I defended my phd late in June.

Got the patent process rollin', so now the waiting game begins.

Dunno what to do with the rest of my life, but I'm taking the rest of the year off if possible. From mental health to just plain figuring stuff out, it'll be a good thing to do.

After almost no driving since getting a license, I've completed five runs to the border. Full load both ways, carrying food and supplies my brother organized one way and people back. Three, aunt and her daughters, will be staying with us for the time being. Well, 'aunt'; we settled on it because even if there is a name for "great-grandfather's sister's granddaughter," nobody cares. Bro hired one of them already to accelerate what little paperwork they might need later on, but they're already on the social services. The rest I brought had other families to take them. It's our drop in the sea.

It's not well there, obviously. Already I've seen too many idiot nationalists protesting against 'immigration,' concentrating near areas for refugees. Provoking, assaulting, others exploiting. Human thrash, all of them. Because I have no idea what news comes your way, just don't let it distract you from who the real dirtbags are or what a simultaneous humanitarian catastrophe and effort are happening. Yes, I know, most of you are much savvier in politics than I am, but same most of you have repeatedly proven themselves at obsessing with whatever topic du jour mildly turned your head. And if you think this is insulting or exaggerating, hold onto your pants -- three years ago, if someone tweeted Trump wipes with his left, you could bet there'd be a thread about whether or not he pets the #whiterabbit with it. Don't lose perspective. Don't let it become some blasé gossip shit in a month.

I'll be going into other topics now. In part because of exhaustion, both physical and topical. When time is dense with events, it's gonna be either major themes only or a flood of information, and nobody's in the mood for the latter. Made me appreciate truckers even more, though.

Also, because the car is a 20-year-old piece of shit VW Golf I bought in December for $200 to learn car repairs/maintenance, it's short of a miracle it hadn't died a single time.

Also also, it's a good thing that at my current job, you can excuse any work delays with "yeah, so the maths got more complex than expected, will have to derive it algebraically instead." In my experience, it can buy up to three weeks.

I did my postdoc interview during a refueling break. It probably went poorly, though the interviewers seemed impressed when I corrected their article misquote from memory and answered both versions of the question. Them nagging me about why we didn't reschedule visibly pissed me off, and if this will cost me the job, good riddance. What the fuck do you think would be different apart from smart-casual attire?

Once driving became routine, the monotony of it settled. Played a D&D game by phone twice, which was crazy, but it was a boost of energy that couldn't have come at a better time. One of the TBA characters from the last time is a rogue, who is such an over-the-top gothy edgelord he'd make Tim Burton cream his laced-up pantaloons in a blink. The ranger player had to postpone again, but she's working for the Ministry of the Interior, and it's hard for a better excuse.

I don't know if I have it in me to do this more than once. The car isn't taking it well, and I sure as hell can't keep going like that more than a week. There's desire to help, and there's practicality. Instead, I'm seriously considering volunteering to IT security groups our gov organizes, but between dual citizenship and police record, I suspect my prospective clearance level is somewhere between LOL and "don't bother."

Now I'm going back to sleeping it off. Leaving you with this fun chess puzzle for all levels and ages.

White moves, checkmate in two.

New team! It's nice to be around people capable of mutual respect.

Having background in chemistry is like a physics super-power at times, and vice versa. Being a theorist with first-hand experience in metaloorganics synthesis is apparently on par with being a Jedi. Finding a polite, accepted by peers and seniors alike, way of saying "this is pretty much a secondment on top of my research, just because I can make the beakers dance doesn't mean I'll be pulling double shifts as a lab tech" is 10 times better than being a Jedi. Also, it's probably the only time when Thank you for arguing and similar worked instead of somehow even more aggrivating people into interpreting everything I say in the worst possible way and making me think "is this all bullshit or am I somehow THAT mindnumbingly bad with people?" Dunno which is a bigger step.

