Thoughts: April 2021
27.04.2021
20:42 I have entered the state of not wanting to do anything and not being interested in anything. It is awful; on times like this I truly despise myself. This happens to me every 2-3 months. Bad timing this time though.
I don't deserve anything. Anyone who's kind to me and anyone who thinks I'm not the most boring person in the world is wrong. There's no point.
25.04.2021
17:20
Nothing's happening. Well, two things happened. First, film came from development.
I'm glad how it turned out, even if it's far from perfect.
Second, preliminary assessment of our theses is coming in ~10-14 days. Guess who has nothing to show. ⊙﹏⊙∥
Our dearest and benevolent president has declared days from 1st to 10th of May holidays. If this means that
the assessment will be moved to next week, then I'm royally screwed.
When I'm done with all this shit, I think I'll go to Moscow for a few days. I've only visited it as a 10th grade
child when I made it to the final part of some tech contest organised by Cisco, and I don't remember anything at all.
some crappy photos from past few days
22.04.2021
21:33
Went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at a cinema today with a friend after work. I (very) rarely
watch movies and I don't like cinemas (they're way too loud for me), but I got invited, so I thought "why not".
Before the movie started she explained the plot of the first part to me, and I kinda found it interesting.
As for the movie itself, I liked it. They'll be showing the third part next week, so I think I might go again.
I really loved the Ents! These tree-looking creatures stole my heart.
The Elvish language also caught my attention. I found it similar to Finnish and German; did a little research and
it turned out it's called Sindarin and it's actually based on the Celtic languages (there's another language crafted
by Tolkien though, the Quenya language, and it is based on Finnish with some Germanic inspiration).
The fact that Tolkien constructed several languages for his stories reminded me of how I once tried to make
up a wacky Germanic(-ish) language when I got really bored in class several years ago. I made up words and wrote them down
on the side of my notebook. The notebook is, of course, gone by now, but I remember that the word I made up for
Germany was "Dootslont". Cringe. Also fun fact: ik spreek een beetje Nederlands.
19.04.2021
19:41 Loaded a new roll of film today; it's Kodak Portra 160. Will send the previous roll for
development tomorrow.
Most importantly, the guy I wrote about earlier actually
contacted me yesterday... Of course I apologized (well I tried to because it's hard to apologize for what I did),
but being the kind dude he is, he is not mad at me. We told out stories from the past few years to each other.
This made me the happiest I've been in a long while.
This makes me wonder why people like him, my real life friends or the good people of Neocities are
that kind with me. A good topic to think about!
I plan on finishing "A Man Called Ove" today. Next up, books about history of Iceland and Japan
(I already have the latter; as for the former, I ordered it 2 days ago).
17.04.2021
23:32 An interesting thought appeared in the book I'm reading.
"Sonja said once that to understand men like Ove and Rune, one had to understand from the very beginning
that they were men caught in the wrong time. Men who only required a few simple things from life, she said.
A roof over their heads, a quiet street, the right make of car, and a woman to be faithful to.
A job where you had a proper function. A house where things broke at regular intervals, so you always
had something to tinker with."
Blissful serenity. Exactly the thing, the only thing I want from life. To live a modest life without bothering
anyone and not having any unsettling thoughts. Does that mean I am, too, someone who's "caught in the wrong time"?
Does that put me on the same page as kids writing "I am two years old but I love this music unlike the other kids!"
in Youtube comments? Who knows... Actually, the more I read, the more I understand Ove, the grumpy but kind protagonist.
Anyway, the cheery tree has almost blossomed; most buds haven't fully opened yet but the tree is already so beautiful...
Firshermen's Friendship.
I really wish I wasn't that unresonably shy. I miss so much nice photo opportunities
because of it.
Some you might have noticed I love taking dumb selfies where my fuckface can't be seen.
Seeing plants and trees growing on man-made structures always solidifies my belief that,
after all, the power of the nature is vastly superior to that of the mankind.
Shots.
