~e_wizard@TTBP



06 july 2024

I feel good

Ok so. Networking. Actually works really well. I crashed hard because I had no externals to meet for the first time in 9 years and I didn't know what to do with myself. Talked to two people today who got me some perspective.

I literally forgot that teaching is a thing I already enjoy and am almost qualified to do. Science communication! Fuck, there's so much of that! God, I could work at the OSC with that kind of career, or even indulge in some off-the-wall daydreams of myself as the next Bill Nye!

Anyway. This is why untreated mental illness is not good. Hopefully tutoring gets me enough money for maybe one therapy session once my student insurance runs out.

Teaching scares me to be honest because it is virtually certain I'll have to stay closeted until I can get a full time job & join the union. Science communication is a less certain field but it seems much better for me as a trans person. Hopefully I get to go on HRT again soon. Being off it has made me more suicidal than I thought.

Holy shit it just clicked for me. I'm the closest I've been to suicide in years. I'm getting such tunnel vision that literally only joblessness and various forms of self-annihilation are on my mind.

This is just flat out dysphoria again. God fucking damn it. How the hell am I supposed to explain this to my parents? Sorry mom & dad, I have to reject the church explicitly because I will literally die if I don't transition. Fuck, can I get a doctor's note for this?

More tunnel vision notes: I knew I didn't want to go into engineering because my dad took me to the engineering firm he works at for the grade 9 career day thing and it was just. So depressing there.

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03 july 2024

Sometimes I feel ambivalent, and sometimes suicidal. I'm gonna try to list my mistakes and see how I feel.

Not taking a break in high school

If I had taken a break just to focus on my future instead of grinding out assignments non-stop, I would have made better choices. Instead, I could only give thought to my "passion" because that's what people said, and I decided on physics because it was something I'm good at and it's a STEM subject. STEM is a meme at this point, and it was then too, only I didn't do enough research. When I went to the university fair, I exclusively looked at "good" physics programs. More fool I.

Not taking a break after high school

Even after spending money on applications, I could have deferred or even declined them just to really think through spending 5 years and nearly 20k for the chance at a very narrow career that requires extremely tough training. I should have researched my career prospects and developed backup plans for if shit hit the fan. Instead I just assumed that since I was good at it and interested in it that I'd just keep going. Maybe that's an uncharitable read; I don't actually remember what I was thinking. I know my mom was against gap years on principle.

Not reevaluating after first year

Lockdowns happened right at the end of mine. I had time in the summer to think, the only summer break I had, and I took just one single course in CS and spent the rest of the summer recharging from the past year.

Not reevaluating after my first unemployed co-op term

I thought co-op = jobs in the future. Not getting a job meant that I should have reevaluated my life plan. Instead I naively assumed it was just COVID and I would get one next time.

Not reevaluating after my second unemployed co-op term

Last possible unemployment term, and instead of reflecting, I panicked and tried placating myself.

Not reevaluating after my co-op advisor called me

I was very obviously suicidal and instead of opening up further I got scared I'd be institutionalized and placated her and myself.

Not seeking help

Fucking "anxiety" or whatever. I was too easy on myself because I was treating myself like a skittish animal. I wish anyone in my family saw me struggling and helped.

Believing my physics professor's graphs

In my third or fourth year, one of my professors put up a whole series of charts about low unemployment in physics and how many physics majors go on into engineering or CS positions. After being unemployed in co-op, why did I of all people think this was an option for me? If I can't compete with inexperienced 18-22 year olds, how could I possibly compete with people who have specialized degrees in exactly what employers want?

Not transferring when I met that civil eng student

I met one who transferred from my exact program. By then I felt I was 4 years in the hole and it wouldn't be worth it.

Finishing my degree

Locked myself out of assistance programs for a better education. Locked myself out of internships. Locked myself into being a loser with a wasted degree.

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28 june 2024

Talked to my mom about my regrets. She insisted I did the right thing by pursuing something I loved. I keep looking for advice online and seeing things that are aimed either at high schoolers or uni grads with time machines... It brought me some cold comfort that even the people at BGR hadn't heard of the "choose your major by calculating ROI" method.

My parents tried their best. They moved to another continent, put me in the best schools they could, and in the most competitive subprograms therein, and I genuinely loved physics. I remember feeling conflicted about my future during my degree but by then I felt it was too late to transfer. I know my mom dropped out with only one credit remaining until she could graduate. We were all terrified of that happening to me too.

I guess that's the rationalization paragraph. Anyway. There's no reason to start over. I guess the best I could do now is keep my head down, work, do side jobs, pay off OSAP, and save money for more education if I still feel I need to do that. This time in engineering, though. On the one hand, I hate the idea of spending so much money to learn similar concepts. On the other hand, Canada is very strict about engineering licenses, and I don't want to emigrate again. Maybe I'll change my mind about that in the future.

The thing that pisses me off, though, is I'll have to spend more time in the fucking closet. I'm sick of it. The closet makes me a worse person to be around. I'm a fucking shell trying to avoid reminders. And I can't leave because I rely on my family, and they on me. I don't want to feel this way anymore. I thought I'd get to break away sooner. Things are looking worse and worse.

I have to just. Grit my teeth and make it to 30. Start playing a role or something to make it easier.

Feeling distraught because I remembered a conversation I had when I started HRT last year, about how hopeful I felt for the future because I thought this fucking degree was versatile. Literally last fucking year and I was still fooling myself. God. I know the skills themselves are transferrable. I just wish I knew what to fucking do. A friend said I'm "the coolest cs-adjacent person [she knows]" and that hit me because like. Why did I intimidate myself out of simply doing a CS degree?

Anyway. If I pursue another fucking bachelor's, I guess the choice is some kind of physical engineering or CS. On the one hand, the former is gonna be easier, since I already have a pretty solid physics background. On the other hand, the latter would be more new things to learn. I guess I should reframe it. Think of it purely in terms of ROI.

Trying to be optimistic. Thanks to grants + savings, I owe only 11k in student loans. In terms of expensive mistakes, not as bad as it could be. I've paid off the provincial portion already by dumping my whole bank account in there and allocating the funds specifically. So my loan doesn't even accrue interest, since federal student loans don't do that.

