Word of the week: Jat-gaan - handle, take care
In my life: It was a gloomy, dreary, rainy week in Sydney. I finally recovered from last week's sore legs by Tuesday, and I'd wake up hoping I could go for a morning walk everyday only to see it pouring outside. It also gets dark quickly now that we're in Autumn, so evening walks are also rare. So much of the week was spent cooped up indoors except for some mornings at the gym.
On Tuesday I decided to try out some recipes from RecipeTinEats as I'd heard good things and we had some lamb leg steaks that I had no idea what to do with. I tried this recipe for Lamb with Rosemary gravy and Creamy Cauliflower with my usual crispy kale recipe and it turned out fairly well. It was relatively low carb but not particularly low calorie so not sure if it's something I would make again but I think I might try cauliflower rice instead.
I spent some time this week, watching videos of people talking about the benefits of low carb diets for people with insulin resistance. I've seen a few videos of people with CGM's measuring the blood glucose spikes after eating various meals which has actually been really educational.
I've also been looking for options for better meal planning - we usually end up eating the same things over and over or when I'm busy at work we tend to order in too much and I want to see if we can get some variety instead. I was initially looking at Fresh20 or CookSmarts but I'm not sure how well that would work considering we have opposite seasons from where they are based. Then I looked at some fruit and veg box options, but reviews aren't that great. Sathya said something about doing another round of HelloFresh orders so that's something we need to look at and see if it fits our current dietary needs.
At work I've been looking into some of the CosmosDB documentation around indexing strategies. We have some work to do around backdating our Cosmos API calls and around fixing some of the 429 errors we see sometimes. While doing that I came across this article on binary encoding which solved one of the mystery issues we had earlier this year where we had numbers stored as 40.0 in older containers and 40 in newer ones.
Luckily for me, the weekend was bright and sunny. Lu asked me on Saturday morning what my plans were, and I said I had nothing planned for the weekend, just want a quiet weekend at home other than the guitar class. That didn't last long though.
We had our guitar class with Joseph, and it was nothing like our classes with Luis. He said he wants to focus on getting our techniques right, so we mainly had a backing track playing while we learnt the Am pentatonic scale and then each of us took turns just playing whatever came to our minds. I'm someone who hasn't really tried playing my own stuff before - I try to mainly recreate what I hear or sometimes modify a tune I've heard, while freeform playing is more Sathya's thing - so I'm not sure how to do something impromptu. But it was a fun class, nonetheless and I'm looking forward to the next one.
We did our usual produce market run after that and tried a new place for brunch where I had some demi decent tacos and ran some errands. I was still feeling very jittery though and wanted to go do something - walk or explore something. Sathya wanted to go home and play, so I decided to head into the city by myself.
I took the bus to McMahon's point first and saw so many candidate posters and people out as it was election day. Australia has compulsory voting and also uses preferential voting, and we received a lot of informational pamphlets before election day. It was an interesting change from the loud election campaigns in India.
At the greens next to the wharf there were also two weddings taking place. Apparently, it's a popular destination for weddings and I'd guess they get some great wedding photos with the bridge and Opera House in the background.
I ended up taking the ferry to Pyrmont and went to the Australian Maritime Musuem. I knew I didn't have enough time to board all the vessels, so I just went through the exhibits instead. They had some exhibits on navigation by First Nations people, on the Australian naval history - during the wars and peacetime, an exhibit on the Sydney harbour and the work being done to restore it and one on migration to Australia - assisted, forced and refugee and even an exhibit on slavery in Australia which I knew nothing about, amongst others. It made for an interesting few hours and I plan to go back to explore the vessels when I get a chance again.
I then walked over the Pyrmont bridge, stopping a bit to capture some photos and then went to two bookshops in the city, Dymocks and Kinokuniya. Kinokuniya is my favorite bookstores especially as they carry a lot of translated manga, light novels and other works. I tried very hard to restrict myself - as there are so many books at home I haven't finished reading yet - but still walked out with four books including Sunrise on the Reaping which I had mentioned last week.
I came home and made a small reel on my day using the Instagram Edits app. It seems to have similar features as CapCut from what I tried out so far. I will try and see if I can create the Canberra vlog using the app as well.
On Sunday, we went and watched an AFL game, Sydney Swans vs GWS Giants at the SCG. I hadn't really followed the sport before, so I wasn't sure what to expect but it was surprisingly easy to understand what was happening once it started - especially with the commentary from the patrons beside us who seemed very unhappy with umpiring. The Swans won their home game in the end and folks went home happily. We came back home, went to Saravana Bhavan for an early dinner and I came home and slept off early.
On my screens:
- The Next Prince (Thai, Queer, Ongoing): Ah, this show is finally out after years of waiting and it was all so well worth it. I've already rewatched episode 1 three times since it came out on Sunday morning. The acting is great, the plot seems better than the book so far, the cinematography, sets and costumes are dazzling, the music is excellent. All in all, a fantastic start and I look forward to seeing what this little show, being called gay Princess Dairies by its fans, comes up with next.
- Foundation (S2, Sci-Fi, Apple TV): I'm so confused by what's happening in this show. I still dont understand the timelines or the locations but dont want to look it up for fear of being spoiled.
- My Golden Blood (Thai, Queer, Supernatural, Ongoing): Still enjoying every bit of this show and all the little references to other vampire lore.
- Dark Matter (Sci-Fi, Apple TV): Started watching this because Sathya asked if we could watch Foundation together. It started off well, but I could tell where it was going a few minutes in. I finished the first episode but think this might be a DNF for me as it didn't really keep me engaged.
On my bookshelf: Picked up the Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping and started reading it. Just a few pages in so far so more thoughts next week but it still manages to evoke memories of the original. Out of all the books we got in the 2010 dystopian era, this series was by far the best.
My favorite spy fanfic author has also continued updating multiple times this week and I'm enjoying it immensely. If anyone wants an AU HP fanfic recommendation, let me know.
On my playlist: This week was all about The Next Prince. Nunew has a beautiful voice as proven by this OST.
We'll build a bridge of a million stars,
Let love guide us no matter how far
All I ask is to trust in love and in me,
Take my hand and you'll see,
Above the sky, we're meant to be.
On my camera:
Pier Pavillion is Barangaroo's recently opened public event space. It's apparently cladded in terrazzo made from recycled Sydney rock oyster shells. I haven't been to the pavilion yet but saw it while on the ferry and was impressed by both the design and how it suits the area it is set in.
Thanks for tagging along!
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