mrs scalystone the unhappy feminist

Today was peaceful but damn am I getting sick of Mandarin.

Today on the treadmill I took a deeper look at EXO's video Wolf

https://odysee.com/@Top-Kpop:1/EXO-Wolf:a

because the dance routine is like some fancy cultured thing rather than just a pop dance routine. It is quite intricate.

They audio that accompanies the more basic Mandarin text I have is not easy to understand because I'm not used to mainland Chinese accents. It's also not very pleasant to listen to, especially when it comes to terms that are pronounced differently. I feel that I have to be on guard somewhat to avoid picking up incorrect vocab.

I have Mandarin textbooks that are put out by the Taiwanese government, but they don't seem to cover the basic vocab that I lack. The chapter I worked with today covered the words for aunt and female cousin on the mother's side, but I still don't know the word for grandmother. I know that grandmother is on the tocfl because it was in the mock test.

So I turned to Rosetta Stone for basic vocab. I tried rs mandarin as a beginner but decided to not continue with it, not only because it's not specific to Taiwan, but also because it was too boring. I had no problem going through all five levels of rs german, so maybe I got kind of burned out on rs or german is just easier to learn in that format.

The lessons are much easier now that I've acquired so much vocab, but I'm not sure there's an efficient way to acquire what I lack. I need the words for relatives beyond the nuclear family, household objects, food, and probably jobs and typical places one would find in any city. The thing is that I don't know how much I can jump around to get what I need because rs lessons build on previous lessons. Just going through every lesson wouldn't be difficult, but it would take too much of my time; I'm still trying to study three podcasts and have two textbook series from which to choose.

I skipped some studying late this morning to go out for a long walk. I just needed to be out in the sun and fresh air. I had only one, maybe two, hot flashes (which is good because it was warm outside). Maybe increasing my body temperature helps prevent the hot flashes? Maybe it's exercise? Once I got back home, I started having them again.

The hot flashes keep me up all night until around six am. Normally, I get up at seven am, or, at least, I did before this new chapter in my insomnia story began.

It's weird that winter is just now ending; it's been so warm lately that it feels as if it's mid-spring. Goddamned global warming. Maybe the upside of global warming is that icy wastelands like Norway will transform into places that are suitable for human habitation. Nah; they'll be warmer but they still won't get enough sunlight.

Korean has fallen by the wayside, and not because of all the extra Mandarin study I've been doing. The hot flashes and attendant insomnia have exhausted me to the extent that I cannot even work up much enthusiasm for studying the language.

My hand and wrist feel better today; I've been trying to use my mouse less. At least half the reason for the repetitive stress is my playing a computer game when hotflashes come on because focusing is difficult and I try to distract myself from the discomfort.

I have an upcoming medical check-up. I'm going to ask for solutions to the hot flashes, but I fear there'll be nothing but hormones on offer. I'm not taking any of that shit because it messes with the mind. I'll just be an unproductive menopausal womon instead.

The guy I was corresponding with online gracefully accepted my change of my mind. I feel bad about what happened. Maybe I should try harder to get along with autistic people. Maybe he's not a pseudo-intellectual so much as his communication difficulties make him sound like one. I tried to consider the situation but I've been so tired I cannot think clearly. I think I made a reasonable decision anyhow.

I finally checked my email for a new message from my new penpal. It was just a web link, which, he said, leads to a video response he made to my last email. I'm not clicking a link from some random stranger, plus, if he read my whole profile, he knows that I have auditory processing issues, so I don't appreciate him switching from text to audio. The latter is not a big deal; I wouldn't necessarily hold it against anyone because my condition is rare and I can't really expect people to be aware of the details, but, on top of the pseudo-intellectual bullshit, it was a bit much. I logged on and simply told him that I no longer wanted to be penpals. Weight off my shoulders.

I had sushi rice for dinner tonight. It was a nice treat. Usually my rice is jasmine or calrose, and occasionally, basmati.

I'm trying to diversify my intake of greens, so I bought some arugula. It's bitter but it may be ok if paired with tomatoes or tomato sauce.

I'm tired and demotivated tonight because these Taiwanese universities want letters of recommendation even for the program that locks applicants into a post-grad work obligation. Everything is so unfriendly to disabled people. There's no way for me to come up with a reference from a professor or an employer given that I've been out of school and work for over a decade.

The hot flashes are driving me insane. I looked up how long they might last and the answer is years:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/menopause-related-hot-flashes-night-sweats-can-last-years-201502237745

I'll be dead long before then due to lack of sleep. Maybe it's the night sweats keeping me awake. They kept me awake when I went to bed without eating. I have no idea whether I'm having enough vitamin d3 and how often I should take some.

I don't want to be in hot ass Taiwan while having hot flashes. My life is marred by a lack of good choices. When I decided to start preparing to move to this country, did I even consider that I wouldn't need warmth anymore after getting my iron intake under control? I'm not sure that anemia was a possibility on my mind back then. Plus, I'm never fully awake and I wasn't back then either.

If I could just come up with the money for a plane ticket, I could do my year of Mandarin school and then figure things out from there. It's all for lack of transportation that I've considered these degree programs. Maybe I should have tried out the sewing gig just to earn enough for a ticket. How loud can sewing machines be? However, the job is seven hours a day; that much time around the noise might be too much.

