On morning routines

‘Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise’. It’s one of those idioms everyone knows but has a hard time keeping to. Apparently this verse, commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, first appeared during the 15th century. But I’m not here to discuss its validity – that has been proven several times (oftentimes, the way you start your day will dictate the rest of it). I’m here to discuss the morning routine, itself. Several videos were made about this and I am by no means the only guy speaking about them. Take one of my favourite YouTube channels, the Art of Manliness for example:

Or even Alpha.M:

So here’s a quick rundown of my morning routine:

06:00-06:15 (depends on how tired I feel) – wake up. Go do something I enjoy – generally make coffee using my Aeropress, as I find that just the scent of coffee grounds helps me really wake up. This takes between 10 to 15 minutes. While I drink my comics I catch up on my favourite webcomics and social networks for around 10 minutes.

Afterwards I sit and meditate for around 5-10 minutes. This helps me prepare for the coming day – it’s easy to get caught in the daily hustle and bustle and forget to actually relax and just concentrate on breathing. It helps immensely.

Afterwards I try to do something productive – this morning I was working on the vast majority of this blog post for a good 15 minutes yesterday (draft was being iffy with saving my changes), 20 minutes on Monday and 20 minutes today. You’re more productive during the morning hours, as you have less distractions and the day hasn’t quite started yet.

At 07:00 I hit the shower, put on some moisturiser cream, dress up and grab a quick bite (usually some muesli mixed with fruit and some milk). While I dress up afterwards I find myself planning my day in my head –  what time will I finish work today? What will I do afterwards? What should I prioritise for the rest of the day? I then sit down and write that down, in case I forget.

There are a few concepts behind this routine:

1. Start the day off doing something you enjoy – the expression ‘Got out the wrong side of the bed’ exists for a reason. The way you start your day can dictate what the rest of it will be like.
2. Do something invigorating – whether it’s physically or mentally invigorating, it’s important to do something that stimulates the brain.
3. Do the most important thing first – to start your day well, do something important in the morning. For example, these last few days it was writing the blog post.
4. Plan your day – in order to feel and be more in control of your life, have a general plan of what you need to do today. This kind of prioritisation becomes more and more important the more responsibilities you take on.
5. Eat – seriously, eat breakfast. It IS important. It provides us with fuel for the day (or at least until lunch).

The first few mornings might be a drag, but you’ll soon find that having a routine in the morning helps in keeping you calm and in control for the rest of the day.

Thanks for reading!

OK, I really need to blog more!

21 days with no update – yikes, my bad!

OK, it’s really easy to forget that you promised to blog. I mean REALLY easy. It’s happened to me so many times it isn’t even funny. I guess that getting settled in London took up most of this month – this city is so huge, that I don’t think I can quite fathom it.

Yesterday was cool – I went to this thing called Sensory Score (was absolutely unplanned). I was blindfolded, guided around and every sense was simulated in its own way. At the beginning I was kind of anxious, but then I relaxed and just allowed myself to enjoy the experience. It was absolutely amazing. Even when blindfolded, my sense of sight was still simulated as the blindfold was white and I could see some shadows dancing. The biggest surprise was the music – I assumed that the music was pre-recorded, but it was in fact a live friggin’ orchestra!

A previous Sensory Score session

I’ve been really enjoying my Chemex – I’ve been thinking of whether I should get a coffee syphon next… what do you guys think? My main deterrent is the price tag – a good coffee syphon will set you back by around £100!

But yeah, other than that I’ve been mostly really setting my life up in London. There’s something about this city, you can really just lose yourself in its daily hustle and bustle. I’m not sure if I’m a proper ‘Londoner’, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Whatever, I’ve rambled on enough, see you and thanks for reading!

Back to the blog: coffee, immigration, acoustic covers and more

Welp, it’s been a while. Ok, ok, it’s been a long time since I last posted. I had a good reason though – promise!

