disappointed_lesbian | Entries tagged with work

Today I spent six or seven hours researching Taiwanese universities. It was an onerous task because Taiwanese universities tend, it seems, to not post the degrees they offer and because a lot of the web pages were just blank.

I found a few universities on mountains, but I eventually gave up because most have tuition that would nearly exhaust the scholarship, leaving me with next to nothing to pay for the miscellaneous student fees, because I'd still have no way to cover air fare with this particular scholarship, and because I'm just tired and demotivated at this point. It's nearly nine-thirty pm and I've been researching online since around two-thirty or 3 pm. I never feel sure about these plans; never in my life have I supported myself financially, and I fear that I'll never be able to, particularly given my chronic health issues. I also probably won't ever be able to afford property in Taiwan even if I do manage to hold down a job, and renting for life = possibly working for life seems a grim future. At my age, I might not qualify for any kind of retirement benefit for a long time even with a career.

But I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be just getting an education/checking out the island first, before committing myself. But I'd be committing myself anyhow in a way because I'll be homeless again if I come back here. As well as depressed, probably. It seems better to commit myself to Taiwan, sight unseen.

I found a talent recruitment program that would cover costs for select educational programs in exchange for employment at a Taiwanese company, but most of the programs open to me are in large cities. (It feels like cities with over a million people in them should not exist.) A lot of the hosting universities want only people from southeast asia; why, I don't know.

Of those that do not have this restriction, I'm down to one that's in a low population density area and one that's on a mountain just outside a large city. I might contact some of the others and ask whether they'll take a lowly American. If I go this route, I'll have no choice but to commit myself after finishing whatever schooling I choose. But coming up with airfare would still be a problem, at least initially; the programs reimburse for airfare, so I'd have money for at ticket back here at least. I typed 'back home,' then deleted it. This shit isn't my home. I have no home.

And my last option is the american scholarship I've been planning to apply for all this time, the one that requires studying Chinese culture and history, the latter being a topic in which I'm not terribly interested,the degree being one that doesn't seem terribly lucrative. It will however cover airfare and the program is specifically designed to get students fluent in Mandarin, so it's an integration tool.

Right now, I am stuck on the dumbest shit: identification. I need to take the test of chinese as a foreign language; I cannot even register an account without a passport, I cannot get a passport without my birth certificate, I can't get my birth certificate without a valid government id, and I cannot get the id without money unless I go spend the day waiting in that hellhole the dmv.

I just took a speedy mock tocfl test online and scored the equivalent of cefr a1 in listening comprehension. I need a2 to get into any degree program taught in Chinese. My score bothers me regardless of whether I'd need it or not. I know that my listening comprehension is better than what the score suggests but I think the test focuses on everyday conversations, and the podcasts I'm studying aren't very good for that level of speech, plus my textbooks mixed rather niche vocabulary in with basic vocab instead of teaching all basics at the beginning, as most textbooks do, so they put me at something of a disadvantage.

I've begun studying chinese stories/fables again; I hope that'll improve my facility with basic vocab. I don't really want to go back to basic level textbook stuff. It's boring as hell.

I think my insane insomnia is caused by excess d3 intake. It started around the same time I started opening up my d3 capsules and taking the contents directly. I'm probably absorbing way more than I used to absorb and thereby overdosing. I tried taking the d3 every other day, and it seemed that I slept a little (rather than not at all). I'm going to try taking it just once per week or so now.

Today I added treadmill to my regular weights+cycling workout routine to burn more calories. I just get on the treadmill after I can't stand being on the bike anymore and speedwalk for forty-five minutes to an hour. Lunch is pushed from eleven am to noon. I was somewhat hungrier than usual, but I had a few tablespoons of applesauce and I was fine.

Current Mood: tired

I feel unsettled. Too much caffeine, maybe, but I was still drowsy after my first serving, so I had another.

I was on the state dept.'s website looking at travel information and noticed that there was a Careers web page. So I ended up on usajobs looking for government jobs in Taiwan, which I should not be going to, but I'm having a hard time letting it go. There were no such jobs, however, there were quite a few in Japan and South Korea, and not just specialist jobs that almost nobody qualifies for, but entry-level jobs like barista and grocery store stocker.

I was surprised to see so many jobs in s. korea, so went searching for the number of u.s. military bases in the country. There are at least five;

https://installations.militaryonesource.mil/view-all

this website doesn't list all the bases. Plus, some of them are joint efforts with the Korean government, so it's not clear how much the u.s. is contributing financially to maintain these bases.

Japan has even more than that, which seems insane for such a small country.

The United states does not need so many bases around the world. They're useful for citizens who want to see the world (I remember near the end of tech school a fellow airman being SO happy when he found out he'd be station in England), but there's no way it's necessary for protection of our country, and it's probably overkill for protection of other countries. It's kind of wild that we have millions of usians living in poverty while all this money is being spent on foreign military installations. This country is loony toons.

So after I'd spent a long time considering whether I should or not, I bought the protein powder. I had my first serving a couple of hours ago, for my midday snack. The snack didn't go so well, probably because I didn't get enough absorbable carbs. My head was still hurting, so I had a hash brown for the grease, but I don't absorb carbs well when they are paired with oil, so I still sort of feel hungry. Dinner is in one hour, so I'll be ok, but I won't do this again. I need non-oily carbs to make this work.

I'm going for less than two hundred calories at snack time. Half a serving of protein powder is sixty calories and 12 grams of protein. A banana and a pat of peanut butter, or some berries and applesauce, shouldn't add up to much more.

For lunch I had a delicious tofu sandwich. I remember thinking as a kid that mcdonald's burgers tasted so good. As an adult, I wanted to re-create that flavor without the greasy bit of animal corpse, but I didn't know what made them taste so good. Then one day it hit me: the combination of ketchup and mustard. So simple. So that's what I had on my tofu sandwich. I don't normally like ketchup on any kind of sandwich-like food (to me it is a condiment for fries), but what makes it good is being mixed with an equal amount of mustard, so that the whole doesn't taste too ketchupy.

My counselor says that dor doesn't cover the cost of a DL unless it's the consumer's first DL ever and it's for a job. Kinda doesn't make sense because only young people will be going for their first dl ever. Maybe I will try rephrasing the question; I don't think she understands that I have no valid ID. I get so tired of having to explain basic shit to people in bureacracy.

Next to nothing is getting done this evening because I'm miserable again. Triggers everywhere.

Current Mood: suicidal

Stomach cramps, gonna post instead of studying.

Been slacking on the iron intake, so I've been cold again these past two or three days. Tired of this bullshit. Still having hot flashes though. I get cold and hot at the same time.

I almost never have cavities. I think I ended up with cavities because of all the coconut sugar I've been eating. I don't normally eat sugar. I'm going back to sweetening my oatmeal with applesauce and fruit juice. When I have chocolate oatmeal, I'll use the low-cal stevia sweetener. This should save me some calories.

The pih around my mouth seems to be fading, but I'm a little afraid that it's just my imagination. Aside from a fading mark between my eyebrows, the rest of my face doesn't look much different.

Korean is starting to take over my life a little bit, so I need to pull back. I need to focus on my future instead of getting too engrossed in a hobby.

I got through a backlog of Mandarin flashcards last night. Most of the cards that were in the learning stage had to be downgraded to basically new cards because I had forgotten them. I studied these 'new' cards after breakfst this morning, which is when I used to study new Mandarin flashcards upuntil about a week ago, and it felt kind of nice. It felt productive. More productive than trying to read with the pop-up dictonary. Maybe I just needed a break; maybe I'll go back to it, perhaps with fewer new cards per day. I was hellbent on learning about sixteen new terms per day, and that took a lot of time.

Not sure what to do about the sleep. The amount of melatonin I take doesn't seem to matter. Tonight I'm trying some glycine, which tends to keep me drowsy all day, but I had a tiny amount.

Thinking about my tentative plans to study applied math, I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to help anyone build anything. I want the world to de-industrialize, not build/erect/engineer more shit that's going to pollute the environment, displace people, or destroy. I can't think of what else I might be working on with an applied math degree. It's essentially an engineering tool.

