Hunting for Giants

Good evening to the 3 people who are looking at my blog. That sounds salty. I'm not, I swear - I quite like that this is fairly anonymous. To be honest it's almost like a journal. I really struggle with physically writing stuff, I've discovered. When I have a long physical writing task, like an essay that has to be done on paper, I always found it so hard to do. Anything that involves writing is really difficult for me. Not entirely sure why. It's fine for maths, probably because maths is easier to write than type. But anyway, I'm making more progress on this digital journal than I ever have with a physical one, so that's cool! I also like how I have to write this within a funky looking code console. I mean, I don't have to, but I'm going to.

I've recently been coming to terms with my resistance to writing and meeting it halfway, I guess. I've been allowing myself to type up longer-answer tasks and it's really made a difference. Because it's lower effort, it's less of an obstacle to just get started and I've been more productive that way. Being kinder to myself while studying has made life a lot easier. I've also been practicing noticing when I'm tired or frustrated by a task and taking breaks then. The issue with a timer-based break method is that there's no point taking breaks when you're on a roll, or forcing yourself to continue working when you're getting fed up. It makes more sense to use a dynamic system for revision.

I mean, it's worked for me today. I got less done than I normally would, but I feel happier at the end of the day and I'm confident I can do it again tomorrow, unlike the instant burnout that comes with my usual method.

Today I did some chemistry and further maths revision, but first I made that phone call I was talking about yesterday. She didn't pick up, but I made what I'm hoping is a coherent and professional sounding voicemail message for her, and then turned notifications on on my phone so whatever messed up my voicemail last time doesn't happen again. Hopefully I'm not completely out of luck - the job listing is still up on the website, so I still have a chance!

I made myself a nice healthy tuna sandwich for lunch, and then read some more of Revenger by Alastair Reynolds. It's about space pirates, which is a win in my book, but in case you're not convinced, it's set in one of those sci fi worlds where humanity has gone through several large disasters and human history has been lost along the way. Some stuff has stayed, but a lot has been lost, and the spaceship/space station technology everyone relies on isn't properly understood so it can't be repaired. It's a really interesting setting - it can be hard to find hope in a world that is fundementally past its prime, but I can tell the author is going to manage it. And also, it provides a great opportunity to show technology in a very mythical, folkloreish way. And it's steampunk, which is just winning all round if you ask me. So yeah, read it. It just ripped my heart out but I'm sticking with it.

In other news today, I put on They Might Be Giants' Here Come The 123s to cheer myself up while working on my maths work today and it reminded me to hunt down the DVD for that and Here Comes Science. Some friends of mine (hello, I know you're reading haha) have gotten really into TMBG lately which has spurred me on in the search. Eventually we found the discs in the loft after a gargantuan search. Watching the Here Comes Science one specifically made me wonder if that album is the reason I'm going into biology. I mean, I'm fairly sure that was what got me into science in the first place. But it could also just be evidence that my parents' love for science filtered down to me. Who knows? I certainly don't remember. While Dad was in the loft he did find me Catatonia's International Velvet which is great because I was planning on buying that myself. I only have one Catatonia single, Strange Glue, which also features a live version of Road Rage and a song called That's All Folks which isn't on Spotify. Now it's my little secret song. But it was on YouTube last time I checked if you want to find it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Psychonauts to play and a nice, reasonable to do list to make myself for tomorrow.

- Blue