October

November

February

The month the grad schools started responding. Thankfully with good news. (At least from half of them. The other half did not have good news. For me.) I also got to go to a Compass workshop at UNC and meet some cool people, which was nice.

Quote: Joseph noted that I tend to condense what I say nearly to the point of disutility. This came up in a later discussion over the relative perceived badness of heresy and infidelity through history.

Picture: Kati and I being silly at Wal-Mart, again.

Other notable Nichi quote: “Interesting how heresy has lost so much of its oomph that people will claim several religions are all worshiping the same god, implicitly implying several religions are just heresies.” (A comment leading to the above quote.) 

March

It was a rather stressful month. Nearly went to the hospital at one point. On the fun side, my first two school visits (Mizzou and FSU) were that month. I also spent a fair bit of time digging through the 1920s and 1930s archives of some German logic journals in writing a paper on the history of deviant logics. And then I read Hegel for the first time.

Quote: I don’t remember the context for this quote, but given March was when I started working on showing that willpower (and weakness of will) is not a thing, it seemed ironic.

Picture: Being silly with a hairnet in the Christopher Center.

Other quotes:
“I still don’t understand how having $85 to blow in any way implies someone is less likely to be a threat.” (Regarding the TSA’s official policy of letting you skip security if you pay them off.)
“I did nothing to acquire US citizenship. I can’t see much sense in demanding more from anyone else.” (Apparently immigration was a big issue that month. I insisted that it seems silly for me to demand more of others to acquire their citizenship than I did. As far as I’m remembering right now, I have only one friend who did anything for his US citizenship.)
“Tfw I accidentally refer to the hotel as home after one night” (Said at Mizzou.)
“Didn’t even have anyone stick their hands down my pants. Flying like it’s 1999.” (I had one tolerable experience with airport security.

April

The first half was incredibly tense and exciting. Tense enough that I end trouble sleeping. Exciting because I got to visit UCR and UA, meeting more swell people, having more interesting discussions, and (more trivially) finally going somewhere west of Illinois. The most fun chain was going to FSU, getting back to Valpo for like two days, hopping on a plane to Riverside, (Well, Ontario, and then a car to Riverside), followed by a plane to Memphis to present some of my work on free will (in which I overslept and missed the bus, so I showed up just before my panel was up), bus back to Valpo, followed the next day by a plane ride to Tucson. The day I got back to Valpo from there I gave a talk on why idealism is right. (Well, I got back, had lunch, talked to Dr. Visser about where to go, then gave my talk.) The rest of the month was much more chill, especially knowing all I had to do was pass my classes.

Quote: I was thinking back to some of the things I did when I was younger. In grade school gym class we started each day with laps around the gym. To keep myself from giving up or going too slowly, I imagined a cartoonishly giant pair of scissors floating in the air, following me, snipping away with the threat of being cut in half if I didn’t keep moving quickly. When I described this to TJ after a psychology lecture, he told me I was drunk.

Photo: The Commuter Student Org organized a trip to Zao Island. When let loose, we played around for awhile, and then a few of us wandered off to Burger King for awhile. So here’s another pic of Kati and I being silly, but this time at BK.

Other quotes:
“Hobby: When people argue “Ill-ih-noy” vs “Ill-ih-noise”, I hop in with “Ill-i-nwah”.”
“List of 10 bands/musicians I’ve seen live, except instead of normal, one of them is a lie. Sorry, Kant.”
“Also in my benadryl-induced loopiness I tried using a paintbrush instead of a screwdriver.”

May

I think I graduated from Valpo this month. I never collected the piece of paper so maybe not. Nobody explained the process to me. I did write and wrap up some fun papers. One on that whole willpower not being a thing thing. Another comparing some works of Marilyn Manson with some of Philip Pullman. Also one about Sartre. Yay Sartre. The second half of the month I proceeded to unwind. And by unwind I mean dive into projects and hobbies that I’d wanted to do but hadn’t due to my busy schedule. Which turned out to be mostly more writing.