Maybe I'd trying moving to Ireland after my year of Mandarin. There'd actually be no point in doing a year of Mandarin if my long-term goal was to expatriate to Ireland. I'm not sure that I'm warm enough for Ireland, though. Plus I'm just sick of living around white-privileged people. And I don't want to live in a "friendly" culture either. Plus I heard that Ireland has a housing shortage. Certainly not a place I'd want to be homeless in.

Today I spent six or seven hours researching Taiwanese universities. It was an onerous task because Taiwanese universities tend, it seems, to not post the degrees they offer and because a lot of the web pages were just blank.

I found a few universities on mountains, but I eventually gave up because most have tuition that would nearly exhaust the scholarship, leaving me with next to nothing to pay for the miscellaneous student fees, because I'd still have no way to cover air fare with this particular scholarship, and because I'm just tired and demotivated at this point. It's nearly nine-thirty pm and I've been researching online since around two-thirty or 3 pm. I never feel sure about these plans; never in my life have I supported myself financially, and I fear that I'll never be able to, particularly given my chronic health issues. I also probably won't ever be able to afford property in Taiwan even if I do manage to hold down a job, and renting for life = possibly working for life seems a grim future. At my age, I might not qualify for any kind of retirement benefit for a long time even with a career.

But I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be just getting an education/checking out the island first, before committing myself. But I'd be committing myself anyhow in a way because I'll be homeless again if I come back here. As well as depressed, probably. It seems better to commit myself to Taiwan, sight unseen.

I found a talent recruitment program that would cover costs for select educational programs in exchange for employment at a Taiwanese company, but most of the programs open to me are in large cities. (It feels like cities with over a million people in them should not exist.) A lot of the hosting universities want only people from southeast asia; why, I don't know.

Of those that do not have this restriction, I'm down to one that's in a low population density area and one that's on a mountain just outside a large city. I might contact some of the others and ask whether they'll take a lowly American. If I go this route, I'll have no choice but to commit myself after finishing whatever schooling I choose. But coming up with airfare would still be a problem, at least initially; the programs reimburse for airfare, so I'd have money for at ticket back here at least. I typed 'back home,' then deleted it. This shit isn't my home. I have no home.

And my last option is the american scholarship I've been planning to apply for all this time, the one that requires studying Chinese culture and history, the latter being a topic in which I'm not terribly interested,the degree being one that doesn't seem terribly lucrative. It will however cover airfare and the program is specifically designed to get students fluent in Mandarin, so it's an integration tool.

Right now, I am stuck on the dumbest shit: identification. I need to take the test of chinese as a foreign language; I cannot even register an account without a passport, I cannot get a passport without my birth certificate, I can't get my birth certificate without a valid government id, and I cannot get the id without money unless I go spend the day waiting in that hellhole the dmv.

I just took a speedy mock tocfl test online and scored the equivalent of cefr a1 in listening comprehension. I need a2 to get into any degree program taught in Chinese. My score bothers me regardless of whether I'd need it or not. I know that my listening comprehension is better than what the score suggests but I think the test focuses on everyday conversations, and the podcasts I'm studying aren't very good for that level of speech, plus my textbooks mixed rather niche vocabulary in with basic vocab instead of teaching all basics at the beginning, as most textbooks do, so they put me at something of a disadvantage.

I've begun studying chinese stories/fables again; I hope that'll improve my facility with basic vocab. I don't really want to go back to basic level textbook stuff. It's boring as hell.

I think my insane insomnia is caused by excess d3 intake. It started around the same time I started opening up my d3 capsules and taking the contents directly. I'm probably absorbing way more than I used to absorb and thereby overdosing. I tried taking the d3 every other day, and it seemed that I slept a little (rather than not at all). I'm going to try taking it just once per week or so now.

Today I added treadmill to my regular weights+cycling workout routine to burn more calories. I just get on the treadmill after I can't stand being on the bike anymore and speedwalk for forty-five minutes to an hour. Lunch is pushed from eleven am to noon. I was somewhat hungrier than usual, but I had a few tablespoons of applesauce and I was fine.

Today was another day half ruined by a migraine. I'm having coffee again and I suppose I cannot simply jump back in at the doses I was having before. I cannot think of the correct term, but "dose" fits because I'm taking the coffee for quasi-medical reasons.

I did however decide on a major for grad school: nature conservation or sustainability; it goes by several different names. If I ever get a career, I feel like I could do better for the world with this sort of knowledge than what I could do with applied math. The latter would probably be more lucrative and easier to find jobs with, however.

Actually, I'm not 100% decided, and me even having a choice depends on what kind of scholarship I can get and where the school is. Too many Taiwanese universities are in large cities, and I'm not going to expose myself to that noise, pollution, and crowding. I'm looking for a university up in the mountains, where, I hope, the air is better and the pace of life is slower. Then I will decide on the basis of the majors available at such colleges. Another factor is whether the program will improve my Mandarin skills. There seems to be a lot of programs taught in English.

I'm sweaty a lot now and I cannot afford to do laundry often enough. Today I wondered whether this menopause thing is actually better than menstruating. Maybe not, but it doesn't last as long. Then again, it isn't painful. It's the randomness of hot flashes and their alternation with coldness that make this so bothersome.

My insomnia is going to ruin everything. It's the reason I keep over-dosing on caffeine.