View original version on Neocities
My past 10 days or so have been filled with happiness and fun adventures. I went to a concert of a friend, I went to a couple museums I never got to see, I ate food in a lot of new places, I ate the first strawberries from my grandmas garden (delayed by the late May rains), I bought the first cherries of the season (I couldn't resist seeing them in the store), I found new paths in my neighbourhood, I think my arms tanned a little, I bought workout clothes in a desperate attempt to start running, I'm getting used to my new phone, I went to the zoo (didn't go after its renovation in 2016), I ate overpriced sushi (it was a tourist trap but I was so hungry I fell for it... I'm better than this!!!), I found a tennis ball (it's now in my backpack), I climbed under a bridge, I took pictures of a massive stag beetle in the middle of the road (it was fighting a crow, didn't get to take a picture of that sadly)... Yeah it's obvious my husband is on vacation isn't it lmao.
My driving lessons are going well and my instructor has set really high expectations for me that I am apparently meeting which is kind of shocking. I never thought I'd drive a car well. Next class we're going out into the town finally which will be the real learning experience. So far my biggest problem is actually paying attention to what's going on around me. Well not everything really, but mostly it's the checks that get me. I just don't do them properly, or in time? I tune out totally and just wait for my instructors orders (go there, look there, turn there) but slowly the amount of orders I'm waiting for has been decreasing as I gain independence. My instructor told me a funny thing - he told me to think back on all the skills I ever learned and then asked me - have I ever learned anything as fast as I've learned driving? It's a 1.5 tonne machine and I'm already operating it on a road, and not causing trouble for others, in 7 hours! Isn't it insane? One other thing, even though as a passenger I'm usually pretty afraid of accidents, as the driver I feel a lot more in control and thus less scared, and having the instructor next to me makes me even less anxious. Maybe I'm relying on him a bit too much. My brain is still mush while driving though so I think it's for the best.
I also watched a lot of movies I haven't had the time to talk about. One of them was Absolutely Anything (2015). I honestly couldn't even finish it, it made me so angry I had to turn away like halfway in. First of all, it's very similar to Bruce Almighty in its premise, but it goes even crazier with the MC's powers. While Bruce gets Gods powers he still can't control peoples free will, meanwhile Neil can do WHATEVER he wants and HE NEVER DOES IT. It's so infuriating to watch the main character be an actual negative iq retard the whole movie that I just couldn't keep watching it. He clearly knows he can manipulate everyones memories yet he doesn't do it because OBVIOUSLY the plot needs to progress and have conflict etc. but this was such a lazy way to go around it. At least give the power some limitations then instead of making the main character infuriatingly stupid. My gooood. Also the comedy was so so bad in this movie. Kind of disappointed by Terry Jones and Douglas Adams and the whole rest of the impressive cast tbh...
Next I watched The VVitch (2015) finally!! While I usually like A24 films I'm not as hyped about them as most people are (although I enjoy watching them still, honestly) but I thought The Witch was so good!!! I have a soft spot for Anya Taylor-Joy and I know this was a breakthrough role for her and she killed it. The movie itself was intense, and the language used made you focus a lot more on what was being said so it was hard to keep away from the screen. It aided the movie so well, even though it was not period appropriate pronounciaton wise for obvious reasons. Anyway, great movie.
I also rewatched Fargo (1996), one of my dads favourite movies. And I know exactly why, he loves character driven movies and has a good feel for the absurd. God the characters and dialogue are so fun and I love how you can know everything about them from just seeing a few scenes. Marge and Norm are such a cute couple and Marge is an amazing character oh my god lmao. Marge is simply top notch, probably one of my favourite movie characters ever...
