It's been a while. A few days shy of a year actually. A lot has happened over the last year or so, though I'm not sure how much of it would be interesting to anyone that isn't me. The biggest change would be me finishing study and starting work. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. The days are long, the weeks are long, and I have often been switching from day to evening to night shifts, but it's nice to have an income after however many years living off welfare, and the work is certainly never boring. 10 hour shifts sound bad on paper but when they end up feeling like 6 hours they aren't so tough, especially when the people I see seem (mostly) genuinely grateful for my help.
The downside is that I need to reapply for my job every year since it's all done on one year contracts. And to have any certainty of getting the job you're expected to do lots of extra work at home, but all I want to do is take it easy and play video games. So far, video games are winning. If I'm unemployed again next year you can be sure they're to blame.
The other thing is that I have less time for everything else. In some ways it's not such a downside - I can't watch as many shows per season, but I watched so much shit anyway that cutting down is doing myself a favour. Though I still got 5 episodes into Wizard Barristers before dropping it, so clearly my taste still needs to be further refined (how the hell do you fuck up a show about wizard barristers? Yet they did, so so badly.) I'm still watching a few things: Mushishi, JoJo and Ping Pong so far this season, and maybe Sidonia, NGNL, Nanana or Isshukan depending on general internet feedback once they've had a few episodes aired. If you haven't watched Mushishi then you really should. The new season has prompted me to try and clear Kino no Tabi from my backlog. I wish I'd done that ages ago, it's pretty great. Especially just watching an episode or two before bed at night.
I also made it to C85 at the end of last year. I didn't get everything I wanted but got a good stack of artbooks nonetheless. Having been a few times now, I can confidently say that although the experience of browsing the stalls themselves is amazing, practically you could get most of what you want from a good long trip to the stores in Akiba afterwards. Of course, doing both is the best option. The obligatory /jp/ meetup was pretty amusing. A large group of /a/ people also turned up and I know I sound elitist or whatever but there was a pretty noticeable difference between the groups. There were no hostilities or anything, the /a/ kids couldn't handle their alcohol very well so we managed to break off easily after dinner for karaoke and a new year's shrine visit. I'd like to go again but I doubt I'll be able to with work.
In the nearer future, I was hoping to travel to northern USA/Canada in the middle of the year. I was excited to learn that I had holidays over the time that The International was going to be on in Seattle, and then tickets sold out pretty much straight away. They're being resold on eBay for $500+, and there's no way I'm paying that much to watch some nerds right-click on each other all day.
