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<h1 class="display-4">Blog/Updates</h1>
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<hr>
<p class="lead"> This page is where I spew my thoughts about various topics into the void. Please don't take anything I say too seriously, as I'm not really expecting anyone to actually read these.</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">falling<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">1/27/2023</h6>
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<p> Some days I feel fine, and then others I feel like I am nothing. And it sucks to feel hope one day and then the next have it all be gone. I can't even force myself to enjoy something. I try to do something I should enjoy and it feels like that joy is trapped inside a sealed box inside of myself that I can't access no matter how I try. The only thing that gives me any sort of happiness is reading, because it takes me far away from this world where I don't have to think about how my life is crumbling at the edges and on the verge of falling apart. I said I would stay here until May, but I don't know if I'll survive that long. </p>
<p> I shouldn't feel like this. I have parents who are letting me live with them, a banger tech setup, a fucking <em>partner</em>... </p>
<p> But I do. I can't help it. I feel lost, hopeless, worthless, and I don't know what can fix it. At this point, I'm not even sure if getting a job and moving would help. What if I get all of that and I still feel like this? What then? Then it was all for nothing? So I can continue to feel empty for the rest of my life? </p>
<p> I have a friend on Twitter who often posts pretty dreary stuff about feeling alone and empty all of the time, and you know what, I get it now.</p>
<p> And who knows, maybe I'm just being dramatic, but I've been feeling like this off and on the last couple weeks. At first I thought it was a fluke becauase then I felt better after a while, but now I've fallen back down, so I don't think it's a fluke anymore.</p>
<p> Also something funny, I've been writing these posts on my markdown editor Typora because it's easier to write on there and then export it to HTML, and I accidentally started naming the files as 2022 instead of 2023, and I'm simply too lazy to fix it, so all of these blog posts are technically for 2022. haha.</p>
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<div class="card" id="blogPost8">
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<h5 class="card-title">unemployed woes<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">1/25/2023</h6>
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<p> I don't know why I'm writing this; it's past midnight and I should <em>really</em> be going to bed, but this is one of those nights when my mind races at a thousand miles an hour and I know I won't be able to sleep even if I tried.</p>
<p> I just want a job. I want out of this damn house. Do you now how embarrassing it is to talk about how you're unemployed and living with your parents? It's not like my degree is dumb either, I just... kinda messed up with some decisions I made in college. Mostly my disdain of the career fair and the engineering world in general, which was <em>definitely</em> spurred from early onset burnout. And I kinda took a break from engineering for a semester or two, which really helped, and then when I went back to it my last semester, I thought, "well maybe this isn't that bad." Now I've switched focus <em>again</em> from being an Audio Engineer to being a Software Engineer, but since I wasn't focusing on that in college, I'm supremely screwed because I didn't pursue any tech internships while I was there. Or, I did, but I never got accepted to any when I was a freshman/sophomore, and I just got tired of it. Now everyone around me has a job because they had experience in college. In fact, most people just work at the place they interned at. But I have no internship experience, and my last experience with software was back in early 2020. Not that I haven't been doing anything since then... I've done multiple projects on my own or with other people, but honestly from what I'm seeing, that doesn't seem like it's enough. The amount of jobs I've seen that <em>specifically</em> say that personal projects don't count as experience is <em>really</em> disheartening, as that's basically all the experience I have. What am I supposed to do? I just feel stuck between a rock and a hard place because of the decisions I made in college. I'm sorry I was burnt out and busy doing other things besides engineering. I have skills! In lots of things! I've got to be of use somewhere... right?</p> </div>
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<div class="card" id="blogPost7">
<div class="card-header">
<h5 class="card-title">Boredom is killing me slowly<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">1/12/2023</h6>
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<p> I've actually been kind of itching to update this blog recently, and I feel like now it's been long enough since my last post that I can do it. Not that there's some required period of time I need to wait between posts, lol.</p>
<p> So anyways, yeah, I graduated. Woohoo. If you can't tell, it actually doesn't mean that much to me. If I'm being honest, I don't think I've fully processed that I'm done with college. I think my brain is just like, "Oh yay winter break! Soon you'll be going back to Ames, right?" So I guess we'll see how I feel once all of my friends <em>actually</em> go back to college and I realize how much I miss it. </p>
