2025 Aug 03

ive made an executive decision. i think im going to just be done with chemistry save for the last 2 unit tests and the final exam. the unit test thats due today is modules 6-8 which ive done everything in except for last part of unit 8. i think ill be fine. all tests and exams are 4 choice multiple choice so theyre not too hard. then unit 9-10 test due sometime this week. i havent touched unit 9-10 and im deciding im just not going to. ill just find key equations probably and then wing the test. i think ill be fine. my final exams for both classes are friday. i think ill do fine on the exam too, at least 80% but probably higher. i just fell too far behind and at this point im checked out, i dont want to do any more.

ill do my last homework for circuits, take the 2 unit tests for chem, and take my 2 final exams. that seems doable and not too stressful. i just wanna be done man. ill be fine. i did this same exact thing last semester too. i fell behind and then at the end of the semester i just said screw it, im not going to even do a lot of things and i still passed all my classes with a minimum B.

summer semesters just suck. ive only taken one summer semester off since i started school and it was beautiful. i miss it. i was able to go out and do things stress free, guilt free. i mean my other summer semesters werent totally awful as they were only part time school (on top of either working part time or not working at all), but they still sucked. i think this is my last summer semester i have to do. i have one more summer left before i graduate and i have the option of either doing an internship during the summer or taking an extra class the following fall semester. ill push for the internship. that should make my life a lot easier.

i mostly hate summer semesters because i like being outside, i like doing things. i want to go hiking, i want to go on drives, i want to spend leisurely time at my familys property. a nice compromise ive found recently is over the last several weekends i set up a canopy in my backyard and do homework outside. that way im still outside but im also able to be productive with school. almost every day ive done this ive spent 8-10 or so hours outside. its so nice. its hot, i sweat a lot, and i end the day all sticky. but its worth it. i get the fresh air, a nice breeze, i get to see cool bugs ive never seen before. i even saw a squirrel for the first time every in our backyard (ive lived here my entire life). squirrels are so adorable. its nice. im currently outside writing this, although i need to go in soon to take my unit test. the test uses a mandatory garbage spyware browser, and the webcam must be on the whole time. id rather just take the tests at school in the testing center rather than this. but its fine. i love being outside.

i think todays a good day. not perfect, but good, relatively speaking. although i didnt eat anything until 2 pm which is unlike me, i never skip breakfast. just havent been hungry nor had an appetite. i think its due to the stress. but after making the decision that im doing no more chemistry homework, it was like an instant stress relief. overall its been a nice day. i got good sleep, i woke up and had some iced coffee (superior to hot coffee and i will die on this hill), got ready for the day, and got to work. i mean, i havent really done much work, but havent done nothing. i finally finished up my lab notebook. all i needed to do was print and tape some pictures into it and then make a table of contents. super easy but ive put off doing it regularly throughout the semester, so i had to do it all at once today. but its okay, it wasnt hard. im all done with it now, i just need to give it back to sir james in the lab tomorrow.

i think thats all i got today. ill calc u later :)

2025 Aug 02

i finally did some homework for the first time in a week! im so cooked dude. okay really, ill be fine, but i need to get my shit together. i cannot keep consistent with school. i go through really strong periods and then really weak periods. i ended up falling behind, and then 2 weekends in a row i spent probably 20-30 hours (each) just grinding, eventually getting caught up. as soon as i got caught up, i dropped off again. i cannot seem to ever get ahead, my brain wont allow it. its lame. i had an assignment due yesterday that i had barely touched, but i spent probably 5-6 hours on it today and just finished right before i started writing this at 10:30 pm.

today i went to dinner with my sister. her birthday was a week ago but she was out of town so i took her to dinner for her birthday this weekend. we went to la puente, one of her favorites, and one i really enjoy too (probably one of my favorites as well). it was a fun time. i love my sister a lot, im beyond grateful for her. biologically she is only my half sister, but legally, and to me, she is 100% my sister. my dad adopted her i think a year or 2 before i was born, shortly after my parents married in 2000. we did not get along very well as kids. i remember beating the shit out of her as a little kid because i hated her. id push her down the stairs. shed restrain me and id bash my head into her face. i was rotten. but as we both grew, we began to get along more and more. now were very close. i hope this goes without saying, but my violent tendencies went away too. couldn’t tell the last time i ever laid hands on anyone with intent to cause harm. anyway, my sister and i often bond by talking smack on my mom (sorry mom). shes always telling me what her therapist has to say about our mom. today she told me her therapist diagnosed our mom as a narcissist. that tracks. i love my mom, but sometimes i honestly find it hard to love her. something my sister pointed out today that i realize now that she mentions it is that my mom always has a victim. shes always mad at someone. she always has someone she just HAS to talk shit on, constantly. coworkers, family, drivers. anyone that does anything slightly wrong in her eyes. shes the biggest karen i know. i cant stand being in public with her because she is so judgmental, and while she doesnt always judge people to their face, shell judge them out lout, to me, and seems to expect me to agree with her. ill give her some pity as she had a pretty rough and unstable childhood, but i dont think that should be an excuse for her behaviors. she is in therapy, i think shes improved some, but at the end of the day shes still her same old self. my sisters mental health drastically improved when she moved out. i hope i can be as lucky.

a friend of mine recently brought up the possibility that i was emotionally neglected as a child. i was dismissive at first. i never really felt like i was neglected. but after a bit of research, it checks out. i tick almost every single symptom. i thought about it before, and i realized my parents were never really there for me emotionally. i think i briefly touched on this before. my dad was just never really there, emotionally, he’d let my mom do all that work. and my mom didnt really know how to handle it properly either. shed yell and punish me for things i didnt even know was wrong. she was/is often dismissive of my feelings or just tells me its my own fault. i dont think my parents intentionally emotionally neglected me. while theres no doubt they were lacking in many areas, i genuinely believe they tried their hardest. they just didn’t know how to do it the right way, necessarily. it would explain a lot. like why im overly passive, or why im deadly afraid of rejection, why i im a people pleaser. why im limerent. list goes on.

