#schmidtsource

I wonder if quarantine will have an end in sight by the time I write my next entry. I think we’ll have a clearer picture at the least, but I don’t intend to get hung up on that. My marathon needs my full attention, and I have some catching up to do!

It’s time to retire my monthly posts, folks. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d like 2022 to take shape, and while I’ve been consistently putting out these posts since 2015, I think it’s finally time I retire this humble, little blog to double down on what I want to accomplish. There’s a chance I might bring it back one day, continue them offline or make them an annual activity, but I'll be putting a pin in them for now. I keep a daily log on Instagram, and I think that does more than enough for publicly sharing my life. Go follow me over there if that strikes your fancy! Happy New Year!

It’s the last day of November at the eleventh hour, folks, and that means it’s time once again to review the last few weeks and commit my thoughts to the screen. Was it a whirlwind as much of the year has been? You know it! The Omicron variant is officially here after it was declared just a couple days ago, but at the time of writing we’re still in the dark as to whether its many mutations spell disaster for us. It seems poised to be the next dominant strain, but until we have more time and data, it’s just a lot of educated guesswork right now. All I can say at this point is I cancelled going for a spa day with my chums to wait on what the scientific consensus is now that it’s in Canada, although in the grand scheme of things, I hope I regret that decision and this variant isn’t too intense or effective at circumventing vaccines. I’ll be eligible for my first booster come January, so if it’s resistant, we’ll be finding out at an uncomfortable time for me to gauge if I get it in January or wait until a specialized booster is made available. When it comes to the pandemic, there’s always something new to stress about, eh?  On a lighter note, I got all my holiday shopping done well in advance compared to last year, and I had it all mailed to the village to minimize my luggage for the trip home. We just got word that our carpool plan is downgrading from three to two since plane tickets to Ottawa are much more expensive than Timmins, though, so one of our members is taking a different route and space won’t be the issue I anticipated.  I’m glad that chap will be spending notably less on this excursion, but it’s a shame that’ll also be boosting up our car rental price since it’ll be split two ways now. That isn’t too big of a problem on its own, but after factoring in some bonus expenses of both the bad and good variety that cropped up this month, my budget for this holiday window has definitely ballooned beyond what I planned to accommodate. That being said, I also took home an extra paycheck this month that helps offset everything a bit! The editing contract I took on actually wrapped up just a couple days ago, which proved to be a longer undertaking with a higher payout than I was expecting, so it all worked out well in the end. With everything I’ve been juggling lately, though, it’s been a pretty stressful month, and I’ve really been feeling like I’m running on fumes charging towards the homestretch before the holidays. Fortunately, my time to rest is coming with December on the horizon! Despite the looming threat of the pandemic and my lingering burnout, there’s a lot I’m excited about when it comes to the next month and year ahead. I’ll continue to internalize it all for now, since I’d like to talk more about everything when it’s in the rearview mirror, but suffice it to say I have a good handle on my optimism at the moment and I’d like to think it’ll stick for a while. Here’s to a healthier budget and workload ahead!

