stories to tell

 morning: woke up feeling rather despondent. thought about making coffee but i was so bleh i ended up just eating left overs. watched snl. it wasn't bad, i mostly watched it while covered in fluffy blankets and having micro naps in commercials. then c and j invited me to accompany them to walk their dog. i accepted since i spent all of saturday inside.  afternoon: met up with c and j at a nearby park. they had their cute dog with them. their dog is ml. she's a cute puppy rescue that sometimes has way too much energy. we walked on the park which was full of slush. i wish i had better boots for that hike. throughout the whole walk i could feel the cold water slowly seep into my socks, like the feeling of dread that comes from work on a sunday evening. we mostly talked about our lives since we last saw each other. j is still struggling with getting a good schedule at work (working with cells and all that bs can be quite annoying if you don't really plan out your experiments). ...

 no breakdown of today. nothing much was done. i wanted a long walk to mimic yesterday's but i just stayed in all day. i wanted to get groceries but i ordered food. i didn't take advantage of the warm day at all. yesterday i was doing so well. i felt energetic, healthy and fine. today i just feel meh. maybe tomorrow will be better. thoughts: watched an old movie. it's a terrible movie. the writing, directing, pacing, editing. nothing good. made me think about changing careers. maybe i could work in hollywood. i could write something for lifetime. or for like those free channels that show up on samsung tv. it's a paid gig. and being a self tortured "artist" is allowed. things that i need to work on: being happy with being alone. i spent the whole day today in my apartment in my own head. in a chat with e she said that i'm not willing to accept that others appreciate me enough because i see them as just friends. that basically because they are not willing to...

 morning: At last! got more than 7 hours of sleep. it's as good as advertised. i still woke up feeling emotionally conflicted but it's ok. i still have more sleep to catch up on and sort myself out. got ready for work. i thought about staying in longer and making coffee and maybe even watching a bit of tv but i wanted just a little bit of social interaction before the weekend and i knew that r and e would be in lab so i headed in. turns out that as i arrived at work e was on her way out and r had not even gone to work in.  i did some of the perfucntury stuff i had to do, help m sort out the fixed heart, help the coordinator with some packages, help IT dude with some rearranging of furniture. Then r invited me to our walk and talk! i had asked her to hang out with me and she said sure but i was thinking it was more likely a saturday type of thing. nevertheless i hurried to finish my work and before i knew it i was done and ready to have a cool walk and talk about life and nonse...

woke up too early. i needed to know if we were going to perform an experiment and let my mini boss know and it had to be early in the morning. well i over did it. i was the first one at work.  the rest of the day i was in that hyper mode that children get when they don't want to go to bed. i had a ton of work to do too. i ran around like a headless chicken but i kept trying to have a positive attitude. early in the morning i made some comments about being mean and i decided i wanted to actually be the opposite. i think i was about 50% successful.  highlights of the day: -r helping me take notes. one of the experiments required waiting for 5 minutes at a time and we had some fun talking in between. i do not remember what the conversation was about though -e staying over and giving me a ride home. she didn't mean to stay and give me a ride but it worked out and i didn't have to take the train. it was nice. -the experiments were not a complete failure lowlights of the day: -ex...

      ever see one of those stupid cliched movie scenes where time slows down?  Whenever things run afoul, i miss her the most. i can't stop thinking about her. how pretty she is. how her smile makes me melt. how her voice gives me goosebumps. stupid love songs hurt when she's in the forefront of my mind. and lately it's been a struggle to keep her away. how could i? i know i shouldn't say i'm in love. it's been too long. but why hasn't the pain just subsided? why is she still making me confused about everything.  (maybe it's because i write in a personal blog). Today's experiments were hot garbage. Some machinery even broke. The future does not look to be improving. t returned from his future job placement. e reached out to a possible venue for a new job. i feel like i'm getting stuck. sinking deeper into this quicksand. and i don't want to fight to get out because this way drowning can help distract me from the futile emotional pain.  it su...

 where the fuck did saturday go?! i need another one right now. morning: woke up hella early to be ready for 9am pick-up. r would pass by my house and we would head on out to the skiing lodge (is it an actual lodge?). so i got ready and got dressed and got prettied up. i made some french press coffee. unfortunately just as it finished brewing r arrived. i quickly poured the coffee down my gullet and headed out to the door.  she was already playing t. swift as i got in the car. we drove through beautiful white fields while chatting about life, music and the perils of my decision to snowboard over skiing. "it's not too late you know? if you take some skis i'll make sure you are running down blues by the end of the day". the offer was very tempting but i had already made up my mind to try out snowboarding. partly because i wanted to redeem myself for all that pain 15 years ago and partly because of e. i think she usually feels the least capable member of her alpine group...

