Zeroh goes Scouting

[zeroh13]

This challenge is divided into five categories: Mind, Fuel, Training, Home, and Spark. Each day I'll get a percentage grade in each category, along with a daily percentage and rank. I'll also get a weekly percentage and rank. And of course at the end I'll get my challenge percentage and rank. I use a spreadsheet to track all of this.

 

Mind

This category covers mindfulness, and well as scheduling. I want to practice mindfulness with eating, posture, and just in general really. As for scheduling, this covers things like workouts and writing sessions. I do better at these when I set aside a time with a little game plan. But as my work schedule varies a lot, I can't schedule everything at the beginning of the challenge, just one week at a time. This will be graded based on how much effort I put into it.

 

Fuel

This covers food tracking. I'll be using one of the vegetarian food guide pyramids, and track portions of the food groups. I'll be adding one food group per week to track. So for zero week, I'll be tracking fruit. Week one I'll add veggies. Week two will be proteins. For week three I'll add grains. And week four will be fats. This will be graded based on how close I get to the correct number of portions.Too little or too much will give me a lower grade. This challenge, I'll be aiming for maintenance levels. And we'll see how close to maintenance it actually is.

 

Training

I've just started the C25K training program, using the C to 5k trainer app. So I'll try for jogging with the app 3x a week. And I might have a few runs with the Zombies Run app. That depends on when I get new headphones. Aside from jogging, I'll also be working on progressing towards pull-ups and handstands. Plus a few bodyweight workouts along with trying to be more on top of stretching. I might also throw a hike in there somewhere. This will be graded based on effort.

 

Home

My apartment is a mess and I really need to fix that. So this will cover daily chores, plus a large project. This challenge, the large project will be sorting through clothes: keep, donate, or trash. And then following through on the donate and trash portions. This will be graded on effort.

 

Spark

And this is the NaNoWriMo portion of the challenge. For the rest of October, I'll be graded on effort made towards prepping. Then once NaNoWriMo starts, I'll be graded on how many words I write in a day. My goal is 1800 words a day. That should give me a good buffer.

 

I may add in bonuses and penalties later. Also, any points I earn during zero week are extra points.

[Scatterbunn]

Welcome to the challenge and best wishes on meeting your goals!!

[RedStone]

Took my time to properly ready through, but here and accounted for!

 

Congrats on getting geared up for the C25K program! I hope you love it  I'm loving the tracking plan, simple, progressive steps! 

Seems like a great set of goals and I'm excited to see you CONQUER THEM ALLLL!!!!

 

Let's do this November. October is so about to be yesterday's news  

 

 

[shaar]

Found yoooouuu~ <3

 

What are you NaNo'ing about??

[zeroh13]

47 minutes ago, shaar said:

Found yoooouuu~ <3

 

What are you NaNo'ing about??

I don't know where to begin! Hmm...

 

Oh, I know!

"Fourteen sessions. One hour each. Fourteen hours. Eight hundred and forty minutes. Fifty thousand, four hundred seconds of your time. And I’m supposed to cover all twenty-three years of my life in that?"

 

It's called 50,400 Seconds and covers a college student's therapy sessions over the course of a semester, at the college's counseling center. Each chapter is a therapy session, just the dialogue back and forth between the student and the therapist. I'm planning on covering identity, gender, sexuality, queerness, spirituality and occultism, depression, self-harm, suicide, and a bunch of other stuff.

 

I'm also taking Korn's discography, and picking one song from each album (plus two singles that don't appear on the main albums), and incorporating their themes into my writing. That's also where I'm getting my chapter titles from.

 

[shaar]

2 minutes ago, zeroh13 said:

I don't know where to begin! Hmm...

 

Oh, I know!

"Fourteen sessions. One hour each. Fourteen hours. Eight hundred and forty minutes. Fifty thousand, four hundred seconds of your time. And I’m supposed to cover all twenty-three years of my life in that?"

 

It's called 50,400 Seconds and covers a college student's therapy sessions over the course of a semester, at the college's counseling center. Each chapter is a therapy session, just the dialogue back and forth between the student and the therapist. I'm planning on covering identity, gender, sexuality, queerness, spirituality and occultism, depression, self-harm, suicide, and a bunch of other stuff.

