arup’s blog

Writing the August report over the course of the month made it seem as though I had collated many small reports rather than one big one at the end of the month. Which is essentially what it was but reading back the different paragraphs I could feel the different moods in each one. Sometimes when I look back over a month it can seem like a long time and I can’t remember. It’s only the 3rd of September but I’m going to start this report right now so again I can keep track over the course of the month and just leave the file open to update and edit.

In September I was quite inspired about my goals and about getting on with them but I also got a cold which sapped my energy. It meant that after a good start progress did slow down but the enthusiasm to achieve the goals remained constant so things picked up again at the end of the month.

120 miles

Last week I set my speedometer to zero for the trip distance so that I could actually measure how far I travel in a week. It was just over 92 miles. Well below the 120 mile quota. Given that when I have a day at home I’m reluctant to go out and ride I thought about adding some extra mileage to my commutes. But how far? Those 92 miles were covered over four days so on average I was commuting 22.5 miles per day. So all I would need to do would be to increase each day to 30 miles and that would take me up to 120 miles in total. Which means adding an average of 7.5 miles to each commute. It would have to be on the way home.

On the evening of the 12th I continued from Forest Hill to Lewisham and back via Catford which was 5.74 miles. From Forest Hill where my detour began to my house is about a mile so in total I cycled an extra five miles give or take. It was a beautiful night and there wasn’t much traffic as it was after ten o’clock. I really enjoyed and am now wondering about some other routes. Obviously I don’t want to do this at rush hour as it would be no fun at all but there are parks so I need to check those out.

I have completed the first thousand miles on my new Lombardi bike and took myself off to Wagamama for a meal which I haven’t done for a while. It does feel good to have this tradition back up and running again.

Meditation

Now that I’m studying in the mornings my two proposed slots for doing some extra meditation have been taken up. The only option that comes to mind is to extend my morning ones when I sit after the morning pages. Perhaps from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. It seems that meditation is getting sidelined again.

Yoga

Around the time when I first started doing yoga I was also a coffee drinker. After my morning cup I found I could push myself quite hard and go deep into the stretches. Not quite the right attitude for yoga but I had come from a weight training background where it was all about gains and pushing yourself hard. I tried the same idea and found that I was instantly motivated but without the aggressive attitude that I had 20 years ago.

Having shut down a bit having had a cold the past week I had an idea while I was teaching my Sunday morning class on the 18th. If I want to quit yoga in both senses i.e. teaching and practising then I should only work on the ones that I teach when I do it on my own. In the past I’ve often thought that I should only do postures that I don’t teach but if I’m not actually too interested in it and am doing it merely as a job then I simply need to look the part for certain postures. The fact that this idea has occurred to me now means that I truly am disengaging from it.

Friends

Having been annoyed about having to chase up many of my friends I pondered last month about the idea of letting them make the next move. I spoke to a friend who suggested I should try it. It would certainly be a load off my mind and as she said perhaps one needs to let go of old friends in order to make new friends.

De-clutter

I’ve made a list of things that I need to sell on ebay. It’s a start but I don’t know if it’s going to happen. I do some money tied up in these small items which stops me from just throwing them out but the amount of stuff that is building up is really worrying me. And yet, I want more stuff!

Java programming

The urge is starting to return but very slowly. I have given myself an out clause but don’t seem to be taking it. I’ve bought an old Intel P4 PC on Ebay which I’m going to use as a dedicated development machine. The Android emulator only works with Intel processors so it was a good excuse to purchase yet another computer. I don’t mind as long as I do actually do something with it. Linux Mint 10 or 11 with the latest version of Java I think with Eclipse and any other tools that may be required.

Maya has just started nursery and I am picking her up at midday each day apart from Thursday when I go up to Racer Rosa to build wheels. So for four weekday mornings I have a few clear hours to get on with some study. After some teething troubles about what to study I seem to be sticking to the routine and enjoying it too.

Strength training

Now that I have my new plan of working my upper body I can already see the gains in size and strength but along with that have come other side effects. My shoulders, chest, upper back and arms are feeling very tight. My right shoulder also feels stiff to the point of being painful. I’ve experienced this before when I had a regular strength training routine and wonder if I’m over doing it. I would prefer to have less strength and more suppleness really. So I’ve left it a whole week without any training and starting to feel looser and the pain has subsided somewhat. But it could be the cycling as well. It would be a shame to have to quit when I’m making some decent progress but if this is the cause of my pain then so be it.