<p> On the other hand, hoooo boy did I need this break. I've been accumulating so much burnout since like... Junior year, and now I finally have the chance to just sit down and... relax. It's so weird having minimal responisibilities for the foreseeable future. Because this isn't like a normal break where it's like "okay no responsibilities now but in a couple weeks it's back to work again," this is "okay no responsibilities for... a while..." That isn't to say I have nothing going on, of course. I'm working on some personal projects. I published an app that I was working on for school to the Google Play store, because I was actually pretty proud of the work I had done on it, and also part of the reason I started working on it was because a friend wanted a better version of the app they had, so I went and made that better version that he was wanting. Then I wanted to publish it so he could simply download it from the Play store instead of me sketchily sending him APKs lol.</p>
<p> Also, filling out job applications. If it isn't obvious by now, I didn't get any of the three jobs I applied for in Ames, haha. Which I'm actually not that upset about. The Broadcast Engineer job would have payed well and would have been cool, but I'm not sure I would have been happy with it. And the seceretary jobs would have been easy, but probably pretty dull, <em>and</em> they paid pretty poorly. And after seeing how much money I can be making with my engineering degree, now I'm on the search for something more fulfilling money-wise. I think my dream right now would be to get some remote job (or hybrid/in-person in the DSM area) and move to a two bedroom apartment in downtown DSM. I would want two bedrooms so one of them could be used for an office, and I want to be downtown because 1 I want to experience living downtown in a city and 2 I want to be within walking distace of the library and various coffee shops so I can walk to one of those and work there as a way of getting out. Anyways, I was preemptively looking at some of the prices for those places, and I was seeing around the $2k mark (a month). Which <em>sounds</em> like a lot, but considering I haven't seen anything below a salary of $70k, I would actually be able to afford that pretty easily. And even if I wasn't making that much, I could just get a smaller place (just one bedroom), which would significantly reduce the cost.</p>
<p> Anyways, what else has been going on... Oh yeah, I went to go see Taylor for New Years, which was super fun!! At first it was sounding like her mom was sick and I wouldn't be able to go, but then suddenly she felt fine and I was able to make it up on New Year's Eve. We had drinks and food and honestly it was all I ever wanted for New Years. I've been reading a lot of Sarah J. Maas lately, and I just finished <em><a href='https://sarahjmaas.com/books/a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-series/a-court-of-silver-flames/'>A Court of Silver Flames</a></em>, the latest in the <em><a href='https://sarahjmaas.com/books/a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-series/'>A Court of Thorns and Roses</a></em> series. In the book, the main character has a very close "family", and every year for the Winter Solstice, they all drop everything they're doing just to be with each other for a few days and eat and drink and relax. I was reading this, and I couldn't help but feel a little jealous/sad because I really wished I could have something like that. Right now since I'm just living with my parents and I don't have any friends around here, it wouldn't happen (plus my parents go to bed at like 10pm anyways, so they wouldn't want to stay up). But thank god I was able to go stay with Taylor for a while and get to experience that. It was her and her family (mom and sister), our friend Reece from ISU, and some of her sister's friends, and it was a blast.</p>
<p> I've also been working on upgrading my PC/setup over break. I've slowly been accumulating all the gear necessary for my dream dual MacBook and Windows PC setup, and I'm pretty excited for it. It's actually mostly done, just a few things missing. And for my PC upgrade, I went out and (sort of on a whim) bought a used Nvidia RTX 2070 Super for $288, a Ryzen 5 5600X, and a new AM4 motherboard to go with it. I feel like these components should work well together and for what I do, so I'm excited. I'm currently just waiting for the motherboard to come in so I can finally put all together.</p>
<p> I think the final thing is that I've slowly been working to get a dev environment set up to help contribute to Musescore 4, which I'm fairly excited about. This is my first time contributing to any sort of open-source project, so I'm kind of nervous, but also damn have I been getting bored lately (hence why I've been kind of itching to update this blog, just for something to do), so it'll give me something to do and hopefully gain experience. Though honestly, now that I have it all set up, I'm not quite sure what to do. I took a cursory glanch at the "Good First Issue" issues, but most of them are taken, and the ones that aren't are vague/confusing... I'll just have to see if I can dig deeper later on and find some, and if not, I put a watch on for new issues and I'll see if any come in that I think I could handle.</p>
