This is where I write for myself

[maramahan]

I feel like a very important part of worldbuilding for any universe with a magic system is asking yourself ‘how would people use this to do crime?’

[writeformyself]

This is also so important when developing real world technology.

[writeformyself]

Always fun to see a post on my dashboard that is so apt and relatable only to realize I'm about to reblog a post that just emerged from my queue after a few weeks.

[writeformyself]

How do people do more than one task in a day? I do a load of laundry and ignore my email. I check my email and ignore the dirty dishes. I join a department meeting remotely and just sit on my couch the rest of the day.

[theconcealedweapon]

[writeformyself]

I'm really hoping that things will change for the better before my kindergartener notices politics. The gap between our supposed ideals and the current reality is depressing.

[writeformyself]

I am so glad that I joined this week's department meeting via Zoom with my camera off. If I'd been there in person everyone would have seen the faces I was making when they starting discussing how to use AI in our curriculum.

[writeformyself]

I wonder how many searches google is getting for "disable AI mode chrome" these days.

[writeformyself]

I remember back in high school having an English class where we had to keep a journal with so many entries per week to be turned in and read by the teacher. Writing here feels a bit like that, where no one really is looking at it, but it is something that could be seen publicly if someone paid attention.

The discipline of writing something every day or so probably would be good for me. Maybe it'll help me to stop wallowing in my thoughts. A private journal would be better for unfiltered brain dumping, but for now the imagined eyes of my nonexistent readers helps motivate me to at least come up with something.

If I can get some momentum here, maybe I can create something good elsewhere.

[writeformyself]

My kid is showing signs of anxiety that both of her parents can relate to. I'm hoping that we'll be able to help her recognize and cope with whatever emotions she's encountering as she grows better than our boomer parents did. (Not that they were bad, but there is a whole generational weakness there)

[writeformyself]

The recent Canvas attack makes me very glad that I wasn't teaching this semester. I never put much of my actual course materials there, but the gradebook is pretty important at the end of the term. I imagine the actively teaching faculty were swamped with so many panicked students (more than usual for the end of the term).

[writeformyself]

My curly haired kindergartener refuses to let us untangle her hair and makes it worse by putting her hair in her mouth. I think it's time to pay someone to comb her hair and cut it shorter again. I'm so used to just pulling back my own hair that I'm having trouble thinking about how easy care a style actually is. How short can we reasonably go on this child?

[writeformyself]

We ended up with a chin length bob, which is what we had done last time. So much easier to handle. Now, if she would just let me put conditioner on it every few days we'd be in good shape.

[writeformyself]

Spouse seems to have the respiratory crud that I had last month. (I'm still not completely over it.) I need to be a helpful person and figure out something for supper before I let myself get sucked into distracting fiction.

[writeformyself]

Still ignoring my work email for the most part, but did delete a bunch of announcements at least. I biked to the library to get away from house distractions and worked on my laptop. I made some progress on a coding project I've been thinking about for next fall, so maybe I'll be able to get some momentum from that.

I checked my personal email and got a notice that I have something on the hold shelf, so I'll check that out before I head back home. I suspect that I've hit my limit on productive work today and am about to be distracted for the rest of the afternoon.

[writeformyself]

My curly haired kindergartener refuses to let us untangle her hair and makes it worse by putting her hair in her mouth. I think it's time to pay someone to comb her hair and cut it shorter again. I'm so used to just pulling back my own hair that I'm having trouble thinking about how easy care a style actually is. How short can we reasonably go on this child?

[writeformyself]

I was supposed to be productive this semester. I thought I would have the chance to make so many new projects without the constant distraction of actively teaching courses, but instead I've spent the past month barely even looking at my email and not doing any writing at all.

Admittedly, I have tried a couple new recipes and was able to go on a couple kindergarten field trips, but that doesn't count towards my job. I've caught a couple of bugs from my kid (not covid, at least, but I'm still dealing with an icky respiratory thing) and could spend time being a whiny sicko instead of having to power through while medicated, but I feel so useless.

I know that writing here doesn't help with my lack of work productivity, but I'm hoping that randomly posting from my phone and typing on this wireless keyboard might trick my brain into actually accomplishing something. The real computer has been neglected so long that I'm just locking up at the very thought of turning it on.

[writeformyself]

Why does tumblr suggest I add tags on some posts but not others? The post about the wireless keyboard I found in the thrift store was suggested to add tags, but not my random thoughts about my recent lack of productivity. Do they think anyone really is going to be into either of those?

[writeformyself]

When I do occasionally get in the mood to write something here, I like to put it in my queue instead of posting immediately, much like all the random reblogs from my dash get queued up instead of posted immediately while I'm scrolling at bedtime.

It's a little silly to do it here, I guess. I think some part of me still has "don't reveal too much about yourself on the internet" thoughts (which is a good thing!) and using the queue keeps people from knowing exactly when I was active.

Another thing with the queue is that I can try to average a new post a day and let it even out between an afternoon of random brain dumps and a week of utter sloth.

[writeformyself]

I have been on sabbatical this semester, so I haven't been teaching any courses. I thought I would finally get something done from my ever-growing list of "ideas for when I finally have some time to do them", but instead I've discovered new levels of executive dysfunction.

Apparently, if I don't have to be in a classroom in the morning, I don't accomplish anything. At this point, I'm expecting I'll have to somehow do one of my planned projects over the summer so I'm not coming back without anything to show for myself.

Admittedly, the past few years have been rough with my spouse spending all weekends working on graduate degree homework, so I've been taking our kid and trying to stay out of the house as much as possible. It means that neither of us really get a break on the weekends. I tend to recover a bit on Mondays, but we've both been draining our reserves. I'm so glad this is the last semester for that graduate degree.