I’m currently preparing or have already left for my final (hopefully) field trip for my PhD. It sorta all comes down to this trip – to get as many loggers (light and depth) as possible back from the seals. Fingers crossed I have lots of luck and good weather. I hope the seals turn up at easy to catch spots, and I hope the loggers are still on them. But I accept whatever happens, especially things I can’t control and I focus on what I can control. My trip will tentatively go from 22nd June – 3rd August.

What I’ve done in the last month:

• Went back to Singapore for 2 weeks, trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu heaps, almost every day, twice a day some days. I very much enjoyed those 2 weeks, to have a routine developed so quickly. 7am training – breakfast – do some phd work – 730pm training. It’s nice to go into auto-pilot sometimes (just make sure you don’t find yourself wondering where time has gone). As Tim Ferriss once quoted someone else, and I’m paraphrasing “humans will make big advances when they can make big decisions automatically”. Not saying my daily routine in Singapore was “making big advances” but the idea that our brain has limited processing power, running on autopilot and not needing to make small decisions really frees up space.
• I also really enjoyed reconnecting with my big brother in Singapore. Sharing our struggles and similarities of these struggles – about trying to find our place in the world, and what’s next; it was along the lines of “I just watched an Elon Musk interview. Elon Musk is doing great things, what about me? What am I going to do to help society?! *Breaks down. Mid 20s crisis*.
• I’ve finished and sent a first draft of a paper on the temporal and spatial variability of fur seal foraging areas to my supervisors. That’s it for me! (If only that were true)
• Helped a friend tear down a shed to relocate it. What you just took the roof off a building! You’re not even a builder! Yet you seem to know what you’re doing… Aussies are so DIY!

What else I’m doing now:

• Still intermittent fasting. I’m enjoying it. Not sure how I’m gonna intermittent fast in the field though… gotta figure out an eating schedule around seals…
• learning spanish on duolingo app (I’ve been doing this for a long time, except I missed a few days in a row, which was rare! Now I’m back on)
• learning hiragana on app too
• Started watching Bleach anime and loving it.
• Started swimming… I can’t believe I’m able to do laps now (only with breast stroke) even though I haven’t been swimming AT ALL for the past 2 years. I used to not be able to even swim 25 m without resting at the end of it. I started swimming mainly because I wanted to use the sauna and try out Heat stress therapy as described by Dr Rhonda Patrick. Apparently, heat stress exposure after exercising improves endurance and the effect seems linear – the longer you stay in there the better the effect. However, I must say 30 min in a sauna is TOUGH even for a tropical girl.
• Meditation using binaural beats – seems to be working well! Fairly easy to get into the meditative state. It has replaced wim hoffing for now.

Reading:

• Haven’t been reading much! Hope fieldwork will change that – Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman and Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

Listening: 

• Tim Ferriss, Rich Roll and Joe Rogan podcasts
• Samurai Champloo mix <3

Pondering on:

Rather, I’m trying to be more mindful of not reacting to things that happen to me. Standing on top of the hill and looking down at myself, from a 3rd person point of view. Seeing things objectively and not subjectively. Back to focusing on stoic philosophy.

Life happens for you, not to you.

Last update was 20 June 2017

This is part of the nownownow project by Derek Sivers.