Kishi

Yeah, well, that's capitalism for ya. Even in the public sector, we take our organizational cues from the private, meaning that we have unelected, unaccountable lords of our labor who dictate to us what we will do, how we will do it, and how we will be compensated for it. And my coworkers aren't ready or willing or really even able to fight for something better, so this is just what it is. It's a good reminder of the Stoic observation that the only thing in my control is my own rational thinking, and how little that really amounts to. I might have been angry or disappointed once, but the training has been good. I've found my way to dry resignation over the whole thing. It's an improvement, I promise. Yep! Yes, and this is good. Less time to get the job done, however, is gonna be a problem. Nobody who's above me is going to care about the effect of these limitations on my caseload, so, I'm going to have to take responsibility for it myself. Means getting up earlier to get my writing done early as opposed to later/on job time. Thanks, padre. It won't last. It's fiscal year shenanigans combined with budget shenanigans in both our state and federal governments, which is where our fundage comes from. It won't last. See, that's the thing. See my comments to Mistr. They don't think that the workload is unreasonable; they genuinely believe that we can accomplish what we need to on 40 hours a week, even though we all know now that it takes something like 55-60 hours. Hell, there are people in the chain of command who think that they're being too generous to us with our workload as it is that we should be doing more. * Goal: 12/14 No writing the past couple of days. Friday I focused on the job more and made mat time; I could have got the writing done, but I just didn't. Saturday, the folks came to visit me, and we got lunch even as the tropical storm decided to go ahead and rage outside. I never did get the writing done; instead, I heard back from my brother and kind of started down a rabbit hole of research into how to approach the body hardening based on how he explained it. I'm kind of still there, since he said to do "hard qigong," but then told me he'd find video examples to explain what he was talking about and hadn't got back to me. I've been scratching the research itch myself, and I suspect that I've found some of what he's looking for, but I need to confirm. Training's been fine. Think I'm going to go ahead and buy a 30 lb ruck plate and some magnets since I'm about at the limit of what weight I can put in my pack right now. Rucking and inversion work was Friday. Saturday was a Lunge day. Did some Kettlebell Orbit Reverse Lunges, which was fine but I didn't manage some of my transfers very well so my right shoulder's a bit upset with me. Also did some GMB Elements work, which was welcome. Today is today. Got out to the mats this morning and did some good work on striking, but there's more to do as always. I've got plenty of time today to write and exercise, and it sure would be a shame to let it pass me by with nothing done.

Do now! So, I don't do it anymore, but I was doing it once upon a time for grappling. My belief was that I was developing the ability to go without breath for long-enough periods of time that I could out survive certain positions and find my way to better positions. I was also a believer in the central claim that Hof makes, that his breath work is a way to stave off disease and to achieve certain superhuman feats. Neither of these turned out to be true for me. As to the first belief, the ability to go without breathing didn't do anything for me in terms of surviving chokes. My attackers would simply crank harder, and eventually my throat just closed up in a way that I reflexively tapped out. There may have been some other psychological benefits, as I freak out a bit whenever I can't see and I'm worried that I'm about to get hurt, and going without breath for relatively prolonged periods may have been useful as a kind of mental hardening, but so is just the repeat exposure to that position and those circumstances. As to the second belief, his central claim is apparently under enough contention for it to be an unsettled matter in the broader scientific community. Hof, to his credit, does expose himself to scientific scrutiny, but apparently there's not a lot of evidence that the exact response of his body to his training can be replicated in other populations. The studies conducted on other folk basically seem to say that there was some response, but it wasn't the same response in terms of its degree, and the response itself wasn't consistent in the test populations. There's also some medical skepticism as to whether it's even desirable in the first place; inflammation in this way of thinking is seen as a beneficial, appropriate response in the healing process, and stymying that may be inappropriate or otherwise contraindicated in normal folk. OTOH, I want to be careful here. XBlackWidowX has said that she's benefitted from this training, and who am I to come and say that her benefits aren't real or unscientific? And while there may not be enough consistency in the response to sell the method, well, that doesn't mean there's no response. It could just be that some people respond well to this kind of thing, and some people don't, and the only way to know is to give it your own try and see how it works. It's worth pointing out that the Method itself doesn't seem to be innately harmful, and while there are fatalities associated with it, they seem to be related to people attempting it under risky, inappropriate, uncontrolled circumstances which Hof himself warns against. So, you know. tl;dr I don't do it anymore, but give it a shot and see what happens.

