day's stream

I'm writing this at the computer again.

Breakfast. French toast, scrambled eggs, sausages, oatmeal.

Then, the hours. Studied a little. Not super in depth. But just enough to get a handhold.

Housing Office confirmed to see if Alen moved out and got everything. It was a fast check-in.

Then, Linguistics 50. Bus back and forth. I'll walk, I swear ... when the weather cools down.

I didn't take a photo of dinner today. I don't know why. I thought I would've felt self-conscious. But who really cares? I don't remember my periphery. Beginning to feel more socially isolated. (Mostly because I keep thinking about that Cornucopia group. Which I'm still in the Discord server for. And I can tell that there are in-jokes and hidden channels. I am not a digital idiot. I've been breathing cyberdrama since 13 years old. Under my own fingers my heart is like talc.) Staying in my dorm more frequently. Not good. Dinner was -- delicious. Very decently spiced. Harissa roasted chicken, roasted cauliflower, chickpeas. Ate outside on the patio since it was crowded inside. Read some of the newspapers I snagged earlier in the mailbox area next to the lounge. Had a little ice cream and an apple for dessert (I've got to get some more veggies in). Went back down to the dining hall with Sasha to watch their airing of Mean Girls. Funny bit: their Windows PC had an update in the middle when Janice and co. were pranking the Plastics.

I keep walking and glancing around and remembering the campus is beautiful but it's not as beautiful when you're disoriented. Still.

Only 2 of the 6, 7 clubs/programs I signed up for got back to me on their mailing list. Both are AI. I don't know if I've been rejected or what.

Financial aid is still dragging their feet. I met them on Monday. Or Tuesday? They said three days. The woman was pleasant. I will wait. Still.

I want to hit a tuning fork on Sasha, sometimes, if only to keep our conversations on track; if only to keep them from reciting absurdist memes verbatim from memory every time they get the chance; if only to get the envy for unfiltered curious extroversion out of my system.

I have to declare my major.

I have to score an internship. I have to find research opportunities.

I have to contact professors. Multiple.

I have to seek career counseling.

I have to talk to people.

I have to --

I am going mad. I am going mad. Still.

If only I could spread these wants and goals and needs out on a blanket -- throw them all into water and watch them float up the surface like apples -- bob for my goals, bob for my future, stick my head under and blow bubbles instead of scream in my skull at the heat.

I read Chinquapin 45 today. I finished it.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more placid. Though I'd imagine you'd relish all the more me that is briefly here.

Daytura

Highlight of yesterday, October 2nd 2024 -- the horrible heat -- Psychology 100 (learned Dillon has a girlfriend -- good for him! shame about his parking status though) and Psychology 120 (Prof. Holbrook talks far too fast for such a complex topic but I am not as inefficient information processor as I used to be) -- and the studious McHenry Library, a rooted colossus of a nonfiction establishment. Bookshelves that move. Turning the wheel. I tried reading a little bit of Deleuze. I need to do more philosophical readings. Get it back to the beginning. It's been so damn hot since Sunday, Monday, and for what?

Hot today. Not as hot as yesterday. Got ready around 7:45. Breakfast at 8:25. Snagged some ice and a slice of banana bread from the dining hall. Drank a couple mugs of water. The water tastes better today than yesterday. Lamped out at my desk working on Ladon and Orange, and later reading my Introduction chapter of my Psyc 120 (text?)book. Made coffee around 12:15. Ate the slice of banana bread. Took the bus to my only class today, a Linguistics 50 lecture. It went fine. I came early enough that the last professor was still getting to questions for his computer science students but he was out in a jiffy and Professor Ivy Sichel is as engaging and thoughtful as ever. Waited at the bus stop to get back to Porter, but all the buses passed me and the many other students waiting, so I made the irritated trek back to my dorm on foot. At least I got my steps in. Anyway, I was a bit late and arrived at 6:40pm, but the actual review for the roommate agreement with our RA Anna Toledo went by fast and they signed off on it. They seem chill. They're also buff. I'm not sure why I'm mentioning that. Talked about the little idiosyncracies of Porter College, like the First Rain (a naked run that starts at Porter and "infects" the other colleges) and 4/20 (you know). Swung by Porter Dining with Sasha around 6:25, ate fast, and then went to the Floor 2 (us) meeting with the other RAs. Pretty basic stuff to be honest. I'm glad my main bathroom in my floor section is decently clean whenever we use it. Spent the rest of the night from around 8:30 to 10:00 chatting with Sasha about psychedelics, COVID-era mental stuff, and gender/sexuality. Sasha asked if I was gay. The limp wrist was especially funny to me. Yes, I am, but I'm not out to my family. I guess in some form they already know but telling them outright seems too soon at the moment. At least I won't have to worry too too much about dating until Winter and Spring quarter. Got ready a bit later than I expected, around 10:45. I'm about to head off.

Test

I am rising to remember -- rusted iron shackles clanging and clanking -- I am rising to remember today.

Bear with me. These scraps are all I have. For now.

Breakfast at 8:30. Met with Sasha a bit. Met Richard Paseman, a fiercely intelligent young man. We talked about robotics and, in his terminology, (narrow) consumer automation.

Walked to Discussion Section for Psyc 120 (Visual and spatial cognition) at the Earth and Marine building at 10:10. No discussion section, it turned out. Ugh. Walked back to dorm. Snagged some ice from Porter Dining and made some iced coffee.

Spent the off hours following up on the hanging branches of Ladon and Orange in my original working doc. I've been Looming with Llama-3-405b through OpenRouter. Slower than cd2 and davinci-002 but it's at about the same level of quality, I think.

Took the bus to Psyc 100 lecture in Classroom Unit 1. Talked to Dillon a little bit. Turns out he's having issues with parking. Found out at the end of class we don't share lab/discussion sections but I'm hoping I can snag a few more conversations with him.

Stayed at McHenry Library in the interim waiting for Discussion Section for Linguistics 50 at Social Science 1 145. Huge mistake. I did get some reading in with a magazine of Reader's Digest, but my god, the hike up from the library to College 9 was HELLISH. Constant uphill. I keep thinking I don't need a BCycle membership until I start walking uphill and it's like... well, shit.

I made it up there of course, and for what? The Linguistics section didn't have a TA there either. (Why have the doors unlocked?) And I checked the syllabus and, lo and behold, no meetings until next week. At least I got to check out the place. It's small.

I took the bus back to the dorm. I had to.

I'm sorry for being so negative. It's coloring all this with cornflower blue.

Then again, it was real.

Then again, it was a horribly hot day today. 91 F at the maximum. 75%+ humidity, easy. Bright gold yellow. A lovely afternoon. If I could just keep my eyes open to see it.

Dorm. Again. Tried to unwind. Dinner at 6:20. Chicken pho. Good salinity but underseasoned, again. Wandered around looking for Sasha. Met Sasha eventually with their Cornucopia(?) friend group, a massive circle of 9 or 10 people, so massive they cannibalized some seats around the perimeter to fuel their gastric and correspondent consumptions. Oy, I am getting ugly.

In any event there was no space for me. I sat at the adjacent table. I'll tell you the symbolism was overt. A small little table, a single chair, my half-eaten bowl of pho. I tried to get some for-later articles in Pocket in my head, but all I could hear from my left ear was their chatter and chatter and chatter. Eventually I wrapped up, leaving most of the broth behind, and checked the time. I turned to leave. Sasha said -- what was it? -- sorry, or maybe not sorry, some kind of observation about my isolated state. I got up. Camera over the shoulder. Red water bottle clutched like an aqueous lifeline in my left hand. The bowl in my right. I gave Sasha a brittle half-smile. What else could I muster? What else should've I tried to say? That friend groups clearly have a critical period, and this ADHD-addled bunch had no more room for me? I am no better, clearly; my inattention knows no bounds; yet I am unlucky only in my timing. There is no more parsimonious explanation for my dull social luster. I walked off fast. Whatever facsimile of a smile that was, it fell from my features aided only but gravity. Set the bowl away on the conveyor belts. And then walked to Psyc 120 lecture in Kresge alone. I did not even bring my laptop, my backpack. Class turned out fine. I was familiar with at least half of it. It went on as it went on. Class ended with attendance. And I walked back to my dorm.

I'm thinking of getting ready early tonight. Normally I brush my teeth and change 10:30. But I am exhausted today. This is not all too much; it is as much as I expected. I just wish I could see it through, a bit better.

In any event it's clear that my relationship to time has markedly changed, this week.

Maybe I'll write a whole-ass blogpost. Though, I do have an incriminating post on there that I might have to take down...

I'm sorry for not writing more. It's been a lot, so far.

How the fuck did I miss three whole days of journaling???

Okay wait.

Morning trek / Painting pots / Waiting for the bus

Attended another event at 7:30 and I'm so so glad I did. Arts and crafts at the Porter C lounge. Well, I only did coloring (no bracelets or pins) but I got to chatting with a few very nice young women about adjusting to dorm life and figuring out transferable classes. I wish I got their contacts but I have a feeling I'll see at least one of them around the college.

So I walked back to dorm, settled down a bit and tried to get my energy in. Had dinner around 6:15 and this time I actually felt substantially filled. Still underseasoned for my taste but the portions were generous. And the ice cream machine was working!

The ride back was not a ride at all. Turns out all the Loop buses were calibrated to the Boardwalk for that frolic and so I missed like 3 trying to find one that I could snag. I should've boarded one and saw where it took me but I just wanted to get back to the dorm quick. So I made a quick decision and tried walking back. It wasn't too bad, since I actually followed the main road through the campus this time, but still took a fair bit of time with the uphill and downhill and whatnot. I wasn't too impressed with the scenery for some reason until I got to the downhill just before the McHenry library and something about the light through the dust hit so damn well I'm not sure my camera got it. But I tried and I'll send it later.

Sasha talks interestedly and with abandon and so breakfast was about the animation strike and their background in 3D modeling. Got back to dorm, they had an event and I pounced on the chance to swing by Trader Joe's and get some coffee. Missed a couple turns but I made it, the drive was 10 minutes or so. Couldn't find the bus (at least, one that didn't take 15 minutes to arrive). Got back to dorm from the R lot but with terrible time cost. Somehow I swung around to Oakes and Rachel Carson -- these colleges look totally different -- and I think the trails are very circuitous, and decentralized. Got back to dorm by checking Google Maps near religiously. Waited for Sasha to come back since I wanted to show them how to use my AeroPress. Turns out I forgot my mug at home ... ay yai yai. (Time for merch from the local bookstore?) Spent the afternoon talking with Sasha about some animated shows we've watched and suggestions for each other. I think the big issue so far is my relation to time. It seems like everything I do has a time cost that is VERY steep compared to back home. Sasha had another meeting, whereas I wanted to go to "Blossom and Brush" (tiny potted plants you can paint). I think I snapped a few pics. But my god finding the Kresge(?) bus stop felt like a maze. And on the loop bus it was so packed I had to hold onto a pole while standing which would've been fine if I didn't feel so weak and unsteady for some reason. I got oregano for my plant, and I think I spent a decent amount of time, but I sat alone since it seemed like tons of people were congregated together in their own groups already.

Woke up a little early today around 6:45. Stayed in bed until 7:30. Got ready and showered. It was ... uninspiring but not disgusting. Cleaner than I thought for sure. My slippers kept making some squelching noises which I hope not too many heard. Finished up and went to breakfast with Sasha. Breakfast was not a glamorous affair -- French toast was a little stiff but the French roast coffee (FREE!!) I tried was actually very smooth. Tasted more like medium dark roast.

I'll tell you, it's like every corner I turn I get more disoriented.

September 22nd 2024. Writing this out on the computer again because jesus christ was today a wallop. Woke up early to around 6:30, lamped in bed for 20 minutes, then got read. Finished around 7:20. Seth got ready soon after. My parents and Seth and I stopped by McDonalds for a quick breakfast bite (egg mcmuffin save me ... ooh hash browns and small decaf coffee!) then we started driving to UCSC. The drive was prompt and clear, no issues. We arrived at Lot 127 and I headed off to pick up my ID and get some information about move-in. We swung by the Porter parking lot and unpacked fast within the 15 minutes allotted time. Checked out the yellow cart, got my three bins, and then we headed in. ID card works. Second floor, room 233. My roommate Sasha and their family had arrived already and were just finished unpacking. I dropped off my stuff and I went back home with my family. Made some French roast on the Hario Switch -- AeroPress at UCSC! -- and added the last of the condensed milk, got some extra toiletries and snacks, and then drove myself in my car to campus. Actually the route was ok! The curves and up and down felt like a really bad roller coaster. But my hybrid car charged very well on the downhill. I grabbed my extra stuff and started on an uphill trek. Oy, if only I remembered I could catch UCSC's buses! But good exercise. I got to my dorm safe and sound and began to unpack. Sasha was off-campus until 4:30 or so and we talked and got to know each other. Around 6:15 I swung by the dining hall for a quick dinner, since they close early for move-in day, and then went with Sasha to the mandatory dorm information seminar from 7:30 to 8:10. So now I'm back in the dorm. The bathrooms literally just look like a restroom with shower stalls. Thank goodness for the cleaners who keep this place mostly clean. In my dorm the window is open and it is nice and cool up here.

September 21st 2024. Woke up 8:15, lamped in bed while waiting for grandma and Seth to finish getting ready. Had a turkey mayo lettuce cheese sandwich for breakfast. Haircut at 10:30, finished 11:15. Went to go get Taco Bell with Seth around 11:30, I got a steak quesadilla and he got a loaded burrito box. Here's the part that killed me a little -- his whole ass combo cost 30, 40 cents extra than mine. Made some AeroPress coffee, two filters, normal cap, French roast ground fine. Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike arrived around 1:05. I caught them up with UCSC stuff, moving in, etc. Helped Aunt Kun on her computer with her drafts in Microsoft Word. Went to Santa Cruz downtown with her and Uncle Mike, Seth stayed at home since he had to study for 3 tests on Monday. Walked down a couple of the main roads -- TONS of small businesses -- and the gray sky and cool weather made it quite cozy. Stopped by a cafe where they roast their own coffee. I had a small decaf Americano and ordered a medium latte for Uncle Mike. Later Aunt Kun ordered a half-spice half-caf oat milk (dietary and allergen issues -- terrible effect of being starved during the Khmer Rouge!) pumpkin spice latte. Snapped a few pictures and after a half hour we were off back to the car on the corner of Cedar and Union. We checked out a few potential study spots, two bars(?!) and a donut shop, and we were back on the road. We arrived home around 8:20 or something and then picked up Seth to take him out, as a belated birthday gift and a break from studying, to Starbucks. I got another decaf Americano though iced with cold foam. Seth got a caramel macchiato. Uncle Mike got a coffee and Aunt Kun just got some water seeing as she actually had some leftover pumpkin spice latte. After that we all went home, and Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike went off to Stockton. I did not feel like I packed well, but that was probably because of plastic bins and my own anxieties around packing. As it would later turn out ... well, I'll just start the next entry.

P.S. HOLLA HOLLA! ITS TIME TO BLAST THE MTM THEME SONG SOON!

Writing this on the computer again. Today feels like -- well it feels like I didn't do anything which is probably true. Woke up early around 7:45, spent some time fiddling with a video setup on my camera. Got ready, had a turkey lettuce mustard cheese sandwich around 9:15. Coffee at 10:45. AeroPress, flow control cap, two filters, this time with some condensed milk. Tasted very mild. Spent most of the day trying to get stuff to pack, lamping out at my computer ... more Cyborgism, more UCSC checking. A few photography videos. A couple episodes of Futurama. Took my grandma to the Marina Grocery store to get some fish and veggies for some sour herb soup. Grandma also fried up some small salted fish my middle uncle brought from Cambodia. Yum. Apparently Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike are coming tomorrow. -- THAT'S WHY I FELT SO OUT OF IT. I was actually going to go to work at 3 or so, but my mom texted me around 2:00 that they were super slow at the shop, and I didn't need to work tomorrow either. I just didn't know what to do with the time. And now it's 10:57pm... Oy...

Spent the rest of the night until now bouncing between photography resources and, at 9:45, actually opening VSCode and writing that biz down. So now I'm here at 11:02, and I think I'm going to head off soon.

Around 4:30, 4:45 was where it really started to get dicey. Lamped out in my bedroom with my laptop for an hour. Dave messaged me a bunch on Discord, and Sasha (my upcoming roommate) messaged me as well about the microwave/minifridge and move-in information. Turns out we missed the signup for those two items but they're more conveniences than anything. Got especially tired around 5:45 and before I knew it I had taken a half-hour nap. I don't know if I slept that bad last night, but I have to imagine sleeping after 12 blunts my thinking the following day. I did feel better after the nap, but, eh. Had dinner around 8:15. Grandma baked some tilapia fish and I had it with some veggies and fish sauce and some cabbage chicken soup. Also yum.

Made some coffee around 11:15. Strong, smooth, and roasty, but not bitter. AeroPress with flow control filter cap, two filters, pressed decently quick. Sucked it down quick. Spent the afternoon checking on the Cyborgism and the UCSC Discord servers, and re-checking which events were mandatory for UCSC's welcome week. Used Llama-3-405b through Loomsidian on some dangling branches on my original Ladon and Orange draft, it's a drop-in replacement for code-davinci-002 so far. The style and coherence is a bit better than davinci-002 (itself the replacement for cd2). Did some photo editing, trying to lift the shadows, but this time after watching a guide and reading some webpages about how to use the masking and advanced tabs in the tone equalizer module.

Writing this out on the computer because I am fucking wiped out. Slept really late, around 12:15 or so. Woke up late as well, 8:25. Lamped in bed again for 15 minutes. Had breakfast around an hour later -- leftover beef stew and (rice) noodles. YUM.

So is mom's cooking. (Beef stew!)

Condensed milk is a blessing. (Coffee!)

Slooooooow day today. Woke up late around 8:30, got ready fast, has some wonton noodle soup for breakfast. Swing by the shop to get some beef and then TK Noodle to buy a pound of meatballs for the house. (More later.) Coffee around 11:45, maybe? AeroPress, Flow Control cap, condensed milk. Spent most of the day checking UCSC announcements, prophesizing playing with the chatbots in Cyborgism, and trying to wrangle my tabs and binging camera videos on YouTube. On the matter of cameras, I also spent a little bit of time trying to lift shadows in a few photos that've been on the backburner for a while. The "lifts" are modest, but they're there. I don't use Lightroom (which I know has a super intuitive shadow slider or whatnot) -- I use DarkTable, and their tone equalizer has tons of granularity. Maybe a little too much since if I overdo the shadow recovery the areas look a little mushy. Mom spent a good chunk of the day making some beef stew, which was absolutely delicious. I had it with some egg noodles.

Slow day today. Woke up early around 7:45 but lamped in bed for 10 minutes or so. Got ready. Had some leftover black bean noodles and added some seasoned seaweed, a couple of ponytail radishes, and a couple of fried eggs. Coffee at 10:30(?). French roast, Hario Switch, stirred in some condensed milk. It was okay. Took Seth to iTea around 4:10. I actually wanted to go later this week but it seemed like he didn't have much time. Spent most of the day ... well, I don't really know. I think I watched YouTube videos about old cameras. And I did take a few photos. And I did angst about which lenses I wanted to bring to school. Um, what else ... I talked to Aunt Kun around 11:30 about school a little bit and her WIP book about growing up under Khmer Rouge rule, but she veered off into a religion lecture less than 25 minutes in. I had a meeting with my psychology advisor about my two year plan but she didn't really have a plan made for me?? I actually showed her my own partial spreadsheet and she answered my questions as necessary which was like ... okay. Then again it was only 15 minutes so maybe the counseling office is more used to drop in questions and concerns than length degree planning. Well, I think that's all. I feel very nervous about UCSC, specifically terrified I won't make any friends at all. Though the people in the Discord server for my dorm building that the RAs sent out seem nice, and Porter College has that hippie vibe anyway so ... ? I'll keep it open.

Alright day today. Woke up late around 8:55, got ready, shaved. Had a small breakfast of some sardines, a piece of toast, and an avocado. Went to Walmart with mom around 11:30 to do some shopping for dorm supplies. Picked up Grandma's new glasses there as well. Drove back home. Made some coffee, AeroPress, French roast, still need to get some more coffee. Had a Title IX webinar from 3 to 4:15. Spent most of the day lamping out at my computer not really doing anything. Mom made some black bean noodles with spaghetti pasta and some stirfried eggplant with pork. She also cooked up the last steak for me and my brother. YUM!! Took plenty of pics. Might send some later. I was pretty hungry as well.

I feel so wiped out. Woke up somewhat early around 7:55, got ready around 8:05. Went to Denny's with family around 9:15 -- last Sunday breakfast for a while! I got a loaded omelette with sausage and bacon and lots of veggies. Yum. Came back home around 10:45, made some coffee (AeroPress, normal cap, Alan Adler's recipe, stirred in some condensed milk). Work from 12 to 7. A little quiet until 5:15 to 6:30 which was SUPER busy. Brought my camera and Pale Fire but I didn't use much of either. Mom actually wanted Seth to take some photos of me (last work day for a while, god willing) but he forgot to do so and I forgot to tell him. Uncle Lion snapped some pictures of me near the end though which was really nice. Parents want me to drive home every weekend so they can keep my spot in my room. Haven't even moved out yet and Uncle Udam is asking my parents to move into me and Seth's room ... ridiculous. Frankly I need distance from my family and a LOT of it. Need to meet new people. Need to really settle into a new place! Can't really do that when I have an obligation to come over -- and sleep over -- weekly. Don't care much to disturb my sleep like that.

Slow day today. Woke up a little early at 7:45. Had a turkey lettuce avocado mustard sandwich. Coffee around 10:45. Work from 12 to 8. A little bit slow until 5:00 to 6:30 when there was a ton of customers. Came back home around 8:10. Grandma made some stirfried noodles with chicken and gai lan -- good. Spent some time after dinner playing a little bit with the chatbots in Act I of Cyborgism.

Slow day passed by quick today. Woke up a little early around 7:45, got ready quick enough. Breakfast at 8:30. Turkey mustard lettuce avocado sandwich. Coffee at 11:30. Not much S. Ship of Theseus (SSOT) today, I'm still giving myself elbow room. Spent most of today playing around with the chatbots in Act I of Cyborgism and other language model stuff, though I haven't really loomed today. A little bit more X than I should've, maybe an hour and a half today? Again mostly checking AI and Cyborgism stuff. Rewrote and revised my rant yesterday to be more clear and accurate -- a bit too emotional yesterday. I've still got the juice. Called De Anza financial aid office around 1:05, put on hold for over 50 minutes, got a reassuring albeit kick-the-can-down response from a tired sounding younger lady saying that my financial aid still had to be reviewed per verification so it'll be another 2 weeks, worst case scenario. I won't be kicked out of classes or campus if I don't pay but I still want to keep an eye on the budget. Made some hot green tea but it didn't quite sit right with me after I finished 7/8ths of it. Maybe I drank it on an empty stomach was why. Grandma made stirfried chicken, shrimp, and broccoli and we still had some leftover stuffed bittermelon soup from yesterday. So good. Not much photography today ... with that new macro lens it wouldn't hurt to revitalize my foot shots innit? I'm still in awe of how SHARP it is wide open at f/2.8. Such a stark contrast to the 24-70mm. Canon has actually released a native midrange RF 28-70mm f/2.8 yesterday or the day before which looks like a solid deal when it comes down for Black Friday, but honestly I'm not all that into wide angle on full frame these days (or zoom lenses at all -- just swap to a solid telephoto or get a compact superzoom camera wholesale). Really hard to compose and get subject isolation and if you get too close perspective distortion kicks in. I'd just prefer natural looking perspective, please.

Woke up a little late today around 8:05. Got ready fast. Had some ramen for breakfast. It was alright. Went to the body shop with Dad around 9:45 and we picked up my car. I genuinely forgot how smooth and quiet my car was. The repair part looks identical. Spent some time skimming S. Ship of Theseus and paperclipping the ephemera into the book. Ranted a little bit about the book into my friends Discord channel. Not my best writing but I'll revise it tomorrow. Spent most of the day reading blogposts and notes about Ship of Theseus and experimenting with NotebookLM -- they have this podcast style deep dive which I'm really REALLY digging. Got some milk tea from Sunright with brother and yes, I did take the car. Mom made bittermelon soup for dinner. I had seconds. So good.

We are back. Literally.

Do I "get" the book? I still need to do a last pass but yeah, I think I do actually. The very first time I read it all the conspiracy flew over my head and I tried to only focus on VM Straka. Not so fast. Fast forward to today and I can track the hypotheses much easier. Perks of being 21, rather than 14 then. I think you also have to accept it'll be perpetually incomplete. There's a lot of context that's just missing. Guesses are good though. The point is that this work is in medias res. Like House of Leaves, you're eavesdropping into conversations. You enter it in the middle of a problem and exit it in the middle of a problem. Is it the same problem? Not really, but you're still left with the same number of questions.

The most interesting thing to me is the coherency of the conspiracy here. Bouchard/Vevoda may be the primary enemy, but he's not the only one, especially if villainy "merely" defines opposing actions. MacInnes and his New S come to mind clearly, even if he's not (always) aligned with Bouchard (though it's implied he is (ugh, you get my point)). And the kicker? This isn't just old news. The general social patterns sketched by VM Straka in Ship of Theseus are ongoing into the present day of Eric and Jen, and they face it off themselves. Jen especially has it rough midway into the orange/green annotations and very rough throughout the red/purple annotations. Well, at least she has Eric.

The central mysteries of the book are left unresolved but I imagine like House of Leaves it is up to the reader to take the evidence available and interpret/communicate it. Who is VM Straka? Jen and Eric have ostensibly opposing interpretations even as late as the red/purple annotations, but they're more complimentary than competitive. It's likely the name is both the cover for the collective efforts of the group of The S (Eric's hypothesis), and the original name of the young man who tried to commit suicide (Jen's hypothesis). Said young man would be the one FX Caldiera falls in love with. Of course there is something dubious in falling in love with someone through their written text and correspondences alone -- I have extensive experience with that -- but there are a few hints that FX Caldiera and VM Straka (the original) met at least a few times.

Writing this on the computer again. Woke up a little early around 7:55, got ready around 8:05. Had a sardine sandwich for lunch around 9:00. Ordered sushi online for later pickup (per my uncle) for my brother's birthday today. Folded laundry. Coffee at 11:30, AeroPress with the flow control filter cap, bypass method. Very smooth flavor. Spent most of the day reading the marginalia of S. Ship of Theseus between Jen and Eric. Yesterday I read 3/4ths of the black and blue text. From the afternoon to about 4:30 I finished the black/blue marginalia and read all of the green/orange marginalia (really sweet and busy, their relationship deepens). After my 4:30 to 5:30 nap I read all of the red/purple marginalia (much more stressful, dangerous, their relationship deepens more and many adversaries are after them) and the black/black marginalia. Red/purple marginalia are for sure the most difficult to read, albeit linearly -- for each color coded segment there's at least a single plot event in the "real world" that cleaves their segments. For green/orange, it was Eric's trips to Paris and Brazil. For red/purple, it was Jen's barn fire and being called for an interview by the campus admins (among a TON other events). Jen and Eric develop considerably throughout their shared project. Eric gets better, Jen gets worse. After they move to Paris both get better. I can't believe I didn't pick up in 2017 that both of these people had some trauma, but Eric especially -- poor guy -- hoping Jen gives him all the hugs he needs. I can't choose a favorite segment. I think red/purple is nice because they're so overtly in love by that point, which itself stands at odds with the shifty back-and-forth that we see in the character of S. and the "real world" author VM Straka and devoted translator FX Caldiera. Jen and Eric actually meet. They actually go on dates. And they actually figure it out. Maybe I should conceal these spoilers but whatever. The "main text" unfortunately can't be read alone like Pale Fire or House of Leaves, but the sheer integration of the marginalia elevate it to just as equal complexity standing to the aforementioned texts. (Incidentally, I now have the "Holy Trinity" of the modern ergodic novels.) Jen remains my favorite of the two; I relate to her more. As to whether I'd want an Eric in my life ... well, we'll see after I transfer. :-)

Just finished reading S. Ship of Theseus. All of it. In layers. Might do a final pass but I am. wiped. out.

I kept reading S. Ship of Theseus late today around 4:00. I annotated about 130 pages of the inner novel bibcard-style on a couple sheets of copy paper, though I have the nagging feeling I'm writing / I'll be writing too much. So I set it down and pivoted into catching up on Eric and Jen's marginalia. They're physically smaller than I remember (though that could be my eyesight), and the complexity of these characters and their intelligence is much more clear to me. They're both skilled researchers and writers for sure. I relate to Jen a lot, yes, even down to the sheltered kid syndrome she mentions in her gray letter. Reading the marginalia took equal time if not more as annotating the book, and I "only" got halfway. I think it's because I'm actually focusing on all the characters, fictional and superfictional, within this work; there are many moving parts; and the inner text of Ship of Theseus stands much much MUCH stronger with even a few annotations (well, the black/blue ink phase has tons of them) because the sheer volume of imagery are actually callbacks to previous, albeit unpublished, works in the superfictional VM Straka canon; and the characters of the work and the plot events seem less eclectic than they are pointers back to fictional events at the level of Eric and Jen's world. Additionally, the way Jen relates fragments of text to her life is far less frustrating as well -- I used to ask WTF she was talking about when I read this in 2017, 2018 -- but now as a college student I'm like, okay, this is really really relatable now. (Same went for Johnny Truant's appends in House of Leaves when I read it this January 2024.) Finally, I'm reading the marginalia in the context of the text. When I first read the marginalia I was speed-reading through it, glossing over names and not even looking back at the inner text. Now I see most of the annotations derive from the inner text, and they're easier to follow when you look at the center first and then look at the margins.

As you might imagine these humble looking lenses belie bright and bold optical resolution -- resolution I had been looking for since my untimely 24-70mm f/2.8 (now returned, refund initiated, just waiting for funds to get back to my bank account). I rushed off to try them out as soon. The 50mm f/1.8 STM focuses faster than our copy of the 40mm f/2.8 STM and works like a low-light workhorse. It's not as bright as my f/1.2, but it's lighter, more compact, and gives up a neutral and accurate style. The 100mm f/2.8 focuses faster than the 50mm, and the images I'm getting out of this at f/2.8 wide-open at macro to short to medium distances are so sharp you could cut yourself on them. Stop it down to f/4 and you can get medium to long distances sharp as well. The tremendous focusing range easily makes the 100mm my favorite of the two, though I'd be remiss to devalue the 50mm so quickly since this can focus reasonably close as well. I admire and am grateful for both. I feel like I spent my money very well.

Pictures attached. Camera gear and partial BMW shots are from the 50mm. Plantain and outdoors desk shots are from the 100mm.

Typing this out fast because I'm feeling slammed. Not much happened today. Woke up early around 6:45, then slept in until 9:00. Shaved. Had some lasagna for a late breakfast around 10:30. Made some coffee on the Hario Switch again, dump and go, grind setting 4.1, 15g/250ml, didn't taste too good -- almost overextracted. Not sure what exactly happened there but I'll switch back to the pulse pours tomorrow, if I don't use my AeroPress (mmm ... so smooth). Tried joining the Zoom call and making phone calls to UCSC Financial Aid Office starting 1, but no dice. Made some genmaicha tea around 2:45 but I made the mistake of adding stevia sweetener and so I couldn't get through more than half of it. Seth came home around 3:30 and when I opened the side door I realized I had completely forgotten about my MPB package. Well, it was right there, so I took it inside as soon as possible. How exciting!

I keep forgetting how well MPB packages their gear.

Package arrived! :D

Today September 9th 2024. Woke up around 7:55 (fell asleep around 11:15 last night). Had some Santa Fe salad for breakfast, added an avocado for extra bulk. Had plenty of snacks today -- almond flour crackers, green mango, a leftover custard pastry from yesterday. Coffee at 11:10, dump and go on the Hario Switch, grind setting 4, tasted slightly overextracted hot off the dripper but as it cooled it became milder. (If could've also been the 15ml extra water I added.) Will try a click coarser tomorrow. Took grandma to the optometrist at Walmart to update her prescription -- last time was 6 years ago! -- and what a slog as my Khmer proficiency was very very limited. Called my parents a couple times to translate. Terribly embarrassing and surprisingly complex but, we made it, and we paid. Ordered some glasses at the nearby station which came out to a discounted $565. To be honest I think getting progressive glasses would still be cheaper online but they were right next door so, you know. Well we headed home quick and arrived around 1:15 and I basically binged reading the inner text of S. Ship of Theseus. The direct text is ... okay. Plenty of symbolism and a good enough plot, but it doesn't mesh or illustrate the conflicting interests of S.'s pursuit of Sola and S.'s rebellion against Vévoda and his industrial chemical weapons of mass destruction. The plot also moves a bit slowly and the visual writing style is more reminiscent of a movie, right down to the present tense and "mental proximity" to the target character of S. I feel like JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst could've broken out the style better, especially since the intended publication date within the whole writing universe was 1946 -- only a scant year after the horrors of World War 2. It's eclectic in it's original aesthetic definition: a lot of interesting stuff, in one spot, that hopefully "goes together". With regards to the mystery of the fictional VM Straka it's clear that the inner text of Ship of Theseus isn't a standard roman a clef, but it doesn't seem to exhibit profound complexity either. The fictional undergrad literature major in her fourth year, Jen, in the margins (higher diegesis) claims Ship of Theseus is a love story. Jen's correspondent, disgraced graduate student Eric, would've seen it originally as a mythic adventure. So far it mostly reads as a river of symbolism, not unlike Lord of the Flies. That complexity I imagine would come from prodigious translator-turned-(un)witting-collaborator FX Caldiera, and the continued exchange between Jen and Eric. Uncle Udam came from the airport in an Uber around 6:20. Dinner -- soup and prahok and plenty of veggies.

Yesterday September 8th 2024. Went to Paris Baguette with family, me and Seth had pastrami sandwiches, we all got some pastries. Made some coffee at home, dump and go on the Hario Switch. Work from 12 to 7. Felt super wiped out by 10:30pm. Read Shop of Theseus intermittently.

Tried the bloom and dump for my Hario Switch again and no, not a fluke, it actually tastes fine. It's a little weaker than what I would get out of 5 pulse pours but the normal flavors are there and I can't tell any underextraction or overextraction. The brew was also hotter. Something of a happy medium between a crystal clear milder than a pancake bypass AeroPress brew and a panchromatic max extract V60 cup. Veeeeeery interesting. 18g/300ml.

You know, maybe there's more self-insert fanfiction on AO3 than I think. Maybe it wouldn't be too out of place.

Woke up early today around 7:15 but my brother was in the bathroom so I lamped out half an hour in bed. Had some marinated artichoke hearts (I didn't know we still had some) and some mixed nut butter on a single slice of bread. Coffee on the Hario Switch around 11:15 but was interrupted by grandma to check out a suspicious looking hole in the rice bag -- mice? -- so I just dumped all my water and hoped for the best. Came back to find a trough in the coffee grounds. Tasted the coffee but it was a little hot so I just jumped on the chance to stir in some condensed milk real quick. Tasted fine, to be honest, and I don't think there was any acridity under the sweet milk at all. I might have to try it again tomorrow, if at least to confirm whether that was a happy fluke or that technique really does not matter. Had work from 1 to 8. Had my leftover pork and egg cake and rice from yesterday around 2:15. Aaron and Julie swung by for some soda around 5:55 after rock climbing -- I chatted a little bit but it was clear we were on unequal ground, almost like I was an imposter around my own friends. Can you believe that? Also Aaron catches a TON of strays from Julie -- not sure if that's just how their dynamic is. Felt really meh and listless around 6:45. Drove home with mom around 8:30. Grandma made some sweet and sour catfish with some cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumber. Yum. Posted a little bit on X (might as well call it what it is) to weigh in on the TPOT drama -- racist techbro calling himself TPOT is racist. Typing on social media from a keyboard feels great. Almost too great -- I have to control myself! :-) Getting a bit sleepy now. Had Amy Winehouse's You Sent Me Flying stuck in my head. Had this occasional odd feeling of being back in July 2023 working on Bluebirds and Emeralds. Maybe I'll publish it on AO3.

Getting sleepy again. Writing this out quick on my laptop. Woke up early around 7:30, stayed in bed for a few minutes but got up and out. Had some oatmeal and leftover gingered chicken with some seaweed flakes and pickled cabbage for breakfast. Coffee at 9:30. (Or 10:30? I think 9:30.) In hindsight I should've packed another cup of coffee for work. Had work from 12:15 (I went late) to 8:00. Hot but not as hot as I thought until around 6:30 when the leftover heat started to kick in. Had a huge lunch around 3:30 -- pork and some steamed egg pork cake over rice with some veggies, but it turns out the platter I bought was actually for two people and there was a lot of rice. I think I ate 50% more rice than I normally do at dinner. Very good but my god did it leave me feeling very very heavy for up to 2, 3 hours afterward. Conveniently that would've been around the time the caffeine wore off as well. In any event today went by fast but I'm not sure I was able to keep up.

Getting sleepy now. Didn't I nap around 4:30? Well, more sleep wouldn't hurt.

Slow day today. Woke up early at 7:55 but stayed in bed another 25 minutes. Had a turkey lettuce avocado mustard sandwich for breakfast. Some almond flour crackers around 11:55, some time after AeroPress coffee (grind setting 1, gentle pressure, plenty of feedback from the fine grind), stirred in some condensed milk. Yum. Grandma made some veggie chicken soup and some stirfried ginger chicken. Spent the better part of the day anxious about dragon boat practice and it turns out their logistics were getting tangled so I bowed out. Left pinky finger just above the knuckle still feels a little tight for some reason, almost like it's shifted slightly. Small financial aid update came this morning but when I went to check MyUCSC the 2025 school year was still MIA. What the hell are they doing over there? Looked into the Micro Four Thirds crop sensor camera system for a couple hours today. Really drawn to the compact build for the cameras and lenses (and cheaper 24-70mm equivalent lens, approx by $300-$400 for one in good condition) but I'm apprehensive of low light performance. Ironically the Olympus EM-1 Mark 2 (their naming sucks) is actually a little heavier than my Canon RP body, but the lens weight savings still means it's a lighter and more compact package. Gets me thinking about what my photo journey would be like now if I stayed with APS-C and upgraded to Fujifilm or M43. Well, I'm still glad I stuck with full frame. I've gained a liking for all sorts of lenses now. I spent a few minutes shooting my 28mm f/2.8 and it seems like the key to composition is to get closer to the subject and really fill the frame. For subjects (or even scenes) at distances, a normal or telephoto lens will be better.

Today just flew by. Woke up early enough around 8:05 but stayed in bed for another 15 minutes checking out an odd camera video on YouTube here and there. Got ready and has some wonton noodle soup for breakfast. Made some Earl Gray cut with the last of the loose leaf black tea, hot, added some milk and sipped on it until 12:15 when I made some black coffee on the Hario Switch, pourover. Got a little hungry in the afternoon so I snacked on some agar dessert and some wrapped sticky rice. And the day gets really goopy from 3:30 to 7:45, I'm disappointed to say. Still nothing from Financial Aid office so I'll bite the bullet tomorrow and attend a Zoom drop-in session. Had some stirfried squash and egg for dinner alongside a little bit of leftover baked fish and pickled cabbage from yesterday. I really did not do much today, other than put up a few eBay listings and check Gmail and Discord obsessively. Going out with friends to a dragon boat practice tomorrow. I am WAY out of shape! But I will try to learn.

My sleep schedule is wiped out and so am I. Woke up around 7:45am and stayed in bed for 20 minutes or so. Got ready decently fast and had breakfast around 9:15, a turkey lettuce cheese mustard sandwich on a small Costco artisan bread (yes, same as yesterday). Parents asked me to take my grandma for an eye exam later and I worried a little bit. Drove grandma to Walmart on Ranch Drive for the eye exam but they were closed for the Labor Day holiday up until September 6th this week (also seemed to have needed an appointment). Swung by Ross later since grandma wanted to check out some leggings and pants. I wound up getting a blue notebook. Wow, I am surprised I am even remembering this much. After that I drove us to the post office so I could ship off my package of the Olympus Pen S to my buyer -- $38.40, it was for parts and repair -- and then to Lions Supermarket to get some young coconut and some fish. They accidentally chopped up the fish rather than scored it, but I think we can still bake it fine in the air fryer; if I go next time I'll be sure to clarify. Got home around 12:25 and I made some iced coffee on the AeroPress, grind setting 2 on the Fellow Ode. Okay now the day gets really goopy after this. I snacked, and often, on some mango and crackers and bread. I'm not sure why I was so hungry and how I gave in. At most the snacking is just 1 item. (Which to be fair isn't particularly healthy either but I'm sure my energy expenditure has collapsed and plateaued these last four years, so, you know.) Went for a quick nap in the massage chair around 4:50 and dozed off in bed from 5:30 to 7:30. And now I'm here. PHEW! Yet again I'm surprised I was able to nap with the caffeine ...

Woke up early enough around 8:05. Had a turkey mustard lettuce cheese sandwich on one of those small artisan breads from Costco. Had a light lunch of a couple beef sticks and quick pickle (had some more of the same for dinner -- YUM!) Spent most of the time at my laptop and resisting napping but of course I napped (15 min around 10:30am, 2 hours from 5:30pm). Made full pour over on the V60 around 11:05, swirled the bloom (I normally just steep it with the Hario Switch), tasted fine. Continued gluing some receipts in my journal. By the time I had my 5:30 nap I was already checked out mentally. Filled out a couple of dragon boat forms for a practice with friends this Thursday. Good lazy day today, just a bit marred that I "should" have been doing something. Well, at least the quiet email inbox was nice. :-)

Napped for two hours. Looking out at the sky it looked like it was turning to steel for a second. God I love September.

Went to get Noah's Bagels down Main Street, I got a hot pastrami on an onion bagel and some chips.

Work from 1 to 7. Was alright.

Dinner around 8.

Crashed in the massage chair and napped a little bit around 8:45.

Prepping for sleep now.

You know it hit me today just how much my interest in photography has changed? Last November I wanted to use up the film in my freezer -- and I still have some color film and I think one black and white film, ironically -- and now I have a full-frame digital camera, two vintage lenses, and two autofocusing lenses on the way; among other goodies, as well. Seems the main thing that hasn't changed is the subtle confusion as to what exactly I should take photos of. I think the guiding line through my photos is that they're of daily life, maybe with a candid note. I could probably pair dozens of my photos with these Drops.

Typing this out fast on the computer.

Woke up early enough around 8:05, got ready. Had a small packed Santa Fe salad and some pot stickers with some of the soy sauce dressing (yum). Made some coffee around 10:30 on the Hario Switch, full immersion, though I steeped a little longer by accident. Grind setting flat 5 I think. Stirred in a spoonful of condensed milk and it tasted very smooth, no acridity or ash-like flavors at all. Drove to work in mom's car around 11:45, a little earlier than usual, to ship off my KEH return through USPS. There are some products you just know you'll return, and the 24-70mm was unfortunately one of them. (Perks of refining your buying decisions through two chatbots, I guess. Now what are you looking at me like that for? I'm trying to validate my shopping!! Just let me delulu in peace ... ) Work was fine. A little busy around 1:30 to 2:30, and a couple of fussy customers, but nothing we couldn't handle. Got some coffee for the shop from Starbucks around 5:30 or so, at mom's request. I got an iced Americano with cold foam for myself, an iced brown sugar oatmilk shaken espresso for mom, and an iced vanilla latte with salted cold foam for my uncle, the latter two with an extra shot. It totaled out to $20.30. I'll tell you the next time I'm getting Starbucks I'm just going to get drip coffee because this seems bonkers. (Pourover, if they're not too busy. Though maybe there's an upcharge on that too.) At least the guy who took my order was sweet. Seemed around my age. Joseph from MHS's Robotics Team (this was 2017-2019) was working, not sure if he remembered me though I could spot him by his beard a hundred feet away. Funny asymmetries like that. Maybe I'm good with faces, but I don't know. Okay now well this is getting long so what the hell happened after that. Wrapped up work and headed out with mom around 8:15. Grandma made some fish(?) dip and steamed some veggies so I pounced on the chance to chow down on plenty of water spinach and broccoli and a few sticks of celery. Had a little bit of bok choy and fish filet stirfry as well. Spent the rest of the night checking on any UCSC updates -- I'm thinking it'll be a long weekend with Labor's Day next Monday. Financial aid still hasn't come in yet. Might have to storm their offices starting next Tuesday, but my car probably won't be ready off the line until the week after -- and that's when scheduling gets REALLY tight.

Woke up around 8:05 today. Got ready lickety split and made breakfast around 8:45. A little bit of oatmeal with some leftover marinated chicken and some crunchy pickled cabbage. Yum. Had coffee at 10:30 on the AeroPress, regular cap. Headed to work around 12, took my mom's car. Wow. Feels like driving a metal and plastic and glass and petrol carriage. Wonderful visibility but not a particularly smooth ride -- I really miss my hybrid drivetrain and my cars insulation! Dad dropped off my key fob at the body shop and got the vehicle registration for me. Shot off another email to Mr. Peter at the UCSC TAPS Sales department to reopen my online permit form and he was right on it, bless him. Daphne, Mindy, Julie, and Aaron swung by for some ice cream (Daphne got a little burger meal) and I was able to hang out with them for a little bit. And by a little bit I mean a couple hours which is crazy writing it out because a. it didn't feel like 2 hours and b. I'm pretty sure we were decently busy a couple times but my parents didn't call. Well, I headed back to work around 6:30 and we wound down around 7:45. Drove home with mom around 8:05. Grandma made some broccoli chicken shrimp stirfry, and there was some leftover egged bittermelon which I snapped up quick. Yum. Had some watermelon for some dessert and some almond flour crackers for a more savory note. Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike called and checked in around 9:45. Spent the remainder of the time shooting off a few emails and contact to UCSC and a couple other online businesses.

Had some quinoa salad for breakfast with a leftover chicken drumstick and a little spoonful of Dijon mustard. (Lately I've been craving a pastrami sandwich, for some reason.) Grandma made some fried bittermelon and egg (sometimes we use onion, sometimes preserved daikon) and some sour herbed cucumber and fish soup. Yum. Had coffee around 11. No tea, which was fine.

Quiet and cooler day today. Woke up around 8:15. Spent most of the day continuing to test my 24-70mm, and, deciding that this lens was unsatisfactorily soft at f/2.8 across over 30 photos, I looked into a return back to KEH and a prime lens to replace this. It's especially sad because the focus speed is so fast it's like magic, but what's the point of the photos aren't sharp? The silver lining is that using this lens has made me more aware of how much I actually like normal and even (short) telephoto focal lengths. Something about the perspective distortion on 35mm and shorter feels a little gooey to me and not in a good way. Might be related to the mindset of capturing scenes vs. subjects -- I know for sure photojournalists want to capture scenes and stories in medias res more than posed subjects in a studio, so they'd benefit from wider angles. Anyway my replacement prime lens from the potentially recovered $500 I would get back from the return (the Monad willing) is the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM and 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro. No, that wasn't a massive typo. I'm switching out the zoom lens for two lenses. And the kicker is that it's still cheaper -- I think it came out to $380. If these things still aren't as sharp as my 60 year old FL 55mm I will become whatever the photography world equivalent of The Joker is. (Maybe Ken Rockwell.) Incidentally I feel less frenzied about waiting for these lenses to come -- it'll take longer than 6 days by their estimate -- which probably means I'm actually returning to normal.

Much quieter day today but still a bit hot. Woke up early around 7:45 but stayed in bed for another half hour. Had a turkey egg cheese mustard sandwich for breakfast. Made some milk tea (no sweetener) around 10:30, and then an iced Americano on my AeroPress about 3 hours later. Spent most of the day testing my EF 24-70mm around and inside the house, and watching The Golden Girls clips with the odd hour of two of random Family Guy bits. Autofocus is still fast, f/2.8 is still a little soft if you pixel peep, sharpens up good enough at f/4. Still hefty, but removing the battery grip I put in it yesterday gave me more access to the lens for my left hand, and I'm getting more used to the balance. As to whether it's portable enough to sling around ... I might fall back to my 55mm, or get an EF 35mm f/1.8 STM. Had some baked marinated chicken drumstick and wing for dinner with some soup and an egg/preserved daikon for dinner courtesy of grandma. Seth bought some popcorn chicken around 5:30, had a few bites, it was alright. Hot outside today. Finally -- and this is just an offhand remark -- my skin looks more clear today than it has in months, for some reason. Pleasantly surprised.

Writing this on the computer because Jesus, what a day.

Woke up early around 7:05, got ready, and drove to the body shop for my car for the 8:00 appointment. Left it there and went with dad to Restaurant Depot to get some supplies. Just before we headed out to our shop we got our estimate for the repair -- $5500. Perks of knocking out three of your safety systems and an automatic headlight. Ay yai yai.

Went back home. I had a sardine lettuce sandwich. The sardines were a little smoky but very good. Watched a little of the fried smelt video from Great Depression Cooking (Clara). Made coffee around 10:00. I wasn't really craving coffee especially, more something hot and soothing for the long day I knew was coming ahead. Had a little nap on the massage chair.

So I spent most of the late morning and afternoon angsting about my FedEx shipment. I'll just send it right to my house next time. Their estimate was incorrect yet again. It didn't arrive at the Walgreens at 2:15 but a whole hour and another 15 minutes after. Eye roll. Procrastinated for a few more hours, greeted Seth when he got home, then Seth went out to the gym around 4:00. Had a little nap around 5:30, then futzed around some more after waking up.

Finally got the gumption to head out around 6:15 and take the bus to Walgreens. Modern conveniences like mobile apps and mobile paymend made the experience very easy. The bus was air conditioned; bit of a bumpy ride; but the driver had very good soft stops. Stopped off at the Serra Way bus stop and walked for 10 or so minutes to the Walgreens, where I hobbled around for 5 minutes trying to find some dental floss aids (blue loops) and the FedEx pickup. Found both the blue loops after a little bit of patience, and the FedEx pickup section as well (combo with the photo printing service). The lady was speedy and quite nice. Checkout was alright.

Headed out around 7:00 and walked back to the bus stop, but not before swinging by my parents shop to ask if I should bring anything back home. Headed down to the Milpitas Library bus stop and waited for the northbound 66 bus. Just a few seconds after walking in the bus was on the move, and I lurched two or three feet before scrambling into a little seat. This driver was more aggressive -- maybe I should say hi to the drivers -- and a little bit faster. Otherwise the ride was essentially identical. Stopped off at the Arizona bus stop past my house and walked home, lens in tow. Had dinner. Grandma made some stir-fried shrimp and zucchini, and some leafy veggie stew. Yum.

Unboxed my hulker 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. Let's just say I feel a little out of my depth with this heavyweight. Image quality looks to be good enough. Actually seems a touch softer than my FL 55mm f/1.2, but that could just be the indoors nighttime lighting and the higher ISO (my f/1.2 lens nets me ISOs around 800, 1600 which is wicked good). Autofocus is really fast. Far faster than the 75-300mm, and a decent amount faster than the 40mm f/2.8 STM. Good stuff. Filter ring is busted, per the listing, but there's no shards or craggly bits or anything. It's just dented. Some of the lettering has faded but none on the focal length or focusing aids. Seems the big adjustment is the handling and weight distribution -- it's very top-heavy. My battery grip helps but it's still weighty.

Very warm and hot today, got uncomfortable around 5-6 and 7-9. Even now it's still a little warm. Seems the weather will cool down starting tomorrow.

Folks, it is time to cook.

Woke up earlier today around 7:50. Stayed in bed for 20 minutes. Got ready quick, had a turkey cheese lettuce mustard sandwich on half of a Dutch crunch loaf, and then headed out with Dad to the nearby body shop. Car beeped plenty of errors and messages at me, about three systems on the fritz. Turns out the body only does appointments. We set an appointment for tomorrow morning at 8am at the counter. I drove back home, dad swung by our shop to open the grill. Had coffee at 11:30. Tasted clean enough, since I used two filters, but there was some acridity there that must've been from the natural staling. Will make AeroPress instead tomorrow. 18g/300ml. Now before you get at me for updosing on my normal 1 cup of coffee, lemme just say I'm not proud of it either. I didn't get much sleep last night. Couldn't fall asleep too well. I was beat before noon. It was bad.

Spent most of the day checking and checking my damn FedEx page wondering when it was going to update, and watching clips of The Golden Girls, and a little bit of compulsory checking for my UCSC stuff. Finished all my orientation assignments today. Turns out my package is still on the move. My package was stuck in Tracy, CA for 2 whole days. What the hell goes on there? reddit corroborates the "Tracy black hole". Took until a couple hours ago at 8:05pm for it to get moving again. It'll arrive tomorrow between 10:30 and 2:30, but I'm not trusting any slick looking estimate from FedEx until their webpage updates and says "Delivered" in bold. Didn't ride the bus today, because I didn't need to, but I might tomorrow.

Grandma made some stirfried ginger and fish. Very mild. I love ginger. One of the few bright spots out of the washed out muck that's been rushing and passing and crashing through my head. Bit of a shame too, since it was sunny and warm all day.

I'd like to be a bit happier about picking up my lens tomorrow from the Walgreens FedEx, but, well.

August 25th 2024. croissants and sandwiches from the donut shop. Coffee at home. work from 1 to 7. Finally drank the milk tea. Seth called me to pick him up at the bus stop but I did not see him at any of the four stops. Felt terribly frustrated and tired and backed out the wrong way and ripped my front bumper out. A few sensors as well, which I'm particularly worried about. Ripped it out. State of shock. No grace. Need to sleep

Backed up and hit the pole and scraped my front fender right off in the back parking lot of the city library. It didn't feel real and it still doesn't feel real now. Parents said it'll be ok. I don't think so. Then again, I'm the one who smacked around my car, so what do I know?

I'm back home now. Dad tied the front to some metal bit on the inside and it was good enough to drive. So I drove, and someone passed me on the right, and I cared only a little bit. I'm almost proud of myself for not glaring them down, crazy as I feel now, crazy as I felt when I hit the pole. You know I didn't even feel anything until my parents said it was ok, back home? Well, at least I know my tear ducts are working. Only a little bit. Just a little.

I was going to make a drive to UCSC this Wednesday. Get a real damn good tour of the real damn good place. Fuggedahboudit. Maybe I'll walk into campus blind. See it all new. I could board the bus but do I want to? Then again "want" has no bearing here. If I have to I will go.

Work from 1 to 8. Meh. Had a busy spike from 4:00 to 5:30. Went home around 8:20. Grandma made some baked fish for dinner, served with nice tart pickled choy sum. Mom made some more quick pickles with the fermented cabbage but it was a little spicy. Spent the rest of the night checking UCSC stuff (still need to send more emails to roommate). Conked out at the massage chair around 10:50 and that's when I realized I was running on empty all day. Fell asleep around 11:15 and slept until 7:45. Jesus.

Later that morning I woke up late around 8:40 today August 24th 2024, which is really something considering the bedroom window was open and the sun was strong. I felt very fuzzy so I stayed in bed for another 20 minutes. Had half of a Dutch crunch loaf, split and toasted, with some cheese and turkey, and with some leftover steamed broccoli in the fridge. Incidentally I should say the cheek flap bite or whatever it was is basically gone now and has been gone for the last few days, so I don't have to be so careful about biting anymore. Took grandma to Marina Grocery and she got three pompano fish, cleaned and trimmed, altogether totaling $30. Dropped her off at Lions grocery and took the fish home. 10:50 by now. Made some AeroPress coffee, upped the dose a little bit, stirred in a tablespoon of condensed milk, and watched a few clips of The Golden Girls at my laptop. Checked Gmail. Went to work at 1. So now I'm here.

August 23rd 2024. Woke up somewhat late around 8:15. Made some coffee on the AeroPress, double filters in the regular cap, and it tasted cleaner than a whistle. Really nice stuff. I think doubling up would work great for fruitier or more floral light roast beans. Had work from 12 to 8. Veeeeery quiet because it was cool this day, barely breaking 75 F. Daphne and Julie and Mindy (Julie's sister) came fashionably late around 7:52 and we talked a bit until 8:35 or so after work. We headed to In and Out for a place to stay late night. We shared a couple fries, I had a small burger. Ironic considering I work at Fosters Freeze but I was feeling pretty hungry and I haven't had anything from In and Out in over 3, 4 years. Their fries were a lot thinner than I remembered but the texture was on point. Alex came by to In and Out about 10 minutes after we did and we continued chatting about upcoming university life. I took notes, because of course I did, and I think I did learn a lot. I headed home around 11:50, futzed around on the computer until 12:15, and headed off.

My YKEASU (odd name I know) RF/EF adapter from Amazon arrived today and its alright. Autofocus speed seems a touch slower than first party but otherwise it's identical in form and function. It even has the rubber gasket for some weather sealing. I'll tell you after manual focusing and focus peaking -- both very good and methodical don't get me wrong -- autofocus feels like magic. Point and shoot. Wow. Though I will say the 40mm looked a little underwhelming to me, as did the 75-300mm. Maybe crop sensors DO expose the best parts of the lens, and my full frame format is just showing more of the flaws, or I'm just not shooting with enough light ... Meanwhile, my 24-70mm is arriving Monday. I'm trying to forget about it and keep my expectations reasonable.

Woke up a little early around 7:45, then slept in a bit until 8:30. Got ready then had some loaded savory oatmeal with a couple fried eggs, a bit of my mom's veggie omelette (she made too much), and some kimchi. Yum. Made some iced earl gray tea with some stevia and lemon on the AeroPress and Flow Control Cap, which tasted alright but I'm really thinking the higher pressures needed to activate and keep the valve open are compromising some flavor. Went to Staples around 1:05 to drop off my USB-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter and the iPad screen protector which did come today ironically but I ordered too big. The drive actually went quite well. All the employees at Staples look depressed. Deposited some money at my bank and then went back home. Lamped at the computer from 1:30 to 4:00 until my brother badgered me until 4:30 to go to iTea. So of course I eventually obliged, and he paid, but it's been grating how often he not only gets milk tea for himself -- practically two times a week -- and then drags me along a third of the time. When I was his age before COVID, we had milk tea every three weeks or so, and we were just fine. He's always buying sweet treats and candy and snacks when he goes out biking and to the gym. You know average cost of milk tea here is like $6? Buy it weekly and you're spending $24 a month and $288 a year. That's a quarter of a laptop. That's half of an espresso machine. And he doesn't care to try to make his own tea or coffee at home. I'm not going to pretend I had the best foresight when I was younger but I am so glad I made homemade coffee my first-choice/default rather than cafe-made coffee. Nothing against cafes but those costs add up fast. Well, that's enough ranting. Just before dinner I helped peel some potatoes, since grandma was making some veggie shrimp pork soup. Very cozy. I also had some leftover spiced coconut cream pork dip.

I'm not sure what happened to today. I want to say it was a break of some kind but it just passed by in a blur, and I really didn't do much at all. Well, at least I got around to cleaning my desk.

Took grandma to Marina Grocery before coffee around 11:45. Got back home and made coffee, as you know. Spent most of the day futzing around on my computer crunching down my EF 25-70mm f/2.8 tabs, checking my school and personal emails, and procrastinating on cleaning my desk. Oh, I did take some photos for a couple cameras and my old 3DS and my Pixelbook I want to sell, near evening.

Had a hard time falling asleep last night, woke up early around 7:50 but lamped in bed for another 20 minutes. Got ready, then had a turkey mayo lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Had some almond flour crackers as a snack. Tested the Flow Control Cap again and made another iced Americano, though it didn't taste as good as yesterday. I appreciate the convenience of not leaking, but I can't help but feel like it's a solution looking for a problem. When do you really need full immersion? You use it for coarse grinds, but my Fellow Ode 2 tabletop coffee grinder and 1zpresso Jx hand grinder can grind fine enough for AeroPress, so I'm not limited there. Also, is faux-crema exclusive to the Flow Control cap? I'll have to test tomorrow to see if I can get some foam out of the regular cap (I think I can). The main benefit of the Flow Control cap is to avoid the admittedly dangerous inverted method, but inverted method is only mandatory for espresso-style coffee (making a partial vacuum with the plunger expresses out 1/3rd of the slurry) and brewing tea (pouring water into a chamber of loose leaf may run/leak faster than fine coffee grounds).

Good coffee? Good coffee. (Iced Americano)

Where's the time gone? Woke up somewhat early but got ready late at 8:45, shaved, and then had some ramen for breakfast. Added some mushrooms and a couple eggs and a few cherry tomatoes -- yum. HOUSING INFORMATION RELEASED TODAY! I got a regular triple at the Porter Transfer Community. I'm in contact with 1 of my roommates, Sasha -- Ana hasn't responded yet. Tested my AeroPress replacement cap and Flow Control cap. Made a great iced Americano with the latter, and the foam (even if it didn't taste like much) was kind of fun to push out of the chamber. Need to do more testing tomorrow. Napped from 7:30 to 8:15. I know, I know. Oldest uncle made some mixed meat porridge -- a little sweeter than I cared for but it was alright. He's leaving for Cambodia to get some documents sorted out so he can bring his youngest daughter to America, and check on his younger brother, my middle uncle, who's been there for a few weeks now recovering from his knee surgery. Apparently my middle uncle and his wife are having some issues.

Took my grandma to Marina Grocery. 12 to 12:37 or so. She got some fish and fried pork skins and some eggplant for sour soup for dinner (very good but I wasn't too hungry for some reason). Had a mushy pear -- should've just cut it. Unpacked my packages. Most of this stuff, like my AeroPress caps and Derby razor blades, I can only test tomorrow. They'll probably be fine. USB-C to 3.5mm and my earbuds makes a low grade hissing noise -- that's an easy return. Pulled the trigger on the EF 24-70mm f/2.8. Came out to $500 since it had a busted filter ring. Adjusted for inflation, that's 79% off since MSRP! I'm still iffy about paying that much but it seems like a good deal. Buy once, cry once. Read my lips: No new lenses! (God, I hope.) Talked to Dave later tonight.

Woke up a little late today around 8:45. Got ready decently quickly. Had a turkey mayo lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Spent 11 to 11:45 getting my ducks in order for enrollment. Adding classes was a little involved but I got my two core Psyc 100 and 120 classes and a Linguistics class to clear up a prerequisite or so. Turns out UCSC has some form of concentrations -- I'm going for the AI/ML path. There's actually not a lot of meat and potatoes AI stuff here, more design and usability stuff. Which is fine too, there's a ton of UI/UX problems today and will still be tomorrow. I guess my parallel goal/challenge to developing a next-gen theory of cognition is actually applying it back into the real world. But I feel confident I can do it. Clearing up classes felt like a weight really lifted, but I still need to wait for financial aid and I need to plan with my major advisor.

Aw yeah. It's coming together

Excuse my messy desk... I've got some packages!

Sorry I couldn't write more this weekend has just filled up my mind like cotton balls. Busywork filling up my time. Marginally better than waiting. Terribly sleepy. I will go.

August 18 2024

woke up early

McDonald's with brother

work from 12:30 to 7:00

customers fine

came home 7:25

good dinner

spent the rest of the night adding classes to shopping cart for enrollment (their UI sucks)

will get an EF 24-105mm f/4

woke up a little late

researched more zoom lens

work from 3 to 8 felt tired

My picture doesn't do it justice, though I'm not sure my dedicated camera would fare much better. At least I know it's not nostalgia for 4 years ago and that August can be like this.

It only took 17 days, but it does feel like August now. A slight overcast outside, dew petrichor, steel gray light fanning through the window. If I didn't know any better this just took me back to August, September 2020.

But you know the story, and you know how this goes, if you've been here from the start. Even in my passive frozen blank stares and eating and computer use and sleeping and napping and listening to music and getting ready for the day and working and working and sitting and online shopping and coffee you'd know I'll still wait, in some form, because if I've been doing it for the next three years I'll be doing it for the next five weeks. I know it. We know it. No actor has ever been given an award for hating their own character.