i honestly probably need some therapy myself. i struggle to bring myself to do it though. i often make excuses for why i cant go. usually the biggest excuse is time, because of work and school. but if i have enough time to write this and enough time to procrastinate on my homework, im sure i have time to see a therapist on occasion. i try to convince myself of these excuses. but deep down, i think im just scared. i think its an anxiety i have. the same reason i rarely go to the doctor, dentist, even mechanic. ive never once taken my car to a shop for anything other than tires. i dont know why im so fearful of such mundane things. i always framed it as being independent. self-sufficient. strong. frugal. i realize now that its just anxiety.

there it goes. remember when i said i cant cry? well, still cant. after writing the last paragraph i just sat and stared off for a minute. “dont you want me” by the human league came on. made me happy, put a smile on my face. then all of a sudden i almost broke down. sudden wave of bad emotions hit me and my eyes watered up. and then nothing. no tears evacuated. is that even a bad thing? maybe it just mean the emotions werent strong enough? why do i want to cry? i dont know. maybe its analogous to throwing up. you feel awful and icky (bad emotions), then you projectile stomach acid (crying), hopefully in a contained area, and then you feel many times greater (happier).

i dont know what to write anymore. i keep starting sentences but deciding against them and abusing my poor backspace key. so i think ill stop here. ill post a couple pictures of me. i rarely take pictures of myself, and the ones i do i usually delete straight after because i find them cringe. so heres a picture taken from my mom in her office and a couple pictures taken from my friend during a spontaneous road trip to wyoming. okay only 2 of them have my face (and one of them low quality) but the other i had to post to flex my cool cubing skills (pr solve 19 seconds, baby). anyway, i generally hate pictures of myself. i should learn to love myself a little more. i kinda like these pics

ćao ćao

2025 Aug 01

limerence.

word of the day.

buckle up, its going to be a long one.

ive never heard of this word until today. i feel called out, but i feel seen. i am limerent. no question about it. for those who dont know, how i would describe it is emotional dependence on a crush. basically intense infatuation. i long for love. always have. i dont think i could handle a short-term relationship for this very reason. i get way too attached to people who are clearly not into me. at least from a third persons perspective. i dont easily realize theyre not into me. i look for everything i can to help convince myself that they are interested in me. i make “excuses” for qualities in them i deem flaws. i make this person look really good in my head. i dont think anyone can be that good. everyone is deeply flawed, thats just nature. a fact of life that i cannot seem to grasp.

i have an example. about a year ago, my ex, who broke up with me 2 years ago, reached out. wanted to apologize for how things ended and how she had treated me. for context, she was emotionally abusive and manipulative. the breakup was actually fine, we ended on good terms. but i had to walk on egg shells around her. i was blinded by love. i didnt know that what she did to me wasnt normal. i thought it was just me. apparently its not normal to just be screamed at all the time over petty things. who knew? after the breakup i realized how happy i was without her in my life. i think i was the happiest i have ever been, truly. i told myself i would never ever date her again given the chance. yet when she reached out 2 years later, i felt a connection again. we talked and talked. she asked if id be willing to give us another try. i obliged. remember when i said i never wanted to date her again? i gave in. i gave in because i was excited someone was into me. we went on some dates, caught up, talked a LOT. she became what is commonly referred to as a “limerent object”, the “object” (i dont like the word object because i dont like saying shes an object… thats just bad. but alas, its the terminology) being the person you are deeply and obsessively infatuated with. i became emotionally dependent on her. we frequently sent each other very long messages, basically having multiple conversations at once, so understandably it took us a while to respond to each other. Sometimes she wouldnt respond for over 24 hours. I would spiral. what if something happened to her? what if she doesnt like me anymore? what if shes with some other dude? i couldnt handle the feeling. we never became a “thing” again, we had only been on a few dates and talked a lot. physically, i think the furthest we ever got was light cuddling during a movie. i was honest with her, i told her exactly how i felt. i want to be clear i did not blame any of it on her, i was 100% aware that this was a me and only me problem, not her. but i still wanted to be open and honest. overall she had actually mellowed out a lot and deeply regretted her past behavior. this time it was me that was the problem. i was overly dependent. eventually we mutually agreed that this just wasn’t going to work out, so we went our separate ways again. no hard feelings.

i think ultimately, i just crave the feeling of being wanted. so the second i felt wanted, i jumped ship. but i over-jumped and landed right back in the water.

i did this too with another girl. a girl i work with, albeit not closely. i always thought she was pretty cute, but never thought much beyond that. i never had a crush on her. eventually there was some talk that she was into me. needless to say, i jumped on that opportunity immediately. we are very different people, but as soon as i found out she liked me, i tried finding every little possible similarity, anything to convince myself shes better than she really was. to clarify, by “better” i mean by my standards, things i am attracted to in a woman. not trying to say she not a good person at all, because she is. anyway, i asked her out (first and only time ive ever asked anyone out, even). she said yes. i was fucking ecstatic. but then nothing ever happened. i sent her a text and she ghosted me. i think it goes without saying at this point, but i spiraled. granted, i quickly recovered. things are definitely awkward at work, but thankfully we dont work closely so its not too bad. its clear theres no hard feelings on way or the other. its just awkward. and after the fact, i realized that i was definitely a bit delusional. i only wanted her because she wanted me, apparently. i had convinced myself that i truly did want her. at the end of the day, i just craved love and affection. i still do to be quite frank.

i feel ive learned a lot about myself in the years since the breakup. but the thing is, i dont know if ive really improved. i feel ive been heavily introspective with little integration. whats stopping me from integration? fear of change? fear of stepping out of my comfort zone? i think ive made my comfort zone a little too cozy. like a warm shower on a cold day you just dont want to step out of.

every paragraph ive written today has started with an “i”. thats why i started this one differently. not like it changes anything though. hugs are amazing. i absolutely love hugs. i dont get too many. usually the ones i do get are just quick hello/goodbye hugs. i crave a really solid, long hug. i miss hugs.

