17 july 2024
Sports / weights / strength
Grmpf, my trainer is sick, so my session for today is cancelled, and the next
one is moved from Wednesday to Tuesday, which means my schedule is all out of
whack, and I'm having analysis paralysis, which really doesn't play well with
the anxiety that was already there. Grmpf grmpf grmpf.
Okay, let's do the following:
- today gym
- friday run
- saturday gym
- monday run
- tuesday training
As for programme, I'll go for squats/bench/row today, deadlifts/overhead
press/lat pulls on saturday. Okay, let's program weights and let's goooo.
Update: I did indeed go to the gym, and did all my programme. I found a
16kg-kettlebell, which was good to improve the weights on my squats less
brutally than going from 15kg to 17.5kg in one go. I did manage benching my
12.5-kg dumbbells, so I'm officially back on the barbell next time, I decided :)
And I rowed with a 12.5-kg dumbbell too, which was an increase over the last
time I did these sets.
All in all, pretty satisfying.
I have THOUGHTS on what I'm doing better, brain-wise, than I was a year ago, but
that's probably content for a larger post. But essentially: turns out Phil was
right all along (SHOCKED PIKACHU) and accepting what my brain does when it's
frazzled works better than trying to tell it that it's NOT ACCEPTABLE while
kicking and screaming. Weird.
Continuing on my Coursera bingeing - I may or may not have started three courses
in as many days. It's not my fault - the second one was a recommended
prerequisite for the first one (although it wasn't written explicitly and I had
to look for it a bit more), AND I heard a lot of good things about the Learning
How To Learn class there, so this morning I went "well, what the hell, let's try
that too". It is indeed interesting, and somewhat more "pop-sciency" than
"self-helpey", which I appreciate.
I also did another day on the Hangeul writing class. It's interesting because it
also gives some historical context, which I actually enjoy - although it's also
very very clearly with the goal of "promoting Korean culture and language" and
it can fele a bit preachy. Which is also interesting in itself, mind you. The
class is taught by a person who speaks Korean, which feels like a weird choice
for an intro course - one that I wasn't too sure about - but I find myself
enjoying it immensely! There's quite a lot of repetition in what she says, and
it feels like my ear is getting used to the word and sentence cadence. And I'm
starting to catch a few words here and there, with the corresponding grammatical
suffix, which is fun.
I did some AlphabeticalZürich work today! For one thing, I posted the last 'A'
street, AND I
went out with the camera for the first 'B' street. I had been procrastinating on
that one because it's far away (Witikon may be the furthest place to go from
here), and I had been WRONG to procrastinate, because it was super enjoyable:
the two streets I shot today were forest paths, and I like wandering in forest
paths! Today was particularly enjoyable: great weather (but not too hot), summer
time after rain, great smells, lovely noises (I heard some... crickets?),
vibrant greens. And I saw a doe! Didn't manage to get a picture of it, she flew
as we made eye contact. But it was a nice surprise!
Writever
The word for today's Writever is "Care".
"Why do you care?
− I have hypermerimnasia.
− What now?
− From hyper, excessive, merimna, care, suffix -ia, denoting the disease.
− You suffer from giving too many fucks?
− From giving ALL the fucks.
− Sounds exhausting.
− You have no idea."
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16 july 2024
Lalalalalala anxiety for no identifiable reason is THE BEST /s
Anxiety mostly receded during the day and/or got a couple of more identifiable
reasons (when I think a tiny bit about it, there's actually quite a lot of stuff
going on). Day was mostly quiet, did some code reviews, answered some people's
questions, had a primer on Polish food on Slack... Reasonable day.
Also this morning I continued refreshing my Hangul; I'm missing a bit of
"translation" between the fonts used on computers and how characters seem to be
written by hand (in particular on ㅅ(siot) / ㅈ(jieut) / ㅊ(chieut) ) (I
apparently don't have the characters in the font I'm using when typing this,
unclear if they'll appear on the web version! We'll see - and correct if
necessary.)
UPDATE it works!
Well, drat, I just noticed that LimeCocktail was working significantly less well
on Firefox than it did on Chrome. I guess I'll have to fix and update it...
Writever
The word for today's Writever was "flamboyance".
"The kingdoms are competing for the most exuberant gifts for the royal
wedding.
− As expected.
− We have received a lot of the usual: gold, jewels, art, spices, fabric...
and a group of flamingoes.
− Of... flamingoes?
− That's the best flamboyance the Queen of Isla could come up with,
considering the circumstances of her territory."
