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ceponatia

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Pretty great weekend! I feel like I say that every weekend these days which is a good sign. My Pocket Operator Arcade came... don't worry, despite the name it has nothing to do with video games. 🙂 Pocket Operators are these cool little calculator-looking synthesizers and samplers put out by Teenage Engineering and despite only being around $50, they sound extremely professional and have a lot of functionality. The Arcade has a chiptune design with lots of 8-bit drum samples and synths but there are all different kinds with some sounding like thousand-dollar drum machines. I plan on getting many more... you can link them together with audio cables and they all sync to the same tempo. The only downside, which is fine considering the price, is that they only have 4 note polyphony so it kind of limits your patterns. This can be overcome if you're using an external recorder like I am, though.

There was an email sent out late Friday at work saying my county might shut down but no such luck. Every county around ours is closed. I don't want to get too political but ours is kind of f*****d up and generally makes terrible decisions a day late and a dollar short. It would just be par for the course if we were the county that was responsible for spreading the disease across the state.

My Maschine MK3 might be defective... waiting to hear from Native Instruments. Everything I plug into it plays at such a low volume I can barely hear it even with my speakers turned all the way up. I spent a good part of Saturday trying every cable I could think of and nothing worked. Kind of a bummer, I really like NI stuff but their support is really terrible.

 

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2 hours ago, ceponatia said:

Pretty great weekend! I feel like I say that every weekend these days which is a good sign. My Pocket Operator Arcade came... don't worry, despite the name it has nothing to do with video games. 🙂 Pocket Operators are these cool little calculator-looking synthesizers and samplers put out by Teenage Engineering and despite only being around $50, they sound extremely professional and have a lot of functionality. The Arcade has a chiptune design with lots of 8-bit drum samples and synths but there are all different kinds with some sounding like thousand-dollar drum machines. I plan on getting many more... you can link them together with audio cables and they all sync to the same tempo. The only downside, which is fine considering the price, is that they only have 4 note polyphony so it kind of limits your patterns. This can be overcome if you're using an external recorder like I am, though.

There was an email sent out late Friday at work saying my county might shut down but no such luck. Every county around ours is closed. I don't want to get too political but ours is kind of f*****d up and generally makes terrible decisions a day late and a dollar short. It would just be par for the course if we were the county that was responsible for spreading the disease across the state.

My Maschine MK3 might be defective... waiting to hear from Native Instruments. Everything I plug into it plays at such a low volume I can barely hear it even with my speakers turned all the way up. I spent a good part of Saturday trying every cable I could think of and nothing worked. Kind of a bummer, I really like NI stuff but their support is really terrible.

 

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I was worried for a moment when you said arcade lol

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Lol sorry I scared you guys. 😉

I haven't posted in a couple days because I generally post before work and I've been out of work on quarantine this week. Went home with a cough on Monday and someone started spreading the rumor that I had COVID so my work made me stay home Tuesday to go to the doctor. Doctor said all I had was a sinus infection but since he's a cool guy he agreed to write me a sick note to be out til Friday... just to make my coworkers suffer a little bit for being such vapid clucking hens. 

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18 hours ago, ceponatia said:

Went home with a cough on Monday and someone started spreading the rumor that I had COVID so my work made me stay home Tuesday to go to the doctor. Doctor said all I had was a sinus infection but since he's a cool guy he agreed to write me a sick note to be out til Friday... just to make my coworkers suffer a little bit for being such vapid clucking hens. 

Hahahahaha XD Karma! (Seriously, though, friends are falling like flies over here in Europe. It's a super infectious thing. Stay safe in any case!)

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8 hours ago, Phoenixking said:

Hahahahaha XD Karma! (Seriously, though, friends are falling like flies over here in Europe. It's a super infectious thing. Stay safe in any case!)

Yeah it's really only a matter of time til we all get it... even if it's not during the "outbreak" it's probably going to be around forever now and eventually I'll get it, I'll just think it's the flu or something lol.

It's been a lazy week with everything that happened... I never really noticed how much I rely on my work schedule to keep everything else in line. Got class caught up today, it's my final week of this sh**ty PC components course. The course itself isn't bad, it's the software we're using (MindTap by Cengage... universally voted 1 star by every student who's ever used it). There are questions that are impossible to answer, the reading material doesn't brief you for the tests at all, and their site is laggy as all hell so it can take up to an hour to finish a 15 minute assignment. Ridiculous. I seriously hope none of my other courses use this software but I'm sure they do.