 

I'm also taking Korn's discography, and picking one song from each album (plus two singles that don't appear on the main albums), and incorporating their themes into my writing. That's also where I'm getting my chapter titles from.

 

 

OKAY THIS IS AN AMAZING CONCEPT.

 

As someone who works in behavioral health this sounds AWESOME!!  I hope you'll let us read bits of it as it's created! :3

[tourennatrix]

Dude. I second Shaar- that concept is awesome!

[fiddle-on]

I envy your NaNoWriMo plans. I was thinking about it, but knowing me, looking for jobs will not mix well with writing. I'm still going to try to finish up a story I haven't touched since April (!), though. Probably set a 500 or 1000 word per day goal.

 

I'm another person with a messy apartment. It's tiny, so it really shows, and cleaning is going to involve lots of getting rid of stuff. Small steps make a huge difference here.

[zeroh13]

2 hours ago, fiddle-on said:

I envy your NaNoWriMo plans. I was thinking about it, but knowing me, looking for jobs will not mix well with writing. I'm still going to try to finish up a story I haven't touched since April (!), though. Probably set a 500 or 1000 word per day goal.

 

I'm another person with a messy apartment. It's tiny, so it really shows, and cleaning is going to involve lots of getting rid of stuff. Small steps make a huge difference here.

I have quite a few unfinished stories that I haven't touched for years. And I'm pretty sure between all of my scattered notes, I have over 100 different story ideas jotted down.

 

I've been working on little steps with cleaning, but my wife messes it up faster than I can clean it. I think it also doesn't help me that a huge portion of my job is cleaning, so I really don't feel like cleaning when I get home, or on my off days.

[zeroh13]

IT'S HALLOWEEN! SAMHAIN! *Happy dance*

 

We have beer, and candy. And decorations and scented candles. And I pulled out some old clothes to wear. And tomorrow we're going to make and decorate cookies together for Dia de los Muertos. I need to work out a way to spam with pics without the forum yelling at me. Lol

 

Zero week went okay. I was pretty busy with work. Yesterday was spent recovering from a 16 hour shift on Saturday. And no, I won't be getting overtime. I just get tomorrow off to keep my hours in the (20-)30-40 a week range (the "week" starts on Friday for our pay periods). I needed to ask for tomorrow morning off anyway, cause it's time to get the results from that psychological testing I did earlier. Right after I made the appointment I realized I was going to be really hungover. Whoops.

 

Yesterday was an okay-ish start to the challenge. I went to the park for a workout, but I ended up going later in the day than I wanted, so I couldn't really do much (the playground is meant for the kids to play afterall). It was a struggle to get myself out of the apartment. I didn't get my veggies in. Though I did buy some canned beets and pumpkin to add to my protein shakes.

 

I made a shake with beets, banana, strawberry, soy milk, protein powder, and pumpkin seeds this morning after my jog. It was pretty good. *Fingers crossed that today is awesome*

[shaar]

1 hour ago, zeroh13 said:

IT'S HALLOWEEN! SAMHAIN! *Happy dance*

 

YEEE thank you for reminding me, I have to put a candle on my windowsill!!  *writes self note*

 

Wow that shake sounds amazing.  I really want to like beets but I find the flavor really strong and overpowering.  ; ;

[RedStone]

Hey there! I'm super late and don't know how you slipped through my fingers!!! How's the challenge going?

[zeroh13]

On 11/5/2016 at 6:54 PM, ~RedStone~ said:

Hey there! I'm super late and don't know how you slipped through my fingers!!! How's the challenge going?

That's a good question! I've really been slacking on tracking everything. 

 

 

This has been a pretty crazy week for me. And a bit of a challenge.

 

Tuesday, I got the results from the testing, I talked about that here:

I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

 

Other than that, I've been super busy with work. The last few days were basically wake up, go to work, try not to kill anyone at work, go home, and go to sleep. Repeat. Which means I'm now behind on my NaNo. And I seem to be a rather slow writer now, so this is going to be a real time sink.

