I have continued sewing and I am starting to feel a bit more confident in my abilities. The fact that I am a bit quicker as well means that I am not as scared of making mistakes and ruining a project. that will probably change when I start doing new stuff though, next up is sweatpants and leggings I think. I really like just spending a few hours sewing and listening to music. Sewing has just enough of a cognitive load that I can do it and still sit and appreciate what I am listenig to. It is also just really empowering to make something that I have a practical use out of. I can wear a t-shirt I made and feel happy that it looks nice on me and know that I made that possible. I hope to get to a point where I can make some really eleborate nice-looking stuff, as well as some really well made basics.

Climbing went well, I'm still sore. I'll probably go swimming tomorrow, they have quite limited opening hours and are mostly just open during working hours but I'll be able to fit it in before lunch. I'm hoping it's basically empty. I really miss swimming, and just being in water.

I'm feeling quite stressed about uni work and just having a bit of a mental slump. I'm really a person who gets stressed from being very scheduled and I've had something to do every evening since Sunday so I'm just feeling really rushed and like I get no time for catching my breath. I don't think I actually have that much to do - at least not an impossible amount - but I still feel like I'm not quite keeping up with it. It's natural to have slumps now and then I think and hopefully I'll get out of this one soon. Some more time for doing the things I like ,a bit more exercise and getting my apartment tidied up and I think I'll be on my way.

I'm going climbing tomorrow! The climbing gym near me has been closed for a while due to covid but they are now back with a fancy booking system and a hard limit of 8 people in the boulder-room at a time. I am beyond hyped to climb again and a bit worried about how much strength I'll have lost. At least I'll get the satisfaction of managing problems twice..?

I usually pop in and play the Christmas event every year.

Sweden did basically that for the longest time, only it was people under 70 who where able to live their lives quite like usual. I mean of course not all the way as usual, my uni was distanced, people were encouraged to work remotely, not go to malls, large gatherings were banned and so on.

But I went swimming, started climbing, met up with friends all while being pretty firmly within the recommendations. And my uni had a partially in person introduction for new students.

Now restrictions are harder, my climbing gym has closed, so has the pool and no one should gather in a group larger than 8 legally (and not really meet anyone outside of their household). But I can go outside as much as I want, and I'm meeting up with a friend who lives in the same building as me. And visiting my parents occasionally.

I have mixed feelings about it. I am very thankful i got to swim and climb and all of those things, and I think I'd have suffered mentally from the lack of it. In a way it feels easier to not have it now since I'm kind of used to the pandemic in a way. Frog in boiling water style.

At the same time over 10 000 people have died. But would me staying at home have helped that? Many of those deaths were in nursing homes due to structural problems like under-staffing and a too high rotation of staff. But if the level of covid-19 in the general population was lower maybe that staff wouldn't have gotten sick?

But countries with hard lockdowns also seem to be suffering. It doesn't seem to have solved the corona problem there, and it probably wouldn't have here either. Would it have helped? Would it have helped enough to be worth it?

"Educated: a memoir" sounds really interesting, although maybe a bit sad/difficult/emotional.

I've gotten "Every Heart a Doorway"s follow ups from the library and I'm looking forward to reading them and seeing what the author does with the setting. Hopefully something interesting.

I'm trying to get more in to non-fiction, I basically never read it and I also basically only read for fun so it has to be about a subject that interests me and in a style that grabs me.

Welp, I'm kinda, almost, maybe, probably, actually done with term 3 now. Halfway to a bachelors degree. Dang. I had plans to do a bit more with my app project but that didn't happen so now I might get a passing grade though I am kind of unsure. I'll continue work on the app in either case, so if I have to do more work for a passing grade it isn't that bad.

I miss my cat. Sometimes I hear the floor creak and turn around and expect to see her there.

We're getting kittens. I knew that I wanted to keep having cats after Kathlyn, but I did hope that "after Kathlyn" was going to happen far off in the future. I'm confident that the decision to get kittens is coming from a good place and not desperation to get back something that I can't ever get back. I feel like there is two aspects to feeling shit about my cat being dead, the grief over her being gone, and missing having a cat. And nothing but time is going to soothe the first one, but the second one can be solved.

Having this feeling of the one thing I want the most (my cat back) being out of reach has kind of made everything else feel less important which is kind of bad with deadlines looming. I managed the last one (though I don't know if I passed the exam) and I think I'll have something to hand in on Monday even if it isn't up to a passing standard.

A petty shit start to 2021 tbh, but I think it can still be a good year.

So my cat is dead now. It fucking sucks but that is what you sign up for. You love a pet an incredible amount and then it dies. I think that there is something beautiful in the fact that even now when it hurts so much that she is gone the pain of losing her is a price worth paying for having had her.

I'm relieved it wasn't a preventable accident, I'm relieved we did everything we could for her and I am at peace knowing we didn't put her through any unnecessary suffering.

I've never been this sad before though, I've been deeply depressed and I have definitely felt worse, but never this sad. I know that I will be okay and happy in the future, but life now is in a real sense worse in a way that can't ever be fixed.

