A year has come and gone (especially since the last Journal entry!), and so many things have happened and passed by. I finally graduated from University this year, something that I never thought I'd ever be able to do or accomplish. Tears of joy were shed by all the friends and family that I had that attended. It still feels surreal, looking back on it.

In the interim, I've been taking my time to decide what I want to do with my future (which I'm still debating on), but I have been trying to build up my stamina so I can eventually do the things I want to do.

Despite accomplishing such a major hurdle, I've not been in a great state mentally. Too many things have been happening around the U.S. that it's overloaded my mind and even trips into town to just stare out at nature do little to calm my mind of all the numerous troubles that lie ahead. I know I, alone, can't do anything about them, but the feeling of hopelessness is constantly tugging at my resilience and perseverant attitude. It's been...very difficult, especially since I know not how to really put it into words, but I've told myself time and again that come what may, I'll do whatever it takes to protect those I love and the state I call home. Tough times are ahead, and I pray I can live to see through them and reach the other side of the darkness that is approaching.

For now, though, since last year was a Blue Christmas, I now leave you with a Blue December.

https://youtu.be/fbdhVVLZJ6s?si=Y35usfRLKk6rzyqC

Despite everything going on in the world, I wish you, dear Reader, a very Merry Christmas, one and all, from my family to yours, and have a wonderful (and safe!) New Year's!

(Theme'd) Song of the Day: https://youtu.be/fWL3-nDpvcM

If you are reading this, then Merry Christmas to you and yours and I hope you have a wonderful New Years Eve and Day, too! See y'all in the New Year!

So this'll probably be the last journal entry I make this year, but I just wanted to give a few things that I've done that took all my time away from me:

1. Finishing up university (provided nothing suddenly crops up on me). Can't wait to finally graduate in the spring!

2. Busy with family matters (nothing serious, thankfully).

3. Trying to clear my game library (and no, it hasn't budged one centimeter D: )

I'll still try to write journal entries in the future here, just they may not be as frequent as I'd like them to be.

That said, I might start writing more things and posting them here (I think I've said that before in the past but I can't remember), along with mulling around with Utau now that I'll have more free time. Also gotta learn how to drive after putting it off for so long (health issues, the pandemic, and other factors aside) and get a part-time job.

Lots to think about and lots to do, but I guess in the immediate I'll focus on helping clean up and clear the house of a lot of stuff that's been gathering since 2009 (loss of a family member'll do that to ya, I s'pose).

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope y'all have a wonderfully Merry Christmas (or other Holiday that you may celebrate) for you and yours and have a grand New Year's Eve! See ya in the new year! :)

Spring semester is almost over for me. That means finalizing class projects, final exams, and copious amounts of caffeine to study.

Also, I've been getting into PvP in FFXIV now (RDM go brrrr). And with the new adventure portraits feature (ironically still in Beta), it's been...interesting, seeing random peep's Portraits.

...which means, whenever I see one that is outright lewd or sexual, I will focus them to death for the entirety of the match. No exceptions.

Happy New Year (even though the day is pretty much over as I write this lol)!

Merry Christmas (even though it's 3 days late) everyone! Hopefully the New Year will be leagues better than this past 2021 year!

So after the recent Live Letter from the Producer, Endwalker got delayed into December on the 7th (with Early Access starting on the 3rd). Not gonna lie, I was kinda sad, but if they're doing that to make sure the conclusion of the main story that's been around since A Realm Reborn is as great as it can be, then I can wait. It only makes me want to play Endwalker even more (gonna rep SCH since everyone's gonna abandon that Job for Sage, lol)!

Halloween has come and gone. Now, in an increasingly dismal and dark world that we are now living in, I'm deciding to put up my Christmas decorations next week (once I find where I put them all).

Already started doing my Thanksgiving dinner shopping, and good lord, having to pay almost $40-45 for a 17-18 lb. turkey was not something I was interested in. Thanks for the inflated prices on food, federal govt. /sarcasm

In other news, FFXIV Endwalker is coming out this month on the 23rd (with early access starting on the 19th for those who pre-ordered, like me :D), and I'm super hyped for it!

That's all for now. Later! o7

So I needed to take a few days before I wrote this to fully let it sink in. My boi Sora finally got into Smash, and as a final send-off to DLC in Smash, too! I was grinning ear-to-ear as I watched the whole thing (not gonna lie tho, the beginning with the fire dropping from the Smash logo made me legit think it was a Dark Souls rep instead, but it was a good fake out!), to boot! It was a great way to end the DLC line-up for Smash Ultimate. Now time will tell if all the current roster will be playable if a new Smash (whenever that might be; probably when the next console gen starts, I'm guessing, which isn't gonna be for another 3-4 or so years if things don't get worse).

In other news, I may start writing and posting a short story or two on my account just to see if I still have any creativity left in my noggin'. I haven't written anything for a few years, so it would be a welcome change of pace.

Also, I'm currently playing Tales of Arise (taking my time with this one since I'm having fun listening to the skits and doing side-quests). Gotta finish it up soon so I can prep for FFXIV Endwalker next month (!!!). Goin' to the MOON!