It's a lot of fun, though I also have a whole bunch to catch up on. There's a lot of bad stuff happening in Poland, so it's a great change of pace for once. And, hell, working in a chemistry lab is great if you're not working with assholes who think you're worth less than an automated dripper.

After I took the second opinion, I switched my psychiatrist. It's rare for me to 'click' with anyone, having such one person as a doctor is already hard to overstate.

Apparently, I registered here 2006 days ago, so that's fun. Doesn't feel like it's been that long.

I'll be filling in as a TA due to an emergency. Not exactly stoked about it. It's another freshman class that I'm still not 100% sure if it'll be remote or stationary, but whatever. Believe it or not, I made my schedule with this as one of the ongoing contingencies, so it's less of a problem and more about wanting to take a break from teaching. Joys of being the most junior of senior students, I suppose.

The dean at the chemistry department was kinda annoyed with my administrative shuffles, but I've been reinstated as a student to complete my degree. Dunno if it's appropriate to give some sort of gift or not, though I suspect not having to see my face again will suffice.

Microsoft tech support has been so unhelpful I zoned out so completely I had an epiphany and solved the problem while the guy kept droning pretty much the same shit that's in online docs. Mission accomplished? I guess?

The odd/off feeling re time persists. Feels like I'm low energy and somewhat disconnected emotionally, but I simultaneously know it's normal amount of energy fed continuously instead of random bursts. Dunno if that's the new norm, though I begin to like it on its own.

It's been a week since my procedure, and I already noticed an improvement: I don't get dizzy when I stand up.

I recently recalled this:

and in the prolonged absence of mk's data (sorry if this sounds like I'm passing blame, it's not that; I know everyone's busy and dealing with lots of things), started working on an explanation. It's a surprisingly tricky problem on both classical mechanics and the theory of elasticity, at least to someone who usually deals with electrons doing their thing. I don't yet know if/when it'll be ready to share with you, but I'm having heaps of fun and, oddly, get a lot of satisfaction from designing my own experiment to measure both mechanical properties of grapes and test their limits without a centrifuge.

In a rather complicated series of inheritance shuffles, my brother took the family house and offered me to house-sit alone until his family joins in around Autumn. Cheaper per capita, more space, familiar place, has a piano and my nigh-unused drumset, gonna be populated with cool folks. I'm so in.

I've been growing convinced my meds are that mary sue pill from Limitless. It took me nine days to consolidate loose notes from the last few months into a paper, stay on top of my classes like it's nobody's business, read more non-work books over the last month than in two years, fixed my schedule, and most of it happened mostly outside my perception. It's not all positive, but after the initial rough spot and some dosage tweaking, the good outweighs the bad so hard it's not even funny. Wasting all that time to it because of fear of weakness, personal ignorance, and perceived stigma... definitely makes me look stupid in hindsight.

Greek is much harder than it should have been, mainly because (Polish) physicists say the letters wrong. Grammar ranges from "same as Polish" to "what even is that?!" and it helps that the teacher doesn't shy away from dumbing all the linguistic explanations down to our level, at least when prompted. I think a lot of people in the class are refreshingly grateful I proudly wear the dunce hat and ask about everything. The accents and inflections are killing me, though.

Also, this mostly went under the radar:

My father passed away on Monday afternoon after almost a week spent at ICU in a pharmacological coma. The funeral will be on Friday. I only learned of his condition last Friday.

I've been talking to him during visiting hours. Telling him that he'll beat it by sheer stubbornness. And he was as stubborn as he was brilliant. We had some major conflicts and disagreements, didn't really talk for the last two years, but I always respected him for who he is. I hope he knows how much he mattered to me regardless of it.

Looks like something changed in earth's alignment so that the North Star now appears brighter?

It's axial precession. Currently we're on Polaris, 5000 years ago it was Thuban.

The time to make a 'full circle' is 25772 years, or 1 degree every 72 years.

