I've complained and moaned and written here a thousand times already about the need for structure, structure, structure. Not that it's new or surprising or whatever, just that it's common knowledge no one pays much attention to. And now mfking ASTRONAUT says it, you have to pay attention, you have have have to!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/scott-kelly-coronavirus-isolation.html
Story setup related to corona and gods
okay so what if Gods were real, as is the premise of one of the storylines going around, and they granted you boons if you made them happy cursed you etcetera if you made them mad, some humans could see and chill with gods etcetera, and all of that, but most wouldn't, and gods and demons got into wars all the time. And then once, somethings happens, like a disease, that starts spreading across mortals. It's a strange disease and keeps people bedridden for some time. Fortunately it doesn't take too many lives and people start recovering.
Those who recover start acting strangely. They begin questioning everything, even the Gods. Not questioning their existence, but asking them a lot of strange questions and extremely inopportune times. For example, when you've spent a thousand years of your life for a boon from a god, would you rather get the boon, or start asking 'hey Vishnu dev, how come you're just hovering over the air without any strings or thrusts or anything when I can' and 'how come you have the privilege to grant wishes and boons and I don't and what exactly do I have to get there' and 'what exactly is the mechanism of your boon, like how does it work, what are the potential loopholes, are you not at all worried about bad actors misusing it to undermine your authority?' etcetera. So the questions get really annoying and the gods put a lot of effort into controlling and eradicating the disease and getting rid of the people who have had it. Which is even worse because they end up in Yama's domain and start causing ruckus there.
This would work well with the rest of the story of demons versus gods I have in my head because when someone's hacking the underlying fabric of the universe, it helps to have some curious minds around how things work and try to decode the rules so the rulebreakers can be blocked.
Those who recover start acting strangely. They begin questioning everything, even the Gods. Not questioning their existence, but asking them a lot of strange questions and extremely inopportune times. For example, when you've spent a thousand years of your life for a boon from a god, would you rather get the boon, or start asking 'hey Vishnu dev, how come you're just hovering over the air without any strings or thrusts or anything when I can' and 'how come you have the privilege to grant wishes and boons and I don't and what exactly do I have to get there' and 'what exactly is the mechanism of your boon, like how does it work, what are the potential loopholes, are you not at all worried about bad actors misusing it to undermine your authority?' etcetera. So the questions get really annoying and the gods put a lot of effort into controlling and eradicating the disease and getting rid of the people who have had it. Which is even worse because they end up in Yama's domain and start causing ruckus there.
This would work well with the rest of the story of demons versus gods I have in my head because when someone's hacking the underlying fabric of the universe, it helps to have some curious minds around how things work and try to decode the rules so the rulebreakers can be blocked.
Why I am not writing anymore
There's fewer things to write about. The world is frozen, every thing's about the corona, all the specialists literally all of them on everything have to somehow relate their topics to Corona because that's what all is about. No matter how hard we try, we can't escape the overhanging elephant.
There's not much happening. Barely leave the house, and even if that just for short walks. Mostly on the television, or the laptop, reading more news on Corona or stuff that's not particularly inspiring.
Not much inspiration in like reading things or interacting with inspirational things. Social contact is a great source of inspiration, and while I'm glad to have it with friends, extended hangouts are out. So nothing to talk about.
I'm getting lazy.
There's no proper discipline or order, my daily routine hasn't gotten started yet, having trouble getting started there.
I have people I can talk to and interact with, so there's no need to keep myself busy or keep myself distracted. This one's big because while on one hand I want to do a lot of reading and writing I also want to spend a lot of time with friends generally.
Other things. Maybe. IDK. I'll blame the vitamins if I have to, though it's becoming more likelier by the day that it's not the root cause.
There's not much happening. Barely leave the house, and even if that just for short walks. Mostly on the television, or the laptop, reading more news on Corona or stuff that's not particularly inspiring.
Not much inspiration in like reading things or interacting with inspirational things. Social contact is a great source of inspiration, and while I'm glad to have it with friends, extended hangouts are out. So nothing to talk about.
I'm getting lazy.
There's no proper discipline or order, my daily routine hasn't gotten started yet, having trouble getting started there.
I have people I can talk to and interact with, so there's no need to keep myself busy or keep myself distracted. This one's big because while on one hand I want to do a lot of reading and writing I also want to spend a lot of time with friends generally.
Other things. Maybe. IDK. I'll blame the vitamins if I have to, though it's becoming more likelier by the day that it's not the root cause.
Everything's a story now
I've been telling people "oh what a great story idea this is" and like explaining half the story it would make, and then bailing out of it without filling in the details. On the plus side, still thinking of stories and narratives. On the negative, not actually doing anything with them. Hmm. More posts incoming because I need to fudge the numbers to be higher (haah, you thought you'd never hear that in times like these didja?) but basically describing some of those stories. And what's been happening with me as of late.
Talk about something else
Anything really.
The seasons. The weather. What you did yesterday in gruesome detail. Your toilet habits even. In great detail. I won't mind. The texture, the color, the temperature, the odours, the sounds, all's fair game. Fun conversations.
Anything except. How many conversations will you have about the same thing over and over and over and over again anyway. And oh once more? What's the new updates, you say? Same as five minutes? Nothing new at all? The infections have increased, deaths have too, people you may or may not know are getting sick. But how much of this is sustainable if there's no other conversations, sanity-wise?
Literally. Anything else.
The seasons. The weather. What you did yesterday in gruesome detail. Your toilet habits even. In great detail. I won't mind. The texture, the color, the temperature, the odours, the sounds, all's fair game. Fun conversations.
Anything except. How many conversations will you have about the same thing over and over and over and over again anyway. And oh once more? What's the new updates, you say? Same as five minutes? Nothing new at all? The infections have increased, deaths have too, people you may or may not know are getting sick. But how much of this is sustainable if there's no other conversations, sanity-wise?
Literally. Anything else.
Zooming through Schitt's creek
Schitt's creek is shockingly kind, and not as much a 'comedy' as it is made out to be, but it's a dramedy with a heart of gold. It's good, we've been watching a season a night almost, even more sometimes and we're really close to finishing the seasons on Netflix.
If you're on Netflix and haven't watched it yet, it's really really worth watching it now. It times like these (ugh it's so tiring) it's a welcome respite.
If you're on Netflix and haven't watched it yet, it's really really worth watching it now. It times like these (ugh it's so tiring) it's a welcome respite.
Must. Remember. Good. Dreams
Had an amazing dream this morning, remembered because I didn't want to get up and felt really productive and good about myself during the night, what an amazing dream it was. The only problem is, this morning i get up, remember ohh I'll be doing a dream journal maybe gotta write it down and then don't remember it, try really hard but can't remember. Sucks. Hard.
Market doesn't move
Biggest unemployment claim in the U.S, by an order of magnitude, the stock market doesn't seem to care, and I'm at my highest stock-investment-wise in the last four years. No one knows what's happening anymore, they're saying this might be really really bad, but the market doesn't seem to care, or do those people know something we don't, is something else happening underneath that we're not privy to? Who knows. Hope this works out without too much damage to the human society.
Schitt's creek
It's a funny well-made comedy tv show with a big heart and multidimensional characters. As a viewer you go in expecting -- perhaps hoping for, question mark -- stereotypes and tropes. And the show gives you those, for the first two episodes maybe. And it begins dismantling them, bit by bit, and shows how the people who we found awful were just 'real' people who acted a certain way because of the circumstances. The actor who plays Stevie -- saw her in The Trotsky first -- what a class act, though she plays the same character as she did there, I'm in love. Ooof.
This may be an exaggeration in hindsight later and so be it, but this I'll say -- this is the culmination of the 'mockumentary-style' uncomfortable comedy shows without laugh tracks. They play on the ridiculousness of the situations. Versus one canned joke after other. And the actors look like they're having a lot of fun. Highly recommend.
This may be an exaggeration in hindsight later and so be it, but this I'll say -- this is the culmination of the 'mockumentary-style' uncomfortable comedy shows without laugh tracks. They play on the ridiculousness of the situations. Versus one canned joke after other. And the actors look like they're having a lot of fun. Highly recommend.
It was a good dream I swear
Which is why I got up at 9.40 am on a workday. What an amazing dream it was. Now only if I can remember it so I can write it down. What a waste.
Lets blame Corona, yeah
Because there's no way I can average 5 posts a day at this rate since I've completely stopped posting, even the days I post I cannot get the right number of posts. Sigh. This is no good.
Cabin fever
My stocks have taken a deep deep dive into the under undersea thanks to the current market. Sadly enough, the hedges that I bought to protect myself from the market downturn too have gone badly, things are bad bad bad. But still, on the average I haven't lost too too much money thanks to my hedges and if my hedges fail that means I'm doing fine finally.
The point of this post, the original point anyway, the one I had like six hours ago when I began writing it and got bored out of my mind and got distracted, began playing minecraft on PL's xbox etcetera was I'm bored out of my mind staying inside the house, I need to socialize, hang with people, see the world, see the sun etcetera etcetera and I feel cooped up inside the house, want to go on hikes and treks but cant and it sucks, because of the pandemic but because people are afraid, if everyone wants to do the same thing you cant have social distancing because you're going to be elbow to elbow in the mountains, long lines of people climbing mount shasta like the everest, even our local mountains which would be defeating the purpose of social distancing. So I got cabin fever, not literally but pretty figuratively.
The point of this post, the original point anyway, the one I had like six hours ago when I began writing it and got bored out of my mind and got distracted, began playing minecraft on PL's xbox etcetera was I'm bored out of my mind staying inside the house, I need to socialize, hang with people, see the world, see the sun etcetera etcetera and I feel cooped up inside the house, want to go on hikes and treks but cant and it sucks, because of the pandemic but because people are afraid, if everyone wants to do the same thing you cant have social distancing because you're going to be elbow to elbow in the mountains, long lines of people climbing mount shasta like the everest, even our local mountains which would be defeating the purpose of social distancing. So I got cabin fever, not literally but pretty figuratively.
Dream journal: The one where I start a spiritual movement
This one I had several days ago.
I end up founding this spiritual order which has 'centers' where people can live and stay for as long as they like, as long as they help in the running of the place. Food, boarding, and basic community are facilitated. They are allowed to do their own jobs, make money, whatever, as long as they help around, and follow the rules of the place. The organization runs its own schools, hospitals, and public transport, open for everyone but with higher priority to the members of the organization. Everyone is allowed to keep their own religious beliefs, with the understanding they will not bring their personal beliefs into 'work' or community, particularly in terms of education and healthcare. Everything is means-tested. I fire a reliable and trustworthy colleague because they suggest 'creationism' as an alternative 'opinion' for science books to be taught in school.
We get several billionaires who're sick of everything and want a reset donate their entire net worth to the organization, poor as everyone else as the organization expands. The organization grows in size and influence as more people find comfort in the socialist-leaning economic system of it, versus the hardships of the American system that doesn't care for the poorest and the weakest. Another point of note, our living quarters are lot more compact and efficient, while following regular hygiene standards to avoid communicable diseases. There are no moral limitations, beyond what people's religions may already have, in addition to the obvious law of the law. The housing situation is arranged so that persons across generations end up living close-by -- the elderly subsidize the living expenses of the young in exchange for companionship and assistance. The old and the retired are called upon to use their life experience to plan and help organize various projects, as a show of respect for their age and wisdom. Wisdom is taken after careful consideration.
Soon, the organization is running multiple large schools, hospitals, subsidized groceries, basic transportation in all the major cities. The minor cities of the South turn around and come in faster. At a point, a third of Americans or inhabitants of America are affiliated with the organization and consider themselves to be beneficiaries of it in various ways. The American government sees how a much lesser well-funded and small institution has gained favor over its excessive projects, and decides upon a course of action. It changes its policies to closely match that of the organization. In the end, member of the organization get elected in all the major government institutions, in various bureaucracies and judicial agencies and law enforcement agencies. The political governance of the organization and the nation becomes the same until a point when the government takes over it. There are no major disruptions during the transition of power.
I resign from the organization, and start another, more radical organization from scratch.
I end up founding this spiritual order which has 'centers' where people can live and stay for as long as they like, as long as they help in the running of the place. Food, boarding, and basic community are facilitated. They are allowed to do their own jobs, make money, whatever, as long as they help around, and follow the rules of the place. The organization runs its own schools, hospitals, and public transport, open for everyone but with higher priority to the members of the organization. Everyone is allowed to keep their own religious beliefs, with the understanding they will not bring their personal beliefs into 'work' or community, particularly in terms of education and healthcare. Everything is means-tested. I fire a reliable and trustworthy colleague because they suggest 'creationism' as an alternative 'opinion' for science books to be taught in school.
We get several billionaires who're sick of everything and want a reset donate their entire net worth to the organization, poor as everyone else as the organization expands. The organization grows in size and influence as more people find comfort in the socialist-leaning economic system of it, versus the hardships of the American system that doesn't care for the poorest and the weakest. Another point of note, our living quarters are lot more compact and efficient, while following regular hygiene standards to avoid communicable diseases. There are no moral limitations, beyond what people's religions may already have, in addition to the obvious law of the law. The housing situation is arranged so that persons across generations end up living close-by -- the elderly subsidize the living expenses of the young in exchange for companionship and assistance. The old and the retired are called upon to use their life experience to plan and help organize various projects, as a show of respect for their age and wisdom. Wisdom is taken after careful consideration.
Soon, the organization is running multiple large schools, hospitals, subsidized groceries, basic transportation in all the major cities. The minor cities of the South turn around and come in faster. At a point, a third of Americans or inhabitants of America are affiliated with the organization and consider themselves to be beneficiaries of it in various ways. The American government sees how a much lesser well-funded and small institution has gained favor over its excessive projects, and decides upon a course of action. It changes its policies to closely match that of the organization. In the end, member of the organization get elected in all the major government institutions, in various bureaucracies and judicial agencies and law enforcement agencies. The political governance of the organization and the nation becomes the same until a point when the government takes over it. There are no major disruptions during the transition of power.
I resign from the organization, and start another, more radical organization from scratch.
Pirouline
It's a stick of wafer with chocolate filling inside it, it's trash and crappy, named after a french word that probably doesn't mean anything and I hate hate hate it. Yet I'm addicted to it, to the point that people make fun of me for liking it so much. Ugh. I finished a container that's like 5k calories in three days maybe five, it's all sugar, cheap crappy sugar and I hate it. But it's good, it's nice, comforting. So good. I hate hate hate it.
Planting season 2020
My farmerly instincts have finally gotten the better of me and now I'm germinating carrot, pumpkin and chili pepper seeds to grow into saplings to plant them in proper soil so we can eat the fruits of our own hands later this spring and summer. Fresh, home-grown, organic, free-range whatever you want you'll get if you plant it at home. I need to get some nice animals going too. Obviously not at my friends' place in northern virginia but soon. Soon. And the incoming recession -- by the way they're saying this might as well be a depression -- may or may not help at least it'll allow me make decisions better.
