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[FORUM GAME SUBMISSIONS] A Day in Your Real Life Submissions Thread
A Day in Your Real Life
Submissions Thread Instructions

Create an entry for Tamshir’s “A Day in the Life” journal. 

  • Your entry should represent a typical day in your real life.
  • Your entry can depict the day through pictures, drawings, writing, or other forms of media.  If you are using pictures/drawings, add commentary to them. Describe what’s happening, what you/your character was thinking, or anything else that is relevant!
  • Your entry should minimally include:
    • Description/depiction of the location
    • Something about you
    • Morning* routine (activities, foods, sights, thoughts, etc.)
    • Afternoon* routine (activities, foods, sights, thoughts, etc.)
    • Night* routine (activities, foods, sights, thoughts, etc.)

*Some playersmay not keep a typical morning/noon/night schedule, and that’s okay!  Break it down into a similar format — beginning of your day, middle of your day, end of your day.

Important Note:  Keep internet safety in mind as you create entries about your real life.  We recommend being cautious about references to personal information, specific locations like your home address or unique business names, and using photos that include other people.  Some workplaces may also have rules against photography, so make sure you aren’t doing anything against policy while creating your entries.

A Day in Your Life: Submissions Thread Instructions
Examples
A Day in the Life of a Volunteer

My weekdays involve small children, sheer chaos, and a certain amount of internal screaming, so rather than subject anyone to that I’m going to ramble about my weekend volunteering instead. As a note: this is a general overview. There are some set tasks/routines, but you never quite know what you’re going to be doing until you’re there and doing it. Oh, and photo quality varies because they were taken with three different cameras…

 



For starters: mornings are evil. They start at 5:30am and basically consist of me staggering around having breakfast, getting showered/dressed, making lunch, and flopping face-first on the bed a few times (not necessarily in that order). I love volunteering, but there’s usually a ‘whyyyy do I dooooo thiiiiiis’ moment tucked in there, which probably isn’t that surprising given that almost all of my days start something like this:


Reaally not a morning person…
Image © Pixar

 

Still, one way or another I somehow manage to wrestle on my boots, remember my bag, and get out to the car, at which point the brain pretty much gives up for a while. Luckily I have a very lovely mother who gets up specifically to drive me to the bird of prey centre (driving lessons are…on the to-do list…) so I don’t need to worry about, you know, staying focused. Unfortunately she also has a knack for hitting ‘bubbly, chatty, and far too happy’ within about ten minutes of waking up, which is….not the best combination for someone who still isn’t even remotely human after a couple of hours |:

But! We always make it there in one piece, without any arguments, and with only a slightly dazed me, so it’s all good. I’m also pretty well awake by the time I walk into the centre (at about 8:30), which is essential if I want to survive the Labradors. Not that they’re unfriendly! In fact, one of them can be too enthusiastic…

 


Four of the Labs – right before the fifth appeared and nearly flattened me.

 

Once I’ve navigated the Labs, signed in, and picked up a radio, it’s time to find a member of staff! This is mostly to have a ‘hi I’m here—how’re things?’ at this point, since I’ve been volunteering more than long enough now to know that the first job is almost inevitably The Water Baths. This is technically a simple job, and made slightly less painful by the existence of a cleaning rota (I’m pretty sure it would be humanly impossible to get all the baths cleaned in one day), but it can still take 45mins to an hour and a half+, depending on how bad/big the baths are and how many are in need of scrubbing (minimum is eight, but there are usually far more). This is not including putting them back in their respective aviaries and refilling them, which for most blocks takes maybe 10-15 minutes, tops.

Why?

Hoses. They are a wonderful invention. Although sometimes we still have to use watering cans…

 


Real (Ree-al) the Andean Condor, for whom bath-cleaning is a two+ man job. Because
someone needs to distract her from the hatch whilst the bath is removed/returned,  or she
will try to take your hand off…

 

Sometimes things start a little differently, though! If there are fewer staff around and it’s warm enough then I might be asked to help open the working bird compartments and put some of the smaller birds (aka: those that aren’t eagles) out on the lawn for the day, which is a great opportunity to a: get up close, and b: use the falconers knot / safeties. Alternatively, I might find the volunteer coordinator (and/or another member of staff) in the bird hospital, and get to watch her tend to a wild-injured bird: something that often leads to some impromptu teaching, and occasionally involves me holding a bird for her whilst she treats/checks it.

Of course, if I’m in there already then there’s a good chance the day’s cleaning will start with hospital ‘boxes’ (a better name might be ‘pens’) instead of baths, in which case it’s time to fetch their light blue bucket/brush and literally climb into a box. Because I am small and they are deep and that is the only way I can easily reach the backs of them >_>

Alternatively I might be put straight on to aviary cleaning – another big job, since only a fraction of the centre’s birds are tethered, and then only whilst they are on the flying team. Aviaries are on the same rota as the baths (partly because of the number, and partly to limit stress), and given a ‘light’ clean on a weekly basis. That means raking, sieving, and re-spreading the sand, scrubbing food ledges (if they have one), and scrubbing perches (if they need doing and the birds are calm enough). Hard work, but means being close to the birds and can lead to some…interesting moments.

 


This girl clobbered me about five minutes after this photo was taken. Why? I wasn’t giving her enough attention…


This boy once stole my scrubbing cloth, and had to be caught by a member of staff before he’d give it up.


He just sits quietly and watches, like any good bird should.


No matter how the morning starts, this part of the day always goes quickly, and before anyone knows it it’s 10am already! That means it’s time to stop for ‘coffee’ (or tea, in my case), and during summer it also means dropping two members of staff for the sake of an experience day. The rest of us spend twenty or so minutes in the café with hot drinks, toast, and the Labs: the perfect energy boost (and believe me, we need it).

     
Master-beggar Sorel, reporting for duty!
…These were actually taken outside at lunch, but she does this whenever there’s food…

 

 


I’m beginning to realise this place has a lot of buckets…

After coffee it’s right back to cleaning – and that usually means collecting a little bucket collection (blue for water, red for scraps, pink for anything salvageable) and tackling owl food trays. These are used to ‘serve’ food to the aviary birds (unless they have food ledges), and they’re handy for several reasons, specifically: keeping sand off food, removing the need for staff/voluntenteers to enter every day, and providing an easy way to keep track of how much each bird (or pair/group) eats. Cleaning these is a daily task, but thankfully the owls don’t tend to make much off a mess of them, so it doesn’t take too long. Maybe 40 minutes for a single person, and far less if there a couple of us working on it.

 


A newly cleaned food tray! Unfortunately I picked one of the oldest to photograph
- most have plastic inserts and aren’t so battered…

 


“I want the thing!!”

After food trays, it’s really anyone’s guess what we might be up to. At this point it’s a case of tending to whatever work needs doing, which could be anything from hoeing, weeding, and leaf-raking, to painting or scrubbing fences and benches, to deep-cleaning a recently emptied aviary (birds are moved every couple of months to allow for this). The latter in particular is always a time-consuming job, and the larger aviaries usually take a couple of days (and several rounds of volunteers) to get through, since it involves everything from scraping and repainting the aviary walls to thoroughly sifting the sand to scrubbing anything that can be scrubbed. Frustrating, tiring, and rewarding (when you finish it) all at once.

 

Luckily, the staff are well aware of how frustrating a job most of these can be, and where they can they either lend a hand, have us working together (assuming there are other volunteers – often not the case on Sundays), or try to break it up a little with other tasks—or sometimes treats! By that I mean bird work based on how experienced we are, which for me can mean holding a creance (essentially a training line), feeding birds on the fist, pretending to be on an experience day (birds called to fist by staff), or helping fly the birds that won’t be used in a demonstration that day. It doesn’t happen every weekend, and you won’t get to do any of it if you don’t pull your weight, but it makes the work well worth it.

The centre abides by a very simple policy: You get out of it what you put in, and the more you do, the more you learn.

 


Oh look: another bucket…

 

The weekend just gone is a great example of this. A large chunk of the day was spent weeding (because we are having a weird heatwave), but a member of staff gave me a hand when she had a spare moment, and I was also called away to do some creance work, ‘man’ a bird (essentially holding it on the fist for a while), and watch another staff member fly a lanner falcon (rightmost bird above. Volunteers aren’t allowed to do anything past creance work with falcons, but it’s amazing to watch!).

 


Master-Thief Agapanthus, wondering if that plate
is as empty as it looks.

Regardless of what we end up doing, it [almost] always keeps us good and busy until 1 o’clock—lunch time! We get about 45 minutes through the summer (closer to an hour in winter), but it’s not uncommon for people to be running a bit late and trickle in slowly over that time, despite the fact that no one is ever late for coffee. We’re also inevitably joined by at least two of the Labs, who are naturally ever hopeful for scraps. One in particular (Sorrel) practically moves into the café at about midday, and does extremely well for herself. She is a Barrel. And yet still thinner than one might expect…

The other dogs also do well for themselves, but frankly none of them mastered begging quite like her. A Labrador head on your knee is very hard to ignore…

 



Actually a Harris hawk. Because there’s never time to take
photos of kite prep, but the process is basically the same for
all birds.

In summer, the end of lunch leads straight into demo preparation, which for sufficiently experienced volunteers means another treat: yellow-billed kites! These are flown as a group (up to five at once!), and their demo can require three-four bodies to do: one staff member for the commentary, and two-three people to prep, release, and work the birds. This is consistently my favourite part of the day, because those volunteers who help are involved in the entire process! We pick a kite up, weigh it (to help keep track of its overall condition), remove leash/swivel/muse jesses, and then release the birds and head down to the flying field to keep them flying.

How?

We signal the birds, wait for one to zero in on us, and then throw small pieces of meat into the air for them to catch (and eat) on the wing. It sounds easy, the staff make it look easy (I…don’t…), but when the meat sticks to your fingers, there are birds in all directions, and 2+ kites come at you at once you quickly learn that getting small pieces of beef in front of you, high up, and in the air early enough is, well, hard. For me this has led to ducking, a certain amount of playful-mocking by commentators, and, on one very memorable occasion, a kite flying in from behind me and snatching meat out of my hand right as the commentator was describing ‘snatch lifts’. The audience loved it. I had a mini heart attack…

 

These are yellow-bills. Because there’s usually time for photos after demos, and I also have some nice pictures from ‘just visiting!’ days.

 

After the kites have been flown, fed, and returned to their compartments (or straight after lunch, if kites aren’t on the agenda) it’s time to get back to cleaning and other miscellaneous tasks. Quite often the first job on the list is finishing up whatever you were doing before lunch, and as a rule this part of the day goes much the same as the ‘middle’ coffee-to-lunch section – with one exception. This is about the time tiredness tends to kick in. Thankfully the staff don’t mind volunteers slowing down a little, as long as they’re still putting in the effort, and things can be broken up with the occasional offer of bird work. Or, if it’s the breeding season, then another very special treat: interacting with imprints (chicks that, for one reason or another, are being hand-reared).

 


Condor Cuddles! Something that I suspect is a one-year-only-deal, because her parents belong to a different collection. She was sent to/hatched at the centre because said parents are’t good at egg/chick rearing, but the staff here are!


A great-grey that liked to mouth hands. I had camera troubles when I was in the aviary with him, so never got a fenceless photo….


Caracara siblings that were rejected by their parents and loved attacking my boots. They were getting some sun when I took this!

 

Far more common, however, is another daily task: food trays part II. Although owls are done in the morning (because most of them are fed in the evening), all of the other non-working birds are done in the afternoon (and fed in the morning) – usually from about 3pm onwards. I say onwards because this is a mammoth task that usually takes hours for one person to do (something I know from experience: I have only ever got through them all alone once or twice—when I started early), and though the staff help as much as possible, the summer often sees them called away to see to other things.

 


“Peekaboo! I see you!”

It’s also by far my least favourite job, because it’s never-ending and usually just plain gross. Owls might leave their trays pretty clean, but vultures and eagles and the like most certainly do not. Still, when there’s someone to work with there’s no telling what conversations might pop up to help things along, and sometimes the birds themselves can provide a distraction. This is particularly true of a certain king vulture, who likes to watch people work, get in the way when it’s time to return the food tray, and repeatedly push/rattle the tray back out of its designated slot.

 

That, more often than not, is the last job I can fit in (or part-fit in) before 4:30pm rolls round and it’s time to return the radio, sign out, and meet mum (and her typical ’...you stink’ ‘greeting’). In summer there’s usually still work to be done at this point, but deals with parents need to be adhered to, and frankly I’m often crashing by this point anyway. So it’s off home to shower/change (because those last trays really do create a stink.), have food, and flop on the sofa until a reasonable time to sleep is reached.

And there you have it! A volunteer’s day!

 

     
Bonus pictures! Two-week-old Andean Condor chick, because she was adorable and I can’t resist sharing.

r/A Day in the Life has a collection of “A Day in the Life” posts!  If you’re wondering how to make a post about your real life, start by browsing a few posts here.

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Submissions Thread - Character

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This thread is the submissions thread for real life entries!  Complete your entries by 23:59 Server Time on October 9th!

Posted 09/21/16, edited 09/21/16

A day in the life of recovering

I have many names. You, if you know me, know me as Lobomon. Others online know me as Khai,or Euraea, or one of a dozen other screennames I’ve used. Offline? I’m still trying to figure it out, honestly. I do like Eren though, so if you really want a ‘real’ name, you can go with that.

I am unemployed, and not currently studying. At the moment I’m at my dad’s, though sometimes I’m with my mum. This isn’t exactly entirely my choice. I made the decision that a break was necessary, but I hate that taking one has pretty much stripped my Independence. On the other hand, when you can barely cook or go to class for fear that something might go wrong, it’s not like you have much of a choice. So for now, I’m focusing on recovering, on getting to a point where I don’t need someone by my side whenever I have to make a phone call or send an email, or even so much as look at constructive criticism.

I don’t really have mornings, with the exception of Wednesdays. I intend to wake up at eight, but never do, it’s usually closer to nine when I drag myself out of bed. The first thing I do is make myself a cup of tea, nothing fancy, just Earl Grey, but it helps warm the soul nevertheless. For breakfast I suppose the option for toast is there right now, but normally I don’t really bother. Once I’ve had my tea, I pack my bag - worksheets - make sure I’ve got my cash, double check my key, and head out to my 9:30 appointment that is thankfully like a ten minute walk away, tops.

I’m seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist - can never remember which is which - with the aim of conquering my social anxiety disorder. It’s far from the first time I’ve seen someone about it — I was diagnosed by Headspace, have talked wit my university counselor, and have more recently gotten in contact with a recruitment agency that specialises in helping people in my sort of situation to get work. Headspace’s follow-up wasn’t all that helpful though, and the most the counselor did was tell me those tired-old breathing exercises and suggest I take medication. It was actually the recruitment agency that’s been the biggest catalyst in actually doing something about it, funnily enough, they have a specialist who comes in who suggested tat I focus on conquering the anxiety at east somewhat before I got a job.

The actual psych-whicherver-it-is meeting is actually not what you might expect if you’ve only seen therapy as depicted in media. The doctor (I’m just gonna call her that to avoid using the p word again) is a nice woman, a bit on the older side, but her office is very open, with these nice red modern chairs and colourful rug. The darker corner is where she eeps her desk and computer for her formal stuff, the location of our sessions sits right in the light that comes throug the windows. We’re certainly not analyzing dreams (though I’ve had some real doozies when it comes to weirdness), the focus is more on how I feel when I’m awake and feeling anxious. I’ve had to think about why I feel so nervous, not just that I am. I’ve only seen her four times now, but I’m already feeling… better about myself. Looking at the why rather than the that means I’ve started being able to counter some of my fears, and every little victory feels huge, like it gives me the power to do anything. The dream of being able to make a phone call without panicking is still a while off, but for the first time in my life I feel like I will - not can, will.

I feel… confident.

There’s two reasons I’m sharing something like that which some people would consider intimately private. The first is that my doctor suggested I write down my achievements somehow, so I don’t forget them if they start to feel insignificant. Staffed checkout? Asking questions or clarification? That second one especially has been a huge stumbling block for me my whole life, but this week I managed to do it. It might be hard for you to know just how big that is, or maybe you know all too well, but it is huge.

The second part is the life of an uneployed 21 year-old living with their parents is hardly the stuff of legends.

