Remember: it's always ok to put rocks in your mouth!

Back To School (One Last Time)

Friday, 1/17/2025

My last winter break is almost over. I will go back to school in a week for my final semester of college. I feel so ready to be done with school. I want to start my next chapter in life and explore new horizons. Alas I must return to the routine once more. That's not to say I'm not excited to go back to school. I have planned a pretty easy semester and hope to spend lots of time with my friends. I also want the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to the campus and just do all of the things that make me happy there one more time. As my winter break draws to a close, I think now is a good time to assess how successful I was at completing my Winter Break To-Do list.

  • go to the library and do my regular everyday stuff there instead of in my house: didn't do
  • find a job for after I graduate, perhaps while I'm at the library: sent out applications, none have responded yet
  • spend lots of time with my doggy: done!
  • go on a couple of rock collecting trips: didn't do (too cold outside)
  • photograph my rock collection and upload it to this website: done!
  • go to that bar I've been wanting to go to, make out with a stranger there: didn't do (no friends wanted to go with + city isn't super safe at night anymore)
  • get lots of sleep: done!
  • read at least one book: started a book but didn't finish it, oops

Now, this may look like I had an unsuccessful break. I didn't even finish half of my list! However I did a few significant things that were NOT on the list that I consider to have made up for my transgressions. Allow me to demonstrate:

  • cleaned out and reorganized my entire room, donated or threw away 2/3 of my stuff (including clothes and rock collection!), of which the process took 4 days of straight cleaning
  • started my New Years resolution: Music Journey, listen to a new band every week
  • learned how to torrent safely and set up a VPN
  • started modding The Sims 4 using Sims 4 Studio, made a heavily modded classical era inspired Sims save
  • learned how to use Blender by making the classic donut, another process that took about 4 days

As you can see, I did not have a wholly unproductive break. Yes, I spent quite a bit of time watching TV, but that's not all I did! I think I balanced rest with learning and creating pretty well. Anyway, you probably won't hear from me again until sometime during the semester. See ya!

Home For The Winter

Tuesday, 12/17/2024

Finals are finally over. They got really dragged out this semester. My geomorphology professor gave us a 200-question study guide for a 35-question final exam! And pretty much every question was a long answer question. I didn't realize it was so long until a couple of days before the exam, so I ended up spending those two entire days cramming for it. I think I did pretty well but it was really stressful and I spent so much time studying that I had to put off my other finals more than I would have liked. So I ended up taking almost an antire week to finish them. I'm so glad it's over.

I have a bunch of really lofty plans for my winter break. Every year I'm like "ooh yeah let me go hang out at the library every day and excersize and make art and play a new video game and see my friends every week" and then I just end up watching TV the entire time. Lame. Anyway here's my list of things I am planning on doing and may or may not actually do over the next month and a half.

  • go to the library and do my regular everyday stuff there instead of in my house
  • find a job for after I graduate, perhaps while I'm at the library
  • spend lots of time with my doggy
  • go on a couple of rock collecting trips
  • photograph my rock collection and upload it to this website
  • go to that bar I've been wanting to go to, make out with a stranger there
  • get lots of sleep
  • read at least one book

Wish me luck.

Finals Season

Monday, 12/2/2024

I'm back on campus! My college is about 6 hours away from my house and I've previously relied on Google Maps to get there and back because it's such a long drive, but finally I was able to make the drive without navigation except for at the end (once I get off the highway I have to drive through a mess of streets to get to my college). It was actually really soothing to just drive and think about nothing and listen to music uninterrupted by the robot maps lady saying "In 3/4 of a mile, take the exit on the right."

Geology is always a little bit on my mind, but today I had to go to my geology classes and think about it actively. I am taking a geomorphology class and today we learned about karst geology. My professor defined the word "Doline" which led to my creation of this funny song:

"Doline, Doline, Doline, Doline

I'm beggin' of you, please don't take my land

Doline, Doline, Doline, Doline

Please don't take it just because you can

Your caverns are beyond compare

With speleothems everywhere

With tunnels like nobody’s ever seen

Your waters from a mountain spring

You were here before I came

But I cannot escape from you, Doline"

Yes, I did stop listening to the lecture to write this. Oops. And now I have the original stuck in my head.

