guitar player's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Western Red Cedar
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

@gp - I don't comment on your journal much but I'm always excited to read your updates. I'm thoroughly impressed by your wide range of projects - particularly your educational pursuits while working. The projects seem to have a nice balance between the practical, artistic, physical and intellectual. Keep up the good work and keep on writing!

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thank you very much @WRC, glad to know that I am not the only person getting something out of this journal! It is motivating to read your kind words.
_______________________________________________________________________________

The world is getting back to life on this hemisphere, we went for a walk and found some food as posted here.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 17/52

Reading

Finished 'So Good they can't ignore you' by Cal Newport. I found the style somewhat annoying, but overall got something from this book. I am reading 'Deep work' now. Where I live is like Jung's tower he describes; maybe that's why I keep on rocking it with Maths and Stats at the same time managing a bunch of other things.

'Handbook for New Stoics' by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez - a chapter a week.

Uni

Finished all the standard material for this academic year. Going through revisions. Got some chapters for next year's modules to have a head start. Exams in the second week of June. Was emailing with my applied maths tutor who encouraged me to do more applied maths. Mentioned that coding+strong maths skills is very rare and yields 'top dollar'. Made me think about @mathiverse.

I feel like I have learned some things! it took 2000h+ so far.

Got enrolled into the last four modules, still awaiting funding result but this should be straightforward.

Stoic exercises

'Keep your peace of mind in mind' - I did manage to keep in mind to be cool.

Next week - 'Cut out busyness' - well this will go hand in hand with 'deep work'.

Work

Nothing new on this front, other than I sent an application for a summer research internship in the field of bioinformatics.

Holidays


I have been to work for two days so far after holidays, easy peasy, I feel refreshed. After the June holidays, I have used up all but three or four days of my annual leave, so if we somehow decide to stay where we are now, we will have a long stretch of working!

Nothing booked for the June holidays yet.

Health


I did some more burpee tracking with a current burpee-pushup-jump record of 12:07. I think I will stop at it and not push further, but anyway find timing them a good habit so might continue it for a while longer.

Property

I have contacted a solicitor who will be happy to do the paperwork for us. Set up a couple of filters to get offers to my inbox. Many seemingly nice looking properties in our price range, mostly one bedroom with a common area (most often garden or drying green) where it'd be possible to keep bicycles.

Still wondering if buying from afar will prove a good strategy. Difficult to process paying £500-700+ /month for renting when I could be paying closer to 150-200£ / month for mortgage installments. Perhaps renting anywhere in the commuter area for at least a few months. Have to get rid of the silly idea that once we give up these jobs we will not get new ones for a good while and hence will be ruled out from the with-mortgage-property market.

Gardening

With the view of leaving, we reduce our gardening operation this year. We are going to mostly grow quick crops, thinking lettuce. A head a day keeps the doctor away and where we live the cooks always under-order if it comes to greens.

So I need to go and weed the patch before the weeds flower.

General

I feel excited about where life's gonna lead DW and I! Also, DW is gaining traction with her courses, I am happy for her. I helped her with maths, some explaining and going through her assignments, the IT assignments she does herself also scoring well. So we are talking that the next few years we will develop careers, something interesting that we are good at. The last few years seem to have been lots about personal development and getting to know each other (real well). And non-money-making skills, sort of applied ERE perhaps.

Nice that you stopped by.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 18/52

Reading

Finished 'Deep work' by Cal Newport, reading 'A world without email'. 'Deep work' was well written, I like the style better than 'so good they can't ignore you'.

'Handbook for New Stoics' by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez - a chapter a week.

Uni

I had a revision on climate change for my applied statistics course. Medical statistics, time series, multivariate analysis and Bayesian stats.

The Uni I am doing is a distance learning uni with long history of distance learning. Somehow I have come across the OU's BBC television series that was a supplement to the predecessor of the 'graphs, networks and design' course I will be taking in October. The videos are from 1981, I love them! We started watching them with DW as an equivalent of TV series.

Stoic exercises

'Cut out busyness' - this was strongly echoed by Cal Newport's 'Deep work'. I tried not to check my inbox too much.

Work

I got a 'no' answer re a research bursary with my uni. I also casually applied for a summer internship with a bank, but sadly also got a 'no' after their initial tests. I failed this because I did not give them exactly the answers they wanted regarding their values and and work mindset.

