I was swing dancing in 2024 a lot! It's time to go back I think. Nice Lindy pun also!
Thanks for the other recommendations. I really wish I could bring myself to go back to church.
thejdizzler
2d ago
Fair enough! In that case I would just be worried about the acidity which you can combat with a straw or eating while you drink the beverage.
thejdizzler
2d ago
What's your opinion on NA beer? Might be a good sub for Pepsi or coke with less sugar.
thejdizzler
2d ago
I mean I would just suggest giving up sugary beverages forever.
thejdizzler
2d ago
Thanks dude!
thejdizzler
2d ago
I may take you up on this (and grab my friend from Reston to join)!
thejdizzler
2d ago
Thanks! I'm really happy with it!
thejdizzler
2d ago
General life update
Fall is really finally here in Baltimore and it’s put me in a reflective mood. As I posted about a few weeks ago, I’m feeling generally behind in life, but some things are starting to turn around while other things remain frustrating.
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Work. I’m currently a senior PhD student at Hopkins in Biology. On paper I have enough to graduate (first author publications, enough data to make a sufficient dissertation), but my committee and PIs won’t let me graduate for a variety of reasons. These all make sense: hostile administration means academic jobs are pretty hard to get right now, I have a federal fellowship so my funding is secured until Aug 2027, and a stronger publication record won’t hurt me at all. However, I’m getting pretty sick of my project, and of science in general. I don’t like how this job makes me feel on a day to day basis, or feel that the experiments I’m doing are really helping the world. I have two options going forward: coast until my funding runs out and spend my time and energy on other parts of my life + job searching, or buckle down and produce something I’m proud of in the next year. In either case, I need to start looking for industry jobs.
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Fitness. I just ran the Baltimore marathon this past Saturday in a 2:44. This beats my Boston time from earlier this year by about ~5:00, which I’m really happy with, considering the course is much harder. I closed in a 5:14 mile, meaning I had a lot left in the tank. This whole year has been a struggle with constant left foot injuries because of my increased weight: I’ve put on 15 pounds, mainly of muscle, in the past year from swimming, biking, and lifting, so I was really happy with this effort, even though it’s far off my PR. In 2026 I’m planning on focusing on almost solely strength and aerobic development (I.e. trying to get my volume to a consistent 15 hours a week, 3 of which will be in the gym) which I hope will lead to smashing my PRs later in that year and in 2027.
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Intellectual stuff. I passed my Spanish B2 fluency exam earlier this year, and am starting to work more seriously on Italian. Both languages are going well, especially Italian, in which I feel like I’m making rapid progress. The philosophy book club I run has got a couple of new, very enthusiastic and knowledgeable members, and we are currently doing a deep dive on Kant. I’ve also hit my reading goal of 52 books this year, and will probably end up reading around 60-70, which is pretty solid work. Substack blogging is going really well too, over 100 subs, and I’m putting out at least 2-3 pieces a month. This category is going really well
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Finances. Recently read Your Money or Your Life and have been trying to figure out how to save more money and become more financially independent. I make about $52k a year, and was able to save even when I made $35k/year, so I should theoretically be able to have a near 30% savings rate. Unfortunately inflation (real and lifestyle) has increased my CoTL quite a bit, and now at my best all I can seem to manage is around a 15% savings rate. Part of the solution to this is just to earn more (i.e. get my PhD) but there’s also significant expenses that I can cut involving travel and running related expenses (mainly PT). I’m also trying to be wiser with investment decisions, splitting 0.33/0.33/0.33 between individual stocks, index funds and bonds. Long term my parents have told me they will help me buy a house (they contributed a lot to my sister’s apartment in London), so that’s a big relief in some ways.
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Dating. I’ve kind of given up on this right now. I’m luckily out of my bad living situation with the Don Juan roommate, so I’m not having my lack of dating success rubbed in my face at all times anymore which is huge. Thought there might be something with a med student who I did swim club with, but when I cooked lunch for her one on one, it quickly became pretty clear she wasn’t interested in me. Dating apps don’t do anything other than lower my self esteem, although I did recently change my location to Santiago, Chile and have been absolutely inundated with matches. A lot of them are quite attractive, but they’re all like 5’ 0” which is a little too short for me. This is probably something that will go better when I am more financially successful, but continues to be frustrating.
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Spirituality. I still haven’t been to mass since February (other than for a wedding), and have almost certainly decided that Christianity isn’t for me. Part of this is emotional: I don’t feel anything anymore when I go to church or receive the Eucharist, and prayer and other Catholic teachings have had very little effect on curing me of my vices (pornography, masturbation, jealously, anger, etc.). Part of it is social: aside from godfather, his marxist catholic friend from Chicago, and my former roommate, I’ve found that most of the people I met at church to be not the kind of people that I enjoyed spending time with. However, I think by far the biggest issue is philosophical: I think the antropocentrism of Christianity is deeply poisonous to our interactions with the natural world, the required submission to church dogma to be grating, and the ideas of heaven and hell to cheapen the existence we have here on earth right now. There are parts of Christianity I really like, but I just can’t get over these disagreements. It’s just really not for me. I would like to find another organized religion that works better for me, but I don’t think this is likely, as most Neo-pagans are a bunch of larpers, Buddhism and Hinduism are too foreign, and Islam is not appealing at all to me.
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Health. I am sleeping through the night again, my sugar cravings are gone, and I’m feeling much more energetic overall. My weight is stable at 165 pounds, and I’m starting to see more visible muscle in my abs and arms. Two key changes were better sleep hygiene (no electronics between 9 and 7 am except for social reasons, no working in my bed, consistent wind-down routine), and rebalancing my macros away from carbs and towards fats on days without intense exercise. Keto is a pretty stupid diet, but that doesn’t mean eating only carbs is good either. Because I was working out so much I thought I would be fine mainly living off starches, vegetables and fruits, but because of this carb dependency my blood sugar would crash in the middle of the night and I would always wake up starving. I’ve added much more fat to my diet, replacing oatmeal with avocado toast for breakfast, and all carb snacks with nuts on days that I don’t exercise hard. I’m still eating carbs, especially on days where I do a couple hours of training, but it’s more balanced than before. This has fixed pretty much all my sleeping problems and made me much more energetic throughout the day.
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Emotions. This year marks ten years since my last high school cross country season. That was a fantastic season for me: I dropped 70 seconds in the 3 mile and managed to be All-State in Illinois despite being at the back of the varsity pack the year before, and the camaraderie we had as a team was something I’ve never experienced otherwise, before or since. I’m feeling a lot of nostalgia for that time, and regret that I didn’t work to keep up those friendships in college and beyond. However, beyond a certain point, these things aren’t really helpful to feel anymore, and I’m wondering how I should act on them. Reach out to these old friends and try and organize a reunion? Try harder to find an adult cross-country team?
Long post, but just want to get all this out there in a place where people usually have something valuable to say. Thanks for coming to my TED talk
thejdizzler
7d ago
I have a notebook, but need to get better at using it. Maybe something smaller that I can literally fit in my pocket would help me.
thejdizzler
8d ago
I have! The problem is calibrating what is an appropriate time box for a task, especially in lab where I'm not sure how long for example, dissections might take.
thejdizzler
8d ago
I really would like to become less high-strung. Talking to my roommate this morning it seems like we have opposite problems. I have no problem using willpower to actively engage in my desires, but I just can't seem to relax, ever. He can sleep for almost all day and is very chill, but can't seem to motivate himself to do anything that requires effort. Some things I'm thinking about trying.
1). A lot of my anxiety seems to come from open loops (i.e. procrastination). Maybe if I actually finish things I'll manage to decrease how stressed I feel.
2). The amount of open loops seem to come from an inability to say no to others or to my own marginal desires. Need to learn to focus on what counts.
3). Of course technology use doesn't help either. Aiming for less than an hour a day on my phone and seeing if that helps.
thejdizzler
16d ago
Wow what a surprising turn of events. I wish the best of luck! I converted to catholicism almost three years ago now, and I have let my theological doubts get the better of me, and haven't been to church since February. My godfather did call me last night out of the blue to let me know that he and my godmother are having a second child, which did briefly remind me why I joined the church in the first place (same with a wedding I attended a few weeks ago). Unfortunately, mass seems to continue to be very spiritually empty for me, and a lot of the apparent benefits of the church (spouse, community) haven't been very prominent in my parish recently.
thejdizzler
21d ago
Interesting take on time blocking, think you are right. I have pretty strict blocks on my computer (internet will block itself after 9pm for example). But the blocks don’t really deal with the fundamental problem, which means I’m always looking for ways around them.
thejdizzler
21d ago
Thank you for the words of encouragement.
thejdizzler
21d ago
Thank you for this! It’s what I’ve been thinking as well. I really need to earn more money so I can provide for a family (which would also help me escape from the college student lifestyle).
thejdizzler
22d ago
Been feeling very behind in life recently . This latest round of dissatisfaction/anxiety was brought on by my mom having foot surgery last week (to fuse the bones in her foot because there isn’t any cartilage there any more). My parents are getting old and won’t be with me for that much longer. And I guess that has made me feel that I haven’t really used the time I’ve been alive well, especially the last ten years.
I’ll be 28 in November, and I don’t think I’m where I thought I would be when I was 18, at all. I’m not married, haven’t had sex in two years, and haven’t kicked my porn/masturbation addiction that I’ve been trying to quit since I was 21. I’m slower at running (and biking and swimming) than I was senior year of highschool. I’m still finishing my PhD with no end in sight, and living like a college student. I still have many of insecurities about status and other people’s opinions that I did at 18.
Three bright spots though have been learning Spanish, quitting gaming. And taking more leadership both at work and with things like my philosophy book club, running club, and just my own personal hygiene/cleanliness of the house. These things are proof that change can happen with patience and willpower. It’s just not hard to think that I’ve messed up somewhere, and am still messing up.
Anyway, sorry for the self-indulgent rant. Just wanted to get this off my chest. If anyone has any advice I’d appreciate it.
thejdizzler
29d ago
Thanks for this example! I stand corrected.
thejdizzler
29d ago
I brought this exact point up with a friend: what exactly does Shallan add to this book? Yes she is apparently important to later books, but you could introduce her then with all her chapters!
thejdizzler
29d ago
I think social gaming is great! Just didn't do much of it in high school.
thejdizzler
29d ago
Spoilers! Is not in the first book, but I had been told as much by friends.
thejdizzler
1mo ago
I’m starting to think screen time north of 3-4 hours a day is really not good for me. Spent most of the day at work yesterday on my computer and most of the evening as well. Felt like shit this morning (anxious, low HRV) and didn’t sleep well.
Maybe helps explain why I got so much faster senior year of highschool re:running. I stopped gaming and drastically cut down my social media time. Iron supplements probably helped too, but I’m coming round to better recovery from less screens as a factor too.
thejdizzler
1mo ago
I didn’t feel like I was particularly sneery in my review, but YMMV. To address your points
- My Spanish is good, and I don’t think this affected my read of the book other than some confusion as to proper nouns.
- The flora and fauna of Roshar was one of the things I enjoyed about the world building. However, like the rest of this stuff, most of it is cosmetic. The chasmfiends of course are quite important to the plot (although WTF do they eat usually when there’s not a war going on), and the chulls and axehounds are used in interesting ways. But the food that the Aleshi eat is almost exactly the same as in our world and they still have horse that are nearly identical to our own. As for the high storm damage, again what I criticized was not the fact that the Aleshi armies are safe, but that the stragglers who are hanging on to the armies don’t experience more damage. The ability of soulcasters to make such strong structures also undermines how important a city like Karbranth actually is. The point about agriculture still stands.
- I’m not sure that’s my interpretation of Jasnah’s assassination attempt. Officially the guy who did it is not claimed by the faith, which maybe stretches credibility, but also suggests at least that atheism is tolerated at a level where the church can’t act with impunity. It’s also not clear to me that such an assignation attempt would have even occurred if they didn’t want to steal Jasnah’s soulcaster (which, jokes on them, wouldn’t have worked). All we have from backstory so far are Dalinar’s visions about the Knights Radiant, the last of which contained the almighty himself. No religious wars, at least yet.
- I don’t mind the safe hand as an arbitrary cultural practice/fashion choice. Reading (and to a lesser extent the spice level differences) were what bothered me. You can have arbitrary cultural traits, but once they start affecting the “fitness” of your society, they don’t last.
- I’m sorry don’t do this. This book is extremely highly praised. It won the Goodreads choice award in 2011, has tons of fawning 5 star reviews, and is compared regularly to LOTR. I’m happy that you recognize that it’s not “great literature”, but there are many people who do not share your moderation. I also share your opinion of Rothfuss BTW.
thejdizzler
1mo ago
Thanks for the Tchaikovsky rec! Which of his books do you recommend in particular?
thejdizzler
1mo ago
I agree in some ways. Kaladin really does follow the heroes journey quite well in this book: going from depressed and suicidal to a real leader of men with supernatural powers. However, it's not like this plot line hasn't been done a million times before, a lot of ways in a much more satisfying way because the characters involved are real people instead of cut outs. Kaladin doesn't really have to change his worldview at all throughout the book: he's still completely obsessed with saving people, he's just gained the powers to actually do so effectively. Contrast this to something like Joe Abercrombie's A Shattered Sea YA series where the main characters are also a bunch of pathetic slaves, but actually have to change their outlook on the world and really sacrifice to grow in strength (whereas Kaladin just gets a bunch of Deus Ex machina powers). Any shonen anime (Attack on Titan, etc.) has the same arc. For a non-fantasy example, consider the movie Cool Runnings about the development of a Jamaican bobsledding team. I'm not particularly convinced that Kaladin's story is anything special compared to the wider world of literature.
No reading group is easy to run. People continually flake, don't do the reading, or try and take over the group to the kind of reading they want to do (despite a terrible track record of attendance). That said, it's been easier since I established a solid core group of 2-3 other people. I know they will do the readings and participate, so the other crap is just noise.
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