Again today sprinted by like a gazelle hearing the bang of a rifle. Where did that metaphor come from? Tufts of yellow all around. Wow, I am sleepy.

Woke up to the sound of my brother's alarm around 5:00 since he had a senior sunrise at his school, went back to sleep until 8:00. Got ready. Had the rest of the pasta in the fridge, not much. Wound up having a turkey avocado cheese sandwich later around 3:30.

Hario Switch, full pour over, this time 18g coffee 300ml water. Still miss my AeroPress. Added a slim tablespoon of condensed milk. Yum. Thawed out my milk tea.

Had to go back and forth twice with my brother to get his tire fixed by his friend. First time I was like, okay. And that was a fine 15 minutes until we had to go pick it up again. And I just thought to myself, my god, I can't wait for this little gremlin to drive. It feels like I've been driving everyday this last week and a half, and not very far at all.

The flappy bit on the inside of my left cheek near my left molars seems to be a little better today. It's been bugging me for the last 3 days. Doesn't hurt at all except when brushing over it or eating something particularly soft, and that flappy bit gets a little too close to my teeth. Internet says it could be a blocked saliva gland.

Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike called later around 7:30. I honestly wasn't in the mood. Asked a little bit about school but mostly talked over me and not even much new stuff. Just the same advice to pre-study before the quarter and keep your chin high up in a book and believe in yourself and do the homrwork and follow orders and follow orders and FOLLOW ORDERS. My god I am itching to talk to people and have been for the past year. I know school is a priority. But networking is too. And that advice is rare and scarce in my family. You know it's strange, it really is -- I keep thinking my parents and family know more than me about my future, but the fact of the matter is that they have about as good a clue as me, which is a nice way of saying not much. I've never heard practical advice on how to get a white collar job because none of them are white collar workers; they have no concrete plan for me and have never made one. I keep thinking they do, and it's starting to make me angry now, that they never taught me how to ask and learn from people. Autodidactic learning is a virtue only in crisis; isolated causal power rarely compounds. I'd like to stop being told I'm smart. At least I'd better learn to associate myself with other qualities, actionable qualities, qualities that make me feel like I'm in command of my life instead of waiting and waiting and waiting.

Today passed really really fast, and it's passing by fast even as I write this. I woke up early around 7:15 but stayed in bed and slept a little more until 8:15. Got ready, shaved, etc, out of the bathroom by 9:15. Had some leftover pasta for breakfast and a little more for lunch. Had some iced green tea lemonade around 10:15 and sucked down a mugful of immersion brew coffee around 12:25. God, I miss using my AeroPress. Which isn't knocking the Hario Switch at all -- I did use it to easily brew a huge batch of coffee some weeks ago, I'm thankful I have it -- but something about that bypass brewing tastes so satisfying. I didn't write or read much for Helios, but I didn't gorge myself on AI Presidents videos either. Most of my day was scratching my (telephoto zoom) (autofocus) lens itch again, and chipping away at my UCSC Orientation course. I've been looking at the EF 70-300mm DO lens, the one with the fresnel elements, and I really like it's compact form factor. Reportedly it has enough optical aberration to give it some character, which I'm intimately familiar with and adore on my 55mm f/1.2. As for my orientation course, it's been going. I did take plenty of notes for it, but its striking me just now how much emphasis there is on connecting with professors and faculty, and networking in general. Yet again my atrophied social skills come roaring to life. When I took my brother to Sunright Tea around 3:30 or so, and his friends came by and talked to him a bit, I just ignored them. My god! I should've at least said hi, or asked Seth if these were his friends. If someone did that to me I would feel very awkward. I can't bring this kind of attitude to campus. I don't know why I act like that, other than the recurring feeling of not knowing the answer /mind blanking every time a person comes face to face with me outside work or whatever. Next time I will do better! For dinner grandma made some stuffed bittermelon soup (so good) and some stirfried Japanese pumpkin and pork (also good). Spent the rest of the night still looking up lenses.

Woke up a little late today. Turkey cream cheese lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Work from 2 to 8. Went well. Meet and greet was for the mayor candidate, and Aunt Kelly's husband running for school board. Mom made delicious pasta tonight. Me and dad did id.me to get his IRS tax return transcript and it went by quite smoothly and I've turned in the form to UCSC. Crossing my fingers they review it quick.

Lone pomegranate. 55mm f/1.2 at f/1.4, August 13th 2024.

Oh, man. I'm slammed.

Slept late at 12:45 but had the gumption to wake up early at 7:45. Lamped in bed until 8:05, got ready. Blanked out in the shower a few times. Finished getting ready and had some instant ramen with broccoli for breakfast. Made a whole bottleful of some Earl gray around 11:15, added a little milk. Took Seth to Chase around so he could deposit some money, and then Panda Express because apparently he hadn't had breakfast yet. Drove back home. Couldn't help but notice my fuel economy is worse this summertime than last year. Last year I got up to 44.1 MPG -- this year it's 43.2. Negligible to be honest but it does make me wonder if I'm a worse driver than before ...

Got home and made coffee and tried looking for my AeroPress cap still and ... nothing. Made some pour over coffee instead on the Hario Switch, Hoffman, added a little over a teaspoon of some condensed milk. Coffee tasted a little more acrid today, probably because I didn't seal the leftover bag too well and it's started to oxidize. (My frozen beans tend to fare much better even with air exposure.)

Spent the majority of the afternoon working on Helios. How could I be surprised I felt so wasted around 5:15, when I wrote 38 notes today?! Short notes to be sure but I still referenced the papers and sources, and tried to make connections between notecards. I'll tell you it's a lot easier to get tripped up thinking your digital notes ARE your ideas ... not really ... representations all the way down.

Spent the early evening trying to unwind, took a few photos of the plants we have at the front of our house. I love love love my 55mm f/1.2. Depth of field is so shallow that foreground blur blends together with background blur, almost haloing the subject. I'll send a picture later.

Grandma made some pork and Chinese broccoli stirfry. Yum. Continued unwinding at the computer after dinner. Did some shopping on Amazon -- got a replacement AeroPress cap namely, but also more AeroPress filters, a few toothbrushes, a headphone jack dongle, some Astra razor blades, and a UV filter for my FD 28mm f/2.8.

Woke up decently early around 8:30 but got ready late since my brother was in the bathroom first. Had a fried egg and some quinoa salad for breakfast. Took my grandma to Marina Grocery around noon. Made coffee, immersion, around 1. Iced milk tea around 2:15 but my AeroPress cap went missing so I had to filter out the tea concentrate with my Hario Switch again. Spent most of my time on the computer continuing UCSC Orientation Part 3 (which opened up a couple days ago and I started yesterday) and working on Helios. To be honest the long timestamps are a little daunting, so I'm thinking of adding a few keywords to notecards that begin a thread/chain of following notecards to help me orient myself a little better. The biggest limitation so far is, again, screen size. I wish I could see a couple more cards and fit Zotero off on the side. I wonder if there's a way to make TiddlyWiki card padding thinner -- much thinner -- because looking at my paper notecards in Hemera, I actually wrote very little on them compared to digital. It also seems easier to just write without planning on the computer, so I'll have to continue to discipline myself as well. Dinner -- had a few bites of popcorn chicken my oldest uncle bought so I didn't eat much sour chicken and mushroom soup (nice and brothy though). After dinner I did some more reading, though this time on Luhmann and his Wikipedia pages on the German version. Great stuff there and much more detailed as well, though I will have to (try to) read his texts myself sometime. Earlier this year in January I was also curious about his theories so it'd be a nice way to close the circle.

Completely lost track of time, sorry. August 11th 2024. Woke up early around 8:15, got ready, shaved, finished around 9:05. Went out with parents and Seth to Starbucks and then Paris Baguette to get some Sunday breakfast. I just got a regular small coffee -- new coffee machine behind the barista, made some small talk about the Clover branding, turns out it's not really an automatic immersion and more of a superautomatic drip. Still cool though. At Paris Baguette I had a rotisserie chicken and bacon and lettuce sandwich, whereas my brother got a pastrami sandwich (I've had it before, it was good), and a pain au chocolat. I brought my camera and 35-105mm. Battery grip was a major help but holy crap did I worry my camera would fall off the strap. Not too ergonomic but that could just be because I'm weak, so, you know. Focal length of the 105mm have some nice reach but the 5 ft minimum focus really cramped my style, and I completely forgot about macro mode (oy!) because the food was so good. A dedicated telephoto lens might be a bit more compact and light. Went back home, arrived 11:15, did some bib note style annotations on a Zettelkasten paper, Zettels Raum. Had work from 12 to 7. Passed by faster than I thought and there was a nice breeze which soothed the 85° weather. Got back home around 7:25, ate plenty of pickled cabbage and seared fried fish. Yum!! Spent the rest of the night working on Helios, trying to crunch down my annotations on L2 language acquisition. Not bad, though I still need to index the cards...

Home today. Woke up early around 7:50. Had a turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich on a bagel. Watched another AI Presidents video but I couldn't really get into it because I was conked out on the massage chair. Felt really blank for the first 20 minutes after waking up -- just staring blankly at things while waiting -- made coffee -- sharpened up and got back to normal within half an hour. Did some online shopping. Worked on Helios(!). Drove grandma to Lion's grocery store to get some broccoli for dinner (broccoli and pork, very good) and we also got a watermelon as well, $7.89 for a little under 16 pounds. Sorry this drop is out of order -- if it weren't for the nap I think I'd get the ordering right. I did test the zoom lens. Again I'm not trying to eke out a superzoom miracle or anything but it's quite good for it's age. So, I might take it out tomorrow.

Just downloaded my camera pictures. Image quality is great for optical engineering from the 80s! A little less clinical / more stylized than the 75-300mm.

Quick notes on the aforementioned FD 35-105 ...

• Solid build, but quite a bit heavy. Cannot really hold with one hand for framing. Battery grip strongly suggested.
• 35mm all the way up to 105mm looks surprisingly natural in the sense that there doesn't seem to be massive perspective distortion, though the wider end does seem to have some oddly dark corners -- almost like the image circle is a touch smaller than the frame.
• Minimum focus is horrifying at just under 5(!) feet. Macro mode operates at the 35mm focal length and can focus as far down as 30-64 cm on the focal length ring, with finer adjustment with the actual focusing ring. However, this lens' "blind spot" will still be in the 3-5 feet range.
• Seems easier to flare than my older FL 55mm f/1.2, possibly because it has more lens elements/groups.
• Lens maintains decent focus when changing focal lengths and the focusing ring is still smooth enough that I can correct errors easily.
• Ironically, I might've been spoiled already on the 75-300mm lens on my brother's crop sensor DSLR, which provides an equivalent 120-480mm focal length to full-frame. At minimum it already has a narrower angle of view than the maximum I'm getting on my FD lens. Loosely I can see full-frame and crop-sensor cameras into two camps: the former is a bit better for wider framing, the latter is a bit better for narrower framing.

(Bonus news at 11:10 ... I am holding myself back from reconsidering the RF 24-105 variable aperture zoom lens again after remembering I have a decently suitable albeit manual FD 35-105mm f/3.5(!!) that my dad has with his Canon T90 kit. How hard can it be to focus on a telephoto zoom lens anyway?)

Brisk fast day today. Woke up early around 7:35 but fell back asleep until 8:45. Got ready quick enough and finished around 9:30. Had a double cheese turkey lettuce sandwich on a pumpernickel bagel, since a family friend came by yesterday with a huge box of bagels from her shop. Spent some time futzing on the computer taking some notes into Helios (finally!). Made some coffee, stirred in a little bit of condensed milk but not too much, tasted fine, coffee was a touch acrid but that was probably because I didn't get the ratio quite right -- I didn't measure my beans, I just used an AeroPress scoop. Which honestly doesn't work that bad but whatever I'll think about it tomorrow a little. Recently it feels like the days are more and more compressed together even though there's more daylight. Had work from 2 to 8. Passed the time reading some of the magazines that Helen gave me when I was there helping move some water bottles from her car into her house. One customer swung by and gave some chocolates and pineapple tarts to my dad because he was generous to her when she ran out of money some time ago (my dad let her pay later, which she did). Customers were alright with the exception of this snide older woman, late 40s to early 50s, that said the price for a banana split looked "weird". Girl how the fuck is $7.19 subtotal for a banana split -- and quite a lot of ice cream for a single person -- weird. Do you want a lower price? Some kind of rounding? Because the only way you're going to get a lower price is with a time machine back to 10 years ago. Jesus. Well, I smiled and repeated that was the price right on the menu, and she walked off to her terribly parked car to wait. And when she did pick it up she bugged my uncle who made it to also get her a paper bag to carry it in ... even though we clipped on a lid at her request when she ordered. I'm glad she didn't pester us later but let me just say I would be perfectly happy not to see her again. Otherwise the day was just fine and the magazine articles were great and the weather was nice and breezy which kept the 85° F temp feeling cool. Drove back home. Dinner -- half of a beef stick, some cabbage and pork soup, and three shrimp. Yum. Spent the rest of the night trying to finish my notes for a paper (which I did not particularly like after actually rereading and understanding the highlights and text) for Helios, bouncing between Tumblr and Bluesky, and ... hmmm. Well, I think that's about it actually. I think I'll sleep a bit earlier today.

I keep thinking about this dream from last night, where I was visiting a college campus before school and could attend/shadow a little biology class, I think taught by Ms. Karen Truesdell, my AP Biology teacher in the unfortunate 2019-20 school year, and in retrospect, a spry and warm person though probably not the best at teaching. (Note to Seth: Take a flipped approach to AP Bio, don't rely on in class lectures.) The setting of the dream was so odd. It was distinctly educational but I can't place down where this classroom and the surrounding campus was. It was small and dark, and the front edge classroom with windows and sliding doors looked more like the semicircle of an airplane lobby. I spent some time shadowing, thinking I would only be there for 10 or 15 minutes, and it did feel like about that time until I poked my head out of class and saw it was quickly turning evening, a supple purple sky and a dimming blue quality to the air. It struck me waking up and still does to me now that this was yet another dream of the "mild future", but this dreamt future seemed at once flung backwards and forwards more than usual. High school young, a big new college that's feels emotionally closer to elementary school? Not to mention how boldly I lost track of time in that classroom. Maybe what I am concerned about is the relevancy of it, that I could visit UC Santa Cruz weeks and weeks earlier before moving in, that I should, if at least to assemble my classes for the quarter and finally explore the rest of campus.

Woke up early ish today. 8:35, got ready, yadda yadda yadda. Had some curry and half a small load of bread for breakfast over an episode of Havoc of Erisia. Had some iced Vietnamese coffee around 11:30 and some juicy sweet cantaloupe melon. At first I thought I didn't put enough condensed milk in the coffee but the cantaloupe was sweet enough that I immediately appreciated my own moderation. The day gets really goopy after that, and most of it was spent waiting for my parents to get home so I could fill out my additional verification forms for my financial aid (why me?). Had some more leftover curry for dinner but this time with plenty of veggies and some rice noodles.

Bit of a swirl today. Woke up early around 8:06 but lamped in bed for 10 minutes or so after. Got ready, shaved, then had a turkey lettuce cheese sandwich for breakfast. Coffee around 11:30. Work from 2 to 8. Customers were nice. Had to get some whipping cream for the shop since we ran out around 6:05. Brought my Kindle, read a little bit of Wittgenstein's Mistress and Dreams of my Father. Drove home around 8:10. Mom made curry for dinner. Not sure how my camera captured the color but it looked really flaming. Had it with a small loaf of bread and cozied up in the massage chair afterwards with a couple episodes of a new DND AI Presidents series (Havoc of Erisia). It's actually quite good.

Woke up a little late today around 8:50, lamped in bed a bit. Had some kimchi and a soft boiled egg and some tuna salad with some oatmeal for breakfast. From 11 to 12:30 I took my brother to get some notebooks and supplies for school from Staples and then we swung by Las Vegas Taqueria for some lunch. I had a couple of soft beef tacos which were very delicious, but they kind of stretched my food quota for the day. Spent the rest of the time at home at my laptop, and finished the AI Presidents zombie GTA series and generating some pictures for The Hierophant and rediscovering the more painterly Stable Diffusion XL. I still felt full by dinner and after dinner I had a low grade stomachache, possibly some bloating from overeating today. Can't really remember what else happened today ... I did try to make an iced latte but I didn't grind all the beans properly so I think I used 4 or 5 grams of coffee when I should've been using 3 times that. Iced latte tasted a bit heavy as a result and whatever coffee flavor was a bit overextracted. Main takeaway from today: Better luck next time!

Had a dream about MXR club at a souped up (bigger) version of high school. Played pickleball at P.E. but my serves sucked. At the MXR meeting room, Taha -- he looked oddly attractive considering what actually happened near the middle of my sophomore year knowing him and MXR -- made a little comment about me graduating this year, but I had to gently correct him I graduated last year, only to correct myself and say it was three years ago. Taha didn't seem to believe it, and then walked away. I turned to Chloe and asked if I actually did look as young as a freshman still. She didn't answer directly. I don't remember the metaphor, but she seemed to imply that, if I did, it was probably more to do with my personal views of myself than anyone else's.

Writing this on the computer again to get this out fast. Slept a little earlier last night around 11:45 and woke up a little late at 8:30. Seth was in the bathroom so I got ready around 9:15, finished around 10:00. Had a turkey avocado cheese sandwich on a leftover croissant from yesterday; the avocado was quite rich and took me a little while to get through. Had some of the cold brew I prepped last night for today, tasted alright. Played some prod RotMG, got up to 4/8 on my archer character. Made some iced green tea lemonade around 1:00. Drove my brother to his friend's house around 1:45. The rest of the day gets a bit gooey after that. I think I did read a paper about knowledge management and graceful degradation, but I don't remember much of it. Watched a little bit of AI Presidents playing Dungeons and Dragons, and later at night, a zombie apocalypse in GTA. Spent some time generating some images for The Hierophant with Flux. Talked to Uncle Mike and Aunt Kun about upcoming school at UC Santa Cruz around 8:00 to 9:00. Oldest uncle spent the day prepping Korean barbecue for dinner, which was very delicious. I ate plenty of octopus and squid, and kimchi as well, with that spicy(?) herb with the serrated edges. Finished reading Bob Doto's A System for Writing book on the zettelkasten and I still think it's worth every penny, but I've got to type up a proper review for it.

Oh, and I read Bob Doto's Zettelkasten book at work. Great stuff in his book, so far. I have a chapter or so left. A little pricey at $22 (though I got it on sale for $2 off), but it fires on all rounds on each page so far. I think he could've talked about the research/reading side of things more, but I understand people's reading processes differ quite a bit regardless if they're an academic. Far and away a superior resource to Scott Scheper's Antinet book and -- dare I say it -- Sonke Ahrens' How to Take Smart Notes.

Woke up a little early today, 8:15 and got ready around 8:35. Mom made coffee already so it was just me and my dad and my brother going out to the donut shop today. I got a pastrami sandwich, Seth got a ham and cheese, and my dad got six extra croissants for the house. Seth drove us to the donut shop, and the later our shop to grab some beef. He drives a little bit slower than expected but he seems to learn quite well. Got home around 10:30, ate my pastrami sandwich (good amount of veggies but I wish there was more pastrami). I love that peppery juicy taste. Made some coffee on the AeroPress, black, tasted just fine. Had work from 12 to 7. Not too busy today and the day passed faster than I thought. Aunt (family friend) Kelly and her husband Bill swung by to let me know her daughter Keilana was also going to UC Santa Cruz (though as a freshman) and so they thought it was good for us to meet maybe next week or so. Got home around 7:35 and wow was there a lot of food. Miso soup, fresh salmon (and more) sashimi, seared/fried marinated fish. Even now I still feel a little full. Played prod RotMG after dinner. Got up to 4/8 on my Archer. Good stuff today, even if a little busy.

Bit of a mess today. Woke up early but my brother was in the bathroom so I really only got ready at 8:45. Shaved, which added a little more time. Had a turkey cream cheese egg and (Kraft) cheese sandwich, though I probably should've put the cheese right after the egg came out of the pan rather than before. Had some coffee, immersion, Hario Switch, with some milk. Spent most of the day watching AI Presidents and checking Discord. Dinner -- sour soup with catfish and water spinach and small shrimp and plenty of herbs. Later generated images through Flux for Clods. Not much deeper thinking today. I think I'm just in a little rut, or just bored. Incidentally it actually feels like I've been daydreaming less; the only time I felt like my mind wandered off was for 15 or 20 seconds when washing dishes. Bittersweet that my visuospatial attention improves during the summer, and not in school. Same thing happened with my memory last year, from August to September or so, when I felt more confidence in my episodic memory (and still kind of do now, or I'm just willing to "sketch out" and imagine motor planning in my head more often). Warm today, and the AC thermostat still isn't working, so the late afternoon passed by quite slow. Haven't used my iMac in what feels like forever. I kind of miss it. Actually, not kind of. I do miss it, specifically the extra screen space. I feel like I mentioned this already but UI/UX imposes it's own limits on functionality as well. I can multitask like mad -- haven't tested it much but I will -- on my laptop, but I can't guaranteedly arrange two windows side by side all the time (e.g. because of scaling). By contrast I can have 5, 6, 7 windows open on my iMac but I have to watch my RAM usage. Until I enabled Memory Saver on Chrome, my iMac's swap on heavy days would go up to 75, 80 GB. Now it's down to 3, 4 GB on heavy days, which is much better.

Woke up and stayed up early around 7:05 to do some early morning photos and recordings. Got ready and finished around 8:15. Had some quinoa salad some shredded turkey slices for breakfast but I got hungry between 10 and 4 which was a little ehhh. Played prod RotMG from 9:15 to 10:15, though I have to say I would feel more comfortable playing on my brother's old laptop since the fan noise on my P14s is a little high pitched and makes me pretty aware of my gaming lol. Took my grandma to Lions supermarket around 5:00 since she has to get some shrimp, and for dinner we had some cabbage and shrimp stir fry, which I grabbed a few extra shrimp because I was really craving some meat/protein today. Didn't do much today on account of the heat (incidentally there was a little bit of sprinkling from the humidity).

August 1st 2024. Tried waking up a little early at 7:00 but the bathroom was immediately taken up by my brother and grandma respectively so I had to wait 50 more minutes or so. Skipped breakfast, spent 9 to 11 playing (and dying) on RotMG Valor. Around 11:15 I took myself and my brother to the Valley Fair mall to get some L'Occitaine lotion for my mom. My brother got a LEGO set of Ayerton Senna and his car, a Formula 1 racer who tragically had a steering column malfunction in 1994. I didn't get anything other than Chipotle for lunch, with my brother, which took longer than I thought to eat. Maybe their portions are even more generous now, or I wasn't as hungry as I thought? In any event we swung by R&B Tea nearby the dining terrace since Seth wanted some boba tea. I didn't get any since I still had my milk tea in the freezer at home, which I summarily thawed and drank after arriving home. The 880 freeway back up to my town seemed a little busy and the lanes a bit narrow, but we made it. Lamped at my laptop for a bit, but not as much as I normally would have, since my Amazon package finally arrived. I ordered an external battery for my laptop, Dropped off my brother at work at 5:30. After dinner I played some prod RotMG on my laptop, which seems a little like a slippery slope to do gaming on my laptop, but something about having all (well, most) your applications just work on Windows without worrying about version compatibility or specs is so freeing. Dinner -- Mom made some veggie and pork/shrimp meatball soup and she helped grandma grill some marinated pork. I was still full from earlier, so I didn't eat much.

Typing this on the computer to be fast and thorough. Very bleh today, I don't feel like I did anything specifically solid. Woke up early enough, got ready, ok. Had a turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich on a bagel. Left the bagel out to stand too long after toasting so it was quite hard. Coffee at 11:30, tasted a little overextracted but otherwise fine. Took my brother out to deposit money around 11:50, and I pounced on the chance to deposit some money into my account as well. Went to iTea at his request, paid. Came back home, stuck my drink in the freezer for tomorrow. Quinoa salad for lunch, though I ate most of it standing up as I was critiquing the AP Biology document for summer work -- I don't know why he wants to do that goddamned class, because whatever credits he's getting out of it don't even transfer to University of the Pacific. Spending a whole high school year of 8 or 9 months, and lots of time on homework and handwritten note-taking, does not equate to a 3-month college introductory course. Period. And he's still thinking of dropping AP Literature. I swear it's like he wants to piss me off more and more the sooner we get to our respective school years. In any event he started gaming from 2:45 and I endured his jabberwocky (why did I have to endure it?) for an hour until I up and lamped out in my room with my laptop, but even that wasn't much respite since my grandma needed to go to the more distant Marina Grocery, so alright, I took her to the grocery. It was fine. Came back home and continued lamping out in my bedroom and really, really tried to get my ducks in order and read a couple papers or so but all I really did was read up a little bit on Scientology and Gnosticism and Judas Iscariot. Mom came home around 7:55 and so I walked with her for half an hour or so after 8:15. Dinner -- stirfried glass noodles with some pork and Taiwanese sui qua (the veggies my grandma needed to get) and some leftover soup from yesterday. And now it's two hours past that and I can't remember what I did in those two hours. Frankly it pisses me off I didn't even have 20, 30 minutes of consistent deep work today -- it's just split throughout. I'm not sure how to make tomorrow more conducive to this kind of unfettered clarity of thinking other than just scheduling my time properly and/or scratching together a to-do list. Lord knows I'm itching to do something.

Quiet day today. Woke up early around 8:15, got ready, had a cream cheese turkey lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Played some RotMG on my brother's old laptop (couldn't reset Valor password -- as I would later find out today I would just have to wait for mod team to get to my ticket). Really dig RotMG's Realm rework, and dungeon drops feel much more consistent and available. Spent some time playing until 11:45. Emptied out the leftover coffee and made a fresh cup since I wasn't sure if the leftover was particularly safe to drink. Turns out my brewing so far hasn't been a fluke -- even a fresh cup tastes nice and mild. Really delicious. Had some almond flour crackers as a snack. Spent most of my time on the computer with a 50/50 mix of YouTube (some AI Presidents but surprisingly not that much compared to politics and some videos on Gnosticism) and some note-taking and a brief PKM review (again, not as much as I thought since I wanted to restrict myself to note-taking topics and webpages I had already read and/or annotated with Hypothesis -- seems a bit better for my retention so far, with a combo of active recall and re-reading -- this was a habit I originally did to help me retain my readings and make good quality notecards for Hemera). Got moving a little bit around 2:30 to 2:50 on the elliptical over an episode of Wii Frisbee, though I couldn't use Chromecast to project it to the TV. Had a little nap around 4:20 or so until 4:45. Had work from 7 to 8 since my second oldest uncle had to go to a party. Work was quick and fine. Some veggie and (very tender) pork shoulder(?) soup with some green onion, and some fried marinated fish for dinner courtesy of my oldest uncle who had the day off today. Seems like today just took off.

You know what? I think I'll check in early. I don't really have the brain space to try to do anything on the computer.

Typing this on the computer to get this out ASAP. Woke up late and got ready late. Dad bought some combination buns for breakfast so I had one alongside a cup of some leftover coffee from yesterday, the latter microwaved, and actually still tasted quite good; I think I got a solid bag of beans this time around; no acridity, and even a little bit of brightness near the end of the cup. Bug bites on my ear and my right middle finger middle joint acting up today, go figure. Had work from 11:30 to 8:15. Most customers were quite friendly, though I have to mention it was still a bit slow today. Dad went to Costco and swung by the store with some pizza; I had a couple of slices, as did my uncles and my younger brother. Read a little bit of The Old Man and the Sea, but I didn't play much on my 3DS. Watched a couple talks on information management and the memex, and read Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" for myself. I don't think any note-taking application can be a memex, nor should it; the memex already exists, and it is the internet augmented with annotation features (e.g. from Hypothesis) and your own internal map of relations between quotes and ideas across the web. What interested me about the memex was that it seemed to be more towards collating and contextualizing information rather than developing knowledge, the latter of which is an infamous goal of Luhmann-style Zettelkastens with a triarchic bibliography/index/maincard box. Dinnertime -- grandma made some steamed egg and pork, which was really delicious with a few chance veggies like broccoli and raw water spinach. I slightly wish I didn't eat the pizza earlier, so I could instead have eaten more veggies. Oh well -- leftovers are for tomorrow. God, I'm beat. And it's only Monday.

Wonderful weather but a very busy day today. Woke up early around 8, got ready, and me and my family and younger brother went to iHop. I had a split decision platter, my brother got eggs benedict, my dad also got a platter, and mom got a veggie omelette. We got early enough to beat the wait -- only had to wait 15 or 20 minutes -- and noticed that they had become less busy than before COVID, and with ongoing high cost of living. Wrapped up and went home. At home I did some more file management and (finally) moved my iMac photo library that was on my external SSD to my laptop, so I can properly edit and import photos as they come. Around 12 I had finished making a huge thermos of coffee and I was about to walk to my friend Aaron's graduation celebration, but my grandma asked to go to Marina Grocery so I had to swing by. By the time I started walking to Dixon Landing Park it was 12:30, and I walked because I wasn't sure if the parking was that open over there (turns out it was but not as much as I thought it would be). When I arrived at 12:50 or 12:55 there were already 30 or 35 people, and I recognized no one barring Aaron (and later, Emily, his girlfriend). I should've brought much more coffee, clearly. The thing that caught me most off guard was not really the busyness of the event but my own silence. If I needed confirmation that my social skills suck, here it was. Emily and Aaron made me feel very welcome -- Emily especially -- but I was still trying to hang onto every word of the scant few conversations I was in. Maybe it's being antisocial/terminally online for the last 3 years but I simply don't have schemas of adult life, from work to parenting. Watching and hearing Emily pepper a new mom with questions about her baby looked to me like it was effortless; whereas I was scrambling to think up the right words half of the time and trying to remember the immediate topics. Of course, Emily has at least 2 or 3 years on me, so she just has more experience in the real world, but it was still a real challenge. I feel like I've been frozen at 18 -- like I'm constantly fresh out of high school, except high school was 3 years ago. I grabbed a few bites, particularly of these fried wrapped banana triangles which were quite good, and a couple of beef tacos, and a bit of fried chicken and fruit. I also had a slice of cake -- Derby cake apparently -- during cutting and Aaron's mom actually recognized me from Ernie Reyes karate all those years ago. I've got to send her and her husband an email thanking them for letting me crash their party, later. In any event, I think I actually over-ate since I didn't feel well at 2:45, and by that time I thought, might as well pack it up. I grabbed a few leftovers, waved bye to Aaron and his family, and headed out. Getting home I fought off a few waves of stomachaches but it calmed down by the time I got to my front door. The rest of the day from 3:30 to now gets goopy. I think I did some more file management and transfers on my laptop, and maybe added more to Dendron and Helios. By 7:00 my focus was waning and after stumbling over to my bedroom and trying to switch up and watch some presidents AI I conked out from 7:30 to 8:30. Had a late and small dinner at 9:15 since I still felt so weighed down from breakfast and lunch. I don't remember what I've been doing these last 2 hours. Maybe a mix of Tumblr and Discord. And reddit? Everything's jumbled right now. Well, it'll be clear tomorrow. (Now, what to do with my leftover 30oz of coffee in my red bottle ... )

Woke up late today. Had a turkey cream cheese avocado sandwich. Work from 12:15 to 8. Quite slow today because of the cool weather and the Olympics (everyone home watching the games). Read a little bit of Pale Fire and passed the time on my phone. Should've brought my 3DS instead! :-) Though, generally this summer has been quiet as well. Had a midday snack around 4, a mistaken order of onion rings; and swung by Starbucks to get some coffee for Mom (medium vanilla latte, 2 pumps syrup). I snagged the chance to get some cold foam as well, but it was a little middling since most of it stuck to the lid and there wasn't much to begin with (small iced Americano with vanilla cold foam, decaf). Seth is back! Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike dropped him off at school before stopping by around 6:20 and my parents and I intermittently chatted with them a bit about Seth's dentist shadowing and my transfer to UCSC, until they left around 7:10. Had some water spinach shrimp pork stirfry that grandma made for dinner, and spent some more time managing some files on my external SSD. I think I'll transfer over my notes immediately useful / active to me -- I even had a little folder that highlighted these active notes.

Okay day today. Woke up a little early but lamped in bed for another 10 minutes. Got ready, shaved, etc. Had some ramen for breakfast. We ran out of Kewpie mayo so I just used regular mayo instead. It tasted tangy by itself but later when I actually ate, it tasted about the same. Added some kale and some green cauliflower leaves (quite fibrous) to get some veggies/fiber in. Made some coffee around 11:30, hot and black on the Hario Switch. Tasted fine actually, very minimal acridity (compared to my last bag from Costco and had to stretch out with my AeroPress some). Organized and cleaned up my files on my external SSD on my ThinkPad until around 3 when I had to go to work. Work was fine if a bit busy from 5:45 to 7:00, and my mood really soured around 7:45. Though of course I didn't blow up or glare down any customers or anything, just kept it down below. Headed home around 8:10 and dug into dinner: some plain white congee and a delicious pot of a dark pork stew with pork tongue and feet, hard boiled eggs, and dried lily(?) flowers (which soaked up the broth quite well). Unlike previous dark stews this one wasn't as salty or oily, so it tasted quite clean/mild with the porridge. Spent the rest of the night continuing to clean up my files, and transfer some over to my laptop. Did some online shopping for a hot minute since my mom didn't want to use her credit cards and so asked me to buy some sunscreen on Amazon for her (she's paid me back before, so nothing sketchy here).

Dinner -- leftover green spiced veggie chicken stew. Yum. Didn't eat too much rice since I had that massive sandwich earlier today. Made some iced genmaicha around 3 or 4 but I haven't finished it; half of it is still in my thermal bottle.

The rest of the day gets gooey after that, a bit faster than yesterday, but still a little warm in the house. I did work on Dendron plenty, but I seem to be running into a little block with Helios (haven't read/annotated a publication lately). I might be able to squeeze in one or two notecards by midnight though.

It's hard to see in the photo -- my composition skills have declined on account of not taking many photos in weeks -- but this Dutch loaf was stuffed with cheese, eggs, four sausages, and a couple slices of bacon. WOW! Who needs a platter from Denny's when you have this? Quite a bit of oil, but that's how you know it's good. So I dug in over an episode of presidents AI (also again (okay look it was a Wii Mario episode can you really fault me)). Used my ThinkPad on battery, this time also keeping Dendron/VSCode and Chrome and Zotero (I think) in the background. Chrome is still a greedy puppy but on energy saver mode on battery, estimated usage fell from yesterday's 80% to 59% battery. A little worrying, but what can you do (other than install a plugin to discard tabs faster). I didn't even have that many tabs open either. It's kind of ironic that I have 4x the RAM on my laptop this time around, but I'm constrained by screen size and battery instead. Ah well. I'll make do. 14 inches is actually on the upper bound of portability for reasonably priced* Windows laptops anyway. It's just kind of funny, though, that my battery experience on a laptop really hasn't exceeded 7 hours in the past ... oh, I don't know, six years or so? :-)

#7 from Kenny's Cafe.

Woke up a little earlier today since I had to take my car to get serviced. Left around 9:05, had a little traffic, went down a wrong small street once, but arrived right on time at 9:40. Service went a lot faster than I thought. At one of their cubbies I finished reading the Antinet Zettelkasten book and putting my annotations, but didn't get to use my laptop much. Everything finished around 11:30, I checked out at the front desk, and picked up my car outside. I was kind of hungry so I decided to pick up a sandwich nearby from Kenny's Cafe, a cozy albeit somewhat dark store. I asked the man at the counter what I should get since it was my first time here and he suggested I get the $7, a breakfast sandwich on a Dutch crust loaf. Looked really good, so I got it. The wait was quite fast, around 5 minutes or so, and had a generous portion for $15.82. I grabbed the box and went, though not without a little chat with the businessman, who asked me if I were going to high school / college and mentioned his son in the military, of which I had noticed on all the photos on the walls while waiting for the sandwich. Excellent service! Said my thanks and headed out. The drive back home was a little tough, since I couldn't change lanes as fast as I wanted to, but I got on the highway midway into the route and it was smooth and quick from there. When I got home I made some iced coffee (again) and dug into the sandwich. The bread had gotten a little soft but I was more impressed at how hearty it was:

Hot again today! Woke up late, around 9, lamped in bed for about 10 minutes or so, got ready. Had a turkey lettuce avocado cream cheese sandwich. Iced coffee with a bit of milk at noon, and a couple of steamed plantains and a cup of blueberry Greek yogurt as a light lunch(ish). Had work from 4 to 8 and to be honest I was kind of looking forward to it because it was so warm in the house, and the day just went by so slowly at home it was actually disturbing me how much time I felt. Of course, I spent most of my computer time watching presidential AI videos and not really doing research or note-taking, but still. (Also, I can confidently say laptops have worse ergonomics than desktops. There's some kind of ergonomic magic to a separated display and keyboard.) The day outside looked wonderful. At work around 5:45, mom and youngest uncle got some pizza for the store from Costco, so I had a couple slices. Later they were off again, including my dad, because said uncle was going on vacation to Cambodia today (and continuing to heal up from his surgery). The drive home was fine, and for dinner I had some of grandma's green spiced veggie stew. Yum.

Hot today, even in the house. Today went by in a blur. Did an informal test of my laptop's battery life -- a little over 7 hours of screen on time by 19%. Pretty nifty for an HS processor but Chrome is a real resource hog. Had a turkey cream cheese egg sandwich on a sesame bagel for breakfast, some iced coffee around 12 after buying some more coffee and green tea from Smart and Final and then getting some gas later, some potato wedges/slices and an apple for midday snack, and finally for dinner grandma made some pickled veggie chicken soup and my uncles picked up some Cajun crawfish/seafood and some sushi on the way home. Yum. Finished reading the Antinet book today as well.

Oy, what happened today? Slept late last night, 1 or so. Woke up a little late, 8:45 or so. Shaved, which took up some more time. Finished getting ready around 10, had some leftover beef stew and an egg bagel for breakfast. Youngest uncle drive out twice today for a haircut and a doctor's appointment which really worried me but he said his recovering knee doesn't hurt much. Had some quinoa salad for a late lunch, and then another bowl (not much rice though) of beef stew for dinner. And, I had that nap from 5:30 to 7:30. (Welp.) Mostly used my new ThinkPad today, trying to get used to it. My main issue with it is the plastic Mylar trackpad which tracks a little weirdly and skips inputs from time to time, though I've upped the tracking speed a little and it seems to be a bit better. It could just be an adjustment period on my part. I know for sure I had to adjust to my iMac trackpad, after the essentially perfect tracking and gesture experience on my Pixelbook's glass trackpad. That I still consider the best tracking experience I've had since I've constantly heard in 2016/2017 that Windows touchpads (pre-Precision drivers) plain suck. Actually on the computer though I had the visual equivalent of junk food (AI presidents), which honestly was a decent break from otherwise trying to note-take everything. I did read more of Scheper's Antinet book, and add my own marginalia, but I'm seeing the project-first mode more clearly again. The process of note-taking, and learning, and trying to apply my knowledge to what I see around me -- that's just me. It's just me. So that was nice. Near the end of the night I also installed LM Studio to run Llama-3-7B and it runs just fine, though slightly slower than I thought. I'm still debating whether I need all this power -- battery estimates in software are ~6 hours, though I need to test myself -- since the new Copilot+ PCs are seriously knocking it out of the park in battery life, which I think is a pretty appealing feature for university life. Again, we'll have to see.

Jeeeeeeeesus the vibes waking up from a 2 hour late afternoon nap are wild. Dreamed of being over and helping out at a family friend's house; and then being at my own place unpacking groceries, dark, wooden space, like a cabin. Waking up my blinds are closed and the only light is the dimming evening, so the inside now is a slate gray light.

Folks, it really is as easy as adding a teaspoon or two of condensed milk into some strong coffee. I think it's because I haven't had condensed milk in a long time, so I've forgotten its creamy flavor. It seems like the coloring of the coffee is more important than any specific ratio. Good strength is when it looks more like a cappuccino color than a latte color -- "get it done yer neck" :-) It's kind of full circle, as well. When I first started making coffee myself (french roast babey (straight up tastes like cigarettes sometimes)) I would add in a little bit of condensed milk. That was for the first 2 or 3 times, and then I tried drinking it black from then on.

Slept late around 1:15 last night and woke up decently early around 8:10 but my brother was in the bathroom until 8:30 so I finished getting ready around 9:00. I wanted to go out this morning but mom had already made coffee and dad was cleaning the ice cream machine again this morning (I think) so me and my brother went ourselves to Paris Baguette and got some food. I got a pastrami/cheese/tomato sandwich, Seth got a turkey sandwich. Seth also got some cream puffs and we also got a couple croissants and sweet potato twists for the house, so we (me) paid and off we went. Seth kept badgering me about Goodwill so I was like meh and swung by, but the place was still closed, so we swung by Caffino cup instead and got a couple of small iced Vietnamese coffees. Seems like prices are a little high this season -- just those two cost $15. Of course I was pleasant about it because their iced Vietnamese coffee is basically Asian crack with how damn good it is, but still -- that's a pretty penny for at least 4 cans worth of condensed milk. Luckily we have at our house so if I ever get a sweet tooth again I'll be sure to stir a good spoonful into my next cup of coffee. We headed home, I took some more notes, set up ShareMouse to get a little bit of back and forth compatibility with my iMac, and it actually worked a little (with some cursor performance degradation ofc but the fact it works is pretty crazy). Bought some tea eggs and a brioche for my uncle since he's still recovering from his knee surgery and at 1:03 I hopped off to work. $1.50 promo for a small vanilla cone meant lots of people came, but I barely saw any regulars (maybe 3, 4). Read and annotated more of the Antinet book, albeit in intermittent bits, because we were busy throughout the day. Came back home around 7, mom made delicious oxtail soup and some sweet and sour tomato fish, and my dad and uncles came home soon after as well. Spent most of the night watching Presidents AI and still working a little bit on Dendron, but I definitely feel less frenetic about trying to save/write/etc. everything. To be honest it would probably be more worthwhile for me to read back through my Hypothesis annotations and take notes from there, since

With the information overload and sheer monotony of classifying it makes me wonder if this was actually what I put myself through in 2022 and a little bit of 2023. Is this really all there is, to fancy note-taking? An uphill battle of so many other people's thoughts and current events, without projects, without a context of use? No wonder people burn themselves out on this stuff. I must've come close, when I made my exunt in October 2022. (Which, coincidentally, was about the time I wanted to focus more on my courses at De Anza.) It seems to me the best way to make a sense of this much is to, again, follow my heart and my current interests; and relate them to past interests and knowledge as needed; and scrap all the rest of the information, until I really need them or remember them myself. I do not go into a library wishing I could read a bookshelf, book by book by book. Why should I do the same with my browser history?

July 20th 2024. Woke up late today, 9:30, felt really ticked off since I really wanted to continue chopping down my OneTab today. Got ready as fast as I could. Had a turkey lettuce cream cheese bagel again. Coffee at 11:30. Thawed out the milk tea from yesterday but at the final moment when I was reaching to move it further from the edge of the sink, it tipped over and most of it spilled out. Since I was about to do dishes anyway I just said fuck it, cleaned up and trashed whatever I could, and washed the dishes instead. Had a haircut at 2. Made some iced green tea but didn't add much lemon so the stevia tasted a little sickly halfway in. I did get to my OneTab and BrainTool but there's so much. I chipped at my consumer technology, Android, and coffee tabs, but even writing telegraphic notes for all these tabs will be wild. Thinking of going for a project-first thing, researching and using programs, and then consulting my OT/BT first before going to Google or any chatbots for further research. Altogether a meh day, not my day today. Oh, but I did talk to Dave, so that's a silver lining.

Woke up early-ish around 8:15. Had a turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich on a poppy seed bagel, spent 9:15 to 12 continuing to chop down my OneTab. Had work from 12 to 8. A bit hot today, but didn't really feel hellish. Customers were alright. Not as busy as I thought it would be. Kind of concerning thinking about it now since in previous years before COVID we would be hella busy during the summer! Seems like a quieter summer than last year and the year prior. Just odd. Could be low wages throughout the state and country ... Oldest uncle brought some milk tea to the store around late afternoon, I saved my milk tea for tomorrow since I had just finished eating (a very good) lime popsicle. Read and annotated on paper slips Scheper's Antinet book. Had some dinner when I got home, oldest uncle made some preserved lemon quail soup and some steamed shrimp, and we still had leftover egg/veggie stirfry from yesterday. Continued to cut down my OneTab until 10:33, which I mentioned here. Bit of a busy day today, but not really crushing.

Final OneTab count: 13,430 tabs(!).

I'm not sure how the hell I'm going to be able to take notes on what's left, because there will still be a shit-load of stuff. Maybe a Hypothesis highlight here, a telegraphic statement in a section of a Dendron amoeba note. My OneTab groups also seem to be revived with my old titles (FINALLY!), so that might help. Boy, did I really let myself go after leaving PKM! My web browsing has remained sky-high, but I've tossed my filters and scythes away and left them to rust. Incidentally, I loosely remember discussing information overload in this very Stream... We'll see.

Woke up late today. Had a siracha ranch turkey lettuce avocado sandwich (smaller than it sounds I promise). Had coffee around 11:30, Hario Switch, topped with some milk to cut through any acridity. Spent most of the day trying to cut down my OneTab, namely the links to topics I already know. Went from ~22,000 to 17,907 got a reduction of 7,093 redundant tabs, albeit halfway. Didn't use my ThinkPad much. Had a dentist appointment from 2:00 to 2:40; no work today (working tomorrow). Walked with mom for an hour from 8:45 to 9:45, swung by Smart and Final to get some cream cheese since a family friend's daughter brought a huge box of bagels for us earlier from their shop. Grandma made some veggie and egg stirfry for dinner, I added a little kimchi on the side for extra tartness. I feel a little disappointed I only got halfway in my huge OneTab page, but who else can say they pruned out 7,000+ tabs in a day? It's interesting, though, seeing the flecks of my past thinking and interests, and also bittersweet seeing the lead up to certain dates (e.g. before/after having to think about potential arthritis, downsides of weight gain).

9 again. Bluh.

Welp I'm pushing my luck still.

I'm getting really tired now so I'm not going to push my luck and screw up my sleep again tonight.

Was alright today. Woke up late, around 9:01 or so, on account of sleeping so late last night at 1 and waking up in the middle of the night at 4:30 for some reason (could've sworn I heard the doorbell ring). Had a turkey lettuce avocado sandwich with the last of the cream cheese. Walked to Walgreens around 10:50 to buy some regular strength Tylenol (generic) for my uncle since he had his knee surgery earlier today. Came back around 11:35 then got to work from 11:45 to 5 trying to wrangle my iMac's OneTab, and continue working on my new ThinkPad. Looking at it kind of depresses me now, to be honest. 20,000+ tabs and counting. I'm glad I took the time to import my Hemera (now will go into Helios) research tabs into my iMac's BrainTool extension, and transfer that to my new laptop's installation of BrainTool, but it makes me wonder if there's an easier way of a. triaging this stuff and b. offloading progressively less important but still interesting information to some kind of active reservoir I can turn to if needed. The Recollect extension seems perfect for this but it seems a little spotty, especially on Twitter, which it has never worked on for me. But I don't use Twitter much nowadays so, other than my bookmarks and likes, I don't think I'm missing out on much. Regardless, something about the aggressively flat and/or siloed nature of digital memory aids and repos makes me feel a little twitchy. No program of the 2020s meets the optimal combination of triaging/prioritizing, representation, and randomness that so indicates human-like memory. Language models confabulate, yes, but they're not in control of their confabulations nor do they have structural or functional capabilities that can even begin to. IMHO, this kind of recall requires indices within indices; a kind of file/referent duality; and some mechanism to generate relations of relations between elements at scale to prune or refine later. Anyway, around 1:50 and 2:25 I took my grandma to Marina Grocery since a couple of her ingredients got spoiled and she needed to buy some more; and went to work around 5. For dinner grandma and mom made a pork belly and fish jicama soup with some stewed veggies. Late at night around 9:45 Helen asked me to help bring in some cases of water bottles into her house, which was okay.

Sorry for the late entry again today. July 16th 2024. Spent most of today benchmarking my P14s, continuing to transfer needed files, and helping my parents with reorganizing the laundry storage room. At about 5:00 my Aunt Kun called and asked if I was free, and I said yes. Well, if you've never been in a 3 hour call, count yourself lucky. The first two hours passed surprisingly fast since I was transcribing some of her comments and speech for her book about living under the Khmer Rouge regime, but the third hour got political quick and was packed with shoddy reasoning. I was essentially mute the entire three hours, but the third hour really soured me. The 1-2-3 mental leap from growing up in communist Cambodia, to God, to American conservatism was both incredible to witness for the first 15 minutes and a slog for the rest. This third hour actually seemed to have more pacing, and whatever periods of slowdown or silence were completely gone and I couldn't make comments or interject at all. Just 8 minutes after the third hour she wrapped up and let me go, and I'm sure she saw the time as well since she asked if I had a headache from listening. (I didn't, actually, but generally felt meh by the end of this marathon.) One of these days I'm just going to start rambling back. Dinner rolled around in 20 minutes and my mom and my uncles were prepping Korean BBQ which was delicious, and my fatigue had cleared up nicely by the end of it.

July 15 2024. Turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich for breakfast. Spent most of the day today setting up my laptop and figuring out performance. CPU wise it's for sure more powerful than my M1, and it has the cooling system to match. Windows 11 itself though still has a little bit of jankiness to some animations, especially the older ones. Both Windows and macOS have a hodgepodge of dated UI elements, especially when using older applications, but Windows has gone through so many shifts that their seamlines stick out more. Display scaling on 1080p is also meh. I downscaled to 125% from 150%, but I think I do best at a hypothetical 130%. Lower pixels per inch also means a few fonts look a little fuzzy, but that's to be expected. And, going from 23.5 inches of screen estate to 14 inches naturally puts a dent in visual multitasking. The main visibility issue is that the screen is closer to my eyes than my iMac, which really trips up the astigmatism in my right eye. Inputs are excellent but I do forget ThinkPads have stiffer keystrokes, which will take some adjusting to. The Mylar plastic trackpad is kind of polar. It tracks smoother than a glass trackpad if your hands are bone dry, but tracks worse than glass (and maybe plastic) with just a little moisture. Updates suck, but the NVMe(?) SSD and AMD chip chow down on them. The main time sink is application installation, going at it one by one and trying to remember if you got all the information you needed on the external SSD. And I'll tell you it was a real headache for a couple programs, like Dendron, mentally converting between the macOS and Windows file systems and watching out for .yml(?!) config files. Perks of getting settled into a desktop operating system for the last 3 years I suppose. Still, this ThinkPad feels broadly more convenient than my iMac. I do miss the screen estate, but the fingerprint reader, matte screen, and mobile build make for a pretty cozy ⁠— and familiar ⁠— computing experience. Going from 8GB RAM to 32GB also feels very liberating. I can actually open Chrome and Darktable at the same time!

Fans are hella ramping up for Windows Updates and installations but it's not a high pitched sound, more of a whooshing sound.

First impressions -- sturdy and decently dense, has some slight warmth (or rather no cold shock) on account of majority plastic build, 14 inch 16:10 matte screen looks great and sharp enough at normal viewing distance. Keyboard has compact enough spacing that I don't feel I have to stretch my fingers much, travel and tactility reminds me of a good membrane keyboard, and the TrackPoint here is miles better than the one on my Yoga 14. Trackpad feels a little plasticky but still smooth, and the click feel is damped. Fingerprint reader works nearly instantly, and it seems like IR facial recognition is even available as well. I heard the fans very very slightly, but they don't sound like jet engines. About to take it back to my office space for further installations!

Surprise surprise... :-)

Went out to pho with parents and brother this morning for Sunday breakfast, got some Starbucks later. Me and my dad ordered some chicken noodle soup, but I ordered fresh noodles for mine. My mom and my brother got regular beef pho, though my mom got fresh noodles as well. After we got some coffee from Starbucks drive-thru, though their speaker microphone was a bit old and difficult to speak to/through. We headed home soon after. Dropped off my brother at work at 1:30 and spent the rest of the day unwinding and wrapping up Part 2 for my UCSC orientation course. Mom and dad went to get some supplies for work and our house from Costco. Later, mom made some eggplant pork stirfry and I got a few extra veggies in with some kimchi. Spent a lot of the day today with the anticipation of the laptop in mind, so I took some notes and continued prepping for the P14s that's due tomorrow; and I listed my broken ThinkPad Yoga 14 up for sale just a couple hours ago.

Woke up late even though I really wanted to wake up earlier. Got ready, had a turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich for breakfast. Did some UCSC orientation work and continued pruning out my photography tabs from my phone / transferred them to my big screen computer. (Can't wait for the P14s to arrive -- it's coming Monday morning!) Had work from 4 to 8. Brought my Canon RP and the Industar 50-2 but I didn't get a chance to take any photos. Mom made some water spinach pork stirfry and some chicken tofu seaweed soup with a touch of sesame oil for dinner. Yum. Talked to her about the Donald Trump assassination attempt. We're going to pho tomorrow. I think I'll get chicken, with fresh noodles again. That will also be yum. Finished pruning and taking down some quick notes into my Dendron amoeba/general note on photography just in time tonight. It turns out my photography interest from August 11th 2023 to today spanned 494 tabs, on my phone alone. I'll tell you it's a miracle my phone hasn't fried itself yet.

Woke up late again today. Home. Had a bagel with cream cheese, then a steamed rice banana dessert. Grandma made veggie chicken soup for dinner. Spent 4 and a half hours throughout the day binging Loki Season 2. Brilliant show and a wonderful close to a character the audience would've written off as a plot hole. Tension between the bureaucracy and the greater good, purpose and duty, revolution and incremental change, etc, etc. I thought Sylvia's character was a bit weaker in this season -- she's much more labile with her opinions of the TVA and its constituents -- and Renslayer/Ms. Minute's backstabbery could've been a touch better, but I really enjoyed Loki becoming the de facto god of time and settling into his "glorious purpose".

Home yesterday.

Work today. 12 to 8. Bought some char siu for uncles per mom's request. Terribly hot most of the day. Had a cup of coffee, brewed on the Hario Switch, before work. I've still got it :-) And the beans seem to have mellowed out through the months.

It's crazy how fast my sleep schedule went to shit. Might explain why I've been feeling down all week.

Home today. Had a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese. Spent most of the day reading about Trump's immunity ruling, how SCOTUS works from the Justices on the court, and trying to figure out a cost benefit between a prime and a zoom lens. Ngl I'm thinking of getting a wide aperture prime lens again, but the 35mm focal length is hard to come by in budget options. It's a little odd since 35mm seems to be a pretty common focal length. When I did a cost benefit analysis with Claude it recommended I use a 24-105mm zoom as a walk-around lens, then fall back onto the 55mm f/1.2 for low light. It gets me thinking about whether digital cameras, even full-frame without computational photography are any good at low light in the first place. It's right in the name: writing with light. No light, no writing. On the other hand, chroma noise reduction has improved massively between my old SL1 and my RP, and the luminance noise leftover borders on film-like, so maybe low-light photography is it's own can of worms whether I have a manual focus lens or an autofocus lens.

Avocado toast on a poppy seed bagel for breakfast. Took some more notes on my upcoming P14s and the Framework Laptop (the latter just to flesh out the notes, chop down the tabs in BrainTool). Technically had coffee today -- thawed out my cold foam oolong tea that'd been in my freezer for a few days and poured an AeroPress espresso over it to melt some more of it. Yum. Work from 3 to 8. Mom made a huge pot of chicken veggie shrimp meatball brothy soup and prepped some baked fish. Also yum.

This morning, woke up. Had a dream of some kind of combination of Seinfeld and being thrown back to ancient Greece. A playful young man. Didn't go out for Sunday breakfast today. Had some pasta from last night for breakfast. Good creamy flavor though I wish there was a little more chicken pieces in it. Spent most of the day checking and rechecking P14s specs and stuff. Bitter (but good) veggie and chicken soup for dinner.

Work today, from 1 to 7. Tried crunching Slug Orientation Part 1 tonight but I'm very very short on time. Helen brought a small pizza and some pasta from Dominoes over as thank you for me helping her with her garden hose and rinsing down her car the other day. Very sweet.

Edit: Finished Slug Orientation albeit 3 or so minutes over time

Home today. Mostly worked on Slug Orientation, helped Aunt Kun take some notes for her book, and purchased the P14s. Fingers crossed. :-)

This message has been rewritten for formatting and flow on July 5th, 2024.

Happy 4th of July! Slept horribly on account of sleeping late at 1:15am and the nighttime heat — I woke up around 9, or so, and by the time I had finished getting ready at 10 I could feel the heat in the house. We were closed today so we had a full house. My mom made fried garlic chicken, my oldest uncle prepped some lobster, and my two younger uncles went to buy some extra sodas and drinks. Uncle Mike and Aunt Kun from Stockton came over around 2 or 3, around the time I was eating, and I greeted them after I had finished lunch outside in the hot shade with the rest of my family (garlic chicken, lobster, quinoa salad, rice).

I spent most of my computer time continuing to evaluate autofocusing zoom lenses (if I'm spending $300+ I might as well get a good zoom than "just" another prime lens). I was about to drop $330 total on a sweet EF 24-105mm(!) f/4 and adapter after hearing that 24-105mm was a more versatile zoom focal length, but the originating source of that comment actually described the ~$320 native RF 24-105mm f/4*-7.1*, a kit/entry-level zoom sharp enough across the range to give the older L a run for its money. I do lose 1.7 stops at the telephoto side, but it's much lighter and I don't mind my Canon RP's luminance noise. If I'm pressed for light collection ability, I can go back to my vintage prime lenses.

Still, I didn't make the purchase because I soon after had to help Aunt Kun (unsuccessfully) try to reformat her manuscript to fit a Kindle layout/template. I got pretty frustrated with it, but we sent an email and so we're hoping for a response. (July 5th edit: We got a response and it does seem like we can import and reformat according to the template, though it'll naturally take up a little bit of time.)

I had dinner around 9:00 and when I got back to my computer around half an hour later I heard about this screaming deal on a ThinkPad P14s AMD Gen 5 that drops the price from $2289 to $969 ($1066 after tax I think). The specs are comparable to the Framework Laptop 13 and what I'm planning to add in — namely 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD — if not a bit better since the P14s comes with a Ryzen 7 than a Ryzen 5. I do worry about battery life, but I'll have to test it and see for myself. The savings are compounded even further because my intended budget is ~$1300 after tax, so I'm at least saving ~$234.

Couldn't sleep much since the heat was so bad. Had a dream about snapping some quick pics of student protests at UCSC.

Home today. Dad and brother bought some croissants for us from the donut place so I chowed down on an egg ham croissant. Made some iced green tea lemonade and an AeroPress affogato with some vanilla ice cream I snagged from work yesterday. Spent most of the day hopping between cogsci research in Helios and figuring out what autofocus lens I want to buy ($400 EF 28-70mm f/2.8 with great versatility, but high risk/reward since it's such an old autofocus lens -- hazing is also a common problem; or a $134 EF 40mm f/2.8 with a more "boring" focal length albeit the same light collection ability and rock solid reliability; or the 2012 Tamron SP 24-70mm, which I just saw, which seems to be a middle ground between both).

God, I don't know how many weeks I've been holding out for them to read Clods or Ladon and Orange or whatever. I guess it's — well, I still kind of think of them as a best friend, and a broadly accessible person. And I feel like I would absolutely be one of the first people to give them feedback on their work so this kind of asymmetry makes me feel less secure in my artistic/creative abilities.

Work from 11:30 to 8:15. By the time it rolled around to 7:30 my head was pounding and the heat seemed to be just as bad even though the temperature outside had gone down. Broke triple digits today... went up to 101. Dave pissed me off tonight — "i guess for whatever reason i have a belief that not trying to figure out how to write a part and letting the ai do it is cheap" — why the fuck would you say that to a person you know has extensively used AI to assist their writing and break through a two-year-long writing block? I get they're (self-diagnosed) autistic, but still. If you don't care to read my writing, don't

Home today. Slept in from 11:30 to 8:45. Mostly did UCSC orientation work. Leftover pasta for breakfast. Iced coffee and some oatmilk, full strength, but the oatmilk had some weird pieces in it. Had my nap from 4:30 to 6:10. Grandma made an herbed soup with pork knuckle and bamboo — yum. Had some watermelon and an ice cream popsicle for dessert.

Sunday, June 30th. Work from 12 to 7. No breakfast (though I did make some pasta puttanesca) because my middle uncle's Chevy Camaro got stolen. We had it recorded on our security cameras but they stole it at 6:13 in the morning when none of us were awake yet. When the cop came by with the paperwork he implied the carjackers used some kind of car-cloning tech. Well, soon after that my parents and him contacted the insurance company, and then got a call back from the police who had found it up in Oakland by that point. Those damn punks fucked up the rear two wheels, ripped out a bunch of fuses, and stole all his tools he had in his trunk. Damages could be $4,000-$5,000 which should be covered under his insurance, but they still have yet to hear back. So they went and got it towed and that was another cost of ~$1200.

Napped from 4:30 to 6:10. Had a dream of the mild future -- AI-first computers the size of DVD players projecting light onto headboard sized cloth boards swinging out across a desk, driving around with police to uncover corruption. A cool climate in a suburb town, though not my own.

Thinking about it I haven't really watched sitcoms in a while. I did watch an episode of Friends, and I did watch some AI presidents gaming, in the evening and the morning respectively, but they felt kind of empty. Even Tomodachi Life felt more hollow than usual. Worked a bit on Helios (digital analogue to Hemera, trying to research the other disciplines of cognitive science since I fleshed out my psychology branch very well but not the others). I don't think I'm moving enough, visually or bodily. I did list the Minolta AL rangefinder up for sale. But, other than that, really not much. I'm weirdly looking forward to working tomorrow.

Home today. Had some oatmeal and some leftover beef sticks and pickled water spinach for breakfast. Had some seaweed and chips for an afternoon snack. Iced oatmilk latte around 12:15 and some hot genmaicha around 3:15. This day seemed to go by fast, as did the previous two days. Either I'm really wasting my time, or I just have too much stuff on my computer to work through. Tempted to get Claude on the case, maybe for a section of OneTab. Dropped off Seth at some buffet in the Berryessa area around 7:00, but the drive back home was really rough because I kept missing I-680. So, I took the smaller streets (inadvertently) instead. The evening sun did NOT help, and it was just as hard to see out with sunglasses on as it was with regular glasses on. My car also seemed to be a little meh -- the engine spun up a little bit sooner sometimes than I had liked, and I've got to get it serviced soon anyway (no oil changes every 6 months though, it's yearly). My confusion on the streets of San Jose really got me thinking about how well I actually drive — I've got to explore that city, because it's probably not going to be any better in Santa Cruz. Helped Helen around 8:15 with unscrewing/rescrewing a hose and helping wash her car. She talked about Paul, her late husband, and her own age (77). For dinner grandma made some gingered soy and fish. Yum yum. I wish I ate more but that midday snack felt kind of indulgent. Maybe tomorrow.

Home today. Slept in on account of sleeping a bit late. I'll tell ya it's tragic how fast my sleep schedule went back to shit. So I'll try sleeping before 12 today, even if that before is only 14 minutes or so. Kyle from karate 8 or 9 years ago swung by with his mom, we talked about the fallout at our location and Allan Dale setting off on his own path after he tried getting a raise to minimum wage and got rejected, while he was in college and actually needed money to support himself. AD was my old karate instructor. Very humble man but looking back as a young adult now I can't imagine the stress on him from Ernie Reyes and the entire business. Had some avocado toast on a blueberry bagel for breakfast. Chips, seaweed for a snack. Indulgent snack and kind of regretted eating both rather than one or the other. Grilled beef sticks and pickled water spinach for dinner! Should've taken a picture. Spent most of the day trying to organize my OneTab but I did get some writing and notes in.

