Maitta! Always - Daily Amazing Confusions -

At 5:50 a.m. it was still dark. Outside of the entrance was 5C Celsius. Less cold than expected. Then I started bicycling, in the morning on the day of the end of November.

"Pleas understand me" or "Please understand us" ... These are ideas I often hear when I meet with adults with developmental disorders. It's not until a few days ago that I noticed that I have seldom said them by myself. I even hadn't been able to think that way until I got the concept of high functioning autism when I was 18. Until then I was just thinking that I was prone to be involved in communication troubles without knowing certain reasons, so then I even didn't have the idea that being understood may help me. Likewise, I was not very well answer to a question "What do you want to do?" when in panic. My understanding of myself was very primitive, and the only things I was aware when I was 18 was, what to eat, what game to play, and what do I do to look cool (actually I was not cool at all, and was rather ridiculous instead).

This time of the year, sunrises getting later and later, mornings becoming darker and darker, and it's tough time for me. I enjoyed in the summer and autumn, enjoyed bicycling early in the morning even on weekdays, to fight against stress and anxiety. If I try to do this in the end of November, I have to get up when it's really dark at 5:30 p.m., standing cold weather which cause the temptation to stay in bed later, which definitely deprive me of the time to do activities early in the morning. One good thing is I'm interested in bar tape installation. I'm planning to renew the bar tape of my road bike before the end of the year. This is relatively easy task among road bike maintenance, and if I succeed in it, I'm motivated to do more complex tasks, like installing binding pedals and lacing wheels for the next year. Now I'm looking for the choices of bar tapes reasonable enough to allow trial and error, while viewing how-to and experiences in YouTube videos.

Tension and soreness of my whole body, after an exam, continues after ending Monday's work. I'm taking a lot of rest with right exercise and 10 minutes of walking, hoping to getting better for tomorrow.

After the test on Saturday, I feel strange and really heavy. Unlike daily stress of work, taking an exercise doesn't likely to help. My face, especially the area around the eyes is sore and a bit feverish. Actually my body temperature is normal. This strange tension of my mind and body is the sign of red right that is telling I need double rest and sleep after a test, which require to stand an unusual tension on the day, and anxieties a few days before the test.

I passed LPIC 101 exam. It's necessary to pass 102 exam to certified as LPIC level 1, so I continue to study. I need to learn deeper configuration of a host, basic knowledge of TCP/IP network and network services, and commands, procedures, and files needed for network security. Basic file and text operation, viewing and configuring basic host status will be also required as they are in 101 exam.

The exam will be next morning. LPIC 101 test. I checked the IDs required for taking the test. I checked the exam venue. I also checked lunch spots nearby, and schedules after the exam. I finally checked knowledge require for the test. Correct answer rate is not so bad. That of most sections are more than 90%. Next task is having sleep, to have enough concentration on the day, at the time of the exam.

LPIC 101 exam preparation. It seems like I have memorized almost all answers of exam preparation quizzes. However it doesn't promise 100% success in the real exam, and it doesn't mean that I deeply understand every detail in areas of Linux which are the subjects of this exam. I'm getting more and more nervous as exam date is getting closer and closer, but worrying doesn't make my exam results any better. All I can do is answer what I have learned and practiced with confidence.

Below zero degree Celsius. This morning I saw the thermometer the outside of the entrance, and it indicated so. The sky was blue and the low sunlight was coming from the east at 7:00 a.m. Roofs and windows of cars passing by were white with frost.

LPIC 101 exam preparation. I took a prep test and correct answer rate was about 78 %. My understanding of a few edit (sed, vi etc.), system administration commands and configurations. I have 3 days before the exam. Until then I cram knowledge about the areas I learned in this test that I'm week in.

Monday, November 20. Snow was falling from yesterday afternoon until early in this morning, in the western area of Sendai. We didn't have much, but branches of trees and sidewalks were thinly covered with snow. I should have taken photos of them, so I can upload and show here. After all records of daily things of local area, especially about season is one of most useful information I can offer hire.

Doing my best instead of worrying until the exam day, keeping in shape physically and mentally. These are what I'm to do.

My pedal wrench worked for the first time. It was only recently that I saw a few description "PARK TOOL RW1 USA". As it's a tool of more than 20 years ago, there are already new similar tool like Park Tool HCW-6, which is head sets and pedal wrench. I had gotten it 22 years ago, when I bought my previous bicycle, a cross bike, a half year after I entered university. I got it in order to remove the pedals when I pack the bike. However, I couldn't remove them by myself, for that cross bike until finally I got rid of it last year. Soon after I got my road bike. Recently I have been thinking that I want to install binding pedal system some time next year, and I want to remove and install by myself, and I was thinking it's a good idea to try on my current flat pedals. It was very hard, at first, to remove the pedals, because they become much harder with rust, so I used lubricant on the screw, then gripped the wrench with crank in the direction each pedal will b...