<p> Oh, one more last thing: I started playing Stardew co-op with Taylor, and I <em>really</em> see the appeal of it now. At first I thought it was kind of boring, but the more I play it, the more I see there is to do. And it's not overwhelming like some games are either, it's like the perfect amount of things to do to keep me entertained. Plus it's really relaxing and fun to complete the quests. My favorite activity so far is fishing, which is funny because I don't really like fishing in real life.</p>
<p> Okay for real I'm done now. This is probably one of the longest posts I've made, which is funny because there's not really that much going on in my life right now haha. I think I'm just bored out of my mind and wanted something to do. If anyone ever reads this, I hope you enjoyed the last eight paragraphs of straight up nonsense I spewed from my brain. There'll be more to come, I'm sure ;)</p>
<p> P.S: If you see any spelling/grammar errors, no you didn't (I simply don't care enough to put in the effort).</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">Goodbye, school :(<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">12/13/2022</h6>
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<p> Ya know, recently, I read a friend's blog post, and in the post, he very clearly laid out that he had no aspirations of keeping his blog up to date, and honestly, I kinda like that. I think this is just going to be a thing that I occasionally come back to and go "oh yeah, I should write something", just like I am now.</p>
<p> So.... phew... over a year since my last blog post huh? A lot has happened since then. I'll see how much of it I can conver without going overboard:</p>
<p> I think the first major thing to happen since my last post is that I've started dating someone. Her name is Taylor, and I really <em>really</em> like her. Now I know I've said similar things before about people I was in relationships with (maybe even in this blog, though I don't care enough to look), but... this is the most comfortable I've been with someone before. It's like... I can tell her anything. Any stupid thought or idea that comes to mind I can just say it and she still loves me all the same. Before with other people, it almost felt like I was treading on ice a lot of the time. Like, I didn't want to say something that would make me look/seem stupid. Now it's just... she loves me for who I am, so nothing I say is going to make me look/seem dumb. Also, today is our 7 month anniversary, which I know in the long term isn't that much, but I feel like that's not an insignificant amount of time either, so that has to mean something.</p>
<p> The next major thing is that I started HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). I started having a gender crisis about a year ago, and realized I really wasn't happy in the body that I was in, and I was seeing all of these other people that had transitioned and how happy they were, and at some point it just sort of clicked that maybe that was the next step for me. Now I'm not going to sit here and try and justify myself other than "it's what I wanted, and so I did it". I <em>hate</em> having to justify why I want to do things, because honestly, it doesn't fucking matter. If it's something I want, then why not go for it. I mean, obviously within reason. But there's essentially no downsides to me doing HRT. Well, there's a couple, but they're pretty minor, and I think the tradeoff is very much worth it. Anyways, I'm a little over 6 months into HRT, and I've never felt better about myself. I've started wearing more woman's clothing/accessories, and it just feels so right to me. As of right now, I'm identifying as nonbinary, as I sort of don't feel like I belong in either category. Officially, I'm using he/they pronouns, but honestly you can use he/she/they, and I won't mind either way (I would have a slight prefrence for 'they', but if you use 'he' or 'she', I'm not going to be upset).</p>
<p> I see in my last blog post I was sad that I didn't get the internship that Summer that I was going for, and I'm happy to say that the next Summer (so last Summer... Summer 2022) I <em>did</em> get that internship! It was a super great experience, and I'm really glad to have had the oppourtunity to work live sound in the field for once. I went into it thinking I knew a decent amount about audio, and I came out feeling like I knew so little. That is to say, I exponentially increased my knowledge of the live sound world, however, I also now know how much there is that I <em>don't</em> know.</p>
<p> So, I completed the internship, and began my last semester of college. This was a "bonus" semester for me, as I had to tack on an extra semester to accomidate for the 2 minors I added on to my degree. This last semester honestly was sort of hell. I had a lot of responsibility being the senior in the activities I was involved with, and it sucked a lot of my time. I'm definitely glad I was able to have those oppourtunities, I just wish I didn't have such a heavy courseload my last semester so I could focus on those activities more (because honestly that's where I wanted to focus instead of my schoolwork). Let's just go through all of the stuff I had going on this last semester:</p>
<ul>
<li>Marching Band: I was a captain of the sousaphone section this year, which added more mental strain, though not much time strain.</li>
