I am talking about June 1st. Man, what a downer that day was. For the most part anyways. But shall I start from the beginning?
I’ve been talking about it before, but said Wednesday was supposed to be my trial workday. So there I was, an hour early, scouting out the meeting point and surrounding area. Whenever there was a greater group of people, I pondered them beig on the same boat as myself. Mais non – all just normal shoppers or students. Meet was supposed to be 8:45 am, so after not getting any visual clues that time, around 8:50 I called the gent I’d been in contact with about this. The result: the day was moved to the day after, but nobody could get a hold of me. I say in my defense that I was at class when they called, and upon my call return their office was already empty. On the plus side, said gentleman voiced his sympathies and that I made a proper impression on him. Needless to say, with the trial NOT happening, I was supposed to get my ass to class. But, of course, little motivation left there, though that’s not the only reason I decided to skip.
Which brings us to the next point. Ever since I’ve been in my own place, I’ve been lurking for a chance to go to IKEA which I fawking love and get some furni for my empty place. Just the day before my stepdad told me that my mother was planning to go, and that I could join them, so we made plans that I’d take the train to my previous homecity, where they’d pick me up and then we’d go. All was scheduled, and if I had attended class, I’d have to have stayed longer than planned, so that added to my desire of skipping.
Now then. It was either to go home and then take the train as planned, or to go earlier. So I thought, if I arrive early, there won’t be any rush and all that, and went to buy a ticket. In a momentary lapse of reason however, I thought I’d purchase a day ticket, which entitled me to a return ride regardless of what time. as long as it was on the same day. Doing that saved me 1 Euro compared to getting both trips separately. However, in the train, I realized that I wouldn’t need a trip back, since my parents would take me and my new IKEA furni home. Well damn. This way, rather than saving money, I wasted 11,10 Euro.
But okay, stuff happens. It is annoying, but I can live with it. Once arrived in town, I proceeded to check the bus schedule. I thought I’d surprise my peeps and come by bus, saving them the extra trip at that. But damn. I’d have to wait 2 hours for the next bus, and unlike my city, it was heating up good, leaving me red-faced and sweatier by the minute. “Okay”, I thought, “let’s give them a shout to pick me up early.” And so I called, but my stepdad told me he wouldn’t be done working before 2pm, so that I’d had to come by bus.
Knowing I’d have to waste some time added to hunger and the urge to go to a bathroom. Now I’d consider myself rude if I were to go to a store’s toilet without being a customer, so for the heck of it, I purchased a box of fingerfood. Of which I ate only 6 pieces of one kind, since I didn’t like the other two kinds, wasting 14 pieces of food, or 6,99 Euros. But at least I got to go pee…
Ahum. So then I looked around the place, but damn this town really had died over the 4 years I hadn’t been there. The one thing closest to what is general called a mall was completely emptied out. Many other empty stores too. I was getting hot and impatient and sick over the money I wasted so far, and decided to scout for a taxi (don’t ask me why it seemed logic at the time). Alas, I had to walk back to the train station before finding one…
And so there it was. I love that (most) German taxis are Mercedes-Benz, but that’s of little importance right now. I told the driver where I had to go. “It’s nothing personal”, he said, and what a good way to start a conversation with a new customer “but for rides out of town you got to pay upfront, and we’ll balance it out later.” I gave him a 50 thinking that I’d get half of it back. Yeah right…
Before we even had left town completely, it was already at 10 Euros and counting. I looked at the map’s kilometer estimate, trying to figure how much money I’d end up owing him… plus I was wondering what an appropriate tip would be. And the counter went up and up… we were getting close to my parents’ house eventually, but I didn’t want them to see me rolling in a taxi, so I wanted to get out earlier. Problem was, I had no memory of what the other streets in the village were called… We drove into one road that almost led us back out. Finally we reached an area of familiarity, and I asked him to let me out. The counter had been at 42-something. I grabbed my bag, and he turned it off, saying “This’ll be 48 Euros” and giving me 2 back. I’m assuming he added the tip himself… either way, I felt I had definitely wasted too much money on this fine day.
