To nobody's surprise, I once again had the best grades in my apprentice cohort. (More entertaining: first/second/third for my year was the exact same people in the exact same order, and the other two were fighting over second place because they figured I'd get first again.) Apparently this means I'll get to go to the regional competition again next year, since the way that's structured is "the people who do best each year get to go and we figure out what category each of you is in along the way (and also the one TAB guy goes)". We'll see! (This means two of us will need to do something we don't do for work. Curious to see if the guy who did architectural last year will do it again this year. Very curious who gets asked to do welding.) It'll be in Boston next year, so that's an easy drive, something to look forward to.

The last day of school, where they announce this, is also a potluck provided by the instructional staff. There was. Functionally nothing I could eat, between "cannot eat cheese/dairy" and "does not eat pork/beef". I know why I expect better in general even if my reaction is weary disappointment and "yeah, of course". (I have explained these food restrictions multiple times and nobody thinks about them anyway.) (they are not hard to avoid)

Work is work. It continues. It's very funny any day that everyone's just sort of like... "we are doing obnoxious things that are not hard but are time-consuming and make us wonder what the people who told us to do this were thinking, and also it is hot, how much time can we spend talking instead".

Obligate Diurnalism continues to rear its head as we approach the solstice. Probably I am not getting as much sleep as I should most nights! Oh well. I am getting enough sleep, overall, and my body will force me to bed earlier if I actually need it.

in non-irl things:

Murderbot show continues to be good! Very fun to watch! Has some divergences from the book, in large part because of being a different medium I suspect, but that's not making it any less fun to watch. Everyone's facial expressions are fantastic. The in-universe media is a joy. They made a theme song for Sanctuary Moon and it's so cheesy and good.

I have been spending a truly impressive amount of time talking to hafnia about a specific AU for our D&D blorbos (which started out as iddy kink nonsense but then GREW PLOT), which is so canon-divergent we're just like "this is basically original work with D&D filling in the worldbuilding that's not important". It is such a joy to wake up in the morning to see more of it turned into prose and be like "oooh YES :eyes:" and have feelings about things that I already knew were going to happen because we've talked out like the vast majority of what's going to happen. xD But it's DIFFERENT when it's in narrative prose instead of flowing between rp and brainstorming, y'know?

However also I need to write more things that are not about the D&D campaign that is my primary fandom brain thing right now, due to having exchanges etc that uh I did agree to do and do care a lot about but also I did most of those sign ups before (*checks*) the beginning of the month (50k later and we are at "gotta clear up the curse before we can get to the really iddy kink nonsense, but that shouldn't take too much longer!"). So. Can't plan for "I have been CONSUMED"?

...it's fine I can write enough words in the time available, I just need to drag myself away from going "HEY SO WHAT IF" or "OH NO: A THOUGHT" all the time. xD

(I am having SUCH a good time with this though <3)