Cas 5

This thursday I volounteered at the Warsaw HackerSpace during the weekly open day, I was welcoming in people that were coming in and shwoing them around. It was very fun, as in-between the rounds of walking around and telling people about the space I could talk to my friends there. But it was also tiring as I had to stay until at least 10 pm, and the thing was quite repetetive. The best part is, for this service I got paid… nothing obviously, got ya good, didn't I? This 'job' is very important as new members mean, new memebership fees, and who doesn't love membership fees.

This thursday I did service as well, in the same place even. But this time I was a assitant during an open soldering workshop. This time I was responsible for bringing around solder, helping people with setting up their irons. It was even more chalanging as I had to educate others, on I topic I don't know that well. I still loved it though. This was even more of an impcatful service, as I my actions may have introduced a lot of people to soldering electronics as well as, It was pretty challanging but also, very redwarding letting other, more expirienced people, hone their skills. And for this I got paid in 2 personal thank-you-s and 1 group thank-you. The event was a big succes with ~12 people taking part in 3 groups, one per hour. It again forced me to stay in the space until 11:40 pm (clean-up), but this was even more rewarding and worth it!

This day I played table tennis, I played very poorly. I had a very bad day for training, but still managed to play for 50 min + 15 mins of strength training. Even though it was really hard to focus, becuase of the lack of succeses, I still tried my best and managed to train. Overall, the session was challanging, more so mentally than physically, but it made me very proud that even with the lackluster effects I presisted.

This day I played table tennis for 1h and did strength training for 30 min This is still pretty new, the strength training, so doing it involved a lot of exploration and trying. Overall it was very nice and I will definitely do more of it in the future.

On this day I made darkroom prints for 4h hours. This was also very exploratory as I experimented with new developer formulae. I tried a more concentrated developer solution along with a special, self-formulated, auxilary solution — a hydroquinone accelerator for deeper blacks. That said, the session wass very draining, but I also needed to prepare for an upcoming exhibition, so I pushed throgh perfecting 5 different prints. The first image is not focused because I took it in very little light. The second one shows a print.

This time I continued preparations for the exhibition. I printed 3 more images, this time too with the new developer. I am not sure how much I like but still giving it a chance. It does make printing a bit more expensive and does reduce the tray life of the developer; However, my biggest concern is the environmental impact — hydroquinone is a pretty bad chemical. I will truly need to give it thought as other solutions with the same effect are far more expensive. This time I felt less tired by the printing but had to stop earlier because of my other plans. Below I attach images from the session

I finnaly, for the first time in a while had a cool training and had true fun. I trained chopping for 20 minutes, serves for 20 minutes as well; and shots for 25 minutes more. Then I did 15 minutes of strength training. I see my benchpress getting a lot more stable and controlled. Which is very cool. I also see that I can push each set to 13–14 resp; so in the future I will increase the weight. I also see meyself consistently doing 8 pushups or more, for 3 sets in a row.

This time I decided to use my prior succes for motivation. So keeping in mind to not overtrain myself I did some light things for 40 minutes. I did some heavily assisted assisted pull-ups with a stretchband, balance excersizes on a half-ball. Then I did some dynamic stretching, finishing it all with a 10 minute hike to help leg recovery. I usually use very light biking but this seemed more practical.

Knowing I will lack time do it later I completed most of the work required before the exhibiton. I printed my digitsl photos. More importantly I prepared the labels and printed them. Going on a detour researching how to label photographic techniques, e.g. C-print being a chromogenic print etc. Glueing up the prints was cool a and soothing job. I also signed every print. It generally took me ~1h but that does not include the printing shop run I had to make. I'am attaching the photos from the exhibiton and final preparations below

Once in a blue moon I decide to do some writing. So when I got the perfect idea for a short story I started work on it. It was hard to start, as seeing a blank page makes in harder to sit down, but I persisted and reached around 800 words in one sitting of fully polished prose. This kind of numbers was truly an achivment for me as I usually lose focus after 300–400 words done. I was really happy with my work, and riding this wave of motivation I also polished it. Which was new as I usually leave all polishing for the end; however, it may be a new, and better aproach to writing — doing some polishing as I go.

This day I was again showing people around da 'space, it was very fun, but the night was also very busy. At the peak we had 30 people inside, so it was overwhemling. Yet I managed and did well.

Inspired by my recent success in writing I decicded to press on. I wrote like 500 more words. It was quite hard to focus, a lot more of a challenge than the previous session, but still okay. I was overall really happy with my work, even though it was hard. I began feeling very tired along the way, but managed to pull through.

This time I decicded to train my serves. It was hard to find motivation for it — it's far more boring and I need to run pick-up the balls every 5 minutes as I don't have a net for them. Yet I know it is important to keep the training versatile, so I continued. I managed to do 4 sets of non-stop serving (5 minutes per set). And finish it off with 15 minutes of regular play, while focusing on quick chopping swings. Below is the result of my serve training

As the easter brake started I decided to go for a hike, I hiked for 2h hours around the city center. It was a challenge, as after the first hours it got pretty boring, but I really wanted to complete 10 km. In the end I managed, to hit 12km. It was hard, especially with the fact that I had to maintain a speed of over 5km/h, but I loved it. I loved the relaxing experience of the walking itself, and completeing such a goal was very motvating.

