Tkal and the telephone revenge

[Tkal]

At this point I need a non-fitness related challenge to level up. It seems a trend among monks

Target 1: fight the telephone (and win)

As of today I officially failed my life quest of last challenge. I have the name and the number to call, but I panic every time I have to pick up the phone. I have never liked to make phone calls, but this thing has become unmanageable. So, this is my big task for this challenge: call hospital and make an appointment with the surgeons. And since all this should happen in Dutch, I had some daily Dutch practice: 5-10 minutes of conversation with a colleague at work, or read a couple of articles in the newspaper.

Summarizing:

• make the appointments (WIS +3)
• speak Dutch 5 days/week for 5-10 minutes (minimum) and read in the weekend for 30  minutes (CHA +2)

Target 2: fight CHAOS (and win)

I am messy and I want to make my house decent again

• follow Flaylady baby steps (CHA +2)

Target 3: fight the software bugs (and win)

At the moment we are quite busy at work, with a big delivery planned for the end of the year. The guy who was supposed to work with me is having health issues that do not allow him to work in front of a monitor for more than two hours per day, which is quite a problem if you develop software for a living. I manage to cut down the requirements to the bare minimum, but there will be a lot of pressure on my shoulders until the end of the year. To keep my balance I want to make time every day for meditation (15-30 minutes) and for outdoor activity (at least 30 minutes on top of the hour I need to bike back and forth from work). And of course I need to eat well and to sleep (no long coding nights)

Summarizing:

• meditate 15-30 minutes daily (WIS +1)
• karate outdoor 5 days/week (working days) (DEX +2)
• walk 2 hours on Saturdays and Sundays (STA +1)
• sleep 50 hours per week (7 hours/day, but I use the average per week to give me some room) (STA+1)
• eat daily according to plan (2 meals per week are free) (CON +2)

Target 4: plan next fights

I realized that I don't have a long term plan, something that I want to achieve in the coming years. And for what is there I don't really have a plan. So, I'll do some brainstorming session with myself and report here weekly. By the end of this challenge I want to have

• a plan for the next 2 challenges (WIS +.25)
• something (at least 1 thing) I want to achieve by summer time (WIS +.25)
• something by the end of 2015 (WIS +.25)
• at least two item after 2015 (WIS +.25)

As usually there will be a spreadsheet to track everything. There will be some wife-days in, so there could be some re-shuffling

[Gobnait]

Hello.  Sometimes life forces people to take a step back and maintain.

[Kishi]

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT TIL THE BREAK OF DAWN

 

No but seriously. Looks like a good challenge. And sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is set up the life that lets you train as hard as you want.

[Cheechoe]

WOOOT!

 

 

Good stuff here!

 

 

Weekly reports: good idea!

[Tkal]

I need some more articulate mind maps for my planning, but for the moment I write here.

 

These are all sort-of-long term life-quest plans that need to be better elaborated:

• get new documents. After surgeries I can apply for new birth certificate, then all the rest. Not sure what to do with my driving license with respect to the issuing country (I can choose between where I am now and where I got it). To be checked with local lawyer. Also, change wedding certificate and all legal papers in country of origin and here
• buy a house/apartment
• driving license for motorbike + buy the motorbike
• be the cool uncle to my only nephew

Place I want to visit (all the places outside Europe only after I have new passport):

• Norway (hike in the fiords + Lofoten + Svalbard). I should plan 2 trips to see the midnight sun and the aurora 
• Iceland (see the geysers)
• New Zealand
• Tierra del fuego
• Berlin, Prague, Oslo, Stockholm, London, Paris, Madrid,  Vienna (all these can be weekend trips)
• Japan
• Some places in USA: New York, Chicago, Vancouver Grand Canyon, mount Rushmore, Yellowstone park
• visit family in Israel
• visit family in California
• visit family in Australia (maybe)