Worst case scenario, I do another bachelor's, but when I'm better able to weather that storm. I just have to figure out the closet things in the interim. It's been easier since I could just be somewhat stealth on campus. I already miss that. I need to learn to drive, and I need a job to pay for a car + gas so I can keep doing that sort of thing. Moving out is probably not gonna happen, and I have to make peace with it.

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27 june 2024

Thinking randomly about how I don't read my previous stuff before writing a feels log for a new day.

Had a nightmare last night that I was in university again, only it looked like high school and people were shuffled around in their roles. The nightmare was that I was 30 minutes late to class.

Thinking about my degree again. Majoring in physics in Canada of all places is... just such a bad decision. You need a P. Eng to get any engineering job. People claim it's a very versatile degree, but I'm just. Talked to a friend of mine last night and it's just not easy to market. I don't know what else I could have done, though. Fucking. I've been going with the advice I've been given, just do what I like + think I'd be good at + is in STEM. Terrible advice.

I think I'm just kind of reaching for things to blame. I keep thinking about maybe killing myself and "starting over" which is weird because I've never once believed in reincarnation.

I went into physics because it was my big interest in high school. I thought since everyone always told me I could do science that I could make that into a job, somehow. Go academia and all that. I didn't want to do CS because I was intimidated, and I didn't want to do engineering because it made my parents miserable. So. Now I'm regretting not just sucking it up. Then again there's no guarantee I'd've made it in those fields either. Not like I've even done much yet. I don't know.

I just. Don't know why I feel so terrible when I actually write it down, but I still do. Just feeling terrible.

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09 june 2024

I basically only come here to vent, at this point. Several times now, I've written something at my lows and haven't corrected it at my highs. Moot point right now because I'm here to vent again.

Got some job offer text that I don't trust, the person (or bot) on the other end just said they got my phone from "the data centre" becuase I have a job search going on. I don't remember where I gave my phone but this is just reinforcing that I shouldn't put it on anything anymore.

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13 may 2024

Talked to academic advisor. To summarize, my grade is just about perfectly average, and it's normal to feel this way. Did also talk with some friends from a uni club I was very involved with. Weird experience to not be a room volunteer, but still be in the space.

Anyway, jobs-wise, my best bet right now is to shoot for temporary positions within my uni. They've got a hiring freeze, but people are still taking e.g. parental leave or vacation time, so it's a good time to try and apply. That's actually the same thing my academic advisor did a long time ago, and it clearly worked for them well enough.

My uncle says to get contacts from alumni in my program and ask them about job opportunities and what they do, and so on. I'm hesitant to do that because of closet reasons and also the shame at dropping co-op. Also I know a couple alumni and they're currently either in grad school or unemployed. I can't do grad school, my parents' finances are kinda fucked and I need to work to help them.

Currently working on fixing the Jake's Resume template on Overleaf. Basically instead of working with a ton of custom commands, I used packages to globally change how headings look. Odd thing is that JR already did that, but only for top-level \sections, not for \subsections. Weird. Anyway, it's still a WIP but the body looks great.

Instead of a custom command for \resumeItem, I changed how bulleted lists work with the \setlist command from the {enumitem} package. I also got rid of the \resumeItemListStart and ...End tags, because the first one was just \begin{itemize} and nothing else, while all the second one did was adjust spacing around the list. I took care of that with \setlist.

Resume subheadings are no longer just bolded list items with no bullets, but are now redefined subheadings. Also no need for tabular effects because I found out about the \hfill command. Admittedly not too happy with the semantics of this one, because I have something like

\subsection{LaTeX University \hfill \normalfont{201X-202X \\
Bachelors in Whatever \hfill \textit{Computertown, USA}}}

When I'd instead prefer to get the same effect with

\subsection{LaTeX University}
\notASubsection{201X-202X}{Bachelors in Whatever}{Computertown, USA}

I would need to figure out some evil arcane stuff with line overlaps for this kind of thing. Okay! Not quite as evil as I thought. Ended up defining a custom command named \subsectionDetails that has \vspace{-1em} at the start. Yay! Now I need to figure out the left spacing on the second line. I might as well set spacing on all paragraphs, that way I can also write cover letters in the same template.

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02 may 2024

Went to church, back now. Sorta helped but now I feel like I'm oscillating between extremes. I don't know what to do.

Obsessively trying to find graduation statistics for GPA at the end of the program. Doing analysis on my own progress. Even though there's nothing I can do at this point. I don't even know why I'm doing it. Haven't I stressed out enough throughout this program?

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01 may 2024

I guess I just feel like this shakes my identity. I also feel like I should have thought further ahead. I'm like. This whole time I've been stressed about graduating on time and I kept just taking more and more courses per term. I should have left off some of the harder ones. I should have withdrawn from some courses. I should not have taken courses at all while I was stressing over co-op. I don't know how other people managed to stay in co-op while also taking courses according to the recommended sequence. I knew people who straight up failed some courses and I've never failed a course and it's making me feel petty and small because on some chilidsh level I feel like that should count for something. I don't want to be labeled as "less academically inclined" when I've dedicated my whole life up to now to just studying. I don't understand why any of this is making me spiral into despair multiple times per day, and why it's only starting now, half a month after my last exam.

I'm also comparing myself to people who are doing way better than me because those are the people actually sharing their averages. I'm doing analysis on my degree just trying to figure out what I should have done differently.

I should have withdrawn from Waves, E&M the course, which would have meant withdrawing from the lab as well. I should have withdrawn from Differential Equations, then Optics & the associated lab. I flat out should not have taken all the courses I did while also struggling with co-op worries. The fucked thing is that I didn't even remember taking those courses while taking courses that they are prerequisites for. I should not have taken Spring term courses at all. I should have withdrawn from that econ elective and damned the loss of OSAP funds. All of these "should have"s would have gotten my average to about 80. This is 14 withdrawals that weigh as much as 24 lecture courses. At 5 lectures per term (maximum), taking these courses would last another 5 terms, or 2 years (accounting for Spring term things). Would that be worth it? Right now I want to believe that isn't worth it. But it still haunts me.

