January 19, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not.
Good morning! Iām writing this from my twin XL bed at Tufts. Itās 7:06am, so the schedule I laid out a couple days ago is going swimmingly.
Last night I packed up all the stuff I had brought home for winter break, loaded it into the trunk and backseat of the car, and had my parents drive me back to my dorm.
There was this tinge of sadness that I felt as I was packing my things to go back to campus. I think that, the first time I was moving in at Tufts, we were caught up in the rush of trying to get me to college and moved in. This time, itās less remarkableāso thereās space for seeing whatās happening.
In any case, move-in went really smoothly, so that cheered me up.
My dormās communal showers are so clean. It actually shocked me when I first went in. Thereās no hair in the showers? Where did it all go? Mesmerizing. I canāt wait to get one (1) shower in the squeaky clean bathrooms this morning before they slowly return to how they were before.
Todayās officially the first day of classes at Tufts, but I realized last night that I donāt actually have any. My only class today was supposed to be 3pm Data Structures, but that lecture has been pre-recorded and will be uploaded today. Instead, I get a whole day to frolic (do other work).
Itās ended up this way, in part, because I dropped down to taking 4 classes instead of 5 this semester. Now my schedule looks incredibly light, especially given that Iām not taking any science classes with onerous lab sessions.
Have you noticed that backlogs tend to appear in any sort of app?
Email inboxes are a sort of backlog of emails that havenāt been dealt with. HEY, the email app I switched to a few days ago, has more backlogs: one for emails you havenāt seen yet, one for emails you havenāt replied to yet, and one for emails you generally havenāt dealt with yet.
But the creators of HEY would probably be miffed by that characterization. Because in some ways, they want less backlogs, not more. Your mail is sorted into categories: the Imbox (for important emails), the Feed (for newsletters), and the Paper Trail (for receipts and confirmation emails).
The Feed is very _anti-_backlog. Itās just a feed of newsletters, where the newest ones come in at the top and gradually push the other ones down. If you donāt read something in time, itāll just drift further and further down the page ā thereās no notion of marking something as read or unread to come back to it later. Itās very buddhist actually.
On the other hand, I actively fight what the Feed is trying to do: I use an app called Feedbin, which allows me to subscribe to blogs and receive their latest posts. I can also send interesting-looking posts into Feedbin, to remember to read them later.
I have 21 articles currently in there, and the oldest of which I saved there 4 or 5 months ago. I might never get to the bottom of that pile, so is even worth having them saved?
Similarly, will I ever get to the bottom of my YouTube Watch Later playlist? Or is the only way to declare backlog bankruptcy and to start over? I donāt know.
Maybe it makes sense for articles, but not for YouTube videos. Iāve been finding myself watching less and less YouTube, since I just donāt have the time or interest in it at college. Thereās a bunch of interesting stuff in my subscription box, but if Iāll never get to watching much of it, itās probably not worth having this backlog?
Actually yes ā as Iām writing this, Iāve come to a decision. (Isnāt this great? āI told you so, writing clarifies thinking,ā English teachers are yelling! And theyāre right. I just donāt like them being right.) Iāll clear my YouTube Watch Later. Goodbye to six-month-old John Oliver episodes Iāll never watch.
Let me go do that now, give me a moment.
Iām back! Is there seriously no way to clear them all? I had to click the same two buttons 33 times.
In any case, thanks to you dear reader for helping me figure this out. I appreciate it.
As I said, no classes. Iāll get ready and head to my office until the late afternoon.
Here are the main things I want to do today:
Itās currently 7:53am. Writing this took me 47 minutes (including distractions and email/twitter breaks). Iād like that number to come down.