No, really, I had a good reason: shortly after my last (admittedly somewhat pretentious) post, I was offered a tech support job in the United Kingdom. Now, with me being unemployed, I did not hesitate and arrived in London Heathrow on February 8, where I would start my new life – but not in London, rather, in Swindon, a good 100km to the west, in the middle of Wiltshire, pretty close to Stonehenge (yes, that Stonehenge).

So I spent 7 months doing first-tier Hebrew tech support for a subsidiary company of Lenovo. The job was fine, but there was one thing that drove me crazy – there was nothing to do in Swindon. At first I found solace with a few trips to London, but the imminent return to the calm of Swindon always loomed in the back of my head. So I decided it was time for me to find a job in London – and eventually I found one! I now am a client systems analyst for a subsidiary company of Adecco. Basically I’m the guy between the technical team and the customer. Enough of this boring stuff – important part’s that I’m a Londoner for 2 weeks now!

During my time in Swindon I made some friends – a friendly barista taught me to appreciate the finer things in filter coffee, a guitarist and I played at a jam session almost every Tuesday in this small pub – I was really fond of our cover of ‘LA Woman’. It’s actually quite nice with a sax and an acoustic guitar, who’d have figured!

The loads of free time I had in Swindon provided me with the opportunity to explore the town in search for good coffee (which is how I met the aforementioned barista at Swindon’s only Harris & Hoole’s. It’s located above a major supermarket, of all places), I came across/stumbled into a coffee shop where I would truly feel at home – Darkroom Espresso. This place, owned at the time by a lovely Australian lady, almost closed down because of immigration laws. Basically Jacky, the at-the-time owner of Darkroom, is married to Andy (an English citizen) but earned less than £ 18,600 so she had to leave the United Kingdom, even though she was married to a British national and was actively supporting the economy. The most absurd part of this is that if she was married to a non-British European national, her income would not even be relevant – this is the first time I actually saw that implications of immigration laws on actual people.

While Jacky eventually left the United Kingdom, she managed to sell Darkroom to Arthur and Will – two coffee shop owners from Oxford – so Andy and Jacky’s love child did not close. I can only imagine how tough it must have been for them, leaving a place they worked so hard for. Jacky left the country early July after leaving a heartfelt Facebook post.

Darkroom Espresso hosts lots of artwork!

As my final weeks in Swindon drew to an end, the world turned its eyes to a new crisis – the Syrian refugee crisis finally became a priority after the body of a toddler was washed up on the Turkish shore (warning: images may be shocking). Suddenly, everyone all over the news and politics started talking about ‘refugees’ and ‘immigrants’. Social media erupted with debate on what to do with immigrants. I realised that no fingers were being pointed at me, even though I am an immigrant – I am a man from a different country who has moved to this country to live and work, yet people didn’t see me as an immigrant, unlike the new refugees. It was very weird.

Now I’m living in this flatshare in East London (yes, I know, hipster central) with two 20 years-olds, and I’m slowly starting to get used to this city. There really is something about London. Here’s a picture of the cinema around the corner from my flat!

Genesis Cinema – great coffee, awesome atmosphere

Thanks for reading!

The post-Christmas period; struggles, thoughts and pointers

So Christmas passed, and gym goers around the worlds fear and disdain the post-holiday period.

It is during this time that the early breed of a very specific gym-goer appears at the gym: new year’s resolution-gymnast. Until yesterday I did not understand why so many gym goers showed utter disdain to them, but now I do. When one sees a person hoarding 5 different sets of dumbbells and then leaving them all on the ground (true story), one starts to appreciate the good gym etiquette of other gym goers. Of course, most of those give up on the gym after a maximum of three weeks, as they see no immediate gains.

But this is not a post to complain about how busy the gym has gotten or about new year’s gymnasts. Plenty of other people do that and I do not wish to become one of those haters at the gym. Instead, here are a few pointers on dealing with the upcoming trying times (granted I’m not even close to being the biggest guy out there, but I think the points are still valid):

• Be patient.
  • Really, this should be the first and foremost. You also started somewhere, you also did not know gym etiquette until someone told you about it. So do not hate the guy who’s just started out when he comes to you with questions – he might be the next CT Fletcher or Arnold for all we know

It is easy to rage, but one must show restraint, like this model lifter.