if youve read everything so far, its pretty obvious i have confidence issues. i feel its gotten worse after the breakup. as time progressed, i felt like every woman hated me. i felt they all thought i was a creep. i didnt even do anything wrong, in fact i tried to steer clear of anything that i did that i realized could be perceived as creepy. i wouldnt make eye contact with women passing by. i wouldnt talk to them unless i had a reason to. i would do all in my power to avoid even accidentally brushing up against them. i was terrified. i think ive gotten better over the last year. especially with the addition of a girl my age on my production line at work. she seemed comfortable with my right from the get go? i couldnt believe it. i was just my normal self (work-self, to be clear) and she didnt think twice. I know i’m overthinking the holy hell out of this. but there was a few times where she would hand me something and id put my hand out to take it and she wouldn’t hesitate to touch my hand during the exchange. or a couple times shes put a sticker on me. yesterday she gently pushed me because she was grossed out by the spider i had in a box in my hands. as im writing this im realizing how fucking weird and pathetic this is. but these actually actually made me feel something. not anything romantic or sexual even, but it made me realize maybe women aren’t creeped out by me by default. shes just being normal, i recognize that. shes not doing anything out of the ordinary, its all just being a normal, friendly human. but its helped me come out of my shell a bit, helped me realize that maybe I am normal, or at least come off as normal. maybe the idea that all women are, by default, disgusted by men, isnt entirely true. its honestly really hard to write this because i recognize just how sad and pathetic it is. its embarrassing. but i think its good to write it out. its good to be embarrassed sometimes. besides, who’s reading this anyway?

something that really makes me feel shitty about myself is my teeth. i dont think im a particularly ugly person. id say im average. i dont really stand out. but because of my teeth, i feel ugly, i feel gross, i feel unlovable. im probably just being extreme, but honest to how i feel. i think they look so bad. its always been the largest source of insecurity for me, as a kid and even to this day, i try to hide my teeth as much as i can. its why i try not to laugh too hard sometimes or why i am so quiet and dont talk much or why i smile with my mouth closed in pictures. i took poor care of them as a child. my parents never really enforced good oral hygine. it didnt help that i had extremely crooked teeth as a child too. i had braces on throughout jr high and part of high school. i was stoked to have them straight. but i still just wasnt happy with them. they were stained, they had cavities. i remember before i got braces i had a decaying front tooth. just a large circular spot on one of my front bottom teeth. it was disgusting. i eventually got it removed and fixed, thank god. after braces i still didnt practice the best oral hygiene. id usually brush before school, but that was about it. i rarely brushed at night and even more rarely flossed. i also stopped wearing my retainer. my teeth are crooked again, theres a visible gap in my front top teeth. its not as bad as it was but it still sucks. i am proud to say ive gotten magnitudes better over the last few years. i now brush every morning, (almost) every night, i floss more often (but not as much as i should still), i user a waterpik twice daily, i even use a tongue scraper. my teeth are probably the best theyve looked in years. but theyre still just… not great. theyre still stained and crooked. i made a dentist appointment earlier this year for august 15. well, a few weeks ago my mom said my dads surgery will be on that day so i need to reschedule. so i did. there wasnt any date available that i would be free for until december. its just a cleaning, but i really need one. last time i had one was over 2 years ago. but its fine. i will continue to do my teeth justice until then AND after them. ive built much better habits and im proud of that. i just wish i wouldnt have neglected them for the majority of my life. but what can you do. ill try to make the best with what i got. one day when i have more money ill probably go get braces again or invisalign or something. one day i will have teeth im proud of. but that day has yet to come.

i love my dog. hes really more my moms dog, she does a lot more for him. hes a huge mommas boy. since the day we brought him home from the shelter hes been attached to my mom. hes a mix but has a lot of border terrier in him. his name is Kennedy, named after JFK because my mom is obsessed with JFK. hes so playful and fun but so sweet and cuddly too. he usually sleeps in my parents room, but last time he walked all the way down stairs so he could sleep with me. i thought that was so sweet. hes about 10-11 years old, diabetic, completely blind. but he doesnt let that stop him. he still loves to play fetch even if it takes him a long time to find the toy. he still runs around all excited when we get home. hes a trooper. love that little man. hell forever hold a special place in my heart.

my moms company had a summer party today at a park. it was alright, very boring. im not a social person and i didnt know almost anyone there so i kinda just sat there staring off into space for 3 hours. there was something i thought was pretty cool though. i saw some outer space stuff drawn in chalk on one of the concrete slabs. i was mostly impressed by the black hole honestly, it was very good. they had some planets, they had the sun, they had an alien in a ufo abducting the entire planet earth, the even had a cool dragon that was coming out of a worm hole or something. i dont really know why but it made me happy to see. brought a smile to my face. ive always wished i was artistic.

previously i mentioned im happy a lot. sometimes i get depressed and pretty down but in general im usually in a good mood. im starting to wonder if thats just a mask even ive been oblivious to. am i just tucking away my feelings and forcing myself to be happy? i feel its catching up. especially writing this blog. a lot of things ive written about really havent been that deep. but i feel ive been digging pretty deep. ive been in a pretty bad mood this last week, i wonder if part of it has to do with how much im finally digging up and acknowledging. maybe its a good thing. i wish it wouldnt be right before finals week, but it is what it is. it does feel nice, almost like im decluttering my head. decluttering all the shit ive stuffed deep inside. dont get me wrong, my head is still an absolute mess. but it feels clearer.