So I also play rugby, and a about 5 weeks ago I ruptured my eardrum during a game. Ever since then my hearing has been all messed up and today I finally have my follow-up appointment to see how it's healing. Apparently eardrums, tiny delicate things that they are, take weeks to months to fully heal after a rupture. Mine ruptured over about a quarter of the eardrum, so it wasn't too bad, but I stillfeel like it's not fully healed yet. Also, my rugby coach banned me from doing contact until it's fully healed EVEN THOUGH my doctor said I could do contact! The nerve! I do appreciate my coach's concern but I really wanted to be able to play more than one game last season. Anyway, the season's over so I have to wait til next semester. We probably won't even play any 15s games during the spring season because it's the off season, but I hope I get to participate in a tournament or something. My eardrum has to be healed by then.

ARCANE SPOILERS

I just finished watching the second season of Arcane over break and oh my god, it was insane. I have some thoughts. First, police brutality galore! It was already strong in the first season, but they captured the horrors of police brutality in a really interesting way; when they released the Gray into the streets of Zaun, they were presented as a single-bodied monster rather than a group of people. This reflected onto other violent enemy groups: the Noxian army and Victor's Glorious Evolution. All presented with power dynamics that remove the autonomy of the individual in some way.

It was really hard to watch Vi join the enforcers. She was previously so loyal to her people and then she joined the people hurting them so that she could help hurt them. I know they were all searching for Jinx and Vi probably would have tried to save Jinx in some way, but idk it just kinda seemed like Vi sold out. Perhaps a reflection of Caitlyn's character development (descent into authoritarianism) onto Vi.

I also didn't really understand the plotline with Jayce and Viktor. First, Jayce's descent into madness was explained a little bit, but I thought it was odd how his madness didn't really stick around. It was jarring to see Jayce go from the panicked state in which he killed Viktor to the much calmer state in which he interacted with Mel, especially because he seemed to have some insanity-inducing voices in his head or something during the former, but then those voices were absent during the latter. Also, the way that Jayce and Viktor escaped the hexcore didn't really make sense to me. What was that burst of light at the end supposed to represent. Where was Jayce's body during that?

There was a lot I didn't understand, possibly because I watched the episodes over a bunch of disjointed sessions. I think I need to rewatch in a few months.

Anyway, that's all for today. Signing off.

Thanksgiving Break

Wednesday, 11/27/2024

I've been at my grandparents' house since last night. The drive was horribly insanely long (7 hours). There were so many traffic slowdowns. The Google Maps navigation lady kept saying "There is a 27 minute slowdown up ahead. You are still on the fastest route." It was miserable.

Last night, my sibling and I played the Untitled Goose Game. I forgot how much I love that game. I kind of wish you could play it on two different Switches, because sharing a screen with my sibling is... frustrating, let me just say. Our geese kept trying to go in different directions. We are bad at teamwork. We are not drift compatible. But it was fun playing the game again because we remembered most of the secret quests but we couldn't remember how to do them.

Then earlier today, my sibling and I took a hike up to a nearby waterfall. It was loud but a great view. Rocks paragraph at the bottom of this. I would post pictures of it if I wasn't paranoid about someone hunting me down using said pictures. Anyway, I'm glad to be here with my family. As much as I love my college, it gets tiring being in the same place, no sibling to bully, no doggy to pet, for months like I do during the semester.

After the hike, I have been helping my grandmother cook and bake for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I don't particularly like the official Thanksgiving narrative, but I like the food and time with my family so I still celebrate it. Anyway, I was helping my grandmother peel some apples for an apple crumble, which is when I learned that I am absolutely terrible at peeling apples! I think I probably cut more apple than I should have just trying to get the skins fully peeled off. She didn't seem bothered, though.

Here's a description of the rocks we saw for any fellow geologists. Grayish red sandstone, breaks off in layers of roughly 2-3 inches. Pretty fine grained (might be considered a coarse siltstone). All outcrops had the same unconformity in the layers. Very mild dip. Weathers into a smooth, cool gray. Many were iron stained, possibly due to the iron rich waters of the area.

The Start of My Blogging Career

Wednesday, 11/27/2024

Let me paint you a picture: You just got to your grandparents' house after a six hour drive. The night before, you stayed up too late learning HTML because you wanted to make one of those ugly y2k websites. All you were able to think about on the drive was what things you might put on the website. You might be autistic. You spent the drive listening to Bo Burnham so you wouldn't fall asleep behind the wheel, because instead of filling your thermos with caffeinated tea, you filled it with apple cider and then it was too hot to drink anyway. Now you understand where the energy that drove the creation of this website came from.

Anyway, this is my first blog post. I'm going to post about Thanksgiving break right after this. I want to try to maintain this blog but I have no idea how much I'll actually do.