Still waiting for a response regarding a bioinformatics summer internship with one professor from my uni.

The job advert for a unit manager at my place has a deadline 17th of May, I aim to apply for it.

I think I have some big news re the assistant statistician post! Got a message that I have been selected for appointment, but they are still awaiting confirmation re the business area I would be assigned to. They did use a phrase that makes me wary to be too happy about it, i.e. wrote that while the they do the matching I will be placed on their reserve list, and after matched will be issued with an email to begin formal verification checks etc. So I hope it will not turn belly up, would be really nice to get this post.

Holidays

We need to get those tickets for the June holidays.

Health

Fit as a fiddle.

Property

Slowed down on this front. Also, at the moment it is a bit conditional on that statistician post I wrote about above, where it would be. They do write though that they don't mind much people working from home.

Gardening

DW got a bag of compost from our gardener.

I single dug our patch, good 3h exercise! We planted mostly greens. We are currently harvesting purple sprouting broccoli.

Thanks for reading!

____________________________________________________________________________-
Note to self: regression in the service of ego as a mental model for operating from yellow down. unconscious material appears conscious and is applied as required / appropriate.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 19/52

Reading

Finished 'A world without email' by Cal Newport. There is some noticeable progression with his writing style compared to previous works. Reading 'The Formula' by Albert Laszlo Barabasi. He's a physicist and professor of network science. I once almost took one of his classes but there was no space anymore.

'Handbook for New Stoics' by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez - a chapter a week.

Uni

Got all my assignments marked, all in good order. Currently reviewing statistical theory.

Stoic exercises

Week 20: 'Speak little but well' - a few times when chatting with DW I said 'okay I shut up now'. DW spoke more.

Next week: 'choose your company well'.

Work

I got an interview invite regarding a bioinformatics summer internship with one professor from my uni. This is a 10 week long virtual internship, I could do it alongside the job I have now as the workload is equal to that of my uni and the internship would take place in the summer holiday. I look forward to having this interview, they suggested next Tuesday but I am not available so suggested alternative time slots.

I also applied for the unit manager job advert at my place.

Still waiting to hear about department assignment for the assistant statistician position, and starting time. This is my preferred choice now and will most likely materialize, great! If they ask me for my preferred starting date, I might try to see if I can manoeuvre it so that I could potentially do the above mentioned bioinformatics internship before starting this post. That all being said, I haven't signed anything yet so treat this post as a 'maybe'.

Maypole dancing

Like every year, we will hold Maypole Dancing this month; I have some music sheets, will be strumming alongside accordion, fiddle and maybe a drum.

Holidays

We got tickets for the June holidays, there and back. Now we need to populate the two weeks. We normally travel with carry on only but this time got a piece of registered luggage. I am taking my rucksack with a tent and camping gear, we plan on camping in the Alps and visit family.

Foraging/gardening

There are some shoots on our patch in the garden but we don't know what it is as we planted more or less at random. I think it is either raddishes or lettuce. Got some more purple sprouting broccoli today.

We found first St George's mushrooms of this season.

If we move to a city, I might miss this or will need to figure out how to continue in some shape or form.

Thanks for reading!

NewBlood
Posts: 182
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 3:45 pm

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by NewBlood »

Hi guitarplayer,
I just finished reading your journal and have really enjoyed reading about your journey.

I'm sure you leave out a lot of details and I don't mean to romanticize your job, it sure sounds like a lot of hard work and like you don't really get along with some of your coworkers, but the way you describe your living arrangements, the setting, pace of life and mix of activities sounds very idyllic to me! That's a sweet setup you found!

I can see how the community living could get old and the need for a change though. Good luck with the choices and potential job opportunities!

Might not be relevant anymore, but for your DW's back problems while cycling, adding inline brakes on my road bike really helped me. I was about to give up on it and revert back to a hybrid, but this fixed all my back issues. It allows for a more vertical biking position when tired, and you can switch back and forth between the two sets of brakes as needed/desired. I also find it more effective to use inline brakes in steep downhills.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks @NewBlood!