For me, I love videogames. In particular, Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy XIV. When I get home from my appointment at around 10:40, my first port of call is to turn on my laptop. I sit in the loungeroom, always at dad’s on Wednesday’s ‘cause it’s way closer to mum’s. It’s a messy place, a small bookshelf, dirty carpet, a lone lamp, and the area covered in bird poo where the budgies hang out. Once my laptop’s all fired up (it takes a while),I turn on FFXIV. Of course, being a weekday, it’s usually pretty quiet around that time, so that’s usually when I fire up some good ol’ Monster Hunter. The setting’s a strange combination of fantasy pre industrial revolution villages and heavier than could ever be practical artillery. Like, there’s a weapon called the ‘gunlance’ that’s essentially a hand-held cannon-sotgun with a bayonet and a big ol’ shield for good measure. Generations is the flavour of the day, and my weapon of choice is my Light Bowgun - one of three true ranged weapons in the game. Compared to its counterpart, the heavy bowgun, it sacrifices raw power for mobility and speed, though as I’ll be quick to defend is far from weak. The way such things work in Monster Hunter, it is nigh unparalleled at dealing elemental or status damage, and the only weapon with comparable versatility is its heavy counterpart. Plus, in Genrations there’s a LBG that fires pretty much every type of explosive round in the game and looks like this:

Which is a huge plus in my book. (Yes, that thing clips through the floor and goes off-screen, yes, it’s considered one of the small guns)

My other ‘weapon’ of choice is prowler, a mode new to Generations that lets you play as one of Monster Hunter’s iconic cat people. As in, they’re actual bipedal cats. They are sort of an in-between for melee blademaster weapons and ranged gunner weapons, using a combination of hand-held weapons and boomerangs, their defence sits between the two as well (gunners get about a third to half. In practice, they mostly rely on boomerangs and their infinite supply of things like traps that human hunters can only bring a few of each. Instead of items, they use a gauge that builds up as they do things that lets the use special skills, the downside being they can’t heal on their own reliably, since that’s item based. On the upside, they have no stamina, and have a smaller hitbox. Plus, unlike hunters, their skills/buffs are individual based, rather than armour based, making cat fashion considerably easier than human fashion.

Pictured: cat fashion

Also pictured: the near-inevitable eventual state of dress for gunners in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

FFXIV picks up at around five to six pm, and at the moment is one of my main sources of socialisation. I find it a lot easier to converse in a chat room than on a forum, and the atmosphere of my free company - think guild -  is pretty chill. Lately I’ve gotten into the oft-neglected PvP aspect of the game, enticed by the prospect of mounts, achievements and a giant revolver.

Pictured: Still more realistic than Monster Hunter guns

There are two main forms of PvP in FFXIV: massive frontlines capmaings pitting either 24 or 72 total players against each other, split up into teams depending of which of the three main factions they’re with. These are often rather chaotic by sheer virtue of numbers, and can be surprisingly tense when two or all three teams are 100 points away from winning, since at that point it’s anyone’s game. The second one is more directly competitive, since there’s actual in-game ratings. It’s called the Feast and is about earning medals by defeating your opponents. I’m admittedly pretty bad at both modes, but It’s all good fun.

The big thing about FFXIV over MonHun though is that it has a glamour system. That means more fashion at absolutely no cost to performance!


Monster Hunter cosplays! (Ace Gunner and the Guildmarm)

The best shield a tank could ask for!

Embracing my inner edgelord!

Options galore! (Also yeah I blew money on vanity race changes I’m still honestly not sure what I really wanna settle on god knows how long the novelty of being a literal Monster Hunter character’s gonna last)

But, y’know, there’s a bit more to FFXIV - and games in general - than that. The other day I managed to send a total stranger a message asking for clarification on their LFP ad. I know it possibly doesn’t sound like much, but even a few weeks ago I would never have managed that. Even better, the response I got was negative (as in a no, not a negative phrasing) and I felt absolutely fine. No linering worries about what they might think of me, I just moved on and carried on. I think that was about the point where I really felt like I could do this.

Outside of games, there’s food obviously. Lunch is in about as precarious a position as breakfast. Today I had some toast with honey, but neither mum nor dad are great at keeping lunchy food around (or at least pointing it out in such a way my anxiety-riddled mind even considers it an option). Sometimes I get hungry at a reasonable time, so I go out and wander down to the shops to grab a sandwich or something. Other days I think of food kinda late, and then don’t eat at all until dinner out of fear of not being hungry in time. Anxiety, not fun, yada yada. At least dinner is pretty guaranteed. At mum’s, she always cooks, while at dad’s he gets me to do some sometimes. Mum’s cooking tends towards the homey: roasts, pasta, soups and the like. Dad puts things in a frypan and they come out edible, which honestly explains a lot about my own cooking style.

After dinner, at usually about 9pm, there’s a streamer I like to watch called DYoshiiTV. He’s a variety broadcaster, though he focuses heavily on Monster Hunter, and he lives in a similar part of the country to me, which means I can actually reliably catch him. He’s not broadcasting much right now because he’s in Japan for TGS, and after that is going to Twitchcon for PJ Saltan. He has a lot of connections and a lot of sponsors, which has resulted in him running a few Capcom-sponsered Monster Hunter events near me. I attended the latest one, but there were so many people that I ended up sitting in a corner playing by myself until most people had left- at which point someone invited me into his group and I had a blast! I also learnt via the streamer that the big EB Games in the city holds multiplayer get togethers on Thursdays. I think I have the courage to attend tomorrow’s.

I dunno if ‘friend’ is the right word, since although he recognises me in chat I feel like all he knows about me are a screenname, the games I play, and that I like fish. Even still though, I feel like discovering a local community that likes the same game(s) as me has kind of been, or at least has the potential to be something pretty huge when it comes to recovery.

That’s about it, really. I know it doesn’t quite fit the morning/arvo/evening theme but… there isn’t really much of a routine for me right now, it’s a blob of MH and FFXIV interspersed with food and the occasional testing of my anxiety-related limits. It’s a strange combination of sluggish and hectic. Sure, it’s mostly me playing videogames, but sometimes mum or dad drops something interesting on me at the last minute, or maybe I’ll decide that I do wanna go to that get together tomorrow. Hopefully soon I’ll at least have a job, but for now, I guess I’m sticking to the kind you have in Eorzea.

Posted 09/21/16

Greetings!  I’m known as Kippie, and I’ll just continue being referred to by that, for simplicity’s sake.  I live in a district that’s fairly large for the state and that’s rather sprawling!  It isn’t nearly big enough to be a city, but “in town” is a fairly busy and populated place regardless.  My job at the moment is being an “in-shop” at one of the local Jimmy John’s, and I currently live with my boyfriend of 10 years.  Outside of my typical schedule, I enjoy participating in volunteer work and activism, and have gone to rallies and petitions for various subjects (pro-choice rallies, assisted in gathering petition signatures for a male abuse shelter, and regular volunteer work at soup kitchens).  These are more along the lines of once-a-month activities, however… my daily life is a bit more scheduled out.

On work days (Mon, Tue, Thurs, Fri, Sat) I wake up at 6:30 am in order to get a shower in.  My boyfriend is my usual ride to work, and he starts work at 8:00 am - several hours before I actually start work.  So when I arrive in the plaza where my Jimmy John’s is located, I instead go to a local coffee shop and buy myself a small breakfast.  A bagel and a glass of milk or lemonade is usually pretty affordable, and if I purchase enough drinks for my loyalty card I receive a free one.  I typically use the two hours before work to sort through emails, get details for art commissions lined up, and watch youtube videos.  A common hobby of mine is roleplaying, though I focus very intently on Dreamwidth RP due to its more expedient nature.  With a focus on the exchange of dialogue and the character body language, it’s much easier to go through a scene and to have active plots that unravel very quickly and smoothly - in the morning, I often respond to any outstanding “tags” (responses on threads) from the day before, replying to upwards of thirty other characters with the characters I play.  If there’s no internet, I will play a game called Armello in its offline mode to at least keep my brain active.

After morning begins my work phase.  I change into my uniform and clock in at 10:00 am, and begin my morning duties at Jimmy John’s.  Consolidating bread comes first, always; it’s taking the bread off of the cooling trays and putting them neatly together for the sandwich makers to grab as needed.  Next is setting up the cold table if that hasn’t been done already, which is retrieving the fresh-sliced meats, vegetables and spreads and setting them up in the cooling table.  Other jobs like dishes, mopping, et cetera fall after that and are done as necessary.  The ideal is to be done with all of it at 10:30 am, which is more feasible these days with a more proactive manager.

We are able to take just about any customer starting at 10:00 am, however, if we’re prepared enough.  Some days I participate on the line - there’s the bread starter, who slices the rolls and applies mayo, tomatoes and/or cucumbers, then there’s the meat puller who grabs the remaining ingredients and assembles the sandwich, and finally the consolidator at the end who wraps sandwiches and calls them out for customers or packs them into delivery bags for drivers.  For me, however, the norm is that I am working on a cash register and on the phones - I am repeatedly praised for my good customer service and I have been told that there aren’t any mistakes when I’m the one taking phone orders.  Most days work is pretty hectic, but not miserable - customers at our store are all very courteous and kind, and are on their lunch breaks.  I remain in that day’s “spot” until 1:00 pm, when the ‘phase out’ time begins.  This is when cleaning usually happens, and my favored jobs are cleaning the tables and sweeping afterwards, or organizing the chip rack.

After I have completed a number of chores, I am allowed to clock out and leave for the day.  Around 2 or 3 pm, I call a friend to pick me up.  We go to a geek club called The Haven and spend time relaxing and having fun!  Mondays I have him watching Mob Psycho 100 with me, though next week is the finale so soon that will disappear from my regular schedule.  What will remain on the regular schedule is Thursday’s “anime club”, where I have selected a lineup of anime for several of my friends (including the guy who runs the geek club) to watch.  The current roster is Mob Psycho 100, My Hero Academia, Yu Yu Hakusho, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto, and finally Cromartie High School.  Other days at the Haven usually involve us watching whatever strikes our fancy, however, skimming through Hulu, Netflix or Crunchyroll for something interesting to watch and goofing off on our computers.  This is where I usually RP the most, if other people happen to be active.  I can get upwards of a hundred responses done if I’m receiving tags as quickly as I’m sending them.  During this afternoon phase, I usually haven’t eaten anything other than a light snack.

Then the evening rolls around, usually about 7 or 7:30, and that’s when the tabletop roleplaying starts.  On Monday I don’t have a game, but Tuesday is Vampire: Blood and Smoke, Thursday is Unknown Armies, Friday is either a homebrew game about gods or DnD 5th, and Saturday is our one-shot day.  My Vampire character’s name is Anissa Becker, a Daeva that used to be a member of the Invictus.  The current storyline involves a great evil attempting to destroy the world beyond the point of it being able to “reset” itself, and using our characters to do it - we’re blatantly playing the ‘villains’, and Anissa in particular is delving into this with reckless abandon after losing her Sire, her friend, her niece, her ghoul, and her lover - she has decided that the only constant she can rely on having is this destined title of “The Dominatrix”, and the power she is acruing to utterly dominate over the world around her.  She has 5 strength, 7 vigor, 5 brawl, 5 resilience, 4 stamina… she has barreled through a brick wall in a single hit, and has picked up motorcycles to throw at other vampires.  She has survived things she has no right to have survived.  She’s ferocious!

Thursday’s game is called Unknown Armies, which is an absolutely amazing game - there’s a reason the game system is ranked in almost every TRPG critic’s top ten.  It is a system with enough of a focus on realism without it being an absolute drag to roll dice, and failures are common - both for the player, and for the NPCs, which leads to rather hilarious and extremely scary encounters.  In the interest of encouraging people who play TRPGs to look into Unknown Armies, I won’t delve into my Thursday character’s plot… instead I will only recommend that only the GM read the whole book, and people who are new to the game only read the street level section in their first game and get exposed to more of the world gradually through play.  Unknown Armies is experienced at its best, that way.

Friday’s homebrew game is very new, and the concept is that we are playing characters that have become new gods.  Thus far, I’ve designed a character that’s become a four-armed hyena-headed woman, who will embody the concepts of camaraderie and who will be running a group of people that used to just be her gang.  The other Friday game (we switch off every other friday) is a DnD 5th edition game with a more standard plot - travel to find the dragon and slay it.  However, because we play such serious games throughout the rest of the week, Friday’s game is played for comedy.  My character is a Cleric (named Monica) of a Party God (named Itala).  The teachings of Itala fall more in line with “to have a good time at a party you need to drink like crazy, but not be an asshole”... many of my sermons are based around good party etiquette and hangover cures.  All of my spells function the same, but we have been flavoring them for maximum silliness - such as transforming a bunch of zombies into chip dip or my “summon food and water” spell creating a party spread of cheap, junky, not very nutritious party food.  We’ve befriended a giant and have invited him to help us out, promising him some of the sweet loot from the dragon’s hoard so that he can start a revolution in giant society.  It’s been hella fun.

As I wrap up the end of my day, I usually cuddle up with my boyfriend for a while, we’ll watch something, I’ll do RP tags, etc.  We usually go to bed around midnight, taking a bath or shower if we feel like it.  Dinner is usually around this late, late time and it’s usually something fairly easy to make like baked chicken or chili.

Posted 09/21/16

HI! My name’s Pyrrha here, but it’s Dess on most other sites (and to a few of my friends). I live in a pretty small town that no one’s ever really heard of, in an average house with three cats.

On weekdays, my mornings start off with me shutting off my alarm at 6:15, and laying in bed until 6:20. At 6:30, I emerge from my room to eat breakfast, usually consisting of waffles and cookie butter. After that, I attempt to contain my mess of hair, and then I’m off to school.

I show up at school and talk to my friends for a few minutes, not that we have any real conversations, seeing as we’re all running on anywhere from 4-7 hours of sleep. After that, I head to literature, followed by my favorite class (which I have to cross the entire school for)- drama. In there, we’re usually running around on stage or being completely insane in the classroom. After that, I have government (back on the other side of the building!), and talk about Hamilton with my friend who sits next to me for pretty much the entire time. When that’s over, I run around the school in order to get to gym on time. Luckily, we don’t do too many tiring things in there. From there, I go to band and try not to yell at my section for being out of tune, and then I have lunch.

My lunch table is filled with people just as strange as I am. Our conversations range anywhere from fandom, real problems, spirit animals, classes, and whatever else we feel like at the time. My lunch usually consists of lunch meat, two slices of cheese, yogurt, seaweed, and a piece of saltwater taffy.

After lunch, I try not to fall asleep in math, and then I run around the school one more time to get to biology. Several of my friends are in that class, so when we’re not taking notes, we’re trying to make each other laugh from across the room.

Now, this is where my schedule splits: Mondays, I head home and go to piano. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I suffer for 2 hours in the heat during marching band practice. I’m free Wednesdays, so I go home and get some writing and composing done. Fridays are when we usually have our games, so we cram ourselves, jackets, hats, and plumes onto the bus, ride there, frantically scramble around to find and assemble our instruments, put on our jackets, play the opener, practically tear off our jackets, and play in the stands until halftime. At second quarter, we put our jackets back on and head over to march the show. After that, we take the jackets back off, eat dinner, and play for the rest of the game. After traveling back, getting everything put up, and post-game announcements, we get back at around midnight- which doesn’t make 10:30 Saturday flute lessons early!

However, all my nights are pretty much the same- Do homework, play Sims, eat, finish homework, play either piano, flute, guitar, or harp, and then listen to music until it’s time to “sleep”. However, in reality, I stay up until about 11-12 reading fanfiction and watching RoosterTeeth until I pretty much pass out.

Posted 09/21/16

Hello!
Online my name is Heiyu on most sites – it has been my nickname since early high school, and other then online or with close friends the name is not often used anymore.

My day typically starts off with a 5am alarm – even on my few days off, that is when I get up. Work days – which are more often than my days off, I get started with getting dressed. I’ve found that getting right out of bed and getting dressed first thing helps me wake up, and get ready for my day. Once I’m dressed, typically it’s a matter of juggling getting breakfast for myself, and the several pets that I have in the house. Between cats, a dog, and an elderly bearded dragon – my morning is pretty busy. Once everyone has been fed, medicated, and I’ve had that all important cup of coffee and messed around for around 30 minutes online, I head to work.

I work full time as a vet tech – and once I get to work it usually starts with getting vitals on hospitalized pets, and getting set up for the various surgeries that the vets at the clinic preform. Average surgeries range from dental cleanings, spays, and neuters to exploratory abdominal surgery, and even amputation. Being fully certified – I am typically dealing with surgery patients, and critical pets. Ones that need constant checking, medicating, and prepping for what may be going on that day. Between that – we can see many, many different things. Everything from simple vaccine appointments, to emergencies. Just today we had a pet come in that had been attacked by a dog – a very sweet neutered male orange tabby – even though he was in pain he would purr and let me do whatever it was that I needed to do to him. This will typically go on from 7am (when my day starts at work) to 8-9pm in the evening – and later if we have an emergency late night surgery. I typically stay late, even if others leave. I’ve been in the field for going on seven years now – and I have worked mostly in surgery/emergencies, so as one of the more experienced techs where I work – the doctors typically give me these pets.  Sometimes I get a short lunch between all that madness – sometimes I don’t. But then again, that is what snacks are for, and I try to take at least something with me so I don’t fall over.

