Metanoia

I had a good day today: I cleaned my bathroom, tidied the bedroom/living-room, recycled, washed *all* my clothes and still had time to go workout. I even went for a nice walk in the sun. Currently in bed chillen. I'll aim towards being at least this productive tomorrow.

I have decided to leave the old journal behind. I felt a new one was in order for this new chapter of my life. I recently had some memories pop up on my snapchat from the year before I began studying. One thing hit me instantly: I have really let myself go during this bachelors. No wonder I feel so unconfident and unsatisfied with my appearance, I used to be shredded back then- now I have love handles and a way rounder face. In about 10 days out from going home for ~2 months. I want to achieve two things by then: 10 days where I am out of bed by 10am and go to the gym 7 times. During those two months I will be working an old manual labour job, whilst I apply for work within finance. It pays tremendously well given the low barrier to entry and I will be exercising all day. I also intend on getting a local gym membership whilst I am at home. Tomorrow might be a bit rough, as it is well past midnight where I am located. We will see what future me brings to the table.

Today's goal: apply for at least 3 jobs. Turns out I picked the worst time to graduate, AIN'T NOBODY HIRIN'.

Been chillin'. Matched with two milfs on hinge, managed to keep a conversation with one of them up until right now. She asked me: "what's a daily habit you've kept for a long time and are proud of? I am stumped. Asked Claude to generate general low effort habits and none fit me. I'll have to figure something out quick!

Just got my last exam back yesterday: B! Fully thought I'd get a C or lower. Went out with family to celebrate and watched the Portugal-Congo match. Yesterday was great, today will be good too.

Went out with some colleagues yesterday and then spend the rest of the day recovering. I've got a doctors appointment in about an hour an 45. Also I'm going on a date tomorrow, which part of me doesn't really want to go to. I'm probably just nervous.

Had to work from 11am til 7pm- work was hectic. Went home and relaxed for a bit then went out with some friends at 10-ish. Currently on the bus on my way home, cannot wait to sleep. Today was good.

After a very long hiatus, I have returned. I had my very last exam on May 27th and just got my 2nd to last exam back: I have been awarded four A's and one C this semester- I'll get my final grade back on the 17th. My GPA has gone vertical, but alas we're still a bit off the B-average. I'm currently sitting at a 3.17, with a 2.5 being a C and a 3.5 being a B. I've basically graduated now, so I intend on getting a job ASAP and retaking one course per semester till I hit a 3.5GPA. I also made the mistake of skimming through some of my previous posts, and I'll just say this wrt. the goals I laid out: I've achieved basically none of those goals fully. I workout and eat well sporadically, academically I have improved significantly (but haven't achieved the B-average yet), still on social media, don't "go on walks" or meditate daily- but I do however wake up relatively early. Now that I have released myself from the shackles which were my extremely poor financial situation and the constant stress of work and uni, I can focus on taking care of myself more. I think once I start working out, eating right, and building a better mental relationship with myself, more doors will open for me. As a matter of fact: I'm going to hit the gym right now. Glad to be back, boys. Sincerely, Me.

Today was not really a good day at all. If you were eagerly waiting to figure out if I managed to wake up at 07:30 Saturday morning, I did. But I went back to sleep again, woke up around 11, decided the dream I had been having was so interesting that I went to sleep again and woke up at 13:00. I got to uni around 14:00 and stayed there till 19:00. I do not really feel as though any of the time spent at uni was productive at all. I did not get much, if anything done at all. All I did was pretend to do work until a sufficient amount of time has passed, to where I would not feel bad about going home. After coming home I ate and scrolled/wasted time. I have had only 2/4 meals today (I have decided to combine two of my meals so there are 4 in total now). It is currently 03:08 Sunday morning. I have done nothing of significance other than waste a perfectly good day. That is fine. It does not matter how many times I lead myself astray, what I care about is how long it takes me to 1) realise, and 2) act. One thing I am realising is that I am lonely, I also think I am sad on the inside. I never really project these emotions out into the world when/where others can see them. I prefer to let them fester inside me till I am alone. With regard to the sadness: I am not sure how to explain what it feels like other than “grey”. I do not really feel much of anything when I am left alone. The loneliness however is easier to put into words. I miss the feeling of being loved deeply. I think about it all the time. I have a family, friends etc. and I am in contact with them daily, but it just does not compare. I have been single now for three years, my first ever real relationship lasted 7 years in total. We were each others first everything, until suddenly that all changed. In retrospect that was a good thing, we were not good for each other. But man if I could go back and relive that time I would. I have dated a bit here and there since then, but nothing really feels the same. I even had a year long “situationship” with a girl, which was fun at the time, but it never felt like it did back then. We still keep in touch, I might see her before the year ends, actually. I keep going in circles where sometimes I hate that I am single and I want to find someone, anyone to waste my time on. Sometimes I realise that if I focus on being the person I want to be for long enough, eventually someone will stumble into my life. Other times I focus on all the things I dislike about myself, and blame them for my situation. I do not really like myself that much. I think that is why I self sabotage so often. Realistically I do not have the time nor the funds to sustain a relationship. Especially not in the city I am currently living in. A relationship would not be good for my future either since I need to focus on my studies and fitness goals. I also have monetary goals as well: I want to grow my savings account and I am also investing on the side. A girlfriend would not be a good addition to my life considering the goals I have, not right now at least.

