October: renewed mental energy

Inspired by what happened last few days, I feel energized mentally for upcoming months. Physical energy is low as I’m in the peak of marathon training and constantly feeling tired as norm. Yet, I’m intellectually reinvigorated and have a clear direction and goals in coming months.

1. I attended a seminar on the 80 years history of Brazil and my work, done by a lawyer by day and historian on free time. His story telling based on historical events, personal interviews, and archived documents made me realize how much I would learn reading up about my most interested question of my profession. After he finished I went to ask IA to prepare me a reading list, à la curriculum style, with my interest and academic and work experience, tailored made reading plan for the next few month. I’m super excited to do this pet project, pure personal enjoyment, and maybe illuminating for my work.
2. I am on a mission to find a job for a mentee that I started to mentor 8 years ago. He’s finally finishing his PhD, pushed by me persistently, and ready to finally pursue his dream job. I feel passionate about supporting him as he’s the most talented young man I came across since my professional life. It gives me immense joy to witness his growth. I don’t know if I’ve shared the story here before. I kind of liked him, or fell in love of him in a no romantic way, since the first sight of him, on an interview for a short term job. I don’t know what was it, his way of looking me back, shy and humble and a bit scared, or his bear like manner, I just liked him and turned the interview into a formality. Yet, he continued to impress me with his work, and along the years, I’ve determined to support him and guide him.
3. At the personal level, I’m on a mission to tutor Lizzy for an exam. Her accuracy has increased from 60% when we started over a month ago to over 90% consistently. I’m so proud of her and we target to do the actual exam this month. What I feel most proud of is turning our daily practice into a routine instead of a struggle. It’s our “study date” moment. Sometimes it’s 20 min as she finishes quickly and scored above 90%, sometimes are few hours as we learn new concepts. We are turning this routine into comfort.
4. A key goal this month is to get to New York without injury. One person that I know, sub-3 hours runner who has signed up for the race got injured and won’t be going. I am doing everything I can to preserve my injury-free body while still tuning up to best performance (finish with a big smile) possible. More than afraid of the race day, I am more concerned about the taper weeks. I am not very good at that but will remind myself to trust the process.
5. October is also our anniversary, we are not big into celebration and will probably celebrate either going to the gym or massage. I actually already found our/my favorite date format, going to the gym together!!!
6. Final goal, I want to read another long book, fiction. I like the comfort feeling of going back to the same characters for a long time.