Hey y'all. Been a while, huh? Thx to izzy417 for the reminder that it's Wednesday :) So what's been up with me? Jesus, what a question. Isolation? lol. In the early days of the pandemic, I spent a shitton of time with my best friend in the dorms here, and now we still hang out almost every day, although it's become less and less. I have new roommates, which is cool. Both of them are future music teachers so we hang out and talk/play music all the time <3 University remains stressful, in that the semester still has not started and I'm getting very tired of having so little to do but I also have absolutely 0 interest in another online semester. The last one was v rough, I couldn't focus at all and ended up dropping quite a few classes. Which is extra fun because it means now I have to do even more this semester. But I'll survive, I guess. On the personal front, a few weeks ago I wrote some new "rules" for myself (under the heading DISCIPLINE) and hung them up next to my bed. With the exception of the week that I had a head cold, I've mostly managed to hold to them: - Wake up before 9 - Get out of bed before 9:30 - Exercise once a day, ideally in the morning - Limit myself to 1 coffee per day - Alcohol and other substances only on the weekend - Go to bed by midnight It helps me feel a lot better, I think. Of course I'm still stressed and anxious and the world is fucked, I'm often homesick or feel directionless or scared of the future, but having a bit of structure despite the circumstances feels good. I'm proud of myself and how healthy I've managed to stay. We'll make it through this, I think. I missed you all.
Hey y'all. Sheesh, been a while. Let me think, what's new... - Was back home for some time and really, really enjoyed it. Instead of being overcome with homesickness, though, I came to the conclusion that I just really enjoy being on vacation at home. But really enjoying vacation at home is, of course, predicated on the fact that my day-to-day isn't at home. And I really like my day-to-day in Freiburg. So that was a nice feeling. I also decided, for about the fourth time this year, that I'm really okay just studying part-time, working part-time, and generally having time to relax and figure things out, even if I don't eventually wanna become an English professor or whatever. It's a process. - I started working out regularly for the second time in my life and this time I'm following through. It's been about two months of regular at-home body-weight training and hOly moly, y'all, working out is... fun? I enjoy the feeling of consistent personal improvement, and I look good, and I just feel more... at home in my body. It's also become a kind of meditation for me, a reflection on the fact that our intellectual and spiritual life, although in some ways separate from immediate physical constraints, is nevertheless dependent on our "life in three dimensions," as Chad Harbach puts it. While I was at home I played basketball while the family was at church and it was kind of the shit. - I should really be writing a paper right now. I'm gradually knocking out what will eventually be 20 pages about Shakespeare's As You Like It, and holy shit guys, I feel like a Real Scholar. I have a pretty good view of the critical consensus on the character I'm focusing on (Jaques), have an original and interesting idea that I haven't seen anywhere else in the literature, and I think my arguments are solid. It's obviously work to get it all on paper, but I really like it, even despite my usual insane levels of procrastination. I just kinda wish the topic wasn't so niche--almost everyone I'd want to share my work with wouldn't really know enough about the play to "get" it. Oh well. How've y'all been?
Did someone say b e a n s a n d r i c e ? (404 photo not found) --- INGREDIENTS 2-3 bell peppers, ideally different colors for more fun 1 med. onion 2-3 cloves garlic 2 Bratwürste, if yer a meat eater 2-3 cups long grain rice 1-2 cans of black beans (or equivalent dry beans if you're fancy/good at planning ahead, which I am not) a lil oil v a r i o u s s p i c e s, in my case usually salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika, tons of cumin, and a little basil a dab of tomato paste and a few basil leaves if y'all wanna be fancy later --- PREPARATION Throw your rice in a pot with a lil oil and your v a r i o u s s p i c e s. Get the burner on medium and let the seasoning toast into the rice for 1-2 minutes, stirring the whole time so nothing gets burned on the bottom. Once it's toasty enough for ya, fill the pot with water, get it boilin', and then leave it to simmer on low heat. While your rice simmers (10-12 minutes), get the veggies goin'--slice n dice your peppers and onion, mince the garlic. Throw it all in a pan with a lil more oil and saute that shit. If you've got sausage, this is the place to add it in. (Bratwurst is especially convenient because you can throw it in uncooked and just saute it with the veggies.) Once it's done sauteing and/or the rice is cooked through (hopefully both at once), take everything off the heat. Drain the rice. Throw everything together in your rice pot. Add the beans (drained), and spice it up even more. Y'all are probably gonna want way more spices than you think you do. Make sure you got enough salt. At this point, feel free to set the burner back on low heat and let the whole shebang shimmer as long as you can wait. As a general rule, the longer it simmers, the better it tastes. Gives the spices time to get all up in each others' business and saturate the dish. When you're ready to serve, just grab a spoon and scoop some huge, tasty globs. If you wanna be fancy about it, after serving, put a dab of tomato paste in the middle of the dish and stick 1-3 basil leaves in it. If not, chow down.