On the other hand, I cannot think of anything else that's both minimally interesting to me and a source of easily marketable skills. STEM shit is always in demand, and I've had so much trouble finding work, I want to make the job search easier on myself.

Software engineering is an option, but I'm honestly not that good at it (although great compared to the average person), and I'd end up in a support role for some shit that's already been built and is making life more difficult for people or polluting the environment, for example, these garbage modern websites that track users all over the internet and secretly send data to Facebook or some type of fossil-fuel eating vehicle. I thought about going into aerospace programming, but aerospace vehicles are some of the most polluting things in existence, plus I don't know how easy it would be to find a job with a company that is not involved in defense aka war aka killing and destroying.

It would be great if I could find work doing something to make the world a better place. Outside of medicine and education, however, there aren't many jobs that make the world a better place. What would make the world a better place is convincing people to stop destroying the earth, other animals, and each other, or preventing those things. Not a lot of ways to generate money from that, however.

I think the closest I could come is some type of environmental science, which I don't think I would be good at or even terribly interested in. Plus, politicians and corporations, the biggest polluters of them all, don't necessarily listen to scientists. There's no way for me to be a scientist anyhow; it takes too much time and social bullshit. But perhaps some kind of support role.

I want to have sex with my endocrinologist so bad. I've been thinking about him a lot again lately.

I wonder how the environmental effects of the construction and disposal of electric car batteries compares to gas-powered car emissions. Electric cars were supposed to solve the problems caused by gas-powered vehicles. People wouldn't have to drive so much if cities weren't designed with shopping, workplaces, etc. so far away from residential areas and so spread out. But that's a difficult thing to fix because so many places would have to be torn down and rebuilt. If public transportation could be improved, it would become a viable alternative. The government would have to invest in it up front because all the people choosing to drive or carpool instead of taking public transportation are not paying fares, which would go towards improvement. The world is just such a mess.

And it's bedtime now.

Bottom line is that I don't want to get more qualifications just to continue to deal with the stress and poor job choices that currently characterizes my employment horizons. I want to do something peaceful, sustainable, healthy, something genuinely helpful, something I can feel good about.

Current Mood: undecided

Today has been a bit frustrating. I got a call back from the person I'd contacted about sewing or landscaping. I was prepared for the landscaping job being loud, but the sewing position is also loud, she said. I considered just giving landscaping a try since I wouldn't be using machinery constantly, but I decided against that. So no job along that avenue.

A couple weeks ago, someone finally contacted me about the va compensated work therapy program. Wait, I already posted about this. Well, that person emailed me some other job info, including a government job as a mathematician. I think I need either an advanced degree or many years of experience to qualify, though. I went to usajobs to see if I could find similar jobs, and I found a sort of internship program that puts people into applied math positions. But I'd have to be in the u.s. to take advantage of it, and a post-internship placement is required at a military base, and I wouldn't necessarily be able to choose the base, so I'd be in the u.s. for even longer. ugh. I'm going to apply, just to have a back-up plan. I may be able to work remotely as a reasonable accommodation.

As a more immediate option, I looked into being a stocker at a local grocery store. The application asks for current ID, which I don't have. To use the id renewal voucher I got from social services, I have to go to the dmv in person, but the wait is always long and the place is always loud, and the soonest appointment I was able to get is in April. Ridiculous. So I emailed my counselor about dor covering the cost so that I can simply mail in the renewal form. I tried to not spend any more of dor's money, but I need current ID and I cannot afford forty-five bucks.

It'll take weeks for the check to arrive, then weeks for the id to arrive by mail, then I'll finally be able to apply for a job. All this waiting is what's most frustrating.

For the mathematician internship, I need my college transcripts. Fortunately, my university now provides all transcripts for free, but they are no longer processing the requests themselves, and I don't want to give my personal information to their goddamned third-party vendor. I'm so sick of everybody doing everything through third-party vendors, maximizing the number of people who have access to everyone's personal information, increasing the risk of leaks and hacks and identity theft. So I emailed the school about getting my transcript some other way. They probably won't have any other option, and, if they do, it'll probably be something I have to do in person, which isn't going to happen because the school is over a hundred miles away. Still, I'm waiting for a response. And waiting on a check.

So I finally finished settings things up and fixing things on my computer, and, now that it's time to study, I have another headache. I spent too much of the money dor sent me, that's why I haven't gotten a new monitor yet. But my monthly income should be deposited by now, so I'll check my account balance.

I'm having a hard time figuring out which video connectors I have, so purchasing a new monitor will have to wait until tomorrow, but at least I know that affordable options are available. I'm going with a small retailer rather than some corporate behemoth.

Well, first thing this morning was nice because I had thoughts about my endocrinologist. He's why I stayed in bed for so long. It's really amazing how much better this is than thinking about womyn. It's like the difference between old and new tech, so much more vivid and real in my mind, and I'm happy about it.

I'm using a new web browser starting this evening: palemoon. I'm tired of the ram-hogging firefox clones. I'm actually using another firefox clone, but the cloning happened so long ago that it's quite different than the current firefox.

My sleep has been worse than ever, but ibs has improved. I think I've finally got the hang of it: I cannot have the heat on, and I either need to remove a layer of bedclothes (even though I feel a bit cold when I do that), or have a window open.

Current Mood: in pain

I was super sleepy, so I didn't get up until late. I have no more espresso, so I was drowsy for most of the morning. I had to double up on black tea to get sufficient caffeine.

I had a great workout on the treadmill, then went to my dental check-up. I somehow have cavities at my gumline, so I'll be going back in to get that taken care of within a week or two.

Somebody from a disability work agency called me back. No one ever replied to my email inquiry, but this person noticed that she'd received a call from me (I hadn't left a message). I was on my way out to the dentist's office when she called, so I said I'd call her back. I called back two or three times and got no answer. Frustrating. I kind got my hopes up, thought I might be getting a job soon.

I went for a walk on a flooded trail again. Fell near the beginning of the trail but kept going. Nearly fell a zillion more times in the slippery mud, but I kept going until I couldn't go any further without straight up walking through water. Got my boots and socks soaked, then turned back the way I'd come, defeated. I should stop doing this shit, but something in me wants to meet the challenge of hiking a flooded trail without getting my feet wet.

I got home just in time for my usual dinnertime. I ate and now I have a migraine again. I don't want to take the pain/nausea med because it makes me depressed, gives me a sense of doom. I took just half a couple of days ago; that wasn't so bad, but I still got that awful feeling. I should ask for an alternative.

I feel like I wasted a lot of time today. I have several bootleg Korean textbooks. I looked through them today to see whether I could use any of them to reinforce what I'm learning in the main textbook I'm using. There aren't enough examples in any of these books, so I intend to use more than one. One of them doesn't even have the dialogs translated. The biggest problem is that vocabulary is introduced yet not re-used in subsequent chapters. That's what makes me forget what I learn. These textbook writers don't know how to teach.

I'm moving away from the living room heater again. I'm so warm now that I don't need to be next to it. I had to turn it off a couple nights ago, I was so warm. I half want to go back to my bedroom, but there is now mold on the walls. It's gotten moldy while I've not been using it. I don't understand the climate here: I have skin problems due to the lack of humidity, yet there's always mold somewhere.

It seems like I would have been better off learning Japanese and trying to expatriate to Japan. But Japan gets cold, so I rejected it. Plus I'm not interested in Japanese and it's got kind of an annoying script, not quite ugly, just annoying. Oh, my considerations are coming back to me now. Yes, Japan was described as a particularly racist country. I wasn't interested in Mandarin either when I started. I'm still not very interested in it; I just want to succeed at what I started. And not live some place where I have to worry about a random person pointing a gun at me.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm so sick and tired that I want to go the easy route and stick to my original plan of studying in Taiwan. And since I don't 100% want to live anyhow, getting caught in a Chinese invasion is almost like 'whatever.' I'm so sick of having to look over my shoulder when I go out. I hate this country. I can't go out and enjoy a hiking trail without having to worry about being assaulted. It's always on my mind. There's no way to live a normal life. There is no normal life for most womyn and girls in this world.

Actually I can't go back to sleeping in the bedroom yet because one of the smoke detectors is going off in the closet. It's been chirping for two days straight.

