SugarBlush | Blog | Personal Updates and Musings

Personal Updates and Musings

April 16, 2023

Hello there. It has been a little while since I last made a blog post. School is kicking my butt emotionally, and I've been very mentally exhausted. I'm hoping that logging and writing down my thoughts will help me feel better.

Site Updates

I've had a lot of fun updating SugarBlush lately. I think my proudest accomplishment is re-coding my Art Gallery! The format is wider, which makes it a lot less claustrophobic. The navigation bar being on the side also helps the art pieces be the center of attention! Overall, I'm really proud of how it looks. And I'm satisfied with how my JavaScript libraries isotope and masonry are working out too. I also added a preloader to all of my sites pages. Now, at least hypothetically, while the page is loading it'll show a pink screen with these cute white hearts. Hopefully it improves user experience at least to some degree. Other miscellaneous updates include an article in my Lechonk Shrine about why I love Lechonk, and a Pig Care Resources collection in my Link Directory. I'm trying my best to take it slow and not put too much pressure on myself, especially with my chronic hand pain. I just need to be patient with myself and accept that this site will be a perpetual work in progress, and that's beautiful!

Gaming!

Some other fun things I've been doing is that I've been playing games! Primarily Hollow Knight on my Switch, and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky & Pokémon Black on my DSi. It has been a lot of fun! Hollow Knight is so explorative, I absolutely love it. I believe it's my first introduction to the Metroidvania genre? I really enjoy discovering secrets and finding new paths that connect familiar places to newly charted ones. The gameplay is very satisfying as well, particularly when you use your nail to hit enemies. The artwork is gorgeous and the characters have expressive and very shaped character designs. I'm having a lot of fun.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is my favorite spin-off series for the Pokémon franchise, and Explorers of Sky is my favorite of the series! I'm having a lot of fun replaying this game. Now that I am an adult I can fully appreciate its story and the love and care that was woven into this game. I am playing as Mocha the eevee with my partner Matcha the shinx. Together we are Team Chocolate! I just completed chapters 1-4, along with the special episode Bidoof's Wish. It was so sweet, bidoof is easily my favorite guild member. Funnily enough, in the 3v1 against snover, glygar, and bagon you are scripted to lose, but I won by spamming defense curl and growl whenever snover used swagger on me. He basically gave me free attack buffs. After a few defense curls none of them could hit me for anything. After I won, the game's cutscene continued as if bidoof lost and had to be saved by The guild. I wish there was a separate cutscene that showed the guild being proud of bidoof if he won all by himself. You are stronger than you realize, bidoof!! Don't doubt yourself!

Finally, I'm having a lot of fun playing Pokémon Black. I'm playing it as a hardcore nuzlocke, which essentially means that I'm using self-imposed rules to make the game more challenging and fun. Here are the rules that I'm using for it:

1. Fainting = Death
2. Can only catch the first eligible encounter per Route
3. Nickname Pokémon
4. No items in battle (held items okay)
5. No leveling past the next gym leader/E4 (at the START of the battle)
6. Play on "Set" battle mode

I'll go more in depth with Nuzlockes in one of my Pokemon articles eventually. I plan to have a page dedicated to this run someday. I've made it to Castelia City, about to get the third gym badge. There have been no deaths so far, which is very exciting! My starter is Pignite, so Burgh and his bug types should be a pretty easy win. An encounter I'm excited about is Skull the scraggy on Route 4, she has the ability Moxie which is really good!! She gets an attack buff after each KO, which makes her a great sweeper. Very excited to use her.

Self Check-in

I'm trying to check in with myself more often, and my emotional exhaustion made me realize that I haven't been dedicating enough of my time to self care. I'm not replenishing myself enough when I get drained from school or other stressors in my life. I'm not sure what more self care would look like yet, but at least I have an idea of something to do instead of just continuing with the same habits and hoping I feel better soon. I've been engaging in self neglect habits for a while, and this site does kind of feed into them. I've mentioned my chronic hand pain on and off a couple times, but the full story is that I'm dealing with some form of carpal tunnel and it's because my hands are overworked. I've been dealing with this for about 6 months. So many of the things I love to do involve my hands, including drawing, coding, writing, etc. Unfortunately, it often feels like I have to choose between emotionally feeling like crap because my brain isn't stimulated and I can't do the things I enjoy, or I physically feel like crap because I'm doing these things that I love but it hurts. I'm trying my best to change my habits and to take this as an opportunity to try new things. This includes making accommodations to myself in order to do the things I love. For example, I'm writing out this blog post using voice to text! And then putting it through a text to HTML converter. It's not a perfect way to avoid typing, but it helps a lot. The new manga that I got is also making it easier to be drawn towards other things. I just need to remember to be kind to myself.

I'm not comfortable with being too personal about my mental health on here (at least, not more than I already have been), but I am considering that I might have ADHD. I am working on tackling my executive dysfunction and experimenting with different systems that are geared to adults with ADHD to see if they help me out. One of them involves a journal, but seeing as writing is an issue, I might save most journaling for this blog and then keep personal thoughts in the written journal. I'm trying to use music as a way to stimulate my brain and give it dopamine in order to do other tasks that I don't find as appealing, and it's been somewhat helpful! I've been getting up out of bed earlier at least a little more often. Wish me luck for school this week, I hope it's not too mentally draining.

Oh, lastly, I've had wonderful times with Cerdi ♥ I did not make a post about it but his birthday was very lovely and I had a nice time calling with him, no matter how short. He has been a huge support and help throughout my struggles, and I appreciate him immensely. He is my anchor, and over the year we have been together he has helped me so much with learning and overcoming my challenges and fears. I don't talk about him as often as I'd like because I'm self-conscious of other people being frustrated about hearing things that are " too lovey-dovey". I'm still getting used to the idea that this blog and site as a whole is *my* space, and I can post whatever I want that I am comfortable with being public without worrying about what anyone would think or say.

Well, that's all! This was nice. I enjoyed writing this blog post. Here is a sweet song I enjoyed waking up to the other day ♥