I've actually been fairly on top of my emails, and I've been doing well in my job interviews, so it just means that I'm doing a lot of what I need to do.

Now admittedly.

Still falling short in lots of places.

But I'm mostly on top of things.

I'm even finding the time to do a little bit of extra.

Granted, the extra I focused on was the most worthless of the extras I could focus on. There's no way to make the Civ 3 mod be useful, but I've done a lot of work there. I've still got a lot of work to do. Resource tweak, terrain tweak to accommodate said resource tweak, creating all the units with initial parameters, creating all the buildings with initial parameters, creating/modifying the wonders with initial parameters, adding in the new governments and tweaking the existing ones, doing the entire tech tree, and after having done all of that:
Retweak civilization starting techs, retweak resource requirements, set the unit final parameters, set the building final parameters, set the wonder final parameters, and set the final government parameters.

After all of that? Then I can start building the map.

Is a lot of work to do, especially the map, which will basically be made on the fly, from scratch, by feel, with me "feeling" what is appropriate by having the land masses of each scenario before me and me making approximations of it. (I've tried to build a map before but I was a bit too rigorous and scientific with my approach. An approach that relies more on feeling is better in my opinion. Also, that was for a base-8-civ version of the modified-Rise-of-Rome so each civ had a lot more than they should have, being a bit too cumbersome. By dividing the civs up more appropriately I get things to be more manageable.)

Another bonus thing to do is to check each civ's city/leader names to make sure that I didn't include them multiple times (probably gonna use a word counter that can check for word frequency for that), but that's a lower priority thing.

​Anyway feeling pretty good right now.

I'm fairly certain I've left an unfavorable impression on every single job position I'm interviewing for as a lifeguard. Still, though, in spite of this, I still have interviews lined up meaning I'm not a total disaster. Just, 90% a disaster.

I've also slacked on health stuff, quite badly so in fact.

And while I've kept pace with most daily stuff.

I'm, mostly: not focusing on the right things.

Granted, the things I'm focused on are mostly things that can be productive.

For the mafia site I play mafia on, I am 95% done with creating a, repeatable, adjustable, setup which combines aspects of the Town of Us mod and the Other Roles mod in Among Us, along with a cameo role from Project Winter (Identity Thief) and some local spice from roles common on the mafia site itself.

As this is a setup that could be run by anyone, adjusted/modified as they please, so that's not a waste of time. It's actually a worthy endeavor. It's probably the most productive thing I could do from the list. Which is saying something rather unflattering.

The other thing I am working on is Castle 4-0 in minecraft. I'm actually considering, when not faced with job interviews every single day, streaming me building it more. Which would be productive technically speaking. Beyond that, if I ever did complete my work on Castle 4-0, I could port it over into a minecraft world, provided I have the funds to do so.

And then open that server up for others to play around in. That'd be productive.

I've done a fair amount of Epic Battle Fantasy 5 farming--fun, but pointless, albeit technically working towards steam achievements. (Which isn't nothing but isn't much of anything.)

​But by far the least productive of the things I'm working on.
Would be another go at a Civilization 3 mod.

Another go at a modified Rise of Rome scenario. But also incorporating other scenarios in:
A little bit of the ancient Mesopotamia scenario, and having all the eight civs (Rome, Carthage, Persia, Greece, Egypt, Goths, Celts, 'Hordes') from Rise, but also having key civilizations from other scenarios: Turks, Russians, Germans, English, French, Spain, Portugal, and Vikings (for 16 total).

I have the tech tree, approximate technology, approximate units/buildings, etc. all more or less figured out.

The main thing to do would be to build the map.

Which would be something done a little bit by feel; I'd need to make room for two cities that are in the same location, to not be in the same location, as to allow those cities to have two different owners. (Key example of this: Londinium for Rome, but London for England.) I'd keep the approximate loose topography of the areas for all areas, but I'd need to play it largely by feel in order to get it right.

This amounts to a gigantic waste of time.

​But I still want to make it...

I've been adulting every day. I've had nonstop interviews, emails, calls, scheduling, etc. literally every day this week. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I will continue to have it tomorrow on Sunday and again on Monday, with more to probably follow.