• Keep going to the gym
  • No matter how crowded the gym gets, no matter how messy it gets. Keep training. Do not be discouraged. Do not give up. Ever.

When things get tough, remember this.

• Stay positive
  • Yes, the gym will be flooded with people thinking “I’ll get it right THIS year”, who do everything wrong (like curling at the squat rack) and will give up within a month. Yet a few will remain and will do things the right way. Rejoice for those few – at the risk of sounding arrogant – this is the process of separating the wheat from the chaff.

For those who wish to start lifting and are scared of being ‘that new guy’, at the gym, here are a few pointers on where to start:

• Know your goal. Do you wish to gain muscle mass or lose weight in general? Remember, muscle weighs more than fat, so by increasing your muscle mass you will become heavier.
• Do the basic compound exercises. It’s very tempting to go to the machines that isolate muscles for you and train one muscle group at a time,  but those machines lift a fair of the weight for you. Compound exercises rely on you activating a large array of muscles at once. There are three kings among the compound exercises:
  • The Bench Press, king of all chest exercises.
    

    The bench press; king of chest exercises.

  • The squat, the ultimate legs & lower back exercise
    

    King of all lower back and legs exercises

  • The deadlift, my personal favorite of all compound exercises
    

    The deadlift is deceptive; it looks simple while it is its technical and complex. The deadlift activates your lower back, legs and core.

• Start out light. There is nothing more annoying than a new gymnast who needs to be rescued regularly because he/she put too much weight on the bar. Hell, start by lifting just the bar, to get your muscles used to the movement and activate them. Form over weight. At all times.
• Take rest in between sets. This cannot be emphasized enough. Do not rush sets. You will hurt yourself.
• Remember basic gym etiquette:
  •  Keep it clean.
    • Use one set of dumbbells at a time. Yes, you will have to walk more. Deal with it.
    • Do not leave any weights on the floor.
    • Do not leave the bar with the weights hanging on.
  • Stay polite
    • Don’t bother us in the middle of a set. Seriously.
    • Do not complain about how crowded the gym is. Or about anything, really.
    • If someone is using a machine you want to use, politely ask them how many sets they have left. Then, if it’s more than one or two sets, go do some other exercise while you wait for them to finish.
  • Don’t preach
    • I really, really don’t care for how much you love CrossFit or running, do not preach or give out advice unless (1) someone is about to hurt themselves (2) you are asked for advice (trust me, you won’t be).

Well, that’s all for today folks. I leave you with this little bit of CT Fletcher motivation (be advised, foul language):

Keep lifting!

I (dead)lift, therefore I am

Around seven months ago a good friend of mine convinced me to go to the gym with him, to try lifting weights. Well, he didn’t really convince me as much as extended the offer for me to try lifting weights. I was out of shape, I could barely bench press just the bar and needed help with weights as low as 40 kg (all weights are including bar). But I fell in love with it. I found out I loved the feeling of that iron in my hands, pushing me down. I got my gym membership a few days later and started lifting weights.

Within a few weeks I discovered the other two most important compound exercises – the deadlift and the squat.While I wasn’t particularly fond of the squat (partially because of my own poor form), I loved the deadlift. It took me a few months until I finally started seeing improvement. It started with the definition of my shoulder, then some people complimented me on how strong I am, then I noticed how I could bench more and more, how my form dramatically improved in all exercises, etc.

During the summer I kept lifting, working on my body, then I remembered hearing of this guy – CT Fletcher. I decided to check him out. At first I didn’t understand what all the hype was about – just some big guy shouting slogans. Then, somewhere in July, I saw the video featuring Keven Washington, aka “Da Hulk”:

The fire burned inside of me. This is what it looks like – ultimate weightlifting. Keven Washington is bigger than life, I doubt whether this man is even human! He can bench hundreds upon hundreds of kilograms. And while I didn’t feel the urge to be as big as he is, I felt the fire – I have become a weightlifter.

