verdi25-blog

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01172024

What you didn't see was me typing up a whole blog post on a misunderstanding/inaccurate finding...

Anyways.

Winter means the annual Samutoku campaign of my area is starting!

It's a campaign where shops and restaurants in the city I live in can join. Depending on how cold the day it, we can get a discount for certain items at participating shops. This year the lowest discount is 30% (it was once 50%!) and there's less shops and restaurants participating this year too.

Yesterday was EXTREMELY cold, which meant the stores were having 30% discounts. My coworker and I looked through a list of places to eat at and decided on getting hamburg/salisbury steak for dinner. I accidentally mentioned it in the ALT chat that I'd be checking out a new restaurant and it attracted the attention of a few people.

In the end, the one ALT that was going to be leaving earlier and has been in an intense depressive and pessimistic attitude wanted to come with. I'm glad the conversation went well, and he knew to not be too negative, especially when he's meeting my coworker for the first time.

I'm glad he's leaving Japan. Not because he's being a little bit of a pain (although he is), I do think it'll be better for his mental health. I know living in another country isn't for everyone and I'm glad living in Taiwan, but still with family helped me get over that initial depression of living far away from home.

[verdi25-blog]

01162024

Long time no see.

To be honest, I completely forgot about this blog... I only remembered because I wanted to read some translations for old Ensemble Stars events.

That's right. I'm back in it again, baby. Ensemble Stars is slowly consuming my life! I definitely can't be on top of it as much as back in my student days, but I can still play it casually around work! I'm only going to be focusing on Nazuna events and occasional other Ra*bits members... And if the card is REALLY nice, I might try for one or two Kuro cards. (That's a lot...)

Other things I'm currently obsessed with are FF16 brothers Joshua and Clive, and I'm still playing FF14 as well.

Work has been good! I'm definitely a veteran at my position now (lol)! I am in my last year of this position but I've made the decision to stay and try and continue teaching in Japan. I love teaching and although the pay isn't good, the living cost is still lower than LA... So I'd rather be poor in a cheap place than poor in an expensive place.

Maybe I'll come back and make more journal entries and maybe I'll forget? We'll see.

Bye for now.

[verdi25-blog]

06242022

So many things happened since I last posted on here. Have things changed in a large and life impacting way? I don't believe so.

But maybe in the future soon...

Today marks the last day of D&D. My first and, most likely, last campaign as a player. I am extremely lucky to be able to play in the setting of D&D's the Forgotten Realms as well as getting to level 20. I heard that it's pretty hard! (Although, we did sort of cheat and time jumped...)

Another huge thing is that I'll be getting my first tattoo this Sunday! Excited!!! It'll be FF14 related (HA), but I'm very excited and satisfied with the design. I mean, I have to be since it'll stay on my skin forever.

I'm also getting my house cleaned little by little with the help of a newer ALT that came to our area around December. So, instead of signing onto FF14 right after getting home, I've been slowly cleaning my house. It's not completely cleaned yet but, it's getting there(?)!

That's all the verbal barfing I want to do... I'll also be using this blog to write some OTP stuff for my character in FF14.

[verdi25-blog]

isebl.1

Welcome to my horrible attempt to writing my own isekai bl story.

This is towards the end of their story. The confrontation. Initially they were just a bunch of tweets on Twitter, so the writing is going to be short and to the point because of character limit.

James still can't understand what he's thinking. 

Adrian... Abel... What's the point of concealing your identity? Has he really forgotten about his life in his own world? 

James knocks on Abel's bedroom doors. He waits for a response, but instead, he hears fumbling and crashing on the other side of the door. "...Abel? You okay in there?" There was a brief silence and then a frantic reply. "Y-Yes! I'm fine. James? You may come in." James opens the doors to find a mess of books and files on the floor.  In the middle of the mess was Abel, slightly disheveled. "What's going on here?" "Oh. It's nothing. I'll be moving into a larger office soon as this one was temporary to begin with. I'm just trying to organize my files." James tilted his head. "A larger office? What for?" "I'll be working officially as one of the King's advisers now that my work as the second Hero is done." He continues flipping through the books while speaking. James frowns. "...I need to speak with you." "Yes?" He doesn't look up.  "No." He walks over to Abel and holds his head between his hands. Forcing Abel to look at James. "I need to speak with you... Adrian."

