stories to tell

 quick weekend recap: friday: met with c and j to get some ciders and crepes. it was nice. dog didn't bite me this time. saturday: rained all day, met with e at night. by miracle she invited me to her place to play mariokart. it was fun. her dog is amazing as always. sunday: met with r and j for brunch and colombian grocery shopping. the brunch food was amazingly delicious. the company was a lot of fun too. we then walked around the neighborhood and it was good. very cool peeps.  extra: played a new video game with the bestie. it was awesome. reminiscent of WoW days. we talked on the phone while we played and it was a laugh fest as we kept making mistakes but eventually succeeded on our missions. monster hunter promises to be fun.   

 went to work. walked far for coffee with r and m and a. worked a bit more. lunch to far away indian place. by far away i mean more than 15 minutes walking. boss insisted again on setting me up with familiy friend. i said i would try to reach out even though i know it won't work because this person is a super christian girl and i'm almost an anti-theist. still. will probably text sometime friday. i also got a text from hinge date#1. she just wanted to confirm for the 3rd. that'll be interesting.  had an extra experiment with r that didn't go too well unfortunately. hopefully we got something interesting for at least an abstract.  the rest of the evening went normal. it was beautiful day and i wish i had biked to work. was there drama today?maybe? but not as much as yesterday. i think the lack of sleep is my biggest drama creator. talked to r about our group trip to the cabin. i think as long as we can relax about everything and e can be relaxed and having fun it'll

 super quick update just to keep the habit: -went to work at 6am in mega rain -cadaver study -first morning stage i worked with the lead vest on. heavy and annoying and hot. -got hospital breakfast. took most of the students up with me. got a fresh omelette du fromage and a juice and a coffee. excellent.  -came back to second stage of work -got lunch.  -more work -clean up -went home in less rain thoughts: we spoke about our upcoming hiking trip. about car assignments and who is driving who. is it bad that my first thought was about coming up with an excuse to get out of going? i think i may not be as welcome in this trip. i'm older and not as fun anymore. i used to be a jester but lately i just feel like a bitter old man. i don't think these kids would want a sourpuss around.  especially because i feel like i'm feuding with e without an actual feud. it's weird, but we seem to be at odds for everything these days. i say something, and immediately she puts it down. i thi

 i think i get affected emotionally because it feels like i've invested in a friendship that was never reciprocated to begin with. the day started normal enough. went to work. it was a classic david and co. day. i had to work with the thigh again. this time, we knew what to do to get some good staining. around noon i had little time to get lunch but thankfully r and j picked it up for me. then we had about 25 minutes to eat it before the experiments continued. i watched jeopardy with r, a, m, and j while i ate. i'm pretty certain we'd be pretty good as a team in bar trivia. one day we'll go. we got about an episode and a half before we had to go back to work. throughout the morning e had been in a quiet and sour mood. at some point after lunch i had to go into the office and she had a mean look on her face. i asked her what was wrong, if she was ok. she responded that she was upset because she has been trying to work and we had been too distracting during our jeopardy s

 it was normal day, as far as those go. i worked a bit from home. then went into lab. e asked me if i was going to make a plan for lunch. i told her i would be there before lunch and we could walk to get something. once i arrived i saw that everyone else was also at work. and they all biked to work too! the warm days are coming.  we walked to a sandwich place. r came with us and it was a nice walk. the day was beautiful. if i hadn't had to work i probably would have taken the day off to do a long bike ride. back at work i played a round of jeopardy with r during lunch. then afterwards i helped e solve a problem with her wiring in her project and then i helped her finish her project box. then i came back and worked with r on her coding project. sometimes i wonder if i only like coding these kinds of things because they are easy and they have solutions, or i just like it because i actually like coding. should i change the direction of my career to do more software type of things? i j

 i feel extremely sleepy. all of the nights of this weekend i've been too tired to write. tonight included, so i'll be brief. maybe i should stop writing my daily things. we'll see. saturday: early morning i was invited by m and wu to go bouldering. it was fun. it had been a long time since i had tried it. m has improved a lot in the time since the first time we went and she was climbing probably at almost r level. it was fun because it meant she could push me to do/try certain problems i wouldn't otherwise. right now i feel that i may have overdone it just a tiny bit because 50% of my body aches whenever i move. but it's fun. and hopefully this means i'm a little stronger now.  in the afternoon i met with r and j for a nice lunch and cocktail hour. i'll be damned if it wasn't fun. i'm really happy these people are into this because there was something missing from my life after cy left and i just found out what it was: high end libations and food. i

