> 1.5 years!
I've been re-reading my old entries so many times within the past couple of months that I thought I may as well post a new one. Re-reading possibly fuelled by nostalgia for when I was younger and a student, which was the state of things last time that I was in the particular state of mind in which I am now. And before my entries degenerated into "I have RSI and my email doesn't work and I can't handle unexpected snow (though the entire country was with me on that one)", they might have actually been enjoyable to read. For me in any case, and I'm biased.
Anyway. Obviously lots of things happened. Mainly in the past 3 months. Changed a lot - feel a whole lot more confident and unconstrained, sometimes excessively so. Probably had a lot of moments that can be described as "falling flat on my face" within the past 3 weeks, but I've generally tried to laugh at my stupidity since life's too short to dwell on these things. Learning from them to avoid future stupidity may have been a good idea though, and an art that I am sadly yet to master in certain areas of life which are a minefield of potential gaffes. I guess I try to think of these minor mishaps as an additional source of amusement.
Generally feeling less serious about life, apart from the really vital things like work and health. Though may have not entirely stuck to being serious about health when I started taking 200mg caffeine pills just over a month ago (theoretically instead of, practically in addition to the 3-5 cups of coffee that I was already having each day). Peak consumption was at least 14 cups' equivalent (pills+coffee) but I'd lost actual count on that occasion. As well as 99% of the will to do anything other than crawl into a warm corner somewhere and shut down. Decided to scale it back a bit after I kind of snapped and spent most of 4NCL dinner just over a week ago trying hard to stop my face from falling into my Camembert. Kind of going cold turkey at the moment - 1 cup a day, which is useless on me - since I'm on holiday visiting parents and thus getting plenty of rest.
My chess is slowly improving but I do make some atrocious blunders unjustifiably often, even for my patzer rating. Overall, I have flashes of brilliance such as the one at the end of October 2010, and mediocre-to-disastrous performances, such as most of the other 9 (only 9? feels like a lot more) tournaments I'd played in since then. Despite the mediocre-to-disastrous thing, I keep digging and enter progressively more tournaments - potentially 3 in December (only 1 confirmed so far though). If it all goes to pot, I'll at least have fun.
One thing I've realised while re-reading my old entries is that I used to be a whole lot more enthusiastic about doing my own chess work before. Must restart.
Speaking of restarting things, I've tried playing my old guitar last night - thinking of taking it back to Cam with me. Unlearnt nearly everything over 9 years of non-practice - remembered where the two E strings were and had to work out the rest from that. Similarly for notes in sheet music. But would like to be able to play a musical instrument again.
What else... Haven't cycled much recently but have been doing a lot of running during the past 3 months. Hated it at first but when it got easier it turned out to be a great way of getting fantasies/rants/general ideas out of my system and defragmenting my head. And an excuse to listen to music for 30-odd minutes (or more when here using parents' treadmill, though must be careful not to break the thing as I have done with 2 of my exercise bikes).
Can't think of much else off the top of my head. Lots of want-to-do-but-not-organised-enough-to-get-round-to things. Slightly depressing when I write them down, but might be a way of actually getting round to doing them if I actually look at the list afterwards. Just so much to do and so little time! And I want to be 20 again. Quarter-life crisis, kind of.
Anyway. Obviously lots of things happened. Mainly in the past 3 months. Changed a lot - feel a whole lot more confident and unconstrained, sometimes excessively so. Probably had a lot of moments that can be described as "falling flat on my face" within the past 3 weeks, but I've generally tried to laugh at my stupidity since life's too short to dwell on these things. Learning from them to avoid future stupidity may have been a good idea though, and an art that I am sadly yet to master in certain areas of life which are a minefield of potential gaffes. I guess I try to think of these minor mishaps as an additional source of amusement.
Generally feeling less serious about life, apart from the really vital things like work and health. Though may have not entirely stuck to being serious about health when I started taking 200mg caffeine pills just over a month ago (theoretically instead of, practically in addition to the 3-5 cups of coffee that I was already having each day). Peak consumption was at least 14 cups' equivalent (pills+coffee) but I'd lost actual count on that occasion. As well as 99% of the will to do anything other than crawl into a warm corner somewhere and shut down. Decided to scale it back a bit after I kind of snapped and spent most of 4NCL dinner just over a week ago trying hard to stop my face from falling into my Camembert. Kind of going cold turkey at the moment - 1 cup a day, which is useless on me - since I'm on holiday visiting parents and thus getting plenty of rest.
My chess is slowly improving but I do make some atrocious blunders unjustifiably often, even for my patzer rating. Overall, I have flashes of brilliance such as the one at the end of October 2010, and mediocre-to-disastrous performances, such as most of the other 9 (only 9? feels like a lot more) tournaments I'd played in since then. Despite the mediocre-to-disastrous thing, I keep digging and enter progressively more tournaments - potentially 3 in December (only 1 confirmed so far though). If it all goes to pot, I'll at least have fun.
One thing I've realised while re-reading my old entries is that I used to be a whole lot more enthusiastic about doing my own chess work before. Must restart.
Speaking of restarting things, I've tried playing my old guitar last night - thinking of taking it back to Cam with me. Unlearnt nearly everything over 9 years of non-practice - remembered where the two E strings were and had to work out the rest from that. Similarly for notes in sheet music. But would like to be able to play a musical instrument again.
What else... Haven't cycled much recently but have been doing a lot of running during the past 3 months. Hated it at first but when it got easier it turned out to be a great way of getting fantasies/rants/general ideas out of my system and defragmenting my head. And an excuse to listen to music for 30-odd minutes (or more when here using parents' treadmill, though must be careful not to break the thing as I have done with 2 of my exercise bikes).
Can't think of much else off the top of my head. Lots of want-to-do-but-not-organised-enough-to-get-round-to things. Slightly depressing when I write them down, but might be a way of actually getting round to doing them if I actually look at the list afterwards. Just so much to do and so little time! And I want to be 20 again. Quarter-life crisis, kind of.