Personal Update

Hey all! It's been over a month since my last post. I know I kind of disappeared and fell of the radar. There's a few reasons why, which I will get into it in this post.

First off, I have been extremely busy ever since starting my new job. The way my life looks now compared to early this year is completely different. Being a mom, it has changed also. Prior to my job, I had been a stay-at-home mom. This meant that I would do my writing during the day, then take care of the kids after school, be there for when the kids are sick, doctor appointments, checkups, personal household issues (food, pet appointments, and any sort of fix-it or other needs.) There are other little things that I am forgetting, like bill paying and chores, etc, but you get it. Since working, everything has turned upside down and I'm playing catch-up. All the little things add up that I need to do (obviously these things are split between my hubby and I), but also spending time with the family and kiddos. It's been hard, I must admit. The only time I get for myself is my writing, which has been cut down to a couple days a week instead of five days like it had been in the past.

Another thing is that I had been battling severe illness for the past two months or so. Over time, my illness was getting worse. Long story short, I felt that I was going to collapse or blackout everyday. I felt drunk, woozy, and dizzy 24/7. I was severely thirsty and hungry, but at the same time I was losing weight. The doctors thought I was diabetic. After many visits to the doctor and a trip to the Urgent Care, I found out that I was low on sodium and had an imbalance of electrolytes. I was also drinking too much water, which made me worse (yeah, water was making me sick!) Now I drink pedialyte and other electrolyte drinks and feel fine. But during this time, I will admit that I became depressed. I didn't want to do anything. Just sleep and survive. Thankfully I am not feeling like that anymore.

Lastly, I am not sure what I want to do about posting right now. I hate bringing this subject up, but it's a huge subject: AI. There has been so many discussions on this subject that I don't want to beat a dead horse. But we all can agree on one thing: It's not going away anytime soon. My personal take? I don't like that these AIs scrape data so they can use to learn without the permission of the original owner, especially when it comes to the creative world. Medical AI, I do see a use for it. But for now, I do not like the fact that anything that is considered public on the internet, Google's AI has the ultimate right to use it for their AI. There are no laws about this stuff, so I am subjected to it. Yes yes, the argument is that my posts, art, and cosplay stuff can be inspiration for anyone. I have developed my imagination, artistic style, and other creative works - just for an AI to scrape away and vomit out in two seconds a mesh of what I did with others. No, I don't like it.

Originally, I went to Patreon to be more private with my posts and works. I don't like to be subjected to a site's ownership, so then I moved all my works to my own website. Because you know, I wouldn't be subjected to any social media platform's policies. Now, even with me moving, I am subjected to Google's AI (even though I do NOT use google for anything anymore.) It infuriates me. The further I try and move away from mega corporation tech companies taking ownership of my posts and creative work, I cannot escape. Just like my cyborg drawings, I am one of those cyborg women; I am connected to the machines and cannot leave.

Anyways, that's where I am at. I don't know what to feel about all of this right now. I need to think about this more and come back when I have a solid idea of what I want out of my internet life when it comes to creative content. For now, I am going to focus on my writing and occasionally I will post.

For the next few weeks, I will have visitors from out of town, so I will be away from my desktop PC. This means, no posting on any of my socials until the visitors leave. I do have a phone, but I only use it to text and call people. I don't have any apps on my phone because of personal reasons. That being said, I do check my email (it's on my phone.) You can drop me a line through the comments here and I can respond back. Wix has a cool feature that I can respond via my email if you send me a message on my Wix site.

But as for anything that I have mentioned above, feel free to drop me a comment. I love to hear what you all think. Love you all!

-Beth

#personalthoughts #ai #creative