The Celestial Corner

Sunday, 19th of May

Not planning on saying much today, other than the fact that dad says the guitar I mentioned last entry is an electric guitar and not an acoustic guitar with extra bits.

Saturday, 18th of May

Yesterday I got a mandolin! I can't play it yet, it's missing some of its strings. But it was a steal, at $30 AUD!

Anyway, that prompted me to add music to my studies!

I retuned my guitar, too, since I got ahold of an amp for it today (it's an acoustic guitar, but it has the bits that mean it can be used sorta like an electric guitar). Another thing I got today was a guitar stand. I planned to use it for my mandolin - my guitar has a case, so it's not needed as much for it - but the mandolin is just short of fitting it. Annoying. That said, we do have a couple of fully acoustic guitars, so I could use it for one of them, once I have clean space in my room.

I feel a bit accomplished, as I gradually add more to my schedule. It's nice to learn for the sake of learning.

Speaking of learning, I started using an app called iNaturalist a few bushcare sessions ago. Actually, now I think about it, I think I got it after a training thing I went to with a few of the others.
It's a nifty app, a community-based cataloguing and identification app for plants and wildlife. I've mostly been putting up mushroom pics as of late. Mushrooms are cool!

Our team's leader said something about me probably liking botany, last session. I think she's right! Maybe I'll look into it, at some point.
After all, I didn't take any official education courses after high school. Maybe I could do a uni course on botany. I'll probably wait until I've done some independant studies first - I like to start ahead, since I tend to not stay that way in the long term. At least, based on how things went in high school. It's possible I've changed enough that I'd actually keep up with a scheduled course. I wouldn't bet on it, but it'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Another thing I got yesterday was an absolutely rad poncho. I quite like ponchos & cloaks, but I'm also pretty picky about which ones I like.
I've been looking for a white one for a Siffrin cosplay, which is how I found it to begin with! It's not white - it's the opposite - but it's thick and makes me feel comfy and warm and safe. When I get my mandolin suited up with the rest of its strings, I could look like a bard! Maybe I could be a bard!

I thought I could use it for a Mal Du Pays cosplay.

Monday, 29th of April

I return!

A lot has happened since my last entry. My brother got married! I also spent about two months being sick, so I've been missing bushcare, which sucks.

Studies have been going okay! On Duolingo, I've got a 447-day streak! On Sololearn, I have a 323-day streak! However, I sort of forgot to do study on the day before my brother's wedding. It's okay for Duolingo and Sololearn, since they have streak freezes, but Codecademy does not, so I'm now back at the beginning. It's gonna take me a while to get back up to the 322-day streak I had before!

I played one of the Jingle Jam games in January and it (and its follow-up game) has grabbed me intensely. The first game is START AGAIN: a prologue, and the second is In Stars And Time! I've gotten very attached to the world and characters, and I've been gradually trawling through Ao3, reading as much as I can.
I'm not going to go into the story, much, because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't played - and if that applies to you, I very highly reccommend you play it! I'd advise that you play it in the order I played it - first, the prologue, and then ISAT.

Anyway, my favourite characters are Siffrin & Odile, though I do love all the characters dearly.

Wednesday, 20th of December

A couple days ago (the 18th, so quite literally a couple of days) I got Minecraft on the Switch and a cute christmas Bulbasaur with my christmas money. And yesterday, I found out that I somehow have Minecraft Bedrock for PC as well. The most likely theories are that it has something to do with having Minecraft on Switch, but I did a Google search on the 18th if getting Switch Minecraft gives you Bedrock for free and it said no, so I'm not sure what's up with that.
According to the Xbox app, it came with Game Pass, which I don't have. I do have a trial for it, but I've yet to claim it.

I watched some of the Yogscast Jingle Jam this year, and got the collection, too!
Since they're streamed on British time and I live in Australia, it means I had to stay up late to watch them. So I had to be picky with which of the bits I wanted to watch, so I'd not screw up my sleep schedule so bad. I watched most of the bits with Rythian in them (as my second-favourite current Yog), including the Kirbycraft christmas special. It was the first time I've watched Kirbycraft, and prompted me to watch more of them, as well as play Minecraft again.

A cool side effect of watching the Jingle Jam streams is that I now have a decent idea of when the main channel tends to stream, so I can catch some of them!

Saturday, 16th of September

After finding that Geocache on Thursday, I've been pondering whether I should look for more Geocaches. I think I probably won't, until I get a new phone. Its battery is pretty abysmal. But once I have a new phone? I think I might. I'll have to find someone willing to go with me, since I don't particularly want to go alone, at least at first.

I saw a picture of my peas when I first planted them. They've really grown! I was a little gobsmacked when I saw it.

Thursday, 14th of September

Hoo boy, the past two days have been busy! Yesterday I went swimming, and today I did my first bit of volunteer work with a bush regeneration group!

Swimming was pretty good! Since this time the place was pretty packed, what with swimming lessons for kids and all, there were toys left in various places surrounding the pool. I did a good chunk of swimming laps done before I gave into the temptation of pool toys. But once I did, I first used a pool noodle to make laps a bit easier, and then eventually started messing around with these rings that sink and Also made some slightly successful attempts at dual-object juggling! The diving rings were fun, though.
Only complaint is that breaststroke and freestyle seemed to make my achey hand hurt a bit.

