5 on Friday

1. Farewell dinner went well. I ordered Pakistan food, the origin of my friend who’s leaving. It was my first time trying it. I think it’s very similar to Indian food. We had two kinds of samosa, two kinds of biryani (chicken and lamb), lentil dahl, and another tomato based curry with lamb. We also had few types of naan, supplemented with some vegetables sides to cut the spice. The gathering was small, two locals, my friend from Pakistan, one colleague from Nigeria, and another one from Switzerland. We ate, chat, and laughed for almost 4 hrs. After the meal, we moved to matcha case, chocolate ice cream, and egg tart. What a great meal.

2. Everyone has a unique story. I learned about 3 people’s life stories this week. What fascinated me is that I would never imagined what they are going through if I don’t allow the opportunity for the conversation to go there, if we only chat about work. I also realize that we have less control than we think we have about our life course. Things happen as we are floating through a big river that takes us to places. Things rarely happen totally randomly. For example, one of the person’s partner, who studied English and Philosophy in Princeton, came to Indonesia to work in marketing. Then he met someone who’s close to a very powerful man in the country, and became his ghost writer for his biography. 2 years later, this person who was 27 years old, was diagnosed stage 4 lung cancer and quit his job (ghost writer) to go back to Germany for treatment. The person he was writing for paid all his medical bills, that he wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise. What are the chances???

3. We played indoor golf with my friend K. I introduced him to golf few months ago, range practice, and yesterday we tried playing 9 holes. We did poorly, both of us, but we had fun.

4. I had my first therapy session! I really like my therapist. She’s Indonesia trained in the UK. She said we don’t need to have weekly session, and gave me homework to track few things. I like her analogy of treating a physical disease. Mental health requires treatment, and there are different kind of techniques as there is no one fit for all. I am excited to get back to therapy. 🙂

5. I am adapting to high volume well. Slowly but surely my weekly mileage has increased to +40 miles. My legs are not longer sore after 3 consecutive of 8+ miles, I am recovering well, the runs feel easy, and best of all, I have no discomfort/pain on my hips/back as I had during the last cycle of training. I have 18 miles this Sunday, super excited.