If/when the day ends – I collect my things, and head home for the night. I feed and medicate all the critters in my household first – and of course let our dog Jake out to go to the bathroom. I still live with my parents – with student loans and the like, living on my own is difficult and as long as I help around the house my parents are amazing and don’t mind my being around. I’ll shower, eat a light dinner, and try to wind down before bed. This could mean going online and checking things on sites I spend time on, or playing a few hours of video games. Don’t have much social life outside of work – I am very happy in an asexual relationship, and my partner works full time almost as much as I do. So even though it’s insane – we still find time to do things outside of work and home. I take Tai-Kwon-Do classes two-three times weekly, not to keep fit (though that is a plus!) but to help manage the stress that my job brings. Having to concentrate on the position of your arms, the stance of your legs, as well as patterns and sparing… It helps me think of nothing but class, and helps me vent via concentration and physically excursion if I have had a rough day. The clinic I work at has been very understanding – I am typically able to leave on time for class on the days that I need to.

That’s basically a typical day – alarm, food/coffee, work, shower/food, SLEEP, repeat!

Posted 09/21/16

Bonjour! I am Nazgra, probably better known as Silent! Hope everyone is having a wonderful morning/afternoon/evening/night, depending on wherever in the world you are. I hail from the frosty land of maple syrup, moose, and poutine to the north of the United States in the most rectangle province ever delegated, and haven’t ever moved from my hometown so far.

Currently 23 and awaiting for another birthday that gets mushed in with Christmas, I’m usually online or playing video games, though the hours of actual free time that I’m granted are spread very few and far between.

Monday through Friday, I’m usually up at 6:30 and go through the routine of showering, maybe nomming some breakfast, making 2 cups of coffee to take with me to my classes, and running out the door by 7:30 since my classes start at 8:30, and parking after 7:45 becomes an utter NIGHTMARE. I attend one of the four Saskatchewan Polytechnic campuses for my studies, though I’m currently in my second year specializing in Financial Services so I can get into the career of Financial Planning/Advising.  The courses this year are easier, so far, compared to last year, though I’ve already got a few projects on hand that I’m not so sure about. This includes writing up a full business plan and potentially applying it to life in starting my own business of owning/operating a small café/bakery. It’s been one of my dreams for years, and I’d love to make it a reality.

My class schedule changes up a bit every day, though I’m only in 6 classes this semester. It’s not too bad though, and the workload is easily manageable, so I’m not too worried. Mondays, I’m usually out by 2:20pm, Tuesdays though Thursdays I’m done by 4:20pm (go ahead and chuckle >_>;;) and Fridays, I’m out around 12:30pm. Being out at all these different times actually works out really nicely for me, since it allows me to go do any shopping I need to do, work on any homework, and take care of any other household chores. Since I currently live with my mom and dad while in school, I don’t have as much to do around the house as when I lived on my own, but I really don’t miss the chores. That being said, I usually can be seen online after I get out of classes, though sometimes I’m just lurking.

During the times I’m not working on homework for classes and not lurking around in the MC chats (or even when I am,) chances are I’ll be playing some sort of video game or watching something on Netflix or Youtube. Lately I’ve been favoring playing video games though, and this will probably switch again within a few months. I own a wide variety of systems too, including an Xbox360s, a PS3, a Nintendo 3DS, a Wii, plus my Samsung Tablet and Phone, alongside my laptop which I use mostly for Steam-based games. If anyone wants to find me, CTK Chaos on Xbox Live, CTKChaos on Steam and PSN. DS friendcode? Ehhhhhh sorry I don’t wanna give that out. REGARDLESS! On the consoles I’m into shooters and rpg based games, ds and computer are more turn-based strategy types of games. Why do I have so many systems? Because there’s games I want on each system and have a different set of friends to play with online for each. I need to get a PS4 though. Persona 5, Destiny w/friends, and KH3 whenever it finally releases!

Usually by 6-6:30pm I’ll be called up for supper with mom and dad, watch a little tv with them, chat, do the dishes on occasion, and cuddle up with my two kitties Cotton (pictured) and Dizzy. They’ve become such sucks lately and refuse to go anywhere else during supper. Dizzy will be over with dad, rolling around and getting all sorts of belly rubs, while Cotton will be over with me and mom just nuzzling us and laying against my thigh/mom’s foot. They’re adorable though, both of them, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. It’s rare that I’m ‘chosen’ to be sat upon, but when it does happen, it’s a sacred and special moment and I cannot move.

Usually after supper I’ll hop back online or hop back onto one of my consoles and play for a bit before I get ready for bed to sleep. Tired as I’ve been, lately I find myself in bed by 9pm, though I have been known to stay up as late as 2 am watching tv or something on Netflix and Youtube.

Thus concludes a normal school day in my life. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are a bit different in that I’m at work! Fridays I go in at 5pm and deal with serving up orders of the best wings around, and that usually runs until 10pm for me. Satudays and Sundays? I’m in all day from 9am after waking up at 7:30am. Too early if you ask me, but duty calls! Saturdays I’ll be in the kitchen from 9am-8pm on a busy day; if it’s quiet I might skip out an hour early (which the boss is usually cool with.) Sundays are a little different in that I pull a half day and am done by 2pm. It’s nice being able to take the rest of the day for myself, maybe doing some laundry or something once I’m home.

All in all, this is my life at present, with all of its ups and downs. I may complain about it from time to time, but in all honesty, I’m extremely happy with how things are going right now. Ciao!

Posted 09/22/16

Hello~
My name is Etahrey pretty much across the board, or Etah for short~
My days are vastly different, depending on the day of the week~ Tuesdays and Thursdays I have work, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday I work for my university, and Wednesdays and Sundays are my days off, which normally mean I’m cleaning something or sleeping in lol.

On normal days, I wake up at about 6 or 7am, lay in bed until I can move, and rush out the door to my university. Since this is my second to last semester, I crammed in 6 classes, 3 online, 3 in person, and Tuesdays and Thursdays I spend roughly 6-8 hours in class and working on classwork/projects. On days when I work, I head straight for the little mailroom under one of the dorms with my Service Dog Harley. He also comes with me to class and pretty much everywhere else.
Mornings consist of classes, work, and Flight Rising among other things. And dealing with students can get really stressful and hectic at times! Especially if Harley has eaten something he isnt supposed to and I’m stuck in a tiny mailroom for 8 hours with a gassy dog >.<

In the afternoon I usually make a run to get soda because I am dying by that time of caffeine deprivation an need to move, so a 10 minute break can be a lifesaver. Of course Harley comes with me and we make a run outside to let him stretch his legs before we head back in to the mailroom until about 6pm when we close.

Once we close and I shut everything up for the night, I head home. On the way I stop by the store if I know we need any groceries, or anything for that nights dinner, and I shop for a while at my favorite store. They have a hired police officer who does security at the door and knows and recognizes Harley and I, and any time a customer or even employee try to question me or tell me I cant have my service dog in the store, he has stepped in and explained ADA law to them. Which is exactly what I do, but they believe him more. After shopping I go home and turn on netflix or hulu to whatever throwaway show I’m binging at the moment, and get dinner settled and cooked before turning over to whatever homework I have to do that night. Harley and I always go on a little walk at night, sometimes through the park thats across the street from our apartment, because it’s pretty and quiet and has 2 pokestops and a gym.

That’s pretty much most of my days, all uniform and a bit boring, but I can’t complain ^.^

Posted 09/23/16

Hi all! I’m usually WeyrLeader, or EmpressZ on my game sites. I have a more embarrassing username created back in middle school, but lets not share that thing. XD

I live in a small city (downtown’s not as big as LA, but holy cow, there’s a lot of suburbia!) where rent is so sky high, I’m still living with my parents at 28. Other than constant personality clashes with my mother, I’m still pretty happy with my situation. I am currently a para-educator in a special needs preschool class at a very low-income school: most of the students quality for free or reduced lunch. I’m considering taking training to become a behavorial specialist/therapist, or entering a certification program for early childhood development.

My day begins really early at 5:25 am. I put together a lunch of leftover dinner from the night before and stick some bread into the toaster oven. While it’s toasting, I do my daily ablutions and get dressed. When you’re running around after pint-sized energizer-bunnies-in-disguise with special needs, you wear clothes you can pretty much go to the gym in and don’t stain easily. I car pool with my father, who works at another school in the same district and his shift begins at 6. Thankfully, we live about 10 minutes away from his school.

I hang out for another 15 minutes while he preps for the day, and then hoof it to a bus stop a 10 minute walk away. The sky’s usually still dark at 6:15 am, and it’s pretty chilly. It’s great, though, since I can play Pokemon Go (level 23, Team Mystic, yo).

Bus comes around 6:30, I hit the school around 7. The staff room is quiet and deserted at this time. One the custodians and secretary are here by this time. I have my breakfast of pesto toast, yogurt, fruit, and a carton of skim milk. Teachers arrive at 7:30, and I’m in the classroom at 7:45 am.

There’s another para-ed, and the behavorial interventionist (BI), but they’re usually a bit later than me. My teacher is usually working on IEPs and other paperwork in her office adjacent to the classroom. The office is separated from the classroom by a dutch door, and we usually keep the top half open, so I chat with her as I take down the tiny chairs from the two low tables, and all the cube chairs for circle (story) time. When the other staff arrive, I head over to the cafeteria to grab our morning kids’ breakfast. They’re rather picky eaters though, so it’s cereal or bust. Usually, the teacher has something for me to photocopy, so I’ll swing by the resource room (some paper cutters, a laminator, and the photocopier) on my way back.

We have four kids that show up at 8, though only one is ever on time. He gets some cereal. If the others arrive before 8:10, they get some too. Most of them have already eaten at home though, so the breakfast usually goes untouched.

Then it’s 1:1 time where we practice turn taking, category sorting, counting, the alphabet, matching, and vocabulary. Not all on the same day, of course! My co-workers and I take turns taking them to the bathroom. All but one are still in diapers. Poopy diapers, y’all. Lil W is like an eel, or a human noodle: always trying to flush the toilet, grab for the buttons on your clothes, and just will not stay still. Changing his diaper should come with hazard pay and this boy eats a LOT. He’s not fat, but dense.

At 9, the three afternoon kids arrive, and these darlings are always on time.

The whole class has 15 minutes of motor time, we we’ll play games like musical chairs, red rover, duck, duck goose, or just dancing—all modified for children’s developmental level. Then 30 minutes of center time, where we working on fine motor skills with activities like tracing, coloring, gluing, cutting, playing with linking toys, or having fun with neat sensory activities like kinetic sand, water marbles, rice, and cotton balls. Most of the materials we have was because of my teacher’s donorschoose fundraiser: over $1700’s worth of materials solely for the classroom. This isn’t counting all the office supplies and organizers my teacher had already purchased out of pocket. If I had to guess, that’s another $500. And about a third of that fundraiser was from my teacher’s extremely supportive husband. Our district either has terrible budgeting, or just no budget to support its teachers.

Afterwards, it’s 15 minutes of circle time, 30 minutes of playground time (where the kids can play with their peers in two other classes). Center time again, more gross motor (but in a portable full of yoga balls, mats, small ladders, rocking chairs, a trampoline, et al), 30 minutes for lunch (or 15 minutes of eating and then 15 minutes of paging through board books as we take them all to the bathroom again), playground again, the last circle time where we bid farewell to our morning children at 12:30, and then finally 1:1 with our three afternoon kids. They also leave at 1:30.

We put away all the materials used throughout the day and then take out/make new ones for next day. The entire time, we’ll discuss how the day went: which kids had good days, which have developed new behaviors, which have responded well to our techniques for modifying existing behaviors… It’s an endless, ever-changing list). Officially, my shift ends at 2:15, but since my dad finishes at 2:30, I usually hang out with my teacher and continue my duties.

I get picked up around 2:45, and then we’ll go pick up my little sister who works at one of the local libraries.

We hit the old homestead at 3:30 and I take a nap until dinner at 6 pm. I’ll read, play some FR and MC, and just chill until 9, when my dad and I head to the gym for an hour of cardio and weightlifting (I am such weaksauce). I’ll shower and then just watch food network in the locker lounge area until my dad’s done and home at 11 pm, where I’ll pass out. Many of my coworkers have second jobs and I have no idea how they do it.

Rinse, repeat.

 

Posted 09/23/16

Hi! My name is arcticfoxies, which is a name I use across most of the sites I’m on. I started using it about 5-ish years ago on a site I don’t even use anymore, but if sort of stuck and its always been available.

My mornings usually begin at way-to-early-to-be-a-functional-human o’clock, commonly known as 7AM. I’m a light sleeper so I’m forced up as my sister goes to wake up my nieces and nephew. I generally stumble into the kitchen and stand there like zombie and make sure they eat while my sister showers. Then I help her buckle them all into their car seats so she can drop them off at daycare on her way to work. At some point I manage to take my dogs out for a run (I hold the leashes and they pull me along with them). Eventually my dogs lead me back home and I take a quick shower before going back to sleep.

I usually wake back up at 8:30AM and proceed to run 3 blocks to the T station. Now this is where my day gets really fun: trying to jam myself into a packed train car during rush hour. The bright side: I live in Boston, so it’s still better than trying to drive. By the time it passes Park Street, the train is usually empty enough for me to grab a seat.

But wait! There’s more! This is not the end of the joys of public transportation. After the 15 minutes of train ride, I leave the station and walk for about 2 minutes to my next destination. The bus stop.

I can usually catch the bus, but if I miss it, I get to stand around like an idiot for 30 minutes while I wait for the next one since the bench usually has the pleasant smell of throw up and I do my best to avoid it while still standing close enough to the sign for the bus to stop. Then I get to ride the bus. For about an hour. Maybe more if there’s traffic. Or a fight (there seems to be a fight about once a week). I usually read or play games on my phone, there’s not much more I can do without risking falling asleep and missing my stop. I pretty much ride the entire route, so by the time I get off, there’s usually only one or two other people there.

I end up at work around 10:30 but I usually get there sooner (yay for overtime). I am technically a manufacturing engineer, putting my masters in mechanical engineering to good use. In reality, I am the paperwork master and common sense adviser for my boss. I also make really good coffee, even though I don’t actually like coffee myself. Sometimes I have to write instructions, and I always feel so stupid when I do. Once I had to write instructions on how fill out a form. I literally scanned it and then drew big red circles around parts and wrote 1) Write your full name here. 2) Write the date here 3) Put part number and amounts here. 4) Write amount of defective parts here. 5) Initial at end. I kinda wanted to include at the end, “I am so sorry. I don’t actually think you’re this stupid, but my boss told me to.”

But yeah, for the most part, I actually don’t mind the paperwork? I know people always complain about it, and yes, it is heinously dull, but I usually put on my headphones and power through it. It usually only takes me 2 hours to get through a days worth of papers. I can imagine things worse than a bit of paper. Like working in customer service. (I did once. Never again.)

I work until around 7-8PM, whenever the bus comes around because for some reason the late bus times are really vague and never what they say they are. The ride is actually a lot quicker since there are less people out taking the bus, and I can usually get home in 45 min. Then I cook dinner and play games for a few hours, I usually try and go to sleep by 2am (but that doesn’t always work out.)

And so ends a day in the life of arcticfoxies.

Posted 09/23/16, edited 10/01/16

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The day starts with coffee. Yummy yum yum!! (no breakfast for this jacq, just coffee with a splash of soy milk :9 )

 

Normally I would bike to school, but it was rainy today (eeewwww), so I decided to take the bus. My bike is the green one with the basket and the bb8 helmet. I haven’t seen start wars, I just like the colour (and my head is really small so I can wear children’s helmets, which are usually way cooler than adult ones anyways.)

On the way to school I saw this eggcorn! I was really happy that I had the camera with me to take a photo, but to be honest the amount of times I notice fun linguistic stuff in my day-to-day is a little bit worrying. If there’s a home for wayward nerds or something I probably belong there lol.
(It might be a little hard to see because I was trying to be sneaky. The sign says “Condition supply” instead of “conditions apply”)

 

Oh hey, the cherry blossoms are blooming on campus at this time of year. #nobigdeal #totallynormalday #youjealous

 

This is my office! I share it with three other people. My desk is on the right (and I’m kinda new so it’s lacking some stuff). I forgot to ask the other people in my office if I could post the photos of them, so no pics of my office pals - sorry!

 

Oh look Windows needs to update. UGHHHH

 

Waiting for updates, this is view outside my window. I love the trees even if I don’t know what they’re called.

This is a book I’m reading. I’m hoping to do some corpus analysis stuff to back up my experimental data, but I haven’t done much work on corpora, so I was REALLY HAPPY to find this book. It was published in 2014 too, which is awesome! (Because I’m studying nonbinary gender, almost every resource before about 2005 is already woefully outdated).