On the other hand I've also lost a lot of time, slipped on personal hygiene, blogging, etc., by barely staying afloat in most other fields.

Granted, still done stuff, just...not the stuff I need to keep doing.

Yes I realize it's 3 am, what better time to start adulting than in the prime time for me when I am awake, have energy, am not too sluggish, am not too tired, am fulfilled, don't have much else on my mind, and am mostly thinking of what needs to be done before tomorrow?

Anyway. I do have a lot on my mind and a lot to do.

For medical stuff, I still need to return one test that I haven't done yet. I want to not make the trip be for just one thing though so I also want to accomplish some shopping. Things I want:
-Therapeutic Gloves and/or wrist immobilizer
-Chokers
-Thigh bands
-some form of Bra fill
-completing makeup kit.

Therapeutic gloves and/or a wrist immobilizer are due to how my right wrist keeps on flaring up, specifically at the wrist, right on the bend joint on the side. Pinkie-side rather than thumb side. This is a recurring issue, not new. It is also something that has a fairly obvious culprit: spending 16 hours a day in front of the computer using the mouse.

Basically confirming the source of the issue is how on days that I use mouse-intensive games, it is much much worse than on days that I use games that mix keyboard and mouse or are just keyboard or don't use the mouse basically at all.

Games like Epic Battle Fantasy 5 and Minecraft (both have a ton of repetitive clicking) tend to wreck my wrist, whereas games like Chrono Trigger (controller), League (half-half) and Stardew Valley (mostly keyboard with only a little mouse) seem to not agitate the, for lack of a better term, injury.

It's almost certainly a repetitive motion injury of some kind. Minor, but something that I deliberately need to force measures into place to mitigate and prevent from getting worse. I find that quite often, I need to alternate days for games that I play. If I play a click-intensive game I almost always need to wait one day or else face it getting worse.

I also try to elevate my elbow to match the elevation of my wrist. Right now my chair is up extra high, sacrificing some of the mobility I get from it being lower, just so that I have the armrest of the chair level with the keyboard where the mouse is, so that they're aligned, allowing for less necessary wrist movements.

I also pull out the keyboard so that there's less motion needed as when the keyboard is fully in, that requires a lot more motion, especially side-side motion which hurts a hell of a lot more than up-down (thus, extra-important to limit).

But these countermeasures are proving insufficient. I want to be able to game what I want, when I want, and not have the worry of wrist injury worsening. I looked up possible measures to counter this and found out about therapeutic gloves and also found a video from a professional who gave a quick fix of sorts that, while not 100% effective, should be basically 100% safe.

Basically, taking a single strip of electric tape wrapped once (not twice or more) around the wrist, to help immobilize it but not cut off circulation. I did give a minor modification (the video was applying it to bare skin, I applied it over my love), but while my modification means slightly less accuracy, it still seems to do what was promised. My wrist mobility is by my estimation halved. Not immobile, but still limited from the extremes, which is what I need. Plus, if I feel a tug, that's a reminder.

It's still a stopgap measure though. This DIY might help, and the exercise shown in the video may be useful, but there's still some sort of nerve, tendon, or something that feels strained and I need a better measure to prevent worsening of the injury.

On other might-require-doctor news, when the doctor drew blood for tests, it left my arm sore--normal, right? What's not normal is how a week or two later, there's still notable discoloration (many icky green spots) marking what is undeniably a bunch of very very obvious bruising in the area. I get the impression that is not the norm.

I'm glad that I don't have any lasting damage from my physical section of the interview, though. I made the mistake of drinking water while changing into my swimwear, as I knew I was already dehydrated. By the end of the physical in-water section, my legs were absolutely dead-tired, my head was spinning, I was lightheaded, terrified I would pass out, collapse, that I wouldn't be able to stand.

My legs felt like lead, I did indeed struggle to stand, I struggled to carry my bag to the changing room (and couldn't carry anything except the bag), every step I could have fallen over due to the imbalance I was feeling, and I basically ran into the changing room, heavily nauseous and exhausted and ready to collapse.

