Geez, I’ve been sick. Luckily, I am feeling better now and have gone back to work. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been suffering with leukopenia which means that my white blood cell count was a bit low. It’s characterized by feeling extremely weak, having a high temperature, elevated heart rate, and a few other gems. I have stairs in my house, and they were a nightmare. I’d use them once or twice a day because I’d have to sleep after using them. Showering made me tired. Eating made me tired. I just couldn’t win the battle but with some rest, I am almost back to normal.
I’ve lost about 3-4 kilograms (between 6-9 pounds) and my stomach is still a bit small. I’m trying to just eat until I feel like I’ve eaten enough instead of eating until I’m full. So far, so good. I don’t want to get back to the USA weighing more because as I age, the harder it is to lose this weight that I’ve gained over the years.
I’m not sure whether this is being caused by stress or what. The important thing is that I’m feeling better and trying to get along better with my husband. Haha.
I hope everyone is doing well! Bonus photo of the saucy sausage!
My stress levels have been astronomical and I have been having issues dealing with it. You may have noticed that with my last several posts. My relationship has been a bit rocky for the last year or so due to me not being able to support my husband after his mother passed away. I think I came across as not caring, but I wanted to put emphasis on the fact that we should not dwell on the death of the people we love, but to celebrate that we were able to spend as much time as we did with them. Maybe that comes across as mean. People process loss in so many different ways, but when I’d try to help, I was constantly being told that I don’t understand what it’s like to lose a parent (which I have) and I do not understand his culture. True, I’m not an expert on that.
We had a bit of an argument this week and I ended up cancelling my flight back home at the end of the year. Most of that is that I know my partner is still suffering with loss and dealing with his remaining family members back home. So I thought I’d stay in Australia to support him.
He talked me into rebooking, so I did that but shortened my trip by about 2-3 weeks.
I also went to see my doctor due to all the stress I’ve been dealing with. My medication doses were doubled and I’m going to see about seeing a psychologist too. My thoughts have gotten pretty dark, so I thought that maybe I should do something about it while my mind is still functioning to do the most sensible thing.
Anyway, look after your mental health, folks. Remember, there is no shame in seeking help when you need it.
My partner’s come back to Australia, which is a good thing. Starting this week, I’ll be working more so I have more spending money when I go back to my home country. I was working on average 1-2 days per week and my paychecks sucked. I got my tax refund back and have gone through most of it on living expenses.
This is going to be a short post and probably very uninteresting as my life is void of excitement. I’m pretty thankful that it hasn’t been very exciting though. I like to listen to internet drama and it’s mostly about people who document every single detail of their lives. I used to be the same way, but decided after a while that it’s not in my best interest. I’m glad I stepped away and don’t share the most embarrassing moments of my life on YouTube, Tiktok, or Instagram.
I practically lived online and wanted to tell EVERYBODY about what was going on. Good times, bad times: it didn’t matter. I know some of the people I dated really hated that and in hindsight, those relationships would have most likely lasted longer if I devoted more time to THEM besides talking about our relationship. I think I get it now.
The landscape of sharing online has changed so much over the years and I regret posting some of the things I did. I’m glad I don’t do it anymore.
Anyway, as I said this would be boring. I hope everyone is doing well and taking care of yourselves.
This is a bit of a mental health post. It’s nothing heavy. It’s just a processing how I’m feeling lately. Feel free to skip this one if you want. I don’t blame you if you want to do anything else.
So, my partner’s been gone for 3 weeks and coming back at the end of next week. This has given me plenty of time to think about life. Unfortunately, that usually means overthinking life and how much time I have left on this good Earth. I know. Morbid thoughts, am I right?
It seems like that I am battling a mid-life crisis right now. I’m not wanting to buy a fancy new car or buy a gold-plated set of armor anything like that. I am just thinking whether I’ve done all that I can do at this moment in my life. I’ve done some pretty incredible things.
I should be thankful that I’ve been able to do things that some people only dream about. I’ve lived in big metropolises like NYC, Sydney, and Melbourne. I came here as an international student and have a pretty great job (which took me several years to finally embrace). I’ve loved two people deeply to the point that I migrated here for one and married another. I’m not struggling every single day. However, saying this, it hasn’t been sunshine, roses, and rainbows. I’ve suffered a lot and for some reason, I continue to suffer in various ways.
