from home and visiting my mother for the duration of Christmas. I wish you all have a safe, warm and pleasant, stress-free holidays yourselves, everyone~

Spoiler alert: the thing I felt last month was actually covid.

Two work weeks gone to waste, blast. BV

Anyway, I'm over it thanks to taking care of myself as well as having three vaccine shots prior, so hooray for medical science. As for now, it's just the same old cycle of going to work, finishing what I can in there before my contract comes to an end and.... that's about it, really.

....should really pick up on that "I will draw and upload stuff eventually" -part that I've been telling you and myself so much at some point.....

A quick update again.

Last month I was having a flu hit me: broke out around weekend and had to take couple of days off work, but I got better at the end of Tuesday of that week.

Two weeks ago I had a very nasty case of eye-infection coming in and the following week I had to deal with it by using eye-salve. It worked quite effectively, though applying it at first was awful experience, what with sensitive eye. x.=.x;

And starting this week, I have another flu again. This one slightly hard-hitting compared to the last one, but seemingly making the Friday-Saturday night sleep quite difficult. Thankfully some paracetamol, water, rest and tea has been keeping me going, but it seems like this autumn has been full of unfortunate surprises. "Irony" would describe the situation perhaps the best.

In case you wonder, I have three vaccine shots given a while ago, so if this actually is coronavirus, then I should be able to fight against it. Have to wait until Tuesday to get myself money to buy home-test kit just to be sure, as city's official website suggests to only go to official coronavirus sampling offices only when I have light symptoms rather than the current heavy ones I've been under. (And if I do end up recovering, then going to get a test would be pointless for the next 2 months.)

Beyond that, trying to recover. You also keep yourselves warm and comfortable: this season can be surprisingly nasty this year around, so take precautions, friends, acquaintances and followers.

Blast me and my inactivity to really upload anything during heatwaves and personal businesses I have to deal with outside of internet...! Anyway, still living and breathing, so no worries whatsoever.

I also apologize for the lack of drawing (or lack of uploading anything) despite having the entire time to do so in summer - partly the heatwaves and partly the stress of finding a place to work at as a trainee as part of my employment program had taken most of my focus away and therefor, I ended up mostly just taking it easy and not doing much of anything.

However, only recently I finally had a flux of luck and I've found a place where I've started working. As part of the program, I'll start easy by having a 3 days a week, 6 hours a day schedule to get me used to the working schedule and to see if I can get myself re-energized back to working conditions. So far? I'm liking the place~

I will upload something soon enough, even if I had to pull it out from the "failed to finish a mere sketch" -folder. Hope you're holding out fine out there, the lot of you.

Ah, summer is ever so close again, a favorite season of mine: colours are fine, it's warm enough and I can get some sunlight finally.

Though only at this age I've come to realize that there's a strange effect the season changes does - and for me, it seems to be ramping up my anxiety: since last weekend, few things kept me nerveous and the effect still lingers to this moment. I am trying to keep myself calm and comfortable, but with how I end up worrying needlessly in my head, it can be very difficult to deal with at times.

Otherwise I feel alright. Just wanted to get this thought out of my chest and update my journal so it doesn't show the thing that's now two months old. I hope you all people out there are doing well enough and take equally good care of yourselves.

For a day at least.

It muh burdfeh.

Two days from now, on March 22nd, I'll be once more a year older.

Normally this would be something I'd either look forward to if I were much younger or would be just a mere reminder that I give out for no other reasons than to make myself feel bit more validated, because after all: anyone's birthday should be worth celebrating one way or another. A hoorah for the "King/Queen of the Day".

But ever since the disaster that is the war in Ukraine, that feeling has been mostly subsided by the news of the events, discussions about the situations as well as the rising tensions with it. The war's going on for four weeks now and while there have been many, many articles, posts and even propaganda going on, it just further adds to the pressure. Worry, sadness and stress adds on top of itself.

My thoughts are with Ukranian citizens and my heart is bleeding for them, just as much as I'm sorry for the Russian civilians who have to live through this, the shame of it as well as the effects of sanctions that'll make their lives worse under the current leadership of their government - especially those brave citizens who risked their own freedom by standing up against this.

Needless to say, I'm not sure if I'll be feeling particularily festive or celebratory this coming birthday, since I often end up feeling: is it even right for me to celebrate something when there's a crisis in the horizon? I can understand that I have to think of my own survivability and have the right to feel comfortable and safe, since my health is indeed important, but it does leave me feeling selfish.

Though that might be because I want to help, but can't.

Well, it's almost Christmas again. And end of the year.

I must admit that I've been feeling more fatigue'd and lethargic than usually. Normally it does happen to me around autumn/winter seasons as I get less sunlight and am prone for the seasonal depression, but in a way, I also believe that the pandemic that's been now pestering us for two years and the large numbers of unnecessary bickering, as well as the numerous revelations it has shown up in parts of the world, is partly to blame it as well. Without getting into the details or having to even think about the many articles, messages and stories shared between folks around the world (especially from US), we've still got loads to work with to make things better. Here's a hoping that things will improve along the way, because we desperately need it.

As for me personally.... I have to say, I'm not sure if the "Theme'd Year" idea I had in mind held strongly at the end. Partially it did since my employment program came to a successful end and I started another program that's more individually-focused, but at the same time there's been a bit of struggle every now and then along the way to uphold certain tasks. Most notably my lack of drawing (or uploading some of my works onto my gallery) has reduced as a result of my program: usually I'm too tired to get creative and end up going to bed earlier than expected, leaving me only enough time to enjoy video games, browsing the web and that's it before waking up early in the morning again to have a moment for myself, which I sincerely apologize for.

