back on the bike

This week I decided to try cycling to work again. I hadn’t cycled to work (or anywhere) in a really long time — maybe the start of the year, or toward the end of last year — and I thought it was about time I tried again.

Of course, that’s not to say I cycled every day this week. I only cycled on Wednesday, when I thought the workload would be manageable enough that I wouldn’t be left too exhausted to cycle home. Fortunately, the weather was also quite mild that day, so it seemed like the best opportunity.

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the start of my Russian journey

Before I started learning Russian, I had some confidence that if I could pick up Farsi/Persian, then Russian, surely, could not be much harder. Ever since reading Anna Karenina a few years ago, I wanted to learn Russian. Since (obviously) I read an English translation of the novel, and I’ve had very little exposure to the Russian language before, my desire to learn the language was based almost solely on how lovely all the Russian names sounded.

When I actually started learning Russian (about a month ago now), I was quickly dismayed by how hard it was to learn the alphabet. Of course, I knew their alphabet was different, but I thought it would be reasonably easy to pick up since they look similar to English characters. And, yes, several of the letters do look very much like English letters, but a lot of these also have completely different pronunciations.

relatively mild

There was a report on the news this morning about some study on climate change. A woman was saying that people probably think this last decade was exceptionally hot, but with climate change, the next decade will be much hotter such that our current temperatures will seem relatively mild.

When I heard this, my first thought was, “why is this still being reported like it’s some surprising news that no one considered before?” But I was in the middle of doing other things, so I continued on with my morning without thinking much more of it.

That is, until just a moment ago when I was reminiscing about how relatively carefree life used to be, and lamenting how troublesome life seems to be right now. Pandemic aside, I feel like this year has brought a lot more “responsible adult” tasks for me.

(Is there a point in adulthood when there is no more to learn about being an adult, and you can just get on with life i.e. relaxing, doing nothing, etc? Probably not?)

under the weather

Looks like we’re in for a bit of a rough summer. We’ve already had some really hot days followed by fierce storms, and some hail too. And it’s only the start of November!

There’s also been a lot of dust and pollen in the air recently, and my workplace has just gotten something done to the aircon, so the air’s been quite cold and dry too. As a result, my sinuses have been suffering, and they’ve made sure I’m well aware of it.

Having come through winter relatively unscathed, I suppose this is just a small inconvenience, but it’s inconvenient all the same.

Still, one ought to be grateful that one has a home, and a sofa on which good books can be read and enjoyed. I think that will be my week-end taken care of.