The hardest part was the written exam. Otherwise, the whole thing played out like an extended, much longer, more personal (thanks to small size of the class) staff meeting would. Just, basic skills review--nothing too terribly hard. What was hard, is that this wasn't at my home facility. It was at an old facility, with two locker rooms: men, and women. No unisex bathrooms (an issue because holding it the entire time wasn't viable), and no changing room, not even a stall. Nothing, except...an open locker.

​Worst ten minutes of my life, essentially.

And I can't help but be bothered by how gendered so much of the assistance language is. "Do this for her". "Do this for him". It's one thing if there's a medical need to differentiate between males and females. (Which in some ways there can be, but not many.) And yet, while I've heard like, maybe one or two "him or her"s done, that should be every time, or alternatively, the perfectly acceptable singular 'them'.

"Do this to them". "Do this to him or her". How hard would it be for them to make the entire video be gender neutral? That'd be arguably better anyway, because emergencies tend not to be gender-specific, so using gendered language to train for an emergency scenario just makes no sense to me.

It's something that just...bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I know it might sound like a minor gripe to other people, but this is actually a pretty big, significant thing. Would that be too much to ask? For them to be more inclusive? They include so many age ranges in these trainings yet have those generally be generic--why not keep gender generic too?

And that was certainly something.
It was...definitely something.

​Family night, so not much in the way of talking here.

Rather, I wish I was as awesome an artist as I am in my mind's eye. I got this absolutely stunning image in my mind. Almost photogenic in how clear it is, of D.D., you know, from Red Hood Rider, in the most wonderful of poses. She's riding a motorcycle one-handed, and in her spare hand she has an upgraded behemoth blade: one which is able to melt/cut through anything because it's basically a laser sword, except it can still set off chain reactions of the mini-nuke and is ridiculously light.

...Incidentally, this also taught me more about her. I've known for a while she's ambidextrous, even though she has a strong preference for her right hand. But I didn't know she had a love of motorcycles until today. I knew she loved music, sure, but her being a bit of a gearhead surprised me; I thought music was her main thing, but this? This felt like it was her hobby. Music might be a passion of hers, but her hobby has to be this.

This also told me she got an upgrade to the behemoth blade. Did not know she was going to get that. And yet, she totally did. It even is a natural extension of her own power: I realized that with enough training, she could upon physical touch with an object, melt right through it. Because basically everything has a melting point, if you go hot enough--and as the elemental rider of fire, she could focus heat that's hot enough to cut through it. Sort of like welding, when you think about it. Something that can fuse stuff together, sure, but can also cut straight through.

And her upgraded behemoth blade? Just a natural extension of that power, increasing its range from point-blank to big-ass-sword's-length. And this all makes perfect sense. It flows. It fits. It seems like it's something that was always there, even though I never knew about it until today.

​Things like this are why I love being a creator. I'm constantly learning more about my worlds every day.

My kitten finally got her cone of shame off, so she is being ridiculously energetic--as in...leaping feet in the air, doing flips and general acrocatics, with leaps and bounds and sprints faster and greater than she did even a month ago, prior to the cone. She's just so...happy. But also, needy. And grooming a lot. And demanding attention a lot. And generally being very very very cute.

In an unrelated note, dance was canceled tonight. So instead, I'm home now. Not so happy about the cancellation, but not much I can really do about it. It did give me a realization, though. A while back, I talked about gloves, and how they can serve to be power amplifiers or power nullifiers, and I think I figured out how they could be both: basically, a good power nullifier isn't so much removing the energy entirely so much as it is blocking it and slowly absorbing it safely. That block/absorb nature of it rather than removal means that a nullifier with only the slightest of modifications becomes an amplifier, because it goes from blocking the energy to efficiently channeling it.

I don't really have much to say other than that, though. I am in the middle of planning a ridiculously cool concept which is similar to Gistou, in that it will be a purely storytelling thing. I'm flat-out building an entire world, with a full mythology behind it. And I want full immersion, full enjoyment, for people to really get into the world and the setting, while still having fun and enjoying themselves in a game.

