Rain Rain Rain!
It's Monsoon Season, woo!
2023-07-25
Ruby May Valentine
Arbitrary link
HEY! IT'S BEEN A MINUTE
The Weather
It’s monsoon season here in Tucson, so it’s both very rainy and very hot! Our swamp cooler hasn’t been working worth a shit due to the humidity so we had to crowdfund for a portable AC unit lol, before we got it it had been regularly 90-93 degrees Fahrenheit in here every day, but last night the inside temp was 77! Woo! But yeah monsoon is really ramping up now and I’m excited, it’s my favorite time of year in Arizona because I love rain! I’ve been really scared of lightning in recent years for some reason but I’ll tend to just enjoy the rain momentarily then go back inside unless there’s no sign of thunder or lightning lol. The other day our whole street flooded quite a bit which was wild! I’ll miss monsoon when it’s over but am also looking forward to the more agreeable temperatures in Winter, and it’s been raining all winter the last few years so I’ve still been getting to enjoy lots of rain even when monsoon has ended, so it’s great!
College
I start college in a little under 5 weeks now, I’m really excited! My first classes will be Japanese 101 and writing, I’m looking forward to both, unfortunately I don’t have any computer engineer classes my first semester but next semester I think I should have introduction to circuits I think it’s called, either way really looking forward to it! I should be getting my disbursement for my financial aid a week or so before classes start so I’m hoping to get some school supplies and what not, and then in September when my loans are disbursed I’ll be getting a laptop! I’m looking at the new MacBook Pro models since I figure a solid computer will really help with school over the next like 6 or more years, I’ve decided I want to get a master’s degree after I get my bachelor’s because it will give me more job opportunities, I have eyes on a company I want to work for and I hope I can work there, it would be the dream, if I do work there I’d like to pursue a PhD in computer engineering while I’m also working.
Japanese learning
I’ve been studying a lot! My friend Renkon (check out their blog!) recommended me this site renshuu.org and it’s been really helpful, I’ve been learning a lot more stuff and it’s been good at keeping me engaged, I’ve been trying to aim for studying 3 hours each day lately and it’s been going good so far! I’ve also been watching a lot of Japanese movies and shows without subtitles to practice listening and see what I can pick up from context and such, and just for general exposure to the language, I’ve watched all of the Senritsu Kaiki Files films and have watched nearly all of the Ju-On films! I’ve started watching the series Ju-On Origins now which is cool so far! I’m hoping to pick up some more Japanese edition manga for helping with reading, but I’ve also been using Satori reader which is fun! Also I've been learning the language for over a year now, wow!
Games
I’ve been playing Like a Dragon 6 and Dragon Quest II recently when I’ve had time, the rumors are true, Dragon Quest II is a lot more difficult than the first one and even more recent ones lol, I like it a lot though the early games are so fun to get into, I haven’t had a ton of time to play games because I’ve been getting ready for school and planning my wedding of course, and now that I have a better climate to work in (Thanks AC!) I’m going to get back to working on a new comic I’ve started for my Patreon subscribers, it’s in Japanese and the English title is Scary Month, it’s about a kitty cat guy that moves into a haunted house! I’ve really enjoyed working on it so far and I can’t wait to share it with everyone. I’ve also placed some games from Nice Gear Games, please check them out! They also do Indie Tsushin where they interview Japanese independent game developers and post digital zines including the interviews plus a bunch of game reviews! It’s a very cool project and I highly recommend it!
My friend also sent me Ring Fit Adventure and Live A Live and I’m looking forward to playing both, I’ve been wanting to get more exercise so I think Ring Fit Adventure will be really good! I’m probably gonna set it up and play for a bit tomorrow if I find the time! Review to come!
Also Enix announced a new Dragon Quest Monsters title to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series, I’m really excited to play it!!!
Social Media
I’ve been posting a lot on Twitter again which is now “X” lol, really silly, I guess Elon has been obsessed with trying to name things X for like two decades or something, which was funny to me because during the height of my psychosis in 2016 I was obsessed with the letter X. But yeah, the platform is rapidly deteriorating, he rate limited DMs, so you have to subscribe if you want to DM people past the daily limit, I will not be doing this, and also they’ve been dropping huge amounts of cash on verified right wingers for “engagement,” the numbers seem to be totally fudged in favor of a select few freaks, $25,000, for tweets? Yeah I’m sure that was the natural selection of ~the algorithm~ lol.
I’ve also been using activitypub based social media, despite a few bad experiences when I first started using it I’ve found some cool communities on there, tech.lgbt and calckey.jp, people are really nice to me on there and seem to engage a lot with what I say which is a nice feeling, using stuff like twitter I usually don’t get a lot of people commenting on what I say or engaging in conversation with me, so it’s been a nice change using mastodon and calckey (now called firefish I guess?).
I really like posting, and I think the fediverse is one of the better places to do it, I kind of want to set up a forum for me and my friends to use before too long, I like self hosting my own things, it’s fun connecting via the internet in more personal DIY ways, I want to plug my IRC server more soon but I’ve been having issues with the machine it’s running on (Orange Pi 3 LTS). I think a forum will be a cooler project though, I think I’ll regularly back it up on archive.org just to preserve my own little history on the net, also check out archive.org and support them if you haven’t!
Music
I’m working on a new album! I don’t know if I mentioned that last time, I released Hour of the Rooster (my second album) earlier this year, but I’m working on a brand new one! It’s called OUR FM, it’s a concept album, I’m excited!
Anyway
I think that’s all I got in me this time around, I want to update the blog more frequently, I’m going to aim for once a week, thank you for reading, take care!
-Ruby