I'm doing really well, y'all. I had a really shit week two weeks ago—realized I might not be able to afford tuition for my last semester, great-uncle passed, had a pregnancy scare, quit the softball team. But on the next Monday, I found 4 unexplained smooth pebbles on my desk; none of my coworkers knew where they came from. I accepted them, a bit confused, but decided to throw one away as each of my problems was resolved (or at least processed). Today I threw the last one into the river. I talked to my parents for an hour or so, and amongst other things, they offered to lend me $1500 with no due date to help with tuition and expenses. It was amazing how much background stress I had been feeling without realizing, and how quickly it all evaporated when my dad offered to help—or rather, insisted on helping. I told them about the stones, and opened up a bit more about my anxiety and depression (they knew but we hadn't talked in much detail). I told them how depression always made me feel, more than anything, so fragile, like the tiniest misfortune could send me spiraling; and as I told them how incredibly blessed I am to feel resilient again, I found myself crying for the first time in months. Happy tears. I feel so lucky to have the support network I have, and to have the space and time to learn how to live in this beautiful, terrible, brightly burning world. Thank you all for the part you play in that.
Mornin' everyone! Beautiful weather today, huh? Spring is here, the birds are singing, and the Mariners and the A's just played the first regular season game of 2019! Life is good. I've been spending a bit too much time in the bar lately, gonna be cutting down on that to spend more time practicing guitar again (and sleeping). I'm in therapy now as well, so that's really good. My therapist is still technically in training, but he's almost finished, and he's being supervised by a super experienced therapist. Also, that means he's young and cool, which helps ;) I'm seriously noticing how much better I'm doing since I got back on my antidepressants about a month and a half ago. Fighting social anxiety, pushing myself to learn new things and meet new people. It's wonderful having this much energy to get through the day, even when there's nothing to do at work so I end up using it drinking coffee with friends or cleaning up the office! I think I could live like this for quite a while, and I think I'd like to. On the more difficult side, a friend is slipping into a very deep depression, and is resistant to help. He's slowly started to open up to some of us about what's going on, but remains stalwart in his hopelessness, and refusal to seek help. He had a bad experience with a therapist and didn't react well to his antidepressants (which he's now off of), so he's kind of given up. It's very hard to watch. Trying to spend more time with him, remind him he's loved, get some joy in his life, but there's only so much we can do. Hard times.
Just wrote this for a newsletter, thought others might enjoy (ButterflyEffect izzy417). From my college radio days. My first semester as a DJ, and actually my first semester at college, I had a show Monday nights by myself. It was always pretty quiet, usually nobody else in the station, and I kinda liked it that way. Just me and the groove. But about my 5th week in, it got me into trouble. In the middle of my show, I really needed to use the restroom, so I put on a 6 minute song, set it for "pause pending," and went out to the restrooms, just outside of the station. As soon as the door closed behind me, I realized my mistake—right on the other side of the station window lay my keycard, which I had forgotten in the studio. I now had 5 minutes and 48 seconds to save the world. (from dead air). I called about 6 other DJs before finally a friend of mine picked up, and said sure, I can borrow his key card. He was in his dorm. All the way on the other side of campus. I sprinted out of the co-op, bladder forgotten, and dashed past crowds of gawking freshmen to run up to the 3rd floor of Curtis, where I grabbed a key card, thanked my friend, and immediately sprinted in the other direction. I made it back to the studio just barely in time, with about 20 seconds to spare, and quickly caught my breath and did my break. I haven't felt so cool and so stupid at the same time since.
