Despite being a day off, I found today pretty hectic! During my morning walk, I finally decided to go over and get the strap changed on my Vacheron Constantin Historiques, Cornes de Vache 1955, the most expensive watch in my collection! For a while, and by a while I mean almost a year now, I've been woefully unhappy with the Cornes de Vache. I actually refused to wear it! Something about it felt off, and I always felt like it was the strap. Originally, it had a brown strap which doesn't match anything I wear. So I ordered a black alligator strap and put that on it... but black just didn't feel right. At the same time, almost by mistake, I double ordered a grey strap for it too. I remember my surprise when the Miami boutique called me and said "We have your strap, it's in my hands now, please pay for it" and I was like "s-sure".

Figure 1 Cornes de Vache on my Rhodia calligraphy notebook.

The Cornes de Vache on the first page of the Rhodia notebook. Also shown in frame is one of my nib holders, and the original brown strap on the watch. Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 200 f/11 1/6s.

Well, I'm glad I ordered the grey strap. It was actually my first choice for this watch, and I switched to black only after second guessing myself. Now, after today I switched back to my original choice, and I'm glad I did. I think the grey looks much better than the brown, and it's far less "strong" than the black one it was originally on.

Figure 2 Cornes de Vache movement.

The movement, and a lot of finger prints and oil! I should have been a better photographer and cleaned up this part of the watch before snapping the picture, but I see the movement every day so it never felt too special to me. For you, however, this is one of the few shots you'll ever see of something so intricate! Leica M11 / Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4 — ISO 200 f/22 3.0s.

The movement looks great. In terms of all the watches I own, Vacheron's in-house chronograph for the 1955 blows them all out of the park in terms of beauty and mechanical complexity. I guess that's to be expected, though, given that it costs more than all the other ones, too. I feel a bit weird about it, because it's a stainless steel chronograph, so it almost feels like a sports watch. But I don't think it has good water resistance, and It's on an alligator strap, so it feels like a dress watch. But on the brown strap, it's obviously a casual choice. Perhaps that's why I struggled so much with the strap. There's simply too many choices for it, that it may be difficult to ever feel satisfied. That may be why the neutral gray color feels the safest, and it definitely looks great.

Figure 3 A macro shot of the front of the Cornes de Vache.

The blue chronograph second and minute hand usually look black in most lights. That's what prompted me to pick a black leather strap initially. That and, of course, my motto of paint it black or take it back. Leica M11 / Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4 — ISO 200 f/22 3.0s.

While the Cornes de Vache doesn't have a date complication (perhaps the most used complication in a watch), I do like the chronograph and use it more often than most. Whenever I have to time standardized tests, I'm not supposed to do it with a smart watch (not that I even own one), so the mechanical chronograph comes in to save the day. There are obviously cheaper options to time tests than this, but none are as eloquent. The lugs are obviously the appeal. How unique!

Other Remarks

My schedule over break has been pretty simply, yet fun. Wake up, walk, eat breakfast (while AFKing in Runescape), pencil Spencerian calligraphy practice page, ink Spencerian calligraphy practice page, then whatever next at or around 12:30pm or 1:00pm when I finish those. Lately, it's been clue scrolls. I have a big pile of those I need to reduce. As for the AFK task, lately it's been woodcutting. I'm poised to get 120 woodcutting by Sunday, maybe tomorrow, if I run it down. In the evening, it's Fish Flingers for the trimmed completionist cape and divination for the 120 divine charge.

Merry Christmas (to me). It was incredibly warm today. So warm, that I went outside this morning without a coat and practiced more low light photography. They all came out pretty well. I think I have a much better understanding of exposure compensation, and I was able to get better photos of some of the brighter neon signs near by.

Anyways, on to Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: Star Sage. I picked up the Kaina television series when it was airing a few months ago. I found the snow theme really interesting, and the world-building was very imaginative. Originally, I thought it was going to be some sort of Inuit or arctic theme, but far from it. Instead, it was a well constructed narrative telling the story of Kaina and Liliha quest to solve their world's water problems.

Figure 1 Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: Snow Sage

This was from the opening of a movie, and it's a high contrast of a scene that appears in the first episode of the show, when the first see the "light" or tree spirit. This tree spirit plays an important part in the movie.

The movie begins immediately after the end of the series, with Kaina, Liliha, and a team of the belligerents front the series joining together to journey to the great spire tree—the source of the world's water. The sacred tapestry from Liliha's family was actually a map, and they follow that map to the great spire tree.

Figure 2 Liliha speaks to Amelothee about her destroyed spire tree, which she left before the start of the television series.

Their journey to the spire tree proves difficult. Some on board want to mutiny and kidnap Liliha as reprisal for their earlier military defeat (fortunately, their captain keeps them in check). They also struggle to transverse the large snow trench, which is almost a vertical waterfall, with their ship, but they manage. After reaching the top of the trench, they're ambushed by a builder, the super weapon from the end of the series, and taken to a small city at the base of the spire tree they were trying to reach.

Figure 3 The city of Planetos, led by Byozan. Several builders are visible on the left and right.

There, they met Byozan, who explains his goal is to destroy the great spire tree as the sage wanted. Byozan explains he's read the sage's messages, and he believes the world can be saved if the spire is destroyed. Kaina and Liliha are both taken prisoner (along with their entire crew), and Kaina is led to the basement where he's told to excavate the "first site" for clues on how to activate the builders and destroy the spire. Kaina is able to excavate the site, and upon accessing it is able to read the messages left by the sage. The purpose of the spire trees is to terraform the world they live on and make it habitable. The great spire tree (along with all the others) aren't supposed to be cut down, but instead lifted into space as the final step in the terraforming process—this will protect their world from harmful cosmic rays, and the accumulated snow will turn to water, solving their water problem.

Figure 4 Kaina in the authorized user's room, where he sees all the messages left by the first ones. While he struggles to read all of it, he learns the goal of the spire trees was to slowly terraform the planet and make it habitable.

A lot happens between their capture and the final terraforming step of elevating the spire trees, but none of it is too important to explain here. The rebellion of the laborers? The discussions with Byozan's mother? All of it compelling and interesting at the time, but not important to the principle narrative of Kaina and Liliha solving the world's water problems and finishing the terraforming. There were also other parts that weren't completely explained. For example, I'm still not certain what the ghosts in the first site were, but I'll excuse such trivial points. If it didn't seem important at the time then it's not important now.

Figure 5 Liliha and Kaina get married in the final minute of the movie!

Oh, and Liliha and Kaina get married in the final few minutes of the movie (after the world was saved, of course). I'm happy this potato finally got a happy ending!

This was the first anime movie I've watched in years, and I really enjoyed it. I liked how imaginative the world was in the television series and, by extension, the movie. It's all very unique, to a degree where I'd have never imagined any of it myself. The narrative was straightforward and satisfying. The fight scenes were short, but sharp. I feel a bit bad because I know so few people in the world watched this movie, much less the series. But I consider it a hidden gem, and one I'm glad I watched. I'm also glad to, albeit extremely poorly, summarize this movie. I know no one will ever read my words here the same way no one will ever watch the movie (it wasn't popular!), but know that it was unique story that I'm glad to have watched. If anyone ever reads this, it will be me, years from now, reflecting on some of the shows I've enjoyed. I wish I had documented my opinions on the show as it was airing, but Morganna's House wasn't even a thing then!

Other Remarks

I'm currently leveling Woodcutting in RuneScape. I'm at 118, so 120 won't be too far off. I'd post of my low light photos from this morning, but none of them are particularly remarkable (although they did come out better than yesterday). I guess it's not that the photos are bad, but the subjects are bad. I'm just taking photos of what's around where I live. If time permits tomorrow, I'll get on my bike and ride a slightly further distance to see if I can explore and find anything interesting then.

Happy day before Christmas, I say to myself, alone. Anyways, it was unusually warm this morning. It was almost 50. So after I went grocery shopping (I barely bought anything) I ran out with my Leica M11 and my Gitzo tripod to attempt some low-light long exposures in the dense morning fog blanketing the neighborhood. I found my Fjallraven Stubben a bit too bulky (if I took my bike, too, I'd most certainly take it), so I just ran around with my tripod in my hand, and it worked! The Gitzo was by far and away light enough just to hand carry, even with all the legs extended!

Figure 1 A small lake surrounded by houses.

The color variation in this image came out better than expected. I like how I can see the sun peaking through the horizon. There's a cool mix of blue transition to yellow/orange. Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 200 f/16 60s.

While I had a ton of fun taking the photos and running around in the midmorning, I believe I messed up a lot of them. I had my focal number set to 16 for most of the pictures (too high), and my exposure compensation was set to +1.5, which let to a lot of lights maybe being a bit too bright. I didn't even know my exposure compensation was set that high. I thought it was 0. I may have to do a big more experimenting with it. But even the few decent photos I do have came out reasonably well, given that this was my first real attempt with the camera.

Figure 2 A boat on a dock.

My longest exposure of the morning. A 200s exposure of a flipped boat on a dock. This was almost pitch black when I took it, but the long exposure makes that dock light look super bright! Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 200 f/16 200s.

One thing I know I need to work on is not blowing out bright signs. All the signs I tried to take photos off were far too bright. It was likely the exposure compensation, but I need to keep in mind that clipping the lights may be worth it sometimes if I'm trying to grab what's in the shadows. I'm just going to type that out again, so I remember it. The dynamic range on my camera is far worse than my eyes. Accordingly, I may want to clip the lights if I want the shadows, or I may want to clip the shadows if it means I get a good photo of a bright neon sign. If I really wanted to try-hard, I'd read up guides on it. But I want to experiment myself a bit more before checking formal guides, mainly because I think I'm already on the right track.

Figure 3 A small lake surrounded by houses.

This was one the last photos I took in the morning as the sun was rising behind the dense fog. It's not good, but I still get some cool reflection of the water. You can tell how much lighter it was getting, because this was only a 5 second exposure, as opposed to 200s. Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 200 f/6.8 5.0s.

The noise reduction from the Leica M11 for long exposures can take a long time to process, so the Fjallraven Stubben may be good to bring, because I may have to sit there for a while. Or maybe not. If it's bigger and bulkier I may be less likely to move around and take photos. Still, I won't know until I get it and try!

Figure 3 Some Christmas lights reflecting off the water.

This was one of the first photos I took. I feel like it's not as impressive as I thought it would be. I like the reflections off the water, but that's about all I can say about it. Everything else seems a bit off, maybe cause the lights completely blew out the sensor and have a big starburst effect? Was it because the focal number was too high? Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 200 f/16 15.0s.

Ideally, I'd repeat this process again tomorrow (on Christmas) to see if I can get better results, but it looks like it's going to rain! I hope it doesn't, but the forecast has been reasonably good in the past. So I don't expect I'll be able to. I'll wait patiently, but eagerly, for another free day, and post the results here!

Other Remarks

I am getting a lot, and I mean lot, of calligraphy practice in every day. It dawned on me this morning while I was practicing that the pencil practice page (where I write about my day) and the flex nib practice day (where I write part of a song), those two pages, are almost three hours of practice. I mean three (3) hours of serious practice where I'm actively trying to improve. I will continue with this practice for now, but as a long term goal I'd like to look into more capital variations, and practice on blank sheets of paper with erasable guide lines.

We had a lot of finales this week. Some of them were really strong. Some of them were really weak. We'll still have some few left-overs next week, but I believe this Saturday marks the finale of the fall season (and with 2 days until Christmas!).

Figure 1 The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Episode 12

Leonis and Selia's final attack against the void lord. Just look how cute Selia is!!

I was wrong about the reveal. Demon Sword Master did not reveal that Roselia ("Selia") is Leonis's long-lost demon queen wife in the final episode. On the contrary, it didn't even really imply it. Instead, it ended on a multi-plot-point cliffhanger where multiple new story arcs and narratives were introduced in the last 5 minutes of the episode, and I know we're never going to get a season 2. Maybe the entire point was that they want us to by and read the light novels? Yeah. That ain't happening. At least I'll get Selia's very cool figure next year! I don't know if Demon Sword Master was the best show of the season, but it was certainly my favorite. The girls were all gorgeous, and the plot was reasonably compelling enough to keep me interesting. And it was a battle harem school setting, and those are always fun for me.

Figure 2 Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, Episode 44

Empress Undergu and Cure Noble made up! This is unironically really good writing from Toei. If the entire season was this good, far more people would watch Pretty Cure.

This week's episode of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure was incredibly strong. The entire story still took place in the Chronicles where we saw the first PreCure, Cure Noble, fight against the emperor of the Undergu empire. It ended with the Empress stopped and attack from Noble, and both sides realize the ruin their conflict was causing. Afterwards, Empress Undergu was healed (temporarily) and we were brought back to the present, where Empress Undergu is evil (for reasons still unexplained). Overall it was really interesting, and Empress Undergu in her dress was cute, too.

