General Update Log No. 13

Another month, another recap. Hope you guys got through the weather okay, too, whatever it was like on your end. Over here, at least, the hot weather had come back with a vengeance, but fortunately it's looking to get cooler again going forward. Either way, I'm glad the grocery store has ice cream in stock again. I dunno how well I would've gotten through the weeks without it.

Work has been getting a lot more doable, too. I find myself able to stay for longer hours and get more done with less breaks necessary, although how long I actually stay still depends on what tasks I have queued up, as well as just my mental state that day in general. I've had to leave early on at least a few days because I just couldn't concentrate, for instance. Overall, though, my work tolerance is definitely on the increase, and recently I found myself thinking that I genuinely love my job and that I really wouldn't wanna be doing anything else. Hell, today my boss even pulled me out of a meeting just to praise me for how well I’ve been doing. Mind you, I’ve only been at this job for two months and I’m still in training.

Of course, more hours worked also means less time to myself at home, especially since I refuse to compromise on my 8 hours of sleep minimum for what are hopefully obvious reasons. As such, I've come to the realization that I need to do more to make my mornings count.

First of all: Productivity. It goes without saying that I don't have the time to complete three tasks a day like I used to have, but that doesn't mean I can't at least do one, so I've set that as a goal for myself. I can still use Saturdays and Sundays to get more tasks done, after all – assuming I have the energy after a tiring work week.

Secondly: Fitness. While I've yet to find the time for complete workouts again, I've at least begun to do a few pushups every day. It started off as just 5, in order to wake myself up, but by now I'm pushing myself to do 15 in a row and looking to increase that number further as the reps get easier.

And third: Commute. The time I spend sitting in a bus can definitely be put to good use, too, such as by drafting up blog posts like this one. Using this time productively will be especially important a few months from now, since work is planning on moving its base of operations to a more remote part of the city, practically doubling my commute time as a result. It'll feel like much less of a time loss if I can make the most of it.

That said, if all else fails, I can look forward to a new work laptop sometime in hopefully the next few weeks, which would enable me to work from home if need be. Not that that's necessarily something I'd want to make a habit out of, given that I feel like the office environment is definitely doing its part to boost my productivity.

In other news, the 19th mainline Touhou game came out earlier this month, and I managed to get a Lunatic 1cc in it after just a few days. Given the brokenness of Reimu, I was also trying to shoot for LNN for a while, but decided to put that on hold for now because it was starting to stress me out. Maybe if I come back to it after a few months...

I'm also noticing that these update logs are starting to be less about my creative stuff and more about how I'm doing at work. Granted, I've been having fairly little time and motivation to pursue the former these days, thanks to the latter, so I'm afraid this is just how it's gonna be for the foreseeable future. However, given my lack of activity on Twitter, that still makes these posts my most significant and comprehensive sign of life, and it's not that I don't want to find the time to write music again... especially since I still have a whole album that hasn't seen any progress in forever.

We'll just have to wait and see what the future brings, I suppose...