Nothing helps recovery as much as maintaining an active routine. Brain fog is lifting, muscles are moving, and I didn't have this kind of energy in literal months. I'm still feeling weak -- lost over 10% body weight to five weeks of fever, stillness and lack of appetite. Sorry for being a pain about it though.

Today I conducted my first class of the year, and while it's been nice to get out of my place or talk to students, it's more than a bit off to realise you're talking to an empty-but-not-really classroom. Yeah, I'm fast like that sometimes. I've been stumbling a lot and didn't get into the flow until the middle of it. In part because, mentally, this is how I rehearse material, not deliver. Wish I had more time to get into it.

Doctoral-level classes are, as usual, annoyingly inconsistent. One week it's little more than doing some reading, the other time we get slapped with a problem that takes 30-50 hours of collaborative work to solve. This time around, about half of my courses are seminars, which despite being very vaguely defined, here are usually a cross between a journal club and guest/relay lectures. In many ways they're the hardest to prep for or follow, often dedicated to cutting edge topics or methodologies. Pretty much define what I have in mind when thinking 'grad school'.

I noticed I don't have any real want for reading outside of studies recently and generally felt like my thinking lost its edge. Not sure why or since exactly when, though I think it snowballed since May. Realising it and knowing I don't like it is at least a good start for seeking improvement.

Hi, y'all. I'm at the cardiological ward, the procedure wasn't exactly smooth, but so far the only complication is a splitting post-anaesthesia headache that I've been nursing since around 14:00. Despite just lying pretty much since admission, I feel exhausted. Anyway, success remains to be seen over time, and the doctor decided to keep me here till Friday. Apart from those, I'm feeling perfectly fine. am_Unition (gonna respond to PM tomorrow, thank you though! :D).

Don't have much else to talk about, though I'm glad for six weeks off work. Still plan on doing research, just won't bother with all the bullshit semi-admin emails people forward to me for god knows what reason. Gonna read a bunch, maybe finally write a book review of my own.

As of about an hour ago, I'm no longer a student. BSc² -> MSc², yo.

PhD application process in progress.

Busy month.

Finally, I moved out and live alone. It's a small, spartan one-bedroom apartment technically located outside the city, and therefore rented for adequately cheap. The biggest gripe is the lack of oven, but I've arranged for Remoska. Gonna use that South-facing window and plant some vegetables this weekend, too.

I stopped learning Italian after six months. Understand enough to get some use out of it, don't plan on ever speaking it, and that's fine with me. One near-pass on New Year's resolution isn't that bad.

One of my students has been getting on my nerves almost since the semester started, and it'll be best for the other TA to examine them. Poor incorrigible dumbass. As a rule, I go easy on non-STEMs as long as they're trying. The same can't be said about my colleague.

Got my thesis topic accepted and started writing. I was also selected for a grant placement at our interdisciplinary research group.

The last couple of weeks were dramatastic, to say the least, but I'm slowly distancing myself from bullshit and regain some much-needed clarity.

Looks like I'm first? Give me dry Martini with a straw, extra silly.

My cardiac ablation is next week, and recovery should take about six weeks. Ideally, I'll be under observation for one or two days and released home to recuperate. It's also when cardiologist will give me the final details about weaning off some of the meds. Pretty stoked about that. am_Unition - shout-out, as promised.

It's been two weeks of on-and-off storms, nine severe weather warnings, and humidity sometimes isn't above 80%. Parts of the country went from hydrological drought to high risk of flooding almost overnight. I've been caught in a storm that transformed streets into streams and saw lots of scud clouds dragging low to the ground while taking shelter at a bus stop. The whole thing passed overhead in twenty minutes.