Human languages: improve Dutch. Spanish should be easy to pick up again. Hebrew then would be nice from a cultural perspective. To be practical Arabic or Mandarin are spoken by half of my colleagues... Esperanto, completely not-practical but I like the culture behind it
Other "languages": python, Haskell, Scala, ruby. Refurbish C++ (and Java?)
Other stuff: refurbish maths skills (differential equations, linear algebra, topology) and quantum mechanics. Nothing practical, just for the fun of it, as alternative the crosswords and such
 
Fitness stuff

• get in contact with some decent Shito Ryu sensei, and refurbish the style
• continue with the Shuri-ryu practice, at least up to 3rd dan (equivalent to my last Shito-ryu grade), possibly 4th
• pick up GMB skills, complete F1, P1 and R1 (without stopping half way as done so far)
• restart aikido (there is a 5th dan student of Christian Tissier in the area, other school could be investigated, but I could be too challenging for someone inexperienced)
• restart climbing/bouldering

Most of the above is achievable in the coming 3-5 years. Much of the traveling depends on my wife and our families, I am not sure what can be plan and what stays a dream. Languages are cool, but the learning is painful. Again, not sure about what is dream and what is a plan to which I can commit.

 

There. Now you have my level 50. Or maybe just level 35

[Tkal]

WOOOT!

 

Am I supposed to recognize the guy? sometime I am not nerd enough for this community (or I  don't have the right flavor of geekness)

[Kishi]

That's a helluvan epic quest, there. So the big quest, then, is figuring out how to go from where you are to where you want to be. What's the concrete step?

[RisenPhoenix]

All the travel to see scenic things!

 

[Nusuth]

get new documents. After surgeries I can apply for new birth certificate, then all the rest

 

Huh ? what ?  ... ^^ ..   you sure you want to post these 007 , jason bourne , plans here in the open ?..

 

 

Am I supposed to recognize the guy? sometime I am not nerd enough for this community (or I  don't have the right flavor of geekness)

 

It looks like Steve Buscemi, playing a mass serial killer in ConAir,  waving goodbye to a little lone girl in the dessert.

[Teirin]

Awesome challenge.  Talk about levelling up your life.  You can do this :-)

[Tkal]

Huh ? what ? ... ^^ .. you sure you want to post these 007 , jason bourne , plans here in the open ?..

no secret plans, everything is under the light of the sun, so to speak. Out and proud member of the trans-community

Two days in and I am already struggling. Probably I shoot too high. O well, I had to take my calculus exam 11 times before passing it, I can always do the same with this level 5

Anyway, the spreadsheet is in place (link edited in the first post). Now I'll power off and go to clean the sink before the code pulls me in again

[Teirin]

What's the trouble?  Articulating it may help you sort out some answers.

[Kishi]

Yeah, lots of us have had a bad start. Maybe we can do something to help?

[Tkal]

What's the trouble?  Articulating it may help you sort out some answers.

 

 

Yeah, lots of us have had a bad start. Maybe we can do something to help?

It just feels weird to be the senior person in the team. And you cannot always be creative on command. Plus if someone is lost I tend to give directions. And if someone needs a (mental) sparring partner I am not sliding away from the ring. But then it just happen than instead of spending 2 hours on those things, I am pulled in for 8 hours. The day is gone and I haven't stroked out even one item of my list

I should have had "delegation" as a target But before delegating (without having the work coming back at me in the end) I need to groom a bit more a couple of people, so I am back to square one for a while.

Oh well, something for next challenge. That or using some of the holiday budget I have accumulated and go skiing for a couple of weeks (we are lucky bastards here with the amount of holidays that we get). I see an interesting conversation/bargaining with my boss coming soon...

Anyway, I did my meditation, my time outside, my eating. My sink is shining (sort of). Now bed, and a few days offline to work on my sleep

[Teirin]

Sleep well!

[Kishi]

Yikes, this was all a while ago. Hope the sleep's been great!

[Tkal]

Yikes, this was all a while ago. Hope the sleep's been great!

The sleeping was ok, could have been better. I should copy the numbers in the mighty tracker soon.

Wife was here the last weekend, a few days of happy time for both of us. So I had something better to do than post here We had a couple of social events which put our diet targets off, but for the rest all is going well.

