Giornale personale

It’s hard to imagine there was a time where I didn’t like that german spelt bread with rye thing, yet I clearly remember my strong repulsion to it just a few years ago. But now I like it! Not really on its own but in combinations with other things it works really well. I can’t eat much of it of course, and it never ceases to amaze me to what extent it’s packed with protein. How is it even possible it contains so much protein per 100 g?

I’d like to think of this as my personal improvement.

I got to know a person making what could be described as big-scale “nail art”. She is proud of her work!

It’s interesting to compare that to how I feel about my work. Even though some of it is pretty good (if not on an artistic level then on the level of craft and technology), I feel that everything I ever made is useless and worthless and I’m ashamed of almost all of it.

This makes no sense!!!

Close to the hotel where I currently live I found a shop that carries lots of things that I like to eat, basically it’s brands like Rapunzel, Veganz, Sojade, Ritter and many many others, some of which I have never heard of before.

I am so happy! They also have vegan sandwiches and vegan pastry. Seeing these brands reminded me of happier times, which were not that happy but happier than where I’m now. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense to get nostalgic about it and instead concentrate on practical aspects… just keep a cool head.

At least that was the idea. But, having been deprived of good food during the whole trnsition process, upon entering the shop the opposite happened: I lost my head and went wild. I think I bought half of the shop (not really, but probably not that far off…). I even bought a huge cup of pudding. And how am I going to eat whatever remains on the bottom? Well I’ll just eat it with a spoon. And where are my spoons? Same like all my other cutlery: packed in a box in a warehouse. And I don’t have a spoon in the hotel room! It’d make no sense to buy a new spoon just for this when I’ll get them all back in a few weeks when it all arrives to my new apartment… Should have thought about this sooner I guess.

Looking at the bill, I htink I will have to eat dust and drink rain for the next few weeks in order to recover financially! Having such a great shop close by is not that good after all.

The paperwork and some other things are still not ready so I still have a few days left to wait in the hotel. I decided to do something I was told to do and was planning to for a long time but never had the chance: watch The Thing.

It’s really good! The change of focus within a Lovecraftian setting from cosmic horror to personal relationships was quite interesting. We don’t really see much of the organism nor about its background, but in the context of a movie this is probably a wise decision. I also liked the music a lot (by Ennio Morricone).

Apparently the movie was based on a novella, which I’ll try to get a hold of and read next time.

I was supposed to move out of the company’s apartment into my new apartment this month. When I received the keys of my new apartment, I pocketed them and headed back to the hotel where I was staying during the transition.

The next day, I had to travel to the company’s HQ (just getting there takes five hours) to return the keys to their apartment. While packing, I took the keys out and realized I actually didn’t know which keys are which—the keys to the company’s apartment and of my new apartment were almost indistinguishable. What the hell… I should have marked them earlier, but I didn’t.

If I handed them the wrong set, I’d both be locked out of my new place and forced to make another 10 hours trip to the HQ. Not to mention I really didn’t want to see them again.

I went back to my new apartment, tested both keys, marked the one for the new apartment, and headed back to the hotel. That detour cost me three hours.

On my way back, I thought, “Well, since I’m out, might as well grab something for dinner.” I walked to the nearest supermarket. It was closed.

Frozen and hungry, I made my way back to the hotel. At least it wasn’t raining!

The way I suddenly left the company must have felt very abrupt to my coworkers. The preparations on my end were a real nightmare, a few very very difficult months full of uncertainties, disappointments, dead end streets, lots of work and unpleasantries, and being forced to wait for the stars to align and making sure I don’t blabber anything to anyone, but when everything finally fell into place, I made my move immediately. I am still surprised I managed to pull the whole thing off, the whole operation was a logistical nightmare.

What surprised me was an email from a colleague I had only worked with occasionally. She asked if I was okay, if anything was wrong, and whether I was coming back. When I told her I had already left, she seemed mildly shocked, then went on to share her feelings and wish me well. I did the same for her. I never expected her to personally reach out. I am not sure why she did it, we were getting along well but weren’t really the best friends while I was there. I guess other people from the department were curious about the background of me quitting, but she was the only one with my email so she got asked to investigate.

It’s not a good solution, but it’s better than other options. If we met under different circumstances, maybe we would still be friends. Goodbye.

Stuck in a hotel and having to wait for all the formalities regarding my new job and new apartment to be taken care of, I decided to finally play through Gamecube version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Playing it now brought up some very nostalgic memories and I felt very melancholic while playing it. I remembered watching the episodes and discussing various aspects of it with dear people a long time ago, in a life situation very different from where I’m now. It made me so deeply sad that I felt kind of stylish and cool.

The game, however, is not very cool. As someone who worked in video games for practically my whole life, I have to say that I don’t hold it against developers. They were probably understaffed, underpaid, overworked and had to deal with all kinds of stuff just to get the project out of the door on time. And yes I guess the deadline was ridiculous too.

With that being said,… the game is… well one can play it but it suffers from all kinds of stuff I’d expect from a 3d game of this kind. Funny camera, enemies stuck in scenery, invisible barriers, misleading geometry, broken hotspots, improperly marked important objects… You name it, this game has it. It’s not all bad, there are some good parts (for example the combat almost works) but overall it’s really frustrating.

The funniest part was the extras section, obviously they had to put in something for the fans, but out of 15 or so interview clips they managed to put together 3 of them are… Tara (it’s that annoying character, Willow’s girlfriend). It’s obvious they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel to get these together.

There was a level where you get to control Spike (my favorite character from the series, maybe because he had to travel to Africa of all places), which I almost liked but even that one was quite frustrating. Not sure I’ll manage to play through the whole thing, but I still have a few days left to wait, so I’ll try. Let’s hope I won’t end up throwing the controller through the window.

…Or maybe I should just replay Eternal Darkness for the 10th time instead and actually have some fun!

Recently, I had a chance to eat a Ritter vegan chocolate. It was quite expensive but fantastic and definitely worth it, real European product. I understood why is it so good when I read the ingredients, it’s basically made with almonds (no rice or similar ingredients). It;s also very hard to come by and not many shops carry it. Again, as expected from a European product.

Today, I wanted to celebrate a small achievement and treat myself, so I headed to a shop where I thought they might have these chocolates.

On my way there, I was speculating whether I’ll get the plain one (which is fantastic) or the one with peanuts (which I wanted to try for a long time but never had a chance).

When I arrived at the shop, I discovered they don’t carry my chocolates at all! What the hell. Disappointed, I decided to get myself some cookies instead. I went to the aisle with cookies and they had all the cookies from “my” brand… except the ones I wanted to buy! Come on!

I looked for another treat, but that too was sold out. I started to get really annoyed. This was meant to be a mini celebration, but it started to look like I’ll come out of the shop empty handed as far as celebratory treats go.

Crestfallen, I headed towards the exit, when I unexpectedly saw Mon Chéri cherry chocolates on side shelf! It’s something I really like, but suddenly seeing it here reminded me of events from the past that made me really sad. Man,… this celebration plan is turning into a bad trip. What the hell.

In the end I bought Mon Chéri and ate the whole box! The chocolates were really good… but it didn’t help and I don’t feel like celebrating anything anymore. What the hell. I’ll go to that other shop next time.

After committing numerous sins, the time has come to pay for them. I thought it would be incredibly hard to pay it all off. However, it seems that I was laughably optimistic. The situation is much worse than I thought, and I am starting to believe that it will take a lifetime and then some to even start covering my debts.

I have to hurry up.