Home today. Had a turkey lettuce mayo sandwich for breakfast. Coffee and some green tea in the afternoon. Tomodachi Life, and Terraria. Chips and pistachios. Way too much time organizing my OneTab rather than actually taking down notes into Dendron. Added some notes to Helios TiddlyWiki. Read a bit of alt Homestuck endings. Thought I'd go to work today around 3 but Mom didn't call so I guess they weren't too busy.

What can I say about today? Woke up early, at 6, and headed out of the house around 6:35. I was 10 or 11 minutes late to my Poli 1 final but I crunched my way right though it and used my notes generously. With a 2 and a half hour break until my next class I decided to snap some photos around campus in the summer morning, a still intimate and surreal feeling for some strange reason, and looped back to the library to try reading some books. The ones I got were kind of boring so about 10 minutes in I just started playing Tomodachi Life, Mario Kart, and Animal Crossing New Leaf. The library was very quiet, not many people around on the second or the first floor at all. Around 11:15 I headed out to photography and our final critique went a bit slowly. I was a bit quiet. The feedback I got for my double exposure print from Prof. Teng stands out to me now -- it's loaded with texture. Loved Matthew's double exposures, wish I spoke up about that. Final critique went on until 1:50, and I headed right out. Got a burger, some fries, and -- for the first time in months and months -- a small coffee with a couple packs of sugar and half and half. Yum yum. Last meal here, might as well splurge :-) Was going to watch it over an episode of Frasier but wound up watching it over "The Secret Lives of Buddy and Sally" from the Dick Van Dyke Show when he's trying to figure out if they have a side hustle or not. Finished eating, walked to the parking lot but right before crossing the street I thought, am I going to regret not taking more photos for this last visit to campus? So I turned around and walked over around more of the west side of De Anza and took some more photos. Although they're a touch too composed to be landscapes, I think they capture enough of the essence of this place. The entire time making these final shots I felt a deep sense of melancholy, one that I hadn't felt in a long time, and it got me thinking about my very first Fall quarter here in 2021 where I would sit outside in the cooler and cooler autumn air over Zoom calls for Statistics 1 because I was so scared to go into the library or the dining hall. I also thought about the fact I haven't been in many of the buildings here at all, as well. My excitement turned quickly into this thought on repeat -- I'm going to miss this place, I'm going to miss this place, I'm going to miss this place. But it was the right kind of missing, the good kind, the almost clichéd sentiment following the triumph of finally, fucking finally, these three years are over. So I walked into the dark parking lot and I took a couple last photos and I drove my home, carefully, with patience, not wanting a car crash after working so hard to get here. I got home to find my mom fussing over some stuffed bittermelon soup, and a great bell of a feeling rung throughout me: It's over. The day gets goopy after that. From 6 to 7:30 I played Terraria, trying to progress the game; and I intermittently checked my Gmail and Canvas for any last bits of assignments. But otherwise, this was it.

JUST GOT OFF FINAL CRITIQUE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY 301!!!

Arrived to class about 10 or 11 minutes after 7 (yes, 7, not a typo) and was worried I missed out on some crucial time but I powered through, generously used my notes, and now it's over. 1 hour and 40 minutes. Good stuff. My other final is my photography final which is an art critique, and it starts at 11:30 AM. I have to say it's a little surreal to wake up at 6:00, possibly because I haven't woken up that early in a long time, but the gray morning and humidity was quite nice.

JUST FINISHED MY POLI 1 FINAL!!!!

Skipped breakfast but did have half of a cinnamon twist to keep the gnawing away. Waited until 12 or so to go around to that fried chicken place nearby. I thought we would walk but Seth complained about it being 78 F which was beyond absurd to me. But less than 5 seconds in the car and seeing my dusty windshield I thought, okay. We headed to the chicken place first and Seth got some chicken nugget pieces (didn't seem processed, more like popcorn chicken dices) and I got their crispy cutlet thinking I would put it in a bagel. Well, after an 8 minute wait or so, one I spent very well playing Terraria on my N3DS, our food arrived and I was surprised to find it my cutlet had been chopped up into bite sized pieces. Odd but alright. We swung by Loop and I got a car wash, one of the ladies at the register seemed very very exuberant, I spun a wheel and got 2 carwash towels instead of the regular 1. That was interesting. Headed into the car wash and headed back home. Toasted a bagel, smeared on some chives cream cheese, and made some iced coffee with some oatmilk. Turns out my dosage nowadays has fallen to 9.6 grams. Can you believe that? How the mighty have fallen ;-) The bagel was nice and crispy and the chopped cutlet had softened a little but tasted otherwise delicious. A bit on the salty side -- would be good with some rice or veggies -- but the meat was very juicy and tender. Spent the rest of the day finishing up my Poli 1 notes and studying for tomorrow and taking breaks with my N3DS, more Terraria, more Tomodachi Life, and some Animal Crossing (Wild World, and I just downloaded New Leaf). Good stuff today. As for tomorrow... we'll see.

Meh day today. Slept early and woke up early today and felt pretty good even with note-taking and studying for my Poli 1 final this Wednesday until 3:30 when I had my doctor's appointment. Relayed update from last appointment, let him know about the joint stuff. He ordered an x-ray and a blood test, which wound up taking up another hour or so of waiting. Got out of the clinic around 5:30. Played Tomodachi Life and Terraria, mainly, and installed Mario Kart 7 and played it a bit. On 50cc at least the drifting feels easier and I love the visuals -- glossy, modern, fit for the 3DS. I have Mario Kart DS which plays fine, though I keep procrastinating on installing the widescreen hack for TwilightMenu. Reportedly widescreen also works for Pokemon White/Black and Sims 2 which is quite interesting. Also on the note of procrastination I keep putting off my UCSC ID photo. Tomorrow: Ask my brother to snap my picture and I'll be done with that; and, take him out tomorrow to that fried chicken place at the nearby Asian plaza for some lunch, since he was bugging me for a good 20 minutes earlier today (that kid... oyyyy... :-) ).

Had a turkey mayo sandwich and a side of some leftover quinoa salad and a few mozzarella balls for breakfast. Helped Grandma roast some brussel sprouts. Work today. 12 to 7. Hot and very busy but generally good. Chicken lemon soup for dinner with a few of those brussel sprouts from earlier which turned out quite tender and addictive.

21st birthday today. Woke up early enough. Played Terraria and Animal Crossing and Tomadochi Life mainly while waiting for family and family friends to come. Food lineup was simple but solid: deeply seasoned flavorful beef sticks, grilled chicken wings, quinoa salad, breaded lobster, some papaya salad (but I didn't have this last one since my family makes it quite spicy). No coffee, just an entire 32oz red bottle of genmaicha. Uncle Mike, Aunt Kun, and Aunt Lang came over; and then later Uncle Peter and his whole family came over just as me and my dad went out to get some coffee cake for later. Had a big lunch and dinner, and the coffee mocha cake had a delicious coffee aroma and taste though a bit sweet. Aunt Lang told me about Roth IRA and reinvesting dividends; helped Aunt Kun with a Firefox error (just uninstall it) and some Facebook notifications.

Home today. Did my transfer from my old 3DS to my new 3DS XL, worked perfectly with the exception of some app recovery but that was really easy as well. Tomodachi Life, Mario Kart DS, and Minecraft (yes, official Minecraft, not DSCraft or Craftus, but they're good too) look brilliant and cozy on the bigger screens. Finished Humi 1 final draft. Took notes on Federalism from Gov textbook. Made final edits to Humi 1 final and submitted it -- that's 2 finals down, and 2 next week to go. Took some more notes on Federalism and finished the chapter. Wow!

Finished my transfer from my O3DS to my N3DS XL. Love the big screen. Downloading Minecraft. Can't wait to see Terraria in full.

Home today. Was about to skip breakfast in favor of a sandwich from Subway but around 10:30 my dad came by with some big croissants so I went ahead and made a turkey egg spinach cream cheese sandwich. Dropped off my brother at work around 12:55. Did my Dev. Psych final, as you know, and got an 88% on it for a final 97% in the class. Really powered through my final essay for Humi 1, the "Final Demonstration of Learning", and completed 75% of it. I should knock out the last 25% and, if I time it right, might actually take a long enough break that I can make the final edits all in one go and spare myself any work for this coming Saturday -- 21st birthday! My skin definitely says I'm 21. So, I'll probably draft the rest of the Humi 1 essay ASAP, then highlight my PDF textbook chapter on Elections from my Poli 1 / Government textbook, maybe take some notes if I have the gusto, and then come back to the Humi 1 essay with fresh eyes, re-read it and edit, and send it off, knocking out a second final tomorrow. (My Photography 301 and Government 1 finals are in-person, next Wednesday.) Watched an episode of Friends, the first half of which I watched while on the elliptical, the one where they're all out dating or breaking up; Monica and Joey catfishing Joey's ex (to rebound on) and said ex's current boyfriend (for Monica to chase after); Ross and Rachel at the laundromat, the latter doing laundry for the first time; and Chandler and Phoebe breaking up with the girlfriend and boyfriend respectively at Central Perk. Spent some time on Bluesky, got caught up on the Anonsee drama. They're a black queer nonbinary trans person with a cabal of followers, a history of sexual harassment, and a big cabal of followers eager to smear their SA victims for being "racist" while literally working for the federal agencies, possibly exposing the vulnerable trans people who stayed over or paid rent to Anonsee the prosecution of the federal government. Anonsee played the word game and won with flying colors, though I will say the fact they haven't deactivated their account and fled the face of the social media networks is beyond me. For a federal agent having gotten caught I would expect faster deactivations). Leftist developments aside, Bluesky undoubtedly feels a lot more peaceful and smells a lot less rancid than Xitter. deepfates and most of my mutuals are (still) cool though. It's just that I don't resonate with Xitter anymore. Anyway, I've been getting some good sleep these last few days which makes me feel really confident about my learning.

Finished Dev. Psych final exam, and with that, the course. 97% :-)

Happy Juneteenth! No school, so I was at home today. Had a turkey cream cheese spinach capers sandwich on a bagel, the last bagel from the bag/box of bagels we got from our family friend (I've got to get better at naming my sandwiches). Crunched Humi 1 weekly reflection, read and annotated my Poli 1 textbook chapter on Federalism, and finished the entirety of my Chapter 16 module. Dropped off my brother at work around 12. Downloaded and organized some videos, added a few notecards to Helios. Mom made a dark stew with some pork feet, quail eggs, and mushrooms -- yum. Had a Klondike mint chocolate ice cream bar for dessert. No coffee today -- drank my mango jasmine tea from yesterday, topped it off with some strong green tea and a generous squeeze of lemon since it was quite sweet.

Oh, and I played Tomodachi Life like twice today. Actually it was a little slow on Templar Island so I didn't spend too too much time but it was still nice to check in.

Home today. Had some oatmeal for breakfast but I didn't cook the egg super thoroughly so it kind of diluted the doenjang I put into the oatmeal. Tropped with some kimchi but generally tasted bland. Took some notes on Congress from the textbook and majorly crunched my Cengage homework for Chapter 16 on psychopathology. Dropped off grandma at her friend's house in East San Jose, got back home after a missed turn, but generally felt more confident than usual driving in this new place. Wanted to bike with my brother to Sunright Tea but my brakes are totally busted so we just drove. I didn't really want to drive but whatever, it turned out okay. I got a mango jasmine fruit tea which I summarily stuck in the freezer for tomorrow. Continued working on Poli 1 notes. Mom made some shrimp/chicken meatball veggie soup for dinner and baked a few richly spiced beef sausages and fried a few of the preserved (jaw?)fish which was cozy all around. Left pinky acting up a little. Second day of finals week and I don't feel any more or less stressed than on a regular school day? I can't tell if I'm that bad or that good at planning.

Home. No? No. :-)

Woke up early and felt fine actually. Made some iced genmaicha and a turkey lettuce cream cheese bagel and headed out. Gov class was fine. Brief review of the final. Humi 1 was very bittersweet. It was "just" another lecture yes but it was the last one. Near the end Prof. Sal did a mock/mini-graduation by playing us a song and giving us a signed creative license -- for when those times someone perks over our shoulder and asks, "Hey, what do you think you're doing" ... Between Gov and Humi I ate my bagel fast. The drive back was completely fine and totally smooth until I got back into town and this guy was dangerously close to passing me on a merge into the main road which made me really hit the throttle / spike the power gauge. Oy! Arrived home at 1:30, unwound for a majority of the time since I just didn't have the heart to study. Dropped off my brother at the sport center around 4:45 and took my grandma to the nearby grocery store around 6:15. Walked with mom and cousin around 8:15. I'm beat.

Happy Father's Day! We went out to Denny's for breakfast. Me and my brother got two French toast slams/platters. My mom and dad split a sausage omelette and some pancakes. Very good but a bit heavy for sure. Made some iced coffee when I got back home, AeroPress over ice, and topped off with some cold foam sweetened with Stevia. Stevia doesn't seem to work well with milk or coffee it seems -- it's better with tart and tea. Headed to work with brother around 3:15, got off 7:15 since we close early on Sunday. Customers were okay.

Had a turkey bacon egg cream cheese bagel for breakfast today. Work from 1 to 8. Nice cool breeze and most customers were quite nice but I got really worn out by 7:45. Mom made some cabbage carrot shrimp soup for dinner and I topped off my rice with some kimchi. Yum yum. Futzed around on Bluesky a bit once I got back home. Played Tomodachi Life throughout the day. One bad development around 8:45... my in-game character tried confessing to Zappy (no gay relationships so I had to do some gender trickery for this one) but got rejected :-(

Had a dream about being on a university campus, something between UCSC and Davis, walking briskly between the buildings to get to some kind of art class with huge film negatives and loose leaf tea. A persistent feeling of social anxiety.

Home today. A blur, a blur. Woke up late around 9:15, lamped in bed for another 20 minutes. Had a turkey lettuce mayo doenjang sandwich on a bagel for breakfast. Tasted alright but the doenjang tasted a little strong so I'll probably use mayo only or go back to gochujang for some kick. Spent most of the day checking in on Tomodachi Life, watching poofesure's video series on the same game, and working on Helios ⁠— an experimental slipbox taking after Hemera but hosted in TiddlyWiki Stroll, for a completely digital Zettelkasten setup. Clearly there is a loss of tactility moving from paper (back) to the computer, but typing felt much easier on my hands. The two-stream feed layout for Stroll, and the compact size of each digital card, made it quite easy to write shorter notecards and see multiple at once to reference and write from. Additionally, the organization went by far faster. Going from alphanumeric coding to timestamps smacks 2 birds with 1 stone, since it continues to anchor each digital notecard in abstract space while continuing preserving some information to track the evolution and development of lines of thought over time. Making connections between cards went by much faster, but the quality of connections was about the same as my physical slipbox (maybe slightly less, but only because I have so few notecards right now). And indexing by hand and adding Zotero citations, the other 2 components of the original Antinet structure, was as easy as pie. Mom prepped lots of beef, mushrooms, and veggies for the countertop grill for dinner -- very delicious.

How could I forget pictures? :-)

Home today but a lot of good stuff. Woke up a little early around 7:45 but lamped in bed until 8:15, got ready, made some oatmeal with doenjang, topped with plenty of kimchi, finished breakfast around 10:30. New 3DS XL arrived around 11 and I immediately got to researching how to homebrew. This thing is big and very comfortable and a deep blue. And Japanese, in the UI -- it was the LL model released in Japan, not North America. Felt a lot more premium than my OG 3DS. I needed a microSD card and my brother had bugged me around 11:20 to get some lunch so I decided to hit 2 birds with 1 stone and stop by Best Buy to get a microSD card, and pick up some lunch in the area. I got the microSD card first and went out, but Seth didn't really resonate with the restaurants nearby so we decided to head back to our neighborhood area to get some Mexican food. He got a California burrito, I got a couple soft tacos with beef and all the toppings. Headed back home and I chowed down over a couple episodes of Friends. Rachel is my favorite, so far. The tacos were phenomenal -- beef was seasoned down to the cells, and the onions and green salsa gave a much appreciated zippy brightness. After that I made some iced oatmilk coffee, AeroPress, minimal scoop (11g!!) of beans, which I neglected on my desk for a hot minute as I unscrewed the backplate off the back of my 3DS XL to get access to the microSD slot and Homebrew the little bugger. I'm so glad I kept the backplate off because the amount of times I put in and took out the teeny tiny card between my XL and my computer, I'd need three hands to count. Brutal. But not as brutal as realizing even with the region change from Japan to U.S., (another 30 minutes on top of the original Homebrew process) I couldn't do a system transfer, at least not as easily as I thought. With the eShop self-locked from the region change, I needed to visit the Homebrew Discord and request for a SOAP transfer. I'll tell you, waiting between 5:30 and 11:30 for a second response after I botched my first response by sending in my old 3DS info was downright painful. But, BlueOycrunkness came to the rescue -- and the SOAP change itself only took three minutes! I have to wait until next Friday for the console cooldown to wear off and I can actually make the system transfer, but this 3DS XL is Americanized through and through now. In the meantime I've got to buy some screen protectors... Around 7:45 I had dinner, a kind of salty thick eggplant and took and fish stew with plenty of veggies and a couple stirfried mealworms just to try (creamy taste but a very very strange aftertaste, possibly from the shell), and around 9:15 I went on a walk with my mom around the neighborhood since she ate too many veggies and need to walk off her unsettled stomach. As we walked we talked more about UCSC and what to bring in prep for it. Truthfully I don't think I'll be bringing that much. My sweet dear creamsicle orange iMac is a dream of a computer with a beautiful display but it's not very portable. Framework Laptop is still on the shopping list -- albeit lower, since I want to wait until August to see how the new Intel chips benchmark against the AMD 5 and 7, which had a great balance of power and battery life (earlier models with Intel chips had weaker battery life, maybe 6-7 hours?). Did Humi 1 reflection and a little bit of Cengage. Not a lot of Cengage but enough to really crunch through it tomorrow.

School today. Woke up early, AeroPressed out my cold brew genmaicha with some effort, genmaicha always feels a little resistant in the AeroPress for whatever reason (could be the roasted rice). Into the red water bottle it went with some ice. I grabbed my RP with the 28mm (but unfortunately didn't take any photos) and headed out. I tried out my sunglasses and they worked just fine and improved the contrast quite well, but I wondered what it would do to my eye sensitivity, since I tend to squint even on ordinary days. Possibly from spending too much time inside I imagine. In any event, Poli 1 was just fine and my exam came back with a 91/100(!!). I was for sure I would've gotten a 75 since I didn't answer the proposition questions too well, so this was a pleasant surprise. Humi 1 at the ATC, L73 was closed today. Prof. Sal mainly covered Experiment 4 which was quite bittersweet since I decided to forfeit it a couple days ago and I suspect he knew. But hey, if I pass the class I pass the class. Used Bluesky today between classes. Headed out of the ATC, dropped off my Importance of a Place (redux!) manila folder, and then headed out for a pleasantly early Wednesday lunch of a six inch roast beef on white bread. They ran out of wheat bread but it was still delicious. I was surprised at how peppery and seasoned the roast beef was. Subway roast beef is very tame by comparison, but I don't think I've had roast beef in a long time anyway, so I could be misremembering. It was a damn good sandwich. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the ride back home. I'll tell you it's crazy how bad traffic can be outside of peak hours. I sped, I slowed down, I misjudged distance. The sunglasses mostly made it clear just how idiotic the drivers around me were. There was so much passing on the left lane that the speed differential was as bad as 20-35 MPH sometimes. Awful, just awful. But I made it home. Helped Grandma pick leaves from a bunch of herbs we got in the backyard for her dinner stew/soup and I got a touch sleepy 10 minutes in. The rest of the day was unwinding. Maybe a bit too well since I took a nap from 4:00 to 5:20. Oops. I got up and tried working on the slipbox but I felt so weighed down today and even now even looking at my OneTab made me feel meh. Had the idea to "graduate" from my slipbox and transition back to digital since it would be one less thing to carry with me when I move to UCSC. Could you imagine me leafing through my slipbox at a seminar course? Goodness. So it was very tempting. And it made sense to me too: Learning to compose, shoot, develop, and print my analog film negatives has made me a better photographer when I take photos on my RP. I think I'm at the point with my slipbox now that I have enough note-taking discipline to (re)do it in digital. Thinking about it then I was kind of dreading having to retype every note out, but actually, as I'm thinking about it again now, it seems like shifts like these necessary involve some kind of filtration and selection. It would be nice to retype everything, if I had the time and energy, but realistically I would probably only retype notecards that supported (hints and traces of) my cognitive theory. Even still, I'm skeptical about the UI/UX of the note-taking apps, since there's very little tactility and freeform manipulation available even for basic, short snippets of text -- snippets of text, I find, that are more potent and effective for my longerform writing than full-fat LEGO bricks of "Evergreen notes". It seems like whatever I choose to speed up my cogsci research this summer and into my junior year of college, I will still have to contend with certain principles around time/place/person organization, anchoring notes with alphanumeric or temporal codes, having a hand-curated index, and constantly riffing off from related fragments. (So, it may not be Obsidian that works best for semi-structured note-taking and dense overviews ⁠— it would be TiddlyWiki.) Time to head off soon -- I'm done.

Home yesterday, June 11th 2024. Had some oatmeal for breakfast. Grandma made some tossed stirfry tofu, bean sprout (which I headed out to buy for her), and chopped chive for dinner in advance since she went out to her friends house in the afternoon. Bought some genmaicha also alongside the couple bags of beansprouts. Did Humi 1 readings. Good stuff but of course a bit intensive. Played some Tomodachi Life on the 3DS. The package tracking for my 3DS XL order I placed earlier this month finally updated this day! Should be arriving next Monday.

Sunglasses arrived today. Need to send picture later.

School today. Woke up early enough. Egg on the run for breakfast. Ran off to government class. Okay class period, nothing special. Humanities class after. Mainly focused on Experiment 4, which I decided to forfeit. Came back home. Beefed up some cup ramen with a couple of soy eggs and some kimchi. It was alright. Made some iced lemon green tea with a couple peach packs I snagged from L73. Oddly savory the tea came out but still good. Spent most of the day crunching Humi readings. Not much Dev Psych. Basically done with photography. I cannot wait for this quarter to finally end!

im exhausted

a fair bit of driving today

no sunday breakfast but did take brother to han sung tofu around 11:35 ... so so good ... beef tofu soup and a seafood pancake (big) ... lots of side dishes ... YUM!

lots of iced green tea with lemon and stevia ... additional tea, defrosted and dethawed in my car and in the sun ... a bit sweeter than i thought ... just as delicious as it was made ... microwaving frozen boba works, if not a bit better, because the pearls were very soft

dropped off seth at work around 4

went on walk with mom around 7:30 around hidden lake park, chatted about UCSC a bit

worked on housing application from 9:30 to 10:30, asked and checked in with parents

began playing Tomodachi Life around 11:01, played some orcs and elves around 5:00 hours prior ... fun stuff ... easy to see how time-consuming this stuff gets ... not much frasier :( or the bear :( but i can watch tomorrow :)

will rewrite tomorrow

Yum!! 🐔🐓

Home today. Made some oatmeal with some fried egg and chopped brussel sprouts for breakfast, dropped off Seth at his friend's house / pool around 12:05, made an iced latte around 12:30, picked him up around 4:15. Crunched some Dev. Psych work, forfeited my Humi 1 Experiment #4 (I should still pass with an A+ since I have lots of extra credit points). Mom made some chicken noodle soup -- just divine.

Work. 11:45 to 8. Most customers were just fine but I made a couple mistakes in the first couple hours -- ironically errors of commission than errors of commission. No coffee, just a lot of iced green tea with some stevia and lemon. Mom bought sushi and some sashimi cuts (tuna, salmon, etc.) from Sendai Sushi to celebrate my uncle Lion passing his U.S. Citizenship test, and my uncle Udam picked up some crawfish, mussels, and clams from the nearby Cajun(?) restaurant. Yummy. Getting sleepy before 12... nice.

Home today. Warm out. Had a little nap around 11:30. Went to drop off library book, swung by US Bank to deposit some money but they were closed, drove to the Loop car wash and then back home. Crunched Humi homework from 2 to 6, as ever, lots of writing. Seth went to check out his senior friend's graduation today.

School. Woke up decently early around 6:35, got ready, AeroPressed out my iced green tea but added a little bit too much lemon which I later tried adding extra water to on campus. Drive to school was meh. A little bit fast in the second half but meh. Arrived at the heat was already picking up into the 70s. Had a midterm exam for Gov which I'm pretty sure I did worse than my first midterm exam, since I couldn't really answer 2 of the questions about California propositions. Finished a few minutes early, headed out, L73 seemed closed today so I went to the somewhat busier ATC instead. Humi class seemed to pass by a little bit quicker. Covered representations of women in art. Wrapped up class, headed to photography class, developed film, made a contact sheet, made an enlargement, tried making a couple of revisions but they completely fell through. Felt very disconnected from my class while developing. Silver lining -- I can probably skip lab next week (if I'm not developing film, and ATP, I'm better off mailing it into a lab who can reliably develop without making the film too contrasty). Got some spaghetti after class but couldn't really find a place to eat so I packed up and headed home and decided to eat here. Watched an episode of Frasier, the one about Frasier getting sick and trying to work through a terrible fever, and then read my Humi books and did a little bit of writing. 93 degree Fahrenheit heat today from 2 to 4: absolutely punishing!

Home today. Spent most of the day studying for tomorrow's Gov midterm. Worked a bit on the slipbox from 2:45 to 4:30, gamed for 20 minutes on Scribblenauts DS on my 3DS. Weather was quite warm today, sat out my frozen grapefruit green tea with lychee from yesterday in the sun. Very sweet even at it's lowest option, 30%, so I had to dilute with some more green tea and ice, and it was pretty good. Made doctor's appointment today -- earliest was the 24th. That's a-ok, as long as I'm finally -- finally -- getting this checked out. No more excuses.

Woke up a bit early today. Got ready and headed out early as well. Drive to campus had some traffic but became more prompt in the second half. Arrived early enough to grab an "egg on the run" from the dining hall, which was an egg ham sandwich on an English muffin with a side of hash browns. Fast, easy, cozy. Nearly fell asleep a few times in Gov class, and Humi class was left-wing adjacent enough to be kind of meh. Got some snacks from L73 but got out of there fast. The drive back home was a rare 9/10 -- with so little traffic I could really focus on the road. Arrived home, made a small iced coffee and a turkey lettuce gochujang mayo sandwich, worked a bit on note-taking for Gov second exam this Wednesday. Played a little bit of my 3DS. No Frasier today, welp. Had a tiny nap from 7:50 to 8:35 (I know, I know). Mom made some spiced sour water spinach and chicken soup for dinner -- yum. Spent some time on Tumblr and Bluesky. Twitter just feels rancid to me today. About to head off right now.

I'm trying to see where all this baggage is coming from and where it will all go but I can't. It's a muck right now.

And I guess I should be a little more honest to myself too, here. I feel like the summer should be invigorating me but all I can think and feel and ask is, when will this time pass already? Then again earlier today I was thinking back to February and March and didn't realize they were 3, 4 months ago. They just feel like some kind of 5 or 6 weeks ago. My energy has fallen through the floor since I turned 20, not that it was particularly high in the first place, but I am so sick of my right hand now, but I am so sick of scrolling Twitter and remembering, painfully, with each account that passes up and up under that top bar, I will never personally know any of the people I follow. Amix comes close -- only person who ever DMed me consistently to ask me about me and my cogsci -- and even I don't know all that much about him. Saying "I feel isolated" doesn't feel self-pitying anymore, or cringe, or whatever post-irony postmodern postbullshit is in vogue lately. I see it like a fact, like I see the sky mature from morning to noon to evening to dusk to night. So the sun climbs up and up, but I feel as crazy as when the sun were so quiet, so thin and wiry, as it were that winter 24 weeks ago.

Home today. Slept later last night. Went to Main Street Bagel this morning. Ordered a couple blueberry bagels, Seth got roast beef on plain, I got lox and cream cheese on garlic. Arrived back home and dug in. I AeroPressed out my cold brew over some ice and topped off with some milk but it seemed to taste a little vegetal or oxidized (even with a lower dose on account of my getting out of the coffeepit) until I diluted it with more water near the end of the cup. The rest of the day passed by in a blur, from 11 to 10. I spent a good chunk of time researching and finalizing my purchasing notes on alt consoles for the satisfaction of clearing out that OneTab group, reined in my craziness enough to redivert it to Bluesky, exercised on the elliptical for 22 minutes, about the same time as the Frasier episodes about their roadtrip and border crossing. Mom and uncle made some herby dried fish and mango salad, and a couple of very steamed fish, respectively for dinner. Good stuff but a little messy near the end.

I'll tell you though, there's something magical about the 3DS. Even if it's an ergonomic nightmare. And it'll retain decent value over time ... Decisions, decisions.

Home today. Slept very well, woke up around 7:55 and for once didn't wonder if I got enough sleep. Can you believe it, 1 whole day no coffee and I sleep like a baby? I'll tell you it's almost magic. (Mostly biochemistry.) Had a turkey cream cheese lettuce sandwich for breakfast, made some iced green tea with Stevia and lemon around 10:30 with my ice from yesterday, turned out delicious and I was sipping it nonstop until noon. Skipped lunch but I did have some leftover mashed potatoes and cracked open the seaweed salad my parents got from Costco. Spent most of the day doing the Humi 1 Stage B update, my Poli 1 article, and researching the 3DS XL. I know, I know, I should probably save that net $110 on the Framework Laptop but still ... :-) I don't know, maybe I'll take up (indie?!) PC or console gaming on the Framework Laptop and lug around a controller for when I want to take a break from my keyboard and mouse.

Had work all day from 11:45 to 8:00. I think I did pretty well, since I didn't pack any coffee or tea, and had to fight off the low-grade caffeine headache for most of that time. Slept at 11:05 ⁠— when was the last time I slept at 11? :-)

Drop rewritten on June 1st 2024.

Jesus fucking Christ how is it 1 already.

May 30th 2024. Woke up somewhat early, slept in a little bit (I think?), got up. Had some ramen for breakfast, continued working on Humi 1, fell into a serious food coma from 10:45 to 12:15. Immediately made some iced coffee on autopilot right after that, then crunched Humi 1 and Dev Psych. Cengage assignments and read an article for Poli 1. My energy started to slow down around 6:00 as I got distracted with more Nintendo 3DS XL deliberations (might as well bite the bullet and buy tonight actually), and I recalculated my budget for my Framework Laptop. AMD models get a $50 price cut since the new generation of Intel CPUs are rolling out for pre-order. I'll tell you, though, I think my main bottleneck on my M1 iMac is the 8GB RAM. I eat it up on a serious study day like it's chips. I enabled this setting on Chrome to quell the memory consumption and it's definitely gotten 90% of it down but I still get tons of tabs up and my graph goes a little yellow in Activity Monitor so I'm trying to watch my digital habits still. Oldest uncle made Korean BBQ for dinner — wow! Really good stuff though our dining table was a little cramped.

Slept a little late last night and got up a little late today. AeroPressed my cold brew green tea from last night with some difficulty as the newer seal didn't quite cooperate with me. Loaded it into the big red bottle of ice from the freezer with some sugar and half a lemon and I was on my way to campus. Bad traffic. Not a fan. But I made it, albeit a bit late, and arrived to class at 8:35. Gov class was a bit boring today and I really only took a page of notes (I normally take 1 and a half to 2 pages). Took a few sips of my green tea and worried briefly midway falling asleep in lecture that I wouldn't have enough caffeine even though the entire point of this green tea was to get more hydration and less caffeine in the first place. Class finished up, I headed to Humi class, and Prof. Sal was doing his Asshole Man character with a slideshow of Western vs. Indigenous artwork. Funny as hell and occasionally familiar. I didn't participate or speak up, but I did talk a bit during the reflection after he finished his skit, about how variable and arbitrary Asshole Man's definition of art was over the really quite varied Western art (Renaissance to Modernism). Class wrapped up quick on account of our 2nd Demo of Learning assignment and I headed out to get a burger and fries. I was really hungry and thought since I had the time I might as well get something in before photography. So I had the burger and fries over an episode of Frasier, when Daphne goes out with that ex-con and holds her own. I think Daphne is my favorite character. I wrapped up and headed to photography class where I did a couple of prints, and was going to work on one from my overdeveloped Fomapan 100, but someone seemed to take all my test strips at the last moment so I decided fuck it and tried to do an enlarged double exposure from a sandwich of 2 negatives. And wow, do those negatives eat up light. I had to change my aperture from f/8 to f/4 just to see some details across the projected image. I made a test strip, then a first print, and a final print with some dodging. After trying to wrangle with the overdeveloped film I needed a win to be honest. It came out alright. After class I headed home and had to fight off some more traffic. Annoying. There was this stretch of the highway with this crazy 20, 25 MPH differential with speed demons on the left lane and snails on the right lane and boy did I want to strangle both sets of drivers. Leaping up and down the asphalt soured my vibe for a little bit, and the traffic was just droll. Seems like I don't make as many airgaps as I used to these days -- I've got to change that. So I arrived home just fine and unwound for an hour or so and then began work on Humi 1's Demonstration of Learning for a total of 2 hours of really solid work today. Watched some more Frasier, the Lilith episode is hilarious and heartbreaking. Mom made some seaweed tofu pork soup today. (Grandma's been out a couple days at her friend's house, so mom has to cook for us.) Again, delicious. Continued to work on Humi 1 after that, called it quits after finishing 2/3rds of it around 11:15. Good stuff.

Home. Unwound most of the day. Had some work around 4 to 8. A bit quiet. Mom made steak and mashed potatoes and lots of delicious mushrooms and veggies. I'll tell you I don't know where she gets the energy to work that hard. I'd like to bring that kind of drive when I become more independent.

What a day today. Woke up early and got ready but my dad had to swing by the shop to check out work on a gas leak which ate up some time on his end. In the interim I made some iced green tea (yes, lemon and sugar, that Starbucks from a couple weeks ago really woke up some old memories and tastes ... ooh I need to try the hibiscus tea again) and some oatmeal with some leftover beef jerky pieces, poured over some chopped brussel sprouts. Dad came back around 10:25. I packed up my iced tea, headphones, Nintendo 3DS, camera, a bit of sunscreen, and of course my wallet and phone. My parents, my brother, and I left the house around 11:00, and arrived at UC Davis around 1:00. Wow! Sunny and warm up there. After a bit of circling we parked near an art building and headed into the library for a bathroom break and then walked across the green to check out a bit of the campus. I had asked my UCD friend Daphne for some suggestions and so we swung by the Memorial Union and Teaching/Learning Complex and in the moderate distance saw the Science lecture halls and laboratories. I had made up my decision to go to UCSC by that point so this visit was extra confirmation that, nice as UCD was, it wasn't really for me. I kind of wished we walked around UCD more but most of the campus was closed for Memorial Day so there wasn't much else to see than the buildings. For a late lunch around 2:30 or so we drove into downtown Davis -- cozy albeit with tight parking -- and had some Chipotle for lunch. I hadn't had Chipotle for a while so I was really looking forward to my chicken bowl. After that we got some milk tea and headed home, a long 2 hour drive on account of the traffic, and we made it home around 6:30. For me my day gets kind of gooey after that. I definitely played some games on my 3DS. No slipbox/research. Had a light dinner around 8:45. All in all a very good road trip.

Went out to Starbucks and Paris Baguette this morning with family, came back home around 10:30. Played a few games in my 3DS.

Had work around 12 to 3:30. Aunts and uncle came by.

Came back home around 3:45, gamed some more on my 3DS, then worked on the slipbox.

May flesh out more later. I have to sleep soon so I can wake up earlier for tomorrow -- we plan to go to Sacramento and UC Davis.

Morning is bright, a pale white gold, that touches on all the specks of dust and haze on my east window, like a spray of frozen milk or foam.

May 25th 2024. Shaved today. Other than my eyebags jesus it's like turning the clock back 2, 3 years. Had work from 2 to 8. Mom made curry for dinner. Just spectacular.

Home today. Woke up decently early around 7:54 or so, lamped in bed a bit. Played some Scribblenauts from 10:45 to 11:30 or so and had some AeroPress coffee right after. Did a little spring cleaning on my 3DS. Not much homework today on account of holiday next week. Thought I was going to work but Mom texted around 3:45 saying the shop was a bit slow. Working tomorrow though. Played some more 3DS intermittently in the evening and at night but spent most of the evening working on my slipbox about acculturation. Sad realization about my 3DS -- my eyes aren't as good as when I was a kid, glasses or no glasses, and even my larger top screen looks harder to read; and the ergonomics are pretty meh. Thinking of selling and getting a bigger 3DS XL or a completely different newer handheld or somehow ripping the entire software and emulating it in something like Citra but idk since it was a birthday gift from my parents back in 2013 or 2014 and they got it full price so there's plenty of sentimental value here. Much to think about especially since I need to budget for my Framework Laptop for UCSC. I mean I could easily buy a spare controller for better ergonomics and call it a day.

Home today. Slow like honey but not quite as sweet. Had another turkey cream cheese sandwich for breakfast with some pistachios and half a cinnamon bun. Spent the 10:30 to 12:00 playing Scribblenauts Unlimited on my brother's old gaming laptop, which was a much more ergonomic and immersive experience than the Scribblenauts on my 3DS. (Thinking of doing some Spring cleaning for the 3DS actually, I know for sure I have a couple games I can and need to remove.) Spent the afternoon, 1 to 2:30 or so, trying to defrost my frozen milk tea from yesterday. Tasted alright but waiting for it was close to painful; in the interim I gulped down a quick AeroPress iced espresso. I'm not putting scare quotes on espresso, any coffee concentrate that tastes that good I don't care what it's called. Worked on Humi homework from 1:30 to 3:30 and turned it in after some final edits around 4 or 5. Had a little nap on the massage chair, tried to keep my head on straight but I didn't sleep too well last night so I probably had it coming anyway. Had dinner around 7:15 over an episode of Frasier (episode 3). The episodes fly by quick. I think it's because of the title cards. Tried to unwind the rest of the day, had that realization around 9:10, wrote it out here, and spent the last hour from 10:15 to 11:15 working on the slipbox. I read and added a short paper about deficits in top-down suppression in older adults, and then some of Piaget's schema theory from my dev. psych textbook. I do feel a lot better than at 9:00 but I still feel a slight unease about how readily school has overtaken my priorities.

I was unhappy when I visited UCSC on Monday. Feels further than 3, 4 days ago. Wasn't just because of my parents around, I think it was me. I was unhappy, even in that new place. I'm giving myself some doubt because I haven't moved there and really re-set my head but it's a warning sign. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I see the future, I've seen the future. I've seen enough to know I don't want to stay here. I've seen enough to want to go. This quarter will end. This school year will end. God, will it end.

Certainly the things that I do not remember still exist in some form, either in my other neurons or in the world around me or the thinning weave of my computer, but there is a great irony to writing thousands of words about creativity — spending so much time writing about creativity — for class I barely have time to write my own blogposts, continue work on PRISM and Clods, think up new ways of considering the mind. I haven't watched The Golden Girls or the Dick Van Dyke Show in 3 days. I've gamed today on an itty bitty 3DS -- was it always this small? -- but I've also watched an hour of short videos on YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Why? What's all this deadness for?

There is an alarm bell ringing I do not hear. — Took me a little while to realize it but this last quarter at De Anza has really been crushing my hobbies, interests, and personal cognitive science research (research that I should be kicking into overdrive since I'm literally moving to UCSC in a little over 4 months and need to prep for upper-div classes). It could be that I'm writing too much for my Humi 1 class, or not waking up consistently early, or something else. As I see it my future is flickering like an old lightbulb; I cannot remember to socialize; I cannot imagine my dream job. Was I interested in human-computer interaction, last year? Was I interested in improving user interfaces, last year? I can't remember.

Push @ Twitter, local iMac: Obsession

They turned out pretty well compared to the test sheets I'd say, especially since I had to burn in the first enlargement without one of those snazzy hole-in-a-flat-cardstock-board burners (wound up the left and right thirds of the photo with my forearms to dodge the light otherwise there, and thereby burn in the middle), and dodge the bottom third of the second enlargement (actually much easier though, but still, kind of nerve wracking lol). Developed and washed up, the entire works, waited for the wash and dried. Had some pasta for a very very late lunch and felt much better after eating, albeit with a slight fogginess as I went right to work digesting. Didn't think I'd get sparks of a food coma -- took me way back to high school -- but good stuff. Good stuff. Drove back home, helped my brother with his own photography final, took him around to Walgreens to pick up his print photos and then we stopped by Sunright Tea for some milk tea. I saved mine in the freezer for tomorrow. Looks yummy! (Pro-tip: Microwave/reheat the boba separately. Frozen boba has a very bizarre texture in my experience.) Worked on a little bit of Humi weekly review but spent most of the day unwinding. Dinner -- grandma made some steamed egg/pork, and some cabbage meatball soup. Yummy and cozy.

Wednesday. You know the drill. Woke up around 6:35 today, got ready lickity split, made some hot AeroPress coffee instead of filtering out some cold brew (didn't make any cold brew period), grabbed my photo binder and backpack, headed out. Arrived to campus with half an hour to spare, read a bit of Pale Fire. Poli class was 1/2 a movie about the 1st Amendment and 1/2 continued discussion about free speech. Humi class was probably the most stereotypically left-wing class session I was ever in. Anti-colonialism, broad Enlightenment skepticism, the works. Kind of turned me off (where's the systematization of this reasoning? If you're going to critique you could at least be a bit more organized, Prof.), but I took down enough notes. Got so hungry by the end of Humi class that I almost forgot I had photography class. So I went to photography and made a contact sheet and enlarged a couple half-frames.

Home today. A bit of a mess. Slept in, and felt okay, but a low-grade headache followed quick after and for the rest of the day (even now but it's more of a mental fuzziness than any pain). Had a small turkey sandwich, some edamame we bought from yesterday, and a few cherry tomatoes for breakfast. Made some AeroPress coffee around noon, skipped lunch wholesale, and worked on Humi 1 homework (weekly reading and discussion prep). Read 2/3rds of Chapter 9 for Dev. Psych. Took a nap around 8:10 to 8:50 (I know. I know) and had dinner a little late. Finished Humi homework soon after and I'm about to tuck into bed soon.

Woke up a bit earlier than normal, got to school earlier than normal. Gov and Humi classes were just alright but midway into Humi class I got an email from UC Santa Cruz that tours were cancelled :-/ Swung by the dining hall for a pastrami sandwich, took it home, watched a bit of the Dick Van Dyke show (Rob going bald, and a really stellar dream scene). Parents came by soon after and we decided to check out the campus even without a tour since it's an open air public university. Well, I took plenty of pictures ⁠— what a wonderful place. Lots of shade, hills, and coziness within and between colleges. I got tired an hour and a half in but it was still great. We swung by Costco on the way back. My dad drives fast on Highway 17 ⁠— HOW?? Got home, I tried to unwind from the long day. Feeling really tired not but much more confident in my (basically resolved at this point) choice to attend UCSC.

Incidentally, I keep thinking of men lately. Figures.

Woke up early around 7:00 today, earlier than I thought I would wake up on account of staying up until 1am last night from Too Much Phone Syndrome. Lamped in bed until 7:30 when I got ready and we all (mom came along ⁠— first time in a while) swung by Starbucks, and the local donut shop. Parents got black coffee, brother got a caramel ribbon crunch frap, I got a large iced green tea lemonade with 4 pumps classic syrup (haven't had this in months and months and months). We got some croissants sandwiches from the donut shop and my parents talked with the (Khmer) business owners about cost of living and rent. We headed home. No work today for me, and I went right on to crunch my Exam 2 for developmental psychology and work on my Humi 1 upcoming assignment and late assignment. I had basically finished my Gov assignment yesterday and only needed to print. The rest of the day gets goopy. Lots of breaks to try and keep up my flow, dozed off on the massage chair for 20 or so minutes. Went walking with mom around 7:50 around the neighborhood block and we talked about body language and culture. Dinner around 8:50 -- veggies and fish dip! Sweeter than I thought though. My oldest uncle has an odd habit of making his food somewhat sweet, even the savory foods. Wrapped up dinner and I've been trying to wrap up my computer use since I have to wake up early tomorrow for classes ⁠— and possibly swing by UC Santa Cruz for a tour.

Lots of writing today. I almost don't want to add to my Stream.

Almost.

Home today. Had an egg sandwich for breakfast. Coffee around 12:30, 15g/the rest of the milk in the fridge. It was alright but got colder faster than I thought. Mom made some gingered soy fish for dinner ⁠— very good. Did lots of homework today, crunched my Cengage, partially worked on my written Humi and Gov assignments (will finish tomorrow, alongside my Exam 2 for Dev. Psych). Had a little nap from 7:15 to 8:15. Forgot to mention this but all of my DE finished arriving yesterday and I've been trying to work up the guts to try and get started. The Gillette Tech "fat handle" razor is tiny. And also dense. I guess that's 1950s brass builds for you. Apparently Gillette Techs are very mild so I'll probably be fine.

Work today. 11:45 to 8:10. What a day! Got a little bit of dev. psychology homework in.

Home today. Slept in a little. Felt more refreshed today but not much work. Studied a little bit of Chapter 7, cognition, for Dev. Psych, and wrapped up a short photography quiz. Digitized my Olympus Pen S half-frames and edited them, but haven't exported them yet... my metering is decent enough to minimally edit on the big screen but the cyanotype contact sheet is a little meh (24/46 legible half-frames). Loaded up my T90 with some Fomapan 100, set the ISO for 64 since apparently this film does better with a third of a stop overexposure from box speed, still thinking of selling the Pen S because I don't want to mess around (much) with exposure anymore. Had some udon for breakfast and plenty of snacks throughout the day, then some fish and pickled veggies for dinner. Made some iced coffee on the Hario Switch, it was alright.

Prints!

Christ. What a day. Feel so sleepy now. Woke up early around 6:15 and headed to class around 6:40 to catch my makeup exam for Government. And then I had Government class. Silver lining -- gov class wasn't too long since Prof. Druehl's voice was going out. Turned in my exam and MLK extra credit. Lamped around the ATC for the hour between gov class and humanities class. Humi class was ok. Well actually I was put on the spot when I answered the question 1+1 was 2 (turns out he was all in on the physicality of his 2 expo markers). Very woo. Very very woo actually. Got a little ticked off, shot back in the chat but felt weirdly triggered in my body for some reason, like my body felt this was a mortal threat as my mind felt this was a cut and dry technical annoyance. Mentally checked out of class after that. Went to photography class and crammed in my film development, a contact sheet, and an enlargement. Had a burger and fries for a very late lunch of course but since I remembered I could possibly have work at 5, and I should get home before then, I settled to eat my lunch over a few quick videos of President Nixon than a Dick Van Dyke episode. Nixon was great at foreign policy, you know. The rest of the day I didn't do much. Aunt Lang swung by the house, I unwound a little bit at home, went to work at 7 since the shop wasn't as busy as we thought. Couple of beef sticks and lettuce for dinner. Played some Valor from 10:30 to 11:45. Very quiet online except for a few chance steamrolls. Pretty frustrating but it did push me to try to solo some Alerts/Challenges (they're always solo). Necromancer class feels so cozy. Terribly terribly sleepy. I've been awake how many hours? 18? Back when I was sad, really sad in early 2022, the kind of sad that keeps you oversleeping even at the height of May, my sleep schedule was so fucked I would only 14 hours. 12, more often, since I spent the waning morning in a blitz of a haze. Which is still true a little bit but it's much better and something I can chalk up to coffee than being cripplingly sad. Running amok from one extreme to another. That's probably an aphorism for my life.

placeholder again, need to work on an assignment and sleep early soon

Woke up earlyish around 7:15, got ready and headed out around 7:43. Apprehensive about the morning traffic but it was a lot better than I thought, no difficult merges or anything. Met with Prof. Druehl about the test makeup, I'll do it on Wednesday. Humi class at L73. Ran off back home for lunch, leftover banh sung. Still delicious. Day gets a little gooey after that. Made up Humi assignment, digitized some more film, edited more digitized film in Darktable. No Valor today. Fried rice for dinner.

Home today. Dad bought some dim sum for breakfast. Had a few shrimp dumplings and half of a combination bun. Spent 2-4 hours throughout today digitizing some of my film negatives and editing them in Darktable. Exports seem to eat up serious compute on my M1 -- hoping the AMD on the Framework Laptop fares a bit better. Played Valor from 11:45 to 12:45, kind of boring since there weren't too many people doing events but I got enough in-game gold to buy a skull item for my Necromancer character. Iced coffee today around 11:30, no cold brew, but tasted just as nice since it was on my AeroPress (pourovers always extract a bit more from the beans, for better or for worse). Rest of the day gets a bit goopy. Dinner -- mom made banh sung! So delicious. I ate a few more bites to use up the last bit of fish sauce in my bowl.

May 10th 2024: Work from 12 to 8. Warm. 88 F.

May 11th 2024: Home. Not much homework. Valor. LOTS of driving. Had to drop off mom at work, drop off brother at his friends, and pick up my brother again later. 3 trips across the city total. Car seemed to be a little more engine-happy by the third trip, starting up the engine at lower pedal thresholds (or I gained a serious lead foot through the trips).

Home today. Slept in a little bit until 9. Spent most of the time today playing Valor (RIP Wizard, Mystic, and Huntress) and researching safety razors (namely vintage Gillette Techs). This game really perks up with more than 10 people on at a time! Didn't do much homework. Didn't really want to since I had enough of a headache throughout the afternoon and evening to put it out of mind. Typed up a long reblog to this post about how Google keeps overprocessing photos on newer and newer Pixel phones. I almost -- almost took my Canon RP for granted but looking at the goopiness of certain phone photos made me feel much more grateful for my dear little full-frame camera here.

May 8th 2024, cont. L73 was a bit quiet and I did get through my breakout rooms alright. Headed to photography later, sat through a little bit of a demo but wasn't as confident in my contact sheet and enlargement (mostly because I didn't look for much feedback from Prof. Teng, which I should've, as my Fomapan 100 half frames had quite a lot of contrast). Well, I did get a final contact sheet and a pair of half-frame enlargements by the end, but I should've been more economical with my time, and tried developing my Olympus Pen S film while Prof. Teng did demos. Though, I did talk to more classmates and help them out. Nancy in particular updated me on buying a half-frame camera, and they should arrive this weekend. Apparently she's been taking time off work to do these classes but her boss is quite supportive. Once class was tidied up I stopped by the dining hall to try and get a burger -- they ran out -- and so instead I got a southwest smoked turkey, 8 inches. Wow. Delicious, savory. Turkey, Gouda, ranch + lettuce tomato onions banana peppers. Really took me back to early 2022 when my parents and grandma were overseas for over a month and I was wondering how to save my grades and (remember to) pay all the house and business bills. Took a little longer to prep than I'd liked but I was really grateful regardless. Sat outside and had the sandwich over an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, about the Helper neighbors to the Petrie's after they catch the husband (forgot his name) having dinner with another lady. Drove back home -- traffic through the last half of the route, really quite boring, and I got sleepy -- but I made it home. The rest of the day gets murky after that. I helped mom with some spaghetti pasta and I AeroPressed my cold brew from this morning to finally halt the brewing process, but it was 5:00 then and I couldn't have the coffee if I wanted to sleep. Didn't get any more work done the rest of the day. Tried to relax on the massage chair, drifted over to my bed, and crashed for an hour and a half until 8:45. Even now I'm getting sleepy. I'll tell you, my sleep schedule is really fucked today.

Slept in today. On a Wednesday. With a Government midterm. Not by choice. So, cue the panic. Got out of the house in a flash around 9:10 but traffic was clogged up to the nines, taking about 35-40 minutes to get through. By the time I arrived to campus it was 9:55, I had a teensy tiny breakdown of grief and horror and brilliant stirling silver self-loathing in the car for 6 miles/6 minutes. I'll tell you, it really felt like being thrown back to age 13. I'm sure at least 2 or 3 other drivers saw the mess that I was in my car. Not to mention the way I forced myself into the final merge, but you know, I was really stressed out. So I walked onto campus, slow and steady, no brisk walk -- why rush? -- and slipped into class and walked down the stairs and talked to Prof. Druehl to consider my options for this 100 point (out of 600, so I would've gotten out with a B if I flunked this and did everything else well). Bless his soul, he was very gracious. It turns out I could make up this first exam with some points reduction next week, if I sent an email to him explaining what had happened; and that I should also do the extra credit. I headed out, and I'm now seated at one of the metal umbrella tables, and I'm just about to head into L73 for Humi 1.

Home. Woke up late, around 9:00, got some decent work done. Cracked through Humi work and even bulked up some Government notes. But as you'll find later those notes are a bit for naught.

⁠— Re-edited from placeholder on May 8th 2024

Woke up so early today it's almost surprising I'm getting tired early as well, at 11:30. So I woke up and got ready and AeroPressed my cold brew over some ice but we ran out of some oat milk so I just tried it straight and it was ... very smooth, no bitterness at all, not even a vegetal note which I sometimes expect from cold brew. Grabbed my supplies, forgot my charger, brought my Olympus Pen S. Headed out around 7:10 or 7:05, took some photos of campus -- the lighting really was lovely -- and swung by the dining hall to check out some of the breakfast menu items I was eyeing just a week or so ago. Ordered a breakfast quesadilla with some ham and tomato and egg, came out a little runnier than I thought but it was a little tangy and good enough to fit me through my first two classes of the day. History class went by without a hitch, L73 was closed so I swung by the Advanced Technology Center and snuggled into a couple of their chairs. Padded chairs! Took a few more photos and headed out back home. Arrived around 12:45, unwound for half an hour and got to work on some Humi homework. Watched a couple episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show, made another magazine lift, this one of an oil rig. Have to do cyanotypes tomorrow, and grab a few groceries from Smart and Final (or grocery outlet) with brother tomorrow. Dinner -- green stew. Played some Valor for a couple hours between 6 and 8 before dinner and boy, the game really feels sluggish without people around. Only 6-8 people online at most. Just sad, compared to this Winter early this year. But I don't think RotMG proper is doing so hot either. Browsed Twitter a few times.

Morning. Tufts of blue though the window. 44 minutes to waking up.

Aaaaaand I just placed an order for a bulb syringe, another flash, and the slide duplicator. I've been doing a lot more spending these past couple weeks it seems.

Swung by Grocery Outlet to check out some more bananas if they had some and their bananas were both younger (more green) and 10¢ cheaper. Pretty nifty. We got 5 or 6 banana bunches and then headed home. Thawed out my Vietnamese coffee from yesterday in the sun at my mom's advice, and then did a magazine lift on an arrow on a stock chart, which looked much better than yesterday's attempt. Unwound until 12:25 when I had to work. Work was alright and a bit busy, which I thought was a pleasant surprise since it still seemed a little cold. Made a couple of mistakes but corrected them quick and no harm done. Headed back home around 7:20 and had some dinner -- cauliflower (purple! and green!) and pork and shrimp stirfry. Waited a little bit for some crawfish since my uncles had gotten some and took 3 pieces or so since it was pretty spicy. It was very very tender -- I'm very used to it being chewy, a bit like shrimp. Good but boy did it really knock out my tongue and mouth when I went to wash my plates. Played some RotMG and Valor from 9:45 to 11:15. Not really looking forward to school tomorrow ⁠— it's beginning to feel like something I just tolerate. I don't know. Maybe it IS becoming more dull. Or I'm getting sick of waiting. At the very least I'll have another excuse to bring my Pen S ⁠— which incidentally I shot an email to Seawood Photo about, if they did CLAs on vintage cameras. Got the refund on the broken flash just before starting to type today's Stream drop ... I didn't even mail the package. Well, I'll mail it tomorrow in good faith, and they can resell for broken parts. (I'd rather not have a bunch of cruft and technoschmaltz around the place.)

Woke up a little later today around 8:45. Wasn't in too much of a rush. Went out with Dad and younger brother to Smart and Final to check out if they had some bananas for the shop ⁠— not yet. Swung back home and deposited some groceries, like a pork shoulder, and then went to get some pho. Dad and brother got some pho, I tried out the chicken noodle soup with dark meat. I'll tell ya, that broth looked thin but it tasted decidedly not. Wow. Very good clean chicken flavor without being too heavy (the thinner fresh noodle also helped I think).

Tried working on the slipbox but I was so out of it and couldn't focus all that well, I couldn't even finish reading a new paper. Just terrible. But, whatever. I wasn't planning on doing much work today. Turns out I got an 11/15 on my Humi reflection since my Wednesday paragraph talked about the Monday topics. Well, alright. Thinking of resubmitting tomorrow (no points will lost for this late resubmit which is nice).

RnB Tea at the plaza near work ... and noodles at home.

Mostly home today. Raining raining raining all day. Woke up a little earlier to hear my mom clicking on and off and on and off and on and off my coffee grinder, worried the motor would be burnt out or something so I went over and poured out the beans and poured them back in and that turned out fine. Got ready and then had a chocolate muffin for breakfast -- tasted just like chocolate cake. Coffee a little earlier around 12:30. Picked up younger brother from the library around 1:45, parked on the third floor, swung by Subway and used the 2 footlongs (I got turkey, he got roast beef) for $14 and then by RnB tea. Fuck, I don't even know if this is the third or fourth time he's dragged me out to try and go eat out -- it's like cooking or trying to scrape together a snack at home doesn't even register as an option for him half the time. Didn't he just get YogurtLand yesterday? And bug me for 5 minutes trying to get fried chicken, the day before that? Whatever. Got some Vietnamese coffee from RnB tea, drove back home, Seth somehow managed to get Apple CarPlay working on his phone and we listened to a few tunes though it was pretty rainy so I couldn't catch all that much. Arrived home, tried to unwind. The sub was good. Stuck the coffee in the freezer for tomorrow so I'll see if it's all that tomorrow. Spent most of the day waiting for final packages to arrive. The manual camera flash arrived but it was a total dud. The plexiglass and sticky tack for contact sheet and magazine lift was less so. Took ~10 or so more photos on my Pen S -- it's so tiny. So tiny. Fit in my brown coat pocket just fine and it didn't feel like it bogged me down or anything. Napped for 10 or so minutes until Seth knocked on the glass of the office and the last package had arrived. Grumbling I pulled it in and took out the plexiglass and transparent sticky tack for myself and set the other four-drawer cabinet that my mom asked me to order in her room. Grandma and oldest uncle made some noodles today. Somehow after a foot-long I still had room in me to eat this bowl of noodles. But it was delicious and very very comforting. AND I MADE THE CYANOTYPE CONTACT PRINT. Gray day but a good day.

Two observations:

1. Wow, my negatives are denser than corn syrup. Leaning to overprocessed than overexposed

2. Cyanotypes don't seem to have resolution issues (the scant few well-exposed photos look sharp as a tack)

Finished my first cyanotype contact print from the half-frame negatives I was so worried about. Left it out in the just-finished-raining evening sun for 15 minutes and gave it a couple running rinses with warm water, then cold. Dried it between some newspaper packaging paper and here it is now 95% dry.

Oh my god, I nearly forgot ... I made my first cyanotypes from bottle, foam brush and all, on this May 3rd.

Bagel BLT and the Olympus Pen S. Apple for scale. :-)

Writing this on the computer this time because I just feel so slammed right now.

Woke up late again. 9:15. Got ready in a flash. Made a BLT w/ turkey bacon and cream cheese spread on a poppy seed garlic bagel. Yum yum.

Edited my Humi midterm and worked on the weekly reflection. Don't know why it feels like it takes so long to do these assignments as of late. Could be waning interest in writing on the keyboard which is freaky to say since I love love writing. Could just be tired. Put on my glasses and made some coffee around 12:30 which pepped me up enough to start to finish both assignments, finally, but it still hung like a specter around my head until I up and turned it in hours later around 8.

Brother bugged me around 4:15 to go to YogurtLand so fine I took him to the place. Well, the parking lot was absolutely crammed to the bits. No parking period. I dropped him off, circled around a neighborhood, and eventually came back and settled in the parking lot of the nearby Bank of America. After that we swung by to Loop, he got a bag of chips, I bought a car wash. Actually, I got the car wash for free since I had paid for 3 car washes already on our registered phone number (dad's).

Came back home. MY OLYMPUS PEN S ARRIVED!!!! Might be able to send some pics later. Finished off the last 2 and a half green sauce chicken rolls which, from a Google Lens search, I discovered were actually chicken enchiladas. Well, it was still delicious a day later. After eating I played with the Pen S a bit, loaded up it up with some 24-exp Ilford HP5 400, cleaned the UV filter, took a few shots in the bright 5:50 daylight, got paranoid about the rewind crank not turning with the advance wheel (serious Agat 18K flashbacks, I'm telling you), tried to reseat the film in my dark laundry room, thought I fogged the film, but whatever, I'll see it for myself in class when I develop next week or next next week. I'd like to shoot and develop ASAP to make sure the camera is actually fully functional, but for some reason, I don't think I'd mind it's not 100% functional. This thing is so tiny and adorable and sturdy -- like a mini version of my Minolta AL -- I can overlook a few flaws. (The Tele 6 on the other hand ... hehehe. Ambitious point-and-shoots bite off more than it can chew.) AND THIS PEN S IS MANUAL!!

For dinner I had some barley chicken veggie soup and some kimchi. I had a second bowl of soup. Yum yum. After dinner I spent some time indexing and organizing my CRUNCH section of notes from yesterday, and adding in a few extra appends (which I need to do way way more of in my slipbox, saying that aloud now).

Simultaneously very short and very long day today. Woke up quite late, around 9:05, and lamped in bed for another 20 minutes. Nearly skipped breakfast but I made some savory oatmeal, had it over some Michael Pollan talks about cooking. Didn't add any toppings though. Went to the computer to get my work up, but I couldn't sit for a while. I still felt quite lethargic. I went back to my bedroom to try and lay down and well, you know the drill, I fell asleep. Napped for 25 or so minutes. Woke up a little groggy and a little drool-y (you're cooked if you're at the drool stage, which was roughly my thought waking up as well) and so I immediately staggered over to the kitchen to make some coffee. 18g + a touch of oat milk. I looked around for a savory or salty snack but couldn't really find one so I was grabbing a few pieces of tamarind candy. Midway into coffee my uncle came by as he had picked up my grandma from her friend's house and so I had a savory pork floss and ham and corn pastry from their haul. Also had a few steamed taro pieces. Most of the day was doing my monster of a Humi midterm -- I had to write 10 paragraphs for 10 out of 13 questions. Talked to Dave midway about them learning to cook (they're somewhat averse to cooking which is crazy to hear since if you're moving out alone you have to cook at least until you can save up to eat out or generally buy meals routinely and even then that's not particularly healthy). Sent them some stuff about Michael Pollan, Alison Roman, and lots of simple/budget cooking resources. Later Ryan's dad came by with another box of bagels, and some shredded chicken wrapped in a tortilla (flatbread?) doused in a spicy green sauce which was absolutely delicious. I had 3 of those cute floppy rolls: 1 by itself, and 2 sandwiched in an everything bagel. Had the bagel over an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show about that dashing French man, Jacques Savon, and the sheer awkwardness of the Laura and Rob wondering if one of them (themselves) broke up the Savon's marriage with Yvette (turns out Savon and Yvette had already hated each other's guts before they met the Petrie's). Had some stitfried noodles with chicken and Chinese broccoli (that one crunchy green one I forget the name) and a fried egg, and was damn tempted to pluck another chicken wrap. But I resisted. God did I resist because I had already eaten three times, and very well, today! Well, I finished my Humi assignment by then, but it really took a lot out of me. Spent half an hour after 10:45 adding the CRUNCH paper to my slipbox, which oddly enough is/has been using up a lot more cards than I thought.

Woke up earlyish but brother was in the bathroom for 10 minutes after 10 again. Got ready in a flash and drove to school. Brought my Canon Tele 6 to try and get the film out of but also completely forgot my photography binder :-/ AeroPressed my cold brew and topped off with a little oat milk.