Talked with my mom about it. She told me that withdrawing from stuff is what she did and that's the reason she never finished her degree. I have to convince myself that finishing it at all is a good thing. I just wish it didn't cost so much. Based on data from Statistics Canada, I'm actually graduating with less starting debt than the average. The big sticking points coming to mind right now are the forced re-closeting and losing a community. I have contacts from people to talk to but god. Literally took me until my final year to find a space where it didn't feel like an uphill battle to keep in touch with people and now I'll be gone. I feel abandoned even though logically it's me who's supposed to move on.

My mom says that even my grade isn't too bad considering the rigor and reputation of my uni. Some people I know have said employers specifically prefer my uni. But my problem is that most people (including me) chose this place because of the co-op program but I had to withdraw from it and then just sunk-cost-fallacied my way through the rest of my program. I did consider switching universities but I had vivid nightmares about that. I was worried about retaking courses at the time, now it's something I only wish I had done.

The good news is I'm fortunate enough to take time to regroup. The bad news is that I need to recloset myself and stop HRT. And performing femininity for job interviews and such is going to be painful.

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29 april 2024

Having this crawling thing up my throat because it just kind of occurred to me that for the past 5 years I've kind of been defined by being a physics major and now I just feel totally disconnected from that. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do with this. I'm having the same thoughts of changing my program that I had like 3 years in only I didn't because what the hell else was I going to do? It feels like. I have no idea what I can actually do with this even after years of people telling me its versatile and seeing stats like 80% of people with degrees & jobs don't work in a field related to their job. But right now it seems like everybody's struggling with jobs and that that's been the case for a while. I've been told and been telling myself that any degree is better than no degree, which is in a sense true, but god damn I feel like I should have done engineering or something. Although, realistically, no engineering undergrad program would have taken me. I still should have applied or something. Or CS or shit like that. But I've been seeing bad news about that field too.

Ok now that I've got that vent out. Different vent. It seems it's all about connections everywhere. That's a major thing that even my peers are stressing. I have few connections myself, and the prospect of trying to get a job with those of my parents (who are only more connected because they're twice my age i.e. have had time to make & keep more friends) would force me to closet myself fully. Oh god that shit already almost killed me. I'm already facing forced medical detransition because the uni clinic won't see me 6 months after I graduate (assuming I don't fail my one required course... ha, that would be funny at this point) and that means I can't get HRT anymore. The damn "directory" is either full of therapists (yes because I can talk-therapy my way into bodily changes) or clinics that aren't even seeing new patients. The absolute state etc etc etc... I was told to go look for an endocrinologist so the clinic could refer me to one but goddamn. Goddamn.

On the bright side I finally had time to reorganize my room to a large extent. Got my 2012 laptop running too.

Ok. Slept a bit. Calculated my GPA. It's low. I can't even try grad school. Got my grade back for a class I'd been doing well in and it looks like I must have fucked up the exam badly or something. It's not good. We don't really do GPA in Canada but for some reason grad schools do so up until now I've just been doing my raw average and converting it via table. Mistake. Did it via spreadsheet. Goddamn. I thought I'd at least been doing ok. Sad thing is I can't even think of what I would have done differently other than just not do this program at all. But if Physics was this hard I imagine something more sought after would be even worse, if only because there would be way more competition and way harsher standards to compensate. Augh.

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24 april 2024

I need to order ink.

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19 april 2024

Weird to think that I'm done uni. I don't have other school years to look forward to. I don't know what I'm gonna do beyond the short-term.

I've been kinda trying to keep a routine of tidying my room. I feel like I need to figure out my desk somehow. There is just too much stuff on it that can't really go anywhere else right now. Unless I consign it to the storage drawers under my bed. Right now I have to figure out space for my books and my serving dish. I still haven't made nachos in it... I would but almost all my friends live too far away

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14 april 2024

Today I did my cable management stuff. Had a false start where I tried working my way down from my desk top. That led to ugly loops. Ended up re-starting from my surge protector and my PC and working my way up until the shared cables met. Midway through, I decided that cables that have a sort of box in them should be taped together. Take the two ends from either side of the box, fold one over, and tape them together. Rinse and repeat.

Pretty happy with how my room is turning out. Less happy with how my statmech grade is gonna be. I need to sit down and actually work on it. The exam is Monday morning. Don't know why I feel so terrible about it.

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09 april 2024

Made a lot of progress on cleaning my room! No more big pile of clothing. Basically I read this book called Organizing Solutions for people w/ ADHD and it said that my priority should be to simplify putting things away. Huge breakthrough for me.

The book talked about decluttering and how hard it is to put things away when your drawers are overflowing. Well, I was also getting a pile-up because my drawers were overflowing. I decided that the best way to keep the pile from the floor was to just drop stuff in the drawers without folding (reducing the number of steps). To make room, I removed everything I wouldn't have put in the pile and put it on hangers instead. I have a built-in kind of rack thing in my room that I only kept a couple things on. Now I have basically most of my drawers on that thing and I still have half of that space left to use. Wow.

Basically like. I didn't want to just discard everything because I already know I have the minimum amount of clothing I need to get to work and uni and that's about it. Maybe a couple nice shirts for interviews and formal events. I've grown out of my nice-event pants, though, ugh.

Anyway, I found out I had bed linens in my clothes drawer. They were just in the very bottom drawer with my snowpants. Hm. Moved the snowpants to the hanger because honestly as much as I dislike hanging I really only wear snowpants when the bus stop gets intolerably cold in a way my thermals can't handle.

Ugh I keep. Getting confused inside my own head. Anyway! Drawers have been reallocated. More room for hats + scarves because I wear them every day. Put gloves and bags in the same drawer because one drawer was too large. Bags went from being hung on my mirror to in a drawer. Eliminated the "home wear" drawer in favour of storing the home-shirts with the outdoor-shirts and likewise with pants. Too much overflow otherwise. This way instead of changing out an outfit and then putting it away, I'm just swapping out elements. Something about building the swap into the changing process. Hoping that would cut down on the "extra step to put it away" feeling. So far it has, but I've only tested it once (groceries).

As for decluttering and so on, I'm reading another book right now called Decluttering at the Speed of Life that I'm hoping helps. I've tried Konmari, kinda, but the visualization is just too much for me, and jumping ahead of it to declutter just leaves me feeling even worse. I'll have to take this more slowly. Hopefully this helps somewhat. Goal is still to make it through one Konmari, eventually.

