Science Bowl

First Published: 2022 February 5

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Today I had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer with the Wisconsin Regional Middle School Science Bowl¹. I really love volunteering for this event, and loved doing so last year. In part, it’s fascinating for me to realize how much science² I’ve forgotten since I was younger and took biology adjacent classes. In part, it reminds me of when I was in high school, and the incredibly fun times I had participating in the science bowl and preparing for it with friends. In part, I really love the opportunity to watch young scientists develop their love for science. In part I just love competitions and trivia, so competitive trivia is incredible. And finally, in part I just like volunteering.

All this leads to the perfect storm of a morning and afternoon spent reading between 18 and 36 questions a round to each of the participating teams. My fellow roommates³ were both members of my research group, which is really exciting. I found, in mentioning that I blog, that if you are somewhat careful about your link clicking, you still can find my blog from my home site.

You just have to go to scores, click the “maintained by rebelskyj” link, and then it takes you to my personal GitHub account, which is where all of these posts are stored.⁴ Anyways, that’s a side note.

All this to say, I loved volunteering for the science bowl, and I’m very excited to do so again next year!

Dungeons and Dragons Again

First Published: 2022 February 5

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First, an apology to my¹ readership. I got a message this morning² asking me where the post for February fourth is. As with so many lovely things, I ended up losing track of time playing Dungeons and Dragons last night, and by the time I got home, was too tired to write a blog. We were told it would end around nine, but it instead ended around 11.

Anyways, excuses about being tired aside, playing Dungeons and Dragons again last night was incredibly fun! A friend and member of my group³ set up a one-shot⁴ for a few of the people in the group⁵ and a friend from the department.⁶

The game was incredibly fun, in some part because it was my first time playing in almost a year, but also because the group and dungeon master were both really fun. Most of the people in the adventuring group were new to Dungeons and Dragons, which was really fun. I forgot how much of a learning curve the game had, which led to a fun conversation in the car ride back where one of the other players asked about the ending, and what happened. I explained that the game is like writing a book together, where authors sometimes just stop writing the book, and so the ending may not be as good as people want. Conversely, people can continue campaigns almost indefinitely.

Anyways, on to the campaign. We six brave adventurers were hunting down a cultist as a nominal group. My half of the group made a drunken promise to one person to help hunt down the cultist for rejecting their entry into the cult. The other half said that they were hired by a professor to hunt him down because he stole from that professor.

I played a tabaxi rogue, which is very different than my normal character choices, which was really fun! The dungeon master had a fun mechanic in the game where our adventuring packs have sort of three use plot convenient items. I used one of mine for a tap to tap a barrel of whiskey, while I think everyone else in the group who used a use used theirs to make rope. I followed a side quest of trading lots of items, going from an onion to a rock to a belt to a necklace which is almost certainly⁷ cursed. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we’re going to continue the story, so I will imagine that it’s not cursed until that point. At the end of the session, we had caught the cultist, and one of the people assigned to retrieve the scrolls had done so. The three of us who were on a drunken adventure jumped into the portal that opened as the session ended. Who’s to say where we end up next!

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On Making a High Voltage Box

First Published: 2022 February 3

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A project I finished today was a box to make the high voltage setup in my lab more safe. It was really fun!

The electronics and machine shop at my university are incredible, and the people there are fantastic. It made the fact that I knew nothing about what I was doing not at all stressful.

I’m super glad that I get to work in a place that has such support for researchers.

Planning to Fail

First Published: 2022 February 2

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I woke up this morning and thought to myself “Hey, Wednesday nights are always really late for you, and also in general you want to use nights to wind down, rather than write an essay. Maybe, just maybe, you should blog earlier in the day”¹. So, I planned to at some point before tonight write my post.

But, when I got to work in the morning I had two two-sigma problems all morning.² Lunch, as it always does, took longer than expected, and then my early evening activities all had one to two sigma issues themselves.³ And so I had to rush to my final appointment of the night, which unfortunately lasts from 1845 until⁴ 2230 or so. Adding in the next 15 minutes to walk home, and I suddenly went from planning to write a post early to writing a post nearly an hour past when I’ve set as my “no more notifications because you should be asleep right now” time.