Lunch time! The “Brain Box” is a big room the department uses for seminars, meetings, parties, and pretty much everything else. It also has the kitchenette in it.

 


After lunch (and windows FINALLY finishing its updates), it’s time to go back to work. This particular afternoon I was working on filling out some funding forms (grant/funding/scholarship requests take up a surprisingly significant chunk of time for a phd student lol). I’m requesting money here to pay my research participants for their time.

 

Since it’s thursday, that means happy hour! Normally this takes place in the Brain Box, but people wanted some hot food so we went to the grad bar on campus instead. Say hi everyone! (THIS time I remembered to get permission!)


Seeing some duck friends and more cherry blossoms on the way home.


Back in 2011, Christchurch had a huge earthquake. A lot of place on campus were badly affected and the construction is still taking place to replace and fix the damage. Across from the bus stop hope is the old Students’ Association building. It’s currently being torn down and rebuilt, so on days I take the bus I watch the construction progress for a few minutes until my bus comes.


OK this is not an “everyday” thing but I was TOO EXCITED not to put it in. I got a package!! A little while ago, I helped a friend (technically an ex but a friend nontheless lol) with reading/editing/feedbacking a book they’ve written and are trying to shop around to publishers. As a thank you, they had another friend make this cross-stitch for me.

It has all the crests of the Chosen Children (from the first season of Digimon). In the middle is my FAVOURITE digimon, MarineAngemon! Last but not least, NOT ONLY is the text in my favourite colour (orange), but the quote “Wanna be the biggest dreamer…” is from my favourite OP theme from the show (the one from Tamers, the 3rd season). I had to give it a special place of honour on my digimon shelf, though I think I’ll move it soon. I was SO happy to receive such a wonderful present x3

 

When I’m home for dinner, Andrew and I will eat together and chat, and usually watch a show or part of a movie (right now we’re hopping between Agent Carter, Pushing Daisies, and One Punch Man, but we’ll watch other stuff like GoT or Steven Universe when new eps are out). After dinner we both work on putting the food away, and if there’s leftovers I’ll put them together for my lunch the next day (see pic! Dinner and next-day-lunch is Teriyaki chicken! yum yum!)

I have two part time jobs that are both online/telecommute. Unfortunately, they also both require some NDAs so I can’t really talk much about them or show you – sorry! One job is doing “semantic annotation” (basically I label things for search engines lol) and it’s super boring but it pays pretty well for a part time job. The other is for a game company and it’s REALLY FUN sometimes and not so fun other times but aaaaaa too bad sorry! ;)

After/during work I mess around on Mycena and Facebook and other websites for most of the evening. Sometimes I’ll play videogames or watch youtube videos or paint miniature figures (love it!) or bake/cook (also love it!). But honestly during the week I mostly just vegetate (because I’m tired and lazy lol). I’ll have a bath or shower, and do the “bedtime routine” stuff – brushing teeth, brushing kitty (see pic!), cleaning the kitty’s poopdirt, etc. At bed time it’s time for my daily dose of pokemon Picross lol. Then Andrew and I snuggle into bed to do it all over again the next day. We’re usually in bed by around 12:30 or 1am.

 


Good night!

Posted 09/24/16, edited 09/24/16

Hi there! You may know me as Espurr or some variant thereof, but off in that magical land called Real Life I go by Adri. Here’s how my days usually go…

I get out of bed.

I make my bed! not usually, but today I felt like it, so…

After I get dressed and eat a bowl of cereal or some toast (today it was toast and I forgot to take pictures of it before I ate it, whoops) I generally hop on Mycena Cave (and some other pet sites) before my van arrives. I don’t have a car right now, so I pay out the butt for an Uber driver to pick me up and drop me off in the mornings because there isn’t an easy or cheap way to take a bus to my school. My cat likes to ‘help’ me play Echolocation.

This morning there was a praying mantis on my front door! Super neat. 8D I don’t like most bugs, but praying mantises are fine in my book because they tend not to harm people.

Okay, it’s not really /my/ front door because I am a Sad Adult who still lives with her parents, but I’m also currently going through school and out of the house most of the day. They’re pretty okay with me being here, but I got a set of suitcases for my last birthday. xD

Then I hop in my van! This is Carl, today’s driver, and he’s a pretty neat guy. He’s a Vietnam vet trying to make a little money on the side by giving people rides where they need to be.

Most days he’s my driver, but there are a few other people I’ve seen too.

I go to a pretty liberal (and small) art school, where one of my professors is an amazingly cool person who I very much look up to as a mentor and a friend. This is one of the many signs she has hanging out on her wall.

My first class of the day is in her room.

After my first class, I head to the computer lab downstairs and goof around for a while. Where? You guessed it, more pet sites. Pictured is the computer I usually use, with a sticker that has an inappropriate drawing on it. One of my classmates put it up and we made a bet to see how long it would stay up there, with neither of us being allowed to touch it or ask people to touch it. He’s winning right now-he bet two weeks, I bet two months, and it’s been about three weeks.

That same kid is constantly drawing on the school’s whiteboards-here was today’s rendition of some cartoon characters.

My favorite class of the day is my painting class! We meet every day and I have so much fun. This is one of the things I’m working on right now; a painting of a painting in a cartoon, actually. It’s Rose Quartz from Steven Universe.

This is my other project-in-progress. I don’t have anything complete at school right now, sadly. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but it looks cool :D

After painting class and a few others that aren’t really notable (like art history-cool concept, but poor execution) I head back home thanks to Carl again.

Hello, kitty! This is my baby Sierra. She is very fat, but that just means there’s more of her to love. She was rescued from a hoarding situation.

Hello, puppy! This is Jessie, a black Lab we got from a ‘free to good home’ box on the side of the road. To this day she’s terrified of cars, but she rides in them just fine!

Next up for me is goofing off on-you guessed it-more pet sites. Sometimes if I feel like it I’ll try to art, hence the (old) tablet chilling on my desk. Also visible-some ‘go to college here!’ mail, my Honey Nut Cheerios bowl, my wallet, a bracelet made out of that parachute cord, the broken back of my chair, a broken speaker, a list of potential side effects the flu shot can have, and a Victoriana character sheet!

Here’s what’s going on in my house right now-there was a problem with our tiles on the side wall and a lot of water leaked through, causing several of the tiles to fall off, which made showering a little more destructive than usual. This picture was admittedly taken a few days ago, but the next one is from today!

That’s what the bathroom looks like now.

I forgot to bring my phone with me, but tonight we (my parents and I) went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant! They serve delicious Southern soul food, and I always order their chicken and waffles. The key is pouring the syrup aaaaall over the chicken AND waffles. Mmm, delicious.

Afterwards we went to an ice cream place right next door, where I had a delicious oreo milkshake. :D

Then home we headed, and here I sit typing this up. I’m about to go take a shower, then I’ll probably go to bed and play some Legend of Zelda before I fall asleep.

Posted 09/24/16, edited 09/24/16
if I think about it I’ll add images tomorrow of my cat

Preface: I am currently double-majoring in Applied Linguistics and Asian Studies and (for the time being) unemployed (to focus on school and primarily mental health). I commute to school and generally spend a ton of time having to read for courses, so my life at this time is rather the antithesis of the engaging novel. I am a nerd and generally I nerd out about Asian things, East Asian in particular (and at that, Japanese most particularly), so the bulk of my studies contain Asian stuff usually. This semester is no exception. Anyway.

Class days and non-class days are vastly different for me, so for the sake of having interesting things to say I shall describe a class day, which is busybusy. I have classes Monday and Wednesday, so on those days I wake up much earlier than other days. I usually wake up at 7 am, or by 8 if my cat doesn’t decide to wake me up earlier than my later alarms. My roommate (the one the cat likes) has to wake up at 7ish so when he hears her he wakes up as well and treats me to a lovely rendition of what I like to call “meyowling,” beseeching her to give him attention (she can’t hear him two rooms away yet) and me to let him the f! out!! He’s a real butt in the mornings, but he’s my butt gosh darnit.

Since I have class at 12 noon, I usually have time to kill in the morning, so I play a game of “I’m not awake” pretending that I am still asleep until my cat figures out that I am actually awake (spoiler: he hears my glasses as I put them on). Once he does, he runs over from his early morning perch on my desk at the window and plants himself on my chest, face to face when I am laying on my back, and we stay that way with him purring until I get tired of it. I might check my phone then mumble at him a lot before I finally get up to make breakfast and use the bathroom. Before I leave my room, though, I feed him and check his water.

Once I am in the kitchen, usually by 7:30-7-40, I either eat or make breakfast, depending on my choices the night(s) before. If I had already made up cold brew and/or overnight oats, I’ll grab those from the fridge and strain the coffee. The oats I’ll have made in a small mason jar ready to eat cold from the fridge, the coffee the same but I’ll need to strain it and add milk. Yummm~ :D If I don’t have everything made, I’ll make tea or coffee and maybe scrambled eggs, or oatmeal, or toast and eggs, idk standard American breakfast stuffs.

I’m usually at my desk by 8ish, ready to do the homework I set aside for the morning. I’ll often have a reading response I’ve done half the reading for, or this semester quick phonetics worksheets, maybe just some more reading. Like always, my courses are centered on Japan. Just this semester, 2/4 courses are about Japan. Since I have exhausted my school’s Japanese language courses, it’s going to be half linguistics now (my first major) and half… whatever Asian or culture-oriented stuff I can find. I check MC off and on, but mostly do reading because that is the bulk of my courses usually. Around 9:30 I start getting dressed and run to the bathroom before another roommate can hog it for a shower, then I’m free to assemble my lunch and/or a real lunchtime lunch. My classes are from 12 to 6:45, so I need two ‘lunches,’ one to eat for lunchtime before my classes and one to eat at 4:30ish in the only break between my classes. Usually (surprise surprise) I’ll make some kind of Asian/Japanese-ish lunch (because I am a weeaboo I am a scholarly Asian Studies major and I live with a Korean and I like “healthy” lunches) with rice, seaweed, eggs, fish (tuna or mackerel… or herring!). I pack my lunch (obento or plain lunchmeat sandwich, whatever) with reusable ice cubes because I’ll eat in 6-7 hours…

After I assemble my vast array of stuff, I clean the litter (all the gods from ever must have coordinated when the person who invented the Litter Genie was born). Thus starts my day of solitude, as I am very introverted this semester and only talk really when I have to make all those lovely weird noises in phonetics or chat with my roommates before or after my school days start. The bus comes around 10:25-10:45 (haha marta sucks) and it takes me like 5-7 mins to get to the train station (it’s a 25 min walk, but it’s hot still so I don’t like it), and I get to the city by train/subway by 11:10-11:20. I have roughly 40 minutes to wait/do homework/get Subway if I didn’t pack a ‘lunchtime’ lunch besides the ‘suppertime’ lunch. Lately I have been stressed and busy so I sit in one of the bajillion Subways nearby and eat/study.

I have three classes, 12-4:15, the break for food and studying (usually reading for other classes) and then class from 5:30-6:45. After that, I head to the station and go home, usually arriving back at around 7:30 or so, maybe 8 if I didn’t head out immediately. I usually have my music on shuffle since the train goes underground enough for Pandora to not be an option) and maybe if I am not too exhausted I’ll read for my Shinto/Buddhism class since religion is more digestible on public transportation than Japanese politics, I suppose. Once home, I usually eat a second supper depending on how filling my lunch was (or how much of it I snacked on in between classes instead of saving for my break) and hop on MC or socialize with my roommates.

I usually play Runescape a bit to do dailies and see if my parents are on (because the family that nerds together stays together?), chatting with them if they are, then I max out Echolocation while watching a couple episodes of anime (sometimes) or listening to my music on shuffle. I usually stay up anywhere from 11:30ish to rollover (1 am here) and maybe get in some more reading for a class or read a book (at this time usually an Asian American novel, since that’s been a scholarly/free-time focus of mine since fall last year) then go to bed. Since I am an insomniac, this may mean I spend ~1 hour in bed before I sleep or 3 hours, but it varies. I might stay up later to fiddle with character profiles on MC or chat on skype, but most class days I don’t feel too social, having spent my social energy just being in the city/going to class.

Posted 09/25/16

Hi there! I’m known as hcuolel to folks online, Sam to my professors, and Sammy to my family and close friends
c :  I’m currently studying in a university in Illinois.

Like almost every other college students, the time I wake up is heavily depended on my schedules lol. In some good days I can sleep till 10 while in those bad days I need to wake up as early as 7 but if I sleep too late the night before theres a big chance that I might slept through the first class… To save my attendance I usually set about 5 alarms in a row. The first thing I think about after becoming fully conscious (it generally take 5 to 10 minutes before my mind turns on… really slow boot time were I a computer lol) is whether I should go to school cafeteria for breakfast, although most of the days I choose to skip breakfast due to my laziness and the fact that the cafeteria never change their breakfast menu, ever.

Then I’ll clean myself up and go to classes… yay very exciting… (not at all) But the bright side of classes is that I get to see my girlfriend Leslie in some of the classes ; ) We have the same period of physics and seminar this semester and they are usually around lunch time so we can eat lunch together. Although the breaks between classes are short (about half hour) that we can only eat grab-and-go style lunch, we both like the Caesar salad they provided.

In the afternoon I will go to gym and run on the treadmills. I soon found that team sports isn’t really my thing after I tried out a few. I like listening to music when I run. My favorite album for running is My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade. I usually run 6-7 k per day and go take a shower after that. Then Leslie and I will meet up and decide where do we want our dinner. Common options are the pizza store on the corner of the main street, the Indian restaurant in Students’ Center, or the cafeteria. The cafeteria actually offers good stir fries during dinner hours.

At night (during week days) Leslie and I will go to the library to study, or just to hang out (we both play MC and enjoy the same kind of TV shows and movies). The library opens 24/7 and has really nice sofas. We like to stay at the second floor because its the floor where group discussion is not allowed (unlike the first floor) but absolute silent is not required neither (unlike the floors above the 3rd). Leslie is really bright at physics and chemistry and all sorts of science classes and she’s a really wonderful study partner to work with. We say goodbye to each other around 12 and returns to different dorms. We are considering maybe we will move out and rent an apartment together next year. In the weekends, we might go out and watch movie together at night or simply go shopping. We don’t like to set strict timetable for every hour.

Posted 09/26/16, edited 09/26/16

hi all!!! i decided to just take snapchats of my day and post my story as a video haha. the video itself is a little small compared to the black fb box but yeah!! here you go!

so i’m an undergrad in my senior year at a college in nyc, and this is my normal monday! i woke up around 8:30, and got back to my dorm around midnight. fun things not featured in the video include: this lady putting in eyedrops ON the subway!! what. also more friends! the friend you do see asked to be in this video haha, and no worries i told him what i was taking it for! also i went to biochem review, which was pretty fun even though it doesnt sound it. i usually spend a break between classes hanging out with friends or heading over to central park to catch pokemon (last week i got a venusaur with 50 strangers! it was AWESOME)

anyway when i do get back to the dorm i like to sit in my comfy blue chair and study, watch netflix, do my homework, literary review for my honors thesis, chat with more friends, sometimes go down to the game room and play pool, and IDEALLY have dinner because otherwise i do get pretty peckish (that dunkin donuts sandwich you saw me have for lunch was my only food today… oops) but yeah! then i go to bed around 1 or 2 and that’s it, my day is done c:

thanks for reading!

Posted 09/26/16, edited 09/27/16

A slice of A day in the life of a person living on a farm on the Oregon coast c=  basically critter care/wildlife spotting, so photo intensive and a wall o text….

There’s simply no way to cram my real whole day into one itty bitty post, so I thought I’d focus on my usual day of critter care since they are a big part of my life.

Back in 2013, my hubby and I bought and relocated to a farm on the Oregon Coast.  it’s been an extremely longwinded journey and dream of ours.  We’re still coming to grips with the fact we made it =O

When we relocated, we made an epic journey, following the Oregon Trail yet again with our critter family:  Blossom the Dales Pony, Dundee the Missouri Fox Trotter, Oogway the Mountain Coatimunde and MIster our guard kitty.

When we arrived, part of the farm was a purchase of an established horse riding business.  Let’s just say the previous owner wasn’t truthful (AT ALL) about a lot of things and over the course of a few years, I rehomed all but two of the riding horses.  Rita and Reigny remain. 

So in the mornings I usually roll out of bed anywhere between 2 and 4 am ~ WHAT?!  It’s because the rest of my day is full, so like my German grandma, I get up at an insane time o day to have a little ‘me’ time.  It’s usually wasted on pet sites, but I also cram in things like checking emails. 

Breakfast for the ponies begins at daybreak.  In the Summers the Oregon Coast gets a lot of sun 8o ouch!  what’s that?!  So I’ll be busy feeding at 5am-6am first breakfasts.  In the winter, I still try to do first feeds at daylight, but sometimes it will be predawn as I like first feeds by 7am.