Figure 3 I'm in Love with the Villainess, Episode 12

Claire finally admitted her love for Rae Taylor, whether she cares to admit it or not. Some people said Claire was bi, but I'd argue she was straight and converted by Rae. I don't think she wants to be with men anymore now that she loves Rae Gaylor.

I'm in Love with the Villainess redeemed itself, sort of, with its final episode. While I still don't like Manaria, we most definitely got a confession where Claire said if she married Rae, she'd be the husband and Rae, the commoner, would be the bride. She also said Rae was "mine", which everyone, the entire audience and all the characters, considered a confession of love. Overall, the show was a bit zany, and I feel like the author of the LN maybe wasn't too sure where they wanted to go at times, but it was still a fun yuri show. The haughty ojou-sama with drills getting converted by Rae Taylor is in it of itself a sufficient plot point to say the show was fun. I doubt we'd ever get a season 2 (yuri anime never do), but if we did I hear we'd end with Claire and Gay Raylor adopting kids, which would be pretty cool to see.

Figure 4 A Returner's Magic Should Be Special, Episode 12

Azest, Desir, and Romantica. Desir isn't shown. I couldn't get a good shot of all 4 of them in the final episode, so these three will have to do. I like them all, but Pram was particularly fun!

Returner's Magic felt like a hidden gem throughout the entire season. The threads weren't popular on /a/, and we'd be lucky to make it 100 posts per episode. But man, this show was fun. The writing was good. The characters were all really memorable. And did I mention it's another battle harem school setting? I still feel like the entire alpha/beta class disparity was never address, but I suppose that's just how the show works. Oh, and it's getting a season 2! Somehow, it's getting a season 2! It was most certainly planned ahead, before the show started to air, because this show is not popular. But hey, I'm glad. It felt like the show was just getting started, and if the threads on /a/ are to be believed it is. Not sure when the next season is airing, but I'll keep an eye out for it!

Figure 5 Protocol: Rain, Episode 12

All the girls (except the imouto) were great. The egirls were cute. Yu-chan was crazy. Nozomi was wife material. The dramatic mask-off ending was great.

What is there to say about Protocol: Rain? This show... this show was a wild ride. It started out really bad. So bad that I started watching the show at 1.5x speed just so I could participate in the the threads on /a/. But somehow, somehow, this show pulled threw. The show went completely off the rails with the Korean stalker gamer arc, and Yu-chan being found out as a secret gamer. It went off the rails when we learned the Mio could walk, but she couldn't get over the psychological hurdle of letting go of Shun. It was easily too dramatic. And the gameplay we saw was always krangled—I feel for the poor intern who had to make everything in Unreal Engine every week. But in the end, I'd say it was fun. I'd never recommend this show to anyone. It was bad. But it was fun, too.

Figure 6 S-Rank Musume - 12. Disgraced Noble Lady - 12. Stardust Telepath - 12. 16bit Sensation: Another Layer - 12.

S-Rank Musume had a surprisingly satisfying ending. The dad met an old friend from his party. Ange impressed the king and other nobles. And every was happy! Season 2 never. Disgraced Noble Lady also had a happy ending. Charlotte revealed her identity to her sister, and everyone lived happily in their mansion! I did not like Stardust Telepath. The entire Matataki Raimon yells at everyone arc that lasted for half the show was grating and boring. I suppose it's over now? But there's not going to be a second season, and her anger just got old after a while. Overall, pretty boring show. The cute girls could not save Raimon's garbage attitude. 16bit Sensation: Another Liar absolutely went off the rails. I can't even describe this show anymore. Konoha was going to be put in an chamber to assist AI, then aliens showed up in the final seconds? This was supposed to be an anime about making visual novels in the 90's. I have no idea what happens. It's a modern Serial Experiments Lain, which is to say it's bad.

Figure 7 The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess - 11. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - 16. Tearmoon Empire - 12. Returner's Magic - 12 (already discussed above, but now I made sure to show Desir, too).

The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess had another off-the-wall episode. I can't even describe what's going on... there's simply too many plot points. All I can say is it looks like Komari made a friend with Nelia, and they're probably going to core explode next episode. And Villhaze got cucked again. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End continued with another episodic adventure of the party just walking around. I really want to see another strong arc like the Aura arc. But for now, little is happening. Tearmoon Empire, once a fun and interesting show, ended with easily the worst arc I could imagine. Nothing about it was fun or interesting. I had no idea what was even going on (what revolution??). The dialogue was cringe and boring. Perhaps the arc was good, and Mia just overstayed her welcome. Regardless, this was a bad ending to a show that got progressively worse with each passing episode. I also threw in a picture of Azest and Desir up there.

Other Remarks

The stickers did indeed came in, and they're of significantly lower quality than I thought they would be. They're not nearly as sharp as the TeePublic ones I bought many years ago and put on my laptop. But I think I may be stuck with Redbubble given that they don't see to care that they're obviously printing copyright artwork.

Figure 8 Some fun yuri stickers.

I put some fun yuri stickers on my calligraphy notebook. There's more inside!

Still, I may buy more from them later. We'll see. I think they're OK at a distance. And they're OK if you're fine with using stolen artwork. I also bought two (2) more Bloom calligraphy nib holders—this time from Cult Pens. I emailed them and asked them to ensure they're packed carefully so they don't arrived damaged like the last one I ordered. I also started The Feather Thief last night. I didn't get too far into it before going to sleep, so we'll see how it goes. Oh, and I bought a date stamp and address stamp! I wanted to keep better track of when I write what, so I need to date everything, and the stamp will be used in the Rhodia notebook.

Following the flare up of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war on October 7th, I decided to reread The Chosen by Chaim Potok, then read My Name is Asher Lev thereafter, which is also considered to be one of his stronger works. I picked Asher Lev because its plot summary intrigued me—a Jewish artist whose work is considered heretical by his community? And the struggle between his religious interests and his art? Sign me up. So I stole the ebook from Library Genesis (a large online library of free books that I sometimes use when I really don't want to shell out for a physical copy) and started reading it on my kindle immediately after I finished The Chosen.

Asher Lev starts out very slow and very confusing. In fact, I'd consider the beginning (the first 25%) to be the weakest part of the book. What you, the reader, do not know then but what you will eventually learn later is that Asher's parents work for "The Rebbe" (rabbi Menachem Schneerson), their community's Tzadik (spiritual leader). Their hasidic jewish community in Brooklyn are refugees from Russia. Asher's father works directly for the Rebbe to help Jews escape from persecution under Stalin. In fact, after Stalin dies, Asher's father goes to Europe to help rebuild Jewish communities and establish yeshivas (Jewish schools) in parts of Russia and Europe. But you don't know any of that for the first 25% of the book. Instead, you only read about Asher's father traveling all over the place, constantly getting emergency phone calls, and constantly being praised ("Asher, your father is a great man!") without any justification. Asher, who is a child at the time, is rightfully very confused. In retrospect it all makes sense—when people approach Asher with tears in their eyes praising his father, it's because his father literally smuggled them out of Russia, moved them through Europe, and finally helped them settle in America.

This is a critical plot point. Asher, as a child, wonders into a stationary store and is given free art supplies upon request. At the time I read this I was incredibly confused (Why is this random 10 year old off the street getting this free stuff?). Well, you later learn it's because Asher's father rescued the stationary store owner from 9 years in a Siberian gulag, and helped him settle and get a job in America. His job is running the store. So when Asher wonders in and asks for a notebook and some drawing pencils, he gets them for free.

Figure 1 "AI generated anime girl drawing pictures" seems to get pretty good results. I guess there's more in the training set than "AI generated anime girl writing calligraphy".

An equally confusing plot point in the start is the death of his uncle (on his mother's side). The mom is so distraught over this death she can barely eat, sleep, and spends entire days doing nothing but staring out the window. She later "comes back" after The Rebbe intervenes and gives her permission to "finish her brother's work". I put "finish her brother's work" in quotes because at the time the reader has no idea what that work is or what even is going on, so you have no idea why it's such a big deal. (Eventually, Asher's Mom goes to college, gets her doctorate in political science with a focus on Russian studies.)

While Asher is young, and while her mom is still almost comatose from her brother's death, Asher begins to draw pictures. His mom tells him to draw pretty pictures—whatever you draw, ensure it makes the world more beautiful. He draws and draws, almost as a sort of coping mechanism for his complex home life (the mom still distraught and his father often isn't there). And, by all accounts, his drawings are quite good. His uncle on his father's side says it's great, but as for the father himself, he is opposed. He tells his son "Jews don't draw", and becomes increasingly furious when his grades begin to slip in school and the school informs him Asher is just drawing in class. He also draws a picture inside a holy book by mistake, which leads him to getting yelled at by the Mashpia ("spiritual dean"). While speaking to the Mashpia, he's handed a notebook and a pencil and told to draw whatever he wants. He does, then he leaves school in the middle of the day and goes to a museum.

Figure 2 It took quite a few run through of Adobe Firefly to get a good AI image of a anime girl holding a paint brush correctly.

What Asher doesn't know is the Rebbe himself is aware of the conflict in his family, and the Rebbe himself takes the drawings he made in that notebook and hands them to Jacob Kahn, an influential Jewish artist who decides to guide Asher into the art work. And, with the Rebbe's approval, Asher begins to learn not just how to draw, but how to paint.

This infuriates Asher's father. "Jews don't draw. Jews don't paint." He says. But the Rebbe approves? That doesn't matter. "You're not the Rebbe's son. You're my son. I'm out there risking my life to save Jews while you're just drawing pictures 'from the other side'." (In this context, other side means something that is contrary to Jewish tradition). When Asher names Jewish artists like Chagall, his father informs him Chagall isn't a "real Jew". Through the the entire book, no matter how famous Asher became, his father would never approve of his art. In fact, the later half of the book is a reverse of the first half—people come to Asher's father and say "You are the father of the great artist Asher Lev? Your son is a great man!" Asher's father doesn't care for this, though, because the only people who say this are non-Jews, and he dismisses any praise as almost heretical.

A significant portion of the book is dedicated to Asher's relationship with Jacob Kahn, his art teacher. He spent entire summers with Kahn while his parents were busy establishing Jewish schools in Europe. But I must say, I didn't find Jacob Kahn extremely compelling. I'm not sure why. Perhaps his personality was a bit strange (it was)? And I found his personality and teaching style a bit ineffective. I'm well aware Asher would become a great artist, and I'm well aware Asher respected Kahn, but something always felt... off about him. In my own anime version that I imagined in my head, he'd be completely removed and/or reworked. Although, he did drop some bombshell lines such as "You have to become a great artist. It's the only way you can justify what you're doing to everyone around you." (Did I mention his entire family never approved of his artwork, even in the end? His artwork, coupled with Asher's own childish stubbornness, practically tore his family apart.)

Figure 3 An AI generated anime girl with white hair standing in her classroom with students.

After several years and several art shows and after selling many paintings, Asher finally creates his masterworks: the so-called "Brooklyn Crucifixions". I say "so-called" because Asher was initially so ashamed by these works it thought of destroying them. He himself never gave them a name. The name of these two paintings were given by his art director Ann Schaeffer, who made them the main display at the one of his shows. "They needed a name," she explained, "we had to put something in the catalogue... and they're masterworks". They were. A museum bought one of the pieces, and a private buyer bought the second.

The so-called "Brooklyn Crucifixions" showed an abstract, albeit graphic, image of his mother crucified in her apartment, with he and his father in abstract form on the left and right sides of the painting. Asher would explain he wanted to show the suffering of his mother, the struggle she had between her husband, who wanted her to go to Europe, and Asher, who insisted she stay with him. He wanted to show the pain she went through, the pain he put her through, over all these years. He chose an abstract crucifixion motif because he couldn't think of an equivalent motif in Jewish tradition (what's an overtly Jewish art symbol that demonstrates suffering—maybe there is one, but he didn't know it). I say it abstractly showed this, but everyone knew what it was, so perhaps it wasn't abstract enough. Asher's mother and father would see the paintings, immediately recognize them, them immediately leave the gallery. In fact, the paintings were so categorically offensive in both human sensibilities and Jewish tradition that the Rebbe would expel Asher from the community. "People are asking questions," he explained on the final page of the book, "questions for which I have no answers." The story ends with Asher leaving for the airport, with his parents solemnly watching the cab travel down the street.

Figure 4 I will admit this AI anime girl looks way too happy given that she's supposedly just left her family, friends, and life, forever. She's also in a train station, and you can't take a train from American to Europe. But her red eye shadow is sexy, so who cares?

Was Asher Lev a masterpiece? No. Was a good? Sure. The yuri anime version I imagined in my head would have, of course, likely been better if we were ever able to make it. In fact, that's how I'd place Asher Lev. It's an incredibly good imaginatory spring board for other ideas. The cool yuri anime mashup between The Chosen and Asher Lev? Neat. Maybe other people read it and decide to create artwork themselves? Neat. Maybe a better way of phrasing this book isn't as a literary work by as an inspirational work. You read Asher Lev to get inspired.

Other Remarks

I think my next book will be The Feather Thief by I don't even know who wrote it. I recall hearing a man who I think was the author discuss the book on This American Life, and it was really interested when I listened to it then. Oh, on that note, I stopped listening to This American Life after a really bad interview where one of the female hosts mocked a man who was crying at Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII. She was extremely dismissive "The graphs don't even look good and this isn't dramatic" and I felt that interview and tone was so unbecoming I gave up. Imaging asking why someone would cry at a book—you wouldn't ask, because it's obvious a work of fiction can be upsetting. But listening to a host who made no good-faith attempt to learn or understand a work she's being unnecessarily critical of? Get out of here.

An issue I've faced my entire life, and will likely continue to face unto eternity, is a lot of the art forms I like and enjoy are openly mocked. I don't think anyone I know takes anime seriously. Despite the fact that I think an anime-inspired visual novel, The House in Fata Morgana, is one of the greatest works of art ever, people will dismiss anime in its entirety even when they know nothing about it. I keep this hobby a secret because I don't want to be made fun of. Even now, I saw people making fun of it yesterday on a YouTube video. It's a bit sad, but keeping things a secret is something I can easily do. Insofar as that utterly retarded This American Life host, I feel like it's similar. She made no attempt to understand video games and just made fun of them (and people who like them). So too is the case with anime.

Oh, my fun yuri anime stickers will arrive today. I'll slap them on my notebook and post some pictures with tomorrows anime week in review. They shipped from California! That's why they took so long to get here!

One long term goal, one that may be too lofty, or perhaps not, given my intrinsic drive and my ability to consistently complete long projects, is to develop a Spencerian calligraphy curriculum and post on on the Resources section of Morganna's House. To be honest, I'd very much like to teach a class on it (I like teaching), but I sort of doubt how interested people would be in it. Don't get me wrong, I think I could probably muster enough people to do it. But how many people would get bored with writing the letter "m" 100 times? Then just give up and wonder why they took the class? Well, I shouldn't be too critical. I still think I could get the class to be a success. In fact, I'm sure of it. In fact, I know if I really pushed it with my boss we could, at the end of the day, make it happen. And maybe a few years down the road, I will consider it. For now, I just want to make a the worksheets and make the curriculum.

Figure 1 A practice worksheet made in Adobe Illustrator

I'm slightly changing the order in which the letters were introduced when I learned them from an old practice book, and I'm also adding more connections for letters as well earlier into the program.

When I learned Spencerian calligraphy, I followed some practice books from the 1800's that focused on "first principles". i.e., it would start with some basic principle strokes, then explain all the letters from there. The worksheets I'm creating now are based on "easier letter together" and "similar letters together", with a large emphasis on showing how certain letters connect very early on. The original practice books spent almost 50 pages never showing any significant letter connections or words, which, while it worked, I think could be improved upon. While I had no problem writing a single letter 100's of times, I think a regular student would want to start writing some complete words, lest they get too bored and give up.

Figure 2 In keeping with tradition, "anime girl with white hair writing calligraphy at a desk" will only generate eastern-style brush calligraphy. I wonder if it's possible to get western calligraphy if I remove the +anime tag and make them photo realistic, leading to a different training set.

Overall, I'm loosely going to present letters in order of increasing difficulty, while also introducing letter height variation a bit sooner than normal. For example, I want to introduce lowercase l early, because it's not particularly hard to write while being fairly aesthetically pleasing to look at. I want to introduce d and t early because they are shorter than lowercase l while being taller than the smallest letters, and I want to demonstrate the height variation earlier. And I think I want to introduce the letter e (and perhaps a and s) early as well, simply because they are so common and form so many letter combinations. After that, I think any order will suffice. But this should let me get off the ground sooner and push out full words and connected letters, which was one of my primary goals. Regardless, I'll keep you posted and start making the Resources page for Morganna's House after I get 5 or more practice worksheets done and I feel ready for publication.

Other Remarks

My own personal calligraphy is going great. The quality of my lettering can vary greatly depending on how cold my hands are (often they're pretty cold in the evening—I turn the heat down a bit because I'm sick of seeing $300 electric bills). I actually have some cool rechargeable handwarmers that really help! This weekend I plan, if weather permits, to take some photos instead of going on a lengthy morning walk. Actually, after just typing that sentence I make take the photos first, then return home, then walk. I don't think that will be too problematic. Well, I may be a bit hungry because I'll eat breakfast later, but I think I'll get used to it. But I'll have a lot of time, so it may be good. There won't be any anime over break, and there's only so many Spencerian practice pages I can complete in a single day before I get strong diminishing returns. I could also finally do clue scrolls in RuneScape. I have so many, and I haven't don't them in ages. I could also start doing more parts of the Trimmed Completionist Cape, but I don't know how much I'd want to do given that, once school starts again, I'll likely be a bit burned out again.

I'm nearing the end of My Name is Asher Lev. I will likely finish it sometime this week or this weekened.

It's currently the first day of finals week. Although finals start tomorrow, for today I will be mind-numbingly bored, and indeed for all of this week, so I will need to find things to do at work while students are in class. Right now, as I type this, the first bell to start the day is about to ring, and I have nothing planned for my classes. Instead, I'll just tell them to study. This will work for some students, but I think later classes may be a bit chaotic. Oh well, it's only for today.

Figure 1 My current set up at work.

I AFK in Runescape via remote desktop over Parsec on my home computer, while working on my work computer. I've intentionally pulled up YouTube here to hide some of the personal details that appear on my work computer, but it is cool to get a snapshot of my YouTube feed, particularly because I use it all the time. At the moment, my most used sites are 4Chan, YouTube, and Reddit.

My current schedule is pretty rigid and ritualistic. I've been AFKing in Runescape via remote desktop using Parsec while at work for months now. I started doing this to accelerate my grind on the race to 200M Necromancy, but afterwards I was so motivated I just kept doing. First to 120 Prayer, then Arch-Glacor, then 120 in all my combat stats at Abyssal Demons, and now I'm working on 120 Firemaking by cremating Vampyres with the Sunspear which, incidentally, is the same think I do for 120 Prayer. After that, I can't really easily AFK other skills at work, so I think I will go back to AFKing Abyssal Demons for gold. That way, at the very least, I can feel like I'm being productive during the day.

While at work, I of course work. I'm AFKing for a reason. Although these days I find myself a bit bored at work. The current schedule we have is very annoying. We (teachers) don't have a break on certain days, so it's basically teaching nonstop from the first bell to the last. I find myself just zoning out at my computer in the later half of the day because I'm so exhausted. Still, I will work on tests and reviewing the notes. In fact, as I write this, all my homework and notes are already ready to go for next semester. And I only have 2 tests left, plus the final, to wrap everything up. I may review the labs as well, we'll see.

Figure 2 An AI generated anime girl with white hair standing in her classroom with students.

I feel compelled to mention, though, my recent boredom during the school day, along with me AFKing in a game during work, doesn't mean I don't like my job. I enjoy teaching, and I believe I'm pretty good at it (and I think students would agree). I knew I wanted to teach since I was young, and I'm doing it now. One thing that makes my teaching job more enjoyable, though, besides the fact that I work at a pretty good school, is that I'm able to maintain a pretty high standard of living due to the money I inherited from my mother. The fact that my house is paid off, my car is paid off, I have no debts, means my quality of life is pretty high. My teacher salary, while not outrageously massive, is effectively entirely discretionary because all of my other expenses are paid. I mean, as I type this I'm wearing a $25,000 watch, so I think I'm doing just fine.

Figure 3 An anime girl with white hair writing at a desk. I told Adobe FireFly to generate her writing with a fountain pen, but she's clearly writing with a ballpoint pen. I think there are probably few fountain pens in the training set, so I suppose it can't be helped.

When I get home I work on calligraphy while continuing to AFK in RuneScape. If I had to make posts on Morganna's House about what occupies most of my interests, it would be calligraphy practice. That is to say, were this a day-to-day catalogue of exactly what I did and nothing else, every post would be "I worked on calligraphy today—here's my work". Right now, the work is broken up into two parts. The first, is a simple pencil-based entry on computation paper over a lightboard. This entry is effectively my daily journal entry, because that's what I primarily write about. Then, after that, I get my Rhodia notebook and do a flex nib practice page. Right now, for the flex nib, I'm just writing song lyrics and trying out different nibs. I still don't know if the Zebra G stainless are better or worse than the Zebra G titaniums. I thought the Titaniums could be worse, but I think I got used to them and they may be fine. I hope my cool yuri stickers arrive today so I can put them on the Rhodia notebooks. The Clairefontaine paper I ordered from Goulet, or more accurately the second order, should arrive some time this week. I have incredibly low hopes that it will arrive in one piece.

Other Remarks

I'm about 70% through My Name is Asher Lev and I must say it is a reasonably strong book. It's hard for me to say if it's better or worse than The Chosen, but I think that may be a good thing. I mean, if I thought The Chosen was good, and I can't tell if Asher Lev is better or worse, then clearly Asher Lev must also be good. I think after I'm done I'll try to read the story about the guy who stole a million dollars of bird feathers to buy a golden flute. Yes. I know. It's a real story.

I haven't spoken about my Leica M11, but don't worry, I have plans for it. My first photography target, as strange as it sounds, is actually going to be nearby houses and shops in the early morning, while it's still dark. Long exposures on a tripod are something I actually do quite often at home when I take photos of my stuff, so I'm already very familiar with the process. It also already works pretty well in my schedule. I already walk in the morning, and there's few people to see me. I'm not sure if I'll be able to take my bike around to do it, though, now that it's starting to snow. As I type this, it's snowing right now, so I may be able to get some cool snow photos from my back deck. We'll see.

I write this anime week-in-review somewhat deflated, not because the shows were bad this week (they were great), but because my entire Saturday today has been totally and utterly and completely discombobulated by having to drop by a car dealership early this morning to get maintenance on my car. That completely messed up my preferred schedule of 1-2 hours of Spencerian practice with a pencil in the morning that I'd normally do on Saturdays and Sundays. And it ruined the anime that I normally watch the moment it airs on Saturday, of which there are many, so I missed a lot the initial threads on /a/. How miserable! In fact, as I type this now, I'm currently sitting in the dealer's wait room, and will likely remain here for another hour while they perform their work. The schedule, the ritual, I normally follow has been completely tossed up in the air. I could have, I suppose, simply waited one week until after finals and this would not have been a problem. But I'm here now and I'm doing it now so perhaps my winter break will be more peaceful and standardized.

Figure 1 The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Episode 11

We got Selia's vampire queen henshin, and it great! I'm so glad I ordered Selia's figure—I look forward to getting it next year. I will put it next to Melia's very pretty figure on the other side of my Samsung Frame. That way we can have two white-haired bishoujos right next to each other.

It looks like Demon Sword Master is going to end with the reveal that Roselia ("Selia") is Leonis's long-lost demon queen wife. I can't really complain about that ending. It would be a pretty satisfying ending for the show, and I'd feel find if it ended there. I don't know for sure, though. We'll see what happens next Monday.

Figure 2 Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, Episode 43

I was genuinely surprised when I saw Empress Undergu in her dress—she was very pretty. Her weirdo evil villain "punk" form was hot trash, though.

I don't know if I'm going to watch the next PreCure season. The current one, while not a masterpiece, may be the only one I find enticing. Sora is a good character. I like Mashiro. Hag cure Ageha is cool. And Cure Wing is cute, too. This week's episode we finally saw the ultimate enemy, Empress Undergu. Her dress (shown above) was really cool. Her hair is cool too. We'll see how the ending of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure shapes up.

Figure 3 The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess, Episode 10

I didn't have much of an opinion on Nelia last episode, but when she finally went hard-gay for Komari while Villhaze watched was pretty funny.

I have very mixed feelings about The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess. The writing isn't very good. The story isn't very good. But the character designs are great, and it's yuri, and it contains just barely enough action and yuri to keep me engaged. This week's episode ended with Nelia kissing Komari while Villhaze watched. I can't even tell you exactly about the weird military alliance and magic teleportation crystals that led them to this scene, all I know is that it was pretty funny.

Figure 4 Stardust Telepath - 10. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - 15. S-Rank Musume - 12. 16bit Sensation: Another Layer - 11.