I started researching more and more special training programs and schedules, I started drinking more protein shakes (although not enough) and I started truly regretting not doing this earlier. I went for 6 days a week for some time, ever increasing my strength. I had to go easy on the squats and deadlifts, as I had a bicycle accident mid-June, and my kneecap was pretty hurt (the bastard still hurts, but I’ve recovered).

Six weeks ago I started the 6 week-long Candito Strength Program with the same friend who got me into lifting. Unfortunately he had to quit during week 2 due health complications with his chest. I stuck to the program, though I did some extra exercises that I wasn’t “supposed” to. When I started, these were the stats for my three main exercises:

Max 1 rep dumbbell bench press: 26 kg

Max 1 rep deadlift: 90 kg

Max 1 rep squat: 50 kg (stupid knee injury D:< )

Now, done with the program, my records are:

Max 1 rep dumbbell bench press: 34 kg

Max 1 rep deadlift: 120 kg

Max 1 rep squat: 80kg

I’ve been getting some compliments about my arms getting bigger and my chest having more volume, but I’m not even close to being big yet. Nowadays I find myself thinking that the only way this would be any better is if I would get paid to lift. Then I realized there are people like that – CT Fletcher, Mike Rashid and many, many more. There are many ways to fail to become a sponsored athlete, this article discusses that quite well, but I’m not interested in failure. I am interested in becoming, in CT’s words, one of the “strongest motherfuckers” out there and have my results speak for myself. This means that I will also have to post to this blog more frequently (I promise I won’t lazy off this time!) and that I will discuss nutrition, plans and routines. Get ready folks, this is becoming a weightlifting blog!

“Jew in the Box” exhibition – controversy 2013.

Hey there, folks! Ah, back home, been on holiday for a week – celebrated Passover in the pastoral area of Brittany, France. I visited Omaha Beach, saw some really amazing places, was a lot of fun. The drive back was rather exhausting – 11 hours total! I ran across this article as I was catching up with news, and I found myself a bit torn. Let me explain what happened: We all know what happened to the Jews in the Second World War. At least I hope so. If you happen to be one of those rare individuals who does not know, here’s a quick explanation – 6 million Jews were systematically and routinely murdered, by Nazi Germany. This is called the Holocaust.

So, here we are now, nearly 70 years later, the Holocaust is a black mark on Germany’s history and is still considered one of the worst atrocities of history. The Holocaust, that terrible genocide (it wasn’t limited only to Jews, of course), is one of the defining attributes of the Jewish people – perhaps even the defining attribute of Jews to other peoples (yes, Jews are part of a people, not only a religion). In other words – to many people, Jewish history is limited to nearly purely the Holocaust. Talk about a sad connotation, huh?

The Jewish Museum of Berlin decided it wants to educate about Jews, in what is probably one of the most controversial exhibitions I’ve ever seen: put living Jews in glass boxes (voluntarily, of course), for two hours a day, so they may answer the questions of those who are curious. At the bottom of the glass casing is the question “Are there still Jews in Germany?”. When I talked with my mum about this, she thought it was a good idea an in-your-face, thinking out of the box, making people come face-to-face with Jews. This was met with a lot of criticism form the local Jewish community, and I honestly cannot blame them; living and breathing people, as exhibition pieces? Am I the only one who gets the zoo-vibe from this? I can already sense people saying “Oh, look, it’s a Jew, let’s try to feed him! Just make sure the peanuts are kosher – that’s what they call it, right?”

Don’t get me wrong – I understand the idea of a living example, but putting a Jew as a museum piece, that’s just going one step too far. Here’s an example to illustrate my point – if the same would be done to a black person, there would be a massive outrage. “He is put up, like he’s a slave again!” they would say. The same is true for any people – we are not museum pieces. We’re people, damn it! Portraying any people with a living museum piece, in my opinion, does them a great injustice by condensing a people and its history into one person, sitting inside a glass casing like some animal, for your entertainment.

