It's been a while, huh. I've been having a... perhaps not "bad" semester, but "mixed-success" semester. And part of that is that I've been kind of... well, you know that tumblr post that's like "filling up all of your time with books, fanfic, youtube, social media, podcasts, music, to prevent the chance of a single thought occurring in your head"? Yeah, that's kinda been me. Which makes it remarkable that I have managed to do some stuff! But I've just overall been very averse to... spending any significant time thinking. And thus my journalling habits (both here and in my private journals) have fallen by the wayside.

So, I'm trying to fix that.

My academics are... ahem... [insert "*chuckles* I'm in danger" meme]. Well, two of my classes are basically fine. The third class is the one I'm in danger of failing due to missed work. The professor is very lenient and will let me turn in most of my assignments absurdly late; I just have to scrape myself together enough to actually do that. Which will be my next goal after I finish writing this. This class is unfortunately vital to my degree; I need to make a C in order to take the next and final course in the sequence in the fall. Which I am also excited to take, because one of my favorite professors is teaching it and a friend from last semester is taking it as well! I really don't want to lose that opportunity... or delay my graduation till Spring 23 T_T.

I've also managed to connect with some classmates of mine, at least in a "sit together in class, walk to next class, and (in one case) eat lunch together" way, which is nice. I've also joined a student organization for the first time since freshman year; a few of the aforementioned classmates are officers there, so I knew some people in the org already. It's nice.

I mentioned last year that I've been greatly enjoying wearing long skirts. This has continued and I am very happy with them (and keep buying more, oops); I feel cute and fashionable for color-coordinating a t-shirt with a skirt, and people compliment my outfits too, which is nice. On top of that, I've started painting my nails. It's turned out to be the only thing that has ever stopped me from biting/picking at my nails, and they're also colorful & shiny & smooth; overall, quite satisfying.

Finally, last month I knuckled down and made an appointment to be prescribed HRT, which happened last week; then today I picked up my prescription and was instructed on how to self-inject T. It was easier than I thought it would be; well, the preparation stuff is kind of fiddly and I'm nervous I'll fuck it up in the future, but the actual injection part was fine.

I think that covers most of it, so I suppose now I'll return to overdue homework. Hope y'all are doing well!

in 6th grade, my world cultures teacher really wanted to be a world geography teacher instead. there were a lot of maps in that class. one day, she gave us all clementines and markers, and had us draw an approximation of the Earth's continents on the clementine, like it was a globe. then she had us try to peel the clementines such that the removed peel was still all in one piece, to demonstrate the difficulty of mapping the globe onto a flat map.

ever since then i've tried to peel clementines/mandarins/etc all in one piece. i've been having clementines at lunch every day for the last few weeks, and that lesson in 6th grade comes to mind from time to time.

school's been going... okay, i think. i'm holding on in my Japanese language class; the way the class is structured is different from what i'm used to, but i think i'm figuring it out. (though i did have a crisis the other week and started morosely wondering if i would have to become an English major instead. this would be unideal because, while i am currently an English minor, being an English major requires quite a few more classes. so, no, i'm sticking with Japanese.)

my other classes are better; lots of discussion, which is good because if i'm confident in a subject (so, not Japanese) then i will not fucking shut up. love earning those sweet participation points.

all my classes moved to in-person about two weeks ago, and that's been fine, mostly. almost everyone in my classes masks during class (i say "almost" because last wednesday i did see someone not masking in my English class :/), but i do see a lot of people not masking in libraries, study areas, and other public indoor areas that aren't classrooms. so that's :/ and i wish my uni would implement a mask mandate (it's texas, and the uni is more spineless than dozens of public school districts, so :/)

the university does offer and encourage free testing, so i've been getting tested once a week, which helps give me peace of mind.

writing-wise, i ended up picking up a late pinch hit for my own Big Bang, which has become my longest work ever by a long shot. it'll be... around 27k when it's finished. void willing i will finish it in the next day or two because i need it to be done. (it was technically supposed to be finished over a week ago, by the rules of my own event, but my co-mod gave me leniency due to it being a late pinch hit. still. i'm a little >.> at myself :p.) i need it off my plate so i can work on my Fic In A Box assignments, which (because i got an extension) are due in a week.

at least the Big Bang fic will actually completely make up my GYWO deficit. (GYWO is getyourwordsout, a year-long writing challenge; i signed up to write 75k this year and was like, 25k behind where i should be before i got started on the BB fic. so between the BB, ficinabox, and highadrenalineexchange, i think i will actually complete my GYWO pledge this year, for the first time since i joined GYWO in 2018. assuming, of course, that i do complete Fic in a Box and Heart Attack.

modding a Big Bang (the Rigel Black Big Bang) this summer was interesting. it was my first time modding a bang, and i'm grateful my co-mod Rime was there to help; i don't think i would ever want to mod one alone, lol. it's like, one part spreadsheets, one part forms, one part emails, and one part hunting people down to make them fill out forms and talk to their partners.

the spreadsheets and forms were my co-mod's job, we shared the emails, and then i was the primary person badgering people about forms. which was a tad... uh... [pterodactyl screeching], at times. but overall it was pretty rewarding, seeing all the fic and art that was made for it! and even me taking that late pinch hit (which basically ended up being a Reverse Big Bang, where you write a fic to match the art — in this case it was an animatic (!!)) has been very rewarding, i just gotta finish it!

ok, dad has requested to play a board game (Azul Summer Pavilion), so i'm gonna go do that, and then after i have three things left to do today:

-study for my Japanese test tomorrow
-creative assignment for my Japanese Literature class
-write

hope y'all are doing well!