Stardust Telepath had this bizarre Matataki Raimon redemption arc, but I didn't care for it too much. All I can really remember is how much of a bombshell the teacher was when she was speaking to Umika in the teacher's lounge. Frieren, like always, had a fairly slow episode. Stark had to pretend to be someone else and dance with Fern so the party could make money. I supposed we got some character development between them, but I wasn't crazy about it. S-Rank Musume had another ballroom arc where they made Angelina pretty and... we waited for the ball next episode? I think? 16bit Sensation is completely diving off the deep-end. This show is so far gone from what I imagined it would be. Konoha has been kidnapped using voice AI and now she's the original creator of "cuu" and she's trapped in some sort of AI machine? I thought this anime was going to be about making games.

Figure 5 I'm in Love with the Villainess - 11. Disgraced Noble Lady - 11. A Returner's Magic Should Be Special - 11. Protocol: Rain - 11.

I'm in Love with the Villainess had an extreme drama arc with Manaria showing up and trying to steal Claire from Rae Taylor. To be honest, it's not a fun arc and I wish it would end. Disgraced Noble Lady had an average episode. I have a feeling next episode we're going to reveal Charolette's identity. Returner's Magic was basically an entire episode-long fight scene, but it was still fun, and we got and watching Pram and Romantic fight so effectively together was cool. You could see drops in the budget, but I didn't care too much about it. Next episode we should get the final fight with Desir. As for Protocol: Rain, all I can say is this show yet again is taking itself perhaps a bit too seriously. It was another drama episode about the imouto not walking, and Yu-chan being found out for playing games... as an idol. Seems a bit silly, because her fans would probably love that. Oh well, we'll get the finale next episode.

Tearmoon Empire was an absolute disaster. This show is supposed to be fun and funny. The last two episodes have been neither of these things. There in some sort of weirdo revolution-in-a-nearby country arc and it's incredibly confusing and, more importantly, did I mention it wasn't fun? Someone on /a/ said this current arc was the weakest, and I believe them.

Other Remarks

When I copy and paste template entries from previous weeks, just as I did with this one, it's always mildly interesting to briefly see at-a-glance what I was thinking at or around this time last week, and if my opinions changed at all. This time last week I was posting about how happy I was about my calligraphy (and rightfully so) because I finally found a good combination of ink and paper. And, indeed, when I spent the evenings of this week writing it was great. I started writing with the Titanium Zebra G nibs, of which I ordered many, but I'm unsure of how good they actually are. They're much harder than the stainless steel variants, and as such the upstrokes feel a bit less smooth. It may just be because I'm not used to them, yet, though. So I'll keep writing with them for practice. That's the entire point! Practice is part of the fun! Still no word on when the fun yuri stickers will arrive. I also ordered not one, not two, but THREE sets of different Tarot decks. I have no idea why, I hate Tarot and fortune telling is silly. I just like how cool and fancy the dicks look. The foil work is incredibly impressive to me. Still, it was probably a waste of money. I told myself I'd save money because I've already spent so much this December. But with stocks quite literally at an all time high and me getting the Christmas bonus and highly-effective bonus, I couldn't say no. Actually, who am I kidding I'd have come up with any excuse to spend it regardless.

I had one of the Zebra G Titanium nibs snap while writing with it. I was using Higgins Eternal ink on Rhodia paper. I'm going to try Iron gall ink on Clairefontaine paper and see if I can get better results. But the titanium nibs are very sharp.

Figure 6 A pin I bought from Etsy of Sailor Venus

Is the dust from the previous photos gone? Or was it never there to begin with?? Leica M11 / Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4 — ISO 200 f/22 4.0s.

I practiced a bit more with the Leica Macro-Elmar-M 90mm, and I must say this is one strange lens indeed. It does not work with the rangefinder at all. You have to focus peak it, which works reasonably well. I actually feel like the focus peaking on this system is worse than the one on the FujiFilm X100F, but that may be due to how the lenses I'm using work. I think the electronic viewfinder may actually be a must, but I'll put off buying it for now. The next big camera-related purchase I get will likely be the Noctilux. Anyways, the macro shots with the lens ARE pretty good. One such shot is shown above. This is a really sharp, really narrow field of view shot of a pin I bought from Etsy. Looks good. The field of view is so narrow on the macro shots I can't even get an entire anime figure in it. I'd probably only get the top half.

Okay, maybe not all of them. I think long straight black hair is fine. And I think blonde hair works too. But the noble and all together aloof and mysterious aura white-haired bishoujos have seem compelling to me in every work in which they appear. Shizuma in Strawberry Panic, Takane in Idolmaster, Melia in Xenoblade, and now Selia in Demon Sword. Why do they facinate me so? So much that my positive AI prompts in all the art in this site are "anime girl with white hair". I think I like them... because I want to be them. If I had to teleport into an anime world with any appearance and personality, I'd be a noble mysterious regal white-haired bishoujo.

Figure 1 Shizuma Hanazono from Strawberry Panic!

AI generated art of Shizuma Hanazono. There actually isn't a lot of art of Shizuma... her anime from 2006 was too popular and back then fan art wasn't all over the place, either. So if I want to see more of my lovely lesbian rapist sex-predator Shizuma I imagine AI generated art is probably the only chance I have.

One of the earliest white-haired bishoujos that have easily occupied too much of my thoughts for too long is Shizuma Hanazono from Strawberry Panic. I've discussed Strawberry Panic! before (check the archives), but put simply it was a yuri show that, while not being particularly remarkable, was for some reason incredibly memorable. And Shizuma Hanazono, a character who was, for a long time, my namesake online, was one of the principle characters. She was a tall, beautiful, regal, noble, white-haired bishoujo whose mysterious aura immediately brought me (and Nagisa) under her spell. For a time, her noble attitude and aura was something I imagined I could emulate. And I supposed to some extent in influence my current fashion sense, too (more formal attire to look like you're an extra in a James Bond film). You could argue it was predisposition to that that drew me to her, or perhaps it was the other way around and she influenced me, or it was multilateral. Regardless, for a time the thought of St. Miator's Girls' Academy was, real or ideal, something I found profoundly compelling.

While reading another great work, Swann's Way, I imagined it retold through a lens of Shizuma being the main character in that novel, too. When I walked to class during college, I spent hours and hours imaging her story and scenes set to the songs I was listening too—I think I went through most Starsailor albums imagining scenes with her in them. Way to Fall, comes to mind, so too does Four to the Floor.

Figure 2 Melia Antiqua from Xenoblade Chronicles

I loved her the moment I saw her and played her throughout the entire campaign as my main. Even when there were better alternatives, I stuck with my lovely bird wife Melia. Actually, who am I kidding she was easily the strongest character in the game. Same with M from Future Redeemed.

I played Xenoblade Chronicles on the 3DS. I started it once, then gave up because I got bored. Then, for reasons lost to time, I came back to it and started afresh a few months later with the goal of 100% completion (all side quests), and had a blast. I'm aware the 3DS isn't good hardware, and perhaps it would have been better playing it on a hires texture pack, but that was simply never going to happen because then, I'd have to pay for it and, at the time, I really liked the 3DS. I still have a soft spot for the 3DS, so much so that I made a post on it earlier (check the archives).

While playing, I encountered Melia Antiqua in Makna forest, and immediately made her my main and slowly but surely mastered her arcane moveset (I still had to play Shulk a bit because you need to use his Monado powers at certain points in the story). The reason I played her was simple—she was incredibly pretty (white hair bird wife ahhhHhh!). I thought she was weak, but she'd eventually become so strong she'd pull aggro every fight if I didn't cut her DPS (I remember resetting my 3DS to optimize her gems to ensure maximum damage). She had what was, at the time, one of the most unique movesets in any game I've played. She set up buffs for herself and her party, and then could spend those buffs on damage. So there was a math struggle of do you wait and let your party deal buffed damage, or do you just spend immediately. Also she used a staff, which I liked. Overall, I liked her regal and noble attitude. That's my personal preference, and I'd like to believe that's how I am now.

Figure 3 Riselia Ray Crystalia from The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy

This is an early shot from Episode 1 where Selia died and was immediately resurrected by Leonis. I audible gasped when she died because she looked so pretty on the ground.

This season's white-haired bishoujo obsession has been Riselia ("Selia") from The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy. Her final episode is airing next week and I'm already sad, but at least we got to see her vampire queen henshin this week. Anyways, I picked up her show because I thought the girls looked gorgeous (Selia obviously included), but when I watched the first episode I was enchanted yet again. The character designs in this show are amazing, and looking at how pretty Selia was as she lie dying I thought "yup, this is a master piece". AND she wears stockings AND she's super kind. Truly this is peak bishoujo. I hope we get another white-haired bishoujo next season, but I haven't had time to look at the entire lineup, yet.

Figure 4 The Girl in White (Morgana) form The House in Fata Morgana

The Girl in White appeared in the very first story in The House and Fata Morgana, and I was immediately entranced by her. I waited for her to appear in every story—I knew she'd be as important and she was beautiful.

And obviously the white-haired girl, Morgana, from The House in Fata Morgana. To be clear, black-haired Morgana is also gorgeous. In fact, when I imagined modern Morgana she always had long beautiful flowing black hair while she worked in her room. But the white-haired girl in her first and all subsequent appearances was entrancing, even more so now that I know the white haired-girl was Morgana herself. I really didn't like how she was treated in the second story, though. The abuse felt like it could have been done better. Actually I don't really like the abuse at all. It didn't feel right, and were it me I'd find a way to rewrite the narrative to keep the surprise of Morgana leaving, but without the overt abuse beforehand.

I feel like my opinions on violence against women in anime and media are pretty complex. I really despise sexual violence from men being use as some sort of grim-dark character development. If I'm watching an anime, reading a book, or playing a game, the idea if rape being used as a weapon to shock and disgust the viewers is so off-puting I usually won't watch the show. I stopped watching Heavenly Delusion precisely for that reason (surprise, rape) in one of the episodes. But ryona still can see pretty appealing (see the case of Selia, above), so I guess I'll give it a pass as long as there's no men. Men in general aren't really necessary and only make shows worse.

Other Remarks

The Clairefontaine paper arrived today. All of it was damaged. Every single notebook. Every single one. I immediately shot of an angry email to the vendor, who promptly replied and was kind enough shoot me another package with the same items. But man I was livid yesterday. The moment I opened the package and saw the bent corners I thought "No. Not again. I did not just buy $80 of paper just to have it all arrived damaged, did I"? At least Amazon shipped the Rhodia book correctly. I may just buy from them in the future because any packages I order seem to arrive fast, so there's less time for them to get krangled in shipment. Still no word on the yuri stickers. No tracking—looks like they were shipped in a regular envelope so I just have to sit and wait and hope that they are going to arrive. Once they do, though, I look forward to making my Rhodia notebook look more fun with the yuri stickers. I wish I picked the black graph notebook correctly when I first ordered it from Amazon, but I guess I'll stick with the orange one for now. I hate orange. When I was young I thought orange was my favorite color. Not my favorite color is dark red/purple/wine, if I had to describe it.

So here I am, again, bored out of my mind at work. Right now it's Friday, the week before finals week, and I have little to nothing to do. I could, I suppose, work on tests for next semester, but I already have done that quite a bit and currently have little to no motivation to do it now, especially considering how close we are to the end of the semester. So I'm just typing here, now, pretending to work, pretending to keep my mind occupied. Listening to the sound of each mechanical keyboard click during class, while students, too, pretend to work as well. No, who am I kidding they're not even pretending to work they're all on their phones watching TikTok videos. But I'm not certain I can blame them—I've given them far to much time to complete the few questions in the assigned study guide with the express intent of making it less work for me. So, now, because I have so little work I sit here bored. The only thing I really have the motivation to do, now, is calligraphy and messing with my camera (while AFKing in RuneScape, of course).

Speaking of the camera, I'm still not certain what the purpose of the Macro-Elmar-M 90 f/4 will be. I took some practice macro shots yesterday, and I can't say I was stunned at their quality. If I just do a long exposure on the 35mm and crop, I feel like I can get pretty good results. This weekend I will try various things to see what works, now that I know to avoid the high auto ISO mistake I made yesterday evening. In fairness, it was a rush yesterday evening to shoot off all those emails and evidence, while completing my calligraphy practice. At this point, my evening schedule is so rigid, so ritualistic, that if it deviates even slightly it feels wrong—I feel wrong. I feel like I have to get my Spencerian practice in, at which point I could argue it's not just practice, but an obsession. I have to do it, or I feel wrong. And that's what it's going to take to get better.

Before I discuss the new Leica macro lens that I picked up yesterday, I want to discuss how I payed for it. It ended up being a complete stroke of luck on my part. I decided to liquidate some of the cash from my Intelligent Portfolio to buy the lens (and the macro adapter), and the very next day the stock market surged, and I recovered all of my money. So I sort of got the lens for free (or at least it feels free to me!). Anyways, I bought a Leica Macro-Elmar-M 90 f/4, along with the Macro Adapter for my M11. Perhaps a strange purchase—at first glance it's a bizarre lens. It's a compact... telephoto lens? Seems a bit contradictory. I may try outdoors and see how it performs, but I mainly got it for close up shots of some of the items I own. I don't think it even can focus if the lens is not extended, I'll try again today to check.