To give the defenders of this exhibition credit, they do make a pretty compelling argument: when you’re a Jew in Europe, you inevitably will feel like you’ve become a display piece for someone to gawk at. While I’ve experienced that many times in Europe, I still strongly believe that enhancing this feeling of Jews being something else, something different and unusual whose history can be boiled down to the Holocaust and not eating pork, simply does more bad than good. Here are some pictures from the actual exhibition:

“Jew in a Box” exhibition

“Jew in a Box” exhibition

“Jew in a Box” exhibition

What do you think?

No rest for the wicked: what not to do when you’re writing a thesis proposal.

So yesterday morning I handed in my thesis proposal. I look at the original idea I had, and this thesis is completely different. I suppose that is to be expected – very few people actually stuck with their original topic, but rather moved on to a question that looms in the background, that explains all phenomena of the sort, rather than only this particular phenomenon (there are exceptions, of course, but they’re in the minority).

I also switched to a new thesis supervisor a few weeks ago. I have no idea why, but he constantly makes me think of the professor on PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) Comics:

PhD Comics – “Choice of Words”

He actually isn’t like that, at all – he gives me really concrete feedback and explains really well on which substantial issues I should focus, in addition to being a very positive guy. I have no idea why he constantly reminds me this horrendous “Prof. Smith”, which does my supervisor a great injustice!

 

But anyways, while I was writing my thesis proposal I – like the student I am – found various ways to procrastinate. Here is a list of what you should not do when writing your thesis proposal (or any paper, for that matter):

• Browse Reddit
• Look up that indie band one of your friends told you about a few months ago
• Come up with a business-at-home idea
• Learn 3D design for said business-at-home idea
• Browse PhD Comics
• Learn WordPress Theme development
• Browse www.ThisIsWhyImBroke.com and www.IllTakeTen.com for funny, awesome and just plain weird products.
• Enter a political discussion on Reddit (actually, never do that. Arguing politics on the internet is silly)
• Test your knowledge of Monty Python quotes
• Try to memorize the lyrics of a song by band from Finland – in Finnish.
• Go through an existential crises
• Panic
• Remember not to panic, and look for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quotes.
• Ramble on how the movie did an injustice to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books.
• Try to think of a flashmob forTowel Day
• Think of this blog post

I think you’re catching my drift. No, I didn’t do all of the above, only most of the actions. There are a fewI just came up with while writing this, I’ll let you guess which ones.

 

Just a regular Monday at university… or is it?

Dear God, so many articles for my thesis. It’s not even funny. Turns out I may have to switch thesis supervisors – my thesis seems to be moving out of my current supervisor’s area of expertise. Ah, well, I have plenty of time until my thesis proposal is due, and I spoke with the potential new thesis supervisor, now I have a far better idea of what I need to look for, yay!

But seriously, I never imagined how tough academia can be. This is quite the challenge, and I can only imagine what a PhD is like.

When I was reading articles at the library, I was interrupted by something awful:
I was minding my own business, the library was nearly empty – it was already around 18:30 at the time. I see this older lady waddling down the library to the general computer area, carrying a leather purse that looked like something that was salvaged from some shipwreck and an old, blue plastic jacket. I don’t pay much attention to her, though, as I’m reading an article. Then she sits two chairs away from me – that’s fine, I don’t really care. She takes off her jacket, and puts it on the chair next to me in a swinging motion.

A putrid stench fills my nostrils. I look in disbelief at the source of the stench – it’s the jacket. What would normally be a refreshing gust of wind in a dry library turned out to be a foul stench, created by years of mold, that could rival any wind released from a demon-spawn’s backside, carrying residues of the seven sulfurous dimensions of Dante’s Inferno it traveled through, to reach and traumatize my nostrils.

I managed to stay by that vile stench for around 5 minutes, until the woman opened her purse. with a sickening noise that must have originated somewhere in the dark depths of Cthulhu’s otherworldly prison-city of R’lyeh. My nostrils noted that her jacket was not the only source of stench, and her purse held untold horrors, which also included – my heart raced in panic as she reached into the hellish deeps of her purse – a notebook and pen. Phew. She did not close her purse, which rapidly spread all around the computer area of the library, like a vile, maleficent smog from the nether.