Yep it is a really nice setup for those who want / are able to make most out of it. There are / were people who lived here but felt limited by the remoteness and traveled to a city or in a car somewhere every weekend, and on extended trips abroad every holiday. Aimlessly spending money and loosing out on the opportunity for development this place affords. Or for example, in the magnificent walled garden that is here, only after DW and I set a trend for asking a 6months/year contracted gardener if we can have a patch did a couple of other people ask for the same. I mean, it is a huge garden, the soil is perfect from decades of the community producing compost from over 100people's leftovers year round, south sloping, wildlife kept out. Generally, I can imagine this place thriving like no other, but over the last few years have realized that it is extremely difficult to direct community effort in one way or another. Like @jacob talks in many places about struggles or near impossibility of launching emergent behaviour of a community.

Yes, the work is hard sometimes and part of community living is seeking compromises with people around. I am very good at painting in whatever colour I want, or 'framing' in psychology parlance, and am mindful of it. But even when I sit down and think hard of different pros and cons, it is a great setup. I think the main trouble is that it is a very coupled system so if things went sideways, they would go sideways across the board. Which I think might be just the nature of a strongly interconnected system and something one signs up for when having their skin in the game.

Thanks for the advice re the bike, DW has already got inline breaks. I ended up getting her a fork stem extender for her birthday and this solved the issue. I think it is just the build of the particular model perhaps, suitable for certain body types. I know it is not the best to add an extra part that can break, but hey it works for now.

Yep there definitely seems to be the wind of change blowing! DW tells me that we can always come back to work here (which is true). Also part of me feels that leaving on a positive note, on good terms with the people here and without getting overly tired of the place would be good (from the point of view of later memories of the time here but also even from the point of view of returning later).

________________________________________________________________________________________________

2022 update 20/52

Reading

I am casually re-reading through Newport's works and thinking of putting down some notes. Also checked out about Agile, Scrum and Kanban techniques, there is this book 'Personal Kanban' that I am reading through the Open Library. Reading from there is always slow reading because on a laptop screen.

'Handbook for New Stoics' by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez - a chapter a week.

Uni

Reviewed Mathematical Methods, Models and Modelling. I am at the point where I recognize how someone who put together the course material was thinking when ordering the material to be learned. Pretty beautiful work.

Reviewing practical modern statistics now.

Stoic exercises

Week 21: 'Choose your company well' - at this point I am not really doing the exercises in the book, but the chapters serve me as an opportunity to reflect. Yes, some people I work with are not the company I would choose to mingle with if I had a choice, and I do choose not to spend time with them beyond what strictly necessary.

I am also very grateful for this forum with many people here being very high quality people. I still feel I am more a reader than a contributor on the forum, and perhaps sometime this will revert. I occasionally talk to family and some people at work about things I read here.

This week's exercise also fed into my soon to be made work choices. In my current low key role, I can easily choose not to mingle with people and harvest a lot of time for personal deliberation, contemplation, you name it. Co-workers, I just don't talk to them much if I don't wish to. People I care for? Some of them are non verbal, all of them cognitively at a rather basic level, so I can easily weave a nice simple chit-chat while thinking bigger thoughts in the background. This will change when I change jobs, so I will need to think hard what way I would like it to change.

Work

I did the interview regarding the bioinformatics summer internship, it went well. I am amazed how much different threads from the forum spill over to my job interviews (or life in general, because the forum is obviously part of my life, see 'choose your company well' above). Talking about complexity, design, strategy. In the interview, following the example from @WRC's journal, I was recommending Cal Newport's books to my future potential supervisor (she kind of asked for it!). This is a 10 week long virtual internship, I could do it alongside the job I have now as the workload is equal to that of my uni and the internship would take place in the summer holiday.

Waiting for the interview date for the manager post.

And also still waiting to hear about department assignment for the assistant statistician position.

Maypole dancing

It never happened because there was a suspected covid outbreak (false alarm). I wonder if we will manage it in May this year.

Holidays

A forumite recommended that DW and I do one mountain walk nearby lake Como in Italy, so I was booking trains and finding campsites yesterday. Nice! looking forward to it. It has been a while since the last time I had been booking transport, figuring out connections, finding places to stay; found it a bit frustrating. So much easier to grab a bike and cycle somewhere from one's doorstep, wild camping in remote areas like we do here in Scotland. Maybe something for me to keep in mind for the future.

Later we are going to do a bit of city hopping before visiting family.

Foraging/gardening

We are having some modest yield of stropharia mushrooms from our project one or two years back. This is great as it is now a zero maintenance project. Purple sprouting broccoli is still sprouting and there is already rocket to harvest.

Thanks for reading!