As I walk to the barns, I’m usually on the lookout for my typical elk herds.  When we first arrived, we had a main established herd of around 20 individuals, a secondary ‘teen’ herd of around 18 individuals and then a honkin’ ginormous herd that was upwards of 30 individuals (if not more) with at least 5 bulls thrown in x.x that last herd was flat out horrible!  And destructive, and we all cheered mightily when they left.  They currently live around 20 miles to the north of us near Astoria.

After a couple of years, the original main herd has rotated itself somewhere and our ‘teen’ herd has matured and become our main herd.  I know them the best, and typically look for them to see how they are doing.  We got to watch them with the first of their calves.  As young parents, they didn’t do such a hot job, but they’ll figure it out eventually.

I usually look them over because although elk can easily clear 15 feet from a standstill, they are incredibly lazy and will try to bash down my fencing instead e.e If I’m onhand they understand the crazy lady would prefer you jump the fence cleanly, so they make the effort.  Otherwise I’m stuck on a daily basis, walking fencing to repair and restaple it. 

Teens jumping the fence properly.  Good form!

4 bulls from the teen herd who decided to stay for the summer of 2015.  I got to know the boys pretty well.  One is now the bull with the cows, the other two bachelors still migrate through when it’s not hunting season and did stay here over summer.  We lost the third who was the biggest character.  Still very, very sadly missed as he was my favorite of the boys. 

Some of the boys assembling before hunting season.  A few have the velvet off their antlers and were playing reindeer games, bashing their antlers on one another, the others were milling about. 

Aside from the elk, I’m also on lookout for and call back and forth to my murder of crows <3 they live here over the winter, but are in town to mooch french fries from the tourists over summer

That’s not counting the myraid of other birds like the House Finches, siskins, chickadees, Stellar Blue jays, ringnecked doves, flickers….the list is intensive… all follow me and call to me when I’m on the way to and from the barns and fields.  They love to see what I’m up to, let me know how their own day is going and in the case of the House Finches and smaller birds, they call out to let everyone know where the mink are, though the mink are rarely up and about earlier in the mornings.

The ponies live in 2 separate barns (how uber cool is that?!  Most of my time with my horses, they’ve only had fields with windbreaks, lived in blankets in the winter, etc so the idea of a real barn is so cool to me! =D )  Rita and Reigny live in the first barn.  There is a paddock attached to the rear of the barn. 

The fencing is removed, so Reigny goes in the big stall on the right and Rita gets the run in on the left.  Breakfast is usually a couple flakes of meadow hay.  Some mornings I add supplements which are like getting Candy Bars for breakfast for ponies xD where we live, we have selenium deficiencies and the supplements add that for them, along with basic minerals and other trace needs. 

Blossom and Dundee live in the Second barn which you can see on the lefthand side above.  It’s just easier and safer for my horse keeping to keep the sets of two apart.  I happen to like all of mine, and don’t want any life ending injuries by putting them all together. 

Blossom and Dundee get the same morning hay as Rita and Reigny and the same supplements, except Blossom’s let me know she needs waaaaay less of the selenium supplement, thank you very much!

A few times in the past, Rita and Reigny were turned onto the big main field, so they stayed mostly on the field for the bulk of the year and didn’t need the hay.  The main field is here, through my windows.  Yes, it was a lot of fun to be able to see them.  Very sadly the grass was planted for cows =(  my farrier insisted this year Rita and Reigny have to live behind the barn, and off that very lush grazing.  Founder and abcess fears.  So sorry girls.
Main field through the sunroom windows:

Main field:

So to get back to a normal day, while the ponies enjoy 1st breakfast, I go inside and get breakfast prepped for the boys, (although Oogway has just recently passed unexpectedly ;-; )  It was a peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich for Oogway prepped with sprinkles of vitamins and a mushroom complex <3 and for Mister, it’s a can of wet food with sprinkles of myrrh for joint mobility and lysine for immune boosting. 

Pic of Oogway as a dinky dot toddler playing with a new toy, we lost him aged 7 years, 3 1/2 months ;-;

Mister at our previous home.  Yes, he’s a big goofball =D he’s also a super mouser and does ghost guarding as well ^.^  your all around Guard Kitty with artistic abilities thrown in.  Seriously, when he was younger and an outdoors kitty, he would ‘paint’ in the snow or the mud.  Even now he’s discovered the previous owners left the antique stove full of soot and somehow he opened the front slots of the stove (which is how I found out about the left behind soot)  and came to breakfast all sooty. 

Mister’s wet food:

One of Mister’s artworks:

At around 10am, I head back outside for 2nd breakfasts for the ponies.  Rita and Reigny typically get another 2 flakes of meadow hay and depending on the day, I lead Blossom and Dundee to the front field so they can stretch their legs, graze a little and be social.

Blossom is on the right, Dundee on the left…

My work day around the house is very flexible, and sometimes involves being outside dumping mushroom compost, cleaning out stalls, washing up, etc, so again there is plenty of time for me to have wildlife interact with me.  The birds are usually insanely curious, and love to supervise, especially if I’m washing up the bins we use at times for the mushrooms.  They love the detail work…xD ‘you missed a spot!’.  I’ve gotten to watch the house finches and barn swallows raise a lot of youngsters by simply looking around as I do my work.  I also call back and forth to them.

In a separate set, I have a resident red tailed hawk female that I suspect may have been hand reared or possibly rehabbed early in her life.  It’s not unusual for wildlife to get extremely close to me (sometimes way too close and I have to remind them of boundaries ‘kay, thanks!..looking at you elk), but the hawk really takes the mickey.  She’s extemely comfortable being on the ground near us as we do our farm chores like fence mending or lawn mowing.  Last time hubby was mowing, he actually had to shut off the mower until she moved as she got too close!

I can almost set my watches by her.  In the evenings she has dinner at 5pm, typically on the post to our Mushroom kits sign in the front field.  Other times she loves to ‘share’ her dinner and will drag her evening vole to the back of the barn while I’m feeding Rita and Reigny, she will be on her post, tearing apart a meadow vole, and offering the guts to ‘share’.  Reigny has the same reaction as me =X no thanks, I’m good! 

We also have a kestrel <3 which makes my heart happy. She has to be extremely quiet, however as the red tailed hawk is very territorial.  We have 28 acres of open meadow land which means an insane amount of voles for any number of predators to munch on. 

Even Gronk our resident Great Blue Heron, will take a break from his fishing to come hunt the voles as variety to his diet

So after a full day, I typically fetch in Blossom and Dundee from their field from 2-4pm.  Much depends on if they get tired early or not.  They’re usually pretty tired and hungry from playing and want to come in to have supper and sleep. 

Supper feeds are yet another two flakes of hay.  Bloss and Dundee typically get 2 feeds with field time and Rita and Reigny average 4 feeds a day as their paddock has far, far less grazing (as per the instructions from my farrier). 

With the day winding down the birds are usually calling back and forth to me and one another as they go through their roosting sequences.  Sometimes the mink will blast through everyone’s day during the afternoon.  Normally they hunt the meadow voles, but sometimes they get bored and they will take a small bird on the ground if the bird is careless enough (hence the constant calling if they see the mink).  Otherwise they can roam anywhere, including in our home.  We usually have one mink in the house and the other in our barn, with any amount working the fields.  We have the river running at the front of our home across the highway and the creek with salmon in the back of our house, so it’s a real paradise for the wildlife. 

I’ve always been an animal person, and hubby loves them and the wildlife.  Since moving here, if anything animals have become an even stronger part of my life and daily activity.  I suspect it will become even moreseo as we get to know the farm and manage it in the years to come. 

Posted 09/27/16

Hello! My name is Robyn and I’m a 20-something working mama. My days are all pretty typical, but I’m going to share one of my favourite days of the week with you - Tuesday!

My alarm goes off at 5:30 am, although it’s likely that I’ve already been half-awoken by my fiance saying goodbye when he leaves for work. I swipe my alarm to snooze and proceed to browse Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook (in that order) for far too long. By the time I haul myself out of bed, it’s 6 am.

I then get ready for work. Teeth, makeup, hair - the works. This normally takes me 20-30 minutes. Then I quickly get dressed, throw together a quick lunch, let the dog outside, and take my bag to my car. Now that it’s fall, I also start my car so the frost can thaw before I have to drive it.

I leave the dog outside when I go back in. The cat will be waiting for me and I quickly top-up his kibble, refill both water bowls, and fill a bottle with milk for my two-year old daughter, Aurora. Then comes the heart-breaking task of waking her up. Sometimes she will already be awake, having heard me getting ready, but sometimes she will be buried under her “Paw Patrol” blankie, clutching her stuffed Dino and Marshall (a character from the aforementioned show), and I will be forced to slowly coerce her into the Land of Wakefulness. At the very least, once she’s awake, it’s a simple matter to move her to her change table, give her the bottle, and change her diaper and dress her without much effort on her part!

We make our way to the porch where we put on shoes and jackets. Aurora helps me feed the dog and we let our pup inside as we make our way out. Aurora will say, “Bye Foof!” and wave as I close and lock the door.

By now it’s nearly 7 am and we hustle to the car. Once Aurora is buckled into her car seat, I fire off a text to her grandma, my future mother-in-law, and we’re on our way! It’s a 20 minute drive from our house into the city so we listen to my favourite country music station and sing along to every song.

Fast forward through driving, dropping off Aurora, more driving, and arriving at work. I’m an admin assistant and my job consists of minimal paperwork, billing, and answering the phone. I generally spend most of my day attempting to occupy myself between phone calls.

I work from 8-4:30 and my fiance won’t be off work until at least an hour after me on a typical day, so it falls to me to pick up Aurora again.

Once we return home, we let out the dog, put away our stuff, and Aurora goes off to play while I begin putting something together for dinner. Because it’s Tuesday, it will be something quick and easy like alfredo pasta. I eat quickly and then go to change into leggings and a t-shirt in preparation for my evening activity. Shortly after my fiance gets home from work and takes over toddler duty, I zip back into the city for my Aerial Silks class!

I started taking Aerial Silks in April 2016 and have been doing it at least once a week since! Silks is the highlight of my week, every week, and even when I go twice a week, it feels like 100 years between classes.

Silks consists of a warm-up, stretching, and then 40-30 minutes of training on the silks. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s more than enough! I find myself covered in sweat not even 15 minutes into training. But every second is worth the callouses, jelly arms, and mysterious bruises. I’ve made a lot of headway since April and I hope I can participate in my first showcase next summer! Here is a short video of my first simple drop!

We cool down with more stretching and then I make the drive back home.

Everyone is in bed when I return. But no matter how late it is, I shower and then crawl into bed. I wish I could say that I go straight to sleep, but I end up looking at my phone for another 15-30 minutes, trying to wind down before I finally turn out the light. Sweet dreams!

(Marshall image is from Paw Patrol Wikia; other images and Instagram are my own.)

Posted 09/27/16, edited 09/29/16

Hello I’m Tewro! I live in a city in the south of England and attend my second of year of university, studying marketing with psychology~  I have classes four days out of seven with different hours, but my schedule is mostly the same even when I don’t have classes.

 

 

I wake up at 6 am and love seeing the sun rise (which doesn’t look nearly as good in the picture as it does in real life unfortunately). I generally laze in bed for some good 20-25 minutes, just checking emails and news on my phone, until i decide I’m awake enough and take those awful, freezing cold, first steps out of the bed. Sometimes I can hear seagulls from my apartment and it’s really charming~

 

 


My first breakfast is something simple just to give me energy for the morning workout! It’s not in the picture but I also drink tepid water with honey. Once that’s done I stretch and go straight to the gym.

I try to vary what I work out. Today it was treadmill but next time it’ll be weights~ After an hour (was originally planning two hours but eh) I’m exhausted and ready to go back home.

 

 

 

After the workout I’m all sweaty and gross so I hop right into the shower!

 

 

 

Finally it’s time for a proper breakfast!! After working out and showering I’m starving! My default breakfast is crunchy nut cereal, fried egg on toast and orange juice. I enjoy watching something while I eat so I just turn on my ps3 and either watch youtube videos or some anime. This morning I was in the mood for some action so Bungo Stray Dogs it was~

please ignore the mess that is that bookcase orz

 

 

 

This morning I was slower than usual so I had to hurry! I tossed on my shoulderbag (which is literally falling apart but I don’t have the heart to replace) and started making my way towards the business school. There are about four pokestops on my way to uni and this morning I missed an omanyte. Woe is me. ; D ;

 

 

 


The first lecture of the day was at 11 am, and one of my personal favorites, Leadership, Ethics, Governance And Sustainability. Though the lecturer wasn’t exactly giving off energy. A guy sitting next to me continuously pinched himself to stay awake. Savage.

The lecture finished 20 minutes earlier so I had time to drop by the university cafè and have a shot of espresso, and just relaxed for some 15 minutes with a book~

Following that I had two more lectures and then a one hour break for lunch. I figured I might as well do some shopping on my way back home.

 

 

 


Aaaaaaaand because this is England it starts to rain. Of course. Thankfully I had my umbrella and it was a light rain, but it was still annoying.

My groceries got wet but thankfully I didn’t have anything that could get damaged by water.

 

 

 

 


90% of my meals are this: stir fried vegetables with stuff thrown in. I don’t consider myself a good cook but somehow get by. |D

Today it was pepper and onion stir fry with chicken sausages, and strawberries for desert. Bon apetit~

 


Two more hours of lectures and I was done! Mondays are exhausting. ; D ;

Anyway, during my free time I generally write, draw or play videogames. Or just… Sit in front of my laptop doing nothing. Which generally happens when I’ve had a tiring day ahaha.

 

 


I made noodles with olives and shrimp for dinner~ But I messed up and didn’t use enough oil so the noodles were very dry. Ah well, happens to the best of us.

To be in top shape for the next morning I try to go to bed before 10 pm, though it’s not always that simple. xD But I try!

Goodnight~!

 

Posted 09/27/16

Warning: language, adult themes


Journal entry- 9/30/2016

The day star has risen once again and it stings my eyes. Jokes on you day star, I haven’t been to sleep yet. There is this voice in the back of my head telling my burning eyes that every time I lay in my bed, it’s time to party. Sleep is something I miss. You see, I’m very sick and it comes with many costs. This week, I pay the price of sleeplessness, blood pouring from various places in and on my body from which it shouldn’t (the old gods demand their sacrifices and when you don’t give them what they want, they take it) and crippling back pain. I can’t move this morning. I’m staring at my ceiling like I have been for the last five hours. It hurts too much to roll over and grab my laptop, it hurts too much to make my way out of my bed to use the bathroom or eat. I just lie here staring at my ceiling, thinking about how much the globe over the light above my head looks like a robots boob. That could also be the lack of sleep talking.

I’ve been texting my sister since five am. Making sure she has everything she needs, giving her direction on making breakfast and double checking her school schedule to see if she will be home before or after I leave for work. I can’t bring myself to physically walk up there today, but I won’t neglect my duties in getting her ready and out the door for school. Next is calling the house at seven am, I keep calling till my mother rises from her slumber and answers. I tell her to put my brother on the phone. She berates me for calling knowing I am downstairs in my room. I tell her I can’t move, it’s not a good day, she puts him on the phone. I give him my list of demands and tell him if he does not comply, when I do find the energy to get up I will remove the wifi from his 360 and he will rot in sadness if a thing is out of line. I run this house, my parents just pay the rent.

I hear him stomping around, I hear mom yelling at him, I hear my dog barking like a maniac. She will only listen to me. Another hour passes, my eyes have begun to droop. I want this sleep but the need to relieve myself has grown past the ability to hold. I have to force myself out of this bed, I have to force myself to move. The pain shooting down my spine into my legs is too great, I’m in tears grasping for walls, book cases, anything to get myself out of my room and to my bathroom. I made it today, some days I am not so lucky, the victory is short lived. I hear my mother calling for me. I ignore her, bathroom time is me time…or so I thought, much to my dismay she has figured out Facebook messenger and it’s become my downfall. Ding, Ding, Ding, that’s all I hear as I reluctantly look at my phone. She doesn’t feel like cooking today so It’s my turn to cook. I try to make my way slowly upstairs. Each step is like hundreds of burning needles digging themselves into my spine. I made it to the second floor, victory is mine, I raise my hands in glory before I immediately need to catch myself and my dog. She sees my hands raised and in her mind it means “Time to jump”. It’s the problem of having a 70lb baby who thinks she’s a lap dog. I still love her though. I give her pets and kisses and make my way into the kitchen. Typical daily breakfasts for me is anything between bagels with cream cheese, green onion and bacon to something more substantial like homemade home fries, fried eggs, toast and a meat (meats vary from bacon to sausage and sometimes scrapple or steak). Today though, I don’t feel like cooking either, so its bacon and cream cheese bagels with cherry blossom tea. I start every morning breakfast with tea.

