This week feels like a week for headings. —D&D— So after sitting in on a few D&D sessions with my roommate's friends, and realizing that they're all dope people, I decided to join their campaign proper. I've created an Aasimar character that's a mix between Altaïr, Luke Skywalker in TLJ and Jesus because a masked rogue assassin with high dexterity and charisma seemed like a lot of fun to play. Together with the DM we found a cool way to tie my backstory up with the big enemy the party's been hunting down. It was challenging (but a TON of fun) to improv my character. —Notes— Thanks for all the feedback! I've ended up with a system where I write down advice, book notes, interesting thoughts and recommendations with labels in Google Keep. Each note gets a named source, whenever possible. Once a week I transfer those notes to a big Markdown file sorted chronologically. It takes less time than writing this, so it's not hard to keep up. One thing I've already noticed is that I write down a lot of quotes about time. I've also been reading Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday and made a lot of notes, both capturing the gist of the book as well as interesting thoughs and quotes. It's made me a more active reader, which is never a bad thing. Speaking of notes: me and my housemate/best friend have been writing a small diary web-app together as a small side-project. The idea behind it is to simply write something every day. He did most of the webdev, I did the visuals. It's nothing big and probably not permanent, so be warned, but you can check it out here. If only for the fancy animation —Swimming— I think I have figured out my upper body movement and breathing pattern. My leg kick, however, is still ultra-useless: if I only use my legs, I would not be surprised to be overtaken by a snail. The swimming instructor got me to try on flippers, which was a whole 'nuther thing. I can do that on my back, but it is somehow much more difficult when I'm face down in the water. He recommended me training fins, which are basically very very short flippers, and they seem to improve my kick somewhat but it is definitely a work in progress. —Paper— I finally got around to finishing the first rough draft of my paper! The four professors that helped me with my thesis, as well as the professor that inspired me for that, all want to help me write a paper. The move, new job and new life made it a bit harder than expected to find stretches of uninterrupted time. I think my draft sucks, but most of my writing sucks for a long time until it doesn't so I guess I just need to grind this more. —That one app— First off, thanks for the advice y'all. I've had a surprising amount of matches this week. Most of which resulted in ghosting from me or her, but that's just how that works. But I had a date this Sunday, and she's cute and smart and there's a second date coming so that's neat. And if that doesn't work out...well, there are avenues to explore. We'll see. :)
Something I didn't say last time about that one app that I should have: You're an exceptionally talented, exceptionally interesting young man. But you reveal nothing about yourself until you've been directly questioned. Then you're cautiously enthusiastic about the stuff you're, like, really good at. You know what's sexy as all hell? Enthusiasm. The unbridled confidence to not just believe but to know that the stuff you think is cool IS cool and that anybody would be delighted to get a glimpse into this awesome world you live in. Passion and enthusiasm is what makes things interesting; being the vessel of that passion and enthusiasm is what makes you interesting. You're a great communicator. Every interaction you have with a girl should take the form of "you're going to think this is cool because X." If you can make someone feel the awesome you do they will view you as awesome through simple transference.