March was another really good month!
Yet, as I’ve said in Reflections on Paris 3, it intuitively doesn’t feel as exciting, satisfying, etc. as the months before. The more I read about what I’ve done, the happier I am w the month though.
Transition
The goal is to make progress in my transition, to try new things and find out what I like and want to get out of the transition. How I want to present myself to the world and to myself. To find out who I am and to be seen that way.
- I managed to go to the women’s toilet a bunch of times in different places; whilst it still felt ~scary in the beginning, it normalized quickly; it’s no where near normal yet, but it’s a thing that is now easy-ish to do
- got and wore new fem clothes, which felt great
- got estrogen injected by butch transbian :3
- learned that scrotal application of estrogen gel is multiple times as effective :O
Social Goals
The goal is to make new connections and deepen those I gained, to be more social, to discover what kinds of people I enjoy being around, to work on social anxiety and related issues.
- met more new people and deepened existing connections further
- went to Terminally Online 4 / hypercore with some friends
- a club/party on a “boat” (a concrete structure in the river, styled like a boat)
- one floor for dancing
- one for arcade games (DDR!)
- one for fresh air
- very straight guys were an oddity there, almost everyone was queer, GNC, or alt in cool ways
- apart from successfully dancing and feeling the music, I met a cute girl (with a cool Hatsune Miku “01” tattoo on her arm) on the dancefloor and we danced-kissed-danced-kissed for a while :3
Career & Impact
The goal is to gain further experience in operations (Ops) work, to find out whether this really is one of the best fields I can work in, to finally find out after many years whether I can actually, reasonably contribute to AI Safety or not. To have a positive impact on the universe’s future, and to have resources.
- had more conversations w ppl in the AIS field
- revamped CV and focused it on EA/Ops
- applied to bluedot, EAGx Nordics and EAG London
- progressed more in the interview process of Scaling Altruism
- did a paid work sample and >1h interview
- wrote my AIS upskilling plan and made much progress on it
- did about half of the bluedot course by myself
- continued in the AIS Atlas
- watched 3B1B’s and StatQuest’s Neural Networks playlists
- …
Health, Self, and Wellbeing
The goal is to work on myself and identify my inner issues, to realign or minimize them and the impact they have on me. To actualize more of who I am, to find out who I want to be, but also to life a live I enjoy and to avoid burning out again, and to maintain or increase METs as those are crucial for this and all the other goals.
- hung out w ppl
- learned some shibari basics w parter L
- and overall made very big progress on inner issues around sex(uality)
- have been close to and also actually crying many times
- maybe this month was more often than last year, which was more often than the last decade1
- whilst it felt really sucky at the time, I’m glad that this now clearly is smth I can do. I often felt bad, weird, guilty about not being able to cry2
- but it was also healing in that it gave the opportunity to others to show and prove that they want to hear from me, that they truly care, that I don’t have to deal with it all on my own
- partner V had an interesting framing: when you’re sad about nothing, maybe you’re just sad about everything
- Claude Coded Nova Reader after not having found an RSVP reader I found satisfactory and wrote several new posts
- many cuddles w friends and partners
- went to Parisian arcade to play DDR
- recovered from being sick twice :(
Exploration and Discovery
This is the arc for this year. I want to explore and discover more about myself. The other goals all serve this one to some extend and have this central aim woven into them. Yet, not all things directly serve one of those other goals, but mainly match this main purpose.
- roadtrips from Paris to Belgium and spent some time in Ghent (in a hostel that has campers instead of rooms which was p cool)
- we played MtG and wingspan in World’s End, a local game + geeky book store, along w vegan burgers and speculoos chocolate
- also Oh!ma has really good, vegan, traditional Belgian food!
Again, this was a good month, definitely worth repeating. Yet I feel like I could have gotten more out of it. In part this was bc I was sick twice somehow, but even outside of that I feel like a bit more would’ve been possible. Good thing there’s more months!