I pour medications down my throat, sometimes I miss count and take more than I should, and sometimes I stick to my prescriptions. Honestly, the more depressed I am, the more I take to stop feeling. My doctor is aware of my mind abuse and as such has lowered my dosages of pain management medications. By this point in my day, it’s now anywhere between 9 and 10 am. My pupper Shadow demands cuddles and a walk. No one else will walk her but my sister and she’s unfortunately in school. I grab the leash and she wigs the fuck out. There goes the end table, there does some carpet, and pretty sure she’s choking herself with excitement. Today I win again, she didn’t knock me down. Once outside we walk down the block, to the high school, up the lane and back around. By the time I get home she’s exhausted and I am in tears and traction. I decide to go back to my room, I climb back into bed and I lay there staring at the ceiling again. This time I know that sleep will come and it does, right before I leave this world though, I set an alarm for 2pm. I can’t miss work. They will never let me miss work. Even if I call out or have the day off my phone rings nonstop. The shitty part of being literally the most effective worker they have.

My alarm plays a light welcoming sound. It reminds me of feathers falling on a sunny day, I crack an open, reaching around frantically looking for my phone before the soft tone turns into air raid sirens. I beat it today but it cost me something far worse than my hearing. My back is locking up again, thankfully I set my alarm a few minutes earlier than 2, my new habit as I move slower than a turtles pace trying to put my pants on. Each missed leg is another tear down my cheek. I breathe heavily as I lay back in my bed staring up at the robot breast in my ceiling. One day I will be able to afford the surgery needed to fix one of my many spinal injuries. The one plaguing me the most this week is my coccyx. It’s inflamed again, crooked and it’s pushing against my sciatic nerve making both my legs barely functioning. I grab my cane, I hate using this things, much like my glasses. I can’t tell you the last time I wore those. Making my way upstairs and to the van where my ride is waiting. I ask if we can stop at Royal Farms and McDonald’s. I didn’t have time to cook today and I know I’ll need dinner. Since I don’t drive, I would rather roll through McDonald’s and snag some cheap food over ordering out. As we pull up, I ask my driver if they want anything, not today. I order my usual, two sausage McMuffin’s and a small fry. I make sure to ask for ketchup and jelly. There is something about the tang of ketchup and the sweet of grape jelly (Which I hate, this is the only way I eat grape jelly) mixing with the slight bite McDonald’s sausage patties have that tastes amazing to me.

The ride to work is typical, my headphones are in, my body keeps fidgeting because it’s in pain and the sweet sound of Watsky’s Sloppy Seconds is blaring in my ears followed by Evan’s Blue. I try to get pumped for work, quietly psyching myself up for the day. I list everything I want to accomplish today and I know I won’t get a damn thing done as I pull up to the complex and notice that the van is missing again. Like clockwork, they know I’m about to clock in and my phone blows up with e-mail after e-mail placing more and more work on my shoulders.

I walk in the door and try hard not to spill my ice as I keep flipping many keys on my ring. Bingo, I’m in the door, immediately I hear the soothing sounds of the woman on the third floor screaming, the old man on the second floor screaming “A Meeghan is that you? They Stole my cream again!” and the mousy woman on the first floor is looking at me trying to tell me she was “good today.” I beg them to let me clock in and put my stuff down. First thing to tackle is the old man, I remind him multiple times that now one want’s to steal is genital cream and even show him where we keep it locked up. I also remind him that I will not answer him if he’s yelling and that my name is not A meeghan, let alone Megan or anything close to that while I am clocking in. I run upstairs to see why the woman on the third floor is screaming. She’s mad because I told her I was going to watch her like a hawk yesterday. See, she is a drug abuser and went to the hospital, she came home and was honest they gave her morphine. She has a history of abusing hospital sedatives so I told her I was going to keep an eye on her because for many it only takes once and I want to see her move to our step down program. She took that as I don’t trust her and because I don’t trust her she has decided she is going to throw a full laying on the floor, kicking, and slamming, screaming temper tantrum. I try to explain myself to her, I try to deescalate the issue before she potentially falls backwards in her treatment and remind her that she does have a roommate. She refuses to stop screaming, I tell her I am refusing her LOA to go out this evening because is demonstrating to me that she can’t be out in public. Her screaming turns to faux apologies as I close the door.

I really can’t deal with this today. I’ve been clocked in for 45 minutes now and I am 100% behind quitting right now. The rest of the day is filled with e-mails, holding my tongue, practicing patience and the store run. This is always my least favorite part of the week. I have to go in and shop for 2 people with limited funds and picky tastes while assisting 3 others in their shopping. I haven’t eaten since breakfast and it’s raining. One of my clients is screaming her head off in the checkout. She forgot her Independence card. She’s yelling for me to pay for her groceries. I explain to her I cannot and she yells more. I’m going to have to write all this up and here come the police. It’s hard talking to others when there is a grown woman screaming and you have to explain that she is both mentally ill and mentally handicapped without stating she is mentally ill and mentally handicapped while trying to calm her down enough for us to exit, while trying to make sure no one walks off with my basket. I apologize, I talk to them some more and we agree she will leave and won’t be allowed in the store again unsupervised. She walks outside and immediately pisses herself waiting for the can to come back.

I now need to go through and clean the van when we get her home. As we pull up, we realize that one of the clients never made it back to the bus, we have to go back and get her. As I let the other clients off the van, I see my usual gentleman standing at the door staring at me. I ask him to come over, he comes over holding a cigarette butt. I have him drop it and explain to him when I get back I’ll give him one of his cigarettes if he goes back into 203 and waits for me. I leave again, gone no more than 10 minutes before I pull back up to the building. There he is smoking the same butt I told him to drop. I’m pissed. I take him into his apartment and explain to him the cause and effect and choice and consequence. I work with him and make sure he understands why he will not get a cigarette today. He does and I leave to go see who’s yelling Fuck at the top of their lungs. When I meet this client again, 10 minutes later, his fist connected with my face. I let out the loudest most earth shattering bellow and he runs to his room. I’m not going to file charges because he’s a frail old man but I’m now done. I medicate my floor as the medication window has just started and have all my work done by 8pm. I don’t get off till 10 this week because of my ride situation. The entire building heard my yell earlier and no one was left their rooms.

As I do room checks, I get many asking why I yelled, I get others stating “Den mom is pissed. I don’t want to anger the dragon.” It’s a joke with some select clients, but it always makes me laugh they call me the dragon because they can hear me anywhere in the building. In the last 2 hours of my shift, I’ve had to use an auger on a toilet, clean up some vomit, continue to tell the gentleman who calls me Meegan that it’s now past curfew and he needs to quiet down as he is yelling play by plays of the O’s game. We’re down to the last 30 minutes. A client is losing her mind and now throwing her clothing off the balcony. I beg for someone to just end this as I walk up the stairs. She’s worried about a spider she saw and felt the best way to handle it all is to throw everything out. I’m happy she didn’t set it on fire, she is a firebug after all.
I finally get outside to my ride. My headphones go right back in, I need something to bring me down. I put on Carmina Burana O Fortuna and let it whisk me away as I make airplanes with my hand out the window in the misty cool night.

I get home and eat my McMuffin’s. I didn’t have time at work today. I also pop three oxycodone and a naproxen, pack my pipe, grab myself a bottle of water, pull up my phone and check Mycena for a few moments before putting on Super Jail. I don’t know what it is about this show but when I’m depressed or angry, this show brings me back to level. Once I am level, I feed my sugar glider Mika and pull her out for some cuddles. She hates being held so I try working with her a little bit a few times a week. Tonight, she’s being a bitey asshole and I don’t feel like dealing with it very long, so back in she goes. It’s now close to 1am. I am tired but cannot sleep I go and sit in the darkness of my back yard watching the rain fall around me under my porch, the leaves of my mimosa tree flowing delicately in the wind while its leaves dance as droplets hit them before I go back inside. It’s close to 3am. I bring myself back to this moment and check MC a bit for laying back in my bed and going back to staring at the ceiling. Waiting to rinse and repeat.


Saeta Inoue Tagging myself to find this

Posted 09/27/16, edited 10/09/16

My name is Frankie. I can say that, because it’s not my legal name, I wish it was. Maybe some day.

At the moment, I am in a transition period where I’m living at my partner’s house before I move into my new apartment next month.
Every morning,  I wake up in a bed in a shed. It is freezing, the last embers of the pot-bellied stove are long cold and the mist from the forest and river just beyond the concrete back wall of our makeshift abode. It’s normally six in the morning, I roll over and try and wake my partner for work. He grumbles and falls back to sleep while I make him a coffee. I return, place his mug on his night stand and try and wake him again. He grumbles, mumbles something sarcastic and goes back to sleep. The process continues on a cycle until he is late and I am furious.
Finally,  he leaves. His truck rumbles down the driveway and I jump back into bed for a quick snooze. I don’t start work till well into the afternoon, but i need a power nap.

Midday,  open my eyes. $&#@!!! Dive to my feet, dash about trying to find appropriate business dress, give up and throw on some jeans and a Tshirt. Run to the bus spilling my travel coffee all over myself and begin my hour long trip to the city.
2:30PM the bell goes. Yes, the bell. I am a grown adult who answers to a BELL. Briefing,  stats are up, stats are down, names highlighted on a public list,  names above the line, names below. Nothing is perfect. You made target, you made credit card & sales target, but too many people said ‘no’ to you. New job, old job, new script,  same script.  Time to get on the phone.
“This call may be recorded for training purposes”
Your sales are down. I’m not good at bullying people out of their money. Your sales are up. It’s sheer luck, but I still feel guilty. 
Need to get out of this job. Apply for more this weekend. Like last weekend.
9:30PM, stumble in the door. Takeaway again. My paycheck won’t last, it never does. Stare at TV. Eat. Too tired to take the dishes inside.  Too scared to look at the kitchen that I still need to clean.
Shower, feed the dogs, clean the dog fur and chewed up sticks off the mattress. Lie down. How is it already 1am!? Set alarms for 5:30, 5:35, 5:40, 5:45, 5:50, 5:55, 6:00, 6:05, 6:10, 6:15, 6:20, 6:25, 6:30.
Lie awake thinking about all the things I didn’t get done,  and all the things I wanted to do.

Eyes close.

7:18AM
@$&#!!! WAKE UP, YOU’RE LATE!!!

Posted 09/28/16

Hello everyone! My name is Madara MadaraKeehl because Madara is usually taken by the other Naruto fans haha. My life so far has been pretty hectic and stressful so I’m not sure how interesting this is going to be to read ^^”

I just moved from America to The Netherlands to live with my long-distance fiance of 6 years. One Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I wake up at around 7:30pm to go to work with my fiance because it’s boring to just stay at home. Since I haven’t been able to find work, I volunteer as a customer support representative for the gaming company he works for it’s a startup so they can’t afford to pay me. I did make a few friends by going to the office on these days so I’m happy for that. I do hope that eventually the company situation will be healthy enough to hire me. It would be pretty sweet working for a game company officially xD

Around 12-1pm, we go for a lunch break. I’m still getting used to the food but my favorite by far is kebab. I just want to eat it every day. The whole office usually takes the lunch break together. It’s a small company, just 5 employees. After lunch, we’re usually dead and are easily distracted. The bosses bring their old dog so we end up spending more time feeding him oranges than actually working ^^” We leave at 5pm usually but if it’s too hot or there’s not enough to do, we get to leave early.

Right after work, we eat dinner. Since I’m staying at his parents house trying to win a house in a lottery is hard ^^” I cook twice a week. If I’m cooking, right through the door I throw my things on the floor and get to it. If not, we wait for the meal to be finished unless it’s finished already.
At night, we derp around and play video games. Usually I have my snake on my lap because she wakes up to the sound of the TV and tries to peek. Currently we take turns playing Fire Emblem. The boyfriend plays a lot of Guild Wars. I play some Flight Rising. Then we go to bed at around 11pm since he’ll have to wake up in the morning again.

I don’t set an alarm on these days. I like to let my body just do it’s thing. Once I’m awake, I sit around doing nothing for a while, pee, idk drink juice, etc I want to work so bad because this is so boring Q.Q. After that, I turn on my computer and wait for the bug reports to roll in. I “work” 7 days a week technically but some days are just very slow.

Once I’ve responded to any messages, I eat breakfast. This is maybe around 2pm. For some reason I can’t eat right when I get up. Probably a habit I acquired from college… I always bring the breakfast upstairs so I can look up information about insurance, banks, houses, jobs, etc. I have my temporary residence permit but there’s still so much to do and most of the things require us to drive there for permissions and such.

After that, I’m tired again ^^” I have exophoria so I can’t really look at the screen too long anymore. I might nap to rest my eyes or play with my bean snake (her name is Rem but she just looks like a little beanie to me). I’m pretty much a lonely puppy while I wait for him to come home xD I have applied for a few jobs but it’s hard without knowing Dutch ^^”

GAMES! MOVIES! FRIENDSHIP! GOING OUT TO EAT! jogging.. YAY! Probably work/bug testing but pretty relaxed in general.
I feed Rembeanie on Sunday.

Posted 09/29/16, edited 09/29/16
A Day in the Life of a Lycan

I feel the most energized working 2nd shift as well as completely overturning the “typical” working hours. That being said, I am awake during 2:00pm-6:00am and try to get a solid eight hours of sleep from 6:01am-1:59pm. I find if I’m doing a typical 9-5 I want naps or need caffeine. I only just discovered this in June, and I’m elated that I don’t feel incredibly drained, unless depression or anxiety kicks my butt. However, since I’m out of school I can try to avoid the unexpected, helping me cope much easier!

After I wake up around 2:00, I take about 45 minutes to get ready for work.  I get dressed and make something to eat if my stomach lets me. I don’t eat breakfast food when I first wake up and only eat it for dinner or snack, it seems. After that, I brush my teeth, put my hair up in a ponytail or bun (a scientist can’t have their hair get all over the work bench!) and straighten my bangs to look a bit more polished without damaging the whole entirety of my head. I tend to have time to spare before I clip on my badge and slip on my shoes, so I either mess around on my phone, 3DS or put away clean dishes.

The drive to work is about 25 minutes due to traffic. The hospital is right by my old uni, so it gets a bit congested. I park my car in an on-site garage and clock in around 3:30p by the elevators. Then I descend to the cytogenetic lab dungeon! I was recently employed right after college at a hospital as a cytogentic technician where we process samples of sick individuals and assess if they have abnormalities, or if the treatment they are on is working through cell analysis.

I suppose the place is a bit dreary with cautionary signs posted on the wall and white painted cement, but it’s usually at a comfortable temperature where I don’t get overheated in long pants or cold in a tshirt. The area I work in is shared with the molecular group, with the supervisor’s office straight ahead when you walk in, and the main office where we keep patient file folders on the first hallway on the left. I walk down the supervisor hall and take the forth left. This hall is where I spend most of my eight hours besides the main office. My desk is in the last door in the hallway. I’m blessed with two monitors, a supply of pens, papers, tape, etc, along with a desk drawer, a microscope slide drawer, and a shelf by my head for miscellaneous items. Right now I have a cup, fork, and spoon for lunch that I reuse (because the office like to give us food reinforcement) and my three pop dragon figures from Game of Thrones.

Once I get to my desk, I check emails and my time card, go to the restroom, store my lunch and get to work at 3:45p. Second shift only consists of four people, so after about 6pm we are the only ones around and it’s very quiet besides the beeps of centrifuges. The four of us rotate on a weekly schedule — two weeks in the bone marrow wet lab, one week in the amnio/tumor/blood room and one week in the FISH (Florescent In-Situ Hybridization) room — to complete a month. Samples come in all evening, so we are usually busy the whole shift.

Bone marrows is about 80% of out business, thus we have two people in there at a time. Every other day we switch doing paperwork or set-up. Paperwork consists of printing out barcodes for the individual patients, picking up the samples for the lab, and creating or retrieving file folders to prep for what type of test the doctor orders. These are sent to the analytical technicians after the bone marrow is harvested, where they mark the results. We also input this in a computer system for easy access for the doctors. Set-ups consist of opening the sample and splitting them into different cultures depending on diagnosis, so that we can look at the arrested interphases. (At most, the lab looks at metaphases.)

The blood/amnio/tumor rooms are in the same wet lab entrance. They are the most inconsistent. We might go days not getting an amnio/tumor sample and the 5-7 blood samples we get only take and hour or two tops. (You just do simple paperwork, put 0.5mL of sample in 10mL of media in a flask and incubate for 72 hours regardless of diagnosis for bloods.) Tumors take a while because you have to digest it in collagenase before plating it. If it’s a particularly tough one, it will take many hours. Amnios are plated like tumors, but are treated with kid gloves because you can not get amniotic fluid from the patient a second time, due to it causing stress on the mother.

