Now

Last Updated: 2024/11/12

What I am doing or at least trying to do in various aspects of my life at the moment. In no particular order.

Running

Training myself to run a sub 20 min 5K again.

I’m employing extensive use of zone 2 type heartrate training. I run a 19:50 5K in 2022 and haven’t reached such great heights again.

However the result is not as important as the process. Not long ago I finally understood the constraints around what it takes to develop ones aerobic fitness. What I’ll achieve in terms of consistent weekly training and eventually races wil stand testament to my application of where my curiosity has led me.

At the moment I’ve run more this year than in the entirety of 2023 or 2022. I’m soon to catch up to 2021 which was my biggest year ever. In the first week of April I ran 87km in a single week, values above 70km is my goal for the months to come.

Weight loss

I’ve always been on the heavier side. My body’s natural disposition provides me with strength. I’m not lean by default but I’ve always wondered to what extent we can explore our setpoints? Although genetics plays a significant role, I believe the environment and how our genes are expressed is equally important. Perhaps how I view myself is only a narrative I’ve held from the moment one could be formed which was then based on conditions at the time.

Expressed simply, can I become lean and can I stay there? And if so can I remain being strong too?

From a peak of of 96kg in October 2023 I’m now down to 82kg in November 2024. My goal is 70kg which will place me just above the healthy BMI midpoint of 21.75.

Full Stack Development

My experience of the South African digital information space is that UI/UX is not taken fully seriously. Apps, whether native or web, are clunky, slow and not user friendly to the wide variety of diverse people many of whom are coming online for the first time. This experience is close to home as I observe my mother becoming acquainted with the digital world.

I also see Full Stack and App Development as a natural extension to my professional training as an industrial engineer. Digital services can help well designed systems function more efficiently. By decoupling a service from a physical location one can make it more available. South Africa in general is not good at this. I would like to contribute to the digitalisation of services here and in doing so treat newly minted netizens as first class citizens. To put it frankly there is very little development concern for non-English first language speakers from Africa nor for their African sensibilities and heritage.

I’m pursuing a course through Scrimba, finishing Harvard’s famous CS50, and working on full stack personal projects.

Pulling the Average

Ever heard that oft shared maxim that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with? And the same time you may have heard that when a billionaire walks into busy resturant the average (mean) wealth of each person skyrockets into the millions. Let me me clear when I say I find both ideas somewhat nonsensical and yet within them there is a certain truth to group social dynamics.

My aim is to be the “billionaire” that pulls the averages of multiple aspects in all the groups I am part of. Being a force of nature is arguabaly a natural part of my personailty, I’d like to use this unintented influence for good.

My first frontier is regarding personal health. I’m openly conscientious about my decisions to work on various aspects of my physical, mental, and emotional health. I fortuantely have not been a paragon in this regard, I am very human and thus subject to the averages. However I feel with intentionality I can swim upstream.

This teeters dangerously on the notion of superiority, that is expressly not the intention. My feeling is more along the lines of lead by example, and if I can do it then you can to. What is the difference? I believe it is in acknowledging and encouraging the effort of others no matter how small and praising their achievement within their context.

Khadiramina

Khadiramina, Tsonga for “my card”, is my first small project that enables iOS users to store their loyalty cards in their digital wallets. South African companies do not take feature expecting customers to carry a stack of loyalty cards. From what I’ve observed people forget their cards regularly and in some ways they serve little utility. However, Apple’s Wallet app can store them on phones and even have them be geographically aware. This project is a very small one but address in its very small way my goal of improving digital services here.

Rihanyo

Rihanyo, Tsonga for “health”, is iOS app that functions as health dashboard for observing weekly fitness trends. This is a project to also explore and understand working with SwiftUI and making an app for iOS devices. I feel in terms of health management it is the week to week to week trend that is underated. Daily is too specific and monthly is too broad. The idea is that it is tricky plan a whole month’s worth of fitness plans and stick to them but planning a week is more manageable.

Long term I’d like to enable an AI coaching function to consider recommended certain activities or notice when trends are improving, declining, or is one is beginning to take strain. I feel this is likely something Apple is working on.

Searching for work

I am simultaneously trying to find or create my own work. If you’re hiring or looking to collaborate let me know. I am particularly interested in opportunities that would bring me into Schegen Europe and in particular Finland. I am however genuinely open and also happy to work remotely across timezones.

Writing

I am simply aim to write more and enjoy the interaction that those who resonate (or disgree!) with my writing bring into my life. In my social circles I’m well known for writing the longest text messages and in person talking for hours and hours. If I have an upper limit I have not yet found it. This I’ve found is a lot for pretty much everyone and writing is more than a suitable substitute as it also helps to organise and develop thoughts.

Language Learning

It is a goal of mine to speak more languages. Like most first language English speakers it has remained the only language I’m comfortable in. I lived for a couple of years in Beijing and have some ability to communicate in Mandarin. I would like this to be better, much better. I have the dream of being able to Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem in original Mandarin. In this regard I’m studying Mandarin Chinese again.

Chinese however is the not only language I wish to learn. I am also learning Finnish. Many argue that it is not a useful language to learn but I argue that use is not the only criteria by which one should measure their interests. It would indeed be very useful living in Finland, or in my cas,e being partnered with a Finn. However, I do find it deeply interesting as it is has an unusual grammatical structure and I enjoy the way it feels on the tongue.

If my language ambition is not already too grand, I too wish to have some command of Japanese and Tsonga. Japanese as a matter of interest in the society and culture that I’ve largely only known from a distance but is one that I do find fascinating. Tsonga because it is my mother’s first language and one that I have never known her it. I would love to have a handle on the basics. Of all the languages here, Tsonga frustratingly has the hardest pronounciation for me and additionally has the least learning available learning materials. I may have to wait for AI enabled language tutors before ground can be made here.