The Journicle

Blog

  • June 3

    Hello! Today was whack. I didn’t do any of what I had planned to do. I studied for like one hour; the TA didn’t tell me if I can write the exam; and in the evening I felt bad about the classic things (breaking up with my ex).

    So not too good of a day. At least, I listened some interesting talks. Mostly tech guys. Well, only tech guys. But right now, I couldn’t tell you things I learned… So not too good either.
    Well, one thing was, that for optimizations, you’re 1. crazy if you really can do micro-optimizations (assembly type shit); 2. doing everyone a favor, if you don’t do useless things in your code; 3. an idiot, if you do fake optimizations (talk about minor optimization things (which might be false) you heard in a talk and spread those).

    That’s already all there is to today. I’ll see you again tomorrow. Take care & Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 4.5/10 bad. Most of the day it was good, but in the evening, it got worse. I had to take a break from studying, so actually it was quite bad…
    • Shoulder pain: Didn’t call the physical therapist… Hurt a little today.
    • How was my day? 4/10. Didn’t study, but asked a friend about hiking tips, since he went on a solo trip last summer. This was quite nice – well, it kinda brightened my day.

  • June 2

    Hello! Today, I studied in the morning, then I had to write an email to the computer architecture lecture, since I don’t have the needed points to partake in the exam. I even lied in my email lol. The TA said, that he’ll ask the prof, but I should expect a “no”.

    I still studied a little bit, but I was obviously not as motivated anymore… But I watched some YouTube videos about the topics which I’m studying, and I gotta say, they (at least some of them) explain it way better than the prof. Which is kinda to be expected, since they do the explaining for a living, and the prof not (he’s there to do research).

    In the afternoon, I also wrote an email to another TA, where I asked, if I had gotten the required points to partake in the probability theory exam. He replied with “technically, I’m missing 1.5 points (20 points per exercise for 8 exercises, so like not much) but I’m noted as can take the exam.” He’ll ask the prof tomorrow, to be sure. I do be hoping for the best though.
    Also, I realized, this semester I’m doing really bad lol. If I can write both of these exams, I’d be able to write 3/4 exams, only through exceptions -> not that good a student, I see.

    In the evening, I had volleyball practice. It was not really good… I don’t know why though. Some were just acting like little children. Really annoying!
    After practice, I was down. Not enough sugar in the system. I even had my obligatory thoughts about my ex – lul. (Funnily enough, once in practice, I had a quick thought about the sex I had with her hahaha. Quickly stopped that train of thought though.)
    At home, I ate a cookie and a chocolate-bar, which then made it better. Since I was already kinda down, I then didn’t study anymore, and only watched YouTube…

    Recently, I’m watching a lot of Pitch Perfect videos (and reactions lul). I don’t know. I just like some of the songs they sing.

    Also, I found some really good new channels, for some explaining things. This is also always nice!

    But yeah, that’s about all for today. I’ll see you again tomorrow. Take care & Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 2/10 bad. Most of the day it was good, but in the evening, once I got tired, it’s gotten a little worse. But not bad tbh. (So identical to yesterday.)
    • Shoulder pain: After volleyball practice, it hurt a little bit more. So kinda as expected. I really need to call a physical therapist soon.
    • Knee pain: Pretty good. Only like it always is.
    • How was my day? 5.5/10. Morning was really good, then some bad news, that I might not be able to write the exam -> and from then on, it kinda got worse. But not bad bad.

  • June 1

    Wagwan! Today, imma keep it short for real.

    Morning: wake up kinda early (since it was hot in my room) -> got up -> went outside to chill a bit in the sun & ate a yogurt (for like 30 min). –> Back inside, YouTube & studying.

    I watched the los Ratones NLC finals. They won. SUI!

    I don’t feel like I learned a lot today, which is kinda weird, since I spent quite some time studying. I guess, this lecture just isn’t that rich with information…

    At home, we had this strawberry thingy for dinner, which was nice, since we usually only have it once a year.