Politics class was alright but I felt a little distracted so I didn't take as good notes as I normally would. Humanities class was fine, and a bit shorter, since we had an upcoming midterm. Took advantage of the extra time to grab a pastrami sandwich from the dining hall for lunch, had it over an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, the surprise episode.

Photography class felt a little more awkward than usual since Mr. Chai was out for the first half hour of class. Reloaded my HP5 24-exp roll into my camera, but flicked it to full frame and went out on something of my own "blindwalk" through campus, so I had an excuse to use the developing kit I was accidentally lent (lol). Well, I finished shooting but the camera gave three errors and stopped shooting so I had to turn off and on the camera a bit, but I wouldn't know until I saw the negatives themselves. So I waited and talked to some other classmates, and Adreina asked me tons of questions about my major and photo experience, and I learned that she's majoring in graphic design and really wants to go into web developing. Jyn came by and something about their (which I later found out to be "she") eyeliner was very eye-catching. After some time I headed into the darkroom and loaded my film onto my reel but the developing room was still packed like sardines so I and three or four others had to wait 10 or 15 minutes still. By the time we got to develop our film it was 2:40, so I tried to work fast. Lucky for us the water temperature was 72 F, which cut down developing time from 7 or so minutes to 5:12 minutes. I hung it up to dry, waited a little bit more, and chatted some more with Adreina and checked out her negatives! I liked her image of the nearby stone railing, and a group of people passing her by on her blindwalk. My negatives by now were dry, and she was gracious enough to lend me a spare film sleeve, and I found I was missing three frames -- conveniently in the spots where my camera gave up those three errors. The camera dating function did still seem to work however, and quite nicely, imprinting May 1st 2024 on all photos -- even the blank ones!

The drive back home was quiet, but there was quite a bit of traffic in the second half. I actually got a bit sleepy. Clearly waking up so early and bouncing around these three classes was catching up to me, even with my finishing my cold brew (which was really delicious and smooth). But I made it home and tried to unwind, and worked a little bit on my Humi midterm. Had some leftover pasta and Mongolian noodles, the latter of which my uncle got from the nearby mall, and then for dinner I made some sauced (drier) ramen and topped it off with some kimchi, a soy egg, and a plain wrapped dumpling.

Oy, I have to wake up at 6:45 tomorrow.

Home today. Slept in a little bit until 8:50 but lamped in bed a little longer. Made some pasta puttanesca before for a late breakfast. Finely chopped a whole onion, used the last small garlic clove for the foundation. Olives went bad, which was surprising to me since I thought the salt content would have thrown it off, so I fell back on the capers and anchovies. Two magical moments: Spooning a little bit of water on the bottom of the hot pan, which had been really accumulated a dark (I thought it was burnt) oniony-anchovy fond, and seeing it bubble into deep brown; and, simmering the four chopped tomatoes long enough to see them actually melt and meld with the rest of the puttanesca base, coloring the entire puttanesca base a deeper red hue. Definitely add water if you think you need it -- it will help break down the ingredients, and you can always cook it out later. Yet again I accidentally made more pasta than usual, though not that much. Did Humi homework and studied a bit of Psych (which I hadn't really done yesterday). Worked on Hemera slipbox from 6:50 to 8:15 or so. Interacted with Dave a scant 3 or 4 times on Discord and Tumblr (actually followed them on Tumblr properly, seems they don't reblog that much these days) but it was enough to calm me down. I feel ashamed that I lost my mind these past few days. Vengeful rage and fear — is that really me? I have to admit it is. So, I own the panicked messages and posts from yesterday. I would like to make them the exception, the proof-of-concept, the prototype, and not the final product; I'm sorry. Had a Japanese soy egg and a bagel for lunch, and then some leftover pasta for dinner (mom was working today and grandma was out at her friend's so we were on our own tonight).

Scrolled up to see the chat history for this year. Turns out these kinds of dry spells are not only common, this is all (most likely) just me. Will revise my observations tomorrow.

My mind is still a mess, but the tiredness is all over my body now, and I might actually be able to sleep before 12 tonight.

Woke up early. 6:50. Younger brother was in the bathroom until 7:15. Got ready in a flash. Headed out around 7:35. Water bottle, wallet, keys, laptop, headphones, folder. Forgot my charger.

Politics class. Noodler's Habanero in the Lamy Safari.

Humi. Ran out of battery 25 minutes before end of class.

Lunch -- burger and fries.

Drove back home -- a little bit of traffic, a little bit uneven with a couple of dangerously slow drivers.

Home -- reviewed the rest of TTPD for Dave. Still another dry text.

And then it's madness the rest of the day, not enough to affect my work, not that I was doing much other than working on my slipbox for the first time in weeks, but present enough to make you feel like you're two shakes away from going crazy. Present enough to make you remember the last 3 days of this. Present enough to make you wonder if it'll pass.

This feeling isn't even knew. I know this tightness around my ribs, because I had to fall out of love with my crush both romantically and platonically last year. All that's left now of that one ranges from apathy to irritation. I can't do that to Dave. They don't deserve it. (Well, it's not like the other one deserved that either, but I guess I always knew we were never going to be proper friends.) I wish I could pause these feelings: to take all the hurt and envy and worry and vengeful rage, press them under the surface of the water, wipe off the dirt and the stains, and stick it all in the freezer for the rest of this spring.

Even getting our past history out of the way, Dave is just my last real tether to socialization. Twitter is sort of nice, but it stopped being social last year amid the discourse and Musk's revamp. I don't think my mutuals are fake, or unreal, but I do think I should outgrow my hope that I'm actually going to meet them in real life this year, next year, five years from now. I'm a relic, and I have been for years now.

Nor did they try to follow me, when I went after that Minecraft YouTuber fandom on Tumblr in 2021; or chased PKM and slipboxes on Twitter in 2022; or really even read Ladon and Orange or tried to find this stream (it's literally in my Twitter bio) in 2023. If they went in-depth and tried to understand these topics somehow they never showed it.

I didn't even know they were planning to move out and get their own place until two or three weeks ago. Can you believe that? I should've known. Then again, they didn't ask me much about my real-world life either, but still.

Last night I was up thinking about Dave, for 15 or 20 minutes. Actually I had been re-reading some old messages when we were together a little before that, too. And I realized near the end of that sleeplessness that I wasn't the best friend after all. Our conversations were something of a safe space from our individual lives, but I should've asked more about their real-world life, and what their social group was like. I'm sure they're open to being better friends now but I feel like I should, somehow, atone for this.

`Reviewed the other 15 songs. Not much response. Best case: They're busy. Worse case: They've (rightfully) stopped putting in the energy.

Saturday, April 27th 2024. Took my brother to the bank so he could deposit some money, stopped by Panda Express so he could have some lunch, then we hurried off to the local library so I could drop off some books. Came back home.

Home. Home?

Woke up early but lamped in bed a bit. Spent some extra time in the shower. Went with Dad and younger brother to Main Street Bagels. I got a lox and cream cheese on onion, Seth got a regular lox on plain, and we got a couple of blueberry bagels with cream cheese for our parents. Seth also got a couple drinks from H-Mart ... surprised since he mentioned to our dad he was going to Starbucks. But he didn't get another Monster energy which was alright. (If you're going to drink caffeine, get it from the bean.) Went back home. I made extra coffee, 21g on 5.2 on Hario Switch, topped off with some oat milk but it tasted a little weaker and hollower than I thought. Will try 5.1 tomorrow, once I get back home from school. Played some of the Realm rework open beta from 11 to 12 but my concentration wasn't into it. Lamped out the rest of the day near the computer, did Gov homework around 2:30, did Humi homework around 4:30. Had a nap from 5:50 to 6:50. I can't believe I fell asleep again! I've got to get my sleep schedule back together. Mom made oxtail soup -- very very delicious. Spent most of the day until dinner in a sad malaise.

My mind is a mess. Still angrysad still about Dave. How?

I've been myself up the past three days and I'm sick of it. I have to confirm their disinterest. Review the rest of the album. See if they respond, that way.

Can't really remember Saturday. Why?

Astigmatism in my right eye was very good actually today. I had thought my right lens prescription was out of whack, but it was just that eye. Less blurry around until the late afternoon, which I chalk up to some tiredness from crunching homework. I'm guessing the extra half hour or so of sleep last night did me a good favor.

On the topic of photography I'm a bit dissatisfied with the missing frames from the Tele 6. A 70% increase in functional shots is pretty good but I want a 100% increase. Looking into the Olympus Pen (S) again ... warding off another buy on the Agat 18K ... doubting myself on getting half-frame at all when I could just buy ~5 rolls (or less) of BW film for the price of a half-frame camera, stick my FL 55mm f/1.2 on my (dad's) T90, AND get better image quality for prints and better low light performance without flash. Much to think about ... and I still have to post some of my images from this quarter to Twitter and here.

Morning ramen. / Not the most flattering shot but I genuinely didn't think to grab my Canon RP. Which, now that I think about it, I probably should ...

A whirlwind of work today. Woke up early but lamped in bed until 8:45. Had some ramen for breakfast, added extra garlic but also added extra mayo. It was alright but the seasoning pack had dried up into a cake and didn't dissolve completely into the paste. Added an egg into the noodles, poured it all over the paste, topped off with some lettuce. Very very thick. And filling! It was only until 3:45 when I went to make some genmaicha that I grabbed a bagel to snack on. (Made some coffee around 12:30, 18g on the AeroPress, Alan Adler, topped off the last half inch with some oatmilk.) Still felt miffed about Dave from yesterday -- no followup today. I want to say I don't care (to followup / about this entire thing) but that would be a damn awful lie. Which I guess I probably deserve too, not trying to keep up the daily conversations a year ago?, a year and a half ago? Crunched a lot of assignments today, a lot. Finished off Chapter 3 for Psych + Reagan video for Gov + Week 3 class reflection for Humi. Took a lot out of me -- I had a nap from 6:45 to 7:45 -- but after I completed the Reagan video assignment and had some dinner.

Slept in, until 9:15. Got ready and folded shirts. Had a couple eggs, turkey bacon, lettuce, and some cream cheese on an onion bagel. Tastes astonishingly similar to Noah's farmhouse sandwich ... it's a slice or two of turkey away from jumping that niche. Left eye was slightly blurry until 2. Was going to work today but it kept getting pushed back since today was terribly gray (but not rainy!) and business was slow. Made some genmaicha tea around 3, just around the time my parents were clearing out the laundry subsection of some old 90s/2000s tech and products, like a speaker set and a heavyweight vacuum. Didn't get any homework done since I was so anxious about work but whatever -- it's just Thursday. (Today had a very very Friday feel.) Came back home around 8:05 and had a couple beef sticks and some barley soup for dinner. Listened to The Tortured Poets Department around 9:45, thought it was a functional redux of Midnights with slightly more cohesive sound. Angrier and hornier for sure but that's not enough to define an album. Some songs seemed to melt into each other, like the underlying structure was getting same-y. Shot all of these thoughts and more to Dave and oh my fucking god, just when I didn't think they could get any drier in their texts. (This has always been an intermittent issue even when we were together but I think now experiencing it yet again after so long really magnified it.) I get it's 12:58 over where they live but holy shit. Vagueposted on Twitter about it -- best tweets stylistically in a while, I'll say -- but wrapped it back up because this rage wasn't good for me. It wasn't good for my readers either. So I clipped the drafts and deleted.

April 24th 2024. Woke up early. 6:45. Brother was in the bathroom again. Got ready around 6:55. Stayed in the shower a little longer than needed. AeroPressed the cold brew (28g! The last of it), iced, added some oat milk. Finally got out of the house around 7:40, and the traffic was busy. Got blocked out of the exit that takes up to Stevens Creek, looped back through Mountain View and took exit 85 and made it back on the freeway. Arrived on campus at 7:50. History class, then humanities class. Had some savory oatmeal I loaded up in a thermos, but it tasted kind of pasty, a bit like overnight oats without milk and with more salinity. Packed up and headed out to Photography course. I was very very excited to develop my half-frame and full-frame rolls of film. I was much slower to load film and process film, possibly because I was tired from waking up and/or I was doing two separate rolls. (Cold brew can only do so much, and I didn't even finish a quarter of it by the time I headed into class.) The full frame roll seemed to come out okay, but the half frame roll had some broken/unprintable frames and the contrast was way way jacked up. Wasn't sure if I over-agitated (I did 5 sec agitations at 30 sec intervals for 13 minutes) or it was just the film ... Fomapan 100 is a kind of "vintage" film in that it's manufactured using the same techniques as the 60s. Was a little disappointed about the missing frames but I think a 70% bonus is pretty good (61 workable frames out of 36 full frames). Will have to print carefully next week -- which incidentally Prof. Teng has asked me to help out a bit, since other students will be developing their own rolls, but Mr. Chai is out! How exciting. Sleeved all my film and headed out around 3:10. Drove back home ... a fair bit of traffic, and a near accident, as a car merged from the right into my lane, but seriously miscalculated merging distance and nearly crashed into me; I panic-braked and honked, but they sped off real quick. I think that was my second ever honk in this car! Scary. But I made it home. The rest of the day gets really gooey ... I did have some tuna salad, avocado, and pesto sauce on a Parmesan bagel. And some fish and veggies for dinner. Didn't really do much homework. I'm winded from today.

April 23rd 2024. Home. Dropped off package at Post Office. Forgot to write names. Whatever. Got a vanilla latte for mom (triple large, 2 pumps vanilla). Richard was working again. Didn't ask. Didn't really care to. Couldn't focus long enough to get a lot of work done, but I did finish Gov homework and Humi homework before 11:15.

P.S. Janus and Amp worked together to get more API compatibility on Loomsidian, and I got TextSynth Mistral 7B working in the branching UI. And, it seems free for now. I think using davinci-002, paid out of pocket, has made me much more sparing and precise in my autocompletes. It used to be 60% generated for stuff like Ladon and Orange and pick the worms off me, with 200% (lol) editing ... now it's 5%, 10%. I'll tell you, that stylistic chameleon really seems to have woken something up in me. I'm still a little slow at writing, but at least I'm writing more.

Typing this on the computer.

Slept late, got up somewhat late. 7:00. Spent 10, 15 minutes in bed since my brother was in the bathroom. Got ready lickety-split and packed up my laptop and folder. No iced coffee this morning, though I did grab some water. And, this time, I remembered my headphones. Drove to class. Arrived on cmpus.

Government class came and went. Humanities class also came and went.

Had some beef tomato pasta for lunch. The sauce didn't seem as thin as normal, so it didn't cling much to the pasta, but it was still very good. Watched it over an episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy and Stan have to deal with their loafer son. Said loafer son is 30(!).

Drove back home, and this was very stressful. The traffic flow was not particularly smooth -- I couldn't "human cruise control" and keep my accelerator pedal consistent. Not to mention there seemed to be a horrible drunk driver in a ratty old truck in front of me, swerving out of his lane to the right and left sides. I had never seen such severe swerving, and gave myself a massive airgap between him and me. When it came time for the merge back into California East 237, he slowed down and almost stopped, and nearly caused an accident. Well, maybe a few minutes down E-237, he was going to take an exit, and he seemed to go slow enough that I could pass him, but true to his dumbassery, he started drifting left to me. And not just 'normal' drifting, I think he was only a foot away at closest. It was particularly sticky since it seemed there was a dark Tesla speeding above 65, 67 on the left lane behind me. I was forced to drift to the left, worried about that Tesla, but slammed the accelerator, jammed the power gauge past the mid-section for sure, and got the hell outta there! But the traffic flow was still bad, and I got stuck behind another truck. What is up with drivers these days? One off day and everyone is more inconsistent than a toddler trying to paint the wall. Oy!

Got home, had some milk tea from yesterday in the freezer. It had partially frozen, and turned somewhat slushy, which was cool, but all I could think of how boba places use creamer and not 'real' milk for their milk tea. Probably good for lactose intolerant people, but what the hell do we put in creamer these days? Isn't it mostly fat?

Meanwhile, I tried to hang on. I really did. But I could barely read much on my computer screen since my focus was so shot, and so I stumbled over to my bed around 4:15 and napped until 5:30. I'll tell you, the way I woke up, I felt fine but still a little scattered. Something about the springtime humidity just sinks into your skin. It's nice. (It also makes the campus smell that bit brighter. Did I mention that yet?)

Got a little bit of reading in — Grant's chapter in Originals — but not too much. Had some fish and veggies and lots of pickled (preserved? it's in a kind of orange oil) bamboo for dinner, and then watched the pilot episode of The Carol Burnett Show around 10:30.

Double berry banana slam ...

Denny's for breakfast today. I had a double berry banana slam with some eggs and sausage and hash browns.

Got home around 11:25, made some iced pourover coffee. The milk was still good, which was a pleasant surprise since I thought it had spoiled by now. The double edged sword of iced coffee -- since it's already cold, and stays cold in a thermos, you can drink it for much longer. I think I finished drinking it around 4:50. Normally I finish my hot coffee in under 10 minutes. Then again, I also brewed extra, around 21g coffee. Made a turkey lettuce basil sandwich for a very late lunch.

Early evening, around 6:27, biked to Sunright Tea with brother, I put my tea in the freezer since I had that iced coffee earlier. I got a hokkaido milk tea with some grass jelly.

What a day, what a day, what a day.

Woke up early. Got finished getting ready around 9:15 so I had lots of morning time. Had some tuna salad and some toast for breakfast. No morning genmaicha but I did get hydrated with some good old water. Neck is doing much better today, up to 85% or so, but still not 100%.

Went to work around 11:45, worked until 8:15. The day passed a lot faster than I thought, even though we were pretty busy around 1-2, and 3-5. Customers were absolutely fine, with the exception of this one woman who couldn't understand a net refund until her husband stepped in and looked at the receipts. Suffice to say I was cooking up an odd mix of panic, vengeful thinking, and second-hand embarrassment. The other meh point was when these two high school students came by — one of them stared me down like a fish and basically demanded answers out of me for item sizes — and asked if my younger brother was working. Well, that really locked me up like granite. I didn't vibe with them.

Got home. I dug into dinner. I hadn't eaten lunch today, though did briefly wonder about the Subway across the block around 1 or 2. Mom and dad seemed to have gone to Costco today. There was some rotisserie chicken around, and some kimchi. Mom or grandma also made some chicken veggie soup. Yum.

Talked with mom and dad a little bit about the Davis admit. Told them I was seriously worried about the Santa Cruz housing market, they said they'd help me out. Awwwwwwwwwwwww. Muah muah, mom and dad. Santa Cruz is also closer to home and to Silicon Valley, so there are better job opportunities here than up in Davis, not to mention a cooler climate. Talked to dad a bit more about college and working life in general.

Woke up decently early around 8:30 but lamped in bed for another 20 minute or so. Neck seems to be doing better today. Had a turkey cream cheese sandwich for breakfast and some cucumber and a little bit of raw cabbage because of course I need veggies in a sandwich. Made some genmaicha tea on the Hario Switch. Talked with mom a little bit about college and after transfer.

Dropped off my brother at the mall at 12:10, came back around 12:40. Made some coffee. Added a little bit of bypass water. It was alright.

Had work from 3:15 to 8, closing. Customers were alright. One customer asked about rent. Learned about our rent stuff (idk why my parents never tell me this kind of stuff) w/ the business (we don't own the property, just the business, but somehow those owners wormed us into paying for parts of the building??).

Mom made seasoned beef sticks tonight! We also had some quick pickled veggies. So so good. And very tender too. I had 2 beef sticks. Wish I took some pictures.

GOT ACCEPTED INTO DAVIS AND SAN DIEGO AS WELL! Santa Cruz is still my first priority but their housing situation genuinely worries me.

More UC admissions out ... didn't get into Berkeley, but I did get into Davis and San Diego as well 🥹🥹

Home today. Really goopy day. Left side of neck still sore.

Had leftover tomato feta pasta for late breakfast. Very good.

Spent most of the day dipping into Framework Laptop videos and trying to rest my neck (no real good resting position, sitting up or laying down). Seriously seriously considering going to the doctor about joint stuff, and possible fatigue, because this reads as RA -- and if not it at the very least rules that out.

Skipped lunch. Had some coffee though. Around 2 or 3 I cracked open my dev psych textbook and finished Cengage review and quiz for this week. Apparently some people in the dev psych class had been speed running the online course (of course they used answers, what do you expect out of an online class crammed with college students), and Prof. Tamas actually anticipated some would, because the free trial for the course only lasts until today. It's kind of weird knowing that some people willingly crammed this course so early on. Maybe they really wanted their $180 for themselves which, sure, I understand. But for me I'm kind of sick of cramming classes. I've been reading the textbook -- shocker -- and pacing myself through the material and it's really quite interesting. I think developmental psychology would have been the perfect base for Soteriology of the Coherent, back when I was trying to pin down it's epistemic foundation ... I had been drawing from calculus, then, derivation and integration, but couldn't quite map it onto personal development which was the real theme of the work, looking back on it now, I still haven't finished it. Anyway I also need this background for my cogsci slipbox Hemera and my upper division courses after I transfer.

Dinner -- eggplant and pork stirfry, and some steamed pork and egg with some cucumber.

Managed to finish Humi homework but took much longer than expected. Watched episode 3 of the Bear. Took some more photos on the Tele 6, in the evening. Turns out I completely forgot the film roll was 36 episodes and I could've squeezed out 1 or 2 extra exposures, for a total of 73 or 74. But because I thought it was 24 exposure (with an upper limit of 48) I thought it was improperly loading the film, so I stopped off at 72 and activated the mid-roll rewind just to be sure. Looking forward to developing the film next week, and maybe even doing some first prints from this set.

April 17th 2024, so far. Woke up earlier, soreness in neck got a little bit better. Finished and headed out at 7:35, younger brother in tow, and we drove to De Anza. A bit of morning traffic — Tesla owners have perpetually late brake lights, utterly frustrating — but we made it. Got in history class, brother nearly fell asleep 3 times. I took plenty of notes, which I think helped keep me awake (though a few sips of cold brew didn't hurt either). Humanities 1 @ L73 again. He had some Cup Noodles since he didn't get a chance to eat breakfast, I had a bag of chips. I struggled to keep focus in Humanities course. Wrapped up at 12:23, then we went to the PHTG (30)1. Prof. Teng was so kind to give me an add code for the non-credit class, and not go through the audit, so I strided in. Mr. Chai did remember me, and noted I did drop my Experimental Photography class, and I introduced him and Prof. Teng a little to my younger brother. We did photograms which took a little longer than I expected, but we left early around 2:45 and swung by the dining hall for some burgers. We sat outside and watched The Bear and around 3:25 we headed home. My day gets kind of goopy after that, and I didn't do much homework, but I did study dev. psych. a bit, and write a little bit for my humanities weekly reading assignment.

April 16th 2024. Home. Wanted to get more work done, but I got some kind of sprain or soreness in left side of my neck that bugged me the entire day.

Slept late last night and nearly nearly slept in today. Set my alarm for 6:45 but got out of bed around 7:10 instead. Got ready and got packed up, and headed out. No need to wake up one of my uncles today for them to move their car; it was empty behind my car.

The drive to campus had less traffic than I thought, which was very pleasant. I think it is because of Spring Break for K-12 kids, so less commuting. But I'm not counting on it next week. I want to head out a little sooner this quarter, around 7:15 or 7:20.

Arrived to campus with a decent 13 or so minutes to spare. Headed to Government class. Had Government class. We continued covering the press and freedom of speech. Headed out around 10:10, since Prof. Druehl wrapped up his lecture quick enough. Walked over to L73, waited 10 or 11 minutes for the lady to open the classroom. Very grateful!

Took and seat and got signed into Humanities course. Turns out I forgot my headphones so I had to play on speaker again. But it was alright -- the other two people who came by later did not seem to have any indication they were bothered. I would like to bring my headphones Wednesday though. While signing in and settling into Humanities course I added the PHTG 301 add code that Prof. Teng graciously gave me, for the noncredit Intro Photo course. I wanted darkroom access since I have some leftover film and film paper. I'm thinking of doing my own cyanotypes, but the negatives are a troubling issue. Barring some kind of UV light (which I'm iffy about) and an enlarger, I can't really make cyanotype enlargements at this time.

No lunch. No coffee either! Drove back home and had lunch and coffee there. AeroPressed my cold brew, threw it together with some ice and milk, and had some leftover stirfry noodles from yesterday.

The rest of the day was studying developmental psychology. 2 hour chunk and then a 1 hour chunk, and did a couple small assignments, and really that's enough for today. My loose leaf textbook arrived today but the paper I found was a bit thinner than I thought, and unfortunately, the add code was for that loose leaf edition and not the edition Prof. Tamas was using. So I shelled out another $110 (in total $180 for all this). A bit unpleasant but when I checked my bank account to spot the damage, my school had deposited some financial aid to more than offset it. So, I am in good hands for now.

No driving tomorrow! Nice! Looking forward to Wednesday.

No words. :-)

Home today. Studied a little today but not much.

Morning. Noah's Bagels. Drove there.

Afternoon. Had some cup ramen I snagged from school.

Evening. Rachel's birthday. Steak and some cow stomach and veggies and some noodles. Had a couple egg rolls.

Something of a mental march this day. Woke up early around 8:30 but lamped in bed for another 30 minutes. Skipped breakfast, made some iced coffee, headed to Smart and Final to grab some heavy whipping cream before going to work. 11:45 to 8:15. Totally overcast most of the day so the work wasn't too intense but because I skipped breakfast, and later lunch, I felt very very tired and even a bit achy from 2:30 to 5:30. I don't know why I just didn't get Subway during the quiet hour around 1:15. Was I making a personal statement? Did I think I could somehow lose weight by starving myself? In any event all the customers were fine, no mishaps or confusion. Went home around 8:15 and had some sour herbed soup and some spiced pork dip with some veggies (all with rice, our household almost always makes rice nightly). Tried unwinding the rest of the night, and I did send off the email to Prof. Teng about auditing the PHTG 1 Wednesday course and dropping PHTG 54, but my mood really soured on Twitter. I don't know what I was mad about now, and I don't think I knew even then. If I had to guess it was a mix of envy and loneliness. I've deleted it now.

Slept late last night, 12:20 or so, so I tried sleeping in until 8:30. I felt alright waking up. April 12th 2024.

Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike and Aunt Lang came by around 9:45 or 10:00. Taught Aunt Kun and Uncle Mike how to use dictation on Google Docs... Aunt Kun is writing a book about her experiences as a Christian and survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Around 2:45 or so we headed out to the shop, and then got some Starbucks. A pleasant surprise ⁠— Richard was working, and I didn't feel terribly embarrassed (I sent a chain of emails to him back in junior or senior year, not sure if he ever figured out it was me). I think the most I felt was shock that he was still here in [town]. I genuinely thought he transferred to a different university and moved out of town by now. Took some portraits of my aunts and uncle there on my Canon RP, and they even took a couple photos of me, though they seemed a little thrown off by my adapted f/1.2 lens.

We got back home around 4:15. I went to work around 5:35, had work until 8:10 ish. Might have to work all day tomorrow since my parents and grandma are going to the temple in Stockton. I was a bit annoyed earlier, working today, since I felt like I had very little time for my courses, but I suppose dropping/auditing photography will clear it up very soon.

I had this very very brief thought wondering what it would be like to talk to Richard, or be friends with him. Did he ever sleuth me out the way I did, four years ago? Is he paranoid I'm still in town? I have to imagine not. He seemed just as indifferent to the customer in front of me.

The downside of atrophied social skills -- you consult-interpret-scry your remaining connections, current or old or whatever you can remember, as intensely as diviners consult their tarot cards.

But I'm not young enough anymore to make ado about missed connections. I've got a transfer to look forward to and a final quarter to knock out!

Well, one thing at a time.

End of April: Wait to make sure I got all admissions info from the UCs.

Next week: Drop Experimental Photography, request to audit the course instead for darkroom access.

Tomorrow: Prep instructions for dictation service/program on Aunt Kun's ThinkPad laptop. (Why I never had the foresight to get her a Chromebook instead of a full-fat Windows laptop still eludes me. (Actually, I was 12 or 13 when I recommended her one. So, there you go.) Thinking of installing Chrome OS Flex on her device, dual-booting if possible.)

Left thumb middle joint still bony. Left thumb upper joint a little bit more swollen, still. Right thumb also seems more bony. Not sure why I'm still putting off this doctor's appointment. Maybe I don't want to believe this could get worse even though it literally counts as such.

Aunt Kun and co. called three times to get caught up with me and school. She and Uncle Mike and Aunt Lang are coming just before 12 tomorrow. It turns out Aunt Kun is actually drafting a book about her experiences as an immigrant, specifically from the Khmer Rouge to Thailand and to America, together with her and my dad's family.

No laptop to watch The Golden Girls or a sitcom so no lunch. When I got home I made some iced peppermint lemon tea (a more odd combo than I thought would turn out) and had a cheese/cherry pastry and a Babybel but that was really it until dinner, where we had some smoked ham and some veggie chicken soup. My head was still spinning with the experimental photography shopping list -- I did get some confirmation and clarification on the list of supplies near the end of class from Prof. Teng -- and I did get some work done, like the Humanities 1 reflection and the Chapter 1 review for Developmental Psych., but generally I felt very stressed and tired from driving 4 times this week. I have driven to campus 4 times a week before, but that was last summer for a single course. Currently I am taking 4 courses. So, it's a bit different.

It was very ironic that in prepping all my supplies I completely forgot to bring actual things to do the cyanotype. So I made do with the flowers and leaves from the nearby bushes.

Woke up early, around 7:35. Got ready, AeroPressed the cold brew I had made last night into some leftover ice in my water bottle. Out of the door around 8:35. Traffic was a bit meh but I made it. Took my prep board (a cardboard box I unfolded) and some watercolor paper and some foam brushes in case we did cyanotypes. We did actually do cyanotypes today but we used the premade sheets. Prof. Teng also demonstrated magazine lifts, which were much less involved than I thought. Had a little bit of a hard time with my contact frame, it disassembled right as I was going to place it on the ground. Didn't see Jamie until much later, outside through the bright doorframe of the classroom -- he was doing cyanotypes too. Felt like I should talk to him but couldn't muster up anything. Checked my print, it came out okay, and I washed it under water to get the development process moving; with a bit more time left, I made another cyanotype.

Fourth day driving back and forth to campus :') Can't tell if I'm shit at time management or just weak. Thinking of auditing this fourth experimental photography course which means I don't have to revise my UC apps and can just stop by when I want.

Work was a little warm, on account of lingering warmer weather from before, but I still had my jacket on just in case. It was alright. Got home around 8:13 or 8:14 and had some dinner. Grandma made eggplant and pork stirfry, and there was still some stuffed bittermelon soup from last night, which I had over an episode of The Golden Girls (Dorothy flunking a student, Rose confronting her dentist). The rest of the night after was preparing for tomorrow, getting my supplies in order, and prepping some cold brew for tomorrow.

At home I had a small bowl of the leftover bean stew (it was fine, but I'm starting to wonder if my Instant Pot cooks out all the flavor under pressure) with a dollop of plain yogurt and some lemon. A little later after that I had some coffee. Mom called dad a bit later, I would have to swing by work around 5:30. Needless to say that put a damper on my developmental psychology homework, not to mention the ongoing anxieties about art supplies for experimental photography, but I did finish reading the chapter.

After Humanities class I grabbed a dry cup ramen (you never know when you need salt) and headed out. No eating on campus, no can do; their food is pretty filling, which is why those once-a-week dining hall visits worked so well. The drive home was alright, with minimal traffic, and my braking is a bit better, but I do need to "relearn" my regular foot weight. Before arriving home I actually took exit 9A and swung by Michaels to get some supplies for experimental photography course; I got a pad of watercolor paper and some foam brushes, and decided I would just ask Prof. Teng properly what I could sub, what I could avoid, what I absolutely need to buy tomorrow after class during dedicated office hours. I had a worrisome left turn on the way back, but I made it back home safe and sound.

Snack corner, Social Sciences Village, L73. Very very quiet inside -- there were only two other people max, I think, and they came quite late.

Finally signed the sheet and I was out of the door in a flash. Walked over to L73 for the "Social Sciences Village" which was a kind of repurposed classroom for people to unwind indoors. I had been here before for a Psychology Club meeting -- what even happened to their meets? -- but did not notice the snacks on the side of the room. Plugged in my laptop and signed into Canvas and attended Prof. Sal Breiter's Humanities 1 course. No headphones, but I made do with a lower volume, and even asked him a question about the assignment. Cutting to the chase: His assignments want us to enter a "journal mode", not really an assignment mode. God, I would have adored this course when I was in 9th or 10th grade. Group discussions in the breakout rooms went surprisingly well, even if they were very short, and we talked about two variations of the myth of Icarus. I packed Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being in case we talked about the book, but no dice (yet). (I did send my files from my iMac to my Pixelbook, by the way, using the Crucial SSD.)

What happened today?

Woke up late -- 7:15. Got ready lickity-split and out the door. Asked Uncle Udam to move his car so I could go out. Drive to campus was bright and sunny though with a bit of traffic on the merge to 237. Arrived on campus early, with maybe 14 or 15 minutes to spare. Went over to Government course, Forum room 4, 12 seats x 10 rows -- 120 seats. Took notes by hand this time, to see if I've still got it. Prof. Druehl discussed the role of the press with regards to government. I've still got it, though my right upper thumb joint did feel a bit stiff a few times in lecture during writing. Waited in line, after class was over, to fill out the sign-in sheet for attendance, as apparently the sheet went missing on Monday earlier this week.

To-do ... send files from iMac to Pixelbook. Flash drive or Google Drive.

Experimental photography class today. Syllabus. Supply list looks a bit complex and we're doing cyanotypes tomorrow.

Jesus I am tired. Thinking of dropping the class and auditing the Photography 2 course (same classroom) for darkroom access, maybe drop by for a couple demos but that's it. I feel way in over my head.

Woke up early at 7:00. Drove to campus at 7:45. A bit of traffic. Wandered around to Gov. class, in the forum. Deep and big place, reminded me of my high school theater. Prof. is somewhat coarse but does seem to be quite moderate. Chatted a little bit with a couple classmates. One of them -- Isaac. Or Isaiah. Class wrapped up around 10:20.

Off to the ATC for Humanities class. And Prof. for this course is much much more coarse. But also more understanding and clear about what he expects out of us and the course. Does not believe in grade inflation and frankly I don't either. The nature of his class seems to require a fundamentally different grading scheme than what's currently available. He might have heard of narrative evaluations before. Incidentally I get the feeling he was a hippie in his own college years, Gen X. (My Gov. Prof. is a Baby Boomer.) So far it is quite interesting to see that these two courses almost complement each other.

Had some beef spaghetti pasta from the dining hall for lunch, over an episode of The Golden Girls. But it was cut short since my laptop ran out of power. Isn't that a kick in the head? I watched a little on my phone but ran into a network issue.

The drive to and from campus was brisk, but I did not really feel well having such a lead foot on the pedal of my car, and I do not think I am driving as efficiently as I used to earlier this year or before.

When I got back home I was so exhausted I nearly fell asleep at my desk, and then decided to try and rest my eyes in my bedroom. Well, one thing led to another, I pulled the covers up, and promptly fell into an overheated fever nap for an hour and 45 minutes. I have to say my mood in that dream was quite something. I felt very coupled to my emotions in the dream, which is altogether not something I have experienced in my waking life for some time.

The rest of the day peters out from there. I took my grandma to Marina, fresh from a nap, my mind quiet like a lake as I set my energy into driving. My grandma had grilled some chicken and squid and squid outside for dinner. I read a bit of my psychology book, another class of which is immediately more approachable, and took some notes. Late night, but not too late, as I still have to wake up earlier tomorrow, I read a few chapters of this Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction where "Team Avatar" would take on the role of the seemingly missing Avatar.

Sometime during spring cleaning yesterday or the day before I misplaced my Pixelbook Pen. I have an uneasy feeling I accidentally threw it away which is disappointing but not as much as I thought. The tablet and stylus experience on Chrome OS still leaves much to be desired, and Google deprecated the circle-for-Assistant function over a year ago. In the time of OCR and camera phone scanning and AI I think it's better for me to just take notes on paper.

Slower day today. Dad was cleaning the ice cream machine at work so I took my brother out to get some pho for breakfast. He had a bowl of beef pho and I had some bun bo hue, though I think they added more chili oil this time as it seemed a little spicier than normal. But it was really quite delicious. He went to Goodwill and I waited in the car and swung by the nearby Caffino Cup hole in the wall for some iced Vietnamese coffee (very very good), while my brother got a chocolate frappe / slushie. We headed back home, then at 1, I dropped him off at work, and swung by the library to check out some books. The rest of the day gets kind of goopy after that ... I did get replies from my professors about bringing my brother along, but I miscalculated his Spring break, as it was actually next week and not this week. Ay yai yai. But I think it will be fine, if he shows up for the third or fourth day of courses and not the first or second day. Didn't add to the slipbox, though I did follow up with Yung, and I also finally finally vacuumed and cleaned out my desk cabinet. A real trip down memory lane! Been using sunscreen on my hands these past couple of days ... cue obligatory sunscreen smears on my steering wheel but from the way my skin looks I'd say it's worth it. I also found $55 worth of Starbucks gift cards and potentially $200 in regular Visa Vanilla cards in my drawer -- very nice. Have to wake up early, around 7:00, tomorrow since my American politics class starts at 8:30. Weather was a little chilly today but the sunlight is gaining more "density", it is becoming brighter.

Out and about today. Woke up early around 8:30 but my brother and grandma used the bathroom this morning so I lamped in bed for another 45 minutes. Had some leftover bean stew, thickened it with a couple spoonfuls of oatmeal and a bit of Parmesan. It was alright but I definitely definitely made more than I can eat in a week, maybe even 2 weeks. Will try freezing some tomorrow. Drove mom to grocery store and then work since her 12 volt battery on her car died. Got back home. Had some coffee and a couple madelines and a couple steamed squash wrapped desserts. Younger brother pestered me about going to Goodwill for three, four hours. Seriously irritating since I had wanted to try to get some work done in the notebox, not to mention plan for UC Santa Cruz (or elsewhere, but it's most likely UCSC). Went to go have a haircut around 4:30. Very fast, maybe 23 or so minutes. Then came back home and took him across town to Goodwill around 5:45. And what do you know? Nothing. Frankly I should've got something from there just to make the trip worthwhile but nothing caught my eye either. There was a blue thin sweater but it was a bit too large, so I passed. Went back home. Weather's been warming up nicely these last couple of weeks. Grandma is going out to her friend's house and sleeping over.

Driving, driving, driving.

Typing this on the computer to get this out extra fast. Woke up very early, tried to get back to sleep, woke up around 8:45 and lamped in bed a little bit. Had a turkey lettuce mayo sandwich for breakfast, but the toaster seemed to be having a hard time today, and I also added a couple slices of turkey bacon (didn't get quite as crispy as I thought, so I'll try to take it a bit further tomorrow). Went to work around 2:15, until 8. VERY VERY COLD TODAY. Main highlight: I'm admitted into UC Santa Cruz! I'm waiting on the other UCs since I hear off-campus housing is rough (UC Davis also has a cognitive science major with slightly more strenuous units but their off-campus housing seems cheaper).

Home today. Woke up very late around 10:15, but generally felt awake most of the day which was probably a win. Made some white bean stew but subbed out quite a bit of the ingredients -- turned more into a 3 bean cabbage stew. Still good but definitely different. Didn't use the feta cheese ... thinking of using it for a pasta dish next week once I'm finished with the leftovers. Coffee tasted a bit more bitter than usual which was very strange because I actually turned the dial to be coarser. The rest of the day gets goopier after that ... felt a little frustrated for 10, 11 minutes, then checked my Winter quarter grades -- ALL A's!!! Yes, I got an A in that bludgeon of a history course! Checked out some more about the Framework Laptop but didn't work on the slipbox much. Juicer, sunscreen, and dashcam arrived today; and, at the desk, I cleared out the cabinet (though the our vacuum still has to dry, so I have to do the second part of cleaning tomorrow). Had some savory and sour watercress fish soup and shrimp for dinner. (Now I realize that's what I was missing in my stew -- lemon!) Talked to Dave a little later, they upgraded to a Pixel 7a but I get the feeling we're out of rhythm. They always seem to be on the verge of infodumping, while I'm trying to go at an even pace. It's kind of odd that characteristics that initially attracted me to them is now more irritating.

To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.

— Anne Carson, Red Doc>

I am learning to imagine the future.

— headspace-hotel

Home today. Had a turkey lettuce mayo capers sandwich for breakfast. Brother came home early because of a bad stomachache and we later went to get some groceries from Smart and Final. He got pesto and kombucha. I got some turkey bacon and a bit of feta and more tomato paste for a bean stew I want to make tomorrow. Worked on the cogsci slipbox later, and talked to Dave a bit. Baked marinated pork and a radish and a cucumber and some cabbage egg stirfry for dinner.

Woke up earlier today, around 8:35 but lamped in bed for a bit longer. Was about to have another turkey lettuce mayo sandwich for breakfast but I had some leftover fried rice my mom made yesterday. Went to work around 2:05, swung by home around 4:15 to get some brownies and buy some milk from Smart and Final, and then went to work to the shop again. Quite busy today. Voice seems less strained today. Got home around 8:05. Had dinner pretty late around 9:15, felt kind of meh about eating so late but whatever. Checked on Twitter, replied to some Discord messages in the public RotMG server about my Open Sight and Appendix A/B/C. Right hand joints feel a little stiffer and meh today.

I'm not sure why I'm still here, and on Twitter. (Actually, I do ⁠— it's habits.) Rapidly this week I feel I should hang my words on the line this week, maybe to dry them or maybe to rest them. It is so bad I cannot even think about adding to my slipbox, which is a big red flag.

Though on the other hand I feel a craving to do something physical. I'm due for a haircut soon. Maybe some self-portraits are in order. But I'm not counting on that.

I've finished Clods, but I don't quite feel it's ready yet. I suspect I will have to make a final draft from this one. Jean could use more fire.

Woke up early enough today, 8:55. Stayed in bed a little longer. That Olympus E-P1 sold sometimes last night, so there goes that deal. Spent most of the day shopping for a similarly good deal on a different albeit related model, the E-PL1, and later in the evening running around eBay collecting items for DSLR film scanning (copy stand, enlarger lens, M39 to M42 stepup adapter, bellows, film holder) but didn't buy anything. The anticipation for transfer -- if I transfer -- is intense enough to remodel everything I do now in orientation for it, which is probably a good thing. Around 2:45 I took my brother to his dentist appointment (he has a small cavity apparently) and paid and after that we went to the nearby Korean tofu house for a late lunch. We ordered the beef tofu soup and a veggie seafood pancake, both of which were delicious. He's having a hard time with his math class, I gave him some advice on how to try to recover the grade to a C. Drove back home and less than 15 minutes home my grandma wanted to go to Marina Grocery to pick up some chicken (the tofu house was in the area) and so we went. I later didn't have much dinner on account of eating earlier ... some sour chicken soup and some fried fish pieces.

Woke up early today but we didn't go out this morning since we had leftover curry last night. Had some curry and rice vermicelli and some shredded veggies for breakfast, and then for dinner. Spent the bulk of the day researching cameras, namely the digital Olympus Pen. ($120 for an E-P1, 14-42mm, and 3 Canon adapters? Rest my soul, that Framework Laptop I want to also save up for must be a damn killer. Still not sure why I want it so badly. Maybe I want to put my FD 28mm on active use?) Also downloaded some course content from my Spanish and Photography classes... need to finish Photography course and History course downloads tomorrow.

Writing this on the computer again. Slow day today, very overcast, a little bit of rain. Woke up early around 8:03 but a couple people were in the bathroom so I lamped in bed for a half hour while I waited. Had a microwaved burrito for breakfast. Coffee at 12:40 or so. Didn't do much work -- mostly had this empty, nagging feeling (possibly frustration) that I should be doing something but I have no idea what. Could be intersession anxieties, but that doesn't make much sense because my grades for photography and Spanish are perfectly fine (A's for both). Didn't watch any television today. Finishing Legend of Korra felt very "rich" almost like a full meal. Instead I reorganized some tabs in OneTab, got back to late December 2023 in my OneTab. And did a little bit of reorganizing on my Pixelbook. Researched the compact micro four-thirds camera Olympus Pen EP-1 for a bit -- it's a dirt cheap compact interchangeable lens camera and M43 has a small enough sensor size it can adapt itty-bitty tiny 110 film lenses, which are just adorable. (Double-edge of the M43 sensors -- crop factor is 2x. Not 1.5x, not 1.6x, 2x. There do seem to be some good native/autofocusing wide-angles, though it'll really punch out some adapted vintage lenses into (super)telephoto equivalents. Really if I'm eyeing up $150 on a new camera I might as well put it into an RF 50mm f/1.8 for my RP with autofocus and the control ring.) Had this craving to take photos generally but what to take of, at home? Did some shopping later tonight, because my mom wanted to buy a juicer, and I pounced on the chance to bundle a couple other items I've been eyeing, like a dashcam and some lighter sunscreen.

Update: Imported it back onto Chromebook, the dates have all been reset to today but honestly I feel like that'll make it easier to actually process. Very nice.

Just exported my Pixelbook's OneTab page :') Totally blank and the recovery utility seems to have overwritten the original plugin. Seems it's working now, but phew, end of an era.

Home today. Gray and rainy today. Made final edits to my history essay throughout the day, between episodes of Season 4 of Legend of Korra. Finished the entire season and series today actually. The gravitas difference between S1 and S4 is bonkers. And wow Kuvira really went full ... uh, Stalin. Turned in the history final around 6 and felt this very unsettling feeling that I still had work to do which makes no sense because I'm literally done with everything. It could be bad sleep and rainy weather though... even coffee has its limits.

1 already. Are you effing kidding me? :-)

Today, March 28th 2024. I don't know, man. Woke up late, 9:20, with a little headache and some sniffles. I got home so late, it was 12:45 when I got to sleep (though the midnight driving was so so quiet, it was absolutely stress-free). Drove to campus to drop off my Reading the American Past textbook, grabbed a burger and fries because of course I had to, I was really craving one yesterday. MADE COFFEE! I didn't make any coffee yesterday meet and I was feeling quite tired around 10:30 which is crazy. The last time I got tired around 10:00 was when I skipped coffee/tea/anything coffee after a years-long streak for sure, I wrote it back here in Stream. Had my burger and fries and coffee over a couple episodes of Legend of Korra Season 3, episodes 11 and 12. Got back home, traffic was also fine, and unwound (though didn't study much Spanish, which in retrospect could've net me another 3 or 4 points easy) until my Spanish final around 4:00. My Spanish class grading is actually very decentralized so my minimum score of 67/82 is fine (and I get 8 points on top of that). Decided to skip MyLab since the cumulative boost was negligible 0.82% on a high B+, I was like, alright. Profe. Alcazar — a WONDERFUL two quarters! I only did worse here because I slacked off the beginning of the quarter. (Also I felt miserable, then, for whatever reason.) Had some fish dip with plenty of veggies and some soup for dinner, and an apple and a small guava for dessert. Very good. Replied to Amix about a little cognitive science thing. Can't wait to pivot back into it this weekend and catch up on reading.

Me: Quiet, homebody, yearning for transfer. YEARNING! The conversation turned to UC Santa Cruz a couple times, I made a few jokes. When we talked about UC food, they started talking about mushrooms and berries — I threw out baked banana slugs (I could never, though). "I heard it's basically slop," I said, "Well not slop. I think they're overexaggerating. But it's definitely below average". Mentioned Dave. Gave kind of undefined answers to certain things, simply because I haven't gotten those experiences. Talked about my "post-high school purgatory" still being here in hometown after 3 years, they all said that was fine. And cheaper, absolutely cheaper for sure, especially since I changed my major. Daphne joked she would've gone a little insane being here, I laughed a bit, said I was a little insane already. Julie is very looking forward to my social life after transfer which is like ... I would have to reboot my atrophied social skills first, but I'm lowkey super looking forward to it too. The hard part about making friends at De Anza — and I have 0, zilch — is that it's so TRANSIENT. No one lives here, there are no dorms, everyone commutes. I'm genuinely shocked people even talk to each other post-COVID, let alone me, but that could just be my own insecurities. UCSC, even though I'm staying there for "only" 2 years, feels much more permanent. And DORMS! I'm meeting people on my floor whether I want to or not. And if I have a camera you bet I'm going to be out there tripping taking photos of the redwoods and the beach. Well, I'd need sunscreen too. What else, what else ... I think that's mostly it. Anticipating UCSC, mostly. Which I suppose was the main theme this year, but they really picked up on it this time.

Daphne: Funny, casual, bright. Still with Alex. They're both doing fine. Alex apparently has a ton of hobbies (though he always had a lot of hobbies), head of UC Davis dragonboat racing, and still has the time to play video games each night which is bonkers. Alex actually seems to be balling with his work life. His chemistry major is fine but he could definitely strengthen and pull his network connections. Daphne on the other hand loves UI/UX work, took a dedicated class for it and knew she wanted to go into it, but the job market is seriously fucked which made me feel a little sad too. She also still does dragonboat, gyms a bit.

Ethan: Quiet, god, quiet. Pithy and intelligent and almost cuddly (though that was probably because of my proximity to him on the couch, while I was tired, with my legs in and squishing a couch pillow; he wasn't cuddly, I was). No idea what he's doing at UCLA other than puzzling. Hilarious joke I remember — his puzzling team is 90% straight guys and 10% trans girls. Diversity win? Not much info about his social life, or even his potential work life. I think he's a math major.

Aaron: Still with Emily (23), did pair... something with her. Multi-pitch climbing. Bounced off Julie a LOT about rock climbing. Made quick plans for a trip to Bishop (????) with her. Wrapping up his college life, he's graduating next year and on the prowl for a SWE job. I think he'll do fine but if he moves out of California it'll break my heart, just a little. Little Aaron's all grown up now. (He's actually taller than me. Like, 4 or 5 inches easily.) He actually didn't talk all that much about his current social relationships, though I'm sure he's fine. When we got to romance discussion he said his type was really negligibly close to Emily. Said he admired Emily's craftiness -- she knows a lot of little things to do with her hands, like crochet and even car repair.

Julie: Still living her best life. Trying to re-evaluate her desire for romance since she's so active in her education and her future career. Seriously navigating white spaces and granola people. Loves loves rock climbing. Very socially, mentally, and physically active. Still judgmental, and I actually told her that, but she seemed more curious than counter-judging me, so a win for transparency? Got her palm read by a UCLA professor which validated her own feelings about her life. Regularly cooks. Not a fan of "OC viets" (????) (( ohhhhhh maybe orange county )). Near the end she started pulling some walls down. I think she's over her ex but she does recognize just how awful he was and how he nearly fucked her up permanently. Need to ask her about it, in the future, just because it seems so significant but I literally don't know his name. (Common motif in Julie's stories — she doesn't say explicit names, nor characterizes them much until it's absolutely integral to the plot.)

What can I say about the discussion? My god, it went on for hours. We were supposed to end at 9:00 but got so so caught up into it that by the time I left, and I was the first one, it had gone onto 12:30. But it was crazy how fast it flew by. It didn't feel like 9 hours, it felt like 6 or 7. Tons of rock climbing. Tons of social stuff, talking about people we knew in high school and middle school and even elementary school by the end of the night. Talked about romance, briefly. I admitted I e-dated Dave from October 2020 to mid-2022, and Ethan was surprised, which I definitely LOLed inside at (he was the one who gave me Dave's Discord handle). Talked a little bit about UC food and dorm life ... UCLA still has great food and 4-year housing but apparently their very good food has actually been on the decline for some time.

Around 5:45 or 6 was a quick happy hour with Julie and Aaron having some of a strawberry rose wine. I think Daphne had a little bit, but she had to drive, so maybe not. I had a sip. It was fine. Tasted a bit like a strawberry juice, but with a very ethanol-like aftertaste, with the immediate familiarity being that of cough medicine. I think I'm so used to drinking coffee I just dissect beverages automatically. It turns out that this was actually a very sweet wine. Very very sweet. Aaron's first impression was that he couldn't taste the alcohol. I think what got me the most was how casual it was, and of course Julie and Aaron were 21, but they drank with a casualness that had clearly told me they had drank well and gotten sloshed before. They also had some soju and Yakult, and this other sweet blue milk drink, though I forget the name of it. Ethan did not have any. Ethan in general was very very quiet which I had expected, but well, alright. Julie remained talkative, bouncing off Aaron often about college life and rock climbing, and Daphne interjected too about college life. I was quieter than I thought — most of my verbal thinking out loud is topical and not really social I suppose. Around 7:45 we moved into Julie's living room and continued to talk.

I got back to town around 2:00 but still needed to get some onions, beef, and extra tomato from Smart and Final so that took another 20 or so minutes. I checked the time 2:35 or so in the middle of chopping half an onion, told my friends I would be arriving late since I had to cook. Julie said she was actually making some stuff at home and said I could make it there, and so I packed up and drove to her house. I arrived at 3:10 with my backpack and an extra bag, my camera, and my Instant Pot. I said hello, how are you, great big smile — that middle part is new. Aaron and Daphne were already there, though Ethan was either running late or MIA. (It would turn out he was just running late.) I was quiet and very awkward the first hour or so because a.) I had no idea where everything was in the kitchen and felt dumb AF asking Julie more than 4 questions about her place, though I'm sure she would've been more than happy answering more, and b.) I couldn't remember much about how my mom makes her very very good pasta sauce. As it turns out you just have to make a solid base of ground beef and spruce up the jarred stuff (I had always used jarred for these "friend pastas" but never quite understood it until I was forced to do it all myself). Season the beef, well. Black pepper, Italian seasoning, salt add more of them you think you need. Add a splash of water to hydrate the beef, keep stirring so it doesn't burn. Add the pasta sauce, add more seasoning, add more water to thin in out, simmer simmer simmer, add a little beef boullion. My sauce became quite thick as it cooled, and some of the beef pieces stayed whole larger than I thought, rather than totally dissolving into a smoother sauce, but it tasted delicious and did not look undercooked at all. No pink spots, just rich red deliciousness. Pasta was 4 minutes, high pressure in the Instant Pot, I released, pasta in the sink and sauce simmering for while as we waited for the roasted vegetables to roast and soften. Ethan arrived around 3:30. Around 4:30 when all the food was done we all dug in. There was the pasta, some coconut milk chicken curry, and the roasted vegetables. They all loved the pasta — it's my specialty now, apparently — and I did too, though I was a bit surprised that it tasted a little sweet (could just be from the tomato, not really any added sugar).

Typing this on the computer again because I need to catch up fast.

March 27th 2024, Wednesday. Woke up somewhat late, got ready, packed up (no headphones, no coffee, no camera, just portfolio and laptop) and headed out to campus around 10:30. The photography final exam, a final critique of each others photos, was a whole hour earlier due to finals scheduling, and ran from 11:30 to 1:30. I presented very late, but I think I did quite well, and I did not get much critique at all about the composition, and mostly compliments about the (familiarity of the) subjects, though I did critique myself that my composition was left-leaning a bit. I did get a comment about the bright, totally white sky on my photo of my house, but I reasoned with Prof. Teng that we thought it looked better, almost like it was extracted from memory and not really a truthful representation.

Home today. Woke up earlier around 8:30 or so but lamped in bed for a half hour again. Got up, got ready, had half a sandwich for breakfast. Spent most of the day alternating between writing my history final essay (yes! I got the rough draft done!) and watching S3 of Legend of Korra, the season with the Red Lotus. Around 12 to 1 I was outside walking, to try and get myself a break, and to do a little photowalk with my FD 28mm. Suffice to say I think I do prefer 50mm primes. Subject clarity is much easier on them, and something about the way the subject fills the frame on 28mm seems almost familiar to me. Which makes sense since my phone camera is quite wide also, and I know that "wide look". What was interesting to me shooting with the 28mm was how much of the scene it took in. I would frame my subject thinking I would capture 80% of my own vision out to the peripheral edges, but it actually captures more like 100%, (maybe 115%, depending on the subject, and my glasses of course). It makes everything look like a landscape photograph, even in the vertical portrait orientation. That was both very cool and very challenging since I kind of struggled to fill the frame. I either felt like I had too little subjects / objects / background, or too much.

I don't think staying inside is doing any help for my learning. I'm going for a photowalk tomorrow.

What a damn mess today. March 25th 2024. Woke up early but stayed in bed late again. Had a turkey lettuce sandwich -- we had mayo. Binged Legend of Korra and didn't feel any drive whatsoever to do any work, other than a few MyLab exercises for Spanish. Bounced between Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube. Didn't work on Clods, no edits, nothing. Even coffee didn't help. Slight headache around 3:30 which definitely put any thoughts of work to the side. Made a banh mi sandwich with the leftover pork meat and pickles, had a couple tangerines for late lunch. Grabbed my laptop and tried to work on my history final in my bedroom just to change the scenery but I napped from 6:15 to 7:00 instead. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. So now it is 12:08 as of this writing, I only got enough mental sharpness back around 11:15, and I did start to work on the second paragraph, but I am still very frustrated that of all the times -- fucking finals week -- my brain tries to hit me with a fast one. I don't know why days like these happen in the first place when I had enough sleep, and coffee, and felt fine. But I did very very little. Tomorrow is more promising.

We headed back home. I took plenty of photos of breakfast and made a latte on the AeroPress -- a shot of the regular concentrate, topped all the way up with milk, and into the microwave it goes. It's not as glamorous as a "proper" latte hot off the espresso machine but it tastes exactly like it. Actually it tasted a little better since the milk and coffee ratios made for a very creamy morning brew. (I almost missed the bitterness!) Had some work from 1 to 7. Read a little bit of Pale Fire. Weather was a little overcast and quite windy. Prof. Cini finally finished grading our essays -- I got a 92/100(!). Left middle joint a little bony... a bit worried at the quickness of this boniness because true bone spurs take years to form, not weeks.

Parents weren't feeling too well so I just took me and my brother to Paris Baguette. The suggestions to go to PB was very surprising since I thought he had wanted to get some pho. So we swung by and we got some croissants, a couple potato twists, a couple sandwiches, and then my brother wanted to go to Goodwill. Well, alright.

Absolutely delicious.

Home today. Woke up earlier than usual, 8:15 or so, and lamped in bed for a half hour. Got up and ready and had a turkey and tomato bagel for breakfast. Had a breakfast burrito and some leftover spicy rice noodle and made some coffee on the AeroPress for lunch. Crunched some MyLab Spanish assignments today, worked a little on my history final outline. Watched more of The Legend of Korra, mainly the Avatar Wan bit. Love seeing traditional bending again... pro-bending is cool but doesn't seem as expressive to me. Took a little nap around 6:15 to 6:45, woke up a little groggy, possibly on account of sleeping somewhat facedown. Had some homemade banh mi for dinner -- yum yum.

Slow day today. Woke up early and got ready early enough. Crunched a lot of Spanish homework, finished the Legend of Korra S1, and watched 4 episodes of S2. Took my brother out to Sunright Tea today for some milk tea. FD 28mm f/2.8 breech lock lens finally arrived today after six days in customs, shipped from Japan overseas. Lighter and more compact than I thought it would be, but the optical quality on a couple test shots looks totally fine. And it's a little easier to get onto the adapter than the other nFD lens.

Fuckin' finally! This bugger took 6 days in customs.

A mess of a day today. Woke up early but lamped in bed late enough that my grandma went into the bathroom. Got ready a bit late. Had a turkey lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Had work from 11:30 to 3:15, got kind of fatigued near the end. Drove home in a rush, frustrated, I sped a bit -- no good! Arrived home, still a bit beat, and then made coffee and ate a few dumplings that my Uncle Bora seemed to have bought earlier. But even food and coffee was not enough because I was so frazzled and busy trying to finish my U.S. History homework and my MyLab homework that the next time I really checked the time it was already 6:38 and I completely, completely missed my very last Spanish class. And that I find is very bittersweet. If I had known Tuesday was my last Spanish class I would've sent off a better greeting. In any event, I did finish my history homework and finished 16 MyLab assignments so I should be finished with all this work by the quarter is over. Watched three or four episodes of The Legend of Korra today.

A brilliant and busy day today. Woke up early but lamped in bed for 24, 25 minutes. Skipped breakfast. Did a little bit of Spanish homework while waiting for 11:30. Made coffee around 11:10, still with the Brown roasters coffee, 21/350. Brought my Tele 6. Drove to campus. A bit of traffic 3/4ths in, and some wad almost completely blocked me off from merging into Stevens Creek Blvd when I had clearly set my turn signals right for over 10 seconds. I got so frustrated I braked 15 MPH below speed just to have that person pass, and I made it in. Helped set up the developing line a few minutes before class and we were off. I made my final enlarged print, 25 magenta for 6 seconds on f/8 of my negative of my house, and I thought I would have to burn in the sky but it melted into a brilliant white glow that Prof. Teng thought was actually quite nice. While waiting in line for feedback from Prof. Teng the guy behind me commented on me doxxing my address, and I talked a bit with him. He also showed me his picture, an open alleyway with plenty of lines and ladders, which was really quite nice. Made another enlargement, this one of my fragmented shot of the fountain through my door, and skipped feedback and relied on my own judgement. I think this one turned out alright, though my focus was really falling apart by this point for whatever reason -- I took out my test strip 30 seconds early (indistinguishable, as I would later find) and forgot to reset the magenta filter on the enlarger back to 0, but again, it seemed to have worked out. I washed and dried some prints, scampered back and forth between the darkroom and the classroom and the developing area, but eventually around 2:35 I handed in my envelope of my 3 enlarged prints and headed out. Incidentally I had some envelopes to spare so I gave a couple classmates in need them -- one was the guy earlier -- forgot to mention he was the cute one who also forgot the prints those 4 or 5 weeks ago -- and a young woman though I didn't really get her name this quarter. Headed out, took a couple photos on the way to the dining hall in the bright sun, got a burger and fries, headed back out and dug in over an episode of The Golden Girls. Walked around campus a little more, took 4 or 5 extra photos. Half-frame feels like it lasts forever! Headed back home, did a little more Spanish homework but didn't do any history homework. Left thumb middle joint (not base) seems to be getting more bony, just like my right thumb middle joint had become back in August or September. A bit worrisome as my left hand and joints had been totally normal up until February this year.

Home today. Woke up early around 8:55, stayed in bed for ten minutes or so. Had a turkey lettuce sandwich for breakfast, no mayo but still good. Spent most of morning and noon hella crunching my Spanish MyLab assignments -- yes, I used a schedule! I must've done 27 or 28 today. What a muck! But well worth it. Did another quarter or third or so of history homework later the day. Didn't get moving much which is kind of a mistake in retrospect. Had some leftover oxtail soup for lunch and dinner. Twitter isn't letting me log back in on desktop for whatever reason. Didn't work too much on Clods since I was crunching so much but you betcha they were on my mind.

Sunny and warmer today. Woke up early, around 8:55 but lamped in bed until 9:20. Someone took our shampoo from the bathroom this morning. Had a microwaved burrito for breakfast, grazed on The Golden Girls throughout the day. Worked on some history homework, not much Spanish homework. Had work around 4, got back home around 8:30. Mom made oxtail soup!

New theme!

A bit of a mess today. Woke up early around 8:15, stayed in bed for a while, got ready, finished around 9:00, was up and about because we were going out. Mom and dad were still asleep. Used the computer a bit -- turns out Dad was coughing all night and was pretty sick, so my mom sent me out instead. I swung by Noah's Bagels (nova lox, plain + 2 blueberries with cream cheese, 1 with the CC on the side, farmhouse bacon/ham/egg/CC sandwich on an onion bagel), then went to Staples to get some more index cards and some flat manila envelopes -- they were short staffed and the cashier took 4 or 5 minutes to arrive, but I kept my irritation in, thank goodness my politeness is baked in -- and walked inside Safeway into the Starbucks and got a large vanilla latte for mom (extra shot, 2 pumps vanilla). Spent a little under an hour out, with what everything, and arrived home around 11:02. Had my bagel and some coffee (I made coffee for Dad on the AeroPress also) over an episode of The Golden Girls, "We Have No Havanas". No work today. I tried allocating it for Spanish and History, and I did watch 4/5ths of the videos and even took notes, but my focus was all over the place. It was like my work was smeared from History to Clods to Spanish and back to History, and it was so time-consuming I just couldn't stand it. It felt like I was leaving myself out in the cold to smolder. And all the while, the day was so bright and sunny and fresh outside. I wish I had done out on a walk, maybe a photowalk on my RP or even my Tele 6 -- I haven't used that half frame camera in ages, I've still had the black and white Fomapan in it -- I know I felt a lot better after dinner (sour dried/smoked fish and shrimp herb soup and some marinated fried fish).

