i got sick again so the financial update and also this thread are late. i’ll get the financial update up at a later point, or i might just combine it with january since there’s not that much to report as far as i can tell
Been off here for a bit as things got busy with work and choirs, but now things are starting to relax a bit ahead of Christmas which is good.
My niece was born at the end of November, was nice to meet her even if I’m not a baby fan (they’re so warm though! Had no idea). Looking forward to her being out of nappies/able to talk so I can bond with her a bit.
Had the first Christmas concert of the season last week which went well, always in awe of the orchestra we play with, they’re so talented that I forget I’m supposed to be singing. Have two carol concerts week after next which will be fun.
Seeing some comedy this weekend and next week which I’m looking forward to.
Haha, I understand that feeling but it was with the youth choir that joined us on some of our pieces. I had permission to miss the final rehearsal since I had plans to be out of town before it was scheduled, so I hadn’t heard them sing with us until our first performance. Had a couple of “ah shit I missed my entrance” moments because I was so impressed.
I had two parties to attend this weekend, but ended up getting a flu. It’ll be chicken soup and crappy reality TV for me.
My mental health has also started to decline again since last week. I’m not sure if it’s the deadly winter of the Nordics or just depression slowly creeping back in. In any case, I feel really scared. The world feels overwhelming and it seems, at times, that my efforts to come to grips with the new circumstances surrounding my life are futile.
I try to convince myself that I did the best I could, that the alternative solution would’ve most likely brought my early demise.
Still, it feels I did everything wrong. I feel I closed some doors that I did not mean to close. I reached the conclusion that the events that took place this year will most likely haunt me to my deathbed. I hope some day it stops hurting so much, though.
I look around and see some friends who have gone through similar situations and it all seems so easy to them. “Don’t compare yourself with others”, my therapist says incessantly every week. Sadly, I can’t help feeling weak in this situation. It’s been over 9 months, but still find myself crying every now and then before bed. I still find myself wishing I just wouldn’t wake up the next morning.
It’s not all bad though. I’m still being very consistent with the gym and I’m now doing pull ups like they were never a problem. I have also learned a few new songs in my acoustic guitar and it finally doesn’t sound like I’m killing a cat whenever I strum it.
Oh, I’ve also been reading The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin and I think that’s the first book that completely transports me to another world since the first Harry Potter. 😄
Take care everyone and sorry for the wall of text. o/
Sorry to hear you’re going through a tough time. It’s impressive that you’re managing to keep up with things like the gym and guitar though in spite of that.
Glad to hear you’re able to escape through reading. Heard so many good things about Ursula Le Guin but not got around to reading anything yet.
Thank you for your words, I really appreciate it. ❤️
I managed to convince myself, with the help of my therapist and trainer, that exercising is a habit that is essential for my wellbeing. I’ve lost 15kg and am quite proud of my progress. It’s the first time in a long time that I can look myself in the mirror and feel comfortable in my body. Mind you, I’m not thin by any means and don’t feel like I need to be, but I do feel and look much healthier. :)
I cannot recommend Ursula’s books enough. Her writing style is so fluid and satisfying. The way she crafts her sentences is stunning. She’s a very good storyteller. Reading her book has been the highlight of my day.
As a longtime mental health connoisseur, I must say that hypomania really pairs quite well with OCD. 9 out of 10 psychiatrists agree that it’s quite the experience. The odd one out is just being contrarian for the sake of it.
Christ, I need a fucking break from my mind.
That and the country I live in is falling apart, although none of this is really new. The brain fucking with me and the country falling apart. Both have been going on for decades.
It’s all a giant farce, honestly, where the only real option at this point is to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Even in my less comfortable moments, I try to keep things just a tiny bit entertaining. Even if only for my own wellbeing (otherwise I’d probably lose what’s left of my mind, honestly).
Years ago, i got off anti depression meds within two months (only later heard that it’s better to taper down over a year). One of the symptoms i got was hypomania; it was awesome! For a week i had energy like never before and after a day of cleaning i caught myself looking around and trying to find something left to clean.
