벌레 일지 WORMDATE: L3: 2,427 – 325,804: 8 – 2,544: 77.6 % – 55.5 %

Visited my tailor a couple of days ago. I'm having a coat made. Long, dark, herringbone.

It is a little hard to think about winter coats at the moment. We're still sitting around daytime temperatures of 30도 but it is cooling off at night and much less humid. It's a bearable 30도.

Some nights, I can even wear a jacket.

I'm also feeling like I'm in a pretty good place with my 한국어 배우기. Like 잘 뭇 하다 하지만 getting a little better. Feels that way at least. Learning a language is such a moody process. You feel like you're improving, then you feel like you're somehow worse than when you knew nothing, and on it goes. But I feel like I'm picking things up a bit quicker now. Words are sticking. Getting a bit better at hearing and understanding. Like, watching Squid Game I was able to hear --if not mistranslations-- then oddities in the translation. Nothing complicated -I can't hear complicated-- but just some pretty simple things were translated kind of weird.

And at the tailor shop, I was able to talk and understand a little more in 한국어 than I have been. Maybe a couple of minutes of small talk. And I even learned a new phrase. 높은 눈. I have 높은 눈. That means "high eyes." And "high eyes" means that I instantly gravitate towards the most expensive cloth. 알았어요. 문제이다. (I know. It's a problem.)

So, this is all a good feeling. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. Because something will be along presently to kick me back into the gutter where I belong. I can count on that.

I'm having a bit of a hard time acquiring my associates degree. Like, I have the classes done and everything but getting them to actually send me the fucking degree already? This is turning out to be work. A lot of "you need to send us this" and it being like "THAT WAS SENT TO YOU MONTHS AGO HERE IS THE RECIEPT" and then a "you need this" and a "NO I DON'T - YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE WRONG PIECE OF PAPER." And two meetings with counsellors over Zoom who can't even actually be bothered to even open my file.

Those conversations are a real pleasure. The first one, after saying she could do nothing for me, had me sitting there watching her type until I was like "So . . . We're done here? I can go, right?" Like, what the fuck? Am I supposed to watch you type in the summary of the meeting? I have shit to do. The last one, this week, is like "So what can I do for you?" And it's like -- how about you tell me that? It's not as if I just wandered in off the street unannounced. This meeting was your idea, scheduled two weeks in advance, and is about something you want. So why are you asking me to set the fucking agenda? It's your show. And then it's like -- everything is great, we'll send it to you tomorrow. Tomorrow comes? 'Sorry, we can't send it to you. You see, we've just looked at the wrong file and are now confused again. Where's your dance class?' My dance class?! What?

I'm a bit out of the habit of dealing with it but in all things, great and small, American incompetence. Dealing with American bureaucrats feels like being shook down for a bribe. But there's no bribe! They just have no idea what they're doing and can't be bothered to do it anyway. And how are you supposed to ask someone to do their job? To tell them how to do it. To tell them what file to look at. It's their job!

I'm betting they'll want another meeting. Should that happen, I may lose my manners. I hate having my time wasted. Shit happens --that, I am fine with-- and things can be complicated --that, I am also fine with-- but after a certain point, people just need to get their shit together. And if they can't do a thing, then say that while we're dealing with it so we can deal with it instead of saying everything is great, making wild promises they don't even know they can follow through on and will not keep, and wasting more of my time.

It'll work out in the end. In the meantime, it's just a little frustrating.

Other than that, things are good. On a bit of a Shakespeare kick for some reason. I've long liked his sonnets but never really got into the plays. (Highschool sucked the joy, relevance, and heart out of them - as it has been known to do.) But these days, I am really liking them. Craving them for some reason. No idea why.

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