Word of the week: Songkran - Thai New Year
In my life: It's been another quiet week here at home. Things at work are finally starting to slow down again. I still have meetings, but the onus is now on other teams so I'm finally catching up on all the pending work items - lot of documentation and design work that ended up pending due to the shift in priorities. We also had our Q1 retro this week and came up with a few items that we want to implement going forward.
The weather has been really pleasant. Good to go for walks, but I did the least amount of walking this week. This was mainly because I ended up doing three workouts this week (one carried over from last week), two of which were done on back-to-back days. This probably wasn't one of my better ideas, as my hamstrings were incredibly sore, and I could barely walk comfortably. On the plus side though, the weights I'm lifting are still increasing - I'm now at 42kgs for the deadlift and 20kg for barbell overhead press though the pushups still remain a challenge.
I finally recovered a bit by Saturday morning, so I went for a long walk, walking into the residential areas in a nearby suburb. It's always fascinating to walk through Sydney just because of the sheer variety of architecture that I keep finding. Obviously, it's not anywhere near what exists in cities like London or New York, but Sydney has its own unique style, and I think I really need to add an architectural walk-in the city to my must do agenda. There are so many photographers I follow who photograph these incredible places, would be nice to see them in person.
This weekend was otherwise mainly focused on our last guitar classes with Luis. We had our usual class on Saturday and then a combined 2-hour class on Sunday where we learnt to play 'What A Wonderful World'. We have a new teacher next term, so we'll see how that goes but I will miss really working with Luis - he's always been so patient and kind in his feedback.
In one of the concerts we'd been to, Steven from the Piano Guys had talked a bit about learning music. How it initially feels like a chore and things never sound right. But eventually it turns around and whenever you play music you feel like you're flying. I feel like I'm at that stage now. I've gone from "I wish I could play that song" to "I want to find a tutorial/tabs for that song". So, thank you, Luis, for teaching me to fly.
I ended up meeting my friend on Saturday and we caught up over brunch and had a long chat. She mentioned that they are moving away from the area as they've bought a new place a little up north, about 40 minutes away. I'm happy they've found a home they love but I will miss hanging out with her. It feels like this is the week of farewells and the tiny community we've built here is moving away.
Last weekend with my cousin had shown me that most of my winter wear is now incredibly loose on me and is dropping off my shoulders. So I went to Chatswood on Saturday evening to get some better fitting clothes. Shopping this time was truly frustrating. It feels like none of the sizes fit right and it doesn't help that the sizing is so inconsistent between brands. Finally, it was Uniqlo to the rescue again and I managed to find some basics that worked.
I popped into Muji for a diffuser refill and found some flannel sheets. I'd been looking for something warmer bedding for wintertime for quite some time and I'm really happy with these, feet are now toasty warm. Chatswood markets were on, so I walked around for a bit looking at various stalls and listening to the street musicians.
Sathya joined me at Chatswood after that. I initially wanted to have Yakiniku, but I didn't like the menu options at the place we wanted to try so ended up at the Korean place from last time. We had the BBQ this time and it was really good.
Sunday outside of guitar class and the farewell was spent in a lazy state of slumber. I wanted to go for the next Sunset Series concert but was so exhausted and sleepy. I did some chores, and I vaguely remember watching some YouTube videos on music theory, but I kept drifting on and off. I finally decided to skip the Sunday night weekly notes as well and went to bed by 9.
On my screens:
- Murderbot (Upcoming, 2025, Apple TV+): Trailer is finally out and this looks so good. I can't wait for May 16th to be here already.
- Wheel of Time (S3, Prime, Ongoing): Another really well filmed episode about the battle with the Trollocs. I kept thinking the entire episode that someone was about to die and was so sad when it finally happened. I'm confused by Fain's character though. Book readers seem to imply that Fain is a very scary character, but he just comes across as someone trying to save his own arse all the time
- My Golden Blood (Thai, Queer, Supernatural, Ongoing): The boys are finally together. Now I'm hoping the show shifts focus to Mond's villain era. Nakan (Mond's character) now knows that Tonkla is not the person with the Golden Blood. So, what will he do to get his hands on Gawin's character instead?
On my bookshelf: Read a bunch of fanfiction and truly enjoyed many of them but probably not recommendation worthy unless you are in the fandom, so I won't go into detail.
On my playlist: Two recommendations this week because I really couldn't pick just one.
Luis talked a little bit about the Bossa Nova style of Brazilian music and played 'The Girl from Ipanema' for us at the end of the class. It's one of the songs I know from listening to Sinatra and here is another beautiful rendition of it, a collaboration between Sinatra and the original creator Antonio Carlos Jobim.
I came across Roxane Elfasci's YouTube channel last year when I was looking for a guitar version of Claire De Lune. She's now produced a new album with arrangements of Philip Glass's music on guitar which I found utterly compelling, and I can't wait for to hear the rest of the album once it is out in May.
On my camera:
Yet another item where I can't restrict myself to just one like usual. Here are two more pictures from Saturday morning's almost architectural walk. One is a residential property, and we still see a few of this style - I think it's English Revival? - here amidst all the tall skyscrapers.
Next up is one of the first high-rises in the St Leonard's area, though it's now dwarfed by all the newer developments that have come up. The AKAI building was built in the 1970s in the Brutalist style - which is one of my favorite styles. It's due to be torn down for redevelopment and seemed to be abandoned when I saw it.
Thanks for tagging along!
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