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06 april 2024

Hi again. Sent off a quick email. Still need to send this one that's been a draft for almost a week now.

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03 april 2024

Oh god I finally fucking emailed. I should have been doing this way earlier but COVID fucked up my program stuff so I. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.

Anyway beyond that. Feelings. I'm just getting cringe-blasted with my own email that I sent. Like. At least I sent it and I'm not getting regret- blasted instead. I mentioned I'm on places like this, btw, and. I need to lock down my feels page oh god. The spiral ensues.

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26 march 2024

I'm back!!

Got my new SSH key hehe. Basically I fucked up my computer and had to reinstall Linux. I did something wrong when installing KDE and my login screen broke, then I tried uninstalling using a bunch of commands I really should have looked into more, and basically made my PC unbootable.

So what I did was use my live boot USB to transfer shit from my computer to my other USB, and then to my laptop. At the time I didn't know that I could just dump it on the 2nd hard disk I had, because Windows Fast Boot was a thing and I didn't know about that. I just didn't realize that mounting it was an option. Anyway, copying to/from a USB on my Windows laptop is so slow!! Especially compared to Linux. Wow!!

It's been a while since then. I learned about partitioning my drive so I can keep my files somewhat safe even when I fuck up and have to reinstall. I learned about Windows Fast Boot, how to disable it, and how to use Mint's backup tool to chuck a backup of my /home onto my Windows drive. It's so nice.

Currently updating my resume so I can apply to jobs. Presentation on Thursday.

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11 november 2023

Midterm season is finally over but now my cosmology prof's been talking about how there's less than a month until our exams. Ah well.

Crashed hard on Wednesday and still crashed to be honest. Also got my blood test results and it's mostly normal except something about sugars. I'm supposed to change my diet a bit which, fair. I got my blood drawn during midterm hell so I was snacking a lot. I should find something else to eat when I'm stressed. The NP recommended fatty foods but also avoiding trans-fats. E.g. eggs, nuts, avocado.

Testosterone levels are higher than they were last time I got my blood drawn and we don't know why. I'm on the same dose as I was three months ago. It is what it is, I guess.

Haven't had time to update either my tilde website or my Neocities website. Sad.

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29 october 2023

I feel like. A lot of people feel closer to me than I do to them. And I really would like to feel that closeness. But I feel very lonely despite this. And I really hate the fucking double bind shit I'm in rn wrt housing. I just want this all to end.

In other news, blood test on tuesday and maybe I need to get a higher dose of my medication based on like. What else is going on with me physically and so on.

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14 october 2023

Oh wow it's been a while since I wrote here.

Hello!

Term break is close to over and I still haven't finished my homework. Most of it is due Thursday anyway but still, I have a test that day so I'd rather be done that stuff early so I can cram.

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23 may 2023

Currently doing Paper wrt konmari. Thinking of going back to do the clothing again because I keep secondguessing myself but I also just want to get this done. Perhaps I'll reflect on it some more later.

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14 may 2023

Started IFS self-therapy after my therapist recommended. Also need to look into miscues and what not.

Tidied my room pretty nicely I'd say. Didn't do the full Tidying Up Konmari stuff but I sorted things pretty well I would say.

Mother is currently tidying but she has given me three pairs of pants so far and it would have been four had I not stopped her.

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10 may 2023

Tidied my room today! Took a bit more than 2 hours. Not 100% done of course, but wow there's a big improvement.

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05 april 2023

Found five (5) unused hard drives under my bed. Four out of them (4/5) are probably for booting from. At least one of them (1/4) is faulty.

Checked them just now.

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26 march 2023

Feeling good today. Good progress on astro lab. What if I got an astrolabe...

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24 march 2023

Really busy month. Only about two weeks left until exams start, though.

Last day to drop a class. I think I'll stay in my lab course even though I'm likely to fail, because I don't get a refund if I drop. Worst it could do to me is drop my average and even then it won't be enough to put me on probation. Want to see if I can take a CS course next term, those are usually pretty fun.

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06 march 2023

I am once again stressing over a lab report.

Overdue: Lab report. Progress: Automated the coordinate-finding thing. All 200+ images now have some reference stars I can use. I have a feeling I'm way overcomplicating it though so I reached out to my lab partner to confirm I'm not missing something obvious. Otherwise I'll have to manually draw regions around each of the stars.

This week: Computational physics: low stress (doing well) Quantum physics: low stress (doing ok)

Next week: General relativity midterm (ultra high stress) General relativity assignment (high stress) I am not doing well in general relativity.

Tomorrow's agenda:

Haven't been sleeping well lately. Adjusting to a medication dose change and I've been turning in much later but waking up before my alarm. I don't think I can justify going back to sleep at 7 AM, though, since I'm always up by then on workdays. I don't think it's healthy to sleep in on weekends.

Too much energy to go to sleep as early as I used to. Higher energy is an effect of the medication I'm on and I think the dose change is a possible reason. Could also just be high stress, not unusual for me. I have a drs appointment in 2 weeks so I can bring it up then.

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01 march 2023

This week is looking pretty bad.

Found out I had an assignment due Sunday that I didn't hand in. Need to get that done tomorrow but I need my partner's input.

Have to work on overdue lab report.

Found out I have a midterm on Thursday. At least it's for my computational course but damn. Damn... I can code pretty well but I need the damn docs by me at all times. I do not have the memory for this. I remember the intro "teaser quiz" sort of thing was writing what output some one-liners had, and I was there going "but can you add this to that at all?" I thought everything was gonna output an error...

Anyway. I'm starting to notice effects of HRT. Bottom growth is coming in, which is very nice, but I don't have any pants that aren't too tight. I've been needing new pants anyway, but I hate shopping for pants especially. I can never find pants that don't hug my thighs. I suppose the T will take care of that by redistributing some of the fat, but that takes a long time.

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20 february 2023

Sick today. Taking it easy but there's nothing to do. Don't want to touch homework, but probably should.

Argument with mother today.

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18 february 2023

Temporary break from schoolwork. But I do need to get to campus 4 days a week still, despite it being reading week. Part of it is so I can go to office hours and understand the assignments but a significant chunk of it is for doctors appointments.

