Slouching Towards Bethlehem

The house is filled with still, almost smoky air and there are two mold-kissed carrots embracing in the fridge. After spending half a week in the countryside, feeling bare skin against dew-laden grass and cold air ripple through the shutters, I am back home. The lights make my eyes feel all smudged, somehow too bright but too dim, and there is a constant ringing in my ears and a pounding anxiety to get something, anything done. But I haven't been doing that, not in a way that matters.

I spent at least 15 hours this week cleaning up a large dataset, removing any broken or missing responses, checking scale reliability, running initial correlations. I didn't find what I wanted. I found scraps and remnants and things that maybe I could write about, but certainly nothing to write home about. Now that I'm reworking the introduction, I suppose I can have it lean in a more agnostic direction. Maybe an effect exists, maybe it doesn't, who knows? At least it will replace the vapid naivety that was 'yes, certainly, based on previous studies this should exist!'. I can't help but feel disappointed, but I'll move on.

My schedule for the rest of the week involves having a tea party with my friends tomorrow morning (still need to figure out which bus to take) and doing my 9-5 on Friday, back at the institute with a new screening project (which hopefully will complete the bulk of my volunteer hours). And then on the weekend I'm going to see if I can trade in my current Apple Watch for a new one, hopefully with cellular, so that I don't have to bring my phone with me to uni this semester. I do have an addiction and it is ruining my life. I can confidently say that I spend hours a day doing absolutely nothing, and then when I do something, it is so fleeting and half-assed that I wonder why I tried in the first place. It isn't burnout, since I still feel an intense drive and execution ability for my studies, but it isn't not burnout either. It is like a strange amalgamated offspring.

I'm thinking of jailbreaking my Kindle (the codemasters over on Reddit have developed some new methods) which could be nice, considering how upset I get over technofeudalism and this whole idea that 'buying' does not exist in the digital space, only licensing does. As somebody who incessantly buys e-books even though I could just pirate them, this was a wakeup call. The good thing about jailbreaking is that you can get an identical layout to the paid versions of books, the code just knows what to do and forms everything how it is meant to be. I will update...

I think my migraine today started with Costco. Going to Costco seems fun for the first 10 minutes, but after lugging around the heaviest and largest shopping cart in the world, I was less enthused. And everything was so bright and loud and people were always in the way. I found myself getting very angry at children who kept walking straight into the cart. I didn't even have any free samples because of how furious I found myself becoming.

I made a pasta bake today, as well as some stewed apples (which were lovely). I also put in a new grocery order because I need more vegetables and want to try kefir instead of regular yogurt because my stomach could use the extra support. I find myself so tense and ready to act and yet I cannot bring myself to do anything at all. It is a terrible cycle that I wish I could break out of. It is hard during the break, especially when I have things to do but need to set my own schedule. If I'm hoping to pursue postgraduate studies I need to get this ability together quickly, because there are no key timelines during something like a PhD, you guide it yourself.

I don't know what I'm going to do after writing this, maybe try to watch something? Or light a candle. Or make more hot chocolate (probably this one). I got the Lindt one and I am addicted to it. Although you do have to make it with milk, I tried it with only water and it had a terrible flavour. Strange how things work out like that.

Adios.