I will be upfront that my mental health has been a big problem in my lifetime. I struggled accepting that I could be attracted to men and ignored it for the longest time. I am also attracted to women which I struggle with now (but I know that I can’t act on it anymore). Growing up, I didn’t make friends easily. It is exhausting for me. It’s not that I particularly like being alone. I just wish, at this point, I had more friends. I realise that with my husband gone, it would be nice to have some local friends to do things with. Most of the people I know are people from work. I really like them, but beyond work, I just don’t do anything with them. It’s a bit sad.
For some reason, I find my depression coming back and my anxiety/social anxiety is worse. I fight it with all my energy, but even that energy is limited and it seems like every day that passes, I have less energy. So, I stay home with Dash. He’s got separation anxiety, so I don’t go out much on my own. I kind of need that, but Dash is a good boy and I don’t want to leave him by himself. If I do, I risk having my house being used as a toilet or a disaster area when I get back.
This is a lot of rambling, I know. I am just anxious all the time which I hate. I don’t want to increase my medications either. I wonder how much more I would have done if I didn’t have to deal with all of this unnecessary worrying.
Anyway, random discussion time is over. I’m not sure whether that has helped or not. Excuse any bad grammar you find because I took a full dose of antihistamines. They knock me out!
Hey folks! I hope you’re in good health and hope you’re generally happy.
I haven’t been feeling too well over the past couple of weeks. If you have kept up with me over the years, you’ll know that I have some really unfortunate issues with my digestive system and they’re giving me a bit of grief. It’s been hard to keep anything down at times, and I’ve been getting very nauseated when I’m at work, so I’ve missed a lot of work. I’m about to submit a timesheet for the hours of hours worked and I can guarantee you that I’m going to get bitched at on Monday.
I won’t concentrate on my physical health issues but I will talk about the mental health implications of heading back home at the end of the year.
I’m generally a person who expects change and for the most part, I am not afraid of things changing but when it comes to my family, it really scares me and makes me sad. You see, I moved permanently from the. USA to Australia when I was 26 years old and I’ve been here mostly from then.
I’ve been away for so long that I no longer have any living grandparents. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins I haven’t seen for probably a decade or more. My dad passed away while I was visiting about 15 years ago and I ended up staying in Texas for almost one year. I eventually came back.
The hardest part of living overseas is the fact that I have missed out on so much. My nephews and niece are all adults now with babies of their own. All of my cousins are all grown up, getting married and having children. Family members have passed away or no longer speak to me (mostly because of the gay interracial marriage thing).
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I didn’t move here. I’m not sure I would or could have accomplished as much as I could have if I was in the USA. I probably should get over it, but I’m pretty content with the quality of my life in Australia, but I miss my family. Well, 99% of them.
People here ask me whether I will ever move back to the USA and I don’t know if I can. I’d like to if my life’s quality would be the same, but it wouldn’t be. As my mother gets older, it worries me that I’m “wasting time” being here. She wasn’t always the best mother in my opinion, but being older and more experienced (and educated) has helped me understand her a lot better. She did her best with the cards that were dealt to her.
People move away from home all the time whether it’s for relationships, work, or to live a better life. I wonder whether they struggle the way I do. (Let me explain that: I handle it a lot better than I used to, but find that I’m getting more depressed about it. People at work ask me if I’m okay a lot. They can tell.)
Let me say that I am excited to go back home to see my family at the end of the year, or what’s left of it. I don’t much care for the policial climate, but well, this is what the American people wanted. I hope normalcy and common sense returns to the USA at some point regardless of what political party is running the country. My heart aches for people there.
Anyway, this is why I haven’t posted anything here for a while. Venting makes me feel a bit better. That is all. Take care of yourselves!
My first exposure to gaming (that I remember anyway) was when I was 5 years old. That Christmas, my parents bought my sister and me a NES. I have been hooked since. I’ve owned most of Nintendo’s consoles up to the Nintendo DSi. That was a long time ago though. Sure, I wanted to get more consoles, but it seemed like the more I bought them, the less I used them. My last Nintendo purchase was the first Nintendo Switch.
It was then I realised that there was a big problem. The price of the console was pretty hefty and I bought games, played them for a little while, and then would put it down for months. Gaming, in general, is really expensive here in Australia. I was easily paying around $100 per game, playing it for a few hours, and then forgetting it existed. These were first-party games, too.
I finally gave up once I noticed that Nintendo started charging people three times and full price for the same game on separate consoles with no or a few changes. I decided to pass on the Switch 2 for this reason and my Switch 1 has been sitting in the same place for about a year now. I pick it up about 4 times per year to play something like Animal Crossing for about 30 minutes.
Now that the prices for everything technology-related is going up due to the gross overuse of AI, other console makers are raising their prices. I bought an Xbox Series X for about $700 when it was released. Now, the price for the same console is around $850. Do I have to remind you that this is for the same console that was released several years ago?!
