jonathan carter

Personal Updates – 2008-06-22

// June 22nd, 2008 // Free Software, Jonathan, Project Mayhem

Early last month, I blogged about changes that I’d like to see in my life. I received some questions via email from some people over the last week about them (and I appreciate that a lot), and thought I’d do an update, since it’s just a bit over half-way time-wise.

Current progress:

• At work: Stress levels have been greatly reduced, and it is going better. This might be due to an increase in staff, or a new project where things are going quite well. Either way, I’m not as stressed as I was a month and a half a go, and it’s great.

• MOTU membership: I’m continuing to learn at a steady but slow pace, not nearly fast enough to become a MOTU over the next 5 weeks though. I think this might be one goal that I’m going to miss, but the MOTU’s are really cool people. Several members have offered me assistance. I owe it to them to step up a bit, and I’ll have to make some further changes in order to do that (more about this a bit later in the post)

• Getting in shape: I lost 3KG’s, and gained 2KG’s again when I visited my home town last week! I think I lost most of that again, but in totality, I think I’m pretty much on target, and I’m satisfied with my progress here.

• Work through the Simply Guitar handbook/DVD: I’m just about on target here as well. I’ve actually done it, but I need to practise what I’ve learned so far a bit more and revise. I’m planning to go for guitar lessons in August. One of my previous colleges have also offered to give me lessons, I think I will take him up on that.

• Be less miserable: Oddly enough, this has been the easiest on the list. I can’t quite explain how, but since last week or so, I’ve just been feeling much better, and this just after I had a terrible flue. I guess I had some time to think a bit and make sense of the universe. I’d even go as far to say that I am happy at this stage.

There’s more…

• Change of Northern Base: For the last year or so, I’ve been staying on-and-off at a guest house in Jo’burg. It’s been good, but our offices have moved and driving out so far has become time consuming and a waste of money (considering our ever-rising fuel prices). Today, I moved closer to work, the guest house was about 33km from work, I’m now 7km from work. I’m actually staying on a cottage on a farm that feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere. There are actual sheep, bulls and cows walking around just behind my room here. If you told me a year ago that I would be living on a farm in Gauteng, I would have probably laughed at you . This still doesn’t mean I’m staying here permanently. Home will always be in Cape Town. I can literally leave here any day. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

• Going vegeterian: I’ve gone vegeterian a few times in the past, just for short bursts, typically for a few days to a week at a time, can’t really remember why. About two weeks ago I decided to go vegeterian, or at least try, and see how far I can get. So far it’s been quite easy, I’ve eaten fish one evening, and ate some beef on a sandwich that someone made me, but besides that I managed to stay clear (I did say that I will allow fish now and again, especially in the beginning). I’ve been told that most vegetarians are so either because of moral or health reasons. I guess I tend to lean to the moral side, but I really don’t want to make it a moral issue. I suppose that officially, I don’t really have a reason. Hopefully, living amongst all these animals will help me keep on track

Thanks for the motivation from everyone who commented on the last post (and who sent emails). I even got a comment from my dad, I didn’t even know that he read my blog! At least it proves that apostrophe abuse is heriditary