Morning walks are a reward I'm hoping for for learning to get up early.

So I gotta ask, how well would you say MFP does in terms of giving you "earned" calories on exercise? Would you say it tracks pretty well or does it give you too much? And does it still work even when you're on a cut? I've been thinking a lot about my energy needs and how they vary day to day and I'm thinking about trying to match my inputs to my outputs beyond "don't eat above this much."

Quick update. Haven't done the goal yet or else I would have led off with that. Last night wound up being a writing night, so I went to visit my friend and did more writing on top of the writing done earlier in the day. Got a complete character bible out of it which puts me at 2/5 for my main cast. I strongly suspect I'm going to have to add some minor characters. They won't require nearly the amount of work I'm putting into my mains, although I'm not 100% certain just how many minor characters I'll need either. At least 2. Maybe more. Just rolling with it at this point. I suppose I could have taken an extra point on that goal for writing twice in a day, but that just didn't feel true to the spirit of the thing and I don't have an external motivator to incentivize me to cheat. So, whatever. I did a good job with my drilling yesterday, at least; better than I have in a while. And my Hinge work was good - suitcase deadlifts with lighter suitcase carries for core work. That was a real smoker, even with only 16 kg. Which demonstrates to me the power of cadence. Even with the limited means at my disposal, I can get good, transferable training that strengthens my joints and makes the most of what I have. I did reach out to my brother like I said I would, but he hasn't got back to me yet, so no changes to put in just yet. He's out on training for his position in the Army and I don't know what the communications policy is in that situation. He either might not be in the headspace to respond, or he might just not be able to respond period. I can respect it either way. But no exciting changes to report yet. Job reported when I logged on this morning that apparently all overtime is canceled next month, so I couldn't work OT even for added leave at this time. OTOH, I don't like that. It'll make the job harder and it's a pay cut, however temporary. But OTOH, I'm kind of relieved. I wouldn't mind a hard stop for a bit. Anyway, that's it for now. I got out to the lunchtime class. Still plan to ruck today, since my strength work is upper body focused and the ruck will be enough for the lower body/core. So that'll happen sometime this afternoon.

Yo, listen, bathroom cleaning is a FREAKING ACCOMPLISHMENT and I felt right with the world the last time I did it back here. Totally valid form of excitement.

That sounds about right, actually. When we drilled it, we wound up supporting our partners rather than them driving in to us, and I didn't receive a lot of drive in the rounds afterward that I can recall. Or if I did, I wasn't strong enough or technical enough to take advantage of it when it happened. - Goal: 11/12 So far, so good. Rucked 2.5 miles yesterday with 36 lbs on my back. Time was in acceptable ranges right now as far as actually being able to do the thing. I'm thinking at this point that I need to get another weight plate; will probably wind up with something in the 30 lb range since I think that's the best I can fit into my backpack's plate sleeve. After that, I'm thinking I'll buy some magnets so that I can stick the 30 and my 20 together for 50 total pounds, which is the goal weight to get to IIRC. And even if it isn't and I need to go heavier, that kind of setup is probably going to be how I add more weight going forward, just because it'll be the most comfortable. Training after was Ring Support Holds superset with Tabletops. Basically, I'm trying to build toward a German Hang, but I don't quite have the mobility for it yet, so I'm starting small and staying humble. I found some progressions to train through to get there, but there's a lot, and I'll basically be at progression standard for the Support Holds way before I'm accomplishing German Hangs. This shouldn't really matter, but I am using that chart I linked way back at the beginning as a way to keep myself proportional and healthy, so that I don't let one area of strength fall out of balance with the other and lead to physical complications. Balance is quite good for health. I took a long walk last night instead of getting out to the mats because I had some stuff I needed to pick up from a farther grocery store for my heart, so I figured I should double up on heart-healthy activities. It was a good walk, and I'm glad I took it, but no mat time. And tonight is questionable as I don't know if my Writing Friend is going to be available or not. Personal training should happen either way, though, so it's not a big deal. Something I'm going to do today as well is I'm going to talk to my bro about what kind of Iron conditioning he does for taking blows as I've been putzing around and researching that stuff and I'm no closer to having a systematized approach than I was when I said this was a project of mine a year ago. I don't consider the time wasted, but it's okay to admit when I don't know what I'm doing, and Brother has made claims that I think are worth testing.