    After dinner, I watched some more YouTube & studied some more.

    Then just before, I took a shower, and now I’m writing (to) you.

    Today, I spent a lot of time thinking about doing a week like hiking-vacation in the mountains. I already came up with some strats. And really important: I wouldn’t use my phone during this time. I think, that would be cool.
    I guess, I’d just use a portable gas tank thingy and some pre-cooked food, specially made for hikers. And then I’d take some flour with me, to make bread. The biggest problem would be water (for obvious reasons) but I think, if I can boil it, it’s not that big a deal. (Since then, I can just take “wild” water.)
    But yeah… More on that in the future, I guess.

    That’s all for today. I’ll see you again tomorrow! Take care & Bye-Bye!s

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 2/10 bad. Most of the day it was good, but in the evening, once I got tired, it’s gotten a little worse. But not bad tbh.
    • Shoulder pain: Didn’t really feel any (unless when lying with arm on top of head). So basically the same as yesterday.
    • Knee pain: Was mostly good today, only once, when I was in a weird position. But not bad.
    • How was my day? 6.5/10. Felt pretty good. Was not as efficient studying as I had hoped but happens.
    • How short was the entry? Quite short. So now I’ll go to sleep. Ciao!

  • May 31

    Heyyo! Today, super short!

    Sleep -> wake up -> study and YouTube. For the whole day. It was lovely weather, so it was kinda a shame, what I did, but yeah.

    At lunch, we talked about what would happen after death. Or if anything at all would happen. My brother said, that he thinks that nothing’s gonna happen. And this made me sad… Since I think this is a really sad world view. This actually stood with me throughout the day.
    I just think, I wouldn’t want to “lose” him, if he dies. I think it’d be nice, to see him even after death. Even though, this kinda independent of whether we believe in it or not… Made me sad nonetheless.

    In the afternoon, I finally wrote a driving instructor for lessons. Nice!
    I was feeling, like getting a new girlfriend, and I told myself, that I’ll start looking, once I have my drivers license. So today, the motivation finally kicked!

    In the evening, it got really windy, so I closed all the windows in the house, and tidied up a bit outside, so nothing’s gonna break. It was the first “storm” this year. That means, I saw like 10-20 lightnings. According to my counting, they were like 1.5-5 km away from my home (the nearest ones).

    What did I study? Computer architecture. I give you a quick overview, so I repeat it once, before going to bed.

    1. Some basic C stuff.

    2. CISC vs RISC
    complex vs reduced instruction set computer – so, either a lot of possible instructions, which might be slower (per usage) and consume more energy, but you have to use less overall. VERSUS less instructions, but it’s easier to compile code into those & the other previously named.

    3. MIPS Instruction set Architecture
    Three kinds of instrcutions. R-, I-, and J- format (for arithmetic, immediate (which is arithmetic with a constant, which you immediately load), and jump (for if and else and so on)). And then how these get interpreted and shit

    4. Performance (Nothing mentionable here)

    5. MIPS basic architecture
    A first intuitive implementation of a architecture (so only with add, or, ori(mmediate), and, andi, and some more), and how you can use the single cycle design vs multi cycle design (Slower cycles, but more gets done in a given cycle; downside: you might have to wait doing nothing, until a cycle is done. VERSUS, multi-cycle where you break everything down into micro-cycles, and then you can pack it more concise, with the downside, that it’s a little slower for long instructions. For example a lw (loadword) would take 5 cycles, which is about 1.1 single-cycle cycle; but an add would take 3 cycles, which is about .6 single-cycle cycle.

    Real quick shift here. During dinner, my sister, Leah told us, that she used to date a hobby-boxer, LIKE 3 YEARS AGO. Which none of us knew. This was quite surprising – but also fitting, since a few days ago, she said, that she would only introduce her boyfriend if they were engaged. LOL. Only, because she doesn’t want him to ask our dad if he can marry her. Whack reason. NGL.

    But yeah. That’s all for today. I’ll see you again tomorrow! Take care & Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 3/10 bad, early evening, it was amazing. I even thought about getting a new one, but then, some time later, I got more sad again :( not that bad though
    • Shoulder pain: pretty much same as yesterday
    • Knee pain: My right knee hurt today. I guess, I should go to the gym sometime soon to make it go away.
    • How was my day? 6/10. Felt pretty good. Was not as efficient studying as I had hoped but happens.
    • How short was the entry? Not short at all. I see. If I write, it’s gonna be short, it’ll be a long entry. haha

  • May 30

    Hello! It’s late already -> imma keep it short.

    Sleep kinda late, wake up -> lots of YouTube. I saw lots of videos by women. One was actually really good. It was about, how technology (since information distribution is the goal of some people/companies), the information stopped being relevant, and became information for informations- / entertainments-sake. And how this is a problem and so on. It was basically a little of “too much information = bad”.

    In the afternoon, I went outside to lie in the sun for about 45 minutes, and then studied a little.

    After dinner, I spent some more time outside. I watched one episode of castle with my sister (outside). Then back inside, some more YouTube and Studying.

    To the love hypothesis: I saw a video, where oliSUNvia was talking about love, and whether it’s a social construct or biological. She “claimed” it was (kinda) social. But I don’t agree, since her point (was kinda), love (for a woman) back in the day was being a cleaning and child giving woman. Where as today, it’s not really that.
    But I think, love is not socially constructed, but the way in which we show it is*. (*at least to some extent.)

    That’s about all for today. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Take care & Bye-Bye!

  • May 29

    Hey Hey! Imma keep it short again today!

    Morning: I got woke up at like 8:50 by my sister, to sign the birthday-card for my (our) mom, and she told me, the first guests we’ll be here soon. BUT, we had the official time set at 11am. So in a little more than 2 hours. Of course, I didn’t fall back to sleep :(. Then, at like 10:38 the first guests arrived. Swanders. Who else? So, I decided to get up. I put on some clothes, brushed my teeth, and went into my brothers room. We then spent like 30 mins. in his room, to contemplate out life, and the sheer amount of guests.

    At last, at about 11:10 (when Jerry and his girlfriend arrived) we went to the living room, to greet all of our guests. (It was about 20 people – cüs!)

    We spent some little time talking, then the brunch was opened. It had like loads of different bread, meat, and cheeses. And some usual other stuff as well – obviously. I have to name the “spring cheese” as a special, since this was a cheese, which I really liked, and we don’t usually have this at home.

    During brunch, we talked a bit with our cousins, who we only see about once every two years, since they work in the hotel business -> no holidays / non-working-days.

    In the afternoon, I played a game of Kubb with Jerry, against Jordan and Sara’s husband. And let me tell you. It was not really fun. In the first round, Jerry had three shots, and hit all three. Sara’s husband also hit one.
    Then, it was our turn. We nearly hit all of the return pieces, and one more. Back to their turn.
    Sara’s husband hit the last two remaining pieces and missed one shot on the king. After that, Jordan shot once at the king, and hit -> Jerry and I lost. -> Jordan hit 4/4 shots -> no fun to play with him -> I didn’t play no more!

    So, basically, the rest of the afternoon, we spent some time with friends, but only low-key – so no too active things.

    After dinner, I went on a drive with Sara’s husband. It was actually quite good. And it was really nice, since I don’t really get to spend that much time with him – so I double enjoyed that.
    NB: Back home, I had to park between his car, and the second one of my parents. And I did it really good first try! Honestly, I was kinda surprised by that as well. I’m also kinda proud of that!

    Once I was back home, Josh called, and we went to a friend in the clique who soon moves away from here (where we live). (We were there with lots of common friends.) So we just had a relaxed evening with him (and his kinda new girlfriend). We talked a lot about our past in school, and I realized once more, in what kinda of town I grew up. Like 2/30 already have a child, 2/30 are like 100k in debt (not because of studies – but because they already fucked up in life).