 woke up hella early today to get to work in time for a possible human specimen. turns out we didn't get it. but it's alright, it allowed me to do the extra experiment i had aside for me. it was staining some thigh. some of them hams. them gams. thicc af swine legs. i'm happy i got r to help me in lab. i would not tell her this in fear that may think it is insulting but she is in many ways very similar to myself. actually, she's like me but without my emotional mess. our attitudes mesh very well in our approaches to work and in our priorities of said work. i think we could build prototypes that work (but may be ugly) in record time. our only problem is that we also have a penchant for enjoying the better parts of life. this leads us to getting side tracked pretty easily by delicious food, conversation, and taylor swift. but other than that i think we get shit done. and get it done well. so the fact that she's been helping me with this gams staining has been a mini b

 woke up ready for work. unsure of work for the company or for lab. however as i was gettign ready for my wfh time i get a snapschat of a highly organized circuit. it was beautiful. i replied with some line about how amazing it was.  "i need to solder all of it still. want to help?" do i want to help? i don't know. do you need help? are you asking? or are you giving me the chance to do your work? i know the previous sentence sounds like i am salty about it. but i am not. maybe a bit. but it's because i don't understand the nature of our friendship. if r asked me that i would not even think about it. i would not care for the words or manner of asking for help. but with her i just don't know where she's coming from. i do enjoy helping her. i do want to help her. but am i just a tool for her? only nice when she needs something i can do for her? i don't know.  so i went in to help her. at first it was very serious, matter of fact work. i asked what she ne

 so this will be short because i am tired and want to sleep. i hope. went to work. did experiments. a little disappointing results unfortunately. everything else was meh. except for crunchy mochi snacks! those were pretty good.  throughout the day i felt myself sinking into a depression. i keep to what's not there. i keep daydreaming and feeling bad when they don't (trans)substantiate. irrational. i even ranted about this stuff to r. ugh so embarrassing. i really need to know when to just close off from people. i guess part of the dark mood is to also alienate people, and what better way than to get very personal and stupid. which is what i did. to probably the only person that still likes my company. sorry r. i will do better. got home rather early but just in time to clean my apartment and get ready for my virtual date courtesy of the apps. the date was with cm. it started pretty good. we each had 5 beers to try out and the conversation flowed well. we went through the usual

 this one will be very brief. i think. woke up. determined to have a productive day. i had a plan for morning work at home followed by afternoon work in the office. turns out i took too long getting up from my bed and by the time i was ready for work i had to head over to the office. i decided i would do the home portion in the later evening. i also had to go buy groceries. waiting for the train the first snowflakes start to fall.  on the train i ordered lunch to pick it up on the way to work. it was afrodeli because why not treat myself to a nice monday right? on the walk to the restaurant e asks me if i'm going to work. i told her i was on my way but getting lunch on the way. she said she was going to ask me about that. she had already asked m about going with her but he didn't want lunch. ok. maybe i'm misunderstanding her, but it sounds like "negging" lol. like "hey want to do something? i had someone better in mind but they canceled on me so i'm just

 not much today. woke up, listened to music. tried to make breakfast but realized i have no groceries. stuck to the bed and my pajamas for way too long. finally, one of the people i've been talking to in hinge proposed maybe a meeting in the early afternoon. i read it too late and so when i said yes i didn't expect her to respond. she ultimately didn't but i still got ready and left my apartment just in case. it was also an excuse to get out and enjoy the last bit of warmth of the weekend before it faded away.  once outside i walked around the park and did some pretty enjoyable people watching. then i texted r and joined her and j in their grocery run. i hope i didn't intrude too much. maybe i need to back off a little haha, this is the second weekend i've seen them socially and they may tire of me, e style. so i gotta be more careful. it was fun nonetheless though! it's always easy to talk to them and whatever the topic we usually can have fun. i really should

