Tag: life

Saturday!

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It’s been a very long week with my upset stomach and I’m glad to finally get to the weekend. I had a quiet day today except for a trip to the bank to pay in my paycheque (my employer, a software development company, pays by cheque… in 2020). I don’t really know how I am. I’m definitely not as tired or generally ill as I have been, but I am still getting a bit of nausea, a lot of heartburn and my toileting is definitely not back to normal. Too much information.

I don’t know how this kind of thing is supposed to progress. I guess I’m over the virus but my insides are still inflamed.

I am eating a bit more though so that’s good.

I am very pleased with myself today because I phoned up the student loans company this morning and paid off my debt. It would have taken about 5 more years if I’d continued paying the minimum per month, which doesn’t make sense given that it accrues interest faster than my savings. So there we go. It’ll be nice to get my next payslip and not see a student loan deduction (assuming HMRC don’t mess it up, which is a big assumption!).

Happy?

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It’s taken a while but over the last week or so it’s occurred to me that I am actually feeling happy.

I’m enjoying my new job. Today I was invited to a meeting by the managing director on the next phase of the project. We’re looking at NLP (natural language processing) but we’re not really sure what it can do for us, or even how to use it. It’s a research thing. But being invited to that meeting is an important milestone.

On Wednesday I have a GP appointment to get more anti-depressants. I feel like I’m going to discuss the apparently contradictory concerns of 1. Please can I have these on repeat now, and 2. Do I actually need to be on them? I think it’s time to start solidifying a medium term idea of how to come off them even if I don’t want to change anything just yet.

So anyway, I’ve had a nice evening lying in bed listening to Lady Gaga.

Interesting times

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Today a colleague resigned. Or that’s the official story anyway. We’ll call him L. Whether he resigned or was pushed I don’t know. He was a senior developer who started in August (I started in November), but it was obvious to me that he was struggling with the work and the job in general. Last Friday my manager had a one to one meeting with him because he’d caught him sleeping at his desk twice. He was an odd person. L told me that he left his previous job without giving any notice because it was a bad environment, and also mentioned that they used to “watch them like hawks” in case anyone fell asleep. That seemed like a strange comment at the time, which gained a lot of context in the last few days.

I had a look at his LinkedIn profile, which is detailed to the point that he documents his activities from years ago during periods of unemployment. He’s in his 60s but hasn’t held a job for longer than two years in the past ten. It’s an odd CV and actually I’m a bit surprised he was hired.

Today L finished some work (a report/document), and my manager asked to go through it with him in a meeting room. After a little while, another manager turned up and removed his coat and bag from the room.

Eventually my manager came back and announced he’d resigned. I’m not sure I believe it, but equally, if he was given a warning on Friday it would be odd if the company terminated him only two days later. It’s probably more likely that he did quit, but it doesn’t entirely add up, because it looked like he was making an extra effort yesterday and this morning. On the other hand, he was an odd guy.

I felt a bit unsettled about it anyway. I don’t know if or how it may affect me. I think I’m doing OK. I think I’m doing a lot better than he was, and he was nominally of a much more senior level than me.

I’m still on my probation period and it’s a bit unsettling for someone to suddenly disappear, but on the other hand, I’m also contractually promised a salary review after six months of employment, and their budget just got looser.

I live in interesting times.

SUNDAY

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Storm Ciara turned out to be surprisingly bad. My weather app described it as ‘dangerously high winds, so it was a weird day of staying inside all day until late afternoon when I went out for a short walk just to say I had. It occurred to me that the last time I didn’t go outside for a whole day was probably last January when I had flu. I really would have liked a run but I had visions of being hit by a flying tree.

I did some of what I wanted to with my plants. I didn’t do anything with them this time last year because I wasn’t really (mentally) healthy enough to think about ‘investing’ in them. Somehow I managed to keep them alive, but plants are a long term thing. You repot them now and in six months they look better. You sow seeds or take cuttings now and maybe in 3 months you see the faintest hint of growth. I wasn’t really doing long term back then. So some of them are long overdue a bit of care and attention. I don’t like doing much with them over the summer because it can shock them and interrupt their growth, so the best time is right now, just as they’re starting to wake up.