I learned an entire song on piano, finished it up yesterday. Moving on to a second one now which is much, much more difficult but challenge is how we grow, right? I'll post a link to a video of me playing the last song but I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it because of Facebook settings. I don't really have anywhere else to upload it at the moment. I have a website and domain but I haven't really done anything with it yet so I'm not even sure how it works, lol.

I'm really thinking about paying $275 to take Andrew Huang's music production masterclass on the 30th. It's a month long and I've heard nothing but rave reviews about it. In the grand scheme of things, $275 isn't a lot to spend to improve a skill that you love (especially considering how much money I've spent on video games and beer in my life) it's just that with the recent car accident I have to really analyze my finances to make sure I can do it. The beauty of his course is that during it you make 3 completely finished and polished songs which is something I struggle with because I've been out of the "game" for so long. It'd be nice to have some direction in that regard.

This is getting long so I'll end it with my video... it's a bit quiet, it's the first thing I've recorded using my Canon camera and had to use a lot of filters in Adobe Premier to get rid of some unwanted noise. Hope everyone is staying safe... sending love to our friends in Europe who are having a much worse time with COVID than we are in the states so far.

 

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4 hours ago, ceponatia said:

Yeah it's really only a matter of time til we all get it... even if it's not during the "outbreak" it's probably going to be around forever now and eventually I'll get it, I'll just think it's the flu or something lol.

It's been a lazy week with everything that happened... I never really noticed how much I rely on my work schedule to keep everything else in line. Got class caught up today, it's my final week of this sh**ty PC components course. The course itself isn't bad, it's the software we're using (MindTap by Cengage... universally voted 1 star by every student who's ever used it). There are questions that are impossible to answer, the reading material doesn't brief you for the tests at all, and their site is laggy as all hell so it can take up to an hour to finish a 15 minute assignment. Ridiculous. I seriously hope none of my other courses use this software but I'm sure they do.

I learned an entire song on piano, finished it up yesterday. Moving on to a second one now which is much, much more difficult but challenge is how we grow, right? I'll post a link to a video of me playing the last song but I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it because of Facebook settings. I don't really have anywhere else to upload it at the moment. I have a website and domain but I haven't really done anything with it yet so I'm not even sure how it works, lol.

I'm really thinking about paying $275 to take Andrew Huang's music production masterclass on the 30th. It's a month long and I've heard nothing but rave reviews about it. In the grand scheme of things, $275 isn't a lot to spend to improve a skill that you love (especially considering how much money I've spent on video games and beer in my life) it's just that with the recent car accident I have to really analyze my finances to make sure I can do it. The beauty of his course is that during it you make 3 completely finished and polished songs which is something I struggle with because I've been out of the "game" for so long. It'd be nice to have some direction in that regard.

This is getting long so I'll end it with my video... it's a bit quiet, it's the first thing I've recorded using my Canon camera and had to use a lot of filters in Adobe Premier to get rid of some unwanted noise. Hope everyone is staying safe... sending love to our friends in Europe who are having a much worse time with COVID than we are in the states so far.

 

Great job following up your words and doing this hobby. It honestly takes so much effort to do a hobby that you want to escape the thought of even doing it. Funny how that works. I'd take the class or see if you can use the Udemy classes. Those can be cheaper with sales every so often. I take my animation and writing classes on there. Keep it up.

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What a strange time to be alive! I've been on a self-imposed quarantine for the most part for two weeks and I'm getting stir crazy even with all of the lessons I'm taking and university courses. We've gone down to essential staff only in my county which includes me but only for one day a week. I'm trying to volunteer for more time. We get paid anyway so it's more of just a way to pass the time for me. It's nice, though. People who've read my journal for a while might recall me mentioning that I work with two entirely unbearable women who complain all day... well I don't have to work with them during this crisis. Lol. It's actually only me in my office so I've just been listening to music and doing what little work trickles in (we're closed to the public).

I did end up signing up for Andrew Huang's Monthly course. It starts on April 1 and I'm pretty excited to dive in. There were some prerequisite videos and activities to do that I've already finished.

