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October! (so much talk about money in this post)
Two months since I started the new job and it's still pretty nice. Things have gotten a lot more busy, but I like it much better than my previous jobs.
I bought the humble bundle for all the art programs and spend the afternoon installing them. I hope I'll get back to drawing a bit more. I haven't really had a proper art program to use, except an ancient version of photoshop from like 2005. I'm not actually any good at it and with digital art it's all wonky because you can't just look at what your hand is doing, but you need to draw and watch your screen... very complicated. I'm kind of tempted to spend money on some other stuff as well but I managed to stop myself... :'D Good thing too, because I realized I hadn't paid rent yet this month and now my band account balance looks a lot less cushy. I did spend some money paying off more of my credit card dept. I still have too much after the Rome trip in May, which I haven't paid off + everything else I've gotten since, but the other card only has like 200€ on it anymore, which is a relief and I can pay that off later this month and get to the other card after that.
As I'm on the topic of money, I tried to do some math to see how expensive it would be to go to Worldcon 2020 in New Zealand. The flights weren't as bad as I had thought, it was like 1100€ return trip, but when you add to that accommodation and the event tickets + spending money it would be closer to 2500€ trip and no freaking way do I have that kind of money to spend on a holiday!
Especially because I'm thinking of applying for a Advanced Solution-Focused Practitioner training program next spring. The program takes almost two years and costs over 3k all together, so I need to save up for that. It's basically short term therapy/counseling thing, and I feel like I really need it for this new job. It's also useful later if I want to apply for psychotherapy training programs. I can apply for that in two years (need the right kind of job experience first), so it kind of lines up pretty well. It's another expensive program, but I guess it's not so bad considering I didn't have to pay anything for university before this... Also I'm hoping the prices might go down, there has been talk that there aren't enough therapists around and the cost of the training is definitely part of the problem.
It's kind of funny how interested I've become in psychology and counseling in the past year, when back in university I didn't do any psychology courses even though I could have until my last year. (hindsight 20/20). It's also made me wonder if I should get therapy for myself now, but then again you need to do therapy during the psychotherapy training and I don't want to spend the money twice! -_-
I'm thinking I should try to do nanowrimo again this year. I haven't been writing much of anything all year and I feel like the format actually worked well for me the one time I actually finished it. I have a few romance novels plotted out, now I just need to write some words down, which is always the hardest part.
I'm still doing a lot of d&d, I might have a problem... I'm only playing in two games (and I'm thinking I might drop the other game. Tomb of Annihilation just isn't for me, there's so much of just traveling and nothing happening + the plot seems almost non-existent somehow?) The other games starts on Monday. I'm a bit worried about the other players, they are all really young and one player seems obsessed with his drunken master monk being drunk all the time and that seems like a recipe for disaster. I ended up making a new paladin (conquest this time) because paladin was great and this campaign should do to high levels and I'm curious to see how that would be like.
I would really like to play Descend into Avernus, but haven't had luck finding a game yet. (I basically need it to be on a Sunday or Wednesday)
So two games seems like a reasonable amount right? Well the problem is that I'm also DM'ing three games right now... :D Oops? They are all premade modules, so it's less work for me, but there's still prep I need to do. I'm doing Waterdeep Dragon Heist, Dragon of Icespire Peak and then a GM Guild's Module called Call from the Deep. I just like the power too much I think, which I'm not gonna examine more right now xD I am totally a benevolent god though, I think I might be too nice sometimes, but then again I'm still learning the ropes and it feels bad to kill the players, so I've been avoiding that (mitigating damage or splitting the attacks among more than one player most of the time)
Oh and last weekend I went to see arilyn9 and her bf looked at my PC to see how I could upgrade it. As I knew already my graphics card (or driver, I'm not sure what it's called in English) and most of the other components are super old now and I should put about 600-700€ to get new things. Urgh, why does everything cost so much money? I have two graphics cards in mind, one would be cheaper, under 300 but if I put a 150 more I could get a significantly better one, which would then last longer, which would save money in the long run. I'll have to think about it some more. I get paid on the 20th so I have time to figure out how much I want to spend.
Just generally I feel pretty good, I feel like I have a lot of creative energy, which I think was rekindled by d&d, so that's been nice. Work is good, the pets are doing good. One thing I'd like to change would be to somehow get one more irl friend I could hang out with. Hanging out with people online is pretty good for my need to socialize in general, but right now I only have one irl friend, which seems precarious. I went back to find out when messy_kisses died and I totally missed the anniversary, it was on the 17th of September and now I feel guilty about that too, I thought it was in October. I can't believe it's been over a year now. :(
Well that's a cheery note to end the entry on.
