Update for 6/19/2016

Site updates

• Wiki comments – I’m on a break from my math project, and this week my main project will be adding a commenting feature to my wiki, plus any other website housekeeping I can fit in.

Project updates

• Math relearning – Last week I started on some exercises based on the Kindergarten material, which I wrote about in my comments. On Thursday I had a surprise Twitter follow from Scott Baldridge, who it turns out is the lead author of the EngageNY curriculum I’ve been using, so I thanked him for following and told him about my project, which he thought was interesting. Now that I have his attention, I feel like the pressure is on and my updates need to be substantive, but I’ll try not to let it get to me, since I’m not a math teacher or curriculum developer. In any case, I’m considering myself mostly done with Kindergarten, other than continuing the exercises and writing a few more observations, and now I’ll take a break from this project for a week or two to work on other things.
• Diet – Last week I was too lazy to do much cooking, but I did manage to mostly succeed at hot fudge sauce and completely fail at muffins. It’s rare that I give up on a cooking attempt, but I foolishly tried to substitute coconut flour for almond flour without consulting the Internet, and the result was a dozen crumbly, pasty, flavorless clumps. I hope the trash can enjoyed them.
• Daily routine – Recording my sleep time hasn’t helped me get any more sleep, so I’m dropping that idea and going back to focusing on target times for my evening activities (life maintenance activities till 7:30, then projects till 9:30). I’ve also thought about alternating days for my activities (errands and cooking one day, projects the next, etc.), but this week I’ll try for my usual schedule. I’ve been feeling lazy the past couple of weeks; and when that happens, I eventually get tired of drifting through life, kick myself gently in the pants, and begin pushing myself to get more done, which started to happen this weekend and hopefully will continue this week. I’m going to try making use of implementation intentions.
• Artists – On Friday and Saturday I accidentally spent a lot of time using Google Images and TinEye to identify some mystery images I’ve collected over the years, which gave me some artists to add to my list of favorites, which I’ll probably post to the wiki soon, partly so all that time feels less wasted, though really I was planning to post it sometime anyway.

Life updates

• Work – Last week was spent making a long and complicated ebook of a Bible commentary, and I took it home a few evenings, so it felt all my time went into work, even though it really didn’t. Fortunately this was a volume in a series, and last time I’d written myself notes on how to do the complicated parts, so the work wasn’t as painful as I was expecting, and I was able to finish it on time for the ebook’s deployment, though I might need to submit corrections later.
• Health – I went to see my gastroenterologist last Tuesday, and he decided I was doing well enough that I didn’t need to switch medications, so for now we’ll stick with the main two I’m on and gradually remove the others. It’s honestly a bit disappointing because I was looking forward to maybe being normal, and right now my symptoms aren’t as calm as they have been, but we’ll see how it goes. He also said I don’t need to avoid gluten as my primary doctor suggested, which I’d also concluded from my reading, and it’s a relief, because low carb + gluten free is surprisingly difficult.
• Conspiracy theories – Last week my major preoccupation was more weirdness, this time YouTube videos and podcasts about conspiracy theories. These are interesting to me for the epistemological and psychological issues they raise, which are both intriguing and frustrating, and for creative writing inspiration, since the theorists are essentially evolving new mythologies, and watching their process helps me develop my own ideas. My favorite podcast on the theorist side was Out of Darkness, Into the Light for being the strangest, and on the skeptic side it was either Exposing PseudoAstronomy for being so scientific or Conspiracy Skeptic for being fun and for recommending The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which I ended up buying. I’ll probably post about conspiracy theories on the wiki sometime, if I don’t get sick of them first.
• Compassion Experience – The theme of last week’s chapel at work was Compassion International, and we heard Olive Aneno’s inspiring story of growing up in their child development program. Afterward we visited the Compassion Experience, an exhibit featuring the stories of other Compassion kids, in this case Jey and Yanneley. It was all very well done, and although it takes me a while to make decisions like this, sponsoring someone is starting to sound like a really good idea to me.
• Worship team – I subbed for a pianist on another team this weekend, and it happened to be the first time our new music minister was leading in the early service, subbing for the team’s normal leader. It was nice to get to work with him. I don’t think I was especially creative this time, but I feel like I played more vigorously than usual, which was satisfying, and I learned a slightly tricky piece at the last minute for offertory, which was also satisfying.