Nova Daily - 21 July 2025: Reconciliation

Hi!

Part of why yesterday was a heavy day for me was the habitual insomnia as a product of my hyperactive mind. On both weekend days I was supposed to wake up early for a social gathering, and in both cases I hadn't been able to board the train to Dreamworld properly. Multiple consecutive days of bad sleep do mount up, and it's not exactly conducive.

I still felt good enough to join in yesterday, and ultimately I'm glad that I did. Though I did have a few mental pills to swallow.

Reconciliation

In yesterday's meeting I was feeling somewhat awkward. My friend who switched teams to play a few divisions higher was there, and I hadn't spoken to him in a bit. Part of this, I realised, is because I've been very busy with doing my own stuff on here. I'm going my own way, but I do feel a bit responsible for not having reached out to him in a while. We were supposed to be doing some chess training sessions together, and it'd be nice to take up the gauntlet and get going with these.

What initially felt less nice, and one of the things I've not been looking forward to, is that one of the people I didn't want to see was also there. What do you do when you have to present a socially acceptable front while you don't feel like it? I wasn't sure, but I decided to keep a low profile around him, because there's not much to be gained from ruining an otherwise quite pleasant social gathering. I'd see what would happen.

He made the first move in the social game of chess by making some dad joke. Like most dad jokes, they're almost always too easy and cheesy, and his was no exception, but it could've been worse. At least he was in an okay mood and not out for anyone's blood.

He and I hardly spoke, and that's how I liked it. Towards the end of the day I also commented on something circumstantial with him, and that was it. Not much bad blood that day, but I wouldn't quite call it a reconciliation either. I managed to get through the day quite well, even despite still not liking that guy. The day was and has been, and that's enough.

Notwithstanding these matters, I did play some OTB chess yesterday while I was there, and quite much better than I did today. You'll see below how I did today.

Some rapid games today

Counter to my normal playing regime, I've been playing a few 10 minute rapid games today. Initially I wanted to keep it at one, but I played so abysmally badly that I wound up playing six of them because I went on a chasing-my-losses spree. I did score 3½ out of 6 with three wins in the final three games to take me back to 2300. But my play was so appalling that only the German word "himmelschreiend" does justice to it. See for yourself how quickly I got myself mopped up in this game:

Tomorrow, hopefully after rza more or less decent night of sleep, I'll be playing another 15+10 rapid game again.