This Week

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Life

I caught up with a friend who I haven’t seen in forever, which was awesome, went to see Anchorman 2 with another, and met up with someone new – which was nice. My friend Dave took me to see American Psycho, the Musical. I also had a long hangout catching up with a friend from O-town, which was lovely.

By the end of the week, I was completely social-ed out and retreated to the gym for some quality Cate-time. It was nice to make time for that, though, long gym sessions have been rare with the amount of flitting about I’ve been doing. I got in a bunch of cardio, went swimming 3 times, and did an anti-gravity yoga class (yay for hanging upside down) and also a regular yoga class, which sucked because the instructor was awful (1. warn people before adjusting them, 2, don’t be so forceful they fall over). But I really think however much I hate the yoga class itself, I’ll be better off if I can develop a 1-2x a week habit. So I’ll keep working on it.

Turns out, 3 months of hotel dwelling and constantly moving and I’m hitting my limit, it has been starting to get to me! And I hate this time of year. I think some of my friends also find it hard, and I hate it when I feel like everyone I know is unhappy. I don’t think this is actually the case, but I definitely need to start drawing lines about how much of other people’s emotions I’m going to take on.

Continuing my quest to try and learn to like London by taking pictures and appreciating things.

Work

I did an amazing training course with some other women from work, and also met even more female engineers on an outing, which was great. There are a lot of dudes around, and I miss the other female engineers in Sydney, so it’s helpful to work on a network here. I have to follow up in the New Year and have lunch with them.

Finally, I started on my new team! Exciting, as I made my first server side Java change. I’m taking a bit of a departure in terms of technologies, but I think this is a good thing. I’m scared, but looking forward to broadening my horizons there.

Places

Spent more time in London this week – Sunday to Sunday, so more time to explore. I stayed at the Millennium & Copthorne hotel at Chelsea football club – weird location in the football grounds, terrible toiletries (no conditioner!), but otherwise comfortable. I also spent a night the Thistle Marble Arch, which was a bit shabby with too many screaming children in the lobby areas, but great location, comfortable bed and excellent wifi. They were also really nice when I showed up early to check-in, with a choice of an upgrade (but to a twin room) or to a room without a bath (turned out to be an accessible room).

Great luck with restaurants this week, with work events I went to The Old Explorer (pub food, fine), and BB Bakery (afternoon tea! Lovely cupcakes). I went to Wahaca, different and less busy branch than Covent Garden (always tasty), checked out Jamie Oliver’s Popup diner (reasonably priced, bit heavy for my taste but good, love the dinosaur-centric decor), Cocochan (amazing, best Asian food I’ve eaten in London yet, bit pricey but I got a great 30% off Foursquare deal). For weekend brunch, I went to Bill’s as I was feeling homesick for Sydney, which was fine but the scrambled eggs are nowhere near as good as in Sydney, so that didn’t really help! And unexpectedly had an amazing breakfast at Sofra – after not finding the restaurant I was actually looking for – they bring out toast with honey and clotted cream – amazing.

Media

American Psycho, the Musical which was bizarre, and dark, but quite wonderful (The Doctor, Matt Smith, was quite off-key at times, but very, very sexy).

Anchorman 2 was ridiculous, unrealistic, and horrifyingly offensive. The cinema was full of people laughing their heads off. Yes, I’m back in the UK. I enjoyed the escapism.

Nearly at the end of Brothers and Sisters season 2, Still loving it, still great motivation for getting to the gym.

Read Take a Look At Me Now by Miranda Dickinson, which was… infuriating. I started off finding it funny that it was set in San Francisco, where no-one has an apartment that big (ha! A single person with a spare room!), and people are not that friendly, in 8 weeks our protagonist never met an obnoxious tech worker. As if! But as the story unwound I just found the obstacles and rationalisations contrived and unconvincing. Maybe I’m just too darkly cynical for trashy novels at the moment, or anything with a happy ending.

I finished The Power of Habit. Really good, I’ll write it up soon, and started on The Male Factor which so far seems set to be a confronting, angering, but ultimately helpful look at the game that is on.

Links Amazon.

Published

On The Internet

When population booms, so does death – “China’s largest funeral provider is trying to make death a luxury event”
Online dating sites “do not always improve romantic outcomes; indeed, they sometimes undermine such outcomes.”
These pictures are beautiful and weird – “What in God’s name could there be on the horizon?”
It’s a lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who’s been conditioned by our society to accept it /by @arikia
Oddly fascinating, “Pornhub Traffic Trends Driven by Worldwide Events“
This – optional commitments come out of time for Deep Work
So weird! Freakishly realistic telemarketing robots are denying they’re robots
Good stuff to think about in this article on designing for mobile
I love this sign about meetings
Ooh, I love these lights, shaped like drops of water
Handy tips for cutting costs in 2014 (helpful, if like me you’re now paying even more rent – aii!)
What is too hard? A mood. A story. A feeling of never having finished something because there was no finish line.
Article about R Kelly and the unfortunate girls he abused. I will never be able to listen to his music again.
Rawr – from possibly my favourite blog, un homme et un chat
Love this “The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment.”
Oh this is amazing – When Life Hacking is really White (male) Privilege /via @mipsytipsy
There is early bird pricing on the amazing @Jo_Miller‘s 2014 Women’s Leadership Webinars until December 31 – http://womensleadershipcoaching.com/webinars
This escalator UI is such a fantastic idea.
This is funny, what writing a book is like. Maybe why everyone thinks they want to but few people do?
Euww, this is super creepy – essentially how VR could help guys pick up women. With gratuitous Ferrari.