Today, Friday, has been a pretty good day. I woke up and felt energized and ready for the day, but did not get up right away - my lecture was at 10 and I woke up around 07:50. Once I actually attended my econometrics lecture though the tiredness set in. Luckily it was not only me that felt that way. I did however manage to actually try to focus intensely on the lecture for the entire hour and forty-five minutes. After the lecture I had an eye examination; turns out my vision has improved since last! Last examination both my eyes were -1, now my right eye is -0.5 and my left is -0.25. I will be getting my contacts in about a week or so, although I will eventually get glasses. I just need to find a pair that fits my face, I also need to find the pair of glasses - which are out of my price range at the moment. After the examination I headed home, ate and went to uni to work on the group assignment we have due on the 30th. There were four tasks left to do, and I did three of them. I am meeting my group tomorrow, but I do not intend on doing the last task as I personally feel as though I have done most of the heavy lifting. I do not mind it though as I am not the "best" student in our group, and it felt good to be more useful than the top student we had onboard for once. I plan on showing up, maybe doing some cleanup of our document, ensuring its all in the right format etc. After which I will be going to the silent part of the library to read up on my machine learning course. Exams are right around the corner and I do not feel like I am nearly as stressed as I should be. I am still behind on my reading and homework, yet I am not worrying at all. My first exam is in late November, along with a graded assignment in my machine learning course. After that I have four exams between the 1st and 15th(?) of December. I have been to the gym today. I have had all of my meals except one, although I have been snacking so I think I might be close enough to my calorie goal for the day. I do not really track my calories as I do not mind eating the same meals every day, so I rather just make a meal plan which hits my goal and stick to that. This also ensures that I am able to predict my monthly spending on groceries for the entire semester, which is pretty great. The meal I missed was roughly 500 calories, and the lion bar I just had is like 270. I still need to get ready for bed, stretch and meditate. I plan on waking up around 07:30 tomorrow, will I manage to get out of bed straight away? Find out in my next entry. Good night random person reading my journal.

As it is way past my bedtime I shall keep this brief. Overslept, got to lecture on time, had all meals except one and spent the rest of my day working on a group project due the 30th. We have roughly three tasks left out of 32. If we manage to score above a 90% on this assignment, we can get a B-average with a 50% on our written exam. I have altered my workout routine so that I am at the gym 3x per week, with a 4th optional day if I have the time. Given that exam season is approaching I thought it better to allocate more time towards my studies, as opposed to being in the gym 5x per week. I rarely manage to do any truly productive work after having been to the gym either. I will be meditating and stretching before bed.

I cannot seem to fall asleep. It is currently 01:20, I went to bed about an hour ago or so if I remember correctly. Apologies in advance if this is incoherent, and/or poorly written. I cannot seem to stop thinking about what happened to G. I picture his last moments, I think about what his family are doing right now. He had a daughter and a wife in Tenerife, and only came to my country to provide for them. You could always catch him on FaceTime with his wife and daughter during our lunch breaks, I think his daughter was around 8 or so. Truly heartbreaking. I wonder what he thought about as he realised he was living his last few minutes. Last I spoke to him he was telling me that I should learn this game called backgammon, and that once I come back to work for Christmas break we could play a few games together. I think about that a lot too. During the daytime I seem to be fine, I do not think about it much. But once my head hits the pillow I start thinking. It happened last night too. I have not had too many deaths in my life, luckily none were close relatives. But no death has felt like this one. I genuinely enjoyed his company at work, I respected him a lot. He always had some great story about something he did or experienced as a younger man, he was funny too. I cannot count how many times I have shown up to work since he started working with us, and actively looked/asked for him - and if he was not working with us that day I would be a bit bummed out. I will truly miss working with you G. Good night.

Today a good friend and colleague passed whilst work. He he was not feeling well and told those he worked with that he needed to go home, on his way up to the locker room he had a heart attack and collapsed. Rest in peace G. You will be missed.

Not too much to report on today. Had lectures today, been to the gym, had all my meals, going to stretch and meditate after posting this update. I feel like studying has become easier. Reading through the relevant material has become easier, and following along in the lectures as well. Problem questions are still difficult, though. I got stuck in an elevator today, first time. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, I made a friend whilst in there.

Do not worry, I have not given up. Today has been productive, I think? I do not feel that way, however I have quite literally spent 70-80% of my day reading/working through my statistics and machine learning textbook. Because the material is quite tough, I did not get that far, I am roughly 10 pages off from having read two weeks worth of assigned reading. I also taken notes and worked through the exercises from the book. But it does not feel like I have worked hard enough. I am not satisfied. I have done everything I set out to do: gym/all meals had/studied. All that remains is meditating and stretching. I have however, noticed that I need to start putting my phone away. I use it a lot even though the only apps I have that are worth checking are: Clash of Clans (do not judge), Snapchat and the Facebook Messenger app. I use tinder too, which is a good segue into something I wanted to get off my chest: the 2nd date I had lined up for tomorrow. She cancelled earlier today. Apparently she had a change of heart and does not see me in "that way" anymore. I have no clue why. I asked if something had happened and she essentially said just that she changed her mind. For some reason her cancelling hurt a lot more than it should have. She was the first one I had been on a date with in a long time that I genuinely enjoyed being around. We hit it off very well also, or at least so I thought. I ended up swiping on tinder for a while after she cancelled, but got this feeling that I should maybe delete the app. I think I might. I want to work towards using my phone less. I know this app called "Forest" or something like that. The premise is that you get some land in the app, and you can grow different kinds of trees and bushes on said land. However, in order for these to actually grow you need to set a timer on your phone which will essentially disable the device. If you use your phone whilst the timer is still going you will "kill" whatever you started to grow, and will be left with a dead tree/bush on your land. Anyways, I am off to bed soon. As per usual I will be stretching and meditating before bed. Maybe I will read a book as well, I currently am in the process of reading both "Think and Grow Rich" and "Dantes Inferno". Although I have not picked them up in a while. Goodnight.