Speaking of which, I seminar'd on computational physics with my peers at the meteorological institute, and they told me afterwards we might have a tornado hotspot developing in southern Poland. There's a lowering between the Carpathians and Sudety mountain ranges, which makes it easier for storms to move northward while adjacent elevation makes leeward masses of air rotate. Since CAPE seldom exceeds 2000-2500 J/kg, any helicity is unwelcome news (the non-exact intuition is that it's easier to spin-up small than a massive storm). Mechanism-wise, it's pretty similar to one going on in eastern Colorado:

The phenomenon isn't new, but it's likely to get worse around here. Frankly, I'm not too worried about tornadoes and such. It's the flooding, which we're notoriously incapable of handling, that concerns me.

We have presidential elections this Sunday, and I hope it'll finally begin the process of taking the rule away from PiS. Rafał Trzaskowski seemed like the best candidate for the last few years, and it's a pretty close call in the polls. (EDIT: Whoops, made a typo in his name)

I've got the green light from the chemistry department to do my degree on reduced semester quota, which roughly means the senior year will take me four real-time semesters. In autumn, I will only be taking one course, though it's a big one: inorganic chemistry - 6 straight hours of lab and 2 hours of lecture/instruction per week. Do I need that? Not the paper, but my work can absolutely benefit from going through this stuff thoroughly, having instructors and other students around helps a heap. Also, in my neck of the woods, the line between chemistry and physics is sometimes nonexistent, at least unless you feel like being an obnoxious pedant, so there's that. Plus I'd lie if I said it's not fun.

I went back to reading some books from the high school canon. Unsurprisingly, The Trilogy turned out to be a lot more enjoyable if you don't have to rush through 700 pages of archaic Polish prose per volume per week because a frustrated teacher screeched so. There's a lot to appreciate I missed earlier, and it was honestly a joy to revisit. Translations exist, but that's about all I can say for them. Parts I read at random seemed dry and a tad too literal, though IMO that's still better than if the translator decided to make it all 'ye olde' for the hell of it.

What'd you recommend from your country's canon?

I'd like to thank everyone who reached out to me or spared a thought in passing. It means a lot, and I'm grateful to know so many wonderful people.

It's been a difficult month. Dealing with the death of someone close is never easy, but the hole after my father's passing is something I can't seem to get through. He was only sixty.

We weren't on good terms, but at least there was always some minuscule potential for improvement. To this day I receive condolences from his more distant friends, acquaintances, collaborators, coworkers etc. There's a degree of dissonance between what they say about him and my own memory, but I suppose it's normal.

I dialled his number from memory one time, and it took me a few moments to realise what I just did. I know that I'm not over it, but life has to go onwards. In that way, I'm still not completely over the fact I had two brothers, even though it's been fourteen years. They aren't here, and I know it on an intellectual level, but I sometimes stop to think about what they might be doing now.

Despite my manner of writing, I'm not nearly as much of a mess as this post. And there's good news too. First, very late this Monday, I became an uncle, and to a first girl born in our direct line in at least four generations. It was premature birth, but she's as good and healthy as a 7th-month delivery could possibly be. Second, I got into my first choice PhD programme and already went through orientation, TAship stuff etc. Whatever comes next, I'll at least be busy.

My adviser looked over my last work, proving his assumption about our model was wrong, and conceded I'm indeed right. Even called in one of his post-docs to look over it. It's too early to say anything, but it might be a better thing to research than my original assignment. Could be a juicy (for a niche definition of juicy) paper, could be a thesis topic if it can be generalised more. Either way, I'm stoked.

Had a great Delta Green session last weekend. It's a spin-off of Call of Cthulhu books, and IMO a vast improvement over everything from character motivation to mechanics. Plus, what other game allows you to investigate Mythos during the Vietnam War?

Thanks to cgod's idea, I got to spend a few lovely days at a bar/cafe that offers access to their piano. It's very therapeutic and scratched that itch right and proper. The owner started encouraging everyone to give me requests after letting me hog it for a while. It's a bit weird, but he asked if it's OK, and I didn't have a good reason to say no. People seemed receptive.

