On Trains

First Published: 2025 September 12 (no service on trains and then forgotten)

N.B. Draft 2 is rambly, sad, and generally disorganized. That is to say, Draft 2 is like me right now.

Draft 2: 8 September 2025

When I was in high school, I talked with my best friend about doing a road trip across all of Interstate 80. We didn’t end up doing it before undergrad, because we were too busy. In the summer before my graduate school, then, I really planned on doing it. That summer was 2020, however, and suddenly the idea of going cross country by car became both more and less feasible. I am now done with graduate school, and by most objective standards have reached the pinnacle of schooling; this is my last chance for a post graduation travel celebration. Even though I haven’t been writing as much here as I would’ve liked this summer¹, I do feel like the fact that I traveled a lot is still clear. From June 1st to yesterday, I put more than 6000 miles on my car.

I’m pretty sure 6000 miles gets me most of the way across the US. Even if it was mostly in a spiderweb shape, rather than a line, then, it’s as though I did what I had set out to do. So, trains felt like the best way to visit friends, because I had the hope that they’d be less of a nightmare than flying. In what is no surprise at all, they are.

I’m hoping that these weeks of travel can be for me a kind of resetting. I will be entering corporate America starting in October, and while I am very excited for the fact, I am also somewhat nervous. I don’t know what that life will be like, and I feel like I’m kind of wasting my degree. However, I am also almost entirely burned out of thinking, especially about chemistry. This month will, if nothing else, be a period of time with no obligations on my mind.

I’m finding myself more and more emotional as I think about the trip. I think that part of me is still feeling cheated by the fact that my mom was unable to watch me graduate. Another part of me is just generaly worried about not having a place I can retreat to for the rest of the month; normally when I feel like life is too much I can either go to my apartment, or if things are particularly bad, back home. I suppose that since I’m only doing my bookings a week or so in advance, I can always cancel, but that feels like the worst answer.

Anyways, trains are great because they’re way more spacious and travel feels much more real than on a plane. When I see cars pass by slowly or be passed by slowly, I am connected to the sense of getting between points in a way that airplanes cannot do. Unlike driving, I can stand up and stretch, take a nap, or just close my eyes for a bit without negative consequences.

The train is just now hitting the part of Montana responsible for having mountains on the horizon.² This is not my first time seeing the Rockies, or even my first time traveling through them. I do think that this might be my first time going through the Rockies³ since what feels like my family’s last great road trip. I must have been ten or so, and we decided to drive to the West Coast to see my mom’s family. I remember watching math lectures on DVD with my brothers, far too much Homestar Runner, and listetning and singing along to so much great music. I remember going to see family, and I remember the lawyers in my family telling me that I should become a lawyer. I think that I remember going to a National Park or four.

I don’t remember my mom’s voice as we drove. I don’t remember what I wore. I don’t remember the feeling of love as she wrapped me in a hug, back when she was still taller than me.

Life is a train, I’m sure I’ve heard said before. While being on these first hours of train time, I’ve been thinking about the 1970’s song “City of New Orleans”, which is about a train. It’s also about America, the death of small towns, and the loss of innocence.⁴ The train stopped for a half hour or so in some middle of nowhere town in rural Montana; we were ahead of schedule. With the town less than an hour behind me, I have already forgotten its name. I remember that there was an Ace, and that they were fundraising for some children’s event.

If life is a train, what are the stops?

Last night I slept through all of the state of Minnesota. Or, at least, I have no memories I can pin to the state. It is more than possible that I was at some point awake, whether complaining to myself about a neighbor⁵ or just bemoaning my inability to sleep through the night. How much of my own life have I slept through? What vast swaths of temporal land have I just let pass me by completely unnoted?

If life is a train, I would have said that my mom was the conductor. I don’t mean this in a domineering way, she was just the person I went to for all my questions and life concerns. Without her, I find that I don’t know who to turn to when I have questions.

If life is a train, what place does fath have?

That feels forced, but I’m thinking about how trains are so far from a faith object. There’s a comment on my web novel I think about a lot, which caused me to learn that concrete the noun is much younger than the adjective. That is, someone looked at concrete and went “yeah that seems pretty definite”. Similarly, trains are behemoths of steel and oil. They travel with no freedom, bound by the tracks that countless men laid. I have been thinking about my own relationship to faith a lot lately. Am I like the train, living a life not just needless of faith, but in active oposition to it?

If life is a train, what am I?

Draft 1: 8 September 2025

I’m officially just over a day into my post graduation⁶ celebratory trip. I decided to celebrate by going on a long train trip.

Mostly, that decision came because I’ve been feeling really burned out of driving lately.⁷ I want to visit many of the friends that have asked me to visit them through the ages, and I wanted to not deal with flights, because I hate planes in many regards. I had a memory of one of the guys I dove with while studying abroad⁸ talking about how good the train system in the US is for getting around the country. Since I didn’t want to drive, didn’t really want to fly, the old classic trio left me with a single other option.

And so, yesterday I drove down to the singular city which Amtrak uses to connect the east and west⁹, saw a friend¹⁰, and boarded a train to follow the advice once given to the founder of my home town “go west”. My initial thoughts upon getting onto the train were that trains are just miles away better than planes. Each seat is more than large enough for me to comfortably sit, there’s no judgement for wandering, and there was literally no security. I brought what I’m pretty sure is more bags than I was supposed to. I’m the only one in my row of two seats, which is also really nice. I love that the seat assignments are hand-done still.

Anyways, perhaps because of the nature of the novelty of train tripping, perhaps because of the absence of WiFi, and perhaps because semidaily¹¹ musing is my jam, I did not write a folly. With that in mind, given that it’s currently not yet 11 am central and that I am in the mountain time soon, I figured now would be a good time to blog aobut trains. Except, having written these three and a bit paragraphs, I realize that I don’t really have that much else to say about trains. I guess it’s time to go ahead and flip the coin between finishing binding the book and reading a paper book. I think that I’ll start with binding the web novel because I am enjoying a podcast¹² and want to finish it. We’lll see what I feel like doing by the time that the podcast is over. Likely either sit and silently do the binding, another podcast, or read “the Nonviolent Alternative”, which I think was in my mother’s theology collection before she gave it to me. I’ll be back for draft two!

Daily Reflection 8 September 2025

• Did you journal by hand today?

  I did! I also did yesterday, even if I didn’t write my folly then.

• Did you do a folly?

  Not yesterday, sadly enough. I’m about to do one now though.

• Did you in some way, shape, or form advance the web novel?

  No. That’s a little bit sad, but it’s also only Monday. I’m sure that in the next few days I’ll have the time and mental space to do so.

• Did you work on music, whether education or creation?

  I was getting ready to bind my undergraduate composition professor’s favorite text¹³ when I realized that I had packed a book on program music instead. That was sad.

• Did you work on book binding?

  See above.

• Did you work on another hobby?

  Video games, otherwise not really.

• Did you stretch? Really?

  I did! Last night at like 9pm I did a quick 5 minute stretch in the back of the train car. Might do more after this.

• Prayer?

  I packed a rosary, at least.

• Meditation?

  Kind of. I historically¹⁴ have daydreamed my way to sleep, but last night in particular I went for the whole “I may or may not be able to sleep like this, so at the very least we can do the Mythbusters approved meditate which gets me most of the benefits.” Wow meditation is boring.

• Reading?

  I read Chaotic Craftsman so much yesterday. However, it is an incredibly long book, and so I only made it through I think about 200 chapters.¹⁵.

• Minimizing screen time?

  Not even at all in the slightest. A part of me is unsure how much I really want to, but I guess that’s a question for another time. I suppose that I do really want to read the books that I packed, so I might start on that. Assuming I can finish one of them within the next 15 hours, I might be able to give it away, and therefore both reduce the size and weight (reduce both?) of my luggage, and also give a gift to my hosts.

Current Pen List¹⁶

• Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Diplomat Caribbean (8/30ish)

• Jinhao Shark: Diplomat Caribbean (8/30ish)

• Pilot Preppy: Private Reserve Electric DC Blue I think (I think since late june. I think)

• Sheaffer: Private Reserve Spearmint (since 7/15) (I Think)

On Words for Rare Knowledge

First Published: 2025 September 6

Draft 2: 6 September 2025

Now that I’m officially a doctor, I get to live the dream that I’ve had on some level motivating me since I was a child: the power to define and redefine words as I see fit.¹ I’ve also been thinking a lot about knowledge, and since I was unable to get a chapter on theory of knowledge and science in particular in my thesis², this next period of the page might be filled with my attempts to come to one.³ I’d like to find some like fundamental set of reading for theory of knowledge, and it just as writing that occurred to me I can do that. Turns out “epistemology” is the study of theory of knowledge, which is definitely something I once knew. Although I am a firm believer that reading primary sources is often useful, as a chemist I am also a firm believer that often there’s synthetic information⁴ that is not easily or often transmitted in the original sources. With that in mind, I’ve found a few texts that might help me with my epistemology, which is great!⁵

Where was I?

Oh right.

As a doctor and a person interested in knowledge, I want to be precise in my language usage, especially here.⁶ The world, at least as I’ve known it, loves the idea of secret and hidden knowledge. Or, being fully clear, it loves the idea of rare knowledge.

What does it mean for knowledge to be rare?

