greetings thatoddhaystack shareholders. there are cheese and crackers available for this meeting because I have been eating. almost exclusively for my work lunches lol. I’ve been craving cold food a lot more this summer than before because I work outside a lot now.
I have in general been doing better! july was kinda like. super crazy busy LOL so I didn’t really have time to ruminate. for better or worse. now that it’s august and my schedule is returning to normal I am kinda tired. so august might be more of a quieter month.
july events
as mentioned, probably the biggest Event I had in july was finally starting my part time job. It’s not like. A Hard Job. I am outside all day at a park and the most stressful thing I have to do is kick teenagers out of a restricted area. but what I didn’t think about was all the prep work Around Job that I hadn’t done in a minute. having clean uniforms. packing my lunch. drivingggg. it’s not all bad things. but oh my god I am kinda so tired all the time. and then near the end of the month I had a second week long part time job that made it so I was working for 9 days straight. which again. I am happy to be making money again. but also like. I kinda didn’t socialize at all for an entire week. because I was just. sleep. work. sleep. work.
I did have a brief reprise at the end of the month where I drove to the beach for a few days to decompress. my dad rents a beach house every year for the family and while I did not get to stay very long and there was like. crazy family drama happening in the background the whole time. I did not care because I was just happy to Not Be Working. ppl were like wow vita you’re so chill about this (this being. family drama situation) and I was like I am just glad I don’t have to clock in.
uhm. I went out for dinner with my sibling. and I’m saying that so I have the excuse to put oshikatsu photos in here. mellow mushroom’s secret menu loaded potato pizza rules. the day that I can no longer get it will be very sad…
july projects
in july I uhhhh both did and didn’t do things. I made a lot of tiny progress on things… I added TWO more oc profiles to my toyhouse. tau and vesi, two of my ffxiv ocs. since remaking my ffxiv carrd last month to be part of my website, I have had my ffxiv guys on my mind… so setting up profiles for them now isn’t too hard. this also brings me to under 20 oc profiles I still need to write… which is honestly kinda crazy considering that’s probably like 1/4 of my oc content remaining. ish. a long long project finally nearing its conclusion… then I just have to keep up with adding new guys to toyhouse LOL.
I did! make stubs on the ukagaka wiki for all of the ghosts for ghost jam this year. and some extras like one ghost that wasn’t submitted in time, and all the little extras people created along with the ghosts. honestly I really just wanted to squash the redlink list again, so I’m pretty happy now with everything on the wiki at least having a stub page again… in august I want to turn back towards filling out stubs.
oh also artfight was in july! I only managed to draw two pieces this year, but some of that was because I was so busy I didn’t have a lot of time to draw… I did get a decent amount of attacks and I intend to revenge some of them outside of the artfight timeframe hehehe.
bingo update
I only completed one new thing on the bingo card this month (which I think is to be expected at this point) but! it was an Important Thing because I finally got a bingo on my bingo card! 6 months in, but since I wasn’t strategically going after getting a bingo that is Fine. I have also, already redeemed my bingo prize for a Much Needed Spa Day.
finish toki pona comprehensible input videos: toki pona is a constructed language with around 130 words, and I thought that it was really interesting! a youtuber put together 30 videos of comprehensible input for toki pona and I wanted to see how much of the language I could understand just watching the videos and not doing any formal study. I did start looking up things near the end of the playlist, mostly because I was getting excited and wanted to know more than just the things I was guessing at. to that end, I also ended up running through wasona (a crash course in toki pona) and am now starting to read some beginner texts… it’s very fun. I love languages.
july favorites
flowery
I regret to inform everyone that I have fallen for yet another blonde man. I really don’t know what made the brainworms take a full month to sink in, since I played deltarune ch5 last month, but something changed in my heart and now I’m like Ohhhhh all I can think about is this guy. I was in a bit of an art slump but now I have a new muse. I need to draw this guy I need to make crafts I need to write about him. it’s kinda joever for me. but also I Think It’s Good to have a new fixation so I do not fall into ennui.
hadestown: the musical (pro shoot)
AAAAAHHHHH YESSSS YESSSSSSS!!! MORE OF THIS AND LESS ADAPTING MUSICALS INTO MOVIES!!! I have seen hadestown on broadway before and I was really really excited to see the proshoot. the cinematography was so good. and a little known fact about me is that I. am really attached to the mythos of orpheus and eurydice. no reason.
the blacktongue thief
a pick for one of my horror book clubs that actually wasn’t? very horror forward? but I kinda dgaf because the story was exactly my vibe. I really do like morally grey characters and how. grungy? the setting was for lack of a better word. like I thought I was picky about fantasy novels but really I think I just need to seek out more dark fantasy stuff. I love the tone in this a lot and I immediately put the prequel to this book on hold after finishing it
august plans
august! what a concept! for the most part my august goals are just continuing on things that… i started in july. working on cleaning out my PC files, working on cleaning my letterboxd watchlist. in august for sure I will write a blog post running through all the submissions to this years ghost jam. I also am working on two ukagaka projects this month. one is a project hosted by kipali, which is taking inspiration from the game of telephone. participating devs write dialogue chains for a ghost based purely on the previous part of the chain. there’s also this years aughost, an event where prompts are released daily for you to write new things for your ghosts off of. I am actually writing for three sort of new projects this time around…? unfortunately since flowery hysteria has gripped me for a month I’m writing dialogue for an eventual flowery ghost. there’s also thoughtful replies (the ghost I worked on for ghost jam) and a remake of my Very First Ghost (aurora.exe) I am cycling around in my head.
still picking at job applications, still working on game dev. very slow progress but still progress… I am happy to be moving forward even if progress is slow. see y’all next month :+)