Addicted
I got away from news bullshit and toxic websites like twitter reddit the orange site for a long time, since 2016 mostly, I've lost the battle here and there particularly at work and when there's too much happening and I need distractions from real life, but generally I've been good on-and-off. Even if I do unproductive work, it's towards more productive outcomes like writing programming etcetera. Only recently, due to this freaking corona virus thing and then the resulting market swings, the potential recession that appears to be closely following everything have I started looking at those sites and oh man, I'm addicted. For the last several days -- weeks rather -- I've been checking those websites nonstop, refreshing the same infection page five times a minute, updating friends on the latest updates on the disease and historically low days in the market every hour, and so forth. Things are bad, perhaps it's because I'm not back in my routine, or that I'm stressed out because of everything happening around in the world, or perhaps I'm just lazy and using this as an excuse to allow my latent addictions to come to the fore. Regardless, law and order that had been established, a certain personal calm confidence and discipline that I had going on for myself for many months has been destroyed.
I'm unsure about the causality, if it's the information addiction that led me to give up on everything else, including this blog, or of it's the giving up on everything else (due to everything else) that led me to get back to my old habits. Either way things are bad.
I'm beginning to think no matter what happens I need a vitamin supplement (vit d and the general vit capsules) with me at all times, as if they're a life-or-death medications. I took a couple after a really long time (well since Boston really) and I feel so much productive and motivated right now. So much so that I'm considering daring, and daring is the right word here absolutely, making up for the lost ten days -- damn that's a long time to attempt to make up for -- in the following few days. I mean yeah, the quality's gonna be trash the length's going to be embarrassing you know what I say, it's better to half ass or even quarter ass something if you can't full-ass something than to not do it at all.
In any case, need to take care of the addictions asap. Need other means of distraction, dawg.
I'm unsure about the causality, if it's the information addiction that led me to give up on everything else, including this blog, or of it's the giving up on everything else (due to everything else) that led me to get back to my old habits. Either way things are bad.
I'm beginning to think no matter what happens I need a vitamin supplement (vit d and the general vit capsules) with me at all times, as if they're a life-or-death medications. I took a couple after a really long time (well since Boston really) and I feel so much productive and motivated right now. So much so that I'm considering daring, and daring is the right word here absolutely, making up for the lost ten days -- damn that's a long time to attempt to make up for -- in the following few days. I mean yeah, the quality's gonna be trash the length's going to be embarrassing you know what I say, it's better to half ass or even quarter ass something if you can't full-ass something than to not do it at all.
In any case, need to take care of the addictions asap. Need other means of distraction, dawg.
Shin Ramyun for dinner yum yum yum
Friend NG (DC) made Shin ramyun with spinach tomato onion cheese cilantro with fried eggs and kimchi on top (optional). Apparently cheese is a common additive in Korean noodles that are homemade? Anyway yum! The cheese thickens the noodles, makes it silkier, the kimchi adds the oomph so so good. 10/10 highly recommend.
You're going to be annoyed, it's going to be great okay
I'll be doing an insane burst of posts for the next several of days to the point that you the reader who have nothing else to do but read my blog posts -- and mind you, this is already a species by itself in terms of tolerating some real bullshit -- will start getting annoyed and impatient because really, I have ten days and a hundred posts, and it's unlikely I'll be able to cover it all up fair and square so I'm going to do what every person should do I think. When you can't full-ass things, half-ass them as far as you can, and then pretend that was your full-ass, that you're open to improving and please please guys you need to be taken seriously okay? Etcetera. It's going to be great people. Every post is going to be a line or two, I want to make a post at least as long as a tweet but honestly in the time of pandemic even that's too much to ask from me, so don't worry and just go along. Take a glass of cold water, a tab of medicine (the chill pill as they say) and let it take over you. Things are going to be fine, just fine, you're worrying for no good reason, and if the only entertainment for you in these uncertain times is some dude's personal blog journal thing then so be it.
Okay I'm back, forrealsies this time
I'm not dead people, the corona slog slogs on, complete and total isolation from civilization and socialization and things are generally not good in that regards, but everything else is fine. Really.
I've been reading way, way wayyy too much news and need to get all this crap out of my head, and need to just chill and take it easy and learn to live a day at a time, not worry about how things will be different for you and I, and for the whole world, but. No time to stress out about things now, everything's going to be fine people, just take the appropriate precautions, tell your friends family and most importantly parents and grandparents to stay safe and not leave the house or see strangers if they can avoid it, maintain quarantine if they can with people arriving from abroad and it'll be all so great.
I've been reading way, way wayyy too much news and need to get all this crap out of my head, and need to just chill and take it easy and learn to live a day at a time, not worry about how things will be different for you and I, and for the whole world, but. No time to stress out about things now, everything's going to be fine people, just take the appropriate precautions, tell your friends family and most importantly parents and grandparents to stay safe and not leave the house or see strangers if they can avoid it, maintain quarantine if they can with people arriving from abroad and it'll be all so great.
Can't type on airplanes
Missed posts from yesterday, missed from today, no big deal. One thing's for certain I most definitely cannot type on an airplane.
PANDEMIC!
Local schools are shutting down, all the software companies have asked employees to work from home, my office is getting emptier by the day. Roommates have work from home privileges too now, something that wasn't formerly available. There's talk if the disease getting closer and closer, they're talking about the possibility of total infection. They declared the crisis to be a pandemic.
I'll be going to my friends' place to self-quarantine or whatever. Hopefully it all works out, they're all working from home too.
I want to use this opportunity to cook and experiment with cooking and learn as much as I can about different cooking techniques and ingredients.
Zombiiee!
I dunno what's gotten in me I've been singing Zombie by the cranberries nonstop for the last many many weeks. It's possible that's due to the comparison between a zombie pandemic and the current situation that many people are making in my twitter.
I didn't realize it was such a popular singalong. Everywhere we went in Singapore, always always a request for that song, no one knew the lyrics or the meaning of it but loveddd shouting ZOMBIEE ZOMBIEE ZOMBIEEE EEE EEE
I heard the song first, noticed it first rather, last year on Derry Girls. Apparently it's been everywhere throughout quite popular in Nepal too, been noticing it ih since then. Strange how the mind works innit.
Workout out of schedule
My workout schedule has been really really wonky, I want to blame it on Corona, but perhaps it's just the laziness. Or perhaps information addiction has something to do with physical workouts? Or perhaps it's all got to do with the vitamin I was taking that I've now run out of so now my body doesn't respond so well to impetus for workouts? In any case, was to lazy to do pushups yesterday, and didn't do situps this morning, both because I'm reading up too much on the corona news. It's addictive, I'm really ugh hoping something happens etcetera, I feel bad, this is bad. I need to get back on schedule.
The good thing to come out of it (or is it??!?) is that my posting here is mostly on schedule, save for the 5 posts I keep trying to make up for, get caught up to it almost, and then lose it. It's fine, I'll make it up in the weekend, still feels annoying. Also, it's pretty impressive, almost that I've been doing the journals almost regularly since, June, July? Which is eight months, about. That's exciting. I need to use that energy to power my other endeavors.
The good thing to come out of it (or is it??!?) is that my posting here is mostly on schedule, save for the 5 posts I keep trying to make up for, get caught up to it almost, and then lose it. It's fine, I'll make it up in the weekend, still feels annoying. Also, it's pretty impressive, almost that I've been doing the journals almost regularly since, June, July? Which is eight months, about. That's exciting. I need to use that energy to power my other endeavors.
Beanburrito and laziness [Tueday 10]
Got up late for some reason, was late-ish to leave home, took the 101, the orange and the green lines, somehow everything lined up perfectly so reached home at a pretty reasonable time.
Work was slow and the usual, had a conversation with a person from HR in the evening, talked a bunch to AD on office chat, realized I'm actually maxing out by 401K when I thought I wasn't actually paying anything and that I'm 15% down. Had two apples and peanut-butter for lunch.
Listened to a tonne of different podcasts, it was a really productive day podcast wise actually. Lots of Conan shows I hadn't listened to, couple of food shows, and other shows that I don't remember but distinctly remember listening. Left work fifteen minutes later than usual because I wanted to finish the 1k words a day thing.
Took the red line, walked from Davis, such a pleasant walk the weather's incredible, thought about fun things, made me smile, had a good time, almost to negate the shit of the train commute and the whole day. Super hungry when I got home, made myself dinner.
Cooked onion and pepper for like half hour, added taco seasoning, green beans and kidney beans from can, let everything cook for like half hour, added onion, lots of butter. Warmed some tortillas, grated some Irish cheddar, added my old green sauce that I made like six months ago, and while I won't say it was the greatest thing in the world -- the taco seasoning is really weird and I don't like it, it was a solid dinner, I ate two of those and I was really really full.
Drank corona with lime because why not. Since we were talking about it all the time, and I did want some sour lime in my drink. First drink drink in a long time.
Perhaps it was the corona talk or the beer, but didn't feel very productive, kept watching the office and looking up news with all the roommates first, and then all by myself once everyone went to their rooms. Talked to friend-of-house ND in the evening, before going to bed. Easy going to bed such a nice sleep.
Work was slow and the usual, had a conversation with a person from HR in the evening, talked a bunch to AD on office chat, realized I'm actually maxing out by 401K when I thought I wasn't actually paying anything and that I'm 15% down. Had two apples and peanut-butter for lunch.
Listened to a tonne of different podcasts, it was a really productive day podcast wise actually. Lots of Conan shows I hadn't listened to, couple of food shows, and other shows that I don't remember but distinctly remember listening. Left work fifteen minutes later than usual because I wanted to finish the 1k words a day thing.
Took the red line, walked from Davis, such a pleasant walk the weather's incredible, thought about fun things, made me smile, had a good time, almost to negate the shit of the train commute and the whole day. Super hungry when I got home, made myself dinner.
Cooked onion and pepper for like half hour, added taco seasoning, green beans and kidney beans from can, let everything cook for like half hour, added onion, lots of butter. Warmed some tortillas, grated some Irish cheddar, added my old green sauce that I made like six months ago, and while I won't say it was the greatest thing in the world -- the taco seasoning is really weird and I don't like it, it was a solid dinner, I ate two of those and I was really really full.
Drank corona with lime because why not. Since we were talking about it all the time, and I did want some sour lime in my drink. First drink drink in a long time.
Perhaps it was the corona talk or the beer, but didn't feel very productive, kept watching the office and looking up news with all the roommates first, and then all by myself once everyone went to their rooms. Talked to friend-of-house ND in the evening, before going to bed. Easy going to bed such a nice sleep.
Containment
I've been getting addicted to news about Corona, the old info-addiction again, unable to do anything productive creative fun or healthy. All the health workouts and writings last evening were abandoned because I was too busy reading about Corona and its political and social ramifications in the United States and how U.S's structure will aid its spread etcetera. It's bad. Also betting my money that Coronavirus is not going to be too bad and that the markets will recover. Not sure if any of this is going to work out. Considering working from home for a long time starting tomorrow because my coworkers are like 2 degree of separation away from Corona patients and its getting uncomfortably close and its annoying but something needs to be done. Need to be more careful, there was a case in our town here too apparently, and attendee from the stupid biogen conference, and now roommates are getting concerned.
If and when it hits the U.S, it could be real bad, they/we are extremely unprepared, the fucking orange idiot is denying it even exists, the real victims will be the ones most in danger. Hopefully people get some sense. Fingers crossed.
If and when it hits the U.S, it could be real bad, they/we are extremely unprepared, the fucking orange idiot is denying it even exists, the real victims will be the ones most in danger. Hopefully people get some sense. Fingers crossed.
Chia flax peanut-butter
Need to do more research into trendy food that's mostly fibre anyway aka food. Chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, etcetera. Bought a peanut butter jar with chia and flax seeds in it and the texture's fine but it's important to keep in mind if you're eating something for heath purposes or filler purposes, particularly when you don't have strong emotional connections with the food.
I've been eating peanut butter, from the previously mentioned jar, with apples for lunch. It's sustained me for this week, though I get quite hungry by the time I'm home. Still, it's not a lot of calories, it's healthy, and it's what the cool people at work are eating.
Found a large packet of flax seeds for quite cheap at homegoods last night, considered buying it but I don't want to pay for what could potentially just be wood pulp nutritional content-wise. Should research a lot more about that. Besides, there's only so much oats and nuts one can eat over a week, and it's possible I may be hitting the limit lunch-option wise.
Still have the bewly-opened packet of chia that I brought last year and ended up never opening because I didn't know what to do with it. I should be more experimental with trendy food and snacks,. The healthy ones more particularly because thanks to my addictive personality if I start snacking, I can't stop until the packet is snatched away from me it there's nothing left anymore. I wouldn't physically risk my life to orit ft my snacks but I'd get very close.
The universe and its roadblocks
Where we're going with all of this who knows but the future doesn't look particularly up or exciting at this exact moment. As in, I begin searching for opportunities all across the world and then a global pandemic spreads around. As if that's not enough, there's a financial recession to follow up to that to make sure the opportunities remaining that could be handled remotely are taken away too, and we're left hopeless and abandoned. Such mockery of my attempts.
Every time I've planned on moving out of this area the universe has conspired to keep me here, by creating a set of circumstances that makes it exceedingly difficult to position myself anywhere but here. That's stopped me until now but enough is enough Universe, no more stopping me anymore, let me go and if you don't I'll keep on trying and trying and trying until you realize there's no point my resolve is too strong and you'll give up. You'll be the one to give up, not me lets get that straight okay.
In any case a few leads could work out, I'm excited about that. West coast would be a nice change of scenery and yes there's a time and place for everything and 'west coast, and in the middle of a serious disease progression' is not the right time or place for a move, but there's opportunities for remote work until it passes over. It's not like they're going to have other candidates who are nearby show up to spread their diseases either. Since all the interviews will be online, obviously, it doesn't matter if I'm there or not. Things are looking good there, though not going to put too many eggs in that basket, as the history of me and baskets has been that baskets have always betrayed me.
Every time I've planned on moving out of this area the universe has conspired to keep me here, by creating a set of circumstances that makes it exceedingly difficult to position myself anywhere but here. That's stopped me until now but enough is enough Universe, no more stopping me anymore, let me go and if you don't I'll keep on trying and trying and trying until you realize there's no point my resolve is too strong and you'll give up. You'll be the one to give up, not me lets get that straight okay.
In any case a few leads could work out, I'm excited about that. West coast would be a nice change of scenery and yes there's a time and place for everything and 'west coast, and in the middle of a serious disease progression' is not the right time or place for a move, but there's opportunities for remote work until it passes over. It's not like they're going to have other candidates who are nearby show up to spread their diseases either. Since all the interviews will be online, obviously, it doesn't matter if I'm there or not. Things are looking good there, though not going to put too many eggs in that basket, as the history of me and baskets has been that baskets have always betrayed me.
Homegoods fedex and pushups, plus politics [ Monday 9]
Got up super duper late because this was the first workday after the end (or beginning?) of the daylight savings time and also because I slept very late in the morning last night since I was watching the world crash and burn with the economic downturn thing. In any case, got up late, took a shower, spent forever catching with the finance stuff, wrote a bunch got distracted -- really need to cut trash information consumption. Left for job at 8.35 in the morning, took the bus, train, green line and job. The trains were really empty, likely because it was so late, some say there's still spring break left but it's likely due to the covid virus thing.