Catch ya on the lunar side.

=End of Update=

A lot has happened since my last journal - the past few days even more so.

On the 16th, I took my beloved fluffy cat, Honora, to the vet due to noticing her mouth was incredibly yellow. Turned out that she was severely jaundiced and after numerous tests, she was put on medications to treat what the vet there said was "triaditis" and were keeping her for the week and was ready to be discharged and to go home once she had improved. During that time, she had been making steady improvements - she was cuddling with the vet techs there, walking around, and overall seemed to be making a steady recovery.

Sadly, she took a turn for the worse today. I had to rush to the emergency vet to see her, as she had aspirated some fluid into her lungs, which caused her heart to become inflamed. The vet told me that she had started to have heart failure and that her aspiration was making it extremely hard to breathe. She didn't have much time left. And so, to make it less painful for me type this, I made the decision to let her go. She went peacefully in my arms as I cradled her and told her "I love you, baby cat. I'll always love you and you'll always be my fluffy baby cat."

I probably won't be on here very frequently, if at all, for the time being - I need time to grieve and mourn.

Rest easy now, Honora. You had as wonderful a life as I could ever give you, and I will always miss you. You will always be in my heart.

R. I. P. Honora
Early 2000s - 2021

Happy New Year, everyone! 2020 is now behind us and 2021 is ripe with opportunity and new possibilities.

The last few days of 2020 were...difficult, to say the least. I won't say more than that (for personal reasons).

Here's to a new year and a fresh new start.

Merry Christmas to one and all! Finally, Christmas is just a week away and I've been super pumped to be able to finally celebrate the happiest time of year. Even with all the chaos that 2020 has wrought, nothing will stop me from celebrating a holiday meant for cheers and merriment with family and friends.

Even through these uncertain times, now more than ever, connect with your loved ones, celebrate the occasion with them (whether that be Christmas, Hanukkah, or any other holiday), and look forward to a new year!

Merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year! :)

[Addendum] Whelp, failed my Algebra midterm. All that time studying, only for all the info to evaporate from my brain and leave me just guessing at everything. Out of 15 questions, only 1 correct and 1 partial credit. *sigh*



[Original Journal Entry Below]

So midterms are just around the corner. Naturally, I'm still struggling with college algebra, on top of trying to learn Digital Illustration (it's going poorly) and Basic Keyboarding (read: piano; also going poorly). It's like I have a fog or something clouding my head and I can't retain any of the information I study, I can't remember for the life of me how to use gradients (even after watching tutorials), my hands are very stiff and some of my fingers don't want to hit the right keys as well as not being able to easily read sheet music, so I keep playing in the wrong major/minor and not getting the right flats or sharps hit.

Essentially, everything's going to shit. \o/

In other news, I've been playing less games on my consoles or PC and just sticking with my phone games:

Dissidia: Opera Omnia
Tales of Crestoria
Fire Emblem Heroes
Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
Vanguard Zero
War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius

On top of that, I've also felt like I've gotten...irritated (I guess is the right word) at pretty much the smallest thing as a result of my inability to remember information. I just don't know what I'm doing anymore.

So I just recently found out that the Future Card Buddyfight TCG is ending this year (the Anime had since stopped airing last year after the first Arc of the Ace series). It's sad to see a card game end that way, but the TCG market is extremely oversaturated nowadays and not every TCG will survive without an active and sizable player base, and I guess the player base just wasn't large enough to keep it going.

RIP Buddyfight, I never got the chance to play it, but I loved the show and had hoped it would reappear at some point. :'(

Today I learned that my Crohn's has gone into remission.

Finally some good news considering the hell that 2020 has been.

It's been about 30+ days since the majority of the U.S. went into lock-down. I'm technically safe since I live out in the countryside, but man did some of the big cities and their leadership drop the ball H A R D.

I've only been venturing out every week or so just to get groceries and improvising recipes at home by getting whatever closest resembles an ingredient I need (as well as buying frozen pizzas because i'm a simple person who sometimes doesn't wanna have to make a pizza with very limited counter-top space), but things haven't devolved into full-on panic.

Been trying to keep up with the news, but it's kind of hard to stay hopeful when all I see is doom, gloom, and negativity in the press-at-large, so I've just been trying to get back into my video game backlog (good lord, it's smaller compared to others, but it seems huge to me because I can see the stack of PS4 and Xbone games in front of me!) as well as picking back up Cardfight!! Vanguard. Not sure how I feel about the reboot, since I still have decks from before they split the game into two formats (Premium, for everything prior and past the reboot, and Standard, for everything after the reboot), so unsure if I wanna just stick to Premium or rebuild my decks for Standard. 'Course, my local game shop is closed for the unforeseeable future, but there's always the Discord that the company set up for players to remotely play using cameras (though I don't have a way to create a fancy or usable setup, so *shrug*). Maybe I can just use my smartphone, who knows?

Hope everyone is faring well in these uncertain times! Remember to wash your hands (or even take a hot shower with plenty of soap, if you wanna go the extra mile from when you get home from venturing out into the world again!), (that spell looks dangerous) keep your (6 ft.+) distance, and be safe.

