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My day

Dear Diary! For today’s post, I wont prove read, since I’m rally tired, and somewhat intoxicated. What does this mean? The text will probably be less readable and understandable, with more mistakes than usual, but it’s aight for today.

So; what happened today? Morning ’till 16:30 was the same way as this week was until now. Wake up, go to university, correct some exams, eat lunch and then correct some more. Yesterday, I predicted, that I would finish at about 2 o’clock. Sadly, I only finished at 4:30 pm – so 2.5 hours later [mind blown].

Basically, as every time, the students did worse than expected. Of course, since not all exams corrections are finished, I only have a small sample size. But still. At most, about 1/3rd of the students has 30/60 points (which is the usual acceptance mark – point wise),

Anyway. Once I was done finishing, I headed home and there I watched some YouTube videos. Since today was the coach-dinner (where we get invited to dinner, from the club) I didn’t spend too much time at home. About one hour after arriving at home, I left again.

Coaches dinner

Speaking of the coaching dinner. This year, we had some bad luck (or choices in the restaurant(?) ). At first we had to choose one menu for all coaches. Luckily our president handled, it pretty good, so we could choose a second one. That means: One for the vegetarians; and one for the meat-eaters.

Because of this, I had a “cream Schnitzel”, which basically is only some pasta with a small piece of pork(?). None the less, it was still delicious. Only remark was, that it was a rather small portion… Welp – not everyone is bulking

After eating we talked a lot (obviously). One theme that came up, was “what’s your type?”. And I was also asked this. It was rather hard to answer but my response was:

1. not dumb (so you could have a sensible conversation)
2. not fat (I don’t think that fat people are attractive)
— from here on, it’s more like “nice to have” —
3. rather long hair (I find it more attractive)
4. someone that’s not too clumsy / able to compete in some sports

That’s about it for me. Maybe I missed some, but also some are obvious (like a “cute”/ “good” face.) You know – what ever makes your horn grow…

Also, we played a lot of “Juden¹“; which is a card game, which is rather reaction based. Usually I’m quite good at this game, but today I lost 1/3 rounds (so I won 2 of 3 rounds), but I claim it’s because I’m intoxicated.

Also, I gotta say, there’s one person (who I really like – as a matter of fact) which I believe, has a wrong image of me (in her head). She always claims, I play myself somewhat, clumsy and awkward and like an idiot (or at least it does, as if she does) and I don’t even do that. Sometimes: yes; but other times: no. And it hurts a little bit. But I have to admit: It’s not entirely her mistake, because to some extend it’s my mistake. Still – it always hurts a little

Anyway; All in all we had a great time. It was really fun. I got home at like quarter past 12, took a shower, and now I’m writing (to) you. I nearly forgot you. I was already lying in my bed, but now it’s done, so I can finally go to sleep.

That’s it for today. See you Tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

1. Card game – which is really fun. The rules are as follows:
   You play this game with a set of poker cards (or some close-ish to those)
   Then, the goal of the game is, to get all cards.
   A round works as follows:
   1. You place a card in the middle of the group -> it’s the next persons turn
   2. If the card played before was an “image-card” (Ace, Kind, Queen, Jack)
   – the next person has a specific amount of attempts to lay another image card. If this person succeeds -> it’s the next persons turn.
   – otherwise, the person who played the last image-card gets to pick up all the cards in the center.
   
   But there are also some special rules. Mainly, if to cards of the same value for example two Kings, then you can slap on top of the cards.
   – If you are the first person on top of the stack in the middle (and the last two cards have the same value) you get all the cards in the middle).
   – If you slap mistakenly, you have to lay off one card, which can then be won in the next round.
   – if you slap correctly, but aren’t first, nothing happens.
   
   This extra rule makes the game interesting – try it some time! ↩︎

My Day

Dear Diary! Today I had a somewhat busy day. As you might know, we (I) are still in the process of correcting the exams. So that’s what I did for the whole day until dinner with a lunch break where I had some curry with rice.

