Do You Ever Read A Book More Than Once?
Reading brings Feris Joy while Lea enjoys the suffering of others.
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Moments of the Week (May 29- June 4)
I hope I get invited back to play. After learning about an open court and weekly Pilipino pick-up games at the Siena Club months ago, I've had it on my to-do list, but always found an excuse. It was 1st time playing basketball in 5 years - I was quickly winded and bricked (a few airballs) when I was wide open. After giving Jero the play-by-play, he commented, "With all the pullups and pushups you do every day, I thought you'd be a lot stronger." At least I had fun.
Feris brought home a jar of dirt from school. She had one of the failed bean-growing class science experiments and her teacher “encouraged” her to bring it home. She's attempting to get the seed to grow. I think it’s a lost cause.
Maricar: "I don't have friends." She ditched us for half a day to go drinking in Central with her people and didn't get back until the rest of us were ready for bed. Clearly, she does or she uses the label sparingly.
Pusoy Dos is a game regularly played during the week and everyone can hold their own. Lea and I raised the stakes by including a plank or pushup penalty for every remaining card. Her competitiveness and the joy she experiences when seeing the humiliation of another (Schadenfreude) is shocking. Is this normal?
I'm not sexy. I bought EE savings bonds. Enough said.
Thinking Out Loud
Do you ever read a book more than once?
Each Wednesday afternoon, Feris comes home with her DC library bag filled with two fluency books and 3-4 others of her choice. She makes me stop everything I'm doing to show me the haul. This week included two gems from Peter Brown, The Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escapes. Her teacher started reading the first aloud to the class last week, but she got impatient and took matters into her own hands by reading the book during breaks. She liked it so much that she checked it out and spent each day re-reading both books. And in a span of two weeks, has now read each book 5 times.
Feris isn't one to do this for bragging rights. She enjoys the books that much and gave them 10s. The last time she was this passionate about a pair of books was The War That Saved My Life and The War I Finally Won. I enjoyed reading and sharing that experience with her. I'm happy for her.
“I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”
— C.S. Lewis
I hate bad fruits…
In Thailand, my favorite thing to eat was fresh fruit. It was cold, personally selected, and cut for convenience. Every time I go to the wet market, there’s a chance of a rotten avocado, mushy apple, overripe papaya, dried-out orange, or tasteless peaches. This week, I was patiently waiting for an avocado to ripen, only for it to be rotten on the inside. It was crushing. Do you know which fruits are reliable and haven’t let me down? Grapefruits and pears. I can’t remember the last time I got a bad one.
Is this an unavoidable risk of buying fruit at the wet market? Am I that bad at choosing fruit or does this happen to everyone? Would this still happen if I shopped at Whole Foods?
On The Move
Run With Me on Strava - 64.36 mi, 7,982 ft Elevation, 36 mins of Swimming
Sweat and phones don’t mix.
HK trail runners put their phones in a sandwich bag. Why? It keeps it dry and prevents a disabled phone. It's a necessity these days, as the humidity hovers near 100%, and everyone looks like they just showered. A friend made the costly mistake of reusing a bag with a small hole. It was enough for his phone to get soaked and then he had to get a replacement. He even upgraded to a Taobao Otter Box knockoff.
Maricar: “James, your Facebook account got hacked!” I apologize if you are one of my FB contacts who was invited to a group chat and received a Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself video clip. Apparently, I did this several times during my run.
The trails and weather get nasty.
Tuesday's group run started with max humidity and ominous skies. We prayed for rain and we got it. A lot of it. For our entire tempo run of 20 minutes, rain poured at 30 ml/hour (Amber Rain Warning) with lightning and thunder directly overhead. I thought this was it for someone. Within that short window, the streets were flooded and I started hydroplaning. Goggles would have been nice as I was using my hands to block the wind-flicked rain. The stares of bystanders were priceless as a dozen of us passed. No one was hurt.
Saturday's 5am Fight Club trail run included a segment called Razor Ridge. On the way there, we came across aggressive and protective bees that stung one of us, 8 times. When we attempted a second pass, the bees swarmed and we had to find an alternative route. And finally, when we got to the ridge, I came to learn that it was the same place where one person in our group broke her foot 2 years ago. She shared that rather than face the embarrassment of calling in for help, she hiked her way home crying in pain on that traumatic day. That’s hardcore. I would have taken the airlift option.
Have you tried a Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) run?
"a type of heart rate training that focuses on improving your aerobic fitness by training at a heart rate that corresponds to your maximum aerobic function. This approach can help improve endurance, speed, and fat burning, and can reduce the risk of overtraining and injury."
This translates to running and keeping my heart rate under 145. Several triathletes I respect, complete these runs and I thought I'd give it a shot to mix things up. I did 10 miles and at times, felt like I was walking. With practice, the goal is to improve my pace while maintaining a low HR.
Housekeeping
I’ve been thinking lately about “Purposefully Lost” and what’s it all about. I’ll be sending out some thoughts midweek.
Do You Ever Read A Book More Than Once?
Nice read James. I look forward to following Purposefully Lost.
Agreed. Fruit in SE Asia is definitely better! The best fruit I’ve had was in Cambodia: reliably delicious. My theory is that the fruit there is on some kind of pre-industrial model where it doesn’t get refrigerated for weeks before being boxed and carted off to supermarkets. The only fruit that matched that was the papaya tree we had in our garden in Sai Kung.