Akura

That's amazing! But don't think you have to reach a high number of masks in order to contribute. The people will be happy about anything! Yay! 🎉 Best of luck! We're still very much 50-50 with our wedding on May 9th...

So... status update? My life got pretty fucked by Covid-19 like everyone's else, so I guess I have to start with that. First things first: I don't have it. (Probably...) Two weeks ago the management of my university started to warn us that we should get ready to work from home... Then all exams and lectures were cancelled at least until the next semester start at the end of April... Then this Sunday it shut down completely for all employees... And yesterday the Bavarian government also called out a state of emergency until the end of April. Schools, stores, public spaces: everything's closed. (Except grocery stores, apothecaries, etc.) So, I'm stuck at home for the next few weeks. My wife too, even though her manager is a dick about it. Furthermore, most Bavarian dioceses cancelled all church services until the end of April. And since our church wedding is planned for the 9th of May... we... might have to cancel it...? Moreover: Last Friday was my last day at work and at around noon I started to cough. Nothing too serious, I do that sometimes... But this time there was this sting in my chest. You know, the feeling in your chest when you're actually sick. So, yeah, I got a massive panic attack. I went home and locked myself up. My wife planned to visit her parents anyway, so that was good. And on Saturday morning everything was fine again... 🤷‍♂️ Concerning the challenge... I gained quite a bit of weight; due to stress eating mostly. I'm very much not in the mood to track calories, but I have an idea how to cope with that. I was at the gym twice in the last two weeks and I hurt my back. I guess it was the low rows with too much weight... But now I have to switch back to home workouts anyway... So... lots of Ring Fit Adventure, dumbbells and pull-up bars. I have to wait until my back is better though: In our new flat we're using my old dining table and chair as an office workplace. Which is fine if I sit there an hour each evening or so. But the wooden chair wrecks my lower back when being there eight hours during the quarantine... Since Ikea closed today, we ordered a chair which is supposed to arrive today... And a height-adjustable desk which should arrive on Monday... Life-wise... Too stressed to read a book in both Polish and German... very little guitar practice... Some game tinkering, but nothing significant... Need a plan for organising life anyway for the next weeks... So... See you on Sunday! I have a vague plan for the next challenge, but let's see whether I can flesh it out in time...

It's already out as an audiobook?!! 👀

Had four meetings at work today. Was too exhausted to do anything afterwards. Diet: A bagel with cheese for breakfast; nigiri sushi and gyoza for lunch; toretellini with a bunch of vegetables for dinner. And to many biscuits during the meetings... Movement: Too tired... Life: Wanted to continue reading the first Witcher book in Polish and German on the train. But since I didn't open it since Thursday I lacked the motivation to read the Polish version. So, I finished the short story I was at in German alone. To compensate I did a couple of Polish lessons on the Busuu app.

Surprisingly not! The game engine I use keeps track of velocity and everything else. The only thing what I had to do was: if ball enters area: move ball to new place Usually it's a pipe dream that things that are simple in my head actually are simple in code. But her it's the case. Yeah... Kinda went away as suddenly as it appeared... 🤷‍♀️ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So... Today I had pretty depressed and made some bad decisions. Diet: Has some ice cream for lunch... and now for dessert after dinner... Movement: Got up early in the morning to go to the gym, but then depression hit me super hard. I was thinking about how I couldn't go the last two weeks how I won't be able to go next week due to a conference and -- because why not -- about the corona virus. So I didn't go... Life: Came home too late to do anything reasonable. One positive thing: The kilt I ordered arrived and I like it. I still need a proper belt and a sporran though... And enough courage to wear it.

Diet: My wife made cake... Cheesecake to be precise. Relatively healthy with very little amounts of margarine and sugar. Still cake though... Movement: Went for a run in the morning and spent the rest of the day in front of the computer. At least I managed to consistently do a pull-up whenever I entered my office. Life: A bit of game dev, but mostly work for the Go Association.