Now it's time to stop procrastinating and go to bed.

I've barely slept in the past few days, yet I don't feel as tired as I normally would.

I think I've been having hot flashes. They're actually flashes now; they're sudden and brief. I'm dry, then I'm sweating seconds later.

Today was a fairly productive day. Started off with another headache, but breakfast got rid of that. I found the second smoke detector I'd removed, so I contacted the property manager about the apartment repairs the housing authority wants. I knew the property manager would ask about the smoke detectors, so I put off contacting him even though the repairs are to be finished fairly soon. The housing authority will stop paying the rent if they don't receive documentation to the effect that the repairs have been completed, so this situation is kind of an axe hanging over my head. That's not the correct saying; it's something other than an axe, but I cannot remember what. Some kind of weapon.

I also finally got the speech to text service working. At first it wouldn't transcribe Taiwanese Mandarin, and I thought I'd have to upgrade my account. Indeed, Microsoft's AI customer service said that I needed to upgrade. MS services are the most confusing shit ever. I loathe having to log in and even look at all the business-speak on my account dashboard, and the help articles are full of overly complicated tech-speak as well. The AI did give me a code sample that I eventually made work.

It's fantastic! I just type in a file name and watch the transcription of whole podcast episodes cascade down the screen. This opens up a whole new world of study methods. I can feed the thing kpop songs and get the lyrics transcribed. With all these tools, learning a foreign language is almost too easy. If I ever go back to czech, that'll be significantly easier to learn as well.

I quite appreciate being able to stay home and recuperate when I'm ill or in pain. I'm thinking I don't really want a job now. Maybe I should just stick to my comfortable poverty, enjoy my free time, and take care of myself instead of putting myself in a more stressful and inflexible position in life. The effort required to simply apply to these jobs is already too much.

I know what the problem is: I've been so set on becoming employed that I've all but abandoned my plans to work remotely and to work part-time. Having to commute to and from a job site is what's going to kill me (assuming the job itself is doable). There aren't a lot of remote or part-time work options, but I need to continue to look for them anyhow. I need to be committed to finding a job that won't burn me out because I'll just end up unemployed again in a few weeks.

I don't want to study applied math in grad school either. These past few days of migraines have kind of tired me out as well as underlined some of my needs and wants, in particular, how I'm willing to spend my non-sick time. I don't want to spend my non-sick time on an applied math degree. The purpose of this degree was a career, not so much interest or desire. I can at least try to fill my life with enjoyable and desirable things.

I've been taking three or four times my iron pill dose, and it's been working, without me crushing the pills. I just need to get the prescription filled more often. If I ever being sleeping through the night, I'll have to figure something else out, because taking the pills in the middle of the night is how I have them on an empty stomach.

The pants I recently bought are already loose. I would like to go down a size, but I need to lose a couple of pounds or the pants will be too tight. I'm afraid I won't ever loose those last few pounds. Losing weight is so difficult now.

Today has been rather chill. It rained heavily, so I didn't go out to exercise. I felt somewhat more peaceful than usual, probably largely because I had the coding to focus on.

Current Mood: tired

I'm having a difficult time just thinking of how to word this. Blinding resentment is impeding me.

Somehow I ended up researching careers for physics degree holders again this evening. The advice I saw many times, years ago when I was closer to graduation, was that physics grads can do more or less anything, get more or less any entry-level office or STEM-related job, with, perhaps, a little bit of extra study. That's a goddamned lie. It was then and it is even moreso now.

What gets people jobs is social connections. Looking back on my life, I can marvel at how little this was mentioned. In all my years of education, work readiness programs, etc., there was almost no mention of the importance of social connections. I knew that references were important, but I never knew just how important. It's like people just take it for granted.

This is basically a form of employment and education discrimination. (Getting into grad school also requires social connections, although those references don't seem as important; then again, grad school applications involve more sources of applicant information than job applications, so it seems sensible that academic references wouldn't weigh as much.) And it is, or seems to be, a broadly accepted, even taken-for-granted, form of discrimination. That makes it seem more difficult to overturn. Not that I intend to try to overturn it; I am too exhausted with all the other shitty hands I've been dealt.

I need to start studying. Yesterday and today, I took days off from learning new Mandarin vocab. I haven't been able to focus. When I finally die, I'll never have to worry about being tired and underslept ever again. I'd never wake up too early ever again, never again wake to the depressing fact that I'd have to navigate yet another day with insufficient energy, insufficient focus, and insomnia-induced ibs pain or discomfort.

I'm not just having problems focusing tonight; everything seems pointless. Or takes more energy than I have. Doing stuff is for people who have hope.

I'm going to have to go back to sleeping right next to the heater. I've been no more than ten feet away from it these past few nights, but I've still been too cold to sleep.

Current Mood: tired

I was supposed to see the allergist today, but they require ID and I still haven't renewed mine, so I rescheduled. I was super tired and didn't want to go back into town, so I was relieved. I spent today recovering from fatigue. Had the other half of last night's pizza for breakfast to help with the remnants of my headache.It's nine-thirty pm and I feel much better.

My phone service is garbage and is infringing on my privacy. I spent this morning researching alternatives. I'd rather go back to a landline, but that's no longer possible. All the available phone options require electricity, and it's disturbing that the FCC has allowed at&t to stop supporting landlines because those of us without generators and charged cell phones have no phone service when the electricity goes out, which it has done multiple times every single winter I've lived here. I'd hoped to find an alternative before this month's phone bill came due, but other shit got in the way.

I got a call about the va work program and it looks like I won't bother with it. There's a wait list, likely because the va lacks people to staff the program, I was told, which is funny because so many of us need jobs. Most of the jobs are in janitorial work or in the hospital, and I suspect they'll want me to get vaccines if I work in the hospital. The guy who called me said he'd email me some resources and possible alternatives, as well as information about appealing the decision from the va work program that rejected me last year. I doubt I'll bother with that program, but whatever. The va is probably struggling with trump's funding or staffing cuts, I don't have the energy to fight them, and I don't feel like I really earned va benefits, so I prefer to take as little as possible.

It's eleven fifteen pm and now I feel much worse. I had tea with lemon juice and a few teaspoons of coconut sugar, and it gave me a stomachache. I thought I'd feel better with a fuller stomach, so I had a half serving of oatmeal, and that made things worse. It's very important that I sleep tonight so these stomach issues don't worsen. This is another barrier to long-term fasting: multiple nights of zero sleep will make my ibs symptoms horrendous.

Maybe the dicyclomine will help me sleep.

I found another stupid goddamned thread featuring the mechanical keyboards crowd:

https://www.keebtalk.com/t/small-hands-kids-keyboard/19875

Another person was looking for a keyboard for kids, and mentioned at the end of the thread the others' suggestions to buy an adult-sized keyboard. I'm glad somebody called those clowns out.

Current Mood: in pain

At the Department of Homeland Security's website, it's claimed that multiple polls show that the majority of Americans approve of the current administration's deportation plans.

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/02/04/dhs-sets-record-straight-administrative-warrants-and-american-public-support

I intended to look at the polls, but all three of the links lead to social media: two to X and one to TruthSocial, Trump's own goddamned platform. Clown presidential administration cannot even link to real sources.

My whole day was disrupted because of work on the roof of my apartment building. The property manager sent an email about it just this morning, so I didn't know about it beforehand. I was drilling my vocab flashcards when I started hearing thumping throughout the apartment building this morning. It sounded like it was coming from various apartments, but it must have been coming from the roof only. It was too disturbing, so I had to leave. I didn't shower or anything, just switched my pyjama bottoms for shorts, put on sunblock, grabbed a few items, and left.

As I was leaving the complex, the property manager pulled up in his car and said that the workers might need to get into my apartment for some reason. I said that I was leaving because of the noise, and it turns out he hadn't even known that they'd already arrived. I unhappily agreed that he could let them into my apartment as long as he was there, then I went for a three-hour walk. I don't like random people, especially men, in my living space. Men hide cameras, and the property manager would most likely not think to be concerned about such a thing because men aren't used to worrying about being sexually spied on.