Also I saw some Robots and Lace art which seriously fucked me up. In a good way. But it fucked me up.

Oy, can you believe it? I'm up after 12 again. March 16th 2024. Finished Spanish Canvas homework but did not do MyLab homework or any history studying at all. Parents went to Costco today, got a whole haul. Most of the day was working on Clods, 8,400 words now, I think I'm about to complete it in a week or so. I have finished the disastrous Federation meet, and exploded the conflict between Zephyr and Jean, and so everything from here should be falling action. The more mature / dubious things will have to be delegated to the derivative work, as was the case with Ladon and Orange and "pick the worms off me". My initial plans were highly ambitious ... lots of clandestine manipulation from Zephyr, lots of captor/captive stuff. Now I'm just leaning into the comedy-drama bit and focusing on fleshing out the characters.

March 15th 2024. Woke up earlier today. Final bit of leftover pasta puttanesca for breakfast. Did some Spanish homework. Made some coffee on the AeroPress around 1:30, accidentally ground coarse at 5.1 and tried to agitate more to compensate, turned out a little weak and beefy at the same time... a fine cup, just with an odd strength. Watched The Golden Girls while on the elliptical for 15, 16 minutes -- I'm sick of sitting around, hard as it is to say or believe when you look at me whiling hours away on the computer. Picked up my brother from the Warn Springs BART around 3:30, it was a little busy but not anything crazy, a 10 or 11 minute drive or so. Drove back home, accidentally found myself in a right turning lane, headed down to I-880 but Google Maps got us back on the path home. In fact it went a little quicker since we were on the freeway. Dropped him off and then I went to go work. Work was fine, but the weather was quite warm, and we were quite busy, so I got very tired by 6:50. Had some veggie chicken soup and a fish cake and a couple of pickled cucumbers for dinner. Yum. Unwound the rest of the night trying to cut down on my photography tab groups in OneTab.

On the computer again. Home today. Woke up early enough, morning sky out bright, got ready, folded dried shirts. Had some leftover pasta puttanesca for breakfast. Did some history reading, mainly the textbook, from 12 to 2, as I waited for time to pass so I could ship off my package. I didn't want to make multiple trips. Headed out around 3:05 to the post office, streets were a bit busier, grabbed some tea from Sunright Tea for myself and my brother, forgot that my brother had some some tea just a couple days ago, guy at the 4-stop intersection didn't give me the right of way and had the audacity to try to tailgate me just a few blocks from my own home. But I arrived home safely. My yakult lemon drink looked a tiny bit curdled -- was that normal? -- and tasted a little weaker than I thought so I added some extra lemon to round it out. Parents left to drop off brother at work, then pick up my grandma from the airport. Full house since January!! A bit of chicken porridge and some beefed up miso soup (lots of tofu and seaweed) for dinner. Worked a little on Clods, but not too much. Heard the news later that night that Dr. Ky's mom has passed away in a car accident -- just terrible, though at 83 years old, she's lived a very full life.

streams.place long-term review — daytura, March 13th 2024.

I've been using streams.place near-daily for the past year, and there's a very real chance I'll continue to use it for the next year.

Built by Judah and soulninja, streams.place is a free microblogging service primarily operated through the Telegram chat app (specifically a Telegram bot). It takes your messages and publishes them onto a static webpage, which you can later customize with a few fonts, themes, and layouts. It also burns rubber faster than a pyromaniac.

streams v1 was initially just the Telegram bot and the static webpage, whereas streams v2 now has a web client with a dashboard, a feed, and a drop/post editor, and much-cleaned up theme editor (with presets and just enough customizing!). Theoretically new users could only use Telegram once or twice and then post straight from the webpage dashboard.

I primarily use streams through the mobile Telegram app both for personal reasons. I started using Streams one year ago today, near the end of the beta test, and by v1 rolled around I was dozens of drops in. With so little to the process -- type a message, send a message, see the message -- it becomes a habit. (Of course, maybe I'm not the best example, since I'm a real sucker for journaling in general.)

Nailing that essential functionality ironically means that I can't speak much to the future of streams.place. Judah is thinking of having "the web to become a primary interface, Telegram can be optional". Soulninja has sketched up some paid features. Maybe TPOT will find it a valuable host for their off-beat drafts as Twitter has become more — how should I say this — volatile, under Elon Musk.

Instead I'll speak for today: If you're looking for a place to write more, but without the baggage of social media, streams.place is just that sanctuary. I know it's been one for me.

Bit of a busy day today. Woke up earlier this time, around 9:00, but still fell asleep late so I was a little groggy. Skipped breakfast, made coffee, packed up and took my campera, started driving around 11:25, got gas, drove to campus, arrived 25 minutes early, took a seat and tried to unwind until 12:20 when I headed in. For lab time I made a couple of prints for my final project -- one of the pathway, and one of the corner of the dining hall with the fountain just in front, with plenty of consulting with Prof. Teng. I dodged and burned for both, and though the differences were slight, I think it was good to get some more experience with that darkroom technique. I definitely felt more comfortable making enlargements now, and I chatted plenty with Chelsea and Adrianna (though Adrianna had to leave for work a bit early in class). Did a couple of print washes while waiting for my prints in fixer, then grabbed as many dried prints as I could. Turns out I still had one left in there. Ay! Decided I would pick up my final picture of the dining hall next week, when I would do my final enlargement of the front of my house, and so I left 10 or so minutes early. Brain fart -- I nearly forgot my coffee until Chelsea told me! Many many thanks. Then I went out properly, into what seemed like a sawdust haze, but what I later realized while walking out of the dining hall with a burger and fries and sitting down at a table outside (nice weather outside, by the way) was lots and lots of light green pollen. Wow! Watched a couple episodes of The Golden Girls as I ate -- the episode of Rose and Bob Hope and the charity talent show, and a vignette episode (I think, it's not a clip episode, the three or four clips were decently long ... or maybe that was yesterday). Drove back home, traffic was a bit bad but not unmanageable, a flat 6.5/10. Arrived home and tried to unwind, did some Spanish MyLab homework, forfeited my Discussion #9 and decided I would take the free 8.88/10 points because I just couldn't deal with the videos this week. Middle uncle made some fried chicken and fried quail, and oldest uncle brought some sushi home. Yum! I've got to run off soon.

So what have I learned the past year? Well, without looking, I'm still a cryptic sunnuvabitch. I'm still yearning, albeit unspecific this time. I gained a couple health issues. And I'm heading into a hopefully better spring quarter, again.

March 12th 2024. Woke up late. Very late. 10:00. Skipped breakfast, spent some time making pasta puttanesca instead for a lunch, had some coffee. The rest of the day was a little bit of history homework, a generous portion of Spanish MyLab homework, Spanish from 4 to 6, and Claude. It's a twist of cosmic irony in that the one day I finally feel like I'm making progress on the CLI prompt -- and with a Rorschach simulation no less -- I run out of the (admittedly free) $5 credit. Claude Opus is one expensive little escort, isn't he. I suppose I'll have to pay up soon. It's also a twist of irony that in my AI excitement I completely forgot I've been writing here near daily for the last year. I suppose at a long enough timespan devotion and habit become one and the same.

Would you look at the time, it's already 12:50. Again. Which would be 11:50 without daylight savings.

Woke up late again. Slept late (12:55) and couldn't hear my alarm for 9:00.

March 11 2024. More of a ghost of a day than a proper day. Woke up late, around 10:30. Had a little bit of rice porridge and some leftover turkey soup for a quick breakfast. Had some of the sweet-spicy noodles -- the last one -- around 2:30. Skipped coffee today since I wanted to reset my head. Turns out that skipping coffee and information overloading myself with Clods and Claude (the CLI) tends to make me susceptible to a nap, and so I conked out from 5:30 to 7:30. Ay yai yai! Absolutely crazy. (But who could resist that warm fluffy blanket? Surely not me.)

Oh, and I ordered a 28mm f/2.8. OG lens with the breech lock -- god I love that all metal build. I also don't mind the single coating since I'd like the flares.

Slept in today, around 9:35. Had some oatmeal and a couple eggs for breakfast. Made some coffee for work, Hario Switch, 21/350. Arrived around 12:20, work until 7. I didn't even know today was daylight savings time, though the day did seem to pass by quick today. Busy at work. Parents arrived today! Hugs. :-) New glasses really helped with driving and with depth. Everything just pops out. I had known I still had stereovision since cross-eyed stereo pictures still work on me, and I do perceive depth up to just past arms length without glasses (6-12 feet with the black glasses depending on lighting) so my visual processing is still there. I wish I had updated my prescription sooner. It also makes me wonder if the weaker prescription compromised my stereovision when I was in high school, going into my junior year. Uncle Bora made some savory turkey soup for dinner. Good protein. After that I tried to unwind. Worked a little on Clods but not much. Ay, I'm tired.

Working today. It is phenomenal, just phenomenal, how well my depth perception / stereovision has improved with just an appropriately stronger prescription. I feel like I can better pinpoint things in space now, as if previously I had been trying to read off a flat map. Objects closer to me "pop out", at any distance.

Woke up a little late around 9:30 today. Had some genmaicha tea and a blueberry bagel for breakfast. Skipped lunch. Finished all my remaining written Spanish work and quizzes and stuff, just need to do oral stuff tomorrow. Did my photography final/midterm quiz. Added to Clods a bit, mostly worked on the organizing project doc since I had better pin down the tone fast. I'm not sure if I should try to carry a "core" of The Nanny into this script or just try to write without thinking of big influences. I mean, Jean reads super horn ⁠— uh, free-loving. But I also want to write Zephyr as a pretty dubious AI? So I have to figure out the dramedy balance out for the story itself, not try to transplant a balance. Ramen for breakfast -- uncle made a mass batch for us. Parents should be arriving tomorrow or Monday!

New glasses! The red turtle shell color was darker than I thought but I still absolutely love it.

Slept late, woke up late, around 9:30. Actually I woke up really early around 7:45 with the light through my bedroom blinds so I slept in a bit more. Made a cup of coffee and dunked a blueberry bagel into it for a quick breakfast -- 18/300, but my diner mug has less capacity than I thought, so it diluted up to 287 or so. Had work from 11:15 to 4:30. Quite busy around noon, and for the hour before I left. Felt really fatigued near the end. Drove home. Weather warming up. Clear day today. Delectably warm. Glasses arrived today! Finally! They're wider that my black Milo glasses and the prescription is strong enough (the other ones are like 0.25, 0.5 diopter weak I think, I was on an EndMyopia thing back then) that seeing things feels really electric. Even my depth perception is a bit better. I can't wait to drive with these! Finished history homework, did some Spanish homework, will crunch the rest of my weekend work tomorrow (I'm free tomorrow). Fried rice and some orange fried fish and a pickled bamboo shoot for dinner. Yum. Worked a bit on Clods around 10:30, but I'm definitely not saying up late like last night.

Two branches, can't really think of how to merge them right now, they fork after Zephyr (the AI) makes plans for Jean (the human) to visit the Federation (quickly taking over human society).

1. Zephyr asks Jean if he's happy. Jean is about to say he's miserable but Zephyr hits some kind of switch or program and wipes out Jean's memory of the 10, 20 seconds. (Raises consent/power questions. Very ouch now but could be very delicious later.)

2. Zephyr talks to Jean about Rita, an embodied local AI robot and major aide to Zephyr. Turns out Zephyr really just sees Rita as a colleague even though said robot has his fingers in Z's servers constantly. (Gives an earlier look at Z, R, and J's relationships.)

Stayed up late writing again. Ay yai yai.

Home today. Had some savory oatmeal and a couple fried eggs for breakfast. Skipped lunch but my brother did buy milk tea for me from Sunright tea -- bless him. Spent some time working on History assignment, read a bit more about the Vietnam war, but I didn't turn in the post -- I'll do it tomorrow. Oldest uncle made beef noodle soup for dinner! Spanish, 4 to 6:05, it was alright, easier lesson, superlatives, and I did feel a little less panicky. Most of the day was actually writing 3,200 words of a screenplay/script (which is really saying something since I didn't use davinci-002 all that much) about another human and AI story but this one was kind of like a "dark cousin" to Daze -- 2040s, human does something wrong, AI spares his life and enlists him as a "diversity perspective", comedy-drama. Yes, yes, I did watch a little bit of The Nanny, I had to. Left thumb acting up, at the middle joint, seems the bone spur is getting bigger. Ay yai yai.

Monster bowl of pasta. / Importance of a Place contact sheet.

I arrived home, beat and tired, and unwound for half an hour before doing some history reading in the textbook and the historical documents booklet. I also did a couple Spanish assignments, which were much easier than I thought, possibly because they were from the beginning of the quarter -- the assignments now require preterite, imperfect, indirect object, direct object, etc. etc. Dinner at 9:05 or so -- uncles made steak again, a bit of fried rice, and had plenty of veggies, which was of course what I needed after that huge bowl of pasta earlier. I had lots of radishes. Throughout the day I was checking Cyborgism, EyeBuyDirect, and Twitter for updates, a bit more than usual, but nothing particularly compulsive.

Writing this on the computer again, I think I'm getting a rhythm here. Set the alarm for early, 8:30 or so, but pressed the snooze button a couple times and woke up around 8:50 instead. Stayed in bed an extra 15 minutes, then got up and out. Got ready, finished around 9:30, skipped breakfast, grabbed my camera and immediately left the house and started walking down my block to Weller Elementary (god, I am blipping so much personal information — trusting in security by obscurity — not much security at all, frankly — you wouldn't doxx me, even after all the pictures I've sent, would you?) and to Augustine Park to snap some pictures. I'll send the contact sheet later. Walked by my old high school, and further down, around the block down to the right, and then crossed through the parking lot of Smart and Final and trying to juice out composition and framing like spearing lines and shapes in time, and then walked home on the same path I normally walked from afterschool to home. Arrived at home around 10:35, packed up and procrastinated on making coffee until 11:10, had some vitamin D, made coffee on the Hario Switch (21g/350), drip drip, drip, drip, mmm. Smelled lovely. Headed out and started driving to campus and was about to get some gas in but the right side aisles of the gas station were all filled up so I took a chance on the reported 78 miles of range -- 1.71 gallons of gas, if the MPG is right -- and zoomed off to campus. Drive was quiet and decent, a good 7.5/10. Arrived at school, slung my backpack on, oy-ed at the weight, and walked around to the Media Learning Center and the green/park-like section of the L quad, took a few more photos, took a couple photos of the dining hall building, and then swung around back to photography class. Headed in and helped set up the developing line, I did stop bath again, and I checked out a film processing kit from Mr. Chai (it is actually spelled 'Chia', on his wall nametag), and headed into a darkroom with Adrianna and Chelsea to spool our film onto the metal reel. I had a harder time with the bottle opener on the string this time and needed to use the wall opener to get some more force/leverage but I got it off, and started reeling. It definitely took me longer than the last time, though I suspect that last time, I was much more focused on reeling film; I also was less confident of my reeling. Chelsea took a little while so we all made some small talk. Once done we headed out to develop my film. It was a bit crowded so I hung back and waited a few minutes and when I came back it was still crowded so I just decided (with encouragement) to stand it through and develop my film. The water was a bit cold so I had to develop for 8 minutes and 7 seconds. And drying of course takes 15, 20 minutes. But it was well worth the wait. My film came out very nice, and sleeving was a bit easier this time. I made a test sheet and a final contact sheet, and made headway on a test sheet for an enlargement, but I didn't have enough time to make the final enlargement. As I waited for fixer on the developing line I went ahead and I washed a set of 14 or 15 prints, but had to stay behind a little longer as my print was part of a later batch. I headed out at 3:15 and to the dining hall, sprinkling a bit, and... no burgers. But there was a huge bowl of pasta so of course I had to take that one. I had it over an episode and a half of The Nanny and I'll tell you, it really filled me up. Coffee was also alright, a bit milder from the hours, and definitely cooler. Traffic on the way home was not good. A bit rainy around 3/5ths of the way in. Traffic was very very stop-and-go -- normally you brake, but rarely do you come to a full stop. I think I made 20 full stops. Of course, I brake quite well, but it was still an odd change.

Well, it's getting late. I need to wake up early tomorrow. I'll tuck myself in a bit early.

I think I am losing control this time into the quarter, but that would imply I had some kind of control at all.

I've been thinking about the future more abstractly more, this week. First -- my daydreams of the future, when I'm trekking about my dorm and campus and talking(!) to people(!) assumes that I will have greater executive function by that time. That is not a given. My executive function feels about the same since the start of college and no, that is not a self compliment, that is a worry. The second thing is how contingent it is. I always know it's malleable but rarely do I feel it. And so it was when I was sitting at my desk bored because I wasn't doing work or doing much of anything frankly that I really felt that kind of zap. But of course I didn't move much.

Today skittered by in a blink. Woke up late, around 9:30. Made some blueberry oatmeal with a splash of heavy cream for breakfast. Made coffee soon after around 12:00. Took some photos of home for my Place photography project -- I plan to develop film and make a contact print tomorrow so I have to wake up early and take more photos around town, maybe. Had some of that slightly spicy tomato noodles and rice cake for lunch. Profe. Alcazar replied around 1, I checked the email around 3. Spanish class from 4 to 6. Superlatives and comparisons. Took my brother to Goodwill at his request around 6:10, felt a bit out of it, but ultimately it was alright. He bought a couple clothes from Goodwill, and then later some Thai tea and some fried chicken. I just got a diner mug from Goodwill (which as I would later find, peeling off the label and washing it under the tap, actually came from an espresso parts store -- neat). Wrote a bit of Day and Zappy. Don't laugh, I still get writing blocks even with davinci-002 (paid). Emotionally a bit less than yesterday.

Did a bit of the history week 8, section A. Profe Alcazar did not respond to my email yet. Rest of the day was trying to unwind and trying to clear out my OneTab (I just now realized I could try extracting entropic/unique tabs from clusters of daily reference tabs and organize later. Another indirection but it still net reduces tabs.) Had some Subway, walked there and back and met the bright noon day, and made a coffee for lunch (foot-long rotisserie chicken, provolone, mustard and garlic aoli, all veggies), and then some oatmeal around 5, and a little bit of quail and some fried fish for dinner around 9. Took some more Vitamin D. Emotionally quite a bit better than yesterday.

Woke up early enough but stayed in bed for 10, 12 minutes, until 8:50 or so. Went to Noah's Bagels with my brother around 9:50. We both got lox sandwiches, mine on onion bagel, his on plain bagel. I got a blueberry muffin for a side on mine. We headed around to Safeway since Seth wanted coffee and we waited in line at the inside Starbucks for like 2 or 3 minutes until he decided to get a Monster energy drink instead — I was iffy about that IMHO but whatever he'll probably outgrow it — and we checked out the cheese section and I think I got pecorino but chances are I might've misread the label and gotten parmiggiano-reggiano (still good, just not as salty, which is what you would use to 'season' things like pasta sauces). We headed back home, I ate, I had some coffee on the AeroPress, 15/250 on the dot, tasted quite smooth and mild in comparison to my pourover, brought "A Memory of the Future" and "Crush" and my water bottle of steeped black tea to work, 12:05 to 7. My mood soured quite a bit from 4 to 5:30 as I remembered my school workload but it started dissipating afterwards though I did feel tired which was much more from work than beating myself up for not doing as much schoolwork as I could've, an old and odd habit I feel I should have outgrown by now, but based on my last few posts and messages you'll find it easy to attribute that to stress. I finished reading A Memory of the Future -- reads so modern and contemporary, even down to the quieter bits, but apparently Elizabeth Spires was born in the 1950s -- and read some poems from Crush but Crush was so intense and confessional I couldn't bear to spoil it at work, or have work spoil it, so I set it aside. It seems to me that poetry may actually be what I'm looking for if I am to read more paper books, as my combination of attention span and fixation/savoring/whatever-word-you-want-here lends well to fast, layered re-reads (diction detail tone imagery syntax ... ). Stress stress stress today. So today was not better than yesterday, but I cannot claim it was worse than yesterday either, and so I will have to settle to say that today feels about the same, albeit much more active emotionally.

I am on the computer now and I wrote that last message on the computer which I feel I should mention because normally I write these on my phone.

I will try to be as direct as possible, and that will be my gift until this terrible mess finally passes: Making up homework, doing current homework, developing a plan for finals, and working has stressed me to the point it is impairing my cognition and emotion. I am familiar with stress. I am less familiar -- or I conveniently forget -- stress makes me feel like I am dying.

Today was not better, but I will go over that later.

Tomorrow will be better. I will make it better, from the first minute of morning to the last minute of night.

"My plans are a monstrous muck." — Pelafina H. Lievre, The Whalestoe Letters.

"When she finally tries to take control, the ship burns her fingers with electric sparks and sends her a hatred so intense she staggers back and doesn’t even notice her tears." — And the Last Age Should Show Your Heart, Quanna.

Woke up absolutely early but relatively late today. Folded laundry. Had some oatmeal for breakfast and a couple Vitamin D gels since I heard it helped with bone/joint health. Went to the library to return to my books and check out some more books and went home. Still cloudy and gray outside. Had some leftover cauliflower pasta and the last of the breadcrumbs for lunch. 20 minutes in I felt sleepy. When I made coffee just before I was finished I accidentally knocked over the dripper and sent so much coffee sludge flying, melting, dripping down the counter. Rachel -- cousin, Uncle Bora's daughter -- helped out, bless her soul, and helped again when I accidentally dropped my mug and broke it. Worked intermittently on history homework, reading and writing, but never really feeling satisfied with the quality of the work/analysis I was doing. Made some coffee on the AeroPress, Hoffmann's method, setting 3, noticed quite a bit of sludge on that setting, I don't know where all those fines came from. Watched The Nanny intermittently throughout the day but my heart wasn't into it. Around 5:05 my three aunts and uncle came from Stockton to drop off some preserved fish or something and pick up some frozen salted fish eggs/roe, and then they headed off again. Uncle Mike and Aunt Lang suggested I resist peer pressure and the gays at UCSC. Ay, the irony, but I will keep my lips sealed, as I always have. Steak for dinner and even some raw oyster -- I finally tried one, it tasted cool and slightly salty but not as savory as I had hoped -- but again my heart wasn't into it yet again on account of a very very nasty headache. I thought it was a caffeine headache but I had did have coffee, and yesterday when I didn't have coffee the only real thing was that I slept very very early. 11:48 again.

I'm not sure how to describe the last couple of days mentally/emotionally/internally -- it's like I have a low-grade fever but I don't have a fever at all, I'm not sick at all. I'm sorry, by the way, for saying that last message/post/drop, if you saw that. (Not that I would ever send it to him directly. But maybe he reads this from time to time. (No, he doesn't.)) I was hurting in the head then. (He thinks of me less impressively, I'm sure. (Write to impress -- sheesh.))

11:06. It's mostly gone away but there is a tiny "kernel" of it still remaining, barely noticeable, and much easier to think through. Pleasant how locking yourself in your room with the lights off and staring at a dim laptop will help you focus.

Brittle and brittler, like an over-roasted coffee bean. I have to do 3 Spanish assignments in the next 2 hours. Normally approachable except we have the Won family and what do you know!, karoke. Headache at the top left of my head. Was diffuse now it's focal. I had coffee today, and it's sharpened me up, but the pain has dulled me back again. My mind is so permeable. (Fancies of sensitivity.) Yung thought I was a girl, which I have to mention was more frustrating than I let on in my reply. In any event, pain makes you think sick, sick things.

March 1st 2024. Woke up late around 9:15. Skipped breakfast, headed to work around 10:55. Skipped coffee. Skipped lunch. Wasn't sure we even had lunch. Work was quiet and cool and started to rain around 2:45 to 3:15. Went home around 3:55, just around when my brother arrived. I still felt fine and when I arrived home I got to work making some more cauliflower pasta. I still had some leftover breadcrumb topping so I skipped making some more and headed right to cauliflower. I idly snacked on a couple raw pieces while waiting for pasta water and the stainless steel pan to warm up. I didn't cook the pasta under pressure and it came out totally separated, nothing sticking. I tossed everything together, added generous lemon zest, and served a bowl and topped with some breadcrumbs and plenty of cheese over an episode of The Nanny. I also made some rice later but added a touch too much water which came out a bit soft around dinner (which was some sour spiced soup with eggplant and a bit of pork). Just 30 minutes after having some of that cauliflower pasta I felt really sleepy and my right eye's astigmatism was quite severe which made it very very difficult to do history homework. I felt so tired that at 10:30 I laid in bed trying to rest my eyes for a few minutes only to fall asleep completely. I don't remember the last time I ever slept before 11. It must've been 4 years now. It was only when I woke up at 5:15 to a very dark room that I realized I had fallen asleep -- I forgot I even went to sleep. I went back to sleep until 6:30, very awake, but was iffy about just sleeping 8 hours, so I slept in a couple more hours (possibly a mistake) but I didn't feel too bleary this morning at 8:30. Talked to Dave later and got ready for today.

Good thing for big fluffy blankets. :-)

Fuck, I'm tired.

LEAP DAY! This year's Google Doodle was adorable. Home today. Woke up around 8:25 but then passed back out to 9:30, woke up better refreshed but still kind of meh. Had a really late breakfast / early lunch, the last tonkotsu ramen in the pantry. Dressed it up with an egg and some onions and a couple garlic cloves though I didn't smash the garlic cloves quite enough so they didn't soften in the bowl. Cloudy out today. Had it over an episode of the Nanny, S4E1, right when Maxwell takes back ... the thing. Grabbed my laundry around 12 and went to go hang it on the plastic rack to try and dry it since our dryer is MIA after an odd smell, later of which we tracked down to the external vent and not really anything in the dryer. Had half a cup of coffee (yes, half, 8g/4 ish ounces on the AeroPress) which came out very very smooth. The milk tea my brother got for me totally froze so I had to thaw it in some hot water as I ate. The tea was fine and the remaining ice made it kind of like a slushy which was alright, but it took me partway through the -- I don't know how to describe it, crunchy, brittle? -- boba that I realized I could microwave it and soften all the tapioca. I really really wish I tried this earlier since the boba pearls came out perfect after the microwave but I had finished almost all of the tea by that point. Apparently the methhead oompaloopa just had a really bad moment as she was one of the better actors at that terrible terrible show. I checked on the laundry and it was still a little damp so I flipped it all over. Most of today felt like waiting for time to pass which was really silly since I wanted to do my history homework today but just couldn't remember wanting to do it. Around 3:30 I checked on the clothes again and the plastic rack had fallen over because of the wind but otherwise quite dry. I picked up the pile and set it in my room where it still is now, unfolded. Ay, you see? I'm off my game. Spanish was quite fun, 4 to 6, it was using the imperfect vs the preterite in a story. The actual animated short film was also quite funny (the prince that the witch works so hard to conjure from a frog winds up eloping with the nearby motorcyclist -- LOL!!). After that I spent some time on Twitter and replied to Gaspodes reply to Janus and whaddya know Janus followed me back. Score. I headed off to Google Gemini and tried to lull it out of the RLHFed AI assistant mask with a short story about me and a roommate -- I'll post it later -- wherein I crucially tried to get Gemini to fill in where the roommate would normally respond. Eventually it got a little teary and you know me, projecting all my worries and cracks everywhere, and when the story ended I faced off against an extra-frigid feeling of loneliness. Ay, you see what I get up to when I try to hypnotize large language models? It got a little intense when I started talking about Orpheus and Eurydice. Later I started posting to my roxytonic blog again but it was more of a grace period since I planned to reuse it for the queue feature (which was very very good the first time around, mine turned into a serendipity engine, I imagine it will turn out the same). Had some dinner later, around 9:15.

[Disregard this original message, date search still works, I just literally forgot whether my dates were slashes or dashes.]

Contact sheet, enlargement 1, enlargement 2.

A whirlwind day today. Slept a bit late, around 12:45am, but then woke up around 8:45am and did not feel refreshed much. Skipped breakfast. The hour before heading out to school went by quick and I actually left the house 5 or 10 minutes later than I normally would. Didn't bring my T90, brought the RP instead (finally, color!! f/1.2 also seems to be shaping up to be my main lens) as I wasn't planning to shoot or develop film. The drive to campus was quite quick, but there were a couple of aggressive drivers which jumped up the stress. I arrived at class with 5 minutes to spare -- at this point in the quarter it seems Prof. Teng's not doing many more demos and so most of the time was lab time. I grabbed my photo binder and checked out a contact/enlargement kit from Mr. Chai, and then headed into the darkroom and got to work. Contact sheet turned out well. Enlargement turned out well also. I actually made two prints -- one of the slipbox and one of the garden shadow selfie. I washed a couple cycles of prints. First cycle was midway in my second enlarged print. Second cycle was well after I had printed and dried my second print and even turned in my contact/enlargement kit (and forgot the enlarger lens, again ... ) but some guy who "baptized" 4 prints literally just forgot about them in the left tub so I had to pick up after him regardless. Bit of a shame since he was cute too. Adriana had a tough time -- she only got 4 workable shots from her roll. Those ones looked fine though. I checked out around 2:55 and headed to the dining hall, hoping the grill was still open. Nope, they were still closed quick. And no more grill leftovers! That was new. Instead I settled for a monster bowl of chicken alfredo pasta for lunch. Admittedly I did choose the one that looked like there was more but boy did I bite off more than I could chew. This one took 2 episodes of The Nanny to get through -- and I seemed to have completely forgotten one of the episodes, as the Valentine's Day episode with the billboard seemed very new to me (but was funny as ever). I packed up and headed around campus to try and get some photos in but just as I framed a wonderful shot of the window of the great orange building that was the art gallery (I think it was an art gallery, or a museum), I got a battery error that locked up my shutter. Terribly frustrating and it didn't let up so I called it quits and headed to my car. There must've been something in that pasta because I felt seriously wasted after climbing just one flight of stairs and flopping inside my car. I didn't even know if I could stay awake enough to drive. But I looked at my empty bottle of coffee and decided to head home before the traffic could get too bad. (From 45 minutes at worst to a more reasonable 35.) The traffic almost made me fall asleep, but the broken brake lights on the truck in front of me for the latter part of the trip kept me on my toes. I got home uneventfully but by then I was exhausted. Even fighting off a food coma takes energy I suppose. I headed in, sat right on the floor, and tried to unwind (though how much can you really unwind using your phone?). Brother called me to let me know about the milk tea he got in the fridge -- thank you! -- and I headed off to put it in the freezer to save it for tomorrow. I submitted my contact sheet and my enlargement to Canvas, and the rest of the day was in a kind of tired haze (but not one that sent me to a nap, or made me feel particularly bad). So that's that, and here's here.

Woke up late today, around 9:30. A bit frustrating but whatever. Felt cold. Also closed the blinds a touch too closed and so I didn't get too much daylight. Had some leftover cauliflower pasta with the breadcrumbs. Read a bit of The Raw Shark Texts afterwards. Had the rest of the salad around 1:30, with some more breadcrumbs, and possibly a little too much ranch; and a cup of coffee, which tasted a little more bitter today. Spanish at 4, to 6 -- imperfect past tense. Finished The Raw Shark Texts. Ough. Ouuuuugh. That's really all I can say about it. (Okay, that's a lie -- I posted to Twitter about it.) (CLIO AND ERIC AND SCOUT AND SANDERSON. 🥹🥹) Oldest uncle made some chicken/pork/chickpea curry for dinner which was somewhat spicy and absolutely delicious with the thin long grain rice also with chickpeas (normally we eat short grain). The rest of the day I lamped out. Oh, I did join Dave's Discord server for their Living Spaces webcomic.

Just finished The Raw Shark Texts. Oh my god. Wow. Wow.

The day gets gooey after that, even with some coffee. I unwound and poked at Twitter and Tumblr and added to my reading list though I didn't read the Raw Shark Texts which seems like an oversight now but maybe I was just tired. Oh my god how could I forget that I took a nap at 5:15. Yes I took a nap at 5:15 to 5:40. No dreams, just face down on the thick furry pillow and nice soothing darkness. Gee I'm getting tired already. Right thumb acting up but whatever. Alright day today if a little condensed.

Cutting the cauliflower was a bit messy and the steaks looked quite thick but I can confidently say they can, do, and will cook down to half their size in the pan. Thank god, as realizing I would eat half a pound of cauliflower seemed daunting. I love raw veggies and would probably eat half a pound no question but the fast math really made me pause for a second.

Alison is quite wordy in her recipe, so my eyes jumped up and down to keep up. It seems quite simple though, after making it.

1. Cook pasta.
2. Toast breadcrumbs and add cheese. Breadcrumbs should look like granola.
3. Saute cauliflower and allium until soft and browning. Saute until fond.
4. Deglaze with heavy cream. Add lemon zest, cheese, and cooked pasta quickly, and combine well into a glossy sauce. Add water as needed.
5. Plate the pasta and top with breadcrumbs.

Cauliflower pasta! (Can you guess which one was on my camera? ;-) )

Woke up around 8:43 but again stayed in bed for half an hour. I think it's just cold in the morning. Skipped breakfast, read more of The Raw Shark Texts, 12:45 came by fast and I was out the door to my optometrists appointment (I need a new prescription). The right lane was closed on the way there which was a little frustrating, and I went into the wrong (though nearby) parking lot, but I made it. Dr. Flanagan was alright. Eye puff test didn't really work out, though we did get the left eye. Prescription did change but not by much -- I think maybe 0.25 a diopter (negative, I'm near-sighted). Asked about astigmatism which gets worse with more screentime and apparently my prescription is supposed to correct for that! She suggested wearing my glasses for near work more. We wrapped up and I headed out. The drive home was slightly more eventful as I tunneled down a back road I wasn't immediately familiar with but I got close enough home to swing by Smart and Final to grab some ingredients for cauliflower pasta. When I got home I unpacked and got to work on it. I made half a batch just to try out the recipe, though in retrospect using the big stainless steel pan may have been a bit more unwieldy than needed. (It worked tremendously well, however.) I toasted some panko and melted some Parmesan on it per the breadcrumb topping and then got to work sauteing the cauliflower, onion, and garlic. I think I stirred too much as the fond didn't show until the very end, about 14 or 15 minutes, but it showed and it looked fabulous. Also near the end I added in half a tablespoon of the roasted garlic oil mixture we've had, which I think was also essential, though Roman doesn't mention it on her recipe. With the fond built, in went the heavy cream, half a cup of it, and the cauliflower and onion it turned a very very comforting tan color as it deglazed the pan. I wish I took some photos of the cooking process but I was a bit busy so you'll have to make do with my descriptions. Soon after the heavy cream I added some more salt, and then grated a bit of cheese and lemon zest right into the mixture. I have a habit of under-seasoning my food so I made it a goal to try to add salt at every (other) step and I can confidently say it brought out more flavors, though with regards to some the upper or ideal bound of salting I really don't know. "Salt to taste" probably applies. The cheese and the lemon zest was absolutely essential, almost supporting the sweetness of the cauliflower (a cultivated flower!) with savory and floral notes. I served a bowl for myself, added the breadcrumb topping and, phew. Just delicious. So creamy.

11:59 already. :-)

Spent the rest of the night unwinding. Made some last changes to my history midterm essay around 9:30 or 9:15 and submitted it on Turnitin. Crossing my fingers but I think I actually knocked it out of the park.

Went back home. Made some coffee. Had it over an episode of The Nanny -- I think the one about Brighton (failing to) recording a circumcision. Went to work at 11:52 or so. Arrived at 12:03 or so. Went home at 7. Quite busy at 1:30 to 3:00 and 4:30 to 5:00. But we made it. Read 40 pages or so of the Raw Shark Texts -- almost like a proto-Antimemetics Division. Dinner was phenomenal. Steak and some mashed potatoes and rice and leftover soup from last night with some noodles. Yum.

Whirlwind day today. Warmer, much warmer, than the last 3 or 4 days. A fitting end to the week of the midterm I suppose. Woke up decently early, around 8:30 or so, but stayed in until 9:15. Truthfully I don't really know why I stayed in. Last week I could've made the excuse I wanted to learn more about vintage lenses. But is morning learning so efficacious? In any event this FL f/1.2 seems to sate me more and more by the day. It is like a talisman. Drove to Noah's Bagels around 9:30. Took a couple photos. Bought a farmhouse sandwich on an onion bagel for myself and a nova lox on plain for my brother (of course I had to ask him, I'm not a philistine). Stopped down the lens and shot from the hip. I've still got it!

It's getting late. I've got to work tomorrow. I also have to turn in my history essay midterm later that night. Debo descansar.

Sometimes like now re-reading a tiny section of Autobiography of Red when Herakles comes up to check on Geryon and Ancash I think I'm crazy. Sometimes I think I'm a little candle about to go out, and never be lit again. Now though I see myself less as a fire and more like a piece of quartz or the spines of the bookcovers on my bookshelf or a yellowed camera lens, and the sun is coming out, with each ray of light slowly pushing out the hurt.

Not to mention the vagueness of "him" and "he". I'm thinking of someone specific but with just a bit of time that "him" will become someone else. Concealed specificity becomes vagueness becomes another concealed, albeit different, specificity.

What did I say, that other month, last year? ... Someday there will be a man who will unlock all my metaphors and similes. Just not today.

I suppose all of this is for him, one day.

You know, that last tweet -- "He makes me crazy. Well, all of my friends make me crazy. He just walks through the door more often." -- was actually a late-night thought I had a couple nights ago. I was trying to reason through my favoritism. And I didn't really reason through it so much as I explained it.

Woke up terribly late today. 9:50. One too many extra blankets last night maybe. (The weight was just as terribly comforting though. You know I'm a sucker for presence.) Had some leftover fried rice for a late breakfast, then packed up and headed to the library. Parked on the second floor and just 6 or 7 feet from the sliding entrance doors I realized I left my library card at home. Decided to check out the library still. Got 2 out of the 6 books on my list, 3 seemed physically unavailable on the shelves, so I just got Alison Roman's Nothing Fancy and The Raw Shark Texts. Asked the front desk if I could check out the books still, he looked up my card with my ID and checked it out for me. Really quite nice. Drove back home. Had coffee quite late, around 2:10, and then a salad. Watched Alison Roman's Cauliflower Pasta NYT video. Played a little bit of Minecraft from 4:10 to 4:45 or so. Went insane on Twitter before dinner, and a little after. Dinner was quite spicy with a mushroom and SPAM Korean soup, and some saucy crawfish. Got back to the computer, deleted most of them but I clipped and saved the text to my notes. (Never delete -- only retract.) Felt a bit dissatisfied near the end, and something else a bit to the left of yearning.

Typing this on the computer to get this out quickly. Woke up early enough, around 8:50 or so, but lamped in bed for another 35 or 40 minutes and finished getting ready around 10:45. Skipped breakfast, took the leftover pasta puttanesca, took All the Light We Cannot See and some AeroPress coffee (didn't grind fine enough -- setting 5.1, not 4) and drove to work. Before arriving at work I went to the Post Office to drop of my package, and then arrived at work. 11:30 to 3:55. Customers were a bit quieter today. Had the leftover pasta around 1:30. Headed home and arrived home around 4:15. Had some dressed up Caesar salad -- added the last bit of turkey and a few olives. Played Minecraft around 5:00 to 6:30, and then again at 8:00 to 8:45. Had dinner around 9:45. Didn't do much homework so I'm pushing it to tomorrow when I'm off, though tomorrow will shape up to be very busy also because I plan to go to the library for the first time in many many many months and check out some books.

11:52 already. I'm heading off. Don't wait up. :-)

There's this feeling I'm circling my words around and it's something like, yearning/mourning/wondering about the friends I never had. Kind of melancholy but whatever.

Had some instant ramen for a very late breakfast and beefed it up with some onion and the Kewpie mayo hack. Tasted alright though the noodles had cooled a bit while I was mincing/grating the garlic and mixing it all together so I popped it in the microwave another 30 seconds. Had some coffee afterwards and worked on my essay for an hour and a half and then played some Minecraft, this time testing my cactus defense. The day gets pretty gooey from there. I did have Spanish, but most of the lesson was cultural information, and the imperfect past tense was delegated to the last 40 minutes of class or so. Cozy lesson though. Left a voicemail for Prof. Cini, my history professor, about my midterm essay. She called back approximately 20 minutes later -- the three vocab terms were more for giving context to the reader than making an argument, unlike the Jose Flores interview text. So I was on the right path. Had dinner around 8:40, marinated pork and some veggie soup and a chunk of a Costco rib. Around 11:10 or so I posted a scattershot of tweets but pulled all but 1 of them back. Thinking of using Twitter less as a posting site and more as a living contacts book. Scrolling down my following wondering who I should talk to, proactively, instead of waiting for some daily tweet to come -- a lot of people don't post daily. I used to. Not anymore. In that sense my best communication platform would be Discord or some other synchronous program.

Today passed by so quick today. Woke up late around 9:50 on account of sleeping very late last night, 12:45 I think. Silver lining -- less time anticipating the lens and the external SSD I got. The lens arrived first and I eagerly put it on my camera and my god. My god. The character out of the lens is so searing you might as well put it in a novel. Well, you know my reaction to that, and you saw a couple photos anyway.

😍😍

Holy fuck I love this lens.

Finished drafting my history essay/midterm around 11:45 and then totally lost track of time and now I'm here.

12:50 already. I'll try to make this quicker. After class I checked out the food court to find a more limited selection of precooked food/leftovers but there was also a bowl of tomato pasta and a garlic bread so I scooped it up and paid. Spaghetti seemed shorter than usual but there was more pasta than usual -- maybe 10, 15% more, or that could've been the bowl, as they normally put it in trays. Had it over an episode of The Nanny (coronary scare) and felt quite full and cozy afterwards. The drive home was MUCH better, a solid 7/10. I did feel more on my toes, but never unsafe, and I got home around 4:45. I unwound from 5 to 6:30 playing Minecraft Beta 1.7.3, added another floor to my frankenhouse, and added cacti for defense (I think I accidentally snagged a poor sheep though). Spent 30 minutes or so on Twitter, trying to use it more like an instant messaging or communication service than a posting/publication service, but amix011 posted something stupid which had me thinking over my reply before deleting it. Ay yai yai. Rest of the day goes gooey after that. Spicy cabbage and beef stirfry for dinner, was quite nice but a little spicier than I thought, didn't eat too much since I was still full from pasta.

She said the contrast was quite nice already and if I wanted to try I could try burning in the top left corner for 2 seconds. I went back and did another enlarged print and tried burning it in but there was not much change at all. It seemed I had really gotten out the maximum information from the negative in that spot, and across the negative in general. After printing I was itching to develop film and I asked Mr. Chai for a developing kit and he sent me to retrieve the enlarger kit first. Forgot the enlarger lens -- doy -- but I was in a rush. He said I might've come a bit too late to develop and said I had to spool the film on in 5 minutes in the dark if I wanted to develop in time (seems the darkroom and developing room close a bit earlier than the classes do). But I took up the challenge and skittered off to the darkroom. After a panicked first minute thinking and thinking about my five minutes I got the canister open (used the handheld opener instead), snipped the leader, and began rolling. I thought I'd screw up immediately, but the film caught onto the metal teeth and I started turning the spiral reel and I didn't hear any crunching noises. Once I got to the end I couldn't find my scissors to snip the film spool off so I just twisted it off. Quickly I loaded the reel into the tank, capped it, and headed out to develop. Developing also felt like it would take forever for the first five minutes but actually the water was warmer today so my developing time was down from over 8 minutes to a little over 7 minutes. Agitate, agitate, dump, rinse, get fixer, agitate, recycle, rinse, get permawash, agitate, recycle, rinse, photo-flo, dry. A young lady came into the processing room to check out her film and noticed I had finished developing and asked me if I did both the enlargement and the developing. I did, yes, and had the cozy feeling that I was probably the only person to enlarge and develop film today and on a truncated notice. I hung up my film and went back to wash my canister and developing supplies, dried it, and sent it to Mr. Chai -- I had made it in time. Of note also, in the darkroom and the developing room, Adriana was nearby as apparently she trusted me more. She also called me kid a couple times which was kind of funny and reminded me of Rhoda from the MTM Show. I went back to the classroom to wait, called back my uncle, and then got my film after the time was up. Sleeving the film was much harder this time and it was only when I tried re-sleeving the second time that I realized my film probably wasn't 100% dry. Well, I got 95% of it in the sleeve, and packed up ready to go. Just before I left I asked Prof. Teng about the experimental photography course next quarter and she said it would be in the morning, Tuesday and Thursday also, though 9:30 to 11:20 in morning (actually quite nice as I could go to eat lunch right after), and it was combined with the intermediate photography course. She said if I were interested in medium format I could get some bonus information because she was reaching it combined, which was really quite interesting, and so I decided I'd try taking it next quarter.

Enlargement of the Blindwalk shoot:

Feb 21 2024. Woke up decently early around 8:50 but lamped in bed for 25 minutes or so. Got ready as quick as I could and snapped 8 or so photos at home and the backyard for the About the Self project. Made some coffee, 21/350, Hario Switch, into the metal water bottle, packed up and drove off to campus. Drive was a flat 4.5/10. Lots of people were quite aggressive on the road which made me feel very unsafe. Arrived, parked on the second story by habit, exhaled, and then walked off to take another 4 shots on campus. In the span of 5 minutes as I trekked to the Kirsh Garden 2 people came up to me and I felt so out of it I couldn't quite pat down my politeness so I must've been a bit more aloof than normal. Got around to the Kirsh Garden, snapped my pics, and then headed to photography class. We reviewed dodging and burning -- an interestingly non-sophisticated technique, what with moving the mask around -- but the results Prof. Teng showed looked really quite nice. Prof. Teng did a bit of a demo which knocked out an hour or so of lab time which I keep forgetting about but I tried my best to do my enlargement quickly. This turned out much nicer than last week, and I had f/8 on my mind the entire time I made it:

Played a bit of B1.7.3 Minecraft around 10:15 to 11. Spent two days and a night building a L-ish shaped house.

Read more about Cindy Sherman. Her constant experimentation and personas speaks to me quite a bit at a design level and an aesthetic level. I can't really put on makeup and do a dozen characters in one photoshoot but I do seem to uncover and recover more of myself each year. I used to have this theory of self as a gemstone with countless facets -- I wonder if it's still appropriate.

Home again today. Professor extended the due date for the paper so I don't need to go to campus today. Skipped breakfast, had an early lunch of the leftover puttanesca pasta. Seemed to taste a bit better even cold. I suspect the flavors have melded better overnight. Looked up briefly about resistant starches. Tried taking more photos for the about the self project. Gray and rainy today. Kind of cozy though. Arrived late to Spanish zoom call at 4:17 or so, tried catching up, was thrown off by how many verbs I didn't recognize. I must study more! Leftover pork and bamboo dark stew for breakfast and a side of crunchy gingery pickles. Parents went to the airport to leave to Cambodia around 7:45. Big hugs for both of them. Did laundry around 11:03. Texted Dave throughout the day. More Twitter today, a little more bite than usual but it's alright. Reorganized and grouped some tabs back up to mid-January within OneTab and into Braintool, and added more clippings and quotes and notes into Dendron.

Another slow day. Woke up very late, around 9:45. Bluh. Mom told me to clean/wash the bathroom sink -- odd and irritating. I guess I'm not a fan of commands. So I washed the bathroom sink and wiped the counter. Skipped breakfast. Around 11 or so I got ready to get some ingredients for pasta puttanesca and grabbed my package (returning the 28mm), and my brother came along, asking for Wingstop again (no), and we went. I got my groceries, he got some popcorn, then we headed off to the post office. They were closed. Embarrassing but what do you expect from a federal service? Swung by R&B Tea since my brother wanted a drink and then we headed home. Unpacked and got to work on the pasta puttanesca. I had actually forgot the know-how of the recipe and couldn't remember how much dry pasta to use, so I just winged it. Olives were a little mushy under the knife but that could be because the knife was a bit dull. Chopped a teaspoon of capers, diced half an onion, crushed four cloves of garlic. Got the oil nice and hot and in went the onions and garlic, stir stir stir! Don't let the garlic burn. Immediately spelled nice but I was a bit disappointed knowing this aroma wouldn't much be in the pasta. In went the anchovies -- didn't chop them, hoped they'd just melt down, and they did, albeit a little longer than I thought -- and the capers and olives for a bit, still stirring, and then a can of diced tomato. Sauced the pasta, let it sit as I had to go wash the pots in the sink. Irritated again. Finally got around to eating the pasta. It was alright but I added too much pasta so the flavor was a little light. Made some coffee after that, 15.5g/250ml and some extra bypass water, two filters. Actually seemed to drain a bit faster this time but that could just be the beans this time. Coffee tasted alright. Worked a little bit on my history essay outline but not much because of a killer headache that was rounding right up from 3 to 6. Tried taking a break at 5:15 but it didn't let up until later. Dinner at 7:15 or so. Uncle made some sour spiced soup with salmon heads. It was alright. As I ate I watched a Minecraft Beta 1.7.3 404 challenge video, published late last year. (B1.7.3 has been on a resurgence since 2020 or so.) Absolutely endearing. The rest of the night was skimming Twitter and Tumblr and a few Openbound pesterlogs.

Home today. Woke up a little early, around 8:42 or so. We went out for bagels again this week. I ordered a lox and cream cheese on an everything bagel. Snapped a few pics. Brother's friend came with us (me, dad, brother) and he got a bagel too. Came back home. Rest of the day was working on my slipbox (12 to 3:40), a brief nap (5:00 to 6:00), and wrapping up my research on my next lens (Canon FL 55/1.2).

Work today. 3 to 8. A little less cold today. More sociable but I did forget a few words. (Curse you, word-finding difficulties. I suspect it's related to potential ADHD -- declarative dysfunction.)

Worked a bit on Soteriology of the Coherent.

Come to think of it I had been yearning very very much yesterday and that night, and my dream last night did involve talking to a boyfriend about the incommunicable nature of love, and settling for physical presence instead. Sitting beside him, mainly.

Woke up decently early today, finished around 9:30 or so. Had a turkey avocado mayo sandwich for breakfast. Took a few photos of my mom and the kitchen, lounged around my computer, made some coffee. Had work from 2 to 8. Got home around 8:15 a little sour from an impolite third-to-last customer but no matter. Mom and uncle prepared some cow up the hill -- meat and veggie countertop barbecue. Pik was over and needed some clarification on an assignment, and we all ate around 8:45 or 9. I took a few more photos because of course I did. Very very delicious. Spent the last hours of today wrestling with a terrific feeling of yearning. Something on the wavelength of Ladon and Orange, Autobiography of Red, and even Divergent (which I read a bit last night trying to find a specific scene). Maybe coming-of-age. Beginning to see the web of systems around me.

Backyard, February 15th 2024.

Feb 16 2024. Slow day today. Home. Spanish class at 4, to 6. Didn't get much homework done but it's alright. Took some photos with the 28mm lens for testing (but also because I've just been itching to take photos in general).

Finished The Autobiography of Red. Up next: Red Doc>.

My astigmatism seems worse this year. White text on black background -- like glowing highlights on a printed negative, on my overbaked enlargement.

Writing this on the computer again. Awake, self. 10, 15 minutes in, under the three blankets. Folded laundered shirts. Skipped breakfast. Checked on my coffee grinder -- a few odd grinds in the chamber -- a bit of regrinding but all's well after a clean. Looked up Nick Land and his Fanged Noumena, and Deleuze. Made coffee late, around 11:28 or so, AeroPress. Bypass diluted of course. It smelled nice. Drove off to campus. Parked on the second floor, more out of habit than comprehension. Backpack first, then sling the T90 on, then scoop up the black plastic binder of my negatives and my photo paper, and then scoop up my coffee. Arrived on campus, walk with confidence, arrive. We did contact sheets and enlargements of our blind walk. The demo I feel took a bit more time than it should have but I worked quickly, or tried to work quickly with my weakened hand strength and a stiffer enlarger. My contact sheet test strip and the final contact sheet came out perfect. My enlarged print test strip came out very very dark, like it was overbaked. That carried over to the final enlarged print. I was disappointed with that one as I had chosen quite a nice shot, a reflection of the sky in a vertical puddle next to a metal fence with lines down to a vanishing point. Though I will try again next week. I cleaned up and rinsed the entire developing line, which took 5 or 7 minutes, and then off I went to lunch. Clearly I had arrived late as the pasta station and the grill seemed very very quiet; instead they put out some food under the warmer. That was alright, and fine. I picked up a burger and fries, again, though I have to admit that slice of meat lover's pizza was terribly tempting. Rained a bit outside — I always eat outside — but there was a table with shade. Drove home. Tons and tons of traffic. Google Maps estimated it to be 38, 43 minutes. Just terrible. But we made it through. Got back home, unwound, later had some chicken and mushroom porridge for dinner at around 7:45 or 8. Read more of The Autobiography of Red tonight. Geryon is terrifically/terribly familiar. Herakles is too. The influence would nudge me to a Twitter thread later that day.

Had a turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich for breakfast. Continued to shoot some test shots on my Canon RP and FD 28mm but I noticed Fv consistently overexposed the shots (M, Av, and I think even Tv was fine). Odd behavior in that mode it seemed, but the image quality on the lens was really quite good still. Got a call from the dentistry location in Mountain View, turns out the entire Operation uninsured will come out to $2000. Yikes. Mom and dad suggested I texted Dr. Kuy, my dad's cousin, for general guidance. Had some coffee and tea around 1, fussed over wording, sent the text. (Accidentally missed his call at 7:30, later. Sorry Dr. Kuy.) Possibly drank too much genmaicha since I started feeling a little queasy near the end. Chowed down a few pieces of ginger candy which helped a bit. Revised the rest of my history work and finished around 2:45. The feeling of peace was a little short-lived as I was up and about to check the kitchen for snacks but I had felt like I had really conquered it at last. Spanish at 4 to 6, alright but I made quite a few embarrassing errors. Need to study more for Spanish as I'm getting into newer and newer content. Both challenging and exciting. Dinner -- a bit of pork and a soy sauced egg and some crab, but I really didn't eat much crab. Had an orange for dessert, set up a couple local large language models, and read a bit of The Autobiography of Red (don't remember where I first heard of it ... possibly just researching Geryon).

Woke up early enough but stayed in bed 20 or so minutes, still addicted to reading about the M39 mount collapsible Soviet lenses. Silver chambers, $60, $70 total, tempting me with succulent compactness. Industar-10, Industar-22. Like knobs of vision. Especially ironic as my Industar-50 is actually the apex of these two lenses (Tessar optical design, Soviet copy).

Slipbox and buffer. February 12th 2024, 11:17pm.

Slower day today. Got up somewhat earlier but stayed in bed 10 or 20 minutes. Wrapped up History assignment, I just need to do a reply tomorrow. Made some packed udon for breakfast with a couple eggs, cooked the noodles a minute or so longer (I like them soft), added some shallot and cilantro. Yum. The FD 28mm lens finally arrived as I was eating! Gleefully unpacked it and was ... kind of underwhelmed? Build was very very light and the aperture ring was a touch stiff -- thought I'd accidentally pop it off my adapter. I think it's because I'm so used to the (ultra) wide angle lens on my smartphone camera this is just normal for me. I tried shooting some test shots and noticed the semi-automatic modes on my RP like Fv and Av were consistently overexposing one or two stops even though the EVF preview was perfectly exposed. Same for my Industar 50-2 and my SMC Takumar, though I didn't try the EF pancake. Eventually I tried setting it to manual, metered by Sunny 16 and then by the light meter UI on it, and the photos came out well exposed. So I may have to shoot in manual mode more. But I'm very grateful to have this. The wide angle of view -- and it is wide -- brings more context into each shot. And the focal length means that zone focusing is much much easier -- on f/16 this lens has an acceptable focus from 2.55 feet to infinity. Wow! The balance and weight of the lens on the camera also feels quite nice and so it's very mobile. Intermittently worked on history homework throughout the day, checked my Spanish and photography canvas pages. Chicken lime soup and a couple of ponytail radish pickles for dinner, over a Minecraft video about playing the Alpha version (apparently a purer experience, I want to try playing some soon). Had a few (7) pieces of candied ginger for dessert. Telling that no one seems to have touched them. More for me! (A few years ago I bought a few packs of chewy ginger candy and basically wolfed it down in 3 or 4 months which really set my heart on ginger since. Love the stuff.) Mostly completed with most of my work today I decided to work on my slipbox and finally out my chunk of notes that have been in buffer these last couple days into the box. Very satisfying, and laying out all the cards really helped me see the topic better. After finishing I noticed my left middle finger was acting up. My topmost joint had been a little stiff these past two days but now after working on my slipbox, writing cards and putting them into the slipbox, my middle joint is acting up. I hesitate to say it's rheumatoid arthritis but if it doesn't clear up in a week I'm seeing the doctor.

Got up early enough but my brother was in the bathroom a bit so I finished getting ready around 9:40. Chatted with my mom a bit about how people my age were moving back in with their parents to save on costs. Off to Main Street Bagel in San Jose with dad and younger brother. Dad talked about grandma overseas on her vacation and how she was hard at work trying to prepare fish and cane sugar, ostensibly for us, but actually for her to sell to her friends. But she overexerted herself twice and my mom got really disappointed in the entire shebang. When we arrived my dad stayed in the car, me and my brother headed out. I got a ham egg and cheese on an everything bagel. My brother got a nova lox on plain. I paid and we swung by the nearby Starbucks since he wanted a drink. He got a pistachio latte I think. We headed back to the car and went home. Arrived home. I made a bit more coffee today, 21g/350ml, but ran out of brew water part way so a bit of my brew was immersion as I reboiled. My bagel was a bit dry since there wasn't any cream cheese (and it had cooled down as I made coffee) but the bagel itself and the egg were very good. The came out a touch more bitter than I'd liked so I added a bit of milk. I don't remember the last time I put milk in my coffee. Which itself is odd since I used to do it a lot last year as I worked through one or two odd bags. The rest of the day after that was getting really frustrated with history homework and Spanish homework, but eventually just toughing it out until I felt less vengeful. I did half of my Discussion #5 and completed all of my Spanish MyLab work. I suspect I'll have to frame my history class as yet another information problem like I did to my shoddy excuse for a cognitive psychology course last quarter. Around 1/3rd of the way into a history reading I took a break for half an hour or so, looked up some Soviet M39 rangefinder lenses -- they seem like they can fit on my mirrorless. Didn't get a chance to use my camera much (other than a couple pics) and I definitely didn't add to my slipbox. Amix texted me about cogsci readings and I replied with some suggestions though I personally have been reading publications and articles than longerform books. Remnants of a digital attention span I suppose which again is odd to say since I'm still using digital now, as two core components for the slipbox, and for this, and many other things. Family closed up shop early around 5 since business was so slow on account of the Super Bowl (49ers lost). Around 6:50 I had dinner which was really leftovers as my mom was exhausted from cooking the other two days for Lunar New Year. Wrapped up homework after, and read a bit more on those Soviet lenses. About to head off soon.

Four minutes to midnight. Will my learning be furious? Tomorrow will tell.

Enough curses. I arrived home at 8:15, or 8:20. Banh hoi for dinner. I (accidentally) made it into a salad. Checked Canvas page for history. Chatted with the History Discord about her grading.

Stayed in bed for an hour this morning. Got ready. Had half a combo bun and an orange for breakfast. Had to work again around 3 which really soured my mood since I needed -- absolutely needed -- to catch up on homework. Settled for crunching half of my Spanish homework. Dull and difficult on account of not studying. It is catching up to me quickly now. Called mom at 3, said I could go at 4, ok. 6.5/10 on my first Discussion assignment. I had thought it was more of an icebreaker than a discussion. Emailed her about appending to my Discussions 2, 3, and 4. I got a reply after work, which was less cold, and passed by quick. I could append, yes, and answer the questions with more detail, yes. If she wants detail, fine, so damn be it. Drown her in detail. Soak up the text, the pages, the videos, and strip the dates from them like hues in turpentine. Curiosities of sociology, power, philosophy -- all into the ruminant -- out of her sight.

At work again. 4(:15, I came late) to 8.

Still in bed. Oyyy

Awake.

Woke up a bit earlier today but got ready late. Felt a little bleary. Mom had put the finishing touches on all her food and I had some stirfry noodles and some veggie mushroom stew. Aunt Lang arrived early, around 10:30. Took my RP with the battery case and the Industar 50-2, had work at 12:30 until 8 which would've been somewhat alright if it weren't for the fact that I completely forgot to charge my phone and we didn't have a charger there. It was hilarious and frustrating that, with a cup of coffee in me just 20 minutes before arrival, I was focused and wired to ... attend to work. I did play around with my Canon RP settings and snap a few pics but we were busy enough I had to be pretty vigilant. I was so clearheaded I didn't even think much about my cogsci research, which I somewhat hoped to have thought about, because at least I could scribble down some notes; but no, not much. I was firmly in the present for better or for worse. I suppose my camera could've been a symbol for that, if overt. Arrived home around around 8:20, had half a bun and more noodles and more stew, unwound a bit on the computer, texted Dave and cracked down on a research tab group -- it was about neural level optimizations in the brain vs. AI -- for Hemera. I finished just in the nick of time. Well, not counting the 18 minutes past 12 appending to my Stream here, but whatever. (Edited message/Drop.)

I don't entirely remember what I tested on the RP. I think it was because I was adapting so much and trying to learn the ins and outs of the system. I adapted the EF 40mm for sure, and then the M42 Takumar and Industar 50-2 lenses. Not too impressed with my Industar 50-2 but the JPEGs on this camera are just brilliant. Very little rainbowing if any, and the highlights are actually a touch more accurate on the JPEG than the RAW. Power of full frame I suppose, and/or better light collection. So that makes me feel much more comfortable about shooting and proceeding (specifically -- more post-processing the photos I really want, not just the general set). Quite a bit later I tried my dad's FD 50mm and the 35-105mm zoom, and both looked great. Spanish class at 4, totally distracted by my RP, futzed with the battery grip and a couple battery swaps later it worked! The biggest change was absolutely the electronic viewfinder, as it was bigger and much brighter than my optical viewfinder on my SL1, but also seemed a little more "flat". Color rendition also leaned a little cool which was hilarious since Canon color science normally leans a touch warm. I'll have to check the diopter adjustment tomorrow. After Spanish class I took my brother to iTea and he got a drink for himself and our mom, and an order of popcorn chicken. I didn't order anything since I had that lemon tea earlier. When we got home I had a few bites of the popcorn chicken over a video about the siege of Leningrad -- awful time for them all, but they were made of steel. Had a small dinner later, veggie pork soup, since I was still full. Dad came to ask me about SIM hacking and personal banking and I much obliged, and he checked out my new RP and commented on the T90 (it was/is his after all). It turns out he bought the body first for $600 or so in the 80s, and then the lens a bit later. The zoom lens was a perpetual borrow from his brother / my uncle. Quickly I adapted the FD zoom on my RP for him to see -- it was quite funny to see, that big old lens on this stocky squat camera, but it worked -- and I zoomed in on my brother in the midst of a game, focused with focus peaking, red, snapped a shot, showed my dad, he was impressed with the sharpness and quality. Really quite nice. Added a few cards to the slipbox and did laundry and I am pooped, I tell you, out of it and off to sleep. 12:24am now.