It’s Halloween, folks. The final day of October is here and that means it’s time to write! The trouble with saving these posts for the last day of the month, though, is that the tone is dictated by however I’m feeling at the time. That’s not necessarily the case for scripts or works of fiction, but for introspective pieces like these, how you’re feeling is really the driving force behind why the text ever meets the screen. I guess that’s my way of saying I’m feeling a little low this evening and that’ll sort of define how I look back on October as far as this monthly entry is concerned, but there’s definitely cause for celebration and optimism from this month, too. In the interest of balance, we’ll do some alternating between the good and the bad. For the former, I checked off something on my resolutions checklist I thought was a lost cause: I’ve claimed a new desktop PC! It was part of a render farm before being decommissioned in favour of Google’s Cloud solution, so I nabbed it at a marvelous discount. The fact I jumped on it without a second thought proved to be the right move, too, because the next day after the deal was offered and I picked up the machine, all ten units were sold.  As for the latter, I’m officially back to office life. Fortunately it’s only once a week with filming tasks that warrant my physical presence so far, but with the nature of this job and the times we’re in, I don’t see that trend continuing after [REDACTED] and it’s back to what can all be done remotely like the last two years. There’s certainly jobs I’ve held before that could justify frequent office days, but with this one being typical tech fare, I just don’t feel it here. The pandemic doesn’t help either. I don’t sleep the nights prior to those shifts, and when the commutes feel like courting death with the days following plagued with anxiety over COVID, it feels like defeat. Back to the positive side of things, I took on a new editing contract this past week that’ll see me paying off that new computer lickety split. It’s still in the early stages, but despite the fact I’m still kind of burned out and shouldn’t be taking on more work right now, I’m having fun with it. I’ve also been diving back into AfterEffects tutorials, and I can see how this project might pull me into more before it’s through. Video editing and plotting out productions is such a fantastic thrill, let me tell you!  I’m not sure how much I’ve talked about it in my monthly posts to date, but there was a side hustle I was involved in the last year that looks to have buckled under external pressures. It’s set me back a fair bit and proved to be a lesson I don’t feel like I needed to learn, but I’ll just have to make peace with the time that was lost and forge a new path forward with the hours remaining on the clock. There’s a milestone I want to hit in 2023, and although this setback really pulled it off the roadmap, I’m ready to do a little off-roading to make it happen at a smaller scale. In the interest of clearing more of my resolutions and working on my personal development, I also kicked off therapy with two introductory sessions through a counselling service this month. I’m still deciding if and when I’ll take the next step, but that pair proved helpful in different ways. The first was notable for sharing my thoughts, providing context for my perspective, and seeing where the cracks were exposed. Hearing where my voice would crack during certain statements and not others, as well as noticing what thoughts I shared caused the therapist to fumble over her words in response, gave me a lot to think about after the session. The second, though, reminded me why I prefer to tackle matters of the mind myself: talking to someone can prompt some new perspectives to get the gears turning, but I generally get more value out of my own inner monologues and don’t necessarily need to pay someone to hand me prompts I can find myself. We’ll see, though. I’m still thinking of exploring this a bit further to ensure I’m totally satisfied with abandoning this direction or ultimately embracing it. I usually wonder if keeping this sort of public log is really worthwhile, but I think there’s a few compelling reasons to do it. Having a sizable snapshot gallery of my thoughts, feelings and experiences could prove to be insightful or interesting to folks who want to know about a quirky character like me going down the path that I’m on, or could be helpful for anyone mourning my passing one day and wanting to skim through my journey. One thing I’ll always appreciate about taking the time to write these monthly posts in the present, though, is that they have a habit of turning my mood around. I kicked this off in a somber state and climbed my way to a more upbeat headspace here at the end that I’ll carry into the homestretch of Halloween. While it’s not always the case, defeats usually come out looking less heavy than they felt going through them and the scales are ultimately weighted more towards the triumphs. With that in mind, I’m heading into November with the right dose of humility and confidence! 

Before I can, though, there’s still plenty to tackle before the year is through. I think I might shed some light on my resolutions come December to weigh how I did going into a year knowing the score with a pandemic in effect. There’s still a few items on that checklist that I still need to clear that are in the realm of realism, so having a tight timeline remaining should serve as solid motivation to power through! As always, though, we’ll have to wait and see how it all comes together!

It’s been another rollercoaster of a month, folks, but there’s been nothing quite like the July incident, so comparatively it’s been a tame time and dare I say a splendid affair. I’m more than happy to take wins whenever I can, so that works for me! Pending any surprises over the next couple of days, it looks like my return to office life will resume in October rather than the mid-September date that was determined last week. I’d like to think that’ll either give me the time I need to ease into society again after a hefty hiatus, which is seemingly essential since that revelation was met with shaking hands that lingered for over half an hour after word was delivered, or give us a decent window to find out how bad the fourth wave could be in a month’s time to gauge the risk from a more informed position. Regardless, the more time the better when it comes to feeling out this fourth wave! I was also close to securing my first vehicle from a family member earlier this month, but unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards. After a couple weeks of researching insurance providers and getting in gear, it failed its safety check on the homestretch with a rusty frame, so that steal of a deal just wasn’t meant to be. I was really getting comfortable with the independence a vehicle would offer, but that’ll have to wait. I claimed a new pair of glasses this month, and spent way too much on Ubers making that happen. Caution comes at a price, you could say. Additionally, I finalized all the vertical videos for Short September on the Super Battle Buds channel, so that experiment will kick off tomorrow when the calendar flips over and the first of thirty automated uploads is released. I’m ready to see those results through some new lenses, let me tell you! August saw more traction when it comes to socializing and regaining my footing. I spent two weekends with a household of chums, attended an outdoor party wherein I quickly skedaddled when it moved inside, and went for a walk with someone in a park. Did some of these experiences heighten my anxiousness and prompt my first COVID test? Sure, but I’d say it’s progress all the same. I can officially say I know what a nasal swab feels like now, too, so that’s something. I don’t personally recommend them! My physio regimen is continuing to go well, and I think I’ll be making a transition to biking at some point next month to gauge my endurance. Although winter is coming, if I can avoid a few public transport trips to the office when the time comes by pedaling my way over, I’m definitely game. On the recreation front, I’m happy to report I’ve been getting back into a good rhythm after a bit of a break following AI: The Somnium Files in July. Now I’m picking away at the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and dabbling in a few other titles along the way: Yoshi’s Crafted World, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, New Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Unite come to mind! It sounds like a lot of time is going into gaming based on those titles, but they’re largely from the weekend outings and an hour or two in the evenings of recent weeks. I’ve also found a way to watch the latest season of Better Call Saul, so overall I can say it's actually been a good month for taking my mind off work. As for the month ahead, there’s a lot I hope to get done between personal projects and gearing myself up for a return to physical office presence. I’m hoping I can overcome my pandemic anxieties, but I’m very much treating it as a process, and fortunately I have the time to do so. Here’s to what’ll hopefully prove to be a productive and promising September!