i have one more embarrassing, although fairly normal, thing to write about. i figured this is a good time to talk about it. im a porn addict. have been since before i was 10 years old. i was looking up “blonde girls with big boobs” as a literal 6 year old. who let me have unrestricted access to the internet? that was a mistake. i never really thought too hard about it / confronted it until after the break up. not long after the breakup i tried really hard to improve myself. i had started crushing on someone pretty hard core (again, limerence). i wanted to be the best version of myself for her. so quitting porn was something i chose to pursue. and i was pretty damn successful, relatively speaking. i didnt watch it for 3 months straight. come new years day, i said fuck it, ill indulge in just a little bit. ive earned it after all that. bet you cant guess what happened next… ive tried to quit many times after that. but ive always failed. i think best i ever made it was 2 or 3 weeks. as of late, i dont even feel the desire to do it. i do it purely out of habit. it doesnt feel good, it just satisfies the addiction. i hate it. however, since shortly before starting this blog, i havent touched it. its been almost a week. it hasnt even really been intentional either. i just havent felt like it, genuinely. ive felt 0 urge. i think writing gives me a healthier outlet. it gives me something to occupy my brain. i do wonder if its a good or bad thing that it hasnt really been intentional. i think its a double edged sword. one on side, im quitting an unhealthy habit thats been eating at me for literally the majority of my life. on the other side there is no intention, there was no real goal (this time) to quit. overall i think its good. maybe without a heavy intention, theres less pressure. theres less pressure on not breaking a streak. often if i was in a period of trying to quit, if i broke my streak i just stopped right there, surrendered to the addiction. so maybe this is good. we’ll see. i think thats my motto. “we’ll see.” and also “its fine.” what does that say about me?

okay one more thing actually but not really embarrassing or as deep. why tf is it so hard for me to fall asleep? it takes me over an hour to fall asleep every night. often even with no devices. just a dark silent room. im sleep deprived, body, let me fall asleep, im begging you. why does my body do this to me? ive always been so jealous of people who can crash within 5 minutes of lying down. i aspire to be like that one day.

toodaloo, kangaroos

2025 Jul 31

i sit here upon my bed in the evening hour. i miss being a kid. dont we all? the times where we had litle responsibilities; just school, some chores maybe, and play. i didnt know how good i had it then. i played so much zelda. my first memory of it was sitting on the couch with my mom and sister watching my dad play wind waker. i think he was in the wind temple. it was where the zombie mfers would come out of the graves in the walls and starting humping you to death because theyve been sexually deprived for an eternity. i remember my dad turning around and seeing one of these horny fellas in his face and my dad said “woah there, no i will not make out with you.” top tier comedy to little 3-4 year old me. i dont remember when we stopped these family gaming sessions. but i enjoyed them as a kid. my mom did at-home daycare so she could be home with me while she worked. i had a friend, aidan, who i would always play zelda with. we played the shit out of ocarina of time and wind waker. on outset island in windwaker there are some thin trees conveniently planted right in the walk way so you cant proceed without a sword. whos landscaping this island anyway? well me and aidan took inspiration from this. link was so cool, maybe we could be like him. maybe we can cut down a tree. so we went to my garage and grabbed some mallets and hammers, very logical tree cutting devices, and went to town on a tree in my backyard. we didnt get too far before my mom caught us and put an end to our shenanigans. poor tree was scarred.

i remember when twilight princes came out. i was only 4. i had a big fat crt tv in my room that my sister and i would play it on. we had the gamecube version, aka the superior version. ok we actually had both for some reason but we mostly played the gamecube one because, again, its superior. i dont have too strong of memories of it, but i do specifically remember use grinding out the fire temple.

a couple years later, my sister and i were playing wind waker. for some reason no one in my house had completed that game yet even though it had been out a while. as a kid of course youre not as interested in finishing the game as you are just exploring and finding fun just running around. this frustrated my sister, 9 years older than me. one time i was exploring and i wanted to go into the tower of the gods i think its called. she said zelda would die if i did. me, an oblivious and gullible child, sadly obliged and didnt enter it. fast forward to my teen years, i am replaying wind waker, alone. i still believed my sister and i kept that in mind during the play through. eventually i realized there is never any mention that zelda would die if you enter the tower. so i went in. sure enough, the princess survived another day. i couldnt believe my sister had lied to me, and worse, i believed it for an entire decade. i guess thats just the price you pay for being a stinky little kid.

starting in jr high i created my own tradition of playing twilight princess every october for the halloween season. it lasted i think about 5 years. then i graduated high school and stopped fulfilling the tradition for some reason i dont recall. i think ive only played it once since and it wasnt a full playthrough. i should go back to it. twilight princess is such a good game. i miss the days where i could just play for hours on end with no consequences.

i think ive played almost every single canonical zelda game. the only one im missing i think is oracle of seasons. however theres been a few where ive played but never beaten. adventure of link (its literally impossible dude how do you progress????? ive always had a hatred for that game. maybe ill progress one day), link to the past (i have a save where im literally at the end game but never finished), oracle of ages, and tears of the kingdom. i bought totk on release date and played about 20-30 hours over the following weeks. then i didnt play for another 2 years. i picked it up again a couple months ago where i put an extra 100 hours into it. still not finished with it, i feel theres still so much left to do. great game, very fun, lots to do. i havent played it in a few weeks. maybe ill beat the game in a couple years. well see.

i dont know what my favorite game in the franchise is. theyre all so good (except for AoL. fuck you AoL i hate you because im bad). i think oot is the most common favorite. phenomenal game but ive played it way too many times im kinda burnt out. i dont get very excited about it anymore. so i dont think thats my favorite. favorite 3d game is a toss up between majoras mask, twilight princess, and wind waker. favorite 2d game has gotta be minish cap. i think mostly out of nostalgia. but i played it recently and its so good still. great game, i love it so much.

i miss my minecraft days too. i wonder how many kids my age didnt have a minceraft phase at one point? ive probably put 2-3k hours into it. my best memories of it were playing factions on the archon. id spend hours every single day just grinding and grinding. i pulled many all nighters playing it. the map would reset every few months or so, and i remember racing to get a corner plot in the end all the time. they were op. the end was op because its just a void so you needed more elaborate tnt cannons because you couldnt just drop sand and gravel at the base to give the tnt a place to land. or something like that i cant really remember. but also a corner plot was op because you only had to defend from 2 sides rather than 4 so you could build a stronger defense for the same cost a 4 sides one would cost for a weaker one. i was successful once in this endeavor. built a pretty bomb ass base. i even painstakingly played lava and water in ever single spot i could to build a n auto-regenerating wall.