See, we did try that, but what I found was that with my partners I was either too weak or they were too heavy for me to do that. Best I could do was lock down and hold on. I can use similar footwork to deal with mount sometimes to recover to half guard, but best case for me right now is an open half where I'm trying to get a knee shield in place and hinge for space. Worst case, they take my back, but I'm ambivalent about that anyway since I'm pretty good at defending those attacks from white belts and blue belts atm. Still, the fact that I'm bad at it is no reason to flee it or to try not to understand it. I'll just have to work on this as the opportunity arises. * Goal: 10/11 Past couple days have been all right. Job's been kind of a pain - had to go to the office all day yesterday because we have to justify the expense of a building somehow we had to perform for our new branch manager engage in teamwork and comradery every once a month for the good of the unit. They insist on a full day, which meant I was there all day in meetings and doing team-building exercises, although one of these involved watching The Goonies all the way through, so it wasn't all bad. Did get in the way of my writing, but I did some work as far as isolating the character stat block I'm using to build out my bibles, which is going to be a huge timesaver going forward. I used it today to start building out another one of my characters, although she's requiring a bit more research in order to be true to life. I wasn't able to sneak out yesterday to get to the mats. Did do some squatting work on my pistol progression, but wound up cutting it short due to some balance/stability issues. No pain, and I feel fine about the decision; I'm trying to figure out what some of the confounding variables might be and I think it could be that I warmed up maybe a bit too much this time? Maybe? That was the big difference between this time and last, so if I had to pin it to one thing, it'd be that. I actually felt really good overall, though, so I think it's worth it, and I can ease this up a bit with the use of my breath to speed up cadence a touch. Or maybe I won't need to next time? I'll need to hit this a few more times before I can say for sure. Anyway, today is today. Got enough to do to stay busy. Think I'll ruck at some point today and then my upper body work is actually going to be support work of some kind. I generally superset that with pulling mobility work because it just feels right to do that stuff all at once and so far I seem to benefit from it. Dunno what tonight looks like yet as far as mat stuff goes.

Take your time and take your rest. We'll be here when you're ready to carry on.

Yeah, man, that sucks about the meet. The feels get real strong in situations like this. They'll pass, and you'll have a lot of good data to work from when you're ready, but you gotta wait through the feelings until then. There's no hurry. Take all the time you need.