Abel freezes at the sudden confrontation, but only for a moment. He has practiced this scenario many times alone, but never thought he would be acting out what he had prepared so close to the end.  "...This again?" He pushes the hands away from his head. He looks back at James, irritated by his sudden mention of the name Adrian. "Must we go through this again? I am not that childhood friend that you lost."  'Good. Keep going. Just like you practiced.' "How are you so sure that he isn't dead in your world? You said so yourself. You looked everywhere for him, but found no traces. Instead of looking here, perhaps a forest in the deep mountains would be a better spot for corpses--!" 

 James slams his fist against the wall. The impact shook the room causing piles of books to fall over. "...Why are you speaking that way? What are you so afraid of, Adrian? What can I do to make you come back to me?" His face was serious, yet on the verge of tears. James was angry, sad, upset, confused... The mixture of complex emotions swelled up so fast that he couldn't help taking it out on his surroundings. This made Abel flinch.  "I-... I'm not..-" "You are!" "I'm no-" "You are!!"

James takes grabs the sides of Abel's arms, preventing Abel from running away. "Why are you still hiding behind this facade? I just want to talk to you. I want you to tell me that you're okay..." Abel bites his lip. He didn't expect to be facing this much confrontation. "I-...I.." He didn't know what to say. Abel didn't dare look at James, and instead kept his eyes down. James couldn't wait any longer and embraces Abel. A long awaited hug that he wanted to give his long lost friend. Abel could tell he was nervous as he could feel James shaking. James starts speaking as he holds Abel tightly in his arms.  "When I was first transported to this world, I wondered if I was dead. I thought that perhaps I had met the same end as you did. But then I saw you... Looking much older than in my memories, but exactly how you would look in my mind. You don't know how shocked I was to see you... I never thought I'd have the chance to see you grow up. I was convinced that I was probably dead and in heaven. But you then told me that you weren't Adrian..." He finally loosens his hug around Abel, but still has his arms around him. There's just enough space for James to pull back and look at Abel's face. "I had thought that maybe you didn't remember me. Maybe you had lost your memories... Or maybe because this was all just a dream. I was willing to accept that you were Abel."

Abel stayed quiet, still biting his lip and looking down. James puts a finger on his lips to stop him from biting them. "When we started our journey saving this world, I began to notice that that was a lie. You were still the same Adrian I knew."

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03182020

I got home yesterday to find an urgent mail in my box. I had somehow missed paying one of my older bills and because of that, they’ll be shutting off my water. (oops)

Yesterday’s deskwarming was so boring that I actually read through the new Homestuck 2 story. It was strange and definitely felt different from the original Homestuck now that the story has a new plot point. It’s still entertaining... but it’s also a bit much to digest at once. This didn’t even last me that long and I still had a couple hours to go through.

I was reminded to do taxes so I started looking that up as well and... it felt really troublesome and annoying. I think for now, I need to send in two of the more important documents: changing my address and an extension.

Apparently, the JHS (unsure about ES) is thinking about having the students come back next week for two days of class... Why??????? Why would they do that??? I honestly think Japan wants to END itself at this point. They’re not taking advice or learning from other countries, and just doing things on such a surface level. The fact that Tokyo ALTs still have to go to work by commute at one of the most infected areas is insanity to me. Not allowing them to work from home and asking them to come in to work is the most insane thing I have ever heard.

I’ve been following up on the coronavirus, but mostly just news about Taiwan. That’s partly due to the fact that they ARE testing and reporting as numbers as accurate as possible. Whereas, there’s no news in Japan because it’s not being actively tested.

...But I digress. 

I’ve also started picking up Granblue again and finally managed to get to Rank 100! Thinking that that was the rank I needed to be able to start playing some of the tougher raids, I excitedly check my class champion progress and see where I needed to go to collect some remaining materials...

Turns out that you need to be rank 101. So, I’m back to grinding... I think the 6th anniversary is allowing us to get more exp than usual since I grew about 6 ranks?

Also, I’m getting bad spins on gacha wheel, but at least I got Gottfried. ^p^/

[verdi25-blog]

03162020

Happy Monday! 

The weekends, once again, pass by extremely fast, but I make sure to enjoy my time off every time. I didn’t get to do a lot of what I wanted to (DRAW), but I still had a nice weekend.

Apparently a new convenience store opened up near my area! It’s also a different brand than the other two I have access to! I was kind of hungry after 10pm since I accidentally missed dinner (haha) so I sent a message into our group chat asking if I should go out on a konbini run at the time. It then turned into a 3 person konbini run. 