Basically since I spend every working day on campus anyway, I decided to take care of all my medical business in between classes. Got a health issue that's somewhat urgent now, and I need to get it dealt with as soon as I can, and that means... blood testing on Tuesday and appointment on Wednesday. Both in the morning. The office hours for my courses are in the evening. So there's that.

In other news, I passed my quantum physics midterm!! They did change the weighting of the questions because not enough people finished on time, but for me I performed WAY better on question 2 than I did on question 1. So I don't know if I should dispute my mark to get those 5% back. Well, I know I should, but I don't really have the energy for it. Health problem is sapping most of it.

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14 february 2023

Mother remarked on my voice sounding deeper. Note: have been on HRT for half a month so far, so it's definitely not that. I told her I went to a free drama class where I learned that my voice pitches up as a response to stress.

Partly true! The "drama workshop" was actually specifically transgender voice training, but it was basically the same as drama exercises from high school. Well, now I have established a good cover story for my voice changes on T.

Aside from that, past two weeks have been hell in terms of deadlines, and next two weeks are more of the same. In order of soonest:

Well. I'm looking forward to midwinter break.

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11 february 2023

Week is almost over. Handed in my Friday assignment just now, incomplete. Despite being one of the first people to start the assignment. Haha. Well, anyway, didn't do the Thursday assignment because I found out we get late marks instead of automatic fails, unlike my other courses, so I'll be doing that this weekend.

Been having a lot more body issues this year. Just pulled a muscle again, and it's been happening a lot. Well idk if it's pullign a muscle but it's been hurting for a while and it happened because I tried getting up weirdly and bent something. Random muscles have been twitching lately and I'm just hoping none of them decide to spasm again like in the first week of January because my foot still has not recovered from that.

Actually that foot is doing pretty bad. I'm worried there's something genuinely wrong with it now, because it's been hurting since then and I know some bones got shifted out of alignment because I had to spend January 6th trying to push them back into place. And it's been hurting since but I figured it's because I haven't had time to rest at all so far. Probably not helping.

Anyway currently my upper back is giving me issues so I'm going to cut this short before I launch into discussing way more TMI shit.

Also the silver sauce bowls have been in use as mask holders this term, looks quite nice to grab a mask out of a silver goblet-like thing.

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05 february 2023

Long week. Next week should be even longer. Ah well. Hopefully I'll get enough work done over the weekend that I'll have time to study on Monday.

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29 january 2023

Been getting really into the Persona 2 OSTs lately. Well, not too broadly into it but depth-wise into it, as in I have a couple songs I really enjoy but I don't know much beyond them.

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28 january 2023

Can't wait for this day to be over. Two homework assignments due today, gave up on one partway; only left 3 marks out of 20 incomplete. Did that because the second assignment is weighted more, in terms of impact on my term GPA. A full 1.5 times more, at that. And I don't understand shit.

Whew, it's over.

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24 january 2023

Keep putting off making some healthcare-related appointments that would improve my quality of life really quickly.

Homework due Friday. Not much progress made. Feeling really sleepy at 7 PM despite having woken up at 9 AM today. Perhaps a sign I'm just not getting enough sleep, full stop.

Worried that I've overloaded myself in terms of committments but at least I have Sundays free for now. Fridays too but I need those days for aforementioned healthcare issues. Only one occupied Saturday remaining until they're free too.

Set up auto-pay on my transit pass. No more running for a kiosk in the early morning.

Trying to get into goth music, looked up "goth music" on Invidious and started listening to a playlist with some 200 videos on it. Went for She Past Away - Gerçekten Özleyince (Kesmeşeker) because it looked Turkish. Ended up being Turkish for "When you really miss (cut sugar)" according to DeepL translator. It seems shekjer had been a Turkish loanword this whole time.

Head hurt all day. Had two mugs of tea with milk. Still need to comment on something I finished reading earlier. Need to clean up my homework writings into something I can actually hand in. Saw a BBC article that claimed English-speaking Canadians were loyal to the Queen (older article). Huh?? Who the hell in Canada cares about the royal family? Never met anyone like that.

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19 january 2023

I haven't been here in a while

Currently swamped with a lot of schoolwork. Well. When am I not? Anyway, went out to a community brainstorming event kind of thing and it went really well. Met some cool people, exchanged emails with one, will probably get the others at the next meeting I can attend. It was very nice.

Currently reading ~owls' journaling article on its Neocities.

Currently procrastinating on General Relativity homework.

Thinking of adding a physics section to my website.

Listening to Persona 2 music (Vehicle handling, PSP ver.)

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08 january 2023

I'm back. Forgot how much I hate it here, and hate my life. My brother decided to dump his old desk in here. It was my old desk before it was his old desk, so I guess that's why. But I did ask to swap for a reason. I guess I could make it my workbench, have somewhere to put my sewing machine and other things that would otherwise pile up on my computer desk.

While I was living with my friends, I actually had a really good time, until my flight got cancelled and I got bumped to a different flight that got delayed by 3 hours. Forgot my damn tablet in that city too, though my friend said ze'd mail it to me.

I have got to start taking better care of this room. I'm going to do that KonMari stuff again after I've gone through my maintenance flowchart.

Also crabby because I had to drop a class I was really looking forward to taking, but the textbook costs money and the class meet time got pushed to the evening. I can't do evening classes again, I refuse. My current schedule has me finish before 3 PM for everything except a night lab (it's astronomy...) and a supplementary thing that's in the evening but I have to take this course to graduate and it's only offered in the winter term. I can only hope it's optional.

I wish they'd let us see the syllabi early.

Tried showing my mother a necklace I got while on the trip, she immediately asked if it was some kind of idolatrous thing. Okay, good to know that Facebook poisoning doesn't go away. I think the only thing I can do regarding that is take control of the household. Don't know how else to phrase it. But if I take hold of cooking + cleaning now that I'm dropping my evening classes then maybe I'll hate being in this place a bit less. I'll have to do my own room first because it looks like a mess. Part of it was from me packing, true, but what the fuck has my brother been doing here? Why is there a dissassembled desk and three big books in here?

