Personal Digest Saturday: July 20 – July 26

Life news this week:

• Whew! Nice to have a Saturday that wasn't crammed full of stuff I had to do. I worked on my blogging but a storm blew through and my power went out and I lost all my progress, so I had to do it again when the power came back. Besides that, I decided to have a huge party when the Steven Universe movie comes out, and began some planning with Meghan. I ate an artichoke and drew a silly fan comic.
  
• Sunday was a really FUN DAY! My friend Steve came to pick me up in the morning and we went to Hudson to watch the musical Shrek. (Steve is the music director so I got to come in and also eat for free at the dinner theater.) Afterwards, we hung out and watched cartoons and had some rice and talked. We spent like eleven hours together! Amazing to have so much time to spend with an important new person in my life.
  
• Monday I hadn't received the new bus pass I ordered so I had to take a paid ride to work. It was somewhat busy at the office and we also had a staff meeting. After work I did more planning for my party and talked to Steve through text. I also did a little dress up playing because my commissioned plushie of Garnet's cat came in so I had to take fun pictures.
  
• Tuesday still no bus pass, so Lyft. Work was low-activity so I studied RCI stuff and worked on a database. After work I talked to my sister on the phone and made some posts about trading cards.
  
• Wednesday STILL no pass and we still had no data for RCI at work so I'm in a waiting mode. They finally fixed the air conditioner at the office! Now I get to freeze and everyone else gets to be comfortable. Haha. I wrote a storyboard for my comic and a blog entry, and read some drama on Reddit. I told Jeaux about it while we were hanging out after work. We picked up a big TV from Victor's house (he's moving, and I'm going to use it for my party). We ate at Joe's Diner and didn't watch anything because we talked about Internet drama all night.
  
• Thursday I STILL DID NOT GET MY BUS PASS. In my experience it usually only takes a couple days so I started to suspect it was lost in the mail or sent to the wrong address. I went to work and had to focus pretty intensely on building up a report my boss needed quickly. So that was the whole day. After work Victor didn't call me because he forgot or something, so I did a little of my comic but mostly did other things.
  
• Friday came and THE PASS STILL DIDN'T. So I had to take a paid ride to work every day this week. I finished the database I was making for my boss and I had to do some other marketing stuff. After work I spent the rest of the evening on my webcomic and listening to a couple interviews with the Steven Universe cast that came out after San Diego Comic Con.

New reviews of my book:

• Benjamin Coakley gave it a four-star review on Goodreads.

Diet progress:

Check out my nutrition readout. Going down very very slowly, lol.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: I usually read on the bus and MY BUS PASS NEVER CAME SO I DIDN'T RIDE THE BUS so I didn't read at all this week.
• Currently reading: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper.




Stuff Drawn:

Here's a very silly comic called "Necks for Fusions" that doesn't make sense unless you watch the show, but it's fun.

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0741: "Play it Safe."






New videos:

None!

New photos:

My friend Steve at work

Pics of my new Cat Steven Plushie and me in cosplay!

Autograph card collection, now with Estelle's autograph

Bag collection, now including swag bag from SDCC 2019

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,257 for swankivy (1 new), 681 for JulieSondra (no change). Twitter followers: 977 for swankivy (2 new), 1,337 for JulieSondra (lost 3). Facebook: 292 friends (no change) and 206 followers (no change) for swankivy, 651 likes for JulieSondra (2 new), 63 likes for Negative One (no change), 159 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,512 (lost 4). Instagram followers: 183 (1 new).

Wednesday Factoid: Keys

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: How many keys are on your keyring and what are they for?

Seven!

1. HOUSE KEY

2. Bike key

3. PO Box key

4. My mom's house key

5. Key to the outside door at work

6. Key to the office door at work

7. Key to the bathroom at work

I also have three keychains: A tiny Gurumi Bear (which is partly broken), a Captain Underpants rubber keychain, and a metal Cookie Cat keychain.

Personal Digest Saturday: July 13 – July 19

Life news this week:

• Saturday was Day 2 of the convention! I hadn't slept very well but I got up relatively early anyway and tried to get some photos processed before I ran out of time and had to get dressed for the convention. I finally found the courage to wear my Garnet costume outside the house! Jeaux came and picked me up and dropped me off at the convention so I could get to a panel I wanted to go to but he wasn't ready. I managed to slip in and catch most of the panel on diversity in media and it was very much worth it. I also got some great photos and interaction with other attendees.
  