It can mean any number of things to any number of people. From last draft⁷, we have that this knowledge can be hidden,⁸ require the learner⁹ to change their view on reality¹⁰,¹¹, be understood at some intuitive and uncommon level,¹² or be mysterious.¹³ In that set of distinctions, I did of course level the fact that knowledge can be hidden of its own accord (it’s not always obvious to people the outcomes of their actions) or by an agent (as is popular in conspiracy thinking), the fact that the intuitive knowledge may be ancillary or required, and the fact that mystery means many things to many people. Still, these are some good starting places. Let’s see what other words people use for rare knowledge, and see how we might use these distinctions.

We’ve:

• recondite: from the Latin past participle of “to conceal”. Cool, so occult knowledge is knowledge which is hidden of its own accord and recondite knowledge which is hidden by an external agent. The MW¹⁴ definition for the word suggests....

• condite: pickled or preserved. There’s something to be said for knowledge rare by virtue of having been preserved and therefore unquestioned. I cannot think of many times that I’ll need to care about it, but I guess we’ll keep it in the back pocket. Looking at its synonym page:

• esoteric: for the specially initiated. I think that’s good enough on its own. Esoterica are things which require understanding some fundamental set of axioms and facts¹⁵ before they can be understood. Much of physical chemistry is esoteric. Great.

• profound: difficult for normies.¹⁶ I have no interest in using profound most of the time. By virtue of being rare I feel like most knowledge has to be profound, but maybe I’m too optimistic in others. I feel like if learning something is easy, people will do it.

• abtruse: as with profound. We’re going to skip words I don’t plan to use moving forward.

• hermetic: related to the works of Hermes Trismegistus. Generally I’ll use this as knowledge which must be revealed from a physical agent to be learned or understood. That will stand in contrast to some word meaning revealed by a non-physical agent¹⁷ and is often going to be recondite and esoteric. The truly hermetic works may very well be condite.

• cryptic: MW says hidden or ambiguous meaning. I’m going to take ambiguous, and say that something like a Zen Koan is cryptic. That is, the goal is less the knowledge itself as the pondering which is of value.

• mystic: MW says mysterious which makes sense when I look at the letters. I’m going to use mystic knowledge to refer to supernatural knowledge, standing in contrast to hermetic knowledge.¹⁸

• numinous: MW says supernatural or mysterious, also filled with divinity or spiritual. I’ll use numinous rarely, I have to imagine. I guess internally I feel like mystic has an element of experiential knowledge, while numinous doesn’t. Great.

  We’ll see if that difference bears out.

•  acintya: from looking up koans, I learn this is the Sanskrit word for unanswerable questions. I’ll use that in place of Koan?

  Maybe not.

  Looks like a better usage is for knowledge which obscures future knowledge. I can absolutely see the use in something like that. Since eldritch knowledge requires viewing creation¹⁹ differently, it will likely obscure other facts.²⁰

What about magic?

I think that magic might be for things which aren’t known but are actionable. That is, if I have a box that tells me the weather, that’s magic. For most people,²¹ a computer is magic. Magic is that which is not known.

Do I want to somehow distinguish the weather box that is unknowable from the computer, which is theoretically knowable? Do I want to distinguish being able to understand parts but not the whole²²?

We’ll see if it comes up. Why is this relevant? Oh, that’s probably a great thing to cover too.

New draft time?

Nah, let’s²³ figure out the reason why here.

I think that knowledge is not commonly held for a number of reasons. I was talking to friends last night, and one of them mentioned that in Psychology, there’s a growing idea that it is useful to learn about the emotional words with no direct cognates in a given language, as they can potentially help others to better understand or name their experience. Even before that, though, the idea of unknown or not-widely known knowledge being for a number of reasons is something that’s entranced me.

Is this related to my faith questions at all? Honestly I don’t know. Probably, since on some level it’s also my whole “what do I know and what do I believe?” thing. I’m hopefully²⁴ never going to be a pure Descartian “all I can prove is that I am having thoughts”, and generally am completely fine with the idea of knowledge, objective reality, and the transmission of both.

That’s probably a good thing to have printed on the top of each page of philosophy I read. There’s something to be said for “touch grass” as a general catch-all for “if you have an issue with acting in the world from learning something new, maybe you shouldn’t base your life on it”. Then I do get to the whole concept of a useful lie, which is ope another whole thing I need to consider.

What are things which are untrue but used to lead to greater truth?

Model is a word, useful lie is a term. I think that both ill serve my purpose for now. A lot of esoteric knowledge is recondite because learning the useful lies which prepare you for understanding the occult knowledge hide the deeper fact. As an example, people hate the idea of the electron cloud because we learn the ball and stick model, and then the orbital model. The fact that electrons co-exist in the same space feels even harder to understand because we have explanations for the behavior. Should I try to come up with an example of each form of hidden knowledge and explanation?

Probably.

Will I? Eh.

Let’s just write up the words here and call it for the day. I don’t want to burn out on writing, and this is a solid more than two thousand words.²⁵

Draft 1: 6 September 2025

Something that’s bothered me for a while is the idea that we have so many words which mean the exact same thing. In general, words have slightly different flavors of meaning, which is totally fine for me. When talking about knowledge, especially knowledge which is not widely held, there does not seem to be this same distinction. Since I’ve already accepted that what I write here is going to be explicitly and intentionally²⁶ using language in a way that is not the norm. With that in mind, I want to start distinguishing the words for rare knowledge, especially because I am about to embark on a train journey where I have the intention of reading a number of philosophical works.²⁷

So, then, what words do I need to find a specific flavor for? I’m going to go through them as I can think of them, and then compile at the end.

Having just watched a video about Albert the Great, I will accept that occult means hidden. That is, occult knowledge is not simply unused by virtue of being boring or just undesired; it is actively suppressed or kept from sight. I feel like I want a way to distinguish knowledge which is hidden on its own account and knowledge which is hidden by some deeper power. That’s something to keep in mind going forward.²⁸

I really want the word eldritch to come with connotation of causing a fundamental change in the receiver. That is, knowledge is eldritch when being able to understand it means that you must see the rest of the world differently forever. I have a whole idea of a post about the idea that all knowledge is fundamentally eldritch, but then I think that I’ll get into something circular. For now, I’ll just stay with eldritch knowledge cannot be learned without changing oneself in a deep and permanent fashion.

Gnosis is a popular term whenever you talk to Gnostics or annoying Catholics.²⁹ It’s the Greek word for knowledge, but generally has a connotation of being secret. It also has a denotation, according to the internet, of being intuitive. From this, I’ll take the intuition portion. Knowledge is gnostic³⁰ when it can only be understood at an intuitive level. Or, at least, it is gnostic when it is understood at an intuitive level. Hmm, I feel like there’s a difference between fundamentally gnostic and practically gnostic words. Another place we might have an option.

Arcane is another word. Arcane just comes from “arcanum”, a second-declension noun meaning secret or mystery. I don’t really want to get into the whole “mystery means something different in the Catholic tradition”, but I’m happy for arcane knowledge to be information³¹ which is counterintuitive or mysterious.

Ok I realize now (see above footnote)³² that I need to reframe this entire post. So, Draft Two, here we go.

Daily Reflection 6 September 2025

• Did you journal by hand today?

  No, also not yesterday, for all that I had planned to.

• Did you do a folly?

  Not yesterday; not having WiFi³³ does a lot to prevent me from writing on my preferred site.

• Did you in some way, shape, or form advance the web novel?

  Not yesterday, but I have about half of it bound and the other half folded. I’m planning to spend some time tonight doing the rest of the binding, but I did also just bind a book for a friend, and so I don’t want to burn out of it.

• Did you work on music, whether education or creation?

  No, but I did listen to a lot and I made a playlist for a³⁴ future friend.

• Did you work on book binding?

  Yeah! As mentioned above.

• Did you work on another hobby?

  I packed! I also played some video games, which are a hobby for all that I don’t want them to be. Also I have been reading a lot of a web novel I really enjoy, “Chaotic Craftsman Worships the Cube”, which I hope to once again finish soon.

• Did you stretch? Really?

  Not a lot, but some! I will do more stretching when I get back to my apartment, but in order to get back to my apartment I need to accept an absence of WiFi or internet generally.³⁵

• Prayer?

  Not a lot, but I do still say a Lux Aeterna³⁶ every time I go by a cemetery³⁷, and I went to a Shabbat dinner last night, which included some explicit prayer.

• Meditation?

  I was felling incredibly stressed going to the Shabbat last night, and so I did some intentional breathing then. Other than that, I guess that I’m trying to quiet my mind before sleep lately. Right now I’m not wearing headphones and not listening to anything in particular, despite the fact that I am in public and so therefore near enough to people that I cannot say I’m in silence.

• Reading?

  Other than the web novel mentioned above, I caught back up with the book about soccer my brother and I enjoy.

• Minimizing screen time?

  Not at all! Wooo, go me. I will hopefully start on this later, when I can think on paper rather than here.³⁸

Current Pen List³⁹

• Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Diplomat Caribbean (8/30ish)

• Jinhao Shark: Diplomat Caribbean (8/30ish)

Monthly Reflection

First Published: 2025 September 4

Draft 1: 4 September 2025

Another month gone by!

I finished my defense, which in retrospect was probably as all-consuming as I should have expected. Sadly, I did not keep up on this site, nor did I really do much of anything else. This next month, however, I have nothing scheduled other than travel and seeing friends, which means that I can get back to the things that are important to me in general situations. I don’t realllly feel like doing a look back at last month’s stuff, but that’s a part of the tradition so.

...

...

...

Oh, so the only stuff that I looked forward to was my defense and my birthday. Wait wait, my birthday was also last month. Wow that feels so very long ago, even if I can intellectually recognize that it wasn’t.