Usually they wouldn’t wake up until a bit later in the year but apparently this year must be mild, because a few of them are throwing up flower stalks. A couple of years ago they didn’t really wake up until June(!).

I still have a lot more to do, but I’ve split a few and potted them up, and de-weeded a few other pots.

This one has been so neglected that it’s deformed the pot. I think that it’s been trying to grow downwards because of lack of space…

A few trays I brought inside so they wouldn’t blow away. As you can see, I have the gift/curse that I can grow plants very easily, which (un?)fortunately means have millions of them. I was intending to start selling them but it’s too much hassle. Baby flytraps are so cute.

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I forgot to take a ‘before’ pic of this one but here’s one from last summer, then after splitting it into two today. The smaller of the splits is in the original pot. This was a therapy plant my dad bought for me (in a very unusual display of generosity!) shortly after I had a serious trauma about 18 months ago.

 

Progress?

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I did Parkrun today at max effort and my hip feels… fine?

So in total today I’ve done about 9k (warmup + parkrun + run home) at a fast pace, which is both further and faster than I’ve run for a long time, and everything feels fine.

I’m hesitant to say everything really is fine, because I’ve had some pain from it this week, but I think it was actually a different pain which might be a red herring (I did a lot of planks one evening, and had some sharper pain the next day; I may have just overdone the planks).

Usually I’d run about 15k on Saturday and then again on Sunday, and I won’t really feel I’m recovered until I’m doing that again. Unfortunately, Storm Ciara looks set to disrupt any Sunday running, but maybe the weather forecasters are being hyperbolic and I won’t really be cowering in my house all day. I can hear the wind now though…

But in some ways it will be good if I do just stay home all day tomorrow because I have about a million plants that need repotting before the growing season starts (which it seems to be doing thanks to some mild weather).

LIFE

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

The abs are feeling better. I don’t think I’ve had any discomfort from them since Saturday, so that’s pretty good. I’m going to do a test run at the weekend, and then I’m HOPING within a couple of weeks to be in full swing of half marathon training, but we shall see.

I am still quite interested in swimming. I think it would be a good counter to running and is probably very good for core strength. I have not signed up to the gym yet because I realised I did not have any swimwear, but I ordered some at the weekend and it came today, so now I have no excuse.

The train this evening was dreadful because of a tree on the line, thanks to Storm Brendan. I need to claim my 10p compensation for this but I can’t be bothered tonight. A girl I was at school with was sat next to me but I don’t think she recognised me. I googled her and apparently she’s a solicitor now. She smelled a bit though. I probably can’t claim compensation for that. It’s a bit weird to think she’s a solicitor when the main thing I remember about her is that when we were in infant school she did an Irish Jig in assembly one morning in front of the whole school. We stayed in the same class through infant, junior and secondary school, but that’s what I remember. That was… 26 years ago?

Work: Last week we had some training from the Knowledge Transfer PhD student we have, which consisted of essentially a computer science lecture. It felt like being back at university again, but it was a lot more effective than reading articles online, and as I was sat in the room I couldn’t help but think how amazing it is that I’ve worked here less than two months and they’re giving me training on new technology, whereas not once in the seven years I was at my old place did the company ever arrange for anyone to teach me anything.

Part of her presentation involved examples with data sets, and I was quite surprised when one of her slides used my full name as an example. I’m not quite sure how to take that…

Speaking of other things at work I don’t know how to interpret, as I walked past HR lady’s office today, HR lady and researcher lady were having a conversation and HR lady said “EV is one of those people”. Researcher lady: (mildly surprised) “EV here?” “yes”. What was that about? One of what people?! 🧐

Hello, 2020

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

2018 was the worst year of my life. Exactly one year ago, I’d just had approximately six weeks off work and was ‘preparing’ to go back to work. My sick note read that I was anaemic, which was true, but I could have handled that without time off. It was my mental health that was actually causing problems.

Mental health is such a strange thing. It can get incredibly bad without you really noticing, and it’s only after you have a breakdown that you think “hmm, something has changed here – I didn’t used to be like this”.

I ended up going back to work on second of January, though, to be honest, I probably shouldn’t have.