July was an experience, folks. It’s not something I enjoy revisiting, but it’s worth taking time to document in this humble, little log of mine. I had another traumatic incident that bore a resemblance to my experience back in 2013. You could say I quite literally, physically burned out. The evening of my second vaccination, I experienced what paramedics described as a severe headrush that was brought on not by the dose itself, but by dehydration. I wandered around my apartment, struggling to hold onto my consciousness for about five minutes. I slipped into states of complete confusion a lot during the ordeal, but I managed to keep myself from collapsing while my vision blurred and limbs convulsed. I spent that time totally convinced I was going to die, and I’m pretty sure it could’ve gotten dicey if I hadn’t managed to regain control of my breathing and drink a lot of water to level myself out.  The reason I remember the rough duration is because I checked the time when I had stood up, a few seconds before it began since quick movement like that is typically the trigger for headrushes, and my Discord message to my friends to call for help came about five minutes after that. I opted to delegate calling an ambulance, because by the time I had my wits about me enough to reach out, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d still be conscious to stay on the line. Five minutes is a long time to believe you’re about to die, though, let me tell you. As I mentioned earlier, the paramedics said it likely had nothing to do with my vaccination, but the doctor I talked to a couple weeks later thought otherwise. That doctor also prescribed me Gatorade for my lingering side effects, though, so I’m more inclined to trust the paramedics who checked my vitals the night of the incident. I personally think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, because my headrush was ultimately caused by dehydration, which was surely spurred on by overheating from a mild fever from my vaccine, sunburns I got on my arms and neck during the journey to my appointment and the simple fact I was engrossed by a movie and hadn’t drank water much while I was lying down for a couple hours. A recipe for disaster! I don’t think you can have your brain short-circuit like that without some lingering side effects, but they seem to have subsided at this point. I still find myself replaying the experience in my head whenever I’m not caught up in anything that claims my focus, but I think that’ll simmer down in due time. As an existential nihilist, experiences like these take a pretty heavy toll, and I know I technically never stopped thinking about the 2013 incident, but keeping close calls at the back of your mind tends to maintain some perspective, and these events influence me for the better despite how deeply they disturb me in the moment.  Anyway, that’s enough about my interpreted brush with death. Let’s look on the bright side for a bit! I went out with a chum for my first Costco trip since the pandemic began last Friday, and this weekend I’ve formally broken my isolation streak just shy of eight months by heading out for a sleepover bonanza with some of my closest companions for the long weekend. Unless the Delta variant gets out of control or mutates and throws us for a loop, I’ll be easing back into socializing again now. Time will tell if we can keep it up, but at least this weekend is assured!  I’ve also been having a good time juggling between my video projects and game development tasks I dove into at the end of June. I’m spinning a lot of plates, but I’m still overflowing with joy at the fact I’m still alive. That’ll be my fuel for quite some time, so the stage is set for August to be a splendid affair!

We’re officially at the halfway point of the year, so the timing of everything falling into place couldn’t be better. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of me, but I’m eager to take it on and see what comes of it! Pending any surprises, I’m optimistic July’s post is going to be the start of some serious momentum. Just a little longer, folks!