i woke up today still kind of tired but determined to do something. a warm day can't be tossed away these days. nevertheless i couldn't get out of bed. i started thinking of food items and the hunger finally got me up. unfortunately i didn't have anything fun to eat so i scavenged my kitchen and made myself a semi-sad sandwich. while i ate i thought about what i could do to take advantage of the day. -i could go do a long bike ride. maybe do a tour around the lakes.  -i could go grocery shopping in my bike. go to TJs. or Even venture out to whole foods. -doing things alone is boring. could i invite r to a bike ride? i imagined she's busy. maybe m? nah, she's probably also busy. t? nah, too intense.  i couldn't find something i truly wanted to do so i decided to try out my hand at crocheting. i got the first two steps down. but it was with the help of a guidance video. once i had to fend for myself i..kinda failed. i couldn't concentrate enough to keep track

crazy day at work.  got called lazy. still worked 26 hours straight. sigh. human heart came in after hours so we worked that. then more human tissue that lasted into the next morning. i'm now just half dead but unable to close my eyes. i thought if i wrote a little maybe it could trigger sleep. let's hope so.

 so i got vaccinated today. woke up bright and early to be picked up by r to head over to get the first vaccine of the day. e also came along. it was a nice enough ride. i got to read some of my favorite and not so favorite shakespeare's soliloquies.  the town was a very small town of less than 10000 people. people seemed friendly. after the shot i took a picture of a cannon they had in front of the county building. it was also curiously aimed at a monument displaying the names of ALL the tonwspeople who have ever been to war. i'm sure one of these came after the other.  on the ride back we learned about a third of the nominees for the grammys. it was a long ride home. back home i started to feel very very sleepy. it might have been the rainy day, or the lack of food, or the after vaccine effects. but i couldn't look at my computer for longer than 10 minutes without thinking of sleep. i then decided i was too tired to make food and decided to order some comfort food: thai f

biked to work again. it's so great. especially since it was so nice and warm-ish. as i was arriving r and j were coming in their bikes as well. it was very nice to see them. then j invited me to celebrate his graduation with a drink-a-thon (just one bottle, nothing too crazy) of this weird greek mythological (as made so by r) libation. it even has a name that says it'll either kill me or make me a demi-god. maybe it'll finally awaken the super powers that i've been waiting for since i was 8. once in the office things went as usual. the experiments went as well as could have been expected in the morning. i still need to tweak a bit on getting the final results but i think i'm getting there. What was interesting was how disinterested everyone else in lab seems to be about the experiments going on. it used to be that most phd students would be present during the entire day of experiments. helping, watching, learning, being actively engaged with whatever science and or

 on my way to work everything felt great. i even had green lights all the way through. then it dawned on me. i can't be this happy for so long! i told myself not to jinx it.  but i totally jinxed it. i barely got any work done during the morning and then during our walk to get lunch r and i got into a heated debate. it was about social justice and racial tensions. i was wrong but i didn't even know how to let her know i was wrong. these debates are so hard. any argument can be taken as a surrogate for ones morals and then blam! suddenly you are making someone of yourself feel like they are the scum of the earth.  so that conversation went on for a big part of the afternoon. it also took a big part of the emotional sie of the day. after a long discussion we were able to move beyond it and sort of understand where we were coming from but by then it was late afternoon and i think we all wanted to go home.  what was nice was that we were able to bike together. i accompanied her to

today was such a good day it's hard to use this as the emotional baggage handler that it is. i want to keep these emotions for the rest of week if possible! i hope that by writing them they don't just fall into the page.  maybe i'll keep it brief, just in case: morning: woke up at a reasonable time. made coffee. it was a great start for the day because it was a brand new untested coffee and it turned out to be delicious. earthy, sweet, smooth, a great thing to have for breakfast. i had planned to go biking today since it was going to be warm but i had to stop by lab first to finish the work i did yesterday. so i made some arepas (three littles ones) and once again, they were on point with the taste. either i'm getting better or being able to sleep really improves my life. also, making the arepas allowed me to dilly dally because i was secretly (secretly from myself) half hoping e would text inviting me to a bike ride. she's mentioned biking at least once everyday i