I learned that a teacher of mine who I really enjoyed the classes of died last week. He was a really awesome guy, incredibly knowledgeable about everything nature, and could easily get students invested--really invested--in classes. He had an amazing personality, was an incredible teacher, and you actually learned really really well in his classes. He was a real inspiration to me.

In fact, one of my staple novels was started largely because of him. He got me into nature in the first place, which spawned my interest in all the myriad of abilities that could be granted from it. Basically every story I've ever written involving animals or plants (which means any geomancy), which is a LOT of stories, can trace their origin back to my interest in nature which he sparked.

I was also as I was heading out the door for tae kwon do asked to do a task I'd normally do during work. I really didn't want to do it, and so, I...basically had to lie, and say, I needed to get home in a hurry, when...I really didn't. It's just that. That wasn't something I should ever have to do, not even during work. A gender-based task.

I felt bad for refusing, but I would feel worse if I did it, and I shouldn't have to feel bad at all and yet here I am.

And it was a good one, too!
Basically, it revolved around a female protagonist. She was married, and had kids. (Don't know how many, at least three, maybe more.) At some point, thanks to the frustrations/stress in her daily life, she decided to write a book under a pseudonym.

This book, while containing many metaphors, ended up coincidentally having themes which were identical to events which would soon play out around the world. Namely, the fact that the world was, itself, ending. Humanity managed to survive by going into space, but not nearly as many people as planned could actually be saved. She and her family were among them, for the most part, but her daughter (at least one daughter), another major character, died from an infection of a supernatural disease.

This disease, in fact, wiped out half the planned population and risked destroying the entire fleet. Yet it was eventually put to a stop, and humanity managed to escape into the stars. And here's the thing. Her book ended up being taken as scripture. By some force in play, she was empowered, becoming a superhero. She could take normal human form, but she also had this ethereal form, the form of a goddess interacting on the mortal plain.

And more and more, with people beginning to believe in her, her powers and strength grew, to the point where she could save people from disasters, perform miracles, and also, knew when every human on the fleet was about to die. She would be able to go to them, at the moment they were to perish, and offer her warm embrace. (Assuming she allowed them to die, as sometimes she would intervene and say, "No. You could die today, but I am telling you it is not your time yet. Go live the rest of your life.")

It was a bunch of random stuff, but somehow, it blended together and actually worked to tell an interesting, fascinating narrative. That's the type of dream I love to have. (Especially since it had a female protagonist, and a mother no less. That's incredibly rare in my dreams. As in, this is the first dream I've ever had with a mother as the featured protagonist, rare.)

Not nearly enough time.
Right now, waiting for my supper to be finished (spaghetti, yum!), but there's a ton of stuff that I have to do today. A lot of mafia stuff. A lot of real-life stuff. Just. Lots and lots and lots of stuff. I also was told that I need to make money--more than normal. Because apparently my limited (basically zero) expenses are still actually outweighing my income.

Stress in life.
Very high.
Very very high.

I mean, it's good in some ways, horrendously awful in others.
Got work to do.
​Lots and lots of it.

...In my defense, I had a staff meeting?

Really was a screw-up on my part, though.

Speaking of which, I should probably get to bed soon. I'm not going to be able to say much as a result. Let's just say, though, that I'm doing it again. I had previously made an ambitious project in the form of Gistou. Now I'm going to try and one-up it with something even better and even crazier and yet more refined.

It's insane enough it might actually work. But it'll be a lot of effort on my part, since unlike Gistou, this one I'm very largely winging it.

Really don't. You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but no. I've got less than an hour to do daily work with no a clue how to actually go about doing it. Worse, family night serves as a distraction. So, uh. Well, I'm here, supposed to be doing stuff, I'll do stuff as I can, yeah.

​Really a pathetic entry here, but it's the best I can offer you at the moment, apologies.