# 1, Friday 1. Double down on strengths 2. Determine the path of least resistance 3. Growth Mindset - everything is a learning experience — Maybe God was onto something in the Bible when He said, ‘whatever you do, do it heartily to the Lord.’ I guess even dishes can be worship. Granted, I was listening to music that really elevated my soul like Andrew Belle’s “Oldest Friend,” from my magic soundstage tunnels earpiece from the future, a privilege Martha didn’t have when she was forced to hear Mary and Jesus commune together as she sulkily scrubbed away on the bowls and all. — I wonder what I would have been doing right now if I’d graduated in 2018. Maybe I’d be in my final year of med school and dying. Or maybe I would be in Manila working in a tech startup, coming home to my British shorthair cat and cushy Taguig condo. I can’t say I’m sad. On the one hand, I’m glad I seem to have grown past my trauma (if a little bit). Maybe I’m still in the process of healing. I’m still in the middle of things right now. I’m still acclimating to TickTick and its confusing and sometimes inconvenient way of making me so stressed out about tasks that don’t disappear when I check them (because they just change schedule instead of going to the next day, unless it’s a whole-ass parent task you check off after you’ve done the smaller tasks underneath). And I drank 5 coffee cups today plus armodafinil 37.5mg. It’s so stressful trying to be a mini yaya and dishwasher and trying to be a student (not to mention, my mental illnesses and perfectionism and general low concentration levels and low energy and the fact that I am not normal psychosomatically). I have about a month before 1st sem starts. Wow. I have a year left. I can’t say I’m prepared. It’s July 1 and I really need to get my routines in order and prepare for the worst while asking God for help and strength because I cannot do this at all. I didn’t even get to exercise for ten minutes today because I woke up at freakin’ 8AM because I for some reason didn’t hear my alarm. I feel like I should be so productive now that I’ve got all these apps and I have a ton of privilege. I can’t be like Alyanna Ross and Elizabeth Filips and all those probably neurotypical people. I am autistic and neurodivergent and I need to acknowledge that I am disabled trying to make my situation better with the best that I’ve got, with the best that I know, with all my tools and methods, whilst trying to deal with a crater of trauma in my head that’s been covered by some Divine miracle. But for all I know I will have to jump into that trauma again once I resume writing my AMoP thesis and trying to balance all my duties and my weaknesses and propensities to leisure just a little bit, and then go down a slope of recklessness. I will have to have Herculean amounts of self-control. The only book I should be seriously reading aside from the Bible right now is Atomic Habits, which frankly, I should have finished years ago. I also need to give myself grace. — I forgot what I was supposed to say but I just had a thought pass me by earlier before I wrote the paragraph above. Something that I thought future me should maybe take up… **Things that I want to do in the near future:** 1. Go study BCIs or something and the intersection between AI and humans in the mid-to late 2020s. 2. Maybe write a nonfiction book about how to survive as a neurodivergent person in the PH. I feel like I haven’t really seen any representation although that could be because I haven’t been this much of a Luddite in my life. Of course, I will have to survive first!!! 3. Write a nonfiction book about memory techniques if you are unfortunate like me (I have a suspicion I am visually poor in memory lol) and have it earn me some income while I write novels. Now, I think I have strong memory especially when it’s emotional, but my trauma has made it so that nothing, not even surprising images like violent or gory ones shock me enough to remember them at all, much less connect them to anything I know. I can only draw on things I can remember from my deep past — like childhood songs and teen icons and all the things I can intuitively “fill in the gaps” or fill in like song lyrics so deeply embedded in my system. I remember people really well, especially if they have some emotional impact on me. I have no visual memories of the places I visit like the foreign countries, even Disneylands I’ve been to!!!! WTF!!!! I didn’t like China nor Singapore. I only remember what the pictures tell me. That is so weird. I don’t even remember a lot of it, only very specific happy moments like the cafeteria, or the hotel that had the vending machine. I remember the bed frame of the university the contest was held, and I thought, wow, they have really nice dorm bed frames. Might be worth pondering. (Also put this in your Memory research notes). — So a lot of things happened last month June 2022 (Also, put this in June Recap 2022) 1. Hypomanic episodes where I figured out a way to kind of augment my speaking skills. 2. Maybe some kind of clarity about what I need to do about my degree. 3. Increased productivity spurred by new software I got. 4. Really didn’t pass all the subjects I needed to pass, which was inevitable. At least I got CW 141. I will need to take retake Fil 115, Eng 22, CW 151, and complete my INCs for CL 122, CW 130, and CW 199. I will need massive amounts of energy. 5. There was this brownout that really almost gave me instant death but I took it well and went through a manic episode trying to figure out “clues” because my dad was staring at my bookshelf. I don’t remember the order of events but please do not waste even more time doing that. That’s a really problematic thing you have that leads to overload of your mind and RAM. Your infinite tabs situation. 6. Remembered a lot of childhood associations and interests I could use to try to figure out this memory research thing (a modified mind palace of sorts). 7. I was able to listen more attentively although my ability to meditate worsened. I have lost count of the times I almost fell asleep doing them. That is really bad. Although I get frustrated when I lose my focus and get distracted so many times, but then I realized it’s actually the point—to continually bring yourself away from those thoughts and re-focus. Maybe this is a side-effect of my weaning myself off armodafinil. Let’s face it, if you are weaning yourself off this substance for your liver’s sake and your mental stability’s sake, you are going to experience withdrawal and your natural abilities will be so far behind than your “peak” when you are on eugeroic substances. You are training yourself to produce your own concentration muscles and chemicals. What you do need is to invest in apps like Brainbuddy (although maybe convincing my dad to buy the yearly option would be impossible right now). I also need to get myself together and avoid hoarding all the things! **I am violating inversion mental model rule—what do I need to avoid in order to succeed!!!!! I may be doing all the things I can, but if I don’t get rid of all the unnecessary ones, I will be significantly handicapped. This might be your biggest weakness of all time and I guarantee you will absolutely fail if you do not focus on a few essentials and master them.** 8. I was able to focus at least once during a sermon although I did have to use paper and pen. That’s a start. I dream of a day when I can magically memorize auditory information and store it in my mind for later. 9. I can’t list all the times I cried last month although remembering probably would be re-traumatizing. That’s why I’ve put this task off—the monthly routines to two months on the first, next time September. ## Happenings: So I realized my journal entries are conspicuously missing of concrete detail. Maybe that’s why my visual memory is so off and underdeveloped. I’ll try to rehash my day through audio so it’s faster and also so that I will develop my speaking skills without armodafinil. I wonder how this will happen with visual-auditory development. I really wish and pray God will grant me new neurons in this area. ## Grateful For: 1. Continued improvement no matter how small. 2. God’s providence seen and unseen. 3. Protection and continued preservation of health. 4. My ability to be persistent in areas I actually need to develop even though right now it’s still meh. ![[July 1 1.mp3]]