Had a rough November mood-wise. Nothing particular happened, just my mood in the dumps due to the continuous self-isolation. Ordered some vitamin D, I heard it can be a game changer for seasonal mood regulation. The final push was hearing about Vitamin D deficiency in Cumol 's podcast yesterday. Let's see if it helps! December has been better already, my friend hired me for a 4 day work contract on a live streaming set, and it really made my week. She's worked on a big international music tour the past few years, but has obviously lost her job. She started a live streaming prod. freelance company, bought about 40k worth of equipment, has done virtually no marketing and is booked solid with many contracts already. It's super cool and impressive. Seeing her work and give pointers on how to properly lay wires, schemes to connect equipment etc was fun. The work itself was mostly monitoring a few zoom screens, but it was nice to be out of the house, hanging out with a few friends eating gross hotel food on set. It's also cool to be a low level tech with basic responsibilities and no high level planing stress from time to time. My last year's resolution was to find meaningful paid work - it's been my struggle ever since I've graduated university. I have done a lot of very interesting and diverse things and have a wide range of skills in many areas. The hard part right now is finding something at the crossroad of what i want to do, that pays well enough and also has enough flexibility and free time. Right now, it's looking more likely to be possible as a patchwork of different random projects - I currently have 5 ongoing work engagement, 2 unpaid - but I'm way closer to my goal since most of these opportunities I was not involved with last year. Started messing around with Notion this week, just to up my organisation game. I've steadily been getting more and more organized over the years, and I've decided to migrate my personal lists like the "movies to watch" stuff into this database from the notes app. I find it's a good platform to learn, and if it sticks could become a really cool way to track many aspects of my life and project plan. Going into hardcore isolation mode, because my parents decided to go against local regulation rules and do a small Christmas dinner at the country house. I'm not super worried since both my sister and her husband work 100% from home, and my mom only leaves the house to do groceries once a week. So the most likely propagation vector is myself. If i say I don't feel safe going, it will be basically admitting I don't care enough for them to isolate for 2 weeks. I've tried going the route of "maybe we shouldn't do this, what if the neighbours snitch and we get fined?" but have been labeled a party pooper. I'm a bit uncomfortable in the situation, but also they are adults. The family consensus has knowingly accepted the risks, so i'm going to roll with it. It's not like I've been perfect in that regard - see working on a 5 people set last week - so I can't really justifiably complain.
The key transmission vector for COVID is being in an enclosed space for long periods of time.... aka, Christmas. So my family and I have decided to break it up into two shorter days. An hour the first day, two the second day. Enough time to get together, share conversation, time, some food/drink, while still diligently maintaining social distance (except for my Dad's and my "elbow hugs", where we touch elbows together only). Go. Wear a mask. Leave early. That way you can take personal responsibility for minimizing your exposing the rest of the family to anything, while also taking part and being together.
Just had a panicked phone call from my mom, worrying of being busted by the police and getting a 5k fine. Christmas is on standby once again. The most frustrating part about my family (Covid or not) is their absolute inability to make plans without changing the time/date/location at least 3 times. I'll try to talk them into the 2 days / 3h concept, it might actually work.
I've been recently taking vitamin D too. It works. It's had some great systemic benefits. I had a very low count at my last physical and it's already gone up. Good luck Elizabeth. Hang in there. Glad to hear December is going well!
I am also visitng my 85 year old Grandma and I am scared shitless. But I also know I will do "my part". Isolate for 5 days, do a test, use an FPP2 mask while traveling. I cannot do more, I guess. I hope the Vitamin D helps. Make sure to take it in large doses (2000 units per day during food). My grandma drinks it in bottles...