At work, took it slow and researchy, heard back from an internal recruiter for a job in the west coast for a conversation tomorrow, really excited about that. The wework breakfast was alright -- french toast...the first round I had it savory with hot sauce, the second round with the syrup because I was unsatisfied. For lunch got the apple and the peanut butter, I need to finish the apple before I leave for my friend's place.
Had a couple of meetings in the afternoon, more productive work, but mostly a lot of unproductive work where I learned to make options trade, a 1:250x trade with a really low chance of working out -- if Russia and Saudi become good friends and US oil companies end up doing amazing in month and a half, I'll end up doing amazing financially. But it's unlikely. I understand it was mostly gambling, but I had the money lying around, no big deal.
Listened to a lot of the office today, none of my regular podcasts, didn't feel like it, already overwhelmed by everything that's happening around anyway.
After work went to USPS (unsuccessfully), Fedex to deliver the electronic device, and then to another USPS to buy a crapload of postcards. Walked around downtown crossing, spent a long time strolling around homegoods, took the red line to davis, got some of the writing of previous posts done. Texted friend I who's doing research on subcontinental politics a lot.
At Davis considered going to 7-11, ended up going at the other sandwich/pizza Italian place, which had great seating but crappy food, check out the earlier posts for review. Walked home disappointed, spent like 45 minutes in my bed, more reddit twitter and other distractions, talked to roommates (semi-roommate I was back, after a long time!), headed into my room to write a lot more as roommates SM PK and I debated politics (roommate BB went to sleep) in America.
Did pushups between posts, and here I am almost 11.30, ready to go to bed, all cleaned up and everything. Will do 30 more pushups (making it a total of 60, will to situps again tomorrow) and I'm all set. I need to get caught up on the workouts but I've been out of shape for a month so it's going to take a few weeks. It's fine, I'll forgive myself.
At work, took it slow and researchy, heard back from an internal recruiter for a job in the west coast for a conversation tomorrow, really excited about that. The wework breakfast was alright -- french toast...the first round I had it savory with hot sauce, the second round with the syrup because I was unsatisfied. For lunch got the apple and the peanut butter, I need to finish the apple before I leave for my friend's place.
Had a couple of meetings in the afternoon, more productive work, but mostly a lot of unproductive work where I learned to make options trade, a 1:250x trade with a really low chance of working out -- if Russia and Saudi become good friends and US oil companies end up doing amazing in month and a half, I'll end up doing amazing financially. But it's unlikely. I understand it was mostly gambling, but I had the money lying around, no big deal.
Listened to a lot of the office today, none of my regular podcasts, didn't feel like it, already overwhelmed by everything that's happening around anyway.
After work went to USPS (unsuccessfully), Fedex to deliver the electronic device, and then to another USPS to buy a crapload of postcards. Walked around downtown crossing, spent a long time strolling around homegoods, took the red line to davis, got some of the writing of previous posts done. Texted friend I who's doing research on subcontinental politics a lot.
At Davis considered going to 7-11, ended up going at the other sandwich/pizza Italian place, which had great seating but crappy food, check out the earlier posts for review. Walked home disappointed, spent like 45 minutes in my bed, more reddit twitter and other distractions, talked to roommates (semi-roommate I was back, after a long time!), headed into my room to write a lot more as roommates SM PK and I debated politics (roommate BB went to sleep) in America.
Did pushups between posts, and here I am almost 11.30, ready to go to bed, all cleaned up and everything. Will do 30 more pushups (making it a total of 60, will to situps again tomorrow) and I'm all set. I need to get caught up on the workouts but I've been out of shape for a month so it's going to take a few weeks. It's fine, I'll forgive myself.
Complaining ants
The ants complained about everything.
How back in the good old days they didn't need to milk them damn aphids they could find their own food and eat it without bringing the third party into the equation, how they didn't need to make those large showy pointless mounds of earth that took half a year to construct attracted predators and made you more visible for no good reason the goddamn earth and its holes were enough for they, ants these days were weak and needy showy and lazy, they didn't need no biting other animals, so much poison to carry around with back in the day they were fast enough to scurry away from any kind of threat particularly creatures that were susceptible to minor toxins, kids these days trying to be fancy with their bites. And what about all the colors and shapes they'd chosen for themselves red and blue and black and what not why could they not be happy with one god-given color they had been given learn to be happy with it and go about their way building nests protecting the queen and defending from other colonies, no no they were not satisfied with that kind of achievements at all those damn kids they needed so much more and to what end to be squashed like every other bug after attracting too much attention to yourself. Kids these days. They knew nothing.
It was good back in the day, the golden era of the ants when with their antlers the leaders would instantly detect a food source and take an army of smart strong soldiers and bring back whatever it was, serve the king, give it to the rest of the colony, and live a happy content lives. These days all those goddamn kids needed to go their own way, didn't even want to take their fellow ants with them and when they got lost or needed to call others in their location, had to leave smell signals. Yeah right, if smell signals were so important how had they survived for so many generations without serious loss. You don't need a smell trail if you're smart capable and strong, it's only the weak new ones who can't hold on their own who needed that kind of stupid crap. The enemies could not only detect you more easily because of course these stupid fools hadn't considered that the enemy could smell too, but also trace your steps back into the nest and attack the rest of your colony, endangering the queen. But know, of course they wouldn't listen, because why would they in their minds they were the sharpest smartest tools in the universe.
The old ants were sick of the new ants and their pransy ways, sick to the core, and needed to do something about those. Get the ants to back to the old ways the way god meant it to be without being influenced by other insects only to endanger their existence but also their identity because if ants started dancing and singing around bees what would be the remaining identity of their culture anyway. The antsiness needed to be preserved.ts
How back in the good old days they didn't need to milk them damn aphids they could find their own food and eat it without bringing the third party into the equation, how they didn't need to make those large showy pointless mounds of earth that took half a year to construct attracted predators and made you more visible for no good reason the goddamn earth and its holes were enough for they, ants these days were weak and needy showy and lazy, they didn't need no biting other animals, so much poison to carry around with back in the day they were fast enough to scurry away from any kind of threat particularly creatures that were susceptible to minor toxins, kids these days trying to be fancy with their bites. And what about all the colors and shapes they'd chosen for themselves red and blue and black and what not why could they not be happy with one god-given color they had been given learn to be happy with it and go about their way building nests protecting the queen and defending from other colonies, no no they were not satisfied with that kind of achievements at all those damn kids they needed so much more and to what end to be squashed like every other bug after attracting too much attention to yourself. Kids these days. They knew nothing.
It was good back in the day, the golden era of the ants when with their antlers the leaders would instantly detect a food source and take an army of smart strong soldiers and bring back whatever it was, serve the king, give it to the rest of the colony, and live a happy content lives. These days all those goddamn kids needed to go their own way, didn't even want to take their fellow ants with them and when they got lost or needed to call others in their location, had to leave smell signals. Yeah right, if smell signals were so important how had they survived for so many generations without serious loss. You don't need a smell trail if you're smart capable and strong, it's only the weak new ones who can't hold on their own who needed that kind of stupid crap. The enemies could not only detect you more easily because of course these stupid fools hadn't considered that the enemy could smell too, but also trace your steps back into the nest and attack the rest of your colony, endangering the queen. But know, of course they wouldn't listen, because why would they in their minds they were the sharpest smartest tools in the universe.
The old ants were sick of the new ants and their pransy ways, sick to the core, and needed to do something about those. Get the ants to back to the old ways the way god meant it to be without being influenced by other insects only to endanger their existence but also their identity because if ants started dancing and singing around bees what would be the remaining identity of their culture anyway. The antsiness needed to be preserved.ts
A very disappointing slice of pizza: review
On the way back from work stopped by Mortadella head in Davis Square because I'd been to the sandwich place that occupied the location called Deli-cious and liked it. Deli-icous was great, and most importantly it was a reprieve of affordable food in Davis square.
The new place was expensive...as in a sandwich worth $14 expensive. I decided to get something that was cheap because I wasn't hungry and didn't want to waste money on something I wouldn't enjoy -- and ahh the carbs. They sold pizza by the slice, I figured why not, if I've had 7-11 pizza -- almost did it this evening to before deciding it was too much -- and it's nothing to be shy about. I got the cheese pizza.
Bad idea. The bread was...quite bready, fluffy yet chewy. The cheese was non-existence, the sauce a disappointment, there was no 'greasiness' that gives even mediocre pizzas the extra oomphh and most importantly it was cold. Even after being warmed. It stuck on my teeth, and made me want to just...cry a little bit because what a disappointment. And such a big helping too, a bit too much, to be quite honest!
The place looks nice, it's photogenic and it's the kind of place you'd go with friends if you wanted to get cool pictures taken didn't really care for what you were eating because it's all carbs and your tummy needs carbs. A place with ambience but not much else.
Would not recommend.
The new place was expensive...as in a sandwich worth $14 expensive. I decided to get something that was cheap because I wasn't hungry and didn't want to waste money on something I wouldn't enjoy -- and ahh the carbs. They sold pizza by the slice, I figured why not, if I've had 7-11 pizza -- almost did it this evening to before deciding it was too much -- and it's nothing to be shy about. I got the cheese pizza.
Bad idea. The bread was...quite bready, fluffy yet chewy. The cheese was non-existence, the sauce a disappointment, there was no 'greasiness' that gives even mediocre pizzas the extra oomphh and most importantly it was cold. Even after being warmed. It stuck on my teeth, and made me want to just...cry a little bit because what a disappointment. And such a big helping too, a bit too much, to be quite honest!
The place looks nice, it's photogenic and it's the kind of place you'd go with friends if you wanted to get cool pictures taken didn't really care for what you were eating because it's all carbs and your tummy needs carbs. A place with ambience but not much else.
Would not recommend.
Longer brighter days hurrah hurrah
Days are longer warmer brighter now that summer time is here! No more urgency to go home, no more fear of the dark the lack of light gloom, so much time to do so many things now! Spent wasted an hour right now walking around downtown for no good reason other than to bask in the light and appreciate that it's summer dammit! We're back and we're gonna rock!
It's 6.35 in the evening I'm on the bridge above the Charles and it's still quite bright outside, a solid hour of sunlight at least. The economy is still in the dumps -- it started today to begin with, the dump -- and the threat of pandemic hangs over our heads precariously and this is the silver lining in the dark clouds of future. SUMMER IS HERE! Brightness is here, activities are here chilling out is here, plant season is here, love is here. There should be a Spring festival that celebrates the end of winter and the incoming of summer somewhere in mid march. Like the ides of march should be celebrated (or at patty's) as a Spring festival!
What's happening with people's commutes
Friday in Sullivan the trains were quite empty, almost got a seat. And this is while the semester is still in session. The buses have been emptier the roads clearer in recent days. Corona has been creating confusion and panic, people are deciding to wfh instead. Seriously considering public contact generally myself soon enough.
Too much titauraa
Need to clear our my stash of titaura ASAP I've been eating it way way too much, even as replacement for meals. Unclear if the causality is more titauraa leads to more laziness or the other way round but eugh, gotta work on this one.
The narglewargles and their illusions
Somehow the narglewargles had escaped from their psionic prisons and were causing mayhem in our reality. Not that people weren't aware, everyone kept saying it felt like they were in a dream that the events that were transpiring were so strange so unreal so....weird that it couldn't possibly have been real but they immediately dismissed the thought. The narglewargles weren't so good at manipulating reality, but the strong human tendency to dismiss any thought suspicious of their physical reality helped them take their feeble attempts at mass illusion and confusion to the grand level.
Movie review: Good Newzzz
Don't want to spend too many words on it.
Akshay Kumar is a great actor, particularly with physical comedy and it shows. His facial expressions are priceless. The dude who plays the doctor -- should have been Boman Irani -- is pretty great too and pulls of the funny-but-serious dude. The story's great, the characters are great, it's funny, and the other actress that's not Kareena is hellaa niceee and a good actress. Our house is in loveeee with her. Should try to figure out more about her. It's a goddamn funny movie.
If only if the movie weren't so anti-abortion, anti-surrogacy, anti-adoption, and misleading with medical science in favor of anti-abortion, and other random bullshit casually inserted as if it was undeniable, absolute truth, it'd be a goddamn good movie. If you can stand to ignore the crap -- really someone should make a cut that's four minutes shorter but with that regressive crap cut out -- it'd be a goddamn good movie.
Akshay Kumar is a great actor, particularly with physical comedy and it shows. His facial expressions are priceless. The dude who plays the doctor -- should have been Boman Irani -- is pretty great too and pulls of the funny-but-serious dude. The story's great, the characters are great, it's funny, and the other actress that's not Kareena is hellaa niceee and a good actress. Our house is in loveeee with her. Should try to figure out more about her. It's a goddamn funny movie.
If only if the movie weren't so anti-abortion, anti-surrogacy, anti-adoption, and misleading with medical science in favor of anti-abortion, and other random bullshit casually inserted as if it was undeniable, absolute truth, it'd be a goddamn good movie. If you can stand to ignore the crap -- really someone should make a cut that's four minutes shorter but with that regressive crap cut out -- it'd be a goddamn good movie.
Markets going DOWWN [Sunday 8]
Got up, talked to family, talked to home, watched a bunch of hindi movies with roommates and friend-of-house ND. Talked a bunch, about leaving Boston and summer plans and future plans, complained about corona and what it might lead to, made plans for coming week, watched a lot of the office in the evening, came back to sleep but ended up wasting three hours reading news. BECAUSE MARKETS ARE DOWN AND TOMORROW MIGHT BE RED MONDAY but they're calling it orange monday. Not that it should affect me in the super duper duper long term, but if markets keep this direction then there's going to be a recession, jobs are going to get scarce, there's gonna be doldrums and by position could be under risk too. And then there's the question of the pandemic that originated all of this.
Hope everything works out.
Hope everything works out.
[INTERRRUPTION]
Some cheapskate had replaced the nice toilet papers with rough single-ply ones, everyone's butt at work was itchy and scratched. Tempers were running high. People were just snapping at each other for no reason, Sitashma who's really nice to me usually was in a bad bad mood. She didn't smile, she didn't say hi when I said hi...
[Discontinued due to news reports]
They are reporting tomorrow's going to be a bad bad market in a while, futures are down seriously, everything's down, japanese market down 6% on open, crude futures lowest in 30 years, airlines cruise lines possibly on the brink of collapse. Serious potential downturn ahead, IN ADDITION TO THE SERIOUS PANDEMIC AHEAD. And to add to all of it, we are being rules by an insane clown with extremely idiotic goons. Everything. Is. So. Fucked.
[Discontinued due to news reports]
They are reporting tomorrow's going to be a bad bad market in a while, futures are down seriously, everything's down, japanese market down 6% on open, crude futures lowest in 30 years, airlines cruise lines possibly on the brink of collapse. Serious potential downturn ahead, IN ADDITION TO THE SERIOUS PANDEMIC AHEAD. And to add to all of it, we are being rules by an insane clown with extremely idiotic goons. Everything. Is. So. Fucked.
The gloomies [Saturday 7]
Slept most of the day, used reddit and twitter to keep an eye on the news about coronavirus with hopes that they'll give a long-ass wfh thing so I can go visit friends and work from there and take some rest from everything that's been happening. Talked to family, kind of, and some people, but not but really. Had the gloomies for most of the day, chatted with my international friends which made me feel better. I'm blaming the gloomies on being disappointed by something, it's not true though because there was nothing to it, I'm justifying existing issues and putting the blame on external factors. Skipped lunch and dinner, had lots of desserts and sweet things there was barely a difference between day and night, I was so lazy, decided to not do any workouts or writing because I didn't feel so good.
The dreams that I had, don't remember but vaguely remember thinking for a crappy day such as that it was a surprisingly good series of nice things to imagine and think. Perhaps its the body's defense mechanism or whatever. Saw on twitter one of the celebrities I follow [not really a celebrity, a software guy who lives in Japan] wasn't feeling too well yesterday either which made me feel a lot about myself.
The dreams that I had, don't remember but vaguely remember thinking for a crappy day such as that it was a surprisingly good series of nice things to imagine and think. Perhaps its the body's defense mechanism or whatever. Saw on twitter one of the celebrities I follow [not really a celebrity, a software guy who lives in Japan] wasn't feeling too well yesterday either which made me feel a lot about myself.
No getting back
She didn't need rubble of the past to block her ride into the wonderful future she had imagined for herself. There was nothing that could stop her from gaining peace and sanity, none of those no-good guys who'd only caused her pain and suffering. No, this was going to be her riding into the sunset all by herself if it came to that happy content and excited about everything that was about to happen. A stupid text from a stupid person at a critical time when she was to shape the rest of her life was not something that would distract her from the prize. No more distractions, no more scrubs, no more of wasting time with idiots that got her nowhere. This was it.
On the other hand. No, there was no other hand, she didn't care, this was real. She was making the jump, she was moving and they wouldn't be able to change her mind no matter what. And particularly not one of those people nuh uhh she knew better she had learned her lesson she was mature now. If life had taught her anything it was that other people -- well these kind anyway -- were only dragging her down, when she was free as a bird left to fly on her own she could fly to the sun and and eat it if that was what she wanted. These good-for-nothings, they were luggage, heavy heavy luggage and she was a busy go-getter a frequent flier who didn't need to check-in all that heavy buckets of crap into every flight she took. She thought that was what she needed but she had done fine, she was an able independent woman and they were absolutely drab dumb fools. Nothing to give back, only sucked all the excitement and energy from her.
Little children they were, oh yes. This guy particularly, with all the love and caring he needed, it was a wonder how he hadn't swallowed like a thousand pens already. Such a fool, such a fool. He would have been an unemployed useless idiot had it not been for her, looking out for his internship opportunities and then jobs in the city. He had to be convinced to go to that goddamn wall-street job that made him sackloads of money! She had done it, she had babied him, nagged him, convinced him, whatever you say, she had made him get that job, he had had a good time, saved a tonne of money, goddamn started his own little company once he was done with it, and it was all because of her. Well not the company itself, but he admitted openly that it was the pain of their separation that made him quit his job and distract himself with something useful. Which was a handmade chocolate company. He'd been doing really well actually. Given her a little share of the company, originally as a joke and then formalized later when the temperatures had warmed up a little. Give then a finger and they try taking an arm. Now he wanted to be back or whatever. Wanted to visit her and all of that bullshit. She had told him, in no uncertain terms they were not going to sleep she was not going to date him, and they were just friends at best. And minor business partners, and if he tried leveraging their business relationship for anything else, they were done for good, she'd sell it or give it away for nothing and never ever talk to him again. Ever. Yeah he promised there was no expectation of hanky panky, and she said that it's not about expectation it's about what's going to happen and there's nothing happening ever, and he said yeah right of course sure but she didn't trust him. They had been friends before. And that's how they had started to begin with. With absolutely no interest in each other and it had been a six-year long swamp. It was over now, she was happier all by herself and his desperate pathetic attempts at getting back wouldn't work. Not at all, not again.
On the other hand. No, there was no other hand, she didn't care, this was real. She was making the jump, she was moving and they wouldn't be able to change her mind no matter what. And particularly not one of those people nuh uhh she knew better she had learned her lesson she was mature now. If life had taught her anything it was that other people -- well these kind anyway -- were only dragging her down, when she was free as a bird left to fly on her own she could fly to the sun and and eat it if that was what she wanted. These good-for-nothings, they were luggage, heavy heavy luggage and she was a busy go-getter a frequent flier who didn't need to check-in all that heavy buckets of crap into every flight she took. She thought that was what she needed but she had done fine, she was an able independent woman and they were absolutely drab dumb fools. Nothing to give back, only sucked all the excitement and energy from her.
Little children they were, oh yes. This guy particularly, with all the love and caring he needed, it was a wonder how he hadn't swallowed like a thousand pens already. Such a fool, such a fool. He would have been an unemployed useless idiot had it not been for her, looking out for his internship opportunities and then jobs in the city. He had to be convinced to go to that goddamn wall-street job that made him sackloads of money! She had done it, she had babied him, nagged him, convinced him, whatever you say, she had made him get that job, he had had a good time, saved a tonne of money, goddamn started his own little company once he was done with it, and it was all because of her. Well not the company itself, but he admitted openly that it was the pain of their separation that made him quit his job and distract himself with something useful. Which was a handmade chocolate company. He'd been doing really well actually. Given her a little share of the company, originally as a joke and then formalized later when the temperatures had warmed up a little. Give then a finger and they try taking an arm. Now he wanted to be back or whatever. Wanted to visit her and all of that bullshit. She had told him, in no uncertain terms they were not going to sleep she was not going to date him, and they were just friends at best. And minor business partners, and if he tried leveraging their business relationship for anything else, they were done for good, she'd sell it or give it away for nothing and never ever talk to him again. Ever. Yeah he promised there was no expectation of hanky panky, and she said that it's not about expectation it's about what's going to happen and there's nothing happening ever, and he said yeah right of course sure but she didn't trust him. They had been friends before. And that's how they had started to begin with. With absolutely no interest in each other and it had been a six-year long swamp. It was over now, she was happier all by herself and his desperate pathetic attempts at getting back wouldn't work. Not at all, not again.
Happy day, international women!
Happy day, all the international women that I know!
Roommates and friend-of-the-house ND are celebrating it by watching pretty depressing youtube movies and movies-movies. I've been trying to get back to order, and also I can't watch too much brutality violence and crappy things so passing on that. I've run out of letters to write, need to start writing letters again too.
Also, roommate PK tells me it's the beginning of Daylight Savings time (or the end of it, can't keep track of which is which) which means we lost an hour in the morning earlier today and that days are going to be sunnier longer and funner. GLOOMIES BE GONE!
Roommates and friend-of-the-house ND are celebrating it by watching pretty depressing youtube movies and movies-movies. I've been trying to get back to order, and also I can't watch too much brutality violence and crappy things so passing on that. I've run out of letters to write, need to start writing letters again too.
Also, roommate PK tells me it's the beginning of Daylight Savings time (or the end of it, can't keep track of which is which) which means we lost an hour in the morning earlier today and that days are going to be sunnier longer and funner. GLOOMIES BE GONE!
Youtubers, man
Youtubers are getting creating and advanced with what they're doing for their videos. I'm talking about the science-and-engineering youtubers here, all the work they've done for those clicks is comparable to the output of a solid University physics/engineering department, or ten. Cool stuff.
I'm talking about the youtubers who do super-duper high-speed videos with everything imaginable, who test all the things they can get their grubby hands on with hydraulic presses, folks who are making autonomous boats and planes and all that, powered by solar energy, those that are throwing cars and bowling balls and watermelons into unbelievably strong trampolines, and so much more. There have been a few that have been visited by the FBI because they got uncomfortably close to teaching folks to process uranium ore into metal too. And then those that work with extremely dangerous chemicals. And then there's the british dude with ties (safety ties he calls them) who comes up with the most ridiculous, strange and amazing contraption. As someone who works in risk-management, it's unclear to me how his insurance works but he must have something figured out surely.
And then there's youtubers who're homesteading, growing their own food rearing their chicken and goats and cute lil pigs (that are going to be dinner, yes, but I'm a farmer at heart I don't have problems with that) and vlog on daily or weekly basis walking us through their chores and farming seasons and planting cycles and what not and that's to show that there's audience for any kind of well-produced content on youtube. They're the ones who've inspired me to go to the end of the world and lead a chill low-stress life with veggies fruits and farm animals.
Oh and there's the random agriculture youtube channels from Nepal that will interview any farmer who's doing anything that makes money and ask them all the important potentially embarrassing questions. And the cool thing is, they take advantage of the human tendency to generally be helpful even if it could potentially hurt in the long-term, so they'll get answers on how profitable the various projects are, what their problems are, where they're getting their innovation juice from and what they consider to be potential problems for the foreseable future. You couldn't get this sort of information even ten years ago even if you were willing to pay money for it! Lots and lots of money!
And that's where I want to go next -- there's a lot of potential innovation in the agriculture sector, particularly in places like Nepal where things aren't soo..modern yet. And Youtube's making the process so much easier, exciting cool whatever. It's connecting the scientists straight to the farmers.
I'm talking about the youtubers who do super-duper high-speed videos with everything imaginable, who test all the things they can get their grubby hands on with hydraulic presses, folks who are making autonomous boats and planes and all that, powered by solar energy, those that are throwing cars and bowling balls and watermelons into unbelievably strong trampolines, and so much more. There have been a few that have been visited by the FBI because they got uncomfortably close to teaching folks to process uranium ore into metal too. And then those that work with extremely dangerous chemicals. And then there's the british dude with ties (safety ties he calls them) who comes up with the most ridiculous, strange and amazing contraption. As someone who works in risk-management, it's unclear to me how his insurance works but he must have something figured out surely.
And then there's youtubers who're homesteading, growing their own food rearing their chicken and goats and cute lil pigs (that are going to be dinner, yes, but I'm a farmer at heart I don't have problems with that) and vlog on daily or weekly basis walking us through their chores and farming seasons and planting cycles and what not and that's to show that there's audience for any kind of well-produced content on youtube. They're the ones who've inspired me to go to the end of the world and lead a chill low-stress life with veggies fruits and farm animals.
Oh and there's the random agriculture youtube channels from Nepal that will interview any farmer who's doing anything that makes money and ask them all the important potentially embarrassing questions. And the cool thing is, they take advantage of the human tendency to generally be helpful even if it could potentially hurt in the long-term, so they'll get answers on how profitable the various projects are, what their problems are, where they're getting their innovation juice from and what they consider to be potential problems for the foreseable future. You couldn't get this sort of information even ten years ago even if you were willing to pay money for it! Lots and lots of money!
And that's where I want to go next -- there's a lot of potential innovation in the agriculture sector, particularly in places like Nepal where things aren't soo..modern yet. And Youtube's making the process so much easier, exciting cool whatever. It's connecting the scientists straight to the farmers.
The haunted house in Forest Hills
This is about the haunted house from the previous journal post.
I felt a little unsettled as soon as I entered the house. The color scheme was... old-style(?) creepy(?) old-timey? Quite unsettling really. And the bulbs were on the walls on the sides so they cast long creepy shadows at night, you can see someone's shadows way before you see them. That's a little unsettling. The strangest thing about the house was it seemed to be in a strange place because there was a lot of detectable magnetic flux within the house. That is, if you put your compass in the house, it would just like start flipping about. Which is unlikely to have been caused by ghosts, and likely due to some strong B-field generators (electrical transformers, train electrics, etcetera), still something I hadn't seen before at was unsettling.
N told us about the history of the house. It used to be a B&B until about a decade ago, for families of folks who live in the Nursing homes nearby. There's apparently a LOT of nursing homes nearby. It's said that the souls(!) of the folks from the Nursing homes decided to chill around the place where they saw their families for the last time. Apparently everyone's aware of the supernatural aspect of the house and the landlord's had a tough time getting to sell the house or disposing of it in anyway. But the inhabitants of the house have kinda settled into it and got the spirit of it to grudgingly accept them.
Apparently every time they've tried to get rid of the big old piano that's broken in the living room out of the house, something's bad happened. It's cursed they say and they've given up on doing anything to it. Piano tuners have come and gone, unable to identify what exactly is wrong with it or if it could be fixed. They've learned to live with the piano, just as the house has learned to grudgingly live with them.
There have been many stories of the house rejecting friends or guests or partners of the residents. N said she felt the spirit of the house was more protective of its residents and was trying to keep them safe from persons it felt didn't give off good vibe.
At the end of the night we went to see this tiny guest bedroom in the attic which was hella colder than the rest of the floor, and musty and felt...creepier than everything else? We were freaked out tbh, particularly PK who's already afraid of ghost movies etcetera so a live interaction with a creepy residence was as much as he could take.
I felt a little unsettled as soon as I entered the house. The color scheme was... old-style(?) creepy(?) old-timey? Quite unsettling really. And the bulbs were on the walls on the sides so they cast long creepy shadows at night, you can see someone's shadows way before you see them. That's a little unsettling. The strangest thing about the house was it seemed to be in a strange place because there was a lot of detectable magnetic flux within the house. That is, if you put your compass in the house, it would just like start flipping about. Which is unlikely to have been caused by ghosts, and likely due to some strong B-field generators (electrical transformers, train electrics, etcetera), still something I hadn't seen before at was unsettling.
N told us about the history of the house. It used to be a B&B until about a decade ago, for families of folks who live in the Nursing homes nearby. There's apparently a LOT of nursing homes nearby. It's said that the souls(!) of the folks from the Nursing homes decided to chill around the place where they saw their families for the last time. Apparently everyone's aware of the supernatural aspect of the house and the landlord's had a tough time getting to sell the house or disposing of it in anyway. But the inhabitants of the house have kinda settled into it and got the spirit of it to grudgingly accept them.
Apparently every time they've tried to get rid of the big old piano that's broken in the living room out of the house, something's bad happened. It's cursed they say and they've given up on doing anything to it. Piano tuners have come and gone, unable to identify what exactly is wrong with it or if it could be fixed. They've learned to live with the piano, just as the house has learned to grudgingly live with them.
There have been many stories of the house rejecting friends or guests or partners of the residents. N said she felt the spirit of the house was more protective of its residents and was trying to keep them safe from persons it felt didn't give off good vibe.
At the end of the night we went to see this tiny guest bedroom in the attic which was hella colder than the rest of the floor, and musty and felt...creepier than everything else? We were freaked out tbh, particularly PK who's already afraid of ghost movies etcetera so a live interaction with a creepy residence was as much as he could take.
Backbay party and Honduran Pastelitos [Friday 6]
Got up at 5.30 am, read up, wrote about the tonne of high-quality dreams I had, cleaned up, walked to Davis. The work was slow and towards the end I didn't really feel like working.
For lunch I had to do several chored -- first mail several packets of titauraa to a friend in upstate NY (hi IA). Fun but obvious fact, the cost of shipping em titauraas was several times more than the price of them which is fine but what the hell it feels lame sometimes. Then went to UPS to ship the electronic device for warranty support. It felt daunting because I was unsure what was going to happen and I figured it'd take a long time, but went there the person there asked me what helped I needed, I showed him the device that needed to be shipped he took it charged me very few dollars for the packaging and told me I was good to go. What an amazing experience it was, the simplicity of getting things done just like that, left a really good taste in my mouth..