<li>KURE: I was the Production Director, and trying to keep the production side of the station afloat. I was also trying to train someone to take my place after I graduation (though honestly I didn't have a lot of time for that and it sort of fell through, but hopefully I'll be coming back to Ames and I can try helping them transition more).</li>
<li>Work: I worked as a Recording Engineer at the Department of Music and Theatre. This wasn't as big of a time strain as it has been previously, but it was time nonetheless (but paid, so there's that at least).</li>
<li>Classes:</li>
<ul>
<li>CPR E 388: An Android programming class. Honestly this class was a blowoff class for me as I'd already made a few Android apps before, so this was super easy for me. It took a moderate amount of time, but not that much.</li>
<li>E E 321: Communication Systems. This class was fucking awful. The professor and the TA were really bad at their jobs. They didn't communicate well with us, the lectures were really bad, and the HW didn't even really match with what we did in lecture. I could go on and on about how bad this class was, but I'll save it. It's definitely up there though for one of the worst classes I've taken at this university.</li>
<li>M E 451: Acoustics. This class was really scary at first, especially since I haven't taken a math-heavy class in over a year (I'd been doing all music classes for the last couple semesters). However, once I got into the swing of it, this class wasn't that bad. It was technically difficult, but there was a consistent format to it, and the lectures were really good (unlike another class).</li>
<li>Senior Design: Where do I even start with this... Honestly, coming into the semester, our project was a mess. Our project was to make a MIDI guitar that didn't use buttons or an FFT to figure out what note you were playing, it was to use the frets touching the strings as a way of determining the note you were playing. Long story short, we did end up getting our shit together in the last like 5 weeks of the semester, and I'm really proud of the product we completed. It wasn't perfect, but it was good for the constraints we were working with.</li>
<li>Varsity Music: This is a startup that I got myself roped into about a year ago, and it's focused on making lights that go on instruments and change color based on the note you're playing. When I first joined, I thought it was going to be a simple semester project, but now it's turned into this whole business venture and I'm not so sure how I feel about it anymore. Honestly I kind of want out of it, but I don't know how to say that.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p> Now that the semester is over, I've been reflecting a lot on college and how much I'm going to miss it. Honestly, this is a pretty stressful time for me because I still don't know what I'm doing after college. All of my friends have gotten job offers or whatever, and I'm still trying to get a job. I've got 3 jobs I'm currently after, all of which are in Ames, which is preferable so that way I can stay close to Taylor while she finishes her degree. If I don't get any of these jobs though, I'll be really sad because I'm going to have to live at home while I figure out what I'm going to do (which I have no clue what that might be).</p>
<p> I think that's basically where I'm at now in life; just waiting to hear back from jobs and hoping I can get something in/around Ames. I'll try and update this blog if I do/don't get one of those jobs. Until then, thanks for reading!</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">Yay school!<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">9/1/2021</h6>
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<div class="card-body">
<p> Hello there!</p>
<p> Here I am, falling into this ever-present pit of not being able to commit to making a consistent blog. I've been nagging myself for a month or two now to get a new blog post out, and you know what, today is finally the day. So, let's talk about my Summer:</p>
<p> <em>So</em> many people have asked how my Summer was, so at this point I have a pretty practiced answer for it. It was... <em>okay</em>. Like I said in my previous blog post, I didn't get an internship, so I was mostly stuck with doing some odd audio jobs here and there, and Doordash. I'll be honest, I got more and more depressed as the Summer went on because I just didn't have much to do. Not only that, but I was stuck in Ames by myself for the most part. The audio gigs I did <em>were</em> fun, but I can count on my hands the number of gigs I had over the whole Summer.</p>
<p> Things started to look up in July though. My boss that I work for during the school year also does IT in Music/Carver Hall, and he got word that one of his coworkers in a different area of campus needed some legwork. Essentially, last Spring, one of our buildings on campus caught fire. Not a horrible fire, but it was enough smoke that they had to package up and ship out every single piece of electronic equipment in the building (because smoke can be damaging to electronics). The job, that initially was only for a few days, was to help unpack and set back up all this equipment. However, the first day I was there, I overheard the guy I was working for on the phone saying that he was desperate for workers through the end of the Summer. So I proposed that I could work for him as long as I was able, and he said yes! He hired me for 30-40 hours a week @ $11 an hour, and I was so excited to finally have something to do. The job was great too; the boss was super friendly and cool, and I enjoyed getting to work with setting up a bunch of tech. In fact, I actually was quite sad when I left on my last day, because I had enjoyed working there with those people so much. I wish I could have worked there during the semester, but unfortunately my loyalty is to Chad at Music Hall, and I would like to keep that as my only job so I can work the 20+ hour weeks that sometimes happen there.</p>
