J's randomosity

So...

Looking at things now, I can see that it has been over a year since I last posted.

Back then, I was at the end of a contract, finally created my own website, and got my grades at grad school.

About all of that...

Update from last year~

The contract

That new contract has also ended, but I re-applied and got renewed for a year.

It was a bit troublesome actually.

I didn't want to renew the contract, but they needed more people to fill the spots, so I relented. The former dean did help me a lot and I felt like I owed her a bit.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be poor decision-making on my part.

I shouldn't have made a decision based on what I "owe" people. I should have stuck to my own decisions.

So, what happened was... I re-applied, got renewed for year, re-applied when that was over, didn't get renewed.

What's worse is that I made the decision myself to re-apply this time. The new dean did keep reminding me to re-apply, so there's that, too.

Unfortunately, the higher-ups decided that they didn't want to renew my contract because of some bogus claims that ended up in my record.

Not a good thing.

It's not something I really wanted to fight though.

To be perfectly honest, I was very eagerly waiting the end of the contract. I wanted to be free of it because of the changes that are happening in the way things are done.

I didn't like those changes and being a contractual worker means you don't got much say when changes happen.

So, this puts me in both a good place and a bad place.

The good thing is that I am finally out of that place. Plus, I got to leave without feeling like I still owed anyone anything.

The bad thing is that this puts me in a place where I got no work contracts at all.

I couldn't handle the workload of having two work contracts plus grad school, so I let go of my older contract.

Nothing was happening there anymore and I figured it was time to go.

My mistake was counting on getting renewed because of word from some people. On the new contract, I mean.

I thought I could get another year in, so I didn't seek out another contract during the summer break.

I should have. I did know about that issue and also knew that I couldn't do anything about it. My mistake was not getting ahead of it.

Like I said, good place, bad place.

Grad school~

Grad school is going rather well.

After finally getting those grades, I got to enroll in the graduate research course. When I finished my paper, I finally got to the thesis writing part.

And, yes, I did start that already!

I defended my thesis outline back in July and now I got to write and defend my thesis proposal.

That's coming up next.

About everything else~

Right now, I can only look for a new contract.

A few months ago...

Wait, it might have been over a year ago now.

Anyway...

I turned my TwiXtter account "professional."

Since then, I didn't really know where to put my just whatever...

Until today!

Why did I forget about this space? This was always my "post whatever here" space on the Internet.

There is even a tab still open for this on my browser!

A lot and not much at the same time~

Not sure where I was since I last posted, but I'm sure I once again meant to write something every day.

As happened in previous attempts, I couldn't keep up with it.

There's always something.

This time, it was going back to work.

Actually, I think that has been the reason at least a couple of times now.

I attempt to create a new routine based on my current situation, but my situation changes all too soon and the routine is broken before it starts.

So, yeah...

The holidays were over and we all had to go back to work. There wasn't time to do the writing thing again and nor could I find the time for it.

Now that I think about it... That's kinda wrong.

I agree with them when they said that you could never "find" the time. If it's something you truly want to do, then you'll make the time for it. Regardless of circumstances, there will always be a way to do the things you want to do. If you prioritize it, that is.

On to that recap...

Three things:

My contract with my part-time job ended, but we got a new one this March 🎉

Finally created that home on the web that I've always wanted: joanadvincula.xyz 🎉

Finally got an all-blue on my academic record at grad school 🎉

That contract~

It's a part-time job at a local uni. We apply every term and we get a new contract every term. If they still want us, of course.

Only, the contracts nor the pay don't come very quick.

We were required to start working again during the middle of March. The contract didn't come until April and we only got paid for March just the other day.

It takes a while, so I'm feeling blessed not to be dependent on that pay.

That home on the web~

I've always wanted my own website. For what purpose, I'm not sure. I must have had a purpose when I first wanted it, but now I'm not sure.

Still, I went and created it. It's an investment I guess. Whether a return will come will depend on what I put in it.

I've held that domain for like a couple of years now. It used to be attached to my Hashnode dev blog - another attempt at writing more. For some reason, the link broke. I did not make the time to reconnect it, so the domain sat unused.

Until I got my own hosting. For now, it's a home to a couple of articles and some lesson notes.

I'm not satisfied with what it looks like right now. I'll work on it.

That all-blue~

It means I'm finally done with my incomplete.

This happened just the other day actually. Out of the nowhere, our course instructor tells us that two of us who got incompletes will be receiving grades already.

On the same day that I set aside to revise my research that the course instructor said needed some work!

I don't know why she suddenly decided that, but I wasn't gonna ask any questions. I said thank you and that's that 🎉

And we're done~

For this time.

So that's what's been on since January. I'm pretty sure there's things I've not remembered, but those are the biggest ones that come to mind right now.

Actually, it's been raining since before the year turned.

These last few days, it has just been raining hard and almost all day every day that we've got new swimming pools all around the neighborhood!

Kidding aside, the rain's been pouring a lot that's it's been too much. There's flooding everywhere.

