2024.07.26

2024.07.26

I'm attempting a comeback of sorts, attempting to use this account as a way to document and create accountability. I do notice I'm quite resistant to the visual nature of most studyblr and studyblr adjacent content. Of course this isn't necessary, but it is the general way such content presents itself. As is usual, I'm attempting to find my own balance within existence. Currently I'm working through the entirety of 'The Rising Sea: Foundations of Algebraic Geometry'. I hope to get around part IV done this summer and finish the book before the end of the calendar year. It's going alright. Beside that I have a small note I'd like to write up about a theorem and I'm playing around a little with skew braces. So much mathematics and so little time.

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[Video Description: at the doorstep of an old man's house in Porto, Portugal, on a street through which a pride parade is marching, a young marcher trades her progress pride flag with the old man of the house for his Portuguese flag, which the young marcher then wraps around her own shoulders. They briefly hug each other tightly before the young marcher rejoins the pride parade. The old man waves his newly acquired pride flag, gives the young marcher in the crowd a thumbs up, and blows kisses to the crowd, and the crowd cheers him on. The old man and several members of the parade are visibly emotional, and the person behind the camera is audibly sobbing between cheers. End Video Description]

Source | picture taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo

[Image Description: a close-up of the old man from the video, hugging his new pride flag. He has short grey hair, is wearing glasses, and has a big grey mustache covering his upper lip. He's wearing a beige shirt. His face is scrunched up and red as he looks over the crowd in front of him, which is blurry in the foreground, and hugs his flag, visibly overcome with emotion. A tear rolls down his left cheek. End Image Description]

This old man, possibly in his late 60's, was seen in Porto last Saturday, the 29th of June 2024, waving a Portuguese flag on his doorstep while a pride parade marched past. He was the only one around waving a Portuguese flag.

In a video on Instagram published the following Sunday, singer Mara Nunes, who participated in the march, explains why the people in the crowd were initially wary of him. Waving a country's flag at a pride parade is often what anti-LGBTQIA+ nationalist protestors do, and people thought he might be one of these nationalists.

The old man, at one point, waved over a young marcher, Lily Martins, one of Mara's friends. The marchers stopped and waited with baited breath as Lily approached him, ready to defend their friend, if necessary. The old man told Lily, "It's for you," as he draped his Portuguese flag over her shoulders. Lily gave her own Progress Pride flag to the old man, and they hugged tightly before Lily rejoined the crowd.

"The entire march had stopped. We stayed there for a good while, very emotional," recounts Mara. During the trade, the old man held up the flag and pointed at his heart. "It's a pity he didn't say much. He asked if the flag was for him, hugged Lily tightly, and thanked her, weeping."

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It's been a while. I'm not exactly present, not exactly gone. I've changed a lot, I'd like to think grown on the good days and adapted on the worse days. I've stopped feeling the desire or urge to really document life in the way that any kind of social media inherently promotes. At times I do miss it, I enjoy the visual diary this account has become, though I cringe at times when looking back at older content as I imagine most people do, but at the same time it is difficult for me to remember to document things and then keep up with it.

Either way, summer's come. I'm working on some small research project, working through a major textbook, learning a language and at times occassionally attempting to relax.

an old drunk man told me to enjoy my life and have fun because I’m only 24 and I have so many years and so much life ahead of me and then he went “and you know what? in ten years when you’re 34 you’ll still be young and have your whole life ahead of you” and it was really comforting to me

if you consider the body a geometry, that means it is able to be transformed