Talked with a bunch of people who seemed like regulars. It's interesting to hear them go on about their stuff, though we don't have that many topics in common. Some joined in with me and played on whatever they had with them. Afterwards, they told me to come to their practice space on Thursday if I'd like. Seems unusual, but what the hell. I never played with anyone else, at least not for any significant amount of time, but nobody seemed to give a fuck. In kind, I do my best to keep the inner try-hard in check. Otherwise, it's just a new, fun experience.

Being here is a much-welcomed change in my life, so I'll probably keep hanging there for a while longer. Mixing it with contract work down the line seems like a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

Very positive week, hope it was the same for you, Hubski!

Training:

My venture into martial arts continues and even manages to expand. Bought a month-long pass for Sambo lessons, and it got my interest alongside Aikido. Went for two lessons so far, plan on going this Saturday too. Doing both is a tad taxing, but it starts to grow on me. That said, if forced to choose at this very moment, I'd have to go with Sambo. Nothing against Aikido itself, but the flow of sessions is much more to my liking, and the same goes for the instructor. Change the trainer, not the sport.

It's weird how apparel changed my way of processing and remembering training. Between gi and those ridiculously bouncy floors – parts of which are softer and better cushioned than my bed – in my head, Aikido isn't something 'real world'. Sambo? Your getup isn't far from fatigues, you stop noticing protective gear after a surprisingly short while, and it just seems more serious. I liked that a lot. It helped me switch between "just standing here, repeating repetitive movements" and "focus or it'll hurt." They both required a lot of repetition, neither caused me any lasting pain, but this added 'realism' made it harder to notice the amount of drilling during Sambo. It became obvious, but only in retrospect. Makes me wonder what other trivial things like that play tricks on me.

Institute:

I passed my first exam, but that's not all! Lecturer asked if I'd like to TA this course next year, and I'm all for it. This whole 'loaning students as TAs' thing looks great on paper, but it's been hit or miss for us. Getting to work on-site seems if not better, then at least consistent.

Tomorrow I have the quantum information exam, and it's the one I'm anxious about. Definitely my weakest point this semester, hence the nerves. The fact us theorist weenies have to complete two more semesters of QI after this isn't filling me with confidence either.

Apartment hunt:

Housesitting for a friend gave me some insight into this place, and I'm no longer sure if I'd like to rent it myself after his lease is done. Neighbours on both sides have been louder than a parade of Italian stereotypes, and that's just the most immediate problem stemming from them. Couldn't find much to complain about otherwise, which is great. It's a big complex, so I'm asking around and continue to gather data.

People:

I'm friends with a couple that every now and then gets an idea they found someone perfect for me. It was a source of disappointing/horror stories, but they kept being persistent asses about it to a point where I stopped fighting back. Last week, however, they positively surprised me.

We've been talking and messaging a lot since then, and I can't get enough of her. Hella smart, witty, well-read and her sense of humour is almost as stupid as mine. We went for a coffee yesterday and loosely agreed to meet again after exams are over.

Name: Devac / Daniel

Age: No longer a teen, finally.

Location: Warsaw, Poland

Current Preoccupation: Finishing up my masters in maths and physics, getting two of my papers published, pondering PhD but can't even decide in what field, let alone where (domestic or abroad), looking for a job where "mental age of ten" isn't the only requirement and failing miserably.

Previous Preoccupation: studies, writing papers, getting a proverbial life.

Only three students showed up to my class yesterday, which went that much smoother for it. It made me see how crowded are those tutorials normally, and how fortunate I was (even though both universities are public). The staff to student ratio here is some ludicrous 1:30, though it's a lot better once you remove the freshman year from the equation. Anyway, we gave their homework a once-over, done the two-hour material during the first half of the tutorial and the other half was dedicated to answering their questions. I have office hours, but it's not like anyone bothers coming to those anyway. Maybe they'll get something out of it. Seems like that whole "most things we see can be boiled down to differential equations" sunk in for them, though maybe I'm reading too much into their amusement.