Anyways, I defended, and am therefore Dr. Let’s spend this space thinking about my monthly goals and daily goals and whatnot.

...

I want to do daily follies, and since I have nothing else scheduled, that should be doable? I have an idea to start making a dictionary of terms as I’m going to use them, because I don’t really care what the standard meaning of words is, especially in context of wanting to distinguish similar ideas. The more I learn about philosophers, the more it seems like that’s a thing that they do a lot, so as a Doctor of Philosophy¹, I too have that right.

As a child I used to be told that doctors get the right to make up new terms, which is something I plan to take advantage of as well.

I want to get back into my web novel, which will likely involve reading some emotionally charged notes from readers.² In order to do that, I should like³ to reread the book, because I have forgotten much of it. Since I’m generally trying to be on screens less⁴, I think that I’ll set it up to print and print it out today? That could be fun.

I want to get back into hobbies, even if I’m not sure which.

I have to write the song for a wedding, so that could be a thing that I should start on basically right away? I have the few books on composing that I have been wanting to read for a while, so can treat them together. I plan on binding the books for the different things that I want to read, which is a related, though distinct hobby.

Could be fun to bring a ball of yarn with me and just see whether I make anything fun out of it?⁵ Might as well.

I want to improve my physical health. Mostly, I think that means that I want to be stretching much more than I am, because oof am I unflexible and tight⁶. Eating better is also an idea, though the fact that I’m traveling more or less non stop might make that a bit of a nonstarter. I could spend some time thinking of a good stretching routine. Right now I’m too inflexible in my shoulders that my default shoulder stretches seem terrifyingly difficult.

I want to read more, and especially more high brow stuff. With that in mind, I did also print out a bunch of books, and I have even more I’m planning to pack with me.

I should absolutely get into meditation and prayer again. I think that it would be good to attempt a few minutes of meditation and a few minutes of intentional prayer a day. I’m finding myself more and more unsure of my faith, and hopefully some thinking and sitting will help with that.

None of the other things in the daily reflection really speak to me, even if the pen list will probably stay because I am enjoying it right now. I don’t love the journals that I’m using for journaling right now, so will probably spend some time exploring different options. Might go back to my old one, might go to one of the many I’ve been gifted lately, might find some third option.

This means my daily reflection should look like:

• Did you journal by hand today?

• Did you do a folly?

• Did you in some way, shape, or form advance the web novel?

• Did you work on music, whether education or creation?

• Did you work on book binding?

• Did you work on another hobby?

• Did you stretch? Really?

• Prayer?

• Meditation?

• Reading?

• Minimizing screen time?

and to answer:

• Did you journal by hand today?

  No, but I think that I might count this.

• Did you do a folly?

  Behold.

• Did you in some way, shape, or form advance the web novel?

  I’m typesetting it now to be printed, and then will print it, and maybe even do some book binding of it?

• Did you work on music, whether education or creation?

  Nope!

• Did you work on book binding?

  Will do with the web novel.

• Did you work on another hobby?

  Uhhh I cleaned!

• Did you stretch? Really?

  No. I’ll do something quick now though.

• Prayer?

  Nope, will plan on soon though.

• Meditation?

  Nope.

• Reading?

  Yes!

• Minimizing screen time?

  Not in the slightest.

  • Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Diplomat Caribbean (8/30ish)

  • Jinhao Shark: Diplomat Caribbean (8/30ish)

Monthly Reflection

First Published: 2025 September 4 (whoops, never hit post)

Draft 1: 2 August 2025

Woo! Another month, another chance to realize that more than four weeks have passed me by. I am three weeks and two days away from my defense, which is horrifying. At the absolute minimum, I must give my committee a week to read the thesis, which means that I have just over two weeks to be fully finished with everthing. The travel this month has also messed me up schedule wise, and I’ve also not follied as much as I’d like. Or, I guess, the folly was not writing the follies?

Five things that excited me about this July:

• Visiting a friend! Did it before July reflect

• Giving a talk to some high schoolers. It went decently, but the host pointed out that I went a little fast. That’s good feedback, and something for me to remember going forward for sure.

• Getting into a routine again!

  I mean my sleep and eating was at least a little better, but I don’t know if I’d call it routine.

• Going on a visit to the place I got a job offer for!

  Visited! Was great.

• Getting to give a talk on an island I’ve always wanted to visit!

  Was just so much fun, apparently the entire island showed up. I almost missed the last ferry there because it turns out I actually needed to take two ferries.

Last month’s stuff:

• Get back into the web novel: realized that I don’t have mental space for it right now. Am hoping that during September, when I’m also planning on doing a bunch of travel, I’ll feel up to it.

• Get back into follies

  Eh, did not do a great job with that.

• Write journal daily

  I journalled fairly often, but again, not as often as I would have liked.

• Eat well

  eh

• Stretch

  I did certainly get into more of a habit of this!

• Sleep

  I honestly think I did pretty decent in regards to sleep

• Clean

  Home is cleaner, life is more ordered

• Research

  Finally did¹ data analysis!

• Creation

  Thesis is a form of creation, and so is the music I made with friends.

This month, the only things I can think of happening are my birthday² and my defense. However, I’m sure there will be more, which I can think about in the future.

Reflection on Chemistry Education Readings Week Two

First Published: 2025 July 21

Draft 1

This week’s readings were more generally about education, and I read them away from computer, so thoughts are a little more organized. First chapter was about the two major modes of behavioral learning: classical¹ which focuses on the stimuli causing action, and operant² which focuses on the rewards or punishment for a behavior. The second chapter focused on Piaget, and wow he’s even cooler than I thought.

My main takeaway from this week’s readings is that the authors are way too concerned with neoplatonism. That is, there was a major trend in Greek philosophy, especially that which we still have, of going “this is how the world should be, and places where reality differ from the model mean that reality is the problem not the model.” We inherit a lot of that, especially in context of tuning theory.³ In this case, though, I think that it’s particularly dumb.

Plato had this big idea of “people can’t learn things, they must already know them”, and the authors keep saying that Piaget’s theories fail to account for that issue. However, it’s only an issue if you make it one. Like very demonstrably we see things learn behavior and knowledge. It requires ignoring reality to construct the belief to make that happen.

I realize that this also comes into play with the whole modern philosophy “solipsism is internally consistent” that Descartes started. Rather than beginning with observable reality, he started with the Greek thing of “I know that I am”. The sense of I is not a universal thing.

Anyways, I generally found it interesting to see the developmental categories Piaget sorted us into, and it’s wild to me to remember that children can’t abstract at first. Not my favorite set of readings, but I do also know that I have a fairly strong implicit background in child psychology, because my grandmother did literally write books on the subject which were still used in coursework after she died. I also find myself consistently becoming less sympathetic to the philosophy of science treatments that I see in many sources.

These authors are unwilling to say that things are observable by proxy. If I follow their argument, they would argue that we cannot observe energy levels in molecules, because we cannot directly see them. We can only see transitions between them. I think direct observation is a weirdly high bar, especially since then we get the question of what it means to observe.

Is a photon hitting my eye an observation?

Is a photon hitting a detector one?

What’s the line between an observation and a proxy one? Most of the time what we measure is electrical current from photomultiplier tubes, not direct photons. Arguably under their interpretation, that means that any experiment with a PMT doesn’t actually observe things. Since they’re willing to go to solipsism, how can one even trust their senses?

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal today?

   Yes!

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

   Pilot preppy platinum with private reserve electric dc blue.

   I still find that my handwriting is messier like this.

3. How’s prayer?

   Pretty minimal, but I did have mindful time when waiting for a prescription to be filled, so that was nice.

4. How’s focus?

   Eh. I got two and a half great hours in and then struggled to restart

5. How’s sleep?

   I took a three hour nap that felt absolutely essential which is not great. Still, I do feel at least a little better rested now!

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

   For breakfast I had an iced red eye, for lunch I had pasta in butter sauce with spinach and peas. It was nice. For dinner I had tacos, rice, and beans⁴ at a bar where I did an open mic.

7. How’s the posture?

   Fine?

8. How’s the breath?

   Eh, could be better.

9. How’s the movement?

   I had wanted to walk to open mic, but then lost track of time⁵

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

    Not fantastic, but a stretch  did help me to refocus during the day.

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

    Good! I’ve now listened through the album three(?) times.

12. How’s the thesis?

    Decent, I finished the text of the apparatus chapter today, even if I didn’t manage to find/make the figures. That’s a tomorrow task, I guess.⁶

13. How’s the poetry?

    eh, wrote a bit ysterday night, have ideas for tongiht.

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

    Good! Saw friends, got lunch with a friend, and am jamming tomorrow with some.

15. How’s the music?

    Went to an open mic! Did Iowa (Traveling III) by Dar Williams, Inconsolable by Katie Gavin, and Maid on the Shore by Stan Rogers.

    It was my first performance in a while and so mistakes were made. Friends in the crowd claimed not to be able to notice them, though, so that was nice of them.

16. How’s the other writing?

    Bullet journal is weird for me because like, where do I take real notes? I guess in a notebook.

17. How’s the cleaning?

    eh, minimal today, that’s something I don’t have energy for right now though.

18. How’s ordering the life?

    I don’t know if bullet journal really helped that much, since I think that the barrier right now is entirely motivation, rather than scheduling or tracking.

19. Water?

    Not as much!

Current Pen List⁷

• Hongdian Black with Blade Nib: Missing but Private Reserve Chocolat

• Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Private Reserve Neon Yellow (since 5/19)

• Shark: Purple of some sort, unsure which right now (I think since late june)

• Kaweko: apparently private reserve vampire red, but I did just finish it off. Tomorrow I’ll refill with something else.