 

I'm pretty good at waking up early, if I get home at a decent time the night before. But I'm struggling with balancing writing and working out. On days I work I can't do both, unless I have work in the afternoon/evening. (It's almost impossible for me to get anything done after I get home from work.)

[Xena]

Hi Zeroh! I read your post over on project B.R.E.A.T.H.E. The results of the testing sound like they are really jarring and only sort of helpful. You have some more information now, but not a clear next step as to how you can use that information to help yourself. It might take you a while to sort out a path for yourself, but don't give up on yourself.

[zeroh13]

Well, I really think the next step is simply "get help". In addition to being more aware of my depression/anxiety/concentration. I had been meaning to do the second by keeping a little bullet journal. I even started carrying around a blank composition notebook for that purpose. But I didn't start using it till yesterday, and more just freeform instead of anything organized. It might sort itself out as I keep using it.

 

But my brain power the past week leading up to the election was largely taken up by politics. I did a lot of learning and mulling things over. Educating myself. Which lead to this conclusion, which I had posted on Facebook election day:

I've been inundated with various opinions on voting and the election lately, so I figured I might as well throw my two cents in. This is the first time I'll be voting in the presidential election (unless you count the primary earlier this year). Why? Because it feels like my vote doesn't count. Because Maryland will vote Democratic. My vote won't change that. But I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican either. The "two party" system in this country is broken. The electoral college is a bad joke. The party that I identify with the most is one of the many third parties in this country that no one talks about. That if I vote for them, for what I feel is right, I'm "throwing away" my vote. That I'm "burning" my vote. But I'm not throwing my vote away. If I didn't vote? Yeah, that's throwing it away. That's sending the message that I don't care. But I do care. Burning my vote? I'll bite. Because my vote is a protest against a system that doesn't work. So yeah, I'll burn my vote with no regrets.

Tuesday was a busy day for me. I had my psychiatrist appointment, to discuss the results with her. She asked about how often I get depressed. Which when I actually thought about it was a lot more often than I had thought. Well, the crippling type, that's only once or twice a year usually. But a few times a month I'll fall into a little depressive funk. It completely saps my motivation and energy. I also explained that I have a different focusing problem when I'm depressed vs not. Depressed, it's like this fog, and I can't really focus on anything. Not depressed, it's like I focus on everything, which makes it really hard to just focus on one thing. Every single little thing, noise, smell, movement, etc, it's just distracting. Then she said that if I was interested in using medication to help she could give me a prescription for Wellbrutrin. And she explained that while it's an antidepressant, it can have a off label use of helping with focus and concentration. So my reaction was that I might as well give it a shot. 

 

While I was waiting for my prescription to be filled, I went to the NaNoWriMo write-in, the same one I went to last week. I felt bad for the organizer cause she was the only one who showed up. I got a bit of writing done, but not as much as I wanted. At this point, I'm way behind, and I really need to find all the times I can to write. And follow through and write.

 

After I picked up my new meds, I was about to leave the building, and just stopped in the middle of the hall, trying to convince myself to go upstairs and ask if any of their therapists had openings. (The clinic where the psychiatrist is didn't have any therapists with openings. Where I got my meds filled was a different clinic, which I used to go to, but they don't have any psychiatrists.) I turned around and went to the Behavioral Health department, and just had a very awkward time with the receptionist. It wasn't bad. Just awkward. But good news, I have an appointment on Monday to talk to a therapist to talk about CBT.

 

After that I went home, had a snack, and then went out and voted. When got back, my wife was already freaking out, so I went back out to buy beer.  She fell asleep around 1 am, after taking her knock me the fuck out anxiety meds. Between 1:30 and 3 I kept drifting off, only to wake up 15-20 minutes later to check the results. I ended up with 3-4 hours of not the best quality sleep. I was pretty zombified at work yesterday.

[shaar]

Yesterday was surely a zombie-day at work.  Ugh.

 

Glad you snagged an appointment!!  I hope everything goes well, awesome job convincing yourself to go and do that. ^____^

[zeroh13]

I'm not very enthusiastic about this challenge. I do like it, but I think it's more than I can handle right now.

