September Rambles

2024-09-01

It's now September, the first day of the ninth month. It is of course no difference to any other month's beginning, yet this one seems to have some significance, or really it is one of those months that you notice has newly begun, where often time catches you at such a pace that the new month begins and you hardly notice. This month, at least for me, hasn't been such, which is good I guess. I notice that it's been five months now since I began the gym, and I am seeing gains (if few), and generally I do think I'm in a bit of a better position. That said, I'm still not doing great at work - recently, I got told off by my boss for missing something I should have been doing quarterly, but ended up not doing consistently... the work is quite busy and it feels like there is anyways something else that needs to be done. Anyways.

I've changed, from late last month, the way that I track things. I was doing it per week, but now I am going to track for each month, ticking the days I've done something, and trying to aim for a certain amount of days each month. For instance, I only managed to do guitar seven times... so this month, I'm going to try it for fifteen times in the month, which should be easy, but of course I find I lose the time sometimes. I think in a way, this kind of tracking might be more effective, but really I'm just shopping about for effective methods, and will probably find it doesn't work amazingly. I am not sure whether there is a perfect method that will allow me to do what I need most effectively and keep me in the good way, or if it really a matter of finding a way and just sticking to it... as in, am I the problem?

Plays or Opera or something

I would like to try see something live, as in, see some plays, or theatre, or opera, or even just movies. I don't really see any of that kind of stuff, and would probably benefit from it. Or, listen to clasical music live, or something like that. I might try to go to a couple of these next year. Maybe I could plan say ten or so of them, spread out throughout the year (as well as holidays etc) and that will give me an ability to do it... Really, in a way, I sort of need to force me hand into doing it, otherwise I probably won't get around to it.

I'll look at the Royal Opera House and see if there is anything good on next year. Well, I don't know anything about opera, so I guess just try anything.

Eugene Onegin is on, which is a love story... probably will be soppy, and they only have it on during the week, so I will be going to it after work if I do it. But maybe try it this month if I can get good tickets?

Website scripts

I'm working on the scripts for the website. Jezup, which is the script that sorts out wv and turns it into a functional HTML page, now works (save for certain things that are less urgent, like turning asterisks into italics), and so what is left to do before I can actually get it up on the website, is to do what I am calling *dexter* (not sure where I got the name from) which is used for making index files, so that the pages can actually be accessed. I'm going to combine all the entries for the blog, wv, and any poetry or writing I do (currently, not very much of either) all be shown on the same page. That will do, I hope, and then I'll have separate pages for each as well.

What to do with money, and time

I've to think what time and money are worth. Money is strange, as many things that are perfectly ordinary are expensive, for instance, food (I spend £30 on food and drinks at the cafe I like to study at, and more if my parents come) yet other things are incredibly cheap. Oddly, it seems that a lot of commodity items are very cheap, and some things can be bought for almost nothing, yet on the other hand, certain other things are horribly expensive. I think, at least for things that are experiential, I need to value money less. As in, even if this holiday to Italy costs me a good thousand and something (EUR1000 in food etc., let's say EUR500 in accomodation, EUR200 in flights, so nearly 2k in total I guess it will be) it will be a good experience. In terms of going to the theatre, it seems that cheap tickets start at £13 but go up to £250. I could spend a decent bit, say £50, and then if I want to recoup the money I can just... save it elsewhere. That would be good. And it'll do me good to try to experience things.

Well, I think that's about all I've got to say. I'll look into the opera, or similar things, to see if they're any good. I also need to book off holiday next week, and hopefully can get the holiday sorted pretty soon. It will be with Ryanair, and via Stansted, I think. That seems the cheapest, and best to do. Then I've got a little while to plan and sort it all out, and of course to actually progress with learning my Italian. I've done very little today in terms of Italian, but of course will try to do a little bit each day (or, a few hours if I can) and learn the grammar and see how far I can get. The main problem will be vocabulary, I think. I will try to read a bit and get that more proficient and see if the speaking comes with it.

Cool. That's that. I'll look tomorrow at both Opera tickets to that show, and will book off the holiday. Then, I'll see if I can book things for next year too.

Ok, have a good one.