The students aren’t really doing that good on the exam. I’ve had a few, who have 0 points for exercise 5 and 6, which are 2/6 exercises, with each exercise worth 10 points.
But we are making progress. I’m done with all my first-time-corrections and am now on the second round. In my second round, I’m done with 2/6th of mine. Of course the second round takes less time. So my prediction is, that I’m finished tomorrow at like 2-3 pm. (Which means about 5 hours still to do.)

Once I got home, there was some left over pasta and bolognese-sauce which (as it so happens) then became my dinner. Sadly, this amount of pasta wasn’t really enough, so I was still kinda hungry after eating, but too lazy to cook more. So I just stayed hungry [haha]. I then went to my room, relaxed for a bit and headed to the gym.

In the gym was nothing really special. I tried, the bench press with the barbell bar, for the first time in like 2 years. It felt better, since I could really focus on my chest, so I think, in the future I will keep on doing it like that.

After the gym, I ate 2 wieners with some bread, and had a protein-shake. Then I got back to my room, watched some YouTube videos, and now I’m writing (to) you. Now I’m gonna shower, and then sleep.

I’m super tired right now, thus: that’s it for today. See you tomorrow! Bye-Bye.

My Day

Dear Diary! Today was the second day of correcting the exam of my children. For that, I woke up at 8:15 and then headed to the university. I had breakfast on my way there (some chocolate bread and a croissant). Once I arrived there, I corrected for about the whole day. Of course I had lunch in the middle, and then some more correcting in the afternoon.

We finished at around 6pm. My progress this far is: 1/3 is finished (4/6 – which is my part), and on the next third I’m like half way through with 1/2 exercises which I have to correct. This means about 5.5/16 of the way. Of course, for the second round, we correct the other corrections, so it’ll be faster.

Once we finished correcting, I didn’t go home. No no no. I asked a friend (Daniel¹ – one of my best friends) to eat out, since we had a coach-meeting from the volleyball club. We had a “Pizza Mamma Mia” which was a usual pizza but with onion, garlic, ham, and salami. It was really good.
Done eating, we walked to the coach-meeting. As expected, the meeting wasn’t really important for me (or him) (because it’s mid season, so there aren’t really any changes to anything), so I mostly just sat there, lost in my thoughts.

Like 1.5 hours into the meeting, I left, since the team I coach had training today. (On Wednesday we train from 9-11 pm.) I arrived at like 10pm for the second half of the training. I instructed some drills, and played with them for the last 30 mins. I wonder how my knees will react to that, since I didn’t really have a (good) warmup.

After the training, we showered and then went home. I arrived at home at like quarter past 12. Then I had a cold chocolate, and went on my PC to relax for a bit. I watched some YouTube, and now I’m writing (to) you.

That’s about my whole day.

How am I doing?

I must say, I feel good. Of course, it’s quite exhausting to correct all day, but since it’s not at home, it just feels better (in a way). I don’t really know how to explain it. You just have to feel it, but work outside of home isn’t really as bad like at home. At least it feels that way.

So to answer the question: I’m doing quite good.

That’s it for today. I see you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

1. I figured, since he will probably be mentioned a lot, I can say his name, to make it more understandable ↩︎

My Day

Dear Diary! Today was the exam of my children. (Also known as the students which I TA’d.) There were 98 of them. One student was even caught cheating. This student was not in my room, so I didn’t see it happen. When they caught him, they wanted him to show his UNI-ID. He then claimed, that he didn’t have it. For obvious reasons, this was a lie. Since to enter the room, they all had to show their UNI-ID. He will now just get an “F” for this exam, so it’s not the worst for him (probably).

Once the exam was over, I went to buy lunch, and headed to the building where we do the corrections. I went into the cafeteria to eat lunch. In the cafeteria were the 2 PHD-students which were helping supervising the exam in my room. We talked a little bit, and then I realized, that it’s probably really hard to get into a PHD-program. One of them was from Costa-Rica, and the other one from Italy. (Obviously quite a travel for them every day [haha]) They also asked me, if I wanted to do a PHD. The answer is “probably not”. First it would be nice, if I get my/ a bachelors degree.