Figure 1 Macro-Elmar-M 90 f/4

The Leica M11 with the big lens and macro adapter. FujiFilm X100F — ISO 200 f/5.6 5.3s.

Leica doesn't really make a lot of macro (close up) lenses for their M system—it's effectively impossible to focus such a lens using the rangefinder when you're close up to something. When I was doing some preliminary messing around with it last night, I found that I had to use the rear screen with focusing peaking. I considered buying their electronic rangefinder, but I really don't want to review the thumb holder on my current camera, which I'd have to do if I wanted to add the viewfinder. I think I'll just stick with focusing peaking on the back screen (even though I feel like it's worse than the FujiFilm X100F in that regard; the X100F seems to fair better with focusing peaking). This makes sense, though. All of the reviewers online said a telephoto lens and/or macro photography with the Leica M system is pretty dubious. Most people said compact range finders like the M series are for "small but mighty" lenses with wider fields of view. They're probably right. But listen: I'm not buying a new camera just to take close up photos of some watches and pens and anime figures. I'm going to take those photos with my Leica M11 even if it kills me.

The main reason I got this lens was to, try at least, take close-up photos of a lot of the items that I own. I have to accept, whether I want to or not, the most of the photographs I've taken so far in my life have been of cool things around my house. And this is fine—I take a lot of pride in some of the cool stuff I've bought, the rare stuff I own, and the unique items I've acquired through the years. My house, for me, is a museum of my hobbies and interests, and I feel like it reflects a lot of my personality.

Figure 2 Vacheron Constantin Historiques, Cornes de Vache 1955

I actually don't think this is sharper than the Summicron-M 35 f/2. There was a lot of noise and I had to run and AI denoising to get rid of it. I would later learn it was because I set my camera to auto ISO and it went to 3200!! Argghh!!! Live and learn, I guess. Leica M11 / Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4 — ISO 3200 f/22 1/15s.

I took some photos of my Vacheron Constantin, Cornes de Vache 1955 with the Elmar 90mm. I still need to make a formal showcase about that watch, but I want to change it to a gray strap first. Anyways, the sample image is shown in Figure 2 (above). It's a mildly lengthy exposure on the Gitzo travel tripod. I bought that Tripod years ago, before the pandemic, and it's now much cheaper! I bought it for almost $1000 now it's only $600, I can't believe it went down in price? Still, I've used it for years and will use it for years to come, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Figure 3 Melia Antiqua from Xenoblade Chronicles

A close up shot of my lovely bird wife Melia Antiqua from Xenoblade Chronicles. The image is pretty sharp, I can see grains of hair and dust on her. Leica M11 / Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4 — ISO 200 f/22 0.5.

Figure 3 (above) shows a close-up macro shot of my lovely bird wife Melia Antiqua from Xenoblade Chronicles. If you look closely at the image, I think there's some dust on the lens, not sure why I didn't notice sooner! Overall it does a decent job taking close ups. I'm not sure if it's actually better than just using the Summicron-M 35 f/2 and just zooming in. I mean, I have a 60 MP sensor I can easily zoom in without much of an issue.

Other Remarks

My big payday today was too big. The aforementioned stock I sold was far more profitable. Still, it's nice to get some back pay. I don't really have any plants to buy anything immediately. In fact, I finally transfered some more money for longer term savings, which makes sense given than I've already spent thousands in the month of December! Still, stocks are quite literally at an all time high now that the Fed has announced it may start cutting interest rates, so if it keeps trucking up I may just buy the Noctilux 50mm sometime next year!

At this point, I'm spending an our or more every day practicing Spencerian calligraphy. I've finally found flex nibs that I like (Zebra G Models), ink that I like (ESS Registrar's and Higgins Eternal), and paper that I like (Rhodia and, perhaps after today, the Clairefontaine paper). Oh, and the Clairefontaine paper is arriving today. I likely won't have time to try and out and give it my opinions because once I get home I'm going to be pretty busy with the M11 trying to take some macro photographs and test out the new lens. Oh, and I think my black Bloom nib holder is going to arrive today, too. So there's a lot of calligraphy equipment that will be waiting for me when I get home from work. In fact, I like the Bloom nib holder so much I may just buy more. I'm concerned that that business won't last, and I'll be stuck with whatever I buy now (seriously how long do you think a small business making calligraphy supplies will last in this economy). I also did order some cool stickers for my calligraphy notebook, and plan to order some more. They're all yuri-related, of course, because what else would I put on it?

I know I've mentioned it before, and perhaps I'm just mentioning it again because I'm bored and work trying to waste time, but my calligraphy work is one of the few things I'm excited about in the day. Recently, school feels like sort of a slog. It's not hard. In fact, on the contrary it's quite easy lately. I have the same classes I did last year so I'm able to completely go through the motions. In fact, it's my ability to go through the motions, as it were, that probably led to my calligraphy hobby earlier this year and on into today. I used to spend all my time, and I really mean all my time, making homework, notes, and tests for my classes. I spent hours and hours in LaTeX and Adobe Illustrator assembling everything... through sheer force of will I effectively wrote my own book for my own class. Last year, I updated some other stuff, but that was for a class I rarely teach so I made everything in Word and PowerPoint, not LaTeX, and borrowed from the work of Hewitt, so I was able to make everything much faster and I was able to complete everything at school. So, when I got home, I could complete my Spencerian practice pages in my workbook, which leads us to where we are today.

Figure 4 Working in LaTeX with TexStudio

It's actually impressive, when I think about it, the amount of time and effort I spent in making all the homework, all the tests, all the figures, for the courses I teach. At least I get compliments on it.

To be honest, there's something to be said about how daze I often feel at work. I'll often find myself zoning out, staring at my computer screen, eyes mildly sore, not accomplishing anything of value. I think this is due, in part, to the reduction of work. I the past, I often had to constantly make notes and homework and solutions, so the amount of time I was dedicating each work was herculean. If I had estimate it, I'd say it was around 60 hours a week for 3-4 years straight. At the time I told myself, and I suppose the current predicament proves myself correct, that I was doing all this work now so that I could do significantly less work later. And this was correct. I now do significantly less work than I did in the past, despite having significantly better educational material than all my peers. To some extent, I lament my complete inability to convince any of my peers to use any of the material I've created. This is especially disheartening when you realize, as any fair minded observer would, that their material is absolute utter rubbish. We are not even in the same room when it comes to the quality of the content used in our respective classes, and that is entirely because of the fact that I spend the vast majority of my time improving what I use, whereas they do nothing. Instead, they teach the same class year after year, decade after decade, changing nothing except their age, and making the same complaints about the same student issues, never bothering to ask themselves, "Is there a clearer and more appropriate way I could be teaching this content?"

Figure 5 Working in Adobe Illustrator

I spend so much time making vector graphics in Adobe Illustrator it feels like it's a significant part of my life at this point, for better or for worse. I don't use it as much as I used to, but that's really only because I've made 1000's of vector graphics already so I don't need to keep making so many every year from scratch.

I also spend a lot of time making vector graphics in Illustrator. Or, at least I did. I make a bit less these days because I made so many in the past I can just repurpose what I already made.

Something I do whenever I read a book is I imagine, while I'm reading it, an even more interesting anime equivalent of it (always a yuri anime, of course). In this case, while I read My Name is Asher Lev, I'm imagining so sort of yuri mashup between a Shrine maiden painter loosely trapped in the Asher Lev narrative, and a Christian girl at or around the same age trapped in The Chosen narrative, and they become friends and work through the problems caused by their religion, and their parents. It seems a bit weird, almost embarrassing, to type that out. In fact, it's so embarrassing that I've neglected to discuss it on Morganna's House, even though I do it all the time. In fact, I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. When I read Swann's Way a book which, to me, was one of the greatest literary works I've ever read (The House in Fata Morgana is closely behind), I still nevertheless reimagined an anime mixup between it and Strawberry Panic, and while walking to class I imagined scenes from played to music I was listening to on my iPod.

To a large extent, the envisioning of great stories in my imagination is something I've always done. I remember when I was a child having long bus rides home. The bus ride, for me at least, was long because I'd have to stay after school for supplemental classes because the school thought I was an idiot (ironically, I'd go on to get a degree in Physics, so I guess the joke was on them), but the late buss would have a much longer route, so I'd have to sit there, for hours, staring at the windows and imagining things (music players weren't really allowed, and I wasn't a big reader back then). If there was any silver lining to those rides, and that's a big if, it would by the fact that I was forced to locked with only my thoughts and imagination, which would wonder immensely. Back then, I reimagined the games and narratives I was playing into even grander narratives in my head. So the modern premise of reimagining the books I read, then, is something fairly uniform and something I've been doing for decades.

Figure 1 It was quite easy to get beautiful white-haired anime girls walking through an art gallery. Not sure why it was so much easier than getting one painting on canvas, but perhaps there's something unique about the training set.

The premise of Asher Lev is, so far, that a small child name Asher in a Hasidic Jewish family in Brooklyn likes to draw. But his strongly religious family doesn't like it (particularly when his grades begin to suffer in school), and eventually all but forbids him from doing it when he attempts to reproduce some artwork he saw in a museum. Notably, he attempted to reproduce via graphite a painting of Jesus, and also one of a women without wearing clothes. His father, returning from Vienna, discovers them and calls them blasphemous, and says this is "goyish" artwork from "the other side". ("From the other side" is really just a way of saying it's satanic garbage.) Asher started with cheap graphite drawings when he was very young because he had a pencil and paper, but is slowly transitioning to oil paintings. There was a rather frightening sequence where he stole paint from a nearby stationary store where he periodically talks to the shop owner. He later returns them out of guilt, and his mother actually buys him the paints later on so he wouldn't try to steal them again (he thought his theft and subsequent return went unnoticed—it didn't).

While this is going on, his father is in Europe attempting to smuggle Jews out of Russia. Many Hasidic Jews have been killed in Russia, and Asher's grandfather escaped it and fled to America. He's also trying to set up yeshivas (Jewish schools) in Europe to attempt to revive European Jewry. This is, in part, what leads to his furor when he comes back from Europe and discovers Asher's blasphemous artwork.

Figure 2 It was surprisingly hard to get AI generated anime girls painting on a Canvas. Many of them wouldn't be painting, or they'd be holding the brush incorrectly, etc. I may have to try different AI models to get my white-haired anime waifus. I may have to try MidJourney or Stable Diffusion. I have an issue with MidJourney where it looks like I have to log into Discord? Lol not using that garbage.

While the books started out slow (far too slow for my tastes), it has significantly improved to the point where I'm always mildly annoyed I have to put it down and go to bed at night. And I'm actually somewhat struggling with the anime retelling in my head because I don't know exactly where the story will go. Usually I imagine the most powerful scenes, but it's hard to tell what the most powerful scenes will be before I get there. I also don't know if it's better than The Chosen, which was one of the few books I read in high school that stuck with me throughout the years. That book just had so many quotable and memorable lines... although it did, perhaps, use the word "brooding" too much. I'll keep you posted on how the book progresses.

Other Remarks

The Clairefontaine paper shipped. I can only hope the shipper saw my note concerning my color preference for the notebook. But if they didn't, I think I'll be fine. I may buy some cool anime sticks for them, too. Maybe make them look a bit cooler on the covers. The issue I have is I'd only want to buy Yuri-themed anime stickers, and those seem hard to find and come by. I may just have to Google the names of individual anime and bulk buy them. I also ordered more Zebra G titanium nibs from Japan. I used one last night and found that it seems to be pretty sharp—so sharp that it was ripping fibers of the paper out as I wrote, and it led to a bad smudge I really had trouble fixing. I think if I use those nibs I may have to practice with a much lighter touch relative to the regular stainless steel ones. There's something mildly romantic, to me at least, about writing pages and pages in the Clairefontaine or Rhodia notebooks, with the flex nib, and all the fun anime stickers on the front. Maybe I can put some on the inside cover, too.

I liquidated about $5000 in stocks earlier this morning. The stock market was at an all time high, and I'm strongly considering taking most of that money and buying a macro lens for my Leica M11. I may need to by the improved viewfinder as well. While the macro lens clearly would never be a logical first purpose, it seems like a reasonable (insofar as a $4000 lens purchase is ever reasonable) second purchase given how often I want to take closeup shots of some of the items I own. Obviously the Noctilux dream is on hold, for now. I don't know how good of a sale this was, but the stock market is literally at an all-time high, so the subsequent buy and sell orders tomorrow may have a 1 day lag. Maybe I should have sold last Friday instead? Oh well, it's too late. I wanted some expensive goods by Christmas and this is, in part, how I'm going to pay for them. I also should be getting a slightly larger than usual paycheck this Friday. I don't anticipate it being that large, though. If it was even double what it normally would be I'd be surprised. I have a feeling it won't even by that, though.