Kicking those meds was a nightmare, but honestly, that week of hypomania was the greatest i ever felt. Mentally i was fine, nothing weird, but just this boundless energy. While usually, since i have a genetic bodily disorder, i often feel tired and if i do too much, i can’t do much for a week after.
I have some significant fatigue issues as well, though I’m still trying to find the cause (after six years of blood tests and doctors’ appointments, still nothing, though I’ll probably be seeing other specialists at some point to make sure).
It’a both “good” because I’m apparently healthy, but also very frustrating because I have no concrete answers as to why I can’t leave my house more than once a week without crashing right into the ground. It’s actually closer to somewhere around twice a month.
Not like I had too much energy before, but the last six years have been… exhausting. Having to plan out just how and when I can do something like watch a movie (at home because theaters are waaaaay too much) without crashing is tiresome on its own.
I hope they’ll figure out what it is. Often, like yours, it can be a very long journey, like with a virus for instance.
What i learned is to divide chores into small pieces. And when i have a busy day, i try to plan a number of days of being able to take it easy, physically.
And if people don’t get it, the spoon theory can be helpful to explain to others.
Yes, i was not trying to say that hypomania is fun for everyone, but thankfully for me, it was a pleasant surprise, though it took a bit of digging to find out what was happening and where it came from.
Oh, yeah. I’ve generally figured out how to pace myself. Occasionally might forget a bit and overextend, but it’s mostly “okay”.
Actually came across spoon theory years ago, before all this, and found it useful to explain other things (mainly sensory overload).
Oh, and don’t worry! I didn’t think you were saying that at all. Lol, like I said, you got the “fun” one.
I just sometimes like to get that euphoria thing out of the way because it’s something that even people with bipolar might not realize.
For a long time I was very “iffy” about my diagnosis because “how can I be hypomanic if I’m not feeling happy” was an all too common question that made me doubt things until my therapist really shone a light on the whole sitch.
Anyway, I appreciate the good words and advice! I hope you’ve found medication now that works for you, and while I know it’s not within your control, I hope you manage to enjoy the bits of energy your body is capable of mustering up.
For a long time I was very “iffy” about my diagnosis because “how can I be hypomanic if I’m not feeling happy” was an all too common question
Maybe, as a crooked comparison, it’s a bit like drinking way too much coffee; you feel energetic, but maybe also jittery, and happiness doesn’t really have anything to do with it.
As for antidepressants; after decades of two kinds of severe depressions, i learned to meditate and haven’t been depressed in over a decade. It changed the way i view the world in a fundamental way and i learned to not focus on the depressed feelings (focusing on them would make it more intense). So, i don’t use any medication for it anymore.
More incremental progress that feels less impactful than it really is. I got my solar going yesterday after lots of false starts (including panels flying off the roof while driving owing to … the wrong washers), and this morning, I got all my belongings out of the warehouse at my old job short of an 8-cube Kallax that will require a ton of organizing in the van to be able to fit.
Some days, I’m immensely productive, while others, I’m too weighed down by yet another job search to be remotely able to make progress on that front. My entire family (I got an unexpected email from my uncle/godfather yesterday) is utterly unsupportive of my firm belief that I should be able to have a job that doesn’t demean me and pays enough to start getting out of the debt that piled up during my last job search.
I had to give up housing while employed full time because I can’t survive on $21/hour with a lease. The solution is not another $21/hour paint-by-numbers bullshit job, ffs.
It seems everyone born before 1970 thinks the job market hasn’t changed since the '90s and thus a grueling job search is a personal failing, not a sign that the economy no longer works for a wide swath of people not in sales. I want to make the product or make the product better or make the workflow better so that your salespeople have something worth selling. But that brings in “no income” and is seemingly no longer needed.
been raining super hard here and when I entered my home yesterday after work I got hit with a strong mildew smell. I must have a leak somewhere and this feels expensive to fix.
The weekend was pretty rough for me. I’m currently going through a medication taper, and that combined with some other life stuff had me super depressed for a few days. I was actually gonna go see my dad for the first time in a decade, but I decided to cancel because I was down and couldn’t be bothered to drive for four hours and sleep somewhere that wasn’t my home. (Also the weather along the coast is crap right now.)