I started playing Xbox from the Xbox 360, but I think I am done. The price for new consoles, games, and subscriptions keep going up. You know what else is going up? The price for electricity, water, food, and everything else is going up too. Financial stress is starting to show its ugly face and now, it’s a question whether gaming is worth the money.
Sure, I’m getting older but gaming is a way for me to step away from everybody stressors and my stressful job and immerse myself in a world where that stress disappears, even for a few hours.
The Steam Machine was something I was interested in and thought it might be affordable. Here in Australia, it’s not. It’s easily $1,500 and I’m not prepared to pay that much for something that is underpowered and overpriced. It has a nice form factor, but its internals make it not worth it. I’ll pass on that.
That’s going to be the theme going forward: I’ll pass. Gaming has gotten to be something that is too expensive. I guess I will need to find a new hobby or something… or just hold on to my consoles for a bit longer and hope support for it doesn’t disappear quickly.
If you’re LGBTIQ+, be proud of the skin you’re in and remember all the people who made any advancement possible. It’s an ongoing process, and hopefully one day, people will all be treated equally.
If you’re straight and you don’t understand why this is even necessary, I suggest you take the time to ask one of your LGBTIQ+ friends what they’ve encountered in their lives. Likely, there is going to some story they can tell you regarding the injustice, bullying, or something like that. It happens today. This is why we still have pride month.
I grew up in a small town in Texas where people didn’t really accept anything that was outside that 1950’s sort of life. You had to have a partner of the opposite sex, be religious, and be terrible towards anybody who is different. Luckily, I moved out shortly after I graduated high school and experienced the world. I didn’t fully accept who I was until a decade passed that. I’m okay and though I tell people that I’m gay, I’m more bisexual than anything. Probably, pansexual would be a better way to put it. Gay, to me, is just easier and I don’t really care if people think I’m gay. No big deal (again, for me).
I’m not especially great with words, but I really hope that you just be kind to everyone, but realise, too, that LGBTIQ+ people have unique struggles and I think a lot of them/us just want you to understand that. It’s not about changing the way YOU are and the people you’re attracted to, but to focus on acceptance.
That’s all from me! Please take care of yourselves and the people you care about.
20 years ago, I decided to finally move to Australia because it was starting to get very expensive to travel between the USA and Australia 2-3 times per year so I could spend time with the person who I loved at the time and to study as an international student.
I originally came to Australia in early 2001 to be with my partner at the time. We had met in the USA a year or so earlier and he was traveling a lot to come and see me. I finally told him that I would be happy to work 3 jobs for 6 months, go to Australia and spend 6 months with him. So I did that until 2006.
On one of my trips, I walked into a international student sort of hub where they would hook up people with study programs, so that’s what I did. They did a lot of the heavy lifting for me, and in 2006, I came to Australia as an international student. Studied, got my degree, then applied for a partner visa.
Have I mentioned how much I love Australia? I love Australia.
I was granted a transitional partner visa in 2008, and around 2010, it was made into a permanent partner visa. My partner at the time was away a lot for work, and I spent a lot of time by myself, which was very hard for me mentally. But that had started while I was studying. Though I valued my partner’s work ethic, I missed him being around physically. So I was sad, depressed, and very anxious. (My ex and I are still friends and speaking of that, he’s coming by soon. It’s the first time that my husband and he meet.)
Anyway, in 2012, a friend of mine talked me into getting Australian citizenship. I was wondering why I would need it in the first place, but I thought about not having to renew my permanent residence every few years. So I went for it. It happened so quickly.
I haven’t really looked back since then. I absolutely love this country. Nowhere is perfect, but, to me, Australia is definitely a wonderful place to live and I feel so lucky to be able to call Australia home now.
A lot of people ask me if I plan to go back to the USA to live and I just don’t think it’s likely. I’ve studied more and I’ve got a good, secure job here. I’ve got a new partner (who was also an international student and a migrant). I’ve got a sweet sausage dog. And this work-life balance I have over here is incredible. I love it!
I still have some love for the USA, but it’s only because my family is there.
Having said that, I do miss my family a lot. I didn’t come here with an unsupportive family and friends. This is probably the hardest part of my life, but then I remember that the people who I have dated (or married) have gone through the same thing, and I’ve got a little bit of support here.
I’ve booked my tickets back to the USA for about 2 months at the end of the year. It will be so good to spend time with them while I’m there, but I always make it clear that I must come back to Australia because I’ve left little parts of my heart over here.
