Update for 4/9/2017

Life updates

• Work – In the middle of last week my boss pulled me into the rather large project of reorganizing our typesetting file archive, and that took over my life for several days, including Saturday. It was kind of fun, but it throw off other things I was planning to do, such as laundry and taxes, so this week I’m catching up on life, which is why this entry is so late. But at least with all the extra hours I worked, I didn’t have to use up personal time for my medication infusion on Thursday, and I even earned an hour of comp time.
• Palm Sunday Orchestra – Sunday was our performance, and although I was a little anxious about it for most of the week, by the Saturday morning rehearsal I found I was settling into the music, and although during the performance my lips got about as tired as I expected, making the sustained notes harder and especially the higher notes, overall I played better than the first rehearsal led me to expect, and afterward people told us how much they appreciated having the orchestra play. I found that it did feel like a special occasion, and I liked the arrangements, and I’ve had some of them running through my head since then, so I’m thinking of looking for recordings.
• Easter – My brother is making his annual Easter visit this weekend, so I’ll try to get the apartment somewhat ready for him, but especially after the life disruption of work last week, I’m being easy on myself and accepting that most of what I’d like to do won’t happen but that it’ll turn out okay anyway.

Project updates

• Public coding guide – I’m discovering a lack of satisfying guides on some issues and new tools to learn for handling others, so I’m going to have to leave certain sections in a very incomplete state for now, but doing that will let me get on with the more concrete and usable parts of this project, namely the project skeleton templates.
• Media
  • Books – Juggling two audiobooks has noticeably slowed me down, but I finally finished Watership Down last week, and although I’m not really qualified to judge these things, I’ve heard it described as a modern classic, and it definitely has that feel. Its tone struck a nice balance between gravity and accessibility, the plot seemed very well constructed, and it even carried a sense of (rabbit) mythology mixing with the characters’ present-day adventures. I still don’t know if it’s a kids’ book, but for anyone at least slightly older I absolutely recommend it.
  • Movies – I watched Snowpiercer with my friend Tim, split up over a couple of weeks, and it was strange and rather implausible but interesting, one of a couple of dystopian SF films about class warfare I’ve wanted to see after watching others like In Time and Aeon Flux, and the next on that list is High-Rise. I’m not sure why these movies appeal to me, other than their sometimes shiny aesthetic, but they tend to stick in my mind.