I've been meaning to write here. But it's do much happening that I feel overwhelmed by how much I would like to share. Then then the days ends and the week passes and I find myself again looking at another pubski post. But here, I am alive, doing well, all things considered :)
Been quite paralyzed in the past 1.5 months. Too much in too short of a time. My family is falling apart, home is becoming unsafe, emotional wounds re-opened by another failed "relationship". But I am recovering, slowly. I'll be posting some things I think Hubski might appreciate. I know that people are, by now, suck of the whole talk around the situation in the middle east. But I am open to discuss stuff, in case anyone needs insights into the Hebrew or Arabic media.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will give it a read!
"Essentially who she always felt she could be" This is 100% what I feel like. As if what I know I can do/be finally fits with reality.
Hey Hubski :) Ehm... I have ADHD?? Sometime last year, I was reading an article about misdiagnosed ADHD in adults. Going through the list of symptoms, I was kind of shocked that 70% were "definitely" and the rest were somewhere between "sometimes" and "in phases". It made me question the possibility. I was then reminded of how I feel after I take stimulants. Specially on the days after. While many people are just drained, I seem to be quite serene. With a "silent" brain. Anyway. I started to notice more and more, and before I turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy, I decided to get checked. 6 months and a few doctor visits later, I have my diagnosis. Since last Friday, I am on medication. 5 mg of Medikinet (Methylphenidate retard), twice a day. The doctor said that I should probably not feel much. But I definitely do. And what I am feeling has gotten me close to tears on multiple occasions the past few days. I feel it the clearest when I meditate in the morning. I have managed to meditate daily since April last year (missing the occasional weekend or odd day when I overslept). What used to feel like a tropical monsoon of though barrage feels now like rain. I realized that I am living under a constant thin veil of (mainly social) anxiety. Even though it is not completely gone, it is just more tolerable. It's not like a have superpowers or something. I am still doing the same things I do normally, I just don't get completely hijacked by my machine gun like thoughts. It feels good. With a hint of sadness. Knowing that I have been carrying this my whole life and I could have suffered less.
From your mouth to the gates of heaven. But I doubt it. It's "too stable" with 4 seats of majority. And people are absolutely sick of voting.
Reading your comment after the replies to bfx below was an interesting one. It seems to go in-line with what others say about polyamory and also fits what I have seen around me the past few years. Out of curiosity, is it possible that many poly people around you are burners? Anyway, nothing much of value to say except "Hi, I hope you are well!" And "merry Christmas :D"
Somehow I managed to listen to alot of audio books lately (by alot I mean more than my 1-2 books a year). Here is my ranking: - What I talk about when I talk about running (turns out murakami is a crazy runner) - project Hail Mary (the same guy who wrote the Martian) - gifts , leguin - voices, leguin - the Martian - a deadly education, novik Actually all of them were nice. If you have sci-fi or fantasy recommendations, send them my way!
Without joining or even understanding the argument in the rest of the comment section. The last few minutes of the speech must have hit hard. I like Trevor Noah.
I guess I chose well with frankfurt 😁
Hey Hubski! haven't dropped-in in a while, how is everyone? I also noticed I passed my 3000 day on hubski... It feels weird, because the way I feel right now is similar to how I felt when I joined Hubski. I was just finished with my Masters, energized, excited, maybe a little naive. And only now, after about 7 years, I feel similar again (maybe a little less naive :D). It's been 3 months since I moved to Frankfurt and my life did a 180 turn. I LOVE going to work. I LOVE my colleagues. It is so refreshing to work with PIs (I have two) that care about my future and career. I have regained my interest in pursuing science, specially in combination with my personal interests. Currently going through a bit of a turbulent summer. Everything that got postponed due to covid is happening at once. I am writing this from Kraków, Poland. The last few days I was in Paris for the largest European neuroscience conference, FENS. Next week I am heading to Boom festival for some psytrance, sunshine and lovely people. Things are hectic and not always easy (I am still putting together the paper from my PhD) but it is moving forward.