During the mid part of the month I got a cold and as I haven’t had one for a while it does feel quite debilitating so I have decided to take the week off from strength training. I’ve been feeling pretty lousy and don’t want to risk any kind of injury or simply make myself overly tired. I know there is a greater risk of losing my strength or losing the momentum but I think that I have built up enough continuity to keep going with this.

Reading a book a month

I’ve just finished Anna Karenina after reading it for a few months. That’s certainly less than a book a month. But I did find it hard going at times. More than being long the author was introducing new characters and using them to write about material that was really not very relevant to the story. This was what you might call a high-brow book so I guess it is expected to find it a little difficult in places. So my plan is to alternate between high brow and low brow books. So I’ve started on another Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. Should take a week I imagine.

Raw food and meal planning

Saw a programme on Channel four from 2003 about the Atkins diet and have been quite inspired to try something different. I have tried the initial two week phase of the diet before so would be willing to give it a shot just to see if it would work. I love all that high fat stuff but no bread is going to be difficult. I think I’ll read up on the various phases and then maybe try it round christmas. I could eat all the cheese and meat I wanted but without the roast potatoes and the crackers. Tricky.

Strike while the iron’s hot and all that so I’ve decided to give it a go especially after one of my yoga students commented on the amount of extra fat I was carrying.

I followed the Atkins diet for a week doing the induction part of it. I was so weak and tired during that time and I decided against continuing for a 2nd week. I was sleeping a lot more, felt dizzy and was very low on motivation. I’m used to having a lot of energy and just expect to be able to keep going so this put me right out of character. I went back to bread and felt much better. Let’s save the diet for another time.

Proper holidays

No holidays in September.

As I was writing the report for July 2011 the goals for the year struck me more clearly than they had during the writing of any other report. The feeling was similar to the level of clarity and enthusiasm that I had when I originally set the goals for the year in January. One of the newer developments that I’ve started this year as opposed to previous years is to re-read the year plan each month before writing the report and now I’ve had another idea. It’s to write the report on an ongoing basis. Normally I look back over the month and survey my performance but certain significant events can be missed or little details that could important later on. So my plan for August is to build the report over the course of the month.

At the start of the year my plan was to simply enjoy the time I spent at this flat not knowing how long I have here. But after March the goal shifted from simple health and well being to developing a new career path. The next phase was setting up my life in order to study and get myself ready for that prospective career. But now that I have freed up that time I am simply full of doubts which is a great excuse to just flob out as I call it. Watching movies, aimless surfing, playing xbox and eating too much. The thing is that I can’t seem to do this without feeling a little bit guilty. I should be studying because that was my plan. I have given myself the option of abandoning my plan to study and become a developer but having come this far it would be a real waste if I didn’t take this idea a few steps further.

So August was just about enjoying the last of the summer days which were wet and rainy and cold. Figures say that this has been the coldest summer in the UK for a very long time. The city has been very quiet and I have been chugging along as always.

120 miles

Somehow I don’t think so. It’s hard to measure as I haven’t been setting my speedometer to zero at the start of the week but due to teaching fewer classes and thus having more time at home and obviously not going for any rides, without even looking at the cycle computer I know that I haven’t been completing that amount of mileage. But I imagine I’ve been pretty close.

Meditation

Something that I’ve been trying this month is to think without words. It came as a result of studying speed reading on YouTube. The reason that reading speeds are relatively slow for most people is that we read “aloud” even when we read silently. So the symbols on the page which we recognise as particular sounds still make that sound even with our mouth closed. A sound in our minds. Hence it has to pass via the larynx. If we can learn to bypass the larynx then we can simply recognise the meaning of the symbols without creating a sound externally or internally so that the information moves more directly from the page via the optic nerve. But this made me think that if reading causes the larynx to be active and thus cause the process of visual symbol recognition to be slowed down then perhaps the internal dialogue also causes the us to be distracted from a more direct perception of the world.

I have tested this theory during sessions of meditation and even while doing other things such as cycling. With dialogue volume turned down other mental events come more sharply into focus. One thing I noticed was that I naturally hanker after my thought process and often slip into using the meditation session as a time to think about issues in my life. With the thinking process taken out of focus all the other sensations become more vibrant and alive.

Yoga

I’ve been wanting to quit teaching yoga for quite a number of years now and sometimes the urge is very strong. I remembered that aside from the need to cover costs one of my original motivations for starting to teach yoga was that it would be a means to keep me doing it. I would be forced to do it because it was my job. But now that I don’t even do my own practice due to it being my job and I don’t want to take my work home with me I wondered what would happen when I do actually quit teaching. Over the past few years my class numbers have dropped from twelve to five and I can certainly feel the difference. If I wasn’t teaching at all would I even do any yoga? I would like to think that I would but I need to build up the habit again before I finally quit or even go down to one or two classes a week. I don’t want to lose my practice altogether.

