#The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned

[deadpresidents]

I'm only about halfway through John Strausbaugh's book The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), but it's already one of the best books I've read this year. It's a fascinating history of the Soviet Union's space program and Strausbaugh obviously researched the book intensely, but it's also very funny at times. It also has the perfect title for a book on this subject. I highly recommend it! It's available now from PublicAffairs and the Hachette Book Group.

[maniacalgenius]

03.10.25

monday recap

🌺 quiet time - read Acts 3

🌺 ate breakfast

🌺 took pills & vitamins

🌺 went to get allergy shot

🧚 read my book during the mandatory 30 minutes they make me wait before leaving the establishment to make sure i'm not anaphylactic

🧚 got a little treat after

🧚 called my uncle

🍁 went to favorite coffee shop (taking full advantage of spring break to spend as much time as possible in my Favorite Spot in the establishment. helping my productivity a lot hehe)

🧬 worked through module 3 lecture 3 - gluconeogenesis practice

🧬 made notecards for mod 3 lec 3 - GNG (module 3 is done!!!)

🍁 new goal for today: finish at least half of module 4

🧬 started video lecture for module 4 lecture 4 - pentose phosphate pathway

🌺 went to get dinner

🍁 went back to coffee shop, friend who lives nearby walked over & met me here. favorite spot had not been annexed while i was gone. major score

🧬 finished watching lecture 4 pentose phosphate pathway video

🧬 worked on notecards for lecture 4, got about 1/3 of the way through (edit to add: got about 40% through with module 4, i would say that's close enough to count as reaching my goal)

🌺 went home, took a shower

🧚 watched tv with my mom (& then scrolled for way too long before getting ready for bed oops)

🧚 read my book for a little bit (got to halfway point)

💤 7h 7m (went to sleep at 2:25 am. this was significantly better than the night before last which was significantly past 3 am. cheers to progress 🥂)

💧 60 oz

👣 3.9k

🎶 i'm gonna love you - nick isham

📽️ the crown - s3 ep1 "olding"

📖 the wrong stuff: how the soviet space program crashed & burned - got to page 128/258

🕰️ 4h 32m

love and prayers

[maniacalgenius]

03.09.25

sunday recap

🌺 went to church (stayed at the one where i sing in the choir & didn't teleport to my normal church after the choir was done because it's spring break & i didn't know who out of my friend group would be there)

🌺 went home, made scrambled eggs for lunch, ate scrambled eggs

🍁 went to coffee shop to study. goal for today was to catch up on biochem modules 1 & 2 for the final

🧬 finished my handwritten notes on module 2 lecture 2 - glycolysis

🧬 worked through module 1 lecture 1 practice - intro to metabolism (now finished with module 1! 🥳)

🧬 worked through module 2 lecture 2 practice - glycolysis (now finished with module 2! 🥳 running very ahead of schedule, def because when i was making my to-do list i didn't realize that lecture 1 notes were done & lecture 2 notes were half done, but still!)

🍁 new goal: put big dent in module 3 (normally i would just say "finish module 3" but i'm really working on setting realistic goals for myself so i'm not anticipating failure from the beginning therefore putting myself into a functional freeze state where i can't even start hehehe just me?? okay 😅)

🧚 took a break to read for a few minutes & then order more coffee

🧬 wrote out mechanisms from gluconeogenesis

🧬 took handwritten notes on module 3 lecture 3 - gluconeogenesis. i would say the new goal had been achieved at this point

🌺 went to the grocery store to get things for dinner (ran into a friend who works there 🥰)

🌺 made dinner, ate dinner

🌺 took a shower

🌺 did quiet time - read Acts 2

🧚 watched the crown to fall asleep

💤 7h 23m (this includes the nap i took saturday afternoon because i am too lazy to look at the data on my phone instead of my watch. went to bed at 3 am but this was partially due to daylight savings)

💧 60 oz

👣 3.6k

🎶 stargazing - myles smith

📽️ friends s2 ep3 "the one where heckles dies"

📖 the wrong stuff: how the soviet space program crashed & burned

🕰️ 3h 50m (but i feel like this is a little low for the time i actually spent studying �� oh well)

the reason i was able to be so (relatively) productive is that due to spring break all Activities are suspended for the next week & so the pressure of Having Places To Be & having to Prepare For Things is off & i am able to just vibe & actually hear myself think which helps a lot 😅

love and prayers

[maniacalgenius]

03.12.25

wednesday recap

🌺 quiet time - read acts 5

🌺 ate breakfast. thank you again mom!

🌺 got ready for day

🧚 drove to a nearby city (~1.5 hours away) to go shopping with my mom because the mall in my college town is atrocious. technically my mom drove & i read my book

🌺 had my mom park in the further away parking lot so we could get more steps because i've been atrociously sedentary the last few days hehe (almost wrote sedimentary instead of sedentary AHAHA)

🧚 went in my absolute favorite store of all time, found a really pretty dress for the wedding of a couple in my friend group (it's not until may 2026 but i was invited to match with the bridal party who are all wearing blue & i wanted to get my dress pick in early so i could have dibs. also literally any excuse to buy a dress that makes me feel like a princess>>>>)

🧚 went in a few other stores just for funsies & to get more steps

🌺 then we got dinner at one of my favorite places that just happens to have a location right across from the mall

🧚 drove home, read my book in the car again

🌺 got home, took a shower

🧚 watched tv with my mom

🌺 finished fixing a friend's jacket whilst watching tv

🧚 finished my book!!!

