Pepperjack's Website
BioI am a third year film student. I like animal crossing, writing, reading, card games, the night sky, marine animals, and more.
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ContactI'm friendly, I promise.
pepperjack04@proton.me
End of the Year---
Last time I said that 7:30 would be my official "stop writing a blog post" time. Oops. It's 7:43. But I also haven't posted in two weeks, so maybe that was a flawed system to begin with. Last time, I also mentioned that I would be having a job interview. I am overjoyed to announce that I did get offered the job! I will be starting the Monday after graduation. I am excited, but more than anything I'm feeling relieved. I thought that the job finding process right out of college would be more difficult. And for many people it is. I'm lucky.
In other news, I need to get my life together. You might be confused because I just described how put-together my life already is, but there are three things that need to happen ASAP. Embarrassingly, my room has gotten extremely messy. I have been putting off many chores, and I'm saying right now, that ends this week. Finals are approaching and in my major, finals week is more like finals month because they are projects instead of tests. I have started on zero. Lastly, during all of this, I am falling back into old habits. I'm just watching videos all day. I can't stop doing it. And part of me doesn't want to, and the other part does, especially with all of the things I just listed that I should be doing instead.
What else... I think that's kind of it for now. Really nothing exciting has been going on, unfortunately. But I'll let you know when it does.
April Showers---
Rabbit, rabbit, everyone! I have been drinking a combo of elderberry and peppermint tea. Anything with Pepper as a prefix gets approval from me. Supposedly those two types of tea can respectivively help with immune health and digestion. Both are things I need help with right now. I'm not sure how true those facts are. I suppose that this is what we did before medicine was a thing. I'm just hoping I don't get sick. I had the flu about a month ago, and I hate being sick. I have sensory issues and being sick activates all of them. There is something going around, so this tea is a preventative measure against all that. As for why I need digestive help... I'm sure you can piece that one together.
In other news, I have a job interview this Friday morning. I will be going shopping later for some good interview clothes. Without getting too explicit, the job is for a technical position at a local news station. I am very excited and also pretty nervous. I want this job a lot. It is high on the list of potential dream jobs. I have been applying to a lot of jobs recently, as are most grads I know. It is a little stressful waiting for emails to come in. I'm sure many of you can relate.
One last thing for today, I have been scrapbooking or "junk journaling." It is really fun. My mother gave me this book full of perforated decorateive paper, which I have been using, plus some stickers and other paper a friend gave me. On the 0.1% chance that either of them are reading this, Thanks! I have had fun picking out patterns that I like together and trying to create a layered look.
We are at 7:30am, which I have deemed my official "stop writing a blog post" time. I sometimes get into this bad habit of waking up early so I can have more time in the mornings, but then I forget when my normal wake-up time is which makes me late anyway.
As always, thanks for reading!
Remember to look at the night sky! The Full Pink Moon is up tonight (not actually pink).
Short Check-in (but I forgot I already wrote one so here is another version)---
Very quick blog for today. I created my first zine! There was an assignment in one of my classes about doing that. I can't show it here, unfortunately, because it would kind of doxx me. But this is a stepping stone for sure. I am already in the process of creating two more. I have a prototype done and I just need to copy it onto a larger paper with misspellings fixed, then make copies, then I'm done! I am really excited to put something I made with my hands out into the world. Hopefully this site will see more traffic as a result, haha.
This week has been pretty crazy. I am giving a presentation in class today that I am very nervous about. But one philosophy I have held for a while is, it will hurt and then it will be over. Even if the presentation goes catastrophically badly, the class is only 90 minutes, and then I can move on. Nothing will happen that I won't be able to recover from, and that thought is very comforting to be.
Later...
I am at work right now. I debated whether editing my website at work was taboo. I decided to do it because I am confident nobody will care.
I am donating blood today. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into the process it. But this will be my second time donating whole blood. yay. That is basically my only event today. I have work, of course, but I'm already here so it's marked off my list.
Otherwise, I think I am just going to do some school work. (Adobe is my personal enemy.) Maybe head to the grocery store. I think it's interesting, that even though I've been mostly using templates and doing very little, basic research on html coding, I have [seemingly] improved. On my professional website, hosted on Wordpress, I opened up the html section instead of the visual editor because I thought that would be easier. (!!) I thought it would be easier to write code than to click and drag. I would have never thought before working on this project of a website. If that isn't self-improvement, I don't know what is. Even if it is the smallest bit of change.
And since it is Thursday once again, happy two week anniversary to this website! Regarding the goal I made for myself last week... Wow, it is really interesting to see what I thought a "lot" of youtube was. I calculated it out, and I confess, I did lose the challenge I set out for myself. But I'm still going to count it as a win. My challenge was to watch fewer than 15 videos, or less than ten hours. I watched 17 videos this week, which clocked at just over three hours. Most of the videos were about chess, where they play one speed game. (That's why the total is so high.) I'll be back next week with the same goal. See you later.