Congrats Devac! <3 I really needed a long break after my defense/leaving the lab, and it took me about 3-4 months to feel normal again. I hope it doesn't take you that long, but a break is always great! You are most welcome to visit me in Frankfurt if you need a change of scenery :) Currently in Poland (again), writing this from a coffee place in Krakow!
A classic that I keep revisiting!
Just to clarify. None of the things I mentioned should be home made. I am not aware of anyone that makes them at home. They are all store bought and from your comment, I understand why. I shall never attempt making any 🤣🤣 But, there are some other cookies that are home made and easier to make. You know, those type of cookies your grandma makes once fot Christmas in a big batch and sends them to her grandchildren. The typical examples are Vanille Kipferl, Kokosmakronen and Zimtstrene. My favourite are the Kokosmakronen, which are basically whipped egg whites with sugar and coconut pieces. If done correctly (and not over baked) they are crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. I find it interesting that the German heritage is so deeply kept or acknowledged in your family. Is that typical in the states that these traditions are kept?
Lebkuchen are amazing. But I never thought of or know somebody that makes them at home. Maybe that's the reason 🤣🤣 My favourite Christmas cookie is and will always stay the Spekulatius. They sell them here from August on. And I also buy them in August because dann they are good. They are the only cookie I know that get BETTER after the after the package has been opened and left to accumulate moisture. There are also other nice Christmas thingies. In no particular order. Lebkuchen Hearts, Domino Stones, Aachener Printen (these are amazing)
I am so happy everything is well :) I hope you are recovering well from such a rollercoaster ride
IT WAS JUST SNOT!
Like clockwork, around this time of the year, I end up alternating between The Nationals High Violet https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiN-7mukU_RFphJXbc542sgsNsGeRNXL4 Or Imogen Heaps Ellipse https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPaztBWnatciUPBDhmoHJa0E6Z4pLOOUH
You and your dirty tricks! >.< :D
I started watching/listening to critical rolls first campaign. Still sometimes do before sleep. I read that the later episodes got better production quality, so I might watch those. I read this interesting piece on Hobby Drama about the sudden (or not so sudden) vanishing of Tiberius/Orion Acaba
|the British tantra guru Shaft Uddin I know him. What a small world. I camped with him at MidBurn 2014. I was surprised to read his name here. But I am also not really surprised. There are even vice documentaries about the guy. Anyway, I think this piece shows a specific problem in the current alternative scene (and all of its variations). There is a lot of science denial and anti-vaxxing. It is the same in Israel, where a whole hippie town does not want to get vaccinated. I dont know exactly why there is this enrichment in this scene. I lost some friends to conspiracy theories and I attribute heavy use of cannabis and psychedelics for a long period of time during lockdown. Some people simply react negatively to being told what to do or freedom restriction. Specially if the majority of your energy recharging comes from going to festivals in all their forms. So it doesnt matter what the scientific basis is, it is not good because they cant do what they want to do. Either way. 100/500 people getting infected is quite high. In my opinion such events shouldnt be held without vaccination or testing restrictions. At Kiezburn this year we had to come with a negative test and were tested every morning to make sure this exact thing didnt happen.
From someone whose best running achievement was a half marathon and now can't run 3 minutes without taking a break (ACL surgery two years ago) you get my extreme respect :)
Badged because you are a beast.
