Big nothing.

Dear diary,

I spent the whole weekend going through the motions. I watched American Dad all Saturday morning. Then I went to the gym. I hadn't done anything active Friday so I thought I'd be full of energy. That wasn't the case. I felt drained and it took me more than half the session to get warmed up. Afterwards I was going to do one of 4 things: See Alan, go out to Sabrina's birthday thing, go to a meetup club event or meet Miho, a girl from Bumble (dating app). Miho never replied that evening. I decided that I should go to a birthday thing over a club. And Alan messaged me saying he didn't feel like going out.

I went to Sabrina's thing. But there was just her and Tabatha there (her roommate). And I did a foul, I didn't recognize Tabatha. :( I feel so terrible. She changed her hair color and I haven't seen her in ... 3 years. Yea, but still. I introduced myself like I've never met her. She was offended. :/ Either way after an hour two other people showed up and I bailed. I went to see Alex L at the bar for dinner. While there I texted Alan and asked if he wanted to go out later that night. To my surprise he said yes. And I left the bar and went out with Alan and Annmarie. 

I wanted to go to Basement Tavern, but the line was too long so we pressed on. We ended up at ... I don't even know. Some bar at a hotel. Stupid expensive prices. My double-shot of house vodka cost me $30. The only way I could justify it was that I hadn't done anything fun in a while. We had a good time. I told the couple about my adventures at Freeborn, my freshman dorm. We called it a night at 01:30. Pretty late for all of us. 

Sunday felt the same. I woke up late. Didn't go on a hike I wanted to go to. Went to the beach. I was really worried about my shoulder. So I took it really easy. I was fortunate to keep going until my hands hurt. Hung out for a few hours. I wanted to meet Jake's Morgan. Jake's the coworker and Morgan is the women he flew over the UK for a week to hang out with him. Good times for them. I wanted to be envious. I see so little happiness around me. It's sickening when I do, but that's probably because it never happens anymore. But I digress. 

I wanted to leave already, but decided to make myself do handstands. Met Heather from Atlanta who's in town for a few days. We exchanged phone numbers because she said she's coming back in a few weeks for another visit. 

Almost forgot. I met Miho yesterday. When I go to the beach I hung out with her on the pier first for about 90 minutes and only then went to the rings. She seemed nice. Not my type, but I'm not picky. She seemed like a good person. Works with animals. It's her first time meeting someone she met online. Hehe. I haven't contacted her after that, yet.

Anyway, after the beach I needed to go to Plummer Park for the Russian Festival in honor of WWII victory. I left the beach and got a message saying I should be there by 18:00. And so I did... to watch it end at 18:30. Apparently I got bad info. Missed the festivities again. For like the third year in a row.

After that I went to the Russian store, loaded up on Russian food to eat then and to take home. We went to Olga's. Mange-d the food and some of the cake. Yes, I got a cake. Olga and Stacy weren't even there. They were visiting a friend. So we had fun without them. 

When I got home Alina and Chris were already setting up Game of Thrones. So I watched that with them. And I finished the day off playing Neverwinter with Alex (my nephew). I just realized I can't use Alex L because that's taken or Alex M because that's taken as well. Maybe I can do Alex M-L? Yeah. That's seems legit. Played Neverwinter online with Alex ML for an our. :)

P.S. Was in terrible pain last night because I had a bag of carrots for dinner. And I don't chew well so I'm still dealing with sharp pieces moving through my intestines. :(

Decision day

So the only thing that I need to do today is to decide which team I want to join. I've talked to the same number of people on them. I have a good idea of pros and cons. I'm leaning toward one team so I can make more impact. Both teams have significant downsides. But that shouldn't stop me. I have to transfer. Delaying the decision will only slow me down. I'm tired of stress.

Yesterday I went to Tempest. Haven't gone a couple of days and was excited to try things again. But 20 minutes into it I rolled my ankle and limped for the rest of evening. I bounced on my back a little ... and pushed some weights. Made another two hours pass by. But ultimately limped away. Now I don't know if I'll be able to play soccer. I'll have to get out of bed first.

