Such Great Heights: Week 9 Summary
On the 10th day of quarantine…
This is the first week I’ve spent with exactly 0 kilometers on my personal odometer, since we aren’t allowed out of the apartment even for walks. It hasn’t exactly been as tough of an adjustment as it might sound like, probably thanks to the 5-day drive home, which served as a kind of transitional pre-Purgatory, while this is Purgatory proper. Under Jean’s direction, we’ve been cooking up a storm (butternut squash soup, paella, chicken korma, reverse seared steak and pork tenderloin, to name just a few), so at least the food’s good in this joint! We also keep rearranging the furniture, which is a fun way to express my creativity as I attempt not to detach from some “normality” completely.
Ahem, right, the update:
TRAIN FOR CLIMBING: This section should be called “All the abs, all the time”. We did the workout 4 times in the past week, adding in some self-directed push-ups and pull-ups. I’m looking forward to next week when I can incorporate long walks into my regimen! In climbing-specific news, have y’all heard of the Simple-X test? It’s a fun way to motivate and measure progress (or at least that’s what I keep telling myself as I attempt to eek out a pistol squat on my left - thus far, unsuccessfully). 8/10.
READ: I finished reading Too Much with many mixed feelings, but am generally glad I did. I found this review resonated with me, though since I am late to the party (as apparently is the author) I did not suffer from lack of original insight as much. I’ve also come to a grim realization that I remember very little from books I read (thanks TARA :)). While this is fine for fiction and other reading for entertainment, I deemed it unacceptable for books like The Clean Money Revolution where I aim to learn me something. Thus, after falling into a bit of a hole on how to actually properly read, I have backed up to the beginning and am going through it again much more slowly while taking Cornell style notes. This is super-challenging for me, so I can only really manage 1-2 hours per day. No matter, since I’ve currently got tons of time that I can’t imagine spending in a better way. Oh, and as a bonus, over the weekend we had a get-together over Zoom where we discussed a few short stories, among them Silent Towns from The Martian Chronicles. What a perfectly pandemic read. 10/10.
QUEST: Session-less week. However, the assignment for the coming week was to identify people in my network to whom I could chat to help further my exploration - something the d.school folks call prototype conversations. Huge thanks to friends old and new that I’ve had a chance to speak with! Mainly my reflections have been that I 1) need to understand what the direct social impact of the work I’m doing is, and 2) that some things will not tickle me even if they check all the boxes. Which boxes? I give you The Masha Test. We’ll see how much this tool helps in evaluating my next opportunity. No score this week.
FRENCH: We’re still having at least one small exchange in French every day, and I’m continuing to read French news. I can see this fading off, though, so if anyone wants to practice French with me (ideally while catching up!), I would be immensely grateful! 7/10.
Wanna Help?
I’ve got three different asks: 1) If you can think of someone I could speak to in the alternative economy / social impact world (specific, I know), please make the intro; 2) if you’d like to catch up while simultaneously helping me practice my French, let me know; 3) and generally, I’m loving catching up with folks over video chat, so if we haven’t connected yet, reach out!
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