Without working every day though, my schedule is super messed up. I'm going to start setting an alarm and getting up regardless of working. I've been sleeping til noon on most days which kind of highlights another issue... I'm always tired. I don't know why. I'd been thinking about going to the doctor to inquire about it but that's not really possible at the moment.

Official "shelter in place" starts at midnight tonight. Judging by the rest of the country, nobody is going to pay attention to it. It's going to take some sort of legal threat to get people to actually follow directions... that's just human nature. Selfish until the very end. In Oregon they've made leaving your house for anything other than the essentials a criminal action. Eventually the rest of the country is going to have to do that. I guess until then we'll just have to sit tight and wait for people to start dying by the thousands.

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OK, that's better! Got back on a decent sleep / wake schedule today and already have accomplished a ton more than usual. Reinstalled Discord so that I can talk to some friends while under quarantine... funny that we're all no longer gaming but still found a use for an app that is almost exclusively designed for gamers. Tomorrow is my shift at work and it seems like it's going to be pretty slow... they're not delivering mail at the moment so that's a big part of my day gone. I'll probably end up leaving by 2 or 3 unfortunately. Oh well, I am grateful to at least still have a job and health insurance when I know of so many people who are either off without pay or completely unemployed.

Also I have a pretty persistent cough and some chest pain right now. Not going to freak out because I've thought I had COVID twice already and I haven't been in contact with anyone who is sick as far as I know... but we'll see.

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11 minutes ago, ceponatia said:

Also I have a pretty persistent cough and some chest pain right now. Not going to freak out because I've thought I had COVID twice already and I haven't been in contact with anyone who is sick as far as I know... but we'll see.

Haha, I started going outside, because the gym on the dorms closed. I think on Sunday I walked too fast, chilled outside for too long and I sneezed a few times the days after. It makes me think what is the true killer in this scenario 🙂

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It's been many more than a few days since I've last written anything. I'm still here, I had a pretty rough past few days. I think all of the isolation and lack of any real direction while on lockdown finally broke me. I'm better off than a lot of people... I live with 2 members of my family so it's not like I'm completely alone. I don't particularly like them, though. Haha! These past couple of weeks have really strained my relationship with my mother but I'd already written my brother off a long time ago. My mother is just so clingy and nagging, it's unbearable. She's gone full blown psycho with the pandemic situation, watching the news 24/7 and making me do insane things like take my shoes off outside if I go for a walk... what are you afraid you're going to lick my shoes? Then she said she had to wash her hands in bleach because we got a letter from the White House about what we should all be doing and she said it was probably infected because "Trump wants us all to die". Jesus Christ. I'm not a fan of the president but that is pretty fucking crazy.

It's been 2 days since I've really practiced piano but I'll be doing it again tonight. I won't lie, I played about an hour of Minecraft on Friday and Saturday. Such a bizarre game for me to play, too... I think it was just the fastest thing I could download and wouldn't involve me reinstalling Steam or anything like that so I could just get my "fix" and uninstall it... which I'm happy to say I did do. There's plenty of other stuff to do, I don't know why I craved a game so much. Maybe just something that didn't involve any thinking whatsoever... or rather the opposite... it kills my thinking. Yeah that's probably what it was.

The biggest issue with living at home with my mother is that I don't have a place I can just work on stuff. My computer is in my bedroom and it's just not a good mental space to work. I'm probably going to ask today if I can use my other brother's bedroom as an office (he moved out about a year ago and keeps saying he's coming back but who knows. Wouldn't be hard to take my computer out of there if needed anyway). But then on the other hand it butts against my mother's room so if I was working on music or studying with Spotify on she'd just whine all day. Idk.

Kinda ridiculous complaint for someone who is almost 40. I grew up laughing at men who lived with their parents in their 30's and 40's and now here I am, lol. To be fair, those guys were pathetic for lots of other reasons but I definitely don't feel great about where I'm at. Gotta remember, though, I'm working through college and I'll have a much, much better job once I graduate.

If Covid doesn't kill me first!