As I look back at my day, I definitely see times that I could have written my post. This morning I was tired when I woke up, so doing it before work wasn’t really an option. But, I could have taken some time after lunch instead of whittling time away to write this post. Or, I could have made a few minutes while monitoring the pumps, rather than just idling away my time. Regardless, hopefully my future failures to plan don’t become plans for failures themselves. I’m not at the word goal, but this is as far as my brain will let me write.

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Introduction to Celtic Crochet

First Published: 2022 February 1

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Wow, it’s hard to believe that it’s already February. As is so often the case, the day after I make some great resolution to be more creative, I hit a wall of writer’s block. Since I refuse to be beholden to inspiration, I tried to think of a way to work through this issue. Today, that took the form of scrolling through old post names while looking around at my desk. In doing so, I saw the shawl that I’ve been working on for a few weeks now, and it inspired me to write about the crocheting I’ve been doing.

As I mentioned, I prefer crochet to knitting because of the flexibility of patterns that you can make. The first thing I crocheted was a hat, as I think was the second. Very soon after making hats, however, I started working on what I’ve begun calling “Celtic Crochet”. I call it that for the very simple reason that the patterns end up looking like a Celtic knot.¹ The style I’ve developed for this is a three row pattern, which has some advantages and disadvantages.

One major advantage is that it allows for really nice two-color patterns with a major and a minor color. By using the same color on the first and third rows, loops don’t end up looking odd, because the same color is always on the outside. Another big advantage is that it’s fairly easy to algorithm.²

One big disadvantage of three row is that the foundation row doesn’t count, which means that if you look very carefully, you may notice where the first row is versus the second and third rows. Since many people don’t even notice that the design is woven, that’s really not a huge issue.

Speaking of weaving, however, there are two massive disadvantages with the pattern-style I use. The first is that you have to make a foundation row with as many stitches as the pattern is large, which is approximately 16 per hole in a Celtic knot.³ The other issue is that, once you’ve crocheted the whole length, you’re mostly just left with a slightly kinky rope, which you then have to weave totally around itself in order to finish the design. So often I have struggled a lot with that final step, because weaving is hard.

That being said, I really like the way that the designs come out. I liked them so much in late 2019 that I decided that I would make a blanket that is totally one length of cord then woven together. Over two years later, I still have more than half of the blanket to go.⁴ When I finish the blanket, it will be far too long to weave, but that’s⁵ an issue for future me.

While designing the blanket, a friend asked me a fair question, though one which belies a misunderstanding about Celtic knotwork. They asked why I wouldn’t just make many small pieces and then sew them together.

One crucial element about well-made⁶ knots is that they are a single strand. I’ve tried a few times to crochet the whole celtic knot already woven, but I haven’t been able to get it running any time I’ve tried. If I could, I think that might really be fantastic, because there would be no loose ends to weave together.

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Monthly Reflection

First Published: 2022 January 31

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I really thought that I had a monthly tradition of reflecting on the past month. Looking through my history, however, I apparently only did this once, which makes it somewhat funny that it was also a January reflection.

Since I set yearly goals, now seems like a good time to check in on them.

.

Huh, I guess I didn’t really write my goals on the blog, did I. Welp, I guess let me look based on the goals I wrote down elsewhere.

I have a goal of blogging every day, I made it 28¹ days out of 31, which is pretty good. I’d like to do better next month, which might require more planning ahead.

I have a goal of writing a poem every day, I think I succeeded twice. I might want to switch to an easier format than villanelles, maybe sonnets again, just to get back into it.

I have a goal of working out more. I’ve been doing better on that regard, especially since I shifted from shooting for 30 minute workouts, which I cannot find the energy to do, into doing an additive thing. Basically, every day I do one more pushup and squat. I started on the 11th, so I do the number of days this year minus ten to see how many I should do each day. I still haven’t been great at keeping up with it, but hopefully next month will be better.

I’ve on average been good with Bible in a Year, though I’ve had to double up a few days. I’d like to do better at that.

Looking ahead to next month, I think my goals will be:

1. Blog daily

2. Compose a poem and music daily

3. Do the pushup/squat thing daily

4. Listen to BiaY Daily

5. Track my daily doings better in my journal

I guess I’ll probably check in four weeks from now, to see how I did.