• Jeaux arrived after he went home and got his costume together. He was dressed as Bloodstone, which is the alter ego of a character named Ronaldo in Steven Universe. He even had a crappy sword like the character! A few people recognized him but mostly they didn't know who he was, which was kinda sad. Jeaux and I visited the dealer room, took photos, posed for photos, and wandered around. We also stopped to get food--got some Chinese food.
  
• Unfortunately, there was a mistake with the panel I was running! The app and the convention website said my panel was at 7 PM, but the sign outside the room said it was 9 PM and a few other things were swapped around. I tried to get it straightened out with the organizers but the person I talked to didn't seem to quite get why the sign being wrong was a problem. He kept telling me everything was fine because the website was the final schedule and I was clear to do my panel at 7. When I asked him to change the sign to match (as I'd seen other signs changed with Sharpie updates when necessary), for some reason he said he couldn't change it, and seemed to think it would help if he offered to meet me by the room before my panel. When I explained that the sign being wrong might kinda mess with people's plans if they weren't checking the website and might make people who wanted to come to my panel miss it thinking it was 2 hours later, he just smiled and apologized and said there was nothing they could do. "Why can't you change the sign if 9 PM is wrong and 7 PM is right?" I asked, more than once, but he just. didn't. grok. why it was a problem. And promised again to meet me at the door and settle any issues if someone else was trying to take the slot.
  
• Jeaux was frustrated that not many people understood his costume so he went home to change and also picked up my panel prizes. I stayed at the con and attended a panel on women in LARP (live-action role play), even though I don't do LARPing. It was good. My panel was happening in the same room and Jeaux had been outside telling people when my panel actually was taking place so maybe some of the attendees only stayed because of that. :D The guy who'd promised to meet me before the panel indeed never came. I briefly voiced my frustration to a panel volunteer who was nearby, and she immediately agreed that it sucked, apologized, and changed the sign with a pen right there. So it was fixed kinda when it was too late to matter. Despite that, the panel was well attended and I had a GREAT time! The Let's Talk Steven Universe panel just involved people picking cards, talking about the subject on the cards, and getting prizes from my Cheeseburger Backpack as a reward. A few of the participants traded in their prizes for stuff they preferred (an option I offered).
  
• After the panel, Jeaux and I wandered around the con more, took some time to chill, and attended one more panel: Masculinity? In my anime? It was a good panel too and the host made great points with good examples. After, he took me home and I pretty much went to sleep right away. The costume was pretty comfortable all day except the shoes were not so supportive, and after it got darker in the con space it was hard to wear sunglasses. I had initially planned to wear a corset-type thing to help make my figure more extreme, but I couldn't tell I was even wearing it in photos, so I didn't bother to suffer. :D
  
• Sunday I took a paid ride to the convention because Jeaux didn't want to go. I wore my Stevonnie costume again and stayed for a few hours. I didn't go to any panels but I got to play ukulele with a cosplayer dressed as Steven, saw some cool costumes, and visited the dealer room again. After, I walked to the store to get Katelyn a birthday present because she was turning TWENTY-ONE (oh lordy). I took a paid ride home, did some blogging and photo processing but still didn't finish, and did laundry.
  
• Monday I had to go back to work. It was a busy day because I'd been out Friday! Lots of printing and downloading and organizing to do, and I had to get questions organized for my co-workers to practice for interviews. After work, I did karaoke and made videos for a friend and finally got my blogging done.
  
• Tuesday I took the bus to work and some dude at the bus stop asked to be my boyfriend. I chased him off with my science book. Not kidding. At work I had more questions to organize for my co-workers, and then I got really frustrated because we're almost a month into the air conditioning not being fixed and the downstairs restaurant started blasting building-shaking music. I finally got to talk to the building manager, who claimed he didn't know about the AC problems even though I'd been giving him daily updates. He promised to fix it which was cool. A new comic compilation came out but there was nothing new in it so I just reviewed it online and made videos for a friend and accomplished very little else.
  
• Wednesday I did RCI training most of the day at work. I'll be doing a project with data entry so I had to take computer-based training to learn about it. After work I ate at Gino's with Jeaux, shopped at Publix, and watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
  
• Thursday I spent the whole day in RCI training. At the end of the day an AC tech came by to look at our units and said it'd be fixed when we got in the next day. After work I hung some posters up and talked to Victor on the phone. I got a couple drawings done for my comic.
  
• Friday I finished my RCI training and am now certified in all three levels. Hooray. There was no difference in the effectiveness of the AC so I told the building manager. We talked about what we should do if we can't get it fixed. The convention trailer for Steven Universe: The Movie dropped and I may have lost my mind a little. After work I just drew my comic and chattered about the movie with my friends.

