My Everything Hurts

I'm trying to get into shape again and eat healthier... among other things. And goddamn does it hurt. Lotsa leg and arm exercises, and core stuff; my short morning workout the second I wake up is ambitious but small (not counting the practicing my heavy and rapier hits) and owie owie owie.

But you know what? It's all worth it. By exercising more and meditating every night before bed, and trying to drink more water and eat healthily, has already had an affect on me. I just feel better every day, even though I have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn half the time for work. But alas, that's just the way it is, hmm? I'll be a badass female fighter in the SCA, dammit... even if I'm a wispy weak little thing right now.

Exercise and treating your body good is a great thing you can do for yourself. It's not for everyone, and that's fine. But for me, it's starting to become this thing that is amazing and awesome and everything good. Helps that I have this motivation that is Heavy and Rapier martial combat in the SCA. As a tiny female fighter, I'm gonna need to work hard to face off against the big guys. And trust me; there's a lot of big guys. Like two or three times my size big.

... I need a drink.

Has a long way to go,
Scarlet

On Working Retail

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy... than working retail.

I work about 28 hours a week; not because I want to work so few, but because my employer won't let anyone not 'full time' go over 30 so they won't have to provide benefits. Problem is, people are leaving for greener pastures and we're understaffed big time. Which means being hounded to get an impossible amount of work done with a skeleton crew.

In short, my knees are killing are and I'm only 22.

Then there's the people. I have met some lovely old ladies and cosplayers while on the job, but for every one of them there's a screaming, bawling child, someone who ignores the no pets sign, two people trying to cut in line, and the "can't you bend the rules?" lady. And then there's the average Joe's and Jane's, which're alright. There are few ways to destroy your faith in humanity more effectively than working in retail. 

I am saying this because I need to vent. Working in retail. Fucking. Sucks. And I will be goddamn happy when I get out of it. But just so you all know; be nice to your cashier. Be nice to your cutter at a fabric store. To your server at a diner. To the drive through person at McDonalds. Only people who have worked retail, worked Black Friday, understand the importance of that. The person before you could've just finished screaming at us for not accepting a month's-passed-expired coupon (don't laugh, it's happened to me) and realize that we are just as human as you and deserve some respect. Most of us aren't working retail because we want to, so let's make it the least painful we can for the lot of us.

A tired retailer,

Scarlet

Back from War

I went to An Tir West War last week and had a blast. For those who don't know, ATWW is a major camping event of the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA). I dressed up in my 12th Century best and volunteered all week to help out at the event. Waterbearing for the heavy armor and rapier fighters, being a Lady-in-Waiting for Her Majesty An Tir... and none of you probably have any idea what all of that is.

Besides that, I have some small announcements; my webcomic Lacrymae is back. For realsies this time. I hunkered down and hashed out a weekly schedule so I don't fall behind in making things again, so yay! Also means that things are gonna kick into high gear for the Etsy as well as the Youtube Channel. Twice daily videos and weekend extra videos are returning, as well as a new "Whenever the hell I feel like an extra video" videos. Yay, more stuff!

But I digress. Back to War. There are few places like an SCA event anymore. It's not a Renaissance Faire; I've been to those, and while SCA events have vendors too, the atmosphere and everything else is completely different. Not to diss Ren Faires, but those are for-profit events. Everyone at SCA events are there because they love history and bringing it back to life. No one is paid to show up; the King/Queen are chosen on merit in heavy fighting, etc. Truly a great place to be if you love and want to learn more about history. You end up living it in a way.

I also won Bacchus Ball too, which is a plus. :)

Your monkey-butt idiot,
Scarlet

Going back to School!

I'm gonna try it again, guys. The first time failed, but I am gonna go back to college. This time, I have help and support I didn't before, and know exactly what I want to go for. It's weird, feeling like I actually have my shit together.

If you're curious, I'm going for Computer Science. My goal is to become a programmer and designer for video games, so someday if you come across a weird glitch in a game, I probably fucked up! 8D

Hopefully this won't affect my Let's Playing. In fact, I should have a bit extra once financial aid rolls around in August to put towards the new computer, so I can do bigger and better LP's, like the Mass Effect or Dragon Age ones I've wanted to do for the longest time. My backlog is starting the grow, so expect weekend bonus LP's to make a return (with a slightly changed lineup for a while) and fun times to be had! Maybe, just maybe, if the backlog gets far enough ahead, I'll go back to uploading two videos a day. We shall see.