The 36 frames long roll of film is still not over. 8 shots left - perhaps I'll go
to one of my favorite places tomorrow and shoot the remaining shots.
16:48 The best Russian show ever after "Gorodok".
11:02 I have discovered semiotics. It appears to be a very broad generalization of linguistics, studying not only the natural languages, but any signs or sign systems designed to convey information. Even the Wikipedia article alone is enough to see just how exciting and interesting it is, but I feel like studying it in greater depth. I've also taken interest in cognitive linguistics; (slowly) reading some university textbook on it during lunch break and other shorter breaks. Actually I was interested in it before this, but now at least I know what is this field of linguistics called. I really should have pursued a degree and a career in a different field huh..
14.04.2021
20:38 Past few days have been nothing special. Work, procrastinate, sleep, repeat. The weather is bad, and my mood is kinda off too. Well, at least my Cities: Skylines town is coming up nicely.
The cherry tree is noticeably red; some flowers are already beginning to show their true beauty. I also met a trio of seagulls.
Lastly, I bought a wind chime, so now my room is a bit closer to my website.
Let's hope that it will get better!
12.04.2021
00:44 My first film scans just came in. It was a film that expired 13 years ago, so I had no idea what to expect. Even then, I didn't expect it to turn out like this... 青い世界ですね
My next roll is a fresh Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400; I think it will turn out more "normal". Still, I think it wasn't bad for my first time; at least I didn't completely waste it, and now I know for sure that my camera
works.
When I was walking past the cherry blossom tree today, some buds looked like they were gonna open any second now; the museum also removed the fence around it -- they're getting close to opening the giant ball of
glass you might've seen on my older photos, so they're de-fencing more and more space around it.
09.04.2021
21:14 I miss cycling... I really gotta do something with my trusty iron horse to get it running again.
20:58 The photo shop I mentioned yesterday doesn't develop film, after all. Kinda expected though. After work I went to another place (apparently the only place in the city that does it). The dude develops film on weekends,
so perhaps I should get my results rather soon, unless he already had the bunch ready for this weekend, in which case I'll have to wait a while longer.
When buying another roll of film later on today (this one's gonna be slow as I don't plan on wasting it), I had the most embarassing conversation that ever happened to me.
Me (M): *walks into the store*
Guy (G): ...
M: *in the most stumbling voice ever* Hello... *pause* film... *pause* need. (rough translation from Russian)
G: Yeah. *waves his hand over the film shelve behind him*
M: *silence*
G: *pick a random roll and places it on the counter*
M: *trying my best to not look awkward and dumb* ISO 400...
M: ...
M: Yeah.
M: *pays and leaves*
What the hell. This makes me question whether I should even try leaving home anymore.
And just today my teamlead asked me how my work on improving my soft skills is going.
(The above conversation would answer that question better than anything) I said that it's going fine, but I find it very hard to answer questions that imply that I've done something wrong. He gave me a
generic but reassuring answer; at least now he knows it and perhaps he'll try asking these questions a bit differently.
08.04.2021
20:52 My camera has arrived!
The film they sent me expired in 2008. As for the camera itself, it's in pretty much mint condition. It has 4 fixed focal lenghts - 35mm, 45mm, 50mm and 60mm. This should be enough for most of my needs. A very
pleasant surprise is that the viewfinder actually zooms in when you change the focal length! I don't know why, but that was really unexpected for me.
I shot the entire roll today (in the usual place, the World Ocean Museum premises (*^_^*)). Of course, usually I will not be as wasteful as now, but I just wanted to test if everything works as expected. The film
roll is 24 frames long, but the camera let me shoot 26 for some reason - probably the last 2 shots are going to be double exposed, but who knows? Also the camera rewinded the film a bit too much and the entire film, including
the tip, is now in the cylinder - I hope it's not a problem for whoever gets to develop and scan it.
I like it how I have absolutely no idea how this is going to turn out. Perhaps the film is too spoiled and I will barely be able to see anything. Perhaps everything will be blurry. Perhaps the expired film will
give me the best colors I've ever seen on a photo. Only time will tell!
