I had my first week back to university last week. Well, back is probably the wrong word to use since everything is through zoom at the moment, but we started last week. This term we’re studying mathematics and science education, natural science and technical knowledge for primary school teachers. As usual we get bombarded with information and for me, most of it isn’t that bad, until we get to the mathematics part that is. I’m not extremely good at mathematics. I find it stressful, which doesn’t make it easier for me to learn it, me having massive anxiety spikes and depression and all that. Yes, trying to figure out maths has sometimes given me anxiety spikes. Fun! Not really, but I do try my best and having Jocke to help me when I really don’t understand is such a good thing. Even if he doesn’t understand he still helps me out by supporting me and giving me hugs when my anxiety spikes up. We have an assignment that is due this Friday. It’s not a huge assignment. We just need to read a chapter or so from a few books and then write a journal entry. The hardest thing for me is probably getting a hold of the books that I need to do this. I would’ve tried getting them before the term started but then again, you actually need money to buy things and I didn’t get my money until September 2nd. Which was a day after we had already started. I’m hoping to be able to find most of my books from the library. I really dislike buying school literature. Not that I don’t think they’re interesting or such, but they’re so expensive. I truly don’t understand why they need to be so expensive and also not available in a digital format. It’s just not possible in the current climate to fork out $300-$500 for just books that you “might” need. I’m studying to have something to work with, since work in sales is so scarce at the best of times and right now, it’s basically impossible to get a job in sales. Oh well, at least I have money to afford rent and food. That’s more than some people get right now.
Not because my birthday is in September, but the colours and the rainy days feel peaceful in a way.
We’re just about two weeks away from moving to our new apartment. We spoke to the lady who lived there before and since she had already moved out (which she did in the beginning of August) she was alright with out moving in before her contract expired. Which is really nice of her. We would like to be in and such before it starts getting really cold here. We had some hail yesterday and the leaves are beginning to turn. Not much, but some of them. I always like autumn. Not because my birthday is in September, but the colours and the rainy days feel peaceful in a way. I really look forward to moving. Mostly because we get closer to things. The train, Jockes workplace, grocery store, drugstore. Just the fact that I don’t need to take a bus ride for an hour to get into “town” is wonderful. We’ve started packing a little bit. Mostly we’ve fixed the boxes that we had in the basement that we never unpacked from last year when we moved. I did tell Jocke that I really don’t want to move again for a while. I’ve moved 5-6 times since 2015. I haven’t lived in one place for more than a year. One place I didn’t even stay for 3 months and I was out again.
A bird just looked at me! Haha! I heard some noises while writing this and looked out the window. A small bird was walking on the window sill and just stared at me before flying away. I’m just about 50 cm from the window so I got a good close-up. As I’ve written before, I installed a feeding table that attaches to the window, so birds don’t fly into it and die. After that poor woodpecker. Anyway, there are two birds that come several times every day. I’ve started to recognise both of them now so I know it’s the same birds every time. They are alright with me walking around in here and sitting by the window. Enough that they don’t fly away when I move. Which I find really nice.
A few days ago I really wanted to try out my dip pens again. I bought them back in 2015 because I was looking for an ink pen that would give me the same thin lines that I get from my 0.2 mechanical pen. I followed every tutorial on how to prepare new nibs for ink but however I prepared and tried, the ink would never flow right. It made me extremely frustrated and I tried several different nibs (I had bought three of each nib and one of them was from a different company). None of them worked. So I put the stuff away and never really tried it again. As I said, a few days ago I decided to try them out again. Just as before, I tried every thing to prep the nibs but the ink would just not flow. Then I followed a post that Jetpens had posted (I know I read it before as well) and something caught my eye. If the ink is too thick, it won’t flow. I had bought the nibs and ink after seeing someone I follow using them, so I had assumed that they just worked together. For the hell of it I put a drop or two of water in a spot on my palette and added a drop from the ink and mixed it around. It mixed well and I dipped my pen in and tried. It worked! The ink flowed from the pen. The lines smooth and thin. I tried a few strokes on a paper I had use as a test and since the ink just worked, I decided to try and draw something. The night before I had sketched a small little thing out so I decided to ink it. It worked. It worked so well. I didn’t have to dip it often and the lines were so crisp and nice. I did notice, however, that I might have diluted the ink a little bit too much because as the ink started to “vanish” from the pen, it god a bit of a brownish colour to it. I ended up deciding to buy some tiny containers to keep the diluted ink in. Since I just used my palette I couldn’t really save the bit of ink that was left. It wasn’t much but it still hurt a bit to waste it. But still! I finally got the dip pen to work for me! And the lines! The thin crisp line! Yum….