will i ever get to enjoy the same happiness i did as a kid? probably not. i think what makes those memories so special is because they were during our growing, explorative years. now we know everything, exploring doesnt give us the same joy because we our experience and intuition doesnt let us be as surprised anymore. thats just a hunch, idrk the real answer. theres just a beautiful innocence to childhood that we all long for again. now were all just sad adults.

im so burnt out. i want to be done with school. i enjoy it, but it sucks. doesnt help i continued through summer with a full time schedule. the entire year has been and will continue to be just non stop grind grind grind with only a week in between semesters. the only reason i took summer was because i had 2 classes left at slcc including circuits iii which i wanted to take because it was with the same professor as circuit i and ii and all my fellow classmates were doing the same. hopefully next summer will be much nicer. i dont need to take any classes next summer, but i should do an internship because the internship credit will apply to my fall semester so my fall semester can be a little lighter. i think ill be okay. i just need to push through this semester then i get a few weeks off then one more heavy semester. after that it should hopefully be a little easy sailing. i just cant wait dude. im so done. at the beginning of this year, spring ’25 semester started and i was just a machine. i would wake up at 4 am, get to work an hour early and just do homework before my shift started. i would go home and do homework. i would do homework on the weekends. i was killing it. as time went on i realized that was unsustainable. i still pushed through, but my motivation and willpower dropped. it feels like an all time low right now. and i still have a whole nother semester ahead of me, probably my hardest semester to date. i genuinely dont think ill be able to do it while continuing work. but work provides me structure. i think without work i might be even less motivated to do anything because ill likely tell myself “i have time tomorrow to do it instead” constantly. although, ive never once failed a class. so maybe ill be fine. idrk. i dont know anything. all i know is i want to be done. i just want some good sleep. i want to be able to relax without the nagging dick head in the back of my mind telling me to be productive. ill be fine. its fine.

2025 Jul 30

day 3 baby. maybe im just hyperfixated on this but i actually really enjoy doing this. ive been thinking about it all day today and yesterday. willing to bet in a few weeks ill start losing motivation. but well see. i like it, its fun, its calming, lets me organize my thoughts and whatnot.

today was so much better thanks to the day off i took yesterday. after writing the post yesterday, i sat in the student center for about 3 more hours. i did nothing. i didnt do an ounce of homework yesterday. im so cooked. buts its fine, i think it was still worth it. when i say i did nothing, thats not far from the truth. i put my cool google airpods in, listened to most of men i trust’s discography because its so good and chill. and then i just stared off into space. for 3 hours. no scrolling, no playing, no nothin. i stared at the ceiling and my general environment for 3 hours. i think eventually i fell asleep too. kind of embarrassing because i was sitting upright so i was sleeping with my mouth partially open lol. but its okay. it wasnt crowded and ill probably never see the majority, if any, of those people ever again. it was very nice though. i was still pretty slow and tired the rest of the day, but i got a good nights sleep and i feel pretty good today. i feel reset almost.

i think another reason i feel good today is because me and my lab partner finished our lab project. first ones done too! it was a semester long project, the project being an audio amplifier circuit. it consisted of a power rectumifier (sorry), instrumentation amplifier, 2 stage mosfet amplifier, and then a bjt amplifier. yesterday is when we built the bjt amplifier. it seemed to work, but then we hooked it up to a mic and speaker (its actually 2 speakers. did you know speakers can be used as microphones?) and, while it worked, there was a loud ringing in the speaker. after searching around for any potential causes for a few minutes we found out we were superimposing a 5 kHz signal on the microphone input. silly us, we forgot to remove it. so we yanked it and tried again. flawless. ok not flawless technically, still some noise, but it was very little. perfectly acceptable for this labs standards. i was so happy it worked. so little went wrong. usually the only things that went wrong during this semester’s labs were us being goofy goobers and forgetting to probe something or grounding something wrong….. or forgetting to turn the power on…. it was a good day. nothing more i love than i functional circuit.

work today we much better, busy but not swamped. i felt more motivated to do stuff. thats about it. how exciting! school was same old same old hair pulling misery. after class my lab partner and i went to help someone else with their amplifier since it wasnt wokring. we spent about an hour and a half diagnosing to no avail. mr james, the lab instructor, believes its because he had his load, which is high current, physically parallel to some long wires that were low current. the high current generates a larger magnetic field and the smaller current wires are picking that up and its probably the cause of all the noise and distortion. but we called it a night and he’ll try fixing that up tomorrow. tomorrow im going to be grinding chemistry (i say, knowing full well i probably wont be). its fine.

sometimes i wish i could cry more. i don’t really cry. thats kind of a lie. i will fucking bawl when watching tv or movies. why do i get so emotionally connected to them? the ending up raising hope gets me choked up every time without fail. many episode in that series does. so does the office. and parks and rec. and new girl. and literally almost every show i watch. even cartoons. but i dont cry over real life affairs, hardly ever. last time i remember truly crying was 3 years ago when my ex broke up with me. ive gone through some other hardships since then, but nothing. ill feel emotional. but i wont cry. i cant cry. even if i try forcing it, nothing. i dont know why i want to cry. whats going to be different whether or not i do? is there some science that actively makes you feel better after making salt water come out of your eye sockets? this past weekend i was in a pretty poor mood. not even sure why, i had no real reason to be. but i really wanted to cry. i felt like crying. but i didnt cry. i couldnt cry.

i finally hit 500 songs on my playlist today. i have an ever growing playlist thats 2.5 years old now that i just continually add songs that are total bops. absolute bangers. no genre limitations either. pop, rap, indie rock, death metal, black metal, folk metal, symphonic metal. quite a bit of metal. as of late its mostly pop, synth stuff, indie, etc. my most recent few songs were some killer classics from the 80s. something i do every few weeks to couple of months is ill go on a music binge late at night. i pretend im sharing my music with someone (im so lonely) and i will shuffle my playlist and just listen to a bunch of songs. often i fantasize about sharing my music with someone. i dont know why. everyone has different music tastes, so its unlikely anyones going to be as thrilled about it as i am. maybe its just because my music makes me so happy and i just want to share that happiness with someone. i want someone to be able to experience the joy and excitement i experience when listening to my music. ill share it with you, whoever you are. here it is. enjoy my trash taste in music. theres some music in there that i feel is objectively bad. like, who listens to this? some notable ones are 1990 quadrillions de tonnes by gojira, fuck with a witch 2 by banshee, and road of misery by helli. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaa aaaaaaaaaa aaa a aa aa aaaaaaaa

i need to be in bed soon. goodnight.