Lastly, the FISH room is where we get slides from people in the bone marrow/blood/amnio/tumor if the doctor requested the test on top of chromosome studies. It’s a newer technique where we take the slides through a series of washes, apply the correct probe that attaches to that specific chromosome and denature them in a machine called a hybrite. These are later read in a dark room, where the cell literally glows.

Samples are either incubated for chromosome studies or split for a FISH tube, where we put it in a hypotonic solution for 30 mins, add a fixative that lysis the white blood cells, spin it in the centrifuge, and drop the pellet on a labeled slide.

I tend to get along with my coworkers fairly well. A lot of setting up samples is decision making, meaning I had rigorous training for three months. Even still, when we have down time, I have to study chromosomes and strive to know the number by the bands alone. It’s incredibly challenging, almost like learning a different language, due to the tediousness of chromosomes in that particular picture. Eventually I’ll have to take a certification test so I can analyze our samples as well. (And get a nice pay raise!)

I get off work at midnight. I eat lunch at work around 7pm, so I do eat dinner right after I get off. I’m actually starving by this time because running between beeping centrifuges is a lot more steps than you would imagine. Unlike my other three coworkers that go to bed as soon as they get home, I use the next six hours to relax! I find getting through the workday with an incentive at home works nicely. This is the time I play video games, watch television, read, work on Digis, visit this website and hang out with online friends if anyone is still up.

I’d like to think that I’m a hard worker since I put my all into every thing I do! I keep myself going by creating goals and sticking to it. Now that I’m moving into adulthood, my big plans are to pay off my school loan by the end of 2017, get certified as soon as possible at work so I can pay this off sooner, and save to find a modest house! I figure Cincinnati is one of the best places in terms of living expenses, so I most likely will stay here (or somewhere in Ohio). It’s not a glamorous life by any means, but it’s stable and reliable, and those two words put my soul at ease.

Posted 09/29/16, edited 10/09/16

contextual notes: I’m an RA, and a film major in my junior year of college :>

My alarm goes off at 8:03, an offputtingly gentle tune to awaken someone at such an unholy time.  After two rounds with my dear friend, the snooze button, I finally drag myself out of bed.  I take my meds, change into my workout clothes, grab a water bottle, and head downstairs to wake up my friend, Jenni.  (I forgot to pee before I left which is Unfortunate but w/e)  I wait for her to get changed and we go to breakfast.  The dining hall is serving scrambled eggs with cheese and ham which is excellent, or, it would be if their scrambled eggs weren’t always so inexplicably watery.  The biscuits were unusually soft though so it all balanced out.

After a nice breakfast, we head to our PE class (PE???? in college????? it’s garbage, tbh), titled Strength and Tone.  We have class in the larger, colder gym today which would have been fine if the Lifetime Sports class hadn’t also been in that gym playing badminton while we all sweated our bums off jogging, lunging, burpeeing, etcing around the main part of the gym.  I actually managed to do like 98% of the exercises though, which is pretty impressive and worth 100% of the sweating I did.  We then did 3 minutes of really intense ab workouts which was hell but also I love the thought of someday having abs so like I can’t complain too much.  Finally we’re done and I cheer on some of my residents that are playing badminton as we leave.

Then, of course, it’s shower time because I am Disgusting.  Usually after this I’d take a well-deserved nap from 10:30 to 11:30ish before getting ready and leaving, but I have a lot of studying to do, and I catch some of my residents hanging out in the hall so I chat with them for a little while before sneaking back into my room.  I try to study, fruitlessly, and get distracted by the internet until lunch time.  At 11:50 I leave for lunch (you have to get there before noon because the First Year Seminars all let out at noon and it’s impossible to get food once all the first years are mobbing the lines) and listen to a truly sick playlist I’d made a while back on the way (by which I mean I listen to like a song and a half because I live in the dorm closest to the dining hall) and I eat lunch with some friends. 

My friend, Leiana, and I head to class at 12:40ish, Film Theory and Criticism.  We love this class and the professor, because she’s new this year but honestly she’s doing an awesome job!!  Class is fun but when it ends at 2:30, we have to run to our next class at 2:40 across campus, called Ancient Art.  Neither of us are art history people, but most of our friends are and it fulfills a graduation requirement so we’re trudging our way through.  We have a quiz today that we’re really anxious about but honestly it goes alright.  Class is annoying as usual, because it’s boring and people won’t stop chatting and the professor is a bit of an asshole.  But we survive! 

I head back to my room and scroll around shopping blogs on tumblr and find some pretty neat Christmas gift ideas for my friends until 5, when I head back downstairs to grab Jenni for dinner.  Dinner is hardly worth it, and a friend ends up cancelling plans we had for the night, which is mega disappointing.  I end up getting overwhelmed and frustrated (I’ve been really stressed out lately about a lot of things rip), and I head back to my room to lay in bed.  I’ve promised myself all week that that night would be my night to de-stress, but every night I end up getting dragging into something, but this night For Certain would be it.  When I get back to my room, I immediately lock my door and open netflix and spend a couple hours watching a new show my friend had told me about, Easy.  It’s really good and cute, and the second episode is about lesbians which is honestly the only reason I was interested but I promise the rest of the show is good too.  I manage to drag myself out of bed for a shower when I remember that I have a meeting in the morning that I certainly do NOT wanna be greasy for. 

After my shower I make some popcorn and skype with my mom who is very excited for her trip this weekend.  I vent about my stress and we chat for a while before she tells me she needs to finish packing and go to bed.  Jenni pops by to borrow my scissors before leaving me to my ‘stealth mode,’ as she calls it.  I do a little paperwork for RA business, and settle back into bed for the last bit of my relaxing evening of avoiding pretty much everything I possibly can.

Posted 09/29/16, edited 09/29/16
My fern says hi!

My day’s actually pretty flexible about times and events, so while classes on a weekday are at pretty much the same time, what I’m doing after that is up to me. I had slightly more stuff going on the day I recorded all this, but since it would normally just be replaced with “doing homework for 5 hours straight”, I figured it’d give my day more substance.

I’m a college student, which would normally mean my average day is really long, but I got really lucky this semester and so my day starts with me waking up around 7:30 to my alarm - or, more regularly, at 7:25, just in time to turn off my alarm. I change into my clothes for the day and stagger over to the only dining area that’s open that early, grab chocolate muffins if they have them, and then head back, so by 8am I’ve already climbed up and down two flights of stairs.

The good thing about not having class until 10 is that I get to do my homework that I always forget to do the night before. It’s mostly just reviewing readings and making sure I have all my papers printed out and in folders, but sometimes I’ll actually remember that I forgot to draw a diagram of how two stories compare to each other, so I’ll have to do that real quick.

Lunch pretty much every day
is soup. I have a can collection

At like 9:30 I head over to class. It only lasts for about an hour, and my next class isn’t until 1-1:30 depending on the day, so I have 2 hours or so to eat lunch and get stuff ready for my other classes. Depending on the day, I might also have to head over to the library to print out notes for my class (I’m so glad our professor writes our notes), head to the grocery store to pick up some more easy-to-make food, or head over to our health center for medical stuff - this week was actually the first week I got to do everything at home and just send in how it went to them, so it was great!

After that and eating, I repack my backpack and head out. Thankfully, I don’t have to carry much around campus because I only have like 3 classes a day. Unfortunately, they’re pretty spread out and I can’t do much un-school-related stuff in between them, so I have class from 10 to 3:30 every day (some people manage to schedule their classes so they have a day off, but I have a foreign language class that doesn’t like doing that).

Also, at least one class a day is a lecture I don’t have to do much in (cough cough, math), so I normally spend some time on mycena or texting my friends during that one. It goes a long way towards helping me not fall asleep, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than being that one person who starts snoring and has the teacher point them out to the class.

D&D today:
a zombie gnawed on my arm

Finally at 3:30 I’m done with classes! I rush back to my dorm to drop off my bag, but after that I’m free to do whatever I want! Normally, there’s some event going on I have to go to, and that takes up a good chunk of my afternoon. Today’s not an exception - there’s a giant event for stuff related to my major, so I have to go hang out at that, and I get home at like 5, in time to grab some dinner from dining.

I have to eat it quick though, because there’s another event going on tonight. Normally, I’d spend time doing homework and just chilling out, or eating with some of my other dorm friends, but one night a week I get together to play D&D with a bunch of my friends. It’s really great, but they’re all the way across campus, so I get back a little bit later than the average: like 11:30 compared to 11 normally. After that, I debate doing more homework or going to sleep so I don’t have a terrible time the next day. Most of the time, sleep wins, and that’s the end of my average day!

Posted 09/30/16

I am known as Troll, Malis, or Rynn
I do not use my real name online so you’ll have to keep with that :p

I did however want to share the most that I can of my day. I work as a low-voltage electrician and I an qualified to install most ‘intelligent’ systems; Fire alarms, Life systems, security, VDV, and Data networks. Currently my company has been contracted by a certain fruit company and most of these photos come from there. I have been careful not to have any notable items but still, please do not share them about all over the place (not that I expect that but it needed to be said just in case.)

My day starts at 5 am when I get up for work. I’m usually there by 6 am and it’s too early for photos so you’ll have to take my word on it. I get dressed just like everyone else though I do get to wear a hard hat and safety vest (and gloves if needed) Here is a wonderful old photo of me from a few years ago:

Also, to give an idea of the scope of work that I do, here are some more old photos of a past job from a few years back. This is what it is at the start, when we are pulling all the cable, and then two from the ‘endish-middle’ of the job when we are terminating all those cables we pulled. They need to be terminated on both ends which is a looooot of jacks! In an average day I can usually terminate 100-150 jacks, more if they are in the IDF (as in the photo)

Anyways, back to my current job. Right now we are finalizing the building. That means testing all the terminations and making sure everything works, dressing all the cables in the IDF, and cleaning up everything so it looks nice. This is also the time when we complete the punch-list and and adds or change orders.


This was an add:


And this is my amazing dressing skills. Before, during, and after!


I like the archway it makes when done right. Some of the styles we do can look super pretty.


After work, I pick up Babby from daycare and we go to the park. I didn’t want to show off to many photos there ‘cause they usually have other kids in there, not just Babby, but here is one of the regular Pokemon Go crowds that can be found at the park:


We are usually at the park for a few hours and then it is home time and dinner! Afterwards (if I’m lucky) I get to play around a bit on the computer, either playing WoW or colouring soquili. Following reading time comes bath time and then it is time for bed!


Just in time for the day to start anew with the sun’s rise…

Posted 10/02/16

A day in the life of a creature called LA…

The day begins very early for this creature, waking up at 8:45am. Food consists of a cereal(which varies from healthy Special K with red berries to sweet cereals like Honey Combs). Dress attire appears to be a ratty old shirt, pair of jeans and tennis shoes. It is then seen that the figure enters her car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and drives down the street to another neighbor’s house. Picking up two small dogs which appear to be pugs, one black and one fawn.

Subject is seen taking the dogs to a small dog enclosure, staying there for a few minutes and then exiting. Subject walked dogs around the block, picking up smelly clumps when they occurred. Dogs are then taken back to the original house and the subject leaves.
The creature then comes home via the same vehicle and road taken to pug dogs. Goes back to bed for an hour. Is woken up, eats a small fruit strip and proceeds to get in car again, going down to a different street and enters a new house. Comes out with two white dogs, cycle is repeated of those dogs that was same as pugs. White dogs are put back, and subject walks to car. Drives up to top of hill, road is paved and lined with homes. Hill is only steep in a small section.
Gets out and goes into house, spends about an hour there with two small dogs that seem to bounce like rubber balls. Energy of these two dogs seems to be non-stop. Creature was seen cleaning up pee pads, checking a dish filled with water and then upon exiting giving a treat to each dog. By this time creature is shown to be exhausted and drives back home to go back to sleep. Eats a meal of boxed mac n’ cheese and then rests for 2-3hrs. Though it seems subject takes about an hour or more to fall asleep.

The creature is woken up at 4:30pm, and given dinner which seems to be varied daily from take out/order in or some small thing cooked at home. Noted that mother is lazy when it comes to cooking. About said time father of the creature is seen coming home.Comes home in work attire and changes to something more homely. After the meal is consumed the subject then goes back out to car and back down to house of two white dogs from earlier. Takes dogs out again either repeating walk path from before or, taking a new but repeated path along a dirt walk way. Which upon further investigation is in front of the park the creature lives at and was made to be a decorative path for people. Subject is then seen taking dogs back, exchanging some friendly talk with owners and then walking across the street to fetch 3 more tiny dogs and take them out. Subject is seen going to a patch of grass with a flagpole, then proceeding to a few other patches of grass. After hitting all 3 grassy locations all 3 dogs are taken back home. Subject is seem staying at owner’s house and engaging in conversation with owner for an hour or more. Goes home when darkness seems to set in.

Rest of night is spent watching tv, playing on the computer, dealing with annoying mother and then going to bed around 2am.

-Lol, this sounds less hectic then it is. 1. I am not an active person my energy is not high. 2. I don’t sleep in long bursts so my sleep is hard to obtain/ and it takes me a while to fall asleep. 3. My mother can be a mental energy draining vortex. By the time I have time to focus on art I am either too tired or it’s getting, too late. This is my life Monday-Friday >>;.

—such is the life of LA

Posted 10/02/16

Hello! For introductions’ sake, I’m Unspoken (previously known as Witch Doctor), and I’m currently studying art.

I wake up a lot earlier than I’d like - anywhere from six to nine AM, depending on what classes I have that day and what homework I neglected to do the night before - to whatever music I decided to set as my alarm. More often than not it’s this song, because there’s something about the beginning that lends itself to the purpose surprisingly well. Once I’ve deactivated the alarm, I lie in bed for half an hour or so checking my email, Mycena Cave, et cetera in an effort to muster the strength to get up. On worse days, I’ll just drift back to sleep for a few more precious minutes. At the last possible moment, late enough for me to start panicking about missing the bus, I’ll force myself into action and try to make myself presentable while scrambling to wrap up all my unfinished work in a neat little bow to turn in that day.

 


Boarding the bus is easy enough, as there are a million of them and they show up maybe every ten minutes, so with a bit of luck and guesswork, I can get to class with a few extra minutes to spare. The professors are anywhere from on time to five minutes late, but once they show up, it’s all critiques and intensive studio work. It’s a lot more engaging than it might sound. After an entire session of sketching and and shading and painting and sketching some more, though, I’m more than ready to head back to my room.

 


At some arbitrary time between twelve and three (usually on the earlier side, but I have one weekday class that eats up all my normal lunchtime and then some), I’ll head to the cafeteria and get some lunch. I have to prod myself into going, since I’m not really used to keeping a self-regulated meal schedule, but it helps that the food there is uncannily good. I swear the staff have a little leprechaun in the kitchens who sprinkles magical spices on everything they serve.

 


After that, I retire to my room again, pick all my stuff up from the floor where previously threw it, and take a nap. Okay, most of the time I just try to organize my thoughts while staying mostly awake, but I end up falling asleep anyway because I’m a chump who never gets enough rest during normal people’s nighttime.

The evening, once I manage to drag myself back onto my feet, is a whirlwind of homework. Occasionally, I work outside in the courtyard, because the scenery is beautiful (and if I’m lucky, I’ll run into a friend). Other times, I go to the library to type up a written assignment on their far superior computers. Often, though, I have to work on a 22-inch by 30-inch board, and I never feel like dragging that thing outside.

 


Around seven or eight, I find some kind of stopping point and get dinner. Usually. Sometimes. Maybe. The best thing about the cafeteria (besides the food - did I mention the food?) is that it has little TV’s in the corners. Two of them are irrelevant, but one is tuned to Cartoon Network - with subtitles, no less. If I’m lucky, Steven Universe will be on. If I’m even luckier, I can find a little table close enough that I can read what the characters are saying, and I will unabashedly sit there and watch until SU is over and the broadcast switches to Adult Swim or whatever.

Finally (and typically it’s dark by this hour), I’ll slink back to my room, complete what I deem a sustainable level of homework - which can take me until eleven or three in the morning - and do all that entails to get ready for bed so I can start the whole crazy routine again the next day.

