So let me tell you real quick about invariance: You do something, then you go back to how you were after you do that work. That's invariance, well according to my recent reading on building software. Its an abstract idea. The thing about invariance is that the underlying principle to it is that you always return to the state you were in before. I like that, it's silly but I kinda think that how honesty works - you should revert to how you are. I know it's vague but there you go.

I ran into the old woman who used to be my neighbour in my previous residence this morning. I saw her and I stopped and said hello on my way to the local tube station. Sometimes we forget to be human, especially when enveloped by the business of everything around me. You need to say hi how you doing, have a nice day - that sort of thing once in a while to relative strangers. I like that. I started running last night. I had been on a hiatus for about a week more than I expected. The snow added an extra week to my running rest week so it's great to be back. The nice thing about running is that it's also very personal(well primarily), and you can't escape your body, you're with it the whole time, and you become to be friends with it and understand it, endue pain with and use it to see things: running is really great. Plus, seeing London at night in the lights is as always, lovely. I took a week off, a weeks ago and rested - I've been playing around with more projects that I've started, been enjoying these, adding the code to my portfolio as I go. Been writing up some project ideas and saving them and then coming back to them intermittently. Like the guy at work said, It's all about going through the creative constructive and reasoning process when realising an idea and finding familiar things. My birthday was a few days ago, I bought myself a haircut and went for a walk into town. 26 years, that's really a long time. Been watched the entire Blade trilogy on TV after work - it's a pretty great cool action sci-fi series. I have them on DVD. The thing about my DVD selection in my draw next to the TV, is that I buy DVDs only that I know I like to watch more than one or twice - that way when I open up the draw, I'm pretty impressed with what I got to watch. Simple really but I'm trying to limit my physical items so buying online and storing on hard drive is the way I'd like to move. You know, I'm really enjoying my flat recently, or im just reminding myself recently how nice the space feels. Cleaned my flat last week and it's been as if I've been living somewhere else for the past few weeks! While I was off, I thought it would be good to manage my space better in my room. I went to Argos and bought and assembled a storage unit with shelves and hanging space. I had to reassemble it twice at various stages during construction because I wasn't paying attention.

It looks real good now and works great: I have more space. I also bought a hanging rack which is on wheels so I roll my jackets and suits around the flat easy to where its most convenient and that's also good. I was thinking about people the other day, while crossing the road, how everyone really must live their own lives, by their own goals and wishes but sometimes I think people don't, they never go and get these goals and they rely on people around them to feel ok. They get caught up with other things. My passport is still with the government and I will not be able to fly to South Africa. It's really cold during my lunch breaks and I find myself drinking more hot drinks, coffees especially without sugar. Handed in my next assignment 2 days ago, it took me the whole weekend to do. I'm glad I started well before because I can't wing it anymore with these assignments - they are just too long and there is just too much study material to go through. It's time consuming but it's very useful because I like to learn. I have a respite now, of perhaps another few weeks before needing to do it again. But It's ok, I've learnt about some pretty interesting things: invariance, binary search trees, sets, sequences, forms of data : quite abstract concepts but abstract understanding is the foundation I feel to forming concrete implementations. But whatever, right?

I think London has made a harder person than I ever was before. For instance, less things bother me than they used to: I don't mind if someone gets angry, not specifically at me but just generally - I'm less sensitive, some might say that it's a good thing. Usually I would get sorta uptight or uncomfortable with the distress of someone. That's less of the case I think now or maybe I'm more aware of what distress is worth worrying about and what isn't and perhaps this is good? I kinda worry that I'm not becoming numb to it or loosing my sense of caring but I don't think so, I'm more aware now.Like if someone is frustrated and it's evident but i know he/she is silly, I'm more able to let someone else 'deal' with it. Also, I'm not as worried about other stuff too as i used to be. There is no doubt I'm stronger, less afraid and more confident. I might just be more different in this way than before. I worry about different things now but thats ok. The thing is, there are so many people and attitudes in London, you can't facilitate everyone all the time or I think you'll pop. It's like in that song/article, "wear sunscreen" where it says you should live in New York once but leave before it makes you hard and live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. That's kinda how I see London, a learning process. You can be gracefully friendly, self accommodating and never rude. Beyond that, life is yours - let everyone who's an adult deal with theirs.

Before I had my haircut I had some fun styling my longer hair and putting it backwards, using Gel and it was, erm, well diffirent: I looked like a little gangster or a little banker. I saw this guy on the train, he was a geared up cyclist and I'm thinking maybe I should ride. Dunno about that, never really considered it until now, for some odd reason. I guess I think that cycling allows you to bypass trains: I still catch the train from Waterloo to Wimbledon after my run. And also, it maybe that what's most appealing is that the entire journey is by yourself - you're in touch with your journey, in the drivers seat. That's appealing.

The thing is, don't expect anyone to help you get there, you get there yourself. That's true about running too. That's true for everything I think.

Yesterday I woke up late. You know, recently I've been spending a lot of my weekends, especially Sunday waking up late. I felt like reading, I guess, because I walked to town and straight into W.H Smiths in Wimbledon. I surveyed the wealth of magazines on display to read. It was like looking into a colourful garden - there were so many different magazines across a plethora of topics. I saw computer ones, but I didn't feel like one of those, I saw body building ones, lifestyle, sport, gossip and music. I took a running magazine, looked at the front cover, thought about it and then took it to the automatic tills. I casually scanned in the barcode, placed it in the bagging area and payed for it. Actually someone left their credit card in the machine before me. I handed it in.