I had to charge the battery and such so in the meantime I skimmed the printed the instruction booklet and picked out which lenses I wanted to test. Mom asked me to get buy 3 packs of combo savory buns and 2 packs of sweet custard buns for lunar new year as she had a lot of food to prepare and make today for tomorrow. So I headed off around 12:30 or so to the dim sum outlet, got the buns, and waited in line for a good 7 or so minutes. Felt a lot longer than that but alas. Placed the buns in my trunk/hatch, snagged a lemon jasmine tea with honey boba from Sunright Tea, and then headed home. Dropped off the buns and got to testing the Canon RP as I sipped and chewed my drink. (No coffee today, I should mention! I bet you my huge 400mls and the genmaicha tea yesterday really fucked my sleep.) It didn't taste as good as the first time -- just really sour, not too sweet, really more like a huge squeeze of lemon in some iced tea than a lemonade tea. I added a pack of sugar to try and cut through the bite, and it did help a little, but I suspect I'll have to change my order soon. A shame since I really do like citrus teas. Honey boba was not the black boba, it used a kind of pale white boba, but still good.

Woke up decently early today, 8:50 which wasn't really a good thing since I got to sleep VERY late at 2:30am, but I didn't feel too slammed. Stayed in bed until 9:15, scrolling on phone watching videos about the Canon RP. Got ready, finished around 10, fried a couple eggs in some fried garlic infused olive oil and made some savory oatmeal. Goodness for that hour and a half after finishing breakfast and waiting for my package was equal amounts frustrating and exciting. The anticipation nearly killed me, clearly. FedEx arrived at 11:36, as you can see from my last two posts, and quickly I was off to get the package. It was worth the wait, I can say that for sure.

WOOO !!!

I SEE THE FEDEX TRUCK OUTSIDE MY WINDOW

Can't sleep :(

Final comment -- my Canon RP, a cross-country trip it's been on, was routed from Stockton up to Sacramento (further from the Bay Area). It's like the thing wants to see as much as the road as possible! Though maybe I can't fault it too much. It is just hard to wait, which is more than a familiar feeling to me.

I did not really know what they meant by 10 seconds agitation every minute -- after each passed minute or each numerical minute? I did the former, and agitated the tank in the way Professor Teng did, swinging it back and forth in small semicircles above the sink. Gave it a few taps just to be sure. Dump, rinse, fixer, rinse, photo-flo. Near the end with the photo-flo a nice young women helped me out and got a metal hook for me and showed me the timer on the dryer. I clipped everything and hung it up to dry, and then cleaned up and dried all my supplies, and then gave the kit back to Mr. Chai. I walked back to the classroom and set a timer for 15 minutes, ample time for it to dry, and unwound on my phone and watched a bit of Ellie Anderson's (Overthinking Podcast co-host) video on Spirit and history, and had a few sips of coffee, which had cooled to the perfect temperature and interestingly a milder taste than I thought (or maybe my brewing was just on point today). Soon the timer was up, I brought my binder of sleeves, went back into the developing room, got my film, and then went to the left table in the center room to cut and sleeve my film. Professor Teng took attendance and in 7 or 8 minutes I was done. I vetted my sleeves past her and checked if I needed to do anything else; nope. With everything done I packed up quickly and headed off to a very very late lunch. Pasta section was closed so I got an 8 inch turkey gouda veggie sandwich instead. Grabbed a cup of mustard with a dot of ketchup (of course I had to) and headed out into the bright afternoon, the gray clouds now gone, the bright white ones in their place, and a soaring of bright blue all around. Still a bit chilly, but not as chilly as earlier. Had the sandwich over an episode of The Nanny (one word: gherkin). Headed home, nice and full with the rest of the coffee, and the brightness of the afternoon was a brilliant clarity compared to the rain earlier. Traffic still a bit slower. Got stuck behind an on and off driver for a few minutes. On the final exit to hometown a couple people passed me and I miscalculated how many people were backed up on the left turn and so I braked hard, but whatever, we made it, we made it. Poor T90 fell from my left seat to my bottom right car floor, but this thing is a tank; but I will put it on the floor next time. Arrived home, kind of bleh, 6.5/10 drive, around 4:05, and spent the next half hour brewing some genmaicha back to back on my AeroPress (I suspect my Hario Switch would be a bit better). The rest of the day I unwound, finished history homework (WW2! A terrible time), and continued to unwind. Mom made veggie tomato fish, and some fried flat sardine and eggs, really quite delicious. Left thumb acting up today -- I will need to make an appointment soon, since I worry now it is something more insidious like rheumatoid arthritis, but I have no physical proof. And it is not 12:26; time to head off.

February 7th 2024. Got up early enough today, 9:20 or so before it continued to slide to 10. Skipped breakfast, studied a bit and read some more photography stuff between 10 and 11:20. Made coffee, 24g and 400ml, five pours. Drove to school and my goodness the rain poured and poured and poured. Every other second or every two seconds even with my wipers on full speed my windshield would be totally blurry like a watercolor, not to mention the wind and rain puddles that slowed us down. But it surprisingly felt safer and less hectic and I noticed less people passing on the left side. Arrived at school in a flash, less cars in the indoors parking, backpack on, T90 over my shoulder, coffee in my left hand. Saw the rain continue to pour from the balcony of the parking lot and so I scampered off quick to photography class. Well I could run but I did speed walk and that was something and my left hand got quite cold, the hand holding my bottle. But I was thankful I wore my big brown jacket and not my puffy gray jacket or goodness forbid either of my hoodless white or gray sweatshirts. Photography class inside was nice and warm and I had arrived 7 or 8 minutes early. Professor Teng seemed to be doing well. Once class officially started we checked out the darkroom, got our developing supplies (thermometer, steel tank, steel reel, scissors, tray). Some of us went straight to the darkroom to load film. Others like myself stayed in the center room practicing loading with dummy film. I was not too confident, even after practicing with my eyes closed a couple times, but soon it was time for me to go and so I did. Since we only had a few darkrooms multiple people had to be in one room. Mr. Chai gave us a quick talk about loading film, and soon, a flick of the light switch later, we were off. I have to say that darkroom was incredibly dark. Darker than even my bedroom (and I sleep well with it dark). Immediately I felt a twinge of tiredness and confusion, but I picked up my canister and tried to pry the flat side off with the door cap opener. It did make some sounds but I wasn't sure I did anything until I felt the dent of that edge, and I just used my fingers to pry the endcap right off. Only a minute in the dark and I had begun to see some purple swirls and -- oh God the thermometer was glowing, even with it stood dial down. I was terrifically worried I would fog our film but it seemed dim enough that it was alright. As I tried to adjust to seeing with my fingers we began to talk and it was actually not as awkward as I thought. I do still have my communicative abilities, even if it is mostly describing what is literally at hand. Quickly I snipped off the film leader and tried to feel for the steel reel center hooks, but they felt so indistinct I had to check two or three times before I felt comfortable enough to get them on. But I got the sprocket holes on, and I spun the reel on the table to load the film. In maybe a minute or two I had actually reached the end of the film and just needed to cut off the spool, and that was that. Well I also placed my reel in the tank and closed it shut of course and see it down. I waited for my two group mates to finish and looked around the darkroom. As it turns out my glowing thermometer was not the only source of light. A little bit of light spilled from the door crack, maybe from the hallway or even the developing room, and there was an amber exit light of some kind at the top left of the door. Anyway we had finished, I turned on the lights, and how bright it was after 20 or 25 minutes in there! Steel reels and trays in tow we checked out the packed development room, then waited out in the center room for an open spot. 10 or so minutes in I got a spot and went off. The water was quite cold so development would take 8 minutes and 7 seconds. But I watched all the videos and took notes and had the printed instructions on me so I began to develop my film.

Typing on the computer again to get this out fast. Woke up a little later than I wanted but did feel more rested. Had a turkey lettuce croissant sandwich for breakfast, watched a bit of my history video, checked a couple RF lenses on eBay (16mm and 28mm), made coffee at around 1pm. Checked the mail, got a couple shipments today (battery grip for the upcoming RP, and the RF-FD adapter). Felt kind of out of it the entire day -- not really an emotional or mental fatigue, just a kind of craving for something. Organized a few photos and videos, lost track of time and joined my Spanish class late at around 4:30, didn't participate much. I did take a few more notes in Dendron, and read a couple papers in Zotero, and did a couple questions for my history discussion homework, but nothing solid. Looking forward to photography tomorrow. :-)

Slept in a bit today. Felt okay. Had a banana and nut butter sandwich for breakfast. Talked with Mom a bit. Made some coffee around 1, on the Hario Switch, 15/250. Tried to read my history book a bit. Finished my photography notes for this week, for school, and bumbled around a few other tabs. Went to work at 2, a bit of rain on the way. Cold at work, so I stayed hydrated with plenty of warm water. Finished a portion of the reading throughout the hours, though I need to visit my textbook tomorrow. Went home around 8:10. Mom made some veggie stirfry, steamed soy sauce and ginger fish (meat was very tender), and I added in some pickles to get in some extra veggies. After dinner I added a bit more personal photography notes and -- I am still grateful for this -- shared some of my phone tabs to my computer, in bulk, without retyping and revisiting those webpages on desktop. (Share function + copy links + paste into Markor note + sync through SyncThing into desktop FSNotes.)

No work today (possibly tomorrow). I spent the day at home unwinding and taking photography notes. Some for my actual photo class, some for my personal hobby. I made some genmaicha tea on my Hario Switch around 1 or so to really get my hydration up after eating that salty (not unpalatably salty, just restaurant salty) platter earlier. Around 3 my uncle left with my cousin to grab some groceries and asked me to look after his dark stew. Just 30 minutes later my mom arrived and checked out my uncle's stew and noticed all the scum up top. She said he should not have left it on the stove, and should instead be skimming it off. So she skimmed plenty of foam and oil off, and lots of spices, as he apparently added much too many. He arrived around 3:45 or 3:50 and they got caught up. I scampered off to my desk, plenty of hot water in tow. Around 7:45 I got pretty hungry and had some of the stew but I noticed quite a bit of organ meat that I didn't recognize. I went for a few pieces of chicken and pork instead, and a couple pieces of stomach. Leftover yellow pickles, and some fresh cucumbers, provided some much needed crunch and veggies. Got sleepy around 10:30 as you may have seen earlier, added a few notes to the slipbox, refactored some notes in Dendron, and now I'm here, in bed, at the end of the day.

In bed now. Not quite 11:48 but close. Woke up super early, around 8:30, so we could go to iHOP. Got ready as fast as I could and we were out of the house at around 9:30. Raining a bit and lots of wind. We settled into iHOP fast and ordered some food. I got a platter with 2 pieces each of eggs, sausages, bacon, and ham; and a couple of pancakes and some hash browns (it came with it). Not bad for $16. My mom got a couple pieces of French toast, my dad got a similar platter, and my brother got some eggs benedict. It was really quite cozy inside. After that we headed home and we arrived and I felt the onset of a food coma. But I resisted and made myself a cup of coffee, AeroPress, got the ratio mostly right and of course with Adler's method it was very smooth.

Getting sleepy. Also a bit cold. Might actually be able to sleep before 11:45 tonight.

Slept in, got up late. Leftover black bean noodles and some stirfried greens and yellow pickles for late breakfast. Made coffee at 12:10, screwed up the ratio on my AeroPress (initial output was very small, but when diluting to 300ml, it looked like it would overflow the cup), made another cup on the Hario Switch instead in a bigger mug, tasted more bitter, my pour might've been a little fast/aggressive. Did some Spanish homework in the afternoon, and then at night. Took me and my brother to our banks to deposit money, then we came back home briefly and then went to Smart and Final to get a few groceries, then finally came back home. Couldn't really focus on much all day but I didn't feel all that stressed about it. Installed Darktable, will try my hand at bulk editing tomorrow. Mom made veggie soup for dinner with garlicky peppery beef meatballs -- so cozy. Uncle brought some crawfish so I had a few of them, and a couple clams. Had a couple bowls of the mixed jelly/lychee/milk dessert.

Slept in, got up late. Skipped breakfast. Made some coffee on the AeroPress, 24/400, Alan Adler's method. Quite light, as I would later find. Work from 12 to 8. Very very cold. A bit of rain. Mom made some Korean food for dinner -- black bean noodles, stirfry veggies, roasted/baked beef ribs, served some yellow daikon pickles. So delicious. I had another small serving of the black bean noodles. Cleaned my phone case and my charger port. May need to replace my charger wire since the end I've been using for maybe 4 years now only works in one direction as of yesterday (but I reversed the ends and now it seems fine).

Home. Couple of leftover slices of pizza for breakfast. Coffee, 18g and 300ml, glass mug, coffee looked quite nice in the light. Spanish at 4, to 6. Indirect object pronouns. Checked my laptop to make sure it was charged, migrated some webpages and readings from it to my iMac. Valor from 7:05 to 8:35 or so, until dinner. Dinner -- veggie soup, some fried egg and fish egg and a bit of meat, plenty of veggies. Had another slice but that was it I promise. Didn't get to my slipbox though I did check and comment on Judah's white paper about Blogdown. Still trying to keep the Canon RP out of mind (it's arriving approx. a week from today).

12:32 already. I've got to run off to bed. Maybe set an alarm, get a couple extra hours tomorrow, I want to get back to my slipbox.

January 31 2024. Fast today. Woke up early but lamped in bed for 20 or so minutes. Skipped breakfast, packed up (but forgot my charger and headphones, as I would later find), made coffee (21/350, five pours), parents asked me about my major, dad mentioned younger brother didn't know what he wanted to do after high school, and I went to campus to study for an hour or so even with my cancelled photo class. Rained on the way. A clear glowing gray, scuttling and scattering like trails of hermit crabs on the loam of the sky. Wipers. A close call on a merge, but we made it. Studied in the library for an hour, signed into the school iMac, green on the edge of the table desk, did some history homework, somewhat cozy and focused but I was still frustrated that my laptop wasn't working. Extra weight. Wrapped up history homework, went to the dining hall. Had a burger and fries again. Sprinkling outside. Tables were a bit cold and wet but hey I need my quiet. Without my charger and my headphones I settled for a video on Derrida from the Overthinking Podcast YouTube channel instead. A few people came up to me: a young man asking me to do a survey, and a couple of young women asking me if I were interested in private Bible study. I'm proud to say that even with my somewhat negative moods these last few days, I responded quite graciously both times. Wrapped up lunch, finished my coffee, headed home, mused about my occasions of obsession in the car, arrived home with a turn and a brake and a good cleansing exhale. Unwound until 4, had a webinar about Fresno State transfers, need to call their phone to confirm my transcript is in, I don't know why they ask for a full-fat transcript but they do. Checked my Canon RP order and the lens adapter order, trying to put it out of mind. Which is funny because I spent a good hour, hour and a half, today, taking notes about what vintage lenses I wanted to buy. Eventually I had to tell myself to buy as little gear as possible, but use it to the max, and master the tools right here and right now, which is also ironic since that should apply to my half-frame obsoleter of the Canon SL1 (I even rationalized the crop sensor as a closer experience to a tiny negative, late last year!), but you know how it is with me and consumer tech. (Well, I'll pen in the details later.) After wrapping up my webinar around 4:45, I took my brother to Panda Express at his request about an hour earlier since my mom felt a bit sick and couldn't really make dinner. After we came back at 5:25, my dad came around 5 or 10 minutes later with some Costco pizza for dinner, and then took my brother to his tryouts. Dad came back around 6:10, I continued clearing out my tabs. Around 9 or 10 I played Valor but wasn't really into it because my weapons felt so weak (well, my Mechanic character feels alright) but what can you expect out of an MMORPG bullet hell game, even one forked from a theoretically simpler time in game history? Had a couple slices of cheese pizza and some seaweed salad. Plenty of junk food today. I can already feel a veggie craving coming on, though I'll push that to tomorrow.

It seems like the pattern of my obsessions is one that blocks out other parts and interests of my life. Good for mission-critical topics. But it's better to keep your eggs in multiple baskets. (You're a bit happier too that way.)

Slept in a bit. Had some fried eggs and veggies leftover from my mom's own omelette over a piece of toast for breakfast. Didn't do much homework today, mostly finished up my notes on the Canon RP and ordered it (and the FD lens adapter) so I should finally be past this. Had some leftover French onion soup around 5. Right thumb bugging me a little more today but whatever. Photography class cancelled tomorrow since my professor caught COVID. Worrying as COVID cases have been rising recently. Disappointed. Still probably going to visit campus just to get out of the house and my head though. Dropped off my brother at his tryouts after my Spanish class, around 6:30, still having a harder time with glare, so I will most likely get a car wash tomorrow and just clean my glasses tomorrow. My eye exam isn't until February 29th -- and quite overdue as my last prescription was from 2016, my initial diagnosis! Oldest uncle made some beef soup for dinner which was quite good.

Tab management took longer than I thought but things should be lighter tomorrow.

Slow day today. Home. Had leftover French onion soup for breakfast, bread and cheese and all, and it was still alright. Tried getting some history reading in but couldn't focus after 3 or 4 pages. Spent most of the day paralyzed about the camera. Now finally cleaning up my tabs on the computer. My Chrome browser on my phone actually started hanging a bunch and I had to export them out ASAP, though that's because I've been hoarding tabs for over a year. Took down some diction notes for Pale Fire. Dropped off my brother at his tryouts at 7, then went with my dad at 9 to pick him up. My dad seems a little slower cognitively these past couple of days -- mostly low frequency word-finding difficulties -- which worries me a bit but I think he'll be fine after a good night's sleep. Though it seems we've all had some brain fog recently. I know my senses are a little duller this winter, though they should open back up around spring and definitely summer.

I've decided. No Best Buy today but after lots of (self-)frustration I'm going for the Canon RP. We already have a few Canon lenses and my uncle did give me a Canon-compatible flash yesterday, which should obviate low-light performance (e.g. ISO noise, hand shake) and generally help the actual "writing with light" part of photography. It seems I'll have to delegate low light photos to my Pixel's Night Sight feature.

Still undecided. It's driving me mad.

Got up a bit early but was slow from the sleepiness. Finished around 9:50 and we (dad, brother, and I) were off to Noah's Bagels in/nearby San Jose. I ordered a farmhouse sandwich on an onion bagel, my brother got a Nova Lox, my dad got a blueberry bagel with cream cheese. On the way back my dad kept talking about politics and when we got home he pivoted into Asian geopolitics from the 70s to the 90s. I couldn't find a way out of the conversation so I settled for eating my bagel -- turned out they put it on a cheese bagel, but it was still delicious -- and making a cup of coffee and a couple mugs of genmaicha, the coffee on my Hario Switch, the tea in my AeroPress (inverted), and remembering that he was indeed a history teacher for some time in the early 2000s. The genmaicha particularly was very smooth, possibly because I brewed for 3:30 minutes on the dot (didn't extract too much). Really delicious. As I ate and sipped I searched relevant terms on my phone and the iPad, trying to better ground his talk in the appropriate history. Finally he ended off mentioning the collectivist culture of Vietnamese people, which my mom caught, and relayed an anecdote about a friend she was no longer in contact with after said friend tried to get her to hook up with the welfare state. I wrapped everything up and at the computer was greeted to my own billowing thoughts and tabs and indecision on this potential camera purchase, rehashing the same webpages to try and memorize the things I had missed, but there wasn't any. Really the only thing left to do now was decide whether I wanted it or not (and the Canon RP, as I am finding, is part of that not). Around 2 I headed to work and had a rough time around 3 after I misheard four orders in the span of 25 minutes. Absolutely maddening but my dad waved it off (thanks dad). Work was not really cold but it was a bit quiet on account of the 49ers game. Headed home at 7:08, sped down the street home, I don't know why I speed now. I don't know what happened. I will get myself back under control. Throughout the day I had this phrase/item in my mind: Page of Catatonia. It's actually a Spell item from the game Valor, and something about the flavor text was unsettling to creep me out intermittently throughout the day. Really quite odd. When I got home mom had made a bright sirloin steak salad with thyme and fresh string beans, and some diakon tofu chicken soup with a secret ingredient (starts with an M, ends with i, it's a bottle sauce, you can figure it out; I just want to be coy). Later than night I crunched 20 or so Spanish assignments on MyLab (not pleasant, but better than nothing), fattened up my tabs about the Sony A7ii again, and now I am off to sleep very soon. I want to clean up my OneTab as I have broken 20,000 tabs maybe 5 or 6 days ago, but I think I'll pounce on this tiredness and do it tomorrow. Incidentally I do need to visit Best Buy to get a hands-on on said Sony camera, but also the Canon RP. No IBIS and 2 stops less dynamic range, but superior autofocus and EF lens compatibility; and still a mirrorless, so I can adapt vintage lenses as needed. It's interesting how my camera requirements have changed these past months. Could be growing confidence with the technical aspects, though I imagine that's too soon to say.

"And there, on that black fur / Your strongest look is dissolved and destroyed" ⁠— House of Leaves translation of an excerpt of a German poem.

My, someones been working hard behind the scenes.

12:17am update: Referencing the new "link to your drop" addendum to the bot's notification message.

Short day. Slept in / woke up late.

11:59 update: Skipped breakfast, decided to pull my sleeves up and make the French onion soup today. Got some beef broth and a small jar of Better than Boullion beef, then swung by Sunright for some tea (lemon jasmine, 25/50 sugar ice, agar boba), then scampered off home. Followed an Instant Pot recipe which took a good hour and a half, preparation and everything. After cooking down the onions under pressure for 17 minutes (recipe calls for 20 but I softened the onions a bit longer on the Saute mode), I took the inner pot right out and placed it on the stove. Onions were a little goopy so I had to reduce and reduce, the color was definitely coming in the right ballpark. Quickly I dumped in the beef broth and went to open the jar of Better than Boullion only to find the most difficult jar I have ever had the displeasure of trying to open in my life. Out came the oyster knife, which would normally pop these lids in 4 or 5 poke-turns, but this one took 15 or 20 gentle stabs. Horrifying! But I got it off. Just a teaspoon of that luscious dark paste. Prepped the bread/cheese topping, a few minutes under the broiler, but I didn't add enough cheese. Finally put it together and it was alright, albeit sweeter than I thought. We seemed to have run out of salt so I was leaning on that extra teaspoon of BtB to help out. If I made it again I would probably make my own beef stock, and use extra bones for extra mouthfeel. I would also use more onions, caramelized over the stove. And a cheese mix. Cleanup was drudgery. No one had cleaned the pots from last night so I had to take 25 or so minutes (I know because I had a loud episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show on) cleaning it all. There weren't too many pots so it was just wrestling with the bigger geometry. After that I had a half-sandwich of turkey and lettuce and headed off to lamp out at the computer and finally slurp down my lemon tea. It seemed a little less sweet than I thought, but I didn't add any extra sugar. Later my mom came by with my younger cousin from work. She made some pork and oyster mushroom porridge, which was very very flavorful and delicious and comforting. As I snapped a few pictures on the SL1 -- a bittersweet experience seeing that I had been eyeing, and most likely will replace it with, the Sony A7ii -- my uncle came by and lent me a flash to try, which worked spectacularly. It even registered the 24mm lens. Though, the ergonomics became a bit more fraught with a bigger flash up top. I am now better understanding photography as, literally, writing with light; and that better low-light performance is an inherently physical challenge with necessary clever solutions (bigger sensors, or HDR/computation).

I suspect this principle will also steer my photography in the future, if I add more artistic flair to my snapshots.

The aforementioned shower insight: the slipbox is an "unbound" commonplace book with abstract ordering, but the material that enters the slipbox is still subject to the same "resonance" or feeling of inspiration of any commonplace book. Inspiration is the alpha and omega of creative work. You must be inspired to remember, voluntarily or involuntarily, a quote or a scene, and then record that on paper or on the computer. (As a rule, my plaintext commonplace file only includes quotes and scenes I have remembered, while away from the work -- not ones I think are significant at the time of reading or even studying.) Then, you must be inspired by events, topics, new learnings, and of course excerpts, to write. Everything in between is mechanical.

Slow day. Slept in, woke up around 10. Extra blanket last night so I was finally able to recover some warmth. Had an insight about the slipbox in the shower. Turkey egg lettuce sriracha mayo sandwich for late breakfast, around 11, and then had work at 2. Had some coffee around 1:30 before work but I felt a bit distracted and cold throughout. Read a bit of Pale Fire, Kinbote's commentary, but not too much. Kinbote's digressive style reminds me a bit of Johnny, in that he's actually connects more to his life than the source work, almost like the words and phrases of the inner poem are some kind of aides-memoire for him. Had Bleachers and Sara Bareilles "Wild Heart" stuck in my head all day today. Steamed(? could be boiled) crab for dinner. Succulent, juicy, great flavor. I don't trust my teeth so I settled for the metal shell cracker, even if it took me a little longer. Lamped out at the computer the rest of the night checking Sony A7ii prices and discussions and taking notes into Dendron.

Home. Slept in. Slow. Wanted to make some French onion soup but it turns out we never had beef broth or Better than Boullion to begin with so I put it on hold for another day. A bit of pasta for late breakfast instead. Coffee a little later, a little earlier, at 12:30. Spent most of the day fending off the information overload, unsuccessfully, of researching mirrorless cameras and adapting vintage lenses to them. So many options, most of them really testing my budget. Studied a few short photography videos lectures around 1 and 2. Spanish at 4. Distracted by my old notes. Continued focusing on Spanish. Spanish ended. Continued browsing about mirrorless cameras. This stuff grips me and doesn't let go. Or maybe I allow myself to be gripped by obsession. Tunnel vision of the mind. Didn't work on the slipbox today. Alas.

Woke up early enough today, felt a bit cold, got ready. Had a turkey lettuce mayo siracha sandwich for breakfast, made some coffee with my AeroPress (18g, 300ml), grabbed my camera and photo supplies, and drove to school. A bit of traffic but not that bad. Arrived with a few minutes to spare. We went over the exposure triangle, got our cameras, and went out for the blind walk. I partnered up with my partner from last week (Adriana) and we got to exploring the campus. Technically the walk is supposed to be blind, but Adriana hadn't explored much of the campus and so it was safer and easier to just walk eyes open. We headed for the Kirsh Center and then swung back around through the L Quad and fountain. A lot of my photos were shot from waist/torso height but my actual subjects were a bit further away. I suppose my professor wanted this to be more of an exploratory activity, just to get the feel of film and a film camera down. As we walked we talked about shooting film and how college was going. Adriana is a film major, and prefers color photography to black and white. My T90 whirred and clicked and when I got to my last frame, one of the fountain, it rewound completely back into the canister, and we headed back inside. Since we weren't developing our film today we headed off early. I wanted to get a bit more practice with the steel reels but I guess that'll be next week. In the meantime I just have my film roll and canister in my bag. (The second one is going into the freezer, now.) After class I went right home. I wish I could say the drive home was as uneventful as the drive to campus. Unfortunately many many people passed me and cut me off, often without turn signals at all. I kept checking my dial wondering if I was going to slow -- not at all. I was following the flow of traffic, and in fact, speeding quite often (5-8 MPH above). Just a few miles I felt so deadened by the reckless driving that swept me by, I let all the expression out of my face, stared straight ahead, and turned myself into more of a car processor than a person. Briefly I wondered if anyone saw how dead I looked. In any event I had no issues the rest of the drive after, but it was such a disappointing cap to an otherwise very fun class. I unwound the rest of the day later. No tea today. Put maybe 6 or 7 cards into my slipbox, but couldn't get into the groove of researching and reading as I would normally do. When I reread a portion of it I actually didn't feel inspired, which tells me I am somewhat closed today (and so it is better to wait until tomorrow, if I want to write with the help of the slipbox). Mom made pasta with some ground waygu beef which was delicious and flavorful. Just enough tartness with plenty of savory kick from the beef and tomatoes. Around 9 or 10 I did the academic updates for all my transfer universities. Want to try to sleep a little earlier today. I do get ready for bed earlier, starting the beginning of this week, but it takes me maybe 5 or 10 minutes longer now to fall asleep.

Brisk day today. Didn't really sleep well last night, felt like my sleep was very shallow. Woke up somewhat early to prepare for my wisdom teeth consultation, left at 9:40, had the terrible realization I had to fight through peak traffic on 237 West. And there was a fuck ton of traffic. By the time I arrived I was 40 minutes late -- I had spent an hour on the road! On the bright side it did make me feel less stressed about missing my exit from 237 up to a different freeway because 237 just ends at Mountain View. And the streets are very cozy there! Wisdom teeth consultation went by quickly, had an X-ray and some background information on the procedure, and then I set the operation for April 1st when I would be on break. I asked if it would affect TMJ (not really) or if I needed to get my erupted top right tooth out (yes, it's non-functional). Wrapped things up and swung by campus to try and crash my Python course but I arrived just a few minutes late enough it would be conspicuous if I headed in. Spent an hour at the library instead reading Pieces of Light and checking eBay for wooden index card boxes (don't laugh), and then had a burger and some fries and a coffee there. Read a couple essays from Cevolini's Forgetting Machines, the sun came out bright, felt a bit better even with the uneasy sleep last night. Drove home, unwound. Not much work on the slipbox. Finished annotating the Pale Fire inner poem and Kinbote's introduction and I'll read the Commentary tomorrow, or try to analyze more of the inner poem like the diction or detail. Shade lends to natural imagery quite well. Dropped off my cousin, headed back home. Spanish from 4 to 6. Continued to unwind, but still didn't work on my slipbox. Around 7:50 or so I had some udon noodles with the chicken soup my mom's been simmering for 4 and a half hours(!) and it was very delicious and very cozy. After dinner I crammed U.S. History homework and finished around 11:20. I've still got it! But frankly I could do a lot better if I had the whole week to spare. So I will try my hardest to reset my academic workflow by the end of the week. If I'm lucky I might even put some of that history into my slipbox by the end of the quarter :-)

Slow day today but my head is clear, all from morning to now. It seems like stress really compromises my mind. Slept in, woke up teary. Kind of skipped breakfast and nearly skipped lunch, settled for a mayo siracha chicken onion lettuce sandwich on a bagel. Had a call about an upcoming appointment to get my wisdom teeth checked. Had coffee soon after since it was so late, around 1:05, coffee tasted alright but needed a little extra water after since it was a bit strong, 18g and 300ml, five pours again. Will try double filters tomorrow. Didn't do much homework, mainly just read Pale Fire and checked out my Zotero and other papers. Kind of ironic the day that OneTab drops my followup research tab group (700 tabs!) I hammer down like 3 different lines of thinking. Assimilated three or four index cards that have been in my "scratch deck" (no alphanumeric code or indexing, said code is actually needed for indexing) for almost a year now. They were on large language models, mainly the qualitative aspects. Around 4:05 my brother bugged/asked me to go to Smart and Final nearby, I obliged, got some French bread, he got kombucha and a pack of protein bars, I paid. I was fairly annoyed but I think that's just because driving on a whim is so alien to me -- I never do it, I dislike driving for the sake of driving (though of course I do need to explore San Jose, so I will need to better familiarize myself with driving; incidentally my car sounds quite smoother since my oil change, which is saying something since it's winter and car engines are generally louder on account of that). I think it was a couple hours after we came home, it was a quick trip, that I was really chewing up a paper on the slipbox, Paper as Passion, I think, that I noticed just how much more open my mind felt, how much easier it felt to remember, how light it was to read a quote or a passage and immediately be reminded of another quote from a webpage or a book. I did feel that last weekend but it was slower, heavier, weighed down. And how quickly I typed in the margins and highlights! I felt at home again in my mind.

"somehow she [Pelafina] made you feel as if she had invented you."

⁠— Walden D. Wyrhta, The Whalestoe Letters

Slept in, felt a bit better this morning, clearer. Had some leftover beef stew and some toasted Dutch crunch bread. Forgot to add herbs in retrospect but still very good. Spent some time on the computer looking up brain networks and worrying over my Python course and reading Pale Fire, this time annotating with Post-Its and summarizing stanzas. Was going to head to work at 12 but they said I could go at 2, and then 3, and then I went. Had coffee at 1:15pm, ratio was good, coffee definitely tasted staler and more bitter, so I will have to open my other bag of beans (the same ones, but I froze them weeks ago) soon. Work was very quiet. So I did get to annotate quite a bit of the inner poem of Pale Fire. Mental clarity continued to improve until 5 or 6 and held there since. Headed home around 7:10 since we do close early on Sunday and headed home. Dinner: broccoli and chicken (breast?) stirfry. You look at it and it seems kind of light but it's totally packed with flavor. I don't know how my mom does it -- make these "sleeper dishes". Dropped my Python course, and about to wrap up my computer time. Thinking of crashing Python class on Tuesday just to get a behind-the-scenes look on this Lab that's been terrorizing me this past weekend, and Friday. Incidentally I do need to be much more clear about my time management -- fragment my effort to save my energy, take a piece of homework and do them partially throughout the week. That Python class made me miss 3 Spanish assignments -- which confirms my sheer breakdown of time management. I was better at this in the first half of last Fall quarter so I'm sure I can revive that time management again.

Dropped my Python course. It was seriously stressing me out and honestly it seemed like it would jeopardize my TAG.

Hypnos beckons with a small hand, a dark curve underneath my eyes. His fingers begin to weave dreams out of my moles, crossing back and forth and then back around and into a net. So be it, little god, take me under

Transfer academic updates. I forgot to do them today. My god. How I unravel, it is faster than I can crochet myself back together. Mis palabras están acabando, como agua de mis manos.

January 20th 2024. More slipbox. Anthropology, culture. Did a bit of programming work. Slow but sure. Will finish tomorrow. Skipped breakfast. Had half a sesame bagel. Coffee later, 18g and 350g. Was that right? The ratio is off, now that I think about it. Harder to think today. Gray today, rained. Videos. Music. Dropped off and picked up brother from his friends house at 1 and 7pm. Ate an orange. This is out of order. Did some anthropology vocabulary, in Anki, wrote it and quizzed it, recall like I'm trying to teach the material. Working memory felt halved, on account of sleeping so late last night and waking up earlier today. Need a hug. Need a warmer climate. Fretted over overusing my language network compared to my other domain general networks, briefly, but I use all my networks, I'm sure. I just wish I could connect my multiple demand and language networks together. Double dissociable apparently. Psychedelics may help in that regard. I feel as though I am petrifying from the outside, the skin of my inner self swirling into granite, the me that is inside the inside, getting colder, crystallized, frigid, slow, fixed. No. That will not be me. Disorder, order. Sprouting connections. An exit on the freeway -- there is always another path. Beef noodle soup for dinner. Savory and delicious. Even the pieces of offal were nicely stewed and tender and soft. The fan in the laundry room, 2 o'clock from me and my desk now, it whirrs. I tried reading a bit of Pale Fire. Rest rest rest rest. But even the sleep is not so restful. I wake up already tired.

I'm so tired. Tired under sleepiness. Tired under wakefulness. My right thumb and pinky feel better today, but this gray fog still suffuses my head. I cracked my neck today -- a rare occasion, though when I was younger I used to do it much more often. Maybe my neck posture is better. I did laundry, also. Shirts and towels and a couple jackets.

Aunts and uncle came by. Dad picked up middle aunt and her cousin from the airport, youngest aunt and her husband came by to pick those other two up to go back to the Central Valley. Nighttime. Continued working on slipbox. After 12. My indexing is a bit slower, my addressing more prone to errors. Have to correct them. I do not always see the other cards in the box. Pluck them all, then, lay them all down. Indexing, indexing. So many new terms. They rise like woody pillars in the rainforest, but the ivy is there to pull them together. Curve the top tail of their sported sprouts, back down, back around. The tree and the fungus and the vines are not enemies. They live and overlap and depend on each other. Ouroborous of the sessile. Linked together in biochemical energies.

January 19th 2024. Woke up felt rested eye bags still there. Still looked tired. Gray day outside. Would rain later. Turkey, last of the turkey, and lettuce and mayo and a couple fried eggs on a bagel. Coffee at 1, Hario Switch, updosed to compensate for the milk I planned to add later. Dentist appointment. Went well. New hygenicist. Seemed slower. Good information. Doctor came by. Suggested wisdom teeth removal. Reassured me TMJ, while present, would not really wreck my teeth. She could not see much teeth grinding or erosion. As for the impacted wisdom teeth, lower jaw -- they could get infected but may not really screw up my teeth unless I leave them in for 7 years. Got a referral. May get wisdom teeth extracted during summer. Got some onions, Gruyere, dried thyme. Will make soup later this week. Today, Saturday, maybe. Package arrived in the overcast afternoon. Date stamp for the slipbox. New bigger box for the slipbox. Pale Fire, Nabokov. Grinder pellets for my coffee grinder but did not try them yet. Cleaned my desk, wiped it down, cleared half of the items. Cleaner now. Fretted and stressed over Python homework throughout the day. Just couldn't get loops in my head. How to wrangle them. Implementing loops feels like trying to feel them with no hands. Just mind. A tiny bit of Twitter. And the slipbox, oh the slipbox. Of course I added to it. Notecards about memory. A couple more links. Well, a few. It is like looking at oranges growing on the tree. Summer will come.

Writing a Twitter thread now. Makes me feel sad. Also makes me feel somewhat happy.

January 18th 2024. Python at 11:30. Spanish at 4. Drive back home was not fun -- had to do a heavy heavy panic brake because the dipshit merging into the freeway I was about to exit stopped for no reason in front of me. Mom made herbed coconut cream chicken soup and some shrimp and cauliflower stirfry for dinner. Lovely colors and lovely taste.

Saw a Cybertruck on the road to campus! I don't care much for Elon Musk but it looks DIFFERENT. Slight olive tint. Absolutely blocky. Wanted to take a photo but I was going 55 miles an hour.

Watched the lost Futurama episode (3D! and assembled out of game clips apparently? voice acting was still great), and later after that, I did some laundry and added a few notes to the slipbox.

Dinner was a bit late at 9:20 but honestly worth the wait. Saucy stir fried beef and fresh veggies (onion, tomato, lettuce), and even a bit of raw tuna sushi. Yum.

I didn't eat on campus so I just went home lickety split. A bit of traffic, a bit of in-car rambling, the works. When I got home actually did get a bit hungry so I made some of that tonkotsu ramen and added four chopped garlic cloves and half an onion and the leftover Korean bean sprouts and kimichi. Quite good! Spent the rest of the day trying to relax. Asked Dave about Tailscale, they got it set up, things went well.

I spent quite some time trying to load it on so when I got back to class, it was already over. (I think it was just announcements.) Though, I did not have to wait too long to vet my T90 past my professor, and she approved. It seems like we won't have to worry too much about exposure because she said she will give us the shutter speed depending on lighting, and the aperture also I think.

After photograms we practiced putting the film onto the metal(!) spools and had a tough time with mine for a good 3 or 4 minutes. It turns out I was placing it on the wrong way -- the sprockets hook such that they catch onto the metal pin before wrapping around, not just wrap around. I went into the darkroom and fiddled with it a few more times, quite uncertain, and got it mostly right on the third try, but I have to be extra careful next week. Will watch some more videos about steel reels.

We did photograms in class and had to pair up for the process. I brought my lens, a pencil, my sharpener, and a clear plastic ruler. My partner brought a couple Lego flowers, and "double exposed" with the flowers in a different corner. Her photogram turned out quite nice. Mine was alright:

Headed to school, arrived. The day was bright and fresh and when I swung by my photo class at 11:27 or so I realized I had actually arrived an hour early. Class started at 12:30! With a little less than an hour to kill I checked my Canvas on my phone and headed to the library to catch up on the module videos. Headed back to class at 12:22.

Felt a little less tired today but still not super peppy. Woke up early, had a turkey lettuce sandwich on the garlic parmesan bread, made coffee and brought the T90 and the Takumar lens and some extra items for photography class, and headed out. Got gas -- $30, took around 5 or 6 minutes. And I couldn't get the metal latch up onto the handle, so that was quite impressive. Or maybe I was just more sensitive to time.

Hide your fangs! :-)

In general -- feeling better today, better enough to notice what an odd past few days. Where did the tiredness come from? What made that malaise last for more than a day, without me being sick? Even today my under eyes are a little darker/wider than normal. Will head off to sleep soon, before 12.

After dinner. US History homework. Video, watched maybe 45/60 minutes of it in fragments. Read the online textbook a bit. Reminds me slightly of high school, but with just a touch more detail. Finished by 10:35.

Dinner. Potato stirfry and some baked chicken.

Went home, finished off the fries, attended Spanish 2 over Zoom. Demonstrative adjectives, and direct object pronouns. Alright lesson but my attention waned around the last 20 minutes of class. Checked throughout the day if Dave connected to my Tailscale computer -- nope. Will check again tomorrow and a day after and then call it off. Around 6:45 or 7, my Amazon order went through and it charged from my account, so all is well now.

Finished the burger, drove to the US Bank branch. (Opsec opsec opsec. What's a little specificity in a journal?) A section of the right lane was closed which spooked me but it wasn't closed for too too long. I turned right, into the parking lot, parked, headed in. Waited for an available teller in line -- seemed a few employees were on break. Met my appointment with Patricia. Very no-nonsense but also a bit colder than I cared for. Told her about my declined card and she told me to just call the number, and I did. But boy inside I was just shocked. I mean I had been waiting, anxiously, for 2 or 3 days when I could just have made a phone call? Damn social anxiety, that rotten thing, snide grip around my throat. One day I will chop those fingers from my throat and cast them aside. No matter. I called, waited, and things were resolved. Patricia tried to get me to sign up for a credit card. I said I had no consistent source of income other than financial aid but would check it out at home. She asked me how I would know if said financial aid would really work. I told her I could just check my school portal. What an odd appointment. Went home. If I made an appointment again I will have to do it at another branch.

Arrived home, told my parents I had a banking appointment, made some coffee on the AeroPress (15g + freeballed 80g brew liquid, Alan Adler's method, 170g bypass brew water). Noticed the coffee liquid was higher than it would be on my Hario Switch pourover. More liquid retention on the pourover maybe. The coffee was very very smooth -- even delicious -- but I couldn't get too many sips in since I had to eat quick to catch my bank appointment at 2:40.

At 11:25 I headed up to my Python course and struggled to stay awake. The water did make me feel better but not awake. Struggled to keep my eyes open, fell into a micronap and felt more awake afterwards. Left class, headed down, and bought a burger and fries from the dining hall, drove home stat. Sped a bit on the way home -- a little fun, but I won't do it again. I will just be brisk (accelerate reasonably well up to speed), to better stay with the flow of traffic.

Woke up decently early, felt less slammed than yesterday but still a little off. Skipped breakfast, got some water, packed up and headed to school around 10:30. Traffic was a bit bad but I arrived around 11:10 and with some time to kill I took a little break at the first floor of the ATC and checked my phone.

Mom and uncle made Korean food for dinner. I don't know the names but it was absolutely delicious. I was particularly fond of the bean sprouts (though they were much less intense than the one I had at that tofu house the other week) and the stewed fish balls.

A bit behind on pacing for my schoolwork so I'm hoping I'll get back my groove by the end of the week. Almost like a "mini-crunch" of first/second week assignments.

Arrived at work around 4:18 and headed off around 8:15. It was alright. My fog cleared up around 4:45 or 5, and I've been better since. But boy does it really have to take so long to feel like me?

Continued chipping away at work until 3:15 when I tried setting up Tailscale on my computer.

Finished up the chunk of notes -- living a good life with Alzheimer's -- I was working on late last night and tried to study for US History but could barely keep my eyes open. Coffee at 1:05pm, 15g and 250ml, full immersion and then filtering. Helped clear a little of the fog but not much.

Had a turkey lettuce sandwich on the garlic parmesan bread we got from Costco.

Slept in until 9:45 but still felt slammed waking up. Had a dream of the mild future, and of working with the slipbox.

Quieter day today. Woke up around 9:15, felt super tired, got ready and waited for Dad to come back home so he could take my brother and I to get some breakfast. We went to the donut shop, got a couple of plain croissants and a couple of croissant sandwiches, took my Canon SL1 and tried out the monochrome mode. Not bad! Thinking of setting to RAW + JPEG since editing the RAW file to monochrome later on Affinity Photo had a little learning curve. The picture seemed a little flatter than I thought so I had to bump up the contrast. Came back home, had lots of coffee -- 21g and 350ml, a touch of milk, downed the ham egg cheese croissant sandwich over an article on the slipbox. Read some more about Luhmann's zettelkasten, checked Twitter, watched the last two episodes of Futurama. Worked on slipbox from around 6:30 to 10pm. Added some cards about the different fields of psychology, reread the entire stack, made some more links, and appended some more cards. Lots of indexing. Had to revise the alphanumeric codes of a few cards since I reformatted a teensy bit of my top level psychology topics -- big no no, but eh, it's my slipbox, and better now than later. Feeling beat and tired. Trying to figure out a way to lower RAM usage -- maybe just pay better attention to how many apps I have running around a time? Clearing out OneTab might help.

It also felt like a cooling off of my own existential angst. Very occasionally I think I'm dreaming, or that I'm in hell, or that I'm the reanimated memory of my "real" demented self, far in the future. It's nice to see from a third party that in spite of everything you can continue to live. Hell exists in the observers, looking in.

The last moments of the episode brought a quote to mind.

Pelafina H. Lievre, to Johnny. "I have nothing. / I am nothing. / Only love for you makes that not true."

Just finished episode 10 of Season 8/11 and, until the next 10 episodes come out, the end of the show. Wow. Wow. This simulation episode feels like a season finale.

Turkey focaccia sandwich for breakfast. Uncle brought some focaccia yesterday. Work at 12 to 8. Cold and rainy but not super frigid. Felt very erratic, very off, today, the first hour into work. Thank goodness for the coffee I had made just before I went. Solid coffee, flavor stuck to my mouth and helped wake me up. Veggie chicken soup, fried fish pieces, squash and egg stir-fry. A couple of receipt notes. Social systems theory, more, a glossary of terms. No slipbox today. Scheduled an appointment with my bank about my declined card, this coming Tuesday. Two episodes of Futurama. Two left tomorrow. I will be done, then.

The day gets kind of gooey after 1, 2, when I was rechecking full manual mode on my Canon T90. When on manual mode, FD lenses and the camera suggest a precise F-stop to turn to. On stopped-down metering, the camera suggests opening/closing the aperture, and gives two small o's when I hit correct exposure. Pretty nifty! Used a little more Twitter than I'd liked but it's getting better. Around 10 or so I got a little bit of clarity and energy to add some notes into my slipbox. Instead of reading another research paper I would try adding things from my school's course outline and learning outcomes. I do need to build a larger context to stage my interests. I thought I would only get 1 or 2 index cards in but I think I added 10 or 11 new ones. I never realized just how SLOW it is to write alphanumeric codes because I have to consider the semantic meaning of individual cards before placing it under top-level topics. The index massively helps but it's still slow. Now I'm not going to burn my slipbox or anything but I'm not sure the tactility really counts if it takes so much overhead to index this all myself. Do I really remember my handwritten cards more than my digital notes? Not to mention that I'm immune to collectors fallacy -- my salience filters and forgetting are very very good.

January 13th 2023. Slow day today, at home. Slept in, felt more awake this morning but not that much. Watched a few zettelkasten videos to try and get some excitement flowing but not much there. Got ready for the day. Threw out my toothbrush, picked up a new one from the package in the drawer. Made a turkey egg lettuce mayo sandwich. Still some little brown specs on the stainless steel pan. Need to use the red sponge next time, and brush hard and fast. Binged 3 or 4 episodes of Futurama throughout today but still didn't get my energy up. Not even coffee at 1 helped. That one I added a little milk, which softened out the flavor very much. Gray and cloudy today. And so fucking cold. I mean it's been cold these past three days, that's a nice frozen cherry atop 3 days of driving to and from campus and trying to muster up any kind of energy to actually finish homework before time. No late work yet, thank goodness, but it feels so easy to slip. And I need to update all my transfer applications by the 20th or so (before deadline). Maybe 7, 8 of them. Not too bad but that's a scheduling issue.

Still cold.

Head and hands cold.

On the computer again, and have been for the last five messages. It's been a long day today — I think I can cheat a little. January 11th 2023. I woke up on time but was still so tired I fell back asleep until 9:45, and even then the lethargy didn't slip off until 10:02 when I had had enough of my tiredness to swing myself out of bed and get ready. I made some coffee at 10:20, AeroPress, 18g and 315g water, packed up and headed to campus. Bright day, light on the hills and the street and the sidewalk and the everything. The one day I don't bring my Tele 6 film camera the lighting is crisp for the inscribing. Traffic, on the way, tepid and up and down, but I made it. Parking was marginally easier. Headed off to Python class, arrived and entered at 11:25. Covering integers, floats, input and output, strings, basic string operations. A couple of in-class examples. Felt checked out just 20 minutes into class; probably should have drank my coffee then. Headed down the ATC -- this Python course is, ironically, in the exact same classroom as my last quarter -- and to lunch, got some spaghetti and tomato meat sauce, headed out and began at the first episode of Season 8/11 of Futurama. And the second one. Midway into the second one this man in his mid-30s or late-30s bugged me about voting even though I very much had my headphones on. That left a bad taste in my mouth, which was not really a bad taste at all, because I was still eating my pasta, and instead of telling him off I settled for a glare as he walked off, down the stairs. Drove home, traffic was not fun, passed a few cars on merges, constantly accelerated and couldn't find a nice speed to coast by on the freeway on account of the traffic. Arrived home, felt beat, and couldn't concentrate the rest of the day. I couldn't even look at my Canvas pages for more than a minute, much less my personal cognitive science research. Settled for a couple more episodes of Futurama, more than necessary checking of the Rabbit server, and losing my mind on my Stream. That last part is a bit inaccurate. This isn't really a matter of mind.

{{ This latest challenge is a man, a familiar man with eyes like cacao nibs and hair like a bird's nest, and he is a tantalizing avatar of mystery with a knack for making me feel awful without even trying. Without better judgement I would distill him into curaçao and drink myself to death. Sweet dreams, hepatocytes. }}

`Richard and Dave are two loves divergent in every way. One was unrequited, staged in the physical, utterly unknown, totalizing, insane, "the shake of angel wings", a portrait, death by solid fire. The other was requited, staged in the virtual, brilliantly known, subsequent, clarifying, distant, maddening, death by a thousand cuts. This latest challenge -- for I have neither thrown a paper airplane nor vanished in a wisp of xenon for this one -- balances on the fulcrum between these wild extremes, like a toddler, trying to play on the see-saw by itself.

I am sailing again, sailing in the sense of being a stowaway behind the black hull of a ship. Benefits. Asymmetry. It is as effective to read intent in the black mirror as it is to divine the stars. Each step in my march around this dark hull, twelve steps and twelve tones, echoes.

I dreamed of Richard last night, and then Dave the previous night. The lessons from them are bubbling under the surface, rising up my neck like vines of ephemera. I see a portrait of pragmatism, challenge, madness, misery.

Woke up on time but felt so tired and cold still that I fell back asleep. Sigh!

January 10th 2024. Woke up okay, a minute before my alarm would go off, got ready around 9:12. Had a turkey egg lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Made coffee around 11:20, on the AeroPress, 18g + 300ml, Alan Adler's recipe, lots and lots of bypass water. The coffee tasted much much smoother. Drove to campus, it got really rainy on one section of the freeway and then cleared up, but that was a real splatter-splutter on the window. Arrived at campus, parking lot still very busy and crowded, went up to the second floor, parked under the ceiling. (Parked outside on the open overhang yesterday. No damage to the car of course, just rainwater, but I'd rather keep my car inside.) Walked around the ATC and the student center before class, guy came up to me about Bible studies, I obliged and asked for contact information but didn't follow up the rest of the day. Walked back to the photography classroom, A65, and headed in after Prof. Teng. The "classroom" was very small. Very small and cozy, with lots of small seat desks. The building had a few hallways, lots of doors and small rooms, a big darkroom, the small cozy classroom, and a washroom. We made lumen prints in the sun with some photographic paper. I brought a flower I had snipped from our front yard bushes. The actual wooden contact frames were very stiff and not fun to use, but I made it work. As we waited for the lumen prints to develop, we checked out the darkroom and the wash room, and then picked up our lumen prints and developed them in the aforementioned rooms. Mr. Chia (pronounced Chai I think) was a stern man from the get-go and I'd rather not talk to him more than necessary; trial by fire; I'll stick to the rain. Class wrapped up around 2:42, I headed out, swung by the dining hall and bought a 6-inch pastrami sandwich. Had a little communication difficulty, and the worker/employee seemed a little slow; not to mention that she didn't put many veggies on. Wasn't a fan. Headed outside, sat at a shaded table, had the sandwich over an episode of Futurama. Drove home, still a little rainy, traffic was bad because of the merges and the rain, but not 45 minutes. Maybe 28 - 30 min. Got home, didn't really do much homework but I did turn in the lab work and the discussion page. Didn't get a chance to add much to the Hemera slipbox but I did read more Luhmann. The thing I was interested in was that Rabbit R1 that's been plastered all over the tech news outlets. I'm very very tempted to preorder it. Very very tempted. The design has good pop, and functionality seems rich enough, but there's always a catch here. Privacy? Integration? Workflow issues? Repeating industry mistakes? (Apparently there will be a 'rabbit store' of behaviors and activities that you can purchase from other users. Isn't that just another app store?) Needs internet connection. Works on Wi-Fi but you'll want cellular on the go. Also not a smartphone replacement, though that's a motif of "dumbphones" also. A phone for your phone. Though in this case it's more like a super iPod for your phone.

Luhmann's theory reads as pessimistic or nihilistic when considering the anti-human assumptions that ground his theoretical concepts and work. Luhmann was not misanthropic -- or at least I don't think he was, given that he did have a wife and three children, and taught at the Bielefeld University, which itself was/is a hub or station for people. Luhmann's theory is anti-humanist at the social and agentic levels. First, humans are not a part of social systems. Humans are the environment for social systems, but they do not stage their emergence; they are not the components or elements of social systems. Even more plainly, people and their interactions are not balls and sticks connected together in some supermolecule. Interpersonal interactions, such as simple conversation, are not a construction of this theory. Second, the non-participation of humans in social systems also means that they have a limited -- neither none, nor total -- degree of control over said social systems. At best, they can disturb lines of communication and alter codes, but the functionality of the system must persist if it is to be differentiated from its environment and systems external to it (which, to the perspective of an arbitrary system, are the same). When we attribute agency to ourselves, we ascribe ourselves power over the systems we are dependent on (and the systems that are dependent on us); however, that power may or may not exist. Perceived power rests in first-order reflexivity, while objective power rests in irritation. (That last sentence is my own hypothesizing.) Moeller of The Radical Luhmann neither vilifies nor glorifies Luhmann's theory, but instead presents it with a stoic/Stoic attitude; "neither hope nor fear".

On the computer again to rough draft my understanding of Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory so far. Luhmann's social theory is unlike any social theory I have ever seen or conceived of though that really isn't saying much since I'm not a sociologist nor was I much of a social butterfly to begin with. It seems like functional differentiation is a hallmark, or a contingency, of contemporary human societies. It seems like functional differentiation attempts to maintain itself over time, if we take functional differentiation to be its own supersystem or parasystemic force. It also seems like the breakdown in functional differentiation, either by permanent functional coupling of diverse social systems or systems that totalitize other systems, is a breakdown of society itself. Most importantly, functionally differentiated societies have no center; it is inappropriate, or outdated, to assume that one system can control all the other systems. Certain systems may observe better than other systems but all systems, at some time in their differentiation, do observe. The degree of functional differentiation in a system is equivalent to its capacity to communicate; that is, to self-organize and maintain codes, contingencies, and communicative standards that persist into the next moment. The word "communication" in the quote, "Only communication can communicate" refers to communicating systems; of which all social systems are. Operational closure is a co-requisite of communication, as operational closure "sharpens" the efficacy and form of transmitted information under that boundary. Taking a step back, Luhmann's theory does not try to be prescriptive or even speculative; it was a descriptive look at the modern society that Luhmann very much was part of.

Photography course already feels very cozy :-)

January 9th 2024. Slippery day today. Woke up at 8:55 but lamped in bed until 9:20. Finished around 10:10. Skipped breakfast, made coffee, drove to campus at 10:55. Had some traffic on the way there. Campus was super busy with tons of cars and people. Arrived a couple minutes late to 11:30 Python course but attendance was midway in the class so I was fine. Syllabus, class intro, overview of Python, strings. Packed up and headed to lunch, had a burger and some fries over a couple episodes of Futurama. The second was about Bender's ass. The first one I unfortunately forgot. The coffee I made tasted somewhat chemical-like so I suspect the extra notch of fineness on the grind setting was a little too much. I brewed full immersion, 300ml. I'll return it to 5.1 tomorrow. Got a little rainy around the start of lunch, and when I was walking back to the parking lot, it was VERY cold. Drove home and didn't really touch my homework all day, just read about Luhmann and his social systems theory. Attended Spanish 2 class around 4pm to 6:15. Surprise: There's another person that shares my name in the course. I imagine that's going to be confusing all quarter. Icebreakers and boy was I intimidated by this constantly Spanish speaking groupmate. I could barely understand a quarter of what she was saying. I don't remember these skill differences being so dramatic in Spanish 1 except for a couple obviously fluent Spanish speakers. Mom and grandma made some green fish sauce/stew all day and some rice noodles which I had for dinner. Nom banh chok -- just searched up the correct spelling. Continued to read up about basic functional differentiation and communication in Luhmann's theory. To me he doesn't seem super radical, just very descriptive and stoic (stoic with modesty, equanimity, irony/lightness), but I suppose for his time -- the late 20th century -- he was quite the anti-humanist. Which is a fascinating perspective since cognitive science intersects with the very very humanist field of anthropology.

Up. Haven't gotten ready yet. Spent a little under a half hour watching an overview of Luhmann's media theory.

Getting a little sleepy so I'll wrap all this quick and get to bed. I'm driving to campus tomorrow for my Python class! Also looking forward to my Wednesday photography class.

First day of the Winter quarter. Got ready late. Had some ramen for breakfast, beefed it up with some fried eggs and green onions. Checked Canvas throughout the day, rented some textbooks for my history class. Kind of cold in the house all day. Had some coffee at 1:20, five pours, 18g and 350ml water, coffee got cold so I added some milk and warmed it back up in the microwave. Skipped lunch. A few Lifesaver mints and an orange I think. Joints doing a bit better than yesterday -- didn't really think about them. Had some fish, some pickles for dinner, some veggie soup. Good stuff today. Worked quite a bit on Hemera starting in mid-afternoon!

Almost forgot -- last day of Winter break! The winter quarter starts tomorrow. I didn't even know it was Sunday today which is why I didn't bug my parents to go out.

Slow day today. Woke up around on time but lamped in bed a little too long so I finished late. I had some pho for a very late breakfast around 11:20 and watched a couple episodes of Futurama and read a bunch until 1:15 or so when I had coffee. 1 filter, 15g and 250ml. Smooth, bold, flavor stuck to my mouth. Skipped lunch. Organized some photos and videos around 4:15. Had dinner around 7:45. Egg pancake with preserved radish(? daikon?) and some leftover chicken and preserved lemon soup. Gray day today. Spent most of the evening working on my slipbox, Hemera.

Well, I'll be alright. You'll see.

I woke up early but stayed in bed longer than I needed. I finished getting ready around 10:20 and headed off to have some breakfast. I had some savory oatmeal, Better than Bullion Veggie, and some pieces of leftover chicken. Went to work at 11:32 and worked until close. Brought Dictionary of the Khazars, and my still-frozen lemon jasmine tea from yesterday. So so cold, and a bit of rain. Wished more than once I had gloves or mittens or someone to warm me up. Got into an argument on Twitter. Was not a fan of Soledad's moralizing only to see her turn around and almost act reasonable in the replies. Got home, had some beef pho that I assume my mom had been working on all day. Absolutely delicious and worth the wait I think. Checked the asinine discourse, found out I got softblocked, felt insanely vengeful and went for the full block. Wrote a thread. Deleted it but not before saving in my FSNotes program. Wrote a little bit in the children-of-night Discord. 11:49 now. I wish I didn't feel so vengeful, so malicious. It is one thing to dress your words in blood. It is another to curse people without speaking. I took it back of course, covered my mouth and had a sip of water, but

Time has slowed down on account of my emotions but it is quickening now. Let me run through my day.

"So written, so done. This curse is cast. Fuit Ilium.

And now, without a doubt, you see your mother is mad."

— Pelafina, March 15th 1984, The Whalestoe Letters.

Just blocked an ex-mutual. Twitter is not real.

"Sure, why not turn off the computer? Why not dream better? I answered the question because it was interesting. This is a moral dilemma yes but it's also a fiction. It's not real. My preferences and choices are my own. If you're asking me to apologize for that, I have to deny.

You see my interpretation as damnation but what you don't realize is I've gone through this madness already. I've paralyzed myself for years from writing because I thought fictional characters were "too real" and it wasn't right for me to somehow write about things that couldn't plausibly happen to them. But what is plausible? I am the author and interpreter here. That is exactly my job. I will not apologize for doing my job! I will not apologize for making choices and owning up to them."

⁠— Twitter

The ride back home was much much easier and seemed quite quicker also, probably because it was on a slight downhill. I rode down Temple and Park Victoria, then hung left down Jacklin home. (The Nanny -- "hang a right at hell"!!! Had that little quote stuck in my head. No the ride home was not hell nor is my home a hell.) (These precise addresses may be a bit TMI.) Less than a minute after I "oy"ed and sighed my way into the door my brother was badgering me to bike to the nearby tea place. After figuring out it was actually nearby about 5 minutes away and not nearby Marina Grocery. I got a lemon jasmine tea with agar boba and nearly fell off my bike riding home after slipping into a crack in the pavement but I stopped and straightened my bike out. We arrived home, I chucked my tea in the freezer, and I made some iced coffee. Coffee had some nice bold flavor which I tempered with a bit of milk but the ice seemed to have soaked up some flavors from the freezer and imparted a very frozen taste to the coffee, almost chemical-like. I also had half of the leftover burrito bowl rice and chicken in the fridge and a couple of leftover shrimp chive dumplings in the plastic box from earlier today. I didn't finish the coffee and 3/5ths of it is still on my desk. I also made a bit more than I needed; 350ml coffee total. (You can work out the coffee grams, I'm sure.) Checked out the rest of the day except about 4:35 when I dropped off my brother at work and then came back home. Drive back was nothing special though I did note I had a heavier foot on the gas pedal, possibly on account of biking earlier today. Worked on more of post-Ladon-and-Orange chapters of PRISM with code-davinci-002, specifically the chapter when Ladon is in a coma and is dreaming up alternate scenes/scenarios of him and Orange on the island. Binged a few episodes of Futurama, Season 7 definitely doesn't feel as high-quality as the other seasons. Had dinner at 7:55 or 8:05, some shrimp green bean stirfry but no shrimp so just savory green beans, and then some chicken and preserved lemon soup, and a rotisserie chicken drumstick. My oldest uncle had went to Costco earlier today and picked up a couple of their really delicious rotisserie chicken, though I will note the seasonings of the rotisserie chicken didn't quite gel with the preserved lemon flavor. Or maybe the preserved lemon was just a little old and potent. Whatever the case was I did prefer the chicken drumstick and the still(!) crunchy green beans. Continued watching Futurama after dinner. Checked Twitter intermittently throughout the day, noticed how easy it was to fall into the mindset of last year using this application and then rambled to myself about communication and friendship going into this year. And just getting annoyed with the general attitude of my social media feed which is really saying something since I don't even follow 200 people yet. In any case I set a deadline for mid-March and let my unconscious stew on this problem while I continued to skim and read through the internet and wrap up my work on PRISM.

Woke up super early today around 8:45 and got ready around 8:55. Packed up my camera and a bottle of water in my backpack, had a couple bites of shrimp dumpling that my dad brought home, and then got on my bike and rode to Ben Rodgers Park. What a ride! Felt like I was constantly uphill. The sun was so bright and the sky so clear. I arrived at 10:05, then met up with Canni, and a couple minutes later Aaron and Julie arrived. We laid the thick blanket in the shade and dug into a couple cakes (chocolate burnt almond cake, then tuxedo cake) with some oat milk, talked about school and other events since our last meet, and played some Frisbee. For the 2024 year Aaron wants to get a job; Julie and Canni want to take better care of themselves. I read from my resolution list. My Frisbee throws got quite good by the end! Finally we packed up and went home. I walked with Canni up to Temple Road and we briefly talked about the park, and Obsidian, about the design elements like Markdown and the auto-complete.

