Hello Again

[lowbeyonder]

Once again, kinda forgot to post here. Twitter remains my main haunt (for my sins), and life is pretty busy, especially now that we're house-hunting in earnest.

The housing situation here kinda sucks, especially in the price range we're looking, but we'll make something work. My main priorities are (a) having a decent home office and (b) keeping my commute under half an hour, preferably by foot/bike or mass transit, because I really, really do not want to own a car. (Also then I'd have to get an Irish driver's license.)

Job situation is still stable. We're supposed to be in the office 3 days a week, but I frequently drop to 2 and no one really cares.


Anyway I also realized I haven't posted any photos of myself over here since I transitioned, and wanted to correct that. Partially so friends I haven't seen in a while (which is, unfortunately, pretty much everyone) have an up-to-date mental image, and partially because I'm, y'know, pretty happy with some of the changes.

Back around May, when I was coming up on one year since starting HRT, I decided I wanted to make a big symbolic change and, slightly impulsively, decided to go blonde. Very blonde. Which also came with a crash course in hair maintenance, but I'm really in love with how it came out.

(Though these photos are more recent, from my touchup and haircut yesterday.)

Celebrated my most recent birthday with a set of acrylics, featuring a design based on the CoplandOS icon from Serial Experiments Lain that I use as an avatar here and elsewhere. I've gotten them filled in a few times since; right now they're straight metallic blue, which I also really like.


And more recently, I finally joined the ranks of the be-glasséd. According to the optometrist, it's likely I've been mildly farsighted my entire life but until recently my eyes were compensating for it. Now it seems like age, a lifetime of sitting in front of computer screens, and a very slight astigmatism have caught up to them.



In less great news, I've been having daily tension headaches for the last few months that haven't been very responsive to OTC meds (and given the frequency, I've been seriously rationing how often I try to avoid rebound) and it finally got to the point I bugged my GP into referring me for an MRI. Got that done last Tuesday and am waiting to hear back. So, fingers crossed.

Hoping to get back to the States to visit around the end of the year, but that's a question largely in the hands of the Irish government right now as I work my way through the process of getting my name changed and documentation updated (and they don't make it easy for non-citizens to do that here).



Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately.

Comments

[canyonwalker]

Good to see you here again; it's been a while.

I took a 10 day break from Twitter a while back and never went back. It seemed everyone was in broadcast-only mode. With everyone just shilling for their employer or retweeting their favorite political pundits it wasn't social media, it was just... media. What groove have you found to stay active with Twitter?

[lowbeyonder]

It definitely goes through waves, my posting habits included. I don't know how transferrable my experience is either, but most of my mutuals I met via shared hobbies, particularly Magic (when I played a lot more Magic…). I follow people who talk about stuff I care about.

A lot of my friends are also in the tech field either either professionally or as hobbyists, but I usually stay away from "tech Twitter". I get enough work at work. I don't tend to follow big names, I don't follow anyone shilling for crypto, and I'm pretty liberal with the block button.

(I also use Tweetdeck, and an app called Talon on my phone, not the main Twitter site or app, so I get things in chronological order with a minimum of nonsense.)

[canyonwalker]

The first challenge I found was that many people I knew or met IRL and exchanged Twitter handles with basically haven't posted in years. They use it to read passively... if they even do that anymore. The few who post actively tend to be the write-only types I mentioned. I'm looking for reciprocation... which can be as simple as, if I respond to your Tweet and ask a question or share an experience, engage with me. With the write-only types every tweet is "fire and forget", responses are just statistics. I'm game to be their friend but not simply their ratio.

[lowbeyonder]

In a lot of Twitter conversations I've had, people do use the like button as a kind of "I see and acknowledge your comment but don't have a follow-up".

But otherwise… yeah, a lot of the platform really does function as a sort of communal shouting-into-the-void, and the format makes it really touch (not impossible) to have long meaningful talks. More of an eternal bar-chat, where half the time you end up needing to shout to be overheard above the loud idiot two seats down.

I find it useful, and if the social bonds are a bit lightweight, I've still certainly forged some enduring relationships there. (Hell, I met my partner on there.) But it ain't Usenet. It ain't even G+.

[dorchadas]

We're supposed to be in the office 3 days a week, but I frequently drop to 2 and no one really cares.

The exact same thing preceded a formal drop to two days required for us--management realized our department was really the only one actually sticking to 3 days and week and flipped the table.

Is the process of getting an Irish driver's license as traumatizing as getting a Japanese driver's license in (there's a complicated set course that resembles no real-world conditions at all that most people are expected to fail half a dozen times unless they prepare by taking special tutoring which, hey, is offered by companies associated with the people who give the test).

[lowbeyonder]

Is the process of getting an Irish driver's license as traumatizing as getting a Japanese driver's license in (there's a complicated set course that resembles no real-world conditions at all that most people are expected to fail half a dozen times unless they prepare by taking special tutoring which, hey, is offered by companies associated with the people who give the test).

Not from anything I've heard. By all reports it's dumb in different ways, mostly related to the bureaucracy here possessing an astonishing lack of urgency. You go on the waiting list to take the test and they'll get to you when they get to you. (vast national shrug)

This has upsides—they truly do not seem to give two shits if you're a day, a week, or six months late with paperwork no matter what the theoretical "due date" was—but it also has downsides.

[dorchadas]

That last paragraph definitely reminds me of my time at an Irish university, where things like "class start times," "assignment deadlines," and "course syllabi" were more suggestions than rules.