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log date: 2022-05-17
May. 17th, 2022 11:16 pmOh man, it's been a hot moment since I've updated my blog. Thing's have been insanely busy lately and I'm still trying to keep up with everything. So I'm gonna try and give a rundown of why I've been away for as long as I have.
Arguing and trying to persuade various linux distros todo my bidding work properly
This was a massive challenge. I had been using Kubuntu since February at this point, and it was working great for the most part! I had kde, everything was perfect. Except my nvivida drivers didn't want to install, OR update. This was a bit of a problem because I'm a bit of a gaming nerd. So, my beloved Arin came over to help me sort things out. We decided on Pop_Os, because of it touting wonderful hybrid graphics integration. Things went well for about 3 hours. And then they didn't. While transferring my files over into my archives, my laptop died, and it almost bricked my external hard drive. Yikes.
So we got that sorted, and the install to Pop_Os was easy enough. But. It just didn't want to cooperate with me, none of my apps would work (mostly notable, my markdown editor of choice). It didn't help that Pop_Os is extremely bloated, with it's custom theming running gnome, even when I switched to KDE. It was tiring, it was awful, it couldn't detect my screen resolution at all and made things super difficult to work without either a) getting frustrated and upset, so holding off on creative works or b) trying to find work around, failing to find a work around, repeat step a. over and over again.
By day two, I was having none of it. So I pack up my data all over again, Pop took around 2 DAYS to get everything ready (on top of it all, it only got the desktop items, not the document items, but I do a lot of recursive data storage so no worries there, thankfully).
And then I moved to Arch. Yep. I figured if I was already torturing myself I may as well make it worth the experience, and time, it took to actually do it. It took me a few days to figure out a plan of action, choosing a distro, and getting everything set up. So now I'm running Archcraft, which is a fantastic distro and has given me 0 issues so far, works for gaming, and has good documentation with the archwiki. And I couldn't be happier. I'm now going to stay away from heavy computer working for the next thousand years, thanks. Never distro hopping again.
I've been going to therapy
Been taking the time to get my brain resorted out, figuring out how best to work things. My healthcare team has a really good therapist I've been seeing for a few weeks now, and it's really nice to actually have a therapist work with you instead of just handing you worksheets and not doing anything worthwhile. When you find a good therapist, it makes such a massive difference.
I've been less anxious all around, especially with going outside by myself. I've been working on the panic attacks, and I've been working on actually learning how to sleep properly. It's been refreshing, and working with what I have is a lot more helpful than trying to change fundamental parts of my brain (see: the constant sensory overload that is life)
I've read a bunch of books
Right? It's crazy to be honest, but I've been reading a LOT lately. So I think I should make a list on what I've read in the past few weeks!
- The Other Side of the Night by Daniel Allen Butler,
Which goes over the actions of two ship captains the night the Titanic sank. It was an utterly fascinating read. I really enjoyed looking at the aftermath of the Titanic sinking, and seeing the reactions from the nearby ships was interesting as hell. The book goes into detail over the actions of the Carpathia, and the Californian, and its a really good look into maritime history. I really enjoyed the section where they went over the different inquires over the sinking, it was interesting to read the differences between how the United States and Britain handled it. It's also a really interesting time capsule to how things were so different 100+ years ago. Overall, I'd give this book a solid 8/10, with points deducted for some shitty pop psychology at the end that felt deeply unnecessary in the greater context of the book. I'd definitely recommend it if you're as fascinated with the Titanic as I am.
- Your Head is a Houseboat by Campbell Walker
Still working through this one, but it's one of those books you kind of work through slowly and adapt to. I'm usually pretty critical of self help books, because I find that a lot of them are just. genuinely terrible, but Walker does a very good job of keeping it lighthearted, informative, and engrossing. I find that his metaphor of using the mind as a houseboat is quite fun, and a really good way of putting your brain space into context. I'm only on chapter 3, but a lot of the journaling exercises have been super helpful for clearing my mind and sorting through the mess. My houseboat is quite a mess still, but I'm slowly working through the clutter. I'm not going to rate it quite yet, because I haven't finished the book proper, but it's to the point, and informative without relying on trends, pop culture, and other psudoscientific nonsense that usually invades self help books.
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Who would I be if I didn't occasionally revisit old favourites? I first picked this book up as a tender 9 year old, staying at my cousins house for the weekend. It's an interesting and fun read, and tells the story of two siblings to run away from home, and stay in the Met. It's got that sense of mystery, wonder, and vastness that I haven't been able to forget about in a book, and it's been really nice to reread it.
That's all I have for now, I have a bit more time on my hands before things start ramping up again so I might be going back to regular postings, but I'm staying tentative on that. It's been a lot lately lmao, but I'm just glad I've been able to handle it for the most part.