ETA 27 May 2022: Today by chance, I have learned that residents of Scotland who earn below just over $31,000 / annum can have their part time studies funded in perpetuity. With the organization I study BSc in Maths and Stats now, full time also falls under the umbrella. I find this mindblowing. This means access to high quality tutors and materials to pursue any field at any one time. Next I might do a BA in Spanish!

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 21/52

Reading

I think I will need to slow down my readings now and do some exam prep for the three exams I have coming up in the next two weeks. That being said, I have nibbled on Personal Kanban and The Marshmallow Test, and I have a resolution to employ some simple tactics for work management from Newport's books (so that would mean revisiting them).

So easy to get interested in other stuff; Newport mentions Shannon's 'communication as information transfer' theory. I have first learned about Shannon's theory in my Communication and Interpersonal Psychology (or something like that) many years back, but the prof shrugged it off rather quickly in favour of some more 'psychological' theories. I remember that class finished with him talking about an all encompassing energy, pretty esoteric. Anyway, Shannon's theory makes a lot of sense from those bits I have read. Particularly heuristics can be seen as the way of mind to economize information transfer at risk of occasionally failing, but the failing being now more prevailing due to the large disparity between the 'world the body has been designed to live in' and 'the modern world we inhabit'.

'Handbook for New Stoics' by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez - a chapter a week.

Uni

I did a specimen paper for one exam, it went well. I am going to do two more mock exams today and tomorrow (for the remaining two courses), and then will base my review on doing old exams.

Stoic exercises

My sister queried about some philosophy books, I sent her some stoic titles.

Week 22: 'Roll with insults' - I think the red tape regarding personal conduct in public spaces is a useful thing and do not appreciate people throwing insults at each other when this can be avoided. That being said, I tend to do things my way and in this sense disregard critique based on ad persona ground. And with the people I work with, they have no sufficient cognitive capacity so sometimes there are insults being thrown around, so I am actually pretty well used to it.

Next week: 'don't speak about yourself'.

Work

No new developments.

Holidays

Yesterday I did a trial hike with DW, 24km with some incline and 15kg rucksack. I am pretty knackered today, but happy, like in this sense
theanimal wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:17 pm
This quote from the saling story Sky linked is related and stuck with me. The author (from 1932) talking about doing things yourself is key to a good life:

"Take travel. Allow yourself to be carried about the world in Wagon-Lits and cabins-deluxe, and what do you get out of it? You get bored to death. Everything is done for you and you don't even have to think. All you have to do is to pay. You're carried about with the greatest care and wrapped up and fed and insulated from everything. You see about as much of life as a suckling in the arms of its nurse. No wonder you get bored! But get yourself about the world, on your own feet, or in your own boat, and you're bound, you're bound to fill your life with interest and charm and fun and beauty. You'll have your disagreeable and uncomfortable times, of course, but they merely serve to make the good times taste better. "Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas ." Old Spenser knew. He'd been through it. Sail all day in the wet and cold, then bring up in some quiet harbour and go below and toast your feet before the galley fire and you'll realise what bliss means. Travel in a steam-heated Pullman and then put up at the Ritz and see if you find any bliss there! You see what I mean? Stewart Edward White put it all much better than I can. He wrote, "I've often noted two things about trees: the stunted little twisted fellows have had a hard time, what with wind and snow and poor soil; and they grow farthest up on the big peaks."
DW and I are deciding what to do upon our arrival to Italy:
* crash at a less interesting urban campsite around 5pm, get food and rest and then head for a two day hike in the mountains starting next day morning, or
* push through and hike about 20km on the first day starting about 5:30pm, arriving at a mountain campsite on the day of arrival at night (perhaps 10-11pm), then enjoy an extra day in nice scenery.

Foraging/gardening

DW wants to transplant some flowers she planted last year, but struggles to find time for it. I would just let them fight for survival, they seem to bloom anyway! Particularly we have some beautiful blue and pink lupins and lots of bumble bees around.

Thanks for reading!

__________________________________________________________________________
Note to self: poems in Spanish to recite to DW. It was an exploratory question; she chose Cortázar in a remarkable turn of events as Hopscotch was one of the landmark books of my teenage years.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 22/52

This week a quick one because I am busy with reviewing maths and stats.

Reading

I am reading The Marshmallow Test in the evenings. It is a good book, packed with recent psych findings, not only from social psychology but also neuro psychology, cognitive and so on.

'Handbook for New Stoics' by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez - a chapter a week.