I strolled, magazine in hand, up the hill to Wimbledon Village and became conscious of my easy stride patterns but didn't change it as it felt good and it was calming. I evaluated each coffee shop as I passed, I only passed two though. I was looking for an empty seat to read and drink a latte. I like lattes, I found one(a seat), sat down, took off my coat and put down my stuff and went up to the counter to order my drink. After that I sat and read for about an hour. In that hour I had noticed 3 people arrive and leave the table next to me. The lady that served me left, holding the door open for a customer before she left - end of her shift. A father and two children arrived and left, other people came and went. I just sat there noticing.

It was a good magazine. I had finished my coffee 20 minutes ago and it was getting late - I wanted to go for a 6km run before it got too dark. I walked home, thinking about the way my foot hits the ground when I run. I thought about that while I was running too. I aimed to land on the front part of my foot each stride I took as I ran through the clear darkening night. Headlights shone on me as I ran alone aside the road. It's quite difficult to consciously land on a specific part of your foot each time. I wore a thin running jacket - I don't normally do that but I was feeling cold and that's because it was dark. I finished 30 minutes later at 17:00 and as I past the shops in the town near the end of my run, I realised how all the shops where still open and it wasn't at all as late as I thought it was. The barber sign was still outside the shop, on the walkway. That meant that it was still open. It was a Sunday. It was a good run. I think I landed on the front part of my foot most times but I got tired near the end so probably didn't do it enough then. I glanced at my running watch occasionally when I ran, specifically when I started feeling tired. It's good to know what your body is saying about how you are feeling. Usually at around 90%-97% of my maximum heart rate, is when I'm running hard and I start to feel it. I've never seem myself at 98%-100% of my max heart rate. I then steady the pace at about 80%-89% and usually stay within this range most of the distance.br

Sometimes I forget about it: my heart rate, and just run and I forget about my legs and about my watch and about my shoes and they disappear, all but the regular semi-silent breaths of gushing air swooshing quietly in and out of my mouth. It's at these times that I can look around. I notice the houses that I pass, the cars parked in their drive ways, the faces of people I pass by. It's like dreaming, maybe like sleeping or swimming.

I remember as a child swimming in pools and swimming to the bottom and lying there on the bottom feeling like I never needed to breath again under water. It's real quite underwater. That's how i think running should feel like.

I finished my first Hemmingway book the other day which I'm slightly happy with. The book was entitled, "Men without Woman". It's a collection of short stories. Probably a good way to introduce an author is to get a flavour of different stories by the author.

Anyway, I just past my stop twice. I'm at Angel and the previous stop was Old Street, both are not Moorgate and that's where I need to be.

It's real cold in the afternoon now, about 14:30 and I have to keep my coat on while I write. Fingers are cold, but they soldier on. I was thinking more about Ernest Hemingway today. He said that he wrote about what was true and honest. That's a good thing to do. I like people to be true and honest. Sometimes people aren't clear and simple as they could be.

I was watching this documentary on TV last night. It was about Black Rhinoceroses. It said that Black Rhinoceroses are well known to be anti-social. That was interesting. I like Black Rhinoceroses more now than I did before. There was also this program which showed how an emerging city was being built completely from the ground up to be energy efficient, aiming to eliminate waste and utilise the power of the sun as the primary energy source. The city is in the Desert. There won't be a need for cars either.

So I picked up this booklet today from this guy outside South Wimbledon tube station this morning. It's about Maum meditation. Opened it up, and read the first 2 pages. It says that two worlds exist. The true and the false. It says if you learn and follow the ways of the true world, you avoid the false life in reality and in death and basically there is more after death. The false life is unconscious and well, you just die when you die - you don't pass and collect £200.

So I was thinking, based on that, shall I read the rest of the booklet? And I can so why not, right? So I did. Didn't hurt, didn't change my mind but still didn't hurt.

Anyway, my point today is how the hell do they know what ones actions in reality will lead to in death? No ones been back out of death, not ever Jesus entered the record books way back when he rolled that stone away and emerged from that cave. Stuff was happening in his time, not so much cool now as it was then. Anyway, are we all to believe that even though no ones come back out from death recently, specifically to tell us about it, people think they know all which way about it? One way or the other, when it comes down do it, it seems all things like this boil down to one of two things. 1. Do you or don't you want to be convinced about something.

So, I've been reading Ernest Hemingway recently. His short stories. They're short, let me say that that real quick. So quick and they have mostly abrupt endings. In fine with this, except for the abrupt endings. I figure, each story was going to be a full novel but then he got bored real quick. So, it became a shirt story. That's how short stories sometimes are born, I guess. I like his writing. The thing about Hemmingway is, well, he killed himself. How defeatist. I was reading up on this last night and apparently scientists think they've discovered a gene that makes you more likely than most to commit suicide. It's got something to do with depression. 4 others in his family also commuted suicide. Thought that was pretty interesting albeit pretty morbid stuff for a Thursday morning. But that said its a good Thursday morning.

Yesterday was pretty good, just generally. I fixed an issue in the code that was real sneaky. That got me off - I get kicks out of that stuff, figuring stuff out and reducing complexity. Got to use my new headlight to replace the neighbours kitchen light yesterday(while in darkness) so way-to-go for me. Been tinkering with some code out of the office recently which has kept me awake and out of sleep for a while now, especially over the festive season. Changed my hairstyle, went for the slick hair back look. The dude in the office said it was my slick banker look because that's apparently how bankers look. Whatever . Actually the look is partially inspired from the character, Beezlebub in Constantine. I like it plus it makes me look like a real wise-guy. Everyone commented positively on it, so onward and upwards. I don't care really.

So watched Shallow Hal recently on recommendation. Enjoyed it. Had a movie marathon over Christmas and New Years in between all my coding. God, I love coding.