My students have reached the end of their first academic month and have been sent off to write their monthly reflections in their learning journals so it seems like an appropriate time for me to reflect also.
So how has it all been, what with starting a new job in a new country and all that stuff? Well, there's been the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. The lowest low had to be a schedule that stretched out, seemingly never ending, over entire days. That's been fixed (somewhat) but unfortunately the damage has been done. Once over-tired, the Hashi has limited ability to recover without taking weeks off not just work, but life itself. As a person who needs to earn a living, the compromise is to work and have no life the rest of the time and do this for months on end until you can't do it anymore and you have to quit your job. Hell, doesn't this sound exactly like the situation I've just come from? On a more positive note, my schedule should be much more doable next term - I just have to survive this one.
Even though rapid onset burnout is upon me, I have managed to get my dietary requirements sorted out and my food management has even improved a little. My biggest downfall is that when I get tired, I rely on the same old, same old dishes which are easy to chuck together and I could make in my sleep. This does lead to food boredom, not to mention general mental stagnation in the kitchen department, which is the precursor to breaking out of the plan and turning into the shameless wine and cheese hussy that I am. This time around, I have some new dishes which are almost at the I-can-make-in-my-sleep stage as well as a few tricks with flavourful sauces and salsas, some of which can be found in an earlier post. This should be just enough to keep me on the right train.
In order to negate the aforementioned mental stagnation in the kitchen department, I have been shopping for kitchen toys. I recently bought a slow cooker - yay. I got it home and unpacked it and instead of the plain, unoffensive brushed stainless exterior the box promised, it turned out to be a puciferous shade of pinky orange. Not so yay, but hey it works - and then it goes in the cupboard where I don't have to look at it. My most recent burst of consumer activity saw me become the delighted owner of a Black & Decker MY30PGCS combined microwave, grill & convection oven. It is sleek & beautiful in a rather feline way. I want to pet it. The best thing is that it does not have miles of extraneous buttons all over it like some kind of pox on the face. Simplicity. My last purchase was a bog standard food processor. I had been making do with a blender, a mortar & pestle, & big sieve and elbow grease to get things done so this should speed up the process, make it easier and significantly reduce the splatter factor in my kitchen. A forensic scientist would have had her work cut out for her stringing the patterns of my roasted red capsicum sauce splatter.
I still have no exercise plan. I still have no information from the doctor in Ho Chi Minh City regarding the internal tear which is preventing me from exercising. Note in this month's action plan to follow this up as a matter of some urgency. Although I do no planned exercise, I now have many stairs in my life. There are about 50 to get to my apartment and at work almost the same to get to the teachers' room, then I only have one class on the same floor and the resources, photocopiers etc are all on another floor so I really have a built in step programme, especially when you add in the heavy basket of stuff that I lug to and from classes. This is also one of the reasons I feel dog-tired at the end of the day. Again, the Hashi is slow to adapt so it takes many months before one can cope with an increase in daily activity.
There are some recent indications of improvement so it's not it all gloom. On my free mornings, I have made it out for a low fat latte a couple of times, and even managed some minimal wardrobe maintenance via a tailor. This level of extra activity on a work day is pretty much unheard of for me. Also, some days I have no pain in my hands (yes that's back and no, it's not arthritis - been there, tested that) and even better I'm having the occasional day when my eyes don't feel so puffy I think I must look like someone bopped me one. Yesterday, I even felt good for a few hours...
Overall:
Weight - have lost some
Feel - still mostly like shit but have had a couple of 'good' days in the last month
To do this month:
get medical report from doc in HCMC
try to go for a walk one morning each weekend (mornings are so lovely here)
try some new yogurt based recipes for sauces,
start driver's licence process (bouncing around in tuk tuks is quite energy depleting)
go to docs for regular TSH tests, thyroid maintenance stuff
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