Uni

I did one exam, will have one tomorrow and one on Tuesday.

Stoic exercises

Week 23: 'don't speak about yourself' - I generally don't, other than here, regular messages for my family and, well, to DW. So I scaled down talking about myself and my thoughts and ideas to DW, I think it played in my favour.

Next week: 'premeditate on encountering difficult people'. Maybe I will also re-read Cipolla's famous essay as the theme is along similar lines.

Thanks for reading!

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 23/52

This one's gonna be random because I am pretty tired!

Had my last exam today, went well. Then hanged around on the forum for a while, got my rucksack and went for a lovely 10 mile run to the pharmacy to get sun cream and insect repellent for our trip. We will be in the Alps (or is it pre-Alps with the view of Alps), hopefully on Thursday. Got a campsite not far from an astronomical observatory, so I check out their web cams occasionally.

Came back from the run, cleaned bathroom+kitchen, did some cooking, just now eating lentils and beans with marmelade and tahini. It's yummy and makes me think few people would mix it like this. But then maybe some would, because chickpeas+tahini=hummus is conventional and more or less close enough.

The statistician post people got back to me saying they will hopefully have a business area for me sometime in July. Sure I can wait, where I am at now is totally beautiful. In turn, the manager post people are lagging behind with paperwork, I am yet to see a date for the interview. And I will be away till the end of the month. No worries, no pressure. I might, with the statistician post in mind, invite DW for a wee sabbatical. If they told me now that they'd like me to start, say 1 Dec, we would probably take some time off. I will talk about it with DW when we are away.

I am watching videos from the predecessor of one course I will be taking in October. I love it, geeky professors in the 80s chatting with engineers about maths on screen.

Mostly I am pretty happy about being done with the exams. 4 h of concentrated effort for each one of them - this is Cal Newport's deep work. So basically scheduling oneself an exam-like work everyday. Man, I'd need to build stamina for this. I actually feel a bit like after running a marathon, and not only because of today's 10 mile run; had the same feeling after the previous two exams.

Grateful for so very many things in my life while they last.

So yes, I will be away until the end of the month, will probably log in on Wednesday 29 or Thursday 30 June.

Thanks for popping in!

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 24-25/52

Holidays

DW and I were away for two weeks on a trip with lots of moving parts and critical paths, and somehow it all worked out fine. We had a few days of hiking the Larian Triangle mountain range, hiking mostly on the ridge with a campsite bang in the middle. The first night we didn't make it to the campsite so had a cheeky wild camping night that earned us some beautiful views of the sunrise.

Image

Image

While camping, we had some time to explore the surroundings without all the gear. For example, one charming place we wandered into was Nesso.

Image

That area is generally beautiful. The mountains are not too high with the highest peak being Monte San Primo at 1681m, however there are fantastic views of the Alps while hiking.

After a few days of hiking we did a bit of city hopping visiting Verona and (again) Venice before heading to DW's family. Spent a few days with them, then some time with my folks. Temperatures were in high 30s (Celsius, other than when hiking high up), which initially was great but towards the end I was looking forward to returning to the Scottish cool.

We got back today. It was a very much needed break, very varied with quite a bit of physical exertion, some family time, pretty cities, two concerts, some hours reading in trains and buses, a night spent at an airport, a few moments when I got touched.

Reading

While on holidays, I re-read Enchiridion of Epictetus + read The Essential Confucius translated by Thomas Cleary who puts the Book of Change and (some of, I think) Analects side by side. I found it a good introduction to Analects. This was then followed by Seneca's 'On Providence', 'On Anger', 'Consolation to Marcia' (on grief) and 'On the Happy Life'.

I will catch up on Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics' in the coming days.

Maths and Stats

It is summer break until October. I have access to some material for the next year and will start working through it. Today I looked at time allocation for various topics. Also going to audit Coursera's 'R programming' with John Hopkins University as I will be using R next school year.

Gardening

The purple sprouting broccoli keeps on giving, there is also lots of lettuce and rocket. I went to harvest some for a meal after we came back today. Lots of weeds, we don't do 'no dig' in the garden as the gardener would not approve.

Glad to see that we haven't missed the strawberry and raspberry season! They will be ready in about a week or two.

