I have been running into the office from Finchley Road station in the mornings recently and last week I did 4 days on and one day off.

The route takes about 40 minutes to complete and even though its a little fresh in the morning, after part-way into the run, the cold disappears and you warm up quite nicely. I always find running help me de-stress, particularly when there is something new I have to contend with. Recently we've moved offices, I've had to get assignments in, understand how best to go about understanding/implementing a suitable design/code solution at work and all the while getting ready to go on holiday. 

So all of this sort of clouds my mind a little so it's always great to be able to have an outlet. Quite frankly running is a godsend. 

Speaking of outlets, the other is the gym, computer games and programming:

A change is as good as a holiday so I'll be doing a fair amount of running and programming while on holiday, only it will be different. I've got an 8-week course on C programming when I get back from holiday followed by an 8-week course on C++ in preparation for my game programming course in Sept. So I'm eager to get more C/C++ programming in while I'm on holiday. I hope to balance this with a steady running regime through the hills and valleys of the Drakensberg mountains. 

I started reading two Computer Science articles recently that I need to summarise, one being on the Italian banking industry and the other on assigning "business points" to your user stories. I must say, I've become rather bored with summarising, and analysing articles. This is why I think I'm going to enjoy my upcoming programming courses.

I went for a haircut today at my new favourite barber, in Sudbury hill, just off the station. They had the Ireland/Afganistan cricket match on the big screen and my barber had fixed the Australia/India ODI on his small iPhone 6 screen, propped up by trimmer accessories(I didn't even know Ireland or Afganistan could play Cricket at international level). Earlier, my mom sent me a text saying that she's watching the South Africa/Sri-lanka match. Most of this really was peripheral - same with the Rugby over the weekend that I watched. I wasn't concentrating on it. 

After my haircut (£8 for a skin fade), I popped into the gym for an hour and did a weakling-style workout. I've not been to the gym a lot and so, my body sort of is limp and not feeling powerful - but it's feeling pretty light and runny-like(hence all my running recently)

I watched the Lost City of Z which was quite interesting and then watched about 30 minutes of Noah before feeling too tired to watch any longer. Had breakfast at my pseudo-Italian dinner as-per-usual and not-as-per-usual I decided to have a coffee. I've packed a bit of stuff into a bag and I think I'm just about done really in terms of packing. I need to collect some gifts at the post office and at our old office and then head off to the airport.

I don't think I'll be doing much on the 10-hour flight as it all occurs at night and either I'll stay awake or I'll sleep(unlikely) but I will probably do something on the 8-hour bus journey from Johannesburg to Ladysmith.

Since Old school, bare-feet and gangsters, on Friday I decided to get off at Finchley road and run the rest of the way to work. As it turns out, running the route backwards (from Finchley instead of to Finchley) wasn't that tricky to navigate. The problem was that I was kind of hoping that my route would not be inaccessible at a certain point, specifically here while trying to get onto the canal route:

 So that meant I actually had to find another route and well, I got lost. 

I whipped out my trusty google maps and it told me exactly where to go and so I went and finally ended up at work at around 9:15 (I had battery woes on route which I'll talk about later...).

While at work I did work stuff and after work, I decided to go to the gym. So, after I got off the train at Uxbridge, I ran down to the gym and spent a good hour or so working out. I did shoulders. One of the nice things about working out late is that people actually tend to disappear around  19:30 which is great. I think I might do this evening workout routine more. I realised part way into my run to the gym that I'd left my card/cash in my apartment so I'd have to run back too (usually If I run in, I take the bus back). I figured that I didn't care that much that I'd have to run back and in actual fact, it would force me to run back. Nothing like having no money to take the bus - run! Anyway, I ran back pretty knackered but I was surprised to find my legs holding up remarkably well after all the running I'd done that day.

I ordered a new iPhone 5S battery as mine seems to become less reliable - halfway through my run to work, it just cut out and indicated that it needed charging. When I got into the office, I tried to switch it on(wishful thinking) and it actually turned on and reported to be a 64%. Dodgy. Anyway, this has happened to me a few times already and always at the most inopportune moments. So that's what prompted that. I also found that my watch strap broke so I ordered a set of cheap silicone replacements straps - 3 in fact. I figured that as my parents also have the same watch as me (I bought those last time), I'd get them a set of replacements too. I'm seeing them in just over 2 weeks now(Flu, fishes and flip-fops). These new straps have this cool little fastener which is basically a nob which hooks into the other side of the strap. no need or a clasp(which is actually the part of the strap that broke). These are the replacements (see the clasp mechanism)

As usual(thankfully) after a day of heavy exercise I slept very well and as it was Saturday today, I thought I'd have to get some studying in. I tried but I was so tired that I had to put myself back into bed because otherwise I'd just be zombified. Reading academic papers as a zombie is not fun. So after an hour or so of extra snoozing, I started again. 

