Cas 5

This thursday I volounteered at the Warsaw HackerSpace during the weekly open day, I was welcoming in people that were coming in and shwoing them around. It was very fun, as in-between the rounds of walking around and telling people about the space I could talk to my friends there. But it was also tiring as I had to stay until at least 10 pm, and the thing was quite repetetive. The best part is, for this service I got paid… nothing obviously, got ya good, didn’t I? This ’job’ is very important as new members mean, new memebership fees, and who doesn’t love membership fees.

This thursday I did service as well, in the same place even. But this time I was a assitant during an open, soldering workshop. This time I was responsible for bringing around solder, helping people with setting up their irons. It was even more chalanging as I had to educate others, on I topic I don’t know that well. I still loved it though. This was even more of an impcatful service, as I my actions may have introduced a lot of people to soldering electronics as well as, It was pretty challanging but also, very redwarding letting other, more expirienced people, hone their skills. And for this I got paid in 2 personal thank-you-s and 1 group thank-you. The event was a big succes with ~12 people taking part in 3 groups, one per hour. It again forced me to stay in the space until 11:40 pm (clean-up), but this was even more rewarding and worth it!

This day I played table tennis, I also played like absolute piece of [redacted]. I had a very bad day for training, but still managed to play for 50 min + 15 mins of strength training. Even though it was really hard to focus, becuase of the lack of succeses, I still tried my best and managed to train. Overall, the session was challanging, more so mentally than physically, but it made me very proud that even with the lackluster effects I presisted.

This day I played table tennis for 1h and did strength training for 30 min This is still pretty new, the strength training, so doing it involved a lot of exploration and trying. Overall it was very nice and I will definitely do more of it in the future.

On this day I made darkroom prints for 4h hours. This was also very exploratory as I experimented with new developer formulae. I tried a more concentrated developer solution along with a special, self-formulated, auxilary solution — a hydroquinone accelerator for deeper blacks. That said, the session wass very draining, but I also needed to prepare for an upcoming exhibition, so I pushed throgh perfecting 5 different prints.

This time I continued preparations for the exhibition. I printed 3 more images, this time too with the new developer. I am not sure how much I like but still giving it a chance. It does make printing a bit more expensive and does reduce the tray life of the developer; However, my biggest concern is the environmental impact — hydroquinone is a pretty bad chemical. I will truly need to give it thought as other solutions with the same effect are far more expensive. This time I felt less tired by the printing but had to stop earlier because of my other plans.

I finnaly, for the first time in a while had a cool training and had true fun. I trained chopping for 20 minutes, serves for 20 minutes as well; and shots for 25 minutes more. Then I did 15 minutes of strength training. I see my benchpress getting a lot more stable and controlled. Which is very cool. I also see that I can push each set to 13–14 resp; so in the future I will increase the weight. I also see meyself consistently doing 8 pushups or more, for 3 sets in a row.

This time I decided to use my prior succes for motivation. So keeping in mind to not overtrain myself I did some light things for 40 minutes. I did some heavily assisted assisted pull-ups with a stretchband, balance excersizes on a half-ball. Then I did some dynamic stretching, finishing it all with a 10 minute hike to help leg recovery. I usually use very light biking but this seemed more practical.

Knowing I will lack time do it later I completed most of the work required before the exhibiton. I printed my digitsl photos. More importantly I prepared the labels and printed them. Going on a detour researching how to label photographic techniques, e.g. C-print being a chromogenic print etc. Glueing up the prints was cool a and soothing job. I also signed every print. It generally took me ~1h but that does not include the printing shop run I had to make.

Once in a blue moon I decide to do some writing. So when I got the perfect idea for a short story I started work on it. It was hard to start, as seeing a blank page makes in harder to sit down, but I persisted and reached around 800 words in one sitting of fully polished prose. This kind of numbers was truly an achivment for me as I usually lose focus after 300–400 words done. I was really happy with my work, and riding this wave of motivation I also polished it. Which was new as I usually leave all polishing for the end; however, it may be a new, and better aproach to writing — doing some polishing as I go.

This day I was again showing people around da ’space, it was very fun, but the night was also very busy. At the peak we had 30 people inside, so it was overwhemling. Yet I managed and did well.

Inspired by my recent success in writing I decicded to press on. I wrote like 500 more words. It was quite hard to focus, a lot more of a challenge than the previous session, but still okay. I was overall really happy with my work, even though it was hard. I began feeling very tired along the way, but managed to pull through.

This time I decicded to train my serves. It was hard to find motivation for it — it’s far more boring and I need to run pick-up the balls every 5 minutes as I don’t have a net for them. Yet I know it is important to keep the training versatile, so I continued. I managed to do 4 sets of non-stop serving (5 minutes per set). And finish it off with 15 minutes of regular play, todau focusing on quick chopping swings.

As the easter brake started I decided to go for a hike, I hiked for 2h hours around the city center. It was a challenge, as after the first hours it got pretty boring, but I really wanted to complete 10 km. In the end I managed, to hit 12km. It was hard, especially with the fact that I had to maintain a speed of over 5km/h, but I loved it. I loved the relaxing experience of the walking itself, and completeing such a goal was very motvating.