Blog

My Day

Dear Diary! As announced yesterday, this morning I did go to the gym with my mom. Initially we planned to go at about 9:15am, but then I was late, and we went half an hour too late. None the less, we went there. Today was the first time in a long time, I actually did a somewhat proper warm up. This means, I went on the treadmill for about 5 minutes. At first, I had a problem with getting it working, but then it worked just fine.

Otherwise, nothing that interesting happened at the gym. They bought new machines, one of which I already used. The old low-row machine was replaced, and with the new one, it was way easier. Probably, because it’s not as junky as the old one. So, today I pulled 60kg, which was easier, than the 50kg with the old machine.

After the gym, I went home and my day went on like a usual day does. Some studying, some watching YouTube and even a short call, about my corrections from last week. I also realized, that I completely stopped watching “The Mentalist” which I believe to be a good thing.

Volleyball – Therapy Session

In the evening, I had to coach my volleyball team. Today I also played with them. Basically all drills were game-like drills. Because of that, I jumped way too often. My right knee started to hurt a little (after the training), so I wonder how it’ll feel tomorrow.

There was also another problem with my volleyball team. Two players, who used to be quite close, had beef. Sadly this was not the first time it happened. Basically, it was a problem for about the last few months. Today it was extra bad. So after the training, both of them had to stay, and we had a small therapy session. This means: They both had to (some extend) lay out their feelings, and tell each other what the problems between them are.

I thought it went quite well. Of course, now, when we first ripped the band-aid off, it probably hurt a little, but I hope, that they both think about our conversation, and then learn something of it. Right now, they both play with open hands. I hope this helps at least to some extend. I’ll keep you posted!

After this quarter hour therapy session, we headed back home. Back at home, I watched some more YouTube, and now I’m going to take a shower, and then go to sleep.

Question about diaries

Yesterday, I was on Instagram for a (not so) short time. I even saw one meme¹ about diaries. In this meme were a few examples, of diary entries. BUT all of these entries were more like a bullet point list. Which is not how I write my diary… So I asked myself: Am I writing my diary wrong?

I don’t think, I have an answer to that already, but I believe, that I will keep my diary-format like that. Maybe, once I don’t have the energy to write a full on text, I do a shorter bullet-point list. But for now, it’s better(?) if I keep it like that. But who knows what the future might hold. [ironically pondering – mega deep mhm]

1. The meme was about, how important things are for teenagers. Mainly: The example was from 9/11, where someone wrote something like
   – wore x pants and y top
   – Talked to crush in school
   – Plan flew into buildings
   or at least similar to that style. Now this meme was not really funny, but I realized, that these people use write their diary in a list-like format.
   ↩︎

See Ya

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

My Day

Dear Diary! Today was the first day, that I woke up at the right time. This means, I woke up at like 8:30am (before 9). To my misfortune, our house cleaner was over. This meant, that I couldn’t get up, because: if I get up, I need to use the bathroom, where she might be, but I’m kinda scared of her (in a somewhat joking way, but still). Scary stuff – I know. So then I just went back to sleep.

This means, my real day started at about 10:30 when I woke up again, and then also got up. Then, for most of the day I watched some YouTube and studied (in that order…). Otherwise nothing really important happened.

Also, I secured a “date” with my mom for tomorrow morning, where we’ll go to the gym. Because of that, I didn’t work out today.

Learning Method

Today, I was studying in the not-most-efficient way. I then started to think about studying methods, and that I wished, that I knew one. Now, my goal/requirement for “the optimal” method would be some method, that works over long time, so I get the right amount of distraction and learning, so I don’t get too bored / annoyed of studying and just don’t want to anymore.

Example: Today I was only semi interested in studying. In the morning it was still okay, I just looked at some exercises which I previously solved, tried to remember how I did it and then checked, if my solution was correct.
In the afternoon I had another problem. Mainly, I wasn’t really motivated anymore. So I made a deal with myself. Every time I started a new video on YouTube, I had to do a quick session of flashcard review. (Like 10 cards, which takes about 5-7 minutes.)