Journal End

[Update] Never mind, managed to get it out of its receptical and put it back together.

Good thing I'm upgrading my phone in a week. Ugh.


(Original Journal Below)

Dropped my Note 9 and somehow broke the stylus, so now it won't come out of its receptical, which means I can't sketch on my phone for the time being.

RIP

So with the help of a very wonderful friend of mine  magicoone , he's been helping me with redesigning my Utau/Furloid/OC. He's helped me narrow down the type of character Gregory is in his updated look and everything (he's also helped me with a few tips on how to draw).

I've also had to put my sketching on the side for the time being (at least until after this coming Friday, Feb 14th) as I have a midterm and I'm studying as best I can and I am not prepared for it at all whatsoever send help :)

For real, though, I'm trying to put all my effort into my midterm so that I can prove to myself that I can get things done and not let my gastro problems hinder me. Once the midterm is done, I'll have plenty of free time to devote to continuing my sketching on my phone (I'm not used to using a drawing tablet yet and I've only just started doodling on my Galaxy Note 9).

In the meantime, I'll try to keep studying this week and hopefully I'll have my sketch worked on through the weekend (it will be a while, i'm not exactly the fastest with my hands; I'm usually the last person to finish handwritten tests/quizzes/exams because of how slow I write! D: ). Until then, I'll be in my studies.

God I Need to Remember Things,
Makoraias

P.S. I need to update my FA Icon, it's extremely old and makes me feel older than I should be (I'm 29!) :V

Medical stuff and just overall lack of energy have pretty much killed my motivation to do anything. Slowly trying to build myself back up.

Got a new computer and all that jazz, so I'll probably try taking up doing Utauloid stuff again. (Hopefully) Maybe.

But yeah, I'm still alive and kicking, so...

yeah.

2018, despite its rollercoaster of things going on all over the world, was a decent year. Here's to a great new year and hoping that 2019 will be a fresh, new start.

(This was written an hour or so before the actual New Year rings in cause I'll be out of it because of celebrating the ringing in of the new year)

I've decided to start doing some uploading to show I'm not dead. Will occasionally be uploading stuff I doodle in my sketchbook whenever I have something I'm super proud of - most of it D&D and other assorted mental musings. I know I'm not the best artist, but small steps are better than giant leaps-of-faith.

I'll be uploading them as doodles, so they'll probably go immediately to sketches, so...yeah.

I'm also thinking of uploading some short stories if I ever get the time for them. College is ramping up again in about two weeks, so I'm mostly busy preparing for it - getting books, making sure tuition for the semester is paid for, etc.

I even got an interview for an on-campus job, too, so there's that.

But anyways, I'll be doing small odds and ends in terms of uploading. :)

Today I finally got it through my head that I shouldn't be discouraged from doing anything creative by looking at other people's works.

Stupid, I know. The answer is simple: Just create art in your own style.

Except I'm not very good at realizing the simplest of answers to the simplest of questions some times.


For a good while now, I've been mostly quiet. Mainly due to summer heat kicking my oversleeping into hyperdrive, but also because I keep looking at my submission notices for all the people I watch (I'm real, honest! I just tend to be silent a lot of the time on the 'net.) and seeing all the great things people are creating.

And it was only today that it really hit me.

Don't focus on emulating other people! Don't be discouraged if you can't make the fancy digital/traditional art! Focus on your own style!

So yeah, I'm gonna attempt it. I'm gonna do an arts. Maybe today or tomorrow when I can find my sketchbook. Depending on how I feel, I may leave it in my general submissions tab or I might move it to scraps after a time. Who knows?

But yes, I will make an attempt at making arts. Please look forward to it if you'd like.

Man, it feels super relaxing to be on spring break. I completely underestimated both my class workload and my low energy. Every day I came home exhausted from studying and keeping up both physically and mentally with my classes (sometimes sore if i overexert myself at the on-campus gym). I wish I had the energy to work on my utauloid, but energy kept me from putting any progress into it these past two+ months, so I've had to reluctantly put off any work on it until after exams in two months, so I'll just be ghostin' here every now and then while I try to improve my body and mind.

I've also been waaaaaaaaay out of the loop for utauloids and vocaloids in general, so I am in desperate need of getting caught up in the going-ons there.

I have picked up a sketching book, but not really anything that i feel is worth uploading (though that'll change, probably).

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Hope you have a wonderful day. :)

Hope everyone has a wonderfully Merry Christmas today! :)

Still redesigning my Furloid. Still having problems getting motivated to do it. End up not able to go from mind's eye to paper. End up frustrated. Cycle repeats.

I'll eventually get it done, but having a vivid imagination and being able to picture it in your head, only to not have the skills to transfer it to a physical medium really takes the wind outta your sails.

Consider this a 2% completion mini-journal, I guess.


[Edit] A thought popped in my head just as I hit 'Create/Update'. Maybe I should start small, like...do an Icon for my page or something, then branch out from there. Lord knows I can't yet do anatomy just yet.