TF MegaRatch

I've decided to do weekly updates on my personal curriculum progress, just to help keep me honest.

Since this was a short week, as far as the new year and therefore my curriculum schedule are concerned, I haven't got much to report. I've stuck to my daily Korean lessons so far and I'm on track, per the program's recommended rate of progress. I'm gonna try to come up with quarterly "field trips" for this course. I've seen a few people do that and it's a fun idea. There's an Asian culture fest in the summer that always has a Korean booth and attractions, so that's the third quarter trip settled. I only thought about it today and I've had other stuff to do, so I still need to look around at what else might work. Since the course itself has inbuilt examinations, I'm not worrying about coming up with a final project. Might think of doing something self-assigned, though, just to spice it up.

Clarinet practice guidelines I've looked up suggested thirty-minute practices for beginners, forty-five-minute practices for intermediate and sixty-minute practices for advanced, all at least five days a week. My plan is to stick with thirty minute sessions for the first month, go on to forty-five for the second and then sixty for the third. I'd actually intended to keep clarinet practice a weekday thing but I went ahead and put in a session today since I wasn't really where I wanted to be after the first two days of reacquainting myself. I'm still having trouble maintaining proper breathing and sight-reading notes, both of which I'll work on without the instrument on weekends going forward. I'm sticking with self-learning for at least this first quarter but I've decided to look into formal lessons to continue after that, so we'll see what I find. I've also decided that my final project for this quarter will be a small "concert" for my family (or as many of them as I can get in one place at that time, anyway).

I think coding and algebra are going well but I also think I'm going to change my schedule a bit. I'm going to cut my coding down to just Saturday and Sunday, really just to give myself more time for other things on Friday. That might change again in the future but at this point, I'm pretty confident I can make the progress I want with HTML and CSS in a few hours per weekend. I'll still do small reviews through the rest of the week, of course. I've decided that this class will also have a final project-- naturally, a website. The topic of which I'm tasking myself with coming up with by the end of this month, so I can plan out how I want it to look. It'll probably be a fansite of some kid or something to showcase my crochet but we'll see. I need to figure out what free hosting is still available in this day and age too.

As for algebra, it occurred to me that doing it on Friday, Saturday and the following Sunday is a bit weird for something I'd planned to break up into weeks, seeing as I'm working on an American calendar. I mean, I guess I could read through the lessons on Sunday, give myself homework to be checked on Friday and then review and take a test, if available, on Saturday... Actually, now that I say that out loud-- so to speak-- I'm not sure why I shouldn't just do that. So, uh. Disregard what I said about changing the schedule for this one, lol. The website I'm using for guidance actually breaks their algebra resources into thirteen sections but the first of these is for prerequisites, so I went through that section for this shortened week and the plan now is to cover one of each of the other twelve sections for each of the next twelve weeks. I glanced at the worksheets available on the site and it looks like there's at least one available per section. And even if there's not or the provided worksheets prove to be inadequate, I don't think it'll be difficult to find more elsewhere on the internet. I feel like this class should have some kind of final project, too, since the site provides tests but no exams, but I've not come up with anything yet. Which does seem silly, tbh, since algebra has plenty of practical applications. Might google about it, Idk.

Side note: I added three whole unrounded three-digit numbers in my head today and got the correct answer. You may clap uwu

Well, work finally got me set up back at the other building.

And I haaate iiit :(

I have the same type of desk but the space is so much more cramped. I had transfer all my stuff into one set of drawers instead of the two I've not grown accustomed to. I share an office with someone who's primarily on specimens, so I'm not allowed to have my door closed. He wasn't even in today and they would've let me have it closed-- my one chance!! I can't take breaks at my desk anymore since it violates the "look busy when in office" policy, though there'll be leeway on super slow days like today was. The window isn't suitable for my plant, so I had to take it home again-- not that I guess it matters much since both the new leaves broke under their own weight on the walk over. What even.

Things are still being shuffled around and people seem pretty uncertain as to where things are or are supposed to be. That's going to make relearning specimen cases even more of a hassle. I'm not sure how many specimens I'll actually have to do but they've assigned someone to help me with the slide cases, so I expect I'll be doing at least a few of them most days, especially on the rare occasions that my primary client is slow. They only want me picking up once a day going forward regardless and so I won't be getting any of my own work until later in the afternoon, when I can more reliably count on getting all or most of it at once. There might still be spillover from day to day, of course, but that's more uncertain with a second person.