With that I could stay focused / motivated for longer. Also I realized that, once I got to know the flashcards quite good, I started to ask myself, why the theorems were true, and then I took a look at my lecture notes, and actually read the proof. With that, I also learned some more proofs, even though, currently not all are in the flashcard set. (But I need to know them for the exam – obviously)

Then in the evening, I asked my sister (which is studying psychology) if there are any such studying methods. She replied with “no”, sadly. I then proposed my idea, to which she said something along the lines of: It’s not really a smart way of learning, since like that, you overload your brain, and over-write a lot of the information with useless stuff.

This means, now I have to find a new & better way of studying. I don’t know how yet, but maybe I’ll figure something out. I’ll keep you posted!

Sad Music

Today I was listening to some music. There is this one artist called “Bunt” which makes music in a similar style as Fred Again. His latest album’s first song is called “Clouds”, and one time the lyrics go as follows:

Hey, I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to fall out of love with you
Because I truly did love you
I still do, but not in the same way

And every time I hear this, I get really sad. This is basically how my last break up happened (well the reason of why it happened). It nearly brings tears to my eyes, all tough it’s already quite some time ago, when we broke up. But it still hurts. You know…

I just wanted to say that… It’s even worse, since the song has a nice beat, but I’ve listened to the lyrics once, and now, every time I hear this song, I have to skip it, because it just makes me too sad. I just can’t listen to it anymore without getting sad.

With that being said, today ends on a kinda sad note… But yeah, happens… I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

My Day

Dear Diary! This morning I had a physical therapist appointment. My knees are progressing really good. She told me, that now, I can participate in volleyball trainings for about 15 minutes this week, and every consecutive week 5 minutes more (if my knees don’t get worse). With that basically my whole morning was over.

For the rest of the day, I had planned to study. That is, to start with the applied math lectures. Sadly, it did not work out, as I wanted. Why? Or rather, what did I do instead? I made the big mistake, of opening YouTube. As we might know, I am kinda addicted to YouTube. So I watched a lot of YouTube. Did I at least watch anything interesting? Yes – I do think so.

Plan for future, concerning addiction

I also thought about, what to do in the (far) future, so I don’t get distracted as easily. My idea was:

2 separate PCs, and one of those does not have any audio. With that, if I use it, I can’t really watch any YouTube or TV-shows or anything else. Listening to music can still be done with the phone, so that won’t too big of an issue. One problem that might arise, is if you have any online meetings. It’s quite hard to attend a meeting without any sound. But I’ll figure this out as well!

Evening

Anyway. Later I had dinner. My mother cooked some potatoes and (since I don’t really like raw potatoes) I made myself a potato salad. One funny thing is: my sister does not really speak English that well, but she goes to the Fiji islands to teach kindergartners some English. Because of that, we spoke English at home during dinner. Which to me was kinda funny.

After dinner I headed to volleyball training. I didn’t really know, what to do today (or rather, what the focus of the training should be) so I just asked my players. Not really unexpectedly they wanted to play a lot. So play a lot we did. Mostly just some variations of volleyball, but nothing really special.

After the training I headed home, watched YouTube again (like an idiot) and now I’m writing (to) you and then go to sleep. Just before I was brushing my teeth, and then I saw in the mirror, that my eyes are super red. That’s not too good of a sign, I believe. So time to go to bed.

That’s it for today – and since I’m quite tired, I won’t proof read. Ergo, there are probably a few mistakes, but psst we ain’t gonna tell no one.

See you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

My Day

As I told you yesterday, I set an alarm for 9 o’clock. Today, I didn’t wake up because of the alarm (at lest I believe so). I was awake at 9:30, and then I was too tired to get up, so I just opened a window to get some fresh air, waited for a few minutes, closed it and went back to sleep. This means, my idea with the alarm to get up did not work until now. Aamazing!