I do like that I’ve managed to add blogging back into my daily routine fairly easily, especially since I haven’t found that it correlates too much with extra screen time². I still haven’t found my right place for poetry. Historically I would write them before bed I think, but I’m far too tired for that most nights. Who knows, though, maybe taking those extra few minutes would serve me really well. I guess that’s something I can work towards in February³

My last post that was written the day it posted was on February 15, and it was incredibly short. My last post is dated February 22 and was written March 3. The last post I’m willing to claim as a fullish post is my reflection on the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, which was February 17 in 2019.⁴ It’s weird to me that in a few weeks, between less than two and five, depending on which standard I’m using, I will officially be past anything I’ve written before. The last post that was full and not backdated is the week before’s Reflection on the Gospel, which was the 10 of February. It’s a somewhat scary and exciting feeling.

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Reflections on Today’s Gospel

First Published: 2022 January 30

1 Corinthians 13:3: “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing”

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As always, it’s fascinating to me to see how different my interpretation of the readings is three years later. Last time I read these, I was struck by the commands in the readings, especially the first reading. This time, I really hear the call to love more than everything. Without love, there can be no gain in my life.

Tonight was also the first RCIA¹ class at my parish. It was really interesting in conjunction with today’s readings, because we talked about what our purpose in life is. According to² the Baltimore Catechism, our purpose in life is to know, love and serve the Lord.

The part that stuck with me is that we love through helping our neighbor, and we serve the Lord through the liturgy. I always sort of assumed it was the opposite, but it’s really interesting to me how this ordering, service as liturgy and love as traditional service meshes more with Catholic teaching in my brain. I know I had something else to add here, but I can no longer remember it.

On Spoons and Spell Slots

First Published: 2022 January 28

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There’s a concept in mental health that’s been making the rounds in the internet. The concept is that of “spoons”. More or less, the idea is¹ that many activities in the life of someone with a neurological condition take mental effort, which can be quantified as spoons. Some activities take one spoon, others two, etc. If you have no more spoons, then you cannot do the activity. It’s a metaphor for executive dysfunction.

I personally prefer a modification of that which involves the tabletop roleplaying game² metaphor of spell slots. This explanation is nicer for me because it fits better with my lived experience. The concept is similar to above, but with levels. As an example, sending an email is a fairly low-level spell slot in terms of executive function. Calling someone about a misplaced order is a fairly high-level spell slot in terms of effort and functioning. However, if I run out of the low-level slots, a high level slot can be used for the task.

Anyways, the two paragraphs of explanation are mostly to say that I’ve been running out of whichever metaphorical storage I have a lot lately. I’m not totally sure why, but I have some ideas. I’m really hopeful that I can get back into having the space and spoons to not run out constantly. It’s really sucky to me that yesterday I didn’t even have the space in my mind to write this blog.

Writing this blog is something that I’m really becoming excited about as a retrospective. Even if I don’t think there’s anything good about the words, the fact that I’m writing at least five hundred words a day here is really helping me to think about how I could write my exams for chemistry or³ my thesis when that happens. Even without that, it fits with my goal of having more creative hobbies.

All that to say, it really makes me sad that I was unable to write a post yesterday, even though this is functionally a write-only blog. I’m pretty sure no one reads this⁴, but it’s still something that I sometimes look back on, if only the titles each day as I write a new one. I feel like it might be helpful for me to have a few concepts I can try to have more spoons in the upcoming days and weeks, so I’m going to brainstorm below.

I could try scheduling my day more. I find that when I don’t pay attention, I waste my hours away mindlessly scrolling Youtube.

In a similar vein, I could just find a time limiter and use it on Youtube, so that I can’t just waste my hours on there. Sometimes removing distractions is enough for me, though since sometimes it’s really an absence of energy, dissociating without Youtube isn’t really much different.

I could try sleeping more. Generally I find that when I sleep I do better mentally.

I could try eating better. I’m eating pretty well right now, but I wonder if having more snacks/food available might help, because I often get home and am completely out of energy.

Anyways, if I try any of these and they work particularly well or badly I’ll be sure to report back.

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Aleatoric Lite Music

First Published: 2022 January 26

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’m currently writing a piece which could be described as aleatoric lite music. More or less, my goal was to create a piece that can be continued for as long as needed. Then I decided to add constraints, because what’s the point of life without a little¹ chaos?