One funny situation was, when they asked me if I’m in a master’s program, to which I replied with “no”. Then the PHD-student from Italy squeaked [haha] for a quick moment. (She didn’t know, that I could be a TA, whilst still studying for the bachelors. In Italy where she studied, you need a bachelors to TA.)

After lunch, the other TA, the PHD student supervising “my” lecture and I headed to the correction room. We then (obviously) started with the corrections. We worked from 13:30 -> ~18:00. I did roughly 1.5/6 exercises on 1/3rd of the exams. Which means, I’ll probably be busy for the rest of the week with correcting exams… We also correct them twice, which also means double the work for every one of us :(.

Once I got home (at about quarter to seven), I ate some dinner, watched some Mentalist and YouTube. I saw an interesting video, of some bonsai-tree-guy. I forgot what he was called, but in this particular video, he took some old/un-cared for bonsai tree and then tried to freshen it up, so to speak. There are a lot of steps involved, and it also takes a really long time. For this video, it took him like 3 years to finish. Of course, you don’t have to make a crazy amount of changes to a tree, but still.
For example, one interesting part (which I didn’t know existed) was: He made a sketch of the tree stem, and then sketched a lot of ways of how the branches could be. Once he had his best configuration figured out, he took some wire, and bent the branches to fit his image (over the time of about 2 years). (But to be honest, I liked it some more, in the middle, than in the ending. It looked kinda fake to me…)
Once he was finished with the ordering of the branches, he oiled the tree up, which I thought was kinda weird for a still living tree, but hey – whatever grows your tree.

After this break, I went to the gym. Nothing special there, except, my father goes to the gym now, (at the same place as I go to) so I met him there. He also helped me quickly for the low row. That means, he held his fingers between my shoulder blades, so I could really focus on them.

After the gym I went home shower, watched some videos, and now I’m writing (to) you.

Cheat day results

Ah, I almost forgot. Since yesterday was my cheat-day (no studying), we are curious how I felt today. The answer is: Not really any different [haha]. It’s also super biased, since I usually study at home, but the exam corrections are in the rooms of the university. I’ll probably try it again soon, so we see how I’ll do then.

That’s it for today. I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

My Day

Dear Diary! As announced yesterday, I did have my cheat day today. This means, I hardly did any studying today. What else did I do? Nothing really… I watched some YouTube and some Mentalist. Just about as expected.

Tough, after dinner I had to teach some volleyball. The training was neither really good, nor really bad. It just was an okay training. Since there were not a lot of players, I had to (or rather wanted to) help out, as a player. As we know, my knees are getting better, since they did not really do as I wished, which means that I actually could play with them. I did make some jumps, and now I wonder, how my knees are gonna feel tomorrow. I’ll tell you that soon!

Anyway. After volleyball I went home, and basically did the same thing as during the day. With one slight exception. I quickly checked my Instagram, but as usual, nothing really interesting there.

And now I’m writing (to) you, then I’ll take a shower and go to bed. Tomorrow is gonna be a big day for me. I have to get up at 8:15. Which is like 3.5 hours earlier than I did in the last month. I’m definitely not looking forward to that. But I’ll tell you more tomorrow.

That’s all for today. See you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

Dear Diary! Today I had a problem with you. Namely, there is such a thing as the WHOIS-verification. This is the verification, with which they (states I guess) can identify me as the owner of the website. In my case, they needed my email address. Of course, I did it now, when I wanted to write my entry, but it is written here, that this is gonna take about 24-48 hours.
Because of this, I write this entry in the notebook on my PC and upload it (hopefully only) one day too late. But I wrote my diary, so I still achieved my new-years resolutions.