I remember the day. It was weird. I went to junior high school back then, I think I was in 7th or 8th grade... At home, my father had the TV on aljazeera and he kept repeating "bin Laden finally got you, you maniacs", while his face mirrored the horror he was watching on TV, and knowing fully what that meant for everyone. The next day at school everyone was talking about it in class, and everyone was EXTATIC. Celebrating. I remember that some discussions broke out about it where some students were arguing that the attack killed civilians, but many were quick to counter that many many more civilians were killed by the USA all over the middle East and that this was the only way to do anything against the military power that is the US. In case you didn't realize, virtually everyone in the middle East hates the USA, and usually has a valid reason why to. I didn't know what to think. I understood both arguments. And even though it is obvious what was right and wrong and that terrorist attacks should never be supported, I still struggled in taking a stance. Once I made up my mind though, I kept my opinion to myself. Because loudly speaking out against the attacks was an act of treason. While reading the article, it struck me how the same 12% in the states that were against the war in Afghanistan (and were called traitors), are probably the parallel group to the ones in the middle East who did not support the attacks and were also seen as traitors. That day, hatred won. Everyone knew what was coming. The wrath of the almighty would thunder down onto the whole middle east for decades. The results of which we see today. What did it bring? More hatred. More trauma. More generations of hatred. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we would rather have the "traitors" on both sides in positions of power instead of the "warriors" and "heros".
Sitting in the train on my way to Berlin (again). I am trying to use as much of my "summer" as I can, given that I was robbed of two weeks of holidays with my family due to COVID. So every weekend in September and October is planned with travels. I hope I am superhuman (vaccine + COVID = 2000U/ml antibody titer right now). While all this travelling is happening, I am having a very mixed time. Managed to go to a single Burn this year kiezburn, which is the German/Berlin version of a local burn, named after the Berlin Kieze, which is just another way of saying neighborhood, but it's smaller than a neighborhood, usually. So instead of a camp at a burn, they call them Kiez at Kiezburn. I mentioned briefly in chat (and promised steve a small update, so here it is) that it was probably my toughest burn. I had a tough burn before, which was just after my weed-induced psychosis, but that was obvious why. This time, I went quite stable in my mind, not expecting 5 days of dread. I often deal with a specific feeling of loneliness. Even though I am surrounded by people, friends, I feel alone. The reasons for it are not clear to me. I always wish to be part of a "group", a crew, a gang, a swarm, whatever you call it. But I never am. I always end up swimming between swarms. Being a connecting link. Introducing people from one tribe with the other. But I never really felt part of one. My strongest relationships tend to be 1-on-1 relationships with people that are not directly connected to each other, spread across countries, cultures, and social bubbles. The only place I always felt like I belong was the burn. Any burn. Whether it was MidBurn in Israel or Borderland in Denmark. I always felt like I "found my people". This was the first time I didn't feel like it. I felt like a foreign squirrel amongst fish. One particular dynamic kept repeating. I probably didn't choose the right Kiez/camp for my first time at Kiezburn. The camp consisted of the main organizers of the burn. Which meant that they knew each other for a looong time and throughout the whole burn it was hard to disconnect from the organizational part of the event, and just be. So I went out to find me some peers, which wasn't hard. Nearly every day, I met one person or groups of people I felt comfortable with or found interesting and asked if I can tag along. It went well, at first, until, I was forgotten. People would leave (as a group) to another place, or something, without letting me know. I did cross my mind that maybe they don't want to have me around. But all of them went through the effort to find me on social media after the burn and kept contact. So I guess it wasn't that. I kept wondering why this would happen over and over. Add a little bit of alcohol, FOMO, and I end up feeling like crap every night when heading to bed. I got to talk to one person I met, who was also part of such a group, and I asked her what she thinks happened. She said that she always had the impression that I "know everyone", which lead to the assumption that I am not part of the group. Or rather, that I am "fine without a group". I have heard this a few times over the years, and I always wondered where this impression comes from. Either way, it is the opposite of what I actually feel like. This is a small excerpt of what made this burn tough. There was also a lot of miscommunication with a former lover/friend from Israel that joined me for the burn. But I learned my lesson. Never take responsibility in planning a burn for anyone but yourself. Why the heck do I keep maneuvering my self into positions where I am responsible for shit?? Long rant. Anyway. Off to Berlin for a psychedelic research conference :) If you are interested, there are live-streaming tickets and the program is quite nice https://insight-conference.eu/program/thursday/