i am about to start biting people .

27 February 2025

when i say it has been A Week . it all started Monday lunchtime -- i was just minding my business, mind-numbingly applying for jobs, when to my great surprise i get a phone call from an unknown number. to my even greater surprise, i answer it.

i am invited for a job interview.

and so begins an unexpectedly hectic, HUGELY stressful week. everything that i had planned to do suddenly gets pushed to the side as i scramble to prepare for this job interview. (you would think that, being unemployed, i would be way more prepared for an interview than i am, but i've been job-hunting for almost three years now and the job market is DIRE. i'm lucky to even receive a rejection letter; at this point, an actual, honest-to-god ~interview~ has begun to feel a little bit like a cryptid.)

i have to trawl through an archive of job applications to brush up on what job it actually is that i'm interviewing for. i undergo a mock-interview to practice and to prepare my answers. i tear through my wardrobe trying to find something appropriate to wear; i hit the shops, both to no avail. i remember that benefits and services exist precisely to help unemployed people obtain job-interview-worthy clothing. i have to ring WINZ three times because they keep disconnecting my call; when i finally get hold of them, they say they need to check with someone else but they'll ring me back! i wait around my house for hours, despite how hungry i'm getting because i desperately need to go to the supermarket, because if they call while i'm at the supermarket i won't be able to answer.

they don't call me back. i trudge to the supermarket, during its peak business, resisting the urge to start hitting people with my trolley. i steal a cheese-and-bacon scroll. back home, i bypass WINZ and self-refer myself to a free interview-styling session.

somehow, by some absolute MIRACLE, they're able to squeeze me in for a session the afternoon before my interview. the stylist spends half an hour making me try on a double-digits number of pants because they're all too wide in the waist or too tight in the thighs or too long in the legs, before we eventually settle on the very first pair i tried on. D| the session runs almost twice as long because of it, i still have errands to run, and i don't have time to take my friends up on the offer of an impromptu beach trip, or to squeeze in some driving practice with my boyfriend.

oh, and did i mention my flat has somehow picked up fleas from somewhere ?! so in amongst all the other shit, i have been very very itchy. and doing a million and one loads of laundry, and spraying my room to high heavens with anti-flea concoctions in a desperate hope to curb the little biting buggers.

...i am so, so looking forward to tomorrow afternoon when i do not have to do A N Y t H I N G.

i suppose the one upside to having been running around like a headless chicken all week is that i haven't really had time to stop and feel nervous about the job interview lmao :') the last time i had an interview was... two and a half years ago? and that was over Zoom; it's been even longer since my last interview in-person. despite the chaos of the last few days, i'm so, SO incredibly grateful to the team i've been lucky enough to have been working with to help me prepare. these are people whose job is to help people like me get a job, and their advice and insight has been invaluable for little career baby me who has never really had an '"adult"' job before and doesn't know what the fuck to expect.

C -- the woman who conducted a mock-interview with me -- wrote me a little cheat sheet based on the answers i gave, essentially putting a 'professional' spin on my own words. i'm not very good at 'selling myself' (a term that i Hate, and which i think contributes to my overall loathing of the job-hunt-endeavour) so it's been immensely helpful to be given guidance in How to answer questions in a way that will (hopefully) make the interviewers think favourably of me. the stylist who helped me pick out an outfit -- which was entirely free-of-charge, btw! -- gave me great tips on how to present myself to make a good first impression, and i am in LOVE with the outfit we eventually settled on; i'm genuinely excited to wake up tomorrow just so i get to wear it!

still, i mentioned a bit earlier back that job interviews have begun to feel like a kind of cryptid; well, an actual Job feels like a cryptid cranked up to 11. so i'm not exactly pinning any hopes on this interview tomorrow. after three-odd years of firing applications into the void, i've become a bit inured to the whole process, tbh. at some point that i can't exactly determine, i started to feel like Unemployment was just... my lot in life, and frivolities like job interviews (on the rare occasions they come by) are just a temporary diversion. i've somehow managed to eke out an okay lifestyle on the pittance i receive from WINZ each week, so the desperation to fund my existence doesn't weigh on me the way it used to. hopefully that all means i won't be a total bundle of anxiety during the interview at least lmao :')

...sorry if this was a bit of a depressing read. surviving under capitalism is generally pretty depressing if you stop to think too hard about it. i feel a bit better for having had a bitch and a moan about it, though, even if it is just into the void of the internet :')

i should probably think about getting to bed though, so that's it from me for now! if you've read this far -- thank you. i hope your week has been calmer than mine - xoxo, Cat

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february, in a nutshell

23 February 2025

today is sunday, which means very little when you're unemployed. i've had a lovely weekend anyway, curled up in bed with my boyfriend playing a lot of Animal Crossing! he recently bought Happy Home Paradise and has let me design a few houses, and last night i stayed up until 2am (!!) designing the cafe whoops :') i've always been so hesitant to drop like $40 on HHP when i didn't think New Horizons was that good an Animal Crossing game, but mucking around with my boyfriend's copy has me tempted. i love designing spaces for little guys !!!

i also beat Disco Elysium recently. absolute banger of a game that i can tell is going to change my brain chemistry (it already kind of has lol). i'm in the process of collating my thoughts for the review on my gamelog, so keep an eye out for when that goes live!

outside of video games, my life has been pretty busy lately ... i'm once again gearing up to take my driving test, which i am (perhaps alarmingly so) feeling super chill about. i can tell i'm near ready because i'm just getting BORED of having to take lessons all the time ... my instructor can tell i'm reaching a solid level of confidence & competence too, because our last couple of lessons i've been able to say "hey today can we drive around [area the test is sat in]" and he'll be like "yep cool sure can", and instead of getting me to practice the Concrete skills that are assessed in the test (eg parallel parking) he's focusing on teaching me those higher-level skills of, like, planning a route from point A to point B on the other side of town. despite a couple of hiccups i haven't done too badly at it, and it's helped immensely by finally being medicated for ADHD. i've been much better able to juggle the 101 things that need your constant attention while driving, and i can keep WAY calmer when unexpected things happen, as they tend to do when you are On Da Road.

being on ADHD medication has also been an unexpectedly big change to grapple with. while i'm no stranger to starting new medication and adjusting to effects and side effects, my ADHD meds have been a whole other ballgame entirely. it's basically necessitated a whole lifestyle shift to accomodate for medication timings, my caffeine consumption (which HAS decreased since starting meds, but which i doubt will ever go away entirely), the crashes i can get when the meds wear off, and making sure i eat sufficient meals to help curtail those crashes. it's... A Lot.

so, yeah. i never expected that starting medication would be SO overwhelming, and it's taking time to accomodate all the changes that it's bringing. despite that though, it's also brought a whole raft of benefits that i never could have expected either ??? i'm way more hydrated now, and i drink significantly less coffee (at my worst, when i was in uni, i was getting through 6+ sizeable cups a day!). most days, i manage to have not one but two decent meals (historically something i have always struggled with), and i've developed something resembling a decent sleep schedule ??? also, i've found i'm way more open to and engaged in incidental conversations, and WAY more willing to express myself to others -- in short, i feel like less of an NPC haha :')

*

as i wrote about a few weeks back, my friends and i went to a medieval festival! i put together a playlist of bardcore covers for us to jam to on the drive up, and we all got VERY into it and went hardcore on our costumes. i spent... perhaps a bit too much money at the festival, but i don't regret it because i got some cool trinkets and to support small businesses at the same time! my favourite thing i bought was this stained-glass dragonfly ornament to hang from my window; it creates the prettiest effect when it catches the light just right :3

last weekend my best friend hosted a cowboy prom; my boyfriend & i bought fake flowers from the craft store and made each other corsages to wear, and the prom was graced by a local legend -- treeman, a man who dresses as a tree and plays the saxophone. BANGER night. tonight, we're going to the flatwarming of a friend who just moved out of their shitty old place, and i'm really looking forward to catching up with them and other pals!