Health

Wow, DW took some photos of me under a waterfall when on holidays. 200 burpees / day and the plant based diet got me a abs like never, nearly struggle to self-identify with the person on the photos. I guess it's good, but more happy about the fact that I can drag a 15-20kg rucksack over 15km+ trial with 1500m elevation change and an 700m initial incline instead of the morning coffee in order to catch a leisurely ferry at 11:30am.

theanimal
Posts: 2628
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:05 pm
Location: AK
Contact:

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by theanimal »

Great photos! That town looks lovely. Glad you guys were able to have a nice trip.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks! It was good, and needed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

The explorer's problem (the road is the destination): an explorer wishes to find a tour that traverses each route between a number of cities only once and returns to the starting point. Eulerian trial in an Eulerian graph.
The traveller's problem (the fisherman's tale): a traveller wishes to find a tour that visits each of a number of cities only once and returns to the starting point. Hamiltonian cycle in a Hamiltonian graph.

------------------

Today I used an excerpt from Hopscotch (Cortazar), this time text over whatsapp, not reciting. Got good feedback.

"Toco tu boca, con un dedo toco el borde de tu boca, voy dibujándola como si saliera de mi mano, como si por primera vez tu boca se entreabriera, y me basta cerrar los ojos para deshacerlo todo y recomenzar, hago nacer cada vez la boca que deseo, la boca que mi mano elige y te dibuja en la cara, una boca elegida entre todas, con soberana libertad elegida por mí para dibujarla con mi mano en tu cara, y que por un azar que no busco comprender coincide exactamente con tu boca que sonríe por debajo de la que mi mano te dibuja."

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 26/52

Job

I got a confirmation of the offer for the assistant statistician role! This is the biggest news this week, so I stick it in first. I have been initially assigned to deal with matters to do with national economics, which I will continue for about two years unless I will get a promotion before that (not unrealistic). I am chuffed and really look forward to the start date (TBC). Also, started to get ready already, reading various white and working papers on the subject.

With this, I conclude that I will likely be dropping my striving for the unit manager post at where I work now. Tomorrow will have a supervision with my current line manager so will discuss the matter.

Holidays

There is an unexpected follow up to our holidaying adventures. DW won two tickets for a Michael Buble's concert in England. None of us is a fan of Michael Buble, and for me it was perhaps the first time hearing the name. Also, travel to the site seemed a bit of a headache and time consuming. We both agreed that if not for the won tickets, none of us would consider going to the concert. However, DW seemed hooked on going (sunken cost fallacy? wow factor of attending a concert of a famous singer? showing her affection to me in inviting me?). Anyway, I said that I would go along if she had decided to go and invited me.

So, I got an invite and we went for the concert. That guy is a good musician and more importantly a good performer! A bit of a comedian, not treating himself too seriously. We had a good time. I liked the music too, as he sang quite a few songs from the Great American Songbook.

The round trip was 25h, including the concert itself and half a night spent waiting for the bus back home, getting familiar with the homeless people community in the city the bus was departing from, hah. The bus turned out to be 2.5h late as well. Luckily, I happened to read 'On the Shortness of Life' so made no fuss about it and supported DW who was slowly losing it.

Got back home this morning and just had a late morning 2h nap, now typing away here. It will be an experience to remember, for sure!

It costed about $100 total for two people. I want to tally up holiday expenditure and will include this sum in the earlier holiday total, I think.

Reading

I continue with Seneca, read 'On the Tranquillity of the Mind' and 'On the Shortness of Life'. Reading now 'Consolation to Helvia'. I am curious about the upcoming 'Natural Questions, Book 6: On Earthquakes’ that is coming after 'On Mercy'.

On Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 24: Premeditate on Encountering Difficult People - I did re-read a synopsis of Cipolla's essay and reflected on his categories. 'Acting stupid' is acting non-rationally and in this sense non-intelligently, or randomly. 'Stupid' can be found in each stratum of society when people choose to engage in activities where they lack intellectual apparatus to act rationally. One way of looking at the dimensions he proposes is the 'think' (harm/benefit to self) and 'feel' (harm/benefit to society or moral sentiment) where 'do' is an instantiation of the combination.