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15 july 2024
Sports / running
Went for my run this morning - and I hit the 28-minute mark, which is my
personal record so far! 2.7km, we're not here to be fast. But, I didn't feel
terrible about myself at all, which was nice. All in all, fairly positive this
morning.
Books
I accidentally finished two books this morning!
I was listening to How To Invent Everything: Rebuild All of Civilization by
Ryan North while running; it was a good running book, interesting enough while
not being a catastrophe if I phase out or don't hear something. A few tables in
the book could have done with being put in an external annex (that "logical
propositions" table comes to mind), but overall the narration was solid and
useful for both tables and figures. Kudos.
Next running audiobook is Slow AF Run Club by Martinus Evans. I'm actually
looking forward to it :D
I also finished, with my breakfast, One of Us Knows, by Alyssa Cole. It was a
thriller set on a spooky island with a castle, and a main protagonist with DID.
Following Ken as she tries to figure out what the fuck is happening both in the
outer world and in her inner world was riveting, and I think I may remember this
book for a long time.
Not sure what's next on the Kindle! (A few hours later) well it seems I'm going
for The Pirory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon.
Writever
Today's Writever word is "Listening"
The strongest argument against devices allowing anything remotely close to
telepathy is surveillance agencies.
They read our mail, they listened to our phone calls, they watched our online
activity... do we really want them listening on our thoughts?
Went to choir this evening, it was really nice (but we could have done with a
larger alto group!)
Also I re (re) (re) started a Korean language course today, we'll see where that
one goes. I'm happy I have a super basic grasp of the first lesson-ish, because
I might have panicked and given up otherwise. As it is... we'll see.
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14 july 2024
Quiet Sunday today - almost too quiet, I was feeling quite antsy in the middle
of the afternoon. We went for a walk to the lake, it was nice (although the
whole town apparently had the same idea - color me shocked) and it helped. I
wanted to go take AlphabeticalZürich pictures this afternoon, but I checked my
camera battery just before leaving... and it was empty. Grmpf. Oh well, at least
I checked before going to the place (which is super far away... well, at Zürich
scale.)
Finished watching Fallout - it was a really good show! I enjoyed the setting a
lot. I haven't played any of the games and, from what I can see, these are
probably not my kind of games; half considering getting a RPG book to have more
world-building context.
Continued building the LEGO House model - it's getting pretty. The build is very
different from the lighthouse (smaller scale, different details to Get Right™),
but also quite enjoyable in its own way. And it's going to be pretty with all
the colors!
Writever
Again missed Writever yesterday - so catching up today.
Writever July 13th
The word for yesterday was "Training".
Modern town planning tends to put the hatcheries in the middle of the town and
not on its limits, as it used to be. Sure, it has its dangers, but if you
avoid going outside during class times, you'll be fine. And dragon training is
definitely more compatible with forges, ovens and glass and pottery
manufacturing than with forests.
Writever July 14th
The word for today was "Situated".
FOR SALE
Cozy manor, 10 rooms, piped water, central chimney heating.
Well situated, good road to the town center, quiet area. Friendly neighbors,
mostly quiet spirits.
Some work (ceilings, floors, exorcism) needed. Furniture available on demand.
Write to agent for pricing.
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13 july 2024
Sports / weights / strength
Went to the gym this morning, did some 15kg goblet squats, some landmine
shoulder press (20kg bar on the floor + 5kg weight), and 23kg lat pull downs.
Could have I done more? probably. Was it enough? also probably - I'm a bit tired
but I still have some energy for the rest of my day.
I'm not super happy with yesterday's Writever; I think it has potential for
misinterpretation / making me say something I really don't want to say / give
the wrong idea. I'm not sure what to do with that.
Went shopping with full success today. Finally crossed the door of a
brick&mortar Levi's shop and talked to the nice salesperson, who was very
helpful - because now I do have jeans. I bought two pairs, and doubled my number
of wearable jeans pairs - I don't remember last time I had that many, fancy!
We also went to the sports equipment shop - Pierre wanted a bike helmet (he got
one, and again what we felt was good advice from the salesperson), and I bought
a pair of sports pants. It was kind of annoying, because I tried 5 different,
and the only one I really liked was 1/ more expensive 2/ with a Swiss olympic
team logo, which I could honestly do without. But oh well - I needed a second
pair of sports pants too. So, there, shopping successful.
Watched Inside Out this evening. It was both very good and pretty unsettling, I
think because of the literally mind-shattering consequences of Shit Going Wrong,
which is... scary. But, I really liked it, still.
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