Mood: Grateful 
Weather: 28°C, Clear
Vaping: Vozol 12000 Puffs Watermelon Bubble Gum
Location: Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles
I feel as though I spent the day vaping. I stopped vaping on 1st May when my throat was painful AF, all the way until the day I got to Sri Lanka (11th May). I now get the urge to vape again throughout the day, but I just need a better-tasting vape, I’ll get the mint one some time at the end of this week. I’m currently at 30%.
I just returned from the airport to see my mother off, she’s going on holiday with 2 of her old friends. I hope they enjoy themselves. They were at the airport with all their kids and family members, so I’m glad that we were also there for my mother. My mother went to the clinic earlier today to get her blood pressure taken, it’s something she does before she travels. She sent me a message telling me that her blood pressure was high so the doctor adjusted her medication. From what I’m aware, she is on propranolol and amlodipine (to my knowledge the amlodipine’s dosage was the one adjusted from 2.5mg to 5mg).
Internet access has been incredibly slow since I returned. I just found out last night why this is so:
I don’t know how much longer this will go on for, but at least the images I’m uploading are going through.
I’ve gone from 48.xKgs to now 49Kgs since I’ve been here. I just absolutely love the food that is available to me here in Seychelles.
Today my sister and I held an interview for a girl who we picked out, mainly because she’s one of the only ones available immediately. As our soon to be ex-employee will no longer be employed by us this Thursday, she needs to be replaced as soon as possible and at this point, anyone will do as long as they can do the job.
As soon as I entered the store, I saw the new girl sitting down. She didn’t even greet me. Half the time I no longer understand if it’s a Gen-Z thing to be what a millennial would be considered “rude” or if millennials now have the perspective that boomers have. But as the employer, I would expect that anyone should have some level of common courtesy to at least greet a potential employer. One thing I find “common” these days are bad manners. Gen Zs are still being taught by millennials and Gen Xs so surely there’s a problem here.
The second thing I found “off” was when my twin sister (who speaks Creole to everyone) introduced me as her twin sister and then continued by saying “she speaks English” this girl then turns to my sister and then asks “but she can understand Creole, right?” as if I wasn’t just standing there. This is an example of the linguicism that is quite rampant here in Seychelles. Because linguicism is something I take very personally, I’m willing to overlook this as a horrible first impression but it cannot continue to happen. As this is my business and I should feel comfortable in it, I don’t know how comfortable I am employing someone who makes me feel uncomfortable in my own domain. The worst thing is to have an English-speaking customer come in and I have a Creole-speaking employee choosing to speak Creole to my customer. What kind of person will I be if I stand for and tolerate discrimination? What kind of idiot will I be if I stand for and tolerate discrimination towards me in my own place of business?
I’ve brought these concerns to the attention of my sister who shares the business so that the next time we meet the new girl, my sister can pay closer attention to these concerns. We are definitely desperate to hire at this point, but there’s always a higher price to pay when red flags fall on deaf ears. Tomorrow the new girl will be “supervised” by the employee who will be leaving. We don’t expect the new girl to do much, but we are hoping she will take the initiative to learn a few things anyway. We are going to keep the new girl as a “casual” so when the older employee leaves tomorrow, she will handover the store’s keys to the new girl. It’s never a good idea to keep the outgoing staff and the incoming staff in a room without supervision, we don’t really know what questions will be asked and because we also don’t know why our outgoing employee has suddenly decided to leave, we expect her sudden decision was made due to grievances that were not communicated with us. When we spoke to her today I didn’t feel as though she had anything against me but I did feel as though she held a grudge against my sister. For obvious reasons the outgoing employees will always hold a grudge against the person they were dealing with because my sister deals with the HR part of our business and anything serious is communicated to our employees through her.
I really needed a boba beer today. Pretty high in calories because you’ve got an entire beer mixed in with “popping boba” which is essentially sugar syrup in agar agar.
One of my ex-colleague’s mother passed away on mother’s day. I was never really close to him but I’ve actually met his mother. It is always a reminder of how fleeting life is when someone you’ve met has died. She was in her 50s. She got a cancer diagnosis 6 months ago. A few weeks ago my sister’s friend’s father passed away very suddenly. Most of the people I know who have passed away in Seychelles are from cancer. I also do know quite a few who received a cancer diagnosis and have survived it. Earlier at the store while we were interviewing this new girl, a man came in wanting to purchase an item he needed for a funeral. He said his colleague had passed away. My sister later asked me if I would feel sad if I found out an ex colleague had died. I said “probably not”. I would definitely go through the phase of “I can’t believe this person died” but I don’t really know if I would feel sad or devastated, I expect that I wouldn’t. I don’t even think sadness is what I would feel if a friend died. Well, perhaps less than a handful of people I would consider a friend. This made me think about my bff Christine. Someone who’s been there for me; someone who has really created that space in her life to make room for someone like me; someone who is easily misunderstood and “difficult”. It’s as though she is drawn to people who are like me, people who need that time to be understood. So to me, she’s an amazing human being who I would sorely miss if she were to pass away before I do. But the other “friends” in my life I can’t say I’d truly care much. How different would my life be without them in it? Probably won’t make much of a difference. In the same way, if I were to go before they do, I would just want them to stay away from my cremated remains as much as I would probably want to opt-out of attending their funeral. A true friend is hard to find, I’m alright with having that one bff. Everyone else seems like wolves in sheep’s clothing.
My period started this morning. I did observe vaginal discharge laced with blood yesterday but today I’m having to wear tampons. I actually do not even know if it’s my period at this point. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I will be skipping progestin because I’ll be traveling and I didn’t want to induce my period while I was in Maldives. So I skipped the progestin which I was supposed to take a month ago. This is the 2nd time this year that I’ve skipped progestin and what seems to be a period has come up. Why do I say “what seems to be a period” is because I’ve gone months without the estrogen and progestin combo and never had my period, the longest being 5 months until I could no longer stand the perimenopause symptoms (hot flashes, disturbed sleep, insomnia). So I have technically never gone 12 months without intervention and so menopause has not been confirmed. As this is now another month with a period that has not been induced, the counter restarts which means I am not yet menopausal. I think.