Balance

 Can you feel it? In the *motions at everything* this? Probably not, because it's my this, but it's almost palpable. So many wonderful things have happened. And so... as a great mathematician said, "what goes up must come down." We just saw his death mask.
Surely, he didn't mean it in the context of well, things are going good so here's the drop! But it still applies. If not that, I'd just say that it feels like balance is coming.

Why? No clue.
Balance is cool. Can't have too much of one thing or things get spoiled- in one direction or the other. My mom was talking to me earlier today and giving me a pep talk of sorts. Not like I really need one, but it was nice to hear from her what I've already ruminated on. We'll see how things play out in the coming months. If balancing (that's such a nice way of saying things going wrong lol) comes, I'll readjust and keep going.

Today was my first day back at work after over a month on leave. Was good to be back. Everyone was warm and welcoming. A lot of emails to catch up on. And next week is my other exam before classes begin. The exam that has the power to liberate me from taking Law II. The one test to rule them all - my free mornings- until May.

It's not even that I dislike law. I enjoy the black & white nature, it's easy. Technicalities are a fun to debate around. And my favorite part; opinion holds little to no weight. It is the perfect stage to meticulously dismantle mental gymnastics bit by bit. Observing how nervous people get trying to talk around lying or omission is also fascinating. Do they realize how obviously their body language betrays them?

Anyway, despite this, I'm hoping to focus on my other classes with a clearer mind. I'll give myself 5 meltdowns this semester, too. I used up more than 5 last semester, but there was also a lot to learn from that. 5 is good. Crossing my fingers for good results!

I got myself a really cyoo journal. Cyoo factor is essential in productivity. If it's unattractive in any capacity, I'll instinctively ignore it. My favorite thing about it is that the binding and body of the journal isn't stiff. It's floppy. The pages feel light, but weighted. Each page turn is just satisfying enough. Flipping through journals is such a yummy feeling.

The rain has been so calming. Waking up to rain drumming on our roof and windows. Dozing off to it, too. Honey in my ears. Everything was still, except for the rain. Of course, on the polar opposite of my experience, Los Angeles shat bricks in major flooding. Idk what to say about that. I will say that it was perfect weather for another huge batch of chanko nabe.

My mother in law wanted to help. I asked her if she could cut little skulls out of the lotus root (yes, like in that twitter post I retweeted). She was having fun lol

It was so much food, and it was perfect. Everyone loved it. I'd not prepared chanko for his fam to try yet, but they loved it.

Cozy lattes. I wanna expand on stuff. I can make other stuff but I got my rose latte down and I wanna get another latte down perfect. There's this other one I like to do with coffee. In black coffee I'll put a generous pat of butter, brown sugar (not Sugar in the Raw), cinnamon, cacao powder, vanilla bean extract, mix that shit up, and top it with cream or foam. Nutmeg on top. I used to do something similar to this at Blizzard and people seemed to really like it. I actually really enjoyed making crafted coffee drinks.

I've been wanting to do more clay stuff, but nothing too time consuming. Considering how my favorite Genshin Impact character is also a funeral director (with a pet ghostie), I decided to make her little Boo Tao for myself.

No clue going into this how I wanted it to look.

Also the sandpaper I used initially was too coarse. Attempts using smaller grit sandpaper to buff out scratches weren't successful. Oh well!

Precious lil ghostie. It still like, amazes me how a funeral director was put into a game unironically or without being like, an annoying trope. It seems easiest for media to portray morticians in the cringiest light. They make em seem like the weirdest people on the planet. Granted.. that's a little bit true. But like, the role of morticians is like... a somewhat exalted role of societal trust. I'm not just saying that. Like, think about it. And yet, they're portrayed as creepy, voyeuristic, predatory trolls with a taste for human thigh muscle. I'm actually describing a teacher in Japan who ate his students. Anyway, back to Genshin Impact. Yeah, Hu Tao! Unironic funeral director in a video game! Super cool. Her character is also tastefully comical in context. It's kinda silly that they made her "creepy" and have her character play into that trope, but her dialog is actually decent. She's not a total flop. And Zhong Li is an arranger lolol. That tickles me. I wanna see more of that uwu.

Ophelia helped me sign a letter.

She made me cry the other night. I took her into the vet to get all her annual shots. The bandages they put on her were a nightmare to remove. She was so stressed out and terrified of us touching her. Poor thing. In the end, removing them was a horrible experience. I had to hold her down while she screamed into my chest and clawing at me desperately. Both ankles had bandages. Poor Mr. Chicken. I was able to remove one and let her take a break for a couple hours to decompress. But I could tell the other ankle was swelling, so we had to get that other one off. Mr. Chicken was shaken up, but he managed to grip the end of it and hold on while she thrashed in my arms. Ugh. I was crying. My poor Ophelia. I wish there was a way I could've told her we were trying to alleviate her discomfort. It's been 2 days now. I have a nasty scratch down my sternum. I've backed off to allow her to be mad at me. She's been a snuggle bug today. I feel she forgives me. SIGH. I hate the vet.

After work today, our friends dropped off more macarons!!
Somehow, brain waves oozed out of my brain and magically oozed their way over to Jason & Christine's bc out of the blue today he's all, "I know you want durian but do you want to try other flavors?" and sends a picture of a bunch of macaron flavors from Honey & Butter LOL????

They show up and give us this cyoo lil boxie, and there were stickies and a little panda keychain uwu. I'm such a shitbag for cute stuff it's disgusting lolol. My sister in law showed me a black hello kitty bag she got today and I just... imploded.
Anywho, the flavors were of course durian, plus taro sticky rice and pistachio!

SO YOMMY

The taro sticky rice one was sooo pretty!

Ghad the lighting is horrible. They look like they're orbiting the sun.

All yummy. Mr. Chicken couldn't stomach the durian macaron after one bite. Dey a lil smelly, hehe. More for meeeeeeeee! ^_^

And now, I can relax and nurse my angry knee. It was fine, and then it wasn't. Decomposition wooooooooooo! Jk lol. Psyche, no I'm not, haha. I mean, sort of. YAY

Happy Friyay! Did I mention I started reading Chainsaw Man? So far it's fine, I guess. Am on Chapter 7. Not very captivating so far. I will browse Steam instead. Or watch Bones. With animal crossing. BYE. :D