Category: weeknotes

finished reading limpa, via biblioled, the new portuguese digital book lending service. on one hand, it was nice to read a chilean author, and to do so in portuguese for a change… but it was a strange book with a heavy story. i forced myself to finish but didn’t really enjoy most of the time. oh well.

the week had a few nice meals, including brunch in olhão, on our way to faro to get the boy some new running shoes.

i ran only once this week, in the walkways around manta rota beach, which are almost exactly 5kms. sometimes i forget we live so close to the sea, and what a privilege it is to have all this beautiful coast to ourselves in the low season.

we fixed the electric bike, which had a lame tire/pump issue and i’ve been using it to speed to the new gym, which i found out, is also open on the weekends! speaking of the gym, i unexpectedly started training with a personal trainer there. turns out, the gym has a PT standing by at all times, just waiting around to help people. i’m a bit shy about these things, but the person seemed so eager to help that a simple question prompted her enthusiastic assistance. :) it was nice.

omg! apple tv is launching a series based on the murderbot diaries and i’m so here for its moodiness and snark!!

for entertainment, we re-watched hidden figures, because the boy didn’t remember watching it. still a good movie! and i did some body sketches in art class this week, which was a fun challenge!

finally, a week where we’ve been home the whole week and did lots of things… though perhaps not all of them. :) it was a quiet, productive week to welcome in the new quarter.

i think the highlight of the week was the new gym membership. for a while now, i’ve wanted to use a gym so that i could slowly do the “liftoff: couch to barbell” program, using dumbbells and weights (that i don’t have at home). this gym is a short bike ride away, is often empty, and offers use of their equipment plus the sauna!

there are some studies that link regular usage of saunas with lower incidence of alzheimer and dementia, and having the gene run in the family, anything that reduces that risk is something i’d like to explore. so i tried it out a couple of times this week, doing a couple of short weight training sessions and in the end used the sauna for 20 mins. it was really nice and i look forward to making this a routine!

i had two art classes and a chinese class this week, finished reading the last of the court of thorn and roses books, had a couple of breakfasts in town and even a pizza. :)

i also went running once, because the race date is looming on the horizon and i can still only run about 5kms… ? it’s a nice time of the year to run though, the days are long and the countryside smells wonderfully of orange blossom. also, there are poppies everywhere!

oof. this was going to be the week i was finally feeling good again and did ALL THE THINGS… and then one of the boy’s aunts passed away mid-week, and we went back north again for the funeral and to give some support to his mother (her sister).

funerals are always an awkward and sad affair, but whenever there is one, i’m reminded of this NPR piece:

“Always go to the funeral” means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to. I’m talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex’s uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been good versus evil. It’s hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.”

so that was it for the week. i read a bit, i swam in the in-laws municipal pool twice and soaked in the sun that shone gloriously a bit all over portugal. i designed a poster filled with stamps for an exhibition, figuring my way around vectorial editors, and actually kind of enjoying it for the first time.

on the way back south on sunday, we listened to the first part of craig’s interview with tim ferriss, and since then, words like “archetype” and “asceticism” have been on my mind. also, walking of course — and walking in japan in particular. we’ll see what the future holds!

blargh… what a week. every single time we meet the little niece, i return home with some sickness and this time was no exception. :( i’m doing a course of antibiotics and did the bare minimum all week, skipping classes and just napping a lot.

because of all the downtime, i ended up finishing some books: system collapse, on tyranny and best christmas book ever. i listened to “on tyranny” (a required read for the times we’re going through), but audio felt like the wrong format for it — i think i need to actually read the book, highlight passages, mark stuff i want to think about… and audiobooks are not great for that. so, something to read again in the future.

richard scarry’s book was a delightful throwback to my childhood. my mom used to work at a children’s hospital when i was small, and borrowed lots of books from the hospital’s library for us to read. scarry’s books were some of our absolute favorites (all the details!), and i’ve mentioned them so many times that paulo gave me one for christmas. <3

my new laptop came with a free 3-month apple tv subscription, so we’ve been using it to watch severance. i like the premise and the aesthetics of it, and also how the music feels so fitting to the ambiance. i’m enjoying it for now.

somehow, we mustered the energy to drive to olhão and see miguel araújo play, which is always a happy event. i couldn’t sing much on account of all the coughing, but it was still nice to make it there and use these tickets we’d bought so long ago.

the good news is that time and medication are doing their thing and i’m feeling better. i’m hoping for a productive week ahead, getting ALL THE THINGS done! ?