• Pilot Preppy: Private Reserve Electric DC Blue I think (I think since late june)

• Conklin: Montverde Fire Opal (since 7/17)

• Sheaffer: Private Reserve Spearmint (since 7/15)

Trying Bullet Journals

First Published: 2025 July 20

Daily Reflection: 20 July 2025

As my post the other day implies, I am someone who easily loses track of time and place. I want that not to be the case, but don’t know how to make that happen.

Historically most methods haven’t worked for me.

I’ve found pretty good and continuous luck over the past month doing a clipboard, so I’m hoping that it continues with a bullet journal. Rather than having pages for each thing, I will go back to the method I used when I began journaling: strict chronology. Each day gets one full page, and I have a few other pages for reminders and notes.

Since, for all intents and purposes, my planning ends in a month and a few days, I don’t really care if this method means that I lose track of events that would happen in three or so months. It is very important to me that I get through this thesis, and I realized today that it is also really important to me that it be long. With that in mind, I think that the new method is something that I can force myself to be doing for the next thirtyish days.

So, what is bullet journaling?

Great question

Came from a guy with ADHD, has become an entire aesthetic. Generally as far as I can tell the idea is to have an externalization of the brain in one place with dedicated time and space to clean the thoughts into something reasonable.

I’ve got a page where I have the day and day of the week for the remainder of my schedule, when I’m traveling and where, and this week’s goals for habits. This week’s habit goals are: stretch twice, meditation of some sort, blogging, writing poetry, penmanship, typing, and reading. I want to do most of them daily, but penmanship and typing are both effectively every other day events.

This page and the following cleaned pages are stored in a folder.

Following that, I have a page with my ideas for blogs. I’m currently reading a book about women in science and it’s sparked some great blog ideas.¹

Behind that, List of all Tasks! I plan to update that daily

Behind that, list of books that seem interesting, so that I don’t forget they exist

Behind that I currently have a weekly plan/reality log? I’m not sure what this will do for me, and it’s likely that I’ll ignore and or get rid of it.

Behind that I have the daily pen choice, whose main idea is that it will help me figure out when I wrote things based on the pen they’re written in. The six pens I’m currently working through mean that it will be just over weekly that each one repeats, so anything that’s less than a week away is uniquely identified by when I wrote it.

Behind that I have an empty page for each day until next Monday², except for today’s and tomorrow’s, because I’m planning on actively writing those.

Outside of the folder, I have the rest of the clipboard.

Right now that’s my notes on the book I’m reading, an optimistic page for me to write poetry on³, today’s messy page, which has some tasks and a bunch of notes, and the penmanship page, which I’ve done some work to fill. I know that most of the books I’ve been flipping through with a friend don’t just have repetition of letters, because it’s both too much of a task, being multiple actions, and also too little, not being a full word. Still, I think that my e is slightly more consistent and that my “a” is maybe a little better? I realize I don’t know what I want the a to look like or write like though.⁴

Somewhere I’ve also tomorrow’s page, and my hope and plan is to write it tonight and then journal and confirm it tomorrow morning before getting outside.

Aha it is in the back of the folder.

Well, let’s hope this works!

1. Did you journal today?

   Yeah! I spent some time in the early afternoon, when I started doing my things for the day. I then also started getting through some ideas of work, and so started a bullet journal! I think that’s what it is, at least, and will discuss it in the post⁵

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

   Today’s pen was the Kaweko Sport, and I have almost finished its ink. I think that it was the private reserve chocolat or potentially vampire red. it is not quite empty, but I’m planning on practicing penmanship until it is empty. Wait no, because I wanted to do some journaling and poetry tonight with it. Whoop.

3. How’s prayer?

   Eh. I tried to go through a rosary and I don’t remember what stopped me.

4. How’s focus?

   Eh. I got through the rest of the introduction, but wow I have no motivation for the apparatus section. Writing that down now, I guess that’s absolutely something that I can just push through, so I should plan on that tomorrow.

5. How’s sleep?

   Generally fine. I didn’t get to sleep until like 1 this morning, but then woke up on my own at like half past eight.  I haven’t napped today, but I’m planning to go to bed before 2200.

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

   Since yesterday’s, I had dinner at a supper club, which was a ribeye, “irish potatoes”⁶, and salad. This morning I made what I think can be described as congee: handful of frozen onion and celery, some peas, green beans, three brats cut small and then a large handful of rice⁷ which I put on the stove until it made a nice pasty thing. Tasted fine, probably full of nutrients.

   Since then I’ve had an espresso tonic, a peppermint French soda, some tea, and will be eating a polish sausage⁸

7. How’s the posture?

   I kept catching myself hunching over while reading this afternoon. My upper shoulders and lower neck remain so very tight, though.

8. How’s the breath?

   I honestly think pretty good! I’ve been reminding myself to breathe, especially on the long drive back home.

9. How’s the movement?

   Eh! I walked the mile and a half to a coffee shop this early afternoon, and then walked to work, which is effectively back home. That’s still about three miles total, though, which is not nothing!

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

    I stretched a bunch.  Oof I am tight and tender. I might try stretching more tomorrow, especially if I remember.

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

    Called the brothers! Will listen to the album while walking home.

12. How’s the thesis?

    Last night I read through the RebelFit chapter, and then today I finished editing the introduction, printed it out again to make sure it seems fine⁹. As mentioned above, have not been able to force myself onto the apparatus, even though it’s one of two remaining chapters, and the other remaining chapter requires me to have finished calculations, which is yet to happen. Then again, I can probably make at least some of the charts? Something to think about for tomorrow.

13. How’s the poetry?

    None, but I made a new sheet for it.

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

    Keep messaging people. I am getting lunch with someone tomorrow, so it’s important that I pack myself something reasonable for lunch, because the gaze of the other is terrifying to me.

15. How’s the music?

    Listened to some! A new current favorite song is Babylon by the Dirt Poor Robins. Otherwise, I’ve agreed to make a playlist of folk music to trade someone for a playlist of house music. I have no idea how long or crafted that playlist will be, but can make one soon. Might be a good topic of folly, depending on timing.

16. How’s the other writing?

    Started a bullet journal! THat’s pretty cool, and even did some penmanship work too. I don’t know how well externalizing thoughts is going to go, especially with the nightly camping thing, but it’ll be something to try, at least.

17. How’s the cleaning?

    Eh, minorly better.

18. How’s ordering the life?

    Decent! We’ll see if the bullet journaling works.

19. Water?

    Ok! I drank a fair amount last night and then had some today.

Current Pen List¹⁰

• Hongdian Black with Blade Nib: Missing

• Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Private Reserve Neon Yellow (since pre-June I think)

• Shark: Purple of some sort, unsure which right now (I think since late june)

• Kaweko: Chocolate Brown? (I think since late June). Almost empty

• Pilot Preppy: Private Reserve Electric DC Blue I think (I think since late june)

• Conklin: Montverde Fire Opal (since 7/17)

• Sheaffer: Private Reserve Spearmint (since 7/15)

Daily Reflection 19 July 2025

1. Did you journal a full page today?

   Not a full page, but about half of one!

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

   I used the Pilot Preppy, which I think still has the Private Reserve Blue. I continue to really like the color, but for some reason I noticed that my writing was far messier today than it has tended to be lately. I’m not sure if that’s a function of starting writing after a full breakfast and coffee, the fact that my chair is so low, or something in the nib itself, but it is interesting to note regardless.

   I do also think that the Pilot is my finest nib. I’m somewhat curious how large it ends up being. Looks like somewhere between a .2 and .3 mm stroke, which makes sense, because that is the thickness that I do in general really like, and the minor flex means that they won’t all be the same width. The others pens are, of course thicker. The job that I’m taking offers pens in 0.5 and 0.7 mm, so that’s probably also good for me to get used to.

   Still, I don’t like how messy the penmanship was today, so it might behoove¹¹ me to practice some penmanship.

3. How’s prayer?

   Not really happening. Probably worthwhile to set a reminder to do it. I have to move my car soon¹² so that might be a great time to go ahead and say a quick prayer. Then again, I’ve also been at this coffee shop for the better part of the parking limit, so maybe I should also get something else if I’m coming back...

4. How’s focus?

   Generally decent.

   I read a full book this morning which is just absolutely wild¹³ Since being at the coffee shop, I’ve managed to get some journaling, a full hand-edit¹⁴ and about a third of the typed edits for the Introduction chapter. I got so burned out¹⁵ at that point, and so now I’m going to do this until it’s time for me to move my car.¹⁶

   I assume that getting up and walking a bit will help.

5. How’s sleep?

   Since last post, I went to bed at around 1230¹⁷, and then woke up for a fun two or three hours at around 2. I was up before the 830 alarm I set, even if it did take me a while to accept that and longer to leave bed.

   Right now I don’t feel tired, and I didn’t feel bad about driving home from the talk last night, which is two great signs.

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

   Uh I had some fried chicken for dinner last night. I’ll say that’s probably fine-ish, since it is still primarily fat and protein, with some non-sugar carbs.

   This morning, the hotel breakfast¹⁸ was a thing of chobani strawberry yogurt, a disposable cup of coffee, two things of chocolate milk, two what they called beignets¹⁹, eggs with cheese I added, some bacon²⁰, a thing of orange juice, and a waffle with butter and syrup.

   That’s honestly much more food than I think that it felt like at the time, and also far more food than it seems now. Oh! Also some berries.