My first constraint was that I wanted it to be a round and/or canon melody.² Those are fairly easy to write, as it turns out, so that was great to learn.

My second constraint changed. Initially, I wanted to have each voice have the melody, writing four part voice leading to make that fit. However, the issue with that is that then you functionally have to write four different parts. So, I decided that I would add a new constraint: there would be one harmony set, and the voices would trade to produce the different arrangements for voices. I’m still unsure between my current plan of having 4 voicings and having 12, but since the tenor³ line and the bass line as melody currently are the same basically, I’m not sure what difference the audience might hear between the two options. Though, as I write this I realize that one of the goals was to keep it musically interesting moreso for the performers than for the crowd, so I guess the 12 options is more fun.

A new idea that’s come to me since writing this blog is to have non-even loop lengths. In all honesty, that should have been my first idea for aleatoric music. The general idea behind the concept is that you have, for instance, a three beat line, a four beat line, and a five beat line. If you start them all together and then let it run, with each voice looping as soon as it finishes, you end up with 4*3*5 =60 beats. From 12 beats of written music, that isn’t so bad. Of course, that scales really well. If you write a 12 beat and a 13 beat part, for instance, those 25 beats you’ve written generate 156 distinct beats. A 13,14, and 15 beat part gives you 2370 beats of music for 42 beats of writing. The issue for me is that generally if you want these beats to sound good, you’re pretty limited to a single chord, though I guess it isn’t at all uncommon to have them in the same diatonic world. Once I finish the four part writing, I might try generating something that doesn’t evenly go into 32⁴, and see if maybe that sounds nice. The biggest issue there is that timing becomes harder, because unless you copy paste the same melody line over and over, people tend not to like phasing. I guess I’ll check with the conductress and see if she has any thoughts on the looping idea. Maybe she’ll like it, though I really doubt it.

Anyways, I’ve got the first two measures of the four part harmony written, and the whole canon is finished as well. At this rate I should be finished by the end of the week, but that’s a dangerous thing to claim.

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First Day of Class

First Published: 2022 January 25

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Today is the first day of my new Spring semester. It was a fun day!

Out of the blue, I happened to see someone I care deeply about. I got to write a letter to that same person, which was claimed to be appreciated. I got a letter in turn from the exact same person!¹ In my choir class I got to see a bunch of friends from last semester. In the same choir class, I got to see² the new music that I’m going to be singing this semester, and found out that we’re performing at an early music festival³, which is incredibly fun and exciting. My ISM class⁴ met, and I’m learning interesting things in it/sure I’ll learn many more.

On the research side, a piece I needed machined in the shop was finished, so I got to spend some time playing with electronic-adjacent pieces⁵. I got to see my group and have long and productive conversations with them all about research.

In productivity, I got through more of my items today than I did yesterday, which is incredible and a little bit disappointing in how I did yesterday. I started a massive revision of a small choral piece I’m working on, which⁶ I will write about below.

The piece is designed to be performed during the Ash Wednesday ashing⁷. As a result, I want to have a piece which can be performed for some arbitrary amount of time, so that everyone who wants ashes can do so to the music, without it necessarily needing to repeat in a perfect loop. The easiest answer to that problem is to simply have aleatoric music, but simple answers aren’t always good answers. The biggest problem with aleatoric music is that I am almost positive the performers would hate it.

So, we then move to aleatoric music lite. My goal is a four part melody that can be sung as a round or as four part harmony, where each of the four voices can take each of the four parts. I am not going to be so extra so as to plan for the whole 4 factorial⁸ combinations possible, especially because most of them should be the same-ish sounding. There are some problems with that, however. The biggest problem is that there is a very small range that⁹ can be sung by all four voice parts. After that, figuring out the rules for inverting counterpoint are relatively easier.¹⁰ In the choir I’m writing for, the range I think that I can have all four parts sing is G-G¹¹. Since it’s for Ash Wednesday, I want a sad tune, and since it’s liturgical adjacent I would like something modal. As a result, the piece is in Phrygian.¹²

Without this footer I’m at 461 no footnotes and 77 footnote words, which meets my goal. Maybe tomorrow I should keep writing about this, since it seems to be easy to come out