Diet: Wanted to over-compensate today for my excessive calorie intake the last few days... Didn't work... I planned to have to (relatively) meals, one around noon after working out and one at night. But then I had some bread and two frankfurters in the afternoon as a snack and I landed at 2185kcal. Also, I didn't track everything since my wife made a curry/chili/whatever dish with tons of different vegetables for dinner; so I only tracked the meat and cheese and oil... Movement: Played Ring Fit Adventure around noon pre-breakfast. Life: I "wasted" time doing my taxes for 2018 and playing Octopath Traveler (a Japanese role-playing game which you can sink hundreds of hours into...). Did a bit of work for the Go Association, too. For my game I created teleporters and ten new levels. Level design starts to get tricky with this new element... 👀

Diet: Wednesday: Good food choices, but a bit to many calories. Seems like I'm somehow "stuck" at 2200kcal for most days... Thursday: Way too much. In particular, my wife and I went out for dinner. On the plus side, we shared a pizza instead of having a whole one each. Today: Was quite hungry after my workout and had a yogurt. That tipped me over. Also, I didn't think during the day and had a bigger lunch than usually... Also, I struggled a lot to track my food today. Not in the mood... Movement: Had to go to city hall on Wednesday to pick up my wife's and my passport in the morning. So, I skipped gym. Which might have been a good idea since I got incredible back/shoulder pain in the afternoon. It sits right at the lower end of the trapezius. I had that a couple of times last year on my old after waking up. but now it started out of nowhere and with no obvious cause! And on Wednesday it got so bad that I could barely sleep... Now it's mostly fine, but I was still too afraid to go to the gym this morning... Played Ring Fit Adventure though... Life: Not much... No guitar... A few improvements on my game, but no new levels... Reading on the train yesterday... And yesterday evening my wife and I met our parish priest to register for the church wedding in May.

I once saw an interview with a speedcuber and he said that there's a popular sequence (to achieve something I forgot...) which is longer than the known mathematical optimum. However, speedcubers prefer it, since it's way faster to perform (with human hands).

That's a good point! I'm always quite hectic... That's hard for me to judge while doing it... Guess I definitely need more videos to see that properly... Oh, yes. That will hopefully solve itself when I increase the weight a bit. Right now it's just too easy to stand up completely.

Yeah... I mean... Everything he said was right. But it's his job to deal with that...? And usually it's great! But I feel inadequate as a host... 😅 Probably not enough... Someone in the NF Academy Facebook group said I should try more weight. That will probably with that. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diet: Was okay today. 2245 kcal. Mostly due to my wife bringing home a Krapfen (German jelly doughnut) from work which we shared. In Germany we celebrate Pancake Day/Mardi Gras with an obscene amount of that pastry. (Also, I snacked on a bit of bacon...) Thankfully, lent starts tomorrow... Movement: Played Ring Fit Adventure. Wanted to play longer, but then I was quite winded after 20 minutes. The increased difficulty makes itself noticeable... Life: Reading on the train... Guitar while watch telly with my wife in the evening... And 10 new levels for my puzzle game; now with a hazard/enemy!

Uploaded a video in the weightlifting form check thread...

What's up, nerds! After my back injury a few years ago I feel fit and healthy enough to think about weight training. I want to try barbell squats but beforehand I want to "master" goblet squats as suggested by @Defining. Does anyone have a comment on my form?

Look at you dropping all the knowledge! 😅 It might take a few attempts to understand and implement everything... but I'll definitely try some goblet squats next time in the gym! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So... The last few days had been kinda taxing... On Friday I had the second appointment with my new therapist. (In Germany you get five for free to get to know each other and then file and request with your insurance to get more.) And... well... He said that I have to change my personality to solve my problems and that thinks he can't help me... So... I either have to find a new one or help myself. Anyway, I got pretty wasted on Friday night. Saturday my parents-in-law dropped by for lunch. As the good, old Polish housewife she is, my mother-in-law brought pots and plates full of food; even cooked noodles. So... I guess I have to explain to her over the next decade that when she's our guest she's our guest. Wish me luck! 😅 At night we went out with a couple of friends to a Chinese restaurant. So, overall lots of food. And Sunday was the (pre-)birthday party of my niece. Lots of cake... 🙁 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today... Diet: Food was fine. A bit too much (2115 kcal), but considering I did work out and had three biscuits at work, it's okay. Movement: Played Ring Fit Adventure after work. Yesterday I increased the difficulty and I feel very comfortable with it so far. Life: Not much... Reading The Last Wish on the train and a bit of game dev; no new levels though, just a reload animation.

