New needle, old grooves
Turns out time doesn't erase you, actually.
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About a month ago I started my master's degree. In many ways, it's a downgrade from my internship, which was a hugely rewarding (albeit short-lived) experiment in freedom. More time spent studying, which I haven't quite been able to fit into my routine, a lot more hours spent in class, so on, so forth - all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Resigned, I've started making notes for a thermodynamics class, revisiting methods I'd seen two years ago in a previous class (and a year before that in another one), and something has sort of jumped at me: I know this.
Sure, not by heart, it still took some revising and some practice to freshen up the ideas, but calculating thermo cycles felt familiar, I knew the logic, I didn't feel like I was tripping in the same places I had previously. An old groove, and a new me slotting into it.
To some extent, the observation feels silly - of course you remember, you're only revising because you're getting new material soon, you're expected to - blindingly obvious, a misplaced point of pride.
And yet, I can only describe the feeling as grounding, comforting even. I'm the same person I was two years ago, I've carried over, here I am still.
I'm not entirely sure why I feel this way. Sometimes I feel very disconnected to my past, remembering like I'm seeing someone else's memories, not quite sure of who was living them. And then something cuts through the fog - an old video, talking to someone I knew back in school - and I realize that I haven't changed as much as I think. I've grown, undeniably, but the base person remains.
I guess another reason I find these grooves comforting is that I'm constantly putting off engaging in things I'm interested in. I dabble in different hobbies and topics constantly, but I simply don't have the time yet to fully dive in.1
It's nice knowing that I won't forget all that I've learned up until now, that I can keep stockpiling information and plans for my future self.
It's nice to have a sense of self, I've been missing out.
The accretion disk is beautiful, isn't it?
-ItemizedVoids.
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One "hobby" I hadn't touched in years (since a middle school IT class, actually) is CSS! I've been updating the look of the blog, and I'd forgotten just how fun playing around with styles is, even if I don't know how half of it works. Maybe take a look around?↩