(2023-11-13) Small events, big impact
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This is gonna be a rather short one. My last week consisted of several small
events (mostly on the weekend) that, however, have had a significant impact 
on my perception of the outside reality during these harsh and rainy autumn 
days.

First, I took part in two small contests in a local poetry group. As a result
of what I heard regarding my two contest poems, I decided to finally do what 
I planned on doing after these contests: to create my own online Ukrainian 
poetry community. We did this with a close friend of mine, who's a 
philologist by education and a poet by hobby too. For now, this community 
has a Telegram channel and a dedicated closed chat, but there are some plans 
for expanding to Matrix and other networks once it gets some traction. This 
activity might be small on the larger scale of things, but this step had to 
be taken and is very important for me personally.

This week, I also extensively tested the Pilot MR (aka Metropolitan or
Cocoon, but this one is the Euro version) fountain pen among others and 
became fairly satisfied with it as my primary EDC pen for the next period of 
time. Its EF nib is perfect for jotting down quick notes in the pocket 
notebook, and the pen isn't any longer than the notebook itself. Unlike some 
reviewers, I don't experience any discomfort with the grip section and with 
the big step down from the barrel to the grip, moreover, this big step 
allows the pen to look extremely sleek and seamless in the capped state, 
unlike many more expensive pen designs like the famous Lamy Safari (if we're 
talking more expensive, that would be Lamy Al-Star) or even Lamy 2000. As I 
said before, I'm not falling for the "entry-level" trap and fully enjoying 
the experience of what I have here, knowing that Pilot can deliver quality 
at any price range. Probably the only more expensive fountain pen I could 
ever spend anything on would be Pilot Capless (aka Vanishing Point), but 
when and why it's going to happen, is a completely different story.

Another "small but big" thing is that I have replaced the faulty SIM card on
my non-internet number (purely for talking), that prevented old devices 
(pre-2009 or so) from even receiving SMS messages, with a new one (my 
carrier actually supports this process even for prepaid SIMs without having 
to disclose any additional personal data to them). The impact here is that I 
can now actually use the older half of my collection: so many wonderful 
phones, especially old Nokias (1112, 3100, 8310, 6310i, 8850 etc), that I 
actually have all the chargers and working batteries for, finally can be 
used with my main talk SIM. Of course, they are not gonna offer 3G voice 
quality (only the AMR-NB codec, although most of them only support GSM-EFR) 
or any advanced multimedia features, but that doesn't bother me at all. In 
fact, not having a memory card or a camera is an advantage for me, and being 
monochrome is a double advantage. I do wish, however, that someone would 
release a *small* feature phone (like Nokia 1112) with no cameras but with a 
true monochrome display *and* UMTS/LTE connectivity. Oh, such dreams, such 
dreams...

So, despite how tough the overall situation here is, life is somehow going
on. And it really is made up of such small things that still can being us a 
piece of joy and hope.

--- Luxferre ---