Bush care was a lot, but in a good way! The work was a little hard, but I liked the people, and it was more eventful than I expected! (Though, I'm not sure how eventful I thought it would be, since my memory sort of sucks.)

Some of the events that occurred are as followed:

• Saw a tawny frogmouth (a kind of owljacent bird).
• Saw a bunch of baby spiders. There were at least 6. Only didn't freak out because I was well-covered and wearing the COOL NEW FREE GARDENING GLOVES️!!
• I got to wear a utility belt!
• We accidentally found a Geocache! I took something out (A little sticky dinosaur toy), but didn't have anything to put in, so I'm going to figure out something over the next week.
• One of those winged ants landed on my hand!

Monday, 11th of September

A lot happened today! At least, for my standards.
Went op-shopping with the parents, had lunch out and about, and then assisted with grocery shopping.

My op-shop spoils include 3 t-shirts and a skirt. Of the t-shirts, my favourite is the Star Wars one. Got it for $7, I think? And the skirt is another black-and-white patterned one, like the one I inherited from my great aunt, except with multiple patterns, as opposed to just one pattern.

For lunch, I had a sausage roll from the bakery near the Vinnies, which was both tasty and rather big, much to my pleasure.

Also, I remembered to take a photo of my plants today!

Having some trouble getting it to center, though. Maybe if I frame it in a paragraph tag and center-align that?

Thank goodness. That worked!

Sunday, 10th of September

Recently I've been relearning how to ride the bicycle! My brother found my old BMX and luckily I'm still small enough to use it. I also found my old bike helmet & gloves (with help from Mum, because somehow I didn't see my helmet when I'd previously checked the "sports stuff" drawer).
My bike gloves are pretty rad.

I've only ridden it around the backyard, because riding a bicycle on the road with cars is very daunting. But hopefully I'll gather the courage to ride it around my area sometime soon.

I've managed to almost reach a 100 day-streak on my coding studies, and today reached 220 days on my Duolingo streak!

I've been practicing with HTML, CSS and Python, recently.
HTML I've been practicing on SoloLearn, through the use of challenges. CSS I've been practicing on Codecademy, through the practice feature. And Python, I've also been practicing on SoloLearn, but through the Introduction to Python course, and I completed the Kaleidoscopes Code Coach, much to my delight.

I've been growing some plants recently. Catnip, corn, and peas. I think they're snowpeas?
Anyway, the corn seems to be doing pretty badly, but the catnip and peas are preservering!
I might end up putting an image up here sometime. They're doing better than my previous plants, which I'm pretty sure is because they're outdoor plants, so they don't entirely rely on me watering them to keep them alive. Also, it might not have been as long as I kept the catgrass alive. I genuinely have no idea how long I kept the catgrass alive.

I noticed I'm using the word "recently" a lot in this entry (3 times). I think it's 'cause my thoughts are less structured in this entry. And I'm probably a little out of practice, since I've been barely using my Google Docs Journal, which is a hell of a lot more wordy then my Daylio entries tend to be.

You know, I tried a chicken katsudon rice bowl sometime after my last entry. It was pretty nice! Man, I love that sushi shop. Its chicken katsu (in sushi or otherwise) is great.
The next day, I visited a different sushi shop and tried a chicken katsu bentou-like meal, which was slightly less tasty than the rice bowl, but still nice!

Saturday, 24th of June

Helped Dad bring in the firewood today, and man, that stuff is heavy. It's also quite difficult getting it through all the back doors.
It's probably a good workout, and since Mum doesn't seem to be up for helping Dad with the firewood as much (honestly, can't blame her, it's rough.), I'll likely end up carrying it out more often.
Hopefully I won't injure myself again, though. That was unpleasant. I guess it's the second firewood-related injury this month. The first was a rather inconvenient splinter in my foot.

Otherwise, today has been pretty good, if rather unremarkable. Studies went well, found some nice fanart, and stayed in a reasonably good mood.

On another note, I'm wondering how I'll structure this blog. I wonder if I should add pages to this. In the long run, I'll have to - my Google Docs Journal is proof that if a document is long enough, it starts having trouble loading. Or at least loading in a time efficient manner.

Good news! TamaNOTchi is no longer shutting down! So I signed up and made a page where I put my new little guys.

Wednesday, 21st of June

Recently I've been focusing more energy into learning how to code than I was before. I've been pretty motivated to improve this site, after all.

Regardless, I've still been working on studying Japanese. I'm definitely the most active individual amongst my friends on Duolingo, which is great for my studies.
Repeatedly I've considered that I've been doing far better than I did during high school Japanese. I think the pressure to get good at it within a specific window of time, combined with my preferred studying method (Duolingo, which was not all that in sync with my school syllabus), and my tendency to procrastinate things that stress me out - or procrastinate in general - really didn't work all too well for me. The lack of pressure that comes with self-structured studying makes things far easier for me to handle.
You can probably also see this in my coding studies, since I study that similarly, though using more than the one course.

I tried uploading a backup of my site to the Wayback Machine's archive, but sadly the formatting seemed to... not come out right. The background colour of my page didn't change from the old white, even though the header and navbar still retained their background colour. That was pretty annoying.