<p> And so, Summer break has ended, and Fall semester has started. It's so wild to be back in person for everything again. It almost felt like the first couple days I had to relearn how to socially interact with people again, because it had just been that long. I'm still wearing my mask whenever I'm inside any building though; especially after the first day when I had a possible exposure (I tested negative). Also, it's so weird that I'm a senior this year. What really emphasized that was we had a meeting with the sousaphone section (more on marching band in a bit) where we introduced ourselves to the new members, and every single person when they mentioned their year, in my mind I would think "No, you're a year younger." It's like the COVID year just... didn't exist in my brain. But I'm so glad that we're back in person for things; I'm never taking being in person for things for granted ever again.</p>
<p> <b>Marching band!</b> I'm so glad to be back with these people again! I love the band here with my whole heart, and honestly it's the reason I could never transfer from this university. It's great to be back together with the <b>whole</b> band too, instead of us all being split into two different bands (plus, wearing a band mask while playing an instrument was horrid, and I never want to do that again). This is my fourth year in band (so technically a senior, though I'm not graduating in the Spring so I get a bonus year of band), and third year on leadership, and honestly, the leadership this year is top-notch. We work super well together, and it's probably better than any of the previous year's leadership teams. Band is only really just getting started, so all I can say is that I'm super pumped for this season. A friend and I are getting a GoPro Hero 8 to use during gamedays this year too, which I'm really excited about.</p>
<p> I think that's most of what I can update you with. I'm honestly still settling in because I moved in and then the next day band started, and then it was band all day every day until school started. It's been busy, but I'm having a great time. Thanks for reading!</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">Summer updates<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">6/4/2021</h6>
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<p> First of all, happy pride month! I feel a little strange about pride month because I'm still not sure if I identify with the LGBTQ+ community. If I were to be specific about my sexuality, I identify as bisexual heteroromantic, which essentially means I'm attracted to both males and females, but only romantically attracted to females. You might think "well then you're bi!" but honestly, I don't know. I feel like "bi" is reserved for people who are equally into men and women, and that's not the case for me. I still prefer women, both sexually and romantically, I just also enjoy men. If I were to put a label on it, it would be something like "bicurious", especially since I've never had any sexual interactions with a male yet, so I can't quite confirm if I'm even bisexual. Regardless, it really doesn't matter what label I decide to put on it because it doesn't change that I'm still seeking a partner of the opposite sex; I just might explore the same sex a little in the meantime.</p>
<p> On to some other updates, I ended up not getting the internship I was hoping for this Summer, so I'm kinda bummed about that. However, I've been offered to work an event with the guy who was running the internship, and also work with another audio guy whom I discovered by playing in the pit orchestra for a theatre show. On top of that, I've been working on some production stuff such as tracking piano for someone's track, and also working on a track of my own. I'm going to try recreating "Wake" from the end cutscene of Tales of Eternia. I already have the piano part transcribed, but I'm also going to transcribe all the other parts, find some people to play them, and then attempt to mix them all together into a video. You can listen to the song in question <a href="https://youtu.be/U2n7eD_jwQw?t=1842" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p> So in a nutshell, despite not getting the internship I wanted, there's still plenty of things I can do with all the time I have now! I also started doing Doordash again, since I should be making some sort of income. I think that's all the updates I wanted to give, so thanks for reading!</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">Finally publishing this darned blog<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">5/20/2021</h6>
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<p> It's happening; I'm making this blog live. After seeing it on <a href="https://njtucker.xyz/" target="_blank">Nate Tucker's website</a>, I decided I want to go forward with having this page. I think at the very least, it would be a good tool for me to reflect on various happenings in life, and would give me a good place to ramble. My hope would be to update this once or twice a month, and we'll see where it goes from there.</p>