I was starving to death, so I had to spend money on food. I stopped for some chocolate protein bars and had way too many calories. I walked all around town and back, stopped to sit a couple of times to think about how awful the world is and to burn time. I hadn't thought to ask how long the work would go on. I returned at one pm and they were still working, but the thumping was only intermittent and stopped soon after I'd arrived.

I didn't bother starting to study my second set of flashcards, the ones I make from podcasts, because it was too late in the day for me to stick to my regular revision schedule. I didn't get to put dinner in the slow cooker early enough to have what I'd planned on.

I had lunch, then constipation meds, then a wrenching bowel movement, then stomach cramps for the second time today, then I wasted a bunch of time playing a computer game to distract myself from the pain, as I often do, then I tried again to get information about the compensated work therapy program offered at the va. I called multiple times and kept getting transferred to people who apparently don't exist, and I couldn't even make a complaint because the patient advocate office never answers the phone. I finally got an email address for someone in this office, but I don't expect anyone to email me back.

So basically getting a job is still next to impossible.

I showered and rushed to the thrift store because I needed a new iron and the store was close to closing. I found a rechargeable one for six bucks. I felt weak but took the long way home to burn more calories. Darkness was falling, it wasn't cold out, few people crossed my path, and I re-listened to a podcast episode about a poltergeist in post-wwii London. It was a somewhat pleasant walk, albeit marred by the headlights of car after car blinding me.

My new skincare products arrived today, which I at first considered a highlight to an otherwise shitty day, but reading the ingredients depressed me. The 'discoloration correction serum' is seventy-six percent water. Waste of money. The 'daily brightening serum' is over ninety percent water. How can that be effective? I can't remember why I bought this stuff. These percentages weren't listed on the website, that's probably why. My regular skincare supplier probably would have been a safer bet in terms of ingredients, but the products of his that I used didn't have an effect. This is so frustrating. Well, I cannot do anything but try them and leave negative reviews, if it comes to that. Several people in town are giving away lemons. I should take some of those and use the juice for skin brightening.

I've felt on edge all evening and I don't know how to get rid of the feeling.

I've been loathe to post this, but I've discovered the key to improving my misogyny-induced misery: I have to simply decide to improve. That involves not allowing myself to continually ruminate on it, not allowing my mind to be dragged through the mud of bad memories, and, most difficult, refusing to think of myself as somehow irreparably damaged by my experiences. There is however a good chance that I'll still off myself, especially if I cannot escape this country, because I don't have it in me to face or spend my life anticipating more such experiences.

The discount grocery store is proposing to open a local branch. That would be very convenient for me; I'd need to visit only one out-of-town grocery store for my monthly shopping. At a local store yesterday, I found at the cash register a small flyer decrying this potential new addition to our town. There is the very good point that our smallish town already (somehow) has seven grocery stores. I do not agree that the discount grocery store would provide redundant services; it provides temporary stock that's been discontinued at other stores. The temporariness is one reason why this new store won't threaten other local grocery stores, which have stock long-term. Most of the discount grocery store's stock is cheap junk food, so it's even less of a threat to the fancy local markets full of organic produce and niche vegan and gluten-free items. The lack of competition is what'll keep this new store from destroying local grocery jobs, as the flyer says it will.

According to the flyer, our city municipal code requires consideration of whether proposed new businesses take away from the city's unique character, and, this grocery store being part of a chain, the flyer says that it will erode that uniqueness. I think it's ok to have a couple of chains. What the city shouldn't have allowed was another damned Starbuck's, of which we now have two. I wonder whether anyone brought this up when Taco Bell opened.

I think most of what's in the flyer amounts to a lack of consideration for this city's poorer population. I know firsthand that's it's impossible to eat well and do all my grocery shopping locally because of local prices. I don't give a damn about maintaining local character when I'm running out of food every month.
The last point I want to address is that the discount grocery store, by providing shelf-stable staples, will threaten our local independent grocery stores, which rely on these kinds of sales to support the more expensive services they offer, such as delis and bakeries. I want the delis and bakeries to shut down because they are full of animal products. I don't benefit from them.

I missed the discount grocery store's community meetings, and I don't want to go to a City Council meeting. I will however use the email address from the flyer to contact the city council. They need to hear from low-income residents.

I may not even be here when/if this store opens. But something about this bougie independent store (whose prices are ridiculous actually) preventing poor residents from having more affordable options bothers me.

Current Mood: rushed

Today I found some inexpensive skincare products that address pih and have a low probability of provoking pih. It's unfortunate that I had to spend so much time online shopping before I found them, but that's often what happens when I shop online.

Today I received an email from my dor counselor. She said that the organization to which I'd asked to be refferred primarily serves other populations of disabled people (which I already knew) and that I'd been put on a long waitlist and wouldn't hear anything for four to six months. I asked about the waitlist and, amazingly, got a response several hours later, on the same day. The waitlist is actually only for people who aren't willing and/or able to do landscaping, sewing, or food service. I'm willing to do the first two, so I emailed the place directly for a job placement this evening. I was glad to be doing something that actually has some hope of leading to a job.

DOR mistakenly believed that I'd wanted to be referred for what they call "employment services." This is the useless bs that involves resume review, interviewing tips, etc. Talking about getting jobs rather than actually doing things to get them. I'm so sick of that bullshit. The best resume in the world isn't going to make up for my ten plus years of joblessness in an employer's eyes. I'm tired of languishing in poverty, so I need a right-now job until I can get a white-collar career. The fact that I had to press dor for details about the referral illustrates how useless they are. They're nothing but a piggy bank to me.

So tonight I'm hopeful and in good spirits. I'm glad it's Monday so I don't have to wait over the weekend for someone to respond.

I had another medical appointment today. I told the provider that I still sometimes feel cold despite the iron I'm taking. Because I'm taking it only every other day because of the cost, she tried to get it covered by insurance. I doubt that'll turn out in my favor, but I'm glad that she's trying. So the blood test I requested will be put off for several weeks, until I start taking the iron supplement daily.

She asked about the Chinese literature I had, and I told her that I'd planned to move to Taiwan. When I told her that I'd decided on Taiwan because it's warm (which maybe I still need, iron supplements or not) and safe, she started suggesting other countries and ended up mentioning Dubai. 'For women?' I asked, incredulous. She said that Dubai is a rather liberal place, but I'd rather die than go anywhere in the Middle East. Giant shithole is what it is. Seems like those people are always bombing each other. Plus that shit is a giant desert. That's absolutely the wrong kind of warm climate.

On APNews there is a story about Kentucky farmers who brought a newborn calf into their home because of extreme weather:

https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-calf-freezing-winter-70a256152c6cb9c5ae27184ac67e16e9

I hate cutesy stories like this, especially in this case because whatever these people own this creature for is so far from cute. They are extremely unlikely to be running an animal sanctuary, so their care for the calf is almost certainly a part of their animal exploitation. Poor Sally will likely end up trapped in reproductive slavery for her whole life, repeatedly impregnated until her body breaks down. Or she'll just be murdered and eaten. Sociopaths.

It's depressing and painful to come across stuff like this because it forces me to once again face the reality that I'll likely never find a vegan to have a relationship with. Eating animals and their secretions is so normalized, people don't even question it.

Being single is becoming more and more difficult. Sometimes I get this wild, panicky feeling, as if the social isolation is a sign of mortal danger, but I think underpinning that is more than just not having a partner; I think it has something to do with living in a society where people lack respect for others' lives.

I'm having a difficult time pulling myself away from Mandarin.

I woke up earlier than ever last night and still ended up dehydrated after having the coconut water an hour or so before bedtime, so I don't know what to do. I certainly felt better when I went to bed.

Current Mood: tired

Today I got Microsoft Azure TTS voices working in my hacked version of anki. This is a big deal because hearing Mandarin spoken with the proper accent (and a realistic voice) is crucial to development of aural comprehension.

This took a lot less time than I'd anticipated; I thought I'd have to write the code myself, but I instead incorporated changes from a newer version of an anki plugin that I've been using. It's a good thing developers keep their old code available on github. Tomorrow, Mandarin study will continue the way it was going before.

I tried to avoid dicyclomine today, but eventually I gave in and had some. I'm just unbearably unproductive when I'm dealing with abdominal cramps.