Perhaps it's just me, my slightly tired mood at early morning (5:38 AM as I'm writing this) and the small stressful sensation of me having to be in places next week when the Christmas holidays comes around again, but it just feels like I haven't done a whole lot of anything to improve myself. It might be just me by default, as I have a tendency to lament on the small defeats more so than living with the small victories: I might have improved more than I'm giving a credit for myself, but usually I feel that in order for me to be happy, greatful or even feeling successful, it has to be more bigger or grander than thought. Paradoxically, if that "grand success" would ever come onto me, what would be the odds that I'd be confused and scared of what I have been assigned to and whether or not I can live up to the said aftermath of the success? It's a thing I need to learn: to accept myself and accept the tiniest of things to get ahead in life. I just wish I could "get it" without being too critical about so many things like an eternal pessimist: I've yet to truly grasp the idea of "loving yourself" without having this suspicion in me thinking that loving myself would mean becoming selfish or narcissistic.


But I digress.


All in all, there has been successes and I've learned and tried things, so that's a way forward. The journey so far has not been without several hiccups either, which I wish I could have avoided in the first place, but such is life: you take the good with the bad and vice versa. Perhaps I'm just longing too much for being able to reach the destination in my journey to settle in for the "better" that I seek that's just constantly on my mind. If I am to continue my "Theme'd Year" -idea, I believe I'll stick with the "Year of Self-Improvement" - to get better at things that I feel like I need to improve upon and hopefully get to where I can be myself and feel like I do things that matters to me, bolstering some of the things I need in my life and further get closer to the possibility of me reaching my goal of getting employed at some point in the future. Perhaps then I can start to finally plan up more dreams than just "get employed": can't start dreaming any further if you don't have the resources for it, can you?


That's all for the time being. Stay safe out there, everyone.

Hello there. o /

Sorry for not being active a whole lot for these past two months, but life's become slightly busier: ever since I decided to increase the odds of becoming employed and having some sort of work-related place to be in, I decided to take part of an employment program to make it happen. This program which is also supported by the finnish social insurance institute provides the necessary aid to get into the magical kingdom of "Job Land" one of these days, so I'm certainly hoping it'll help me out in the long run.

One of the requirements for the program is to work as a trainee in an actual working environment, returning me to the on-the-job training scenarios. For the past two months from early March to end of April, I've been working at a local flea market/second hand store and, well, it certainly got me on the move: items had to be placed in shelves, shelves had to be emptied for customers who rented the spot, moving items around, tagging the price on them, keeping places in order and cleaned up, etc etc.... as exhausting as it was, there were also moments where nothing special was happening, so it did balance itself out, but I enjoyed my time thoroughly there - though this did make me run out of juices some days, which made me have less time and energy to draw anything. Something about stores which are selling items people don't need, want to sell away and such has intrigued me so much, since at times, you rarely think about flea markets for anything else except "people selling their old stuff away, hopefully in okay condition" and yet when every now and then there comes an item that has some value, either historically, to the condition of the item or even just plain monetary value alone, it just intrigues me.

Unfortunately, thanks to my overweight irl, the amount of stress I've put on my right knee ended up leaving it somewhat overexerted. After a week of it not having recovered, I had to take one day off to visit the healthcenter for an acute check-in: so far no real issues were noticed nor any serious approaches were taken, though I was given some parasetamol to keep any straining pains off and were adviced to provide some cold to it (cold gels, in this case). Still, the sensation of it being "under pressure" persists, so I am going to be getting it checked again and see if there's anything that can be done to it to improve it - I just hope it's not irrecoverable.

The next two weeks will be pretty much visiting at the program establishment to review our time in our working environment, further planning and deciding the second place we'll work at for next two months, from mid-way of May to midway of July, so odds are I'll be busy - however, I hope that once I do find another place to work at (or even the same place to work at as I already did if I have to), I'd be able to have some leftover energy once I come back home to doodle again, because good lord have I been skipping on it for so much - would definitely like to draw and doodle something on the side when I can, again.


TL;DR recap: Been in on-the-job training for the last two months, will be so again and that may keep me inactive when it comes to drawing. Hopefully will be able to draw soon again.


Anyho, here's a hoping. Here's a hoping that all of you are doing fine as well. Keep yourselves safe out there and don't let the covid catch you.

And so, I officially join the Mile High Club 30 on this day, having existed on this planet for 3 decades now.

Admittedly, there's a small part of me that's sort of experiencing and thinking of this very comic here, and with the current pandemic going on, it's difficult to really make out any proper celebratory procedures to make it a blast (on top of it being Monday, making it even more difficult to be celebrated when a new work week begins, pah!)

But a day is but a day - and while I can wear the imaginary crown atop of my own cranium for a day, the proper celebrations can always be done at a later time. Who knows if I end up whipping up a burger party near Summer if it's possible.


For now, I'll try to not panic from the time that's passed me by nor get too sentimental of the times and experiences and memories that I've formed.

Starting since yesterday, I'll be going through a on-the-job training for two months at a local flea market supervising and keeping places in order.

Kind of feeling glad that I once again have a proper schedule to follow. Here's a hoping this'll improve my working experiences and employment chances in the future.


And, well, that's all really. Just a heads-up, really.

Some of you have entered into the new year already. Some of you are still waiting to head to there.

Before you do or just as you have now entered in, may I provide you all with this nifty idea/concept to replace "New Year's Resolutions"? I would imagine that this approach would work better for the lot of us.


https://youtu.be/NVGuFdX5guE


Other than that, Happy New Year of 2021 - Here is for a better year and despite the shittiness of 2020, hopefully there have been some lessons we've all learned that we can use to better ourselves and our lives for the better, one way or another.


Cheers~

It critmas.

...well.... about a day late, but still it's close enough. I just returned from visiting my mother.

So merr critmas, y'all~