FEBRUARY

Thursday ¯ 02.23.23

I've been kinda window shopping Amazon and Etsy lately. Like, I know it's stupid and consumerist culture and etc etc, but I kinda really want to buy some kind of Persephone "merch," whatever the hell that could possibly mean. A lot of what you find are very generic new age-witchy sorts of things like candles/lotions or "deity confirmations" (???) or Lore Olympus fanart, which... isn't really what I'm looking for, y'know?

Thinking about either:

or

Will keep looking, but those seem like the best options...

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Oh, also, I wanted to briefly mention some website designs I found recently and really liked: namely, irony-machine's about page that looks like a Moleskine and trickdeck's site where I don't understand any of the lore at all but looks very cool!

Saturday ¯ 02.18.23

Such a long week... I worked last weekend, like I said, then also Tuesday - Friday. Yesterday, I started tearing up a bit at work for the first time. I was trying to stay normal and doing what I needed to (as opposed to locking myself in the bathroom and sobbing or something), but still the vibes were a bit off after that (usually me and the other person dishing up food chat a bit, but here nothing), so I feel like she probably did notice, but didn't say anything... Then, once I got home, I broke down completely...

The first thing I did when I got in Friday morning was open a jar of (expired) melon chunks and they exploded everywhere like a shaken up pop can. Then, later, ironically, I dropped a pop can while trying to put the case on the top shelf in the cooler and it also exploded everywhere. These things, surprisingly, weren't a major crisis at the time, though -- just grabbed the mop and everything was fine. (Later, the lady training me was laughing about it to someone else who came in late and that kinda hurt my feelings... Again, it's not a big deal, but...)

No, I think what killed me is that, fundamentally, I find it very important to be self-sufficient and figure things out for myself. And I'm not at that stage yet at work (or anywhere, really). There are more exceptions to the rules than cases that actually follow what is written. The menu itself isn't written consistently, either. If you ask for clarification, you're often given conflicting advice. Also, this is probably just my fault, but I tend to take warnings very seriously -- it's like how in a lab class once, the textbook said, in bright red bold font: "CAUTION: THIS CHEMICAL REACTS VIOLENTLY WITH EVEN ATMOSPHERIC LEVELS OF MOISTURE. TAKE EXTREME CARE IN HANDLING." Then I saw one of my classmates about to wash his flask with water and kinda freaked out and the prof said, "Oh, no, it's fine to just put it down the sink." Like, why would you make something seem like such a big deal if it really isn't?!

I suppose it's silly to be so upset over these sorts of things, but, again, I would much rather be able to find these answers for myself. Having to ask someone *every* time is basically the definition of hell for me, but I'm simultaneously terrified of making mistakes. I'm sorry, what wing is so-and-so on? Sorry, I'm worried I didn't turn the warmers off properly? Sorry, does this cake have milk in it? Sorry, is this puree the right consistency?

Another thing, I guess, is that there's a lot of empty space in the day between meals. Sometimes employees stop and buy snacks, but otherwise there's nothing to do. Around noon, everyone goes and sits in the lounge in front of the kitchen for like an hour and eats lunch, for example. Sometimes you just have a couple minutes, though, and you can't find any busy work like restocking chips or pop, so you just stand around like an idiot (which just provides more room for negative thoughts to grow in your head...).

Thursday ¯ 02.09.23

Monday and Tuesday were my first two days in the kitchen. There are a little over fifty people at this facility and my job is basically to prep and package their snacks, beverages, and whatever else, as well as help coordinate dinners (sending carts back and forth from the wings). Everything has to be wrapped in Saran wrap which is just a giant pain in the ass. I also feel a bit overwhelmed because, y'know, each of these 50+ people has their own personal preferences and dietary requirements which everyone else seems to have memorized at this point, while I have to ask questions everytime. The walls are littered with sticky notes detailing things, but... it's so much to look at and keep track of... "You'll get used to it with time," everyone keeps saying...