On the way back considered going to Tasty burger for lunch, even stood up in the line it was so so long so just bailed and went to work because I was gonna eat out for dinner anyway. The final few hours of work were oh so long and there was so much distraction I just spent on Github looking at new interesting projects. Headed out of work at 4.45, figured out maybe I'd get some dessert from Trader Joe's or something but the wind was chilly and brutal, so bailed out, and walked to Park St. Since I was at Park St already and the conditions were not favorable for sitting out and chilling in the sun (and the sun was out!!) went into the burger king, got some fries and chilled, wrote one of the posts I published earlier.
Took the red like to Davis, the 94 bus to powderhouse and walked home, buying a couple of tiramisu for dessert later. Rested a bit, changed clothes, with to SS (Phd) and J's house for dinner. We made Honduran Pastellitos and caught up, about future plans and state of our lives. Fun time catching up with folks and seeing how we are all so similar etcetera but still at such different stations in our lives.
At 9.45 ish took a Lyft ride to Back bay at S's apartment. He's the only person we know who lives in Backbay. After like two hours of low-key serious conversations that most people thought was a good idea (making yourself vulnerable in front of people you don't know) and me realizing after what would be an eternity for a normal person that things don't work out your way always and some persons who are admired by some other persons may not have similar opinions about the first persons and perhaps this could be even other persons etcetera which was good to know but also lame sigh which will lead to events on the following day which we will talk about in the following day's journal. We went to N's apartment / hippie-ster commune in Jamaica Plain.
N leaves in what is a Serious Haunted House with a bunch of hippie queer(ish, potentially) persons. More conversations about relationships, people's attitude towards different things, my discovery of things that made me want to leave Boston even more, and other things, but we had a goddamn good time there, we were talking until 2am. Discovered cool things about N one of which was that she appears to be a class traitor which is cool because that's what I aspire to be and I don't know anyone else who's taken steps towards their political beliefs and beliefs about the society that could cause a negative impact in their personal lives for sustained future. Anyway it was cool, the house was creepy haunted as fuck, her roommates are really nice cool people, and we saw the creepiest dankiest coldest attic room in the house before leaving at like 2.30 in the am. Got back home, fell on the bed and had a long restful sleep.
For lunch I had to do several chored -- first mail several packets of titauraa to a friend in upstate NY (hi IA). Fun but obvious fact, the cost of shipping em titauraas was several times more than the price of them which is fine but what the hell it feels lame sometimes. Then went to UPS to ship the electronic device for warranty support. It felt daunting because I was unsure what was going to happen and I figured it'd take a long time, but went there the person there asked me what helped I needed, I showed him the device that needed to be shipped he took it charged me very few dollars for the packaging and told me I was good to go. What an amazing experience it was, the simplicity of getting things done just like that, left a really good taste in my mouth..
On the way back considered going to Tasty burger for lunch, even stood up in the line it was so so long so just bailed and went to work because I was gonna eat out for dinner anyway. The final few hours of work were oh so long and there was so much distraction I just spent on Github looking at new interesting projects. Headed out of work at 4.45, figured out maybe I'd get some dessert from Trader Joe's or something but the wind was chilly and brutal, so bailed out, and walked to Park St. Since I was at Park St already and the conditions were not favorable for sitting out and chilling in the sun (and the sun was out!!) went into the burger king, got some fries and chilled, wrote one of the posts I published earlier.
Took the red like to Davis, the 94 bus to powderhouse and walked home, buying a couple of tiramisu for dessert later. Rested a bit, changed clothes, with to SS (Phd) and J's house for dinner. We made Honduran Pastellitos and caught up, about future plans and state of our lives. Fun time catching up with folks and seeing how we are all so similar etcetera but still at such different stations in our lives.
At 9.45 ish took a Lyft ride to Back bay at S's apartment. He's the only person we know who lives in Backbay. After like two hours of low-key serious conversations that most people thought was a good idea (making yourself vulnerable in front of people you don't know) and me realizing after what would be an eternity for a normal person that things don't work out your way always and some persons who are admired by some other persons may not have similar opinions about the first persons and perhaps this could be even other persons etcetera which was good to know but also lame sigh which will lead to events on the following day which we will talk about in the following day's journal. We went to N's apartment / hippie-ster commune in Jamaica Plain.
N leaves in what is a Serious Haunted House with a bunch of hippie queer(ish, potentially) persons. More conversations about relationships, people's attitude towards different things, my discovery of things that made me want to leave Boston even more, and other things, but we had a goddamn good time there, we were talking until 2am. Discovered cool things about N one of which was that she appears to be a class traitor which is cool because that's what I aspire to be and I don't know anyone else who's taken steps towards their political beliefs and beliefs about the society that could cause a negative impact in their personal lives for sustained future. Anyway it was cool, the house was creepy haunted as fuck, her roommates are really nice cool people, and we saw the creepiest dankiest coldest attic room in the house before leaving at like 2.30 in the am. Got back home, fell on the bed and had a long restful sleep.
Out of town out of [old] mind
Some days you don't feel like writing, you just don't want to write, why does it matter, you're never going to go anywhere with the writing, no one is reading you and it's all pointless useless. Etcetera. The gloomies. Had a serious bout of gloomies yesterday, need to figure out a good way to recover that does not involve stressing myself with work.
Perhaps it's the city that's causing me gloomies, I've been considering, and leaving the city will mean escaping the ailments it's caused to me. And therefore the upcoming move. Roommate SM says he's going to be out starting in May. I want to be out ASAP myself. We'll see how it goes.
Perhaps it's the city that's causing me gloomies, I've been considering, and leaving the city will mean escaping the ailments it's caused to me. And therefore the upcoming move. Roommate SM says he's going to be out starting in May. I want to be out ASAP myself. We'll see how it goes.
The Boredom Monks
The Boredom Monks they were called, their directive was to not allow their minds to wander, nor to focus on something particular. Neither were they allowed to go blank, they had to be present they had to pay attention to things but they had to maximize the time they were bored. For boredom was considered to be the purest form of consciousness, the state that led to human curiousity exploration and growth. The order believed humans had stopped being curious once boredom was satiated, humankind was in stasis. A constantly bored state of mind, one that was difficult to achieve, was the only way out of the intellectual rut.
It was hard. The mind does not like constant boredom, it seeks patterns order even when there's none to keep itself occupied. It latches on to the most mundane boring obvious things if that means getting out of the boredom prison. And it starts noticing patterns where none should have been. A monk with ten years of constant practice could tell the exact hour minute and second of a clock merely by its ticks. More advanced masters could distinguish individual house flies by their flight patterns, even their personality types.
It was a cause of serious concern among the general populace, particularly the learned ones, when news got around that the order had decided to assimilate with the general population and abandon the ascetic lifestyle for those that has practiced for longer than fifteen years. For they thought that because their beliefs were so important it was selfish to keep their practice, that elevated the human existence and pushed it towards growth and dynamicism, to themselves. They would become householders maybe even get jobs, and preach to other individuals that considered the growth of human society to be of paramount importance.
Yet another Burger King visit, not an egalitarian one
Burger king fries with their buffalo sauce are aok.
I should not have the urge to write whenever I'm at the burger king in Part St. but it's fine whatever.
I've walked a bunch today, a solid 40 minutes over lunch. Walked to Park St because need to get some of that cool Boston air to get over the depression of the commute. Thinking about going to Haymarket but ugh not in the mood for loading up on veggies I'm most definitely not going to use.
The temperature's not cold per se but it's quite windy, refreshingly chilly would be a good description.
Skipped lunch because I was too busy with the chores, it's a pity shipping titauraa is a lot more expensive than buying them but such is the economics of shipping and international trade.
I see they've put a notice in here, maximum of 30 minutes per order, the manager is allowed to enforce. Gonna guess it's targeted at the kind of people like the card playing kids who brought a small and hung around for hours. This place doesn't seem to be as egalitarian as I originally projected it to be. Alas.
Celebrating birthday more than a week in advance at SS's place (PhD) because will be in DMV next week. Should be fun. The original plan was a birthday party for someone else which turned into my treat for the guys which is now a dinner at their place and I'm taking Tiramisu. Why not.
The sky is dark ominous. It'll rain tonight.
On Frozen Food
I used to be against the concept of frozen pre-cooked food that needed just baking/microwaving to be eaten. Figured it was against what foods were meant for, that it was dehumanising, that it was the epitome of the excesses of capitalism. Make people work so hard they don't have time to make their own food, and then sell them frozen glop that barely sustains them so they can go work for you the next day. Miserable.
After having tried trader Joe's frozen foods, watching a tonne of Japanese food docs, and enjoying some frozen garlic bread here and there my opinion's turned around. Frozen food is not bad, it's actually good for a food culture!
Hear me through. The Japanese eat a lot of frozen/pre-packaged foods. The aisles in 7-11's and Lawson's are filled with ready-to-eat packaged foods. Use the microwave right in the store, sit on the tables there, and on you go with a solid simple meal. And there's no one arguing that Japanese food culture is worse off because of this.
Frozen/packaged food forces people to see the potential of industrial food, and raised their expectations regarding real restaurant food. If the fifteen dollar meal plus tip at an Indian restaurant does no better than the three dollar frozen meal from TJ's, you begin wondering the point of the restaurant. You expect more from the place. Restaurants are forced to innovate, create, offer fresh food that only humans can produce, not robotic food. Because robots can do that for far cheaper already. It forces restaurants to humanise the food they sell.
Dreaming of spaceships and things
This is going to be the final dream from last night I'll write about. What a productive night it was to be able to remember three dreams! This one was the most high-key and made-for-movies. Likely my subconscious trying to move me into writing this into a story or some crap but haha my subcon doesn't know me well enough does it.
So there's a spaceship with a large number of people that goes to Mars. Includes a couple of research scientists. The point is to run a series of experiments, make sure the non-researchers can acclimatize, do the psych studies, social interactions etcetera for a couple of days and then come back. Except something bad happens -- unclear what it was -- and the spaceship has to take off from Mars, leaving the several research scientists behind. There's enough food in the spaceship for the passengers, and there's enough food in the research base for scientists [since the others were supposed to spend a longer time], but now they're abandoned in the red planet.
The return trip goes uneventful, but during re-entry, something goes wrong and an engine catches on fire so it has to be detached from the lander, and then the brakes fail and everyone's worried they're going to crash and die but the pilots successfully glide the plane into the longest landing strip, which they overshoot but that's fine because they have one of those 'collapsing concrete' things at the end of the strip that basically stops the lander by digging it deep into the ground.
The spaceship's destroyed and there's no plans for future missions in the foreseeable future. In the resulting press conference, the first thing the commander of the ship and the navigator say is this: we'd be more than happy to risk our lives, and give them if it comes to that, to rescue the scientists from Mars. They are our responsibility, and we'll get them back no matter what the personal costs to us are. Everyone cries and people make plans for an immediate mission. There's a duplicate ship that was to be used as a backup in case the primary had something wrong with it, and there's plans about taking that to Mars. The concern is, if the original ship faced problems due to structural deficiencies, the same problem could manifest itself in the backup, and the rescue mission itself might fail. The captain and the navigator consider that to not be a problem at all, and state that it's a risk they are willing to take, even if it meant the entire crew consisted of just the two of them. Their crew members back them up, that they're willing to risk themselves for the journey. Then there's other backup astronaut teams who say the original team should not have to risk themselves twice, it was not their fault, it's a joint responsibility, and it should be them who should go for the rescue mission.
Because the mars researchers have internet (despite the high latency) and video messages and everything, they keep sending hi-def video messages from Mars, they look quite happy and content, and are getting a lot more research than they would otherwise have. Some people think that the researchers are having more fun than they would have had in the original trip and some are suspecting a sabotage on their part, but no one takes them seriously.
And then I had to get up to use the restroom, or I turned over, or something, and the dream kind of faded away.
So there's a spaceship with a large number of people that goes to Mars. Includes a couple of research scientists. The point is to run a series of experiments, make sure the non-researchers can acclimatize, do the psych studies, social interactions etcetera for a couple of days and then come back. Except something bad happens -- unclear what it was -- and the spaceship has to take off from Mars, leaving the several research scientists behind. There's enough food in the spaceship for the passengers, and there's enough food in the research base for scientists [since the others were supposed to spend a longer time], but now they're abandoned in the red planet.
The return trip goes uneventful, but during re-entry, something goes wrong and an engine catches on fire so it has to be detached from the lander, and then the brakes fail and everyone's worried they're going to crash and die but the pilots successfully glide the plane into the longest landing strip, which they overshoot but that's fine because they have one of those 'collapsing concrete' things at the end of the strip that basically stops the lander by digging it deep into the ground.
The spaceship's destroyed and there's no plans for future missions in the foreseeable future. In the resulting press conference, the first thing the commander of the ship and the navigator say is this: we'd be more than happy to risk our lives, and give them if it comes to that, to rescue the scientists from Mars. They are our responsibility, and we'll get them back no matter what the personal costs to us are. Everyone cries and people make plans for an immediate mission. There's a duplicate ship that was to be used as a backup in case the primary had something wrong with it, and there's plans about taking that to Mars. The concern is, if the original ship faced problems due to structural deficiencies, the same problem could manifest itself in the backup, and the rescue mission itself might fail. The captain and the navigator consider that to not be a problem at all, and state that it's a risk they are willing to take, even if it meant the entire crew consisted of just the two of them. Their crew members back them up, that they're willing to risk themselves for the journey. Then there's other backup astronaut teams who say the original team should not have to risk themselves twice, it was not their fault, it's a joint responsibility, and it should be them who should go for the rescue mission.
Because the mars researchers have internet (despite the high latency) and video messages and everything, they keep sending hi-def video messages from Mars, they look quite happy and content, and are getting a lot more research than they would otherwise have. Some people think that the researchers are having more fun than they would have had in the original trip and some are suspecting a sabotage on their part, but no one takes them seriously.
And then I had to get up to use the restroom, or I turned over, or something, and the dream kind of faded away.
Dreaming of ghosts etcetera
What a strange series of dreams I had tonight. I've already written about the stressful math test in a earlier post. This one was about a ghost [siblings?] who were in BNKS and I was showing them around, and other people could see them sometimes, but not always, and they had a task of some kind to complete that I had to help them with but it was exciting to have them over anyway because it seemed that I was kind-of dating[?] the older ghost sister?
She was cool and everything, but it's unclear to me how we'd have ended up together. I remember the fact that we'd been together before she uhhh became a ghost and was bummed out -- understating it -- when she uhh ghosted, but she came back, and she wasn't just an imagination or invisible in the context of the dream even as a ghost so I didn't mind keeping it going. We had quite a bit of fun really, with our hijinks around the campus. Made friends, grew our gang, pranked the teachers you know how it goes.
Wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. Is it telling me that my love-life is non-existent, dead, invisible, imaginary, and that it's pathetic? Or maybe that despite being all these things I'm having fun anyway so it's not as much of a concern as it otherwise might be?