This coming week I will do:
Week 25: Deal virtuously with frustrating people (Have not read the chapter yet, but a wild guess - I might have managed it when joking with the bus driver after he's arrived 2.5h late, instead of getting cross with him)

ETA: Pigliucci and Lopez give this long list based on Marcus Aurelius, I am adding it in the journal here
Pigliucci and Lopez wrote: 1. We are all members of the human population, here to help each other.
2. Ask yourself why people do what they do, especially when they do wrong. Understanding their motivations goes a long way.
3. Nobody does wrong on purpose; no one wishes to be considered a bad person. People make mistakes, sometimes horrible ones, but they think they are doing right.
4. Don’t feel superior to others; you are just as fallible as they are.
5. Remember that you often don’t have sufficient knowledge of other people’s motivations or situations, so abstain from judgment.
6. Keep in mind that you are mortal, and that human life is brief. Whatever bothers you, it will not last long.
7. What causes us to lose serenity is not what other people do, but our opinions of what they do, and our opinions are within our power.
8. Often, by being sore about things, we cause more damage to ourselves than those things caused damage to us.
9. Do your best to correct others, but gently and without irony, and for the right reason, not just to show off.
10. Don’t expect people not to do wrong, because that is foolish. But do not allow them to hurt others, if it is in your power to stop them, because that’s your duty as a human being.
They say to choose three that resonate most and incorporate in the week. I find it hard to disentangle the ten points though.

Week 26: Turn Difficulties into opportunities.

ETA: reframing challenging situations (1) rationally: how the best case scenario will turn me into a better person? the worst case scenario? why bother doing it at all?; (2) emotive: find encouraging words, eg the British 'keep calm and carry on', Seneca's 'it doesn't matter what you bear, but how you bear it'.

Maths and Stats

I started learning about graphs (as you have gathered from my earlier post). Fascinating stuff, like learning how to speak yet again, in yet another language. I will likely wrap up the available material by the end of the month.

A kind forumite offered their mentoring in learning R, so I am dropping the idea of doing the Coursera course and will do (for starters, likely starting in August) some of

https://software-carpentry.org/lessons/ - for intro to R and Unix,
https://r4ds.had.co.nz/ - for R in Data Science.

I have two other statistics modules that I will be reviewing after that and before the beginning of October.

Gardening

Strawberries are here! And tons of them, we will be freezing many. Raspberries ready soon.

Purple sprouting broccoli has a great combination of characteristics:
* One of few veggies that will be ready spring time after winter frosts,
* Harvesting it every few days feels like foraging,
* Cruciferous / brassica - this food is good for you,
* Tastes deceptively sweet and delicious raw, just snap a sprout!

Radishes are poorly this year. Carrots are growing fine.

There are rats in the communal compost. Yet another argument for a whole food plant-based diet and generally not wasting food - rats are not interested in fruit and veg peals, but they love meat and fish bits, fatty food residue, processed grain such as old mouldy bread stuck in the compost etc. Also, perfectly good cooked leftover foods such as veggies and grains, morning porridge leftovers etc. Feast for rats in the compost? Make it a feast for yourself on the table!

Health

I will look forward to some downtime next week or two after lots of travelling and variable sleeping pattern. But generally fine. By the way we were setting a diet example for our family when visiting them, they now eat more whole food plant based. This is good, two family members are overweight/bordering obese, so might play out to their benefit (and our benefit down the line as one of them is an elderly person we will likely end up caring for in some capacity).

My dad is retiring in a few months with a relatively nice defined benefit person as I have learned; He is now determined to live a very long life to rake as much retirement as possible, ha! This is not out of the blue, he lost perhaps 20-30lb in the last year or two; he might just make it how he wants it. Some correlates are in place, still married to his first wife and seemingly happily so, daily movement in the form of a ¬1h walk, got hold of his weight, regular medical check-ups. We will wait and see.

_____________________________________________________________________

The takeaway message is that things are going well; I cherish the moment while it lasts (even standing in the cold for half a night waiting for a bus with grumpy homeless folk around) and embarking on a new journey (statistician) in a true ERE style (if I may)!

Thanks for stopping by!
Last edited by guitarplayer on Sun Jul 10, 2022 3:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

ertyu
Posts: 2893
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by ertyu »

really cool to hear that the stats learning is resulting in new opportunities. congrats!

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks @ertyu! Yes, I remember we were having an exchange about it at the beginning of my course nearly two years back. It feels satisfying to see the 'if x then y' progression from putting time into studying to starting this new adventure, but I am aware that in many ways it was also luck.

Frugalchicos
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Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:23 pm
Contact:

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Frugalchicos »

Hey, congrats on your new job! Also, those are some incredible pics!