And then, the urge to vomit hit. At first I suppressed it, because I really didn't want to vomit, but ultimately, I gave in, and after vomiting a little bit of the water out (that's all there was to vomit), I felt good enough to take a cleansing shower. I wasn't 100%, but I was still passable.

Until I got out of the shower and collapsed again, the urge to vomit overtaking me once more. This time I didn't resist, and the rest of the water I had drank came up. But then, I realized something. Once all of the water had been removed from me...all of my symptoms just went away. No lead-weighted feet. No spinning head. No dizziness. No lightheadedness. I felt not only normal, but great. I felt arguably better than I had before the water testing.

Well, the lining between my stomach and my throat wasn't good, it burnt from the acidic vomit, that was disgusting, but physically and mentally I was great. Lesson learned; drinking water before physically exerting yourself is a very very bad idea and WILL screw you over. Had I not drank that water, I'd have been much better off and wouldn't have spent 5-10 minutes vomiting. (Thankfully, the vomiting wasn't seen by the people interviewing me, as I imagine that wouldn't look promising for me to be able to do the physical aspects of the job. However, I feel like they could maybe at least understand that it was due to a mistake on my part of drinking water, but it'd still suck to explain that to them at the time.)

On that note. In further work news.

The interview I was meant to have today never happened.
I need to check on that and ask why, see if there was some form of mishap there. My own phone never rang. Other phones did, my mother's and our home phone, but my father answered the home phone and hung up so it couldn't have been that as the call.

I also need to follow through on the interview I had earlier since they got my corrected email.

Work to do, references to collect, busy busy times.

I did good on my job interview, received validation of my gender identity, and got a lot done.
I think that's a good start!

Now granted.

Still got more to do and tomorrow I have another interview.

Butstill.

​Progress! Lots of it!

In my defense: I have been busy. I've got three interviews that I scheduled today which will be over the course of the week. I had a dentist appointment today, too. All in all, it's a very very very good thing to keep busy on. Health stuff and work stuff.

Granted.

It's gonna suck.

Early times getting up almost every day this week, along with a ridiculously long drive for the in person interview.

But it needs to be done and I want to do it.

I want to keep moving forward in my life.

I would say "in my defense, I have been busy" doing a lot of things, which is true!
...But mostly the lack of blogs has been pure sheer nasty depression sticking its ugly face out and taking control of my life.

I am however, trying to fight back. It's not an overnight process where I will suddenly magically have a fix for everything, but I'm working on it, trying to get more and more on top of it. I've actually done a ton of stuff, gathering makeup supplies, shopping, etc. But I've got a lot more work to do.

I started with a list of activities, divided up into one-time things, daily/weekly things, and additional/optional things on top of those, and then added in a need to remember login information for various different important things.

So far, this is what I've got;


ONE-TIME THINGS:
-Catch up on emails
-Do tax stuff
-Regain access to any sites I need to (at least one but see below)
-Restart unemployment (I messed up by not doing it so need to restart it)
-Seek psychologist (so that I can begin transition)
-Pursue namechange
-Finish makeup collection

DAILY/WEEKLY THINGS:
-Shave (daily for face)
-Comb hair (do with shave)
-Makeup (daily once I've got the supplies)
-Shower 3-4x / week + change (Monday, Wednesday, Friday?)
-Dental Hygiene (2x/day)
-Unemployment once restarted (weekly?)
-Shave (chest Wed, legs Fri, arms Mon)
-Pills once gotten (at prescribed time/method/etc.)
-Checking email (daily+)

ADDITIONAL DAILY THINGS:
-Once on pills, exercise:
*Daily: jackknives/crunches alternating
(start 10, increase by 5/week up to 100)
*Knuckle Pushups Monday / Wednesday / Friday
(start 5, increase by 1/week up to 100)
(use corset or similar for back form)
*Squats Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday
(start 10, increase by 2/week up to 100)
*Walk/Jog/Run;
Walk 1 mile/day, increase by 1 mile/week;
After up to 5, add jog for 1 mile on top of walk (6 total);
After 5 jog + 5 walk, add 1 mile run;
Max out at 15 miles / day

