This is going to be a long post, so it’s going to be broken into 3 sections

I finally made it y’all (Part 1)

The path was long and arduous, but I made it to my destination, and have been having a blast since. Kinda. Mostly.

I don’t recall if I got to India in November or December, but I think it was about December 2nd or 3rd. When I first set foot in HYD, it turned out that my visa had actually expired, despite not being used in the first place. So they refused to let me in the country, and sent me back to Dubai. They seized my passport and had security keep an eye on me until my flight. I guess I was considered a flight risk? A flight risk? Heh.

Anyways, after being kept up all night and being bored out of my mind, I got sent back to Dubai. My boss pulled some strings and found me someone to stay with for a few days while waiting for another visa to get approved. I enjoyed some food, saw some sights (like Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Mall ((where I spent too much at Kinokuniya) etc.) then got another ticket from Dubai to HYD a few days later.

After that I spent some time being sent back and forth between people’s houses because a lot of other folks were also visiting for the holidays. I’d say for the first 2-3 weeks I was mostly getting acclimated to the way things are in India. The food, my colleagues, the roads/traffic, the animals, sleeping on a wooden slab with a thin sliver of padding, bathing by heating up a bucket of water with an immersion heater and utilizing a plastic scoop, などなど¹.

Probably around the third or fourth week after that I ended up at my permanent location, which is a pretty nice spot. At the same time I went mad with power, and with the help of two of my mates² ended up spending about 1 lakh, or $1,200 (because I got shafted on the bloody conversion rate somehow) on obtaining/building a new pc/workstation, although it’s not really a workstation because it’s all consumer-tier parts and no ECC.

I guess it was my Xmas present to myself. I’m definitely bringing it back with me to the States.

Specs pictured below:

The fresh perspective of having emigrated to a new country and settled down comfortably has given me the ability to more objectively think about my life, I think. I’d thought I’d gotten over the existential crisis that sent me here, but I guess I really haven’t.

What really pushed me over the edge were concerns like:

“what is the measure of a man,”

A rather serious question.

“do I have any realistic chance of continuing my family,”

Unfortunately, it really does rest on me. At least our name does.

“am I even worthy of a legacy?”

I’m starting to feel like yes.

But I think I’ve been foolish to believe that wanton reproduction was the solution to our woes. Children are a gamble. There’s no way in telling if they’ll really continue the spirit of what I think my name stands for, and if they don’t, that’s a sunken cost that I’ll never get back.

If I want to have a legacy, I should pursue it by recording and disseminating as much of my thoughts as possible. And also, living fucking life.

To that end, my focus this year is to focus as much as possible on my writing and portfolio.

Blog Update (Part 2)

I guess this brings us snugly to my second topic. I kinda didn’t do a good job of backing up everything before leaving home, so I’m missing some files for my blog. So after I publish this post, some of my older half-assed posts will disappear. Meh. I’m not too concerned about it.

But moving forward, I’m going to be trying my hardest to post something everyday. I want to blog about the things that I do, the food that I eat, the games that I play, the things that make me happy, etc.

I’m also planning on trying to write a serial novel or webnovel, but in an extremely halfassed manner. You see, I recently started reading something called Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (Bloody Hell, I can’t believe this has a Wikipedia article) which is simply the most lazy half-assed thing I’ve ever read. But somehow, I’m still reading it. It’s just like a comfy romp through another person’s imagination. Which made me think, if I were merely narrating a comfy romp through my imagination, I probably wouldn’t have much difficulty writing. Incidentally, my main setting for most of my stories is based explicitly on the collective imagination and unconscious of the West. Seems thematically appropriate to take such an approach.

Anyways, I want to get the introduction/pilot of that written sometime soon, and make a category/section for writing on my website. Ideally I’ll update it periodically.

I think it’d be nice to have a periodical approach to the blog in general, outside of regular posts. Maybe have special posts on certain days of the week. A retrospective on Monday/Tuesday, a musical themed post on Wednesday, a philosophy themed post on Thursday, that sort of thing.

Perhaps on one of those days I could talk about my—

New Hobbies (Part 3)

Virtual Youtubers:

Good lord, I’ve been consuming a lot of V-tuber related media lately. I guess because I feel culturally/ideologically/linguistically isolated over here, I try to fill my earholes with something that puts me at ease. And that ended up being cute Japanese girls playing videogames and being silly on stream³. Honestly, this is my primary source of background noise.

Mahjong:

As a consequence of being in a nearer timezone to my European friends, I’ve started playing Mahjong with them. This was a mistake that I’ll probably regret for the rest of my life⁴, because I really enjoy Mahjong, but it’s infuriating. I have to limit the amount I play, usually only a few games a week at this point, because it makes me so angry. Too much salt is bad your health, innit? I’m probably going to blog about my struggles in learning the game, and maybe collect some resources for other people who are interested in learning.

Petting Dogs:

Alright, this isn’t really a new hobby. But man, the street dogs are like my favourite thing about this country. I’ve been photographing them as much as possible, and I’m probably gonna start carrying biscuits so I can feed the ones I randomly encounter. As for the dogs in my neighbourhood, I’m planning on getting some flea/tick medicine and shampoo and bathing them. Additionally, there’s a brood bitch who stays over by the neighbours' who just had a litter of puppies, and I want to sneak one away for myself, even though I know my host family would probably flip out. Maybe I’ll humour myself and ask for permission just to see what happens.

Conclusion

I’m tired as Hell. It’s half past balls⁵ I’ll continue rambling tomorrow. Thanks for reading, and goodnight.