 morning: had to wake up crazy early because i was in charge of getting coffee before work. uffda. woke up way too early. thought about asking e for a ride but it's her birthday and i didn't want to bother. thankfully the train was on time and i made it work a little past 7. i needed extra hands and so k and ka volunteered to help. ka is new in our group and we talked a bit about winter activities and how i still haven't ever gone sledding. "you gotta do it, you're not a minnesotan until then". the rest of the morning went normal. it was e's birthday so i gave her the coolest puzzle ever (when i bought it i was supposed to buy two so i could have one but i forgot! gah!) and then she proceeded to have fun pranking t's desk because he's out of town.  my mini boss was in lab today and so i was on full working mode. i had about 3 separate projects working for him at the same time. i was running like a headless chicken afternoon: we got lunch as chipotl...

 on a working haze for the last two days. I self imposed a deadline for sunday evening but i made the mistake of telling my (mini) boss about it. he's been on my case about it. Monday came and i worked at a normal pace thinking that everything was going well until late that evening he checked with me "can i get a draft of what you have so far?". panicked set in. i didn't want him to think i've been goofing off or anything of the sort, it's just been a busy week last week and the process is taking much longer than anticipated. So i worked all night to have something in the morning. I told him i'd have something ready by lunch. Cue in the morning work and things get busy in lab. around mid-morning i get a reply "that's ok, just have it in by end of day". "end of day" what does that mean, work day? midnight? as things got busier and the lack of sleep started to kick in, i took it to mean before the start of work wednesday.  We had a to...

 morning: woke up rather early to work. started by getting ready and making breakfast (coffee not needed). i had some left overs and while i ate my breakfast i watched some youtube videos that i have since forgotten. i was about to get to work when e messaged me "want a ride to goodwill?". earlier in the week i had mentioned to her that i wanted to get some new t-shirts and a good starting point would be goodwill. since i was thinking of work i asked her about the time and when she said after lunch i was locked in. i had already accepted the invitation before i knew the time. i couldn't pass up an opportunity to go outside, i've been cooped up in my apartment because it's been way too cold to go out walking.  However this was perfect. i had time to work in the morning, then maybe eat some light lunch and then go and hang out with my friend.  afternoon: of course i didn't do any work. i spent the rest of the morning organizing little things here and there, watc...

 nothing to report. i have been in a funk since yesterday. i have a lot of work to do but i have been avoiding it all and also avoiding people because i do not want to make it clear what a disappointment i am. tomorrow i hope to make up for it. at least to do something. it's also been very cold these last two days. that's my own lame excuse. i barely believe it. so what have i been doing? reading. reading and reading. but fun stuff. not work stuff.  so why am i writing tonight? for my fans of course! what would you like me to write about? thoughts: recently found that my grandma may be diagnosed with cancer. it's terrible. if it comes out to be true, she might not have very much longer. but while my brother feels kind alarmed or sad about it, i just feel..nothing. am i broken? i love my grandma. maybe it hasn't hit me yet? am i robot?

 day is a blur at this time so no subtitles. woke up early to bake. i was happy baking. there was a purpose, there was the fruit of labor and of (hopefully) success. i was proud i've been able to hold the same mother dough alive for almost a year. i also running high on e's comment about being unable to find another sourdough bread that tasted as good. i mean, that's the best compliment anyone has ever given me about my cooking ever! and it came from e! the supertaster*!! *not certified yet the only downside was that i woke up way too early in the morning. thankfully i was able to pay for a ride to work from e (bread is good currency). work was mundane and tiring as it can be sometimes. the lack of good sleep didn't help either. but i was in good spirits. i think most of us were in good spirits, maybe with the exception of t who is undeservedly having too much thrown in his plate. the guy needs a break but it seems the boss doesn't let up? i don't know, but i do...

 morning: woke up after the sun did. wonderful. got my ducks in order for my first meeting of the day. made a light breakfast of water and ham and cheese. i really missed not having some bread for a sandwich. Fortunately, the morning meeting was cancelled and suddenly i had time to start the dough preparations for a new batch of sourdough. with a coquettish eye i looked upon my starter and to my surprise it was in full bloom!  i set out to make sourdough bread. It consists of an initial mix (a very messy affair, i tried to use utensils but ended having to use my hands for a proper mix), then 3 "folds" each two hours apart, and ending with a pre-shape and a final shape that also take two hours to do. Within each two hour wait i would work, albeit pretty slowly, or i would goof around checking emails and just recovering from tuesday's work. afternoon: as i was getting near the end of the folds e asked if i still needed that ride to the grocery store. i gladly took advantage...