Edited by ceponatia
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20 minutes ago, ceponatia said:

It's been many more than a few days since I've last written anything. I'm still here, I had a pretty rough past few days. I think all of the isolation and lack of any real direction while on lockdown finally broke me. I'm better off than a lot of people... I live with 2 members of my family so it's not like I'm completely alone. I don't particularly like them, though. Haha! These past couple of weeks have really strained my relationship with my mother but I'd already written my brother off a long time ago. My mother is just so clingy and nagging, it's unbearable. She's gone full blown psycho with the pandemic situation, watching the news 24/7 and making me do insane things like take my shoes off outside if I go for a walk... what are you afraid you're going to lick my shoes? Then she said she had to wash her hands in bleach because we got a letter from the White House about what we should all be doing and she said it was probably infected because "Trump wants us all to die". Jesus Christ. I'm not a fan of the president but that is pretty fucking crazy.

It's been 2 days since I've really practiced piano but I'll be doing it again tonight. I won't lie, I played about an hour of Minecraft on Friday and Saturday. Such a bizarre game for me to play, too... I think it was just the fastest thing I could download and wouldn't involve me reinstalling Steam or anything like that so I could just get my "fix" and uninstall it... which I'm happy to say I did do. There's plenty of other stuff to do, I don't know why I craved a game so much. Maybe just something that didn't involve any thinking whatsoever... or rather the opposite... it kills my thinking. Yeah that's probably what it was.

The biggest issue with living at home with my mother is that I don't have a place I can just work on stuff. My computer is in my bedroom and it's just not a good mental space to work. I'm probably going to ask today if I can use my other brother's bedroom as an office (he moved out about a year ago and keeps saying he's coming back but who knows. Wouldn't be hard to take my computer out of there if needed anyway). But then on the other hand it butts against my mother's room so if I was working on music or studying with Spotify on she'd just whine all day. Idk.

Kinda ridiculous complaint for someone who is almost 40. I grew up laughing at men who lived with their parents in their 30's and 40's and now here I am, lol. To be fair, those guys were pathetic for lots of other reasons but I definitely don't feel great about where I'm at. Gotta remember, though, I'm working through college and I'll have a much, much better job once I graduate.

If Covid doesn't kill me first!

I lived with my mom last year and it's well documented in the first third of my diary how terrible it went. I don't blame you. Just be patient and see this thing through. I think having an office space is great and you can always move stuff if he comes back. 

Be careful with the gaming. I'm glad you didn't binge it, but don't let that give you confidence into playing in moderation. It never works. 

Good luck. 

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Yeah forget moderation. Quit gaming forever ahhh go team. I've been craving gaming more since the quarantine too. It's being at home with your computer and not being able to get away from it. Man just typing about it is making me stir crazy. I've really been enjoying shows, walking, at home exercise, meditation, books and drawing since being cooped up. It sounds like you have plenty of other things to keep you busy too. Stick with the club and quit gaming while finding something else to do. It's the good life. ❤️ 8-) 

@BooksandTrees Now I'm thinking about masturbating after 3 months nofap. I could change it to noporn which I've done for a while. Idk masturbating gets kind of boring and then I want to try porn again and then I quit porn again is how I remember it all going. I asked my doctor if he thinks masturbation is healthy or it's better to not masturbate. We'll see what they say.

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22 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Be careful with the gaming. I'm glad you didn't binge it, but don't let that give you confidence into playing in moderation. It never works. 

Good luck. 

 

2 hours ago, Erik2.0 said:

Yeah forget moderation. Quit gaming forever ahhh go team. I've been craving gaming more since the quarantine too. It's being at home with your computer and not being able to get away from it. Man just typing about it is making me stir crazy. I've really been enjoying shows, walking, at home exercise, meditation, books and drawing since being cooped up. It sounds like you have plenty of other things to keep you busy too. Stick with the club and quit gaming while finding something else to do. It's the good life. ❤️ 8-) 

Oh yeah no worries, guys, I have no illusions about moderation. The whole idea of moderation was beaten out of my head when I quit drinking. You can't do anything in moderation if you were once addicted to it. I take it as part of the process. It seemed unfair at first when I thought I'd never be able to drink a beer again but now 2 years on I don't care one bit. I'm sure that'll happen with gaming, eventually. 

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Kinda pissed off right now. We've been quarantined in our home for about 3 weeks... I go out to do the shopping and all that because I'm at less risk but despite all of that, my extremely mentally ill aunt came over yesterday and I left right away because I just can't deal with her on a mental level. She's the kind of person who always has to be right about everything even though she's an extreme hoarder and chain smoker who has never been in a romantic relationship once in her life. So by the time I got back she had left and I went about my day. Well today, 24 full hours later, my mother tells me my aunt was coughing the whole time she was over and refusing to cover her mouth because "it's just allergies". She texted my mother earlier today saying she now has a fever of 103.