Can you tell I’m exaggerating? Seriously, I could only stand the stench for around 5 minutes before I printed whatever was left for me to read, and quickly shut down my computer.

So, kids, what did we learn today?
-Use a laundry machine to keep otherworldly horrors at bay!
Very good!

/end ramble

I’m back… this time for real!

Hey hey! Yes, I know my last post (over 6 months ago) was supposed to be the herald of my return to blogging. Life happened, and the entire ‘Human Gamer’ thing was getting rather old. Let’s stop the pretentiousness and just talk about life, shall we?

So yeah, I’m studying Political Science nowadays. It’s weird – I studied Communication and Media, and now I’m studying Political Science. I guess my love for all that is politics really did help me. I’m working on my thesis now, and it’s probably one of the toughest things I’ve ever done.

It was weird at first, moving from the HBO-level (college, basically) education to a fully-fledged university. The academic level is worlds apart, and I had no preparation for the gap. I think I’m doing well: I don’t feel out of my league. I don’t feel like I have no idea what people are talking about. What I do still feel is the sheer lack of practicality, which is a rather typical thing for university. When we discuss different approaches to political science, we have a tendency of sticking to the theoretical/normative realm (especially when we discuss political philosophy), which was rather infuriating at first. Come on, not all of us are going to stay in academia, you might as well help us with some practical exercises, not pure theory!
At least we’re lucky enough to have one subject this block that is somewhat practical – we write a policy paper. I was rather excited, until I saw that we only discuss varying concepts and their place in political science, rather than focus on the practical assignment that will dictate the vast majority of our mark (i.e. the policy paper), but I suppose I’m just complaining now for the hell of it. I had my chance to quit this degree several times, and despite all my complaints, I am loving it. The intellectual challenge is on an unparalleled level, and that alone gives the degree sufficient merit.

So, as always, let us finish today with a quote. This one belongs to one of my favorite historical figures:
“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else”
I want you to guess who the author of this quote is. Don’t Google it, okay? 3, 2, 1… go!

It feels good to be back!

Ladies, gentlemen and asexual objects, it feels good to be back on the blog!

Many things happened – I graduated, I finished my internship at the gaming company (so I had to change the title. Don’t worry, I’m still a gamer!), and I have graduated from my university!

I am now officially a Bachelor of Communications. And guess what – I decided that a Bachelor’s degree would not be sufficient, on its own. It’s time to go for a Master’s degree. Political Science, here we come!

Of course, there is a catch – I need to pass an English langauge test. Go figure. Apparently a Bachelor’s degree in English is not sufficient proof of one’s proficiency in the English langauge. Ah, well, not much I can do about it.

The graduation ceremony was quite good. Roughly one week before the ceremony, my dissertation lecturer contacted me, and asked me to deliver a speech about my memories from the university. It was really fun – it was just a shame that only half of my family could make it to the ceremony. The other half was back home, tending to my grandmother’s funeral. Talk about timing, huh?

But enough of that, here’s a picture of the speech!

When I originally wrote the speech, I went down a very cynical path. My (former) classmates who read this blog know that our university is anything but ideal. I wanted to address the university’s shortcomings in my speech. Here is an example:

This is how I handed in my dissertation, in threefold:

I printed the dissertation on extra heavy paper, to give it the real feeling of a book. Cost me bloody € 200 in total.

This is how I got my disseration back:

The lecturer tore the binding off. When I asked her whether something went wrong with the dissertation, she said she tore it off… because it was too heavy.

The following face summarized my reaction: ಠ_ಠ.

The stare of disapproval.

Sorry for the rant, had to get that out.
But in the end I decided to go for a relatively positive speech – I don’t want to be remembered as the jerk who constantly criticized his university, even after he graduated, after all.

Now I no longer actually work in a gaming company, I’ve decided to give this blog some thought. What do you people think? Should this blog continue to focus on my own experiences? Do you have any suggestions for the blog’s future style? I’d be happy to hear them all.

And, of course, ending quote:

“God has entrusted me with myself”

– Epictetus