Amphetamines and the multi-species discourse
I’m also blogging over at https://phd.thgie.ch/notes/Journal.html, but that one is specific to my PhD. Besides a stay in Rome for a Digital Humanities conference (on which I wrote on the other blog), June was much calmer so far. That might also have a connection with my new ADHD medication. After my return, I had a session with my psy, and we figured that it can make sense to try something to balance the specifics of my brain-activity. It seems that parts of my brain activate rather quick and over-excited, but then become bored and start to chill out. That is also the reason why I have a hard time staying on track for any activity. Any other external stimuli can take over priority easily.
The medication I’m getting is a kind of amphetamine, Lisdexamfetamin sold under the name Elvanse. I’m having the lowest possible dosage, 20mg, on a daily basis. Honestly, it felt a bit like LSD microdosing in the beginning, but I quickly got accustomed. It helps me a lot. I’m able to hyperfocus during the mornings and can stay concentrated on what I want to do until the late afternoon. Then I usually get a bit tired and more blurry in my focus. I already made so many positive experiences now during the last two weeks on medication… being able to focus and get things done without struggling and hustling gives me a lot of peace of mind and self-confidence.
Things like a talk next week as well as a paper I have to hand in don’t stress the fuck out of me, but get me healthily excited. I see how the talk will go, since I assume I’ll get nervous beforehand. But being able to prepare in peace and when I want to already helps very much. I also often experience getting into a flow and forgetting time now and usually go a bit earlier to bed as before.
Meanwhile, I handed in my last deliverable for the more-than-human multi-modal anthropology course.
- A reflection on the production of the film: Interspecies infrastructure in the becoming
- The film itself: Visiting
It was a pleasure to write the reflection (also thanks to the meds). Currently, I work a lot with sentence outlines. They are a fantastic tool in drafting texts and work very well for me. The documentation for the course can be found under Exploring Human and More-than-Human Relationships.
Things
- I tried to read software source code as literary text: Close Reading the VICE Source Code. It was an exciting experiment!
- I bought this fantastic album: Electric Guitar One by Emma Ruth Rundle
- Finished The Mandalorian season 3. The ending was epic, and I’m pleased with the outcome. The last shot with Mando resting on the porch and Grogu playing with the frog in the pond is proper western film aesthetics. It might also have been a reference to Matsuo Basho’s famous haiku on the old pond and the frog.
Old pond…
a frog jumps in
water’s sound
- I immediately got myself the Obi Wan Kenobi series and the Star Wars: Visions animations. Let’s see if they bridge the gap until the next Mandalorian season… in like 2025 :(
- Next week starts NIFFF 2023. My partner and I already watched all the trailers and rated the films by priority. Now we have to fix our individual viewing programs.