Goal: 8/9 Howdy, y'all! Past couple days have been relatively quiet. I did my OT on Saturday and then just kind of chilled out for the rest of the night. No writing. No reason for it, really. Just a matter of everything else being more interesting than the draft, which happens sometimes. Wasn't productive. Sunday, I got my writing done late at night. Noticed another vicious pattern that I've suspected for a while: I don't like to go to sleep on a day when I haven't written, because it feels like a loss. So I tell myself I'll stay up, but the later I stay up, the more tired I get, and the more tired I get, the more prone I am to doing easier and easier tasks like watching content and convincing myself that when it's over, I'll write then, except by that point I'm more tired and even more prone to easy tasks, and the writing is even harder if I get to it. But I did it. Kept filling out questions until I hit one that my brain just couldn't find an answer for and called it done. Felt good. This morning, I got up and did my writing before the job and got a character bible finished! I don't like the delay, but it feels good to have it done. I'm guessing that the others will be, if not easier, maybe quicker since all I gotta do is repeat the process. Although, then again, who knows what walls I'll hit on my way? I don't. And I won't, until I run into them. Training's been steady and good. Rucked on my Saturday night, and it was a Pull day, so I did Ring Row Eccentrics, 5x(5x12s). This notation indicates what Low calls "cluster reps," which means that I'm doing 5 sets of 1 rep, but that 1 rep is made of a cluster of 5 reps of eccentrics with each rep being 12 seconds from start to finish. At this point, I've lowered the rings from shoulder height a bit and the goal is to continue this volume over time as I lower the rings further and further. I anticipate that at some point it's gonna be too much and I'm going to fail out, at which point I'll start rebuilding to this volume from the new height. Dunno when/if/how that's gonna happen, and I won't know until I get there. Attempting to progress on 10 minutes of training a day is new territory, and this is really where things are going to be kind of scary. It's true even with the leg stuff I mentioned previously too. I think it'll work. But I don't know yet. Sunday training was going off to practice striking. Lots of longer combinations that I don't really know how to memorize and I haven't quite internalized the principles behind them so that I can just improvise on the fly. Just another challenge. I wasn't sure how spritely I was going to feel by the time that training was done, but I came out of it feeling pretty good! So I did some power work. It was a "Lunge" pattern day, so I decided to do jumping Bulgarian split squats. Those were fun - lots of power, lots of rest, low reps. It was plenty in 10 minutes. No ab work to go with it since, again, I figure that the core gets plenty of work just handling the transfer of power throughout the body, but I had to remind myself of that yesterday instead of programming it in. Today's training is Inversion work of some kind. Don't remember if I'm working on pike press or handstand work today, but fortunately I write that stuff down so I don't have to remember.

* Goal: 6/6 Whoof, yesterday was rough. OT got me again Thursday night leading into Friday, so I was able to deduce a pattern: that I'm staying up too late because I'm working too late on OT. So I got to bed late, and rolled out of bed early enough to write just a little bit and still not finish that character bible before having to make a meeting with my unit, where among other things it was revealed that our budget's cutting off paid OT at the end of the month because neither the state nor the federal governments have been able to pass a budget. So, if I work OT after the end of the month, it'll basically go into restoring my leaves and I wind up getting sick time and vacation time out of it. Which isn't a bad outcome to me, necessarily. I've been using my leave more and while I'm not in danger of running out, it would be nice to have more of it on tap. Meeting ended and I managed to sneak out onto the mats. Coach said we were going to do half-guard stuff and then we spend the rest of class doing takedowns. Which I was cool with. Came back and worked the rest of the day and had my boss flub up on one of my closures, so a case did not get closed. And it shouldn't matter, because I got the week off of new assignments, but it did because I wanted to close at least one case but every single thing that I sent out got kicked back to me because my boss has decided that she wants to dress up as QA for Halloween and is trying to get into the spirit of the thing. She emailed me to apologize and I really had to bite my tongue to avoid saying "No worries! It's par for the course this week! >:D" The roughness of yesterday is really just about having to deal with a mixed bag as far as being personally productive without being professionally productive. It feels weird. I think it's a net positive, as I'm figuring out what works best for me. A big incidental win is learning that I sleep better without an alarm and I'm recovering my sleep habits to the point that I can more smoothly fall asleep and wake ahead of job and other obligations. It's taking time and adjustment, but it's happening too. As to today? Well, I haven't completed my writing yet. I think I'm going to focus on the job a bit today, since I'm receiving new cases again next week, and since the paid work is set to expire in a couple weeks, I kind of feel like I need to prioritize this. Work'll cut off early tonight, and my plan is to ruck and train afterward. I'll have plenty of time to write, then, although whether I use it or not? That's the real test.