Other than that, I’ve kept myself distracted with some planning for a new home lab. I’m starting to give a fuck about fashion, so I’ve got some new stuff coming in that I’m excited to try. I’ve also got a razor coming so I can do my first real head shave that isn’t just the 1/8" that my clippers can manage.
Thank you for your kind words. Every day gets brighter.
For homelab, I’m not 100% sure yet. I’m at least going to be getting a Synology NAS to replace my ancient Lenovo EMC2. I really wanted to get some hardware for running LLama 2 and KobaldCPP, but I’m struggling to find something that’s equal parts not noisy (I live in a studio), affordable(ish), and that has the minimum specs I’d need. I was unironically considering a Mac Mini with a rack converter because of the energy efficiency and powerful iGPU, but sadly they only ship up to 32GB of RAM. Since my reading suggests I’d want at least 64GB of RAM for LLama 2’s 70B version, I’m having to try some other way of doing things. I just wish I didn’t live in a studio so I could grab a secondhand rackmount server without worrying about noise levels. 😭
I have the same problem; my flat is only about 50sqm. Judging by the way things are going, I think there’s a chance Nvidia will release some consumer-grade hardware meant for LLMs in the near-ish future. Until they reveal their next lineup, although it may seem like a poor financial decision, I’m just sticking to using the cloud for running llms.
I’m also hoping to get my hands on some raspberry pis too. I would like to build a toy k3s cluster at some point and maybe run my own mastodon instance. :)
Well at least I’m not the only one whose homelab ambitions are being crushed by their apartment layout. I think that I’m going to end up with a 2U compute rack, which means I’ll probably limp along on one or two consumer low-profile GPUs. Now if only I could work out the details of the actual rack server hardware…
A Raspberry Pi cluster is interesting! My only real exposure to using Pis in a homelab was an old 1B I was using for PiHole. It was great right up until it stopped working.
My wife and I got a covid booster Sunday, the next day my arm was sore at the injection site and I felt tired in the morning and felt more and puny as the day went on. I passed out hard last night and slept for almost 10 hours and feel much
I am dealing with a combination of a shitstorm of overreaction and my own stupidity 🥲
I sent my niece and nephews a small gift from ebay. I usually message my sister to let her know to expect a package, but this time I just forgot to and got busy with other stuff. So yesterday comes around and I get a call from her saying that getting a hand addressed package to their kids from an address they didn’t recognize freaked them out so much that they called the cops, who called the seller to find out who sent it.
Obviously they calmed down once they realized it was me, and I felt really bad about it so I messaged the seller on ebay to apologize for the inconvenience… only somehow without knowing how the goddamn interface on ebay works I managed to flag the message as a CANCEL ORDER REQUEST. So then I had to immediately message him again and be like haha oops no sorry not a cancel request! I don’t know how to ebay!
Just kill me, I’m so embarrassed 😭
PS: if you are wondering if my sister and her husband are extremely sucked into the far right news sphere where everyone is trying to kidnap their kids with fentanyl… the answer is yes.
Wow that’s definitely an overreaction! If your sister was concerned wouldn’t she just open it first, rather than letting the kids see it/do it? Or message people first to check if anyone sent it?
No good deed goes unpunished I guess! Glad it mostly worked out ok
Had a date last night. Told my friend that if my date wouldn’t be a flat earther or think that toothpaste is poison or some such that my standards would be met. That is to say that I’ve had plenty such experiences.
Smoked a joint. Ate the best Indian food I ever had. Went for a walk and…
Well I ended up renting her apartment in a month from now. So I don’t mean to toot my own horn but I consider that a fruitful date.
typically there is food and drinks (alcoholic and otherwise). often a fire if the weather cooperates. mostly it’s just a way to gather up like minded friends on a regular basis so we can catch up. sometimes there’s a theme (plant swap, remembering our loved ones who have passed recently, craft night, etc.), but usually it’s very casual.
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