Short Check-in---
I am at work right now. I debated whether editing my website at work was taboo. I decided to do it because I am confident nobody will care.
I am donating blood today. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into the process it. But this will be my second time donating whole blood. yay. That is basically my only event today. I have work, of course, but I'm already here so it's marked off my list.
Otherwise, I think I am just going to do some school work. (Adobe is my personal enemy.) Maybe head to the grocery store. I think it's interesting, that even though I've been mostly using templates and doing very little, basic research on html coding, I have [seemingly] improved. On my professional website, hosted on Wordpress, I opened up the html section instead of the visual editor because I thought that would be easier. (!!) I thought it would be easier to write code than to click and drag. I would have never thought before working on this project of a website. If that isn't self-improvement, I don't know what is. Even if it is the smallest bit of change.
Google Search History---
If you round - and I do - I only have one more month of school left. March is basically over, and May barely counts. So I just have the entirety of April until I am out of school forever! Well, there is always a chance I go back to school. I actually like learning. But I definitely need a break. It is really hard to learn and actually absorb information when the pressure of my future is on top of me. But I have this plan B where if I ever go back to school, I want it to be for a master's in library administration. That way, I can become a librarian. And by then I would want to be super rich so I can just open my own library. But that's just a dream.
I don't really have too much to say today. But I guess I can add this in. I can't really tell anybody in my real life this information, but I went into my google history to try to figure out exactly when my gmail account was created. The way to do this was really annoying because there was no way to sort by oldest to newest. I had to search by before: [date].
In my search, I realized that these weren't only my search terms, yet there were a lot of those. Bearville, "cute cats," and whatever else you would expect an eight or nine year old to search. But I also realized that this was the history for the old family computer in general. Both of my parents had hotmail accounts, so when I got a fresh new gmail account, there was no reason for me to be logged out, so all of the searchs appeared as my own. I realized this because I saw a search for an athiest facebook group, which would have to have been my mom as I didn't know what that was at that age. Anyway. The reason I bring this whole thing up is because I saw a couple of distrubing things on there. Some things I probably wasn't supposed tosee. -- I should probably not post about this online. Especially in case anyone from my real life happens across this site. But in case anyone out there wants to know when their old google account was created, please just take a good guess and leave it at that. I should have done that; it would have been so easy. "Oh, my brother was born in [year], so it was probably a couple of years before that." That's all I needed to do.
But can we talk for a second about how creepy it is that google still holds on to data from that far back? I hate google. I hate how we are forced to use google products, which kind of leads to my next hatred- how students/children are forced to look at a screen basically 24/7. My aforementioned brother is in school, and he tells me that not only is all of their work online, what used to be a projector is now a TV screen, what used to be a paper test is now a computer screen... The list goes on. How can we maintain that screens are bad for us then force our youth to indulge? I can't say I'm any better, unfortunately. Obviously, I'm looking at a screen right now. I will be in my first class today, and will be again when I go to work. Everything and nothing is on a computer screen. I just wish that the battle to stay offline wasn't baked into public education.
Also I have a painting I'm hiding from you. Don't let me forget.
Progress Report---
If you read my first blog post, you might recall that part of the inspiration behind creating this website was to start doing something other than watch youtube videos all day. It is one week later, so it is time to ask the question: Am I succeeding in my goal?
This is difficult question to answer because I never specifically set a goal. I made the rookie mistake of simply stating that I wanted to spend "less" time on my phone and watch "fewer" youtube videos. Neither of those are quantifiable. But even with that subjectivity, I have to admit that the answer is No. And I think I figured out why. My desk space is not set up for being creative or taking on physical tasks. If I want to work on a craft, or write, or draw, or anything else, I need to go grab the supplies to do that. A lot of the time I spend on my computer is in moments where I am tired. I think if I clean up my desk and move my paints and papers to a more accessible location, then the prep for those activities will become the same amount of "work" as opening youtube. [This is also the reason my blog and review page have been much more active than my other pages - including one that has not seen any activity at all.]
You might be reading this and thinking- Yeah. Obviously you need to put your painting supplies at your desk and not in a box by your bed. You idiot. I think that would be a fair criticism, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't thinking those things to myself. But, due to the nature of time we can only move forward. So, moving forward, I hope that having easier access to these materials will help.
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And after a quick time jump, I have done just that. I cleaned off all the junk that had accumulated on my desk and put art-related junk there instead. After I finish this post, I will paint another watercolor picture. (Or I might take a nap first.) For my measurable goal, by this time next week I want to have completed two crafts and to have spent less than ten hours on youtube, or fewer than 15 videos - whichever comes first - which I will measure by looking at my history next Thursday. There will be two exceptions to this rule, the first being playing music, and the second will be watching crafting streams. I really wish I didn't have to be that person who watches something while doing something else, but I am. I worry that if I try to be too restrictive in the first week I am just setting myself up for failure. But I am limitting myself to long-form videos. Either longer compilation of someone's music (for example, this one by dodie) or a crafting livestream like this one from Evan & Katelyn. And these only don't count toward my total if I am actually doing something by myself while watching. I don't know if this is too ambitious. Or maybe not ambitious enough. I have never really tracked my watchtime in this way before, so even if I fail I will be content knowing that I at least learned. Wish me luck!
