i mean, sure it's great here and all, but i just want to be able to see the bands that i like when they play live shows, and take trains to other cities at a moment's notice, and not have to worry about my state going up in flames every summer.
is any of that really so much to ask?
i love that instagram allows people to edit, rather than just use their filters, and basically since i learned that several years ago, it's all i've used.
the problem with it though, is that i basically just try to make the picture look a bit more vibrant than what the thing looks like in front of me.
generally i adjust the brightness, contrast, warmth, and saturation. most of the time, i'm basically trying to get the whites to look white.
WHY ISN'T THERE JUST A WHITE BALANCE OPTION
genuinely, does anyone know why that's not part of their editing options?
i have terrible credit.
yes, a lot of it is due to mistakes that i have made, but it also happened so long ago, that it sucks that it's still haunting me.
which is why i'm glad i owned up to the situation i'm in and went to talk to my credit union about getting a credit card to start building it back up again.
i now officially have a secured credit card that i use for groceries and gas, and pay it off as soon as the statement comes.
but did y'all know that i, and honestly if you've found this likely you, are older than credit scores as we currently know them?
i mean, i know on the internet i'm considered ancient now, but i'm not even 40 and the credit system that contributes to me being trapped in a lot of ways is only as old as my youngest brother? that's dumb.
ridiculous as they are though, i still need them for when i need a new car in the next year or so, and to eventually live somewhere that doesn't include roommates.
so here i am, with a new credit card, hoping to get a bit lucky with timing on when it will help me to be able to pull a william thatcher and change my stars.
at least when i got it i also learned that my actual score number was higher than i thought it was! that felt like a win (it wasn't, it's still a terrible number).
i know, everyone does.
i just feel like my brain isn't working like it should.
the "new" covid anxiety doesn't help.
i wrote previously about how i hate my job, which is mostly a problem because i also hate job hunting.
and who doesn't, really?
i really didn't like the job that much as soon as i started learning about the owner, but it was a decent filler job while i was in school. just something to bring in enough money to get by while taking classes, and then i'd get a teaching job and be done with the place.
well, the mental break i had in may included me stopping going to school, as well as realizing that i don't think i could be a teacher after all.
so now, the job isn't just a filler, it's an anchor. i spent the summer just existing; getting through each day with no energy to do anything more than go to work and come home. i did occasionally apply for a job through indeed, probably 12 over the course of a month, but i never got anything from it, and i didn't have the motivation to keep up with no response.
it doesn't help that while not extreme, i experience the reverse of what many know as seasonal affective dissorder (SAD), so the heat definitely took a toll on me too. as soon as the weather turned cooler though, some of the haze lifted and i've been able to do a lot more.
i have more energy, and i can see a light at the end of the tunnel that is this job, and living in this house. funny, one of the things that started to get me back on track was some car trouble i had at the beginning of october. (definitely writing about that soon!)
now that i have some focus, i've borrowed some professional tops from my mom, and i'm hoping to feel well enough tomorrow after work to find some pants to go with them. after that, it'll be contacting a temp agency and seeing if i can't get some interviews through them for temp-to-hire jobs.
from the searching i've already done, the jobs similar to ones i've had in the past are paying at rates that, if i go up to 40 hours a week, will basically double my take home pay.
so even though i hate job hunting, i'm diving in, and getting a temp agency to do the work for me!
that's not exactly true, i actually love the work that i do, but i do hate my boss.
i work for a book review site and the seeing books before they come out and getting them to reviewers is amazing. i genuinely love finding some unknown authors and connecting them with a reviewer to be able to get them a bit more attention. plus, i've been able to hold and read the books of friends before they come out, which has been amazing!
my boss, however, is the co-owner of the site, and he simply has zero morals.
while i'm still working there, i don't want to get into the details about the things i don't like, but rest assured that story will be coming as soon as i can.
i know plenty of people would be thinking, "ok, so go find another job," and really, that's fair. the problem though, is that working a job i don't like saps the energy from me in a way that it is really difficult to do anything about the situation.
when i started at the job in september of 2021 the red flags started to show themselves fairly quickly, but i was also going to school online at the time, and the schedule was perfect to allow me to keep doing my schoolwork.
i took on more hours in february, but it still worked really well with school because the hours are pretty flexible, and the same thing that happens with every job really set in... no matter how i feel about the job, i also can't stand to not do it full out.
in may i had a bit of a mental break (more to come about that later, maybe) that prompted me to take an indefinite break from school, and basically broke my will. so the summer was spent basically just existing, and making it through day by day.
but i am definitely working on finding a new job, which will be evident in tomorrow's post.
i currently rent a room in a decent sized house, and the space i live in is lovely.
while i'm not great at taking compliments or recognizing things i'm good at, one exception to that is my living space. it's a large space for just a bedroom, but not for a whole living space, but i've managed to make do. my general aesthetic is matte black, plants, and things i like, which results in what i find to be a very comfortable atmosphere in the space available to me.
fortunately for everyone here, this is a five bedroom, five bathroom house, so the five adults who live here basically each have our own studio, with a shared kitchen.
unfortunately, that means that we have to share a kitchen.
also, living with roommates is a version of hell for me because so often people don't think of others when doing, well, anything.
i have tried to talk to my roommates multiple times about letting doors slam shut because i not only hear it, but i feel it in my room, and it makes no difference in what they do.
i will fairly regularly leave my phone or tv playing in my room and walk to other parts of the house to see how the sound travels throughout the house. the amount of times i've asked roommates to turn down their music or tv suggests that i am the only roommate who does this.
in the past few months i have started to wear noise cancelling headphones to watch tv or listen to anything on my phone. unfortunately, the shaking of my room when doors are slammed isn't a noise that my headphones can cancel out, and days with a lot of tv time end up with my ears hurting from the headphones, so i end up irritated that i have to do it at all!
and then there's the utility bills. most of the roommates here will adjust the thermostat without thinking of how that's going to impact the bill at the end of the month, but then they complain about the costs of things that we don't have control over. there's no logic to it, and it's a huge source of stress for me.
i don't think this is an issue of my specific roommates - though the ones who have never lived outside of their parent's house definitely could learn a few things that would help the situation - but just living with people at all.
housing costs suck though, so this is the best i can afford for the moment, and i'm stuck.
so even though my immediate home environment is lovely, i hate where i live.
(the pic is old, i've rearranged since this, but is a placeholder until i can get another one!)
