I forgor 💀

Having finished graduate school in September, I will be starting my new job soon, and pitching in (voluntarily) at the workplace until then is a refreshing change. It’s nice having something to do.

Except for the names he spelled wrong. Some unrelated people will die.

The Too-canny Valley

If you take a view of America as it truly is and truly has been, rather than an idealized view of what it could be or says it is, it’s hard to say that America is the superior option, especially considering the direction that America has been going over the last 30-50 years.

At least Chinese investments in renewable energy and sciences and general human development are actually underway, unlike the United States, which seems hell bent on halting or reversing all of the above. And this is not even a trump thing, that has been the trend for most of my adult life, at least as far as I can tell: Rising anti-intellectualism, gutting the arts, science denial, and doubling or tripling down on non-renewable energy sources have been the milieu in the USA as long as I can remember, having been born there in 1990.

Hey, I studied at Sophia and even met Dr. Mari, even if just in passing! Neat!

Yeah like, I have a very good friend who is in Argentina and I care a lot about the country as a result. I’d love to visit someday…

日文，Chinese，英語 この三個言語を話すのは有用，but 有時我的brainがバラバラに使いがち。

Tomorrow I am going to organize the trash, prepare to take it out, and plan my meal schedule to account for some late-afternoon obligations in the following day. I will probably ride my bike along the lake and possibly lift weights for exercise. There are emails and letters to catch up on too.

How many more tests do you fucking need? The water is boiling! Get out of the pot already!

(I realize the premise of the test that this adage is based on was flawed.)

Graduate school. Well, my first round of it.

During the course of my first graduate degree, I was surrounded by support, great professors, a cohort of other students who were driven, passionate, and colorful, even though we disagreed on several things (and one of them was an actual shitheel), and most importantly of all, a sense that I was learning, growing, and progressing along some kind of meaningful continuum of personal development… As well as being equipped to make some kind of difference in the world, as much of one as I made for myself (went from an uneducated, bigoted farm kid, someone who was already neck deep in neo Nazi stuff and bought into it into, well, pretty much the opposite).

I took that master’s degree and went professional for a few years, but found myself missing graduate school and so I went back for a second Masters. That just wrapped up last September, but the experience wasn’t the same at all.

I felt like I was just being pushed through machinery, going down a checklist, ticking boxes and moving on to the next. I kept thinking that eventually as I went through the motions I would find that an experience similar to the first round of graduate school would develop organically, but it never did. Once I finished the degree, that was kind of it. Have to put up my hands and say that this could well be just because I was really going through a hard time in my life concurrent to that second master’s degree, and that very likely colored my experience quite a bit, but it did just wrap up last year, so I will need some time and distance to be able to reflect on it more objectively and untangle the raw emotional impression from the objective fact.

I’m still wanting to go and get a PhD as an ultimate feather in my cap, but that will not be for a few years. For now, I need some time to work professionally to both save up money and meet some other personal life goals of mine, which I won’t get into too much detail about here.

Remember that mobile game that was popular a while ago, Neko Atsume? It’s that, but with Etna from Disgaea, because at the time I first made this username (years ago) Neko Atsume was taken and I was playing through Disgaea D2.

True, got a point.

That would be the 鳥人間コンテスト！ Held every year!

Monster orange Khaos (the 30% juice type), and the yellow Ripper flavor also. Miss me with that Papillon and Pipeline Punch.

最初はお前の冗談が分からなかったが、理解した瞬間に笑わずにはいられなかった。

As a kid I beat the vampires in Illusion of Gaia as Will. Didn’t realize you could change.

Someone tell the carnists!

Says a bit about the potency of those intelligence agencies, maybe? Or the vigor with which these policies will be pursued - or lack thereof. I dunno.

I mean, it kind of already is an organizational mess that’s completely chaotic.