As a break from writing prose I decided to write some poems. It was chalanging as it was a long time since I wrote those. It wasn't much fun to be honest. Each time I thought I was getting onto something good I would realize it was cliche or actually bad. I still wanted to get some practice in, so after I was fed up with failures and took a short brake. When I came back I setmyself a goal of writing for 20 minutes more. After that was up I was tired, and was vomiting poetry; however, I did feel happy that I managed to achive this micro-goal and do the work. Is this a good learning/training strategy? I don't know, but I will propably try this again in the future.

Let's switch it up this time, today I contributed some code to open source software. I have been using a specific text editor for a long time so when I spotted a bug I decided to solve it myself. It was grueling work as I have not worked with this codebase, or any other graphical program's codebase before. The codebase was also in a programming language I don't knwo that well. I was generally really intimidated, but still decided to try and write the fix. I spent some time reading the documentation. Then implemented the fix… it did not work one bit and I was bit defeated. I really wanted to give up. I managed to force myself to try one more time, and my fix worked. So, I continued on to send the patch to the maintainers of the project they gave me a few pointers on how to improve my code, but they generally said it was good. And a while later they approved the patch. I think contributing to open-source a great way for practice programming, and help the world break free propriatary capitalistic software.

Today I took a short bike ride as the weather got a bit nicer (than winter), it was hard to get out, but I know that the earlier I start the more consistent I can be. It was tiring, but refreshing. I ended up doing a total of 12km. Below a photo I took at the end before boarding a tram to the metro. I did feel really bad about it, but I felt like it would be healthier that to overtrain myself.

Today I helped around the HackerSpace before the open day. I cleaned the bathroom floor before the guests arrived and organized things that were laying around scattered on the floor. It was a nice change of pace from focusing on showing the people around, to be more involved with preparations. It is a good thing for the society as, if new members are not being jumpscared with our bathroom, they are more likely to comeback; that is good because we rely on people for operation. And the HackerSpace does a lot of good for the world, like spreading the message of free technology and more. I did my best to think of some, negative moral implication of my work, I did not find any — it's not like a wage worker would be doing this if I didn't. The results of my clean up halfway through below.

Today I ran for 5km. It was quite the comeback after I have not ran in a long time. It was really hard, and I wanted to quit after just 1km. I think I definitely need to improve my technique, especially breathing.

As a break from the mocks I decided to write some flash fiction. It was hard to start, so I asked my mother for ideas. Once I got some inspiration I managed to write to pieces. It was a challange to keep under 150 words, but I do feel like it made me a bit better of a writer. I also do feel like collaboratin with my mother helped a lot. Teamwork is kinda good.

This time I decided to do some pixel-art drawing after bit of a break. I really struggled and failed a lot. It seems I was not made for this, but I still wanted to train, as I think it is a nice skill. So I pressed on till I got something I liked. While it "did not look like the pictures" I think nothing really does and I should focus on my own progress.

This time I experimented with color photography. I planned a walk around Ursynów to make the whole thing organized. I browsed some color cityscapes to get inspiration. Then made landed on a specific style I wanted to use During the walk it was hard to keep to that style, but I did my best. I think this will improve my photography to make it more uniform — a much needed improvement

For children's day I decided to help with organizing a children's event at the hackerspace. I would be responsible for showing people around. I need to prepare a route and a script for the tour. It was different as before I was touring 17+ people, now I needed to adjust it for twelve year olds. During the event it did feel a bit hectic but in the end I managed. I toured 4 groups and the kids really liked it, after that I also spent some time telling the interested ones a bit more about specific things. Especially our piece of asbestos we show of on a shelf.

I decided to do a strength focused workout after a break from those. It was very fun and a nice change. One setback I had was finding workout plans I made a while ago, but except from that it went okay. I didn't feel any regression as I did more cross-functional workout in the meantime, which helped a lot with mobility during the strength training.

Today I got back to darkroom printing, it was fun, and needed a lot of planning after I put all my darkroom gear into cold sotrage after the last printing session. Getting back into things wasn't all that hard, but it did require determination. I also recorded a video for my friend who asked for one to show her the process. I also tried out baryta paper, and dried it on the window. This classic technique is very cool and far more aproachable than driers or a specialized drying rack.

The day after the end of school year I decided to celebrate getting through the 3rd grade. It was a nice expirience, the feeling of incoming 2-moth long freedom was very cool. I had a ton of fun and managed to cover 50km throughout Warsaw.

I decided to get back into electronics over the holidays. I went to the hackerspace an did some soldering to remind myself of how to do it. Then I soldered together a micro-controller, a screen and a keyboard and they immediately did not work. I managed to get them to at least powerup and finushed at that. I think I may asked some friends for help with this as I am not that expirienced in electronics.

I asked a friend from hackerspace who works profesionally as an electronics developer. He agreed to help me debug my contraption. It was very nice, and it helped a lot to have an expirienced person help me. In the end we managed to make text show up on the screen. It was hard, and is just the start of things, but it was worth it (the keyboard still does not work…).

This time, it was me teaching people at the space. My friend hit me up to teach him the basics in a programming language I knew well. He asked to meet at the space and so we did. It was the first time I would be teaching someone else programming. I prepared some materials ahead of time to aid the teaching. I did get pretty angry at times as things I thought were obvious, my friend failed to grasp. But I kept my calm and pulled through.

It's halfway throught the holidays, so I decided to go for a hike to celebrate this saddening event. It was different as I did the hike around midday, so there were lots of people. It was fun, and it's good to try things, but I propably won't be doing this again. I also encoutered a walking balcony chain to a pole, which made me think about the fate of elderly in poland — it's not great. But the image is quite funny.