Ok, went off to reorganize my clothes drawers and get rid of some ill-fated sewing projects. Now back. Making myself a plan

Clothing: Newly reorganized. Shuffled everything in my drawers around. Top left is now all underclothes, not just things that touch bare skin but things I layer on top of those but can't wear on their own, e.g. long johns, tight tops. Top right is still socks. First big drawer is now accessories, which have been warmly welcomed from the top of the drawer. Top of the drawer is still quite cluttered. My little silver dishes are still on that thing. Second big drawer is still outdoor shirts, but not flannels. Flannels are now in the bottom drawer, which used to hold random fabrics and clothing in dire need of repair. outdoor pants are still in third/penultimate drawer.

Books: Three new ones, gifts from my uncle I think? They look very cool. My books are now straining the capacity of the meager shelf I have assigned them. I need to figure out a way to make one on my own, out of cheap or discarded materials.

Papers: Mostly pretty organized. I haven't accumulated too many.

Miscellany: Ughhhh. Things keep piling up. At this rate I'll need a second set of drawers, to be constructed same as the non-existent bookshelf. Massive, massive TODOs all over the place.

Sentimentals: Strewn around my closet floor, mostly. Some have been incorporated as accessories. Gave a critical one to my friend to keep safe, since it's a gift from the LGBTQ+ centre I volunteered with for a long time. Forgot to bring the second gift to zem as well. If either is discovered by my current household, it would lead to a conversation I'd rather not have.

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26 december 2022

I have officially given up on botany! I just don't have the reason to get on my PC every day now that I'm On Break. Plus I'll be visiting some friends for about two weeks so I won't be able to get on my PC at all! The horror. I would ask to get a new key for my phone or whatever but there is something special about getting on a big computer with a clacky keyboard and big screen. Makes me feel way cooler about being online than tapping at a rectangle. I'm gonna miss my wizard tower.

To-do: Get that ISO onto a USB!! I've been working on a custom ISO for Linux Mint (is that the lingo?) that has some extra programs pre-installed. It's meant for one of the friends I'm visiting!!

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11 december 2022

Lab report progress

Ran into issues in my analysis. Exported the wrong graphs. Luckily, with a brain cursed by the foulest spells of confusion, I did the whole experiment at least twice and on one of my attempts I did get the right graph. Unfortunately this means I have to do pixel analysis. Which means booting into Windows because to this day the only paint program I've learned how to use is paint.NET, and the WINE performance rating thing is not good.

On the bright side, I do have part of the analysis done now, and I finished the entire procedure section! Theory still needs work but I've already sunk more effort into this report than healthy. I have got to get back to reviewing stuff that will be on my exam. Exam starts late evening (7PM) so I'll have time to finish my review tomorrow. Did a decent amount of it on Thursday and just kinda crept sluggishly these past few days.

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05 december 2022

Have to vent this shit somewhere. Presentation is tomorrow and I'm regretting my choice so hard. I chose the first experiment I did this term because I learned a cool property of electric pulses from it but then I got the actual lab report feedback (all the way at the end of term, after I had already selected my final presentation) and wow there's more mistakes in this one than in the last experiment I did. Hate that!!! And now I don't know how my lab partner calculated these velocity values so I guess I'll have to ask, and explain that I was one of only two (2) fools in this class who picked this hellish lab. At least that means my mark won't be impacted by a TA getting really impressed by someone else's success?

13 hrs later: presentation is today Don't know what it is about November through March but my thoughts pitch to suicide the moment I'm under stress. Likely to be about sunlight or not going outside but I already don't do those things in the spring and fall and I'm not as suicidal then. Summer is also fairly bad for me, too.

So far have done

Mostly done

There's no way to get a decent thing for this anymore

There's just way too much missing. Why did I pick this cursed experiment?

Well that went fucking awful. Had to skip a whole question that was based on shit I literally knew because I drew a blank and didn't include the damn graph.

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02 december 2022

Over the past couple days, I wrote up a really nice medieval -looking stylesheet. I'm only going to use it on my Neocities, though, because it heavily relies on fonts to do the style work. I still need to do a lot of testing, especially on machines where I don't have cool fonts installed, so I'll be doing that first.

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28 november 2022

Cooked today. Pork ribs in soy sauce + ginger + pepper + yellow onions

Lab tomorrow, doing Fourier analysis again. Should be pretty easy, I've got a decent function set up from the last lab I had to do. Next term I have a course on more advanced computational physics concepts, and I see Fourier transforms are on the description, so I'm basically gonna be set for that part. I think labs should be done before lecture courses, rather than during them. Doing a lab on cables really helped me with mutual induction, before we actually did it in class. When I was doing electrostatics I had to take the lecture concurrently with the lab, and that was not as good.

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25 november 2022

Really feeling the end of term stuff. Hard to believe it's already almost over. I have a comparatively lighter course load this term, so that's not as bad as it usually is. Not that I would remember; I don't remember much of anything about school by default.

Side note: vim is great because I can delete so many lines without ever reaching for my mouse. Also I'm hungry again. Huh?? It's already been 4 hours???

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18 november 2022

Haven't been getting much sleep lately.

Wrote an essay on Roger Bacon. About to hand it in; see I had written Francis Bacon instead. :/

And now, after an hour long commute, online class. Fun. Usually it's on days I do not have a commute, but it got moved because of an assignment conflict.

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15 november 2022

Urghhh just got done a lab report 4 hours ago and I still feel terrible. Very irregular sleep the past few days. Still really tempted to just go to bed now, but I really don't want to wake up in the middle of the night for no reason. I guess I'll catch up on my physics lectures, then. Fallen behind again.

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10 november 2022

Addendum to yesterday,

Train does not run until after my first lecture of the day starts. Not sure if worth it to go to university for the other two. They're intro-level electives because I did my course selection late. My first is one that's actually required by my degree. Thankfully there's no attendance checks at universities in my country, and honestly it blows my mind that americans have that.

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09 november 2022

Redacted a lot of the stuff above this for melodrama. TL;DR: Bus route is down, bus company is dragging its feet, and I'm physically unable to go to university as a result. Unless I take the train in one direction for an hour then ride it in the opposite direction for two. Not even factoring in the time it takes to bus to the train station itself.

On top of all this. I've found myself obsessed with The Sims again. I'm not even sure if I actually like the damn game. I found that I mostly already had a plot when I sat down to play it. Why not just write it down in story form then??? Ugh.