But hey, at least I was in front of my parents’ house. I rang the bell, but nobody answered… then I thought, perhaps they’re in the backyard, though I couldn’t see that from the front door. I walked around the side because I remembered there was a gate that they’d use when they walked the dog. I tried opening it, but it was barred. However, said dog, Hanka, was coming towards the door, sniffing. With her in the backyard, I knew someone had to be there. And since the gate wasn’t particularly tight, I grabbed a pen and unhooked it from below by sliding it along the side. Hanka was quite happy to see me, while I found my mother in the back with a somewhat perplexed look, upon which I explain that I had to break and enter since nobody answered the front door.
My mother then agreed that it would make sense to leave earlier, and went to talk to my stepdad, who apaprently had failed to mention that I was coming early. Failure to communicate, yup yup. Among other things, he has a bit of an issue of planning with people, or notifying them of his plans/changes respectively. But after some discussion, we were on our way. What I hadn’t known previously was that my brother had continued to work for him, and thus was present on said day as well. From what I knew, he was just supposed to have an internship so that he’d continue to receive his social benefits, yadda yadda. But once I saw him, I realized why my stepdad dind’t want to come and pick me up early, since doing that also meant shortening the time my brother had to work, as his drop-off was at my pick-up zone…
Which, in return, painfully reminded me how I could have saved time and money and braincells by just waiting, seeing as he had to enter town anyways. And I had wasted almost 70 Euros already…
Going to IKEA was going to be the fun part of the day. While I didn’t know exactly what I was going to get, I still had a few ideas and my budget. But before all that, we had some lunch there. Food at IKEA tastes good and is rather affordable. 
In the end I got myself a mix’n'match desk (VIKA), 3 shelves for my books (BILLY), one shelf on wheels for my future TV (BENNO), and a chair to relax in (PELLO), along with some kitchen utensils/pots/bowls, which together added up below 350 Euros. I was pretty happy and we somehow got it all stuffed into the car.
The next “hurdle” was getting this all up into my lil’ apartement, haha. There’s the ground level, first floor, and then mine. And with the house being an older build, no elevators and narrow stairways. Plus I’m a wimp when it comes to carrying heavy things upstairs. Can’t thank my stepdad enough for carrying the heavier stuff, and alone too…
Well, we dropped it all off, and he said his goodbyes as they left for home. Shit. I thought he was going to help me build it all. He even gave me a hammer… I mean, it’s not impossible to build it by yourself. But for some things it helps to have someone stronger or just a second person in general. Oh well, it’s not like the furniture was overly complicated, so after a few minutes break, I decided to build my TV-shelf. Only, it happened to be one of those that come without instructions, so I had to download the PDF from their homepage first. Not a deal breaker for me, but I had a lot of little things pile up. Plus, with the PDF being exactly as the instructions are set up for print, it basically had the last page on the left and the first on the right for the first page. Basically I had to pay attention to only the right side while going down page per page, and when I reached the middle, I had to go back up, only looking at the left this time.
But okay. I did that. It was pretty easy to follow, once I knew where to start. Then the next problem: there were separating boards in the middle that weren’t part of the manual. Me not being stupid helped me in figuring out how to put them on there, but me also being the “I want to follow a manual for life” type, it made me unsure, hoping I’d not do anything wrong and ruin my purchase as a consequence. Once I got past all that, it went pretty smooth, until… the wheels. This time, the problem wasn’t the instructions.
Due to my apparent lack of screwdrivers, I’d been using the tip of a knife and my scissors to get all the screws in. Not hard, but a screwdriver would definitely have eased things up. For the wheels however… they were already mounted on the sockets that I was supposed to screw into the bottom board, hindering my knife and scissors. Furthermore, there were no pre-drilled holes, merely small dents indicating the positions for all 4 screws. Without an electric helper, it’d be impossible for me to get those wheels under in a secure fashion. And that upside-down TV shelf still lingers in my kitchen where I started to build it…
Somewhat demotivated (again), I proceeded to build the chair instead. When it came to the part where the cover had to be pulled over the frame, things stopped making sense. I’d been there for what felt like forever, wondering how it could look so different from the instructions, until finally, I got up and left. Upon my quick return, I realized that, with the padded stuff an actual plastic cover had been packed which must have fallen out unnoticed as I was getting out the seat cushion thingy I had so desperately tried to attach. Oops.