Anyway, happy 20 years to me!
Ps: This isn’t the exact date for 20 years, that’s on the 6th!
I can’t say I’ve been too busy to mention it, but after Marley didn’t work out, I took a bit of a break. I had reserved two weeks off to spend time with Marley and do some heavy duty training, but unfortunately, my partner insisted that I send her back. Those two weeks were originally planned to finish up my study, but at that time, I was begging the university to withdraw from my studies. The course coordinator would not accept my withdraw application. So, I finished it and I have a new degree and applying for jobs with my new credentials and, as much as I hate studying, I am trying really, really hard not to study more.
I guess that is the silver lining about me bringing Marley back to the rescue. I would rather have kept her, behaviours and all, but well, here we are.
Months later, after I graduated, I started looking for dachshund puppies. I looked at reputable breeders, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to give an older dachshund a better life. I applied with Dachshund Rescue Australia for a 7-year-old male dog and was accepted. From what I understand, he was a breeding dog and the owners didn’t want him once he got a little older. He also had a toenail missing on his “thumb”. He also had a few lumps which have been removed. Oh, and he also got desexed (or for us Americans, neutered) so really, he has no more obligation to be used to make money.
Dash has been absolutely beautiful. He’s such a good dog (for the most part). He’s good with people, kids, and around other dogs. When I first got him, he wouldn’t bark much and anybody who knows dachshunds knows how loud and vocal they can be. That’s changed a bit now that he’s more comfortable at home. I don’t mind the barking. Really. He will bark every so often when he looks out the window and sees someone walking a gigantic dog. He doesn’t bark at the small ones.
I take him on walks and he doesn’t take ME for a walk. I can walk him on a leash/lead and just hold it with one finger. He doesn’t run after anything.
He had been trained to sleep in a dog bed next to the bed, but he sleeps next to me now. He is a great leg warmer.
He’s great company and I can’t express just how much of a good boy he is. He’s so sweet and so well-behaved. He’s good in the car and when I go pick up food, he doesn’t automatically try to tear open the bags. He will look out the window when I drive and he doesn’t bark. He just looks at everything.
I’m just hoping to give him a great life. I’ve had him for about a month now. It’s the best month of my life in a really long time. I’m very thankful to have such a good boy.
This blog post was not brought to you by AI. I’m keeping things real.
Recent findings have found that a large proportion of web content now contains data that is AI generated. Some sources say that this is over 74% which is incredible.
You’ll probably be able to tell that I don’t use AI in my writing. Every so often I will use it to steer me in the direction I need to go in my research and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t using some form or another to even write this. That’s mostly because web search doesn’t exist like it used to. AI is pretty much just forced down everybody’s throats these days. You end up using it in one form or another regardless of what you do.
One of my side jobs is programming. I studied at one of Australia’s top universities in games and multimedia development and programming language proficiency was a core principal of that. I don’t work in that field as much anymore, but I knew years ago that this whole AI thing would be trouble for coders. It’s everywhere now, embedded in the IDEs. When I do code, I use it to be lazy. I’ve “developed” (and I used that loosely) web-based applications where my input has been minimal. It does an okay job. There are huge hiccups and errors at times, but more or less it does an okay job… with a little editing, it just works. Scary shit.
I have to say that I’m thankful that I have another profession where AI cannot take over.
I come from an era where we were just getting the internet at home and back then it was fun because you weren’t relying on AI to do everything for you. You could make efforts to find information and learning from it. Now, it’s more like: “Why would I read this when AI will read AND interpret it for me?” This is going to have some really serious and scary implications in the future, especially healthcare.
I don’t want AI thrown into everything I do on the web but it’s like I don’t have much of a choice these days. I feel like I can’t trust anything anymore. Being online isn’t as fun as it used to be. I feel like such a boomer for saying that (and I’m not, okay?). I miss the good old days when technology was new and home computer availability was becoming a thing. I miss having a reason to think about things and not have AI take care of everything.
It’s nice having web browsers that don’t have the AI thing shoved into it. It’s kind of why I use VIvaldi. I didn’t ask for AI in my web browser and I’m glad it’s not there. If, and that’s a big IF, I want to use AI, I have that option. I just don’t want it shoved down my throat like religion in the USA.
Having said all of this stuff, my posts will always be written by me. There will be spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, and general weirdness. I do use the double dash, so just keep that in mind. I’ve stopped myself a few times on this post!
Please remember: it’s okay to learn things–to do things yourself. AI is not completely evil. It’s just absurdly overused. I’m tired of it. Unfortunately, there’s no escape from it.