On the bright side, I'm currently reading The Left Hand of Darkness and I really like it! I'm about to start Chapter 5. So far I'm interested in how humans got to other planets, and how/why they fell out of contact with each other. Why do the Gethenians have kemmer while the other humans don't? I also find it interesting that the rest of humanity gets called perverts, when in this world people will call you worse for a shifting/ changing gender.

Also, it's interesting that Genly defaults to gendering the Gethenians as male. I somehow get the impression it's because Genly himself is a man. Reminds me of reading something about how men would generally say "he" and women would opt for "he or she" or something to that effect, but honestly without context that observation seems wrong to me. It's still rattling around in my brain though, and it is likely to have been true in the past, or be true in social groups in which I'm not.

Oh, nice. Chapter 5 opens with "My landlady, a voluble man."

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23 october 2022

Debating whether to use an existing HTML pre-processor or just forge on ahead with Python. So far, using beautifulSoup, I've managed to generate a table of contents automatically, and of course clean up my indenting. It does generate #ids for headings if they don't have their own, but it doesn't work as well for the little blog section on my index. This is all about my Neocities, by the way.

What I want out of a template:

<blogpost>
<htime datetime="2022-10-23" />
<p>Here's a bunch of text</p>
</blogpost>

to render as

<section id="2022-10-23">
  <h3><time datetime="2022-10-23">October 23, 2022</time></h3>
  <!-- or h4, h5, depends on the page -->
  <a href="table-of-contents">Back to top</a>
  <!-- hidden with CSS, only for keyboard navigation -->
  <p>Here's a bunch of text</p>
</section>

Additionally,

<codeblock>
  <summary>Graphing code</summary>
  code goes here
</codeblock>

to render as

<details>
  <summary>Graphing code</summary>
  <pre><code>
code goes here
  </code></pre>
</details>

Is there a semantic reason to use pre? I'm pretty sure I can just slap a class on the code element and be done with it, but if there's a semantic reason I probably shouldn't.

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21 october 2022

Zork!

Turning my home directory into an adventure game. Made some changes to the navigation words because they tripped me up the first time I played it.

Tips: alias look="cat .description" alias examine="cat" alias x="examine"

I think every folder and subfolder on my directory has a .description file. If anyone's reading this, please check them out!

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14 october 2022

I've been thinking about making something similar to feels, but for updating my Neocities. Or perhaps just moving my Neocities here and making the feels-like thing update that, but I don't know how to get files from this tilde onto my computer and vice-versa. Advantage of Neocities is that I can just zip it up and take it.

Anyway, for mobile stuff, maybe use a mobile shell to SSH into my computer, onto an account with no root access of course. Still, concerned about attacks especially if I'm on public wifi. Not quite sure how attacks work but I will learn and for now it just smacks of a bad idea. Especially since my phone has not had a security update since 2020. Google Pixel 2 and I've had it since 2018 at most (could be 2017? I know I got it pretty close to release, like a chump).

I can't even install a new OS on it because the down volume button is broken and I need it to enter the mode where I can install things. I keep postponing installing a new OS on either of my parents' old phones (I hoard them, fuck the phone release cycle, they work fine). I think once I get something decent and updated after 2020 on them it'll be safer. Key: -er. Perhaps not safe, I don't know enough about security.

But that was a tangent. I remember talking with a meatspace (for lack of a better word) acquaintance (possibly friend?) about this concept, and they recommended some things about SSH security but since I neither understood it fully nor wrote it down, it's lost to time. This is why I should commit to bullet journaling, but I feel that system is too... cumbersome? for frequent use. I need to lower the "activation energy" of getting me to write stuff in it, and it can't just be "remember to take it along" because anything beginning with "remember" is a lost cause with me. This is also a tangent. Is it possible to have tangents in a stream of consciousness? More like a topic change, unless I pivot back.

Fruitless tangent, on SMS Pivoting back to the SSH stuff, I'm also thinking about *maybe* using SMS like early Twitter, since I do want to make tweet-like things. That, however, is very unlikely to actually happen because if I had an upper word limit on stuff like this I'd tear it apart. Another reason I can't use SMS. Another, still, is that while I don't know specifics, I'm reasonably sure it's not secure enough to allow my computer to execute actions based on an SMS. Any actions. Also, why in hell would I ever try to put any SMS on my computer?? I'd get nothing but spam.

I hope the details summary thing works on my public_html.

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11 october 2022

Did today

Head hurts, now convinced it's more because of the glasses than the screen time (not that that plays a negligible role... the opposite, in fact). My prescription has not been updated since 2019, but I have to delay getting new glasses because of insurance issues. Might just bite the bullet and get glasses from a cheap online place, this thing's been dragging on long enough.

Reading list put on hold. Got the Broken Earth trilogy as a gift (physical, paperback) some time ago and still haven't read them. Looking forward to them as my next commute read (bus... don't read and drive).

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09 october 2022

Experimenting with Xfce themes today.

Booted into Windows to play the Sims. So fucking slow.

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08 october 2022

Some textbook site I had to use for a course-specific packet wanted me to install its shitty proprietary PDF viewer to view things offline. For a book I had already paid for. Not that they care, they see it as licensing at best. Whatever. Their PDF reader did not allow me to log in because my university wasn't on their list. Alright.

Ended up finding a Python script on GitHub that automates screenshots for this specific service. Output was a nice PDF, a little blurry, but still legible. I love the internet.

Note: my university allows me barely any access to anything. Weird. Whenever I see a cool research article online, I have to ask my friend to download it and send it to me instead. I don't know why my uni's weird like that, most other universities in my country pool stuff together in an access federation, from which my university is conspicuously absent.

Finished reading up to Chapter 10 of Vinbre: The Novel, on AO3. Fucking fantastic, so much original effort, worldbuilding, everything. Amazing.

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01 october 2022

Books

I don't have time to go back and use my awful reading list format.

Am about to finish Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow after seeing it on the BBJ here. Also reading Vinbre the Novel on AO3, that can only loosely be considered fanfiction. Gonna abandon Wizard of Earthsea, it is not my thing (the irony, but I have my reasons).

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25 september 2022

Homework

Working on lab report. Not really sure how to get inductance and capacitance from the diameters of this thing (cylindric capacitor) without also knowing the permittivity and permeability of the dielectric. I guess I could do a rudimentary calculation with just constants, setting permeability to 1 and permittivity to the permittivity of free space instead of its actual material? Would that be allowed in the lab report?