Quote: Gracie posted about someone with a stupid idea.

Photo: Funny recent story, actually. Last month I saw Deicide is one of the most important death metal bands. I remember them playing in Valpo a couple times, and I was disappointed in myself for never going to see them. Then as I looked back over my Facebook posts from May, I saw I bought tickets. I became somewhat mad at myself for buying tickets and then forgetting to go to the show. Especially since I bought the tickets the day of the show. Then as I went through my May photos, I found this. Dated the same day as the show. Turns out I totally did go. It was a pretty awesome show, too. Also this and every photo taken of me after this has my nose in a (slightly) different shape than every photo before. At the show I took an elbow to the nose and face. There was lots of blood, and the small hump my nose used to have has been permanently bashed in.

Other quotes:
“I had most of my ideas when I was nine years old. It’s all been iteration on that.”
“Sleep is like chicken tenders.”

June

I’m pretty sure this month I finally did go to the hospital. Lots of late nights writing. Not a lot to say about June.

Quote: I believe a discussion got going about nudism.

Photo: A rarely seen instance of me not wearing a t-shirt. Featuring wind.

Other quotes:
“Chisholm has to have a child and name it Panpsy.” (I know this is not possible, but this may well have been in the middle of a discussion involving time travel.)
“Like, some foods get moved from one meal to another. Bacon for dinner. Rice for breakfast, whatever. But steak doesn’t make it to breakfast. Why? Because it’s clearly too much effort to deal with the liquid all over the place and trying to cut something up with a knife while stabbing it with a fork. And at least steak is somewhat easy to stab. Pancakes are a pain in the ass to hold down, to cut through, and to pick up. And then you still get syrup dripping all over your clothes, slept in and kinda yucky or for the day, or else you have to lean way over your plate. Like, I just woke up! I don’t want to deal with this yet!”
“So the snap back to reality is like the experience of exception handling.” (At one point while playing Chess Evolved online I hallucinated that I was outside. Once I realized that made no sense, I must be inside, my perception had an odd snapping sensation.)
“Also TOP seems to be in a totally different genre. Like, would you get rid of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, or Nicki Minaj?”

July

Not much. Hung out with Theodore I think. Probably also Josh and Gracie. Maybe that was all August. I probably spent most of this month at my working table.

“Three high five emojis equals one prayer.”
“Alcohol is like a gun. But instead of killing people, it kills feelings.”
“Some people consider things like psychological impact on people still alive, how much of a mess it makes, etc. Those people are idiots, and I will ignore them.” (Said sarcastically, to illustrate the badness of what someone else was saying.)
“Someone could value whatever Bill commands. And thus have Bill Command Theory.” (In explaining Divine Command Theory and how it fits into existentialist ethics.)
“The hyphen key on my keyboard just broke. Guess I can’t do continental philosophy anymore.”
“Hm. I can’t really think of any math areas that avoid minus signs. I suppose I could always just write \includegraphics{minus.jpg} anytime I need one.
Or use the numpad. But that seems a little cumbersome.”

Nichi, July 2017

August

Many of my friends all came into town at once this month. I guess they had school or something. But before that I spent several days hanging out with Kati and sending people photographs of her walls via the snap chat application.

“Stared at the eclipse. Now I’m blind.
I was blind before but I’m also blind now.” (I guess there was an eclipse. Carly caught me using those sunglasses, but I also gave the sun a good five minute naked eye staredown.)
“I like those articles with lists of words that cannot be translated into English that also contain a list, in English, of what the words mean.”

Nichi, August 2017

September

Another month with a major division down the middle. The first half was more adventures in Valpo. Culminating in what may have been the best party I have had or will have there. (I must say, though, I invited everyone who came to come hang out in Socal and only three people seem to be taking up the offer.  )

The second half was the move to Riverside. Bumming around with some friends (because I didn’t have a place for the first couple weeks) and then moving in with my one bag because I didn’t feel like packing. Then classes started.