Back to the Land of the Ponies · 6:09pm Jan 26th, 2016
Hey folks, long time no see! It has been about 6 months since my last blog post, and wow, were those some hectic months.
First, there was my new job. It is a great place, where I can do fulfilling and challenging work while surrounded by tons of great people. Sadly, it is also almost 2 hours away from my house, meaning that about 1/6 of my day goes into the commute blackhole. Sure, I get a lot of reading done in that time, but writing on the move is simply impossible, and doing it leaves me too tired to have the will to do anything challenging when I get home.
Then, 2015 was the year that I was once again dragged into that time sink called DotA – something that I managed to abandon some five years ago. I had been following the pro scene in that time, but when a co-worker invited me to play, I went back into it way too much.
Then there is all the personal stuff. First I managed to wreck my Laptop by dumping coffee in it. I mostly used that for my gigantic music library, and while I didn't lose any files, I did lose a lot of the organization I did. Rebuilding those proved to be quite the work, and there are a lot of stuff I still need to relabel and resort.
Then we started extensive renovations at home, meaning I went through a couple of months without much in the way of peace and quiet, having to move furniture every morning, choosing floor tiles, all that nice stuff. In the meanwhile, I got sick way too many times, between the dengue fever (really, fuck my country) and a strong cold that evolved into a nasty case of pneumonia. Oh, and I also broke my cellphone somewhere along the way, meaning that the little fimfictioning I did on the move went away.
And speaking of cellphones, I got involved in a fraud case with my cellphone carrier, where some people opened a bunch of lines in my name, for which I am being charged. So add to all the above endless phone calls to the support lines, all the trouble of lawyering, all that good stuff. It is an insane situation, but hopefully I can be something in the way of reparations a couple of years down the line.
But, really? I couldn't care less about any of these annoyances since I got something amazing in return: A great job offer to move to Vancouver, Canada, in a permanent basis. The selection was pretty brutal, and all the bureaucratic arrangements are a pain, but it is the opportunity of a lifetime, especially considering how much I wanted to move. And doing stuff on this site really helped me with it, since without fimfic I would probably still have my atrocious English from a couple of years back (Look at this fanfic for a sample). I know that I still have a lot to learn, but at least now I can write something of this length without a homophone every couple of words.
Anyway, the worst of my busy times seem to have passed, and I hope to go back to posting stuff here now – Friday was my last day at my previous job, so I should have plenty of time to do other stuff. My priority is my ultra-late PCaRG review of Paul Asaran's The Gentle Nights, which I have put off for way too long now, and I feel like shit for doing that. I will do my best to have this done this week. But I also wanna go back to reviewing and writing.
Wow, sounds pretty tough. I'm glad you were able to handle all of those situations and that you're enjoying Canada.
I had previously guessed that you lived somewhere in Europe, and now I have no idea. If it's not too personal, where is your home country?
Hey, congratulations! Best wishes with the upcoming move, and I'll be looking forward to seeing you around more again.
Congrats on the job offer! Glad things are settling down a bit.
Excellent news on the job! I hope it's as good as it seems from this. Nice to see you back around these parts, too.
Welcome back to the land of ponies.
3713672 No issue at all. I am from São Paulo, Brazil.