My Day

Anyway. About today: Today was a really inefficient day. I got up, lunch, and then watched wayyy too much “The Mentalist”. I also did go to the gym. I had hoped, that this gym session would help me to (in some sense) get away from watching my series, and actually study. In a way it also did.
Once I got back from the gym, I read today’s lectures. After that, I went back to watching “The Mentalist” until dinner. After dinner, I solved some exercises and watched a lot of Jane solving crimes. And now I’m writing (to) you.

But back to the gym for a quick moment. It was quite a good session. Not really if you look at my squad results, but I had a pb with my bicep workout. I used the bar*¹ and 7.5 kgs on each side for 12 repetitions. This was the first time I actually could do 12 repetitions. Usually I do as many as possible with 7.5kgs (which are usually like 8) and then quickly remove 2.5kgs and continue on. (You might also call this “drop-sets” mhm) Besides that, no more pb’s were achieved.

Focus problems

I realized today, that I have some kind of focus problems. It’s not exactly focus problems, but more not-getting-distracted problems. I had an Idea on why that might be. That is, because I didn’t really have a day off in like 2 weeks. So right now I’m flirting with the idea of leaving one day of studying out. Maybe this helps?

In any case, I’ll tell you, if I do so.

That’s it for today. Nothing more to say. So – see you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

1. concerning the bar: I don’t know how much it weighs, since it’s a curl bar, but probably 10-15 kg’s. But that also doesn’t really matter. The important part is, that I make progress! ↩︎

My Day

Dear Diary! Today was not a usual day. First I woke up at 10:15. Why at such an early hour? Good question! My family and I were visiting my foster brother. He recently moved in with his girlfriend, and now he/they wanted to show us their apartment. For this occasion, they invited us for brunch. It was really sweet. Some good bread, meat, cheese and so on. It was really delicious.

They also gave us a room tour. There was nothing really special. Two things stood out though:

1. They have their bookshelf ordered by color. This looked really good, but too me seems kinda funny [haha].
2. They have an amazing sound setup in their living room.
   (My foster brother is somewhat into music, so he also has a record player (Vinyl-player). We also listened to some music, and I gotta say: It was really impressive. I can’t really describe it over words. You just had to listen, and you’d understand.)

After brunch, we stayed there for a little while, and then went home again.

Once we were back home, I got to studying. Nothing out of the ordinary – as you may know. I read the lectures planned for today, but since I got up early, I was kinda tired. So I watched some YouTube videos until dinner (for about 1.5 hours). Most of them weren’t really interesting, but it’s mostly just to pass time.

Then, dinner time. We had some pasta with tuna-salad. Too bad for me, since I don’t like tuna (or fish for that matter). So I just had some pasta for dinner. Too little meat for my taste; and my biceps too.

After dinner, I got back into my room, solved some exercises, watched two episodes of “The Mentalist” and now I’m writing (to) you. It’s already way too late, so I’m not going to write more. I just need to shower, and then go to sleep.

Tomorrow, I will probably (hopefully) write some more. Maybe, I will continue to write for the book club. Well, I don’t wanna give you false hopes. We’ll see tomorrow. Until then; Bye-Bye!

My Day

Dear Diary! Today I woke up, ate lunch and wanted to study. But I couldn’t really focus, so I watched an episode of “The Mentalist”. Or maybe two? We’ll never know for sure. Then when I finally got to studying, it was really hard. Eventually I got it working, and just as it was about to get fun, I had to go eat dinner.

After dinner, I had to go to a Volleyball match. Sadly we lost the match in 4 sets, but we had fun anyway. At least some of us. One player of the opposing team was screaming over to us, exactly at the moment we had to serve. This Made the atmosphere rather heated. But to be honest: I enjoyed it more, when we had a reason to be pissed at them. Then it’s not just about winning, but then you really want to win. Which in turn makes it more intense.

In the 4th set we misplayed in the beginning and were down 10-5. We were slowly catching up. When they got into their twenties, we were behind with ~17 points (I believe). Then we made it interesting. Few more balls and the score was 24-22 for them.

Match-point 1: It was close, but we made it happen. One more ball to be played.
Match-point 2: 23-24. We get to serve; and the good ol’ classic happened. Service mistake. But hey – you can’t always win. (Sadly we hardly do, but luckily you don’t know that!)