BONUS ADDITIONAL/OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES IN A DAY (Possible activities):
-League of Legends
-Teamfight Tactics
-TFT Hyper-roll
-Chrono Trigger
-Stardew Valley
-Epic Battle Fantasy 5
-Minecraft
-Art
*Finish self-portrait
*Finish Elemental Ruby
-Phyrra and Cyrus (scriptwork, songwriting)
-Job Search

-Storywriting (the below are stories I have a recent desire to work on)
*Coat
*The Bandit Seven (supervillain/"hero")
*Vetra (superhero/villain)
*The supervillain trio story
*Threadripper and Kinesis (supervillain) story
*Requiem (supervillain)
*Projection (superhero + supervillain) story
*Heroes 4 Hire (superhero)



ACCOUNTS I NEED ACCESS TO:
(I probably should not list these publicly even on a blog nobody reads so, uh...there's a bunch here just not to be listed)

So that's what I've done.

It's not enough, but it's at least a good start.

...But as it is quite late and I am doing this after a night where I streamed (there's usually a good reason I don't blog on days that I stream--I get so tired when streaming that I usually go straight to bed after streaming), my thoughts are not as coherent as is ideal.

I feel like I should mention some of my mystical beliefs.

I've always been a believer in more of the spiritual side of stuff. I have my own beliefs, so I don't blindly believe in all of the (as the streamer I watch defines it) "woo woo" stuff, but a fair amount of the witchy things that I watch from this streamer I put a great deal of stock behind, including her tarot readings, whenever they resonate with me.

The tarot readings basically told me that I needed to apply for the jobs, which I did yesterday.

But they also gave me hints that streaming Chrono Trigger tonight was a good idea, and the universe aligned to make it so; there was nobody online that I wanted to watch, no professional game of League of Legends I considered a must-watch, I had done everything I needed to do in the day, so it all lined up and felt good to do.

Streaming is fun to me, even if the possibility of monetizing streams is a one in a million probably-impossible dream...but there's multiple reasons that I feel like doing it even if it isn't a viable career.

The first is that streaming might allow me to connect in other areas. Streaming isn't exclusive to games. It also covers art, even writing! And, yes, even talking about things! It allows me to talk about passions tonight, for instance, tonight I touched upon my first-ever story that I began writing! Even if streaming isn't the key to my future, it could serve as a tool to help me key in to my future.

A stream could end up helping me focus on a project, a story, help talk about it, get it more tangible. A stream could connect me to people. A stream could help me find people to make projects of mine I am passionate about come to reality.

The second is that streaming helps me relate to streamers I watch. Watching streamers eats up a significant portion of my life. Every waking minute, I have at least one stream, often two (sometimes even three!), in the background. And in those communities, most of the people I am close to, some who could maybe be worth calling 'friends' (not sure if they call me friends and I'm not sure if I am objectively close enough to them to be worthy of that title but I would call them friends), are also streamers.

By streaming myself, I get to better understand their own experiences with streaming. So that when they talk about it, I know what they mean from experience myself, so that I can relate to them better. It allows me to connect with them more, talk with them more, interact with them more, from a perspective that is more knowledgeable than that of someone who hasn't streamed.

​The third is that streaming is actually amazing practice at just talking. I am not the most competent at talking, but I am getting better and better at it...via streaming. Streaming is actually teaching me how to talk, a skill I had lost from a year of quarantine where talking was kept to a minimum. Streaming to help me prepare for the outside world would be reason enough to stream, but there's more!

The fourth is that streaming allows me to practice other good practices, too. Streaming is giving me practice at managing social media. Streaming is giving me practice at social networking. Streaming is giving me practice at basically...well, being able to manage my life and aspects of it. These skills should, if I keep practicing them (and I do so every time I stream!) translate to any future endeavors of mine.

If I ever write something.

Whenever I make art.

The practices I am practicing on streaming, translate to those things.

It could even be a key for me creating a passion project like Phyrra and Cyrus! After all...if I am actively networking and keeping folks updated, the skills I am practicing now could translate into managing updates on a passion project and keeping it going, showing it off, etc.