I did it, I fell for the Samsung meme after a whole decade! My old phone is sadly dying bit by bit (Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite - what a fucking long name lmao) and I wanted something that would definitely last me a long time with continued support, so I noticed the S23 series... Since my husbands company is paying for it partially the S23+ was a lot cheaper so I finally have an (almost) flagship phone. I'm kind of bummed about my Xiaomi because it's still okay, but its camera broke completely, something in the hardware borked, some utility functions like the flashlight barely work, the battery life is miserable and it started shitting itself when specific apps are open. I only had it for 2 and a half years. That's the shortest amount of time I had a phone, ever. Well, disregarding the two times I lost my phones. Maybe I'll install some cfw to dick around with it and empty it out of all the bullshit it contains. I need to organize so many pictures.. I actually didn't move them to my new phone because there's like 50gb worth of stuff. It'll be a difficult task. As for the Samsung, I hope it will serve me well. I'm not a phone gamer (will never bring myself down to that level sorry phonegamerbros) and I really don't use phones for anything that heats up the phone too much. I can proudly exclaim I've never been a phone addict and likely never will be. I hate browsing the internet on my phone, I don't like phonebrowsing on imageboards either, I don't use social media or post anything of my own... I use my computer for all of that. My phone is mostly for manga, for general usage when I'm outside the house and for taking pictures. Oh and for TikTok which I try to limit the usage of but I still like using it since my sister sends me hilarious shit every day. My first smartphone was Samsung Galaxy... Something. Actually maybe it wasn't even a Galaxy. It looked pretty narrow compared to Galaxies around that time and I got it in 2012 I believe. It got stolen like halfway into my first year of high school and after that I got a Samsung Galaxy Mini that I had all throughout high school lmao. I think my mom got the Mini for free through our ISP or something so she just gave it to me because we didn't have money for a better phone at that point. And I grew to like it, it was a super sturdy piece of shit compared to the Samsung I had before which was just so. slow. Like right out of the box it was a slow shitty phone, the Mini stayed strong but despite that Samsungs left a bad taste in my mouth. Oh also because as I went through high school some of my classmates got better Galaxies and they all turned out to be pretty slow and laggy. Then I fell in love with a phone my friend got... Sony Xperia Z1. It looked SO pretty, unlike ugly iphones and samsungs with the rounded edges, it had a pretty square shape and it looked really elegant. It had a glass back which eleveated the design so much imo. Anyway, a beautiful phone. That's why in 2016 when I started university, I got the Z3, which was already 2 years old at that point but I didn't care. I had it all up until 2020, or was it 2021 actually. It had such a good run, and up until it's last moments with me it was pretty responsive and smooth. I admit I only changed it because I wanted a change and some apps didn't work well on it anymore. Now my grandpa has it in 2023 and it's still as good as ever! It's 7 years old. After the Z3, I got this Xiaomi, but as I said it didn't last me long. However I did really like a few things about it. First of all the gesture navigation worked very well. Also it made everyone that got their hands on my phone less likely to know how to navigate it which to me is great because I hate when people get their hands on my phone... It stresses me out lmao. I'm using gesture navigation on S23+ too but it seems a lot flimsier and more sensitive. I can probably reduce the sensitivty but I'll see if I get used to it. Second, I really liked the fingerprint scanner on the power button, it wasn't perfect but it's in an easy to locate place. The S23+ has a fingerprint scanner in like the lower middle half of the front screen which is kind of annoying me so far... it also seems less accurate but I'm a perpetual sweatyhands haver so... What got me to purchase a Samsung again though was my sisters phone. I think she got the uhh A52 and it looks and performs really well. Then I almost fell for the Flip 4 meme. I REALLY wanted a flip phone again, I liked how you could use back screen as a viewfinder, the gimmicks almost got to me, but in the end I decided against it. Flip 4 still has hinge issues from what I've read and I hate how in the upcoming Flip 5 they're thinking of INCREASING the back screen... beats the point of a flip phone imo. I really wouldn't mind the middle crease but everything else turned me off from it. Maybe in 5 years (hoping the s23+ will last me that long) flip phones get much better haha...
My driving lessons have been progressing smoothly, although I only did 5 I think so far. Why only 5? Well the weather has actually been insane here and we're experiencing floods. A lot of towns flooded and my town is next probably. I still managed to schedule a class today but lol I have to cross a far away bridge and walk near a dangerous area because the main bridge is under construction. Good luck to me! My instructor told me he could already take me to the road but we'll still practice on the polygon today. I'm not so scared of driving on the road really, with him next to me, but I feel like my knowledge still isn't good enough for the road. There's so many small movements I need to keep in mind when driving that I can't focus on anything but that yet. Also right now half of the roads in my town are closed because of the construction and the traffic is CHAOTIC. I have no idea how I'll learn to drive under those conditions lmao Edit: Oh my god I just went to my 6th class and the instructor took me to the road!! I actually did well, but as I suspected shifting gears etc. is hard to do without looking at it which he told me I absolutely should not do lmao. I managed to do it properly (without looking) a couple of times though. It really went a lot better than I expected. Shifted to 5th gear instead of 3rd once at the beginning and I literally lost feeling in my legs, couldn't tell if I was pressing the gas pedal or not LOL. But once we started chatting it was np. Now I honestly can't wait for the next lesson... He's a really good instructor.
My dear old converse (I think I even mentioned when I bought them in some past entry) that I've had for almost 2 years now are slowly showing their age. The right one has a tiny crack where the toe is and I went out when it was really wet outside with them yesterday and my feet got tooootally wet. I have to say this was the first time my feet got wet in these which is almost shocking considering these are standard converse we're talking about. Honestly I've always heard horror stories about how fast they break but mine didn't even crack at the sides yet. And I probaly crossed half the damn globe in these. They were my only go to shoe besides my birkenstocks and docs. Christ with that shoe lineup I really sound basic as hell. I have no idea which sneakers to buy next. I've heard people saying Converse 70s are higher quality and worth the price so I'll see. But I also wanted a good pair of comfy sneakers. My old nbs are reaching a decade almost....
