author: melyanna
Last day in Warsaw. I will leave for the airport tomorrow at 5.30. Looking forward to seeing and hugging friends and family, but sad to leave and go away from my partner. I hope to be back in December though, so quite soon.
Uncomfortable words I wish I had heard sooner in my life: perfectionism is fancy procrastination and people-pleasing can be an act of manipulation.
First day in Warsaw. The weather was lovely and I walked more than 20K steps. Today was dedicated to just walking around the city and figuring out good areas for an apartment. Tomorrow is supposed to rain: good day for a museum visit.
I see myself and my past with much more clarity now. I don't think it's just hindsight (some of it, yes, for sure), as I have recently felt like I finally found myself. Or... this is a midlife crisis. Which I wouldn't necessarily see as a bad thing: I worked hard to get where I am, I can finally do stuff I couldn't do when I was young and too busy following other people's rules.
Medical check up tomorrow. Anxious.
I have a really long day ahead, so of course I have been woken up by uncomfortable dreams 3 hours before my alarm would ring.
Such an intense work week! (I know it's only Tuesday, but it feels like an entire full week has happened). And I booked two therapist visits, one dinner, one D&D session, a COVID vaccine and a bunch of screening medical exams all before the end of the month. During which time my partner will move to Poland and I need to plan a visit to family in Germany and a visit to our UK office in the Sunny (not really) Milton Keynes.
I long for Autumn: the cold breeze in the morning, quiet evenings, the trees looking all shades of red and yellow, drinking tea and wearing oversized hoodies and comfy socks.
New phone is here. Setting it all up was *tedious*. I hope this lasts me at least 5 years.
A while ago I wanted to turn my RasPi into a small server to host my projects, web site, etc. but I have kind of abandoned the idea now. Sure, I would own all my data and be in control of them, however I'd still depend on a domain provider and internet provider. I think I have now concluded I am happy to abandon the idea.
Guess whose phone just bricked for no reason... f-ck
I wish Astrobotany had an option to delete messages. I have few that I don't really want to see anymore, but I don't want to give up my account.
It feels like something too small to bother an admin and I don't have a GitHub account to make a suggestion. I wish I could code, I'd work on a solution myself and push it.
I haven't been distro hopping for several years, however I am thinking of swapping Arch with something else on my laptop. Perhaps just plain Debian? Pop!_OS? Back to Manjaro?
I would like to go for something I can settle with again for a long time. Before Arch, I'd hop from distro to distro every week. I am not planning to do that again for sure! But I need a change.
What client do station users use to browse Gemini?
I am using Lagrange on my phone and it's amazing.
I'd be interested in a terminal client that I can use on my headless RasPi that does not have vim-inspired key mappings (I expect most programmers over here will cringe reading this, LOL).
Today is my last day off work, and it's so warm that an extreme heat alert has been issued.
I wish I could rewind time and go back one week to enjoy a few more days of cooler holidays.
And landed. There was some disruption earlier this morning in Frankfurt due to a protest organised by climate activists, however my flight was not affected.
Going back home tomorrow. Sad to leave Germany and go back on my own (my partner will hopefully join me again soon), but also looking forward to be home.
"Receive without pride, let go without attachment."
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
@martin I loved today's issue of Ling-oh !
We went to the Gutenberg museum today. It was amazing. Also I did not know that there are so many things to see in Mainz. Maybe I will have a chance to return one day.
I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy yesterday. Beautiful book, very painful to read. It immediately went into my list of favourites.
The next part of my trip to Germany involves staying at my partner's family and getting some R&R. We do have a couple of potential day trips planned - including following your suggestion @bavarianbarbarian , but we'll see how we feel and what the rest of the family wants to do.
I have some thoughts around me being here as a guest that don't fit here (too wordy XD ), maybe I will put them in some diary entry in my capsule.
Morning visit to Herrenhäuser Gärten before we embark on a long train trip back to the Frankfurt area, where the family of my partner lives.
The weather has not been able to settle between scorching hot and rainy/cold-ish. Looks like we are getting a cooler morning today.
Quick visit to the Elbphilharmonie and Alter Elbtunnel, then off to Hannover on a (greatly delayed, feels like Italy) train.
Day 3: boat trip, naval museum, some food was had. Went on top of the Feldstraße Bunker. Now trying to avoid the football fans and go back to the hotel. The museum was *way* bigger than expected. Overall a great day again.