On Wednesday, I got two packages of Starbucks VIA. One, Christmas Blend, and the other, Italian Roast. Italian Roast, with its more reasonable price, is good for my first cup of coffee, or cafe au lait of the day, when I need more energy. Christmas Blends is for comfort in the morning of the day I'm really down, which I have several days in a year. Although I still had had more than 5 sticks of VIA Christmas Blend, I got another dozen of sticks, because I didn't want to frustrated to know it would be sold out when I would want more.

November is a season of slowdown for me. It's too cold for jogging , bicycling or swimming (even indoor), and too early for skiing. It's very hard to keep my motivation to keep myself in shape, without catching a cold. Even the fact that it's the birth month  of my favorite singer isn't fully making up for my slow down in this month.

The third reboot is awaiting. I had to accept two reboots in order to update my security software, with some side effects, and there probably the monthly update of Windows OS. I have to accept this with patience and grace.

In order to update my security software, I had to reboot my laptop twice. Well this is fair cost to keep my PC secure, but I couldn't stand the layout of my PC desktop has been reset through the update process. I prefer to place to the right bottom of the desktop, folders, and shortcuts I frequently use, but all of them were aligned to top left.

Now that I'm advancing my tasks step by step at my pace, even though my condition is not so good, and the quality of my sleep is not so bad. There are nothing to worry and take care of, other than my real tasks and problem which I know their deadlines.

LPIC 101, real exam, in 2 weeks. I reserved the exam for a.m. on November 25. I have got familiar with knowledge required for this level, but I want to make sure of getting more than 95 percents of practice questions I have access to, while coping with stress and anxiety of weekdays and weekends from a bit of hypersensitivity.

Today I went shopping to the city. When I took off the train, people and cars looked so fast that I was almost overwhelmed by them. Perhaps I may be affected by stress so seriously. Fortunately, it's weekend and basically I don't have to hurry.

November is the time of year my motivation for sports goes down. It's too cold for going for swimming or riding a bicycle, especially on a windy day, and it's too early for skiing. This is perhaps one reason for which I'm strongly interested in (budget) Hi-Fi audio in this time of the year. In 2013, and last year, I built a pair of speaker, respectively. This year, I don't want to pay much for stereo, because I rather want to spare money for bicycle trip for next year, but perhaps I'm going to get a few CDs. I'm quite satisfied with my listening environment, except for no freedom for layout.

Time is passing before I decide what to do next. Perhaps it is because I have overloaded myself when I work and study.

It's time to decide the date of my LPIC 101 exam. I'm thinking to take it on the last Saturday of November, 25. Within this week, I'm getting a LPI exam voucher and getting discount. I was even thinking of getting 2 vouchers, to take 101, and 102 exam, for I'm planning to take the 102 exam too within this year, but I'm going to get one by one, because I'm not used to using vouchers to pay for an exam.

It was too early for restarting exercise, only 2 days after 10km run. I road my bike 10 kilometers with some uphills, and I was OK until I was on the train for work. At the station, I walked and every passers-by overtook me. I wasn't aware of I was walking much slower than usual, and wasn't ready for exercise either.

I'm studying for LPIC Level 1. There are a lot to learn by hearts. Commands, results from them, their options locations of system files. Especially it's hard to learn options of commands beginning with a hyphen. When I read a manual page written in English, there are chances to understand the backgrounds of alphabets of the options, but if I get all information from Japanese text, I have no choice but to resort to rote learning.

10km race 50m18s, today. A little bit slower than I had expected, but a little bit better than last year and the year before last. If I lost 300g more fat I would be able to run in 50 minutes. It was clear day, 8c degrees in the morning and 14c degrees in the day. It was cold in half sleeve when waiting, but it was felt rather hot when I was running towers the sun.

At 3 p.m. I went out by bicycle to have my hair cut and get bread of tomorrow. 3:30 p.m. was already twilight and I'm thinking that switching on the light at this time of the day, at this time of the year, although this time I didn't have the light with me.

Today is the first day of 3-day holidays. I went to a pool nearby and swam in it. I had planned to swim 1 kilometer as slowly as possible because I didn't want to exhaust before the 10 kilometer marathon I'm going to run on Sunday. A man was already swimming, a little bit faster than I, so I unconsciously sped up. It's not easy to keep to slow pace in swimming, especially there is someone else on another lane

Touhou 16 one tenth score attack. I tried to win the game with a score less than one tenth of my highest score. Lowering the score is much more difficult than raising. First, season releasing attack is one way to survive much longer, because you can use it repeatedly, by involving many bullet to recharging, but it also generates score items which raise both the score rate and the score itself. Second, keeping your score low means less opportunities for player extends. Especially, in this episode, a player extend happens by your score. These two things make low score play even more difficult.

Starbucks VIA Christmas Blend of 2016 and 2017. I got the 2017 version this morning. The 2017 version (the right of the photo below) has white lines on both tips of the stick. On the package of the stick, VIA Christmas Blend is best before the next September, but when I had the 2016 version earlier in the morning, with hot milk, almost 2 months after the date, it was tasty enough.