Afterwards, we went to two team members home (who live together), and played some card game (I won – but as we all know, it’s not about winning).

One friend and I took the last train home. I got home at about quarter to 1am and got back to studying. Just before, I watched 2 episodes of “The Mentalist”. Season 3 is now over. I know the next few episodes are not that interesting, so I’ll hope I can not-watch these too soon.

Studying Plan

My studying plan took a little dive. I thought I was on time, but today it became obvious to me, that I have less time than anticipated. Since I’m a TA, and next Tuesday (January 13) they have their exam, and of course, I am one of those, that corrects these. Since we have about 100 students taking the exam, it’ll take a lot of time to correct them. I expect to loose 3-4 days. That’s quite annoying.

So now my plan is

• Finish Algebra on Monday (12th)
• correct exams
• 1 week of applied mathematics (17th-24th)
• 1 week of ODE’s (25th-1st)
• like 10 days to repeat every part once again (2-3 days / subject)

That’s about it. Too bad, I don’t have any free time left over… I at least hope, that either ODE’s or applied maths won’t take too long, since I did those quite thoroughly during the semester. Well – we’ll see soon.

Book Club

As you might have seen, yesterday I started the book club. Today I wasn’t motivated to write more about the first poem. But I had an idea for future texts/ interpretations. Namely, I try to look from a very specific point of view, and maybe get a more specific, easier to understand, interpretation. My point of view should then be, one that most people can understand.
For example, from the perspective of an athlete. And what this would mean specifically for him. Or from someone doing chores. Or whatever. I’m not really sure about what, but I’ll try to change the perspective from entry to entry.

That’s it for today. I don’t really have anything more important to say. So, see you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

My Day

Dear Diary! Today I was feeling good. I don’t know what it was, or why, but it does not really matter. Today was just a good day!

I woke up, ate lunch, and started studying. I felt motivated, and knew what I had to do. A new chapter just started (about rings – the algebraic structure) and it just went good. Yesterday evening, I pre-read the chapter I had to do today, so it was a bit easier. Maybe it’s just because I’m only at the beginning of the chapter, or most new things are similar to concepts from before, but I was doing good. It only took about 4 hours to read the lectures and solve the exercises. I was already finished before dinner. First time in the last 2 weeks. Now that is what I call exciting!

So, after studying, I still learned some new definitions (with flashcards, from today’s lectures) and watched some episodes of “The Mentalist”. Almost a classic by this point.

Thinking about things they said

Speaking of “The Mentalist”. In one episode, the bad guy confessed his crime to the police, and then said “I thought after confessing, I would feel something like a burden lift off. But I don’t feel anything.”

But why’s that important? Yesterday I told you about how I was feeling/ thinking. And I felt exactly the same as this guy. I thought, if I’d confess my feelings / thoughts, I’d feel better. Yesterday evening I, in fact, did not BUT I have a feeling, that this might be, why I’m feeling so good today.

I just wanted to say that… So the next time, I have something to confess I’ll report to you if it also made me feel better!

My Day – part 2

What am I gonna do now? Tao Te Ching.

I’ll start right now. I was thinking, that I don’t write this in my diary entries, but make a separate category. So that’s what I’ll do now. I’ll be back in about an hour, and tell you of my despair, trying to analyze a poem. For the first time in like 4 years. And the first time actually trying.

—

it’s now like 1 hour later, and I’m still not finished with the first real part. I wrote part 0 (introduction) and started with the first poem. I have to admit, it’s more work than expected.

One problem might be, that I kinda want to say at least one thing to each part of the poem, so I don’t really only use the interesting parts. (Or the parts where I immediately know something sensible to say.)

Anyway. I aborted this philospher’s mission for now. I’m too tired and it’s too late now. I don’t know, when I’ll continue, but probably soon.

But for you, my dear Diary, I’ll be back tomorrow. See you then! Bye-Bye!