Hello comrades and welcome to the second improvement megathread of December! 
I hope your December is going great so far! How was your week? Any plans for next week?
Poster caption: "300 Years Since Reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Our Strength is in Brotherly Friendship!"
Good luck with your goals! 
My goal this month is to try to relax and enjoy the vibes. For me that's harder than running 5 kilometres. I started reading a Christmas short story collection.
LPT: If you're in the Northern Crackersphere you might look into taking Vitamin D supplements since it's winter.
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Am I reading this correctly, if my forearms and my face aren't exposed (and also I don't go outside at all most days), I should be eating vitamin D supplements? Where do I get these and what is an IU?
Yeah if you're not getting at least 15 minutes of sunlight on your skin daily, you should take supplements. You can buy them in a pharmacy or order online.
IU means international units, that's the measuring unit for vit D. You can buy it in pills or a dropper form. So for example if one pill contains 1000 IU of vit D, you can take 2 pills per day.
It's safe to consume, I take 5000 IU every day during winter. I also take a magnesium supplement in order to increase absorption of vit D. I did a blood test a few years ago and found that I'm deficient in vit D. It's one of the most common deficiencies in the world. I've managed to get to normal levels by sunbathing and supplementing.
Goals for Dec
- Strength training 3x weekly. Can slip just have this target. Mon / weds / fri mornings
- cardio on other days, even 20 mins counts but this shall be separate to the steps goal
- join a gym for a row machine. I know which one already. Go twice a week. This does not count as strength training for goal purposes since I need to shape. Does count for cardio and reps = steps.
- average 12000 steps (current 11k, excluding cycling which I do a lot). Reps of the row machine shall count as steps. 1 hour cycling shall equal 6000 steps, but we shall cycle fast. Be active daily.
- read 1 book just for fun / leisure, preferably in Spanish but English is ok. Any length is ok.
- weigh 85kg by dec 31 regardless of Xmas feasting (1kg net loss). If I don’t hit this, then only fruit for munchies and 100% sober and vegan throughout January.
- 1 music concert
- 2 dinners with friends, excludes Xmas dinners, NYE, & dates
- visit dentist
- find a new ADHD shrink because current one is too hard to get appointments with
- book a therapist for any next available date
- go to 1 social mixer where I don’t know anyone, of any type, from meetup or facebook or whatever any of those meetup sites
On any day except Sunday, if I don’t achieve or meaningfully move towards at least one goal, I must not smoke weed.
On any day I smoke weed, I must prep a fruit salad and popcorn for munchies. No cheese, pizza, nor ice cream when stoned.
Except as noted this is mostly my current monthly routine but stepping up a little in some areas.
Specifics would be dentist, I should start therapy, gym for row machine because I want to try that, and committing to at least 1 social mixer.
Systemic fatigue from a month with no rest days starting to pile up
Making a ton of re-newbie gainz and quickly slimming down and getting toned, but at what cost
My sleep is fucked and I need to work on my diet, not eating enough veggies and fruits and have been focusing on hitting roughly a gram per pound of goal bodyweight and drinking a ton of protein shakes and uh
gross
good lord, the farts
I'm disgusted by myself sometimes
Also
nicotine
Smoking relapse got bad
Need to quit again
Have a vape and zyn and I'll quit buying cigs after this pack, I swear
Physical health overall improving with a ton of gym time and overall good diet, mental health is ehhhh
Gonna try to reconnect with some old friends
Kinda fell off the face of the earth for the most part and I'm very lonely and not doing great mentally
Kinda fell off the face of the earth for the most part and I'm very lonely and not doing great mentally
Can voice chat, text, or DM if you want a buddy
That's very kind of you
I might take you up on that later but I'm kinda trying to focus on refuckulating my irl shit currently and have a lot of spinning plates to handle
Want to get back into playing/practicing music
Have some pieces I want to learn, but I know I'll get really frustrated with the period of knocking the rust off and relearning technique and trying to keep good time at tempo and I lack patience for playing badly and just get pissy and want to quit when I get mad at myself for sloppiness and perfectionism
roll call
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
@TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net
@LGOrcStreetSamurai@hexbear.net
@Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know
Welcome to the based department, we are happy to have you!