The ghosts and their friends wore a lot of colorful clothes, did a couple of things us mortals couldn't do, were funny, but needed someone to show them around and help with things, weren't creepy or spooky or anything and everyone was having a good time altogether. I don't have a problem with any of that.
She was cool and everything, but it's unclear to me how we'd have ended up together. I remember the fact that we'd been together before she uhhh became a ghost and was bummed out -- understating it -- when she uhh ghosted, but she came back, and she wasn't just an imagination or invisible in the context of the dream even as a ghost so I didn't mind keeping it going. We had quite a bit of fun really, with our hijinks around the campus. Made friends, grew our gang, pranked the teachers you know how it goes.
Wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. Is it telling me that my love-life is non-existent, dead, invisible, imaginary, and that it's pathetic? Or maybe that despite being all these things I'm having fun anyway so it's not as much of a concern as it otherwise might be?
The ghosts and their friends wore a lot of colorful clothes, did a couple of things us mortals couldn't do, were funny, but needed someone to show them around and help with things, weren't creepy or spooky or anything and everyone was having a good time altogether. I don't have a problem with any of that.
Math should be worked on
What a strange dream I had today. That I was taking a math exam for some reason. I used to be reasonably good at math, but then stopped thinking, and now I'm awful. I used to be good in school but probably would not be anymore as the work ethic and the ability to concentrate on something important for hours and days to an end is gone. I've been coasting for the past several years on the former gains.
Anyway, I was taking the exam and somehow Mr. P. Rai (from DH back in BNKS) was the invigilator and he kept spotting my sneaky ways to cheat and buy myself out of it. I got more and more stressed out, pretended my pen broke, actually broke my pen, spoiled the exam paper, and all the different tricks, and nothing worked. In the end I figured might as well try taking the paper maybe it's manageable but realized I don't know how to do any of it.
Maybe I should start studying again, in math or anything else. Studying is like meditating, I find it kind of monastic. And not the college-style 'holistic' studying where you look at a bunch of resources and try to come up with a 'picture' but the old-style math-or-sciences studying where you were either solving problems and running and figuring out the tricks to solving problems or you were not.
Perhaps my subconscious is telling me to go back into doing tech exercises online.
Anyway, I was taking the exam and somehow Mr. P. Rai (from DH back in BNKS) was the invigilator and he kept spotting my sneaky ways to cheat and buy myself out of it. I got more and more stressed out, pretended my pen broke, actually broke my pen, spoiled the exam paper, and all the different tricks, and nothing worked. In the end I figured might as well try taking the paper maybe it's manageable but realized I don't know how to do any of it.
Maybe I should start studying again, in math or anything else. Studying is like meditating, I find it kind of monastic. And not the college-style 'holistic' studying where you look at a bunch of resources and try to come up with a 'picture' but the old-style math-or-sciences studying where you were either solving problems and running and figuring out the tricks to solving problems or you were not.
Perhaps my subconscious is telling me to go back into doing tech exercises online.
A stupid move
A honking, obvious large statue of the leader who gave them the most humiliating battle defeat of their entire existence in front of the largest place of their worship was not to be recommended. His advisors tried distracting him with other matters of the state, each one more important than the next. His mind was set, the humiliation had to happen, and be total. No amount of decision-making would distract him from it.
Lord, said his close advisor, while it is true they submit to us and to your glory it might not be a strategic move to provoke them when we already have their support. While I understand your desire to make obvious your lordship over them perhaps it would be more ideal if we were to act as such when they dare revolt against us or refuse to support in our war efforts. A clear provocation of a state that is currently allied to us does not send encouraging message to our allies, and works against us if we want our enemies to submit to us during wars rather than fighting till the last man.
Shashi, he said, the years of statecraft and governing have turned you soft. His voice echoed across the chambers like thunder. You understand not the military benefits of reminding our fighters their might and strength, showing them what great achievements they have made. These rascals may currently be our allies, but they dared go against us. They will not be forgiven.
Early to bed [Thursday 5]
I'm writing this the next day in the morning because went to bed super duper early, and didn't have any time to write.
Got up very early, wrote a bunch, spent a long nice time showering, did the morning workouts, took my sweet sweet time walking to Davis listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast among others had my earbuds lose their charge, wrote two posts in the train, got to work, lots of tea, lots of research stuff at work, wrote a solid amount.
Ate oatmeal with a bunch of healthy additions for lunch. Opened the pack of chia seeds after maybe a year of buying it. Talked to my manager, got a raise, got a bonus. Had lots of midday snacks. They have this system where you can 'sponsor' aka bring your snacks of choice to work once or twice a week (and have it paid). Had baklava, the red red cheetos that's wild I shouldn't have finished the entire pack kept reminding myself I'm not enjoying this and it's all extra unnecessary calories anyway but ended but finishing the entire thing, and then some greek coffee biscuit. It was the greek desserts cart, and it was awesome!
Left work like ten minutes early because no one was around anymore, took the green and orange lines to Wellington, a bus, and spent time at Aldi. It was quite weird this time around because I was not hungry and all quite full actually because of the midday snacks and tired to unclear why, but I had to buy so I kept picking random things up and putting them back because there was so much uncertainty on what I wanted. In any case, got a bunch of canned and frozen things because I'm not in the cooking mood these days, got to welligton, on the train, and the 101 bus home. Started writing a piece on the bus, but was unable to complete because I got home too early. It's one of the pieces posted earlier (or later) and it sounds weird because it was rushed. As if everything here wasn't rushed haah.
At home heated the jalepeno poppers, the garlic bread and warmed the canned tomato soup, had it for dinner, watched or listened to a couple of episodes of The Office with roommates PK and BB. Felt quite full and tired perhaps because of all the carbo-loading, decided to take a short nap before doing the workouts and the evening writing. Got up like four hours later. Said hi to semi-roommate I who was going back home, roommate PK was ready to sleep too, used the restroom and went back to sleep. Felt bad about missing the workouts, but figured skipping a day this early on wouldn't hurt because my arms are actually quite tired from the day before. The writing was a loss, but if I got up early the next morning (aka right now) I'd be able to make up for it.
Got up very early, wrote a bunch, spent a long nice time showering, did the morning workouts, took my sweet sweet time walking to Davis listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast among others had my earbuds lose their charge, wrote two posts in the train, got to work, lots of tea, lots of research stuff at work, wrote a solid amount.
Ate oatmeal with a bunch of healthy additions for lunch. Opened the pack of chia seeds after maybe a year of buying it. Talked to my manager, got a raise, got a bonus. Had lots of midday snacks. They have this system where you can 'sponsor' aka bring your snacks of choice to work once or twice a week (and have it paid). Had baklava, the red red cheetos that's wild I shouldn't have finished the entire pack kept reminding myself I'm not enjoying this and it's all extra unnecessary calories anyway but ended but finishing the entire thing, and then some greek coffee biscuit. It was the greek desserts cart, and it was awesome!
Left work like ten minutes early because no one was around anymore, took the green and orange lines to Wellington, a bus, and spent time at Aldi. It was quite weird this time around because I was not hungry and all quite full actually because of the midday snacks and tired to unclear why, but I had to buy so I kept picking random things up and putting them back because there was so much uncertainty on what I wanted. In any case, got a bunch of canned and frozen things because I'm not in the cooking mood these days, got to welligton, on the train, and the 101 bus home. Started writing a piece on the bus, but was unable to complete because I got home too early. It's one of the pieces posted earlier (or later) and it sounds weird because it was rushed. As if everything here wasn't rushed haah.
At home heated the jalepeno poppers, the garlic bread and warmed the canned tomato soup, had it for dinner, watched or listened to a couple of episodes of The Office with roommates PK and BB. Felt quite full and tired perhaps because of all the carbo-loading, decided to take a short nap before doing the workouts and the evening writing. Got up like four hours later. Said hi to semi-roommate I who was going back home, roommate PK was ready to sleep too, used the restroom and went back to sleep. Felt bad about missing the workouts, but figured skipping a day this early on wouldn't hurt because my arms are actually quite tired from the day before. The writing was a loss, but if I got up early the next morning (aka right now) I'd be able to make up for it.
On Corona
They're saying it's a lot deadlier than regular flu, but also acknowledge that this may turn if a lot more people were tested. China has it under control it seems the US is woefully underprepared. It could be not too much worse than flu and still be devastating in the States since their health system is so pathetic and there's no buy-in from half the population. They're going to have a hard time getting hard-nosed Americans to quarantine themselves, the cases are already out where those that should have been in quarantine have been running around in concerts etcetera.
I wouldn't be surprised if in the next six months like half the country had it and it was no big deal. Or if it was mostly well-contained but had caused an unexpectedly large number of casualties. What would be surprising is if it was dealt with professionally and according to the recommendee way. It's possible it might change some things fundamentally, such as taking businesses on the edge out, creating a better buy-in for socialized health-care, and perhaps killing malls and shopping stores even more than online shopping?
My prediction is that by May, we'll be talking about Corona a lot less than we're right now. I'm like 60% certain about that.
On Davis Square
The Davis Square station is not too bad, if there's some good musician playing there. The trains still have some seats open, the system does work for weeks maybe months without total system collapse, the other passengers smell good and they dress well. There's not at much of the dog-eat-dog mentality of the Orange line, at least not until Harvard Square anyway. And outside, there's good music on summer evenings, the Honkfest is incredible, cool people strolling about and generally there's this air of chill low-key ambition. These are not your California hippies, they're still East Coasters, but they're chill and the heavy presence of Californian kids in the nearby Tufts campus does help.
The food places are great and always getting better. JP licks and Boston Burger Company are institutions here but other places can stand on their own too. Good bars, most of them expensive and snooty, but there's still a reasonable presence of old-style dive bar. And right on the Square, in the smack middle lies Mike's, an eatery and divey bar with its affordable 32 ounces of beer. The food's gotten quite pricey there in recent years and to be quite honest it's not that great. And the mixed drinks are seriously overpriced and not well -made. But if you're the sorta person to order mixed drinks at a place like that, it's on you. It's a place for beer and pizza, and fries, loud conversations. Easily, you can shut down the place even on slow evenings, it closes at 2.30 am in the weekends. The choice of beer for a place like that is quite varied; they'll even sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on the rim if you ask nicely.
There's a bowling place that also is known for its flatbread pizza. It's called flat bread. Great drinks and great goat cheese pizza. The southern food place called red bones may not compare to actual southern food from South but it's one of the best we got and on weekends you'd be hard-pressed to find a table there.
Winters are a lot slower in Davis Square and not much happens. It's cold dreary and often dead and the hordes of Tufts students out and about on weekends play a big role in giving the little life it has.
There was a bank robbery at the local bank right on the square last year or so. Made it to the local news and everything.
I will miss Davis Square when I'm gone. I'll be back to see you, though I suspect not much will have changed, just as it hasn't changed too much in the last ten years.
Promises of loud revenge
Seema was pissed pissed pissed oh so pissed, she didn't care about the annoying ringringring-ging of the bells so early in the morning, and the loud singing to go with it. Why could they not go to the middle of the fucking forest and just sing their fucking throats out without disturbing anyone, it wasn't so hard to do that was it. Or really more fucking realistically during the day when no one would be disturbed but that wouldn't be so fun honh honh honh maybe that was their entire point to piss the fuck off the folks that didn't do their thing until they just relented and figured if they were going to be woken up early in the hours of morning by some nincompoops might as well have some fun with it and start singing and dancing themselves. Beat them, join them, sing and dance them etcetera.
Who even had the energy to sing and dance so early? It was not as if they'd pumped it up for the whole day had a solid meal couple of drinks cute guys and girls around to dance the music was thumpy and you know just right to swing about and done the disco. It was just... hungry and angry and tired and sleepy middle-aged people with nowhere to go and no lives except their kids who figured it'd be dandy good to just shout their throats out because what could ever go wrong with it. Where the energy came she couldn't figure it out, what was driving those vocal chords, who had the appetite for sizzling and dizzling so early on. Ugh. Maybe they were secretly ravers who didn't go to bed at all and were just ending their after party and the entire thing was just a facade. That would be more believable actually, it would be more logical and human-sounding and not like some random alien robots with no understanding of human behavior or concern for other human beings doing what the fuck they wanted. It was annoying, why couldn't they just...see there were people who were not like them who could have gone to bed late because of reasons beyond their control who might get very sick if they didn't get very much sleep? Nuh uh.
She checked her phone clock. Five am. And it felt like it had been going on for at least two hours already, thought that couldn't be right. She would take revenge one day, upon these buffoons these moronic idiots inconsiderate bastards she would blare out fucking hard rock death metal right on their ears when they least expected it and would be bothered the most. She muttered to herself, thats a promise, a fucking promise you bastards. Whatever it took, all the time and planning it would take, it wouldn't matter because the culmination of all of that would be a revenge upon these spawns of hell for years and years of torture and sleep-deprivation and the resulting illnesses that had been caused. They would be sorry, they would beg her to stop but she wouldn't stop she would put on more and more songs and maybe even force or convince perhaps force sounded a little weird in that context them to dance and pretend to enjoy all of that. They would see. They would reap what they had sown.
Who even had the energy to sing and dance so early? It was not as if they'd pumped it up for the whole day had a solid meal couple of drinks cute guys and girls around to dance the music was thumpy and you know just right to swing about and done the disco. It was just... hungry and angry and tired and sleepy middle-aged people with nowhere to go and no lives except their kids who figured it'd be dandy good to just shout their throats out because what could ever go wrong with it. Where the energy came she couldn't figure it out, what was driving those vocal chords, who had the appetite for sizzling and dizzling so early on. Ugh. Maybe they were secretly ravers who didn't go to bed at all and were just ending their after party and the entire thing was just a facade. That would be more believable actually, it would be more logical and human-sounding and not like some random alien robots with no understanding of human behavior or concern for other human beings doing what the fuck they wanted. It was annoying, why couldn't they just...see there were people who were not like them who could have gone to bed late because of reasons beyond their control who might get very sick if they didn't get very much sleep? Nuh uh.
She checked her phone clock. Five am. And it felt like it had been going on for at least two hours already, thought that couldn't be right. She would take revenge one day, upon these buffoons these moronic idiots inconsiderate bastards she would blare out fucking hard rock death metal right on their ears when they least expected it and would be bothered the most. She muttered to herself, thats a promise, a fucking promise you bastards. Whatever it took, all the time and planning it would take, it wouldn't matter because the culmination of all of that would be a revenge upon these spawns of hell for years and years of torture and sleep-deprivation and the resulting illnesses that had been caused. They would be sorry, they would beg her to stop but she wouldn't stop she would put on more and more songs and maybe even force or convince perhaps force sounded a little weird in that context them to dance and pretend to enjoy all of that. They would see. They would reap what they had sown.
Keeping the environment livable for our progeny
A long time after we're all gone what will remain is what we've given back to the world, our contributions, our marks. Would we want these ugly nasty spatches of destruction and pollution, proof that we sucked our surroundings so dry it couldn't hold itself together? Or would we rather leave behind a more positive constructive legacy for the generations to come. Will there even be many generations to come if we behave the way we have historically? It seems unlikely, the world is at its carrying capacity, the environment is rejecting us and the long term changes that our asinine actions have triggered are likely to make the world less hospitable and amenable to our long-term survival. It's not unlikely that our descendants, however they maybe will look at our times as the best and the worst of times.