The manual is pretty explicit that we use L and C to calculate other values and then compare them to the experimentally determined values. But then the last part of the analysis is to then use the experimentally determined vals to find L and C.

Alright, since I'm using feels as a way to get this off my chest without bugging my lab partner. Here we go.

Part 1 calls for calculating L and C from the diameters of the inner and outer conductors. They didn't outline a method to do this, just said it's in any E&M textbook. Fair enough, this is a third year lab, we should be expected to do our own math. So I used two different textbooks because fuck yeah, libretexts! Anyway, textbooks generally agree that you need the permeability and permittivity for those, unless you wanna go the Q/V route for capacitance. But we didn't measure the potential difference across the inner and outer conductor (not possible in our case, cable) so we can't do that.

Ending this right now to work. Fuck it why not. Worst case scenario we get marks off.

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23 september 2022

Wrote a whole thing on BBJ, but then saw it was long and so I decided to cut the whole thing and paste it into a file on my home directory to later turn into a webpage or something.

I followed a tutorial on copying and pasting in nano.

I then found out that by exiting the nano in the BBJ, I have consigned my writings to the ashes.

It's getting late. I'll post a shorter reply tomorrow.

It's tomorrow. Currently using lynx browser to read a tutorial on using vim. I feel like a movie hacker.

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15 september 2022

Back

My back HURTS. OW.

I have a 2hr commute twice a week, and the bus always cranks the AC. What the hell? I have to carry gloves and a scarf onto the bus in the summer??

Reading list status

Reading list legend

For stuff that's on my shelf, I wholeheartedly welcome suggestions and notes in my email on tilde town.

For stuff that's not on this list, please email me recommendations. If my library doesn't have it, I'll email them.

I wish I could take an interlibrary loan on e-books

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04 september 2022

Silver

It's still September 3rd for me, but Feels is on a different timezone.

Today I used the power of science to untarnish (partially) some silver I found. For religious reasons, two of the stubby goblet things (I don't know what they're called) were used to hold rotten, hard-boiled, dyed eggs. Granted, only one of them was cracked, and only by accident, but I still think that the Hydrogen sulfide is the reason it tarnished. The larger, serving-tray type of thing, was tarnished due to age.

The process I used, and the science behind it, is available on TeacherSource.com

Today I watched piusbird's stream, also. I only got sound working a bit before the Voyager theme was playing, and it sounded pretty cool. Proud of myself for recognizing it even though it's been a while since I last saw an episode.

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03 september 2022

Devices

I picked up my new tablet. It took me around four months to decide to buy one at all, and a full month to look into the kind I would need, but I still feel a bit of buyer's remorse. I'm hoping that goes away soon, and that it's only because I'm using an Android tablet. Android, iOS, no matter what it is, it's never good out of the box. I hate using Google products.

Unfortunately it's also the only thing I can get that's affordable, and in time for the start of term. I'm facing a 2 hour commute, and hoping to use bus time as study time like I did this last term. This last term I used my phone, though, and reading textbooks on it is very uncomfortable.

A complaint: what the hell do you mean I can't have numbers in my email address? Some websites (UPS website), I swear... And invalid address? I will use my firefox relay email and you will accept it, god damn it (many such cases!).

A further complaint: everyone in my family is getting a new phone because of some promotion that makes it effectively free yadda yadda years-long contract and so on and so forth. My phone works fine for my purposes, and has since 2017 or so. Why should I replace it? But my mom is "very concerned" and confused over this. I already tape over my cameras, why would I need a phone with not one, not two, but three backwards-facing cameras?

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01 september 2022

September

Well, I got myself some supplies for school. 2 hour commute, so I got a tablet. Fuck it! Government sent me a grant, and it's not like I'll be living on campus. Applying for my 40% bus fare reduction tomorrow, but this last term (summer) I basically murdered my eyeballs
trying to read PDFs on my tiny little phone screen.

I edited the sed expression that asm (from tilde town) sent me, just to see that I can. This is pretty damn versatile. I can see myself using it for more things. I'm gonna challenge myself to get it to swap my dates with some actual titles.

Wrist hurts again.

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31 august 2022

Re: emails

It took me just about 3 (thankfully not continuous) hours to figure out how to send emails on this. Interesting. For my own reference.

In shorter terms, cat Filename | mail Somebody(OnceToldMe) -s "subject"

I should make a tutorial section for things that stump me.

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30 august 2022

Good morning.

Woke up with pain in my right leg, in the hip and knee, ankle too but not as much.

Yesterday I went on the IRC and the BBJ but I didn't say anything because I feel I haven't lurked enough. I went and tested some bots on the IRC, though, that was fun. I'll try again now, it's like 10 AM here so maybe there's a conversation going on that I can at least watch if not join.

Fell asleep at 5 AM because I was reading my city's website. Thoughts on parking because that was on the discussion board:

I don't think parking should be free. Parking not only costs the city (surfacing costs, and so on), but also pedestrians. You try walking in a parking lot in August: you'll fry. Try walking past it on the sidewalk: you get cooked. Even without that heat, it's just... a LOT to walk past. No shade, no shelter from the wind, nowhere to sit. Awful experience.

RE: big buildings like WalMart, why don't they just put their damn parking on the roof? It's already flat concrete garbage. Just add a ramp. Sprawled out garbage store. Why is it all one floor? Awful. At least build stuff on top of it.

Just upset myself over finances so I erased that entire paragraph.

Reading list status: unchanged.

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29 august 2022

Hello world!

This is my first time using tilde.town, and my first time using Gopher. It's pretty fun so far. I've been on the garden, watered my own plant and then owls', and that's been cool.

To do:

Finally figured out how to edit these. I'm glad. I removed the h1 that was here.

Reading list status

Reading list legend

Some books I finished recently, but before I joined tilde.town:

Wow, I wish Libby would stop telling me how many people are waiting. I'll get to it when I get to it!

If you're reading this and you're not me, feel free to email me some book recs.

Sorry, somehow my terminal froze and I had to close it and start a new one. But it still says I'm editing this. Weird. Anyway, that's it from me.

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