I made some elderly tourist's day with something as simple as "Jag talar lite svenska. Snälla, prata långsamt." and walking her up to the hotel. The map she was using was literally older than me, and something like 50 street names changed in the meantime. She spoke some English, but the accent was so impossibly thick I couldn't make the ends of it, so we met half-way with a mix of both languages.

Not a bad start to a year, though I didn't get nearly as much rest as I planned for over the last two weeks.

My name is among two recommended for grant placement. I've been there thrice before without making the final cut, but I'm mildly optimistic. The topic is in my area, I have all the qualifications they wanted and more, though we all know it means precisely shit if you "don't feel like a good fit" so it's far too early to say anything either way. That's pretty much it as far as news goes, lightening my afternoon of grading mid-terms (results are various shades of depressing) and listening to flatmate's gf's increasingly annoyed monologue about office politics.

Aikido got more interesting, with some light sparring introduced possibly as a result of everyone being increasingly vocal about drilling seemingly the exact same things for over two months. It's a cliche, but I got a bit of that Karate Kid moment when Daniel understands that all those miscellaneous chores had a purpose. Morale's up, and I want to see what's next.

I'm invited to spend Christmas with my brother and his family, but I just don't feel it. Being alone at this time of year isn't new to me, but for the first time, it looks like something I want.

The new chemical treatment essentially removes the lignin from wood. The precise nature of the process isn't mentioned in the paper, which suggested it might be nightmarishly complex or involve extremely toxic chemicals.

I'll go on a limb and assume that treatment of wood is some derivative of Kraft process (one for making paper pulp), likely using sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite to chop the lignin to make it easier to remove. Boiling in hydrogen peroxide (with or without metal catalyst) further degenerates pre-shredded lignin via an analogue of Dakin reaction, which is also well understood – and is especially efficient against free-phenolic bits of lignin obtained in most variants of Kraft process.

What's left is likely susceptible to moisture, as the original publication makes it a point worth mentioning numerous times. You let that cellulose soak up too much water, and there goes your structural strength. They even had to treat it in fluorosilane to make it superhydrophobic when testing outdoors. In Arizona.

It's damn interesting, but I'm sceptical about it being viable outside of extremely arid places.

EDIT: Here's a great video explaining similar chemistry behind making transparent wood, which IMHO is a fascinating material:

Work in progress. I wanted to paint something completely different, but then I discovered the excess of yellow paints and the plans got changed.

Two of my short stories are going to get printed later this year and my 'choose your own adventure' game is being considered for the special issue. I should be more excited, but dread every minute of it. kleinbl00 helped me get over the initial "how do I talk with editors?" problems and it can't be understated. Thanks once again!

Night shifts at the store are fucking up my sense of time. It's a blur of sudoku, crosswords, dicking around with my coding projects and being slightly shocked when a client enters. There's literally no reason for this place to be open at night, but I'm not going to raise this issue.

I started collaborating with one of the doctoral students on a research project. We talked about our respective works over the last few weeks and noticed a few non-trivial similarities. At least we have hopes they aren't trivial. Right now we are going through the archives to check if it's indeed something new. I don't want to give away too many details as of yet, but he works on edge currents and junction effects in graphene whereas my work is about optical properties of 'bulk' graphene-BN structures.

Who knows, perhaps I'll be soliciting publishing advice sometime next year?

Chess:

I won. 8.5 out of 10 - a new personal best with only one match left.

Books:

I've finished reading Durant vol. 3. Was it a lot of work? Not really, the secret seems to be pacing. So far it's ~2270 pages in 103 days which averages to about 22 pages per day. Assuming this rate as constant, I am now thirteen months away from finishing the series. And that's a lot of work. :P

Health:

Ever since I got my pair of glasses, the migraines passed. At least the worst parts of them. It's astounding how uncorrected astigmatism can influence your well-being.

