1. A good weekend of rest does incredible wonders for productivity. The past weekend I completely shut down my brain and did no work at all. On Monday back at work I was well-rested, focused, and full of ideas. The dancing keyboard fingers did their dancing on the keyboard. The bitchy inner monologue was a little less bitchy and a little more forgiving. The office felt friendlier than usual. All in all, highly recommended. One should try it every once in a while.
  2. While making lunch in my little office rice cooker, I absent-mindedly forgot to add water into the assortment of cut vegetables (if you need to know: 1 potato, 3 small tomatoes, long beans, 1 small onion, half a cucumber, half a carrot). The result, instead of a ruined pot, was flavourful steamed veges. Behold, my horizons have been blasted wide open. The veges tasted great, it took less time to cook, and it didn’t burn my tongue as bad (as the combination of hunger, impatience and hot soup does to you. Every day. Damn it).
  3. Making your own skincare products is an attainable project. I’ve been learning about different oils and emulsifiers and watching James Wong’s Grow Your Own Drugs series, as recommended by the fabulous Eva. And I’ve found a website that seems to sell most of the raw materials and they ship them to your door step. And I’ve decided to chill more during weekends. It appears as if the stars are all aligned.
  4. Learning two languages at the same time is possible. Every day I spend at least five minutes each (sometimes more, depending on how much time I have) on Spanish and Japanese, on learning grammar, reading, listening or watching videos. While I do not think that my conversation in these two languages have improved much, comprehension and grammar are definitely improving little by little, by the day. Happy achievements: I finished the Duolingo Spanish tree and an entire Doraemon comic book in Japanese.
  5. Red wine with snacks and a movie with mi novio is nice 🙂 Some movies watched over the past few weeks, as we are the most outdated people ever, were: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Shawshank Redemption, Infernal Affairs (#1), Sepet, Le Dîner de Cons, Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Happy Together, Fallen Angels.
  6. Tailored thick curtains are fucking expensive.
  7. Cats can be hazardous to thin curtains.
  8. Glare of the morning sun through a huge gap in torn, thin curtains can be somewhat (unsatisfactorily) remedied by having an old t-shirt handy by the pillow to cover one’s eyes.
  9. Writing random things while procrastinating from writing work things is made more enjoyable by drinking mate. I’m about 50 words and one point away from making a 500 word ten-point list.
  10. One does not need to attain 500 words if one decides that one is happy with 467 words.