Hoi! Greetings from Lowlands

[strangerinalowland]

Hi everyone!

 

Here's my brief recent not-so-glorious history and their implications:

• I've recently moved to Utrecht-Netherlands from Istanbul-Turkey for my MSc degree:
  • I get to ride a bike 13 km a day for 6 days (3 days for courses, 3 days for gym and studying at the campus)
  • A certain increase in time spent alone, slowly building up to a feeling of loneliness
  • Overall a more peaceful daily life compared to what I had in Istanbul
  • Had to shift some gears up as I now try both earning money via an online job which doesn't pay a lot and being a good student.
• Started strength training last November:
  • First 6 months I blindly followed the guy at my first gym. This meant building up to 30reps x 3 in everything, "to get my body injury resistant" according to the guy, and took 3 months. Then he switched me on to a muscle-group focus program with smaller reps, 12-10-8, for 3 sets.
  • In the beginning of June I moved in back with my parents. I was done with my undergrad (in psychology, btw) in January and wanted to save money over the summer for my expenses here in the NL. This meant about 2.5 weeks without exercise, I've tried to build a bodyweight routine but failed. -- This was crucial to question my dependence on a gym.
  • Then at 10th of August I decided focus on my preparations for the departure and stopped working out.
  • Until 26th of October, 2015. Now I'm doing 3 days a week (I'm satisfied with the number of days for now), 2 muscle groups per day. I've also just started deadlifting one day a week and squatting on one of the not-leg days.
  • I'm going to the sportscentrum of my university, which is dominated with machines. I shy away from them as much as possible. Currently I'm only using pull down machine (for lateral pull downs and for triceps training), vertical row machine and assisted-chin up machine. I'll try getting rid of the last two in a couple of months.
• As I started training I started watching what I ate:
  • I had cut bread, rice and pasta to a bare minimum last May. I haven't cooked rice and pasta since I arrived to NL (late August). I have also didn't buy bread since early october. I eat oatmeal occasionally for breakfast but I consider making it an emergency solution and started working on this.
  • I've been buying pastries occasionally (as Dutch people have some delicious stuff and I love pastry anyway I'm satisfied with this too. I've been limiting it to 2 times a week and last week I've decided to do once a week but buy from a better bakery.
  • Apart from pastries, only thing that goes against what we may term mainstream paleo diet is due to my fondness of dairy and my need for legumes to keep my food budget down.
  • I must also mention that I'm satisfied with my diet and paleo-ness of it. I don't buy naturalistic fallacy (have I told you that I am pursuing an MSc? ) so I have no interest in what my early ancestors have been eating I made up my limits in what I consider a reasonable way.
• And also:
  • I read mostly non-fiction, I don't game except for "I am Bread" and "This War of Mine" these days. And these are very occasional as I don't really have time for gaming. So I'll often miss the relevant references here. Bare with me. (I watch fiction of course ^^)
  • I've been doing Lindy-Hop dancing for about a year - I'm not really good at it actually but point of doing it is learning how to enjoy something without trying to be perfect for me.
  • I identify myself as a skeptic.
  • I read a good deal of online productivity literature, I intend to make their place in my life more stable and also end up putting together a critique that I've been pondering about from a psychological and cultural perspective -- this critique will be one of my main goals for the coming year.
  • I've been smoking on and off for about 3 years, I hope I'll succeed in quitting soon.
  • I have mild anxiety problems and a rather depressive person. I'll start psychotherapy this week.

 

I'll detail my goals and challenge very soon in the relevant section but they'll mostly revolve around these topics.

 

So that's already more than what's relevant for NF about me I believe

 

I'll see you around!

 

PS: Please make fun of my English if you feel like - publicly, so that I can remember them easily. Regardless of my TOEFL score, natives often find my language use slightly particular ^^