Technical and Health Difficulties in 2024's End

The end of another year. There’s stuff I can be proud of, like finally finishing We Will Find On Forever and shifting my main focus to original fiction. I’m also trying to socialize when I can joining livestreams and audio chats with those I know on Discord. I still haven’t found a job but I know how difficult the process is and so don’t put much brain space into it. Just taking it a day at a time, which’s helpful, particularly with how this country voted not long ago. It’s a difficult balance between being informed and not so filled with bad news you can’t function. I sometimes fall for the temptation of looking up more bad news and the low mood it puts me in isn’t great. Hopefully I can do even less of that in the next year. I thought I could escape getting sick this year but on Sunday, I caught a cold. I guess that’s unavoidable in winter, especially since I wasn’t sick a second time like usual during a year. Of course it threw up my sleep schedule but I’ll deal with it day to day and get medicine as it intensifies. That means I didn’t see Wicked with my mom like planned but that would just have to wait. 

Last week was a time of technical difficulties for me. I’ve been struggling with screen issues with my laptop where it would either freeze or change colors for years and in attempting to fix that, my wifi suddenly became very low and gave out with increasing frequency. I was at a loss to the point I asked my dad to fiddle with the wifi but only it only caused more issues for my laptop and only it was experiencing the issues. On Friday, after struggling to watch and play anything, I decided to take the laptop apart to see what was the issue. I accidentally roped my dad into it and he chided me a few times I should have brought replacement parts if we were going to do this. Dad found that the wifi antennae wire was broken and after putting the screen back in, he soldered the wires so they could connect and now my wifi is 3 or 4 out of 4 bars. I owe a lot to him, even if he can be a bit old-fashioned at times. He’s helping order new laptop parts to replace those that are broken. It’ll probably take a while but it’ll be good to have my laptop finally fixed.

Also the headphone jack adaptor for my phone abruptly cut out. After desperately trying to make it work, I tried to order a new adapter, only to find that model completely sold out. I ordered another model but had to return it because it didn’t fit my phone. For now, I have to use earbuds, which aren’t nearly as good and keeping falling out of my ears. I tried to put them in backwards looping the wire behind my ear or pulling my earlobes up before inserting them. I can’t listen to audio dramas while vacuuming, so I had to make do with listening to familiar youtube videos with my regular headphones over the earbuds to pass the time. Looking it up, there’s rumors that Apple’s discontinuing that adapter because it’s for “outdated phones,” which’s distressing since I’m the type to continue using a piece of technology until it’s irrevocably beyond repair. I did find and order an equivalent adapter but I hope it won’t be an increasingly expensive struggle to keep ordering. Moreover, I want to order another adapter so I can have 1 handy when my new current 1 breaks. I don’t want to be caught unawares like this again.

I’m a couple chapters away from completing the third draft for the mon-inspired story. It likely still needs more rewrites but I want to leap to its sequel and have another pair of eyes look at it. I need to make sure it’s comprehensible to a reader. I’ve finished doing most of the fanfic plot outlines and last did writing for the Digimon Tamers fanfic. It had its ups and downs but I enjoyed myself. I planned to pause in January to do another rewrite of a plot outline but getting a cold on Sunday put my writing on hold. Just when I almost made up for all the missed writing days from being sick last year. Ah well, having days where I double-up on my writing has its perks and it means the weekend writing doesn’t become too neglected as a result.  

That’s all for 2024. I’m writing this on Monday night.  Free Palestine and hostages on all sides. May Trump and his is ilk fail utterly in their tasks. Until the end of the first month of 2025, see you!