The best of times because its the height of human growth and survival. Numerically speaking there haven't been these many living humans in the entirety of history and also there likely haven't been such a large percentage of those who leave a safe comfortable life without too many urgent life-threatening diseases or dangers of other kinds. On the other hand they'll see this as the worst of times because our uncaring attitude towards our future, towards the present of our surroundings, is dooming the fate of those that come after us. Our selfish approach maximizing our well-being at the cost of that of our children and grandchildren will not be looked upon kindly.
What if there is nothing we can do at this point though, if the tipping point has been reached already and no matter how many corrective procedures we apply how many billions and trillions we spend on engineering our environment to undo the results of our own foolish ill-thought actions, there is no turning back the time and the world as we know it is gone forever? What if we're fated to have lost our loving caring hospitable world in exchange for a hellish one of our own creation. Is there any point in making changes to our lifestyle to be more sustainable, or could we just give up and live the worst possible lives because why does it matter anyway it's not going to change the outcome for the better anyway.
The tipping point may be reached, we do not know, but regardless of whether our actions have impact on the future or not, giving up is not the right move. Rather, if we are meek against the environment, we need to make changes in places where our actions will have positive impact still-- the structures of our societies. We need to create institutions and structures that are geared towards assisting those in need, those that are going to be the victims of our selfish ways. The environment may be a lost cause, but we can change the way we deal with the impact to make it more humane, egalitarian and kind. Make healthcare more approachable and affordable, make governmental more flexible to great disruptions, make agriculture more adaptable to the adapting ecosystems. There is no giving up. Humans are tough and adapting, and we can surely adapt to the results of our follies. The cost may be high, but it's worth the reward of a sustained human growth.
The best of times because its the height of human growth and survival. Numerically speaking there haven't been these many living humans in the entirety of history and also there likely haven't been such a large percentage of those who leave a safe comfortable life without too many urgent life-threatening diseases or dangers of other kinds. On the other hand they'll see this as the worst of times because our uncaring attitude towards our future, towards the present of our surroundings, is dooming the fate of those that come after us. Our selfish approach maximizing our well-being at the cost of that of our children and grandchildren will not be looked upon kindly.
What if there is nothing we can do at this point though, if the tipping point has been reached already and no matter how many corrective procedures we apply how many billions and trillions we spend on engineering our environment to undo the results of our own foolish ill-thought actions, there is no turning back the time and the world as we know it is gone forever? What if we're fated to have lost our loving caring hospitable world in exchange for a hellish one of our own creation. Is there any point in making changes to our lifestyle to be more sustainable, or could we just give up and live the worst possible lives because why does it matter anyway it's not going to change the outcome for the better anyway.
The tipping point may be reached, we do not know, but regardless of whether our actions have impact on the future or not, giving up is not the right move. Rather, if we are meek against the environment, we need to make changes in places where our actions will have positive impact still-- the structures of our societies. We need to create institutions and structures that are geared towards assisting those in need, those that are going to be the victims of our selfish ways. The environment may be a lost cause, but we can change the way we deal with the impact to make it more humane, egalitarian and kind. Make healthcare more approachable and affordable, make governmental more flexible to great disruptions, make agriculture more adaptable to the adapting ecosystems. There is no giving up. Humans are tough and adapting, and we can surely adapt to the results of our follies. The cost may be high, but it's worth the reward of a sustained human growth.
Unpacked at last [Wednesday 4]
Writing this the next morning, the Thursday because I was really caught up with everything else pretty much, and really tired, didn't have the time to write the day's happenings.
Got up late, worked from home because I was still ill and struggling quite badly, attended the morning meeting, got some solid lunch done till three in the afternoon, had some leftovers in the Kitchen for lunch, and read a lot lot lot of news on twitter reddit etcetera. I'm getting better at it, I realized the more in tune with my schedule and more organized I am the less there's distraction and attraction for junk addictive information, but there I was reading minute analysis of what happened where in the super tuesday without having followed any news of the primaries at all this winter.
Spent two hours in the afternoon chatting to customer supports for two different companies to get my parents' phones and other devices that were broken covered under warranty. After long and arduous journey of me doing and redoing what I was instructed, every process having been tried already in Nepal, they have up and told me to ship my phones. Not sure if I can make it today but planning on doing them tomorrow. Also have to send the goodies I brought from Nepal to friend IA who resides in upstate New York and is dearly missed.
Applied to several internal jobs of the company across various geographical locations and emailed recruiters for more information about the postings, and the possibility of talking to the managers who are hiring for those posts. Considering applying to other places too -- I did already actually, those attempts were rather half-hearted and not really worthy of being real attempts -- we'll see how things progressed.
Wrote in my 'other' personal journal that I also contribute from work, got to the regular 1k words in a long time. Also took vitamins after a break of more than a month. I feel strong and energetic already!
In the evening, it was the four roommates of the house together in the same place and talking for the first time in many months. Finally got up the energy to clean up the room and unpacked my luggage that I'd brought from nepal five days after arriving. After the room was clean and human-worthy, got around to doing pushups at last, did 60 of them. Also wrote the journal entries for the previous days and attempted writing this but too tired so gave up, got distracted by reddit where I wasted an hour looking other people's van cars and slept at 11. Went to sleep listening to episodes of the office.
It was good there was no commute, good riddance.
Got up late, worked from home because I was still ill and struggling quite badly, attended the morning meeting, got some solid lunch done till three in the afternoon, had some leftovers in the Kitchen for lunch, and read a lot lot lot of news on twitter reddit etcetera. I'm getting better at it, I realized the more in tune with my schedule and more organized I am the less there's distraction and attraction for junk addictive information, but there I was reading minute analysis of what happened where in the super tuesday without having followed any news of the primaries at all this winter.
Spent two hours in the afternoon chatting to customer supports for two different companies to get my parents' phones and other devices that were broken covered under warranty. After long and arduous journey of me doing and redoing what I was instructed, every process having been tried already in Nepal, they have up and told me to ship my phones. Not sure if I can make it today but planning on doing them tomorrow. Also have to send the goodies I brought from Nepal to friend IA who resides in upstate New York and is dearly missed.
Applied to several internal jobs of the company across various geographical locations and emailed recruiters for more information about the postings, and the possibility of talking to the managers who are hiring for those posts. Considering applying to other places too -- I did already actually, those attempts were rather half-hearted and not really worthy of being real attempts -- we'll see how things progressed.
Wrote in my 'other' personal journal that I also contribute from work, got to the regular 1k words in a long time. Also took vitamins after a break of more than a month. I feel strong and energetic already!
In the evening, it was the four roommates of the house together in the same place and talking for the first time in many months. Finally got up the energy to clean up the room and unpacked my luggage that I'd brought from nepal five days after arriving. After the room was clean and human-worthy, got around to doing pushups at last, did 60 of them. Also wrote the journal entries for the previous days and attempted writing this but too tired so gave up, got distracted by reddit where I wasted an hour looking other people's van cars and slept at 11. Went to sleep listening to episodes of the office.
It was good there was no commute, good riddance.
Beware germaphobes and phone calls [Tuesday 3]
Got up at like 4am because I'd gone to bed so early the night before and couldn't go back to sleep no matter how hard I tried. By the time I got up for good at about quarter past seven, I was groggy, tired, frustrated and really annoyed. Had a mild headache, and felt my throat wasn't right.
Having been bitten by the Orange line the day before, I took the red line to work -- walked to Davis, red line, and then the green line, still got there a lot earlier than anyone else. Had lots of tea with honey again, to cure the sniffles.
Work was more complicated than expected, since the underlying system was not configured for my purposes. Worked on fixing that and asked folks around for hand sanitizers because of the runny nose. People freaked out since I'd been to Singapore A MONTH ago. So attended the 11AM meeting and left for home ASAP because didn't want to freak people out and they were being quite antsy. Took the green line, orange line, and then the bus 89. Walked from Old Maghoun square, right outside several voting booths.
At home, made the most amazing scrambled eggs, spinach with feta on a tonne of butter. So creamy and tasty! Put it on two solid slices of toast and topped with salsa. YUM! I'd buy it for ten bucks, easy. Maybe when I open my own restaurant one day, this is what I should work towards. Lots of butter, way more than should be legal, three eggs that are extremely well-beaten with just a bit of salt, melty cheese and feta cheese, and corn-based salsa on medium toast. Perhaps even avocados on side with salt-pepper and honey sprinkled. That would be the brunch of a freakin' king!
Worked for the rest of the day, talked to a bunch of international friends, but the room was still messy since I hadn't had the time to unpack due to illness and jetlag. As a result, talked a bunch, used twitter and reddit way more than I have in a long time, followed political news of the super tuesday that was today-- my first close following of American election news in more than four years, felt excited, sad, decisive, and went to sleep. Roommates were not home really, and I was feeling very very sick, unable to breathe, unable to sleep properly I was worried that it could get a lot worse but also hopeful it was just due to my body trying to recover from jetlag and lack of sleep.
Talked to DC gang and folks in Philly after a very very long time and made plans for upcoming days. I need to be more organized about talking to people on the phone, and expand my list of friends I call. In any case, it was good to get caught up on all things Singapore, Nepal, West Coast, DC Virginia, Philadelphia, end everywhere around.
Ended up sleeping soundly finally after listening to several episodes of The Office.
Having been bitten by the Orange line the day before, I took the red line to work -- walked to Davis, red line, and then the green line, still got there a lot earlier than anyone else. Had lots of tea with honey again, to cure the sniffles.
Work was more complicated than expected, since the underlying system was not configured for my purposes. Worked on fixing that and asked folks around for hand sanitizers because of the runny nose. People freaked out since I'd been to Singapore A MONTH ago. So attended the 11AM meeting and left for home ASAP because didn't want to freak people out and they were being quite antsy. Took the green line, orange line, and then the bus 89. Walked from Old Maghoun square, right outside several voting booths.
At home, made the most amazing scrambled eggs, spinach with feta on a tonne of butter. So creamy and tasty! Put it on two solid slices of toast and topped with salsa. YUM! I'd buy it for ten bucks, easy. Maybe when I open my own restaurant one day, this is what I should work towards. Lots of butter, way more than should be legal, three eggs that are extremely well-beaten with just a bit of salt, melty cheese and feta cheese, and corn-based salsa on medium toast. Perhaps even avocados on side with salt-pepper and honey sprinkled. That would be the brunch of a freakin' king!
Worked for the rest of the day, talked to a bunch of international friends, but the room was still messy since I hadn't had the time to unpack due to illness and jetlag. As a result, talked a bunch, used twitter and reddit way more than I have in a long time, followed political news of the super tuesday that was today-- my first close following of American election news in more than four years, felt excited, sad, decisive, and went to sleep. Roommates were not home really, and I was feeling very very sick, unable to breathe, unable to sleep properly I was worried that it could get a lot worse but also hopeful it was just due to my body trying to recover from jetlag and lack of sleep.
Talked to DC gang and folks in Philly after a very very long time and made plans for upcoming days. I need to be more organized about talking to people on the phone, and expand my list of friends I call. In any case, it was good to get caught up on all things Singapore, Nepal, West Coast, DC Virginia, Philadelphia, end everywhere around.
Ended up sleeping soundly finally after listening to several episodes of The Office.
Back to the T-ea [Monday 2]
The first day of work after a month, and I was looking forward to it. Got up really early, had showered the earlier evening, spent time cleaning up and getting ready, left home quite early and figured if I took the Orange line I'd be able to leverage it to get to work very fast. Alas it was not to be, as the bus took forever to reach Sullivan, and the wait there was solid 8 minutes. By the end of it, it ended up taking 55 minutes to get to work door-to-door.
At work, I was welcomed, it was nice to catch up and see everyone after such a long time. Brought in a tonne of titaura that I'd got from Nepal and shared it with the coworkers. Was really excited about the potato-egg breakfast that wework emailed about, but due to mismanagement there, it ended up not working out (they'd ordered it for wednesday morning, and I was not at work on Wednesday, so sad). TO partly make up for the missed breakfast, but also because I was not feeling a hundred percent healthy, drank like five maybe six cups of herbal tea over the entire day.
Went to my favourite sandwich place downstairs and ordered my traditional sandwich. These days they don't even need to check the numbers or call people out, they just look at me, see the cheap but filling breakfast sandwich order for lunch and hand it to me. Add two packets of mayo and two (maybe 3 is the ideal number) of hot sauce, and it's the most satisfying, fulfilling breakfast sandwich. I've never been as excited and satisfied by such cheap, regular food. I worry they could be annoyed by my cheap and different breakfast sandwich order during lunch, but it's not like they're missing out on other orders, and if I didn't order this particular sandwich I'd likely not order anything else, so I'm not backing.
Got started with work, all new stuff in the front-end pretty early on, it was easy to catch up. The work was simple to implement and had quick turnaround so felt satisfying. Left 4.40 in the evening, decided to take the Orange line because I was still hopeful about the future, still wanted to give it a chance. Nope.
The trains were late, the wait at the train stations was awful, and had to wait 15 minutes for the bus at Sullivan. The bus itself was super-slow, the trip ended up taking an hour and 10 minutes. It was frustrating and I felt really nauseous back home. The MBTA system places a big part in my decision to abandon the city I've called home for the past ten years.
Felt a bit bloated, whatever. Rested, ate light dinner, talked a little to international friends, and I couldn't hold my eyes open despite my best attempts. I really wanted to do the evening workouts and posts because I'd already done the previous three, but didn't have the energy or willpower for that, so fell asleep somewhere between 9 and 10 while listening to podcasts.
At work, I was welcomed, it was nice to catch up and see everyone after such a long time. Brought in a tonne of titaura that I'd got from Nepal and shared it with the coworkers. Was really excited about the potato-egg breakfast that wework emailed about, but due to mismanagement there, it ended up not working out (they'd ordered it for wednesday morning, and I was not at work on Wednesday, so sad). TO partly make up for the missed breakfast, but also because I was not feeling a hundred percent healthy, drank like five maybe six cups of herbal tea over the entire day.
Went to my favourite sandwich place downstairs and ordered my traditional sandwich. These days they don't even need to check the numbers or call people out, they just look at me, see the cheap but filling breakfast sandwich order for lunch and hand it to me. Add two packets of mayo and two (maybe 3 is the ideal number) of hot sauce, and it's the most satisfying, fulfilling breakfast sandwich. I've never been as excited and satisfied by such cheap, regular food. I worry they could be annoyed by my cheap and different breakfast sandwich order during lunch, but it's not like they're missing out on other orders, and if I didn't order this particular sandwich I'd likely not order anything else, so I'm not backing.
Got started with work, all new stuff in the front-end pretty early on, it was easy to catch up. The work was simple to implement and had quick turnaround so felt satisfying. Left 4.40 in the evening, decided to take the Orange line because I was still hopeful about the future, still wanted to give it a chance. Nope.
The trains were late, the wait at the train stations was awful, and had to wait 15 minutes for the bus at Sullivan. The bus itself was super-slow, the trip ended up taking an hour and 10 minutes. It was frustrating and I felt really nauseous back home. The MBTA system places a big part in my decision to abandon the city I've called home for the past ten years.