👀 My 750g container last like forever...

A colleague just said the other day that he really didn't like The Blood of the Elves and I think he got the English translation, too... 🤔

As mentioned a few posts ago... My in-laws bought me the first Witcher short story collection The Last Wish in Polish for me to motivate me to learn their language. And, well, I did in fact buy the German version too and now I'm reading both in parallel. So far it goes well... I can recognise the words for "beer" and "sword" and that's almost enough to follow the story... 😅

For me it took a lot of testing to find a brand and flavour that is okay.

See, that's already confusing me. The alignment/position in a goblet squat is, from my perspective, totally different from a barbell (back) squat! But yes... I'll start with such easier variation. Also, my gym has "cross fit section" (or whatever that's supposed to be) where they have 10kg barbells. I'll probably try those out before tackling a full 20kg empty barbell. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diet: Has ramen with pork and a few gyoza for lunch. Dinner then was a stew with seafood potatoes and various vegetables. I had to guesstimate most ingredient weights... so... Hard to judge the calories. Probably a bit too much overall... But the foods themselves were reasonably healthy! Movement: Was thinking about Ring Fit Adventure after work... But I wanted to assemble the shoe rack we bought on Tuesday and that took way longer than expected. Life: Not much due to the shoe rack... Read more of The Last Wish in Polish/German on the train though.

I've read that post and also Starting Strength which I remembered I bought a few years ago. My main concern is that I can't get any immediate feedback. Filming myself can in itself be tricky and posting here or in the NF Facebook groups seems like a slow process. Eh... I'm rather short-tempered and rather asocial... 🙈 But maybe I have to do that... As far as I understand it, futon mattresses have to be flipped even more often. Especially in the beginning they have to be flipped every week in order to "settle down" or whatever. Afer a while it's enough to flip them once a month. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diet: Stressful days... Many bad decisions... Yesterday started out fine; but after my wife and I got home late from Ikea we went out for dinner.I had a steak with chips and salad and a third of her pizza. Today I had a super annoying morning at work and went to McDonald's for lunch and bought a pudding as a post-workout treat. Movement: Couldn't go to the gym today because of a meeting at work. Played Ring Fit Adventure instead, but that's not the same of course. The next two gym days are also messy due to meetings at work and an appointment with my therapist. Maybe I'll go to the gym on Saturday... Otherwise, it will have to wait until next Wednesday. Life: A bit of guitar... Started to read the first collection of The Witcher short stories parallel in Polish and in German. Luckily, there's a YouTube channel which has an audiobook of the book.