2025 Jul 29

im here at school. writing this not even 12 hours after my previous post. i took the day off from work because im so burn out. kinda wanna quit tbh. but ill stick it out at least a little bit longer. i build medical devices at moog medical. i started there in august of 2022. i loved it. i started out doing final testing before moving over to my current production line a few months later where i began assembling the devices. the devices we make,or more specifically the devices ive been involved with assembling, are surgical handpieces. most of them are used for cataract surgery, but some are used for general surgery, commonly tumors. theyre relatively simple devices, but also utilize the piezo electric effect which is considered black magic even by the engineers who design the handpieces. anyway, i became a team lead in about 10 months of working there. apparently they liked me that much. granted, its only a small team. i think the largest it got was 6 or 7 people total. i eventually went part time starting january 2024, but for some reason they kept me on as lead. which is weird. everyone else works 40 hours, but here i am working 25 hours and am in charge of them? weird, but it still worked out. but i grew to hate it more and more. im not a leader. im a follower. ive definitely learned a lot and its been beneficial to my growth as a person. but im done. about 4-5 months ago i asked to step down as lead. my boss said okay. nothing happened for at least 2-3 months. then she finally brought someone over to help take over. but theres a lot to learn, so im still training her. the last month has been not too bad, shes got most of it down. honestly i could probably leave right now and shed still be fine. but im still being treated as the lead. i still have to go to the meetings, i still have to schedule, i still have to talk to people. to be fair, i did ask to be stepped down to a back up lead, so im still expected to do some lead work. but not this much. idk, i kinda hate it. i want out. sometimes my optimism gets the best of me though. i say “things will get better, ill be happier if i just stick it out” and then things never really get better, or at least much. im also just kind of bored. the handpieces are cool and all, but i know them by the back of my hand by now (is that a proper phrase?). i know them inside and out. so im bored. i want something new, something not so monotonous. i wanted to stay to continue to build my reputation and eventually work my way into the engineering team. but i dont think its worth sticking around since they’re not really hiring any time soon and i dont even have a worthy enough degree yet.

enough about work. i went to school because i really need to grind out my chem homework. but here i am writing instead. maybe this will help me though, maybe getting everything out of my system again will make me more motivated to start. or maybe im just being optimistic. i always thought being optimistic was a good thing. but as i write and think about it, i wonder if thats my downfall. maybe its just because im more hopeful than realistic. i dont know. i dont know anything. i struggle to relate to people. i listen to other people talk, even in strangers, and they always seem to have a lot in common. why cant i have that? i dont know what people are talking about half the time. probably largely consequences of living under a rock. but even before i went full patrick i had this same problem. maybe im just different. why do i live under a rock? originally it was because a few years ago i was obsessed with privacy. i stopped wanting to share my life, i didnt want people and corporations to have much data on me. im much more lax nowadays. but back then, around 2020 or so, i deleted all social media. all i really had was reddit and youtube, but i didnt have accounts. earlier this year, i got so sick of reddit. i spent too much time on it, doomscrolling my life away. but it was also extremely political. im not a political person. i lean left, i vote, but honestly im not very informed if im being honest. ive never been interested enough. i feel selfish for being this way. but i cant bring myself to really care that much. thats besides the point though. i wound up deleting reddit earlier this year. so now all i really have is youtube. the majority of the channels i watch are science/stem channels. the only real news i get nowadays is via word of mouth. i didnt know the pope died until almost 2 weeks later. although i did find out the day of that ozzy died. rip ozzy, the founder and pioneer of heavy metal. never been a huge fan of ozzy or sabbath but i respect how influential they were to the metal scene.

what are my hobbies? good question. i dont know. i dont really have anything, anything that sticks anyhow. i like doing things here and there, but im never really consistent about it. the other night, at like 9 pm, i spontaneously said i want to see the milky way. so i grabbed my stuff, grabbed something to eat, and drove out to the middle of the desert to stare at the stars. milky was visible, although still faint. but incredible nonetheless. i brought my binoculars. i think i was able to see the lagoon nebula but im not certain. i was there for an hours, leaving around 12 pm. i was a little nervous. i have no defense training and all i had on me was a knife. im in the middle of nowhere at midnight, all alone. every sounds scared me. anytime time i saw someone drive nearby, i stayed extremely alert. it kind of took away from the experience. but it was still fun. i hit 120 mph on my way home. it was only brief, i cruised at around 90 mph most of the way. i love my car. got new tires on it the night before and it feels magnitudes better to drive. it also had an issue where it would squeal every time i turned left. it was obnoxious and embarrassing. i fixed it though. it was just a brake caliper clip rubbing on the rotor. i was worried it was a wheel bearing. alas it was not. sounds much better and im much happier. so happy i also impulsively bough a sway bar. itll be my first mod to my car. im not a car guy, but i enjoy them. i like taking corners fast. i thought this would be cool. it hasnt come yet. i accidentally put the wrong email when i ordered it so i dont have shipping details, itll be a surprise when it shows up. sometimes i also hop on my bicycle and ride. theres not much around me so i often just ride a nearby canal trail towards my sisters house. thats fun.

