First day of a new year! While I’m not the resolutions kind of a person, I do believe that days like one’s birthday, and the last day of the year/first day of a new year provide good opportunities to do some quiet introspection and take stock of how we’ve changed over the past year, and try and make some course-corrections.

I wish every friend of mine a very nice year ahead, one during which they get to chase down all that they aspire for, to be inspired to do more, and to get to be better individuals, in every way. I rememebered a lesson on Socrates we had back in high school, where Socrates asks his protege Plato about the meaning of the oath they took when they served in the army, in particular, a line that goes thus (paraphrased): “We swear an oath to leave the world a better place than when we received it”. Whether we accept it or not, we bear an obligation to the generations to come, and I truly hope we can leave the world in a better state than we received it, or give our very best towards achieving it.

Personal reflection

On married life

In August of 2018, my wife Shruti finally got her Swedish residence permit, allowing her to move in with me. Since September, we’ve been with each other, for the first time since the brief time she spent with me in 2017, on a tourist visa. Since then, we’ve both been learning a lot, about each other, about life in general, and about changes. We’ve both lived on our own terms, and are both strongly opinionated individuals, but we respect and love each other, and are helping each other to grow and improve. She makes me want to be a better person, and I hope I do that to her too. I hope to be able to help her achieve her goals too.

New skills and hobbies

2018 was the year I spent a lot of hours practicing unicycling, and got quite good at it too. I’d wanted to be able to do a 90+ km ride on my 36-er unicycle by August 2018 (Roxen Runt); while I didn’t even come close, I managed to ride around quite a bit on the 20 inch unicycle, and practice free-mounting on the 36-er. I’d like to be able to continue practicing this year. I’ve lost most/all of the muscle-tone I’d achieved while practicing, and I’ll need to practice quite a bit to reacquire it, but that’s something I look forward to doing this year. I also spent quite a bit of time solving jigsaw puzzles. I solved a few on my mobile phone before switching to the real thing; I took a total of nearly 45 days to solve a 1000 piece Mona Lisa puzzle, but I solved it, and it was quite satisfying. I look to do more puzzle solving this year. 2018 was also the year I made a lot of progress with my Swedish; though I’ve been in Sweden for six years now (today is the sixth anniversary of my departure from India, and tomorrow is the anniversary of my arrival in Sweden!), I’d not really made much of an effort to learn Swedish. After my marriage, I decided to work towards learning it, so I could be of help to Shruti, who needed to learn the language if she hoped to land a decent job here. I started learning on Duo Lingo, along with her, and then started Swedish studies at the university. I cleared my A2 level, and am on my way to completing the B1-1 level. I’ve started to read comics and small novels in Swedish, in a bid to enlarge my vocabulary, and have now started to listen to audio books, in an attempt to improve my listening comprehension.

Friendships

2018 saw me making many new friends, thanks to the 2018 edition of the TransAm Bike Race that I followed with avid interest; it was fun tracking David Gates and a few more riders who I had had the pleasure of riding along in 2017, and a few more new riders. I spent a lot of time looking at ride data of riders like Louis-Eric Simard, Nishanth Iyengar, and Aaron Paul. Was gutted to hear about the demise of John Egbers, but consoled somewhat to see Susan soldiering on bravely. My Swedish classes were another source of new friendships. A religious function here in Linköping connected Shruti and I with a few Indian families, and that’s a source of a lot of happiness too. I had a bit of a falling out with a few friends too, in 2018, but I’ve made my peace with it now. I treasure the friends I’ve made and kept over the years.

Experiments with dieting

Post the TransAm Bike Race in 2017, I went into a bit of a rough patch, where I completely stayed off the bike, except for commuting, and in 2018, due to a combination of very little exercise and a lot of binge-eating of junk food, I registered my all-time highest weight at 74.8 kg. The weight was giving me self-confidence issues, as well as health issues, with pain in my lower-back. I did some research and realized that I needed to not only knock off the additional weight, but to do it in a manner which was sustainable; a life-style change instead of a slam-bang one that I’d find hard to stay on. I decided therefore to work on my eating, and try and lose as much or all of the extra weight, purely through a sensible diet. I was worried about keto which many of my friends were using to get really quick results, and decided instead to try intermittent fasting. The first few days were really hard, but I stayed on. Before long, I realized that intermittent fasting was never going to be a quick fix; if you cut the intake too sharply, you crash, and if you don’t restrict it enough, you tend to have too many ups and downs, leading to a very low net weight loss. I’ve been tracking my weight since September 16 2018, and have now lost 3.8 kg, but I’m now far more disciplined than I was, when I started, and on track to make it the first winter since 2013, where I’ve not gained weight over winter. I hope to lose more weight, and start the next spring weighing closer to my ideal weight. I hope to log in way more miles on my bikes in 2019, and see if I can improve upon my 2017 numbers (~9000 km).

Work

Some recognition for my work came in the form of an ESGF award, my third, in five years. While the recognition is nice to have, I realize the need to innovate constantly, in order to stay relevant, and look forward to taking on new and additional challenges in this year.