Losing heart. Scraped together everything I had into one place last week, sold all my crypto and investments. Was told everything looks great for the purchase of my home. Cut to today, cryptos are ripping skyward and I'm now being informed that a bunch of my assets were mis-classified and Covid regulations on mortgages under certain credit scores mandate that I have 6 months of bills in an account on top of and separate from closing costs. Possibly just dead in the water, down a fair bit of cash from inspections, appraisal, etc. Hurts really badly because it really feels like I'm doomed to forever be fucked with regard to finances. Update of note* My grandfather has decided he no longer would like to receive the weekly infusions that are keeping him out of the hospital, and yet neither does he want hospice care to come anywhere near him. My mom and her siblings are going to have a group discussion with him soon about allowing hospice to make him comfortable because without these infusions he is going to deteriorate rather quickly.
GEORGIA RUN-OFFS The Democratic Party of Georgia is working really hard to win two US Senate seats which will determine who controls the US Senate: Democrats or Republicans. That will determine whether the Democrats will be able to enact any of their legislation and have any of their appointees approved to judgeships, cabinet members, etc. Anyone anywhere can help. Here's how: 1. Phone people already on their volunteer rolls to sign-up as poll watchers. The early polls are open and already one of the poll watchers reported that the ballot at her poll had the Democratic candidate listed in only one of the two races. Other things poll watchers do in case you were wondering. 2. Ballot curing: At the polls, many ballots are disqualified by election officials. In Georgia, the morning after the voting closes, the names of people whose ballots are rejected are made public. Those voters are not notified. However, the Democratic Party of Georgia then has three days to notify those voters and help them challenge the disqualification. This is called ballot curing. After the November election (last month) in Georgia alone, over twenty thousand (20K) were cured. That means over 20,000 ballots were rejected UNJUSTLY at the poll. Imagine how many weren't cured. The Biden-Harris team won Georgia by fewer than13,000 votes -- so YOU CAN SEE HOW IMPORTANT BALLOT CURING IS. Imagine how many volunteers the party needs to contact people and help them with their challenge. The party is looking for volunteers to sign up for ballot curing on January 6, 7, and 8. When you phone Georgia Dem volunteers and notify them of how they can help, they appreciate it. 3. Georgia Dems are trying to get volunteers to call or visit motivated Dem voters who "had trouble at the polls" in November. Trouble at the polls can include signature discrepency, name discrepency, address discrepency etc. These discrepencies can be minor (i.e. signed Bobby instead of Bob) or simply MADE UP. This is one of many types of intentional voter repression. In some states, if two people had the same name (John Brown, say) both names are deleted from the rolls. Volunteers contact the voters whose ballots were rejected and help them with their next ballot. Just now, my boyfriend (mivasairski) received an email from the Georgia Democrats looking for more volunteers. He's working on this for hours every day. Anyone reading this can help. Contact mivasairski and he can tell you how. He's an America citizen making calls from Canada to get volunteers and is signing up poll watchers and ballot curers every day.
So a week or so ago my plan was to go buy a GRE study book and start studying, take them once or twice, and be ready to apply for schools in a year for a Fall 2022 start. But then I talked with a friend of mine to get some GRE book recommendations, and he accurately pointed out that a lot of schools have waived the GRE for this year. So I'm still going to study for the GREs and all, but I'm also going to yolo a few applications in without GRE scores for Fall 2021 and see if anything sticks. I'll have less saved up, likely be taking on more debt as a result, have to quit my job mid-pandemic and when leaving grad school be going into a public health workforce oversaturated from a bunch of either (a) unemployed now Masters' educated people who decided to use the pandemic to get a degree, and/or (b) a bunch of unemployed people from all the Covid grants running out (I know mine is two years and ends Nov 2022). So wise hubski people, give me different and new perspectives on why this is a good/bad idea. Working remote is almost certainly not possible with my current job, and I have no interest in staying around here anyway so grad school is an excuse to move away to somewhere new.
It is a mystery to me why the GRE is a thing. It tests basic but general knowledge. If I were evaluating a potential grad entrant, I don't think I could glean anything from a good score, although I guess I may be able to glean something from a bad score. GRE notwithstanding, I think public health is only going to be a growth area. You should find a place that is in need of grad students, then you can probably get a research or teaching job and scrape by on a stipend but at least no debt. It will be well worth the effort of looking even if you come up empty.
