Hi comrades and welcome to the fifth improvement megathread of March!
This is the last day of the month so we can do a monthly review in addition to the weekly review.
Here are some ideas for discussion but feel free to talk about other stuff as well:
- How was your March? Feel free to post your Ws or Ls.
- Do you want to share something that you've done this week?
- Do you have any plans or goals for next week?
- What would you like to accomplish or improve in April?
Poster caption: We are for peace!
Wishing everybody a great April! 
My goal this month was to start running again and eat at maintenance so that I have enough energy. I went running on 6 days and hit my nutrition goals on most days. I'm currently around 74kg which is good but I'd like to lose some more body fat. Overall I'm satisfied with my progress in March.
In April, I want to continue running 2x per week and continue eating healthy
roll call:
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know
Arm technique:
[v] German grip, 16th note grid. One motion get two strokes for three beats and then one motion get three strokes for three beats. RRLLRRLLRRLL RRRLLLRRRLLL: 60-100 BPM.
[v] German grip, sextuplet -> 16th note grid. One motion get three strokes each hand for three measures and then one measure of slower doubles. RRRLLL RRRLLL RRRLLL RRRLLL ...etc RRLL RRLL RRLL RRLL:
[v] German grip, One motion, three strokes for long time. 90BPM RRRLLL RRRLLL RRRLLL RRRLLL
[v] Traditional grip. Ratamacues in 9. 3 minutes @ 50, 3 minutes @ 55.
[v] Traditional Grip. Single Stroke Exercise 60 bpm. 32nd notes RLRL R L RLRL R L RLRL R L RLRL R R LRLR L R ...and so on.
Foot technique:
[v] Ankle on ground. Practice motion of ankle technique on ground.
[v] Ankle off ground. Same but off ground.
[v] Use only big toe on pedal to get better at controlling rebound.
[v] Heel down on ground 60, 10 clean
Groove Studies:
[v] Rhythm Scale Benny Greb app. 50 bpm 10 mins. 2 sets for 20 mins total.
[v] Benny Greb Gap Click app. 16th Note Grid, just come up with shit and shed stuff you can't do, creative. 60 BPM
[v] Gap Click swing @80bpm. Creative.
[v] Gap Click 16th note funk @70. Creative.
Listening/Ride Cymbal:
Paul Chambers: "No Blues", "Unit 7" "Four on Six" from Wes Montgomery and Wynton Kelly "Smokin' at the Halfnote"
[v] Listen to Recordings, play with recordings, take notes.
Been going to the gym lately.
That's it.
I'm going to have the stomach to go to a TTRPG game at the gaming place nearby.
Just gotta. I'm sick of my current friends, tbh.
Gotta turn this depressive episode around.
I'm on day 3 of practicing for front splits. Definitely still at the point where I'm wondering how is this humanly possible, but I think I have a solid plan and routine that seems reasonably easy to follow. Hoping I can achieve it somewhere in the next 6 months, but if it takes a year, well that's fine too, I'm determined.
Idk if this is the best place for this but after some serious mental health issues, an attempt at doing mobile app development, an attempt at writing, and unofficially giving up on getting a job, I think I decided I am gonna try to finally get into web development for real. I did really good with it in school(probably top in my class) and I just don't think I have what it takes to be an app developer. I am more of a visual person and web development has a lot of instant gratification in that regard.
Also I tend to really enjoy doing it.
What kept me away from getting back into it was that I thought everything was moving towards React or another JS framework or people were paying peanuts for their nephew that is good with computers to make a WordPress site with a free theme and such. Also I get decision paralysis as it is and it seems like every 3 weeks a new framework comes out. I have decided on a language or a stack in the past just to turn around and have some programming nerd say "why aren't you using dogFast.js instead for this or that?" Then I end up looking into dogFart.js and then shutdown. To fix this I decided to pick a framework and will mostly stick to it, but with a small caveat or 2.
The gameplan is that I am gonna focus on learning the ins and outs of React until I feel confident, and then if I end up feeling like moving to Nextjs is logical, I will probably go that route. But I'm not planning on building anything super heavy any time soon so React is probably good for me for now. I like the idea that Next is essentially full stack React in a nice package but I don't really even know the stack yet.
I wanna focus on static sites mostly and try to get into freelance and React can do SSG, but it's overkill. Next can do SSG and a little better but it's also overkill. I was looking at Gatsby but then saw some people talking about Eleventy and Astro. After messing a bit with Gatsby and then Astro, I decided I wanna learn Astro. The idea is that I will probably mostly be doing Astro for static sites and hone my React skills for if I end up doing dynamic stuff. But there is another bonus. Astro is a SSG, and it's really easy and so far nice to play with(also if you know HTML, CSS, and JS, you basically know Astro) but it has what they call "Islands" that allow for drop in code like React, JS/TS, Alpine, etc. And you can make a page that can actually handle all of them and play together. It seems to be basically a right tool for the job approach while still being basic web page stuff.
I have a course for React I am gonna try to finish up this week and 3 or 4 I am trying to decide on next. I am halfway through the Astro tutorial from the docs and it's been a blast. I have another tutorial lined up just to drill some stuff home, and then I plan on working on a few sites just to play around.
Gonna try to stick to this plan while casually applying for jobs. I have potentially 2 or 3 people that might be wanting a website made and I can use that to fill out a portfolio.
Just hope I don't burn out though.
Went through the motions for a few days and went 2-3 days without really working out.
Haven't been getting great sleep, so that doesn't help, but there a certain circumstances around that that I can't control.
Also haven't been running because the temperature has dropped again and we've had rain around.
Past two days have finally been nice, but the laziness has caught on a bit. I did workout after work yesterday though so I hope to get back on track.
Dating endeavors continue. Today is my first time getting flowers for someone! We'll see how it goes. I have been doing an ok job of scheduling all of these doctors appointments I need to go to. Areas of life where I have not been doing so good are: doing paperwork for my job so I'm not extremely overwhelmed when I have to do it all at once. Also: working out more consistently.
