Ravings of an Undead Cheese Minion

Before the Farmington Half, both the night before and the morning of, I drank a packet of LMNT electrolyte drink mix. My mom had gotten me them for Easter.  Cramping? None. Calves felt a tiny bit weird last 2 miles so I didn't pick up the pace that much. But I still cut down from around 6:50/mile to 6:40/mile. No feelings of being faint either, which is huge as someone who can't really eat a lot before races and has to eat everything after finishing.  They are REALLY salty, and that's the whole point. I'm converted. 

every time I listen to "Flashing Lights" by Kanye and he goes I'm more of the Trips to Florida I think about how I'm going to WDW in January and want to go to Orlando as much as possible. This pushes me to work harder. So, yay I guess? Let's feed the machine of CAPITALISM, apparently.  But the morning sun over Epic Universe or walking through the trees in Animal Kingdom or walking into Fun Spot on a starry night...or eating at the End Zone food court, browsing the menus, figuring out which line is the shortest, standing in MK mobile ordering cheeseburger spring rolls and a volcano dole whip... Hell yeah.  And the weather's so breezy Man, why can't life always be this easy? 

I'm sticking with Duolingo for Spanish and Norwegian, but with something like Japanese, Duolingo was just NOT working. The kana writing was disjointed and the grammar was not taught. I could not intuit it.  So even with the weird AI voice and AI generated images, Airlearn is legitimately better than Duo for Japanese. I might even try it for Tagalog just because I was burning out on Mango. Mango is super dry and I am pretty sure it's also  AI-generated. Or spoken by the most bored voice instructor known to mankind.  I need bite-sized, tiny tiny TINY lessons that fit into a busy day. I'm in no rush with language study, whereas I kind of am with other stuff, like art, writing, and code. Hell, I might even use AirLearn for chess instead of chess.com, but we will see. 

This starts tomorrow after lunch. So the 8 AM start and time requirements stuff do not count for that first day.  If I get a job this week, awesome. I'll accept it. But we cannot plan on such things.  Continue morning engineering block pre-gym, but make it a little bit longer. Focus strongly on PLCs, math, and Arduino.  Must start at 8 AM, but can do CYBERSECURITY first! Extreme focus on Leetcode/DSA/System Design/SQL (at least 3 hours) Bonus: Kaggle Bonus: Data Engineering upskill cloud certs? Then: Daily CS studies (at least 1 hour) This is our actual curriculum, AND we will do it AGAIN in the evening Secondary focus as a “Bonus personal projects block” Then: Daily graphics studies (at least 1 hour) again, do it AGAIN in the evening Yep, you guessed it. Daily games studies. (at least 1 hour) 1 hour only for job apps, but MUST do 5: 3 hybrid, 2 remote OR vice versa STRONG PRIORITY with GOVERNMENT When I say "again in the evening", it's because 7...

Each time I do this, I tell myself it's the last time. Hopefully, this time I really mean it.  What do I mean by this? Art, writing, coding, music, and such should all be done with extreme consistency and high duration, just like fitness. Sometimes I am forced to cut them short in order to interview prep, but I hate doing this, because my coding self-study should keep me sharp enough to not have to. And I think it would -- if I had mastered the routine a lot earlier.  I hate cramming and that's what it feels like I'm doing. I think after this one, I just want to stop. I want to study MY way. Concepts building on concepts. Nice and slow. No derails. Daily blocks as non-negotiable. I wouldn't skip the gym so why do I skip creating?

May and June are my favorite months of the year.  Taking a 1-mile walk at Lakeside Park, 80F. I am physically incapable of going at a fast pace. Instead, I feel weirdly calm and sedate. I feel like everything is going to be all right. I watch the lightest of warm breezes rustle through the flags and windcatchers of the nearby houses. The trees are all light or deep green, their flowers mostly gone. The first bits of cotton blow by, but only one or two.  I look at the pavilions of the baseball diamond, their blue cloth mostly still, and feel so at peace. It reminds me of kites at the beach. It makes me feel like I'm okay. I walk through a patch of shade and it is euphoric.   Soon, in two weeks or so, I'll be walking to Cherry Hill and looking at the little white flowers in the grass. I'll feel the rush of cold water pouring down on me as I sit on my tube and board Kodiak Canyon, with over 5 months of beautiful summer and fall ahead.  I just wish I knew why it felt so ...