Public health won't be a growth area without massive changes to our healthcare system. Right now Capitalism benefits short-term profit and reactionary responses to disease rather than proactive prevention because there is more more money in charging someone to fix their a leak 100 times just enough so that it can break again, than seeking a long-term solution just as there's more money in giving out antibiotics and charging instead of waiting to see if they're at all necessary gets more money even if from a public health standpoint that's horrendous. As soon as they don't have to be spending a lot on public health, they'll cut it. I can hear it already, "we just had a pandemic what are the odds we have another one soon? Everyone is prepared for it this time around" and bullshit like that. Public health is chronically underfunded and this pandemic exposed that beautifully but I doubt anything will change in the long-run. In the long-run, everyone is dead, so why invest in it?
It's not always about investment. The question is rather, who benefits from advances in public health? The answer is insurers. The biggest insurer in the country by far is the federal government. They're going to want to learn and apply lessons for many years to come from this catastrophe. I suspect that NIH will ramp up public health funding, and other large insurers might spend some money on it too. I would go for the PhD of I were you. Don't stop at an MPH. You're smart enough, dedicated enough, so why not just go the whole way?
There's a real chance I go for a PhD down the line, but I want more experience as those tend to be hyper-specialized. I'd be looking at infectious disease and infection prevention, but specialization with that. Probably novel/necglected or something like that, but that's a future me problem. Taking my life one week at a time at this point.
Found the light switch this week, and turned myself back on. Feels good. Dental Drama. At my routine cleaning last Thursday, the doc took an xray of #14 and said, "That don't look right. Go talk to this Endodontist". So I did. Endo said, "Wow. You have a helluva infection there, my friend. Looks like that root canal (from >10 years ago) wasn't done properly, and the bone in your jaw has receded massively around #14. I don't understand why it doesn't hurt more. We need to either do another root canal to get the missing root out ($2k), or pull the tooth entirely and put in a fake one ($6k). Lemme know what you want to do." I took the weekend to think, and got the root canal yesterday. Painless. Easy. No sweat. They found I had a 'hidden' 4th root on a tooth that should only have 3, and they cleaned it out. I watched two episodes of the Great British Baking Show while they worked. We will know in 6 months to a year if the bone is going to regrow or if an implant is in my future. Synthesizers/Musicmaking I've bitten off a LOT and am having a hard time chewing. Switched from GarageBand (>15 years) to Logic Pro, and the learning curve is steep. I am learning how synthesizers work in software (first with flac and now doing Syntorial), which is mind-blowingly good) and learning how to play piano again (with Melodics) while trying to figure out my two synths, the Novation Bass Station II which is half knobs and half software and half keyboard, and my Warfield Blofeld Desktop which is all software and few knobs and no keyboard, all while applying what I have learned in Syntorial to the built-in software synths in Logic, and being unsure how those things apply to the Bass Station and the Blofeld... But to connect all this equipment together properly I went from "the dumb guitar player's audio input", aka a Focusrite Scarlett Solo to a Scarlett 4i4... which turns out to be an enormously configurable and capable input, mixer, and MIDI device, that is confusing to set up when you don't have a fucking clue what yer doing. But while convalescing yesterday from my root canal (took the day off work) I made a BIG breakthrough with my understanding of routing cables, and what device should speak to what and via what type of cable/protocol, and I MADE SOME COOL MUSIC that wasn't accidental! Worked out. Well, got on the exercise bike for 30 minutes, which I used to do every day at noon because the downstairs where I have my home office gets cold, and if I take a break at noon and exercise for a bit, I am warm for the rest of the afternoon. And I hadn't done that in ... a while. Felt good to work up a sweat and something other than a resting heart rate. Talked to my wife. We discussed the dark space I have been in for the last week or so, and how I was feeling, and that I have broken through... it was the tooth, the frustration with largely failing to learn new things I wanted to learn, and some work pressures I was trying to get finished before my tooth went completely to hell on me. It's amazing what having a loving partner is like... you can just talk about your weaknesses and feelings and it only deepens your connection. And I watched Blade Runner 2049 again, and ... I love this movie so much. Definitely want to spend the Christmas holiday pretending to be Solar Fields' writing the "Mirror's Edge" soundtrack, but with 2049 and Fury Road as my inspiration... Feels good to be back on track.
