Ruhee Dewji

August retro

I’ve long enjoyed Jenn “hotter and smarter” Schiffer’s weekly retro posts, so much so that I’m going to try doing them myself. I know myself, though, so I’ll refrain from labeling them “weekly” or “monthly” or any interval at all, lest I miss one and then worry the entire endeavour is irreversibly ruined. (I do suffer from perfectionism, why do you ask.) This one is mostly about the past month, though.

Anyway, having thought a little bit about doing this, the first thing I started doing on my walk to the waterfront today was take extra photos so that I could put them into my blog post, which is categorically something I’ve been trying to unlearn. Years in the social media mines trained me to see every pithy thought or every halfway interesting photo as Content, and I hate it—I don’t want to fall back into that trap.

Since I took them, though, here’s one:

A view of a waterfront pathway with the water on the right and some trees changing colour flanking the path

I took a break

In July I quit the job I’d been at for four years and change, and I had a little over a month to do absolutely nothing before starting my new job. This was the longest break I’d had since 2016, when I got laid off and then delayed my new start date by a few weeks. Most of what I did fell into a few buckets.

Not enough of this involved “making stuff”, other than doing some recording which I really enjoyed (coming soon). I’d like to spend some more time in the next few months on that, especially:

I did do a few things I’m really proud of, and the number one thing was achieving a new deadlift PR for the first time since 2019: 205 lbs (about 93kg). My brain defeated me on this lift multiple times over the years—I’ve successfully deadlifted 200 three or four times, both sumo and conventional, but kept failing 205. Based on the 5- and 3-rep PRs I set recently, 205 is not my actual max, and considering how fast it went up this time, I’m right.

Mirror selfie with deadlift bar

Transitions are hard

I started my new job this week, and while I’m really excited about so many parts of it, it’s still going to be a tricky transition. Change is something I like and appreciate but have a really hard time adjusting to. I’ve already freaked out a few times about whether I made a mistake (nothing at NewJob has suggested this, and everything at OldJob indicated it was time to go; it’s just how my brain goes about things, which is, frankly, quite rude). I need to be better about recognizing this as part of my usual process, and allowing space for it, rather than treating it like some aberration I have to squash.

Also, it turns out a month off doesn’t magically cure your burnout completely! Did anyone else know this, what a shocker, etc.

I don’t know what these posts are for yet

This one’s a little general, but that’s fine.

I did consider calling them Weeknotes, and maybe I still will, but I think I’m going to be even looser with them (including the time frame). I dunno! Maybe I’m just copying Jenn, which is fine actually. See you next UNDETERMINED_TIME_INTERVAL.

Some stuff I liked recently