I went into 2019 in pretty much the worst state of my life, and I leave 2019 in probably the best state of my life. It’s been a very long recovery. An extremely stressful situation out of my control finally resolved, which was necessary, but apparently not sufficient, for my mental health to recover. I got the anaemia under control, which helped a lot too. I started taking anti-depressants, which have undoubtedly helped me settle down the rampant anxiety I was experiencing. And, finally, I found a better job and got myself out of a toxic environment.

2019 was a pretty bad year in many ways, but it was an upward trend, and I’m starting 2020 in a pretty good place.

Medical updates

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Blood test results: It turns out my iron and haemoglobin levels are pretty good – the highest they’ve ever been on blood tests. Even so, the iron levels are a long way off the maximum healthy level, and, with how quickly they’ve dropped in the past, I am going to self-medicate another course of iron tablets. The last course took my ferritin from 20 to 62, and the healthy range is 20 to 300. It turns out you can buy the tablets I was taking – ferrous sulfate 200mg – over the counter without a prescription (though you need to ask), and it’s actually cheaper than a prescription.

Injury: I mentioned my ongoing running injury woes to the doctor. She had a good feel around and told me that the area of pain is a busy area full of soft tissue, tendons, fascia, etc. She recommended a week’s course of ibuprofen to reduce inflammation, then re-asses. I was completely hyped for this until I read the side effects list of ibuprofen, then got cold feet. I have had problems with stomach bleeding in the past (hence the iron tablets), so I get nervous when I read it on side effects. So I haven’t taken any.

Instead, I’m trying to get some anti-inflammatory effects through my diet and I’m coming around to the idea that I just need to rest it. It is improving, but it’s not there yet.

Interestingly, although she didn’t say it to me, she recorded it on my record as a strain of the tendon of the medial thigh muscle – so not my abs at all. It makes sense – I have found that stretching my inner thigh can give an unpleasant pulling sensation in the area it’s been hurting.

Sunday

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Usually Sunday is a long run day but since I’m trying to rehab my ab (rehabab), it wasn’t.

I used the time to wrap Christmas presents instead.

I bought my sister a board game called Colt Express, which may or may not prove to be a good purchase. I haven’t played it, so I don’t know what it’s like, but it looks like it might be good. It’s something to do with a wild west train robbery.

I learnt recently that board games are a burgeoning industry, and some of them are actually really fun. It’s not all Monopoly or Battleships.

I had a last minute idea to give my mum a plant from splitting one of mine. I used to have one Drosera Adelae (Australian sundew). Over the summer I split it and ended up with three, but they’re looking overcrowded again, so I split them again today and now I have five. I think she will like one.

I also did some weights (squats + deadlifts), but a little while later my abs were feeling sore again. But is that just because I sat down and my hips tightened up?

Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. Maybe I should just focus on stretching for a while. Everyone knows that sitting all day is bad for you and shortens your hip flexors and changes the angle of your pelvis, and I don’t do any stretching to offset that.

Christmas

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Today was the last day of work for a while as the office is now closed until January. We went out for a Christmas lunch, which turned out to be a very posh 8 course meal lasting for the whole afternoon. It was an experience.

It was a bit awkward to start with but I think I enjoyed it. I ended up drinking alcohol, which I don’t usually do, but it was kind of peer pressure and kind of anxiety medication.

I think I enjoyed it. It was certainly a new experience, which I survived, and maybe I feel like slightly more of an adult because of it. It was also something that we’d never have done at the previous job. And I definitely appreciated the fact it was held during work time!

It turns out I’m being paid for the Christmas period even though I haven’t accrued the holiday, which is nice. This employer seems a lot better at the human touch.

So, the Christmas break…

Excitingly, I’m going to get a blood test on Monday to see how my iron and haemoglobin levels are, which I should have had done a few months ago when I finished my last course of iron tablets, but I didn’t. Then on Tuesday I’m at the doctor to renew my antidepressants and I’ll mention my ongoing ab muscle woes and maybe get referred to physio, but I’ve decided to just take it easy over Christmas and limit running to parkies.

We’re quite lucky in that we have both a Christmas Day and New Year’s Day parkrun on top of the normal Saturday events. I will be there sporting my Santa hat 🎅 and my festive red 50 t shirt.