Friends

I have been somewhat annoyed with my friends this month. Not all them. With some it’s a two way process where we each make an equal amount of effort to keep in touch and make contact. But some can go out of contact for a very long time and then it’s up to me to make that first move. I have forgiven them for this many times in the past and have accepted that some people are just like that and I seem to have many of those people as friends. But this month I did find it hard to forgive. I imagine that feeling can be likened to a parent wishing for their children to contact them. Sometimes you wonder whether the friendship still exists but once contact is made all the doubts just clear away. But I wonder sometimes what would happen if I were stop making that first move.

I have often thought about making and keeping contact with those friends mentioned above into a managed and systematic process. It’s on my list of things to do but due to the frustration I feel from having to always be the one that makes that contact I have let the idea remain on the list.

De-clutter

I’ve been preparing a list of things to sell on Ebay especially after having bought a new computer and a new bike I have parts from the old ones knocking about. But the influx of stuff is relentless. As I’ve said before, this is a big flat for one person so it fills up easily. I have perhaps thrown out less than 10% of what has entered the flat. I think I need someone to be firm and come and do this for me.

Java programming

Lots of thinking, reflecting and wondering about the future. Undertaking Java self-study and working as a developer does tick all the boxes but is it really what I want? What do I really want career wise and lifestyle wise?

It may not be what I want to do longer term but I am interested in it and I do need money so I think I need to play safe for the time being. I’ve been looking at Android development tutorials on YouTube and along with my other resources such as BlueJ, Oracle tutorials and the Head First books I have plenty to keep me busy.

As a diversion I started looking into Android development tutorials and that got me thinking about the whole idea of apps. Even though programming skills are required to build apps the very word seems to have a connotation of a neatly packaged item with the inner workings well hidden. The focus then turns from the developer to the user. This is the point that I’ve been missing. I’ve been thinking too much about development and being a developer but have lost touch with the user. Apps, and software in general is for the user. The multitude of non-developers. What do they want? What do they need? How do they want to use a computer to solve their problems? These are type of questions that I should be asking. Without users there would be no place for apps or app developers.

Strength training

In July’s report I mentioned that even though my routine has become quite regular there doesn’t seem to be any progress. I did some research and found this article which I found pithy and addressing my current issues directly. The average time of my workout has increased though from 15 minutes to 30 minutes but that isn’t an issue really. In just the first week of using this method I can feel that the muscles have been worked more deeply than before but as to progress we’ll see at the end of August.

Reading a book a month

Just read one of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child called Running Blind. An easy read and in no way a literary masterpiece by any means but very much a page turner. Part of me feels a bit guilty for reading trashy stuff like this as I feel I should be spending my reading time only on the classics but I do watch trashy movies and feel a lot less guilty about that. I suppose it’s because of the time that is spent reading such a book as opposed to a movie which lasts only about 2 hours.

Raw food and meal planning

I have been planning meals this month but they haven’t really been healthy ones. The extra flab which hasn’t really bothered me much over the past two years is beginning to bother me now. So it’s time for a change. But two years is a good length of time to set a habit in place. I have built up routines and structures with regard to food which haven’t really been planned. It’s time to analyse those habits and keep the good ones.

Tech free periods

If you consider reading the Kindle a tech free period then yes, lots of time away from technology. But I wonder what this goal really means. It needs a more positive rephrasing, saying what I should be doing rather than stating what I should not be doing i.e. avoiding technology. Something like spend time in the country. I think I’m going to drop this one in next months report. That’s another one gone.

Proper holidays

On the weekend of the 20-21 of August I went down to Brighton with Maya. The forecast looked bad but it turned out really nice in the end. Caught up with a very good friend who I haven’t seen for more than a year as she has moved to the other side of the world. On a sunny and calm Saturday afternoon we went sailing along the coast from Brighton Marina to Shoreham Power Station.

A second holiday occurred during the bank holiday weekend 27-28 of August. It was a stay-at-home holiday and was actually from Thursday the 25th to Wednesday 31st morning. Only a yoga class to teach on Sunday 28th but aside from that basically lots of time off. Reading, watching movies and relaxing. Although as I mentioned above it has been hard to relax and let go of my ideas about the future.

