Bad Luck During All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, and Genshin Impact Livestreams

Photo by Rennett Stowe on Flickr

Yes, I admit I am somewhat superstitious.

You may be wondering: Why am I raging at these normally happy days? All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are meant to remember loved ones who cared for you. Genshin Impact Special Programs showcase the latest, (sometimes) exciting content coming in the next version update—after all, like many fans, I was super excited for Furina the Hydro Archon since Archons are expected to be extremely powerful.

Well...allow me to explain.

Almost No Holidays for Me!

While I'm still living with my mom and dad (I still don't have a job that actually pays well), I have to work almost every day; that means on weekends and holidays like Easter Sunday, Philippine Independence Day, and yes, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. The only true holidays I have are Christmas, New Year, and whenever my mom and dad feel like going on a vacation (which is rare). The former two are mandated by my English teaching company.

I'm so used to working every day that even if my body feels desperate for longer sleep, I have a hard time sleeping long because of guilt that I'm not contributing enough to the family or that I might oversleep—even when I set alarms, I still randomly open my eyes every now and then to check the time on my phone in case I sleep through them or they somehow don't ring. (I don't have a wristwatch.) After all, with no maid, no coworkers besides my mom, and my dad and younger brother having their own work, I'm the only one who can help Mom in her family store...and in comparison to her, I'm incredibly resilient, strong, and versatile.

The Dregs of Student Society

Somehow, on All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, and Genshin Impact livestream days, I get an unusually large number of annoying students.

On the night of the Version 3.5 livestream, I got a certain annoying teen student who used to stalk me a lot even though he consistently lacked interest in the lessons or my crazy antics (like all other students of this type)...except this time, he was...for lack of a better word, much dumber and slower than usual, almost like a drunk person without actually drinking alcohol. Along with that was a teen student who's notorious for barely talking during lessons and reporting tutors to the higher-ups out of nowhere.

Why did I work during the livestream? Why did I not change my work hours?

Because I thought I could sneakily watch the livestream while teaching. Also, I worked at my usual time out of respect for Mom so she could properly eat dinner without worrying about customers out of nowhere.

On the night of the Version 4.0 livestream (the Fontaine reveal), I had a tryhard who could not answer a comprehension question even after I gave many hints. Here's what I wrote in my personal notes:

"In the 2nd sentence, what is 'they' talking about?"

"The smallest type of dolphins."

"Yes, we know the size but what is the NAME of the dolphins, as in 「名前」? Look for capital letters."

"Hector's Dolphin."

"Correct. So [therefore], what is the smallest type of dolphin?"

「え？」 (Eh?)

"The question is on page 7."

I eventually had to ask him to repeat the answer after me.

That night made me want to angrily speak Filipino, French, and Japanese but I knew zero French. フランス語わからなかった。

Version 4.2 Livestream

This was the worst so far.

Due to the fiasco that was the Version 4.1 livestream (in the section below), I worked for 5 hours instead of my usual 4.

On All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, there are much fewer tutors since the vast majority of Filipinos are visiting their loved ones who passed away. This means I am far more likely to be booked.

It wouldn't have been so bad since I expected a storm of adults...but I just learned that due to my very low rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars at the time (you have to have at least 4.9 to stand a chance normally) combined with the low supply of tutors, I attracted some of the worst students I had ever seen.

One slurred almost every English word he saw (and he's a teen, not an adult, so he's not legally allowed to drink alcohol) and apparently could not even complete a Level 1 lesson yet already skipped to Level 4.

Another had such a horribly noisy background where adults sounded like they were throwing metal objects around—while I'm resistant to sound-based attacks, the student himself was a teen who took a lesson designed for adults, took very long to answer a question, and apparently cheats with ChatGPT. During this very lesson, my younger brother raged at what I assumed to be a PC problem. When I told him to quiet down, he gave me a loud "fuck you"...and while my mic was muted at that time, if it wasn't, I would've killed my student's ears, gotten in trouble with the higher-ups, and be made to look like a hypocrite.

Another took very long to respond even to basic prompts like "Do you have questions?" or "Is that clear?" yet the answers were all the same boring "no" and "yes" respectively. I also had to give a bajillion hints regarding a sequence of actions using "after".

On top of all these, some otherwise somewhat intelligent adult students I was moderately familiar with also became less intelligent. (I don't know how drunk or sleepy they were, though.) One became slower at answering comprehension questions and still makes the same mistakes he's been making for years. Two needed repetitions for questions that I asked at preschool speed and gave overly simplistic and general answers.

Additionally, the timeslot of one of my favorite students, a Japanese historian, was stolen by what I call an Amurta hyperspecialist; he specializes in Biology and can barely talk about anything else. I suspect this guy-who's-not-really-Tighnari's-student is a frequent drinker.

Lazybones!

On the night of the Version 4.1 livestream, I told Mom in advance that I would watch a Genshin Impact livestream so I'll go to work later. This time, I opened my first few lesson slots a bit earlier so I could still reach a work duration of 4 hours as per Mom's protocol on that day.

However, in the middle of the livestream when they were playing the music video of "Lamentation et Triomphe", Mom raged at me out of nowhere because I was still in the family store and not teaching English. I angrily stopped the livestream, stormed out of the store, and immediately opened lesson slots without continuing the livestream. I didn't fight back even though the facts were in my favor because, knowing Mom and how adamant she is when angry, she wouldn't take my POV into consideration and would always have a counterargument.

As such, moving forward, I have an important announcement for my blog:

I Will Not Play the Hytale Beta on Day 1.

I expect the day the Hytale beta finally comes out after nearly 5 years of waiting to be worse than the previous misfortunes I mentioned. I sense a storm of drunken children who don't even know the alphabet with a few angry leftists/Muslim extremists mixed in, a furious, authoritarian Mom and Dad, a physically and sonically destructive younger brother (INTJ on an Se grip), and at least one important object like my phone or my mom's laptop permanently destroyed. (By the way, if you can't tell, I wrote this post on an Fe grip.)

Instead, I will teach English literally the whole day. No breaks. No retreat. No surrender. Just hell that's a bit like what the Navy SEALs go through.

Then when I finally finish, I'll rub my victory on Mom's face.