Day 2 in Hamburg: breakfast in a cat café, walked around the city a bit and walked into a triathlon competition, spent the entire day in the Kunsthalle. The William Blake temporary exhibition was amazing.
Leaving Berlin to go to Hamburg today.
it is currently raining. Hopefully it will clear up a bit as travel in dry weather is more comfortable.
Went to Checkpoint Charlie today. I was 10 years old when the wall fell but I remember it well. I felt a really strong sense of melancholy and sadness looking at the pieces of the wall being sold: the world felt so much different back then, like I could actually feel optimistic for the future. It's a mix of innocence lost and the current political events now making me so jaded and sad.
We walked more than 35000 steps today! The first day here was great but also really, really, really warm.
Landed in Berlin! My train to Milano to the airport was 20 minutes late and my flight to Berlin landed 20 minutes early. Funny it all balanced out though it was basically faster for me to go from Italy to a different Country than it was to travel between cities in my Country.
Two more days here then it is time for holidays!
I am slightly anxious that I need to pack, tidy up the house and do one more full day of work, but I will manage (it's not like I have an alternative).
Worst case the apartment will not be so tidy.
I sometimes have these very clear, realistic dreams that have no relation to my actual life. One time I dreamt of an entire film, titled "The flock", starring Owen Wilson. It was a horror movie involving werewolves and some corn fields in the US. It is really funny how my brain made up a whole movie while I was asleep.
It has been ages again. My personal life has been almost completely eaten by work. I am OK. I feel a bit better. I will be on holiday soon, which is great! I have a trip to Germany planned for my vacation and I am really looking forward to it! First stop will be Berlin, then Hamburg, then Frankfurt, maybe with another stop in between.
Hei Hei! Long time no see. I have been working really hard and barely have any time or energy for my personal projects. Also I am currently in Finland and the darkness here makes me want to sleep. I know I need to find a better work-life balance, but somewhere in 2018-19 I forgot how to. I truly am a binge-worker: my job is where I go to hide from life's problems. And with no family of my own it's just too easy for me to look at work stuff during my free time.
I was walking home earlier and I was ramdomly stopped by a stranger, an older woman wearing a lot of makeup asking me where I bought the shirt I am wearing (which is just a plain blue shirt). I told her I am not sure as it must have at least 10 years. And she went: "Wow it looks new! You kept it so well!" then she just walked away before I could finish saying "Thank you". I guess it was nice, if not a little puzzling? I do put a lot of effort into making things last and avoiding fast fashion...
i just had bad news. No one is in danger so in that sense it's OK. However it does hurt and I am a little scared. If I ask myself "will this matter in one year, or five years?" the answer is probably yes. But maybe I can't think objectively.
Ah, I was supposed to take part to a charity run tomorrow (Wings for Life World Run, for spinal chord injury research), but there was a big fire at a manufacturing plant in the area and outdoors activities are now forbidden for at least one day. This is quite sad, both the cancelled event, and the consequences of the fire. At least my donation is still valid even if I don't run, so my contribution to the cause is still there.
I am sometimes nervous about posting here: I love gemini, but I think I am in a smaller group of people here with no programming / technical knowledge, so I wonder if my updates are really just kind of boring or uninteresting for people in this space.
March, April, May are ways very *intense* at work, my days all kind of blurring together. I have been wanting to pick up some healthy habits again, but I am often too tired. Travel back and forth from Italy to Finland is also disrupting my routine (which I need to function). While this may all sound a little negative, I am actually doing OK. Better than I was at this time last year for sure. Slowly climbing back up to a happy spot.
I am back after a long hiatus.
So much happened in the past months: I've struggled with depression and panic attacks and I was feeling very low.
I know the main reason was my living situation and such.
That is now fixed: I moved to an apartment which is *mine* and I am doing things to take care of myself. I am in a stable (long distance) relationship that doesn't make me anxious and that feels right.
Everything is looking good for recovery: if now that I have removed all my sources of anxiety and sadness I am still not making progress, I guess that means the wound's too deep and I need therapy.
Tough month. Thankfully it is almost over. Tough Christmas day too! Thankfully I will be going to Vienna tomorrow to see my partner and some friends; we are celebrating New Year's Eve together and then spending some time relaxing in Vienna.