 morning: ran around like a headless chicken at work. trying to multi task doing experiments, setting up the data analysis for said experiments, and preparing stuff for the afternoon's double experiments. the best part of the morning was the walk to the train. it was very lightly snowing and there was a calmness to the day that felt very spiritual. it was cold but thankfully not very windy. i felt my thoughts quiet and just enjoyed the silence. until the train came in. some of the peeps left to get coffee, i wanted to go as well (partially because i wanted to see if there were still flurries) but i had to stay and help so they got it for me. it was decent and much needed. another downer was waking up before the sun.  afternoon: went to get lunch with r and m. it was a very nice walk in the sun for about 5 minutes. then the wind picked up and my cheeks started to feel frozen. i brought up the idea of going to a cabin as a work group to r and she kindly but decisively shot it do...

early morning:  woke up feeling a bit anxious. i knew i had work to do that i neglected over the weekend. i checked my work computer. empty. nothing due today. it felt so nice. i was already up so i could get a head start on the day but i decided to take a victory nap (the victory being that i had nothing to do urgently).  regular morning: woke up with a science question in mind. wide awake. i wanted to call e and ask if my thoughts made sense since it was in her area of expertise. i decided to wait until tomorrow. partially because i didn't want to bother her and partially because this way i would have some conversation for the day.  i took a shower and did some light work, responding to emails and some abstract writing. I still had some pizza dough left over from yesterday and decided to make pizza with ham for lunch. lunch: while the pizza baked, e asked me if i wanted a ride to work. i agreed because i was not as productive as i wanted. The pizza was then done and bec...

the feels-like temperature right now is -33F. it would be annoying at best to go out. as the day progressed  i simply observed the daylight change through my window. there was nothing to do. nothing fun at least. i could work but the previous week has left me with a sour taste on my mouth regarding work. i took a nap. i barely ever take naps. but i took a fat ass nap. i woke up still bored. i thought about calling e or r to hang out but i also don't want to bother people who probably have better things to do with their better friends. also what could we do? drive around is probably the only thing to do, and e had already had her drive last night.  so the day was a total wash. not even worth separating it into sections. it's just one long boring dark-light-dark thing. and now it's time to sleep. i miss just being silly without overthinking everything. when did things change? you know what would be great on a crappy boring day like today? cuddling all freaking day. that would...

i'm half asleep right now but i want to force myself to write before sleep as much as possible. morning: woke up with the urgency of having work finished before a work meeting. i did make coffee however. i also woke up thinking about her. what i wouldn't give to wake up next to her, to give her a soft kiss while we cuddle ourselves to a deeper sleep. i dreamed of holding her hand and warming her body, making her feel safe and loved. the joy of that daydreamed collided with the sun rays filtering through the cheap blinds in my window. it took me a while to realize it was later than i thought and startled i jumped out of bed. i made coffee immediately and got to work.  the meeting went well. i actually surprised myself by finishing all my work beforehand. i also given new task but with deadlines that are a little more feasible.  Afternoon:  post meeting i felt defeated. the week had taken the last drop out of me. i watched tv while recovering me sanity. sometime during my h...

 morning: woke up with a goal already set in place. i had to finish work before a 10 am meeting. i rushed to make coffee (the colombian-ethiopian mixture). In order to procrastinate as much as possible i used my cloth filter which forced me to wash dishes from yesterday. then i wanted to use the large monitor i had brought from work. unfortunately i wanted to use it through the usb-c hub and my computer was not reading it correctly. instead of just plugging the hdmi to the computer, i struggled to fix the problem. 3o minutes later i got it working. i had a tight hour to finish my work, make it presentable, and send it out to the people who needed it before the meeting. classic myself squeezing the last of every second.  morning meeting: things went well. unfortunately i am still being pushed from above to do more writing and lit review which is going very slowly at the moment.  midday: another meeting. this time i had very minimal participation but the meeting itself was ...

 morning:  another early wake up call. got to work to find most of the team arriving at the same time. i guess the boss wasn't explicit enough so only e and t arrived early to check on the heart. the heart was not good for experimentation and so we had to cancel the plan. i had called it the night before so i didn't feel guilty about sleeping an extra 30 minutes. since we had extra time e and i went to get t's breakfast and some coffee for ourselves. it was much needed since i had stored lack of sleep from the say before.  work went well. i had to wear a weighted vest and it was annoying but at least i could just be in a space silently without the pressure messing up during a social interaction.  Lunch: e and i walked outside to get some noodles. i had coliflower gnocchi. it was surprisingly tasty. i also had m pick me up some sambusas and sweet plantain. my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach. i was super full afterwards. the walk outside was very nice. i do...