As I write, the rain started pouring again. I thought it was finally gonna let up, but it seems it's gonna keep going.

Back to that flooding...

This is about my writing, of course.

I really didn't have a choice. I was up late on Sunday evening because of stuff I had to work on.

Then, yesterday was so busy my work day started at 7am and didn't finish until 4pm. It would have been 5pm, but we were sent home early due to heavy rains. It's still raining until now.

Afterwards, I had a Zoom session starting 6:15pm. It was supposed to end at 9pm, but they were too busy chatting up about random things at the start and during the whole thing that it didn't finish until about 10pm.

As much as I want to build my writing habit, I also want to give myself the chance to get proper sleep.

It's been plenty messed up since Christmas Eve.

Between building my writing habit and getting a good sleep, I made the choice to prioritize sleep.

I don't know if that was a good idea, but sleep is very important. I'm sure there's been plenty of writing and research about it that I don't have to be the one to persuade anyone about its importance.

For now, I will stick to that thing they said about building habits: Don't be too hard on yourself. It's OK to miss once. Don't beat yourself up about it. Just make sure you do not miss twice in a row.

So, that's what I'm trying to do right now.

That Zoom is still happening. We're going to have sessions until Saturday. It's a training, after all. It wasn't gonna end after one night.

Normally, I shouldn't be doing this because writing about something else while being in the middle of training is not a good idea. I'll be missing a lot if things if it was that kind of training.

It's not, though. The content that is being shown right now is not something that I will benefit from.

At least, not as far as I can tell.

It's an overview of an app that I am already using.

Frankly, I didn't think it will be like this.

Then again, it is supposed to be a beginner-friendly training.

I suppose it makes sense.

I'll talk more about that training when I can.

For now, I'll have to leave it here.

Hopefully, I'll have more time for this tomorrow.

Birthdays happen all the time.

It is also someone's birthday today. Many someones actually.

There's not a day in the calendar that is not someone's birthday. Which is why birthdays on February 29th are really odd.

How many times have I said "birthday" already?

Different people have different thoughts about this particular day.

For some people, it is a day to mark another year that has passed. Which means that they have another year added to their age. In other words, they simply got older. Nothing more.

Women, they say, are very sensitive about age.

They say it's bad form to ask a woman her age.

Personally, I don't mind.

Being older means I've survived another year of life. And, for someone like me who has a very colorful medical history, another year of life sounds brilliant.

It's why I love that quote:

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why they call it present."

For the birthday over here, it was my partner's mom's birthday.

She lives in a different town, about an hour and a half away from here, so off we went!

We were supposed to travel last Friday, but we got delayed because we were waiting for something that might arrive within the day.

It didn't. Unfortunately.

So, we went yesterday.

Thankfully, it was still all good because it was no trouble doing some of the celebrations at night.

We actually ended up staying up until about midnight.

I like it there.

Her place is the epitome of the simple life.

The house is modest but sufficient for her to live in. She practically has no electronics inside. The only things in there that require electricity are light bulbs and a transistor radio.

Her electricity bill is so low, it sounds like a joke all the time.

Although, she is very particular about that bill. We were joking that her bill for this month would increase tenfold because of our extended use of the lights and the sound system that the neighbors brought over.

She joked back and seemed OK with it. Of course, the bill for the month is yet to be seen, so...

The house also has a wide yard area. Unlike most yards, for example, ours, hers is not wasted.

There's all sorts of vegetables, fruit trees, root crops, and other stuff all around the place.

There's even coffee!

Not coffee in bags or something like that. Real, actual, coffee trees. (Or bushes, or whatever they're called.)

Of course, with all that are the sounds of nature. Cicadas, frogs, whatever them creatures that make noise at night.

If it was cars and trucks being so loud, it would have been massively annoying. Them creatures were a fun listen.

It's fascinating!

If my work didn't depend on solid Internet connectivity, I would have wanted to stay longer.

Unfortunately, we had to leave early.

I know it's a Sunday, but circumstances at work required me to report today.

These are the sounds of New Year's 2023.

Or, at least, they are for us.

This recording was started on 12:59 pm of December 31st, 2022. In other words, this recording spans two years. (Sort of.)

I am writing this on January 7th, 2023. At this time, all the New Year's celebrations have all practically gone away.

2022 is defnitely over.

2023 is here.

The year has already changed over in all parts of the world. Except, I guess, for those like the Chinese who follow a different calendar or something. I'm sure we'll be celebrating that one when it comes as well.

New Year's this 2023 was more fun than in the last couple of years. After all, this is the first New Year's since the pandemic that there isn't much of the pandemic anymore.

People actually came out of their homes this year and made the fun noise they used to make before.

Of course, it's still not as brilliant as it was.

If you can understand the language in the recording, you will hear that we were looking forward to the fireworks, but we didn't see much of them this year.