<p> As far as life updates go, I'm doing alright! Just finished my junior year of college. Still wanting to do audio engineering, and am waiting to hear back about a live sound internship. Right now I don't have a lot going on other than playing keyboard 2 for a community theatre. They're doing The Full Monty, and it's been really fun! I finally got to use Mainstage 3 in a real performance setting, and it's worked great. Once the M2 MacBook Air's come out, I'm definitely going to pull the trigger on one of them so I can use them for music/life performance stuff.</p>
<p> I've also been working hard on personal projects recently, including this website. Nothing too major here, just a bunch of small updates. I did publish an app to the Google Play store recently, and I'm waiting for it to be reviewed before it's officially published. Don't get your hopes up, it's an incredibly simple app, but I thought it would be interesting to go through the process of publishing it (and it would be kind of cool to be able to brag about having an app on the Play store.)</p>
<p> I think that's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll do my best to keep this blog updated regularly!</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">Self-Isolation thoughts<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">4/8/2020</h6>
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<p> It's been almost a month since this whole quarantine thing has started, and it's been quite interesting. We've all learned a lot, and I thought I might share personally how I feel about this whole self-isolating thing.</p>
<p> As far as school-work goes, doing all my work online has it's pros and cons. As far as pros go, I feel like the biggest advantage I personally have is now I actually have the time to sit down and study for my classes. Before, I would be bogged down by so many other activities I'm involved in, and while I love being involved in so many things, it doesn't leave much (or any really) time for me to study for my classes. In fact, the only real 'studying' I've ever been able to do is attending lectures, doing homework, and cramming the day of/night before exams. That's all I would have time for. Yes, I realize that's unhealthy, but so far it's working alright.</p>
<p> Being able to sit down, read the textbooks, watch lecture videos, and take detailed notes has made a huge learning impact for me (who would've thought). Now, I'm no longer stressed about not having enough time to do these things, because I have all the time in the world! These new studying habits have been quite effective, that is, as long as I'm able to stay focused.</p>
<p> Here's where the cons start to come into play. It is <em>very</em> easy for me to get distracted while I'm on my own. Why study when I could grab my bass guitar and work on my technique instead? Why do homework when I could scroll through Instagram/talk to my friends instead? That last one usually happens when I become frustrated with myself for being unable to do a problem. Another thing that has been hard to figure out is a decent sleeping schedule. I seem to be staying up later and later, and waking up later and later each day. In fact, I'm currently writing this post at 3am. Why? I have no idea.</p>
<p> Anyways, I just wanted to share some of the thoughts I had on this whole situation. It's nice to have time to work on things, however it's hard to keep distractions away. Hopefully, I figure out a better way to manage my time during this self-isolation period so I can be more productive, and do some other things I want to do like work out (oh yeah, I feel like my body is physically deteriorating due to lack of physical activity), make music, and play through some JRPGs.</p>
<p> That's all for now. Maybe if I keep this up, I'll actually have a decent blog. Thanks again for reading!</p>
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<h5 class="card-title">First Blog Post<button class="btn btn-link copyBlogLink" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Copy link to this blog post."><i class="fas fa-link"></i></button></h5>
<h6 class="card-subtitle">3/18/2020</h6>
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<p> Well, this is the first blog post for this website. For now, this is all going to be in it's own
separate Git branch until I know for sure that I will actually use this enough to put it on the
production site.</p>
<p> For now, I can talk a little bit about how this website is going. At this point, I've spent well
over 30 hours (probably going on 35 now), and I've been having an absolute blast. I haven't had really
anything else to do during this Coronavirus quarantine period, so this project has been a blessing.</p>
<p> There's still a few things I have left to do still. The main thing will be getting this site up and
running on the Raspberry Pi WH I have. Currently, the Pi is out of commission until I get a adapter in
the mail to connect it to ethernet and I can debug it over SSH. Then, I'll have to go through the whole
process of setting up the Apache webserver, pointing the domain to the webserver, port-forwarding, and
getting a SSL certificate.</p>
<p> For now though, until that part comes in I think I need to take a break from working on this
website. I've been working almost feverishly on this, which is fine because I haven't had anything else
to do really, but at the same time, I should do something else other than this all day/night.</p>
<p> Thanks for reading!</p>
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