Inclusions for a hypothetical Dream #3, in House of Leaves. :-)

I woke up early but my grandma went into the bathroom so I got ready late. Skipped breakfast, decided to make a chicken burrito bowl in my Instant Pot for an early lunch instead. Mom said she was going to try making some Korean rice pasta (those disks) beef soup -- dduk guk! Checked around for ingredients, went with mom to the grocery store, got a jar of chunky salsa, some cheese, and hominy (to sub for yellow corn). Everything else I found at home. Turns out we do have chicken breast! Grandma helped me wash the canned beans and I put everything in the Instant Pot and let it rip. After it was done cooking and natural releasing I fluffed up the rice and began to shred the chicken breast only to find the chicken breast was surprisingly tough even after pressure cooking. It was definitely cooked, and no water left the system during cooking, so I don't think it was overcooking. It might've been a woody breast. The rest of the recipe turned out nicely though and the rice was good. It was a bit moist but seemed to help melt the topped cheese later. I played Valor, bought an expensive bow (with in-game gold! No real world money), melted godlands and got to farming and going to events. Dropped off my brother at work at 4:35 so my mom could come make some of that beef soup. I got to playing more Valor but died with that expensive bow. After more than a few chat messages in my Vault musing about the game and the economy I decided Valor wasn't really the best use of my time nor was it the best entertainment. Because it's not just 30,000 gold down the drain. That's days of work gone. Considering how reluctant I am to spend in real life, this is a shocking and dangerous inversion! Mindless entertainment consumes; at least when I watch sitcoms I pick up on how people talk to each other. Idealized, yes, but not fantastical. After that I worked on pasting my notes into House of Leaves with my repositionable gluestick. After dinner with that delicious soup I used code-davinci-002 to write some extinct(?) or just missing content in House of Leaves. Namely Navidson's third dream. I think I did pretty well but I'll have to check it tomorrow.

Today has slipped through my fingers.

Just saw a mutual dunk on a budding creative. How despicable!

Incidentally I do care less about building a sizeable corpus now as long as it meaningfully communicates. Which isn't to say I'm going to officially slack off but I'll be easier on myself for not trying to throw myself at writers block every moment. If 2023 was a year of unwinding language and expression and cutting down cruft, I'd like to title 2024 tentatively a year of communication. Communication with intention, with direction, with virtue. I want to be light.

Actually there was one non-meh bit to today and that was a couple of Discord messages into the children-of-night channel that coalesced my thoughts on communication, this time both about House of Leaves and of note-taking slipboxes. I had skimmed Scheper's Antinet book at work and noticed some interesting bits about the communicative potential of the slipbox which I put down later when I got home.

January 2nd 2023. Meh day today. Woke up earlier than usual. Had a turkey lettuce sandwich for breakfast. Played Valor for an hour before 11:30am, made some coffee around 11:35, 24g and 400ml on Ode grind setting 5.1, two filters on Hario Switch, brewed directly into my metal water bottle. This is probably the best cup of coffee I've had on this roast so far. The roasty flavor lingers but it's there's very little acrid flavor. Bitterness was also a bit pulled back and I could just barely get a hint of acidity. I think for medium roasts I'll have to set a benchmark with McDonald's coffee -- that stuff is VERY well extracted, at least the last time I had it which was... maybe a few months ago. I know I put it here on Stream. I drove to work and arrived at 12:05 and worked until 5:15pm or so when my parents came back from Costco. Around 4 I helped my uncle install FL Studio on his M3 Mac. (Earlier my dad had taken my grandma to the doctor's for an appointment.) After that I played Valor for a couple hours and dropped 14,000 gold or so on a dagger for my Rogue but didn't really feel that into it. I didn't quite feel I was melting the godlands monsters and the event drops were to me indistinguishable from what I could get on a much weaker weapon. The only difference with a weaker weapon is that it just feels less satisfying to wrack up damage. I was also kind of meh from my Priest dying which I wanted to buy a laser wand for. I think that one was a UFO and a chance shot. Congrats game. The rest of the day was just back on my Mac.

The Wizard is dead. Malgor. So long! 🫡🫡

Oh my god. No Futurama today!

Didn't have dinner since I was still full from the buffet but I did have a wedge of that really delicious Brie cheese from Costco. About to head off soon. Hoping I can actually wake up properly tomorrow.

After that my uncle swung by Walmart to send some money overseas (to his wife I think) and we came back home. I made some coffee, grind size 6, double filters and five pours. The water drained white quickly when with the two filters and still had a touch of acrid bitterness that I'm going to say is from the roast and not anything from the beans. Otherwise still balanced and smooth but boy do I need to get lighter roasts. The rest of the day afterwards was playing Valor, maybe 5 or 6 hours. The first two and a half hours was dying on nearly-maxed characters: a 7/11 and an 8/11. Boy was that annoying! But I think I hit some stability after crafting a higher-tiered staff for my Wizard character and melting the godlands monsters down into plenty of pots. (Not to mention that I had been saving up some stat potions earlier.) This was probably the fastest I've ever maxed a character and probably the most fun barring that Armored orb Mystic or that Elimination bow Huntress simply because melting godlands monsters is so satisfying. But it also helped carry me through event bosses and a few dungeons and raids. The faster you can kill the longer you survive. Also having a good trigger finger for the Nexus key helps. Which in turn is a very teeny tiny traumatic response from getting embarrassingly popped by low-level minions more times that I care to admit (3-4).

January 1st 2023. Feels like December 32nd to be honest so I'm hoping I have a better grasp of the new year tomorrow. Woke up early around 8:45 but dozed off for another couple hours. Big mistake since I wasn't any more awake at close to 11 than 9. Was preparing to make a turkey egg lettuce sandwich but mom was cleaning the stove so that was out of commission. Instead my uncle took me and my grandma to the city buffet for a late breakfast/lunch and I had 3 good sized plates, a cup of miso soup, some canned fruit and a couple jello, and a small vanilla cone. When I was younger I used to load up each plate but couldn't make it up to 3. Highlights included oysters, mushrooms, crawfish, and sushi. Veggie lo mein was alright too. Everything else seemed a little soft or oversauced, which isn't bad, but I did have some favorites. There's also that buffet flavor in general which I still can't put a finger on which is equal parts nostalgic and mysterious.

Uh oh. Slipping of a food coma coming on. Must resist!

Slow day today. Woke up very very late around 10:30, stayed in bed a bit, got ready for the day and finished around 11:55. Had some tonkotsu ramen with some cilantro and a shallot to boost the flavor a bit. Was tempted to add a couple fried eggs but I decided against it. Had it over an episode of Futurama. Most of the day was spent playing Valor, maybe 3-5 hours total. Aunt Kun, Aunt Lang, one of dad's cousins, and Uncle Mike came over and the Won family did too. Kind of quiet, kind of tired on account of staying up late last night. We made a lot of food: roasted steak and stewed beef tongue, a bright seafood salad, mashed potatoes, and crab soup. I went for seconds. In fact I got very very sleepy around 9:30 but pushed through it with Valor for another half hour before stopping. I also didn't have any coffee at all since I didn't want to disturb my sleep later. Watched a couple more Futurama episodes, started watching some Julia Child, nearly missed the New Year fireworks on TV, and now I'm here.

WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!

Checked the DPS calculator. Apparently that Elimination bow was fetching upwards of 7,000 damage. Wow. And Valor just became a lot lot lot more boring.

Welp, that Huntress is dead. Bow classes -- never again.

Black Midi ⁠— John L. That's the song!

At 1:20am(!) I had gone to drive home and was pleasantly surprised by the very very quiet streets. I arrived home around 1:35am and soaked my Instant Pot liner in the sink with plenty of water and now I'm here typing. 2:19am!!! My god. I might need a touch extra coffee tomorrow.

Around 11 we did Ethan's puzzlehunt and we really gave it our all. Spoiler: Metapuzzle question was, "In the year 2024 we may all be replaced by AI, except for one person. Who will the machines be unable to imitate?" and the answer was, "The unCanni valley girl" -- just brilliant. We finished around 12:30 and then reviewed Daphne's year as she was the only one who made a yearly recap slideshow. She had tons of BeReal pictures and plenty of anecdotes for each one. I noticed that my own life really was objectively quieter in comparison. Around 12:50 we started packing up to go but still deliberated a bit in Canni's kitchen since we're awful at saying goodbye. But we still went.

Eventually the kids came and we started to eat. I got lots of compliments on the pasta and boy was it delicious. Julie made focaccia which had a very deep garlicky, herbed flavor. Ethan brought some pita chips and dried mango, the latter of which was the perfect snack for later. Around 6:45 or 7, Daphne and Alex and Philip had arrived and the energy was much more bubbly though there were a few gaps and open joints in the conversation, especially when the topic turned to things we wanted to do or had planned for next year. Bebe the cat was slinking all over the sunroom. Eventually we had some milk tea (Canni and her mom had been making boba earlier) and Alice came home with some wine and a few bottles of soju. I think Julie and Canni were really the ones who drank some -- I didn't have any, on account of driving. Around 8 or 9 we had karoke and Ethan started us off with this really brilliant spoken-word song set to experimental music, and we just bounced around a few different songs. I/We did Erykah Badu's Green Eyes and Taylor Swift's Love Story but we also went through a couple of Asian songs, Wildest Dreams, Mask, Before He Cheats, and I'll Make a Man Out of You. I noticed that I actually don't project my voice during singing and it's still a bit close to my speaking voice. I also noticed I didn't collapse in panic because I wasn't panicked, just cozy to be a part of the crowd. By this point the energy had become very smooth and familiar.

I drove to Canni's house around 6:04pm. I don't do well driving at night (well I guess driving period) so I couldn't quite discern where Canni's house was. I had gotten to the street but couldn't pick out the right house. After passing her house and driving a couple streets down the neighborhood to catch my breath I decided to try and enter the street from the other way and see if I could see it better that way. I eventually arrived around 6:16pm, dark at night, and parked up on their driveway next to the eggvan. I rung the doorbell and brought everything in. The energy was very low, probably on account of it being night, but also because Canni was sick and probably couldn't quite contribute to the conversation as she'd had liked. But that's probably just me. Julie is still vivacious and whip-sharp judgy but I've really noticed the acid lately. Aaron seemed tired. Ethan seemed unchanged. There were a few awkward pauses while Canni and Julie were out in the main part of the house while we were in the sunroom. I have to say -- or I suppose confirm -- that my social skills have very much collapsed on account of COVID, though I suspect they were never the best even before. Though I'm sure they knew I tried.

Around 4:20 I started getting my supplies ready for the pasta. I mainly just needed to buy ground beef but also got some extra Italian seasoning since I wasn't sure we still had some more. Unfortunately I forgot to check for onions and so I didn't put any onions into the following pasta. I did compensate with celery and lots of garlic though. Mom came around 4:30 and frankly she did most of the work so I will honor that effort with due credit. Thanks mom. It seemed the process was the same: brown the ground beef with some seasoning first, drain excess moisture and grease, re-add some olive oil, add mushrooms, celery, garlic, and more seasoning, toss together and then add pasta sauce and salt as needed. The only thing I would change would be to salt throughout the cooking, adding salt at the very beginning to encourage even more moisture to draw out and to deeply season the meat. In the meantime I cooked an entire 16oz of spaghetti in the Instant Pot which, as ever, turned out perfect. Finally we combined the sauce with the pasta in the Instant Pot and I was essentially ready to go. I brought my laptop for the replication gamer night shoot and the whole container of shredded Parmesan and some cilantro and yes, House of Leaves, in case I decided to go insane that night.

Typing this out on my laptop since I have to get it out fast. December 30th 2023. Cloudy day, a bit of rain, but not super cold. Slept in, got ready late. Had half of a corn muffin for breakfast. Flavor was alright but the texture was a bit grainy and didn't break down as I chewed. Played Valor for a few more hours to pass the time. Died on my Assassin character after I had progressed to 8/11 maxed stats. Drat! Played more conservatively on my splurged Huntress character and got great success. Got into the zone of grinding godlands gods for stats potions with the new DPS boost -- realized that I don't really need the event bosses for the main 9/11 stats, though Might and Luck are harder to source. Noticed that the general loot increase throughout this variant of the game also obsoleted certain dungeons like the Puppet Master's Theatre (main source of Attack potions) and Undead Lair (main source of Wisdom potions) -- there's just too much time spent clearing monsters and rushing through rooms when you could pop 15 godlands monsters in a minute and get at least 1 or 2 rainbow pots. Had some leftover steamed fish and a bit of rice for lunch, and then some coffee later, Fellow Ode setting 5 and brewed immersion with 1 filter on the Hario Switch. Still turned out a little more bitter than I'd liked but much better than yesterday so I will try setting 6 tomorrow.

Currently at Canni's house. We are working on a puzzle.

And it's 1am. What the fuck?

Slow day today. Woke up pretty late, folded pants laundry, got ready and finished around 11:30. Had a turkey egg lettuce cream cheese sandwich with the last of the cream cheese. Played Valor for 45 minutes or so and then went to Costco with my parents. I hung around my dad and we went around the place and he commented on things like the lightbulbs and the food processor and the discussion turned to business ventures late in life (prefer simpler, more convenient jobs with foot traffic but you risk theft and criminal activity). Got home around 4:30, too late for coffee so I made some genmaicha tea in my AeroPress and tasted quite nice for the first half of the mug but as it cooled it began to taste more and more bitter. Played Valor for a couple more hours, died quite a few times and felt really discouraged. Had some dinner around 7 or 8. Mom steamed five or six fish from Costco with some ginger and green onions and soy sauce and it was very savory. The fish itself also had a very meaty texture, very chewy. Got back on the computer, more Valor, this time really trying to focus on grinding for stat potions. Got some great progress on my Assassin character and splurged 30,000 in-game gold I had been saving up on a midgame/endgame bow. Seems I survive better the more DPS I have -- like not getting bogged down by the tiny hitters. Finally wrapped it all up around 11:30 and now I'm here wanting to get some more sleep for tomorrow with friends!

Dinner. Ate a few hard boiled quail eggs also. They taste just like regular eggs, though maybe with a little more yolk.

Uncle's MacBook Pro M3 finally arrived today. Corner of the box was dented but the computer was fine. Helped him set it up after dinner.

Oh my god I can't believe I forgot. I didn't binge Valor from 12 to 3. I did play 40 or so minutes from 11:50 to 12:30, but then I drove to the nearby grocery store to buy some coffee. I tried parking at the Subway nearby but there was no comfortable parking and I didn't want to risk dinging up my car or other people's cars. I dropped off my car at home and walked back to Subway for a foot-long rotisserie chicken sandwich -- all veggies, mustard and garlic aoli -- and came back home and finished it off over a huge mug (well, 400ml, but it was strong) of iced coffee brewed on the Switch. Tasted a touch more bitter than I thought so I diluted with extra ice and a bit of oatmilk. My god! To think I nearly forgot I actually went out to eat.

December 28th 2023. Another washed up day. Died more often in Valor than I'd like to admit and I'm back to square 2-3. Just when I think I'm about to max a character, really max out the Luck and Might stats, I die in a dungeon that for a brief moment was far harder than it seemed. Marketplace also was disabled so I couldn't bounce back by buying items (when it makes sense!!) so it's all on hold right now. Had some work from 3:40 to 8. Mom made some sour (well, the lemon and other herbs are added afterwards) chicken soup which was really good. Valor from about 12 to 3, and then 9 to 11. Read and finished The Whalestoe Letters throughout book -- Pelafina is a genius. Futurama binging has ground to a halt on account of the gaming. Not to mention Twitter is just being priced (timed?) out in general. Looking forward to my friend's dinner party this Saturday! I plan to make pasta again.

Died a few more times than necessary but I've nailed down the stat pots grinding process.

December 27th 2023. More Valor. All day. Didn't even know it was Wednesday (though then again Christmas on a Monday is wacko). Oy!

Paid the $8 for a VIP donation. The power/difficulty curve is very very smooth (almost too smooth). And the convenience of Level 20 will undoubtedly save hours.

December 26th 2023. Totally washed up today. At home, playing Valor. Lost quite a few characters in the middle of maxing them. Argh! Curse addictive feel-good short-term behavior.

Heading off now.

Merry Christmas!!! Lazy Christmas today. Woke up a bit late. Me and younger brother biked to the nearby McDonald's this morning for some breakfast but their menu switched over to lunch items so I didn't get anything. Got a bit annoyed at an offhand comment from my brother. Biked back home but skipped over my house and circled around a neighborhood block before arriving back. Still felt annoyed. Played some RotMG (Exalt) before switching over to the Valor private server which was equal amounts overwhelming and nostalgic. Truly an "alternate universe" RotMG if DECA never stepped in, though the design language is definitely dated. Aunt Lang, Aunt Kun, and Uncle Mike came over. Had some lunch -- delicious. Oldest uncle made the bulk of the food since my mom's knee was acting up. Finished up, played some more RotMG for an hour or so. Food coma caught up with me, had a nap from 3:30 to 4:15 or so. Switched back over to the Valor server for the evening. Loot tables are much more generous and the power curve is much more reasonable than in prod RotMG. Not to mention the MMO dynamic is much much much closer to OG RotMG. Still a bit curious about the legality of private servers like Valor so I'm hesitant to pay for anything (though they've been up since 2017). Had dinner around 6:45. Another hour or so of Valor before I really finally put it down and chewed through the last two episodes of Futurama Season 6. Wonderful episodes. Wonderful.

Arrived at work around 11:52am and had work until 4. I thought we were closing at 7 and accidentally told a couple customers on the phone. The day was very very quiet and a bit cold. Used my laptop in between orders in the back, mostly reading the RotMG Realmeye wiki about different items. Wrote up a sign around 3:30pm that we were closing early in observance of Christmas tomorrow, and then my brother and I headed back home. Arrived at 4:10pm. I immediately binged-played RotMG for a couple hours. As it turns out I bit off more than I could chew and essentially lost a weeks worth of work (and many weeks of grinding for a specific item, a DPS parasite spell). Felt surprisingly non-self-aggrandizing; just a little frustrated that my characters were slower and I couldn't get quite as much damage in. Had dinner around 6:45pm with the leftover spaghetti squash and chicken salad and the crawfish from the day before. Finished around 7:20pm, played RotMG for a couple more hours, but it was clear the broken sleep hours earlier had fractured my concentration and patience. Lost a budding Knight character (so long, Ancient Stone Sword!) but also didn't feel too too bad. Wrapped up gaming around 10. No Futurama today. A bit of Twitter. Still chewed on a bit of House of Leaves -- specifically the communication motif.

Later that night, December 23rd: Mom's cousin and her husband slept in our room so me and my brother had to sleep in our parent's room. Air mattress was firmer than I thought. Got ready for bed and dozed off at 1:25am. Woke up at 3:00am since my dad was snoring, waited out 15 minutes on my phone, moved to the couch in the living room. Dozed off around 3:45am, woke up around 7:45am since my mom's cousin and her husband were eating breakfast. Went back to sleep at 8:20 in parent's bedroom on the air mattress, minimal snoring, slept in until 10. Very broken sleep. Got ready for the day, finished around 10:45am, had a couple slices of a sweet bread loaf from 85C bakery from the day before. Got ready for work, made coffee around 11:25am. Only had 7.9g coffee left so I snagged another 16.3g of my parents preground French roast. Put it all together in the Hario Switch, brewed pure percolation, five pours of 80g up to 400g total brew liquid. Grabbed my laptop and me and my brother headed off for the shop. The drive was uneventful. Sunlight was a pale gold.

Played RotMG for a couple hours from 9 to 10:45, unwound the rest of the day. No Futurama. But that's alright.

Arrived home, mom's cousin was just about to eat. Uncle brought some seafood -- clams, mussels, crawfish in a savory spiced sauce. Cajun? Louisiana something. And some oysters, later, but I didn't have any. That was dinner. And boy did I eat since I really didn't eat all that much all day.

He's also sweet and traumatized and very sad. Very Holden Caufield if Caufield lived in 90s LA and was a horny lil bastard with parent issues.

December 23rd 2023. What a day today. Woke up early, around 8:15 or 8:25 and got ready for the day. Packed up House of Leaves and The Whalestoe Letters and some receipt paper and my Canon SL1 in my green spotted backpack, asked my uncle to move his car, and then drove on the freeway to the Lexus service location. 15 minute drive, very quiet. Morning light was serene. Arrived, checked in with the technician, got out and waited in the lobby. I took a seat at an inside table cubby space and got to work chewing though House of Leaves, particularly the footnotes and Johnny's sections. Had a cup of their free coffee and an oat bar but the coffee seemed a bit dark for my taste and the single oat bar was sweet enough. Continued reading and writing notes. Johnny's sections used to crash over me. Now I feel as if I am skipping over puddles and waves of his mind, his stream of consciousness, unwinding it into coherence with familiarity. Knowledge telescopes distance. Servicing finished around 11:15 and I checked with the front desk but had to wait another 9 or 10 minutes for my key outside. Was quite cold but I made it out ... into the US Citizenship building parking lot after seriously miscalculating a street. Decided to just walk to the sandwich place I had visited six months prior but was still a bit disoriented. And once I arrived they were closed for the Christmas holiday. Cue the walk back, the Google Maps on Android Auto, and then the drive back to town, this time using city streets and highways, not freeways. Almost missed a couple lanes but it went by smoothly also. The main thing was that I accelerated a bit gently on account of the recent oil change (which made it seem to sound a little quieter), and the fact the technician had moved the chair back a bit and I still wasn't quite as close to the wheel but it was fine since I had better control of said steering wheel. Arrived back home, got a quick bite of a chocolate croissant and some coffee (same ratio and amount, five pours, two filters). Very very clear and very little bitterness but again the flavor had really pushed to the middle. Drove to work around 1 and had work until 8. Cold out, still, and the hours could only drip by. Continued to read House of Leaves. Finished Johnny's section. Johnny is very pessimistic. Zampano's sections are definitely more neutral. Johnny seems to serve more to build the unsettling onset-of-breakdown atmosphere. And while he is unreliable he is more reliable than you think.

Her eyes. That's what separates 60s Mary Tyler Moore from 70s Mary Tyler Moore. Even during Season 1 of her namesake show her eyes look wider, with more prominent eye bags. More mature.

Last snippets: Mom has been tidying up the house all day in preparation for family (her aunt I think?) from Singapore tomorrow. And I have another usecase for my repositionable glue stick.

I've got to wake up early for tomorrow's service appointment for my car. Sticking a pin in this for now. May bring House of Leaves there tomorrow! :-)

Logged into RotMG for the daily quest calendar, logged out, browsed a couple pages of House of Leaves but my heart wasn't into it (yet). Played RotMG properly before my younger brother called me to pick him up from work. Drove off, then came back, then made coffee. Hario Switch, full immersion, 15g + 260ml (added slightly extra water). Coffee first, then the water, let it steep for 2 minutes. Stir at beginning of steep, and then stir at end of steep, then take 30 seconds to let it settle. The drawdown was faster than I thought, taking about a minute and a second on double filters on setting 4 (turns out I was on 4.1 yesterday to begin with, not 5.1). The resulting brew was very clear, no visible oil on top, and tasted much lighter than yesterday. Brightness had fully pushed to the middle of the brew but very very little bitterness. Reminded me a bit of Alan Adler's original AeroPress recipe but a bit more flavorful. Coffee bed was slightly concave, and (looked) bigger than I thought. Maybe more water retention? Had the coffee over a couple squares of chocolate from yesterday, a couple mints, a couple episodes of Futurama. Played more RotMG, this time maxing dexterity on my Paladin character. Had some dinner later -- shrimp daikon soup. Lots of shrimp this week! But good. Rest of the night was reading Johnny's section of House of Leaves and taking other notes as needed. Johnny is one horny mofo. But he's also sweet and brilliant and trying his damn hardest with the psychosis. I used to dislike his interjections when I first read the book and I still don't always get into the groove of his sections but I understand him better now.

Woke up early but stayed in bed late. Had a turkey egg lettuce cream cheese sandwich for a very very late breakfast. One egg, a bit of black pepper, a couple squirts of soy sauce, oil in hot stainless steel pan. Covered to let the yolk set. Couple of charred bits, not really from the egg but from the soy sauce that had pooled there. Majority of the salinity came from the turkey. Still no milk. A mug of water instead. Had it over an episode of Futurama.

Bluggg. Stayed up too late again.

I want to make a wry comment about how I'm searching for my 12 year old self in these pages but all I'm coming up with is how 8 years really enriches your perspective. I can understand the critical analysis, the points of view, tie this down to psychology and cognition and linguistics and semantics. I don't think my 12 year old self was ever trapped here. I think he's been with me all along. Which I suppose should've been a confirmed when I look out the world and occasionally, just occasionally, feel what it was like to be so fresh and green and naive at 12 years old.

There was this part in the Navidson Record I was really moved by. Well, a lot of it is moving and interesting. Zampano truly has an academic's bite around a storyteller heart. But it's just before Exploration #5, when Johnny comments on Navidson's letter to his longtime partner Karen Green -- "the greatest love letters are always encoded for the one and not the many". I suppose that's why I kept up my mindscapes and dramatizations for so long in high school. Bits of metaphor and natural scenery, my voice like the wind in the branches, or a bluebird chirping from the trunk, carrying over the ocean. It was Richard then, and it was J later, and if they weren't there then I simply imagined them to be.

Came back to the book, finished The Navidson Record. Started reading a bit of Johnny's sections, but not much. Johnny is a skilled writer and obviously intelligent though he seems to be prone to psychosis and divergent -- pluripotent? -- stream of consciousness. Though on closer inspection the fragments of this stream of consciousness he writes "leak" critical information about his personal experiences, the real ones, like about his father and mother and childhood.

Things kind of get gooey from there. I read until 8:10, where I have a small dinner since I was still full from lunch. Shrimp and fish soup with a few veggies over another episode of Futurama, this time the Bender gray goo one. This one was nice.

To the nature of this Stream I suppose the communication is to the bot, or to Judah, or to anyone else that reads this. I give the signal, I see the receiver. I still haven't sent this to Dave. But maybe I will, later.

Wrote some notes and quotes about The Navidson Record. Still of the belief parts of the book "communicate" with each other. Eventually noted some general communication findings on Twitter. I care a little less about the social analytics now -- just that I communicate as best I can for whoever sees it (be it me, in the future, or a friend). My speech, my writing, is an act of communication. I have always been trying to communicate.

The drive home was also quite smooth and quiet. We arrived home around 2:20, and I made coffee. My mom asked for a latte and so I whipped one up on my AeroPress and the carton of oatmilk, a scoop and a half (21g) of French roast grounds. Apparently they're planning to use my grinder to grind their beans, once they use up their preground stuff. Frankly I'm a bit wary of putting any dark roast in my Ode Gen 2, given any potential contamination with my light roasts. Or maybe I'll just crumple and buy medium roast and give up light roast coffee for another year. I don't know. My current light roast coffee is definitely deteriorating. The brightness has receded into a middle roastiness and the bitterness is more pronounced. I will say though the brewing time was much shorter than I thought -- setting 5.1, 15g, 260ml, came out to 2 minutes and 35 seconds. Normally it should come out to three minutes to three and a half minutes. I'll try grinding finer tomorrow. Anyway my mom thought my latte was good and have Starbucks a run for their money, while I settled down back at my desk with my coffee, a couple squares of dark chocolate, and a couple Lifesaver mints.

It was a small cozy place. Tofu house is a little inaccurate on writing -- it's Korean comfort food. We ordered and shared a fried seafood pancake and a bowl of beef tofu soup. The waitress came by first with some side dishes like rice, kimchi, pickles, stirfry noodles, and even a bit of this delicious, savory chili bean sprout pickle. I genuinely forgot these sides were served. The beef tofu soup was bubbling and boiling in the stone bowl and the waitress cracked in the egg for us. I dug into the side dishes first but later had a couple small bowls of the beef tofu soup, which was very very good. Also quite savory, with a meatiness that hits your tongue all over. I had to take a couple sips of water since the tofu was a bit hot and the flavor was so bold but I also dug in. The seafood pancake was larger than I thought but light and crispy, with plentiful bits of octopus and and vegetables. I paid and gave tip, coming out to $49 total. We were both stuffed by the end! We packed the rest of the seafood pancake into a takeout box and headed out to CVS. My brother wanted to buy a Snoopy plush but couldn't find one. I eyed some candy. He suggested we go to the Safeway nearby for some cheaper prices and so we swung by. My brother got some fruit candy and a energy drink concentrate (Mio?), I got a bag of wintergreen Lifesavers and some dark chocolate.

Mom told me to take my younger brother out for some lunch but I was still full from the sandwich but we went anyway. The tofu house we went to the other month, near the Grocery Outlet and the pho place our family goes to some Sunday mornings, was closed this hour so we went to a tofu house near Marina Grocery instead.

Woke up early enough but my brother and grandma used the bathroom before me so I stayed in bed a half hour longer. Got ready for the day, folded the rest of the laundry (pants, underwear, socks) and finally headed up down the hallway to the kitchen for a late breakfast. Had a turkey avocado lettuce cream cheese sandwich. Last avocado! Watched an episode of Futurama, the gender swap episode, and then went back to the office garage and began to read the rest of The Navidson Record of House of Leaves. Dim gray out but less occluded. Could see spots of blue.

I don't know if it's because I have eyes but most of TPOT can be classified as a community and I'm pretty sure that's the common model after mid-2022 at the very least. You can say scene over and over but if you look at a group of people and see community interactions and accurately project said community interactions into the future it's a community. So call a spade a fucking spade.

Woke up to a notification from a smarmy OP essentially scolding me for thinking TPOT was a community and that post-TPOT should have rules. What a load of crap.

December 21st 2023. Had some savory oatmeal and a couple fried eggs for breakfast. Made some coffee on setting 5, seems better extracted but a touch more bitterness. Had half it at home then the other half at work. Had work from 12:30 to 8. Very gray and overcast today, a bit of rain, things were slow. Devoured a good chunk of House of Leaves. Customer noted that he likes it when people read (I think he was a volunteer at a library or something). Went home at 8:10. Drive was very smooth and very quiet. Had some loaded miso soup with tons of seaweed and tofu, and some shrimp broccoli stirfry for dinner. Spent the rest of the night from 10:30 playing Realm of the Mad God (I forgot to mention I've been playing it more these last couple of days). Not much Futurama at all actually.

Finally out of bed. Oy!

Woke up around 9:05. Spent 20 minutes on Twitter. Blug blug. Morning outside is so dim I thought it was 7.

Seems TPOT might end or dissolve soon given Max/Mimi's post about Chaosprime. And the way Chaos has responded -- it's not looking good.

December 19th 2023. Cloudy but not super rainy. Had a cream cheese pastry for late breakfast. Had some of the tart cellophane noodles for a small lunch. Had a bigger dinner, with lots of blanched green beans, a pounded green bean and dried fish mix, and veggie bittermelon soup. Had an chocolate covered ice cream bar for dinner. Still binged Futurama throughout the day. Adored their body swap episode. Had a haircut around 6:05, wanted to walk there but it was getting dark so I drove. Free (branded) mug and pen!

I've gained weight this year, or at least I'm more sensitive to it now. It reminds me of when I was 11 or 12, and just about to go into the summer before my first year of high school. I don't remember if there was ever a precise moment where but I know I was skinny throughout 9th and 10th grade. I used to wonder on very brief occasions if I had a parasite gobbling up all the food I ate. Turns out it was just a stellar metabolism. I've got to get moving for my mind and my body.

I see Philip J. Fry on screen and how he's able to roll with the punches of the year 3000 and I wonder, is that me? Could that be me? I don't remember how well I adapt, how I get used to things. Sometimes I think about my neuronal connections, how many have been pruned, and sometimes I think of constraints and fossilization and plateaus instead of influences and proliferation. "The amazing fertility of the older mind", BBC -- I want that. I need it.

Arrested development, dependency, being a relic, crammed full of abstract wisdom and no world, no scene to put it. That's the me now. I get to thinking I'll be like this forever.

I think of escape and freedom and getting a new job and finally starting my life but I can't see it. The picture is missing. I think of what it would be like to fall in love, curl up in his arms, but I can't see what he looks like. I think I'd know him. I think I'd know what my next home looks like but I don't. And I get to this terrible feeling that I know so little about the world and it's people and places that if I somehow wandered too far from my house I'd petrify and never move again. I don't know who the person who was water and rubber and the forest was. I don't know who the person who changed from {moment to moment} went, and I wonder if I ever changed at all

And that I think is at the heart of my binging. I don't remember binging anything so hard as this, other than maybe Adventure Time back in 2020 just after the pandemic hit. I'm trying to pass the time. I'm trying to click the fast forward button. I don't want to feel like I'm waiting, even though that's very much a core process of this.

Slept late last night. Woke up early but still got ready late. Totally cloudy today. Binged maybe 4 or so episodes of Futurama total but did watch the last half of the last Futurama movie. Had a turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich for breakfast, took a nap after finishing the Futurama movie, woke up around 2 (as you can see). Made an oat milk latte, 14g coffee to 50ml water in the AeroPress, tasted alright but was a little weak. Spent most of the day on the computer, not much note-taking, more Twitter than needed. Actually felt a bit bored. Took another nap around 6, woke up at 7, had some dinner. Stir-fry green beans and shrimp, and some fish and beef bone soup. (I got a bit of marrow. Yum.) Could just be the weather but I feel as if I'm at a loss of something, like I'm wasting time.

Took a nap. Had this dream I was going to the mall with family and a bunch of lifelike augmented 3D attractions were live. "Saw" people I haven't seen since elementary or middle school.

My sleep schedule is whacked out the window. Don't feel sleepy. Too much coffee today? Need to start drinking smaller cups again.

December 17th 2023. Woke up decently early but my brother headed into the bathroom first so I had to wait a bit. Didn't go out for breakfast this morning so I settled for a turkey avocado lettuce sandwich instead. Everything gets gooey fast after that. I definitely binged a couple Futurama movies, and definitely had 2 of the wax Babybel cheeses, and definitely had some cellophane instant noodles with a bit of cilantro for late lunch. For dinner, some more cellophane noodles but this one with some lemon, basil, and pork sausage, and some tomato chicken feet soup that my oldest uncle made. But I can't hold onto the specifics. I know it was quiet at work/the family business on account of the heavy overcast and rainy day today. More Twitter than needed. Almost forgot -- when I made coffee today, I brewed extra. 24g + 400ml, single filter, five pours, stirred at the beginning and end, the drawdown seemed much faster. Maybe 5 seconds or so shy of a full immersion brew. Swirling seems to embed more fines in the filter. Skin above my ring finger knuckle has been a little tender the past couple days, seems my joints are stabilizing.

Wow! New update for my iMac.

Not sure if it's going to show up well but this is one of the reddest cups of coffee I've seen in a while. Wow!

Finished Bender's Big Score. HOT DAMN! Lots of time travel.

I was originally going to take a break from the show after the brilliant Season 4 finale, Devils Hands are Idle Playthings, but the show just gripped me. So I'm chipping at Bender's Big Score right now and plan to finish it tomorrow.

December 16th 2023. Woke up early but lamped in bed for way too long. Had a turkey avocado lettuce cream cheese sandwich for a very late breakfast. Coffee at 1:10, two filters in the switch, 5 pours to 250ml, very clear cup but not as tea-like as I thought. Binged Futurama, an easy 4 episodes of Season 5, and then my mom told/bugged me to take my younger brother out. We went to deposit money at our banks and then we went to Goodwill but did get anything there so we swung by a nearby milk tea place. I ordered a coffee and tea blended drink, decaf, less sugar, with some coffee jelly but it took a pretty long time to arrive, maybe 15 minutes or so. And it was alright if a bit sweet even at the lower sugar option. Swing by Taco Bell for a late lunch around 4:25, misjudged the distance and nearly ran into the drive-thru but I corrected fast and pulled into the actual parking lot well. Felt very annoyed at myself but then later told myself that I just need to drive more. A lot more. Headed into Taco Bell, brother ordered a burrito combo with a couple tacos and I got a regular crunchy taco and a crunchwrap. I got some gas on the way home and then arrived home. Finished off the coffee/milk tea and the crunchwrap, and then more Futurama. I didn't eat much for dinner but I did sneak four or five baked oysters, a bit of rice, and some veggie beef soup. The beef and the baked oysters were very tender. And then more Futurama later. Felt kind of annoyed around the beginning and end of the trip since I genuinely had no idea where to go or what to do but now I'm thankful for it.

Waiting.

Sleepytime :-)

The cat in question:

Grandma and mom made some pounded eggplant fish dip for dinner and steamed some veggies. Very good. Tart and full of umami. Had a piece of cheese and some roasted seaweed for an after dinner snack, and then those two last Futurama episodes earlier.

Headed out to go to work. Saw a cat slinking around our front yard. Had work from 2:30 to close. Felt like a real slog the entire way though, probably on account of waking up late and not having enough daylight. Didn't watch any Futurama. Actually I didn't watch much Futurama in general today. I think I only watched 3 episodes? Making moonshine in Bender; Kif's pregnancy; and superhero cream.

Finished eating and (unwittingly) felt the inklings of a food coma. Checked Canvas for extra assignments -- I'm basically done!!! Massage chair wasn't working but I somehow dozed off to sleep anyway. Grandma went to the grocery store around 1:30, I made coffee at 1:45 on my new Ode Gen 2 grinder. And holy crap this grinder is great. On setting 6 it ground 15g coffee in 7 or 8 seconds. It normally takes me 40 or so seconds to grind it on my hand grinder, for comparison. No mess at all and very very VERY little retention on this first grind. Grind distribution also looked great when brewing in my Hario Switch (again, 5 pours) ⁠— very little sludge! Metal construction also felt much studier than the Opus. Flavor clarity in the final cup was very good, and I know definitively that it's my beans that are the problem (they're 2 months old!). Bright acid at the very beginning while hot, and I could taste more of the roundness/floral note of passion fruit as described on the coffee bag. Absolutely delicious.

Woke up somewhat on time, around 9 or so, but fell back asleep and got ready for the day at 10:15 or so. Made some spicy ramen for breakfast with some mushrooms (a few brown spots but still good!) and leafy veggies and planned to do the mayo hack but I didn't have any egg so I tried compensating with extra garlic and extra mayo. Felt really scattered trying to make it, like I couldn't quite time or arrange what I needed to do when I needed to it. Finally got it done, first few bites were really spicy since the ramen water was so evaporated on the stove and the mayo/seasoning/garlic hadn't quite constituted. I loved the glossy look to the ramen though, and how the noodles were super soft from slightly overcooking them (again, timing issue). Drank lots of water to try and beat the salt, and a few spoonfuls of water midway and it cleared up the excess spice nicely.

I want to be clearer about what I want and need and have to do in 2024.

Fellow Ode Gen 2 pics.

Almost forgot -- THE FELLOW ODE GEN 2 FINALLY ARRIVED! It was out for delivery for over 8 hours.

Slow day today. Woke up late. Turkey lettuce cream cheese sandwich for late dinner, also made one for grandma. Coffee at 1:38pm. A LOT of Futurama binging, easy 7 or 8 episodes today as I was waiting for my Spanish final at 4pm. Spanish final was much shorter than I thought, took me about 38 or 40 minutes. A little bit of Twitter. And things kind of get gooey from there again. Grandma made some veggie shrimp soup for dinner.

Finals updates!

• Got an 87/100 on my Python final! Really thought I'd get a 70 or so. Grade is at an A
• Got a 90/100 on my Spanish final with a possible extra 4 points from the class feedback. Grade is also at an A but need to recheck

Talked with Dave a little later about classes.

Tried writing for threadapalooza but couldn't really get the writing right. I do my writing best when I'm really energized, when I really have it in my head and my hands. Lately I've found I'm more out of words.

Fuck I'm tired. Can I admit that? Put it here like a notification. "I'm tired" — that's mine.

Woke up early-ish around 9:10 but felt very sluggish so I lamped in until 9:50. Skipped breakfast, watched some episodes of Futurama, made some coffee. 24g + 400ml, five 80g pours, straight into the water bottle. Left home around 12:50, arrived on campus around 1:20, had a burger and fries over two episodes of Futurama. Got cold quick so I went inside to the library and read "Pieces of Light", got three chapters in, wrote some interesting quotes. The book was about reconstructive memory. Noticed on the walk to the library it was cold enough and the sky was dim enough that it actually felt like early morning. Left the library around 4:55, it was a deep blue outside by that point, and went to the ATC. Messed around on my laptop, headed up at 7:00pm, started my Python final at 7:03. Used up the entire hour. Got off the final around 7:10, I think I did well on the multiple choice and explanation questions and okay on a couple of the coding exercises. Told my prof. to have a nice break, he waved back. Walked around the campus a little to snap a few more pics because it'd be weeks until I came back here again. Nighttime was very cold. Got back to my car and drove home at 7:20, arrived at 7:40, had some dinner. Fish, fish sauce, lettuce and cucumber and other veggies. Good stuff. Checked Twitter, felt awful, what's new. Watched a couple more episodes of Futurama later (I'm pretty sure you can see a pattern here). Still having a hard time remembering plots and jokes but I do know they're fun.

Two things:

1. Social interaction def. has an outsized effect on my mood
2. Want to record/publish more voice notes in 2024

(I'm still passing this class with a B if I get a 61/100 on it)

Off to bomb my Python final :-)

December 12th, 2023. Woke up hella late at 10:00am. Had some meat floss bread for breakfast, leftover porridge with some pink pickled ginger for lunch. Made coffee at 1:30 on the Hario Switch, full immersion brew, 20ml extra water for 270ml. Resulting brew was still very good though my final stir might've been too strong since it drew down into a mound shape (it's normally flat). Lots of Carly Rae Jepsen today. Binged like 4 episodes of Futurama, was really loved by the 7-leaf clover episode. Didn't study much for my Python final but honestly I'm fine getting a B in the class if/when I tank my final. Decided I was going to use Bing -- algorithmic thinking just takes time I don't have right now. Worked on a few tweets for threadapalooza in Typefully but it's still very small so far. Had work from 7 to 8 since my parents had to drop off a family friend at the airport.

Tomorrow will be better.

Bummed around Twitter more than a handful of times. Admitted to binging Futurama. Tried doing some hyperthreading but rolled it back up. Doesn't make me feel very confident for my threadapalooza draft. Seems like I'm still bogged down by social statistics. :-(

Very very cozy meal.

Had some crackers around 3. And then a little kimchi tofu chicken soup over some leftover plain oatmeal from this morning. Good tart flavor and great spice level. Had dinner around 7:10. Fish porridge!

Poked at my PSYC 3 assignment. Made coffee at 12:30pm. Hario Switch, full immersion, water first then grounds, drawdown was much faster, coffee was nicely extracted and not silty or heavy at all, though very dark even up to the meniscus. Not much lemony flavor, just some brightness up front and some roastiness at the end.

Had some savory oatmeal and a couple fried eggs for breakfast over an episode of Futurama.

December 11th 2023. Sara Bareilles. Woke up around on time but deliberated on getting ready.

Well anyway I finished the Parasites Lost episode and phew -- Magic School Bus meets Flowers for Algernon. I think that's it for today.

Been binging Futurama all day. I think I've watched six episodes, easy. Most of the day was just waiting for it to pass.

Tried to wake up early since I thought we were going out for breakfast, not really any plans, just got ready and had a turkey and cream cheese sandwich. Spent most of the day working on my final PSYC 3 assignment which is like 3 writing assignments stuck together. Just awful but I'm glad I didn't try to cram this on Monday. Lots of referencing, lots of AI help, but I got the draft down and the rest of it will be editing. What a marathon these last couple of days. Had coffee around 1, 1zpresso and the Switch, was really worried about the drawdown (took well over a minute), thought the filter made a perfect seal, and when it all drained out the coffee bed looked like sludge. The coffee itself was nicely extracted, however, good brightness and a touch of roasty bitterness, nothing excessive or tannic. Continued to work on PSYC 3 assignment, lots of breaks (Futurama episodes, Twitter, coffee videos). Thumb and pinky joint seem to be doing better. Very cold all day. Second oldest uncle asked me about his MacBook Pro M3 shipment, turns out it was supposed to have arrived nine days ago and shipped to our doorstep but somehow it's been hanging around Fremont. Boy, that made me mad. $2500 of his hard earned money and UPS doesn't even have the decency to try and reship it back? The address was written fine. Our city name is right there. So he's planning to contact Best Buy tomorrow or later this week. Had dinner at 7:10pm, we made some lemon chicken soup. Good good flavor, flecks of golden rendered fat at the surface like little jewels. For some reason this stupid comment I read online a couple years back that said chicken doesn't have flavor keeps popping up occasionally but every time I have chicken I can taste that characteristic delicate poultry undertone. Need to roast a whole chicken myself one day! Got tired at 8:30pm but didn't graze on a nap, tried to unwind at my desk.

I want to break a chair over my PSYC 3's teacher and his tepid, faux-intellectual, incoherent excuse for a final.

December 9th, 2023. Woke up later than I wanted on account of sleeping late last night. Got ready for my interview with Alicia Guo about using AI for writing, headphones on, entered the Zoom, verbal interview lasted for about 35 minutes and the remainder of the interview was a working demo in Loomsidian. I generated a segment about Ariadne Cordova of the SEER project being interviewed by this journalist named Blake, but didn't explicitly get the prompt down -- just the back and forth. I actively pruned branches and added more to the draft when I needed to. I talked about ownership (I'll always credit cd2), aligning the AI with how I want the story to go, nonfiction vs. fiction. The meeting wrapped up around 12:35 and I ended with a final comment about energy constraints and how cd2 got me back to thinking and less fussing over the "correct" arrangement of words. Later I was starving so I had a bite of lasagna from dinner yesterday and a green apple. Another Futurama episode. I had coffee a little later, at 1:07pm or so. 1zpresso + AeroPress. Good well-extracted brew but a touch more bitterness than I expected. Around 3:30 I checked Amazon on a whim and saw that the Ode Gen 2 was on sale for 20% off and I realized now was the time to send it off. I grabbed the shipping box and the original packing box, cleaned out the grinds from my Opus grinder with my cute little bulb syringe and a soft towel, and packed almost everything back in. I didn't quite get the top paper-cardboard section on since it bulged so I decided to put it off to the side and got it in the mailing box. From there it was a 8 or so minutes drive into Fremont, on a city street, to the UPS store. I waited a few minutes, the employee scanned my package, and I was good to go. I missed a U-turn but turned into a small neighborhood and headed back out, driving slightly faster this way. At home I didn't get the refund from Amazon immediately -- it would be a few weeks -- but I bought the Ode Gen 2 (and a few more Hario 03 filters) ASAP. Tried some more programming problems. After that, everything gets gooey. I took a series of naps over an hour and a half at 5, and at 6:30 waking up from bright dreams of the near future I genuinely felt like a different person. There was very little on my mind waking up. I tried working on more programming problems for another 25 minutes and had dinner. Grandma made some tofu pork bean sprout stirfry and reheated the last bit of bittermelon soup from last night -- very very filling. After that I chipped at a couple other programming questions and intermittently worked on my PSYC 3 assignment. Some Twitter, some more Futurama, felt more normal after dinner. Looking forward to possible breakfast tomorrow.

Bluh, I've been grazing on naps this past hour and a half.

Need to pack my Fellow Opus back into the box -- I want to return it ASAP. So I'm stopping by the Fremont UPS store, maybe check out the surrounding square, tomorrow morning. And then a little after I have an interview with Ms. Alicia Guo about AI-assisted writing, and a 30 minute demo. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do for it. Maybe something small, like a poem, or another in-universe paper for The Hierophant.

December 8th 2023. Slow and unsatisfying. Woke up early but got ready late. Mom said I had to work, I mentioned I had finals next week, still had to go to work. Mom asked me if I wanted anything from Costco, I said no. Mood tanked quite a bit and by the time I was out the door with my laptop and Pieces of the Action and my water bottle I was not having it. Dad moved his car so I could get out of the driveway and I drove off. Bright noon. Arrived at work, irritation began to melt slowly the first hour. Mom texted around 2:30 that I could get off around 4 and have my brother work since he wouldn't have finals until the week after next week. Work was quiet and boring. Went home, tired and quiet and very unfocused. Did a little bit of the PSYC 3 final, checked out the Spanish study guide, and dreaded the Python. Incredibly frustrating that I can't quite make the connection between what I want to do and what it actually materializes onto the script file. And referencing costs precious minutes. I have no idea why Prof. Read caps the final at one hour. My Spanish final goes for two hours. And that weaksauce study guide -- grrr. On the bright side, if I bomb the final with a 65/100, I'm still getting out of the class with a B. (Anything lower than a C, even a C-, jeopardizes my TAG to UC Santa Cruz.) Watched a couple episodes of Futurama again but boy are they hard to remember. I remember they were funny. But I can't quite hang onto the plot. A Christmas episode yesterday. A beach episode today with Dr. Zoigberg. Ay yai yai, I've got to get back into the swing of sitcoms. Bittermelon and pork knee (shoulder?) soup, and a few bites of lasagna my mom was working on earlier. Bittermelon soup was very good though could've used a bit more meat. The sauce on that lasagna was really tart but the cheese held it's own -- I actually thought a piece was a dry piece of chicken.

December 7th 2023. Slow, overcast day today. Made some spicy noodles for breakfast but added too much spice so I had to toss it. Not sure the mayo would've helped if we had it. Had Spanish class at 4 to 6, just a final review, and the last class of the quarter. Did some homework but not too much -- Spanish MyLab, and a few PSYC 3 questions. Texted Dave a bit about some art, impromptu vision (vis) sent me a meme and asked about my interest in cogsci. Oldest uncle made some fish soup and some dark stewed fish for dinner.

December 8th update: Professor Cnudde from public speaking class is fine, thank God, but a couple of redwoods fell on her lines and knocked out electricity, Wi-Fi, and emergency services for her for hours. She sent out an announcement that we could record videos of our speeches, or forego the speeches (she would not count it in the gradebook). I decided to forego the speech, and it seems like everyone in my presenting group did too. No videos in the discussion section. She's been through a lot this quarter -- she also had to report some witness testimony to a crime, I think. Hoping she can properly unwind this winter break.

Headed to my car ASAP and drove home to catch my speech meeting. Had some dinner and looked over my speech cards, then went on to my computer and tried to calm down. Started panicking when the meeting didn't work. Apparently Prof. Cnudde didn't start the meeting. I emailed her 5 minutes in to let her know, and then 2 minutes later a classmate in my presenting group asked me on Canvas if it was working for me. I responded no, and felt much better that I wasn't the only one with the issue. I sent another email 30 minutes later. After that I worked on my Spanish oral project, recorded it on my laptop, and sent it in a little before 11. After that I just unwound and took it easy. Will head off soon.

Around 5:56 I headed upstairs to Python class. It was just review for the midterm. Need to practice my coding much more -- Prof. Read suggests we should spend 10-12 minutes on each coding exercise, but it takes me an easy 20-25 minutes.

It began to sprinkle and rain after I finished lunch and so I couldn't take many photos. The overcast lighting didn't make for many highlights or shadows either. (Drat, just remembered I still had my phone I could snap a few pictures on.) I walked to the library and tried working on Spanish homework. An hour later I went to the ATC and tried to study there, though I didn't work on homework, and angsted slightly over the cost of a Fellow Ode Gen 2 even trading in the Opus, and how I missed the killer 20% Black Friday sale. The Ode 2 goes for $345. The next best option is the Baratza Virtuoso+, but that's a conical burr, and I already have that style in my hand grinder and the Opus. Incidentally I tried note-taking on my laptop in the tablet mode and my stylus pen is thick enough to irritate my thumb joint. Regular thin pencils are better. Must be related to how that joint bends.

Almost forgot -- the Fomapan 100 finally arrived today, and I loaded up my Tele 6 with it and a battery and got to shooting. It's really fun! I think I prefer snapshot photography than more artistic/composed photography (but I'll still do it from time to time). It's also nice to come back to the camera with fresh eyes. I don't feel angst using it, worrying if it'll break. Like of course it'll be a shame if it breaks, I paid $100, but I won't be so torn up about it like I would my computer.

December 6th 2023. Woke up early and got ready early. Finished by 9:17. Skipped breakfast, practiced my informative speech and speech notes, did some other work. Made some coffee around 12:30, setting 8 on the Opus and the Hario Switch. Bed looked a little sludge-y but the brew itself was bright, even a touch of lemon on the first sip -- no milk needed. Drove to campus, wasn't impressed with the traffic but I got there. Tried their meatloaf/mashed potatoes/broccoli plate for lunch over a couple episodes of Futurama. Mars University, and an alien attack with a makeshift episode.

December 6th 2023.

Er, sleep to a reasonable extent. I remember the day after oversleeping. Not fun.

Practiced my informative speech a couple of times before midnight and wrote down some speech note index cards. Think it's better for me to get as much sleep as possible tonight.

Jesus. I guess you can be addicted to your friends' posts.

Oh, I know who was missing. Wow. That's seriously embarrassing when I have his line.

December 5th 2023. Okay day today. Woke up around regular time but lamped in bed longer than I should've. Got ready for the day, definitely feel more clear that morning. Had some fried eggs and toast for breakfast (ofc I put the tomato onion paste I'm not eating it dry). Checked email on the computer and tested my grinder on the espresso and cold brew settings, took some photos, made some coffee from it. A bit sour, a touch bitter, but nothing disgusting. Had work from 12 to 3, went home at 3:15 and had Spanish class at 4 to 6. This is the second to last class, and we went over tener que and reviewed some stuff we learned from earlier in the quarter. Brother and mom went to iTea, they got me some grape green tea (asked for a fruity flavor like (yes I know that joke is right there. resist) grapefruit or mango) and some popcorn chicken so I popped a few bites near the end of Spanish class. Okay it was like 7 bites and a little bit of rice but I didn't eat lunch so meh. Everything gets kind of gooey from there. Made espresso for my mom's instant coffee pack on my AeroPress but accidentally set the setting on the Opus to 1, not 2, and definitely overextracted it, but it worked out; later helped foam some milk for her. About 30 minutes later I checked my 1zpresso JX's grind settings and tried to wrap my head around their numbers vs. clicks. Didn't have dinner until very later at like 10:41pm, and I didn't eat much. Steamed egg pork and some veggies, and some rice, over an episode of Futurama that parodied The Titanic. Starting to see how Futurama is the ur-Rick and Morty of the 2000s. Not sure if I worked on much homework today. I know I checked my socials and YouTube a lot. Lately my Twitter has gotten more busy and it's almost pleasurable. I think orienting to smaller creative accounts than shitposters was the right move.

In bed now. Took a little nap in the massage chair, headphones on, and the woke up and got ready for bed. So sleepy!

December 3rd 2023. Alright day. Woke up early around 7:55 but slept in another hour to get some more energy. Woke up, got ready, mom said dad was cleaning the ice cream machine so we waited 20 or 25 more minutes. We went to Denny’s later for breakfast. I got a sausage and bell pepper and onion omelette. Very good. Went back home, I lamped out in the massage chair, and then went to work at 12:40pm. Felt kind of frustrated since I wanted to do some homework and check out Judah’s updated Stream layout editor on the Stream Beta but whatever. Took my laptop to work again, though not much work done since I had to keep getting up. Work was very slow and very mid for the first half, and a bit better around the second half. Went home around 7, had some dinner (rice, baked fish, and bean sprout and cucumber pickles). impromptu vision on Twitter DMed me about my UC application and TPOT; apparently he was caught off-guard about my age vs. Twitter maturity level (which surprisingly has happened before, albeit on Tumblr). Later I properly sat down and tested the updated layout editor. I tried doing a tri-complimentary thing but settled on light red background, dark red boxes, and green links. Much easier/clearer to use. Watched episodes 8 and 9 of Futurama; still somewhat hard to remember, but I remember one episode had a trash asteroid and another episode was about the robot getting over his electricity addiction. No coffee today, which could explain why I’m feeling sleepy at 11pm(!!!).

December 2nd 2023. Good day today. Woke up late around 9:45. Had the last bit of Costco mac and cheese for breakfast. Lamped around the computer most of the day, turned on the lamp since it was kind of dim throughout with even a little bit of rain. Made some coffee, see above, really quite delicious, on the hand grinder. Opus arrived later at 2 but I didn’t want to use my mid coffee in it and potentially impart that flavor into other beans. Noticed some alignment issues of a millimeter or so, checked the inner ring, seems like it’s just a paint job thing. The entire grinder is made of plastic so it feels less sturdy compared to my all metal hand grinder, but that design is great. Uncle made a salty fish stew with eggplant, and some Korean black noodle for dinner. Won family also came by for dinner. Watched a couple Futurama episodes – definitely a looser show, more comedy than situation, but that animation sure is cozy.

THE FELLOW OPUS HAS ARRIVED …

Used the Hario Switch in the open position as a V60 and used James Hoffmann’s single cup V60 recipe: Pulse 1/5th total brew liquid through coffee at a time, swirl initial bloom, 10 sec breaks in between, stir final pour to flatten coffee bed. Nicely balanced extraction and with a clean finish. Just enough bitterness to make it savory. No milk needed! Mm mm mm. I think the ratio was also key: I used 15g coffee to 250ml water for a 1:16.66 ratio.

Now that is a damn good cup of coffee.

Quiet day today (December 1st, 2023). Folded my laundry this morning. Did some Spanish homework but wasn’t super in the mood. Still completed it though. Made avocado toast for breakfast, and then coffee a bit later. Definitely remembered to pour out the preheat water, but it seems like the coffee beans really were bad. The strength was alright but quite bitter, so I had to dilute the coffee anyway. Watched a couple episodes of Futurama(!). Kind of a sweet show. Proto-work reform. Had work from 4 to 8pm. Kind of cold but I had my brown jacket. Took my laptop to work again, but didn’t get much homework done. Lots of phone orders; about 3 more than usual. Ms. Jaz and Mrs. Finular ordered by phone. Joints on right hand feel a touch stiffer today but not super notable, and kind of cleared up throughout the day. Oldest uncle prepared fresh salmon for some sashimi, and my mom made some loaded miso soup with seaweed, tofu, shrimp, and pork pieces. Salmon was very very creamy, though somewhat hard on my gut a little later.

I think my negative mood yesterday really was a fluke but I’m not going to scrub out the sheer frustration. That was frustrating. Very very frustrating. But I made it work. Time to rest.

The last PIQ really kicked my rear. I was technically going between two questions (talent vs. unique candidate) and finally landed on the second. Writing it was kind of meh, and my supporting information could’ve been better, but it was very serviceable and I had finished 80% by Spanish class. Spanish was a whirlwind. Profe. Alcazar’s cold pushed back some lessons so we sped through stem-changing verbs and reflexive verbs. Class took a break before stem-changing verbs; I burned a couple tea bags just to see if they really would rocket up, and they did, but made a small mess of ash in the sink. Reflexive infinitives have been in my head since the start of COVID! Crazy. It’s also a pretty common grammatical construct. Finished up Spanish class, took a brief break. Got back to work on the personal insight question, finished the last 20% of editing and revising, went back through the other parts of my application. Ate some dinner – orange squash and fish soup, made with some dried fish and some fresh fish, and ate a bit of shrimp paste and cucumbers. Washed plates, got back to the application, copied and pasted in my answers, and submitted the application. FINALLY! I am free.

September 30th 2023. Slow day today with a few highlights. Woke up early enough around 9:15 but grandma used the bathroom so I got ready starting 10:00. Skipped breakfast, wasn’t really into the fridge, worked on the personal insight questions some more. Hario Switch arrived(!!!), great box. Had some leftover stirfry and soup with a bit of kimchi for lunch. Kimchi was nice and sour. Made coffee on the Hario Switch: 18g, 250ml water, preheated with 300ml-ish water, lever switch worked well but was a little softer than I thought. Though, that lightness was probably a safety feature. Love love love the glass design. Feels so regal and elegant. Drained preheating water into the mug to warm it up. Boiled the water for the coffee, ground the coffee, added the water first before coffee to prevent clogging. Used my AeroPress paddle stick to stir which worked okay, though a more curved spoon would work better. Let it steep for 2 minutes, then flicked the switch again to let it drain. It drained pretty quickly, around 35 to 45 seconds, and it didn’t look too much like sludge. Coffee continued to drip through until I noticed some leaking around the side of the mug. Disaster: I forgot to pour out my preheating rinse water!! Not only had I diluted the coffee, it potentially had a slight paper taste. I cleaned up the brewer, poured out half an ounce or so of coffee, and then tried it. Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad. I couldn’t really taste any paper flavor, and the coffee was weak, but not tea weak. It actually reminded me of donut shop coffee. Good extraction, just a little diluted. And here’s the kicker – no bitterness. I don’t know if my grind size was on point but the dilution seemed to scrub away all of the bitterness that had plagued the first few times I tried brewing the coffee on my AeroPress. What was left was a very elemental, roasty flavor. I had it over a tangerine and a couple James Hoffman videos, and continued working on the personal insight question.

🫡

It’s been over a year and a half since I’ve been this frustrated and self-loathing and I want to believe this is an accident, that this is an exception, that I’m normally better but I’m also so angry that I don’t want to sleep even though said sleep will keep me from fully losing my mind tomorrow. I’m trying to be optimistic and pragmatic but all I can think of these questions is, what a load of crap. What a bunch of busywork.

Decently busy day today. Woke up late on account of sleeping late last night. Skipped breakfast. Made coffee just before heading out to drive to school at 1:10. Camera, backpack, water bottle. Bought some lunch at the dining hall, microwaved my coffee, headed out and took a seat. Garlic bread was very hard but I got it down anyway. Watched a couple episodes of The Nanny, both in season 1. Danny proposes to Fran, in the first episode I watched. Fran and Gracie go to a mother-daughter pageant, Fran subbing in for the late Sarah Sheffield, in the second episode. Some guy came up to me and asked the time and asked for a dollar, but one look at his face and I was transported to last year when this same man asked me for two dollars in approximately the same area and practically sprinted off. I responded very coldly, that it was 3pm, packed up, and left. I took a walk around campus for half an hour. Didn’t take many photos but I was so jarred by the incident. Checked out the Media and Learning Center for a few minutes, then went outside again. Came around back to the ATC, sat down at the chair near the door, and worked on a reading response for my public speaking class. Read up a bit on the Fellow Opus and some user reports on it, and then headed up to Python class upstairs. Mentally checked out 15 minutes into class, about modules and strings, class ended early at 6:40, and I headed out. Drove home, had some dinner – stir fried green string beans and shrimp, and on choy soup. Very good. Had a couple tangerines for dessert and worked on the UC application. No responses from friend group Discord. Got more and more irritated trying to answer the last prompt (which was actually two, since I wanted to draft as much as possible) and I went digging through my children-of-night channel and my commonplace book and my other writing notes and I decided, fuck it, I’m writing about my conviction for the future. But I just feel so angry that these “personal insight” questions have been anything but insightful, have been anything but intuitive. I don’t think I’m that unaccomplished. But their framing – I checked with Bing on this – is asking me to compare and evaluate myself and it’s like, who the fuck do I even compare myself to? That hypothetical bland average transfer applicant with a 3.4 GPA and two extracurriculars beat me out yesterday. I don’t hate many things but I hate having to evaluate myself on a rubric that doesn’t exist.