Snow and wind here in Helsinki today. It has been like this for the past 4 days. I love it (when I don't have to go outside). Not sure if my Italian genes can cope though if I have to leave the house. XD
I can't believe it's been a month already. I should update more often!
I am currently in Finland, enjoying the dark and cold I guess... Well, Finland *is* beautiful when the weather is being nice.
I am happy here though. Already dreading the moment when I will have to go back.
It's getting colder here. I really like autumn air. It reminds me of when I was a child at the end of Summer and it was time to go get new school supplies, and being excited for my first day back to school.
I am back! I am sorry for being away for so long. I've had to travel, but also just generally pause on a lot of stuff.
... and now I have a temperature! :(
On a more positive note, watched episodes 1 to 4 of Stranger Things and I am liking it so far.
My cold got very annoying last night, I didn't get to sleep much, so today I took a rest day (just some yoga, no exercise, long nap in the afternoon). I did paint an abstract landscape on a whim. I think it turned out nice, so I will probably revisit the concept soon.
Half of my brain is telling me we are too tired and should sleep all day, the other half wants to pick up Esperanto and go back to learning python... Being off from work is confusing. XD
My gemini capsule has a gemlog now and I update it usign a script I made...
I tried running but it was too hot and I am too out of shape so I only did 10 minutes, then took a long walk. It was actually quite nice anyway. Tomorrow I'll go back to an easy training plan so I can get myself back into shape and start training seriously for the charity run in a few months.
I feel like I have been away from here for ages. I think it's just a couple of weeks though?
Work has been intense... but not I am taking a couple of weeks off! My first two days off I was basically a low-energy blob of tiredness, but I am starting to feel a bit less burned out already.
I have been away for a few days: work life got *intense*.
I hope everyone in here is doing OK?
It's really hot in Italy right now, it's kind of hard to function - but I just need to survive June then I'll be in Finland enjoying some holidays!
JinJer is back in the set list for Tuska, I hope they make it. I also wish we'd read good news about the situation in Ukraine in general, but I feel like that's wishful thinking at this point.
Whever the topic of younger generations comes up, I've been trying to explain my father where their nihilism comes from, however I think the generational gap is too big for him to really understand.
All this time spent being grumpy about how adding my Now updates directly into the html page is uncomfortable, and it *just* occurred to me I can chug it into a text file and use cat.
Love, Death + Robots S3 was amazing. As good as S1 and S2 if not better. I liked each episode, but I think "Night of the Mini Dead" was my favourite because it made me smile a couple of times.
Those who reached out to me in my sad update the other day: thank you so much. It means a lot to me. <3
I need to scream into the void. Please ignore me. It's just... it all hurts so much and I feel alone. I'll be fine in a minute.
I wonder if there is a gemini ring for geminauts with Now pages...
New project: added to my capsule a list of books that changed my life. The list is small for now, but I will keep adding more. gemini://tilde.club/~melyanna/library.gmi
I have no energy today. :(
I was hoping to go for a run, or at the very least for a long walk; turns out it's too hot and I am feeling too tired to even move.
Spent all day reading and mucking around with my pi instead.
Anyone doing anything interesting with their tinylog feed?
I hear a lot of people saying they are abandoning gemini and moving on to something else (or back to the WWW) but I actually like it more in here than anywhere else.
It's been an intense day at work! Busy for sure but felt productive and went in a breeze. I feel like I could sleep for an entire week now.
Writing from my phone :)
Revamped my gemini capsule a little (also moved it to tilde to keep experimental things a bit more tidy).
gemini://tilde.club/~melyanna/
There is content I want to add and I'll move some stuff around so it soon won't look like a big wall of text anymore!
I completed my first Wings for Life World Run today!
The run is for charity and has the purpose to raise funds for research to cure spinal cord damage.
It was great fun and it feels great to have set and achieved a goal. :)
I already registered for my next one next year.
https://www.wingsforlifeworldrun.com/en
Breakups suck. I feel hollow.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.���
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Since I lost things I had in my life that made me happy, my brain now can't accept I can be happy again and just goes into "this won't last" mode whenever I am feeling happy about something in my life. How does one break this loop?
I am back... I think? How is everyone?
Not feeling my best right now. Sad and anxious.
My afternoon at work was one giant meeting-golem made of smaller meetings, from 4pm to 7pm.
Well, hello World.