But fifth and finally?

Streaming's just fun to do. Even if nobody shows up, even if I am talking to the air. I wouldn't do something I didn't genuinely enjoy. I think that I could actually be good at streaming, so if I could make money from it eventually, that would be cool! But, inherently, that would just be a bonus. It would be an extra. Even if I wasn't good at streaming, even if I never make money from streaming, even if streaming never helped me out?

It wouldn't need to.

Because streaming is just fun for me. And do I really need any other reason than that to stream? It's fun. It's relaxing. It's something I genuinely enjoy. After all, I am playing games in my spare time anyway; when I've the ability to, why not stream it as well? I wouldn't stop playing Chrono Trigger if I wasn't streaming, after all, but if I am playing it I may as well stream some of it.

This has actually gotten me to talk to someone at least once! I think twice, actually. Me being me, I didn't do nearly as much talking as is ideal so the folks I talked to probably lost interest in me, but hey, it was still nice to talk to them about a game I am passionate about, and that is something that I can't do while playing the game and not streaming.

I can talk about a game I am passionate about when not playing it. Say on a forum, on a discord, in a twitch chat (not that twitch chat talks have any permanence), you get the idea. I can play a game I am passionate about when not talking about it. But the only way to do both at the same time is to stream it. (Or record it, but same basic principle.)

And talking about games I am passionate about while playing them is fun. I enjoy myself a lot.

​I think I had more non-streaming stuff to talk about but I can't remember. This should suffice for a blog tonight tho.

I sent in my job application to every single YMCA in my county.

I'm not sure if doing so is redundant, but rather than assuming one application specifying my ideal location would apply for them all, I was rather safe than sorry and sent in an application to all of them.

I'm...probably going to miss a lot of phone calls in the near future which mayyyyy screw me over, since my phone is currently in an entirely different room than the one I sleep in, but hopefully with luck I can respond to any interview requests and such.

I'm not quite on top of everything, but hey. Much much closer, and huge progress is progress!

Still not the best at home though given the continued misgendering and deadnaming but that was to be expected and it's not the worst case scenario I had feared so...better than what it could be.

All in all, I may not have taken control of my life yet but I'm on my way​ to having done so.

Not a joke, if you believe in tarot cards I had literally like 3 consecutive readings tonight which all said basically the same thing:

"Bree, you should be doing the job applications."

I have not done the job applications.

I have explained previously that the entire universe was lining up to give me the time, the chance, to do so--nothing for me to read, me having done daily stuff, nothing for me to play, being bored, it being way too early to go to sleep, etc. Instead I did nothing, stalling until I had an opportunity to stream.

Now, granted!

Streaming is not a bad thing! It is an incredibly good thing! It is something I may have a future in. But streaming is, explicitly: not something you go into full-time from the onset, from the getgo. You go fulltime on streaming if and only if you have grown to be able to be supported by it, which is...a long-shot. You need to get affiliate, get a bunch of subs, get a bunch of bits, get a constant stream of donations, grow your userbase, etc. Most people? Can't do it. The ones who do usually have viewer counts in the hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands.

I'm lucky to get one.

I realize that I need to do my research. I don't know what to research exactly, but I know that if I want to be successful as a content creator, I do need to do exactly that, the research.

I realize that it's not impossible--but even with research, even if I do everything right, it takes a lot of luck. Luck, research, connections, smart decision making, etc. I've currently got none of those. So it's a long, hard road, it's a big fight, it's something that I will need to dedicate serious time to.

So!

Given that the chance to succeed is like. One in a thousand.

I literally need the stable income of a normal job. It may not be my final path. I will be, ultimately, creating something. I will create stuff. Streams, art, stories, something, my final life job will not be just a part-time job.

But until such a time as I can get the big money in that dream job type area.

I need to be pragmatic and sustain myself on the normal job area.

And I'm not doing so yet.

Which makes me a complete idiot.

I had the time, I had the chance, I had the opportunity.

I didn't take it so I am stupid.

​I need to get it done; why is it so hard for me to actually do???