Saturday, Oct 7, 2023

There are too many things that happen in one week. It's been a crunch week for me, but I think I've handled it pretty well. I started all of my psets pretty late, but I managed to turn them in on time. Well, except for my physics pset, which I thought was due at 11:59, but it was in fact due at 11:00. It's okay though, one pset is only worth 1% of our grade. I did decently well on the first midterm (I'm not sure why we call every test either a midterm or a quiz), so I'll definitely be able to pass the class. Some might ask why I even bother to do the pset when it's worth such a tiny portion of my grade. It's good practice for the test questions, I think. Working through problems is a valuable experience.

I have been consistently getting less than 7 hours of sleep every night. I don't feel particularly tired or sleep deprived. It's mainly an issue when I start dozing off in class, but I've been remedying that with caffeine. I don't think I'll continue doing this, because there's just something off with being caffeinated while tired. I feel like I'm aware that I'm tired, but I don't feel tired. It's like as if I'm aware that the tiredness molecule receptors of my brain are being blocked. Maybe it's placebo. It's probably just placebo.

Sleep deprivation has too many subtle effects. Changes in mood and mental performance are hard to get a handle on subjectively, and I'm too lazy to get an objective measure on my body's performance. I think I read somewhere about how your brain learns the best when it gets constant feedback on results. I recognize that I should be getting more sleep. I wish I could sleep in as easily as some other people, but I just wake up sometime between 8 and 9. I'm definitely a morning person. Do I leverage this fact? No. I want to be like all the other college students who stay up really late and wake up at 1.

This weekend is a long weekend because of Indigenous People's Day along with a student holiday on Tuesday. I told myself at the start of the week that it was going to be a time for me to hole up in my room and do some kind of mental recovery where I catch up on all the Honkai story that I've missed. I ended up making a bunch of plans, which isn't necessarily a problem. I'm starting to realize that perhaps I'm not an introvert. I like hanging out with other people. It just takes me a lot of energy sometimes when my social anxiety (for lack of a better word, I haven't really examined what it really is) is screaming at me to come up with an excuse and go back to my room where it's safe. Yeah, I don't talk to people a lot of times out of fear.

It's not really as bad as it might seem. A lot of the time, I get scared because the people I talk to aren't being inclusive. There are certain groups on campus that are really cliquey, and the idea of forcing myself into such a clique is really scary. There's nothing like the feeling of getting judged for just existing. It scares me because I really want to join more organizations and meet people with similar interests, but I haven't really been able to do that. Part of it is also because I am quite busy and I am quite lazy. The main part is fear of being judged.

Anyways, academic-wise, I've recovered from my barely passing algebra test score. I recognize that a lot of it came down to poor time management and also probably sleep deprivation. I feel strongly that this is not a proper reflection of my mathematical worth (though I still sometimes question that). I think my main issue is caring about what other people think about my mathematical abilities, which really just reinforces that I care way too much about what other people think of me. It produces such a visceral reaction in me to know that other people don't like me. This is probably the root of most of my problems.

I had a lot of takeout this week, mainly because it was crunch time (totally on me for not starting my psets earlier, but I also took the time last weekend to mentally recover from tests). If I had better general time management, I would have totally had the time to cook. I mean, everything is just an issue of discipline, and I let myself slip in terms of discipline, but that's fine. I mean, I knew what was going to happen when I made that choice. I don't regret it particularly. Therefore, I should not punish myself because the outcomes aren't ideal.

So, mentally I've been in a better state. Physically, I'm probably not okay at all. I bet it would be funny to look back at my posts and see the mental highs and lows reflected in the way I write these. I'm sure it's mighty interesting for you, dear reader. See, I like the privacy and anonymity of this whole endeavor, but also I've advertised it on my social medias so it's basically not anonymous. Oh well. It's not that big of a deal.