Last night I was looking at the numbers of women I've messaged. Because given how many I've tried to message... it just wasn't adding up. So I added an extra check for the WebDriver wait to look for a confirmation before moving on. I think it would be very disappointing to find out that only 1 in 5 messages I sent out went through. So I didn't dig any deeper. Then I looked for more people and ran into Alex K (Sasha from high school) on OkC. Messaged her and we had a brief chat. Given that we've deleted each other as friends on Facebook a few times over the years I don't think it's a match made in heaven, but she's a cool person. And I've got nothing to lose.

Time to live the dream.

The deadline for me to pick my next team is fast approaching. It's getting nerve-wrecking. I might just end up tossing a coin. The fact that my manager is an jerk and his bad review will cost me $$$ is beginning to really sink in. I think I have a lot more fighting to do. Or I could let it go and focus on other things. But ultimately... I care about how far I make it. So... I'll fight on. But I am tired of losing sleep over it. Catch 22.

In other news, I bought a ticket to Canada yesterday. Going there mid June to catch the NXNE music festival and all other festivities that come with it. So excited. Paid extra to fly on the weekend because Rui is having her wedding right on the weekend that I wanted to spend in Canada. Siiiigh. So far I don't know where I'm staying and who I'm spending time with. This leaves the door open to find someone there online right now or find a friend to come with me.

Working hard again

So in news there's nothing too big. I'm asked to find a new team by the end of the week. So I'm looking. Had a 1 on 1 with a dev from another team. Need to have a few more this week. Today is going to be a short day though. I have a Skype call with Anna K and then Alex L is coming over around 19:00 so we can work on his grandpa's computer together. With all that it doesn't leave too much time to work today. But I don't feel bad since I left work at 21:30 yesterday. I was working. Hard.

I had a meeting with my boss's boss yesterday and he basically said I shouldn't pursue anything and should just let things go. I don't think he understands the gravity of how upset I am. But then again he has no incentives to take my side since I'm leaving his org. Well, there's a chance I will be. That's pretty much it. It's been dead otherwise.

When I got home I was yet again listening to another podcast that was trying to convince me to take action to achieve my dreams. Actually it was saying that dreaming too much hinders progress. And it's a mental tool to snap out of it - find reasons to take action. So even thought I was tired yesterday, I adjusted my script to message liked girls on OkC going through all the pages, instead of just the first. We'll see how that pans out. But I'm pretty sure  I'll need add a hell of a lot more filtering if I'll run out of search-results and have to resort to swiping again. I realize swiping is how I ended up messaging women in Canada. :/

Mother's Day.

So yesterday was Mother's Day. Not something we celebrate  in Belarus, so it's still weird and not even on my calendar. My sisters wanted to get together, so we went to a buffet. My older sisters went to a movie before hand. There was an idea that others could go after. However I'm not sure who was in charge of planning, so everything just kind of went weird. I ended up picking up grandpa. One of my sisters took him back. My dad called me if I could pick him up as well. I said yes, but I told him I couldn't take him back. I was keeping the evening free to maybe go see Katie, Hope or Alina M.

My dad drove alone. He got there on time. Grandpa and I were next. My sister and Chris were late. I kept rushing them out the door, but I ended up leaving first. And I knew I would get there faster because I'm on a car... and they're not. My older sisters were there shortly after. But I don't think it mattered that much ultimately. We had reservations but I think they would have accommodated.

This is the part where I review the buffet, but I'll just summarize it: cheap buffet, crappy food. Like a 3/5 crappy. So, edible, but I didn't go for seconds of anything.

My sister brought my birthday camera. It's nice. Takes good photos at night. That's why I got it. Makes me happy. I want to take time this week and actually read the manual to see all the cool things it's capable of. I went to Fry's after and bought an SD card so now I just need to order a strap and I'm good to own.

After the buffet things got confusing. Nobody knew what they wanted to do. I started looking up movies like someone's mentioned we should. My dad said he doesn't want to wait for plans to materialize and left. My older sister, niece and grandpa went home. Chris and Alina went to IKEA with my other sister. And I took my nephew Tony to the movies to see Avengers: Civil War.

What a good action-movie. The drama was pretty crappy and uncharacteristic. But I didn't even notice. Tony had to point it out. So I liked it. It definitely made more sense than Superman vs Batman. Though... not much more. I put myself into the villain's shoes and realized that the whole plan was banking on Iron Man being an idiot and being at the right place at the right time.