   One of the milks and the yogurt technically got consumed about two hours after the rest of the food, but who’s keeping track?²¹

   At the cafe, I’ve had a raspberry italian soda, but yesterday I got a sweet crepe here and it was delicious. I’m tempted to get another today, and might do on of their savory options.

7. How’s the posture?

   Generally fine.

   I’m sitting with my legs crossed and was spending some time not so much sitting up, but that’s partially to be blamed on how tall this table is relative to its chair. Then again, not having my forearms needing to arc down as much is also pretty nice.

8. How’s the breath?

   Eh, I just took. am taking fie deepish breaths, and they’re nice.

   The more I do intentional breath, the better I feel, which does imply it is something that I should be focusing on more than I do. Then again, the more things that I focus on, the less that I can focus on any individual thing.

9. How’s the movement?

   I move minimally, and haven’t really stood up since sitting down for to start writing. That’s not great, so let’s actually call it here, stand up, move the car a little early, and then return to our seat and get a little more work done, this time around taking a break every hourish. Or, at least, we can treat that as a goal²²

   Little bit of walking did really do a lot to perk me back up²³.

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

    Eh, could be better. I stretched in the shower this morning²⁴ and just did another forward fold during the walk. Little bit of neck stretching as I sit here.

    The fact that my legs are crossing is more proof I should stretch my hips out more. Probably a thing to do at the park tonight.

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

    Honestly and legitimately decent!

    I call the brothers tomorrow and I have the new album as of last night, so could do that while doing some stretching today/tonight/tomorrow.

12. How’s the thesis?

    Oof, as yesterday’s folly points out, I am nowhere near where I wanted to be²⁵. However, I got through what I wanted to do yesterday, I think. I printed out the chapter this morning²⁶ and also the introduction.

    Working through intro right now, it does honestly feel pretty solid, but of course the more pictures I put in the better, as always²⁷

    Oh! I keep wanting to do the whole “use a layout that I didn’t make myself” thing, so this could be a great time to do that!

    Despite my claim that the motivation is back, maybe it isn’t as close to back as I wanted.

13. How’s the poetry?

    Didn’t write any yesterday or this morning, but would like to today after finishing with work²⁸, if nothing else ends up taking the time.

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

    I chatted with the other people at the talk yesterday, including the no-longer-solely-volunteer who coordinated it²⁹

15. How’s the music?

    Uh I don’t really think I did any since last time I’ve been writing. I don’t even think that I listened to any music last night. I did walk into a music store and resist the urge to buy anything, so if anything, one might be accurate in saying that I did negative music.

16. How’s the other writing?

    Uh, I think that’s really it. Haven’t texted too many people, the hand edits on my thesis are thesis.

17. How’s the cleaning?

    Wow I’m good at getting the hotel room packed in just a matter of seconds. I was completely spread out³⁰ and even still managed to get everything in its

18. How’s ordering the life?

    Uh, I don’t really think that I’ve done any of that. Yesterday’s post was helpful in that regard, to be certain. Otherwise, I think that prayer³¹ and finishing this are the big ones. Oh, planning travel, but I think that I’m doing that tomorrow.

    Also, I want a nicer clicker, so I just got it.³²

19. Water?

    Really good! I’ve had to refill the monster jug, and I even am occasionally remembering to just like drink it.

Current Pen List³³

• Hongdian Black with Blade Nib: Missing

• Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Private Reserve Neon Yellow (since pre-June I think)

• Shark: Purple of some sort, unsure which right now

• Kaweko: Chocolate Brown?

• Pilot Preppy: Private Reserve Electric DC Blue I think

• Conklin: Montverde Fire Opal

• Sheaffer: Private Reserve Spearmint

On the Next Thirty Eight Days

First Published: 2025 July 18

Draft 1: 18 July 2025

As far as most of my time should be concerned, I have thirty eight days. In thirty eight days I defend my thesis, which means that in twenty four days my committee needs to have a full and polished version of my thesis. In ten days my advisor needs the same.

What do I know will be taking time in the next thirty eight days? Or, since hours are more what I care about, it’s 1600 or so now. There are thirteen days left in July after this, 320 hours. I sleep for about ten hours a night¹, so that’s really like 180 hours of real time. In August, I have 586 hours until the defense, but again we must sleep, and so 336 hours.

In the next 516 hours what do I need to accomplish?

I need to finish writing my thesis. I need to make the entire thesis presentation. I need to finish the research for the paper I’m trying to publish.

In the next 516 hours, what other commitments do I have?

I² agreed to give talks every weekend from now until the defense. I’m going to assume an average travel time of five hours each direction³, so ten hours per weekend will be gone, on the road. Fifty five fewer hours, I have 461 hours.

Each day in the weekend I give an outreach talk that lasts an hour, and then have observing for between 0 and 2 hours.⁴ I also like being there⁵ an hour early, so let’s average that to three hours per talk. Fourteen talks means 42 hours, 419 hours.

Just over four hundred hours of time is what I have left. I had been picking up hobbies again, and I think that I might need to stop that, at least for now.⁶ I do know that I cannot work nonstop forever, though. If I think about when things are due, what deadlines do I need for myself to be successful?

Let’s once again list out what the thesis is, needs, and contains:

1. Minimum Viable Thesis Document⁷

   1. Abstract

   2. Introduction

   3. Acknowledgements

   4. Apparatus

   5. RebelFit

   6. Conclusions

2. Desired Things:⁸

   1. Chapter on Outreach

   2. Publicly accessible Chapter

   3. Derivation of Watson T and ρ values

   4. Explanation of algorithms⁹

   5. Derivation of Rotational Spectroscopy

   6. Philosophy of Science

3. Things that I need for the presentation:

   • I mean honestly, I hope that what I present will come entirely from the thesis paper, so that’s probably fine for now. Since I turn the final thesis in on 8/11, I have the next two weeks to make the presentation.

How long will each thing take? Great question.

In four hundred and nineteen hours, I need to write an entire abstract, which will take under three hours unless something goes catastrophically wrong. In four hundred and sixteen hours, I need to write an acknowledgement of at least some of the infinitely many things and people that have brought me to this point, which will take as long as I give it, as gratitude tends to. Grateful as I am, though, I cannot give it more than six.

With four hundred and ten remaining hours, I need to finish the introduction. I wanted to rephrase and rewrite a lot of it, which would likely take under five hours. I need to add some missing citations and add figures where needed. Citations should take under thirty more minutes at minimum¹⁰, and the needed figures probably take under three hours. Four hundred and one or four hundred and six. I want this thesis to be something I’m proud of.

With four hundred remaining hours, I need to write effectively the entire apparatus section, cite it appropriately, and add the needed figures. I think that I have most of the figures I would need. There are fourish¹¹ instruments/apparatus that I’ll be writing about. At most it should take an hour each to make the figures. I do really think that I can get a minimally viable text in under two hours. If I wanted to write a full description of each instrument, though, that will take much longer, and I don’t care that much about any of them right now.

Three hundred and ninety four hours¹² are left in my life. I need to have a full version of the conclusions and next steps. I sent in a draft of it that feels mostly finished, but I’ll assume another four hours for that.

Three hundred and ninety hours to finish with RebelFit. I need to absolutely finish the paper, and I absolutely need to finish the paper. The only things left are adding in the proof that it works, I think, which requires the jobs to run and me to at least minimally analyze the output. I’m hopeful that the reviewer is ok with tentative, rather than explicit, assignment of the new states, but we’ll see what happens.

Three hundred and eighty five hours to rewrite all of the RebelFit portion of my thesis. I think that I have all the content I would need, and I even think that I have most of the figures.¹³ Let’s be generous to the productivity I am capable of and assume that it takes me three hours to get the current content into something sensible, and then under thirty to finish revisions.

Three hundred and fifty hours. That’s honestly more time than I thought. Still, that’s not enough time for me to really feel comfortable slacking off, so time to start work again. I have to head to the park at about six, and I do also need to eat¹⁴, so I have about one hundred minutes left to work today. What can I get done then?

Hopefully at the very least the daily reflection and getting RebelFit into something resembling a sensible thesis chapter.

Draft 0: 18 July 2025 (blog title: on (the absence of) routine

Routines are incredibly helpful and important to and for me.¹⁵ Despite that, as the absence of daily posts here illustrates, I have not generally done a great job of having a routine lately. Some of this is understandable: I had a conference and then it was the Fourth of July. However, in 10 days I need to have finished my thesis, and that feels like an optimistic goal, which it really shouldn’t.¹⁶

Since I know that I am more productive in times of routine, it felt like a good idea to use this folly to explore routine. However, that’s no longer feeling right, because wow two weeks is much closer than it feels. I kind of do really feel like I need to be delivering something at least daily, if not moreso.¹⁷

Draft -1: 18 July 2025

As the sporadic and mostly absent nature of this site probably attests,¹⁸ I do not currently have a good routine going. There are any number of reasons for that, but most of them boil down to the fact that, unlike what makes a good routine for me, every day is not like every other. However, I’m now in the final weeks before my thesis defense, which means that on some level the routine maybe should just be a baseline level of panic and stress. Given that I’m not feeling that, I can only conclude that I need to be more aware of what time I do and do not have.

So, let’s quickly get the timeline established, and then we can start thinking about routine again.

My thesis defense is on August 25 at 10am. I am supposed to give my committee two weeks to read the thesis, which means that they need it by August 11. I want two weeks between the final rounds of my boss’s edits and giving it to the committee, which means she needs the full thesis by July 28. That is, in the next ten days I need to be completely finished with my thesis.