The paper I was reading about interestingly enough was co-authored by an author I'd just finished reading recently - Mindset by Carol Dwecker(Remind me of a cartoon I used to watch called Dark Wing Duck who's sort of like Batman but is a duck, "Lets get dangerous!"). I also watched a TED video of her(Dwecker). It was kinda long paper and I had Seabiscuit playing in the background so I was half-listening and half-wanting to finish. As soon As I did, I decided to go to the gym again. There is nothing quite like doing something you really like doing after reading something that at times you feel you just have to read and then get out of the way. The current paper is a very psychological one. Tomorrow I'll do the Software Engineering coursework, which unfortunately is looking a lot like the psychological module ie lots of research-type reporting writing. I think I'll know the ins and outs of the Software Development Lifecycle and management after these modules are done. 

I'm very much looking forward to my computer games technology course starting in Sept time. Registration opens up in the summer but I'm already started to read up on my real-time programming facts and I've booked my spot. I started recently with a new book on Direct 12 and I'm currently investing time in developing my c++ library which currently only on has this in it: Measuring the duration of a function in C++. with a sprinkling of 3d classes in it. This course will be pretty hardcore so I'm going to get myself prepared.

Oh, and I got a new mouse. That is newsworthy because I use a mouse every single day and I need a back button and well, my mouse packed up. So I ordered this one and its great. It came yesterday and I got to use it for a good 30 mins before I was home time and as I said I wanted to go to the gym.

I took my Vo2 Max reading and it's at 60, I don't seem to get past that, I'll have to work out a lot more for that(Another cool feature of the 235).

 And for good measure, here are my 80's childhood cartoon intros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy3RTFFhSYs (He-man. Gummy bears, Teenage mutant ninja turtles, BraveStar, The Mysterious Cities of the gold,  Duckula, Ducktails - the rest of them I didn't really know).

Since being A little bit hazy for the past few weeks I think things are improving. I handed in my last two assignments which I think took a lot of umpf out of me.  I've been distracted from work recently by a new book I'm reading called Mindset, which has helped. It's. It's very similar to the last book I read which is mentioned here in Bounce: To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive. So this has been an interesting diversion. 

I'm still very tired in the mornings and I've not kept to my usual morning routines because of it,  which I suspect is because of lack of motivation. I'll need to sort this out. I have however kept up my weekly runs. Today I took a very casual run around Victoria Park, running with my new music playlist and being careful not to overstrain my leg, which has a slight niggle which is wearing off nicely(though tomorrow morning will really tell). I averaged a lot less than I suspected, 4:48 which is a good decent amble. I didn't race anyone today.

It's good to remember that running is about enjoying each moment and not relying on the first and last moments to fuel your enjoyment. So that's why I quite like running alone, I can pace myself such that I'm enjoying every single decision I'm making and not reacting to others. 

I bought a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle for my tablet because it only has a built-in 3.0 adapter and my Microsoft fold-up keyboard, while far superior to my Samsung one, requires 4.0. It took about a week for the dongle to arrive in the mail. The Samsung one is a bit iffy and it chews through battery like a Tasmanian devil. So, fairly happy with that.

I've been eating well but as I mentioned in A little bit hazy, something kicked me off my old routine and I'm not too sure what it is. I'm still part way through getting to grips with it really. 

I've been eyeing a new course in Computer Games Technology which I think I'd like to take in September, though I've already got a jam-packed curricular schedule and need to balance my sanity. I do need to get back to my extracurricular activities too, mostly around CMaking good progress with my C++ game library but so far the dense black fog has descended and I'm still waiting for the smoke to clear.

I found these new Chupa Chups lollipops which I've basically bought 3 packets of already and kind of in love with right now. I think my favourite one is the Cola flavoured one, which is strange because I've never liked cola very much to start with - I never drank coke growing up - now I do a little bit.

I've got my holiday coming up soon which I'm looking forward to, hopefully, the flight isn't too painful - I always say that I'll work on my laptop or read a book because I have so much time but I never do. It's just that I can't sleep or concentrate on a plane. They are horrible and wonderful things.

I don't like flying because if anything goes wrong, you're dead no questioned asked. That's not something you can try again or revisit and life is pretty great so why risk ending it? I know, yes yes the chances of the plane going down are 1 in like whatever but its that one chance that bothers me!

I did, after my run, try out a new special eco-friendly shower installed recently in our shared office space. Its a mixture of water and air produced to reduce your water usage. It was OK, but unfortunately, the temperature dial wasn't working so all I got was burn-your-skin-off mode. Which, to be fair reduced the amount of water that I used...

 Today's run, while not a crowning glory, was never meant to be: