The Final Days of 2021

Diary art for this post

It’s December and we’re counting down to the end of 2021, so of course, it’s a Christmas tree— your standard pine tree being decorated with the usual decors, a star on the top, but right outside where the snow falls. There’s no snow here in the California Coast,¹ but the majority of the U.S. do have snow, so I added some snow on the background with a little bit of powdered snow here and there around the tree as well.

Once again, I’ve used Procreate to make this artwork, with brushes being provided by one of my art mentors from Class 101. The awesome thing about Class 101 courses that involve Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop and Illustrator is that many of the instructors do provide their own custom brushes. I am (still) currently taking this course that inspired me to practice and get myself used to making art of any medium and of any kind. If you are interested in enrolling, they will (eventually) have a sale going on and they also accept installment payments, knowing a lot of these courses are pretty expensive. Or if you want, be patient until I finish this course and I will write a course review of it here, along with an upcoming discount coupon coming from me, but it will be a long wait.

What’s going on lately?

As mentioned earlier, I got a new full-time job!

It’s not exactly a super high-paying job, I’m still far from my goals, but full-time employee also means more (and stable) cash flow and full benefits from the company too. They also have an education program where they will pay/reimburse tuition costs for any institution² as part of their training. After completion, doors to opportunities, even within the company too, will definitely open.

The thing about this particular job is the schedule. My new job is a 10-hour shift instead of the traditional 8-hour shift, but I only work for four days, three-day weekends, pretty much. If you total the hours together, it’s still 40 hours a week. We also have the option of working overtime³ on our "third" free day, but for health reasons, it’s not always recommended and we’re only allowed 4 hours instead of the full ten. I’m off on both Saturday and Sunday, and Wednesday is my free third day. If I were to work overtime, I would have to work on Wednesday.

The job isn’t super-difficult, but we’re also standing stationery too and don’t move as much, so it may be difficult for anyone to stand for long hours while doing their work on their workstations. And because this is a 10-hour shift, we get two breaks (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and a thirty-minute lunch. Because it’s only thirty minutes, there was no way we’d drive out of the complex just to buy a hearty lunch from a fast food restaurant or somewhere else, so we’d have to bring our own lunch or buy some at their vending machines at the break room.⁴ Luckily, I have been getting into a diabetic meal prep thing just by reading some recipes online, so I’ve got my lunch meals planned out the day before.

Christmas plans?

As family tradition goes, we have our reunion. All our out-of-town family members will be arriving here next week. And then there’s the gift exchange. I haven’t actually decided what to give my siblings yet, so I have this weekend and whatever free time I got next week to shop. Buying gifts is really frustrating, especially with adults, but it’s a lot easier to buy gifts for kids⁵ and I already took care of that.

That’s about it, really😅

Closing…

It’s a short blog entry, like always. I never really meant it to be super-long entries, since I relate everything to my diary art of the moment. The saying of A picture is worth a thousand words really applies here, and because of that, I’ll let my artwork tell the story instead.

Till next time!