Productivity
😐
This project moved to the back burner. It’ll probably stay there a while longer as I work through miscellaneous other tasks. That’s kind of the nature of my Decembers.
Nature
🙂
I volunteered to test creek water over the winter. The program monitors levels of road salt in waterways, which can harm plants, animals, and infrastructure. I watched the training, picked a site, and visited it to test my sample collecting setup—dangling a bucket on a rope from a bridge. I found out the bridge is an intimidating 12 feet or so above the water.
Video
🤔
The Lighthouse got me thinking about mental stability under stress. Researching how to securely tie a rope to my sample bucket put me in a nautical mood, and I decided to watch this movie I’d been curious about. It was intense and a little baffling, but I somewhat identified with the main character, Ephraim. In times of profound strain I’ve been surprised by my own unpleasant reactions, so it’s hard for me to judge. It made me want to strengthen myself to cope with such situations.
😎
I clarified my interest in the sea. The idea of sea stories appeals to me sometimes, and I’m not sure where it comes from or how to classify the kinds of stories I care about. But some research this time told me what I want to explore is captured in the title of a book by John H. Harland, Seamanship in the Age of Sail—how ships worked in the centuries when ships powered by the wind dominated trade and war. I found this fascinating video to kick off this line of learning.
I remember seeing a trailer for The Lighthouse and had heard that it was intense.