Yeah, that reminds me that it is my turn to change it today. Thanks for the support :)

My cats not feeling well. She's not eating, and laying still a lot. But the blood-work came back without anything serious. The current hypothesis is that she's got/had a stomach infection of some sort or maybe heartburn or something that means eating equals pain or nausea. I hope she starts eating soon, and I'm very worried it is something serious causing it that the vet didn't test for. In the meantime we're force-feeding her and giving her meds. She is as always very nice and doesn't try and bite and scratch so that makes it a bit easier at least.

I'm going to aim for exercising more going forward. The climbing gym and swimming hall have been closed for a bit more than a month now, and will be closed for at least a month more. Not climbing or swimming has taken almost all the exercise out of my life, and I feel like it's starting to take a toll on my energy and state of mind. I'm gonna play more ring fit and also do body weight exercises. I had an old routine saved on my phone that I did a few days ago and I had to make it easier and was still sore for a few days afterwards.

I managed to finish sewing my Christmas dress in time and I have a ton of sewing projects in mind moving forward. I want to make sweatpants, leggings, a dress, a skirt, a bikini, a t-shirt, a different kind of skirt and loads of other things.I haven't used the overlock I bought in July yet but I hope to have time and motivation during the holidays.

I want to start having a bedtime routine that includes not looking at screens for an hour before bed, and where I don't feel rushed and like I need to fall asleep immediately to get enough sleep. To facilitate that I bought one book of Sudoku and one of nonograms and a few non-fiction books. I also hope that this hour of none screen will make time for more reading and drawing.

The fall terms work isn't quite finished yet, I need to make a schedule for revising for my exam and also to finish my app. I don't feel to worried about it, and I get one extra week of vacation after that is done to recharge for the spring semester. It's distance learning until the end of march but I'm hopeful it'll work out fine. We have some interesting courses.

I also long for it being light out longer so I can go on walks in the forest after school. I have a lot to look forward to and a lot I want to do, which is nice.

I am coming at this from an angle of not wanting to have any kid at all. To relate it to the article - "To have a child is to begin a relationship that you cannot sever. It is supposed to be unconditional" - I am not really fine with that kind of responsibility. And kids are a lot of work, work I don't think I'd enjoy at all. With choosing to have a child with Down Syndrome it seems like you are choosing that work for the rest of your life.

This discussion has been happening in Sweden too, with some saying that screening for trisomy 21 is immoral and bad for society. I viewed that as kind of selfish in the past. People who had the means and will to take care of a child who meant so much more work wanting to force that on others for some kind of benefit to society as a whole. And I also viewed it as dishonest when they talked about their kid who was happy all the time and so so sweet without mentioning any of the undeniably negative effects on health Downs Syndrome can include. I viewed it as people wanting to deprive women of a choice in order to further their own agenda.

Now I have a bit more of a nuanced view of it, and recognize that it isn't really that simple. Women (and families) are offered a choice but maybe not a fully informed one. Scanning for trisomy 21 doesn't necessarily give all the information that we often think it does. And I understand that parents of children with Downs Syndrome who don't want it to be a routine screening dislike it because they think it gives prospective parents an uninformed choice based on preconception and not facts.

And I agree that society's view of success and a good life maybe isn't really the best life one could have. And that the values we hold maybe aren't always the best. Your human value shouldn't be in the work you can preform or the accomplishments you can have.

Like, should the answer to people with disabilities facing difficulty be to make society more supportive or to have people with disabilities not be born? To me the former feels more humane. But at the same time you can't really just ignore the fact that some disabilities lead to a worse quality of life. A disability causing constant pain or leading to an early death isn't just "a different way of being human".

Hello! I've tried very hard to not think about the election and pretty much made it until election day. There's a local lockdown where I live, the city has closed down "everything we can legally close" which honestly isn't very much - they only have a mandate to close the things they run, tenants in the cities buildings can't be forced to close for example. But it sends a message. So no climbing, or swimming, or in person meet-ups for me. The restrictions are in force until November 19th, but might be extended.

I try not to think about that either, I wrote a list of things to do at home, and try to think that every moment no matter how poorly spent is a moment closer to loosening of restrictions, and that every day spent at home is slowing the spread of the virus.

If the furniture is not assembled, you will be provided with the tools to enable you to assemble the furniture at the store.

I don't know why but this is quite funny to me.

That really, really sucks. Depression is the worst. I hope things turn around for you.

Shit IS weird. Hopefully you get back to your usual social competence when shit unweirds.

Good thing there isn't any obvious brain damage, but still sounds like a rough situation. Hopefully those followups lead to something good.

What I think is my main problem is that I've gotten in to the really bad habit of sometimes switching off and not trying when me and my lab-partner get stuck on a problem. I want to believe this is due to it being harder to focus when everything is distanced and not the fact that I have no one to be held accountable to. (Aka, my lab partner can't see me so doesn't notice I've drifted of). Which one is it? Who knows. The solution is oh so very simple in theory (just pay attention) but in practice things have worked out differently.