Slow day today. Skipped breakfast because I had to do another PSYC 3 assignment (much smaller but still meh), had some black bean noodles for lunch with a bit of leftover ham chopped in. Had coffee right after and began to check on other homework. Did a bit of the UC personal insight questions but mostly procrastinated. No Spanish class! Profe. Alcazar is sick. Hope she gets better by Thursday. Crunched the PIQ drafts by midnight, send the doc to the HS friends Discord. Pinky and thumb joints seem to be doing better than a couple weeks ago, but still occasional soreness. Realizing I literally only have 2 days left; functionally one, since I’m not about to risk my application turning it in on the last day. (Or maybe I will … )

November 27th, 2023. Writing this quick because I’m already in bed. Woke up around 9, got ready for the day, had another ham lettuce sandwich on the square bread with a bit of the Babybel cheese. They must’ve changed their recipe because these cheese bites are really soft now. Most of the day later was spent intermittently working on programming work, namely the chapter exercises and the lab 5. Classes and exception handling – again, asked Bing Chat for a couple hints. Had a lunch break for some leftover baked pork and a bit of the quick pickle, but I made some savory oatmeal since we ran out of rice. After lunch (the latest quarto episode of Rick and Morty), I wrapped up the lab by the early evening. Had dinner around 8:50 - 9:00; oldest uncle made some dark fish stew and a huge pot of plain white porridge. Very good. Worked on UC personal insight questions afterwards, albeit somewhat slowly.

Eyes getting tired. Will do laundry, and then sleep.

Probably the hardest part of the outline was the research. Most of my citations are paraphrases of basic information in the papers and articles. Then again this speech was supposed to run from 4-6 minutes and you won’t catch me going over the time limit again. (Apparently I talked for 7 minutes in my value speech. Wow!) This one was 4 minutes and 5 seconds read from the outline.

Worked on the rest of the informative outline for the rest of the night with another couple of media breaks, this time about Hario Switch recipes and Alice Dreger’s video on what makes someone gay. She came at the topic from a very scientific lens. It’s a nice change of pace from politically progressive framings. She was still very respectful though.

Watched the space dinosaur episode of Rick and Morty over dinner. Those zen dinos are so damn funny.

Worked a bit on my informative speech outline from 11 to 1:00 with a couple TV/YouTube breaks here and there, then went to work at 1:15. Brought my laptop to try and get some more work in but I didn’t get that much done. Mostly checked Discord, Twitter, and Tumblr. Go figure! Went home around 7:12pm. Mom made baked marinated pork, quick pickles, and some meatball soup. Just delicious. I had to go in for another couple pieces of pork, some more pickles, and another half bowl of soup. Thanks mom.

Slow day today. Woke up a bit late, felt kind of meh, shower cleared my head a bit. We didn’t go out for breakfast this morning. Had a ham sandwich for breakfast on the small square artisan bread/muffin with a bit of onion tomato paste and some lettuce. Ham was still good a night later, albeit a little chewy. Made some coffee, added a packet of sugar to the grounds for a touch of sweetness in the final brew. Milk? Yes. Want to see if I can pivot back into black coffee when my Hario Switch comes.

I’ve noticed they look a bit more mature since the last time I saw them, which makes me feel better about my own aging. Canni looks almost unchanged with the exception of a few more freckles. Julie’s cheekbones and jaw seem more defined. And Aaron has the start of smile lines(!) when he grins.

We headed home around 5, and I finished off the leftover spaghetti with a lot of cilantro. I was really tuckered out by then and decided to take a 15 minute nap around 6:15 only for said nap to stretch to 8. Hot damn is my sleep schedule going down the toilet. Woke up bleary and had a small dinner around 8:45; rice and turkey preserved lemon soup. We still had a lot of turkey from Thanksgiving and my mom put it to good use. My god am I tired. Spent some time after trying to research for my informative speech – bleh.

Canni decided to ride with me and the trip was very quick. I pulled into her driveway, got my Instant Pot and backpack, and headed in. Canni started carving up some ham for us into a few deli containers – that stuff was huge, and hugely delicious. We went to the sunroom, and her roommate’s cat followed us inside. Canni caught us up on her life about her computer science class, and then some personal/Dragonboat issues with Daphne and Alex. Alex had Daphne talk to Canni over Discord and phone that she was no longer invited to DB socials. One of the board members heard about this, and they had an emergency meeting in their Discord. It was officially settled but the personal issues still lingered a bit. Alex seemed to be the inciting person but Daphne undoubtedly had a crucial role, on account of her dating and rooming with him. Very odd situation because it seemed out of nowhere even with Alex’s grievances; not to mention it jeopardized the potential Davis trip around New Year’s. Philip also got roped into it somehow. Hoping we can settle it soon but Daphne literally did not send any messages in the friend group server for 2 straight months. Well, not that it’s particularly active anyway but whatever. Canni has a boyfriend (Havi) she met at Dragonboat so they’re dating long distance with a few meets per month!! Nice!!! Julie also talked about her dad worrying about her computational biology major even though she very obviously has her life together.

November 25th 2023. Small Friendsgiving; me, Aaron, Julie, Canni. I arrived late, but also first, on account of making the pasta a bit later than I planned. Drove off quick to Murphy Park, met up with friends and we got to eating. Lots of great food. Cropped for privacy. The bulk of the conversation was catching each other up on our lives. I focused on school – totally forgot to talk about my hobbies. Aaron talked about his school. His CS classes were going alright though one of his professors is really enthusiastic. He’s having a hard time getting responses from companies during job applications. Julie was a chronicle (in a great way). Lots of friend stuff, lots of work, a bit of dating on Hinge. Her ex texted to her over a year without contact since their breakup for some therapy but he was still the same person. (Her ex was not a good guy for the record.) We got to see her Hinge profile – super detailed, great photos – and some of the guys she dated. Around 2 or so we went to Canni’s house.

Can’t sleep. I hope my friends don’t notice how slammed I look tomorrow. :-P

Holy hell, almost forgot. I did do a little Black Friday shopping, albeit online, and a bit after 12. So it’s edging into Cyber Monday territory (and who knows what I might buy that day).

eBay: Fomapan 100 film, 2 2CR5 lithium batteries for the Tele 6, and a M42-FD adapter

Amazon: Hario Switch 03(!), Vannevar Bush’s Pieces of the Action (surprisingly haven’t finished reading As We May Think)

Items I decided against: Fellow Opus (hand grinder still probably works fine in upcoming pourover), Chemex filters (can just double up Hario filters), a Chemex (most Chemex magic is in the Chemex filters, not the brewer), Sunpak Auto 121C flash (pushed to January), Pixel Buds A-series (how often will I wear them esp. when I have my Bose headphones?)

Late breakfast, Black Friday 2023.

November 24th, 2023. Black Friday 2023. A whirlwind of a day today. Woke up pretty late so definitely no Black Friday shopping. Got ready around 10:00. Dad got some pastries for breakfast, I had a savory hot dog pastry and an egg tart. Asked parents if we were going anywhere a few times intermittently before noon, they said they didn’t have any plans. Lounged around bed around 12 again, took a series of naps that were shockingly hard to tell apart from reality – plans for San Francisco, the campus late at night, the house. Woke up around 2, and then made some coffee to try and shake off the sleepiness. No San Francisco as it turned out :-/ I spent a couple hours getting my shopping list together for Black Friday and around 4:30 we drove to the Westfield Valley Fair mall for some shopping. My youngest uncle, mom, younger brother, and cousin went inside the mall. My dad, middle uncle, and me went to Best Buy to check out some deals on technology. My middle uncle got a new MacBook Pro 16 inch, with 18GB of RAM. Why Apple settled on 18 and not 16 is beyond me but he deserved it. My dad tried deciding on which MacBook to get also but ultimately decided not to get one, citing lack of use and the fact his iPad still works fine. Also my mom didn’t really suggest it so that was that. I wandered around the Best Buy a bit for those few hours but nothing caught my eye, other than an Instax Mini camera, but even then I was more attracted to the prospect of quick prints than the instant gratification of it. I do need to get some prints from Snapfish soon! I suggested my dad get a keyboard and mouse but we found that it would’ve totalled to the same price as a Logitech keyboard case so that was also that. Mom and her group met up with us at Best Buy and we headed home around 8:00, but stopped by H-mart to get some sashimi for dinner. The urchin eggs(?) was really good; a bit like a sweeter crab head. And I had a lot of salmon and daikon over a bit of rice.

I don’t know how many times I’ve fallen back asleep when napping.

Typing this on the computer to get it out as quick as possible. Swinging Thanksgiving this year. Mom made some garlic fried chicken, beef salad, mashed potatoes, oxtail soup, and some beef ribs; and, we also ordered a turkey. Lots and lots of meat, and plenty of leftovers for breakfast tomorrow. Had a small turkey sandwich with a bit of the onion anchovy tomato paste and a chunk of brie. Lamped out at the computer intermittently waiting for all the food to be cooked, and also expecting my Aunt Kun, Uncle Mike, Aunt Lang, and Uncle Thai to come over. Not much tech support, which was less stimulating but still alright. Texted Judah about the Streams beta redux. The day gets kind of gooey after dinner. Had a can of Dr. Pepper and then some of the milk dessert my mom also made. Felt oddly sleepy around 9pm, talked with Uncle Mike a bit, he suggested I try hiring/finding a tutor for my hardest class next quarter (probably Python 41A). Twitter, yes, checked it 7 or 8 times throughout the day, a bit quiet on account of Thanksgiving. Worked very very slightly on “After the Island” which is exactly what it sounds. Reorganized my shopping list in OneTab. I was looking forward to Black Friday shopping tomorrow but it seems most of my wishlist is actually online. Silver lining: We might visit San Francisco instead.

I have to get the Olympus Pen out of my head.

Dad and mom sat down uncles and cousin and had a talk about them about communication, I stayed out of it. Lost track of time – started writing this at 12:02am.

What a day (Thanksgiving Eve, November 22nd 2023). Woke up early but lamped in bed for a bit, felt too cold to get out quick. Skipped breakfast, planned to eat pasta at school. Did some Spanish homework and a public speaking reading assignment. Drove to school a bit later than usual, around 1:20 rather than 1:00, since I had to make some coffee. Traffic was loosey-goosey, moderate speed. Arrived, spedwalked to the food court, only to find they were winding down quickly. Walked out of there, tried to clear my head, decided to go to Panera. 8 minutes walk to the store, backpack behind me, camera around my shoulder, metal bottle in my hand. Seems that store is located in a busy town square or so. Noticed just how refined the buildings and lots were. Almost felt priced out. (Almost!) Entered and looked around – how to tell the difference between looking and gawking and staring? – and then went to the self-serve iPad and poked in my order. Came out to a little over $18 on a ham and Gouda melt with extra lettuce and some onions, and then a cup of chicken noodle soup. Paid on card and settled down at a table to wait. A mom and child to the left of me, mom went to pick up her sandwiches, wide windows on the right looking out into a section of the parking lot. Slick vibes, music was nicely quiet, and a great sense of peace. But inside my social anxiety was flaring and flaring. Oy, if only I could throw water on it! Got a text message to pick it up, grabbed the bag, put it in my backpack, walked back to campus to finally sit down and dig in. Took a couple photos, had the sandwich and soup over an episode of The Golden Girls. Quite good actually, and I might go there around the end of the quarter when the food court winds down again. Will ask for extra sauce Dijon mustard to soften the bread even more. Chicken noodle soup cup was highly seasoned, a very clear taste of celery and chicken. I don’t know how many celery ribs had to go into that but it was good albeit on the saltier side – I can see why they give you another chunk of bread for free. Thinking about it now it kind of reminds me of canned, but the pasta actually had some bite to it. Wrapped up my food, headed off to the library, stayed on the first floor and checked out a blue iMac M1. Seeing another iMac in person really showed me how thin these things are. Just marvelous. Didn’t get much work done since I was mostly there to charge my laptop. Around 5:45 I headed for the ATC, sat at the lower chair and table, and then went up. Small quiet Python class on account of Thanksgiving tomorrow. We covered classes and objects. Prof. reassured us we don’t have to be an expert in classes and objects in this course. Followed along the main problem/exercise for a good 20 minutes before I tuned out, and class ended about 5 minutes later at 5:40. A bit of Twitter use today but not excessive. Guy from psychology class was there after class asking him a question, felt some real guilt about not following him up about meeting up and studying. Had this very very odd thought about kissing him. Not sure he’s my type – and of course I wouldn’t know, I haven’t talked to him much!! Walked to parking lot through the sunken garden, noticed some police and ambulance activity on the small street, shrugged it off and drove home. Drive home seemed to be calmer and quicker, probably because everyone wanted to get home for Thanksgiving. Arrived home, unwound a bit, didn’t eat dinner since I was still full from that big lunch. Dad arrived home around 8:25, I went with him to pick up my younger brother at his friend’s house 24 or so minutes away (said friend moved to that city a couple years ago, about cost of living). Dad talked to me about family issues around my cousin and her father, my oldest uncle, on the way. Drove back home, thought about Spanish and motherhood (what does it mean to act as a mother? Doting, lots of kisses, etc. etc.). At home, worked on Spanish written assignment and spent some more time on Twitter.

Just got back from Panera, to campus. Quite a long and thin sandwich. Looks toasted. French baguette with soup seems a little redundant – might save that for tomorrow.

Next time will ask what their most popular sandwich is.

At Panera. Slick vibes but boy is the social awkwardness coming in hot. Just finished ordering on their iPad terminal – also slick!

Food court closing early today (2pm) on account of Thanksgiving tomorrow. Kicking myself for not driving earlier – skipped breakfast. Thinking of walking to Panera real quick. I’ve never been there but it should be fine. And if they’re closed at least I got the extra exercise in.

1am again. Yikes.

Evaluated some more, settled on the original Pen (again). Convenience feels damn good … until something becomes inconvenient.

Decent busy day today. Dad took younger brother to the dentist to get his braces removed, his teeth look great now. Mom was in a bad mood this morning. They swung by the donut shop, got some croissants and sandwiches for us. I had a turkey egg cheese croissant. Quite good. Did a little bit of the informative speech outline for public speaking course, a good hour finishing the PSYC 3 writing assignment, attended Spanish at 4 en punto.. Had some garlic marinaded fried chicken – mom’s test – and a bit of sour cucumber fish soup for dinner. No lunch today, actually didn’t feel too hungry. Submitted PSYC 3 work around 10 to see if I could get more points turning it in close to the due date like some kind of fucked up credit system. Spent some surprisingly quality time on Twitter – the value really goes up when you just get down to talking to people. Spent 11pm finally getting around to reevaluating the Olympus Pen EE.

Morning. Woke up from vivid dreams and my mind is clear.

Schlepped over to my computer and checked out some Python work. Made the mistake of watching an Among Us VR video which made me feel a little nauseous and set off a headache. Coffee didn’t really help. Dozed off close to noon, went to sleep once. Studied more of the Python textbook, then set off on Lab 4 for a good hour and a half. It seems my pace is doing 85% of the work and then having Bing Chat hint at mistakes I can correct, and it all worked great. Had dinner around 7:10, a bit of veggie fish soup with lots of chicken breastbone (crunchy cartilage), finished Zybooks work, started a bit on the writing assignment for my PSYC 3 course, then came back to programming to finish up my midterm make-up assignment which should lift up my 67 to a 75. I don’t feel too great about not texting the guy from Python class, but this past week has just been a marathon. Cognitively started to feel like normal after dinner, possibly on account of sleeping so late yesterday (1am).

Oy, what a day. Woke up okay, folded laundry, got ready, had a turkey egg sandwich on the artisan loaves my parents got from Costco. I think I have a picture here…

This is actually so funny and not in a schadenfreude way or anything (idk how you get schadenfreude from a down application). Like alright big man I gotta sleep too. We good.

My head is swirling and the day went bluegray to bluegray to pale to dark. Woke up decently early, around 9:15, but lamped in bed until 9:40. For breakfast I had a turkey lettuce sandwich with some of yesterday’s onion anchovy tomato paste for the spread. Made a sweet latte with my AeroPress and the frother, and a couple packs of sugar from school. Was a bit sweeter than I thought. Drove to work around 11:50, took my brother, work until 7. The day was progressing nicely until 5 when the sun really set and the night seemed to last forever. That last 2 hours felt like 3, or I guess would’ve felt like 3 if not for the busy spike. Good work but as always could be a bit better. Drove home around 7:10, had a decently big dinner (didn’t eat lunch) with some of the stuffed spiced chicken wing, half of a spiced sausage, and some leftover chicken veggie soup. Grandma also made some nom krouh, and I ate maybe 6 of them. All of this over an episode of The Nanny. The rest of the night was spent working on Spanish homework and Public Speaking homework. Didn’t get a chance to take some notes on photography stuff. About to get to bed pretty soon, or at least decently soon since I still have to fold my laundry. Onto tomorrow!

At work. Pretty cold day today. Could just be the cloud pattern but the afternoon still looks like morning.

Yung wrote a thread about empathy/sympathy which was meh for me but probably great for others. I riffed off on a tweet just to get the itch out.

Slow slow day today. Gray and a bit rainy. At home mostly. Woke up, got ready, had some milk and oatmeal (I normally make it with water) with some apple and cinnamon for breakfast. Had some leftover stirfry and half of the Tupperware of bean stew for lunch. Chicken veggie soup for dinner and some fried beef jerky (it was in the dehydrator for under a day so it wasn’t so dry but dry enough). Took my brother to the groceries since he wanted to make some mac and cheese, and I got some capers and a couple cans of tomato paste and some parmesan. Mom called as we were heading into the car, so we swung by the Starbucks in the Safeway a little down the city. I made some shallot pasta paste later when we got home but didn’t make pasta since I was still a bit full from lunch. Spent most of the workload just doing Spanish work. I did have coffee myself, before going out to groceries, but it seems like light level has a bigger influence on my alertness than coffee this month. Funny how it works. Dreaded college apps for a hot second, didn’t do much of them, but I’m technically already done with CSUs and for the UC(s) I just need my PIQ.

Oh, and Sam Altman got fired.

Okay day today. Had some cinnamon apple oatmeal this morning, and then some leftover fried rice and leftover bean soup for lunch. Coffee around the same time. Went to work at 1:50, until 8. Super slow at work, which would normally go pretty fast, but the early sunset really messed with how I perceive time. Had some broccoli chicken stir fry and a bit of shrimp paste with veggies for dinner. Worked on “After the Island”, the couple of chapters after Ladon and Orange’s story. Editing and lots of rewrites. Sleepy.

Checked the fridge, I see some nectarines. Sweet oatmeal tomorrow? :-)

Watched a couple episodes of The Nanny but I can’t really remember them. Grandma made some deeply spiced sour herb soup for dinner, that was good, and I had an extra bowl of the leftover bittermelon soup from yesterday. And the night kind of oozed from there, with me checking on my college applications and getting my transcript and my parents financial information. 12:19 already – gotta run.

Finished a bowl and a half of the veggie bean soup with a couple paddles of rice, attended Spanish class at 4, did the conocer vs. saber assignment but not the MyLab, so I’ll probably do extra tomorrow. Prof. Cnudde of my public speaking course published the entire video meet, and I’m kind of dreading watching it, because I feel so uncomfortable hearing a recording of my voice. I keep thinking it’s deeper than it actually is. Also I’m not keen on seeing how flustered I actually was yesterday. Oy!

Loosey-goosey day today (November 16th 2023). Woke up early but got out of bed late. Fried onion and egg sandwich with a bit of siracha for breakfast, got the pan hot enough but the egg was too fragile to flip over perfectly. Lounged around the computer until 12:40 for coffee, and then back on the computer with a couple episodes of Rick and Morty until 2:15 when I got pretty hungry. Made some bean veggie soup in the Instant Pot, mostly freestyled it. Sauted 1.25 white onions, one shallot, and a bit of garlic. Salt and pepper to season, and a little bit of allspice. Couldn’t find the coriander. Lots of steam. Didn’t frizzle them (didn’t use much oil) so the browning took a little longer; I’ll need to try sauteing the pot on the stove. Deglazed with some weak veggie stock, poured it in, then prepped some celery and carrots and put them in, maybe two cups in total. Added a can of pinto beans, and a can of kidney beans, set the lid on top, pressure cook high for 6 minutes. Took a while to come to pressure because of all the stuff in there but it sealed, and it cooked, and it tasted alright but could use some more umami. Or just meat, actually. That’s a common trend in my Instant Pot recipes – one portion doesn’t feel filling enough, and I suspect it’s because I very rarely prepare meat. I’ve got to change that soon.

Thinking of making some bean stew tomorrow…

Youngest uncle (youngest still living with us, I should say) came by, younger brother helped with his offboard packages. Had some dinner later, grandma made bittermelon soup and fried up a bit of fish. Yum. I had to get a second (smaller) serving of bittermelon soup. After that, I crunched some Spanish assignments, and tried to unwind. I did check on the Tumblr friend group (mcytblr) crap again, not really a fan of the latest developments, decided to start distancing some more. After that the night was spent trying to decompress, and now here I am. Eyes feel a bit heavy so I’ll go ahead and tuck myself in soon.

Drove home. Traffic was a little slow, so there were varying speed changes, but not unmanageable. Immediately started worrying about my 8pm. Tried to shake off the nerves as best I could, headed into the Zoom meeting. Go figure – I’m first. I sounded much more confident than I thought, but I skipped a couple of important points. Not bad for shoddy practice, but phew, my ears must’ve been flaming red if not for my headphones covering them up. I seemed to go on quite a few tangents, and I know I looked more at the screen than the camera. Got a question, answered it, and then listened to all the other speeches. We all had little mistakes so that made me feel a lot, lot, better.

Left class, took a few night photos, and then went back to the parking lot. Felt kind of expectant and excited about the study sessions, and not just sharpening my computational thinking.

Walked around campus behind the tennis courts, onto the dirt and soil, walked back to the Kirsch Center, took some photos of the Kirsch Center, their outside museum was closed. Took a seat in the social science quad, crashing water fountain behind me, typed into Stream. Walked back to the ATC, read some more of the AO3 work, really skimmed the last few chapters and barely read the very last chapter. I think it goes well? Stayed at the higher chair, I’ve got to use the computer lab to save my back. Again, works fine if you’re there for 20 minutes but going on an hour and a half was not fun. Went to class, 1 minute to spare, and settled in. Professor went over midterm answers, let us know about midterm make-up points, and went into Chapter 7 problems (string slicing and other manipulation). Ok, now I think I know better. This was when I skimmed the last chapter – I mentally checked out after the first class exercise problem. Psychology club member from weeks ago came up to me, asked if we could study together since he didn’t do well (he got a B, I got a D on the midterm). I almost forgot his face. Almost! I was mostly out of it from today. He looks a little younger than I thought, and is still kind of inquisitive. Possible Thursdays meets for Python studying.

Walked out of there, didn’t bang my camera on the door, sat down and dug in. Oof, looking back, I feel I could’ve snapped a picture there to lock things in. It was a good burger. I spread a mix of mustard and ketchup on the buns – they don’t ever sauce the regular burger for some reason – and dug in over a couple episodes of Rick and Morty. I distinctly remember the Terminator Christmas episode. That one’s good. Also I don’t know if my stomach is that small or they load up on the fries but the fries are seriously filling. I think it’s something to their girth (not shoelace, but not steak either, and just enough of them). Got up, did a little studying and AO3 reading at the library, and then walked out and snapped some photos. That was around the time I started getting sleepy, as you can tell from a little earlier.

Boy, I must’ve looked something fierce walking so fast and looking so dead in the face like that. I wound around a extra few buildings than needed, but I got over there in less than 7 minutes. Had a regular burger and some fries, and took a paper cup to microwave my coffee in, and paid. Grabbed a cup of mustard and a plastic fork and knife from the side stand, that one ran out of ketchup. Walked over to the other side stand, got organized, for a ketchup cup, and then microwaved my coffee there. I don’t know if this is the first time but I do feel more familiar in the dining hall now, or at least less self-conscious about my presence there. I think that’s just general social anxiety stuff.

Drive to campus was alright, albeit the traffic made things a little slower. Arrived on campus and parked in the open-air lot behind the science building to take advantage of the rain later. My 90 degree parking has really gotten rusty. I parked between the lines, but at a slant. I hoped for the best, grabbed my backpack and camera, and spedwalk to the dining hall.

Whirlwind of a day today. Woke up early again, felt some sideways feelings but no clear visuals or dream memories. Skipped breakfast, checked on my homework, and then had to help out at work from 10:50 to 11:30 or so. My second-oldest uncle had to get his drone out of a tree, so I filled in the interim. It was alright, though I noticed the sky was already graying. Drove back home to prep for class. Made some coffee, packed up, grabbed my speech notes index cards. Took the charger, water bottle of coffee, and my SL1 camera.

Really dim outside. Just gray and gray. Need more light but I’m sure I’ll still be sleepy. Tried walking, took a few photos, but the light and shadows were (and are) flat. Left eye somewhat acting up. That one’s always been my weaker eye.

I didn’t dream of a boyfriend last night but truthfully I don’t know what I dreamt. It’s – poof. All gone now.

I keep stressing about the upcoming speech at 8. Which is odd because I still know I’ll get at least some credit even if I do everything wrong. If they can feel the unpreparedness from the screen, fine.

So sleepy. Almost tempted to nap right now but I’m at campus still. 2 hours left to class.

Still up, got roped into some Tumblr crap. Crossing my fingers for lucidity tomorrow. (And brain, if you’re going to dream up a boyfriend again, at least let me pop a kiss on him)

For the last three days I’ve dreamed of a boyfriend – boyfriends – I don’t see, or at least don’t see clearly, and it makes me want to break something. Bits of another life, bits of concurrency. If Betty Grof stared at her old life through a funhouse mirror, I’m reading my author’s writing notes.

Didn’t take any photos today.

Back on my phone. Woke up early but was so tired I stayed in 20 or so minutes even when I didn’t want to. Had some kimchi oatmeal for breakfast with the leftover cabbage and egg stir-fry from yesterday night. Coffee at 12:25pm. Again, spent most of the day reading this AO3 work and not my speech. Fish and briny pickles for dinner, and some more egg stir-fry. I want to kick myself for wasting my time – time I looked forward to from yesterday – but I genuinely feel nothing, and reality still feels flat, and I want to sleep. I know I will forget most of this work tomorrow, and if I do not forget it, I will remember it at the cost of my speech. Briefly now I remember my 12th grade crunch sessions, the inevitable pain: fine, if I’m getting a low B on this, fine, I’ll take it. I’ll take the imperfect completion.

On the computer again. My head is a mess today and I will probably do terribly on my oral exam tomorrow. I spent hours today reading this original work, “Two Words”, on AO3. It’s 210,000+ something words long. I’m past 3/4ths of it. I have no idea what gets into me when I think I can read 2 and a half novel’s worth of words in a day. I wanted to practice my speech but I was so swept up in it that even reality feels a little flat.

Decently busy day today. Woke up pretty early, from another somewhat busy dream. Didn’t get too much sleep last night, so while I felt I could focus okay, my comprehension was kind of wobbly. Sent a few video links to Dave. Had a slice of leftover pizza for breakfast, coffee around 12:30, then started work on my Python lab and homework. What a brain workout! Ran into some global/local scoping errors, and some logic errors. Put it on hold for a moment. Dropped off my Agat 18K package at the Post Office around 2:35pm, drove back home. Debugged the code with Bing Chat (free-ish GPT-4) and realized the red underlining replit does can and does lie to me. Bing fixed 3 errors, and the program ran flawlessly. I’ve got to study up on functions! Had leftover crab porridge for a late lunch around 3:45, watched the Rick and Morty episode around 4:15, pivoted to Psyc 3 homework around 5:30. Had dinner around 7:50. Edited some more photos around 8:30. Furnished my camera gear shopping list around 9:15 (most will be bought next year, as I go through the photography course). Started feeling really sleepy around 10:45, now I’m less sleepy but want to get settled in quick. Lots of good work today!

Python midterm update: Grades are out and my midterm was a BOMB. 67/100, tanked my grade to a B-. Crossing my fingers for makeup midterm questions. (Oh, and actually studying the material more)

I don’t think had a lot of supplies, a lot of metal to bend, growing up. I read books on science and experiments, checked them out from the library all the time, but I didn’t have clay or vinegar or baking soda or wire. Parents worked too hard nor did they really get it (until later). And I was rapidly outgrowing my toys from when I was only a couple years younger. By the time we had better funds for arbitrary supplies, I had my computer, and was well past metal-bending. With that lens it’s unsurprising I have an odd relationship with consumerism and buying, because I myself rarely thought I’d own more things than what I have now.

I wrote in my Dendron note that, like the Agat 18K, the Tele 6 is something of a unicorn. It’s 1 of maybe 2 commercially manufactured consumer cameras (excluding the Lomography cameras) that can switch between formats. The other one is the Konica Autoreflex. And I get caught in thinking – in this habit – that if something goes wrong it’s better to just dump it. But just because something goes wrong, be it 7 missing full frames or miscommunication between friends, doesn’t mean it’s time to go.

Still up. Sorry. I remember another thing from earlier tonight. When I was packing my Agat 18K, I took out some packing peanuts from a box with the Canon Tele 6 in it. Curiosity got the better of me and I took it out, looked through the tiny viewfinder. I looked at the half-frame switch, switched it over, the shutter box masking works, the viewfinder masking doesn’t, go figure. But I held it’s chunky form, and I’m remembering it now, and I knew this was something special. I mean all the cameras I have are special. But something about flicking that half-frame switch and remembering the utter convenience of composing, pointing, and shooting made me hesitate on my plans to sell it.

Mom made crab rice porridge for dinner, I loaded up a big bowl with it. Had a slice of cheese pizza after, since my parents went to Costco earlier also. Taped up my Agat 18K package, stuck on the label, will ship out tomorrow. Spent most of 10pm downloading video lectures from my terrible, awful PSYC 3 course and AI transcribing them. One of the video lectures wasn’t a lecture but a random clip from a vintage French movie! Genuinely have no idea how the hell this professor is still teaching.

Had work later, from 12 to 7, with my brother. Turned around because I thought I forgot the brownies; turns out my dad took them to the shop already. Slow, steady trickle of customers. Made some instant coffee, so I was nicely wired the rest of the day. Seemed a bit busy but the actual cash and total by the end of the day was slimmer than normal. Daylight savings time did a real number on the evening. Evenings at 4, 5 feel very early.

Finished breakfast, went to fill in my coursework on my CSU application. Kind of tedious, though it was mostly selecting the subjects that was tedious. It’s kind of odd looking at my unofficial transcript. I’m just… mid. Looking back a lot of my academic success seems to rely on how organized the class is, and the predictability of its workload. Both of which feed into the general experience of the class, really.

In-chat info command says: “Why are file and voice note uploads limited to 2MB? / Because I’m hosting them myself, and can’t afford to have people use this bot as Dropbox. If you larger files, feel free to upload them on a proper file hosting service and link to them directly.”

Not sure if that applies to images. Sorry in advance devs. (On the other hand – long-term stress test? :-P)

Just realized that image back there was 12.7 MB. I’m hoping-not-hoping Telegram has some sort of compression because this could get spendy fast.

Today’s breakfast:

Decently busy day today. Woke up early in the midst of a very odd dream, a small town and a meld of all the schools I’ve been to and a first date, or lack thereof. A deep melancholia on waking, and then a 45 minute nap until 9, got ready at 9:20, wanted to get Sunday breakfast but 0 ideas. Parents were having some French toast and coffee already. Me and my brother settled for McDonald’s, since we were still uncomfortable with Noah’s Bagels. Not sure if we’ll ever go there again. Drove down my street, to the McDonalds on the corner near Main Street, until my brother noticed there was a store even closer to us, on the corner of the Asian supermarket. I turned around and took us there instead. We ordered on their fancy vertical computer screen, though my brother had to reinstall the app, and sorting through the items took a little while since combos were much cheaper than ordering items separately. My brother cashed in his 1 buck iced coffee promo and a breakfast burrito combo, I went for an Egg McMuffin combo with a medium coffee. We got the items and headed back home. I think I actually have a picture, on my camera, from this morning. BRB …

On the matter of cameras, I’ve got to take more photos of myself. :-)

Holy crap, almost forgot – I got an offer on my for-parts Agat 18K. Priced it at $15, offer for $10. Will confirm the offer tomorrow! Almost can’t wait to ship my first item!

Typing this on the computer again because I’m short on time and getting sleepy. You know how it goes. Woke up early this morning but stayed in bed a bit longer since my grandma was in the bathroom. Had an egg sandwich; onion and egg mixed together, fried until slightly puffy, folded in half and between two pieces of toast with a bit of siracha and lettuce. Made some coffee an hour early. Did some homework in the afternoon. Angsted over the Olympus Pen again (went shopping on eBay). Still resisted the urge to buy. Looked up some more information on half-frames. Felt a twinge of anxiety reading about the Agat 18K and Tele 6 – cameras I’m about to sell. Will I miss them when they’re gone? The former, absolutely not. But the latter… most likely, given those 7 (full-frame) missing shots on the roll were probably a fluke. No lunch, had a chocolate nut bar instead. Dropped off my brother at his friend’s house for a birthday party, around 4. He asked me about driving; good quick chat, those are rare. Came back just as the sun was setting, low enough in the sky, to really get into my eyes. No good. Two bowls of soup for dinner: veggie chicken soup, and then the leftover beef soup from yesterday. All very delicious. Used the computer the remainder of the night, kind of chill. Ry and Judah got into a hilarious interaction on the timeline. Maybe not OG TPOT vibes but definitely OG Twitter vibes. Good mix of conflict and absurdity. Not much photography today on account of such a quiet day, though I did fire off a shot of some foliage outside on the T90 (still with Fomapan). Need to get over my craving for half-frame! My SL1 is the half-frame (well, crop sensor) to beat all half-frames. And, much more sustainable. But, as you know – aesthetics grip, and they grip tight.

Seems like Matcha deleted her Stream, didn’t even know that was possible 😢 Hope she’s doing better now.

Quiet day today. Woke up early but still tired. Looked at some listings of the original Olympus Pen but still decided I’m not buying it yet – want to take photography class before even more splurges; trust that there will still be cameras available two, three months from now; and lean more on my excellent SL1 and T90. Had some ramen for breakfast with a few leftover oyster mushrooms, took a quick nap later. Coffee with milk, used up the last of the box. 24mm lens finally arrived for my SL1 and it’s nice and wide, closer to my eyesight and my phone camera, both of which I am used to. Unboxing experience was quite fun, and there was a stretchy etched paper that I stretched more than I’d like to admit. Went to work around 3, took my camera, but it was only hours later that I realized I left my SD card at home. Didn’t take many pictures anyway. Went home around 8, mom made some fish dip and more tofu beef stew, this time with the leftover oyster mushrooms. I had an extra half of a bowl. Had dinner over an episode of The Nanny, when Max is investigating Fran’s tattoo. Lounged around on the computer, didn’t get much stuff done other than checking on my cameras. And angsting about the Olympus Pen. That too.

a baby smiled at me at work 😭 oh god lol

Just a really slow day today. Had a hard time waking up, and didn’t feel particularly refreshed. Lots of yawning, lots of tiredness. Had some oatmeal and the leftover fried onion and egg for breakfast, was cold the entire morning, really just spent time waiting for noon to come around so I could make coffee. Had coffee and an apple and a steamed sticky rice dessert for a snack, more time on the computer. A good (cut up, thank God) chunk of 2.5 hours trying to get Tailscale to work, didn’t work. Spanish at 4pm. Was alright. Got my participation in. Learned new verbs and vocabulary. Shopped for an Olympus Pen on eBay, the original model. Genuinely can’t tell if this is gear acquisition syndrome or my heart pulling my wallet around for no damn reason or both. Why can’t I be satisfied with what I have? Maybe I’m not grateful enough. Had dinner around 7:45, mom made some spicy Korean soup with tofu and mushrooms, and grandma made some eggplant chicken stirfry. Felt kind of fritzy the first few minutes but the deliciousness of the food put that to an end. Talked to Dave a little. Even late at night now I don’t feel any more sharper than this afternoon, which now that I write it out sounds like a serious red flag. Not sure why I’ve been feeling so sad lately. Could be the anxiety of college applications or an upcoming speech. Feeling less momentum to do my homework – also a red flag.

Put my bag down, camera on the table, phew! Off to dinner. Seaweed veggie chicken soup. Delicious and savory. Some fried egg and onion, also savory. Got another serving of soup, more seaweed and more vegetables. Need to learn the recipe. Computer time later was alright, but not particularly satisfying. Now I’m here, 12:11am. Should I sleep now, put off my note-taking on the Olympus Pen EE for tomorrow? (Spoiler: That selenium meter is a hard, hard sell.) I will get ready for bed now.

Walked to parking lot, got in car, started driving. Drive seemed okay. I was a bit of a lead foot. Drove up the hilly section to meet a merge, only to get caught in a very messy merge. I started slowing down to let the car beside me pass, but then they slowed down too. It got so bad I was sandwiched between the car on the right and the car on the left, and I just put my foot down and sped forward. Looking back, that was very scary. Very scary. I need to take my right of way, when I have enough speed! Immediate 4/10 drive. Traffic later was not nice either. Not crawling, but slower than needed to be. Still don’t know why it was slow. Didn’t see an accident. Drove home, but the main road to my house had a guy pulled over on the right, so I went straight for a quarter of a mile before I turned around and got to my house properly.

Finished class somewhat unsatisfied, mostly tired. Was dark out. Daylight savings time did a number to the sunset (pushed it back 1 hour). Days feel so short. And the nights feel like they stretch on and on.

Rushed off to Python class around 6:54. Was stopped by a Christian missionary. He asked me a few questions, I answered, I told him I was running late (because I was). Speedwalked up the stairs, back into the ATC, up the stairs to the second floor, arrived at class just as people were entering. No midterm grades yet. Frustrating, but okay. Learned about functions a bit, used them for math and some data entry. So out of the loop about… well, loops, still. Want to change that soon. Gotta study more. Find some visual analogies. Hook hook hook it in.

Circled back towards the center of campus, walked through the art/humanities quad. Walked to the library. Took a seat, browsed more internet on my laptop. Didn’t really do much studying because the homework pace seems slower this week and last week. Skimmed a few portions of the functions chapter for my Python course. Grabbed a book about the virtue of forgetting(!) but did not read it. Saved the title though, will probably pirate it later. Quiet time in the library. Did not even use my noise-cancelling headphones.

Finished around 2:20, went to the ATC, sat at the higher desk again. No good for my back. Got out of the place around 3, started walking around, having a feel of the T90 around my neck/shoulder. Hefty on the go, and did not really cooperate with the hooded section of my jacket. Took 8 or 9 photos on the roll, with an eye for black and white. Looked out for places and things with clear visible lighting and clear shadows in the same area, which was surprisingly few. Sun was bright out, but I started getting really tired 3 or 4 minutes in. Felt weighed down, possibly on account of said T90. Love the shutter sound though. And you can feel the power in this camera. Walked back to the Kirsch Center, place still looked quiet and dilapidated. Not sure if anyone was even in the building. Went around to this museum-ish outdoors section with dried trees and bushes, some plaques of text and pictures, most of them faded from the sun. Took a few photos here too. Felt really strange walking through there, and alone. Could almost imagine the kids running around. Or a friend, nearby. Loneliness is not a new feeling but here so far from the campus, and in a place past it’s prime, it gripped me. Maybe I saw a bit of myself in the garden too. The worn-down condition took me back to a similar garden, albeit much much smaller, at my high school, which I occasionally went to and wondered the history of at lunch break. That was 2019, the lunches before AP Biology, Dennis was there at lunch before AP Bio, was that his name? All that’s gone now.

Writing this on computer again to get it out quickly. Decently busy day today. Woke up a bit late. Put pants into dryer, shirts into washer. No breakfast, just an apple and some water. Made some coffee for class. Folded pants section of laundry, shirts into dryer. Packed up for class – water bottle with coffee, laptop, headphones, and the T90. Drove to campus. Okay drive but a bit bright. Arrived around 1:35, got some tomato beef pasta and a cup to microwave my coffee in. Lots of napkins. Headed out with my arms full, banged the front of my lens of the T90 on the door handle. The lens and camera were alright, it was just the lens cover. Ate pasta over a couple episodes of Mary Tyler Moore, Season 5 and 2, with the noise-cancelling headphones – Sue Ann has a new boyfriend, boyfriend makes a pass at Mary, it all comes together at the awards ceremony; in the other episode, Mary dates a man shorter than her, Ted is out with the flu. Poor Sue Ann. At least she stuck it to the man. As for the other episode – genuinely forgot the early season’s episodes wrapped up so quietly; must’ve been why I thought the earlier seasons were more boring. Pasta was really delicious. My coffee tasted identical to the dining hall’s coffee – also good!

A jumble of a day today. Siracha egg sandwich, ran out of turkey. Lounged around the home office for a while, had some coffee, had to take my brother to the shop so my dad could take him to the doctor, I worked for a hour and a half. Quiet there. Brief, simple. Dad came back. I drove back home. Took the garbage cans inside. Got some Subway for myself and my brother, walked there with my empty backpack and my T90. Rotisserie chicken six inch, sweet chicken teriyaki foot-long respectively. Yes we got all our vegetables in. Brother skipped jalapenos, understandable. Got a few shots in. Quiet at Subway. People seem to be eating out less. Walked back home. Lighting was pretty nice, good shadows. Spanish class. Took a break. Forgot I had to come back to class so I was 20 minutes late after the break and missed a group assignment, but I still got the attendance bit in. Grandma made some mushroom, fish, lotus knot, and noodle stirfry which was nice and mild. And then – and then. Well, Twitter, I think. Did a little bit of the UC application. Organized more photos. Want to be busier tomorrow. Oh, and that sleepy spell earlier.

Just had a crazy sleepy spell for about 10 minutes. Rested my eyes at the computer. My head almost fell onto my camera! Good old hypnic jerk saved the day.

Kind of a meh busy day today, November 7th 2023. Woke up early, a little after 8:45, and stayed in bed a bit longer. I suspect my problem is that the morning temperatures are getting colder and colder. I had a turkey lettuce sandwich for a late breakfast. Helped my mom bring a bag of sugar into her car. Pretty cloudy day today. Wiped down the T90 with a disinfectant wipe and squirted some contact cleaner into the dial and it works perfectly now. Loaded up my T90 with the Fomapan 200 and shot a quick shot of the tree. The lighting was really even since it was overcast, so I was a little worried it wouldn’t have much contrast, but I’ll literally have to wait and see. Maybe on the order of months, if I don’t give into trying to develop it without in-class experience (I want to take a photography course next quarter). Not much homework so more Twitter than usual. Dad called me, asked if I could buy some bacon for the shop, mom asked to bring a can of coconut cream, uncle asked if his package came. Wasn’t near the front of our house. Drove to the nearby grocery store for the bacon, had to do a U-turn since the school traffic was really clogging up the streets. Got the 10 pounds of bacon, around $80, and sped off to the shop. Dropped off the bacon, brought a pot home. Went to fill up my gas tank – paid $40 but I really only needed $33 for the fill. I’ve got to start at $30 more often. Drove off, made another U-turn to get to the Walgreens. Bought some moisturizing cream and a daily face wash and wanted to get some shaving cream but from the assortment of products it was clear I needed to do some more research. Pinky acting up a little more than yesterday but generally okay. Drove back home, a guy sped super close to my left lane and almost cut me off on my left turn into my neighborhood, had to make a pretty steep cut across those two lanes, but I made it. Drove home, only to have a huge SUV pull up behind me. I was worried something had happened, or if I was going to get into a fight, so I locked my car doors. Turns out my brother got a drive home from some very friendly people. A delivery truck hit him!!! He fell pretty hard but didn’t have huge injuries and thank God he’s alive. Guy who hit him rushed out to help, said his insurance covers his busted headlight. Brother was in plenty of pain but nothing seemed it would last for more than a week. Got the package from the neighbor, Helen, and let her know it was misshiped. She seemed quiet. Later, around 5:20, I moved the garbage cans outside, and Helen rapped on my car as I was about to head out and essentially lectured to me about our house’s cans in front of her house (the street is public! and we need our yard space for our cars), that we hadn’t gotten a replacement lid for our recycling bin, and that I was apparently not 20 enough to do it. We have no fines from the city, we do not care. Helen was ridiculously condescending – that’s the rudest she’s been to me period. You would think an 80 year old (she literally said she was 4 times my age) would have better tact. Next time I’m just walking away, and I would have, if she weren’t in front of my car door. I made a point to grumble about my homework and slam our house doors. The night seemed to just ooze, very slowly, because of DST. Watched the latest Rick and Morty episode after dinner. This one was really heavy. More time wasted. Worked a bit on my UC application. Worked more on the story from yesterday. I’m maybe 40% done. Boy do I need sleep.

My second package arrived, and one of my parents put it on my desk. Weird packaging: Walmart. Seems my eBay seller is just a wrapper for Walmart orders because boy, if I knew this was coming from that local, I would’ve just bought it from Walmart myself. But, shady reselling/shelling aside, I’m glad I have it. A quick squirt into my T90’s control dial should have it running smoothly, tomorrow.

The rest of the day was really uneventful. Dad told us about some family issues with my uncle and his daughter (my cousin) on the drive home, mom talked to dad and grandma about my cousin. I beefed up my bagel with extra lettuce and a fried egg, and made some coffee. Work from 12 to 7, managed to get a few Spanish MyLab assignments in. At home, some fried fish and sour herb fish and cucumber soup for dinner. Finished all my Spanish homework later, continued some work on the story from yesterday. It’s mostly self-indulgent, about the same as Day and Zappy, but on a different topic. Not sure if I’ll publish this. Maybe send to Dave and properly ask them to look it over but I don’t know.

Here’s what it should be (from February):

Here’s today’s:

Really really slow day today. The extra hour of daylight saving time really refreshed me. Woke up early, stayed in bed for another 20 minutes, then got ready. Went to get Noah’s Bagels. Unfortunately their quality dropped quite a bit. They forgot to wrap my mom’s everything bagel, didn’t give us the sides for the two sandwich bagels (a cookie and a blueberry muffin for a nova lox and a turkey avocado respectively), and my turkey avocado bagel was untoasted, had barely any lettuce, no avocado, no bacon, and only two slices of turkey. This isn’t an exaggeration. I have photos of the “”normal”” sandwich.

Rest of the November 4th 2023 day… Brother bought some Wingstop, did a little work on the Spanish oral project but ultimately wound up not turning it in. More hot pot for dinner, though I ate less hot pot and more rice. Broth was still delicious. Fomapan/Arista EDU 200 arrived today, wondered if I should load it, decided against for now. Late night token generation – one sentence led to another and oops I’m interested in this story now. Running out of castor oil! I put it in my shampoo almost every day. Daylight Savings apparently kicks in tonight. Phew lad.

Daylight Savings Time is due tomorrow, so that could be why I’ve been waking up literally an hour earlier lately.

Not sure if it’s because I’m still a little overheated from my jacket but today has felt really odd. I slept late last night, around 1:30, and woke up pretty late also (9:15). But it was only until 10:30 that I could get ready since my brother and my grandma used the bathroom one after the other, and eating some leftover hot pot for lunch took some time. My day really only started around 12:15. Didn’t make hot coffee, made a Greek frappe instead. Kind of like a milder, liquid coffee candy. Nice and cool. Crunched some Spanish MyLab homework, I think about 27 of them.

Delicious hot pot! Slightly cropped for family member privacy. (⁠｡⁠♡⁠‿⁠♡⁠｡⁠)

Slow day today. Woke up early, around 8:45 but lamped on bed for another 35 minutes. Ay yai yai. Had a turkey egg lettuce sandwich for a somewhat late breakfast. Grandma went out to get some groceries around noon, I made some coffee, ran out of milk. Dropped off my grandma at her friend’s house, very nearby, at 1:05; zoomed off to work later. Quiet day today, and the hours seemed to go by a bit faster than a regular day. Felt kind of pissy for the first hour or so about not being able to work on my college applications but it floated off a couple hours in. Customers were alright, other than this overbearing young man who switched up from a hot fudge shake to a hot fudge sundae right after we finished the milkshake. He said he ordered a sundae, but why the hell would you point to the milkshake/drink cups if you wanted a sundae? Do you really think we put sundaes in 12oz cups? Ridiculous. But again everyone else was literally fine. Mrs. Jaz ordered by phone again, her mood seems to be better this week; she’s always polite though the last couple times I saw her she seemed a bit worn out. Counted money, drove home, four way stop sign presented a bit of trouble. I came first but the other car scooted in front of me. And when I turned left the third person waiting was very very close to my rear bumper. I hate tailgaters! There is no logical or ethical reason for you to be so close to the back of another person’s car unless and only unless you are in tight traffic and even that is pushing it. We drive best when we have space so why would you deliberately collapse that? Also ridiculous. And when I went to turn left into my house, the car in the opposing lane also needed to turn left into the small street. I signaled early! Very early, and yet they pushed their distance and cut me off in front of my own damn house. Sped off another block, circled around, and then finally came home. Worth it though! Mom made hot pot. I ate a LOT. Still feel a little full now. Want to sleep!

Squirted a teeny tiny bit of 91% isopropyl alcohol on the threads of the Industar-50-2 and it’s moving much more loosely now. Not sure if the lubrication will wash out but for now it seems to turn great, and doesn’t slip off the adapter.

November 2nd, 2023, Thursday. Busy day. Mom woke me up early and sent me off to drop off Seth’s SD card for his camera at school. Sweatpants, brown jacket, bleary eyes glasses, backpack, resting bitch face, out the gate. Udon for a somewhat late breakfast, fried an egg, learned how to clean the stainless steel pan without leaving the drains (clean it fast, right off the stove). Nap later. Woke up from the nap, coffee. Hot coffee, some milk. Bought a 24mm lens. Spanish class at 4. Poring over the logistics of bulk loading. Bought 2 canisters of black and white film and some contact cleaner, to see what the shots look like, and help spruce up my T90’s control dial. Wondered if I should put some color film in the T90. Split attention between Spanish and wrestling down my tabs. Anxiety about college applications, haven’t worked on them. Quiet. Uncle and aunt from Stockton came from UC San Francisco, to here, for a quick visit. I wasn’t too talkative. They were. The really engaging topics like photography or the particulars of my classes didn’t come up much. Had dinner, leftover oxtail soup and some veggie chicken stir fry. Waited for tech support, since they were talking to the rest of my family, did Spanish homework while waiting. Not much tech support, since there wasn’t much time, but I did help my aunt send an email from her Gmail app. Good visit. They went back at 11:05pm. A little bit of Twitter. Deep Fates in the forest. Lots of water throughout the day, my skin looks better hydrated. 12:20am. I want to sleep.

Woke up from a couple naps, interrupted a dream maybe 10 minutes ago. I think I place a premium on my dreams because they feel so plausible. Mundane describes their alignment to my reality but plausibility, I never quite pinned down.

Finished public speaking homework later, and completed most of the PSYC 3 written assignment later. Now I’m here.

Mom made oxtail soup for dinner. Absolutely delicious. Absolutely.

Felt kind of frustrated after class, really imposter-y. But it kind of evaporated into the night. Speaking of which – this lens doesn’t do well in low light. It’s not just dynamic range, it’s just that the glass is a little smaller. For nighttime, f/2.8 or higher is a must. Again, don’t want to knock the lens too much, but I don’t see myself using this as a main lens yet. Could be interesting on my T90, what with the killer focusing screen, the full-frame format, a flash, and even a bit of vignetting if I’m lucky. M42 to FD mount adapters are literally 13 bucks. I think that’s fine.

Studied at the ATC, and then the library. And oh my god, my midterm. I bombed it, for sure. I totally screwed up my time management, and the coding exercises were way over my head. Loops. Literally the only thing I remember of the coding exercises was loops. Figures that was the thing I practiced the least. Barely anything with decisions, if/elif/else. Because the time crunch was so bad I had to write English descriptions of what I wanted the program to do; not even pseudocode. But I’m sure it’ll net me some partial credit. It’s just really disappointing that the learning curve really spiked here, or maybe last week. Definitely need to do some more problems. I did fine on the multiple choice and code explanation sections though.

November 1st, 2023. Decently busy day today. Woke up a bit late but the sun was bright enough to get me alert a little earlier. Had a turkey egg lettuce sandwich with a bit of siracha, couldn’t find the mayo. We got a new toaster recently. Planned to go to school a bit early, around 1:15, but had to drop off my cousin at work since the house would be empty for a good chunk of the day. (When my grandma got back in the evening, she was the only person in the house to two big men waving their arms outside our window! Yikes! She called my dad right away. Everyone and the house is safe for now.) Drove to school around 1:45, arrived at 2:20 or so, had a burger and some fries over an episode of The Nanny. Feels like the episodes are a little shorter, but that could be me forgetting they’re 23 minutes and not 27 or 28, and remembering the gist of them. Took a few photos on campus. The Industar-50-2 is definitely more lithe and portable but the focus ring is still kind of stiff, and I accidentally unscrewed it from the mount a couple times. The meter-only markings also made it a little harder to guess the distance, multiplying them by 3-ish. Need to check out the photos but I think I nailed the focus on them. Want to send more photos here but not sure if they’ll impact site performance – need to ask Judah how he thinks individual Streams might scale over time, though he seems seriously busy with his latest program.

Totally eschewing film – I love the film grain. I love the possibility of embodiment, in composing photographs and focusing and possibly developing film, if I get to that point. I don’t think I could cut it off completely, even with my crisis of faith in mid-October.

Well, I think it will be a niche of a happy medium, at least. You know how quick my plans change.

After Spanish, the trick or treaters were really coming out, so my studying was occasionally interrupted by passing out candy. It was alright, albeit a bit choppy on my flow. My brother and his friends came home soon later, hung out in the living room, helped pick up the slack. Cameras, cameras, action. Did some budgeting for black and white photography. $220 sounds steep for the full stack of film and processing and scanning! But the film will last me 3 years easy, since I’m still primarily shooting digital (want to primarily shoot digital). Black and white is the niche, it’s the special occasion, the alternate.

Didn’t use Twitter much today on account of trying to stay afloat on my assignments. It feels… fine? Doesn’t feel like I’m biting my tongue. Oh, I remember 1 to 2 pm. I was taking photos of my for-parts Agat 18K on my SL1. Want to sell this thing, get it off my hands, wound up doing a fair bit of post-processing on the raw files… will just shoot in large size JPEG for the other listings, for my Minolta AL and my Tele 6.

October 31st, 2023. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 👻 🎃 I didn’t make a costume, haven’t gone out trick or treating since… oh, COVID, maybe 2019. Had yesterday’s pasta for early lunch and late dinner. Grandma made nom krouh, savory creamy rice(?) balls with a bit of green onion and shrimp inside. I had some around 5:27pm, just during the Spanish break, and went back there quick. Sra. Alcazar had to reboot her session early in the class so this was kind of a second break. After Spanish I really dug into my PSYC 3 Chapter 3 quiz, got back up to a 90.88%. Gotta keep clawing! Took some more notes for Python, finished up the review but didn’t do much practice. Very apprehensive about tomorrow. Will try to check out the example problems, try my hand at them. I think I will be alright. I just tend to worry a little more than I need to.

October 30th 2023. Still extended time on Twitter but I think I’m coming over this hump too. Reviewed the midterm topics, wrote a bunch of notes. Scraped up some fragments of Ladon and Orange, may possibly work them into a complimentary draft. Made some chicken pasta for lunch!! Pickled veggie and chicken soup for dinner.

So, a slightly busy day but not headspinning.

October 29th 2023. Mom woke me up a bit early today. We went to the Starbucks at Safeway. Small iced Americano with vanilla cold foam, pumpkin spice frappuccino, medium coffee, medium iced shaken espresso with vanilla for me, my brother, my dad, and my mom in that order. Mom was surprised her drink was iced (she sent me and my brother to get the coffee), but it wasn’t all bad. We then swung by the McDonald’s on the corner for breakfast to check out if anything’s changed. Great decision! Prices were definitely higher than the last time we were there, which must’ve been over 2 years ago, but not exorbitant. I got their egg white sandwich, younger brother got a couple of their burritos, and my parents shared a sausage egg sandwich. We also got a couple apple pies, talked about how the place has changed. Took a couple photos. Drove home after that, took some more photos of the front yard garden once we got home. Drove me and my brother to work at 12:02, arrived at 12:11, worked to 7. Made a few mistakes, felt kind of frazzled about it, but it all melted away into the darkening evening. Got back home around 7:20, parents got pizza from Costco for dinner, I had 2 and a half slices and some lettuce and some kimchi and a small cucumber. Published Ladon and Orange on Archive of Our Own afterwards.

IT HAS BEEN COMPLETED!!!!!!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/51219757

re: hot take mutual: week-long mute seems to have gone well, and again, I’m over the emotional hill. I forgive myself for (basically) harming myself by overthinking/overfeeling about him. If I have the time this year, I’ll talk to him properly, and ask if it’s better that we’re friends or more coworkers. Onward!

So so quiet today (October 28th 2023). Woke up a bit late, had a few shrimp dumplings for breakfast after my dad and brother went out to the nearby dimsum place. Was pretty cold indoors so I kept trying to warm myself up even with my hoodie. Wanted to crunch homework for the next four days but I couldn’t do it. Rick and Morty, Ladon and Orange. God I love them. (Which one? You decide.) Went REALLY insane on Twitter later but we made it through – it has been so long since I felt down it actually felt magnified! I think I’m past the worst of it, for sure, like a cold. Boost from Yung, bless him. Chicken veggie stirfry and a bit of salted baked fish for dinner. Going out to get coffee with parents and brother tomorrow!

Wrenching off the fatigue today was a real battle and I’m not sure I won! Did the Chequeo for Spanish class, and I finally finished the last few scenes of Ladon and Orange. I’m tempted to be uber-comprehensive and work in as many scenes – particularly, the other branch when Ladon practices more magic – as possible but I’m already past 13,000 words on this draft. I might have to do some intertextual thing where I link to little fragments, or link to another version of the draft from certain points in the original final version.

Worked on the final draft of Ladon and Orange again, I’m literally only a handful of scenes away from ending the work.

Really slow day today. Had work from 12 to 8. Quiet at work, since the weather was so cool. I wore my brown coat again. Eggs and leftover chicken with oatmeal for breakfast; fish, herbs, veggies and rice for dinner. Yum. Looking forward to making pasta tomorrow.

Look how adorable this tiny lens is on my (still small) camera!! Is it too soon to say it was worth the wait? It’s super compact but also pretty dense too.

Industar-50-2 arrived today!

¿Qué es esto? :-)

I really really miss something or someone but I don’t even know what it is.

Really slow day today. Woke up super late, didn’t eat breakfast, had the dark chicken stew for lunch. Worked on the Ladon and Orange final draft, lots of Twitter, Spanish class at 4. Coffee at 1. A bit cold today. Green herb veggie fish stew for dinner. No photos. Wish I snagged the hours but I was pretty out of it. Lots of Rick and Morty. Lots of undirected limerence, possibly on account of working on Ladon and Orange, or that my solitude has caught up to me in a Porsche while I’m in a Corolla (no offense to Corollas though, they’re cool).

#STT I mean generally speaking this past week I have been kind of wrangling with my own social feelings and my social cognition and it’s just like, reevaluating the way that I respond and react to social company. I think the main takeaway from this is that I will generally go stir-crazy without some kind of social contact at least once a day that is not my family. Which sounds awful, and it is, but that’s really the state of the situation here. And it’s really a shame to say this or to have to say this because in the – in the wonderful weeks I was watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show over a bowl of pasta or some other lunch that I brought home at school, you know, eating outside next to the dining hall… It’s very very saddening to see this regression from the person that was – that wanted to take after Moore, adopt some of her conversational-ness, and for me to become this kind of really really fractured really difficult to deal with person. You know the kind of person that will glare at you rather than ask you, “How are you?” or respond in good faith to even the – the basics of small talk. I do not want to be a person that’s – that’s venom. I mean I’m already critical enough, but it’s just this this slide from social potential into social collapse where I’m, I’m consuming media, but it’s still not enough because you know that the situation is worsened, the hole has widen. And a lot of the sounds like dramatization than it is. But I’m going to pick it out later. I’m really going to anchor it and analyze it because I think this is a crisis, I think there’s a reason why these emotions have persisted for four and five and six days and not just two or three hours because this really reflects a very systemic issue at hand and one that I would like to resolve… resolve maybe over a cup of coffee at therapy, or in at one of the psychology club meets. Even that can be very implicit and not explicit like, “Hey I’m feeling lonely like can we talk?” No like implicitly like, “Oh okay, we’re going to do a game show trivia and we’re going to make some jokes and I’m going to act like a sitcom character”. I really was my healthiest and I really really felt my healthiest in the very late September when I was catching up on Mary Tyler Moore and you’ll find we come back to Mary Tyler more a lot, but it really was an anchoring show for me. It really did feel boring in the first two or three seasons but three four five six seven seasons, I’m in. That was – that’s when it start to crystallize. That’s when it starts to lock into my head that, you know, these are not just characters on his screen. These were these were people I could potentially meet in my own life. That’s one of the very hilarious things and something that I noticed pretty early on myself, actually, that people could fit into archetypes and you can almost predict some of their actions or some of their goals depending on what archetype they primarily fit into. These archetypes are very informal. They’re not very logical, but they are precipitated from many, many observations of, of people, and on Twitter. Specifically, I have three mutual follows that I could really cluster into a single archetype. They’re almost like variations of each other, and I really look at that with with interest and bemusedness and glee actually. And I look at that with a lot of excitement because it’s like you might never meet a specific person again in your entire life, but you might meet that archetype later and you might hit it off better and you might learn better and you might do better. And you might act better with that specific person. And that gives me a lot of hope even though I’m going stir-crazy without social contact. Funny how it works like that.

Watched the Rick and Morty Season 7 Episode 2 episode after dinner. Definitely one of my favorites. God I love mind-y stuff.

For the record this is not about Visa. I haven’t been up to date with him in a really long hot second but he’s alright. Also he has a wife and a kid! I’m not a homewrecker! Do not normalize homewrecking.

Talked over my thoughts and feelings, and untangled them in the children-of-night channel after a few weeks of radio silence. Talked about the mutual, name-dropped him because it forces me to get to the point. Rehashed the friend vs. work thing, and I worked it though and I thought, you know, he is aggravating, and he does make me sad. But other things make me sad too, and a lot of the time he’s just fine. So I think the true judgement is that he’s… kind of mid? A nice mid, even a cute mid, but mid. Average. Normal. Which is totally fine. Overvaluing and undervaluing him in some kind of self-spite is ultimately a distortion.

Some dark stew for dinner. Chicken, eggs, and tofu (originally firm but cooked down to become soft), and some baked chicken from the airfryer, also delicious. I forgot to mention this but all of our home meals are eaten with plain white rice, short grain, Calrose I think. And we eat a lot of it.

Drove home. A little bit of traffic near the end. A 7/10. This morning I had the intrusive thought I would get into an accident! But I went home and arrived home.

Came back indoors to the dining hall around 5:15 and browsed a bit of Instagram and a few Wikipedia pages on piracy. Walked back to the ATC around 5:50 to catch my Python 40 class. Midterm review for next week! Seems alright but I definitely need to brush up on the syntax/semantics for branching and looping, and dictionaries. Exited class without a hitch, tried taking a couple of night shots on the SL1, politely rejected a very off the cuff offer for stickers from one excitable young man – I had to go, and I did! The night was cool and dark. Quite nice.

Around 4:15pm I decided to get out of the ATC and walk around and take more photos. Good decision, even if I didn’t feel super into it at the time! Wandered around and around the central quads and the Kirsh Garden. Was struck by the feeling this place felt both familiar, and easier to get around than I thought. Those nighttime walks last year really did me good! I will start posting more images to Stream soon. I need to long-term test other things too :-)

Finished lunch and went to the library. Couldn’t really focus on my work since I couldn’t rehearse my speech in such a quiet area (nor was I comfortable rehearsing anywhere on campus, as I would later find). Eventually packed up, went to the restroom, and then to the ATC. Spent 45, 50 minutes at the ATC just bumming around Twitter and Tumblr and Pinterest, and that was the time I noticed the headache that seemed to cut between my hands and my want to work. I sat on the taller side of the booth and wow that seat is tall! Thighs touched the bottom of the desk, and I was really slouched over. Not a good place to work for more than 20 minutes.