Heart stuff isn't going as well, unfortunately. I'm quite anxious about my upcoming checkup. Hypotension is getting worse, 85/60 as of this morning. Standing for too long has become rather uncomfortable. I can still run like crazy, but simply standing for longer than 40 minutes is tiring. Don't ask me how it works, I don't get it either.

Sciencing:

I got my hands on some caesium carbonate! It's not much, but it should work for my needs. What do I want to do? I'm going to check if I can cause saponification of (trace) esters in mineral oil. It shouldn't (and frankly didn't) happen anywhere near the standard conditions and with sodium or potassium hydroxide, but caesium hydroxide I plan on making might just be reactive enough to work.

Lecture:

I wasn't expecting more than twenty people to show up, got seventy-four. Most seemed to be from three high schools that aren't far from uni, but I hadn't surveyed them, just recognised some of the teachers. It went pretty well. The Q&A session afterwards took almost half as long as the lecture itself. I also received an email with a long-form question.

Wanted to puke from stress after it was all over. Good thing those are only once a month. Don't take me wrong - I enjoyed it. But it is very exhausting and takes me about fifteen times longer to prepare than to deliver the lecture.

'Dating' (or rather Books, considering):

I got stood up. Again. Wish people would stop doing that. My expectations are so low that I'm taking Durant with me to dates. The reasoning is that in the worst case I'll look like a wannabe intellectual, whereas in the best case I will not feel as bad about wasting time. She didn't call or answer. Might as well wait for a bit longer, right?

After two hours and the Roman conquest of Greece, I went back home. I hope to finish reading volume 3 (and perhaps start 4th?) before the mid-terms.

State of mind:

I'm done trying to be social. At least for a while. Even disregarding my last few 'dates', I can't stop thinking that it's a pointless exercise. I've been forcing myself to engage more with other people for around five months now, and it doesn't look like I got any better.

People:

I'm tasked with helping two other undergrads get their calculations and theory straight. It pains me to say it, but the contrast between normal and individual track on physics is just staggering. I wouldn't say that it feels like putting someone from AP course into a remedial class, but it's close at times. One knows almost nothing about the group theory so while I was explaining that, the other took those two hours to attempt solving a filtered diffraction problem. Note the 'attempt', it was wrong and he couldn't see why. So there was more explaining to him while the other one was solving group theory problems I left her. Again, not without mistakes but with a depressing lack of rigour.

I spent about forty hours in total (last and this week) on helping them and I only feel more and more like an arse. It takes conscious effort to not ask either of them "what were you doing for the past two years?" It's exhausting on every possible level. I have to take my own work to home with me. There's not a single twenty-minute span in time when I can focus on it without them orbiting around.

Is that a glimpse into the world of a PhD student?

Books:

Postwar was depressing. And intriguing. In an unexpected way, it was uplifting. I would even go as far as to say fascinating and worth revisiting. Which brings me to a few questions: How the hell is it even possible for teachers to make history boring?! Are they required to complete something akin to kolinahr before taking a class on their own? The contrast between history in school and history told, apparently, anywhere else is simply mind-boggling.

The rest goes slowly, but consistently, forward. Hindered by the stuff I talked about earlier. I might have to go the audiobook route.

I recall this thread as the most recent where he posted.

It wasn't pretty.

I have his email address and can forward some messages if you really want me to, but I don't know if it's a good idea right now. I'm not claiming to know him as well as perhaps some of you, but if it was me I would likely want some time to cool down. Last time he was on IRC was on 30th of July and didn't pop since.

Being away:

Last week I went on a hike through the Table Mountains. Took some clothes, food and a pair of relevant books to work on my thesis without being distracted. The only thing that slightly ruined it for me was one obnoxious family managed to get lost and I had to guide them back. Effectively I lost a day on this because if they managed to lose trail where I met them, I would not trust them to remember directions or be able to read the map. Having a GPS means precisely shit if you don't have some spatial sense to back it up, just saying.