Afterwards I heard back from Hope, Alina M and Katie and they were all indisposed. I messaged Tatiana and Miho to see if they were free. But one was studying and the other already in her PJs. So I went home instead and started working on rooting my phone. Since I had it encrypted, just wiping it was taking over an hour, so I watched game of thrones with the roommates.

And today.. I don't want to go to work because of the political forecast.

Dehydrated

Dear diary:

I should probably stop drinking. It's become too often of an occurrence. This week I drank on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. And I'm not happy about it. I think it's too often, but most importantly it's detrimental to my work outs. I went on a hike yesterday. Same place as last week but I only went up to the first view point and back. So ~2.4 miles. I went fast and skipped/run down. But getting started was very difficult. And then at Tempest I was just fatigued. I used less weights than normal and I felt like my body was recovering from ingesting poison. Ethanol! And today I thought about going to the beach, or having breakfast with someone, but since it's 11:00 and I'm still in bed, it's not happening.

Friday was an okay day. My manager took a vacation day and didn't show up to work. I wonder if it has something to do with our disagreements. I worked diligently and was going to stay working late. But Alan suggested we go out or something and I took him up on his offer. Him, Annmarie and I got food at the food truck thing and then watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle at their place. Good evening. Except.. I drank again. Siiiiigh.

Annmarie suggested I try this dating app called Bumble. It has a distinguishing features to favor women by making it so that only girls can make the first move. If you know about the Stable Marriage Problem solutions, you know that it gives an edge to the proposing party - women. So logically I shouldn't participate. However, such a marketplace would be more favorable to women not found in other settings online. So I'm trying that now. First day is a success as I've now had one conversation. That's a whole conversation more than I've ever had on Tinder (in LA).

But.. today is mother's day. I have people I need to speak to.

Management trouble.

Dear diary,

I guess now I have something not-so jolly to write about. It's Friday. I'm up at 08:00. I would like to think it's my debilitating shoulder pain that's keeping me up. I can't drive with my right, lift anything, or do literally anything at Tempest (gym). Sleeping is uncomfortable. But, the thought that keeps me awake at night isn't about my shoulder. It's about my work. On Monday I came in to work and read our performance evaluations and found out that my boss has been seeing my work very negatively. 

My manager and I had four meetings this week to discuss this. All that I've gotten from him was that his tone was overly negative and some of the numbers he sighted weren't accurate. But he keeps telling me he can't do anything about it now. It's done. We've both e-mailed HR about this and I'm meeting with his boss next week. It's so frustrating. 

Probably the most frustrating thing is that I was already pretty much on the way out from under him already because he had the brilliant idea to break up our team. Now I have been considering staying with a team under my manager because it's familiar... but not anymore. Him and I have been coworkers for 3.5 years. I saw him rise to team lead and then manager. And I saw him go from being a good developer, to a beginner manager to a self-righteous crusader who pulls opinions out of his butt when he needs to support his hypothesis. 

The caveat here is that it's my performance review that the next manager is going to see. And up until Monday my reviews have been very good. He's slapping on a final "fuck you..." right before I transfer out. So that's been keeping me up at nights.

In the mornings I've been waking up.. reluctantly going to work. Then back home and watching TV. No, I don't feel defeated or anything. I'm just stressed. And this is the stupid kind of stress. The kind that just messes with you. There's no benefit to me being stressed. Cards will fall where they may and I will go as far as I can to get my record clean again. 

It's hard to focus my thoughts right now. I think there are things I would like to discuss. Like I saw my ex's car at the grocery store yesterday. Or that I got too busy to message women. Or that my second date on Monday went nowhere fast. Or that it's been a gift-exchange week. Alex L got me my shot glasses, I got him a chemistry blanket, Tanya bought me a camera for my birthday and Rui asked for a Peruvian blanket as her Christmas present. Friends and family.

This Sunday I was going to drive down about 01:30 to meet a girl from OkCupid but it's mothers day and my sisters want to get together. I guess I need to change my plans. I also want to go on another hike same day. I didn't like getting destroyed last week. Wednesday was the first day I could walk upstairs without pain. Ouchie. Out of shape.

It's been 30 minutes. I should start the day. The sooner I start it the sooner it will be over. And I already want it to be over.