# Hack club
hah hah whoops i never actually finished that last post. actually, it was
because my laptop has this issue where, if it's on battery power, it'll
sometimes just lose power for a second. which means i gotta reboot the whole
system. so that's why there's like two paragraphs of phlog there. but, then
again, is that really a bad thing? Brevity is important. And good. And such.
So, last night somehow, I just kinda wandered into a Mastodon CTF hack team.
What's a CTF hack team? I dunno, lol. No, it's basically professional white-hat
hacking challenges. Here's a bunch of problems, see if you can crack them open
and reveal the goodies. There's, naturally, a whole spectrum from beginners
(like honestly most of this Mastodon team) and literal professionals who do this
stuff for a living. Anywho, I got to chatting with some of the people on that
server on a Matrix server. 1.) Matrix is cool actually. And 2.) these people
are cool really. graaaaanted i'm saying that because i could just infodump a
little about stuff i'm working on there with people who *got it*. but even
besides that, they genuinely seem like good, chill people. I like meeting new
people. I'm just usually really bad at it. :p
Besides that, I've been kinda getting myself into a little bit of a rutty
routine. From about 10-6 I do, ya know, *my job*. Like I'm supposed to be doing
right now. ...yeah. And then after that it's like, "well cool, i just have free
time. literally what do i do with this." I'm still really internally used to, I
guess, either having mountains of studying and homework to do, or just being so
broken and exhausted that i just kinda collapse the moment i get in the door.
That's not happening anymore, really. Granted I won't say I'm a constant
productivity machine, but eff it, I'm comfy, I'm hitting deadlines. Who cares.
Universty has kinda unfortunately ingrained in me that my 100% is not enough. I
absolutely MUST run on all cylinders 24/7 if i just want to keep my head above
water, never mind actually do *well*. Granted, yes, I do have a giant deck of
cards stacked against me just due to situational happenstance. But still. I'm
honestly surprised at how absolutely forgiving people at workplaces tend to be.
Like, they get it if you're taking time with something, or if you need to take
the occasional day off. I dunno. Maybe I just hit the jackpot with my employment
situation. I genuinely keep forgetting I'm still an undergrad. I feel so distant
from that hellish life, and I never want to return. But I must. Ugh.
...so yeah, snapping back to the present, I have a surprising amount of time on
my hands and energy to do things. My old habit of just browsing social media
isn't fufilling enough for the time I have. So, dare I fucking say it, I've been
doing stuff again! I'm slooowly getting back into doodling. I've tried... okay
for like one day but I've *attmepted* to start learning ASL. I'm not gonna
overwork myself. But, like, heck. Turns out I'm much happier when I'm not
horribly overworked. Who would have thunk....
Thing is, I don't really have a goal or a hobby in mind. I kinda want one.
Preferably one that doesn't involve computers so heavily. That's my job. I want
to experience the other parts of life, you know? I was totally gonna buy a
houseplant a few months ago, but you know, pandemic.
i guess the whole meandering point of this is that oh my god can we just as
a society tread our college students with a *little* bit of dignity? i sound
like i'm whining but honestly. it's so stressful being broke and lgbt and first-
gen and just floundering about in university. tired of it. i just want a stable
living situation with people that i truly and deeply love. tired of living out
of boxes all the damn time.
k that wasn't the point. i just really like venting. that's like most of the
phlog posts here. :p
gemini://park-city.club:1965/~invis/phlog/022-hack-club.txt