Felt a bit bloated, whatever. Rested, ate light dinner, talked a little to international friends, and I couldn't hold my eyes open despite my best attempts. I really wanted to do the evening workouts and posts because I'd already done the previous three, but didn't have the energy or willpower for that, so fell asleep somewhere between 9 and 10 while listening to podcasts.
The most humungous sub [Sunday 1]
Got up to podcasts, got washed up, greeted several people out in the common room because it was 11PM and roommates PK and SM had invited friends for goat meat. They'd gotten like 5 pounds of quality goat meat.
However, since the entire production takes several hours, they weren't able to process everything on time, ended up ordering momos from Tasty momo as pre-lunch as they prepared lunch. I wasn't too hungry that early in the day since all I'd done the day before was to sleep as talk on the phone. A bit later, when they were ready, I got myself a really large eggplant parm sandwich (a twelve-incher, possible larger) from the nearby Italian bakery which also makes amazing tiramisu. I was so so full I felt sleepy at 1PM. Talked a bunch to RSS, BP (the one who went to same college as my friend in Central square) and Bis bro, who was over from Canada.
Spent a couple of hours during the day trying to unlock my luggage. The security people had opened my luggage, without leaving a notice, and reset my numerical lock. The actual key was in the low hundreds, but for some reason I started from the other end, so I ended up trying every possible combination, making sure to double-check that I didn't miss anything because it would be real literal hell to do it over and over. Called home to family, asked if they knew alternatives, even though it was very late in the evening there, and all they had to tell me was to try every combo possible. It was actually my dad's idea, I was just considering cutting the lock because it was such a hassle. Got it right after a really arduous and mind-numbing hour and wanted to call it a day. A big lunch and a great heist-worthy unlocking of the luggage, I deserved a solid nap no?
Lounged all day long, realized how long it had been since I'd just crashed on our comfy couch, watched tv, talked to folks, didn't do anything and felt amazing about it. BisBro left at about 4 with RSS and the group dispersed. I was tired and knackered by 8, couldn't keep my eyes open and went to bed. Slept without trying, or meaning, to because my body just couldn't handle. This was guilt-free enjoyment. Loved the couch, such great times. Skipped lunch because I'd had enough lunch to last three days for lunch and dinner.
However, since the entire production takes several hours, they weren't able to process everything on time, ended up ordering momos from Tasty momo as pre-lunch as they prepared lunch. I wasn't too hungry that early in the day since all I'd done the day before was to sleep as talk on the phone. A bit later, when they were ready, I got myself a really large eggplant parm sandwich (a twelve-incher, possible larger) from the nearby Italian bakery which also makes amazing tiramisu. I was so so full I felt sleepy at 1PM. Talked a bunch to RSS, BP (the one who went to same college as my friend in Central square) and Bis bro, who was over from Canada.
Spent a couple of hours during the day trying to unlock my luggage. The security people had opened my luggage, without leaving a notice, and reset my numerical lock. The actual key was in the low hundreds, but for some reason I started from the other end, so I ended up trying every possible combination, making sure to double-check that I didn't miss anything because it would be real literal hell to do it over and over. Called home to family, asked if they knew alternatives, even though it was very late in the evening there, and all they had to tell me was to try every combo possible. It was actually my dad's idea, I was just considering cutting the lock because it was such a hassle. Got it right after a really arduous and mind-numbing hour and wanted to call it a day. A big lunch and a great heist-worthy unlocking of the luggage, I deserved a solid nap no?
Lounged all day long, realized how long it had been since I'd just crashed on our comfy couch, watched tv, talked to folks, didn't do anything and felt amazing about it. BisBro left at about 4 with RSS and the group dispersed. I was tired and knackered by 8, couldn't keep my eyes open and went to bed. Slept without trying, or meaning, to because my body just couldn't handle. This was guilt-free enjoyment. Loved the couch, such great times. Skipped lunch because I'd had enough lunch to last three days for lunch and dinner.
Jetlag recovery [Saturday 29 Feb]
In retrospect I should have spent the leap day better. There's been so many great episodes of comedy tv shoes about leap day that it should be a festival in its own right (I'm thinking 30 rock here). Time to party for people for people who find the St. Patrick's day celebrations a bit much.
Alas. It was not to be.
The entire day I was in bed either sleeping or trying to sleep. Didn't even see the roommates or BisBro who was hear to see my roommates from Canada. Listened to a couple of podcasts, but mostly slept and tried sleeping. Maybe I ate something, I don't remember, most definitely ate some chocolates and nuts. Was too full from cake and dinner from the Friday evening so ate nothing else that was substantial.
Spent like 3 hours talking to PA which was by far the most productive thing I did. She says she doesn't care about productivity etcetera and just likes to chill but it's hard to buy that for some reason, specially when it's coming from someone so accomplished so early on. We talked about histories and how her real-life stories are already enough to fill three very captivating funny romcom books targeted at young adults mostly but really anyone would find them a fun read. She said she's been maintaining daily journals for the last fifteen years and she could just publish them. There went my chance to get some interesting writing done by stealing other people's life stories. Sigh. At least I'll come to be known as a fun writer's friend, so that's that...
She has an incredibly well-located apartment in a very expensive city on a very happening city, fun roommates, and things are in order it seems. Is the grass always greener on the other side, or is there any grass that's factually objectively greener? I wonder.
Don't remember anything from that day. Honestly, that's about as much as it happened anyway.
Alas. It was not to be.
The entire day I was in bed either sleeping or trying to sleep. Didn't even see the roommates or BisBro who was hear to see my roommates from Canada. Listened to a couple of podcasts, but mostly slept and tried sleeping. Maybe I ate something, I don't remember, most definitely ate some chocolates and nuts. Was too full from cake and dinner from the Friday evening so ate nothing else that was substantial.
Spent like 3 hours talking to PA which was by far the most productive thing I did. She says she doesn't care about productivity etcetera and just likes to chill but it's hard to buy that for some reason, specially when it's coming from someone so accomplished so early on. We talked about histories and how her real-life stories are already enough to fill three very captivating funny romcom books targeted at young adults mostly but really anyone would find them a fun read. She said she's been maintaining daily journals for the last fifteen years and she could just publish them. There went my chance to get some interesting writing done by stealing other people's life stories. Sigh. At least I'll come to be known as a fun writer's friend, so that's that...
She has an incredibly well-located apartment in a very expensive city on a very happening city, fun roommates, and things are in order it seems. Is the grass always greener on the other side, or is there any grass that's factually objectively greener? I wonder.
Don't remember anything from that day. Honestly, that's about as much as it happened anyway.
Return to Boston [Friday 28 Feb]
Began my journey at 2am Kathmandu time at TIA on Friday, 6 hours later landed in Doha. The plane was crappy, the meals were surprisingly good. After an hour and half at Doha -- the checkin area didn't have a restroom -- got into a 13-hour flight to Boston where I tried really hard to fall asleep so I could get my timetable in order.
The food was good, again, though they kept mistaking my vegetarian request for vegan, I didn't mind. Watched a tonne of movies, couple of episodes of The Good Place and some other shows. The aircraft didn't have enough restrooms, so it was always a several-minute long wait for the loo. Everyone seemed to be desperate too. I've complained about airplane rides being awful, but this was surprisingly tolerable. Perhaps it was my coworker KB's neck pillow, but I had no backache or any musculature issues.
Landed at Boston PM local time, spent like 20 mins at the immigration line, the immigration processing was shockingly quick, the border agent didn't even ask for my supporting documents, the passport with my newly-stamped was all I gave him and in I went. Took a couple of minutes at the aisle -- I was afraid that I'd forgotten what my luggage looked like but it was fine in the end. Spent several frustrating moments going to the rideshare place, and ordering different rides, but the ride home was relaxing.
After getting home tried really really hard to not sleep to not mess up my sleep schedule which worked until like 6PM but unfortunately my body couldn't take it anymore and I slept till 9.30. Quite soundly too and that was surprising because there was a raucous.
There was a party in our apartment in celebration of roommate PK's birthday, friend SS (harvard, law researcher) and there was something else which I don't remember. Friends from all the various groups were over, and I spent the next many hours talking, chilling, catching up and generally having fun. Talked to SS (the crush) about what was happening, talked to a bunch of folks about my upcoming Singapore plans, got caught up with people's stories, and plans for the next week were made (not followed through).
Also met a couple of annoying people who I'd never seen before. Funny thing, when we were comparing notes after the party, my roommates found those people annoying too but for vastly different reasons.
Ended up going to bed at 3AM.
The food was good, again, though they kept mistaking my vegetarian request for vegan, I didn't mind. Watched a tonne of movies, couple of episodes of The Good Place and some other shows. The aircraft didn't have enough restrooms, so it was always a several-minute long wait for the loo. Everyone seemed to be desperate too. I've complained about airplane rides being awful, but this was surprisingly tolerable. Perhaps it was my coworker KB's neck pillow, but I had no backache or any musculature issues.
Landed at Boston PM local time, spent like 20 mins at the immigration line, the immigration processing was shockingly quick, the border agent didn't even ask for my supporting documents, the passport with my newly-stamped was all I gave him and in I went. Took a couple of minutes at the aisle -- I was afraid that I'd forgotten what my luggage looked like but it was fine in the end. Spent several frustrating moments going to the rideshare place, and ordering different rides, but the ride home was relaxing.
After getting home tried really really hard to not sleep to not mess up my sleep schedule which worked until like 6PM but unfortunately my body couldn't take it anymore and I slept till 9.30. Quite soundly too and that was surprising because there was a raucous.
There was a party in our apartment in celebration of roommate PK's birthday, friend SS (harvard, law researcher) and there was something else which I don't remember. Friends from all the various groups were over, and I spent the next many hours talking, chilling, catching up and generally having fun. Talked to SS (the crush) about what was happening, talked to a bunch of folks about my upcoming Singapore plans, got caught up with people's stories, and plans for the next week were made (not followed through).
Also met a couple of annoying people who I'd never seen before. Funny thing, when we were comparing notes after the party, my roommates found those people annoying too but for vastly different reasons.
Ended up going to bed at 3AM.
Caught up healthwise
Wasn't feeling great for the last few days, everyone at work joked -- feared rather -- that I had the corona and needed to stay the crap away from them. Came home at lunch yesterday and worked from home all day today. Feeling better now, the sickness could have been attributed to my crappy sleep schedule, honestly. Finally unpacked my luggage from Nepal today, and did the chores I was meant to do right after I got back. Still haven't written the journal posts that I mentioned, and obviously the workouts and other posts are a mess in here. At least I've started writing regularly in my personal journal which I'm quite proud of. It's been almost exactly a year of writing those things, hurray!
The sewermen versus the assassins
The sewermens guild hadn't become the most powerful professional organization in the city by giving up. They had won over the city a shithole at a time, house by house, block by block, sewer by sewer. They had taken care of dead dogs and cows when they didn't need to, they had gotten rid of unexplained bags with strange protrusions without as much as raising eyebrows. They had cleaned up the city, turned that cesspit that had been compared to the deepest stinkiest pits of hell to a metropolis that knew how to take care of its waste. The drains were a revolution, trade had taken off, inward pilgrimages were off the roof, children could play in public without the fear of contracting deadly diseases. They had cleared the swamp.
So when the assassins claimed the helm of the body running the city, they were quite pissed. Offing a man wasn't hard, any sewerman worth his salt could punch the living lights out of any man or woman. Let those throat-cutters carry three months worth of nightsoil from a family of six around their body, that is the true test of a leader the true measure of bravery. Nay, those pansies dare not get as much as touch another man's waste. They put in gloves everyday, afraid of accidentally touching any other hand that was not theirs. No, the assassins wouldn't be allowed to climb the political ladders. Mitigatory actions would be taken.
The rebellies
None of that nagging and annoying tugging by his inner heart thing whatever it was not conscience all bullshit no none of it would work, he was a businessman a farmer and most importantly the master of the house he had to take care of his family and servants and support his extended family. Such sentimentalism wasn't going to change his opinion on anything ever. Why did they ever thing they would sway his opinions, how dare they imagine him to be such a weakling incapable of making any kind of reasonable thought out decision. He had his priorities right and they didn't lie anywhere close to the top. He had to fulfill his duty, that was put upon him, complete what was expected of him and that was it. Even if, and this was a very big if, he wanted to help them it would be absolutely impossible to do so for he was not the only one making decisions. His wife, his family, his children even the servants they all had a say in his decisions indirect as it may be and they would vehemently opposite that. They might even rebel and string him up! He was not okay to compromise his wealth and safety and potentially his life to help these rebels he didn't even agree with. Not that he didn't want to, mind you, if they could show they were truly needy and helpless he could have considered providing them with financial assistance but their cause just... Seemed not right. Going against the state was risky, dangerous and with few rewards. It was a lost cause, he would tell them that the next time they should up to ask for money again.
First day of work
Welcome to the helltown that is commuting in Boston. The commute that I lie to friends and family about being 35 mins long will take me a solid hour and ten minutes. Because I take the public transport like a poor person, and poor people's time has no value according to the mbta. It's not about the strict logistics of the thing, it's how unpredictable and unreliable the buses and trains are, and how even the gps tracking is all messed up and it'll only mislead you and hinder you to were making accurate plans.
My friends are all leaving, the commute is a serious pain in the ass that I can't take anymore at all because I've seen the other side and it's glorious, the infrastructure of this third rate global city whose prices are as expensive as a first rate one is breaking apart and there's nothing outrageously extra this place offers over comparable cities in terms of quality of life or job opportunities.
Why am I living here again? The past ten years have been great, it's time to call it quits while I don't yet totally despise the city. You'll hear more on this in the coming weeks and months. I meant to put this out more gradually and easily but enough is enough this is it.
Out-migration observations from Kathmandu
Nothing in my noggin really, the practice is gone... Gonna be a few days before I'm back to my already not so good form.
All of the five friends I met in Kathmandu, each one of them, is either in the process of heading out of the country, or has it in their sights for the near future. Oh wait there's one friend who doesn't, a former reader of this blog I found out, but she's a government employee now who's two years away from getting a government SUV with a driver so not really an apples to apples.
I was meant to meet friends in Surkhet, that plan was shelved after I discovered how absurdly expensive it'd be to get there...Since only 18-seater planes fly there. Flying to Nepalgunj and taking a 3-hour busride would have been cheaper, that didn't end up working out either because I was so busy with the weddings and everything.
Friends seem to have much clearer ideas about what they want to do and what they want from life, guess that's called growing up. Things would be stabilizing if these were normal circumstances, if Nepal was a normal country and Kathmandu was a normal city. Without that, even as people are clearer and confident about their lives as ever, there's still chaos motion and instability. It can't go on like this forever, right? Every time I'm in Kathmandu I make the same observations and voice the same complaints, in my defence this keeps on happening. If there was an expectation that the out-migration from the cities was going to stabilise any time soon, it has been proven wrong, not a bad thing really. Rather, the lower middle class now aspires to do what the upper middles been doing for the last two decades, the long term outcome of this trend is only going to be good. Even as the extractive industries in Kathmandu get richer and richer, the city gets gradually less unequal as people escape to richer places to make themselves.
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