So despite doing everything right, being as careful as possible and washing my hands like a maniac, I probably will get sick. Even though I wasn't around when she was here hacking her lungs up, she probably got spit and shit all over everything in the house and coated it with virus. I'm not a hygiene freak or paranoid about microbes but it's likely. Even though I'm low risk I did have lung surgery when I was in my early 20's so I am a little worried about getting the disease. My mother is definitely high risk and my aunt, if she actually does have COVID, is in all honesty probably going to die. She's smoked for 40 years, has high blood pressure, and like I said is a hoarder so she just breathes cat feces and dust all day. She had me feed her cat while she was out of town once and I couldn't spend more than 5 minutes in her apartment it smelled so bad and the air was so thick with god knows what. I wish I could say I was upset about her potential demise but that is the level at which I don't like her. Lol.

So we'll see what happens. It could take up to 5 days for me to start feeling really sick and that's exactly the day I'm supposed to do my one day this week at work. I should know by then if she has COVID and if she does I'll just quarantine myself regardless of how I feel. That's the ethical thing to do, I think.

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15 minutes ago, ceponatia said:

Kinda pissed off right now. We've been quarantined in our home for about 3 weeks... I go out to do the shopping and all that because I'm at less risk but despite all of that, my extremely mentally ill aunt came over yesterday and I left right away because I just can't deal with her on a mental level. She's the kind of person who always has to be right about everything even though she's an extreme hoarder and chain smoker who has never been in a romantic relationship once in her life. So by the time I got back she had left and I went about my day. Well today, 24 full hours later, my mother tells me my aunt was coughing the whole time she was over and refusing to cover her mouth because "it's just allergies". She texted my mother earlier today saying she now has a fever of 103.

So despite doing everything right, being as careful as possible and washing my hands like a maniac, I probably will get sick. Even though I wasn't around when she was here hacking her lungs up, she probably got spit and shit all over everything in the house and coated it with virus. I'm not a hygiene freak or paranoid about microbes but it's likely. Even though I'm low risk I did have lung surgery when I was in my early 20's so I am a little worried about getting the disease. My mother is definitely high risk and my aunt, if she actually does have COVID, is in all honesty probably going to die. She's smoked for 40 years, has high blood pressure, and like I said is a hoarder so she just breathes cat feces and dust all day. She had me feed her cat while she was out of town once and I couldn't spend more than 5 minutes in her apartment it smelled so bad and the air was so thick with god knows what. I wish I could say I was upset about her potential demise but that is the level at which I don't like her. Lol.

So we'll see what happens. It could take up to 5 days for me to start feeling really sick and that's exactly the day I'm supposed to do my one day this week at work. I should know by then if she has COVID and if she does I'll just quarantine myself regardless of how I feel. That's the ethical thing to do, I think.

That's why I don't talk to my family. Family is fake from what I've gathered. Just a way for people to create their own hierarchy outside of government. Try to logically disinfect everything and see what happens. If not, good luck and I'm sorry that happened. 

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First day of music production class went well... got a lot of positive feedback on my first little demo assignment so I guess maybe I know what I'm doing. Today's assignment is much more difficult so will take a few days but I'm looking forward to getting some actual music written!

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I've been wracking my brain over the last 3 days in this class. I have spent on average 6 hours a day writing music and have thrown away about a dozen ideas... but I finally have one I'm somewhat happy with and will continue working on. 

 

 

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Today's my day at work and it looks like we'll be getting remote access to our desktops so I'll be able to actually work from home next week. Just in time, I think. Pretty extreme chest pain today and much more coughing than usual. I'm alone on my floor so not in danger of getting anyone sick if I am actually infected. We'll see what happens! I'm not just assuming I have the virus like I have in the past but I definitely feel like something is wrong. The regular flu is going around but I was vaccinated then there's also allergies. Just too hard to know at this point in time. No headache or fever so that's a good sign. Hopefully I do have it and this is the extent of how bad it'll get. Lol. Would be great to be immune so I could go back to normal life.

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