Howdy y’all, Chef here. It’s been about a month or two since I’ve last posted, so I figured it’s about time for me to dust off the old keyboard and get typing.

This will serve as a recap of January since I never got around to writing a post then.

Apollo

Work

I finally got my promotion!

Well, it’s more of a lateral move, but after all this time my store manager came through and got it to proc. I’ve been doing ERP for like 2-3 weeks now and it’s been pretty interesting travelling around the metroplex. My only complaint is that sometimes it’s a gamble wrt whether or not the managers are chill or not.

I ended up splurging and getting myself a pair of wireless earbuds as a reward, with the idea that I’d use them at work whenever I get relegated to working in the coolers or any behind the scenes tasks, and they have been useful to that end.

Additionally, I randomly became friends with a random Night Assistant on my way out at a recent store, he prompted me with a really interesting conversation starter, namely “who is your favourite villain, and why” and from my struggling to answer was able to instantly intuit that I was a writer.

I owe him an essay in response, and will try to write that soon. I reckon he’d be right chuffed if/when I finish writing it.

One negative thing that happened wrt work is that my store manager who ended up getting me on ERP ended up being moved to another store rather suddenly (I just found out, like a few days ago), so I’m concerned about whether or not my new manager will be willing to help me actually promote or not.

Health

Apparently I’ve been losing weight.

I didn’t really become cognizant of it until my mate Max pointed out that my clothes were hella baggy on me, but it’s definitely true.

I wonder if it’s a natural consequence of working. Hopefully it’s not the result of anything negative like cancer or diabeetus.

Regarding healthcare

I think I mentioned last time that I was planning on getting health insurance during the last open enrollment period. Well, I succeeded, though when I ended up paying my first premium I accidentally made the payment twice. I was pretty upset about that, but it turns out that they used the second payment for February, so I’m home free for a bit.

I still need to find a PCP and get a check up, but at least I have that option now, and I can somewhat afford to go to the ER if needs must. That’s a relief.

Life in general

In between the last post and today, the major things that have happened are:

The middle son (Monty) of the family I’m staying with returned from Israel

And I’ve been spending a lot of time with him.

Generally speaking, if I’m not at work, or not hanging out with friends, I’m probably doing stuff with Monty. I think it’s been mostly a positive thing, kinda engenders me with a real sense of family

I finally ended up meeting up with lae in person

About two weeks ago we hung out at one of my favourite café/bars until closing and just talked about common interests.

Namely things such as:

• System administration, and the tools of the trade
• Anime, especially little girl cartoons, and stuff like Aikatsu!.
• Hardware, especially homelab/prosumer type stuff
• Vtubers
• Artwork

I really enjoy his company, and want to hang out with him as much as possible before he leaves the area. I get the feeling that I might have managed to avoid the acquaintance zone, and we might actually be friends.

Somehow I got him to join my personal IRC/Matrix channel and actually post occasionally, which is better than I can expect from some of my oldest friends. I’d very much like for him to become someone who sticks around for a long time.

I ended up committing to trying to become independent by June, so I’ve set something of a budget for that and have been working towards making it happen.

I realized that I had to have more of a sense of urgency with regards to my future, so I’m planning on modeling out my estimated income from now until June and trying to save as much as possible before then so that when the rest of my housemate’s family returns from overseas, I can vacate and make space for them gracefully.

Frankly, if needs must I’ll just perpetually camp through Summer, lol. I’ve been training for this for a while.

But my ultimate ambition is either to move in with my mates Jolicoeur and Max, or get a place of my own. Looking at the numbers, both should be more than possible.

I pray that things proceed without incident.

Dionysus

Hobbies

Gaming

The new league of Path of Exile started, and I no-lifed it on the first day with dmitry and Serel. That was fun.

Mistakes were made and my first build (Low Life Vortex Occultist) ended up unusable, however I rolled another character (Frost Blades Raider) who ended up being very viable and easily playable.

I regret that since the beginning of the league I haven’t actually gotten to play much with either of them, in terms of like actually doing content together. But perhaps one day we’ll be afforded the opportunity to do so.

Aside from that, I did spend a pretty long time playing Tome4 on and off. Fun was had.

Writing

I haven’t really made much progress in writing lately on account of work and fatigue, I’m just grateful that I managed to get this post going.

Drawing

Haven’t sketched shit tbh.

Music

Still haven’t finished a track yet.

Reading

Haven’t read shit

Programming

Haven’t written shit

Camping

Me and the crew never actually managed to go camping, I was planning on checking out a property Northeast of me on my own just to hike, but things came up and I’m going to be helping a friend with his computer this Tuesday instead.

I think sometime in February, me, potatogenius, and tora will end up going to Tyler State Park if the stars align.

Conclusion

I didn’t really accomplish much in January aside from working. I’m grateful that I got to meet lae, and spend some time with other friends, but at the end of the day, I didn’t get anything done.

I feel like if I’m truly concerned about securing a legacy for myself, I need to redouble my efforts towards actually producing some corpus. To that end, I’ll try and get some more stuff done in February.

Aside from that, I’m happy. I won’t becry this time as having been wasted because at the end of the day I’ve been enjoying myself, at least somewhat.

Thanks for reading, Chef out.