Friday was crazy, in total I walked 18 kilometers. I have to admit it's been a long time since I walked that much, although this week it seems I've been keeping a pretty good amount of daily steps. I started my driving lessons for real for real, my instructor was slacking a bit two weeks ago. On Monday I'll be on my 5th class (out of 35?). Honestly I'm less scared than I expected, and the classes being only 45 minutes feels too fast. When I'm learning something, usually physical, I feel so detached from myself, it's hard to explain. I always felt like I had motor issues on some smaller, not significant enough scale to verify because it takes SO long for my brain to understand things. My mind tends to blank out completely when learning even the simplest things, even if I'm not anxious. That's why I've been secretely practicing driving once a week with my mom LOL. It certainly helped because I didn't have to go through the embarrassing "I can't release the clutch properly" stage with my instructor. Even though he doesn't make me feel too stressed out, I still think I would've felt like killing myself had I went through that with him.
Anyway, back to Friday. I went to the city to deliver some cushions to my sister. I also went out to eat at a great falafel place. It's so funny how european cities will push falafel places into the "vegan uwu healthy food!" overpriced bracket when in other places falafel is just considered run of the mill fast food you can find on any street corner... This place kind of falls into the vegan bracket simply because there's barely any vegan food options in the capital so it's still actually filling a niche with that. Despite the uh, gentrification at work, it's pretty affordable and the falafels taste legit, and they have different types of falafel which is great too. Like sweet potato falafel! Instantly became my favourite. Then I did some more errands, met with my friend, then with my sister, and then my husband and I went on our merry way to some new ~asian fusion~ restaurant that recently opened. We even had to make a reservation. I felt very strange doing that, never had to make a reservation before. The place was actually really great. I ate kung pao with pork belly and it was really good... Except for one thing, the coleslaw salad on the side. Now I experienced this only once in my life, the first time I tried chinese cuisine, coincidentally. We went to this cooking institute when I was in high school, and a bunch of chinese cooks showed us how they cook, what ingredients they use etc. We made our own spring rolls, and when I tried the spring roll I made, it tasted like acetone. It didn't SMELL like acetone (that's important because people usually mix vinegar/overly fermented smells with the smell of acetone since it's similar in structure chemically) but it tasted as what I imagine acetone would taste like. Not very good at explaining, but this coleslaw salad had the same acetone taste!! Now I'm wondering what the hell the ingredient was, they don't list all of the ingredients of the salad. The only common ingredient for sure both the spring rolls and the salad had were the carrots... Could carrots taste like acetone? Is it intentional? I don't know. What I do know is that this restaurant had the tastiest korean bbq sauce I've ever tried and I'm still dreaming about it. Yearning for it.
I'm reading more about carrots now and it seems carrots can taste soapy if they're too bitter or something but I can already picture that taste and it's not it I think. Maybe I'm wrong. Oh well. Last thing I wanted to talk about was, Interstellar. I finally watched it. I have once again been mildly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, very Space Odyssey inspired but more in your face about it, but from people's impressions I was expecting something more... experimental? Mind fucky? Emotionally taxxing? This is just A Movie. With A Movie plot, climax, resolution etc.. It was nice, the ending was actually alright. The movie was really pretty though, I love analog film, have to give it that. Another thing - the start of the movie and the whole premise... and the main characters motivations at the start were just so :| to me. Maybe it's the movie actually showing its age (2014, wow! it feels like we're in a stagnation stage tech wise nowadays almost, ai aside, and we collectively have different things on our minds from just tech progress) but this muh progress and exploring stuff was just... made me want to shrug my shoulders. Like yeah humanity is in its recovering stage, okay? Why are you pissed off at it we always had our ups and downs? I get that it was setting us up for the journey but idk it felt too flimsy at the beginning. Maybe I'm being too weird about it. Lastly, the sound pissed me off so much. WHY are modern movies like this? One second everyone is whispering I can hardly hear anything, I turn the volume up suddenly my ears are bleeding, eardrums bursting, my head is spinning, walls are shaking.. you get it. Stop doing that AAAAAAAAA.
One last thing, this neocities update is so disappointing and stupid. I love seeing who people I follow followed. And who followed me. It's like one of the main ways of discovering nice sites besides the activity tab. Why are you doing this Kyle Drake? Barely any updates and then we get hit with the most useless stuff ever...