A Week Dominated by Guns and Japan

January 24th 1912
We had a friend visit, mostly to help my girlfriend with modifying her non-expanding recreational foam gun to make it easier to load, and prepare it for painting to make it look more authentic, as these guns are typically sold in bright colours for children to play with. I should hopefully be receiving my own gun tomorrow, a larger model for long-range shooting. The intention is to go on a hunt at Halloween, hunting those dressed as animals. Whilst they were busy with their guns, I played a phonograph of stories about japanese folk tales such as Ponyo, a fish that becomes human, and Pom Poko, about raccoons that can transform into humans. Quite relevant to the story I am working on, so it served as research of a sort as well as being entertaining in its own right.

January 25th 1912
I received my gun today, and all looks as I hoped. My only criticism is that it came in several parts, and once assembled the parts can't be detached again, which makes it quite cumbersome when I originally wanted it a bit shorter. The shop we received it from was in a new town, that we decided to explore whilst we were there. There wasn't much to see, it looked little more than a road that had shops built around it, which is disappointing. Most of the shops were for food and charities. I don't think we'll be going back very often. I also managed to catch up on a bit of my writing from last week, though annoyingly I am still slightly behind.

January 26th 1912
All this writing is burning me out a little today. Instead we took advantage of the break in the rain to go out with my girlfriend so she could take some photos. We headed to somewhere new, in this case the local cemetery. I find it unfortunate that some of the more modern graves are quite monotonous in appearance, compared to the older graves. I wouldn't be surprised if these cemeteries run out of space soon, and churches will probably have to start buying more land. We paid our respects to those buried there as my girlfriend took her photos, and read some of the more interesting graves- there wasn't much, other than a masonic grave.

January 27th 1912
Inspired by the phonographs from the other day, I decided to take a break from my usual european influenced setting, and instead try writing an oriental story. Of course, this required much research- specifically about raccoons and foxes. I'm quite pleased with what I got done, and think there's a lot of potential for stories based on far eastern myths, so might stay writing in this region for a while more- I'm told that it's always best to have a couple of writing projects active simultaneously. Writing took up much of the day, so I have little more to say.

January 28th 1912
We were supposed to play our weekly game tonight, but unfortunately one of our friends has fallen ill- hopefully not caught from me. Our other friend still came regardless, so once more he decided to help with the guns. I'm slightly disappointed, as I had some plans for tonight's game, but some things can't be helped. My gun still sits unmodified, but I'm sure I'll have time to work on it soon- I'll just wait a bit longer so I can receive help after the smaller guns are done. Instead I played a little music as we chatted. Or it would be truer to say that the phonograph played the music, and I merely played the guitar accompaniment. Luckily I'm good enough that the music comes out tolerable, though there's still room for improvement. I think I'd be better off sticking to my writing, and leave music to the professionals.

January 29th 1912
Today has mostly consisted of more research into japanese mythology, though we had to make an unavoidable visit to the shop as we had completely run out of some basic supplies. I also managed to fit in a little of my Oblivion game, though to be honest it's starting to bore me. I'd stopped playing when I first received it as I found it boring, but decided to give it another chance- I got a fair amount further, but I still can't get into it, which is a pity because at the moment all my friends are talking about the sequel to it.

January 30th 1912
Another tedious day of doing not very much, though broken by some job searching in the local classifieds. All in vain, of course, as almost all jobs advertised are for care assistants- something a little out of my field of expertise. As I started to sink into my jobless pit of despair, however, I found out that there are a couple more parties coming up this year- both fancy dress, one future themed, the guideline being around 1980, and the other is fairy tale themed. And of course we still need to finish preparations for this roman party coming up soon, so we're being kept busy.