Another update; my roommate has a scanner, as I've found out, so I'm gonna abuse it. Meaning; Lacrymae is totally something back on the radar, and in the next couple weeks regular updates on that should resume.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now.

See you on the other side,
Scarlet

On Needing Help

For those who don't know, I recently came down with a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) that started to progress into my kidneys. As far as I knew at the time, I didn't have insurance and had little to no money after getting tickets to PAX 2014. My bank account had barely enough (with a three dollar buffer) to pay rent and the medication and such would put me under. While I was at my worst, I reached out for help. I never do that, at least not willingly, and have to be strong-armed into accepting help from anyone. But I did it, and I am better off for it.

I have a bus pass for the whole of this month, and am only paying that friend back for it because I insisted. My land-lady/roommate let me pay my rent late. My boss understood when I needed to leave work early to go to Urgent Care because I put off going to the hospital for too long (much longer and I would've ended up in the ER). In all the confusion I forgot to turn in a form for food benefits (I am quite poor, obviously), but people are helping me for that.

This isn't something I am used to. I was raised in a very atypical household. Many would say abusive. Anyway, I learned from a young age that you have to provide for yourself. Depend on no one, and don't accept help because it is weakness and 100% of the time whoever is offering to help is manipulating you into getting something late (like interest on a loan).

The point of the matter is, I was flabbergasted by how willing and able people were to help me and how they asked for nothing in return. A friend even drove me across the state and back in one day to get everything out of my storage unit so I didn't have to pay another month on it. It is a slow process, but I am learning not to be a hypocrite when it comes to help. I would give a stranger a kidney if they needed, but refused to be helped myself.

Accept help when you need it. I am thankful for all the help I've received. I don't know where I would be without it, so I guess what I'm trying to say is... don't be afraid to ask for help.

See you on the other side,
Scarlet

No really... I'm alive.

Today is the day I record Parasite Eve for the first time! Maybe... possibly. My Let's Play stuff has been going well ever since I got my Elgato Game Capture HD, so that's awesome. After looking through my channel a bit, I saw that some of my most-viewed videos were the FFIX Excalibur II run, so once I get a new computer that can handle emulation a bit better, redoing that is gonna be a bit of a priority. Also, as an alert now, I'm making stuff to add an outro to my videos. Got a song already, and it'll be nothing big and shocking, I assure you.

I've got an Etsy store now! I'm gonna sell clothes and crafty things I make on there, and while at the moment there's not much (since I haven't taken pictures of some of the pieces yet), I'm gonna be adding more soon. You can find the link here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MissScarletTanager

Let's see... what else is new... oh right! On the writing front, I've taken up the editing of THE EVIL THAT MEN DO and writing IMPRINT. I had to shelve everything because of personal stuff for a while, but I'm taking it up now. Polishing off the query letter for THE EVIL THAT MEN DO as well. Wish me luck!

That's it for today; my goal is to blog at least once a week, if not every day, from now on.

See you all on the other side!
Scarlet

Back out of my cave I crawl...

So... yeah. Here I am! Busy, busy bee, getting featured on Geek x Girls for my Yuna, Dervish Prestige Class, and Sae cosplays! Yay! According to their guidelines I can technically apply to become an actual Geek x Girls member now, but I'm gonna wait a bit for that, since I want to get situated first.

Good news! Lacrymae will hopefully come off hiatus soon! Check it out here: lacrymaecomic.com
I haven't been able to do anything on it due to lack of scanner and actual place to live, so yeah. But the apartment search is going well, which means yay for getting back on track!

Also, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. This manuscript is an urban fantasy with the working title of IMPRINT. It's already broken the 10k word count mark, so yay for that too! I'm gonna work hard to win the challenge this year, like any other year, though with the new job across town and a blown computer battery (meaning it has to be on the charger to work now) is gonna make it difficult.

I'm gonna try and blog a lot more, at least once a week, though I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this thing. More on IMPRINT and NaNo for at least the next few weeks, though. And possibly editing stuff for THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, which I finished a few months back and will probably pick up for editing once NaNo is over and done with.

See you all on the other side!
Scarlet