Otherwise, it was a very pleasant week. Most of the time I only passed two or three groups per day with only the above one being a major disappointment. I've seen some wild animals, met a bunch of students and faculty from the Wrocław University (all of them from maths which was a bit odd) and visited most of my favourite places around that area. I feel invigorated and already have some ideas about my projects, academic or other. No trip report as I forgot that I have a camera.

Chess:

I think that I've played one of my better games during the night between Monday and Tuesday. Here it is. I'm still too jittery to do a proper analysis just yet, but I would be glad to get some input from other chess players around here. #chess

Books:

GEB is a bit of a slog (about 30% done, though). That's in a large part because I forgot to take it with me on a trip, not because I don't find it as interesting. It's a shame that I've already seen most of this stuff covered in other books, though. I'm going to assume that that's the main problem with reading any highly influential book: it should be read first or it will lose a lot of its original impact. That said, English not being my first language seems to actually work in my favour: I don't know any better so I don't care about weird phrases or syntax.

I've also rented both the first volume of Durant's series along with the, recommended by kleinbl00, Tony Judt's Postwar to have something to read while I'll be in Germany. Let's see if/when I'll break.

Repairs:

I repaired a washing machine! Can't believe how easy it was to pinpoint problems once I decomposed it completely. All the gaskets/seals got replaced, gunk and lime removed from everything, and this thing works as new. It's likely that the bulk of my work wasn't necessary, but what the hell. It works.

Chess:

Last week I won, this week I was a million miles away and blundered myself into a draw. It is usually the point in any given tournament when I start losing every other game. Still, so far I'm 5.5 out of 6 and ranked as fifth overall. I guess that's something. As long as this tournament will not end with me being 5.5 out of 11, I'm OK with that.

Lectures:

I'm preparing slides and other stuff for my first uni-approved lecture. It's about determining the number of possible platonic solids and Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra.

Timing everything is difficult. I have no idea how actual lecturers are doing it. Right now, it feels to me that I was getting much better results by winging it as I go and will likely do just that.

Schemes:

A few months ago I mentioned that there are some loopholes in regulations regarding our graduation requirements. You see, a lot of the courses from mathematical/theoretical physics count toward applied mathematics programme and vice versa. It includes grad-level courses I took/am taking! Apparently, it works as intended.

Assuming that I'll play it well, I might be able to get two masters degrees in less than two years from now. Worth a try.

Classes are now in session. I took four of the freshmen students assigned to me for this week and gave them a tour around the science campus. They got right and proper anxious when I told them that there are currently only five seniors left on our physics track. I guess that there are worse ways to motivate people. They seemed to like everything about this place. Aside from that, I told them about possible student research, where are good places to eat, whom to ask about random bureaucratic crap, why should you always skip the student-faculty liaison, where can you get the licensed software and all that other auxiliary stuff that makes your life on campus easier.

Crafting:

I made some soap. Cold process with sunflower oil, nothing fancy.

Both are from the same batch that was decanted four times in a nearly-boiling saturated solution of table salt. Word of advice: use distilled water for this purpose. Both the calcium or magnesium ions (stuff that's in tap/hard water) can and will decrease your yield and purity. The final product's pH is around 6-6.5 (it was 8-9 before the first decantation) so it should have only a slight drying effect.

The one on the left is just your normal soap. The one on the right was mixed with 150 mg of silver citrate. That way it should exhibit some anti-bacterial properties. The difference in colour is mainly caused by the fact the one on the right dries a lot faster (larger exposed area, additional mixing to distribute silver citrate evenly).

Ghetto chemistry at its finest.

Games:

The Call of Cthulhu session was great! Everyone plays as either a police detective or officer so at least there's no need to contrive some lazy reason to explain why all those people are working together. How do you all know each other? From work! Awesome, now there's no need to make the first few sessions mainly about earning mutual trust. Since we play, at best, every other week it's a very well received change of pace.

Chess:

I'm 4 out of 4 and on fire! My opponent (black) resigned from this position:

Computer analysis and the game itself.