That morning it snowed pretty hard as well! It was enough to have decent coverage over the parking lot and my car... but by the time I wanted to go out at night, the ice had frozen over my car! As someone coming from California and Taiwan, two places that NEVER snows, I still can’t get used to how to deal with this... It seemed like it wasn’t just our area that got heavy snowfall too. Since our apartments are higher up the mountain, sometimes the other apartment complexes where the other half of the ALTs live don’t get the sudden weather changes. This time, though, everyone got a fair share of snowfall! A winter wonderland in March!

On Sunday, I had to meet with my JTE for lunch again. I don’t hate meeting her, and I don’t hate her, but I would honestly prefer to keep my weekends to myself since I see her three times a week already. Luckily, we only meet once a month for some language exchange.  I can’t believe I miss this, and it’s such a bad habit to have, but I miss having the ability to buy drinks. I’m talking hand made drinks... I’m talking about boba culture. I’m not as boba crazed as Japanese teens are, but both LA and Taiwan drink boba as if it’s water at this point. I kind of just miss being able to go and buy drinks that aren’t bottled or coffee. In the end, I made a trip to the nearest mall and grabbed a coffee frap. It’s the closest to what I was craving. I was going to go home and try drawing, but... I got distracted watching The Return of Superman episodes on Youtube. It made me miss Taiwan(???? the episode showcased a family going to Taiwan for a small trip) and the food... I really want beef noodle soup.

I hope this whole coronavirus thing blows over soon because I’d really want to go back either during Golden Week or even summer break. I’m not sure if I should use some of my remaing 12 days of paid leave or if I should save it all for summer. Everything is still up in the airs, I guess.

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Yakult lady

You’re the reason why I don’t call into work acting sick. You’re the reason why I am able to wake up and go to work on the last weekday. 

Your presence at school with your two cooler boxes of yogurt, juice, and soymilk drinks brings the hope and happiness I need in this dreary long week.

Thank you.

[verdi25-blog]

031320201

I haven’t yet gone crazy from deskwarming... but I can definitely feel it soon. I don’t know which is worse: deskwarming at the elementary school or deskwarming at junior high...

Pros for the ES? I’m completely free without prying eyes. I don’t have a JTE that constantly watches over what I’m doing. Cons? I don’t have a laptop so it will look like I’m constantly on my phone... which I am. My choices of activities limit down to studying, rewriting and cataloging old lesson plans, and creative writing(?).

Pros for JHS? I have a laptop so I can do things like start a blog! I can access discord and still make it seem like I’m doing work, as long as I’m typing on the keyboard. I’m not limited to just studying and writing! Cons? I’m under constant watch by my JTE who sits next to me. She’s a little bit of an uptight person that has to do things by the books.

I still have a few weeks of deskwarming to do and I’ll probably get sick of this towards the end of the month. I’m thinking about finding new books to read, or even finding Japanese LNs to read. If possible, I’d even like to draw at work, although that mostly depends on how comfortable I feel with people walking around me.

[verdi25-blog]

03132020

I’m not good at thinking up titles so I’ll just be numbering them by date.

Hello, Tumblr.

I’m back. This time, i’ll be using you for a slightly different reason.

I’m not exactly sure how to start off my first post, but I guess it doesn’t really matter, huh? I shouldn’t get caught up in trying to make the first post be something special. In the end, I’d probably just keep thinking about what it should be and never actually start writing anything here.

I’ve had this thought of starting my own blog/website/ANYthing just for fun. I’ve tried keeping a daily journal as well, but I end up stopping fairly quick because I get tired of writing and I can’t exactly put pictures in it without journaling becoming a chore.

As the news has been broadcasting almost everywhere around the world, the coronavirus has been spreading around the world. Currently, I’m living in one of the few countries that has quite a number of cases: Japan. On February 27th, 2020, the Prime Minister of Japan announces that he requests all schools to close starting March 2nd, hoping that it would keep the children safe. As I currently work as an ALT for an elementary school and a junior high school, the Board of Education decided to close our schools starting Wednesday.

For students, that is. As teachers and staff of the school, we are supposed to continue working as per usual... except without students to teach. As an ALT, that gives me A LOT of free time at work. Deskwarming, as it’s called apparently, is just trying to look like we’re doing busy work at the desk even though we have a ton of downtime.

Thus, the start of this tumblr blog. I hope to share some of my adventures and pictures, whether it’s job related or just hobby related... I don’t think anyone would be interested in reading, but if you do, thanks for sticking around. I hope I can entertain you, even if a little.