I suddenly feel groggy and I'm not sure why. I finished dinner about a quarter of an hour ago and had less protein than I usually have. Carb-heavy meal.

Today I received another email from my dor counselor. She said that she's sorry that I felt the need to complain about her and that it's good that I'm advocating for myself. Funny. She also said that her case load has doubled in the past year, yikes. And that, instead of holding bimonthly meetings with me, she'll check for my emails every two weeks. That seems a sensible plan.

She also said that she's working on the referral I requested. I hope so badly I get this referral because I REALLY need a damned job.

I can barely think so it looks like the rest of the evening will be unproductive or perhaps just underproductive. I'm trying to catch up on overdue flashcards. Health problems like this make it nearly impossible to deal with the things that are weighing on my mind. Which is usually related misogyny or other kinds of disrespect. There's simply no way to accept living in a misogynistic world, having no avenue of escape, so suicide seems like the only solution. The only thing that makes me feel like continuing to live is the prospect of having a partner, but, that's not likely to happen, so, again, suicide seems like the only solution.

Right now, I can wait to see if my referral lands me a job. Work can distract me in the short-term and income is possibly a ticket to a more bearable life in the long-term. I'm always aware that odds are not in my favor, however.

There does not exist a synonym for 'disappointment' strong enough to express how I feel about our foremothers having allowed the world to become this way, this black hole of misogyny. It would have been better for them to have destroyed their own tribes, to have ended the human race, than to pass this down to us.

I have a fasted blood test tomorrow morning, so I'm going to try to sleep without a bedtime snack. Usually I repeatedly wake up with night sweats when I do this, if I fall asleep at all. Despite the iron supplements, I still wake up or fail to fall asleep at all if I set the thermostat below sixty-five degrees, so I'm keeping the heat blasting all night to maximize the possibility that I sleep. I desperately want to sleep so that my ibs symptoms go away and I don't have to live off of coffee.

Current Mood: hungry

I half destroyed what could have been my first full night of sleep in years: I had the wrong type of caffeine too late in the day yesterday.

I can have instant espresso in the afternoon, but not instant coffee.

I didn't fall asleep until after four a.m.

But I slept deeply. I had a long dream about going to some type of mall/shopping center, and taking an electric scooter around the place, and being anxious about the scooter not being allowed. And again I had a view from behind, as if I was looking at a video game, but I was the main character. And sometimes I saw out of my own eyes instead of seeing myself from the back.

So I'm expecting to sleep well tonight, and either today or tomorrow is going to be my last day of constipation, of IBS. I began to improve yesterday, after my first night on liquid iron. But today I was back to where I'd been before. Maybe it'll take more than one day for me to go back to normal. But I think just seven or eight uninterrupted hours of sleep, plus some period of deep sleep, will do it.

I'm back on my period and bleeding heavily, so I'm continuing to take a double dose of iron each day. It's the dose recommended for pregnant/lactating women.

My dor counselor still hasn't contacted me. Plus I haven't heard anything from her supervisor about the referral we discussed. I hate these people. It takes less than a minute to send an email. It's a weird experience to be all but unable to get a job while continually observing people slack off of their jobs.

While checking my email, I found a veteran's newsletter about available jobs at the va, so I checked out the website. Most of the jobs are open to people who are or were already working for the government. I found a few decent ones, but working in the va medical system is out because they require all employes, even those who work remotely, to keep up with flu vaccines. I don't get, need, or want flu vaccines, especially not every damned year.

The newsletter also said that ibm offers online courses for free to veterans. I looked through the list of available certificates; only a couple interest me. Oddly, there is a course called Working in a Digital World: Essential Skills, offered in Japanese only. The course description is entirely in English.

I need to focus on math and physics so that I can get a job I actually like and give a damn about. I started reading Concepts of Space today and found that I won't need to read the whole thing because it goes into concepts of space in antiquity (which is too far back to be of much use for understanding modern physics) and in religion (which is of even less use, and certainly not of interest to me).

Current Mood: in pain

Bowel function seems like it might be slowly returning to normal. In the meantime, I'm struggling with the associated abdominal cramps again. The dicyclomine I take for the cramps seems stronger sometimes than other times. The one I took last night didn't make me feel woozy, but the one I took this morning did. Maybe the inconsistency has something to do with the medication being expired.

I'm finally going to try to ditch Anki. I can't take the shit anymore. I increased my vm's RAM and anki still causes web browsers to freeze up. This is a problem because I need to use the web browser to look up the vocabulary I'm entering into anki.

I'm switching to mnemosyne. Formatting the cards will take a bit of time and be annoying, but the only real problem is going to be figuring out how to get microsoft azure tts voices working in mnemosyne. I'm hoping AI can guide me. In the past I tinkered with mnemosyne's code a little bit and it seems easier than anki to work with. I may not be able to have a regular study session for a few days. Actually, yes I will because most of my audio is saved on the computer. I haven't been using the latest tts voices because I'm running an old version of anki, because that's the only version I could build. Even if editing and building anki were easier, it'd still be a ram hog. I'm glad to be rid of it.

I had an even larger bowl of oatmeal for dinner tonight and damn it was good. I could have eaten more just because it was so pleasant a meal, but it was actually surprisingly satisfying, so much so that I skipped my second course.

I'm looking into graduate school in a foreign country other than Taiwan. Maybe Singapore.

I was looking at Microsoft's open positions today when I found job in Taiwan. I wonder whether Microsoft has an exit plan for employees in case of invasion. I wonder whether they'd even mention it to new employees.

It's nice to know that illegal immigrants are having an easier time than I am getting jobs:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/13/ice-arrests-criminal-illegal-alien-employed-new-york-city-council

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-operation-highway-sentinel-arrests-over-100-illegal-alien-truck-drivers-gavin

Surely the school superintendent required a social security number to get hired. And police officers definitely should undergo thorough background checks. Human Resources is seriously dropping the ball.

Current Mood: okay

I started reading the first volume of James Clark Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism this evening. I'm going to have to try really hard to stick with it because it's such a dense thing to read for an insomniac. I've had it for years, decades, and have made no progress with it. I want to finally get through it. I can't take long vacations from it or I'll forget what I've already read, then I'll be too demotivated by the inefficiency of re-reading. Or maybe I won't really forget, or will just need a light refresher; maybe the fear of forgetting is all in my mind. I have a horror of certain kinds of inefficiencies.

This book (and perhaps the works it references) is supposed to supplement the electromagnetism text I used in college, which seemed to omit crucial details and/or explain concepts poorly.

I just noticed that the author's middle name is printed "Clerk." I'm familiar with this name; I've read it a million times in relation to physics. I've always thought it was Clark. Have I had it wrong all this time? That would be weird; a couple steps below having Einstein's name wrong for decades.

I'm more than halfway through Bird Box. It's engaging even though not much is happening. Well, creepy, unknown things are happening, but none of the living characters are seeing or fighting monsters or anything so explicit.

Today I researched working in the aerospace industry. It's something that can be done with a physics degree.I don't want to work for a defense contractor, however. I'm not sure what other options I have besides the government.

Entering the job market at my age is rather alarming. I try to not think about it.

I couldn't sleep at the beginning of last night because I'd turned the heat down too low just before going to bed, so I got up and turned it back up. For the rest of the night, I couldn't sleep for being too warm even though I continually got up and turned the heat down lower. Madness. If I cannot sleep through temperature changes, I'll never sleep normally, and I'll likely never get a full night of sleep.

It's unbelievable that this is my life. Why, how have I become so sensitive to changes in temperature? I used to sleep through winter with the bedroom window open and half the bedding. Oh, that was before I started bleeding out all my iron. But I don't know the explanation for ending up so warm later on. Maybe it was because I had crushed iron halfway through the night. Do I absorb the iron so quickly that it'd make me overly warm an hour or two after I've taken it?

Current Mood: tired

I slept for most of the night last night. I woke up three times but got back to sleep without much trouble. I think the trick was keeping the heater on all night and turning it down after I woke up the first time. I've been waking up in the middle of the night feeling a bit too warm lately.

It's bothersome that I still need the heater because running it costs a fortune, but expensive sleep is better than insufficient sleep. Given my latest heating bill, I'm not doing too badly.