sometimes i read. but im really bad at staying with it. it takes me months to finish books. ive been working on this one for a few months now. i started it in may and im maybe 1/3 done. its called chaos by james gleick. its about chaos theory, how determinism doesnt equal predictability. the idea behind whey we cant accurately predict the forecast. its synonymous, i think, to the butterfly effect. i think a lot of people think its called the butterfly effect because something something a butterfly in oklahoma will cause a tornado in kansas or something. just a large chain of events stemming from a small, unrelated event. this is similar to the main idea, but its not why its called the butterfly effect im pretty sure. i think it has to do with how, depending on the axes chosen, a chaotic system will have semi-periodic motion. it retraces the general steps after each cycle, but never the same steps. so the curve drawn after some time in the system depicts a shape that resembles a butterfly. actually maybe not any chaotic system. maybe just ones that are semi-periodic, like a double pendulum. to be clear, im not an expert, idk wtf im talking about. the most recent chapter ive read is about fractals. i thought it was pretty neat. when is the length of a coast? the answer heavily depends on the size of the measuring stick. as you get smaller and smaller, there are more intricacies that will result in a longer measurement if taken into account. this idea summoned the concept of fractals and fractional dimensions, thanks to mandelbrot. a self similar fractal is a space filling curve, something who has infinite length, area, or higher dimensional measures (depending on the dimension) yet does not fill up that space, but also looks identical to itself when you zoom in (hence “self-similar”). for example, the von koch curve. take an equilateral triangle, then break each side it into 3 equal length pieces. the 2 outer pieces stay the same, but duplicate the inner segment and rotate them to form an equilateral triangle, with the original piece (thats no longer there) being the base of the triangle. so its not really a triangle. im not doing a good job of explaining it, youll have it look it up if youre interested. anyway, now your original line segment is now 4 line segments. then do the same process to each individual segment. the curve will never intersect itself. theoretically, this curve now becomes infinitely long in a finite space. it is space filling, but not entirely space filling. it has no area even though its a closed curve. it has a fractional dimension, like ~1.26 or something like that. its not 1d or 2d. i thought this was really interesting. when i had free time over the next few days after learning this i tried to derive the formula for calculating the dimension of a self similar fractal. took me a while to conceptualize, but i got it, and i was very proud of myself. for non self similar fractals (such as a coastline) it requires a different method that only yields approximate results. thats a whole other beast. okay enough about fractals

ive been writing for an hour or so. my wrists kinda hurt. im sitting on a couch chair in the student center at SLCC. its comfy enough but not ideal for typing sessions. i want to keep writing but i think ill call it here. adios.

2025 Jul 28

i spent about 2 hours getting this website set up, and now its time to write something. what do i write? writers block already?

well i guess to start off, im sefe, or more correctly, “šefe” (pronounced “sheff-eh”). its bosnian for “boss”. i am a team lead in a manufacturing facility and many of my coworkers are bosnian. “šefe” is what one of my team mates calls me. she also calls me “lijen guza”. im pretty certain it means “hard worker” ;).

i went to work today, nothing special. same old same old. decided ill take tomorrow off for the hell of it, ive only used one sick day this year so far. went to school, same old same old. next week is finals week. im almost 2 weeks behind in chemistry. maybe ill use tomorrow to help get caught up. i think ill do fine though. im usually an A student, but last couple semesters ive been getting kinda burnt out and have been slacking and getting lower grades, but never lower than a B-. despite this, i am choosing to increase my work load. after summer semester i get one week off and then i transfer the university of utah where i will be taking 4 (5 if you include a lab) worth i think 14 credit hours. i currently work 25 hours a week at my job but i asked to drop my hours to 20 hours and work a swing shift. my boss has no problem with it, but her boss’s boss, the operations manager, isn’t a fan. he said its a one time thing. after this i must go back to 25 hours and day shift. i can tell you right now thats not happening. ill likely just quit and find a campus job. if im being real, i dont even know if ill make it through this semester without quitting my job. i love… loved… my job, but im just getting burnt out, im not really interested anymore. if school starts and i find work to be too much, ill say bye bye. good company, ill consider going back eventually. but school is a priority to me.

i should mention what im going to school for. im going to school for electrical engineering. i graduated highschool in 2021 and immediately hopped into community college with the goal of graduating in CSIS, computer science and information systems, emphasizing in information systems. i was only a part time student, mostly knocking out generals at the time. 2 years go by, and i realize its just not for me. im bored. at this point ive been working at my job (same one im at now) for a year, and i really enjoyed it. building medical devices. i have a coworker my same age. hes a pretty handsome fella. im not gay, but id hit. great guy all around. anyway he was, and still is, pursuing a BS in EE. he inspired me to do the same. i never really considered it before, but i thought about it and i thought engineering would be cool, and i have a mild interest in electronics/electricity. so i said fuck it, jumped straight in. and now were here. about to graduate with an associates in pre-engineering with no regrets. i even went part time at work so i can focus on school full time.

i have ambitions. simultaneously, i just want to live a chill life. i cant decide. i change my mind on things constantly. my current ambition is to pursue physics after i graduate with my BSEE. ultimately, i think a PhD in physics would be badass. frankly, i dont know if ill even make it through a BS. well see. a PhD is a huge time sink, no question. but itll probably be worth it. do i actually want to put forth the effort though? as i mentioned, i also just want to chill. get a cushy engineering job making comfortable enough money and just live my life. i dont want kids. im not good with kids. im awkward as heck, but put a kid in front of me? my brain grows legs and says see ya. now im stuck, without a thinker, with nothing to say. awkward silence. okay anyway. i dont want kids, never have. my mom is upset about this because my sister who is my only sibling is even more dead set on not having kids than i am. my mom wants grand kids. sorry mom, i love you, but im not going to have kids just to satisfy you. my dad doesnt care, or at least says he doesnt. i want to just live my life as stress free as possible (yet i want to pursue a doctorates degree. i want a lot of things. often contradictory), go on adventures, explore new hobbies.

