Archive of ‘personal’ category

10
Nov
2020

This should not surprise me, and yet it still does.

categories: personal; word count: 261 words

The school district actually opened their doors around here. Their rationale for opening back up a week before the slated date that they would allow parents and guardians to choose the “option” of sending their student(s) in for face-to-face instruction was their own negligence in not procuring enough laptops and wireless hotspots to meet the need of the actual student population who would need them, even though they had all summer to prepare for this. So their literal response, in the midst of a global pandemic, was to open school doors back up a week early. Some people’s motives, other than seeing the financial reasoning behind this because this district has never truly been about anything other than retaining access to federal funds to the most maximal amount possible, I will never understand… and as I get older, I get increasingly more fine with that because it’s not something that I can control, even if this has the potential to affect lives.

This district is still allowing parents and guardians to elect that their student(s) continue virtual schooling as though they are giving them a pittance, dangling a carrot in front of them, going, “See how nice we are!”.

I know people who are happy to have sent their children back to school… in the midst of a global pandemic.

I know people who are happy to “be able to go back to work” in the midst of a global pandemic.

The United States has dropped the ball handling this pandemic in every way imaginable and it really shows.

08
Nov
2020

I can’t believe I’ve never mentioned this here.

categories: personal; word count: 249 words

One of the things that “girl gamers”, simultaneously used as both a term of endearment and a pejorative (and sometimes by the same person) depending on the conversation, take a lot of flack for in 2020 — of all the years — is “being too feminine” while playing video games. You get criticized for having and wearing too much makeup, or for liking “girly things” like dresses or the color pink. God forbid you like more than one of those things and are honest about it. That’s almost literally the kiss of death “being taken seriously” by guy gamers, which should simultaneously be used as a term of endearment and a pejorative, even though you realize that no one’s opinion should matter to you but your own… although you shouldn’t need to feel the need to be validated in the first place. There are, after all, things like Gamergate, and being scared into submission for being a gamer girl that’s “too loud” about certain things, so one has to exercise caution…

If you’re disabled or a single parent, or disabled and a single parent, they don’t know what to do with you.

People should be free to like what they like in the combinations that they like them in without feeling as though they have to measure up to someone else’s standards. There is no right, or wrong, way to be a “girl gamer”: if you identify as a girl, and you like to game, congratulations! You are literally a girl gamer! 100%!

06
Nov
2020

Adding to his collection, I’m adding to it…

categories: action and adventure, personal; word count: 294 words

I’m still getting the occasional game to pad Bub’s collection, even if we won’t be playing it for awhile due to his age, the rating, being busy with other games, that sort of thing. So far, I’ve picked up Witcher 2 and Witcher 3 for him for a few of those reasons… there’s the rating of both of those games to contend with (and the reason for those ratings), and the fact that we’re busy with other games right now. I’ve heard a lot of positive things about how open-ended the games are, and if there’s one thing that Bub loves doing with me in video games, it’s traipsing around in games that let you wander around wherever you want almost within reason. This is why games like Skyrim appeal to him in the manners that they do… and, well, always have.

Meanwhile, I am thinking of removing my stereo from my bedroom. I’ve had it since I was a child, and it’s actually so old that it has cassette decks on it and a record player. The only functionally useful thing that it still has attached to it is access to FM radio. It’s just sat here since I was a child, largely unused over the years. It also reminds me of my mother, which is another reason that I want to be rid of it as soon as I can manage to unplug it from the slight mess of cords that are back behind my television. For a number of reasons that involve saving up space and being rid of just one more thing that reminds me of someone that I would like not to be reminded of, I would like to be rid of it at my earliest convenience, whenever that can be.

05
Nov
2020

I figure I should start an exercise tag, so…

categories: personal; word count: 358 words

So I’ve been walking 0.10 kilometers per day on my treadmill now that it’s together, although one of the things that has bothered me about it is the fact that the belt (thing you walk on, whatever you should call this) is a bit looser than it should be, and that was messing with one of the side railings on the bottom of it… but I think I got the side railing “on there” hard enough for it not to start to come off any more when I walk on the treadmill, which is a slight improvement from where we were. I’m able to walk that 0.10/day slightly faster than I was when I first started, although it continues to be the same strain on my lungs as when I started, which may be and probably is attributable to my asthma. No surprise. You get what you pay for.

And part of the reason that I did get this treadmill was because it was comparatively more affordable.

Once walking this far every day gets easier, I’m going to look into the virtual races that I’ve mentioned here and sign up for an easy, light one. Some of the sites that I’ve seen have five-mile ones that you can do entirely at your own pace, so that might — probably will — be where I start. You can also log your times on the actual website or in apps that they come with, of those that are a bit longer, since I still have to hold onto the arm rails to use this treadmill and my arms not “moving around” won’t track movement for walking purposes for my FitBit. With time, I hope that I’m able to confidently walk on it to the point that I don’t have to hold onto the arm rails, although this may involve finding a way to completely straighten it if possible…

I suppose the only way to figure out how comfortable I will get with the treadmill is just a bit more time, although like I’ve said, this has a lot to do with the slightly loose belt coupled with the incline that it’s still at.

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