🌺 planned next day

💤 7h 57m (got to sleep around the same time as the night before. so, no progress made on sleep schedule - but no setback either!)

💧 70 oz (ish)

👣 8.4k

🎶 my boy only breaks his favorite toys - taylor swift

📽️ the crown s3 ep10 - "cri de coeur"

📖 the wrong stuff: how the soviet space program crashed & burned - finished this one!!!!

🕰️ 0 :: day off from studying

love and prayers

[maniacalgenius]

03.11.25

tuesday recap

i laid in bed for way longer than i should have before commencing all of the following because i had a stomachache & i have a very low pain tolerance :(

🌺 did quiet time - read Acts 4

🌺 ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. thank you mom

🌺 took pills & vitamins

🌺 went to get allergy shot

🧚 read my book while waiting the mandatory 30 minutes & also had a fun little conversation with the two nurses behind the desk about all the spiderman movies

🧚 got a little treat

🌺 did errand

🍁 went to coffee shop. my friend met me here again to actually do homework (she read her Bible here yesterday while i studied but she also needed to get work done over the break so here we are)

🧬 finished module 4 lecture 4 - pentose phosphate pathway notecards (& in only a third of the time i estimated it would take! mostly because there were a lot of duplicate slides but still praise God)

🧬 worked through pentose phosphate pathway practice

🧬 did handwritten notes in my Pretty Notebook on the pentose phosphate pathway (officially finished module 4!)

🧬 watched the first of two video lectures on module 5 lecture 5 - glycogen metabolism. the part 1 video covered glycogen breakdown (or catabolism, for those in the know)

🌺 went home, ate leftovers for dinner

🌺 also unloaded the dishwasher & took out the trash

🌺 took a shower

🧚 watched tv with my mom

🌺 worked on a project for a friend whilst watching tv

🧚 read my book more

🌺 got ready for bed

🧚 watched the crown to go to sleep

💤 7h 52m

💧 80 oz

👣 4.4k

🎶 i'm gonna love you - nick isham (this song had 1,402 streams on spotify when i found it yesterday & now at the time of writing (5:12 p.m.) it has 1,435 & i'm pretty sure the additional 33 streams were all me)

📽️ friends s2 ep8 - “the one with the list”

📖 the wrong stuff: how the soviet space program crashed & burned - 172/258

🕰️ 3h 27m

love and prayers

[maniacalgenius]

03.02.25

sunday recap

🧚 went to the church where i sing in the choir

🌺 went to the grocery store

🌺 went home, made dinner for the week (pasta with chicken) & breakfast (scrambled eggs with shredded cheese)

🌺 did a load of laundry

🌺 unloaded & loaded the dishwasher

📋 planned tonight's SI session

🧚 read a little bit

🌺 took a short nap

🧚 went & got a little treat on my way to campus (not pictured, unfortunately)

📋 held my session

📋 went home & immediately had to log on to a zoom meeting with my staff person to go over my evaluations. apparently i'm doing a good job 🥹

🌺 ate some of my pasta for dinner

🌺 took a shower

📋 answered some students' emails

🌺 had a snack

🧚 read a little bit before turning in

no sleep or steps data bc i didn't have my watch on last night & most of today whoops. also didn't really pay attention to my water intake

🎶 Christ with coffee on ice - found this podcast & have been listening to it the last few weeks to go to sleep (not cause it's boring, just cause that's the time i've had in which to listen to it) & normally i will fall asleep five minutes into an episode & have to start it over the next night but i listened to a few episodes uninterrupted today whilst cooking & doing chores & they were so good!!!

📽️ the big bang theory - s12 ep4

📖 the wrong stuff: how the soviet space program crashed and burned

love and prayers

[maniacalgenius]

02.12.25

wednesday recap

🧬 went to physics (ish)

🧚 visited dr sandwich

📋 meeting with professor whose class i SI for

🌺 ate lunch

🧬 read and took notes on physics chapter 18.1 through 18.5 (this was for exam 1 but i have to go in order. which is actually not a waste of time because this stuff will be on the final anyway so i may as well catch up on it now 😅

🧚 went to the off-campus barnes & noble for coffee because i was meeting my best friend off campus for dinner soon anyway & i wanted a reason to go get in the car & turn the heat up because i was f r e e z i n g in my lunch/study location even though i was inside!!

🧚 of course while i was there i found a book i Had To Have - the wrong stuff: how the soviet space program crashed and burned. so we're excited for that

🧚 dinner with my best friend!! this was so so good because we hadn't hung out just the two of us in like. i don't know. a good two weeks at LEAST; we'd only seen each other at the weekly group things. also she bought my food which i was not expecting & was really really sweet. i think she was trying to make me feel extra loved as my least favorite holiday draws near which i really appreciated <3

🧚 went to bible study

🌺 went home, took shower

🌺 daily prayer journal

💤 6h 42m

💧 who's to say

👣 7.8k

🎶 hero - gio., henrik

📺 the big bang theory - s10 ep19 "the collaboration fluctuation"

love and prayers