If I can keep this up, I'm expecting IBS to resolve completely. That'll be three medical conditions resolved, and then I'll just have autism to contend with.

I have considered that the anxiety my neighbors give me has become a factor in my medical conditions. I'm thinking that's not the case, but, if it is, I might not achieve complete resolution. I might have to adopt some tactics to get them to leave me alone. People avoided me when I wore a mask, so I've considered doing that again, but masks aren't that comfortable. Maybe wearing one wouldn't be too bad in winter, especially one of the soft cotton ones I have, but I'm not going to wear one in summer. Or I'll just start telling people to stop talking to me. Not an efficient solution because I'll have to do it several times, and then yet more if I run into new people.

IBS symptoms usually improve after I wake up from better-than-usual sleep, so I'm disappointed and a little surprised at today's constipation and mild stomach cramps.

Perhaps a month ago, I read something on Reddit about Americans not appreciating the opportunities that our society affords us. The more I revisit that idea, the more it annoys me because those opportunities are available very unevenly. One has to dodge child abuse/neglect, sexual assault, racism, ageism, poverty, cronyism, and disability. The stress of trying to avoid crime, of being unable to trust anyone, offsets economic and education opportunities. Social opportunities are lacking.

There's not a whole lot of opportunity to get ahead here in California because governments allow landlords to charge exorbitent rents, which leave renters either homeless or without the funds to do much else besides pay rent. People cannot move up in jobs because the entry levels don't put roofs over their heads. Employers have a bag of tricks they use to avoid giving employees stability and benefits, such as never allowing full-time hours and hiring applicants as contractors instead of as employees.

I read somewhere that the postal service is hiring, so I checked out the careers online and found one for which I likely qualify: Maintenance Mechanic. I was excited because I almost never find promising jobs for which I'm qualified. I looked for the test prep book on my county library's websites. There was a listing for the book but no copies are available. That was disappointing because I'm used to public libraries having test prep books and because I can't afford to book. I thought about asking DOR to buy it for me, searched online, and ended up on the postal service web page for the position. There were practice questions for the test, and I went through a few of them.

As soon as I looked at the first one, I was hit with the fact that I didn't care about that particular body of knowledge. It's practical mechanical and electrical stuff and that's not something that interests me professionally. I want to know why things work; that's why I studied physics. The job would be ok if it were mostly stuff I already know, but there's an element of training and growth involved with the job and I don't want to commit to learning that boring stuff, nor do I want to endure the social interaction involved in being trained or, later, training others. It's not just boring, it'd be frustrating because I'd want to go beyond the 'what' to the 'why,' and I wouldn't get those answers unless I studied physics, which I wouldn't really have the time/energy for. I felt the same frustration in the military. I'm no mechanic.

Also, postal service positions are really careers, not just jobs, and I respect that to the extent that I won't waste the service's time vying for a career that I'm not going to be engaged with. My attitude towards a mere job would be different.

I decided that I'm going to give up on spending all this time and energy looking into jobs I don't actually want. Finding a job is so onerous that I may as well spend my life doing what I want (math, physics, and the history/philosophy of physics), and doing what I want is more likely to lead me to a job or career that I actually want. If it doesn't lead there, oh well, I'll just keep living off of taxpayers. They're benefitting off of a system that has disadvantaged me in several ways. I'm hoping that doing what I like will help me psychologically recover. Being in the headspace of this endless struggle to find work in an impossible economy and giving up on my actual interests and areas of competence is doing the opposite.

So, instead of a test prep book, I requested a book on the history of concepts of space. I was excited to find that book because it's a Dover book, and Dover Publishing has put out some really clearly written books. Once I get through that, I have a textbook on space physics lined up. While I'm waiting for the Dover book to arrive, I'm going to do my damndest to finally finish this book on philosophy of quantum mechanics, plus I have a beginning astronomy text I'd like to look over to prepare myself for the space physics book. I feel relieved and a bit overwhelmed. Also a bit apprehensive because it sort of feels like I'm abandoning the job search. But I'm not abandoning it, not entirely; I'm just not going to waste so much time on unsuitable jobs. I still have a practical skill, editing, that is marketable, and that's the kind of job I'll "settle" for if I cannot find anything that actually interests me.

I feel like I have to shift gears to get back into reading long-form non-fiction, especially the dense STEM kind. It feels a little scary to step away from the distraction of the Internet, to be alone with a book and my thoughts, which at this point in my life tend to despair. I don't want to be clobbered by my intrusive memories and then have to additionally face my failure to engage in my own interests. It was so much easier to focus when I was younger, before I had accumulated this life experience that weighs me down, when I actually had hope of being some kind of scientist. Now it's almost like nothing but escaping assault is worthy of my attention.

Posting in this journal is another distraction; posting is good to an extent but I drag out the entries to avoid facing life. So right now I'm pulling myself away from this entry.

Current Mood: afraid

Today I spent a lot of time online trying to find a somatic therapist, and, once I'd failed at that, I spent perhaps an hour researching self-treatment. The therapy directory websites weren't functioning. I could have tried a little bit more, but I don't really want to go into therapy, it seemed unlikely that I'd find such a niche therapist who accepts my insurance and fits my demographic preferences, I'm sick of websites malfunctioning, and I was kind of depressed at that point, probably because I was imagining telling a therapist my depressing problems.

So I'm focusing on sleep-maintenance insomnia again. I looked into general diy ptsd treatment, but it didn't seem focused or relevant enough. I want to try cutting out more melatonin tonight. Since the extended-release melatonin doesn't seem to keep me asleep for an extended period of time, it seems like the logical option; however, every time I stop taking it, I don't sleep at all. It's like it functions to keep me asleep at all, just not for long.

I'm hoping to try adding coconut oil to my bedtime routine. Something about lauric acid plus oil helping with blood sugar issues. I've tried having more fat just before going to bed, and it didn't make much of a difference. I cannot afford a whole jar of coconut oil, so, unless I can find a sample packet, this solution is a non-starter. If I had more money, I'd try lemon balm and valeryian root as well.

I'm super depressed this afternoon/evening; thinking about my unending misery, unending poverty, lack of opportunities, and lack of power to do anything about any of it, my life seems hopeless. For now, I can focus on treating my insomnia, but a problem that always comes back to mind is my inability to leverage the social capital I apparently need to land a job.

Taiwan has become distasteful to me now that I don't need the warm weather, and I continually see people only mention its miserable summers. To give up on expatriating is depressing enough; to give up on Mandarin after I've put all this damned work into it is like staring into a black hole. But it's not even a useful skilloutside of moving to a Mandarin-speaking region. Even if I became fluent (which I wouldn't achieve for years), I'd never be competitive in employment against the population of native speakers we must have in this area. And I cannot handle jobs that require a lot of speaking and/or listening anyhow, because autism + auditory processing issues, which are currently enhanced by insomnia.

There's like no point to doing anything. No amount of education or hard work will get me a job that I can actually do.

My skin isn't looking better; my chronically congested pores are disgusting.

I got up at five forty-five am this morning. I miss early morning walks, although I get sick of them if I go for one every day, and I know it's never likely that I'll fall back to sleep, especially without quick-release melatonin. So I went for a two-hour walk. It was rather warm and I ended up over-dressed. I knew that I would likely be too warm, but sometimes I cannot bear to remove certain clothing items, tops, because having my upper body too free triggers depressing body memories. I cannot remember how the walk was except that I was uncomfortable at the end because I was very hungry. I wanted to walk further, but I had to come home to avoid feeling ill.

Maybe I will treat myself to a pizza tonight. Then I'll have the mood+energy to do a longish aerobics session. I've been trying to avoid buying more quick-release melatonin, but I'm not doing well without it, and it's the only thing that gives me any hope of getting back to sleep when I wake up early.

So I took a two-hour walk across town and found a small can of coconut cream for a couple of dollars. I also sprung for another bottle of quick-release melatonin. No money for pizza. Mood is much better. I treated myself to some sci-fi shorts on odysee. Most of them were amateurish but sci-fi is almost always inspiring. Now that I'm getting my Mandarin flashcards mostly done early in the day, I can spend the evening studying something else. Astronautics. Who knows.

