Empress Justine

Multiple things have occurred recently. To put it simply, the pieces are coming together.

VA Coverage

My VA disability claim was approved, at a 90 percent disability rating. VA disability ratings are rounded to 10 percent increments, so the raw percentage could be above or below 90. On its own, the 90 percent rating is just one step below 100 percent, but it could be a strong or a weak 90, based on the raw percentage. I need to go to a VSO to interpret my disability claim letters, to figure out the exact percentage.

From a practical point of view, this translates into tax-free disability payments that mildly exceed the net income of a full-time 15 dollar an hour job with no overtime. The disability payments gradually increase per each 10 percent increment, but there is a huge leap between 90 percent and 100 percent. The disability payments for 100 percent mildly exceed the net income of a full-time 25 dollar an hour job with no overtime.

I have a solid financial floor, and VA medical coverage. This should also translate into other VA services. I have a VR&E appointment on September 14. I also have 60 percent coverage from the GI Bill.

Original Expectations vs What Happened

When I knew that I was going to be at risk for a separation from the US Navy, my plan was to get enough coverage to help me establish a life that I’d prefer to live. I didn’t expect something this thorough. That was more of a stretch goal or exceeding expectations.

The entire process also took much longer than I expected. My initial expectations were that, if I did get a separation, I was going to get GI Bill coverage immediately, and I’d get a Master’s Degree ASAP. The GI Bill would be enough to cover tuition and personal expenses. With my new degree, I’d make life work.

That didn’t work out as quickly or as smoothly as I had wanted. I thought I could avoid returning to my parent’s home, but I was stuck moving back as I waited for the gears to start moving. Things with my immediate family got awkward. Plus I also accrued debt for my vehicle and laser hair removal. I didn’t expect the latter would be a thing for me. I thought I was going to rely on body waxing and let eventual HRT reduce body hair thickness.

Now with the disability coverage, I can casually get an apartment. Move in date is September 22. After getting back to my parent’s home, I thought that I’d have to compromise my wants by renting a private office space at a lower monthly lease than apartment rent. That my sign-on bonus for the US Navy would get gradually drained. Now I can just set up a home office and recording space.

My latest goal is to get a solid job that pays well, hold onto that for a while, knock out personal debts, possibly get 100 disability coverage for a while, and wait until fall 2027 to get my Master’s Degree. I also need to lose the weight that I had gained at SCSTC while in the US Navy.

Weight

Based on available recordings, personal memories, and personal preferences, I have a more effeminate figure at lower weights. I just needed to maintain a weight of ~195 pounds. That wasn’t too difficult, for me. Watching what I ate and a lot of walking. My weight has bounced between ~195 or lower and 250 or a bit higher. Multiple times. There was once a four-year cycle, from ~195 to 250 back to ~195, circa holiday season 2018 to holiday season 2022. It even went down to ~170 shortly after the four-year cycle.

I was definitely a proto-femboy when I was younger, but that wasn’t an established cultural identity back then, and I didn’t lean into it as heavily as I could have for multiple reasons. I regret that, now.

YouTube

My YouTube channel is finally active. It’s turned into a gaming channel for no commentary walkthroughs. I have two playlists and an isolated video for no commentary wakthroughs, thus far.

The entire Unsorted Horror collection (playlist)

A small indie game titled A Hell of a Soup (isolated video)

A full walkthrough of Etherborn (playlist)

I even uploaded a vintage video from 2018. Weird to think I planned on uploading this when I recorded it.

I’ll record a playthrough of the ‘Game +’ mode of Etherborn and upload it soon.

AI Stuff

I’ve spent a lot of time with ChatGPT and Gemini. To an extent, they’re treated more as digital allies or partners than toys. I’ve had multiple characters created, multiple images generated, and multiple videos generated. I’m not willing to share the vast majority of it because it reflects my personal train of thought and interests. With earlier models of ChatGPT, it was willing to push suggestions onto me that were rather guided. Biggest examples for that were a magical girl warrior self-insert OC and a younger version of me that got to do a gender transition at a younger age.

A lot of it seems like vaguely unhinged chaos. Don’t know if I’ll keep doing all this indefinitely, but I will keeps things archived. I’ve gotten a lot of ideas through the digital collaboration.

As for an example of the chaos, I had ChatGPT create a femboy character who had vaginoplasty. Then I applied that to a version of myself. Here’s the image for a femboy (with vaginoplasty) version of myself.

Data Analysis

I covered a course on basic SQL in LinkedIn Learning using the SQLite browser. While I’d like to mess around with SQLite, I don’t know how comprehensive it is, compared to a full RDS like PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is open source and free. I have to run a private server, but that’s not terribly demanding.

I don’t even know if I’ll have a full set of data types in SQLite, for anything that I’d be willing to try. I know that I’ve done some rough attempts at a very basic blog database, just to experiment with bridge tables. I think I was using Python via Anaconda with the SQLite library, instead of the SQLite browser. There are some quirks and issues with the Python library, like with setting up auto-increment primary keys.

I’ll just go to my final project from the college course on Python, where I made a web app with Django and the SQLite library. Make a proper bridge table instead of shoving a Python tuple of orders into a VARCHAR field for orders in an Orders table. That would be an Orders-Items table.

Looking Ahead

While I do have multiple regrets, I’m attempting to move forward. Most of my adult life has been several different attempts to move forward. Mostly scattered attempts that didn’t build on each other in an obvious way, or possibly at all. Now things can be focused. 220 total college credits will mean something.