New reviews of my book:

• Zhenya gave it a four-star review on Goodreads.
  
• Audra gave it a five-star review on Goodreads.

Interviews, Articles, Mentions:

• I missed this last week, but in the Asexual Agenda's July 12th Linkspam, my book's Japanese release is mentioned.

Diet progress:

Check out my nutrition readout. I have a new low weight, huzzah! Though I also had a spike after I ate a LOT of pasta on Wednesday with Jeaux. I think not eating much surrounding the con and walking a lot contributed to this, but I definitely need to still eat less and be more active.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: Nothing really, but I did put up a review for a comic compilation of stuff I had read before--just mostly commenting on the format and what it has in it as compared to the other options to read this material. I reviewed Steven Universe: All-In-One with a four-star review.
• Currently reading: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses.




Stuff Drawn:



Webcomic Negative One Issue 0740: "Nurse."






New videos:

None!

New photos:

Okay, so the photos were epic again this week. I made an entire Metrocon 2019 Gallery, but here are the photos from this week that were my favorites on Saturday and Sunday.

Garnet Costume	Rose & Garnet	Bloodstone
Rose Quartz	Ruby & Sapphire	Garnet, White, Pearl, Blue
Yellow & Pink	Steven & Stevonnie	AND STEVEN
Mystery Girl & Pearl	Jack Frost & Pitch

 
And then I just have a couple unrelated ones.

RCI Training Certificates

Trying not to flip watching SDCC trailer

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,256 for swankivy (2 new), 681 for JulieSondra (no change). Twitter followers: 975 for swankivy (lost 1), 1,340 for JulieSondra (lost 1). Facebook: 292 friends (lost 1, don't know who) and 206 followers (no change) for swankivy, 649 likes for JulieSondra (3 new), 63 likes for Negative One (1 new), 159 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,516 (1 new). Instagram followers: 182 (1 new)..

Wednesday Factoid: Vegan

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: Are you or would you ever be vegan?

Veganism! Okay, so here's what I think about that.

I personally would be very unlikely to ever go vegan, even though I am vegetarian and have been happily so for over 20 years. Weirdly, I actually think it's a bigger step to go from vegetarian to vegan than it is to go from meat-eating to vegetarian.

I have two reasons for why I wouldn't go vegan.

One: When I was in college, I took a course on nutrition. Based on what I studied, it is relatively difficult to get proper nutrition when you're vegan. Let me emphasize that it is far, far from impossible! If you know what you're doing and pay close attention, you can be an extremely healthy, nutritionally fulfilled vegan.

However, it requires a lot of attention and knowledge, and also since different bodies have different needs, there's no plan that works for everyone. And as a personal choice, I'm unwilling to put in that effort. I eat vegan sometimes because I like a lot of vegan food, but I am not willing to take on the commitment that is required when one wants to be both vegan and fully nourished.

Two: Unfortunately, a LOT of the focus in veganism is on whether you're consuming something with eggs, dairy, etc. instead of "is this from an ethical source?"

People can get really fixated on whether they personally are consuming a forbidden substance, and instead of choosing to patronize companies and products that support ethical consumption (within reason) as much as possible, they'll still go to a place that doesn't, say, get their milk and eggs from cruelty-free sources as long as they are personally not eating it. That's really not much of a help if the goal is responsible consumption and anti-cruelty.

Obviously there are some people who are more focused on the nutrition aspect of it, and just don't personally want to consume any animal products (especially since some of them can get sick if they do!), but even though that's legit, it's actually really hard to find any vegans out there who don't purport to care about humane treatment of animals. It's possible to be vegan and not personally buy any products that were directly created from exploited or tortured animals while still supporting companies that do those things. It's not suddenly better for the animals if you personally don't consume it when you won't examine whether the businesses you give your money to may be contributing to inhumane treatment anyway.

So anyway, I can make ethical choices about where I shop and who gets my money and still make a difference with what I'm doing. For instance, I buy more expensive eggs that come from cage-free vegetarian fed chickens. I also give to animal charities. I don't believe all meat, cheese, and eggs have to come from sources that are unethical, though some DO and we have to be mindful of it.

Also, the need to be all or nothing on things like this sometimes discourages people. Every time you choose a less cruel or cruelty-free option for your food, it's better than throwing up your hands and saying you can't adopt it as a lifestyle.