The only thing where nothing serious happened was working on my epic quest, but for the fact that Wife agrees that doing math exercises together instead of crosswords could be fun. She remembers better calculus, I am better at statistics and probability stuff, and we are even (or better, complimentary) in linear algebra and geometry.

Now I should do burpees, shouldn't I?

[Kishi]

Do them. Do them all.

[Tkal]

I have a item for the long long term, my real level 50 thing. I have no children and I won't have any, so my changes for a connection with a younger generation are slim. My family lives far from here, and I am not sure I am going back ever. Wife is much older than me, and there is a good chance that she will die ten years before me.
The plan is to be able to manage an independent life as long as possible. Which translate in taking care of my health on the long term, cure my lifestyle, what I eat, how I move, how I think, my involvement where I live... All this must become an habit in coming few years.
I need to elaborate this more. Later

[Kishi]

I think I know what you mean. You might want to be a man of service, but if you aren't able to take care of yourself, you can't serve anyone.

 

Sounds like you had an opportunity to contemplate your mortality. I hope it proves... fruitful.

[Teirin]

Long term planning is smart.  It'll pay you back many times over.

[Tkal]

Long silence. Again
The good thing is that when I had to choose between doing the work or talking about it, I chose the first.

So far the only thing on which I am on track is sleeping, but it is a bulimic pattern: not enough during the week and then I binge in the weekend. I am walking more than planned (good), but my karate training is suffering from the cold

Following the flylady instruction is not working. The steps are so tiny that I am not motivated to do them, plus any cleaning task is so frustrating. On the bright (but invisible) side, I am decluttering drawers around the house. And my couch has been magazine-free for 2 weeks now

Meditation could be better. Same for the food, and a couple of unexpected evenings out didn't help. These two will go into next challenge. I see the benefits of taking 10-15 minutes off and meditate when I am at work, I want to work with that and make it a habit. So, next challenge I will still have the daily meditation

For the food, the long term is to drop to 65 kg. I started at 78 in August, now I am at 72. If I behave I should be close by June. Anyway, many things can go wrong, so the task will still be tracking the weight and following the diet scheme I have used so far.
Thinking more on the long term, I want to decrease the amount of meat (especially red meat) that I eat. Quorn could be an interesting alternative. I found also other vegan alternatives with a decent list of ingredients (no grains, no starchy vegetables, no unrecognizable E numbers). I haven't made up my mind on soy and other legumes yet. So, goal for next challenge is to swap a steak per week with something else.

Still thinking on the long run I want to work on flexibility and balance. F1 of GMB seems a good choice, but I fear I have to tune it down. To be investigated in the coming weeks.
Also, walking is good for everything, so that will be another challenge to pick. I need to make a baseline of how much I am walking now. Probably some tracking device would be useful.

That's it for this way overdue update
 

[Teirin]

The breaks matter less than doing it.  Hmmm, not a whole lot can be done about the cold.  Wearing heavier gear when you practice?  Long underwear/leggings are seriously the best thing in winter.

 

Have you tried Unfuck Your Habitat?  Sorry if it's previously been suggested.

 

There are so many tasty vegetarian recipes out there! 

[Tkal]

Final summary, without looking at the numbers (that will be later)

Telephone: in the end I gave up. Or better, I asked a friend to help me with that. He did the phone call so now I have my appointment on February. I will repay him with some math tutoring. Win-win for now, but I should work both on the language and on the telephone "phobia".

CHAOS: I take with me the daily 15 minutes. All the rest was a big failure

Bugs: ups and downs. The final numbers should be good, but I didn't make an habit out of it. It's a pass, but I am not happy with it

Coming challenges: I have the long term part. For the coming challenges I have food&meditate. I know that I won't have many distractions in term of travelling at least for the first challenge, so it will be something like this:
- life style: sleep, meditate, walk, eat properly
- fitness general: GMB F1
- something monkish: call my jedi council and have at least 3 sessions with them plus do the homework
- level up: flylady. For the moment stick with the daily 15 minutes to make it a real habit

There. Next time level 6

[Teirin]

The call got made, that's the important part :-)