I bounced back. In many ways, I bounced back.
I spent some money that, part of me feels like I shouldn't, but this is actually a good spending. I mean, I spent like 5$, and part of it I'll recover it tomorrow, but this is good. I'll show you. Think of this as an answer to the Tim Ferriss' question "what is the thing that costed you lest than 100$ that changed your life, or it made a positive impact on your life in a good way." Normally, I would say the polyhedral set to play D20 systems, or a deck of cards, but there's one simple thing that I bought many years ago, and it really changed my life in many ways: a mechanical pencil. I started using mechanical pencils the year before I went to middle school. Many people told me that I shouldn't do it because it writes too light, I won't see what I'm writing, that I won't be able to use it, but after learning for a few days, I noticed many things: I started to spend less on pencils. Weekly, even to this day, I go over one entire pencil, even less if I'm drawing portraits. A mechanical pencil, though? I go over a pack of leads in a month. Of course, the packs that I'm getting now have even more leads. The one that I bought last time I got it late last year, and right now I still have four leads left from it. I've been drawing and writing with mechanical pencils ever since, and the best part not only was that a mechanical pencil is to pencils what an LED lightbulb is to incandescent bulbs. You know, LED bulbs last longer, leads last longer too. No, I'm talking about the fact that I don't need to sharpen the pencil every few sentences or every few strokes. And, while pencils have their place in art, I don't really like them compared with a mechanical pencil.
It wasn't until today that I decided to get a 0.7 mm mechanical pencil. All the time I used a 0.5 mm, and now I am noticing something different. I tried it with my handwriting first, and instantly saw there was a difference. It doesn't seem like there is on the naked eye, but I noticed immediately that my words seem to have been written with less hesitation. The hand shakes naturally, and with a 0.7 mm lead I found out that the shakes are completely deleted. I tried with a drawing, and not only my lines are clean, but the drawing itself was also cleaner. I've been stroking less lines too on the sketching phase, so I have to say, this was probably the best dollar and 37 cents I spent. I can easily make my money back, with a huge profit by drawing a B&W pin-up girl with it and selling it for 5$. It's a 685% profit, and I have two packets of leads for 0.7 mm: one has 24 leads, and the one I bought has 20 leads.
I also noticed that the book vendor near the non-profit had dictionaries for sale. Language dictionaries; two of them in my target languages, and one of which is a language that I studied two years ago for the entire year: Portuguese. So I got them: a Portuguese - English / English - Portuguese dictionary, and a Russian - English / English - Russian dictionary. The vendor is also someone from the neighborhood's commune, and is one of the caretakers of the community center. We're friends with him, and not only he got me a discount, but also gifted me a French - Spanish / Spanish - French dictionary of the same Collins Gem Dictionary series? I don't know what that is, but they are pocket sized, faux-leather bound, and packed with ton of info. Funny enough, French is also another target language, and while I already have a French - Spanish / Spanish - French dictionary, it isn't small. I took it because it was free, and now... they are right in front of me.
This is what I'm talking about. Just having them before me, at hand's reach, not only forces me to practice, but I also feel like I'm a polyglot, even though I can barely read the cyrillic alphabet, understand less than basic French, and have the fluency on Portuguese of a three-year old, but this is encouraging me to actually do my languages. So yeah, this was also a very cheap purchase that definitely changed my life. It doesn't seem like much of a change now, but once I start learning, practicing, and acquiring more fluency, the invested money will speak for itself. All it cost me was 3$ and being in good terms with the vendor, and now I feel like I can be better at languages than Xiaoma. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.
Other than that, it has been an amazing day, even though I cooked myself in my room after a successful writing session. 667 words on a 20-minute speedrun, then 862 words on another 20-minute speedrun. So that's a total of 1529 words, meaning that I got my daily quota done. I also continued my drawings today, compared my results with the 0.7 mm pencil, and decided to keep going with it because I'm doing things cleaner now. I feel very motivated to keep drawing, and writing. In fact, I even started a new Gygax 75 purely on paper. The pin-up babes got me thinking about a setting that revolves around it, so I decided to kill some downtime at the non-profit by opening a brand new notebook and starting to come up with ideas. Well, "brand new notebook" indeed; it's actually a planner from 1976 that's barely used, so pages were removed and now it's ready to be used. Not only that, but I'm also using Runehammer's way of ditching the pencil and instead using a pen. In the Circle Method video he mentioned that he recommends doing that because it's from the Osborn Method way of doing things, where during the beginning phase of a project, the creation phase, it is the worst time do remove ideas, so a pen will not remove them whatsoever. Bonus point: using ink also helps with perfectionism, so if I screw up, the screw up will remain there for everyone to see, and I like that.
So yeah, I'm doing a world following Gygax's article of 1975, and doing it in the same style of 1975: zero computers, to which I have to say I am down for it. I filled an entire notebook with the first part of a novel, I can definitely do this without the computer too.
So yes, while I did not do my to-do list completely, I actually got a lot of progress on my life. A new mechanical pencil just for drawing, three small dictionaries of my target languages, bounced back from my lack of world and managed to get to my 1.5K goal for writing, and even got an eureka moment into a short project that I'll do before releasing last year's NaNo. Yeah, a stopgap. I'm doing the stopgap because I require a lot more research than I thought, and I want to get my name further out there, so I figured doing something short will be good, as long as I put at least 30 minutes daily on it, I'll be fine with it.
I'm just trying to figure out an Ulysses Pact. I think I got it, but then I don't think I have. All I know is that I need that in order to actually do the thing. That's what's worked for me through my entire life, so I guess I have to keep using it.
In spite of some hiccups (like missing the Pole Dance stretches), I'll say it is a good day. I'm going to therapy tomorrow, and I'm actually happy that I got more things done too. I think I can talk about my therapist with my goals on getting with Pole Dancing. He's the one who suggested me to do Pull-ups anyway, and I guess I can find a way to not get my hands all messed up, or maybe to develop callous so that I can hold myself to the pole later on.
February 19th, 2024
Kickboxing: Day 154
Morning Routine:
The Right Side + 10 Decline Push-ups
Sól Salutation - LVL I +EC
20-Seconds Legs
Daily Dare: 5 Cross Tricep Extensions +EC
Count: 1390 - 1386 +EC
Night Routine:
Mani Salutation - 1 Set
Five Rites
Virasana Meditation
Daily Gratitude
Counting Victories
Programs:
Homebrew Training Plan (Valkyrie and Fighter combo inspired)
Bucket List:
Shadebound
Workouts:
150 Burpees +EC
30 Full Burpees
30 Full Burpees
30 Full Burpees
30 Full Burpees
30 Full Burpees
WoD: The Cake is a Lie - LVL III +EC +Rest between levels
Monday +EC
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30 Seconds Side Splits
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings & Calves
100/50 Strength
Pole Dance Stretches
DAREdice: 8 Lunges
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1 minute
Uttanasana w/Toe Reach
2-Minute Elbow Plank
Daily Walk
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Shuffle Dance! (
#1,
#2,
#3,
H.A.T.E.R.)
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Belly Dance
Dancing Days: 20
Challenges:
Epic Cardio: Day 20 +No rest
Epic Abs: Day 20 +No rest
Drawing Pin-up Girls Every Day for a Year: Day 15/365
Bucket List:
Empty, for now
Writing progress:
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I bounced back!
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1500 Get!
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Daily 1500
Reading progress:
The Light Fantastic - 27%
Other Victories: