I now understand that there are so many kinds of errors, we cannot stamp them out by systematically eliminating everything that might be
considered harmful.I now understand enough about my propensity to err that I can accept it as a fact of life; I now can be convinced more easily of my fallicy when I have made a mistake. Indeed, I now strive energetically to find faults in my own work, even though it would be much easier to look for assurances that everything is OK. I now look forward to making (and correcting) hundreds of future errors as I write[.]
—Donald Knuth, Literate Programming
This is straight-up blogging, amateur prose written quickly and with neither guiding stricture nor sober editing. I am going to tell it like it is, right from the heart.
—Paul Ford, Rotary Dial
Many [view] blogging as civic engagement for themselves and their readers. As a practice of critical thinking, blogging provides the space for writers to work through ideas before the polish. It affords an enclave to challenge ideas and arguments before the work is complete.
—Catherine Knight Steele, Digital Black Feminism
Here we go again
So here we are once again. I guess it's terminally online of me to immediately turn to the internet to say what I've got to say. The blog is strangely public and private at the same time. I'm not sure why it feels so natural, but it does. I know I don't write at the level of some people: for example, I learned in a previous post about Sara Ahmed's blog feminist killjoys, where she says far more interesting things than I do. I'm just working through my feelings, I guess. A semi-public private kind of life.
(...)Move-out check-in
I'm moving out of the apartment that I moved in to almost two and a half years ago. This is the longest I've ever stayed in one flat. I was in my college apartments each less than a year, then in the place in Bologna for a couple months. The only places I've stayed for a longer time were the three houses I lived in with my mom.
(...)Reading notes for the near future
Beginning to move
So I've begun to clear my apartment out in quite some earnest. I'm way ahead of schedule (my lease ends in this apartment on this coming 31st of March) but I reckon there's hardly such a thing as too early early when it comes to moving: if I'm prepared for the end, then I won't be rushing around stressed.
(...)End of Master's Check Up
I haven't been sleeping well the last couple nights. I took my last final on Tuesday: that's the very end of the Master's in Computer Science. I have no doubt that I'll pass the course, but I'm waiting on a final assignment to be graded to see whether I'll get out with a 4.0. I keep thinking I could have done more, could have studied harder; you know, the usual shit. It's been keeping me up at night, and I've been trying to distract myself. I've played around with Instagram and TikTok, but got pretty sick of them. They led me down a rabbit hole into pornography, which feels filthy every time. I don't know: I just can't enjoy myself like I used to. I've been devouring books (Voyage Au Bout De La Nuit, Fahrenheit 451, The Plague of Fantasies, currently on De Rerum Natura), writing, practicing the guitar, tidying around the apartment. I broke up with my girlfriend two weeks ago, so that's put a lot of time back in my life. I've been spending more time with my cat.
(...)