I’ve started college recently and it has brought about a number of interesting changes in my life.
For one, ever since my first week of college I abruptly quit my habit of spending too much time online, with absolutely no effort or intent to do so, after having struggled with it, well, ever since I had first had a computer on my hands. (By the way—long time no see, LW.) I simply lost interest in this activity, and started craving for other pastimes instead. Results: my ability to get things done increased, but at the cost of a much poorer information diet; also, a little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that my English appears to have taken a hit too.
I began exercising regularly, or at least as often as my new schedule allows. Again, I no longer even need to try to motivate myself to begin or to keep exercising. I just do it whenever I can find some time for it; also, I’ve noticed that the key to lasting longer on the treadmill is being sufficiently distracted so as to not stare obsessively at the time/distance/calorie display screen. Together with no longer having time to eat proper meals, I’ve been losing weight like crazy recently.
I made a conscious effort to be more extroverted among my new peer group. (In my natural state, I’m a complete hermit. I could go for weeks or months without any social interaction and not miss it as long as I’m not also intellectually isolated.) This is how I’ve found out that my social skills are not as bad as I originally assumed, as long as I stop trying to display poor social skills to signal my nerd identity. I’ve still got a long way to go, though, until I can say I can navigate the social landscape adequately.
My relationship with work and studying has changed in a weird way: before, I really truly identified with these goals, but in spite of this, I routinely failed at pursuing them. Recently though, I couldn’t bring myself to even care about studying for the most part, and focused mostly on social pursuits; yet, when I get tired of having a life (which happens pretty often—I’m an extreme introvert, remember?), the first thing I seek out is some nice yummy brain candy to captivate me and take my mind off recent events. It gives me a sense of stability, makes me feel like my old self again. For someone like me, social interaction is so demanding that the monotony of doing some math problems feels almost relaxing by comparison. (Honestly, it would have never occurred to me that the key to working more is to make a habit out of doing something that feels less productive and yet more stressful than work.)
I’m working on completely eliminating passive-aggressiveness from my behavioral repertoire, and had some successes so far.
Things have been pretty bad in the rationality department. I’ve noticed that I have a nasty tendency to throw my priors out of the window sometimes without surprise following a dramatic change in estimated probabilities, and also that my level of optimism/pessimism varies less with what actually happens and more with how late it is and how tired I am. I’ve also noticed that, having noticed these things, I failed to account for them as I should have.
Feeling completely underwhelmed with college so far. I could go this far and stay on top of all my classes without even giving a damn the whole time. And I haven’t even gone into something easy (hence, I was expecting greater challenges). The next time I’m in a state of mind in which I feel like learning, I’ll definitely not be relying on my college classes.
I’ve started college recently and it has brought about a number of interesting changes in my life.
For one, ever since my first week of college I abruptly quit my habit of spending too much time online, with absolutely no effort or intent to do so, after having struggled with it, well, ever since I had first had a computer on my hands. (By the way—long time no see, LW.) I simply lost interest in this activity, and started craving for other pastimes instead. Results: my ability to get things done increased, but at the cost of a much poorer information diet; also, a little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that my English appears to have taken a hit too.
I began exercising regularly, or at least as often as my new schedule allows. Again, I no longer even need to try to motivate myself to begin or to keep exercising. I just do it whenever I can find some time for it; also, I’ve noticed that the key to lasting longer on the treadmill is being sufficiently distracted so as to not stare obsessively at the time/distance/calorie display screen. Together with no longer having time to eat proper meals, I’ve been losing weight like crazy recently.
I made a conscious effort to be more extroverted among my new peer group. (In my natural state, I’m a complete hermit. I could go for weeks or months without any social interaction and not miss it as long as I’m not also intellectually isolated.) This is how I’ve found out that my social skills are not as bad as I originally assumed, as long as I stop trying to display poor social skills to signal my nerd identity. I’ve still got a long way to go, though, until I can say I can navigate the social landscape adequately.
My relationship with work and studying has changed in a weird way: before, I really truly identified with these goals, but in spite of this, I routinely failed at pursuing them. Recently though, I couldn’t bring myself to even care about studying for the most part, and focused mostly on social pursuits; yet, when I get tired of having a life (which happens pretty often—I’m an extreme introvert, remember?), the first thing I seek out is some nice yummy brain candy to captivate me and take my mind off recent events. It gives me a sense of stability, makes me feel like my old self again. For someone like me, social interaction is so demanding that the monotony of doing some math problems feels almost relaxing by comparison. (Honestly, it would have never occurred to me that the key to working more is to make a habit out of doing something that feels less productive and yet more stressful than work.)
I’m working on completely eliminating passive-aggressiveness from my behavioral repertoire, and had some successes so far.
Things have been pretty bad in the rationality department. I’ve noticed that I have a nasty tendency to throw my priors out of the window sometimes without surprise following a dramatic change in estimated probabilities, and also that my level of optimism/pessimism varies less with what actually happens and more with how late it is and how tired I am. I’ve also noticed that, having noticed these things, I failed to account for them as I should have.
Feeling completely underwhelmed with college so far. I could go this far and stay on top of all my classes without even giving a damn the whole time. And I haven’t even gone into something easy (hence, I was expecting greater challenges). The next time I’m in a state of mind in which I feel like learning, I’ll definitely not be relying on my college classes.