I finished Dune today! It took me a little under a month, which is not that long considering the length of the book, and the frequency at which I read. Getting into it was quite hard, the first 150 pages are pretty rough to me, they're a lot of setup and getting familiar with the world, as well as a lot of politics. I've not read many books with a term-list to refer to as much as Dune, so getting used to flipping to the end and finding the definition of a term was a bit tough. I found that not every term or word that is defined in the back is actually used, which I'm quite grateful for, since that list is huge.
Overall though, I really liked it a lot. Once I got into it, it was hard to put down. Especially part 3 I found incredibly gripping. And, funny enough, Jessica and Paul finding their way through the desert in part 2 reminded me a bit of the Left Hand of Darkness, except in the opposite climate. As opposed to extreme cold and snow/ice,it was extreme heat in the desert. I also felt like by around the halfway point of part 2, I had a pretty solid grasp on the politics and I could follow it all a lot easier. In the afterword, Frank Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, notes that when Dune first came out, many found the beginning to be too confusing and frustrating. I totally get that, if I didn't know beforehand that getting into it would not be easy, I might have gotten frustrated and put it down as well. I did once try before to read it, and exactly that happened to me about 10 chapters in.
Now I can also finally watch the movies! I've looked forward to that since I started. I've heard they're very good, so I can't wait to see them!
I've also applied for around 5 more jobs, mostly in retail. I applied to a few last week, but I, once again, have heard nothing back from them. One of them sent me an e-mail last monday that they tried to call me but I didn't pick up, only I didn't have any missed calls from that day, so I sent them an e-mail back about it, but I haven't heard from them since. The other jobs I applied to ghosted me completely, as usual.
It would be nice if my time and effort got respected even a little bit, and I'd get an e-mail back to
tell me I wasn't selected, but I just hear nothing at all, which is just really fucking frustrating.
Hopefully I hear back from the jobs I applied to today, I really really need a job as soon as possible because
sadly, money isn't endless and I'm really starting to hurt for cash now.
I also applied to college again, starting in january. I'm pretty confident that I'll get in, since the major doesn't really require anything I don't have. I'll be starting over in software development at a different college, the one I was at before kind of sucked ass and I don't want anything to do with them and their shenanigans. I'll be a bit ahead since I did a full year of courses in my previous college, though I fear I might be a bit rusty since I haven't done any coding in about a year. Of course, I have this website now, which helps me stay a bit on top of my HTML and CSS, but that's not going to help me with whatever language my college will decide to use for the other stuff. Last time it was PHP, but I kind of hope I also get to learn C or something.
Whether I'll be accepted or not is still up in the air, but I'm not really worried or anything. I think the hardest thing will be to get used to typing on my laptop keyboard, as apposed to my mechanical keyboards that I use at home. I have weird ways of pressing shift and ctrl that don't work as well on membrane keyboards, so that's probably going to frustrate me a bit. Other than that, I have VSC and xampp all set up and ready to go, and the first year will probably be smooth sailing since I have some experience, which is nice because I'll have some more space to find my footing in following a schedule and attending classes.