Oh.

That’s um, a lot sooner than it emotionally feels. So, what could a routine look like for me?

Right now I have outreach talks every weekend. I do find that I can be at least somewhat productive while traveling, both because driving helps me order my thoughts and just because I can kind of write from anywhere. Unfortunately, driving is also a fairly large time sink. This weekend is one of my shorter drives and is still five hours of driving.

Ok wow I’m falling out of the planned post, let’s try this again.

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal a full page today?

   One sentence, because I thought while driving.

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

   Fude with Neon yellow. I think that I don’t like the PR¹⁹ neons are almost highlighter, and definitely need the thicker nib. However, even so I don’t like how pale/translucent they are.

3. How’s prayer?

   Non-existent. I stopped by a coffee shop for caffeine earlier this afternoon, and heard two women discussing Catholicism, which did remind me to pray before eating.

4. How’s focus?

   Oof, this post is revitalizing it really well.

5. How’s sleep?

   Always I feel too tired.

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

   Uhhh great question. Today I had two western omelet sandwiches and a flavored coffee drink for breakfast, and then cold brew and a crepe with strawberries and chocolate for late lunch.

7. How’s the posture?

   Generally ok!

8. How’s the breath?

   I remind myself to breathe sometimes even when I’m not doing this reflection.

9. How’s the movement?

   Not enough.

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

    Nowhere near enough. Oof.

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

    Good!

12. How’s the thesis?

    As you can maybe tell from the above, great question.

13. How’s the poetry?

    Nonexistent.

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

    Honestly kind of great. I am more sociable these days, and have made friends and connections with people at a bar I like in town. I met up with friends multiple times this week, and I’m reaching out to future coworkers.

15. How’s the music?

    Honestly also good, I jammed with a friend earlier this week and we’d meant to do an open mic yesterday. (It was cancelled)

16. How’s the other writing?

    Nonexistent, which is where it should be. I do want to tell the readers of my web novel that I’m not in a mental space to write it right now, but even that feels too hard, which is sad.

17. How’s the cleaning?

    I need to do better at that

18. How’s ordering the life?

    I mean this post is decent at least!

19. Water?

    Better than it has been, worse than it could be.

Current Pen List²⁰

• Hongdian Black with Blade Nib: Missing

• Hongdian Black with Fude Nib: Private Reserve Neon Yellow (since pre-June I think)

• Shark: Purple of some sort, unsure which right now

• Kaweko: Chocolate Brown?

• Pilot Preppy: Private Reserve Electric DC Blue I think

• Conklin: Montverde Fire Opal

• Sheaffer: Private Reserve Spearmint

Reflection on Chemistry Education Readings Week One

First Published: 2025 July 14

Draft 2: 14 July 2025

A dear friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in doing an independent audit of a course on Chemistry education. That is, we will do the class readings and then discuss between the two of us what we think. I’m generally interested in pedagogy and teaching, and so agreed. Our general plan is to, starting today, write a weekly reflection on the week’s readings, and then in some form or another also respond to the other’s reflection.

Going into this project, I realize that it’s important for me to state some things I’m coming in with. I more and more believe that the value of a good is its goodness, and that arguments towards utility are pointless at best. I also had a friend in my first year of the program who had personal/scientific¹ issues with the professor for the course, so I am also bringing in some hesitation to trust, at the very least, the framing of the readings. This past Thursday I gave a lecture to some high school students about reading science, and the two things I wanted to stress to them were “there is objective reality” and “any presentation of reality is fundamentally biased”.

This week’s readings were about broad level “science literacy”, both by the same author, written a decade apart. The first came from 2010, where he argues that “science literacy” is a meaningless term and offers² a way to restore meaning to the term. The second comes from 2020, and he focuses here³ on the idea that we (only now) live in a society more focused on emotional appeal than scientific reality and consensus. A lot of my issues with the first paper⁴ were fixed in the second, which makes the choice of the first into the curriculum interesting to me.

In general, the claim of the first is that science should be taught in a way which is useful, by which the author means either “helps people lead happier, more successful, or more politically savvy lives” or “help people solve personally meaningful problems in their lives, directly affect their material and social circumstances, shape their behavior, and inform their most significant practical and political decisions”, which are, in my mind at least, kind of very different claims. He also never defines science, which feels more than a little concerning to me. Saying that people are and are not using science well requires defining science.

The first paper did point me to some interesting ideas of what science literacy can mean, and helped me to recognize that I treat it and most forms of literacy as a fundamentally communal process. He claims here (though, it must be admitted, explicitly recants the claim in the other paper) that “(o)ne fair critique... is that Roth and Lee appear to have started with the assumption that knowledge is collectively held and meaning socially constructed.” While I personally believe that meaning is an absolute, coming from the Divine, I don’t think that I would feel comfortable arguing that in a paper about science education. The first paper also reminded me of the fact that I apparently read more into subtle racism and classism than others in my life. The author is much more derogatory of the scientific relationship that “minority youth in high poverty urban environments” had than the relationships either other group had. At the end, he explicitly advises for trying to produce “competent outsiders”, as opposed to “marginal insiders”, and his bias as a biologist by training comes up, where he says that most who learn science have an “understanding of science (that) is fairly primitive, extending to experimentation but excluding probability and peer-review, and utterly neglecting the long and messy labors of authentic scientific work”, as though science must require pain and probability.

The second paper was much more practical, for all that it was still of minimal utility to me, personally.⁵ One of the big focuses in the article is that science does not produce Truth (TM).⁶ In four columns of text, he somehow does a worse job of explaining that concept than the three second version my college professor gave “science is a model, not reality”.

In both, he argues for the concept that we should teach things which students will find personally meaningful, and that we should explicitly frame the topics in that way. Thinking about pedagogy, I have trouble with this, though I should probably ask my brother, who reads much pedagogy research. The utility of multiplication, in my mind, is highest when it’s an unconscious thought. He talks about how discussions around heating bills are unscientific, but I have to wonder how different the group studied (elderly) and a younger cohort might treat it. Nearly everyone I know above a certain age has a good amount of multiplication tables memorized still. Nearly everyone I know below a certain age has to do multiplication for everything.

Type 1 and Type 2 thinking, or fast and slow thinking, or heuristic and thoughtful thinking are all ways to classify what neuroscience has apparently found⁷ are the major modes we use in life. The more innate knowledge becomes, the more it can move into the fast portion. Forcing me to, by rote, learn each letter and word means that I now look at words and do not need to think to understand them. Forcing children to do times tables means that they do not have to do the math of “I have three dollars, how many avocados can I get if they’re 50 cents each”, but that they can just look and go “50 cents and three dollars, 6 avocados”. I would never think of framing the use of multiplication in that way, but I think that this points to the more fundamental issue that I take with this framing.

My grandmother once was on a television debate where she argued that everyone should get a liberal arts education. Her main thrust was that it fundamentally makes you a better person. I don’t know why the author seems so resistant in the first paper to the idea that there are things which science cannot answer. He accepts this in the second, and yet still seems focused on the idea that the value of science education is in the measurables, rather than the intangibles.

My friend’s reflection focused on Physical Chemistry, and the fact that we can’t really make it applicable. My initial response is that we don’t take Physical Chemistry until upper level students in a major, by which point there’s a tacit (though very often incorrect)⁸ assumption that major students will use the major in life. The utility I have for quantum mechanics in my day to day life is in the work that I do. I also know that I very often approach questions in life from a quantized view now, in a way that I was taught out of in schooling.⁹

I’m cautiously excited to keep reading, even if I don’t know if I can dedicate the same time to these readings going forward.¹⁰

Draft 1.1: 14 July 2025 (Draft 1 got a little too aggressive, I think)

A dear friend of mine and I have decided to read through the syllabus for a course that neither of us will be able to take on Chemistry education. More than that, we plan to each separately and then together discuss the readings for a given week. This is the first of that series.

We read two articles on science education by the same author, written a decade apart.

In general, I found minimal of use in either. The first was constantly contradicted by the second, and both suffered the same fundamental issue: without defining science, there’s no good way to define science literacy.¹¹

In general, the first article, written in 2010, focused a lot on the idea that science literacy should be judged on its “usefulness”, which is defined very narrowly and individually. I take huge umbrage with this approach; literacy is fundamentally about interaction with the other. Of course groups of people are more likely to be using science than an individual in an individual experience; when looking at the problems cited¹², aggregate action is more important than individual.

Throughout both articles, I also saw a disheartening and concerning trend of unquestioned bias. When examining a case study from UK residents or Washington State residents, the idea of scientific interpretation never arose. When speaking on a study of “minority youth in high poverty urban environments”, by contrast, the author took pains to emphasize that the students were not necessarily taking science information in accurately, writing (with original emphasis) “Is it sufficient that they felt more comfortable with and interested in science as they interpreted it?”. He also presumed that these students will cease to be interested in the specific subjects they have taken a love of.

My friend’s reflection comments on the fact that Physical Chemistry, by most definitions and explanations, isn’t useful to the everyday experience of people. Truthfully, I understand this, but feel like Physical Chemistry¹³ is like mathematics: the value in learning it is in the operations that can become thoughtless. I think that it’s incredibly important to teach times tables, not because I think that timed tests are great¹⁴, but because of something that a math teacher told me when I was in high school. The gist of it was that when things are ingrained, they are barrierless to being done.

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal a full page today?

   No, I stopped at a little under half of a page today. I don’t know why I thought/think that one full page is the appropriate amount to be writing, but I think that most of the advice in regards to daily journaling assumes that I will be using an A5 or smaller notebook, not the letter size college gridded page.