    Anyways: Once we left there, we went to Pete’s house (with Jones) and played a game of Yathzee. I had an amazing round. 286 points. This is the best round of my life – ngl.

    Once we were done with that, we all went back home. I took a shower, and now I’m writing (to) you. That’s about all for today. I’ll see you again tomorrow! Take care and Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 2-3/10 bad
      Sometimes, I thought, it’d be nice, if I had my/a girlfriend here with me
    • Shoulder pain: same as yesterday
    • How was my day? Quite good actually. Not too much time to think – which (for obvious reasons) made it a little better.

  • May 28

    Hello! Today, I didn’t do that much. Since it’s already late, I’m gonna make it quick:

    Morning: Nothing really

    Afternoon: I went on a drive with my mom, where we went to a grocery store, to buy some cheese and shit for her birthday celebration tomorrow.
    Once back home, I made a bolognese sauce, with the big plan of making a lasagna. Once I was done with the bolognese, I went back to my room, and spent some time on my PC.

    Evening: I had volleyball practice. It was surprisingly good – since we were only 7 players.
    After practice, Josh called. He was at Pete’s house, and asked me to join them. At first, I said “no” since it was already like 11pm. Then, on my bicycle ride home, I drove by their apartment, and they called me from the window -> I went ahead and joined them.
    At first when I arrived, they played some detective game. Once that was done, we played a game called (something similar to): “two idiots, one thought”. That is a game, where you make groups of 2, and then you take turn in getting asked a question, you get like 3-5 seconds of time to think about your answer, and then you both have to answer. If you both say the same thing, you get one point, otherwise you get 0 points. (For example you get asked:” An artist”, then, if both answer “Kanye West” you get a point.)
    Josh and I were a team, and we won. It was quite fun, but we played it for a bit too long.
    After Josh and I had won, we went home. At home, I had a little snack, and now I’m writing (to) you!

    Bad Brain-Function while Sad

    I had the realization, that if I’m sad, my brain kinda stops working. That means, I don’t really think about that much things. (Pretty much only about the thing that makes me sad (if it exists) or not at all.)
    Well, that’s not entirely true, but I don’t have that many different, interesting thoughts. Just wanted to say that real quick.

    That’s all for today. I’ll see you tomorrow! Take care & Bye-Bye!

  • May 27

    My Day

    What’s up! Today, during the day, I only did one quick computer architecture exercise, and otherwise nothing.

    But in the evening, we went to watch the opera Magic Flute from Mozart. We = my family and I, except Emily and Leah.
    First, a quick story over-view: The princess (Pamina) is held against her own will. The prince (Tamino) gets shown a picture of her, immediately falls in love, and wants to go free/save & marry her. For that, he travels with Papageno, which is a bird-catcher (and kinda the comic-relief character).
    On their quest, the prince and Papageno have some sort of ordeal to get enlightenment (sorta led by the “villain”), which if they successfully complete, they get to marry the perfect woman (for them).
    Their “ordeal” is, that they may not speak to their perfect woman. Only the prince completes this, but then both get their perfect woman. I don’t really get it.
    Then they marry, and over.

    My illegally tale picture of the opera

    So, what did we learn? If you want to get the perfect girl, you have to be able to keep quiet. (Or not, you get her anyway(?).)
    Nah, I don’t really understand what I should take away from this Opera.

    All in all, it wasn’t bad though. The play went on for about 2.5-2.75 hours, but it didn’t feel that long. And they said, that they kept the set simple, but it didn’t really look that simple to me.

    Sometimes though, I thought, it’d be nice, if I (still) had a girlfriend, to take her with me to such “events”.

    The Love Hypothesis

    For the last few days, I’m kinda forming a new theory in my head. That is, that one of the thriving factors of us is love. And that this is even the most important one.

