Perpetually catching up

 

]Thurday 2018-02-22]

Down again today. The slow and painful process of hopefully coming to terms with the fact this life is empty and I won't meet the goals I used to have.

Walked down to the park earlier and some exercise before walking back. Leftover soup for breakfast, laundry out. Back in school from the end of the month so this afternoon is an attempt to catch up on the backlog of messages in my student inbox and get to grips with what will be required of me this semester.

Fortunately no messages seem to have been sent since I went on leave. Unless some of those that were not sent would have proved to be crucial, in which case this is unfortunate. I'd think I fell afoul of maximum inbox sizes except there doesn't appear to be a way to delete old messages and that would be terrible design.


[yesterday, Saturday 2018-02-25]

Feeling especially miserable today. Suppose I did some things tho? Depending how you count 'doing' and 'things'.

Over the past few days I've gone over the subject outline and the backlog in my inbox, as well as a big chunk of the announcements for the course overall. The textbook for this subject is the same as when I previously attempted it in 2016, including the edition, so I already own a copy of that. The class formally begins on Monday so I had better make a start on the actual course materials and readings tomorrow, as I will be too tired from work to make much progress earlier than Thursday otherwise. It's going to be rough studying again especially when I'm not fixated on the topic, but that is always my problem. I'll just have to do my best nonetheless.

Had a call with R. for the first time in I don't know how long. We're both pretty bad at conversation these days, and both feeling quite hopeless, but maybe with practice we can turn things around.

Finished watching season 3 of Lexx with E. That show certainly continues to be the thing which it is. Although the last few episodes felt like a pointed message from the creators: "Yes, we know what we've made, and we could do better, but we choose not to".

Finished watching the first episode of Forbrydelsen which took a few attempts to get all the way through. Not because it has been difficult or unpleasant viewing, but because I'm trying an experiment I've been pondering for a while and taking detailed notes as I watch, with correspondingly frequent pauses. I'm wondering if this approach will give me any sort of mystery-solving insight.

Finished watching the first season of Bron/Broen (this and Forbrydelsen I may as well make an effort to refer to by their untranslated titles, to distinguish them from their US remakes). Don't know how long that took me. Maybe a year in the latest attempt? I space out too much and falter on even the things I am supposedly doing for fun. I'd like to fix that, if I can rebuild better habits. Despite having previously seen the British/French remake The Tunnel, still found the conclusion rather emotional and a bit tearful. Saga is at this moment probably my favourite character for autistic representation, as I can't currently think of any I like better for that role.

Read chunks of the Dungeon World system reference document last night and today. It's intriguing, and more constrained in some ways than I had imagined but still very evocative and I would like to give it a play someday. However for the game I am contemplating with A., it still feels that Fate would be a better fit. But I really ought to get those ideas down on paper, literal or digital, so we can actually go somewhere with them. I'm intimidated however to think starting off running RPGs with something that isn't based off anyone's published module.

Suppose I'm scared of having to be improvisationally creative. There's a lot of time I'm doubtful I ever have been or could be creative, so it's daunting. Even though I like to make things up, or imagine making things up.

Also been discussing some solo Pathfinder game with Ami, based on the character she was planning for Rise of the Runelords. And if that campaign does go ahead someday too, it can just be a parallel universe, an alternate history. We've been watching My Hero Academia and, since her character has a bit of a boarding school in her future, I've been looking at basing some of the other students on the characters in that manga and anime. But probably only very loosely. I'd already been thinking of using a Grippli for a character based lightly on Froppy and tonight had the idea of building that character as a Bogborn Alchemist.