02 august 2024
Writever
Well, it's officially August 2nd, but I did finish July Writever. So here are
the last entries!
Writever July 28th
The word for July 28th was "Decenter".
As the climate change is becoming a more and more pressing issue, more and
more ludicrous ideas are gaining traction. The latest I've seen is the
Decenter project, whose goal is to modify the orbit of Earth around the Sun so
that it's a bit further away (and colder) and somewhat off-center (to get a
longer cold season). And to take the opportunity to offset a bit more to
compensate for the CO2 production necessary for such an endeavour,
obviously...
Writever July 29th
The word for July 29th was "Speaking".
"Sasha and I aren't exactly on speaking terms anymore.
− Oh, what happened? Did you fight?
− Quite the opposite! We got matching My-Mind-To-Your-Mind implants, so
speech became mostly useless between us.
− Only mostly?
− Yeah, puns are still much better out loud."
Writever July 30th
The word for July 30th was "Survey".
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a librarian. More than the books themselves,
I think I had a fascination for the Dewey system, and finding the right code
for every book.
Later, I found tremendous joy in inputting and organizing all kinds of data,
from my sticker collection to samples at the lab.
When the new exploration mission started recruiting, I applied for the survey
cataloger job. The day I got selected is still the happiest day of my life.
Writever July 31st
The word for July 31ts was "Black".
Most colonists adjust pretty well to the underground facilities. A lot of
effort has been made to give a good day/night cycle, and the progress around
sun-substituting lights have been impressive (the people working the 'ponics
even need sunscreen!)
But we haven't found a way yet to get stars look like anything else than a
bunch of lights projected on too black a screen. Turns out, nightlight is much
harder to get right than daylight.
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01 august 2024
Busy day for a public holiday! Went for a long walk for AlphabeticalZürich (I
still need to transfer the pictures to the computer). Had a fairly late lunch,
and hurried to the gym (note to self: never ever again go to the gym that close
after a meal. Stomach was NOT impressed.). Lifted weights, was okay. Talked to
S. on her last day of work with us, which was nice, but also a bit sad. And had
dinner at Brasserie Fédéral with C. and A., had a really nice evening.
I'm still feeling a lot of anxious energy, but it did me good to keep myself
busy. And now I'm home, with all windows open (dealing with window optimizing is
also adding to the anxiety, tbh), listening to the August 1st fireworks in the
background.
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31 july 2024
Quiet day today. Mostly I continued watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo (the
scene where she sees the whale in the large meeting room made me meeeeeeeeelt),
and I played a fair amount of WoW. I'm not convinced by the current event setup:
having an event every hour and a half that's essentially done in 10 minutes
feels quite punitive :/ but I still did manage to do the three quests. Also I've
read these are weekly, not dailies?? To be confirmed tomorrow.
I had a nap at 3PM today, with a 20-minute timer. And I did wake up super
refreshed. I think I need to consider naps more seriously.
I dragged my ass (and my feet) to a running equipment shop this afternoon to get
Proper Running Shoes, because I'm getting annoyed by the blisters under my foot
arches. Got good advice, tried a pair of shoes that gave me the impulse to
SPRINT in the middle of the shop when trying them (WTF, I'm not a person who
sprints!), and now I have running shoes that go faster, or something. Almost
looking forward to trying them.
This evening I treated myself to a trip to the ice cream shop, I got the
banana/brownie/caramel and the salted butter caramel ones, both were delicious
(as usual) and made me feel better (I was feeling a bit blue.)
Writever
I'm awfully late on the end of Writever, so I'm going to try to finish before
going to bed. I won't finish before August (which is in 15 minutes), though,
it seems!
Writever July 26th
The word for July 26th was "Play".
"Pff, technology is really getting worse and worse. In my days, things were
much more intuitive. This new holoviewer you gave me is full of buttons that
are completely opaque to anyone who hasn't spent hours watching the tutorial,
because there's not even a written, let alone paper documentation coming in
the box. Not to mention, watching the tutorial requires starting the thing;
and I don't even know how to do that!
− Have you tried pressing ?"
Writever July 27th
The word for July 27th was "Group".
Space exploration brings some more or less expected issues. Aliens, fine.
Stupid behaviors in the vicinity of c, and in wormholes, nothing new.
But the chemists are really unhappy with the discovery of fractional atomic
number elements. Worse: they won't fit neatly into groups, because they're all
over the place in the periodic table.
The current consensus is to call them "foramenvermites", add a new table below
the f-group and be done with it.
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30 july 2024
Sports / running
Today was a milestone: I reached 30 minutes, and 3 kilometers, in one go. Next
milestone: 5K!
Pierre left for France today, and between tomorrow's "Wednesday's off" and
Thursday's "August 1st", I have a couple of days on my own even before the
week-end. And I miss him already :(
But, the apartment is not yet a mess, so there's that. My schedule already is,
though, lol (finished work after 1930, and I'm not yet in bed although it's
midnight). Let's say I'm taking advantage ;)
I started re-watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and it's as delightful as the
first time.
oh noes, my town fern died, I forgot to water it this week :(
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28 july 2024
Well look at that it's been three days.
Friday evening we had E. coming over for game night - he was visiting from
Iceland and took the opportunity to come and say hi - was very happy to see him
and catch up! We also played a game of Cascadia, always nice.
Friday had not gone super well, though - had a Major panic attack in the
afternoon (it had been a long while since it had been that bad), with
essentially no warning sign. 0 star, would not recommend. Thankfully Pierre was
here and helped me recover. I was also (and probably not unrelatedly) feeling
like I was flailing at work, but I got some reassurance there at least. And a
couple of bad news after that too. So all in all, Friday-day, NOT GREAT; Friday
evening made a good recovery :D
Yesterday we had family for lunch - I made chicken legs with onions and shallots
(that was very nice), ratatouille and couscous (I failed at couscous, it was
quite lumpy - I blame the too-small grain size), and Pierre had made some
chocolate mousse with raspberries for dessert. We also spent some time with the
jigsaw puzzle, went for a short walk (it was too warm for a longer one), and
overall pretty chill day.
Today I wanted to go to the gym in the morning, but decided against it ("fuck
it, too tired"). I spent some time making (and using) Hangeul flash cards - I
need to improve my handwriting and also the way I write said flash cards! But at
least I have a base, and I can replace the ones I don't like later. I also
restarted the Korean language lessons proper. Unclear if it's going to work out
− it feels like the lessons may be adapted to Coursera format (~10-15 minute
chunks) but not necessarily super handy to actually learn stuff (things that are
supposed to be repeated are fast, rely only on a Hangeul written support, and I
need to pause if I want to repeat). I can probably adjust, though (and not
having the romanized version is painful at the beginning but, I believe, better
in the long run).
Pierre went on a bike trip this afternoon, and I used the time to FINALLY go to
the gym, so yay. I did some split squats (boring but useful for balance, I
guess), some 25-kg barbell bench (that was okay), and I tried to row 15kg but I
had to downgrade to 12.5 for the last set, my form was getting really shitty and
I was worried I'd hurt my back.
Oh, also, I unlocked the last joker I didn't have yet on Balatro. Now only
missing a voucher to complete the collection.
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