I could have sworn I posted a comment about somehow I didn't put the Pequod and Ishmael together until recently despite knowing that the Pequod is the ship in moby dick dude but I guess I didn't (idk how I missed such a detail)

So, my dad got laid off last week. And with that comes the end of his benefits which included health insurance. If you're unaware how American health insurance works when it's provided through your workplace, if you're laid off/fired you are-- in most cases-- able to hold on to those benefits until the end of the month, and then if you so wish you can go through something called COBRA to still retain those benefits to some degree until you're fully covered again (a gross oversimplification). 

HOWEVER through some HR wizardry, the company managed to weasel out of providing that coverage so we're in the lurch until the COBRA goes through, and even then we would likely not be staying on that plan (it's very expensive) so I can't get anything important done until we figure out the plan going forward. I've been able to get some basic stuff done but uhhhh

Ishmael wrote:

I love chronic pain I am so excited to be moving upwards of 60 pounds of things down two flights of stairs while moving out this will definitely not have long term consequences for my physical health yes whoohoo yippee

Remember this? This wasn't just chronic pain! I have been most likely walking on a cartilage tear in my knee for the better part of 4 years  

In order to know for sure, I need an MRI, which I can't get until our medical insurance situation stabilizes, which probably won't happen until at least February or so. It's not like it's an emergency, I've been walking around and doing physically strenuous activity for this long so my knee probably won't explode or anything but I'm,,,, A Little Frustrated that I can never seem to have things go right when I'm trying to address my myriad chronic problems 
 

Yeah, we love corporate greed!
I can't say much that would be helpful, just that you should probably take it easy, and I hope your dad gets his job back soon
We love Murican health insurance lol

-Galaxian-

It's good to hear that you're still alive! Good to hear those sorts of updates indeed.

Heya Ish! Regardless of login frequency, it's always nice to see you and your updates.
Are you on vacations? I assume that you're busy based on your post, so I hope that things can be sorted out without classes loading up your schedule. It's hard to commit to several things at the same time and more so if it's something out of your control. So, seding good wishes and hope you can figure out what is the best course of action to take. Stay safe!

SpecterTheGreat wrote:

Heya Ish! Regardless of login frequency, it's always nice to see you and your updates.
Are you on vacations? I assume that you're busy based on your post, so I hope that things can be sorted out without classes loading up your schedule. It's hard to commit to several things at the same time and more so if it's something out of your control. So, seding good wishes and hope you can figure out what is the best course of action to take. Stay safe!

My pattern of behavior is that I'll slide back in here with ridiculous activity at the start of a semester, but the millisecond my midterms roll around I completely forget about doing anything here and then the anticipatory dread stacks up until 10 days turns into 4 months lol. I've been doing trips and stuff, like going up by the Great Lakes and disappearing into the woods of Michigan's upper peninsula for a couple days (if y'all ever find yourself near a designated dark zone where the night sky is really clear, I highly recommend going out of your way to find a spot to stargaze). I'm not going back to camp this summer-- looooooong story short, I have no desire to align myself with the council anymore, so I have more free time on my hands than I've had in 4 years. Trying to take some things slow and focus on my health but I really need to nail down a job with the same kind of engagement I'm used to that also isn't completely soul-sucking

Yeah stargazing is nice. I don't know anything about stars and the city usually swallows them up, but when they have the opportunity to be out at night they're nice.

Though usually I think they're best paired with a lovely scenery as well, plus a quiet spot.

I know I talk about camp and it's usually the Big Events that are Pretty Bad, but I cannot stress enough that that's only like 10% of my experience and the other 90% is highly enjoyable but not very interesting to talk about

one day ishmael is just going to disappear into the forest and we're never going to hear from him again

lmao Ish update

knee injury: nothing showed up in the scan but I'm in pain every day so that's Fine I guess. I now have a cane at the ripe old age of 22

college: in my senior year, dying but I'll probably make it. Staring down the barrel of a 20 credit hour semester in the spring.

in general: got a tattoo on my calf! It's an emperor moth in front of a sword. It has many meanings and also none at the same time (I got it for a reason but I find a lot of enjoyment in asking people what they think it means + what it means to them) so she's got layers to her now. In getting it, it appears that it sort of reset the nerves in my leg, so I no longer experience chronic pain in my knee (the one I injured like 5 years ago, not this summer). No one really knows why that happened??? I'll take it tho

I'm also taking horseback riding lessons and having a swell time! I really enjoy learning about horse behavior. 95% of communication (horse-to-horse and horse-to-human) is about pressure and presence, which is something I just innately understand and apply to the majority of animals I handle anyways. I'll be continuing through the spring too! 

Hit people with the cane :3

Happy holidays and merry Christmas to those who celebrate! I hope y'all are doing well. Have a great new year, too!
 