Anyway. I then got up at 11:30, watched some YouTube (I think) ate dinner and hurried out of there, since I had to go to my volleyball game. Yes – on a Sunday.

Volleyball

I arrived at the gym shortly after 1pm and met a few friends. We talked for some time. Then our sports-hall was freed because, just before our game, was another. We headed down on the floor, and played some warm up games. I mostly just stood on the side, since I was “only” the coach today. Once we were nearly complete, we did some serve-receive until our opponents arrived.

Now, to set the stage correctly: Our goal is to promote to a higher division. We are in a group of 8 teams and currently we are first. Sadly, our gap is not as big as I wished it was. We are 1 point ahead of 2nd, and 2 points ahead of 3rd. Today, we play against the 3rd team. So it’s one of the two important matches left of this season.

We (obviously) know our opponent, since we played against them once already. Their strengths are their attacks, and they hardly make stupid mistakes. So our game plan is simple. Just play as we usually do, and then we win – since we are better at volleyball than them. Also, we want to have a good atmosphere, since they (probably) will make a few good points, and we don’t want to get any low hanging heads (so to speak).

The match was more or less interesting. We won the first set, with a small gap. The second and third had a similar way. In the second we were up like 24-20 and then lost, but we made a similar comeback in the third set. For the fourth set, we knew, that they would feel pressure (since we were ahead 2-1). We started strong, and then they got mental problems and started to make stupid mistakes. We won the fourth set; and with that the whole game. 3-1. Puhh – 3 more important points on the leader board.

After our game, we took a shower. Daniel and I showered some time longer than the others and listened to music. But then, in the middle of our shower session, someone came, and “stole” our music box. (after like 30 min of showering.) So we left early and yeah. We watched another match and then went to our favorite döner-place, and had a döner. I had a cheese döner, which usually feeds a little bit more. After that we went home.

Evening

Once I got home, it was really weird. I felt as if I was drunk, even though, I did not drink. I have the suspicion, that my drunk-feeling is mostly just feeling tired. I don’t know how (yet), but I plan on testing if this is actually the case.

Anyway, I got home, felt weird and initially had planned to study. But, as it is almost every time the case when I’m tired, I did not study. I spent too much time on Instagram (on my PC)… It was really funny. Man – I gotta say, they do really have their algorithm figured out. I had a good laugh for about 1.5 hours.

Then once I got over Instagram, I started to watch some YouTube videos. Like an idiot. Moving from one platform straight to the next…

Eventually I overcame this, and now I’m writing (to) you. Now that I’m finished with that, I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

My Day

Dear Diary! Today was a uneventful day. At first (yesterday night) I thought I was gonna go watch some ski races with some friends. But then when my alarm rang at like 6am, I had this beer-taste in my mouth, which erased my whole motivation to go out today. Because of that, I laid in my bed, and waited for time to pass, so I could write them, that I overslept. My goal was to show, that I at first wanted to go, but then failed. I think I achieved this. So all good. mhm.

Then I went back to sleep, and slept for about three more hours. I got up at half past ten, ate breakfast, and spent some time on my PC.

My brother enrolled into the military last week, (since you are obligated to do military service where I live) and today he returned for the first time. At Lunch we talked a lot about his military time. It was really fun, since usually he’s not talkative, but today he told us a lot of things. Mostly that they have to do a lot of push-ups. And some more funny stories.

After that, nothing more interesting happened. Initially, I wanted to study today, but then I was kinda hung-over so I did not study after all. Successfully avoided – yay.

That was my day. I was kinda happy, that I did not go to watch the ski races with my friends, because I was way too tired. Even after sleeping these extra three hours, I was still tired. But I want to change my sleeping schedule, so I did not take a nap during the day. I even set an alarm for 9am for every day, since I now got kinda back with getting up and I want to keep that way.

With all that being said. See you tomorrow! Bye-Bye!

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!