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

   Shark pen, which currently has Private Reserve’s “Purple Mojo”. It’s a nice purple, deep and rich which I like. Photographs a little bluer than it looks, and minimal shading.

   Earlier this week, in the Pilot Platinum Preppy, I journalled with Private Reserve’s “Electric DC Blue”, which is far less aggressive than the name might imply. It had almost no shading whatsoever, and a really really nice color. It’s a little hard to describe it, but a dear friend suggested normal roller pen blue, which felt slightly off. A slightly more refined version of that, maybe, gets the gist across. Doesn’t photo well.

3. How’s prayer?

   Terrible. I tried my best to do a rosary on Saturday and had to stop halfway through the Creed. Might be something that’s worth pushing through this week, though, since I do feel pretty emotionally numb.

4. How’s focus?

   Eh, it’s been ok. On Friday I wanted to get some work done but instead spent four or so hours trying to figure out what order to practice letters in. Since I don’t write individual letters, though, it seemed more reasonable to figure out the relative frequency of not just letters, but of small combinations of the letters too. Once I’d figured that out, I realized that I probably wanted to remove the longer strings from the weight of the shorters. After all, if every instance of “q” is followed by a “u”, then practicing “qu” will get me the proper weight of “q”. In general it made little difference, though subtraction did mean that more longer phrases entered the top of the page.

   Outside of that, I’ve been pretty blase. I know that I say that I can use travel days as a place to get a lot of work done, but I struggled with that this week. I think that much of that comes down to how tired I was/am, and the rest comes from the general sense of aimlessness I have right now.¹⁵

5. How’s sleep?

   I slept just so very very much this past weekend. I think that a good portion of that was because I did actually need to catch up on sleep/recover from/prevent an illness.¹⁶ At some point, though, I have to wonder if the sleep was itself becoming a problem. Hotel beds are just way too cozy, I guess.

   Other than that, back at home last night I did not sleep too well. My watch says that of the 10.5 hours I gave myself, I was asleep for 5, which feels not entirely wrong. I don’t feel too bad now that I’m out of bed, though, which is nice enough.

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

   In general I do eat pretty well when I’m traveling, and this past weekend was no exception. Thus far this morning I’ve had an iced coffee¹⁷, most of a two-day-old donut, and some water. I’m getting fed a lunch at noon, though, which I have every intention of having been balanced.

   I’m still living maybe too much like a stereotype of my demographic and relying on take-away pizza. However, I have food in my fridge and a desire to not let it go to waste. Might be great to just grab the carrots for munching season.

7. How’s the posture?

   Eh. Currently sitting a little straighter for the reminder, but in general, my neck feels incredibly tight and misplaced and my shoulders are forward.

8. How’s the breath?

   Thoughtless, by and large. Taking these two breaths, though, felt great.

9. How’s the movement?

   Minimal intentionality, which is fair enough. There’s a VR fitness thing I’ve been enjoying lately, so I will plan to work on that tonight, I suppose.

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

    Terrible. My shoulders feel so incredibly tight, and my neck does as well. It’s a struggle to touch my toes. It’s almost painful to stretch a lot of the time, now.¹⁸

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

    Decent! I listened to the album last week and met with the brothers.

12. How’s the thesis?

    Decent! I’m hoping to finish a draft of the final chapter needed for the minimum viable thesis this week, and otherwise make the rest of the thesis cleaner.¹⁹

13. How’s the poetry?

    Nonexistent, which is more than a little sad. I don’t know why, when I’m sitting and aimless, I forget that poetry is a thing that I wast to write.

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

    Eh, not a lot of changes, which also means that I haven’t really been seeing or interacting with people as much as I generally want. I’d already been planning to work on that today, which means this is just a good secondary reminder to do so.

15. How’s the music?

    Honestly decent! I have plans to jam tomorrow and play at an open mic on Thursday, which should be really fun. I’ve been practicing the music for the show as well as the wedding song, and both have been going well!

16. How’s the other writing?

    Nonexistent. The journaling didn’t even really happen, and as might be obvious, neither did this blog.

17. How’s the cleaning?

    Home is cleaner than it has been, and I have hopes and ideas for how to continue along this trajectory. Car needs to be emptied more than anything, but that’s often true.

18. How’s ordering the life?

    Eh.

    I realized today that my ideal storage/sorting system is one wherein I can explode out things in physical space, which is not realistic. When I have folders, the fact that there’s a barrier²⁰ somehow does a lot to keep me from using it. A concept could be to have folders for after I’ve written on the paper, which might work?

    I’ll try it.

    Outside of that, though, I have an idea for keeping my mind map real and visible. Right now I’ve got a fair number of tasks, and many of them are interrelated. I’m thinking about getting notecards and stringing them together with relative importance and order. Then, the more things that are dependent on a process,  the more that I can and should be working on them, even if the task itself feels low importance.

    I’ll see if it helps, but I’m also continuing to consider bullet journaling.

19. Water?

    Honestly pretty decent. I was feeling bad Saturday night so started drinking water with more intention, and that helped. The air right now isn’t great, and so I’ve been wanting more water just for that reason.

Monthly Reflection

First Published: 2025 July 14 (because I forgot to hit post)

Draft 1: 8 July 2025

Welp, here I come a full week late with a reflection on the last month. It was, as every month seems to be, just absolutely full of events. In particular, the travel I did towards the end of the month meant that I was away from my computer more¹, and therefore writing far less on it.² I really want to get back into the habit of doing this, in part because I also really want to get back into the habit of the daily reflections. With that in mind, though, let’s get into the meat of the reflection.

Last month I thought I would be excited for:

• Seeing a close family friend’s wedding. Went, it was super fun! It was a little sad because they had a memorial to my mother up, but that’s also really sweet in retrospect. The week before it we visited other family friends, and that was also really nice.

• Visiting a friend. Also super fun! Ended up happening after the conference, because I don’t know how time works, I guess. We went to a zoo and a science museum. Great times, and it was really lovely to meet his fiancee.³

• Presenting my research at a conference. Went really well! Unfortunately, the calculations were still ongoing at the time of presentation, and so I didn’t end up having as nice of one as it happened.

• Singing in a few more concert-like events. They were really fun! Turns out one of them was the governor’s party, and they had us acting as guests when not singing. The other one was pretty bog standard.⁴

• It happened today, but going to a friend’s⁵ baby shower! It was so nice to celebrate with them. I assume this was true!

Last month’s must dos!

• Finish the presentation that I’m giving on Friday and then again at the end of the month

  Woo! Gave the presentation that Friday, and gave it again at the conference. It was significantly improved by the second go round, and I do think that the Friday version helped with that.

• Continue applying to next steps

  Not really doing, which I’ll likely discuss more below.

• Make progress on my thesis

  Lots! Boss is happy with the work rate.

Last Month’s hopefully dos!

• Make an actual list of everything that needs to happen before I can submit the paper. I don’t think that I officially had that happen, but it remains a good task.

• Do all of those things. Nope! Paper is not submitted, which means that at least something isn’t working. I keep being 99% done with the project only to find a problem in the code that means I need to redo a lot of the work.

• Finish the presentation and make it good. I got a lot of compliments on the presentation, even though many people were also disappointed by some of the findings.

• Finish the chapter of my thesis on the program. I completely spaced this one, so it goes on my new⁶ list.

• Rewrite the chapter of my thesis on the apparatus I used. Done, but I did a bad job of it.

• Keep up on my web novel. Lol, nope! I feel really bad about it, though, which is like doing it?

• Keep up on this site. See above.

• Do music. I jammed with a friend one of the days, and then left my guitar in its case for a few weeks. I did buy two harmonicas⁷, and they were fun to play. I also sang a fair amount, I think?

• Take care of myself.

  Eh, by the end I was certainly disregulated. I think that’s mostly because I love routine.

What did I dream of doing last month?

• Finish the Paper -> as above.

• Write a full outline of the rest of my thesis. I actually think that I did this! Wild

• Writing a folly a day. you can see that this is not happening.

• Getting a backlog of chapters ready for the web novel. Nope!

• Finish the presentations that I’m going to be giving in July. I give my first one on Thursday, and I have the loosest sketches of a beginning, which I started making yesterday.

• Get the video series done. I did absolutely nothing on it.

• Record the new song I wrote. I sang it for the friend, and she enjoyed it.

• Write a few more songs. Nope!

• Record a few more songs. Nope!

• Jam with other people. Once or twice.

• Find my next steps. Yeah!

• Once again become comfortable with silence. I think so, honestly. It’s really nice having my headphones on even and especially when I’m not listening to things. My brain is once again in a space where I can’t listen to things while using my mind, which is good to know.

• Spend the time I need to confront the faith issue that’s been boiling in the background for a few months now.

  I forget if I wrote about it, but did actually figure out some of it, een⁸ if I didn’t, I did end up resolving a lot of it.

• Learn shorthand and start writing it with my left hand.

  Lol, I was so optimistic.

Before getting into the priorities, let’s look forward to this month⁹.

Five things I was excited about last month that I didn’t know would happen:

• Getting to go to a family-hosted board game night again.

• Went on a brewery tour

• Saw the cryptozoology museum

• Went to a number of breweries!

• Started brewing again.

Five things that excite me about this July:

• Visiting a friend! Did it

• Giving a talk this Thursday to some high schoolers. I’m still really excited for i, even if I am growing incredibly nervous about how I’ll do.