This entry has become pretty long, but I thought I'd leave a screenshot of my custom done Archcraft setup because I'm super proud of it!
Love yall,
- Aelphaba
Arguing and trying to persuade various linux distros to
This was a massive challenge. I had been using Kubuntu since February at this point, and it was working great for the most part! I had kde, everything was perfect. Except my nvivida drivers didn't want to install, OR update. This was a bit of a problem because I'm a bit of a gaming nerd. So, my beloved Arin came over to help me sort things out. We decided on Pop_Os, because of it touting wonderful hybrid graphics integration. Things went well for about 3 hours. And then they didn't. While transferring my files over into my archives, my laptop died, and it almost bricked my external hard drive. Yikes.
So we got that sorted, and the install to Pop_Os was easy enough. But. It just didn't want to cooperate with me, none of my apps would work (mostly notable, my markdown editor of choice). It didn't help that Pop_Os is extremely bloated, with it's custom theming running gnome, even when I switched to KDE. It was tiring, it was awful, it couldn't detect my screen resolution at all and made things super difficult to work without either a) getting frustrated and upset, so holding off on creative works or b) trying to find work around, failing to find a work around, repeat step a. over and over again.
By day two, I was having none of it. So I pack up my data all over again, Pop took around 2 DAYS to get everything ready (on top of it all, it only got the desktop items, not the document items, but I do a lot of recursive data storage so no worries there, thankfully).
And then I moved to Arch. Yep. I figured if I was already torturing myself I may as well make it worth the experience, and time, it took to actually do it. It took me a few days to figure out a plan of action, choosing a distro, and getting everything set up. So now I'm running Archcraft, which is a fantastic distro and has given me 0 issues so far, works for gaming, and has good documentation with the archwiki. And I couldn't be happier. I'm now going to stay away from heavy computer working for the next thousand years, thanks. Never distro hopping again.
I've been going to therapy
Been taking the time to get my brain resorted out, figuring out how best to work things. My healthcare team has a really good therapist I've been seeing for a few weeks now, and it's really nice to actually have a therapist work with you instead of just handing you worksheets and not doing anything worthwhile. When you find a good therapist, it makes such a massive difference.
I've been less anxious all around, especially with going outside by myself. I've been working on the panic attacks, and I've been working on actually learning how to sleep properly. It's been refreshing, and working with what I have is a lot more helpful than trying to change fundamental parts of my brain (see: the constant sensory overload that is life)
I've read a bunch of books
Right? It's crazy to be honest, but I've been reading a LOT lately. So I think I should make a list on what I've read in the past few weeks!
- The Other Side of the Night by Daniel Allen Butler,
Which goes over the actions of two ship captains the night the Titanic sank. It was an utterly fascinating read. I really enjoyed looking at the aftermath of the Titanic sinking, and seeing the reactions from the nearby ships was interesting as hell. The book goes into detail over the actions of the Carpathia, and the Californian, and its a really good look into maritime history. I really enjoyed the section where they went over the different inquires over the sinking, it was interesting to read the differences between how the United States and Britain handled it. It's also a really interesting time capsule to how things were so different 100+ years ago. Overall, I'd give this book a solid 8/10, with points deducted for some shitty pop psychology at the end that felt deeply unnecessary in the greater context of the book. I'd definitely recommend it if you're as fascinated with the Titanic as I am.
- Your Head is a Houseboat by Campbell Walker
Still working through this one, but it's one of those books you kind of work through slowly and adapt to. I'm usually pretty critical of self help books, because I find that a lot of them are just. genuinely terrible, but Walker does a very good job of keeping it lighthearted, informative, and engrossing. I find that his metaphor of using the mind as a houseboat is quite fun, and a really good way of putting your brain space into context. I'm only on chapter 3, but a lot of the journaling exercises have been super helpful for clearing my mind and sorting through the mess. My houseboat is quite a mess still, but I'm slowly working through the clutter. I'm not going to rate it quite yet, because I haven't finished the book proper, but it's to the point, and informative without relying on trends, pop culture, and other psudoscientific nonsense that usually invades self help books.
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Who would I be if I didn't occasionally revisit old favourites? I first picked this book up as a tender 9 year old, staying at my cousins house for the weekend. It's an interesting and fun read, and tells the story of two siblings to run away from home, and stay in the Met. It's got that sense of mystery, wonder, and vastness that I haven't been able to forget about in a book, and it's been really nice to reread it.
That's all I have for now, I have a bit more time on my hands before things start ramping up again so I might be going back to regular postings, but I'm staying tentative on that. It's been a lot lately lmao, but I'm just glad I've been able to handle it for the most part.
This entry has become pretty long, but I thought I'd leave a screenshot of my custom done Archcraft setup because I'm super proud of it!
Love yall,
- Aelphaba