anyway, that's about all the updates i have for now, and this is turning into a bit of a novel so i think i'll end off here! whoever you are and whenever you're reading this, i hope you're having a good one :) xoxo Cat

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bardcore summer

07 February 2025

it is a gloriously clear day, bright and sunny without a cloud in sight. the weather here has been stunning lately (albeit a little too hot) -- yesterday i spent the afternoon hanging out in my bestie's garden, parallel playing with her & her flatmates and just . enjoying the sun :'>

the good weather is supposed to continue tomorrow, which is fantastic news as my partner, our friends and i are taking a day trip out of town to attend a medieval festival! most of us have never been to one before -- they're not that common in Aotearoa -- so i'm really looking forward to it! we're really making the most of it by dressing the part; my bf and i have spent the last week putting together our costumes, and when we went out to the craft store for materials the staff told us that a load of people had already dropped by in preparation for the festival! i'm pretty excited about my costume -- it's very tavern wench (though i still need to sew a few things and i keep procrastinating lol) -- but my bf has absolutely knocked it out of the park, he looks like an illustration of a character in a fantasy game

it does make me wish my film cameras weren't broken though, it would be such a cool event to capture on film :((( i have no idea how much it would cost to get either of them fixed, or even where to take them to get fixed, so it's just another of those tasks on the backburner that i never seem to get around to :')

i'm also still in the process of adjusting to my adhd meds. i'm currently on 20 - 25mg/day (depending on whether i take a third dose), and it's definitely been ... an adjustment. i've started new medications before, so i'm no stranger to that, but the rubifen is the first time i've really had to, like, restructure my life to accomodate meds? i tend to crash pretty bad when they wear off (about half the time i need to take a quasi-nap for about an hour), so if i time things wrong it really messes with my whole day. i'm currently also experimenting with whether or not having breakfast before i take my first dose affects how badly i crash, which is a huge change for me as i can't usually stomach food in the morning!

still, despite the teething issues i'm definitely enjoying being medicated! there's the obvious upsides of being able to focus and see tasks through to the end, but there's also been a whole bunch of positive side effects that i didn't expect! not only has my caffeine consumption gone WAY down, but i also feel like i'm more hydrated? i'm so used to constantly Drinking Coffee while Getting Stuff Done that i guess i have a habit of reaching for something to drink -- and since i'm not drinking coffee half as much, it's only natural that i'd reach for water instead!

speaking of Getting Stuff Done, i need to go finish my costume for the medieval fair before i run out of time and / or motivation :') so, i think that's about it from me for now! fare thee well, and until next time xoxo

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inaugural beyondthesky journal entry

01 February 2025

it's a glum and unexpectedly humid saturday afternoon, and i can hear my flatmate playing the piano downstairs. i've been wanting to add a journal to my site for quite some time now, but now that i've made it i don't know what to talk about!

i suppose it's because i've been sooo busy the past ~month that i don't really know where to start! Christmas was a quiet one, but for New Years my partner and i, and a bunch of our mates, went camping! it was... pretty disastrous in all honesty -- basically anything that could go wrong did -- but it was still a load of fun despite that! i also spent a week at the summer camp i volunteer at every year, and had an absolute blast (as usual).

i suppose the Big News at the moment is that i got ~*OFFICIALLY*~ diagnosed with ADHD !!!! this has been YEARS in the making, and it's a hugeeee relief to finally have that confirmation and access to support. i started on meds last week, and while i'm still titrating the dose, the difference has been like night and day. i've been working like crazy all week, writing stuff for the site and working on pages; things that have been in a quasi-permanent state of WIP for months have been all but finished in a matter of days. it's wild the sense of competence and confidence i have all of a sudden -- i'm really enjoying the feelings of pride and accomplishment that come from that, and i'm looking forward to hopefully being more consistent in working on this site and my other hobbies!

anyway, that's about it from me for now! i hope y'all have a lovely morning, evening, or night xoxo - Cat

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