There isn’t much that went on this month that I haven’t mentioned previously. School has continued to be busy, though thankfully not in a dull or overwhelming way, and the class I’m taking that’s informally described by some as “discrete math on crack” is still my most favorite. And I’m still, to my own disbelief, doing great in the class.
I spent the first week of March at home doing pretty much nothing, and once I got back to school, the two weeks that followed were a flurry of rigorous assignments and exams. By the time the end of the month came around, well, let’s just say I was less enthused by studying than usual.
I’ve also continued playing Stardew Valley, though in intermittent bouts of procrastination. About two weeks ago, I started reading Franz Kafka’s The Trial, from which I was reminded that fictional narrative is a much smoother read than textbooks or even popular science books (I felt a little better about my purported lack of reading after that). And yesterday, I spent the afternoon finishing up Algorithms to Live By, the book I’d started in January. I liked it a lot; I found the game theory chapter near the end really interesting (and lost my shit when they quoted Noam Nisan).
Ideally, next month I’d draw more, finish my crochet project from January, and revisit neglected coding projects. Realistically though, I’m not sure I’ll get around to much, because for the most part, I just want to end the semester well. I’ll also have to figure out what to do with my summer.
School has picked up the pace since January. It feels like every week now I study very hard during the weekdays and then crash over the weekend (Which is probably why I’m writing my February post over break in March…). Balancing my schedule has proven to be tricky, but it is getting better with time.
I’m learning a lot in college. For one, I went from making tiny karnaugh maps for rudimentary logic gates in Nand2Tetris to doing up to 6-variable karnaugh maps (That’s four 4x4 tables) and building much more complicated circuits. I feel like I’m able to understand exponentially more and more as I continue, and it’s pretty awesome.
Math is still my favorite class, even though it’s easily the most difficult I’ve taken yet. It turns out that proof writing is fun enough to rival calculus. Now that I can write my own proofs, revisiting proofs I’ve seen in the past is mindblowing because I can actually understand the underlying logic. We had our first exam a few weeks ago, and I scored among the best in the class, so I’m really happy about that too.
In February, I also turned 19. For a while, my birthday used to make me vaguely upset, because I’d worry about not having done enough with my life to be [insert] age, or whatnot. But now I can honestly say that I’m at peace with myself.
As for media I enjoyed this month, I started playing Stardew Valley, and continued reading my book (Algorithms to Live By), but didn’t get as far as I would’ve liked. I also haven’t finished the crochet I started (Man :horse:), so here’s to hoping I finish that and my book next month. Stardew Valley is fun, though. I like the relaxed pace of the game, and fishing, and raising chickens.
I don’t particularly enjoy just floating through life, relegated to spending time on meaningless things by exhaustion, and unwilling to acknowledge the passing of time because I feel as though I’m wasting it. So of course, the sensible thing to do is to start journaling, I guess. As in, maybe making myself reflect on what I’ve been doing every so often will compel me to spend my time more mindfully.
I figure I’d go at it by making a monthly post chronicling memorable events, and generally stating my thoughts.
So anyways, I feel pretty good about the past month. On January 5th, I went to an arts festival in a neighboring city with some friends from school. There was live music, art galleries, lots of vendors, and even a shibari artist rigging volunteers, which I’d never seen in real life before. I ended up purchasing some cool rings, which I’d been meaning to do for a while.
On January 8th, the new semester started. I’d elected to take a proofs-focused upper division discrete math class instead of discrete math for CS majors (Basically, I chose a really difficult class over a difficult class), and was anxious that I’d made the wrong decision. However, it quickly became the class I most look forward to, and I figured that even if I don’t do as well in it as I would like, it’ll be a valuable experience nevertheless.
On January 20th, I started learning how to crochet, since I’d been considering it for some time. I bought a Woobles crochet kit, and it really is as helpful as the reviews make it out to be. Here’s the last photo I have of what I was working on:
Also, I don’t remember when I started, but lately I’ve been reading Algorithms to Live By, which I’m really enjoying. It feels good to take up reading books again; I haven’t really had the motivation to read for a long time. As for other media I’ve enjoyed this month, I also played Class of ‘09 (both the OG and the re-up) with my friend on VC. It’s really unhinged, and unfortunately kind of does live up to its title as a culturally accurate game.
Finally, on January 29th (just two days ago 😭), my dorm flooded. There was a leak in the air vent so big that the garbage can I put under it filled in a matter of minutes. Less than half an hour later, the water covered the entire hardwood floor in the suite, and poured out of the front door. Because of the damage, my roommate and I ended up being permanently relocated to a different dorm in the building, so we spent the evening moving our things.
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