I don't have the same problem working on individual stuff - there is no-one else to solve those problems after all. I've never been the slacker of a group project before and I am not liking the rising suspicion that I might be right now. I'm probably more concerned with "being a bad person" than with "not being productive".

Good to hear that things aren't bad. I've found it hard to say that things are "good" even when things are pretty good on a personal level since I can't really shake how things could have been if things were normal.

Next year I'm getting a membership and "wall-card" and I'm probably getting my own shoes sometime before then. Then I'll be able to go there as much as I want at no extra cost since I've paid everything up front. Hopefully I'll continue to find it fun, I've only been 6 or 7 times so far.

I did a problem I've found super tricky today! I am never climbing it again because it was terrible and kinda scary but I did it! Now I have one problem left of that difficulty. (The second easiest one). I'm looking forward to being able to tackle some of the problems I see others attempting (although I'm guessing some of them will require a pretty significant increase in upper body strength).

Hmm, have they included Näcken ?

Hello! I have found a new hobby - I discovered there is a climbing gym like 3 minutes from my apartment and was like "hey, climbing sounds fun!". I went to a night where they let you try climbing and discovered that climbing on a wall is not fun but bouldering is great. Which is convenient since I can boulder by myself. I've gone five times and I am loving it so far. I ruined my hands last friday, maybe because of a lack of chalk, maybe due to callouses having built up and getting caught and torn off, maybe a mixture of both. I've ordered chalk online that arrived today and I'm hoping my hands will be healed enough for me to do a bit of climbing on Friday.

It's really fun being a complete beginner at something and seeing improvements from session to session, I think I'm hitting that first plateau of improvements stalling and I'm really hoping I'll still find it fun. I think I will though. I'm also really proud of myself for going in to the climbing gym and participating even though I don't know anyone or anything. I'm easily the worst climber there, and I'm not a hundred percent on the social "rules" but I dared to go in there and participate anyways.

In Sweden admission to most majors is jdone on pure numbers. You have several categories, grades, grades if you've added courses after graduation, högskoleprovet (kind of like the SAT i think) and then some others. Everyone is ranked and if you're ranked higher than there are places you're in. You also have specific courses you must have read to be qualified to the course.

The idea of having to send in an essay, having to have done extra-curriculars, having to show your love for the school you're applying to well enough and then maybe being rejected because of something completely out of your control is so stressful. I get that there might be benefits to having those extra selection criteria but for the individual student it just seems like an enormous amount of anxiety. And an enormous amount of work for the schools.

First week of school is not treating me well. I had the fortune of not having any lectures the half term before summer, just project-work, lecture manuscripts to read through and zoom mentoring sessions. Nothing that entailed sitting in front of a screen for 2 (or 4) hours at a time, having to memorize and retain as much information as normal but without having the benefit of a classroom setting or a lecturer who is able to read the room, and with all the distractions of being in your own home.

I really didn't think I would find distance-mode that awful. Yeah, it would suck getting zero human contact most days, and losing contact with my class but when it comes to the actual learning I didn't think I would find it all that hard. After all, spring term went fine and I did over half of high-school from my home.

Well.

As I've now learned there is a difference between content designed to be taught from a distance, and content having to be taught from a distance despite not being designed for that. (And also this material is harder to grasp than for example high-school natural science.) So most lecture so far have been a vicious cycle of the following.

1. I try and pay attention.

2. I don't feel like I am following or understanding the material.

3. I look at twitter, or reddit, or cookieclicker to distract myself from the anxiety of not understanding/the boredom of listening to something I don't understand.

4. I feel guilty for not trying hard enough.

And then that over and over for 2 hours. I realize that I need to break this cycle, and the best way to do so is to try and just... Be okay with not getting it, and hoping that something will click in place once I have to use the knowledge I have gained practically. And then just pay attention and not fall into the trap of "well I'm not getting this so I might as well just look at my phone". Because then even if I don't get the subject I'm not feeling like shit over not paying attention properly.

I'll try and knit or something on Monday, because then my hands will be occupied with very little brainpower used and it will hopefully be calming and distracting enough that I don't just sit and think about how I am fucked because I don't understand.

And like, I am academically competent. I am in general confident in that I will pass my classes (eventually) if I put the work in. I have read the prerequisites for my classes, I am not in a bad position when it comes to getting the material. But it does feel like nothing is entering my brain at all.

I try and tell myself it's just been a week. We've had very little practical work and assignments were we apply our knowledge. I'm not even behind, even though it feels like I am. I'm just hoping that everything will feel like it clicks eventually, hopefully real soon.

I just hope Amazon fails.

And now we're going to have them and their union-busting in Sweden. Where having a union contract is the norm.

I read the whole thing and damn.

Is "Christians" here just a dogwhistle for "white and far-right"?

Holy damn, that was 6 years ago.

With basically all other websites I don't feel like starting a new account would mean all that much. Maybe annoying to have to manually follow people, but that's it.

With hubski I feel like it would mean something.