The new format I'm trying out is stolen from a peer review marking task I had to do for a course.
Start Doing:
- Drinking through my YS pu-er samples, and gong-fu more - been lazy and grandpa brewing all of my tea since the hard water tastes crappy. I have exactly 9 samples with me, so expect a drinking report at least every month.
- Day trips to Bradford-upon-Avon, Forme, and Wells once it warms up. Also a full hike around Bath's skyline walk. Aka get out and enjoy the idyllic landscape.
- Eat through my cheese list from Paxton & Whitfield, also try my hands at making ricotta. Basically take advantage of the cheap and good dairy here.
- Read more - goal is one book per month.
- Find a local to Toronto charitable organization to support - talking to David and reading some personal finance blogs made me realize that philanthropy is something I haven't thought about. I'd like to find a local organization to be deeply involved in, on top of donating effectively (although donating will have to wait till I get a job).
Keep Doing:
- Body weight exercises
- Monthly cooking themes - currently pancakes, previously soups (yet to finish). I also have a lot of pasta and salad recipes collected for the warmer months, in addition to 3 cookbooks that I've just ordered as a belated holiday gift to myself. I find having a theme is helpful for consistently cooking through the mountain of new recipes that I collect, otherwise I'll be lazy and eat lentils for every meal.
Stop Doing:
- Buying cheap cashmere - my tiny gesture to prevent the over-grazing of grasslands.
- Buying lipstick - imposing a strict quota of 1 per year, plus any replacements. I have no trouble resisting any other make-up temptation except lipsticks "orz also am over-optimistic in what colours I wear day to day.
- Buying from Zara and other fast fashion retailers - I've generally stopped...until I found out about the insanely good deals I can get at Zara kids, and the convenience of buying from ASOS in UK. Time to call it cold turkey quits, with the exception of Uniqlo since I do need one source of cheap basics.
...
As for my overarching direction...I'm not too sure.
One option is be complacent, mostly live within my comfort zone with little incremental improvements. I like this option obviously. Choosing this option would ultimately translate into working at (hopefully) WPM's Toronto office or at the very least an engineering consulting firm in Toronto. Would I be dissatisfied with this when I'm 40? That's possible, but being content rather than wanting more is a good state of mind too.
The other option is try-harding, but for what? The moonshot would be working for Sidewalk for their Toronto project. I was genuinely excited for about a week when I first found out about this, it felt like the same (possibly naive) excitement when I first found out about Arup haha. But realistically (or am I just rationalizing here?), I have zero skills as a fresh grad to offer, aside from some familiarity with passivhaus.
For now, my intermediate decision is to come up with a thesis topic that's related to Sidewalk Toronto, something like feasibility study of a neighbourhood / district scale passivhaus? Then I can either a) proactively contact the team and ask for data / funding (lol dreams) for my thesis, but at the very least b) have some evidence for my enthusiasm if I do apply for a job there post-grad.
...
Lastly, new year, new planner!
Trying out the Leuchtturm1917 after years of Moleskine use
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