Also, standing up for so long really killed my feet! I've been off for a few days (I don't go back until this weekend), but my feet and ankles are still really hurting, aah.

I realized that, with most of my life experience to this point being in school where basically everyone you interact with is the same age as you, it's a very different environment to be surrounded with people who are much older. Along with that, I'm so bad at guessing ages, apparently! Like, someone who I thought was about my age was talking about how she used to work there in 2012, but had to move to take care of her sick father -- I was in middle school then! One of the ladies in the kitchen who I thought was fairly young suddenly mentioned her 33 year old son. Another coworker was training me and all I could really think of was the one meme:

guy who consumes too much media: getting a lot of pinako rockbell vibes from this old woman...

There's two guys in the kitchen, but one works a different shift and the other guy just stays on his side and doesn't seem to interact with anyone. Besides him, it seems like everyone kinda banters back and forth. The head chef and kitchen manager / dietary specialist (I'm not actually sure what her title is, but she's our boss) apparently hate each other. It seems a little gossipy, actually. Also, the older ladies I was working with on Tuesday were casually misandric, which is funny:

- "this kitchen setup is so horrible. why would you ever put the drying racks right in the way of everything??"
- "that's because it was designed by a man, hahah".

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I haven't done much work on that cross stitching yet -- my birthday is next Tuesday but I work, so we've been doing a few things beforehand. Like tonight we're gonna have a charcuterie board and play Uno, woo! Here's my progress so far, though, along with the pattern so you can kinda see what I'm going for:

(I've already messed up counting once, oof, but I guess it's not too noticeable...) The Sudowoodo was a test -- I was looking at Spriter's Resource (as usual) and thought he looked goofy, lol. Then I realized to properly finish him, I'd have to fill him in with white, and that just sounds like so much work...

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Also, last minute decided to change up this layout just a little: a bigger Chibimoon a bit more to the side and a different font.

Sunday ¯ 02.05.23

So, my first week of work is over! It was mostly just filling out lots of paperwork, touring the different buildings, and doing various (extremely poorly coded) online trainings. The people seem nice so far. Like, apparently, all the ladies in HR play Wordle and go to the gym together, and one has a shrine to Harry Styles in her office. I haven't really spent much time in the kitchen yet, but I'm going to start that training tomorrow and, so, will probably get to know my direct coworkers better then...

I was kinda looking forward to slightly upgrading my wardrobe a bit from what I've always worn to something a bit more professional, but my uniform is literally just a t-shirt and jeans, lol.

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Back in high school, I had a couple of different pieces of huge extensive media that I was completely obsessed with and spent all of my excess time for the whole year reading (junior year, it was Homestuck and, senior year, it was Jojo). I think I need something like that, again. People have been talking about The Locked Tomb, so maybe I'll try that. I think I've basically grown out of the fandom mindset, though, for better or for worse...

Also, over the years, I've gotten a bit too picky with my reading environments -- like, if someone's watching TV in the other room, my brain will not let me focus, and I end up numbly scrolling through Tumblr or whatever. Same if I only have a little bit of time. Really need to try and work on that...

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I started cross stitching a little screenshot from Viridian Forest in Pokemon Yellow as a proof of concept, I guess, to see if this is something I want to keep doing. Maybe I'll post updates on that, but progress is pretty pitiful at the moment.

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Oh! And the sprites on this page come from this old quiz arcade game from 1997. It seems like it was never translated into English or anything and the questions are all about Japanese pop culture in the 90's, anyway, so a translation wouldn't really help, but the art is very cute! (They seem tiny here, but if I doubled them in size, they'd be way too big, and anything in between would ruin the pixels, so \_(ツ)_/.) The border and background is an edited version of this diary from a Sailor Moon game for the SNES. I initially wanted to have the layout spread out into columns across the whole diary, but could not how to do that. Still, again, shout out to Spriter's Resource, the backbone of my life recently!