I bought the humble bundle for all the art programs and spend the afternoon installing them. I hope I'll get back to drawing a bit more. I haven't really had a proper art program to use, except an ancient version of photoshop from like 2005. I'm not actually any good at it and with digital art it's all wonky because you can't just look at what your hand is doing, but you need to draw and watch your screen... very complicated. I'm kind of tempted to spend money on some other stuff as well but I managed to stop myself... :'D Good thing too, because I realized I hadn't paid rent yet this month and now my band account balance looks a lot less cushy. I did spend some money paying off more of my credit card dept. I still have too much after the Rome trip in May, which I haven't paid off + everything else I've gotten since, but the other card only has like 200€ on it anymore, which is a relief and I can pay that off later this month and get to the other card after that.
As I'm on the topic of money, I tried to do some math to see how expensive it would be to go to Worldcon 2020 in New Zealand. The flights weren't as bad as I had thought, it was like 1100€ return trip, but when you add to that accommodation and the event tickets + spending money it would be closer to 2500€ trip and no freaking way do I have that kind of money to spend on a holiday!
Especially because I'm thinking of applying for a Advanced Solution-Focused Practitioner training program next spring. The program takes almost two years and costs over 3k all together, so I need to save up for that. It's basically short term therapy/counseling thing, and I feel like I really need it for this new job. It's also useful later if I want to apply for psychotherapy training programs. I can apply for that in two years (need the right kind of job experience first), so it kind of lines up pretty well. It's another expensive program, but I guess it's not so bad considering I didn't have to pay anything for university before this... Also I'm hoping the prices might go down, there has been talk that there aren't enough therapists around and the cost of the training is definitely part of the problem.
It's kind of funny how interested I've become in psychology and counseling in the past year, when back in university I didn't do any psychology courses even though I could have until my last year. (hindsight 20/20). It's also made me wonder if I should get therapy for myself now, but then again you need to do therapy during the psychotherapy training and I don't want to spend the money twice! -_-
I'm thinking I should try to do nanowrimo again this year. I haven't been writing much of anything all year and I feel like the format actually worked well for me the one time I actually finished it. I have a few romance novels plotted out, now I just need to write some words down, which is always the hardest part.
I'm still doing a lot of d&d, I might have a problem... I'm only playing in two games (and I'm thinking I might drop the other game. Tomb of Annihilation just isn't for me, there's so much of just traveling and nothing happening + the plot seems almost non-existent somehow?) The other games starts on Monday. I'm a bit worried about the other players, they are all really young and one player seems obsessed with his drunken master monk being drunk all the time and that seems like a recipe for disaster. I ended up making a new paladin (conquest this time) because paladin was great and this campaign should do to high levels and I'm curious to see how that would be like.
I would really like to play Descend into Avernus, but haven't had luck finding a game yet. (I basically need it to be on a Sunday or Wednesday)
So two games seems like a reasonable amount right? Well the problem is that I'm also DM'ing three games right now... :D Oops? They are all premade modules, so it's less work for me, but there's still prep I need to do. I'm doing Waterdeep Dragon Heist, Dragon of Icespire Peak and then a GM Guild's Module called Call from the Deep. I just like the power too much I think, which I'm not gonna examine more right now xD I am totally a benevolent god though, I think I might be too nice sometimes, but then again I'm still learning the ropes and it feels bad to kill the players, so I've been avoiding that (mitigating damage or splitting the attacks among more than one player most of the time)
Oh and last weekend I went to see arilyn9 and her bf looked at my PC to see how I could upgrade it. As I knew already my graphics card (or driver, I'm not sure what it's called in English) and most of the other components are super old now and I should put about 600-700€ to get new things. Urgh, why does everything cost so much money? I have two graphics cards in mind, one would be cheaper, under 300 but if I put a 150 more I could get a significantly better one, which would then last longer, which would save money in the long run. I'll have to think about it some more. I get paid on the 20th so I have time to figure out how much I want to spend.
Just generally I feel pretty good, I feel like I have a lot of creative energy, which I think was rekindled by d&d, so that's been nice. Work is good, the pets are doing good. One thing I'd like to change would be to somehow get one more irl friend I could hang out with. Hanging out with people online is pretty good for my need to socialize in general, but right now I only have one irl friend, which seems precarious. I went back to find out when messy_kisses died and I totally missed the anniversary, it was on the 17th of September and now I feel guilty about that too, I thought it was in October. I can't believe it's been over a year now. :(
Well that's a cheery note to end the entry on.