Finally the pictures made sense, and I started to pull the cover over the frame. But damn, was that ever hard! It was a really tight fit (intentionally, to give the seat shape etc), and I really couldn’t wrap it around the last bar, I just didn’t have the muscle for it. So I closed it just before that, and hoped that screwing on the arm/leg components would help it sit well. The rest was easy, but that chair-condom thingy was some ordeal…
I tried the chair out for a bit, vowing to myself to never just fall into it (for the condom might rip and then I’d need to buy a new one and do all this again), before moving on to my next project. The legs for the table I’d put together looked easy enough, so I figured I’d start on them, so that I would get the desk together soon. But as I proceeded, I started to really feel the constant screwing with those little thingies in the tip of my fingers. I managed to finish the first leg, but decided against doing the rest on the same day, because it felt like I’d grind my fingertips down to the bone like that. And besides, Thursday would be a holiday, so I could easily do the rest then…
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So much for June 1st. Well, almost. Because in GPX+ related news: I made a horrible discovery. You see, whenever I release a batch of Pokemon, I tend to check a while later to see how many of them found new owners. And since the 31st had been another multiplier day due to the shiny hunt ending, I had 3 or so boxes to empty with failed shinies and stuff.
And that evening, to my horror, I discovered that I had released a SHINY TOGEPI that I didn’t even know I hatched. Words cannot describe the amount of “unfair”, “defeat” and “despair” that ran through me that moment. The day had amounted to so much already, and now this, like an extra hit to the head. I wish I’d never seen that it was a shiny. It was released just before I left for my trial day too, since I drop my boxes early in the morning, and… aww man. 29 Eggs, shiny Togepi… and I fucking moron release it. GAWDFUCKINGDAMMIT.
You may notice, it upsets me even now, and I’ll probably never get over it unless I end up with a shiny from the safari zone myself. But at that moment, so many things went through my head. Like how I hoard neither legends nor novelties and release my spares regularly (since they didn’t turn out shiny, as I hoped). How I failed 16 summons by now, but only ever “stole” a single one.
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Well. I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually. In other news, yesterday I screwed together the second of the VIKA legs, and somehow managed to add the heavy-ass glass plate on top. I also finished the slim BILLY shelf I got, but I’m leaving the two wider ones for later. For now, my fingers really do need a break. Phew.
One more GPX+ thing or two:
I hatched a Shiny Shuppet prior to hatching a Shiny Togepi. So that’s 2 Shinies in one day! Haven’t had that before, which might be why my guard was down when Togepi hatched that evening… I’d been hunting for Shiny Shuppet (and Drifloon) due to my current Christmas Ghost breeding pair, so I’m happy it was a Shuppet that I bred. The first shiny from that pair in some 1300+ eggs too…
And speaking of Shinies, yesterday I evolved my Shiny Porygon 2 into Porygon T with dat spiffy new item called Potatobattery. Portal 2 references in my GPX+? It’s more likely than you think… First I thought Porygon Z would evolve into it, but apparently you have a choice instead. And since I didn’t wanna bother raising another Porygon 2 anytime soon to get that Novel-Dex entry, my shiny Hunt Porygon was the proper candidate. 
I’ve been asked if I’ll put more/new explorations up here. Of course! Tell you what, this Saturday and/or Sunday I’ll upload all the Task lists I have, and if I have the time, I’ll also add the story and see that I find the image links. EDIT: Done! There you go. I put up all the data and info I have. However, I still need to find a way to transfer the images from the two last explorations from Word to here. Copy-pasta just leaves me with empty placeholder boxes. XD Which I’ll leave there for now.
I won’t start a new Special Exploration until the weekend after though, since I’m still in my ‘class’ until the 10th inclusive, so I don’t have much time for it.
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Also I have a really terrible headache today… I wonder if it’s the weather.