From left to right: Cumol me
Guten Morgen Pubski! Been a while, huh? Wow. Lot has happened. Let's get some subheadings going. School? Continues to go. I'm now in the middle of my third year, sitting on a 3.85 overall GPA and a 4.0 in my major (German Language & Literature). Plus, I have one gen. ed. class left, and then I can focus on my major // whatever the fuck I feel like studying. So academics are 100% not a worry, which is super nice. I'm pretty good at school. More importantly, I'm going to Germany!! I got funding from the department to go to Berlin for a week (beginning of March) and start work on my honors thesis (on ETA Hoffmann's Nachtstücke); after that, I'll begin a two week tour of German-speaking Europe with my study group, and finally settle down at Freiburg im Breisgau for a full-ass semester at the Albert Ludwigs Universität. I'm incredibly excited for all of this-- mostly just being able to speak German exclusively for so long. Since getting home, I've kind of realized that I need to be speaking German regularly to be happy now? Like, I haven't met any German speakers in Texas. Expected. But now that I'm fluent enough to think in German, it feels like there's this huge part of my lived experience that I can't communicate to the people around me. Looking forward to removing that, lol. (And honestly I'd rather live 100% in German than 100% in English) Friends! Ha. haha. ha. Wow. Over the summer, my best friend broke up with his girlfriend and started dating an acquaintance of ours. Apparently some of our friends thought he moved on too fast or whatever, and this became an excuse for them to air out dozens of grievances with him reaching back to, like, freshman year. The people that actually had real shit to be mad at him about are no longer mad at him, but certain friends can't get over their empathetic anger or whatever. It's mostly been a really great way of seeing who our real friends are. Became clear that a few of our friends may be cool to hang out with, but they kind of suck as friends, and they only act like our friends because we're convenient to them. Which is kind of a shitty realization to have, but better to have it than not. So we don't hang out with them anymore-- I pretty much have like 4 friends, all of whom I'm super close with. It's kind of ideal. Love or whatever. I'm not gonna get into details because there's no point, but since we last spoke: A few failed attempts at relationships A few flirtations Vague sadness Nothing earth-shattering. But I watched this weird German film about a dude in a weird relationship and had a sudden realization: when I look for relationships or sex or whatever, I'm trying to fill a need that I absolutely won't fill by finding a relationship. I don't know what that need is, or how to fill it, but I have at least a bit more clarity than before. We'll see if that goes anywhere. Odds and ends I started seeing a therapist at school after a particularly rough depressive episode. It was cool to have time to just think about my mental health and not feel guilty for not doing work or whatever, but my therapist kinda sucked. After our first session, I told him that I was out of the depressive episode, but I'd like to still talk about strategies for coping, root causes, etc. We talked for the next 3 weeks about adjusting to college and friend drama. Not what I was looking for at all. Hoping to find a better therapist, either in Germany or once I'm back. I started working out over the summer. Body positivity is at an all-time high. Not only that, but I realized how nice it is to just be able to do things? Like, I don't have to worry if I'll be able to lift a medium-weight thing. Or, I'm better at climbing trees. Or, I picked up a(n American) football for the first time in years and immediately was throwing well and farther than I can recall ever throwing. It's great. I'm sure there's more, but it can wait. We have 51 more Pubskis in 2018!
I wasn’t on Hubski almost at all in 2017. I mean, shit, I missed my 1000th day as a member. Hopefully I can change that in 2018. lil, nowaypablo, am_Unition, _refugee_, and everyone else: how’ve y’all been? I missed you!
Further: Zen mode should not (as it currently does) obscure personal information from people's profiles. I sort of see the rationale, but IMO the ability to differentiate people is more important than the incentive not to judge based on profile. Unless I'm totally misjudging the intention.