Enough time wasted on this post.

Current Mood: sleepy

It's three sixteen pm and I've been trying to have a bowel movement since around noon. That's when the second attempt started; I made a not-very-successful first attempt first thing in the morning, as I usually do, with a large dose of coffee and a small amount of fruit. After hours of internet research, this second attempt at an afternoon bowel movement has included dark chocolate, a huge dose of vitamin C, more coffee, and a small bit of banana, along with my constipation meds.

Ingestion of dark chocolate improved constipation for Japanese women at least:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389588621_Ingestion_of_dark_chocolate_improves_constipation_and_alters_the_intestinal_microbiota_in_Japanese_women

I didn't sleep unusually poorly last night, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I did, however, take a huge dose of melatonin, and today I came across an internet article about melatonin causing constipation. I've simply got to get off the melatonin. Tonight is going to be my first attempt to decrease my dose.

I'm upset that I've not been able to focus on what I wanted to accomplish today, that I've spent so much time and money on this problem (the goddamned chocolate cost me five bucks). I did do some job searching, but I didn't find anything. I managed to call about my liquid iron; the clinic is still waiting on the provider to respond to the pharmacy.

I'd planned to contact my DOR counselor about funds for an electric scooter so I can have transportation to work without the noise of public transportation, but, after researching the job I'd planned to ride the scooter to, I decided that the position is not a good fit. It's a manufacturing role that involves physical precision, which is something I don't care about, don't like paying attention to, and would find frustrating. Something to do with making sure paper gets on rolls properly.

I really am an idea worker; I can do simple manual labor or manufacturing, but not precision shit. Plus I think the shifts are like ten hours long, which is abusive. I found another job on the same board that required twelve-hour shifts, and for data entry, something that requires a lot of attention. Twelve hours of entering data sounds like a whole new circle of hell. The job market is really horrendous. There are people who have little choice but to take these kinds of jobs, and that's depressing. Although I'm living in poverty, I have the freedom to take the time to look for work that isn't horrible. In the meantime, I need to get my health in order. My life feels so much more orderly already, now that I'm not dealing with feeling cold all the time.

Success. Finally. An hour and a quarter later. But still not a full movement. Never that. And now I have stomach cramps. Stomach cramps vs. constipation, stomach cramps vs. menstrual cramps, these are choices I've had to make quite a few times. Fortunately, I have some leftover dicyclomine that's been working even though it's expired.

Lately my stool has a disturbing appearance: flattened and grooved, as if forced through some narrow and oddly-shaped aperture. Makes me wonder, fear, what is happening inside me.

I'm wondering whether I should see a somatic therapist to help me with my insomnia. I'm wondering whether that's the only option that will actually work, if it even has any hope of working. Are there things I can do by myself? Yet more research needed.

I'm resentful that I ever had to experience homelessness at all. A hard-working, college-educated veteran trapped in homelessness for years makes no sense. But the real kicker is that even with a job, rent is often unaffordable. I had jobs when I was homeless, but I never earned enough to house myself, and I still would have been very poor even if I'd had full-time hours. There's like no way to win in this society.

It would be good if I could stop using the computer at least an hour before bedtime, but I don't have much to do for that hour: no fiction to read, not enough energy/peace of mind to read nonfiction or non-English fiction. I don't have anything relaxing to do. I could study if I had Chinese books. I need to be able to fall asleep without quick-release melatonin, and I think less screentime near bedtime would help.

For lunch today I had a very delicious stew of polenta, white beans, kale, tomato, and zucchini. It was difficult to stop eating. Then again, it's always difficult to stop eating when I have beans. Not because they are so delicious, but because something about them prevents me from feeling satisfied. But stopping was easier today, I think because it was the taste and not the mysterious lack of satisfaction in play.

Current Mood: blah

It's raining, so today is slightly warmer than most days this time of year, but today is not a warm day. The sun isn't out. I'm standing here in shorts and no socks, and I'm not cold. My lower legs and ankles are a little chilly but it's not unbearable. So now I'm fairly sure that the crushed iron pills are working. I still want liquid iron, however; crushing those pills and licking up the dust is a chore, plus they tastes weird. Whether they taste weirder than liquid iron, I'm more than willing to find out.

So that's one medical issue down. However, I've found that I still don't sleep unless I have the heater on at night and in the morning. I'm not cold in bed, but something about the heat makes me drowsy. This is a problem because heat is expensive.

Today is the second day of my cycle, my second day taking naproxen, my ibuprofen alternative, and the second day the naproxen has had little or no effect. The 300mg of ibuprofen I took earlier this morning had no effect either. So this is one medical issue that's ongoing. I'm afraid I'll be stuck with this one until I stop menstruating.

Today I looked into a company I contracted with before, as a science editor. The job was very much underpaid, but it's a job, it's money, it's remote, the work is not terribly difficult, and I'd be going into it with more insight if I were to work for that company again. There were zero open editing positions on the website. That isn't wholly unprecedented, but it does invite speculation given that this company has (or had) separate positions for niche STEM specialties (so generally a fair number of openings), plus they probably have a lot of turnover. In fact, someone from the company tried to get me to work for them again not long after I quit, even though my reviews hadn't been high.

This lack of jobs also invites speculation in light of a new class of jobs I found: AI editing roles. These consist of editing whatever AI has spat out. Maybe the AI-making-most-knowledge-based-jobs-redundant thing is coming to pass after all. I didn't really believe it when I first read about the prediction. This is at least the second real-world example I've come across: the other was a presentation explaining how AI was threatening the employment of artists. The presentation was for someone(s) in the California government, can't remember if a lawsuit was being filed along with it.

I asked my email provider's AI assistant how I could work as an editor given that so many people are using AI for editing. It said I could market myself as someone who edits AI's work.

Oh, I just remembered: my phone company's AI taking my support call was another example. I'm not sure someone lost a job to that AI because I kept getting (presumably human) responses via email, but it's likely that someone got fired because there are not a lot of reasons to bother instituting AI if it doesn't save money.

I just noticed that I haven't had any tooth pain for the past two or three days.

I tried to watch some videos on whitehouse.gov. They're all hosted on youtube apparently. The richest government in the world doesn't host it's own videos. I have youtube completely blocked in all my browsers. I shouldn't need to access social media sites to know what's happening with my own damned government.

Trump broadcasted something live a couple of days ago. I missed it because I didn't understand how to access the broadcast.

A bunch of annoying shit concerning my medical care happened today; I won't go into it. Today was actually a decent day. I did a lot of job searching. Maybe I'll ask DOR for an electric scooter so I can commute to work without taking public transportation. There's a manufacturing job I'm interested in, several towns away. I'd have to spend hours commuting if I went there by bus, and the shift ends after midnight, so I'd have no way home. I've also thought some more about being a self-employed math tutor. Too much logistics involved.

It's almost bedtime. As my body temperature has improved, I've been sleeping less because I've either been too hot or turning the heat down too low because I'm no longer cold. Let's see if I can hit the right temperature tonight.

Shit. Just noticed that I forgot to buy more melatonin. So I probaby won't sleep too well tonight after all. Staying on top of all these meds and supplements is too much.

Current Mood: worried

Well, today is a new day and I'm not freezing, so my crushed iron pill solution seems to be a success.

I went out of town for a bit more grocery shopping today, ran for the bus home, got a bit sweaty and gave myself a headache because I was borderline dehydrated when I started running, and I still missed the bus by about five minutes. I took the time to go to another grocery store, but the things I wanted were out of stock.

I'm tired and my head hurts. Running triggered traumatic thoughts and memories. Let's just say that the female body is over-sexualized no matter what it's doing or how it's clothed.

Well. I got exercise.

Just after I'd left the first grocery store, I stopped at a nearby bus stop to pull my audio player and earphones out of my backpack. The womon sitting at the stop asked me whether the large vehicle approaching was a bus or a truck. I caught a whiff of smoke and figured out that she'd just been smoking or maybe was still smoking. Smoking at bus stops is against the bus company's rules (maybe against the law, too), and it annoyed me that yet another ass was being selfish. Dealing with cigarette smoke while waiting for buses is unpleasant (and unhealthy).

