zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Again I wake up in the middle of the night. Usual culprit: mosquitos buzzing and biting. I'd rather not disturb Luka's sleep, so at first I always try to sleep it off, or ease again into sleepyness by reading a little. But nothing worked. We ate dinner a little later than usual, and maybe that also played a part.

I'm a bit restless; I know tomorrow we start at 8AM.

a musing on exhilaration

I would wake up at 7:15AM, maybe three hours after having gone to bed again – I did some programming in those wee small hours of the morning. There were some crazy dreams, too, which I unfortunately cannot properly recall – just vague impressions of very rich sensations. As we would be starting the day in less than an hour, there was no time for further musings, exercise, nor meditation; I just had time to read a little.

We met Nataša and Daniele for a quick assessment of the collective situation. As usual, we did the exercise of defining our mood with one word only; I was definitely situated halfway between excited and exhausted,

and as my mental fog would not permit any further inquiries into more refined vocabulary, I cheated and settled on both words. Being tired is a natural consequence of all the chaos from the past night, plus the general havoc of last friday; it undermines my capability to think straight, have energy, and be in a generally positive frame of mind. This is quite clear to me, and I'll be further expanding upon it elsewhere.

Excited, on the other hand, because of all that is happening here, both in my surroundings and within my personal realm of values, convictions, actions, wants and desires. The passing of time has, among other things, provided some hindsight in the very murky, confusing period of my college education. For many years, it was quite difficult to discern what were my motivations for the studies, and the degree of my commitment; difficult, even, to understand whether it was something that I was enjoying, or saw value in. It's better now, and it is very clear that I am making decisions in a different way.

When in the rhythm of the routine – waking up early, with time for exercise, meditation and study, some work, lunch and a nap, some more time for other activities – it all sort of feels like slowly placing building blocks on top of the values and interests that I hold dear, and find meaningful; in this I find solace. There is a degree of intentionality and commitment whose fruits I am patiently harvesitng. And it's nice: I feel like I am doing exactly what I should be doing, having lots of fun in the meantime, exploring possibilities for the daily life in the near future. So there's that. In particular, the studying of Slovene with the flashcard method of spaced repetition has unlocked confidence in learning in general, and memory practices in particular.

wrapping the day up

After the meeting, we were back at the Natural Construction Workshop; today, we'd be mostly left alone to our devices, with maybe half of the room's plaster still in need to be done. We worked much better than yesterday, and time passed by very quickly. I think I'll miss this sort of mindless work, much more comfortable than to be out in the fields under the scorching sun, raking the grass for the third of fourth time.

Dinner was nice, but I feel I need to freshen up my recipes. We finished the day by having a chess game.