I hardly know anyone anymore. People chuckle along with me when I say I'm not happy with the situation and, I mean, fair. It's only an inconvenience, once you get right down to it, and I've been talking about it lightly enough because professionalism. But I am truly, genuinely unhappy with the situation and I don't like being expected to treat that as a joke.

Bleh.

I know I'll get used to it. I know things will smooth out as everyone acclimates to the new setup. It is, as I said, only an inconvenience. At the end of the day, I'm doing the same job for the same wage. Some people have war in their countries. But still, bleh.

New Year's Day! Whose new year is off to the start they hoped for? Mine isn't but it's not too far off. I've taken a lot of the day to give real thought to my goals for the coming year-- y'know, let the shine come off all those overambitious ideas that are only going to overwhelm me and that I'm never going to be able to commit to.

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I forgot I was going to show off the crochet Christmas gifts I made! Which means I also forgot to take any pictures :,) I do have some of them still, since my brother's family all got sick just before Christmas and I haven't seen them, but I'd rather post it all at once. Gonna ask my sister to send me pics of what I gave her kids. I had a lot of fun with it and I'm pretty pleased with how all of it... well, with most of it came out, haha. I really need to give myself more time next year. Please ignore the fact that I say that every year ;>_>

Can you guys believe that the new year is next week? What even is the onward march of time?

Tbh, I've been trying to wean myself off the idea that the start of a new [insert human calendar construct here] has to mean anything significant, as far as goals and life changes are concerned. I've not been terribly successful. There's just something so satisfying about matching new with new. It feels cleaner, somehow. And, of course, we're socialized to regard the start of a whole new year as an almost magical time.

I suppose if I were truly dedicated to fixing the part of my brain that rides or dies by the calendar, I'd deliberately eschew New Year's resolutions or goals that hinge on it. Buuut even the thought of doing that makes me feel physically ill-- I'm not even joking when I say typing that preceding sentence made my fingers go numb-- so I'm gonna have to just be nice to myself about this one. And, I mean, come on. It is kinda funny if I make "stop basing habits on human constructs of time" a New Year's resolution, yeah? I think it's kinda funny.

All this to say that I've been thinking about what goals I want to set for the year ahead. And I'm reeeally trying to narrow them down this year. I've got a bad habit of making everything I want to do a goal, which just overwhelms me to the point that I don't accomplish much of anything. It doesn't help that I tend to get too ambitious with a lot of things and then ruin things for myself. Still haven't fully grown out of that gifted kid mindset, in spite of my ongoing efforts. I might look at everything I would like to try to accomplish and then fold groups of those things into broad categories of goals. Y'know, "try more crafts" and "read more" kinds of items. Or else maybe write all those things out and rank them, then pick the top five as goals. Then whenever I mark something off the list, I can rotate in a lower-ranked item from the initial list. Up to a point at least. Something else I've been trying to get through my head is that not everything I want to do necessarily needs to be treated as a goal. If anything, that mentality is probably what overwhelms me, since I then unconsciously treat all those many things as more or less equally important.

But anyway, where are you all at as far as the end of the year? Are you giving it meaning in your life or is it just another day for you? I'm curious where everyone else stands.

I had SO. MANY. eleventh hour issues re: the crochet gifts, omg. May or may not get into all that-- tomrrow, though, because my brain is FRIED. Y'know I said I was gonna stay up late? Wellll, I stayed up SO late that I figured I'd only ruin tonight's sleep by going to bed, so. I didn't.

You'd think thirty-six hours awake wouldn't be enough time for ahlluciantion to start and you'd probably be rigt and it's just the corner s of my eyes playing tricks on me becaise sleepy. But Idk, guys, the same lady has been in the corner of my eyes for a hot minyute. I hope she let's me sleep, lol.

I hope this is as legible as I think it is, lol. I am TRYINGGG.

So, this is obviously very silly since I've been talking about Christmas and I'm obviously very aware of it coming up but, like. It truly only hit me today that the end of the year-- y'know, that event that always follows right after Christmas-- is also coming up.

I. am not ready, lol.