She looked like a medical crisis waiting to happen, and that's not because of her age.I said that the vehicle was a truck and she complained that the next bus wouldn't come for an hour and a half. The lack of buses was why I was going to walk back to the bus depot. She looked incapable of walking very far, and I noted that the smoking wasn't helping her; it may even have been the reason.

Trashy people destroying themselves, I'm tired of being around this shit. I can't stand being around lower-class people; when they aren't destroying someone else's life, they're destroying their own. They are the reason I moved here, to get away from them. Street crime, drugs, lack of education, feral dogs, unruly kids, they've got it all. They're loud and inconsiderate and half of them are smokers.

It really gets on my nerves when people try to paint class/poverty as sickening and killing these people, because I've seen their habits my whole life, and I can see that they kill themselves. Here I continually see slim elderly people out getting exercise; when I go into town, I see them smoking while they sit in their walkers, hauling their morbidly obesity fleshmountains up onto buses to take up multiple seats. Lower-class people either don't know how to take care of themselves or don't bother.

I was raised by lower-class people so I got to see some of their dysfunction first-hand. Both of my parents were obese, my mother was a smoker, quit, then took it up again at some point. My father died suddenly, of diabetes complications, because the dumbass didn't even know that he had diabetes. He liked large womyn and called overweightness "healthy." He was a criminal nearly his whole life, started as a teenager, got my mom involved and that's how she ended up in prison. I literally never saw him work an honest job, never even saw him try. He sired child after child with a bunch of different womyn without regard to whether he could support or even spend time with them all, convinced my mother to get off birth control and that's how I ended up born to trash. Education was not valued, my dad dropped out in junior high, I was not enrolled in school until third grade, there were almost no books in the house, that's why as a child I read the dictionary out of desperation and then tried my older sister's English novels once she started college. I could go on. Just pure trash human beings, worth so little to society that they're literally better off dead. ,

I am fatigued by job search. There is basically almost no way for me to even find a job I can do. The job market is very specialized, and I don't have much of a specialty. People who post online about searching for work seem so miserable that I feel that I should just give up and enjoy my life on welfare as much as I can. If I lack the energy to find a job here, it's not likely that I'll have what it takes to find employment in Taiwan.

Furthermore, what I've gathered from reading the Taiwan sub-reddit over the past couple of years is that the work culture of Taiwan is toxic and Taiwanese employers should be avoided. But working for a USian employer would somewhat defeat the purpose of leaving this country: getting away from these people. A European employer would probably be best, but how many of those exist, what kind of skills do they want, and how competitive are their jobs?

Just going out to shop today once again reminded me of how delicate my neurology is, how exhausting is the bustle of a city. I'm afraid I'll end up immersed in that bustle even moreso in Taiwan, where I'll have no choice but to work. I won't be able to function. Public transportation isn't great outside of cities, and there's no way I'll try driving in that country (and I won't be able to afford a car anyhow).

Taiwan has homeless people, I was a bit dismayed but not totally surprised to find. If I didn't simply get kicked out of the country, I'd probably end up as one of them.

I felt rather hopeful about my employment prospects once I noticed that I'm no longer cold, but really, everything is mostly still hopeless.

Perhaps my single competitive advantage is that I'm willing to live and work in remote areas of the country. Without a vehicle, I'd have to find a place where I could access basic services as a pedestrian.

Maybe I should just give up and accept my shitty life here.

I wonder whether I will begin to feel any warmer. If I do, I could consider a colder place. No, who am I kidding. I'm exhausted just thinking about that.

Things seem easier if I remember to take just one step at a time. I forget sometimes that I'm supposed to put at least a year of education first, before making any longer-term decisions. But even that is tiring, logistically complicated.

I had so much tofu for dinner; I am stuffed.

Current Mood: crampy

The spelt berries keep hurting my teeth. I put some in my slow cooker and they were relatively soft when I ate them today, but my teeth started hurting anyhow. Maybe I need to cook them down to mush. Maybe it's the agave necter I've been adding that's giving me pain. I'm scared to eat them again. This is such a weird problem.

I removed the blackout curtain from my bedroom window, mainly because I'm now getting up for the day before sunrise. I'm glad to be rid of it because I prefer to see moonlight and because opening and closing the window is easier and because I like to see sunlight when I go into my bedroom in the afternoon. Getting up early feels good. It's a bit of a struggle because I still feel tired after I wake up, but I remind myself that I'll be having coffee, plus I think about spending time progressing in Mandarin rather than wasting time lying down with no hope of falling back asleep.

At the beginning of today's walk, I came across some sort of foot warming device. It had been left leaning against a large donation bin. There was also a cheap humidifier-type thing left there. Since cold feet is a huge problem for me, I decided that I wanted the device, but I didn't want to take it home right then nor carry it for the duration of my 3+ hour walk. So I tried hiding it behind the bin, which is perhaps eight feet tall and sitting just in front of a fence. I knew that the thing might not be there when I came back.

Well, I forgot about the device until I was back downtown and almost done with my errands. I happened to be at the pharmacy, which is just a block away from the donation bin, so walking back there wasn't a big deal (although it wasn't a small deal either; I took a circuitous route to avoid the noise of traffic).

I don't know how to describe how I felt to see that the device was gone and the humidifier was still there. If both had been gone, I would have assumed that whoever collects the donations had taken them, and that wouldn't have been a big deal because that's what normally happens and that's presumably what the donator intended. The humidifier being left behind leaves open the possibility that someone other than the workers who collect the donations took the device, which leaves open the possibility that this was done maliciously, because donations regularly sit in this area all day, right next to the curb and an easy parking spot, on one of the busiest streets in town, without people stopping to take them, and, considering those who do stop, it seems unlikely that anyone would check behind the donation bin, where there are just a few inches of space in between the bin and the fence. However, when I hid the thing, I was on this same street, in plain view, at a busy time of day, and maybe someone noticed.

This could have been a very helpful device for me because I'm currently running central heating all night to sleep (and still getting only six hours'). My energy bill is going to get sky high again. I've been taking iron pills every other day, and I don't feel much warmer. I've been wondering whether I need heme iron, which I don't get because I don't eat animal products. Perhaps I'll call the advice nurse and ask about that.

Everything feels hopeless. I received a response concerning yesterday's job application, but it came from someone associated with the website rather than from the company offering the position I applied for. I have to fill out another profile of some kind. I was told that the job is an independent contractor position. I'm kinda tired of these businesses that don't want to actually hire anyone. Also, the company wants "experts." I'm not sure what that means. An advanced degree in the field? These companies that offer no job security always want lots of experience and credentials, and they basically hold all the cards in the job market. The only card I hold is being able to refuse all their shitty positions and rely on my benefits to survive.

Taiwan seems hopeless, employment seems hopeless, exiting poverty seems hopeless, just not having a painful life seems hopeless.

So I added myself to the company's digital talent pool even though the position I applied for is not listed as open on the company website. I didn't have to give too much personal information, so I figured I wouldn't have any serious privacy issues to worry about, and being part of the pool can therefore only help me in case I'm called for a position later on (assuming the company doesn't spam my email or something). I quickly whipped up a work sample to include by looking for an online document to edit. I was a little worried that the sample wouldn't be good since it's been years since I edited professionally and because I spent so little time on it, but I now feel confident that it will be helpful (assuming someone looks at it). I'm worried about being expected to use MS Word if I get hired as an editor. I don't have Windows anymore, nor do I want it. Businesses should adopt free, open source tools.

Current Mood: blah

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Males are violent and rapey.

One generation's boys are the next generation's rapists and murderers.

Entries tagged with work

A school in the mountains

Waste of Taxes

I won't help you destroy the world

Failing to get a job

Didn't get much done today.

Chill Day

Jobs for Physics Grads

Recovery Day Today

The Trump administration has a credibility problem

Today Felt Productive

Forever Disappointed

Tomorrow Is The Day! Or, Tonight is The Night

Fed Up with Anki

Clerk

I'm no mechanic

Coconut

Spending Half The Day Trying to Void

AI taking over the economy

Lower-Class People & The Taiwanese Job Market

Lost Out on A Foot Warmer