Let us know if you want to share some of your improvement goals
The Based Department seems to have a couple new faces. Right on!
So far my productivity streak is not going well. I'm having trouble sleeping, which is tanking my performance really hard. On the bright side, I'm learning about algorithms used in medical ultrasound; here is a picture I made by simulating the signal on my computer (basic DAA beamforming with 50 elements plus phased array beam steering, 1 MHz):
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Edit: sorry, looks bad on phone.
Some structures are pretty well outlined, but there's still lots of noise. Modern ultrasound machines use MVDR beamforming and other cool tricks, which I would like to implement in my next prototype. Needless to say, I prefer working on this over actual productive work :)
Certified ass week. At least I walked almost 4 days. Did some laundry. Hung out with some friends 1 day. Wasted 2-3 days jerking off. Had a pretty successful conversation with the landlord. I’m still standing.
Took PTO and got back on track. Went to the gym 5 of the 7 days I took off and now 6 of the last 8 including today.
I usually complain about going to the gym in the cold, but I honestly didn't even feel it so much thanks to the small investment I made into getting some baselayer clothing. Didn't even go in my heaviest coat.
Knee has gotten better after I tested it a bit midweek. Did a full leg day today. Feeling good
I usually complain about going to the gym in the cold, but I honestly didn't even feel it so much thanks to the small investment I made into getting some baselayer clothing.
I think people neglect the importance of proper equipment in building disciplines. Just having really solid basics (a good pair of shoes, a nice jacket, a good set of paint brushes or whatever) can really help you making the building of a habit easier. Not to say that special gear or equipment is needed exactly, but having good basics probably is a big help
I got a new job, I start next month! I have two major projects at my current job, next month, guess who is not doing them?
Technique:
[ ] RLRRL 65bpm Scale 8 triplets 16ths 5mins x 2
I can play this now. The double right is tricky.
[ ] KRKR 140 5min x2
I feel like I'm close to being done with this, well see because I might not be coordinated enough to go into the 180-200 bpm range. I don't know how to explain it but 120-140 the leg needs to do more of an ankle stomp whereas 140+ you're using the calf muscle more.
Brush Groove:
The click happens on every 1 of every one or two bars.
[ ] 15 @ 15bpm
[ ] 15 @ 30bpm
[ ] 5 @ 20bpm
[ ] 5 @ 10bpm
The last two I'll start investing more time into later. Playing the + of 4 is hard on brushes.
Groove:
Same thing as brushes but on sticks. The goal is to stay perfectly in time and orchestrate the figures in different ways.
[ ] 15 bpm w Ted Reed pg 38 20mins
[ ] 15bpm 2 feel ted reed 10mins
Transcription:
On the B section. Nothing hard, just memorizing language, tempo feel.
[ ] Art Pepper - Imagination AP Chorus 1;28
Active Listening:
[ ] suggsted albums
Tune Learning:
Almost done with this tune, its pretty easy.
[ ] Darn That Dream
Things have been equally good and bad for me this week.
The good
- It's finals week and I'm likely going to get straight A's. Returning to a Community College to fix my GPA to get my master's has been a difficult but worthwhile journey.
- Been pirating a lot of computer programming to help get my interview/programming skills up. Need to find a new job.
- Been working out out five to six times a week. I really want to be shredded for once in my life, My plan is to be objectively hot by this time next year
- Been reading. Both real-ass books like bell hook's "Will to Change" and nerd-ass books like Stephen King's "IT".
- Been gaming. Having a great time with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and some smaller 2D indie games off itch.io
The bad
- My social circle seems to be retracting, not hearing back from people
- The cold of winter is coming and my loneliness is really flaring up.
- Still can't seem to met a solid group of people I can really plug into. Don't get me wrong having online weirdos in my computer box is cool, but I really want to develop a meaningful social life.
- Still unemployed
- Still haven't found a solid framework for consistency regarding my game development efforts. I'll do an hour here an hour there. Even a big burst out of the blue, but I don't have the sort of every day discipline to show up for this hobby.