I've had an ongoing problem with ink feathering when I use my flex nibs. I tried several different inks, and everything but the iron gall Registrar's ink would feather. I thought this was because I was mainly using fountain pen ink. And while I still do think that's a contributing factor, the main reason for the feathering was likely the paper I was using. I've been using the engineering computation paper (with the lightboard) for months, so I stuck with that paper when I started using the flex nib. But I had bad feathering which I initially ignored, but eventually couldn't after a few days, and tried different inks. I settled on and have been using the ESS Registrar's iron gall ink because it's so dry it doesn't really feather at all (and I ordered two more bottles, which are still stuck in customs).

I ordered the Higgins Eternal ink which was recommended by the Copperplate book, but it feathered too, and I was really mad! I bought six bottles of that ink from eBay! Well, after further thought and reflection I realized it may be the paper. Both the engineering paper and the printer paper I have feather badly, so I decided to try a paper which, I've been told, is better for fountain pens: Clairefontaine (and Rhodia) paper. I actually tried Rhodia paper many years ago in college but I absolutely despised it because then, at the time, I was writing with a pencil. And let me tell you something, that Clairefontaine paper is simply not designed for a pencil. It's too smooth. It's too glossy. You will hate yourself and your life if you try to write with a pencil on that paper. And I did.

Figure 1 My current Spencerian calligraphy setup.

On the left, you have some of the iron gall practice pages. In the center, you have the brand new Rhodia practice page with the Higgins Eternal ink. On the right is the sample daily pencil practice entries that also double as a journal. Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 64 f/9.5 0.7s.

So on whim I ordered a Rhodia graph notebook, and tried some small sheets of Clairefontaine paper I actually ordered to get free shipping a few months ago, and it looks like they both work. I wrote a sample page in the Rhodia notebook with the Higgins Eternal ink and the Zebra nib (see Figure 1, above) and did not observe feathering. I also ordered a bunch of Clairefontaine paper from Goulet Pens. One thing I did not like is that on Goulet you can't pick the color of the notebooks you order from them, which seems like a pretty garbage way of doing business to me. I left a note of my color preferences, and I'm cautiously optimistic that they will read it and honor my request. I still don't know how well the paper will fair if I write on both sides of it. I plan to try that this evening. If it doesn't work, that's fine. I haven't been writing on both sides of the paper for months, particularly with ink pens. But if it does work that will be nice—the paper is pretty expensive so I can save money doing that.

I also ordered a spice rack on Amazon yesterday that arrived today. Although it's not for spices, at least not for me. I ordered it to put my bottles of ink it. Overall, it looks pretty good. My only wish is that it was slightly wider, the shelves that is, so I could fit some of the larger ink bottles I have. Right now, the very large bottles won't fit on it.

Other Remarks

I know we won't have out anime review for almost a week, but today's PreCure episode was great! Empress Undergu was very pretty! Or at least, she was when she was in her dress. Her weirdo villain form was ugly. I'm going to be really bored next week. I have three days where students are just working on the final exam study guide, so I'll be at my desk the entire time. I imagine I'll have to find some interesting posts to put on Morganna's House in the interim, but even so that will only keep me occupied for about one class period. In RuneScape, I plan to kill abyssal demons for gold until Wednesday, then I can switch my Totem of Navigation with my Totem of Auras and start killing vampires again. My plan, at the moment, is to actually kill vampires with the Sunspear until 120 Firemaking. This sounds almost outlandish, but it seems to be a way to get 120 Firemaking with a reasonably profit, and it's totally AFK and it's something I'm already familiar with—AFKing combat.

As for what I'm going to do at work, I don't know. Personally it'd be cool to practice calligraphy, but I know I'd have to deal with aggressive students while doing it, which would very much ruin the experience. I could do more reflections on my personality, or I could even do reflections on some media I've watched. The idea of doing an in-depth discussion of a show seems interesting, but there aren't and shows that pique my interest sufficiently this season to warrant and in depth discussion, and the ones I am interested in have been long enough ago that sufficient portions of them are forgotten to time. I obviously could do work, and I will, but there's only so long I can work on making test questions and figures before my eyes glaze over and I find myself just zoning out at my screen.

We're drawing closer and closer to the end of the fall season and the beginning of the winter season. I don't really feel like any show is going to get a dramatically good ending (likely because most of them are adapting ongoing series), but this week definitely had some strong episodes. I also learned a bit more about next season's Pretty Cure series, which I'm a bit less excited about than this season's. I feel like Sora, Wing, and Ageha will all pretty interesting, but I'll keep and open mind when we get there.

Figure 1 The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Episode 10

Every time Selia is on the screen the show dramatically improves.

The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy continued its vaguely explained "Selia returns to her old home" arc. There's another void lord they have to defeat, BUT Selia also got her vampire queen outfit, so we're going to get her red-and-black dress with wings vampire henshin next episode. That's easily enough for me to be excited about the finale, come what may.

Figure 2 The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess, Episode 9

Komari-san's very boring show didn't have an episode last week, but this episode more than made up for it. It was full of soft yuri.

The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess came in with a pretty entertaining episode. There was some bizarre subplot of the politics of forming an alliance that I didn't concern myself with. What I did concern myself with was how funny and entertaining Komari-san was, and how cute all the girls and their interactions were. I laughed at Amatsu and Komari both bluffing at how powerful they were in the final minutes of show.

Figure 3 Protocol: Rain, Episode 10

I can't pick between Nozo-nee and Yu-chan. The e-girls are cute too.

I haven't discussed Protocol: Rain much this season. In fact, I've been watching it at 1.5x the speed because I found the early episodes a bit boring. But whoa the last episode, along with this one, were finally interesting. Yu-chan's side gig of playing video games while acting was finally found out. The rationale for the title was revealed when a rainy day canceled a shoot and allowed her to play at the tournament. We learned that Mio likely can walk but is psychologically incapable. The arc of Nozo-nee vs. Yu-chan is interesting (they're both cute). And the side e-girl coaches are interesting too. I thought an anime about professional video gaming would be dumb, and it sort of is, but it's an entertaining kind of dumb and this week's episode was definitely a stand out relative to the rest.

Figure 4 16bit Sensation: Another Layer - 10. Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure - 42. Disgraced Noble Lady - 10. S-Rank Musume - 11.

16bit Sensation continues to be an incredibly strange show. The previous game they made was so good that Americans bought bishoujo and now Akihibara is gone? I wish this anime was just about 90's bishoujo games. That would have been fun. Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure had a Mashiro / Battamonda episode where we finally got a resolution to Battamonda's story... sort of. Mashiro also finished her children's book. Ikenaiyo had another really interesting episode. All the characters are really coming together, and what I thought would be a bore is actually progressing in a really interesting way. Meeting Charlotte's sister was cool. S-Rank Musume was nothing to write home about. Sort of felt like a builder episode for a big finale, but I think we only have one episode left so I can't figure out where we're going to end.

Figure 5 I'm in Love with the Villainess - 10. A Returner's Magic Should Be Special - 10. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - 14. Tearmoon Empire - 10.

I'm in Love with the Villainess significantly improved after the previous episode. While I miss Lene (because she was pretty cute), we met Claire's sister, who is a handsome tomboy seductress. In the past I didn't like this archetype, but for now I'll excuse it and stick with the story. Returner's Magic easily had the slowest episode yet. It was clearly meant to by a respite from the previous non-stop battles we were getting in the school setting, and it was. They just went to the mall and bought clothes, but we did get a cool setup for the next episode. It does feel a bit weird that now Desir, Romantic, and Pram are in alpha class we're just... ignoring all the poor souls still left in beta class. They didn't correct anything. The system is still flawed, they just freed themselves of it. But everyone else is still trapped? Feels weird. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End had another pretty slow episode. It was clearly supposed to be a character development episode, but learning that Frieren was too slow to understand Himmel's feelings (I don't even like Himmel showing up in episodes) was a bit boring for me. Tearmoon Empire had a very weak episode. I don't even know what happened. Something about a revolution? They name dropped so many new characters I couldn't follow it. It reminds me of Town of Strife in Spice and Wolf. I read it. I don't know what happened.

Stardust Telepath had more drama. But we got a cool song from the alien in the end, and I listened to it many times this week. I don't even know what the song is called, but it's cool listening to the fake alien language.

Other Remarks

This may be one of the biggest weeks in calligraphy for me yet. I finally think I found paper and ink that won't feather. I tested the Clairefontaine, and it appears not to feather with the Higgins Eternal ink I bought (which is good because I bought 6 full bottles of that junk). While I really like the engineering computation paper, I just don't think it was designed to hold large amounts of ink. I ordered Clairefontaine and Rhodia graph paper. The Rhodia stuff should come today, and I hope Amazon doesn't ruin the book or bend it prior to delivery. I also ordered some manga ink that should arrive on monday—I don't know if it'll be better in terms of feathering, but if it's meant for drawing it may be worth a shot. Also, the bottle is better designed for dipping I think so I won't have to decant the ink into smaller bottles. Or, I still will because I have an oblique nib holder. I need to buy an spice rack to use as an ink stand for all the inks I have. Actually, typing that last sentence gave me the motivation to do it. It will arrive tomorrow. I'll post some pictures when I get it. I also ordered another Bloom calligraphy nib. This time, in black. I wanted a black and silver one originally but that wasn't an option. Oh, and the Zebra titanium nibs have this gold plated color to them, which masses the brass finish on the nib holder. So maybe that's good?

My Name is Asher Lev dramatically improved in quality. I almost couldn't put it down last night to go to bed. It started out so slow, but I stuck with it because it got such rave reviews. I'm not done, but I would say it went from being a slog to read to being very enjoyable to read. I imagined an anime equivalent where I combine the narrative it presents in conjunction with The Chosen to make a yuri left story between a christian photographer and a shrine maiden painter, where there are cool masks involved on both sides. But it's so abstract and I know so little about Shinto mythology it's hard for me to imagine the exact details and dialogue. But I have been imagining the opening to songs like Bloody Mary and Remember.

Introduction

Of all the hobbies of tried, of all the false starts I've had with other interests, calligraphy, or as I usually call it Spencerian script (to clarify I'm discussing a specific part of calligraphy and differentiating it from other types and forms, perhaps even from different countries such as Japanese or Chinese calligraphy with a brush) for some reason, has been one of the more persistent and lasting interests I've had. I've only been practicing it, formally, for less than a year (I started the entire process of learning it at or around March of 2023 with some Spencerian practice books I bought on Amazon—ironically, those were the second set I bought because I tried and failed to do it years earlier). Nevertheless, I think it would false and misleading to say this is something that just "started" earlier this year. I recall, very vividly, for days and weeks on end just writing down random lines of text with fountain pens at the end of the day many years ago. I would say this would be to keep the nibs from running dry, and this was true, but I knew then as I do know now that there therapeutic or, put simpler, relaxing value is simply writing on a piece of paper. It doesn't even have to be your thoughts or ideas about the day (although it could), it could be writing really anything.

I had imagined back then always wanting to have extraordinarily good handwriting. Back then, in my dreams, I thought having good hand writing was a sign intelligence, creativity, or perhaps my mildly just something laudable and worthy of praise. However, I frustrated myself back then because I didn't have that ability, and I told myself I could never have that ability. I was simply incapable of ever learning it. That belief partially stifled my imagination of "Modern Morgana", Morgana's (one 'n') modern reincarnation following the events of The House in Fata Morgana. I thought it would be cool if she had impressive calligraphy skills and handwriting, or perhaps even did those as a hobby, but because I couldn't do it myself, I couldn't imagine her doing it either. And I question if I should give her such a trait that I myself didn't embody.

Figure 1 An early Spencerian calligraphy example with the flex nib.

I'm terribly sorry for the massive vertical distance this spans on the page, but I couldn't see any way to make it a widescreen images without ruining the overall composition of the pieces (i.e., most of the page visible, the pen visible, and the ink bottle visible). But this is an early example (about the first two weeks) of my work. I want to document it here so I an record any improvement I make.

I actually attempted learn calligraphy, more specifically Spencerian script, with some practice books I bought on Amazon several years ago. After getting only a few pages into the first volume, I lost interest and gave it. I believe I started learning it around the time my sister was in officer candidate school, because I recall writing her a letter about how I was attempting to learn it. I lost interest, I believe, because of my desk. Yes. My desk. At the time, I had to physically get up and go to a different desk (on I didn't normally sit at) to practice, and this was quite obtrusive and uncomfortable. But when I bought a new house (with cash, because I'm straight a high-roller /sarcasm) I went out of my way to buy a large L-shaped desk (actually I bought two), and the ability to complete parts of the copy book while working at my computer (on the other half the L) while playing music and watching YouTube videos was huge. This is actually how I practice now. I'm where I'm most comfortable: my desk.