 

So for the reminder of the challenge, here are my goals:

 

1) Eat something. What or how much isn't too important, it's more about eating regularly. Which I haven't been doing much of lately. And this new medication doesn't play nice with an empty stomach if the last couple of days have been any indication. I'm aiming for three (medium to small-ish) meals and one snack. 

 

2) No caffeine. I drink things with a ton of caffeine to help me focus (it rarely gives me an energy boost, it's actually more likely to make me tired). So, I need to lay off the caffeine to make it easier to see if the meds are helping.

 

3) Use the notebook. 

 

4) Listen to my body.

 

I guess this is mostly centered around getting used to the medication. And I'm not going to track this stuff. I'm just going to try my best.

[RedStone]

I like all the things. Do these things. Especially 4. <3

[Xena]

This sounds like wonderful progress! I have 3 thoughts for you...take them for what they are worth. 

 

1. Your vote is your vote. If someone else thinks you are throwing it away that's their problem. If someone else would make a different choice, that's great. It that person is a citizen, they get their very own vote to do with as they will. If you don't want to tell someone who you are voting for, you don't have to. We have a secret ballot system in this country. I'm happy you decided to vote, but even if you decided not to vote, that is your decision.

2. It's ok to have awkward conversations sometimes. Sometimes awkward things need to be said. Sometimes people make things needlessly awkward. Laugh about it afterward, shrug it off, or give yourself a pat on the back for dealing with it.

3. If you normally drink a lot of caffeine, don't feel like you have to go cold turkey. The withdrawal headache sucks.

[zeroh13]

6 hours ago, Xena said:

This sounds like wonderful progress! I have 3 thoughts for you...take them for what they are worth. 

 

1. Your vote is your vote. If someone else thinks you are throwing it away that's their problem. If someone else would make a different choice, that's great. It that person is a citizen, they get their very own vote to do with as they will. If you don't want to tell someone who you are voting for, you don't have to. We have a secret ballot system in this country. I'm happy you decided to vote, but even if you decided not to vote, that is your decision.

2. It's ok to have awkward conversations sometimes. Sometimes awkward things need to be said. Sometimes people make things needlessly awkward. Laugh about it afterward, shrug it off, or give yourself a pat on the back for dealing with it.

3. If you normally drink a lot of caffeine, don't feel like you have to go cold turkey. The withdrawal headache sucks.

1) What I put on Facebook was in large part a reaction to all the blogs/news/etc I was seeing while trying to find reliable information. I think there is a sizable chunk of people who unfortunately don't understand that a person's vote belongs to that person, to do what they choose with, including actively choosing to not vote (there are a lot of barriers to voting that can cause a person to not vote, which really need to be addressed). For myself personally, to not vote would be a waste. But for someone else it may not be. (I realize it didn't exactly come across that way in my original post.) 

2) It's the social anxiety that comes from the awkwardness that's a problem. It doesn't listen to reason. But maybe if I recognize more situations where awkward wasn't bad eventually it'll listen?

3) I don't drink huge amounts of caffeine consistently right now, so it shouldn't be a problem. There are times when I have a lot, but there are also days when I have none. Currently, I usually drink 16oz of coffee four or five days a week. And coffee with a couple espresso shots once a week (or less). A lot would be two energy drinks, or the coffee with espresso and an energy drink.

[Koaladle]

On 11/10/2016 at 6:40 PM, zeroh13 said:

I guess this is mostly centered around getting used to the medication. And I'm not going to track this stuff. I'm just going to try my best.

 

Excellent. Let us know how you're doing through the week. <3

 

Spoiler

So yeah, I'll burn my vote with no regrets

 

You are using your vote to protest something you think is wrong. That is a noble use of that vote, especially considering that your area was going in a certain direction anyway. Only 5% of the popular vote is required for third party candidates to gain critical funding, and you wanted to change politics in your own way.

 

GOOD FOR YOU.

 

 

[zeroh13]

Hey, look, a challenge. That I totally did not spend half a morning coming up with a title for.

 

 

[tourennatrix]

27 minutes ago, zeroh13 said:

Hey, look, a challenge. That I totally did not spend half a morning coming up with a title for.

 

 

Dude, sometimes I spend days