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Out of the woods

You feel worse, before you feel better.

— Jack Stratton

Heya! I've been a little stressed out recently: a combination of irregular sleep, stress from my study, and just the general ups and downs in my mood that I never seem to be able to quite explain. However, as of this morning, I've felt a lot better.

Fighting bad vibes

There's a couple things I do when feeling bad, and maybe they help you as well, so here they are:

Do chores. As hard as it may be to start, getting things done usually lifts my mood and brings me in a positive feedback loop where I start doing even more chores. However, if I'm not feeling it, I can just stop and I'll at least have done something. Tiny, achievable goals is the key.
Do something constructive/creative. Paint, program, play music, etc. We humans were made to invent and create, and doing it feels good.
HALT: This is a trick used in addiction recovery programs, but honestly, I do think I am addicted to mindlessly scrolling the web. Basically, anytime you feel "eh" and want to start scrolling, check if you're feeling Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Because, well, usually you are.
Meet with friends (as long as you don't feel too terrible in the first place). I tend to push them away when I'm feeling bad, but a good conversation or a nice board game usually does lift my spirits.

There's no magic shortcuts to feeling good

Study updates

I'm currently following three courses:

One on abstract algebra and cryptography, which is just very difficult, but it feels very good when you understand the concepts. There's lots of proofs, and very little memorization, if any at all. You just gotta grok the answers and proofs, and if you don't, you don't. I'm starting to get a better grip, and that feels really good. Still a long way to go though.
One on functional programming, which is really fun. I'm writing a clone of jq, a JSON processing utility, in Haskell. The project takes a lot of time but is very satisfying.
One on human computer interaction. This one is just embarrassingly bad: it's trivially easy, it has no content to speak of (a few design methodologies you could learn in an afternoon), and its project, designing a mobile app, is terribly documented. Nevertheless, its worth the same amount of ECTS credits as the other two.

jq's homepage

Also: Astrobotany

Not trying to brag (lie), but my cactus on Astrobotany was plant of the day at the Garden Gnome Society recently. If you do not know about these sites yet, check them out! I think they're beautiful examples of what can be done in Geminispace without losing the spirit of the project.

Astrobotany

Garden Gnome Society

My cactus on Astrobotany

My beautiful baby shining on the Garden Gnome Society

Article published: 2021-03-30

Article edited: 2021-07-18 (minor correction)

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