On the weekend I decided to try setting up my own Mastodon server in response to Elon Musk’s destruction of Twitter. I thought it would be a good exercise in learning about some different server technologies. I bought a domain, setup a Google Cloud bucket, a MailJet account and then tried to work out where to put it. Eventually I settled on the “easy” option suggested in the Mastodon docs of using the droplet on Digital Ocean.

It kind of worked. Sometimes. I suspect I did something wrong.

The version was old, so I tried to update it and broke my Mastodon instance entirely.

On Monday morning I decided to nuke the entire thing, redirect the domains to my normal web host and wait until the initial rush is over to reconsider. Then I thought I’d learn about Docker in between all the other work tasks.

Straight after work I headed into karate to help with the junior classes while the chief sensei is away, before doing my normal lesson. My whole body was already aching and stiff from Saturday’s class. At eight-thirty PM, after stopping by to purchase groceries, I arrived home and promptly helped Alex prepare for his geography test today.

It felt like the whole day was learning and teaching.

So today, I had to relearn how to generate internal SSL certificates. This time I put notes up on our team wiki. Then it was teaching myself how to use Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 to track downloads while still maintaining compatibility with Universal Analytics.

A tiny microwaved meal of spaghetti for lunch before jumping back online to listen to award nominated research into using the eyes to monitor diabetes in Indigenous communities and simplify water management on farms, before jumping across to our team meeting.

The manager announced he’d been successful, after four years, with a merit promotion. I mistakenly received the notification that my namesake in the company had also been successful. And they are looking to employ a replacement business analyst for the team at a higher pay level than me. Meanwhile, my manager told me not to bother sending in a reward case when they were due a month or two ago.

So again I’m very triggered and upset, especially considering my high output and workload. I’m doing business and systems analysis all the time in my current role in addition to all the technical work and problem solving.

Ended the work due performing an evaluation of some third-party plugins and yet more systems administration tasks, waiting for an electrician who then changed the appointment to later in the week.

Switching the PC off doesn’t switch me off. It feels like I’m so subsumed by solving problems and learning new skills that I’ve forgotten how to be me right now. I go outside but can’t even dream of a holiday. Can’t focus on reading a book or watching a movie to escape. It’s driving me crazy!