July has been a mental struggle between trying to just sit back and relax and giving myself a hard time over the lack of programming and study. At the end of June I did my last day at Saddlers Sport Centre and had Thursdays free in order to start my studies. But what happened? The main thing was getting lots and lots of orders for wheels. It became a bit of a full time job culminating with an order for a possible 200 wheels. Having been doing website work until the end of June I felt that I deserved a break so rather than use the time to study I spent it just relaxing. Sometimes it was easy to relax and let go but all the while I kept telling myself that I was getting into debt as it were because the time that I had freed up came from turning down paid work.

But relax I did and enjoyed it as best I could. There were plenty of warm days in spite of the British weather which gave rise to rain and more rain. My path is now set. From now until the time I have to vacate these premises my plan is to devote myself to studying Java programming and software development in order to secure employment as a developer.

120 miles

With my new bike and my new speedometer it’s all going rather well and I even went for my first proper ride of the year. It was a beautiful sunny day and I made my way down to Richmond Park. I want to do my first Audax ride before the year is out, hopefully by the end of summer and I need to get some training in so that I can manage 100k without too much effort. So this is part of that training. So all good on the mileage front.

Meditation

I did my extra sessions only once or twice this month and even missed a few of my post morning pages sessions. A little too excited to get stuff done. But this is still chugging along at a rate at which I’m happy so in spite of a slight dip I think I’m good here.

Yoga

I got a yoga room and I have time but I don’t seem to have the inclination. The pattern that seems to be emerging is that I do a short practice on Saturday mornings. Better than nothing I guess and regular.

Friends

I’ve been to see my friend in Switzerland as you can see in the holiday section. I have also been a bit more sociable since my website work came to an end. I also had more classes to teach in June so July has been a chance to wind down and relax make up for the lost time. I could get a little bit more systematic with my friendship and who I see and how often etc. But friendship is an organic thing so I’m just letting it flow naturally. I think I have good balance between working, spending time alone and spending time with friends. At least what I would call a good balance.

De-clutter

Now that I have a new computer and a new bike I have parts from the old ones that need to go. I have quite a few things to sell or give away. Lately I’ve been buying lots of things small and large. Some are replacement items and the old item is still here. I’m really struggling with how to do this. I am also still undecided about my music gear. And every time I think about getting rid of the xbox I get the urge to play. I’ve been in this flat for just over a year now and I wonder how much stuff I’ve accumulated since then.

Java programming

Planning, planning and more planning. Now that I have the time I seem to have lost the motivation somewhat. I have already gone into this in my opening paragraphs and my greatest fear is that during all the planning and preparation the urge has been lost, like I’ve booked the hotel but no longer want to travel. I sincerely hope that this isn’t the case. We shall see in August. But there was no Java coding going on in July apart from a little reading.

Strength training

I’ve gone from twice a week to three times a week but some weeks I do only two sessions. But on the whole this is continuing quite nicely. I don’t seem to be making any progress though. My strength has gone up I can see that but it has sort of leveled off. I’m not interested in massive gains but am interested in why it has plateaued like this.

Reading a book a month

Still reading Anna Karenina and about halfway through. It’s a long book. I seem to have missed my reading day though. As I mentioned last time I could probably do with another shorter book. But I am still enjoying my Kindle and the fact that I am reading on a more regular basis.

Easy to grow vegetables

I think that I might as well give up on this one as I really don’t have the motivation to do it anymore. My rocket has gone to seed and my coriander never sprouted. I bought tomato and courgette seeds but never got round to sprouting them. What I have been doing though is growing seedlings in an empty hoummous pot using a tablet or pellet that came from Lurpak spreadable butter tub. I also have some thyme seeds. So even though I’m not using the garden to do my growing I’m still hanging in there.

Raw food and meal planning

It started out well at the start of the year and now it’s gone back to the way it was round christmas. I’m enjoying it though and I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself. The main staple still seems to be toast although for a short while I managed to move over to porridge. The other thing I eat a lot is spinach with instant noodles so at least there is some vegetable in there. Raw? Raw tomatoes and sometimes a bit of fruit.

Tech free periods

I tend to think of my Kindle as a tech free item and now that I have a new computer that can easily be put into sleep mode there are more periods when the computer is off. I have had a lot of evenings in July though where I was watching movies on the computer so I haven’t really thought about this goal too much but it has sort of been happening naturally.

Proper holidays

Towards the end of July I went to visit my friend in Switzerland for a few days. I imagine that it will be my only flight this year but I will be taking other holidays. I had an excellent time and the weather was great in spite of the forecast. I was able to let go and enjoy myself and decided to leave my computer behind.