rose ▪ bud ▪ thorn - september 2026

rose

• Started feeling a lot better; more hopeful, more together, more focused and motivated.
• I met up with Xaya, her girlfriend, and Kami in real life. :) went to a café, then went back to my place to play some games.
• I added new pictures to my blog - on my /now page and my author page.
• I bought new matcha and a Poron plushie. I love her so much, she is my favorite from Sanrio, but never really gets any merch or it is ugly (doesn't get her fluffy ears right). This one I really love.
• My Stardew Valley Secret Lair order arrived and my wishes came true - Krobus really was the secret card included!!
• I restarted doing summaries for GDPRhub again after taking a 2-month break.
• The URL penis.ceo now forwards to this blog for a year. I won't renew it, but 9 dollars is ok and it makes me laugh.
• Did a deep clean and declutter of the main bathroom.
• Been having a good time at the gym, making progress. I go 5x a week now unless I need an additional rest day.
• In FFXIV, I have now made it to the Stormblood expansion.
• Had a good date with my wife at the place where we got engaged, and we found a new favorite restaurant.
• Read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, then Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig.

bud

• Getting back into the blogging groove.
• I've started studying for the new semester. I postponed Property Law from last semester to this one, plus I have also enrolled in Employment Contract Law and Commercial Criminal Law.
• Working on adding some fun easter eggs and mysteries to my blog.
• I've started Digitaler Kolonialismus by Ingo Dachwitz (I like his work at netzpolitik.org).

thorn

• I wanted to add an AI law class to my data protection consultant certificate because they're now offering that upgrade, but it cost a surprising amount of money that I don't think the material and resulting extra diploma is worth. It sucks though, because other than that, I really wanna do it.
• I wanted to apply to a job, but upon further consideration and really reading the work description deeply, I realized it wouldn't be fun for me. It's in the right space/topic, but the actual day-to-day work is not something I enjoy. Made me sad, because I was looking forward to a possible exit from my current position. It feels like unless you already have Master's degree and several years of experience, all you are allowed to be is a clown who makes PowerPoint slides all day or adds events to an Outlook calendar.
• I ended up doing zero exams for the summer semester. I had to drop it all. Unfortunately.
• I feel unsure about my future and where to take it from here. I guess I'll just focus on finishing my part-time degree first, but it would be nice to have a bit more of a plan for afterwards, or for the rest of it so I don't have to stay in a job I hate for the next 3 years still. Things have shifted so my original plans don't really seem to work out anymore.
• My gynecologist just shut down operations a week ago and will go out of business today with no notice or warning. Found out yesterday. I was really happy with them and I’m completely blindsided. Had to figure out who will refill my prescription and continue treatment.

☁️☁️☁️

pics

My coworker brought back soap for the entire team from her trip to Turkey.

The Magic Secret Lair stuff :)

Soba with a sweet-sour mango sauce, chickpea tofu, vegetables and shredded toasted nori.

My nails this month.

My Poron! Or rather, Cinnamoroll in a Poron outfit, but I take what I can get. I "modded" her because she comes with a different keyring, but one of my other Sanrio keyplushies has this pink heartshaped one which suits her so much better, so I switched it out.

Our latest sourdough bread:

Published 30 Sep, 2026