Wow, yeah, ok! For sure. Well I'm glad I could give you somewhere else to go from here. Have fun!

A spy? Wait, what. What is going on in y'all's schools over there.

Yeah, that tracks. Steps burn a lot of energy, and they don't care where they're got, whether it's on a treadmill or on the job. I think I'll echo the others in saying that you're probably walking enough now as a part of your job that it may not be the most constructive to add additional time on the treadmill, especially if you've got foot issues.

If you're looking for horror/thriller type stuff, Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones is a fun, short read. I moved on to Mongrels from there, which is a werewolf novel that really leans into the visceral and the horror even as it's an exploration of life on the road.

Goal: 5/5 Another day down! Wanted to go out to the mats last night but didn't. Shoulder was feeling better, but any time I threw a straight on it, I'd get a twinge in that shoulder. And since I don't have a sensei anymore yelling in my DMs about how I can show up and practice if I can move the shoulder, I decided to be gentle with myself and skip out. Shoulder's feeling a little better today as a result. Yesterday was a squatting day, so I went and did Kettlebell Zercher Squats, 5x10x16. A Zercher, for those who are curious, means that the handle is held in the crook of your elbow as opposed to being held out in front, so for me this meant putting my arms through the handles of a pair of 8 kg bells to get to 16 kg total weight. No feedback from my shoulder on that, which was kind of surprising, but I'm not gonna complain. Also, hitting my five sets of ten is excellent as it means I'm now cleared to bump up my weight. I think my next move is to do a Zercher with a 12 in one arm and an 8 in the other, for 20 kg total, albeit asymmetrically loaded. It's tempting to go out and buy a 20 kg bell and just goblet squat, but 1) I'm reluctant these days to spend money since I'm working on rebuilding my shambles finances, and 2) I kind of like the challenge to my creativity to find ways to progress with the equipment on hand. It'll require some nuance in my programming going forward, but not much. Today, I worked further on the character bible. Realized I was about to go down a rabbit hole of research that I didn't really need right now and prevented myself from doing so. Major win. I'm just about finished with my protagonist, I think; depending on whether I go to write tonight with my friend or not, protagonist will be finished either today or tomorrow and I can move on to the next. OT's still a bear, but it's only a coincidence right now, because it's only gone wrong twice since I started watching. If it happens a 3rd time? Well, I dunno what you call that, but whatever it is, it ain't a coincidence anymore. Guess we'll see. Tonight's wide open. Anything could happen.

Yeah, it's been a rainy summer down here too. Reckon it's that climate change coming for us down here. Apparently we're supposed to wind up with something similar to the Pacific Northwest - lots of clouds with some rain, which I might be OK with since I like cloudy weather and I skip tanning on the way to turning red.

Good gravy! You are in the thick of it right now. Maybe some spam musubi is in order here? But, yeah. Really sorry to hear that things are rough now. I hope you can find good moments to carry you through and that these challenges pass sooner rather than later.