Ishmael update:

- my knee problems are actually structural and not as a result of acute injury my kneecaps are seated/tilt inward, which pulls connective tissue (my iliotibial band if anyone's curious) taut against my bones and I've been basically shredding/inflaming that tissue for the better part of a decade lmao. It took my college's athletic trainer 15 minutes of fiddling around and asking me to do things to figure that out. For free. No fucking clue why no one could have seen that 6 years and several thousand dollars worth of testing ago, but alas. We're not sure if I have permanent damage or if I'm going to need corrective surgery. That's another orthopedic appointment I need to figure out. I've been getting some physical therapy two days a week and it's been helping. We love having answers!

- I'm presenting my capstone tomorrow! I'm exploring the efficacy of management methods for invasive species, and how those methods may differ across species. If the rest of my classes go well, I'll be graduating this May. Job hunting has been... less fruitful. My dream for YEARS has been to work at National Parks as an interpretation ranger, which-- for various reasons-- is not in the cards right now. Everyone who'd be working federally is turning to the states and other seasonal work, so that shit is crazy competitive right now. We'll see how it goes! If things really aren't working out, I'll slink my way back into camp just to give myself some breathing room for a couple months while still working in a related field.

- My 20 credit hour semester has thoroughly kicked my ass. I've been trying to give myself room to do other things besides run myself into the ground being an academic weapon, but we're in the homestretch so things are getting Crazy. In the past two days I've gotten like 3 hours of sleep lol. The good thing is that with the way my college schedules classes, all but one of them will be done at the end of this week. I have maybe one exam early this next week, and then I have one class that meets Tuesday/Thursday until the semester formally ends in mid-May. I might have to take some summer courses to formally wrap things up, but I get two of those for free every year and shouldn't be too crazy.

- Saw the Minecraft movie. I'm so glad we're getting shitty video game movies again, we were starting to set the bar too high. Jack Black's "I'm saying the name of the object so you know it's important" voice has been a presence in my vocabulary for a while now, and is particularly bad when I'm cooking. Saying "heavy whipping cream" like it's going to open a portal is wonderful and I encourage you all to inject that particular bit of whimsy into your life

That's all from me for now! See you the next time I remember my password 

Oh my god I forgot to mention-- my college has a small colony of feral/community cats and I successfully managed to get one into my townhouse. I got her some vet care, she was surprisingly very healthy so really all she needed was some vaccines. I put some weight on her (she's very small so she's like 6 whole pounds at a healthy weight) and then found her a home with a nice young couple and their deeply, deeply stupid orange kitty. Her name is Goop (she had some kind of upper respiratory infection that that cleared a few days after I brought her inside but she was SUPER snotty and gross).

She is hands down one of the smartest cats I've ever come across. She was the only one in the colony who would make the rounds through the townhouses for food, and she didn't want any physical contact because that was how she was caught to get spayed about a year and a half ago. It took me about a month straight of putting her food in a cat carrier to get her habituated to the point I could close the door on her and she wouldn't end my life. The only way I got her inside in the first place was multiple months of feeding her in the doorway of the house and she walked in on her own in December. She lived in the bathroom for about a month before I put her in my room. The entire time, it was more like having a weird roommate than a cat.

My room is small enough that it was impossible for us to move around without getting into one another's personal bubble. We worked out a system together where the one of us that needed to move would clearly telegraph their intended path before moving (for me I would extend my leg and hold it there to give her time to move out of the way; she would do something similar but would stare at her destination and then at me and wait for me to move). When I had to get her into the carrier she HATED it. One time I had to leave her in it overnight for an appointment in the morning, and the entire night I heard her experimenting with the lock. She scared the shit out of me to be honest lmao. 

Every rescue I contacted couldn't take her in (not to bash them, she wasn't pregnant or injured and because she wasn't completely socialized, she would have been taking resources from cats that were more ready for a home). I rolled the dice on Facebook and got in contact with the couple. They were looking for an independent female cat that was older than their orange boy that could give him company and teach him how to cat more. I met this thing. Absolutely nothing going on in his head. If I flicked his skull I'm pretty sure it would echo. He was ridiculously affectionate. She has her work cut out for her. They send me photos from time to time, and it seems like she's doing well! I wish I could have kept her, but I think she would have scared the shit out of the dog lmao. I'm still very happy with the way it worked out

It's always nice to hear from you Ishmael.

You aiming to be a ranger for the National Parks does really sound like you and all. It does suck with whatever is going on with the federal parks and all, I heard they're getting slashed and stuff... but still keep at it!

20 credits sound insane to me. I don't really have a super-efficient studying schedule among other things that I need to improve if I wanna be an academic weapon, but I just can only wish you well there.

Also the cats are pretty epic. I like cats, but I've never really had one myself, let alone learning to take care of a stray.

Say, do you wanna link to another discord? It's just morso for the people on this boardhost and stuff?