Eh... Still trying to find good weight values... Unfortunately, I hurt my back a tiny bit on Friday. More below... Exactly! Fixed sequences of moves that achieve certain results. E.g. swapping two corner pieces while leaving the rest unchanged. If you're solving a cube more efficiently, you usually try to separate between the strategy -- Is now the best time to swap these corner pieces? -- from the execution -- How can I swap the corner pieces? Ah... well... 😅 "Hurricane" is probably not the best word... In German, it's "Orkan" which might better translated as "winter storm"...? 🤷‍♀️ Anyway, a strong storm which caused a lot of havoc and damage... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was super not in the mood to post here the last few days... Now I have to catch up on four days... Let's try to keep it short! Diet: Friday wasn't too bad at first, but then my wife and I decided to make pizza, have a few beers and watch some movies for Valentine's Day. Since we made the pizza ourselves, it wasn't too bad... But the dough alone was enough to blast through my calorie goal. On Saturday we had friends over for dinner and I made salmon with fennel, broccoli and potatoes. Again, not too bad overall, but still too much. Today I had a few eggs after my workout and turkey for dinner; so reaching my protein goal was easy! Still... 2300 kcal... The main problem seems to be portion control as far as I can judge at the moment... Movement: Friday in the gym I was quite agitated. Firstly, because of the arsehole spending more time on Instagram than actually training while sitting on the machines. Secondly, because my workout took forever, and I was still searching for a weight range that is challenging but doable. In particular, the leg exercises were super annoying. I really, really want to incorporate dumbbell/barbell exercises like squats, but I'm not sure how to learn them properly... Moreover, I overdid it a bit and probably didn't keep good form while doing the low row... So I had back pain for the last few days. Nothing serious; in the "normal" range (Why the hell do I have "normal range" of pain... 😞) but I had to take some Ibuprofen over the weekend. Yesterday I did a Ring Fit Adventure session which went well. I also pumped up my Swiss ball to use as an office chair and it helped quite a bit. In the evening I decided to go to the gym today but only use the treadmill... "Showing up at all" and so on... but then my back felt okay this morning and I did a few "proper" exercises before going onto the treadmill for 20 minutes. Went well overall, but I forgot to stretch afterwards... 😔 And now my back hurts again because I flipped our mattresses. (futon mattresses are gorram heavy!!) Life: A bit of guitar... 10 new levels for my puzzle game... Finished Big Damn Hero...

Ah, that's clever!

These are great goals! I might do the exact same things next challenge... 😅 I'm confused what "Pomodoro cleaning" means in the context of learning Blender... I know the Pomodoro technique for working, but I can't parse the word "cleaning".

Ah... Just the regular 3x3. I can solve it easily enough, but right now I'm trying to understand what's going when doing certain algorithms. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diet: Yesterday I consumed 2400kcal which is too much, but okay for a workout day. Yogurt with oatmeal for breakfast; a Fleischpflanzerlsemmel (basically the German/Bavarian equivalent of a hamburger or meatball sandwich) plus three eggs as a post-workout meal; some salad and a bread roll for lunch with a piece of chocolate cake as dessert; and fried seafood and vegetables with bread for supper. So.... nothing bad, actually. I brought the cake to work to celebrate my wedding with my colleagues... so it kinda doesn't count anyway... 😅 Apart from that, it was mostly a problem of portion size I guess. On the plus side, I didn't crave any food during lunchtime and was just a little "normally" hungry. So... I guess I could have skipped the lunch and/or reduced my post-workout meal. Let's see how it goes tomorrow... Today I was absolutely not in the mood to track... By my food choices weren't too bad. A cheese bagel for breakfast; a cheeseburger without a bun plus chips plus a beer for lunch (celebrating a colleagues birthday); two biscuits in the afternoon; and Brotzeit for supper: bread, butter, cold cuts, goat cheese, smoked tilapia and a salad. Probably too much... but okay. Movement: Yesterday in the gym I had my first proper gym workout without a trainer... And everything was too easy! When the trainer built the routine for me last week, the weights seemed appropriate; but yesterday I breezed through every exercise and I have zero DOMS. Hopefully I can restrain myself and increase the weights only a little tomorrow... Moreover, the treadmills at the gym can display speed both in km/h and mph... But it doesn't tell you which is currently used!!! 🤬 That demolished me yesterday... Today I could have played Ring Fit Adventure for about 20 minutes after getting home... But I was too lazy. Moreover, my body felt a little stiff and tired... Noteworthy: On my way home I had to stand on thetrain for 40 minutes again and, again, it was no problem. The futon bed might actually have helped with my back problems. Life: Practised the guitar a bit the last two days but not really as long as I wanted to. And I'm getting close to the end of Big Damn Hero... So I have to decide soon whether I want to give the dual read of The Witcher a try...

Yeah... Narrators really make and break any audiobook. They can even elevate not-so-good writing... But some are just annoying... 😅