Finally got the taste of blood
Dec. 27th, 2025 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
disappointed_lesbianJust crushed and ate another iron pill. Something about the experience was reminiscent of the times I smelled my own menstrual blood, but surely the pill dust didn't have much of a smell. The taste and olfactory senses mingle to some extent, so I guess the pill tasted like the bloody pad smelled. It wasn't terrible.
Today is my second evening back with my philosophy of quantum mechanics text, and I'm already annoyed with t. I was afraid that sitting and reading would open up the door to intrusive memories of abuse, but instead I find myself having intrusive memories of unpleasant interactions on a certain physics forum, and less angering but still a somewhat sad memories of struggling to get answers as a physics undergraduate.
But these memories aren't what's annoyed me; the book has begun to go down the same path of unclear, seemingly incomplete explanations that my college textbooks followed. Physicists need students as beta readers or something because they are not good at clear writing. Precision is absolutely crucial in the physical sciences; no detail can be hedged or omitted. I feel like I have to continually seek out something more foundational; nobody wants to start from the very beginning, the most fundamental concepts; everyone wants to take some critical detail for granted. The author has started discussing "particles" while describing experiments that were foundational to quantum mechanics. Was there even a clear idea of what a particle is back then? Is there one now?
And what's worse is that the book has started in with the unrealistic, half-assed thought experiments. Something about detecting an electron by putting a single proton in the vicinity (so that they interact). But how practical is placing a single, unbound proton anywhere? How/where does one even get an unbound proton? We're taught that they hang out in atomic nuclei. It's in the chaotic furnace of stars that they're flying about, unbound. And how to isolate just one?
It's disturbing how casually physicists pass from physical reality to these weird hypotheticals. The educatiors of physical science should observe a strict delineation between physical reality and fancy. This book is better than average in that the author has so far warned that unrealistic "experiments" are about to be described...but there's no explanation as to why we're bothering with unrealistic experiments at all. What does any of this stuff have to do with the world that we live in?
This evening, I started studying an online Chinese article again. I had to give up before because my vocabularly was insufficient, and picking not-very-interesting articles back then didn't help. I think I was trying with a random news article; this time, I'm working through a short blog post about learning Korean. The latter is a much more engaging subject. I still fantasize about learning Korean. I should get a job instead of continually learning foreign languages.
About fifteen minutes ago, I'd been ignoring my hunger for a short while when I began to feel a bit dizzy. I decided to eat something even though I'm supposed to not eat for at least another hour to allow my iron to absorb. While the food was heating, I tested my blood sugar. Both my arm sensor and the blood test showed normal results. I wonder what makes me feel that way. Maybe just hunger. But I should be able to go more than a couple of hours without eating. For all the months that I've been monitoring my blood sugar, it's been clinically low only a few times, so I'm thinking that hypoglycemia isn't what makes me feel weird.
Tonight I'm decreasing my extended-release melatonin to half a pill, 1.5mg. I should probably do a longer stint with 3/4 of a pill, but I'm impatient and I guess I just strongly feel that I don't really need this melatonin, not any longer at least. I had more problems sleeping last night, but I was cold again; I think I didn't crush my last pill enough and so didn't absorb it properly. I called the pharmacy today and the automated voice said that my liquid iron was out-of-stock and being ordered. More waiting.
Today is my second evening back with my philosophy of quantum mechanics text, and I'm already annoyed with t. I was afraid that sitting and reading would open up the door to intrusive memories of abuse, but instead I find myself having intrusive memories of unpleasant interactions on a certain physics forum, and less angering but still a somewhat sad memories of struggling to get answers as a physics undergraduate.
But these memories aren't what's annoyed me; the book has begun to go down the same path of unclear, seemingly incomplete explanations that my college textbooks followed. Physicists need students as beta readers or something because they are not good at clear writing. Precision is absolutely crucial in the physical sciences; no detail can be hedged or omitted. I feel like I have to continually seek out something more foundational; nobody wants to start from the very beginning, the most fundamental concepts; everyone wants to take some critical detail for granted. The author has started discussing "particles" while describing experiments that were foundational to quantum mechanics. Was there even a clear idea of what a particle is back then? Is there one now?
And what's worse is that the book has started in with the unrealistic, half-assed thought experiments. Something about detecting an electron by putting a single proton in the vicinity (so that they interact). But how practical is placing a single, unbound proton anywhere? How/where does one even get an unbound proton? We're taught that they hang out in atomic nuclei. It's in the chaotic furnace of stars that they're flying about, unbound. And how to isolate just one?
It's disturbing how casually physicists pass from physical reality to these weird hypotheticals. The educatiors of physical science should observe a strict delineation between physical reality and fancy. This book is better than average in that the author has so far warned that unrealistic "experiments" are about to be described...but there's no explanation as to why we're bothering with unrealistic experiments at all. What does any of this stuff have to do with the world that we live in?
This evening, I started studying an online Chinese article again. I had to give up before because my vocabularly was insufficient, and picking not-very-interesting articles back then didn't help. I think I was trying with a random news article; this time, I'm working through a short blog post about learning Korean. The latter is a much more engaging subject. I still fantasize about learning Korean. I should get a job instead of continually learning foreign languages.
About fifteen minutes ago, I'd been ignoring my hunger for a short while when I began to feel a bit dizzy. I decided to eat something even though I'm supposed to not eat for at least another hour to allow my iron to absorb. While the food was heating, I tested my blood sugar. Both my arm sensor and the blood test showed normal results. I wonder what makes me feel that way. Maybe just hunger. But I should be able to go more than a couple of hours without eating. For all the months that I've been monitoring my blood sugar, it's been clinically low only a few times, so I'm thinking that hypoglycemia isn't what makes me feel weird.
Tonight I'm decreasing my extended-release melatonin to half a pill, 1.5mg. I should probably do a longer stint with 3/4 of a pill, but I'm impatient and I guess I just strongly feel that I don't really need this melatonin, not any longer at least. I had more problems sleeping last night, but I was cold again; I think I didn't crush my last pill enough and so didn't absorb it properly. I called the pharmacy today and the automated voice said that my liquid iron was out-of-stock and being ordered. More waiting.
