Looks like we made it to 2025, congratulations.
2024 was… kind of wild?
Back in February I was on site at the NGV for a university summer intensive.
Basse Stittgen, Blood Record | NGV Triennial, 2023-2024
Some time after getting back to Australia my babe Sabi asked if I wanted to get matching “wet leaf and soggy bean” tattoos with her.
Obviously getting an in-joke from over a decade ago permanently inked onto our bodies would be a stupid idea, so I immediately said yes.
2011 sure was 13 years ago.
Made it back to Australia mostly unscathed, but a serious case of the sleepies got me good.
Saga didn’t really have a mid-term break, and the semesters don’t line up 1:1 between Japan and Australia so I got back to my home university during week 2 of semester 2.
Hey party people.
Study abroad seems to have worked out after a year of Paperwork Hell™ and I landed safely in Japan at the end of March.
Conceptually aeroplanes are way more fucked up than cars, however, cars are still functionally scarier on account of I’ve never been expected to drive a plane.
Congratulations on surviving another year. It’s a little ways into 2024 now and things are more or less alright so far.
When the university reopened for the year I got in contact with the study abroad team regarding enrollment, as aside from confirmation that the application was received, I have not heard back from the exchange partner as of yet and was uncertain if I needed to cut my losses and enroll at the home university. However, I’ve since been informed that I should expect a formal response early next month so do not need to stress myself out about it just yet.
For the better part of 2023 I’ve been occupied with what has officially been termed Paperwork Hell™. For every slab of paperwork I get approved, I am rewarded with another, proportionally more convoluted, slab of paperwork (which also needs to be approved).
Semester 2 has been off to an entirely less turbulent start than semester 1, which is nice- especially having taken on a 3rd subject. Apparently a 75% course-load counts as full-time so I was worried about holding up but it’s already midterms and somehow I’m still alive.
Great news, everyone:
The casual intimacy of sitting slightly too close to another human has cured my depression enough to update the gallery for the first time in about three years!
Well, either that or being back on iron supplements means my brain isn’t deprived of oxygen any more so I’ve stopped being insane? Seems unlikely though.
It’s 2023 now, I guess?
Claude died at the start of the year and I’ve been pretty deep in the Depression Zone™ since then. It was the week before uni resumed and I couldn’t really focus on anything at all until after getting results back from midterms. Probably haven’t failed 1st semester but won’t know the full damage until early July if my calendar is to be believed.
It was a genuinely harrowing experience, but I managed to brave the anxiety and take a peek at the university results when they were released earlier this week.
Somehow… I passed. Despite my fears, all subjects managed to remain above 80 for the year. No idea how the linguistics final was even legible at all, but maybe the teacher charged with grading it felt bad for what was clearly the incoherent ramblings of a dying man?