• Getting into a routine again! I haven’t really had one, but the fact that I’m gone basically all weekends means that it’s a routine of sorts? I hope at least.

• Going on a visit to the place I got a job offer for!¹⁰

• Getting to give a talk on an island I’ve always wanted to visit!

Last month I did must, want to, would dream of. This month I’m just going to do should and would love.

What should I do this month?

• Get back into the web novel

• Get back into follies

• Write journal daily

• Eat well

• Stretch

• Sleep

• Clean

• Research

• Creation

Honestly, I think that I’m mostly just recreating the list of daily reflection, so let’s go down there and try making the new one.

Last Month’s daily reflection¹¹:

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

6. Comments on sleep?

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?¹²

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

How resonant is the list right now? Decently, though I think that I want to change a few things.

1. Did you journal a full page today?

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

3. How’s prayer?

4. How’s focus?

5. How’s sleep?

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

7. How’s the posture?

8. How’s the breath?

9. How’s the movement?

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

12. How’s the thesis?

13. How’s the poetry?

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

15. How’s the music?

16. How’s the other writing?

17. How’s the cleaning?

18. How’s ordering the life?

19. water?

I’m sure that I’ll reorder this on another day, but for now it feels good enough. So, then, let’s fill out the daily reflection, I suppose!

1. Did you journal a full page today?

   Just about!

2. What ink/pen did you use, and what were your thoughts on it?

   I worked with a Kaweco Perkeo, and I was using Private reserve Vampire red. It is more brown than red, I’d say. The Kaweco is definitely not a heavy flow pen, and so the ink often went on the page almost a pale salmon. On points where the ink goes down hard, it’s more like dried blood. This seems to be a standard review of the color, so I don’t think I’m making a mistake there!

   Other than that, I do love the way that the pen feels in the hand. It’s very gentle, and that’s nice.

3. How’s prayer?

   Oops, a good thing to remember to do in the future certainly.

4. How’s focus?

   Eh, it’s hard to get going when I have midday meetings, but I’ve always known that.

5. How’s sleep?

   Decent. Yesterday was a really low energy day, so I ended up getting to bed relatively early.

6. How many meals, and how balanced?

   Today: had a waffle and have been working on a bowl of oats since then. That’s a sign I should get a more protein heavy dinner, which probably means that it’s time to go grocery shopping again.

7. How’s the posture?

   Has been generally bad lately. My shoulders feel almost permanently curled in, and at this point I’m beginning to wonder if that’s just correct.

8. How’s the breath?

   Haven’t really thought about it that much, being totally honest. It’s nice right now to be getting a few breaths in, though.

9. How’s the movement?

   Stretched once today, am about to stretch again. Other than that, I walked around a bit, but not as much as I usually like.

10. How’s the physical flexibility?

    I can touch my toes, my shoulders feel tight, and I find myself crossing my feet when I lie down, which I am told is a symptom of tight hips.

11. How’s keeping up with the family obligations?

    I failed to listen to last week’s album, and will start listening to this week’s.

12. How’s the thesis?

    Currently the main goal is making sure all my citations and figures are looking good.

13. How’s the poetry?

    Nonexistent, but I think that I have time today to fix that.

14. How’re the interpersonal relationships?

    Generally decent! On the other hand, I haven’t really been seeing people, in large part because I have been out of town.

15. How’s the music?

    Not great, I think that I’m most of the way through the song for the wedding.

16. How’s the other writing?

    Non-existent. Mostly that means the novel.

17. How’s the cleaning?

    I can do better!

18. How’s ordering the life?

    Eh. I have a to do list!

19. Water?

    Much better today than ever before!

On Paper

First Published: 2025 June 10

Draft 2: 10 June 2025

I think about most things more than most people I know. I don’t know why this is, but part of becoming the best version of myself¹ is not denying realities, and instead actively acknowledging them. So, what is my relationship to paper?

I love paper. There’s something so inherently wonderful about the feel of my pen gliding across the fibers. I love the way that different qualities and kinds of paper feel differently in my hands. I like the way that a bright white page seems so much dimmer when filled with ink. I love the tactile feeling of fully embodying my writing: I try to write from my shoulder, and so half of my body is in active focus as I stroke across the page.

I like paper for more than that, though. When I type, my thoughts come out in an ordered progression. Line breaks happen by the sentence, and double line breaks by the paragraph. Paragraphs, visible on the page, rarely last more than a few sentences. In analog, the page fills with my writing.

Even outside of writing, though, I love paper for what I can do with it. I’m sure that it’s no surprise to know that I had an origami phase in high school. Even as I have always enjoyed the feeling of nice paper, I’ve also hated the idea of being limited by the quality of my equipment. And, perhaps, I’ve felt guilty “wasting” high quality supplies when lower quality supplies would suffice. So, throughout high school, I must have made hundreds if not thousands of boxes and flowers.

Much as I love paper, I do also find that I feel very differently about fresh and used paper.

I love having loose paper around me, because I like the freedom it embraces. It can be anything, and any number of things. When bound in a journal, the pages share a narrative thread, even if I do not intend for that to be the case.

Draft 1: 10 June 2025

I don’t have a ton of energy or mental space today, so my goal is an easy win with an easy folly. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship I have with paper.

For as long as I can remember, at least through early high school, I’ve loved having loose paper with me. Then, I did much more origami and paper folding generally.² For a while, I was also into doodling and drawing of different sorts.

I’m not entirely sure why I stopped doodling and drawing, and I don’t really know how I feel about it. Even just a few weeks ago, I was doing penmanship exercises, and that was really fun.

Anyways, recently I was out with friends and excitedly showing off my then-current³ plan for organizing my life: a number of report binders⁴. Someone commented that it seemed incredibly disorganized and chaotic. Another friend commented that my default is otherwise to just put loose pages in my backpack.

I didn’t think that this was true; I very rarely, in my mind, at least, just have random sheets of paper floating in my backpack. Looking for affirmation of this identity, I queried my group mates and friends over the next few days. To my utter shock, nearly all agreed with the statement that I was someone who kept loose paper in a backpack. I do, I realize, at least now.

It’s inconvenient when I need to write something to hand someone or just like draw something and not have paper for it. Books, being the sacred objects they are⁵, feel horrible to tear into. The benefit of the report binders is that I can take pages in and out. However, even that takes time, and sometimes I just want the sheet in front of me. Also, I want clean pages in the binders. I have a lot of things that I’ve used one side for something but not the other. I like being able to use all of a sheet of paper, and especially when all that I was attempting to do is read a page, it feels wrong to then throw it away.

So, loose paper is great.

What was the point of this folly? I think that’s a great question.

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   Kind of? I wrote two sentences because I did not really feel like writing this morning/that my mind is empty any more.

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Kind of? Yesterday I lay in bed for an hour after waking up. Other than that, though, almost not at all.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   Generally! I did try assigning transitions while listening to an audiobook yesterday because data assignment is boring. I also tried multitasking while playing a game and listening to an audiobook. It did not go well, probably because the game required more reading than I was able to give.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Eh, kind of!

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   As evidenced by the fact that my legs always want to twist, it’s my hips. Other than that, I think that my shoulders are. I have an interview today at 1000, so I might try stretching before/after it depending on how timing goes.

6. Comments on sleep?

   I’ve been needing more the past few days, but I think that might be more due to below than anything real.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   Yesterday I had a handful of rice (then cooked), two sausages, a slice of cake, and four romaine hearts. The day before I had a slice of pizza, a breakfast sandwich, and a hot dog. I don’t think that either of these is the correct amount of calories, and so going forward I do want to really focus on getting through the number of calories I know that I need. Might have to redownload a calorie tracker?

   Also water, not doing anywhere near enough, which is also not a thing that I’m happy about. Then again, that’s also part of life, I think.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Nope! I listened to last week’s album, wrote a reflection about it, and chose this week’s album. Other than that, I offered to come home to help with meal prep, but was rejected, and have brother call tonight. 

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   I bought far too many lemons, which means that my priority needs to be turning them into oleo saccharum and citrum. That’s also the action item. I also just bought yeast, which means that I should pitch it sooner than later. There we go.

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    I need to finish the apparatus chapter, and I need to write the introduction. I also need to be working on the data analysis as it comes in. So far I haven’t had data which converged to extant assignments, but which still produced something potentially meaningful??

    Anyways obstacles are just apathy. I will not do the data analysis today because it will take as long as I give it, and I don’t want to give it that much time when I also need to be writing. I said yesterday that I thought hand writing would be the right move. I still think that is true, so will do that.⁶

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    The task today is apparatus, which I hate. Task for next up is the remainder of the introduction, which I will also do.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?⁷

    Have interview! Cannot focus on two things at once. Next Tuesday, however, I also have an application due, and so will apply to that hopefully.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! This weekend was filled with interactions and yesterday I worked in the office.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    No, and I feel kind of guilty about it. But, when people just make assumptions about me that I wish were true, it is really hard for me to correct them.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Didn’t do it yesterday, am doing today!

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    As with the above. What is in the way? I think partially that I told myself I’d do it yesterday in the evening and knew even as I said that it was a lie. Outside of that, the general apathy and low energy I’ve had the past few days⁸ means that it’s hard to do anything, writing follies included.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    They aren’t! I wrote one on Sunday, and that was fun. Outside of that, I think that I didn’t say all that I wanted to say.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    I wrote some on Sunday. It mostly focused on belonging and sense of self, which is always lighthearted and never emotionally laden.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    Sang prayer on Friday and Saturday, sang Mass and a concert Sunday.

20. Web novel?

    Nope!