Yo, I had a similar thing happen with a tooth. Did a root canal, thought they got it. Turned out that the tooth had a short root and cracked after it was filled. Now that I think about it, this happened to my dad more recently too. Anyway, it sucks that one of the most expensive things I own is a little piece of my head. That said, walking around for almost a year with no tooth is a humbling experience, even if wasn't noticeable. I found that it was also great for keeping me mindful of my own suffering in relation to that of others.
What a sobering experience... you are all good now, I hope? My endodontist was very happy with what she found, and her remediation work. So much so, that instead of filling with a temporary filler (which is normal, as you assess the success of the root canal) she went ahead and filled it with the final filler. (After assessing me of the situation, her evaluation, and asking my permission.) I get to keep my tooth (at least for the short term), and am not in pain, won't have any more temperature sensitivity, and possibly my overall health will improve as the infection in my jaw bone goes away.
I am! I have to say, that I had no idea how much low-level pain I'd been carrying around FOR YEARS until that damn tooth came out. I'm really glad to hear that you get to keep your tooth AND get healthy! In this world we're in, that tired old line of "health is wealth" is suddenly and markedly, relevant once again. I'm also glad to hear that your improved situation has been helpful in managing things with your wife. With that background discomfort and pain, I was always primed for conflict, I know vulnerability is fashionable these days, but there's nothing like letting the guard or the walls down to facilitate getting back on the same page. I'd encourage you to try to find ways of creating some kind of plans/goals/structure to sustain the music, your overall health, and your relationships as I know that when I (or my clients) don't make such plans, things can slide back to where they were (more or less) and that sense of backsliding can be as demoralizing as realizing you've reached that low, in the first place. Anyway, glad that things are looking up!
I made the pizza crust recipe kantos recommended. The first time I don't think I proofed the yeast right, and the second time I let the dough rise to see if I preferred that but let it rise too long because I was on a roll on zwift and wanted to finish the route I was riding. I'm out of yeast now, but with some leftover toppings I clearly need to try again. I started to get the hang of kneading dough, too, so I might as well try to keep learning. I tried cross country skiing this week. I'm not very good at it, but I want to keep trying. It's a good socially distanced activity, too.
My method for the yeast is microwaving a cup of room temperature water for 20-25 sec. The water’s to be lukewarm at minimum, soothing enough for a baby’s bath at maximum. Never let the salt touch the yeast until after liquids are mixed with flour. Salt kills yeast. Happy baking! Just spun my first pizza dough last Friday. It’s fun as hell.
I made pizza again yesterday. Yeast proofed right, no waiting for anything to rise, and: delicious! I'm definitely getting the hang of adding the right amount of flour. That was a problem the first time or two. I didn't skimp on cheese, either, which was good. I'm still using sauce I bought. I think next I'll have to try to make sauce. I did include chopped habaneros I grew myself which was great. Thanks for the recipe! It's really good.
Good to read the progress! The initial steps are the least forgiving. Everything else is where experimentation comes into play. A favorite tip from the recipe’s story is adding a little shredded cheese layer, then the toppings, last a regular layer of shredded cheese. That’s a beautiful pepperoni pizza - nice job making the cruse high enough to contain the innards.
I'm 100% sure my water was too cool the first time. The second time I stuck a food thermometer in it, and where I started was like 85 degrees. 100 degrees was a lot warmer than my finger expected. Considering how well the dough rose the second time, I have no doubt I proofed it right! I'll remember that about salt. Your recipe and the other one I tried started the same way: warm water, sugar, yeast, and wait for it to get foamy (5-8 minutes).