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Date: January 24th, 2020.

Time of Writing: 8:32 PM.

Weather: Sorta warm? Still cold, but above average temperature for right now.

Mood: Content.

Day Overview: Does my day start at midnight on the beginning of the calendar date, or does it start when I wake up? For today, and for further days when I have a radio show, I think I'll go with the first definition, because I had my first radio show from midnight until two A.M. My show was plagued with technical difficulties on account of my own ineptitude (listen, the subtle nuances and differences between the mixing board in the production room and in the main control room were just enough to throw me off, okay? differences such as the presence of three more CD players and another turntable input, which really threw off my muscle memory and lead to several occasions where I had consecutive seconds of silence that were absolutely not planned at all). The theme was First Songs, or Opening Tracks - basically, every song had to be the first track from the album or EP it originated on. This also went for the bed music, the instrumental tracks I played in between groups of songs.

Despite the constant panic attack I was having behind the scenes, I managed to calm down enough to have a pretty good on-air personality and presence (I'm crediting Tsz, my guest, for that), and I got compliments on my mixing technique and diverse crop of songs. In fact, I was complimented a couple times on how I took a request, IGOR's THEME by Tyler, The Creator, and wove it in to the rest of the playlist so it sounded planned all along. The people complimenting me on the specific transition didn't know that the song was a request; only the people that called in did. I hope they listened long enough to hear their song, it took a few more tracks before it came up, just the way it worked out. Here's an embed of the playlist.


It was funny how things worked out at the end, I ended with a Frank Sinatra song and when I switched it to the Automation feed it was playing a Thom Yorke song. Synchronicity is the name of the game. After we left the campus center at just after two in the morning, having locked the studio door after much trial and error, I took out my handheld portable radio and aimed for the tower to make sure it was broadcasting automation okay. Sure enough, I hadn't accidentally shut down the transmitter, which was very good! The first night, despite my own efforts, was a success! In fact earlier today I put together part of the playlist for next week. Speaking of earlier today, let's move on to after I slept my five hours and got going on the course of my day.

It turned out that I did my Japanese homework wrong, and I didn't fill in everything that I was supposed to fill in. That's a real shame, but luckily I wasn't the only one who made that issue, and the professor offered me the chance to correct it by the time she had office hours and turn it in then. I also took it upon myself to practice the hell out of my Hiragana. I need to be able to write it well, but also to write it quickly, because she does not take nearly enough time on each slide in order for me to absorb the content efficiently. After I went and turned in my homework, I got an email saying that one of the textbooks I ordered was here. It was the workbook, which is useless without its big brother the textbook, which contains the context for the questions in the workbook. I wandered off to the library in order to print and staple the homework for Monday, and then made my way to the campus center to hang out in the Anime club library. The club shares the space with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, as well as the Game Hobbyists League and the Tabletop Club. I got a tour of the library and the chance to play some Street Fighter with the club members. It was fun, but I got my butt kicked most of the time. I then met my friend Jackie for lunch - I'm sitting in her dorm now, we're hanging out and shooting the breeze. I had a really thicc oreo cookie, like quadruple stuf, it was goooood.

On My Mind: So, alright, I know that my radio station doesn't really care about the FCC Safe Harbor laws, but I wish the punishments for playing songs with swears in them were a lot lower than what they currently are during that period. I want to play a song called Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot in next week's show - the theme is Best of 2019 - but I'm unsure whether to pull the trigger on it because even the clean version I have that was given to me by the music library at the station sounds a little dodgy at times, and I don't want to get dinged for a swear word that they forgot to bleep in the editing process. The song mixes traditional bleeps for swear censoring with the much weirder and unsettling but common practice of like, reversing the word? And usually they either do that or mute the song, but they never swap between the same practice in the same song. It's just something to consider. It's towards the end of the set, so I'm not eating much of any time away if I actively am a fuck up during that time.

Consumed:

• Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances) Volume One (Manga) by Masami Tsuda: A promising start to a longer series. I'm rating this one separately because, okay, I should really break down my rating philosophy into a different post, but the gist is that I can rate individual volumes on Goodreads so I'm going to reflect that here, but I'm going to avoid discussing the work at length because I'm not at all far along yet. I've enjoyed what I've read so far though. It alternates between really bishie art that borders on unreadable due to just how… pointy people can look sometimes, and really great art that sells the melodrama of the scenes. I don't know who my favorite characters are yet, I haven't gotten the chance to really get to know any of them yet. Going to keep reading, but my score for Volume One is 7/10.

Produced: I should get to some writing soon. I did some playlisting for next week, and I wrote a lot of Hiragana characters, over and over and over and over again, but I didn't do any fiction, which makes me sad. It's my turn, too, so I really should get to work, but I'm tired af right now and I don't know why. Maybe it's the five hours of sleep that I got last night?

Other Thoughts: Thank you for reading the blog, participating in the guestbook, and tuning into my radio streams, it means a lot to me that people engage with the content posted on this site and continue to do so even after some of the novelty has worn off. I plan on devoting the next solid block of time that I have free to trying to improve the site, but I don't know when that will be. Stay tuned!