    Example (1): A few days ago, I said, that love means “to take care of”. Now, take elder people and their garden. This is something to take care of (since if you don’t it dies) so it’s to express / have / live out their love.

    Or another example (2): Men (or at least me) love women, means (in a way) to protect her. So, take care of her.

    Good / Positive aspect: If you love something, you take care of it -> make it thrive.
    For example (1).

    Evil / negative aspect: Only love yourself. -> egotistical -> doing things only for yourself.
    For example: People, that are too greedy care too much about themselves -> this is what makes them “evil” / bad. (They have love only (mostly) for themselves.)

    Things to still think about: Love languages, other classic good/bad aspects, and how they can (or cannot) be explained through love.

    It’s already late, so I’m gonna continue this “Love Hypothesis” some time in the future, since now I’m going to bed! I’ll see you tomorrow. Take care & Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 4/10 bad
    • Shoulder pain: Just like yesterday, still didn’t call physical therapy though…
    • How was my day? during the day (4-5/10) since nothing to do, feel empty and bad; in the evening 7/10

  • May 26

    Hello! Today wasn’t that interesting. What did I do?

    I sent the real study-extension document(s).

    Then, I also looked out, for some possible bachelor thesis projects. I did actually find one, which seems interesting. The goal of this one would be, to “clean up” the datasets for language models, in the sense of: You can misspell a word, so it becomes a (correctly spelt but) different word, which doesn’t really make sense in the context. The goal being, to detect those. (For example “they’re” and “their”.)
    Maybe I’ll write an email tomorrow, to say that I’m interested.

    Otherwise… I had volleyball practice in the evening. Me personally, I didn’t think, the practice was that good. But Samuel thought it was good.
    Because of my shoulder, I’m currently learning the whole attack thing with my left hand. Really slowly, I get the gist of it. I had like one (barely) proper run up, but no real good attacks.

    After practice, I went back home, and spent some time on my PC.

    Ah, and my PI Daniel still didn’t give me the intel – haha. Maybe on Wednesday.

    So that’s about all for today. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow! Take care, and Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 4-5/10 bad
      Most of the time it was good, but then in the evening (after practice) it got worse, not really that surprising, since I’m usually quite down after those (low blood sugar, I suspect)
    • Shoulder pain: Had my last Ibuprofen today. And I think, like a few days ago, it kinda got worse, lol, since when I move my hand behind my head, it already begins to hurt. It wasn’t like that before. But I still didn’t call any physical therapy people, for my shoulder, which the doctor said, I should.
    • How was my day? 4/10. Wasn’t that fulfilling either, and in the evening it got somewhat bad. You know how it is…

  • May 25

    Hello! Today, I had to wake up early, since I had a lunch to attend to. That is: I helped Miguel move (last August – haha), and now today, he invited us all to eat lunch with him. We had a BBQ. I mostly spent time with the volleyball people, which I usually hang around with, lol.
    There’s really not much to say about it… I was there from like 11am to 4pm. We just spent some time talking – so the usual stuff.

    Then, once I was back home again, I just spent some time on YouTube. Again, watching a lot of traveling and photography things. Nothing really special to say.

    For dinner, my brother made Fajitas, but sadly, I didn’t eat that much, since I had a lot of lunch.

    After dinner, I basically did the same as before and yeah. I also took a shower.

    You might wonder, what my PI Daniel has told me about my ex. He didn’t – haha. I didn’t really ask yet, and I didn’t want to ask him in front of some other friends, since I’m kinda embarrassed by this whole situation. So maybe he’ll tell me tomorrow(?).

    That’s about all for today. I’ll see you tomorrow! Take care – Bye-Bye!

    Check-List Time

    • Thinking about ex: 3/10 bad
      It was mostly good. Just some small flashbacks here and there.
    • Shoulder pain: not too bad, since Ibuprofen
    • How was my day? 6.3/10 (good food & meeting friends, but not that fulfilling & also feel a little bad, because of ex as usual)