Early Morning Thoughts: A Reflection on Troublesome Times
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It is 5:30 a.m. right now. No, I do not usually wake up this early. I actually feared I would sleep in late, but instead the opposite happened. I had just the worst time getting to sleep last night. I was able to go to bed at my usual time, but I stayed awake from a spike in anxiety. And now I'm awake two hours earlier than I need to be because of a dry nose leading to a nose bleed. Eww.
These past couple of days I have been hard at work crocheting. You can see my progress in the Crafts tab (not below in 'latest' because I'm not done). I am currently working on a mug plushie. I used to think I was just a knitter, but now my horizons are expanding. Speaking of, I have been working on a knit project recently too. I need to post about that. It's a little runner blanket with yarn that looks like a pink calico cat.
Last week was my spring break. My final spring break. I was not ready to get back to school. I am very burnt out. Senioritis part two, I suppose. But I will get through this. My friend told me something that kind of changed how I think about difficult situations. She suggested that I think back to all of the moments I felt like I could no longer go forward. All of the times I felt stuck or like I was falling behind. Once I thought about all of those painful, sometimes dull moments in my life, she said, "Notice this about them: they are all in the past." Meaning, despite feeling like I was at an end, I wasn't. And now I am using that same logic to say, I have gotten through challenges big and small that I thought would never pass. But here I am, past all of that. I got through everything up to this point, and I shall get through this too. This way of thinking isn't bulletproof. I know that some issues can't be compared to others or that sometimes just believeing in yourself isn't the most helpful solution. But it will help me get through these last eight weeks until it is time to face a new problem.
Sometimes I'm worried that that's all there is to life. Solving problems, just to move on to more problems to solve, forever until we die. I suppose that is one way to look at it. And though it is technically valid, it is not pleasant. There are moments of peace between all of the problems. You just have to look in the right direction.
Yikes. Note to self, never write a blog post on this little sleep. Very sorry to be such a downer this morning. I hope everyone has a great Tuesday! Wish me luck on the final half of my final semester.
Uno versus Crazy EightsMarch 13, 2026
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Tomorrow, I am hosting a graduation party for myself! Woo! I am very excited. Basically, a group of my friends will come eat dinner and then we will play a collection of board and card games. It is rare for me to be able to actually put something like this together. Usually, when I try to make plans with a group of people, either half of them can't make it, or the whole event just doesn't happen. It can be very disheartening. But -- crossing my fingers, knock on wood -- tomorrow a plan is actually going to happen. This might sound silly to those of you who successfully plan things all the time. "What's this girl complaining about?" But this genuinely might be the first or second time I have pulled this off. I don't even care about what we end up playing at this point. I will just be happy when we are all here.
Speaking of, I do have some opinions on board games that I would like to share. This one is technically a card game, but I do not like playing Uno. I used to like it, but I think now it is just too chaotic for me. I also like and dislike the variable rules. I like that in concept a lot. I love playing be house rules on certain games. But in Uno, it never really gets established which rules we are playing by, so it just gets confusing if someone tries to, for example, "jump in" and we have to figure out if we allow that. But then there is always someone who's like, "well I didn't know we were jumping in. I would have been doing that the whole time," that the whole think just sort of feels unfair.
That being said, I really like classic Crazy Eights. Out of all the house rules you could apply to Uno, Crazy Eights has the ones I like by default. Its drawing rule is not quite "draw to match" but is more severe than "draw one." Placing multiple cards down makes sense and it could even hurt you depending on how you choose to lay them. Plus, the wild cards are static, so you don't have to worry about giving anything away by choosing a color[/suits]. This is a little diffierent than the regular set of rules, but it isn't game-breaking if I forget to mention it. Here is a link to my favorite website to play card games on if you want to try Crazy Eights for yourself.
The First PostMarch 12, 2026
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Today, I accidentally spent six hours straight working on this website, only for most of that work to be thrown away because I didn't like it. Oops. But I suppose that that's all part of the fun.
Lately, I have been really into the idea of doing more productive activities. Most, if not all of my free time is solely spent watching youtube videos and shorts on my phone. This recently has really upset me. I need to do more with my time and attention. That's why I decided to start working on the website - among other things. I am really trying to do more with my life. I want to lay down in bed at the end of the day and be able to list the things I've worked on and the projects I finished. Startting with today. I am really proud of this website. I know it is bare bones right now, but I am seeing it for what it could be. For what it will become.
In the same vein, I have been really wanting to create a zine. I love looking at zines that are left around my city, and I want to contribute my own thoughts. I also want to get back into painting. I have a box full of watercolors and other paints that are just collecting dust because I can't get myself to use them. That ends now. I guess in general, I just want to be more creative. I hope you will join me on my journey.