In the years before the pandemic, there were at least two fireworks displays in our area from at least two different neighborhoods. This year, we only saw one and they didn't start immediately at midnight. They only started maybe 10, 15 minutes after the year turned and the display did not last a minute.

Instead, as you would hear from the recording, we got police cars and rescue vehicles.

Until today, I still have no idea whether they were on patrol, on a mission, or just joining in on all the noisemaking.

There is a possibility that it is all of the above. Whatever they were doing, it definitely added to the slightly less than wild noise of the New Year.

Frankly, this is not surprising.

While we may be mostly out of the woods (so to speak) when it comes to the pandemic, people are still wary about a lot of things, including being in public with lots of people. There were still fewer people out this time than there used to be.

So, maybe we aren't all ready for festivities just yet.

The bigger factor probably is the massive inflation that has hit our country. It's probably the same in other parts of the world, but our country is not the rich type, so the non-rich people are really feeling the impact of the rising costs.

Apparently, free fireworks displays for New Year's are not on top of the list for anyone in our neighborhood this time.

Even the most ardent could fold if the costs go just beyond reach.

This is not a good omen for 2023.

If things continue in this direction, we might not even have a single glimpse of fireworks in 2024.

I had trouble sleeping last night. My brain was buzzing even well past midnight. Recently, I noticed that I get sleepy earlier in the evening. It didn't happen last night. I have no idea why it happened, but it was probably because of the things that were churning in my head.

Or just the energy drink I had to stay awake for New Year's!

I know it's been a few days, but still...

Well, whatever it was, I did eventually just fall asleep. I don't know what time it was, but it was probably from sheer exhaustion.

All that said, I really just wanted to get started on writing again...

So, here we are.

It's 2023!

Welcome to another start in my periodic quest to write every day!

Like I said in the title, the theme of the year is restoration.

The pandemic did all sorts of different things for all sorts of different people.

Taylor Swift was really productive and produced two albums in one year during this time. Made all of us look plenty lazy. Me, included.

Instead of being more productive, I got less productive. The pandemic restricted a lot of activity, most of them things that we took for granted and expected to simply be able to do every day without question or thought.

Now that I think about it, I couldn't adjust very well. It didn't help that I started a new job in 2021: a part-time instructor at a local uni.

That was when I got way less productive.

Well, technically, I was productive in the area of being an instructor, but not in the things I usually do.

Last year, 2022, the pandemic started waning for real. There's still cases today, of course, but it's not something we are not too alarmed about anymore. It's probably gonna stick with us forever now. Like regular coughs and colds. It's now another one of those diseases that we could possibly get just anytime.

So, hopefully, 2023 will be a good year for me to start try and get back to those old things.

This is where the restoration part comes in.

The first step was to find and use a tracking app. I found a habit tracker called Timecap. Seems decent, so I'm using that.

Here are a couple of things I am simply tracking:

Play I'm tracking this because, even without the recaps from my various apps and platforms, I know I played way less than I used to. Probably comes with the territory of having more work, but I want to change that.

Read Unfortunately, I also read way less last year. Goodreads says I only read 12 books last year. That's barely an average of one book a month. Definitely not a good look, especially with a record of 26 in 2021 and 43 in 2020. Yes, it's been a downhill ride. I hope to change that this year and finish well over 12 this time.

I'm tracking them so I can see how much time I'm spending on them. Or, how little.

A couple of things I am building:

Exercise Before the pandemic, I was cycling practically every day. The lockdowns and the quarantines did not do me a favor when it came to exercise. I ended up doing this way less until I couldn't anymore. I did have a period with the boxing app on my Switch, but I couldn't stick with it either. I want to try again. Although... I did not have a good start with this one today. I woke up to something terrible, so I couldn't get started. Probably just an excuse, but we'll see.

Learn Japanese Another one of those things that got disrupted. I had a really nice streak and it was going so well, until a period of disruption upset my progress. I've had to reset maybe twice now. I'm wondering now whether I should reset again, but that's another thing we'll see.

Write This one I seem to be having a good start on. I don't know how long it will last this time, but I hope longer. There's a routine change coming at the start of next week, though, so that's something that does not bode well for this. Still, gotta start somehow, right?

An aside... Like I always do when I want to start writing again, I got hung up for a good time on where to write. It's a good thing I already had something in mind: since we're talking about restoration I thought to use one of my old blogs. I had something in mind, but I was misremembering it. It didn't look like I thought it did. So, I spent some time looking at these old spaces. This old Tumblr blog is it this time. The last post is actually from January 2nd, 2022. It's not even an actual post, just a share from Instagram. The last real post is from August 23rd, 2019 - one of my sort of rants about Descendants 3. So, it's been over three years...

In another note, I also wanted to change the theme. I almost got stuck on that again, but I realized what I was doing, so I got to stop myself and just picked the top result: Tumblr Official.

No qualms, no thinking too hard. Any space will do, so just get on with it!

Now, I don't have a good record with these habit tracking things. I get tired of them after a while. The longest I've gone is probably just a couple of weeks. Hope it will be different this time.