There's a photo shop that's about 5 minutes walk away from my office. The banner on their building says, among other things, "film developing", but their website doesn't mention it.. I'm going to drop by during
lunch break tomorrow and check -- I'll be very embarassed if they don't actually develop film...
07.04.2021
19:27 I suppose there might be less updates from now on as I really gotta start working on my thesis. Currently waiting for my film camera which, according to the shipping company's website, should arrive tomorrow.
I've noticed that on work, whenever I make mistakes and someone notices them, I start feeling really bad, as if I don't deserve to be there (I really don't) and only cause everyone else trouble.
My teamlead told me multiple times that everyone makes mistakes, himself included, but somehow I got this feeling that I'm the person
whose mistakes should not be tolerated at all.
I have no idea how I even made it through my 3 months long probationary period and managed to stay here for almost a year (10 months now).
05.04.2021
22:36 Something curious happened today. I have a Makise Kurisu keychain on my backpack.
So I was standing in the line in a supermarket, and there were these 2 girls standing behind me. They were chatting joyfully (I wasn't listening), and then one of them says, "excuse me, is that Makise Kurisu on
your backpack?". Of course I was flushed and confused. I replied with "yeah, I'm pleased that you know her" and they replied with "yeah, we're pleased too". Great conversation skills! I packed my groceries and left. Interesting.
04.04.2021
22:02
I don't think I ever shared it here; here's my only piece of art ever that I'm proud of.
20:57 I was passing through a local flea market today. 90% of goods there are clothes, mechanical and electronical parts, cassette tapes/vinyl discs and German/Soviet antiques; there were, however, some pieces of old
tech that would be nice to have, including cameras (film/digital) and cell phones. I'm not sure if they all are in working conditions though; some of them definitely don't look so. Anyway, I didn't have any cash with me
- perhaps I should withdraw some and return there.
"Selfies".
This cherry tree is close to blooming; the buds look rather large already.
03.04.2021
23:51 Today's Copa Del Rey final game was a bit boring. The only goal was from a penalty kick, and I hate it when final games are decided by penalties.
But hey, it was the Basque Derby, after all! Gora Euskadi! 
Even though I support Athletic a bit more than Real Sociedad, I'm still glad that a Basque team
is the winner. Despite it being a penalty, Sociedad definitely looked better, so the end result reflects the game fairly well. And hey, Athletic will have another chance in two weeks, even if against Barcelona itself.
The biggest disappointment is, of course, the fact that even though the teams were determined to play in front of the crowd (and they even delayed the game by a year for this!), the seats were empty. I can only imagine
the wonderful atmosphere of Basque brotherhood that would have permeated the stadium. Ultimately, it's not even a derby, it's a friendly footbal fest.
20:47 A little trip today. Didn't really snap a lot of pics because it was more like a guided excursion organised by the college my dad works for (they allowed the teachers to bring their family members, and I thought
"why not").
Anyway, here are: a truck, a German church turned Orthodox, remnants of a railroad, and kitties.
Most importantly, a figure of my lovely, sweet, tender, beautiful Moeka has finally arrived! She'll be living in font of my screen from now on, and we will be happy together.
02.04.2021
23:22 I miss gaming and reading. Recently the only things I've been doing are working, procrastinating, working on this website, practicing Japanese and occasionally walking. Time is not as much of an issue as the lack of energy. Doing physical exercises doesn't help; I'm still feeling both mentally and physically tired.
23:30
01.04.2021
18:11 Recently I've picked up a habit of listening to Japanese news in the background; I've read some clever lad's article saying that it might come in handy on one's way toward proficiency and fluency, even if you hardly understand anything. Let's see if it works for me. I'm not really concentrating on it as I find it very hard (one of the reasons I don't listen to audiobooks - I can't do anything else when I'm listening to them), but it feels nice to catch some words or even phrases that I recognize from speech.