37 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
37 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: I want to fuck my computer (week notes 027)
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date: 2025-08-06
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tags:
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- week-notes
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draft: true
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url: week-notes/027
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---
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## Doing
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I'm still working on planning for the college class I'm teaching in a few weeks. I *need* to have my basic syllabus done within the next week or two, but I don't really plan that way, so I'm going week by week and outlining the entire lesson. It's a lot of work, but I'm [feeling a lot better than I was last week](https://cassie.ink/week-notes/026/). I was previously trying to reverse engineer the previous professor's syllabus while bringing in some of my own resources, but I gave myself permission to do my own thing and only consult her work when I felt I needed something more for a lesson or a text. I'm moving much faster and things feel easier now, so it's just a matter of doing the work.
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I've been playing with the idea for a while now of buying a new monitor for my desk at work — the school issues me one (and I asked for a second to have a dual monitor setup, which they did give me), but they're pretty bottom of the barrel office displays. They're not even 1080p, which is a real pain for grading on our archaic LMS. I hunted around for deals on a cheap display, but I found that anything worth spending money on far outpaced my displays at home (a Dell S2340M that I bought in 2015 and an ASUS VZ239H-W from 2016 that I inherited from my sister). I ended up cashing in some of my credit card rewards points and taking advantage of a sale[^1] to get a KTC H27T22C-3, which will be a big upgrade for me (23" to 27"; 1080p to 1440p; much higher refresh rate and a new IPS panel). Then I got on my bullshit and started researching monitor arms — I've always wanted one, but neither of my previous displays were VESA compatible. I found a crazy deal for a white Ergotron MXV dual monitor mount on eBay (a little over $100 shipped), bought a VESA adapter for the Dell and a plate to distribute the weight on my desk, and now I'm just waiting for everything to come in. This coming school year, I really want to stop staying at work so late and just do my grading and planning at home, where I have a much more comfortable and quality set up[^2] (including a Steelcase Leap v2, which I recently found on Facebook Marketplace in mint condition for $175).
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I'm also justifying my recent exorbitant spending on my office as a way to stop spending so much fucking time on my phone and instead put that energy into writing, building websites, playing games, and maybe getting back into content creation.[^3] I'll take the ASUS to school; maybe a few years down the line when they get to be reasonably priced, I'll get an OLED and replace the Dell, but for now, it works just fine for a secondary display.
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## Reading
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Most of my reading from here on out is going to be prep work for my college class and for the coming school year. I'm almost done with *Speak* by Laurie Halse Anderson, which I'm glad to say is as good as I remember it — it was a favorite of mine as a teen. I also recently learned that there's a graphic novel version that I'd like to get my hands on one day. Frankly, I'd love to teach this book one day in the classroom (not for a college course) — even if it is dated in terms of publication year (the themes are perennial) — but that's not really possible with the age group that I teach right now.
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I'm also refreshing myself on chapters from *Literature for Young Adults: Books (and More) for Contemporary Readers* by Joan L. Knickerbocker and James A. Rycik, which is our textbook for the course and is about as exciting as it sounds (though useful). I know *The House on Mango Street* by Sandra Cisneros well enough that I was able to plan from memory, but I pulled two poems from *Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood* by Judith Ortiz Cofer to pair with it. I first read the better part of *Silent Dancing* in undergrad — I think for a world lit class — and really loved it; the title story is particularly resonant and haunting. I'd like to go back and read it in full when I'm less bogged down with work.
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## Watching
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Joe and I are still watching old seasons of *Survivor* — we're on *Caramoan* right now. There are no returning players for 50 on it, but we enjoyed *South Pacific*, and I see *Caramoan* as kind of part two of that season. We're still following [Austin Walker's Let's Play of *Knights of the Old Republic II* ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzb96hSa04DPbyVmGawLPUYr9DUG99k8Q) and then watching [Friends at the Table Ali's *Mistria* Mondays](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIAGhNc7IWXxCHc55BwOsuTgMrDM8smSU) when we need turn off our brain content. I've pushed into season four of *Downton Abbey*, but it's losing its luster. I would like to maybe finish it, though... again, maybe when I'm less busy with work.
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## Playing
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I'm back on my *Fields of Mistria* bullshit now that we're home. At this point, I've exhausted a lot of the content currently available, which isn't a bad place to be — I've *seen* just about everything (except heart events, which I really don't interact with in these types of games) and now can focus on 100%ing things and beautifying my farm. There's still a few things that will unlock at higher town ranks, and I can keep looking forward to the regular updates.
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## Listening
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I listened to *Tapestry* by Carole King. I'm not really sure why — I knew it wasn't really going to be for me. It's a legendary album and I'm sure deserves its place in music history, but as an individual listener in 2025, I found it a bit ho-hum.
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I also listened to [Outside the Lobby]([https://pca.st/5wv7133q](https://pca.st/5wv7133q "https://pca.st/5wv7133q")'s episode on *The Order 1886* after one of the hosts shared it in a Discord group I'm in. It was a great, funny episode that I enjoyed despite being an *Order* sicko (they were quite negative about the game). I'm so fucking into music lately that I don't make much time for podcast listening, but I would like to listen to more of their episodes.
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I also listened to [*I Love My Computer* by Ninajirachi](https://ninajirachi.bandcamp.com/album/i-love-my-computer), which fucking bangs. Recommended for fans of Charli XCX's earlier, more PC music-adjacent era[^4], and general hyperpop/EDM folks. Listen to "Fuck My Computer," "Delete," and "All I Am" for a taste of what the whole album is like; I'm particularly enamored with "Sing Good," but the whole album feels like an ode to teenage creativity and terminally online behavior, for which I am squarely in the audience.
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[^1]: I've been slowly cutting down on my Amazon purchasing — I'm hoping to be almost entirely off of it soon — but I don't have any brick and mortar electronics stores around me aside from Walmart, which feels like a lateral move... and a bitch needs a discount every now and then.
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[^2]: Ideally I would be doing no work outside of the school day, but that's not the reality of teaching — and also I am a workaholic and perfectionist. Let me live.
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[^3]: I hate this term but I can't think of anything better to use right now.
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[^4]: I love *brat* and believe it brought PC Music's innovative sound to the mainstream, but that also works against it: it's somewhat diluted compared to the bizarre, abstract, creative shit that PC Music and similar artists put out over the years. |