For sure! I used to test INTJ, but the last time I tested I was kind of cusp-y between INTJ and INFJ. Also, apparently there's a 5th letter now, which actually kind of impresses me as a sign of dedication to a scientific understanding, for all that I think it's still astrology without the stars. Yep! Yep. To be satisfied and to be gracious with myself. These are the goals. * Goal: 4/4 Welp, I wound up not able to do more work yesterday, between having to go to the office and working OT when I got home from BJJ. It sucks, but I saw it coming, and it's accounted for in the goal, so no loss of credit or anything like that. BJJ was OK. We worked on Lockdown, which is a kind of counter/stabilizer to being stuck in Half Guard where you basically catch one of their feet with both of yours to anchor them in place. Had a hard time with it; I'm not sure if it's a matter of the other guy being a weight class or two heavier than me and me just not being strong enough yet or if it was my technique, or if it was both, or if it was neither, but I didn't click too well with this one. Which does not mean to ignore it and go away. I can't really do that since a lot of escaping from mount involves very similar positioning and footwork, so, I gotta figure it out. I tried to figure it out in rolls but it didn't go well. We had situationals where we started from that lockdown position and I wound up giving up mount and an Americana to a 2-stripe white belt who hadn't been in in a while, and that just hurt my feelings. Although the fact that I can laugh about it now is a good sign. I was stupid with the Americana though and tried to escape whilst he cranked it since that was my hurt shoulder, and it's a bit mad at me today but it's responding well to stretching and other therapeutic interventions, so I don't think it was that bad. And it's a credit to the guy what did it that he was careful and controlled and didn't set it in wildly and immediately like most white belts do. It's my fault for being stupid and arrogant, both for thinking I could escape when I couldn't and refusing to acknowledge the technique. Final situational though was with open guard and knee shield, and I had a real barn burner with a gent who was heavier than me. Lot of back and forth before I ultimately got him with an Americana. This was a good one to end on as he's both heavier than me and also similarly skilled as a 4-stripe. The wisdom in BJJ is that you lose a stripe for every 20 lbs your opponent has on you, so I thought I was hosed. Being able to keep up with technique was a really positive way to end the night. As far as balancing work and life goes, working OT is letting me make up for lost time on the job, but it's not perfect. I may have to set some harder boundaries with myself than I have been, although one day does not a pattern make. There's still some time to sit and observe this week and figure out what works and what doesn't, and I also managed to get this week off of new assignments, so even if it goes really badly, it's not going to be noticeable and it won't hurt me any. Still. Better to know now than later and get things under control. Also, working OT makes it really hard to get to bed on time since it's hard for me to get dinner cooked and ate and me cleaned up and down. I wound up eating dinner about the time I should have been going to bed. That's not OT's fault per se, but it's how I'm interacting with it, and I need to correct that. But that's just another thing to observe for now and to try to learn from. Today's writing was to work further on the character bible. This is a weird hybrid of tasks as it's both a lot of time thinking about who my character is and researching the things about them that I say they are so that they can feel real to life and like I'm not just projecting my expectations onto something. So it's slower work and I don't get as much done as I think I should, but what is done is worked for, so I feel good about the little I've accomplished. It might be little, but a lot went into it.

Deeply so. But it can be made up for, and generally a bad night's sleep lends itself to short-term correction pretty well, so. Hope it goes that way!

Your description of NE mountain towns sounds a lot like a description of NC mountain towns. Dunno. Something about the mountains. They just kind of seem to be a magical place. Might be something to do with the air. Anyway! I'm really glad to hear you had a good trip! And hey, just because you're not working a job, doesn't mean there isn't work to do. It's just now that the work is purely for your benefit rather than somebody else's.

Goal: 3/3 Man, it's nice to be able to log this early in the day. So yesterday, when looking at how the Snowflake Method does character bibles - and taking my cues from it - I noticed that one of the character traits is a Personality Type. I reached out to my Writer Friend for her advice, and she advised the Myers Briggs corporate horoscope capitalist labor-extractor profiler nonsense personality typing tool. So this morning, I went looking for information. I thought I'd have to struggle to find something in-depth beyond, like, a Harry Potter personality quiz, but I was lucky and struck gold on my first search. Much of the task today was reading up on the nonsense to see how useful it'd be for the draft, and I found enough there to think that it's gonna be useful for my cast of characters. So I researched until I found what sounded like my protagonist - whose bible is what I'm working on now - and plugged it in. The vibe is uncertain at this point. I could live with this amount of work, but I kind of think I'd like to do some more too. We'll see what the day gives me; I gotta go to the office today and it'll be an OT night tonight. Like I said at the start, there're gonna be some days where just showing up to do a small thing is all I can realistically do. Think this is gonna be one of those days. And if so, then it's better to have done something rather than nothing. But I'm going to try to stay open to doing more too, and if I get an opportunity, I hope I don't waste it. In the meantime, off to train, trim my nails, pack my lunch, and go to the office. I'll be about as I can!