 again really late to make a detailed post. woke up extra early to go to work again. we received a heart and it needed to be carefully dissected and fixed for storage. it's usually a two (or three) person job. i volunteered to be one of the people to help and then waited for someone else to volunteer. this was last night. then the night became morning. and the only person to ask about it was e. she inquired about updates on its arrival, didn't actually volunteer. she was the only person even awake at that time but i was still not ready to see her again. our last encounter of a high positive emotion followed by low rejection left a sour taste in my mouth. i feel like i'm being judged and i keep losing that trial. so i told her to not worry about the heart and i made the decision to do it all on my own if it came down to it. i'd rather the extra work than to be made feel inferior just for being me. sorry. although i got verbal confirmation that the heart would arrive in 1

 morning: woke up in time for a work meeting. a little groggy and still trying to process all the things i had to do i made coffee and ate a banana. at this point having bought that banana set last week has been a life saver. the meeting went well. it was scheduled for 30 minutes because we thought we wouldn't have much to say after meeting in some capacity every day of the week. at the end we ended up talking for over 45 minutes. i got more things to do.  i quickly took a shower and headed into lab. i wasn't planning on going in but mini boss #2 left his computer rendering videos and had to come in to pick it up. initially i wanted to be lazy and take the train but because i was running late i had to take the bicycle.  so much fun! the skies were gray and sad but the movement, the wind in my face, the sounds of freedom were all around me. i wanted to keep going. i told myself i would do what i needed to do quickly and go for a good afternoon bike, maybe to the lakes or some ot

again no time to write, so here's my day in a nutshell. woke up at 6am so i could be in the lab early to open the doors for mini boss #2 who wanted to spend the morning already in our lab space so he wouldn't have to drive in the middle of day. After opening the doors i worked on finishing the acrylic mold i started yesterday and made the first layer of the experimental set-up. Because they had asked for double (the reason i had to build a second one) it took longer than expected.  Around 9 i got to working with e on her project. We did the mapping required and took all the measurements she needed for her to fix the logic in her software and to see if she could interface with the machine tomorrow. While we were working on all that we noticed a lot of unused, or redundant cables and other knicknackery. So as it is often the case with e, we got to work in streamlining the work space and making things as organized as possible. that took another long time. The work area now looks p

 "could you get this done quick?" It always seems like it is possible. Then it's 2 in the morning and you haven't finished working for something that is not essential nor does it have a hard deadline. it's just because it "feels" good? because people are asking for it without regard for your well being? because you want to make a good impression? i don't know. i'm going to be exhausted tomorrow.  today was whatever. helped everyone do their "clean-up" tasks. worked until 2am. had a 1.5 hour break during dinner. i hope friday will be better. missing the family

 morning: casual style. the curtains did keep the apartment darker but not as dark as i thought they would. it's incredible how much light came come through the 10 inch gap between curtains. sunlight is literally more powerful than any darkness. made the crazy fancy gesha coffee in the french press. it was delightful but i think i still prefer the pour over for fancy (i.e. delicate and complex) coffee beans. i checked my emails and then decided to make arepas for breakfast like a good colombian kid. At this point it was around 11am and i had to get ready for work. unfortunately there's heavy construction nearby my building and the sounds were so loud that my glasses were rattling. i texted e if she was experiencing the same insanity or if it was only on my side of the building but she was running some errands and would head into the office afterwards.  i was ambivalent then. i wanted to go to work but lately e has been a little on what i feel is an anti-david streak. on the oth

 morning: woke up sleepy still. from 6 am onward i only slept in 30 minute intervals. it was awful. if it wasn't the sunlight coming through the window it was the sounds of what must have been a new subway being built right under my window.  once i woke up i checked my emails and got ready for work.  also! after talking with r and her list of morning things i felt compelled to do some yoga. i really didn't want to but i know i need it and if i can't use peer pressure for positive things, what is it good for? afternoon: i was planning on working at home all day but i got asked for a favor in the office. that plus i asked r to give me a ride so i could go and buy blackout curtains. i couldn't get over the bad sleep.  before heading into work i cooked lunch. frozen veggies with chicken. not bad. but i did "cook" everything in the microwave and it's just not as tasty as it could have been.  at work things went pretty alright. did some things but not all the th