Personal Digest Saturday (but posted on MONDAY!!): July 6 – July 12

Life news this week:

• Saturday I got up pretty early and made my ukulele video featuring all the songs from Steven Universe season one played back to back! And I got it uploaded! Great practice. I then updated some collector stuff online before my friend Kari showed up to hang out, eat pizza, and watch cartoons. We didn't have that much time for cartoons since we had so much chatting to do! It was lovely to see her. We watched up to the musical episode of Steven Universe, which she hadn't seen. I spent the evening after she left playing ukulele and blogging.
  
• Sunday it was too rainy to sit at the table outside! Again! Got my karaoke and laundry done and spent a bunch of time organizing my prizes for the upcoming Steven Universe panel I would be running at Metrocon! (I planned to give prizes to people for their participation.) I also practiced ukulele a lot and got all the songs of season 2 crammed into a video. Wow!
  
• Monday I was a tad late because I decided not to be hugely lazy. I had to work on a proposal package for the office but other than that it was a slow day for a Monday. When I got home I did my cosplay test for my Stevonnie costume and finished making my card prompts for my panel. I also tried to practice uke but I was having a hard time with the Season 3 songs. My sister sent me photos of my book for sale in a bookstore in Japan! She bought one.
  
• Tuesday I had to send the proposal package in after we finalized it. It was also an exciting day in Steven Universe news because a movie poster came up revealing that the movie is taking place two years after the last episode, putting Steven at age 16. Wow! Cool! Oh and also a villain, I guess. Hah. In the evening I worked on my ukulele playing but Season 3 was still giving me a lot of trouble. Also the results of the interview I went to a few weeks ago came out . . . but we were not the winners. :(
  
• Wednesday I worked on a transcript for the office guys. I also argued with someone online about sexist stuff. I put up my locker posters in the sheet protector that came in the mail and I think it looks nice. Jeaux came over and we ate at Beef O'Brady's and went shopping for a couple aspects of his costume. And we watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine. After he left I posted my Season 3 video! So many songs!
  
• Thursday I finished the interview transcript and cleaned out my phone a little bit. At home I played the ukulele until Victor called. And I drew my webcomic and posted it after we hung up.
  
• Friday I took the day off so I could go to my nerdy convention. Metrocon! I dressed up as Stevonnie and went to the con via Lyft after I had lunch. I got to hang out there by myself for about six hours (awesome!). I wandered around taking photos and being in photos, attended a panel on figure drawing people in cosplay, and went to the Steven Universe Summer Singalong (and made a singing buddy friend who was dressed like Rose Quartz). There were a lot of cosplayers who like the same cartoon! When Jeaux arrived, we looked at costumes, attended a panel about social difficulties in anime, and ate some food at IHOP late at night. It was a good time.

New reviews of my book:

• cierra carter gave it a three-star review on Goodreads.

Interviews, Articles, Mentions:

• I was the "daily queer" posted by Your Daily Queer in a Tumblr post. LOL.

Diet progress:

Check out my nutrition readout. It's kinda inconsistent but I'm not worried about it.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: Nothing this week!
• Currently reading: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty.




Stuff Drawn:

Some sketches I did in a cosplay figure drawing panel:




Webcomic Negative One Issue 0739: "Desk Meeting."






New videos:

I did THREE ukulele compilation videos this week! You can enjoy my covers of the Steven Universe songs from Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 now. I don't have Seasons 4 or 5 down yet. :o





 

New photos:

Okay, so the photos were epic and that's why I couldn't get my blogging done until two days later. :P

I made an entire Metrocon 2019 Gallery, but here are the photos from this week that were my favorites ending at Friday.

Testing out my Garnet costume:




My new locker posters got framed:

Jeaux being cute working on his costume:

And my fave Metrocon pictures, where I was Stevonnie for the day:

Stevonnie Costume	Bow & Adora	Stevonnie & Connie
Stevonnie & Steven	Rainbow Quartz & Stevonnie	Marge & Mermista
Pines family	Blue Diamond & Stevonnie	Pink Diamond & Stevonnie
She-Ra	Lapis Lazuli	Cookie Cat & Stevonnie
Garnet	Sexy No Face	Steven & Tiger Millionaire

 


Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,254 for swankivy (lost 1), 681 for JulieSondra (no change). Twitter followers: 976 for swankivy (2 new), 1,341 for JulieSondra (1 new). Facebook: 293 friends (no change) and 206 followers (no change) for swankivy, 646 likes for JulieSondra (lost 2), 62 likes for Negative One (no change), 159 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,515 (lost 2). Instagram followers: 181 (1 new).