#2
i thought i'd have a few of these by now...
It's been more than two weeks since my first exercise. Truth be told, I thought I'd get in at least two more exercises during my stay in Malaysia, what with my staying home due to illnesses and all. But alas, it didn't work out that way.
I've been back in London for slightly over a week now and trying to settle back into my routines. This last trip was the longest I'd been away from London since I became a working professional so much so that when I returned, I felt like I was in an alternate universe.
I remember entering my room after almost three weeks of sharing a bed with my sister and the first thought that ran through my mind was, “Is this my room? Has it always been this size?”. I couldn't tell if my room seemed bigger or smaller than before, I just felt it was different.
The same happened with the bathroom I share with my two other housemates. “Is this our bathroom? Really?”. Everything in this bathroom is white which is a contrast to my sister's bathroom that boasts red tiles all around, so that explains it.
I felt different, too. The last time I came back to London from Malaysia, I joked about how just by entering the vicinity of the city, I could feel the hot-temperedness and kiasuness re-enter my body. My mum didn't find it funny.
This time, though, I felt calm. It was probably lessons from The Halfway Point—a thoughtful gift of a book exploring the themes in Chapters 7 to 18 of the Quran from a dear friend—lingering in my mind as it was my read on the flight. My reflections on them aren't well-developed enough to delve into in this post, but they basically reminded me of me.
I remember telling myself that I won't let the bustling of the city to get to me anymore, that I'd stay calm and trust in God as I always have before.
One thing I'm very proud of about my return is that I didn't waste time to unpack my luggage. I took out all the food stuff the day I arrived, and I slowly made my way through the suitcase over my short working week until it was fully empty by that first Saturday.
A thorough spring clean of my room is overdue, though.
I have not gotten round to cooking yet, unfortunately (unless you call dipping soft shell crab—yes, I just found out you can buy them at Ichiba—in tempura mix, frying it and putting it together with kimchi and rice cooking). It's all about heating up the frozen murtabak and daging dendeng my grandma and aunty packed plus Western Chicken and Co-op-bought salad this past week for me.
Another thing I need to get back at is the gym. Oh, the gym. It's always a love-hate relationship with this one… I was confident to continue my Puregym PLUS membership with Holborn as my home gym as I did frequent that brunch during Ramadan. But now that I'm back, I'm starting to think I should've switched my home gym to Acton instead… That's alright, the gym is one of those things that's a constant trial and error.
I'll have you know that my delayed return has nothing to do with motivation. I was—am—still recovering from the cold/fever/coughs I contracted in Malaysia and I'm a firm believer that the gym should add to your health, not become the source for it. Meaning, you shouldn't go whilst sick.
Another bit I'm struggling with is just fitting in all my interests alongside everything else I've already got going on. Tell me why in this instant, I have one Kdrama I'm watching, a long list of saved Substack posts to read, a book that I just started and hope to finish this month, so many unopened TikToks in my inbox, an ongoing DataCamp course I need to continue, and like, just a gazillion Substack post ideas I have roaming around my mind???
Oh, and I have two ideas for books, too.
The only missing ingredient from this turning into a full-fledged nightmare is a loving, committed, long-term relationship (look at me trying to feel better about my recent breakup…). Remember that TikTok template of a woman unsure what to do with herself? Yeah, that's me right now.
I thought of jotting down these ideas in the meantime - the WhatsApp group where I send messages to myself, my Slack DM where I do the same thing, my phone notes app… The other night, I took a tiny step toward consolidating them all. I rewatched the YouTube tutorial on writing PhD notes on Obsidian that my friend sent me in October 2023 (yes, I checked the date on my history) but when I started to create the notes, I just had the impulse to type out an entire essay.
So that's not working… unless I want to do double work…
On top of that, I've got this Água Viva exercise I want to continue, my aspirations to journal and therapy homework that needs tending to. Yes, I started therapy!
As I was thinking about it this morning, a brilliant idea came to mind; I'll do my Água Viva exercises on the tube! I spend about 18 minutes on it in the morning anyway, seems like a good opportunity, eh? In fact, I started with this post, this morning. Sabrina Bahsoon dances with wind in her hair for TikTok, my friend uses that time to respond to all her WhatsApp messages (preferably only WhatsApp, because “iMessage messes up the order”), so maybe this will be my thing?
But ONLY on the journey to, because I need time to read Fundamentally, too. AND weekends are reserved for other Substack posts. Okay, sounds good.
As much as I want to adhere to the Água Viva principle of ‘writing in the moment’, I have to admit that I'd pre-organised some of the thoughts in this post while I was getting ready. What? I can't help it if my thoughts start flowing first thing in the morning but I'm bound to everyday duties like going to work. Ugh.
And while the Água Viva exercise specifies spending 20 minutes per exercise, again, my mind just doesn't know when to shut up. I'm actually finishing this off during my lunch break, while I stroll in the local park. It's a lovely day out.