Posted 10/04/16, edited 10/09/16

So, geographic information to start off: Malaysia is a Southeast Asian country, located below Thailand and above Singapore. I was born and raised here and have lived nowhere else, but I’ve done my best to note down things about this place that I thought non-locals might find interesting :>

My day invariably starts exactly one hour before my classes do, whether that’s 8 am or 2 pm—my sleep schedule is weird that way. For the sake of convenience I’ve decided to document a 9 am class day where I wake up at 8. To start things off, here’s a picture of my room:


The grills on the window are very standard-issue to dissuade petty burglars (and there are a lot of them—so many innocent flowerpots in our garden have been broken over the years because they never stop trying lol). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a residential building in Malaysia without them unless it’s fifty storeys high or something |D

Anyway, I’m a spoiled brat whose family has a live-in domestic helper, so I get to skip making my bed and just freshen up and get dressed. Breakfast tends to be quick and boring—sausages or a sandwich or croissant. If it’s any kind of special day, I’ll light a couple of joss sticks before I leave:

This is my dad’s altar… well, actually, I’m not sure if I should call it that because the Buddha’s more important but meh. That’s what I’ve always called it. The ridiculously bright lights off to the side are actually lotus lamps but I can’t get a good picture, since I can’t turn the lights off. Anyway, light a stick if it’s a festival/anniversary/etc., otherwise I’ll go on my way. Since this is about a typical day I don’t have to, which is a good thing because otherwise I’ll smell of incense all day :’D

I drive to class myself, so no commute pictures. The drive is fun though, because I put my own music on the car and get to spend the entire 20 minutes singing really loudly. My music selection is pretty much 99% Asian pop (Korean, Japanese and Chinese) and 1% English, but who cares about pronunciation?

I did take a picture of my car after I parked:


It’s a Myvi, which is a local make that I’m pretty sure isn’t sold anywhere else, but you literally can’t go out on the street here without seeing about five LOL. The engine’s kind of lame and lags on hills but I love my car <3


Two pictures of the view from the parking lot (taken on different days, hence the different weather). To prove my point, there’s a different Myvi over there in the background of picture #2.

Class is… well, it’s class. I’m double-majoring in psychology and economics, and the particular 9 am day I’m documenting starts with an economics lecture that I’m really not going to go into detail about, because who wants to hear about that anyway? Plus I just wrote a 40% assignment on the topic and I’m sick and tired of it. Sometimes if I have a break between classes, I’ll wander around campus playing Pokémon Go or hang out in the library.

A couple of interesting things on campus:

Left: There’s a shrine on campus! I never knew until this year when it turned out to be a Poké Stop. Actually, there are a lot more shrines around here than I thought. It’s kind of weird because I’ve never noticed them.

Right: Quite possibly the weirdest thing on campus tbh because BANANA VENDING MACHINE. Who even buys banana from vending machines? (Okay, actually, my friend and I once saw one of campus cleaning staff buy one. We were totally flabbergasted. Seriously, why would you buy a banana from a vending machine? How do you know it hasn’t been there for months?) There’s also a salad vending machine, but I maintain that the bananas are weirder.

And alright, bananas aside it’s just… well, more classes. I also have a marketing class on this particular day (my ‘elective’; I had to take something from the business school to get enough credits for my major), but otherwise, today is all economics. My psychology classes are all on different days for some reason.

My classes don’t usually run past lunch because they either start way before or after, so I’ll leave after class is over to get a meal elsewhere. The food on campus is—well, let’s just leave it at not great.

I took a last couple of pictures of my campus before I left:

Left: I don’t actually have any classes in this building, but it happens to be next to the entrance, which is when I remembered I should probably take a picture.

Right: Bougainvilleas! I really love bougainvilleas, they’re pretty common here so I’ve grown to associate them with home c’: I also particularly like the Malay name for them, which is ‘bunga kertas’ (paper flower).

Anyway, drive home, get an awesome home-cooked lunch because yay domestic helper! (Who’s the best person ever by the way, she’s been with my family longer than I have.) I forgot to take a picture, but I had spaghetti :D

I’m not sure where to fit these in, so they can go here. Random pictures of my house garden:

Left: This used to be our fishpond. My mom had it filled in a few years back because the mini-waterfall (which is out of the frame) kept breaking down and it was kind of pointless keeping it around after we gave our tortoises away to our grandmother. The dead tree was a bougainvillea :C I kind of miss it.

Right: Picture #2 of the garden, the area right next to the fishpond with the little path that nobody can walk on anymore since the plant grew too big :’D

Because I’m lazy, I tend to spend most of free time on my computer. So once I’ve showered and had lunch, I’ll get online and mess around on some pet sites, watch something, or draw or write if I’m feeling like it. All on the computer, of course.


At least half my day’s spent here :P

Dinner—I finally remember to take a food picture! I had a zongzi (or sticky rice dumpling, according to Google), which was made all the way back in May because they keep really, really well if they’re frozen. (Our domestic helper made them! Told you she was awesome.) Here’s a picture when it’s still wrapped:

And a somewhat poorer picture from after it’s been unwrapped, plus I poked at it with my spoon so some of the fillings would show up.

But I couldn’t really get anything to show up. Oh well. You can see some pork and dried prawn?

After dinner, it’s back to my computer to fool around until I finally have to concede that it’s too late and I should go to bed. Usually this isn’t earlier than 2 am, because I’m a schmuck. Or if it’s a weekend, I’ll stay all the way up until breakfast… but that practically runs into the next day, so I’ll just end this here!

Posted 10/06/16, edited 10/09/16
A day in the life of a Jurist

Hi ! I’m actually working in an attorney office in France, as a Jurist (a conoisseur of law, but not qualified to speak in court). It’s a tough intellectual job to know how to use law, it’s even tougher when they change all the time !

My typical day begin at 7 AM. I wake, eat, shower, then take at least five minutes to cuddle my dog while reading a book before taking my car.
I live in a little city (only 20.000 inhabitants), and it takes me 45 minutes to drive to the major town of my region. I listen to music during that time, think about plots and daydream a bit (while keeping alert on the road).

I’m typically there fo 9 AM. It depends on traffic, but my work is just at the periphery so I’m not usually too late. Before getting to work, I send a message to my parents, who worry too much, so they can know that I drove there safely.

Then, the nightmare begins !

Well, not an exact nightmare. My boss and his wife are very simple people, very nice, and they are the parents of my best friend. Yes, I got the job thanks to relations. Does it make me less qualified for it ? I like to think not.

We are a family owned business, so it’s only four people : the attorney, his wife, a secretary and me, the jurist. My role is to write contracts pertaining to the sale and life of pharmaceutical businesses. Every contract and client is different and need different things, so it’s not as if I’m only copy pasting the same contract for everyone of them.

We also get lots of questions about specific points of law, which we have to look up (and often not find).

I’m of course not authorised to speak about what I do precisely during the day, as we’re working under total confidentiality, but it’s very varied. I usually spend five hours straight on one contract, then can do researches on more detailled demands. It can go from a simple law article needing updating, to a new law being passed, or a fiscal point that no one ever heard of. Those are the best jobs, because it’s only an intellectual process ; to find what apply to the situation, to read multiple articles and interpretations of the law and finding the one that will work, then to explain it in simple terms to the client.

This being said, I usually work on seven to fifteen contracts during the same week. I work from 9 AM to 1 PM, then from 2 PM to 5:30PM. We don’t get lunch in the office so I walk to the nearest supermarket to buy something (and we don’t even have a microwaver, so in the winter I get sick from the cold food). I try to read again during my break, to let my eyes recover from the bright screen (we work mostly on computer now), then go back to work !

We try to finish the day on time, and we manage that mostly when the boss isn’t there. His wife likes to finish early and close the office so we leave with her. But when the attorney is here, it’s him who calls the shots, and he often only has the time to speak with me at the end of the day. I don’t mind too much finishing late, but I don’t get paid for extra hours, so I do try to leave when I’m due.

I then go back to my car, my city, and my family. I give food to my dog, dress the table, do the laundry, as I’m home earlier than both of my parents, then get on my computer and can finally do something about my life !

It’s a pretty boring life, actually. But it’s paid, it’s cosy, it’s with good people, so it makes me pretty happy !

Posted 10/07/16
Mild language because I’m a sailor

So this is a joke and not a joke. I work at a boarding kennel that used to be a functioning dude/guest ranch. We have two barns and horse stables and everything lol. In the actual facility there’s a performance area where we have a fence splitting it for daycare / the back staff’s 1/3 and various classes (agility, obedience, rally, conformation, etc) for the front 2/3. The entrance of the building is the front / retail that has the receptionist and we sell dog food and toys. Heading to the back is the luxury area (only 8 rooms) where they’re designed to replicate someone’s actual room in a house. TVs, kuranda/ortho beds, the doors are actual top/bottom doors, windows. The rest of the boarders (i.e. the majority) are in rooms called Villas. A bench is in the room where we usually put their waterbowl, they can see other dogs but don’t interact (unless daycare), they’re made of metal and plastic (upstairs) or ..I don’t actually know what the downstairs benches are made of lol. There’s a kitchen, cat room (5 separate rooms - technically 7 but the other two are hell to get to), laundry, and grooming rooms.

Anyway, on a typical work day, my actual day starts between 11a-1p, depending on when I actually roll out of bed. My shift starts at 3p (technically 2:45 but) and it takes about 15-20 minutes to get to work depending on traffic. My first order of business is to
(a) lay in bed for a while longer if one of my cats is being a loaf near me or if I didn’t wake up on my own (outside noise, being stepped on, someone stomping around the house like a dinosaur, etc)
or (b) roll out of bed, look at watch/phone and either go back to sleep or get my ass in the bathroom to wash my face (If I wake up too early, or really late)
I also get to decide whether I feel like bothering to put my contacts in (if not I just put glasses on)
Afterwards, I start up my desktop (His name is Dreadnaught ouo) and head downstairs to feed my cats. Once they’re fed, if I’m feeling hungry I’ll scavenge around the fridge to see if there’s anything, and ultimately wander back upstairs with my computer up, wireless connected, and ready to be a loaf. I start getting ready around 2:15-2:20 or earlier, depending on how much prepacking of food/water bottles I did the night before, it’s not rare for me to be at work 1-2 hours early for various reasons either.

When I actually get to my workplace, I make my way to the back to clock in (We have one of those really old punch card machines like damn) and either get a handoff (status updates on dogs/cats, unfinished tasks, anything of note, etc) or help finish the lunch walk (starts at 1p from what I’m told) before handoff. After said handoff I end up having three options - doing daycare, doing the misc. stuff, or doing grooming. I am by no means a certified groomer, as I don’t have the piece of paper, but I know how to use the equipment. Evidently no one else knows how or likes to so if it’s not sun/sat/wed and we have any bathes, guess who gets the joy of having those. I don’t usually do daycare anymore (Although I am fully trained for it as a shift lead), it is quite literally letting groups of dogs be idiots together. (I’m not even trying to be mean, they get clumsy and run into EVERYTHING. Some of our regulars are notorious for breaking through the indoor fence too). It’s all about safety as far as which/how many dogs go into a group. We’ve even got a list of daycare dogs that can never go into groups together (meaning there’s a high chance they will literally try and kill each other if we put them together). Daycare technically starts at 3 but we usually get the group together between 3-3:20 depending on various factors (how many/who’s in group, finishing the previous walk, etc) and continues on until 5p.

At 5 we break down daycare (Those lodging with us go back to their rooms, the ones that only came for daycare/babysitting go back in their crates - if the weather’s nice and we know for a fact their parents come to pick them up in a specific time frame we’ll leave them outside with water buckets). Once all the daycare dogs are back in we take out the luxury dogs and proceed with any misc. tasks that weren’t done or came up while daycare was going on.

Typically this carries on until around 5:30-6 depending on how many we have lodging with us. At that time we start making dunner (and subsequently breakfast) for them. If only one person is scheduled for the shift, then all food is usually made within 30-40 minutes, otherwise while one person’s working on food, one/the other person will start doing medications at 6:30. Meds constitute anything from “watch for limping” to insulin injections. A lot of our clients are older dogs, so there’s normally a fair amount of pills to dose out (including, but not limited to our 5 “house dogs”, our bosses’ 4 bouviers and 1 pumi. They’re old lol)

While making breakfast, we pull out any food/bag/toys they might’ve brought in too so that we can return it when they go home the following day. These bowls are covered with a blanket and consist of only dry food (No added water, no wet food, no raw food so it doesn’t go bad overnight). Dinner on the other hand, gets everything added in. From boiled chicken, canned food, water, or even frozen meat. (I wish I was kidding. One lady brought frozen pureed chicken and turkey pieces in paper cups, whole bird thighs, before I started working here she also brought frozen guinea pigs)

We pass out food to everyone starting around 6:40-7, again, depending on how many dogs we have (We tend to adjust a lot of things “as needed”) and afterwards sit down for breaks. Once those are done we’ll either pick up on cleaning again or start other things - typically collecting bowls and running dishes if we have time. At 8:30-9p we start the dogs’ last walk of the day, our back yard has 8 total runs (4 small walkway/gravel-only yards - we typically don’t use these as is unless the dog’s had a bath or is allergic to grass, connected to 5 yards, 3 in back but two of them have broken doors lol). Unless they are family and we know for a fact they can go out together (being in different rooms due to size or so that they have “alone time”, for example) each room gets their own yard (even if they’re separated family, apparently we get clients that have dogs that don’t know how to live together lol)

Unfortunately, the pm walk can take anywhere from 30 minutes (<30 dogs) to 3 hours (90+), if there’s less than 50 animals total we usually have time to go through the hallways and sweep up fur, rocks, spilled food, etc from throughout the day as well as finish running dishes, switch laundry, etc. If there’s a LOT of extra time left we mop. If we don’t/can’t mop and it’s not time for the next shift to come, it’s cuddling with luxury dogs or anyone that’s paid for extra services (it’s complimentary for luxury but people can pay for extra services if lodging in the villas)

Our shift is technically over at 11, but we don’t always get the luxury of having the next shift come on time (10:45) in which case, the senior member stays until the next shift shows up. I usually go straight home at the end of the shift, but will sometimes stop by the store if I’m off the following day or needed something during the day. When I get home I feed my cats (they’re on scheduled feeding so they don’t turn into piggies) and take a shower. Once my shower’s done I’ll feed my fish, Alpha Centaur (red betta), Betelgeuse (blue betta), and Cat Dora (I’ve lost Catfish Williams, Jesse McCory, Cory Underwood, and Wildcat :C).

The tail end of my day just kind of blurs together tbh. If I remembered to thaw some meat before work, I’ll cook that for the next day’s meal, sometimes I read manga for a bit, dick around with ORAS’s Wondertrade or someth, doodle chars or work on mockups, harass my cats, etc just kind of depends on what I feel like doing. I tend to go to bed around 3-5a (I used to be good and managed to get to bed by 2 but that’s gone to the shitter LOL) and after that it’s just rinse and repeat.

As an extra, on my days off I usually loaf around, veg out, work on cosplay stuff if I have the motivation, if I have 2-3 days off in a row sometimes I’ll go out of town and visit friends, when I have the motivation I’ll go solo play in Tree of Savior. It’s kind of a potluck of what I feel like doing. If it’s monday, my brother and I will sometimes play something on one of our systems - Halo, borderlands, Tales (Vesperia, Graces F, Symphonia Chronicles, Xillia, we’re gonna be getting Zesitira and Berseria on ps4 ouo) Eternal Sonata, or if I feel like running solo I’ve got SMT/Persona and Metal Gear Rising.

Posted 10/08/16, edited 10/08/16

A day in the life of a Nephele.

I set my alarm for 7:15 every morning but I usually drag myself out of bed closer to 7:35 (thank goodness for the snooze button), so that I can spoon feed Tesla his morning mush. While I’m at it I check the food in his cage, refilling it as needed, and give him fresh water. I turn on some toddler programming for him before I go take Jewel for her morning walk and give her breakfast. After all that it’s not uncommon for me to lay back down for awhile and get back up at about 10:00.

After my morning nap I try to make myself useful by helping with chores when I feel well enough to do so, if not then I hang out either in bed or on the couch and either doze or mess around on the computer while I wait for the anti-nausea meds to work. With the weather finally starting shift towards fall temperatures I’m getting some migraines from the weather, and those days I stay in my room with the black-out curtain tightly shut as much as I can while still taking care of myself and my pets.

At about 2:00, with 10 minutes usually, I can disconnect from my TPN and I have a bit more freedom in what I can do since I don’t have to carry around the bag with my ‘food’ in it. After this things like laundry and dishes become much easier, it’s possible to do these things while connected but it gets tiring standing there holding the bag the whole time I’m washing dishes and clothes can get caught on the tube which is rather painful.

Between 6:00 and 6:30 I help my Mama and Sister feed the outdoor animals, I mostly carry the lightly buckets due t having the PICC line in my right arm but it still cuts some time off the total feeding time on the days I’m able to be out there and help. After we feed the outside animals I come in and fix Tesla’s even meal, if I wait to long after 6:30 to feed him he starts chanting ‘you’re late’ until I do feed him. After that I pretty much just kill time online until 8:00 when I reconnect to my TPN which will remain connected until the following afternoon. I generally end up going to bed shortly after reconnecting so I more or less count that as the end of my day.

Posted 10/08/16