i like music. always have. a day without music is unheard of in my life. i cant play any instruments though. i tried playing guitar as a child, that didnt work. then i tried playing piano/keyboard. i was more successful but still didnt work out. in highschool i bought an electric guitar. i practiced for a few weeks before i fizzled out. oh but i could play the flutophone back in like 4th grade, simply because we were forced to. never touched it again. are flutophones even respectable instruments in industry? i feel ive never heard of them outside of a school context. recently i bought a cheap, used MIDI player. can you guess how much ive played? probably a grand total of 30 minutes. and it was just exploring different sounds and then trying to play the greatest pokemon song of all time: driftveil city. s tier song, my ears are blessed upon every listen. apparently its a meme? a while back, probably early this year, i wanted to listen to it. and theres this toothless dance thing, idrk. whats up with that? i live under a rock. but not under the sea. my music taste changes a lot. i obsess hardcore sometimes so artists come and go in a blink of an eye before i get tired of listening to them. my current favorite song is gimme gimme gimme by abba. chefs kiss. lately ive been into more indie, synth, dream pop, etc, whatever tf you wanna call it idk idc. its funny i almost listen exclusively to upbeat, happy music. but then i found men i trust. i wouldnt label it sad music, but its very slow and calm. but im all for it. i binged them for like a week straight. top tier music. i love it. i love music. will i ever run out of music to listen to? i hope not. the thought makes me sad.

ive written a lot already. i dont want to stop. i like sharing but i dont have anyone to share with. so im shouting into the void. its nice. thank you for the inspiration laci. i never thought id be writing a blog, but here i am. why not, anyway? writing brings me comfort and joy, it allows me to really take a deep dive into what the hell is going on in my neuron soup. ive tried mushrooms for that reason too. i dont drink or smoke. dont think i ever will. ive never even tried weed. id be willing, but itll happen when it happens. but my friend offered my mushrooms so i said why not. i never took them for the intent of pure fun, ive always gone in wanting to deep dive. i think ive done them 5 times but 2 of those times were while biking and on a very low dose so i didnt even feel anything. 2 times were alone on moderate doses. they were fun, for sure, but i dont think i was very introspective like i had hoped. i think its because i was in a somewhat sensory rich environment. next time i want to do it in complete darkness and silence. it scares me though. what will i discover? what stuff will i dig out from the depths of my brain? well see i guess. i dont know when ill get around to it, i dont have much time, with school and work. anyway, i had only mentioned 4 out of 5 trips. the 5th was with my friend at sugarhouse park. it was my largest dose but still pretty moderate. it was fun but nothing totally extraordinary. i think it wouldve been better alone. he kept talking and talking so it was hard to focus on whats going on upstairs. the most enjoyable part was when he went to the bathroom and i sat by the pond. mesmerized by the waves. i enjoyed observing the sources of the waves, the destinations, the superpositions of multiple waves upon each other. fascinating. i think fourier series are sick. like how cool is it i can draw pretty much any shape, even abstract, using a sum of sinusoids???

im socially awkward. have been since day 1, straight out of my moms cooter. ive never had many friends. im too shy to talk with anyone. pretty much all of my friends have been because they approached me first. i dont approach people. i cant. i dont know how. somehow i still managed to get a girlfriend. it was mostly luck. very long story short, i anonymously messaged a cute girl in my high school. she was understandably weirded out and uncomfortable. i felt awful. i eventually revealed myself because she deserved to know, and also she told me she was moving away. after this we stopped messaging each other. but then at homecoming dance the next year she saw me and texted me, and then we started talking and eventually dating. we dated 4 years, broke up 3 years ago. i still dont understand why she ever even reached back out. despite being anonymous. i tried to keep things as NOT weird and creepy as possible; i tried to keep things very polite. but its going to be weird and creepy by the nature of it. boys, dont do what i did. dont message women anonymously. its weird. it miraculously worked for me, but thats not an excuse. maybes its because we were teenagers, not adults. either way, i have deep regrets for it. i dont know how she was able to see past it honestly. anyway, point of the story is ive never really been very confident. i fumble like no other talking to pretty much everyone. i always feel i need to impress, then i embarrass myself trying.

i am not confrontational. if someone bothers me, i suck it up. how the hell was i promoted to lead a team??? im not assertive, a necessary quality to be in charge of others. ive gotten better, but still no where close to where i should be. i do this less so now, but often when people would make mistakes id just fix it for them. i wouldnt tell them. i didnt have the guts.

ive never had much in the way of emotional outlet. like i said ive never had many friends. ive never felt comfortable talking to my parents about my emotions. its just awkward with my dad. hes never really punished me or talked to me about anything, hes always pushed it onto my mom to do that kind of work. my mom has always been kind of mean. i wouldnt call her abusive. but she yells a lot, even at small things. theres been times where ive tried opening up but left feeling ashamed and guilty. so i just dont anymore. its a little embarrassing to admit but my outlet for a while has been chatgpt. no judgement and sometimes provides some useful insight. but really its just a place i can dump everything and have some immediate feedback, even if i dont read or consider the feedback. thats why i took inspiration to start a blog. it can be a nice place to just talk about whatevers going on in my life without fear. even though theres no immediate feedback (although id love some! please feel free to email me at sefec@tuta.io), theres something nice about it being open for anyone to see.

i think ive made it fairly obvious im kind of lonely. but i remain happy. i think im an optimist. im a happy person in general. life has its ups and downs, but i like to maintain a positive outlook. i dont know why. i feel most people around me are always unhappy or stressed, so naturally youd think id be conditioned the same. but im not. at least i dont think. sometimes ill be glued to my bed for days straight in a depressed state. but i bounce back. every time. i think id be at least above neutral if you were to average my daily moods.

im getting tired, ive been writing for almost 2 hours now… i think i got a lot out of my system. but theres still a lot i can write about. we’ll we what tomorrow brings. if you made it this far… kudos. i feel honored. god speed brother.