Figure 2 How I learned and practiced.

The Spencerian practice book (top) and a daily practice page on engineering computation paper.

After completing the practice books, I very briefly wrote random words and experts from various books for practice. I wrote very small on engineering computation paper, a stack of which I purchased years ago from Amazon (the brand was "Roaring Springs", if I recall correctly). After getting quite bored with such writing, I switched to writing about my day. In effect, I transfered my rather large Epica journal thoughts and writings to some loose leaf engineering paper. Not the most romantic thing, I know, but extremely practically, I must say. Right now, every evening, I practice writing a bit of Spencerian on the computation paper (which has visible grid lines on the back) on top of a light board. This lets me line up all the characters on the front, and ensuring proper cap heights, while not obscuring the writing itself because the gridlines are no longer visible when the light board is off and the paper is shelved. I spent almost all summer making daily entries (with gaps only when Diablo IV came out), and eventually put a large stack of those summer entries in the safe downstairs. I somewhat lament how I now have hand written journal entries in the Epica journal, along with other entries on paper, but this is the only way I'd consistently practice, so I'll continue doing it.

Equipment

I spent a lot of time, and a descent amount of money, over the summer determining what pencil I'd want to write with. I found out rather quickly that, to effectively write small Spencerian where the cap height is a single grid line, I'd need to write with a 0.35/0.3mm mechanical pencil. I tried various versions, and settled on the Faber-Castell TK Fine Vario. I bought several of them (they're made in Japan) and fully plan to buy more. For some reason, I full the need to stockpile them in case they go out of style. I really wanted to like the Rotrings, but I could get them in the size and color combination, despite a massive effort on my part to find them. I think they're no longer made in 0.35mm black color combinations.

Figure 3 The supplies I currently use.

For practice now, I mainly use the Faber-Castell TK Fine Vario in 0.35mm and the Bloom nib holder. I'm still trying to work out my favorite nibs and ink, so I'll get back to you on that one.

For pens, I like the Pilot G2 0.38mm. They're the only ones that write small enough to fit on a postcard. I also have the full-size Pilot G2's in 2mm, but that's far too big. Ironically, the fountain pens I have are terrible at Spencerian. I hold the pens at a pretty aggressive angle to ensure a proper italic slant, however this simply does not work well with straight fountain pen nibs. Even more so that I've used micromesh to grind down a lot of my fountain pen nibs to optimize them for all caps upright writing. Ironically, they're actually incredibly good at writing in that way, however that method of writing is something I rarely do these days, so we're sort of at a loss for them. There was a time in my life where I was obsessed with fountain pens. During the first year of my teaching career, I'd drop my entire paycheck on a single one. I haven't bought any recently, though. I have, however, bought a lot of other calligraphy supplies. Supplies that, I'd argue, are more directly justifiable given that I actually use them.

Figure 4 The Bloom nib holder and some flex nibs.

My practice is split between a pencil practice page where I write about my day, and a flex nib practice page where I try out various nibs and inks.

For now, here's what I'm actually using. The Bloom nib holder from Tom's Studio is great. So much so that I bought another one yesterday. I don't really like how pretentious his brand and website is, or the fact that it's pretty clear he lies about hand making the pens, but the quality is good, the universal nib holder is good, and that's about all I can ask for given how poor the competition for modern oblique nib holders is. As for nibs, I'm still trying out several. The Zebra ones seem good, but in my infinite stupidity I realized I wore one down the other night and couldn't figure out why it suddenly sucked. I ordered some Titanium ones that cost extra the other day—they are supposedly more durable and will last longer. The Speedball Imperial is sharp and scratchy, and I may have to try some newer ones that are in better condition now that I know how fast they can wear down. I did not like the Brause nibs I bought. They were far too flexible. And, now that I know how fast they can wear out, I don't know if I can justify the price ($16 for 3) of these nibs. I doubt they perform much better, either, despite the astronomical cost.

As for ink, the only one that I can use with the dip pen is the iron-gall ESS Registrar's Ink. Is so dry that it doesn't feather, and it's the only ink I know of that behaves well with dip pens. Today, after weeks of waiting, the Higgins Eternal ink should arrive and it is my hope that it performs well (I'll post an update likely on Saturday with the anime review for the week with my findings), because t the Higgins ink is much cheaper and easier to buy. I also believe the Higgins ink, at least for the long term, is a safer bet. I have my suspicion that the ESS ink is made by a single person who, if they drop dead, will stop making it. The Higgins ink, I believe, has been around for decades (actually over 100 years) and has a company backing it, so if it works out well then I may be in a slightly better position overall in terms of long term support for the product. We'll know in a few hours.

Other Remarks

My Name is Asher Lev is really starting to pick up. Initially, I was bored out of my mind—Asher's childhood accounts of his drawings at 6 years old and his mother's ptsd following her brother's death was boring. But now that he's started to draw again it seems better. I don't know if i quite feel the "poetic" writing in it that other reviewers have claimed to notice, but that just may be because I've been reading pretty fast so late in the evening.

Figure 5 The Adobe FireFly prompt "anime girl with white hair" and "calligraphy" usually leads to asian style brush calligraphy. I guess this largely makes sense given the training set probably primarily contains samples of that. I have zero intention of ever learning brush calligraphy... probably because I can't speak Chinese or Japanese.

I noticed my mood starting dropping today, and I almost let it get to me. I immediately corrected course and told myself "these punks are wrong" are felt better. Some would question such a redirection as an escape from blame, but it may be the only way to deal with difficult students (and teachers and parents). Conceal, don't feel, as Elsa wisely said. That and, of course, realize that I'm dealing with both literal and figurative children. I should remind myself that they are beneath me. I should remind myself that if they labor under any delusion that I'm talking down to them it's only because they're aware, tacitly or otherwise, of their own inferiority.

I'm currently torn between saving up for the Noctilux 50mm, or buying the Leica macro lens and the adapter. The Noctilux is the dream, but the macro lens would be greater for taking some close up shows of a lot of the stuff I own (and I own a lot of stuff). If I get a big bonus next Friday, I may just buy the macro lens outright, but I don't think it will actually be that big. I think the backpay the owe e is quite small (less than $1000), and the highly effective pay isn't that large either. But I will still nevertheless wait with bated breath. I will fill the cracks and holes in my heart with expensive possessions—they're my sole companions on this journey.

I've been told and have read in the past, and by that I mean I watched a single YouTube video on it, that you shouldn't write down your goals. That somehow simply putting your goals to paper widens the intent-behavior gap and makes a person less likely to complete something. To me, I don't think this is entirely true. It may be true for some people, but for me I do not think there is a detrimental effect of writing or, in this case, typing out my goals and plans. (Although I must admit I rarely, if ever, in the past specifically wrote down my plans. For example, when I was in college I just kept all of my due dates and plans in my head, and it all managed to work on reasonably well for me.) I should be honest, however, late at night when I'm falling asleep I'll often dream up incredibly elaborate plans, the majority of which I'll never do, so there may be some truth to that after all.

To that extent, I believe it may be beneficial and, perhaps, therapeutic to write down some of photography ideas here on Morganna's House, before I actually go out and do them myself. I say "beneficial" because this stream-of-consciousness typing may help me come up with some ideas. And I say "therapeutic" because, as I type this, I'm sitting at my desk bored at school while students work on a study guide. I am, at the moment, very far ahead in my work and just finished making a test for next semester, so I feel like I want to relax a bit and take a break. That, and I haven't made a "Morganna's Adventure" post in a while, so I figure I'd do it now out of some vague sense of duty to a future reader of this post who I don't think will ever exist. To a large extent, I know the words I type here will never be read because I am profoundly uninteresting. I type these words, then, for my benefit and my benefit alone. And my plans are for myself and myself alone.

Figure 1 An AI generated anime girl holding a camera in a city. Like always, I ensure one of the positive prompts for the AI model is white hair, because anime girls look really good in white hair. I may easily be the best hair color.

Now that my Leica M11 is here, lens, carrying case and, later this week, wrist strap, I think I'm ready to roll with some photos. Because it already greatly comports with my schedule, and if the weather permits, I think I'll start taking some long exposures in the early morning. I don't know if this weekend will work (rain is the forecast), and it looks like next weekend I have to take my car in for an oil change and tire rotation (ugh). It would seem my weekends are slightly busier than expected, and my evenings, at the moment, are extraordinarily busy. Right now, the momentum I get home from taking a shower, to cooking dinner, to watching that day's anime, to the hour or or more of Spencerian practice, to my nightly reading (currently reading My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok), I'm actually pretty packed from 3 to 9 in the evening, so I'm not sure when I can easily squeeze in photography time then without sacrificing my calligraphy practice, which is something that, at the moment, I'm completely unwilling to do. That, too, and, in the evening, I'm more likely to see other people, which I find a frightening and disturbing concept, particularly if I'm taking photos, much less using a tripod.

Regardless, I do have winter break coming up, and I can plan some long term goals. There are some nearby small towns that would be fun to visit. For codes, I'll label them as NBV, GF, and KT. GF is a new edition, one I hadn't considered in the past, but I've had several packages routed through GF (perhaps it's a major shipping hub?) and after reading it multiple times on tracking information I finally had to check it out on Google Maps. It seems like a cool place, but I'm so unfamiliar with it I'm mildly apprehensive. I am, for some reason, least apprehensive about NBV, perhaps because I've been there before practically a decade ago, albeit briefly, and that familiarity, however slight, in sufficient to reduce my apprehension. Another good idea, FV, is also on my radar. FV is perhaps the most practical small old town in the area, but it's in district so the chances I see students are nonzero, which bothers me. Still, I think the FV downtown with a map would be the best thing to do for driving, and the nearby stores and houses for me if I pair the photography with my morning walk. Nevertheless, I rather like the idea and the romanticism of pulling up on my bike with my Fjallraven backpack and taking some early morning photos, the current winter temperatures notwithstanding.

What supplies do I need for my photography explorations? Besides the obvious, like a camera. I think a knife, gun, pepper spray, and flash light are a given. I may seem a bit paranoid, but if I'm carrying upwards of $20,000 in camera equipment (and another $40,000 or more, depending on the watch I'm wearing) I should be mildly worried. I have the pepper spray, but I still can't find a way to carry a gun comfortably. Very much the contrary, they always seem a bit bulky and cumbersome to me. They seem to add so much weight to my waistline it never feels quite right. Maybe it's just the belt. I may need a belt that's more supportive. I think inside the belt, outside the waistband is the only way I can carry, though. Everything else feels too weird, and my pants are too tight for inside the waistband carry anyways. If I have time over the weekend, I'll try a few alternatives, but to be honest I've tried a lot as-is and I don't think I'll ever be full satisfied. Maybe the small 22 derringer is really my only option. While it's not much, it's the only one that's small enough not to profoundly annoy me.

Figure 1 An AI generated anime girl holding/reading a map. There's something on her lip that, if I cared enough, I could Photoshop out.

I think one thing I have to accept is that I really like taking photos around the house. I could easily slam-jam many "Morganna's Showcase" posts for all the crazy things I've bought, all of which have bizarre stories attached to them. In that case, I could get practice in composing images to take photos of (see some examples below of the Leica M11). I don't know how exciting this would be for the reader, but I know no one will ever read these words, so as long as I'm enjoying it that's all that matters. In fact, simply taking photos of several anime figures I have then talking about the characters and why I like them is both photography practice and, itself, a post. However, I need to recognize that doing that won't satiate this vague urge I have to explore nearby towns. I'm not sure why I'm so apprehensive about going... I could have gone when I had the FujiFilm, but my mental block of it "just not feeling right" turned into me never doing it, which is strange because I have such significant passion and drive in other areas of my life. And, I have to accept, it would be so easy to go. It's not hard. I could have done it all last summer, but I supposed I wasn't too interested in photography back then, so too am I not too interested in astronomy now?

Oh and the postcards, the postcards! I bought stamps. I need to drop by some small towns and post them just for fun. Will the post office even be able to read by hard-to-read Spencerian script? Even if I address the letter to myself? Perhaps I should just print them, or get an address sticker or label maker. Address stickers should be too expensive. And they could have cool designs. I should look into that sometime. It may just be easier to slap on some cheap address labels to make it easier on the post office. It could also make them myself in Illustrator. I have a lot of cool anime inside jokes that would be fun to put on an address label.

Other Remarks

The Higgins Eternal Ink is STILL not here. They shipped it to New Jersey by mistake (maybe it got put on the wrong truck), and not it'll probably arrive late this week If all things go according to plan. I'm worried not about the shipping time, but because I've heard the bottles can leak badly in shipping, and the longer it's in the system the more likely it is to get damaged. The vendor on eBay doesn't accept returns (although really, who is going to return 6 bottles of ink), so if they come in damage i may just have to take the $30 loss myself. Maybe I could contact the seller and they could send me 6 more? On that note, Amazon goofed, but in my favor. That broken water bowl I ordered? They shipped me a new one, and also refunded me by mistake, so I effectively got the bowl for free. Perhaps this is good, it's a bit wide for my taste and I don't know how often I'll use it. Right now, the cheap plastic cup I have actually makes a pretty good source of water. I can also use the small glass jars I bought, too, if I felt so inclined.

Figure 1 120 Strength / 120 Attack / 120 Defense

I got 120 Strength, Attack, and Defense today in RuneScape. I would have gotten them all yesterday were it not for the fact my home computer crashed while I was running Parsec. I've never had that happen before... ever. Very strange. This mean that I could not continue playing via VPN/Remote Desktop from work, and I had to wait until tomorrow (today) to finish the grind. What took me by surprise, however, was that I fell over 50 places in the high scores just by taking this one day break. Quite impressive indeed. While I don't normally care about high scores, I must admit it was a surprise to fall that much.

I got 120 Attack, Defense, and Strength in RuneScape 3 today. I was supposed to get it yesterday, but computer at home frozen for some reason, and I couldn't farm like I wanted to. I've never had a freeze like that (instead, I assumed the power went out, or the internet went down, or someone broke into my house and stole my stuff). Of course, that didn't happen. But the thought of it concerns me enough to to consider getting a home security system. But once I saw how much I have to pay per month (like $100/month) I was like "No way". Ideally, I'd like to be able to rig up a system myself with some sort of closed circuit cameras or alarms that use my own WiFi to inform me of the contents of my house. That way I won't ever have to pay monthly fees to someone else to do it.

I read about half of the manual yesterday (not sure how much I'll remember) and started taking some sample photos with the brand new back-from-Germany customized Leica M11. I'm extremely glad with the custom Blackberry leather wrap, even if it took $500 (when you include shipping) to get it there and back again. And notwithstanding the stress of the final delivery. I still, even now, have a strong to figure out how to assemble funds for the 50mm Noctilux. I mean, I easily have more than enough funny money in my Schwab account for it, but I figure I have to at the very least take a few more images with the 35mm before I consider an alternative. The 50mm Noctilux, Macro lens, and the Visoflex seem like logical next purchases (if you completely ignore the cost of all those items). I ordered a carrying case for the M11 already. It should arrive on Monday.

Figure 1 My customized Leica M11 with the Blackberry leather wrap.

Let's be real. This is one nice looking camera. I'm so glade the Blackberry leather wrap appears in a purple/dark red/wine color instead of brown. I wanted a strong fashion statement and this is it. The camera is sitting on top of some of my calligraphy practice. FujiFilm X100F — ISO 200 f/5.6 7.5s.

Anyways, I wanted a strong fashion statement I believed I achieved that goal. Now, can I achieve the much more challenging goal of actually going on adventures with this camera? Or will I use the current poor weather and my work schedule as an excuse not to do it. I think one challenge I face is how rigid I like my schedule. When I get time off, I often feel like I have to do my Spencerian practice in the morning, and that I have to do further calligraphy practice in the evening. But given that this rigidity is entirely self-imposed I should be strong enough to break it. I think the one challenge I have, the largest one, is that anywhere I'd want to go I'd want to go there early in the morning, when it's fairly dark and there's fewer people on the road. I guess it's time to get practice with low light photography!

Figure 2 My Leica M11 and the Blackberry leather shoulder strap.

My Leica M11 in front of the leather strap (I still haven't put the strap on, I make look for a wrist strap instead). In between writing this sentence and the last, I did order a cheap wrist strap from Amazon. I think I can put the shoulder strap and the wrist strap on at the same time. FujiFilm X100F — ISO 200 f/5.6 7.5s.

I've started by taking several sample photos around the house. I'm still struggling with glasses + the rangefinder because, while I can focus well, I can't easily see the red numbers in the bottom of the viewfinder with glasses on. Perhaps the number isn't hugely important. But what I can tell is this lens is fast. I can comfortably take photos inside without insane ISO, keeping the shutter speed low. It actually took me by surprising. It far exceeds the speed FujiFilm X100F, even though I didn't expect it. I can't imagine how faster lenses must perform inside. But given that I take a lot of photos inside without flash, I should look into it.

Figure 3 My shrine to Lilith (I'm not Satanic it's from a video game).

My shrine to Lilith with the Cambridge bible in front with candles lit. This was taken in low light with my Leica M11. It may seem unremarkable at first, but click the image and examine the full-size image. The text on the book is razer sharp! The details in the Lilith sculpture are amazing! And this is all in low light. Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 200 f/4.0 1.7s.

Figure 3 shows one of the sample pictures from the Leica M11. It's my Shine of Lilith with the candles lit, and the big Cambridge bible in front of it. This was a low light picture, but it looks fantastic. The details on the Lilith figure are so sharp, and the text is perfectly legible. I also added the boot dagger to the bottom right of the frame. I like daggers. I'd carry one around all day if it was illegal at my job and wasn't a hassle and it wouldn't make me look like a fool. I guess I just like them as fashion accessories, too.

Other Remarks

While typing this and working throughout the day, I watched an excellent documentary by hbomberguy over plagiarism on YouTube: Plagiarism and You(Tube). Really interesting. There was one memorable line early in the video concerning creativity. I'm loosely paraphrasing hbomberguy's thoughts from memory here (I'm actually watching the video right now and don't want to lose my place by going back to an earlier time), but he argues that when it comes to creativity, it seems natural to people who are creative because they do it so often. But to regular people, the fact that they plagiarize is proof that it's not easy. I found that mildly interesting because when I think of the people I work with, the people who can't make new educational material to save their lives, it feels strange to me because I do it all the time. Perhaps not without effort on my part, but I believe for some of them even if I gave them infinite time they would not be able to be as creative and clever insofar as creating educational material is concerned.

The jury is still out the best calligraphy nib. I'm waffling greatly between the Zebra ones and the Speedball ones. The Speedball 101 was performing well yesterday, but for some reason I feel like it always gets good results. I'll try the Zebra one again this evening as I go back and forth between them. I think my opinion may also change when the Higgins Eternal ink arrives tomorrow. I really hope it's good. I payed $30 for it, and I'm getting six (6) bottles. So if it works, I'll use it for the next several years (ink lasts a long time). Or it may arrive on Tuesday, after I checked the tracking information. It looks like the JetPens order for a pack of Speedball 101 Imperial nibs will arrive tomorrow. I realized I over payed JetPens, though. I found a pack of 12 of this for $1/nib instead of $2/nib.

A strange week in anime. We're late in the season now, and a lot of plot points have played out. The drama has escalated in a lot of shows, which felt a bit tiresome in cases where it's clear the author/writers aren't sure how to create compelling conflicts.

Figure 1 The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Episode 9

The main cast all lined up before returning to their old (destroyed) island city. Selia looks so gorgeous in the middle! Regina is fine too.

We start on Monday's with The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy and I'm glade we do. This weeks episode had Selia returning to her old home city which mysteriously appeared from a void zone. We got to see all the girls (see Figure 1) at once in the show, which was a rare and exciting site indeed!

Figure 2 Tearmoon Empire ep.9, A Returner's Magic Should Be Special ep.9, Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure ep.42, and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End ep.13. Shalala looked really good in her show, and I liked Fern's outfit in Frieren.

Tearmoon Empire really felt like a drag this week. Last episode felt much more compelling. This episode seemed like it was setting up for something, but we didn't get to the payoff, and the episode was effectively Mia riding in a carriage then walking on foot to a village. And that's about it. Returner's Magic had a strong finale where Desir, Romantica, and Pram all got promoted to Alpha class. I feel like it would have been better if, after the entire fight, the school did away with the Alpha/Beta class distinction (it feels like a greater lesson would have been learned), but instead we're ignoring any systemic change. There's so such thing as good or bad structural issues, just good or bad people. Anyways, I feel like while some people may get bored with Desir just constantly inversing spells, I never did. It still feels fresh every time I see it. Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure had an incredibly bizarre episode. The first have with Shalala was great—it's always nice to see her again. But the second half wear Sora lost the will to fight and tried talking it out with Skearhead seemed silly. Perhaps I'm just getting filtered by a children's show. Freiren: Beyond Journey's End had a slow episode where they picked up another drunkard priest for their party. Can't say I'm too interested in that, either. I liked the three party dynamic too much, and I'm not keen on seeing that change.

Figure 3 S-Rank Musume ep.10, Disgraced Noble Lady ep.9, Stardust Telepath ep.8, and Protocol: Rain ep. 9. Ikenaiyo had a stronger episode than expected (I watched it during school). Raimon, despite being a cute tomboy, is far too aggressive for Telepath.

S-Rank Musume is ahead of the manga (not that I've read the manga), and had a slight redemption arc for the Illya clone. Ikenaiyo had an unusually strong showing now that Charlotte's younger sister has been introduced as a bully, and we learned more about Allen's extended family. Also the side characters are started to grow on me. Stardust Telepath is simply taking itself too seriously. Matataki Raimon's extreme abusiveness (i.e., constantly yelling at everyone) just isn't fun. I put up with it for one episode, two episodes, three, but she's still going at it. Any reasonable person would have kicked her off the team already. It doesn't matter if we lose, we can't be putting up with that abuse like this. Be real. Protocol: Rain went off the god damn deep end. It's been progressively sliding, but this week's episode where the imouto refused money for treatment, then we learned she could be faking it, then she fell down the stairs in the rain and Shun ran away and returned... this was supposed to be an anime about games.

I don't even want to talk about I'm in Love with the Villainess. The bizarre falling action following Lene's foiled assassination plot was not interesting. The only redeeming thing this week was how good Rae Taylor looked in her suit when she and Claire met the king. But the plot was so week you'd be better off just looking at both girls and ignoring what all the characters say. I've heard from LN readers that this story goes a bit off the rails, and I feel like we may be at that point. The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess did not air this week, so we did not get to see more of Komari's very boring show and her yuri adventures with Villhaze and Sakuna. 16bit Sensation is just objectively bad. I want a show about making bishoujo games. Not some time travel show. I'll stick with it for the remainder of the season because Wednesday and Thursday are so weak, but it's a struggle.

Other Remarks

After some experimenting, I believe I found a pretty decent combination of nibs and ink and paper for calligraphy practice. The Bloom nib holder is great. Even if I don't like the color of it, the performance is good. So good I plan to buy another one, perhaps I'll wait around and see if any new colors come out that are to my liking. The ESS Registrar's ink is the preferred ink. It's so dry that it doesn't feather at all, even when I put tons of ink down on a down stroke. I know the Copperplate book recommends against it, and perhaps I will learn, in time, that it's not good. But for now, it's the best I have. The Higgins Eternal ink finally shipped and I should get it some time next week. If it performs just as well as the Registrar's ink (i.e., no feathering) I'll be pleased. But, for some reason, I have my doubts, even though I know a professional recommends it.

Figure 4 Sample calligraphy practice with the Zebra nib.

I feel like the Speedball 101 Imperial does better overall, but the Zebra certainly performs well too. It's also less prone to rusting, and cleans off easier than the 101. Samsung Galaxy S22.

I actually really look forward to my Spencerian calligraphy practice every day. It's a bit of a surprise, to be honest. I do the Spencerian while AFKing in RuneScape (still working on that 120 Completionist cape). There's several tasks I can AFK while I do it, but fundamentally all that matters is that I play RuneScape while I practice because, for some reason, I feel like I'm being more productive when I'm always making progress in that game. If you include the practical Spencerian practice (with the 0.35mm pencil), and the calligraphy practice (with the flex nib), I'm probably practicing 1-2 hours every day, and have been for months. It's a level of full-blown determination that even impresses me. I wanted to get better at a calligraphy for years, and I'm finally doing it. And I have meaningful progress to show for it.

Figure 5 Melia Antiqua from Xenoblade Chronicles

One of the first few photos I took with my Leica M11. I still need to get the hang of manually focusing everything with the rangefinder. My glasses sort of stop me from easily seeing the entire rangefinder frame. But dang, click on that image and see the resolution. This thing's 60MP sensor leads to absolutely huge images. Leica M11 / Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH — ISO 3200 f/6.8 1/125s.

I read through a significant portion of my M11 Manual today, and practice taking some test images. One such image is shown above. (I've been meaning to make an entire post about Melia Antiqua, so you may see this image again.) A bit of a funny story, when I was working in Lightroom with the M11 images (witch are 60MP raws) I found my ram completely full. Then I realized one of my ram sticks was unseated, and I've only had 16gb of ram for god knows how many months. Oh well, at least it's fixed now. Anyways, I had fun messing with the camera settings. I'll have to do more photos with it either today or tomorrow to get used to the controls. I really find focusing a bit of a challenge. I think I need to focus on different points then turn to my real subject which is at or around the same distance I'm focusing it.