Perhaps I missed it but are you Scottish with Italian background?

mathiverse
Posts: 788
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by mathiverse »

Frugalchicos wrote:
Fri Jul 08, 2022 12:27 pm
Perhaps I missed it but are you Scottish with Italian background?
guitarplayer wrote:
Fri Jun 10, 2022 2:44 pm
DW and I agreed long ago that in my ramblings on the Internet I'll refer to us as an EU citizen and a South American citizen, so I'm gonna stick with it.

Western Red Cedar
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Congratulations on the new job. It is pretty exciting to go to work and learn something new most days. Nesso and the mountains look idyllic. Thanks for sharing!

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks @Frugalchicos and @WRC! I hope for a good momentum in skill learning with that new job; will also be formally learning via uni. But I also prepare for some worse case scenarios! Yep, I keep nationality private as per @mathiverse's comment. But I've been to Scotland for quite a few years now and it became close to what one could call home.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2022 update 27/52

Job

I withdrew my application for the unit manager at my place. I have been waiting for two months to hear back since submitting my application, and at this point do not feel I could do the interview with a genuine intention of going for the post. After my supervision last week, I sense that there is a general change in the running of the place that comes together with a new general manager in charge the last few months.

Re statistics, I am waiting to hear more about specific site I would be attached to (there are multiple sites) and to what extent WFH is tolerated (I gather it is widely tolerated). These will be important for my relocation decision making. I might just try to be a digital nomad for a while!

Reading

Seneca, still on 'Consolation to Helvia'. We had a few days away last week and I have been pursuing my maths and stats head start plan instead.

On Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

I did
Week 25: Deal virtuously with frustrating people. From the points from last week, I was mostly forgetful of

4. Don’t feel superior to others; you are just as fallible as they are.
8. Often, by being sore about things, we cause more damage to ourselves than those things caused damage to us.

I feel I was pretty on the ball with the other points.

Week 26: Turn Difficulties into opportunities.

I practiced using both rational and emotive strategies.

Next week it is going to be:
Week 27: Act the opposite of anger.

Stoicism filtering down via experiential learning, I ken it more and more. At this point I think of it as I think of guitar playing - a lifelong pursuit. Unless I go out of my mind, that is. I am going to continue with Confucius in due course as well, thanks @jacob.

I found this website with well-structured looking material on stoicism. It might be my next slow cooker stoic project. There is even a 12-month learning programme incorporated in the website, might take it on in 2023.

Obviously with my strong P, I imagine 20 years down the line, after a career in statistics, to retire to some humble teaching position in a countryside somewhere and running a 'stoic philosophy' interest circle with my students / pupils.

Due to subjects I now formally study, I looked again at the field of 'field theory' or 'topological and vector psychology' of Kurt Lewin. But I am not sure I will have time to read his stuff anytime now but might try. Here is a compilation of articles of the 'applied psychology' nature, and Field Theory in Social Science is an attempt to put together his theoretical apparatus. I never read the source text but found the ideas appealing when doing my psych degree.

ETA: OK I read the first 20 page article from the first book, 'some social-psychological differences between the United States and Germany (1936)'. It's written in Frankl style, a rather quick read. I might give it a go with the other articles. I suspect the second (theoretical) book is denser.

Maths and Stats

I finished the first book on graphs and networks, and now reading the first book on design. Thinking about multidimensional spaces feels horizon broadening. After I am done with this book, I will start prep for the applied statistical modelling.

Gardening

We put minimum effort this year, basically sowing seeds. Now we just reap the benefits.

DW got a tomato plant, but it's for indoors since we have no greenhouse and outside is too cold for it.

Health

Carry on 200 burpees/day, cold showers. Went for a 15km walk to the health centre with DW for her blood tests yesterday morning. I wanted to go with 10kg+ in my rucksack, but in the end was too lazy and opted for a leisurely walk. I still would like to regularly (weekly) go out with a packed rucksack and hike to get joints and tendons used to the type of activity more (thanks for writing about it in the VO2max thread @mountainfrugal, good to keep in mind).
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
copy-compare-compile---|apprentice---|developing skills, aware of skills to be learned.
compute-------------------|journeyman--|competent and capable of standard tasks, needs support with non-standard tasks
coordinate-----------------|master-------|broadening the field, copes with non-standard problems, little or no guidance (expert)
create----------------------|expert--------|can also be in the role of a coach / mentor (innovator)

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