My Move to Vegetarianism

It’s been over a month since I made the switch to vegetarianism. There have been many reasons why I did this, but I guess the biggest reason for me is that I want to raise my standards for myself. I’m interested in what will happen to my personal energy levels, and hope that in another month’s time it will have been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

There are many who advocate a move to vegetarianism. Two of the biggest influences for me have been Steve Pavlina, a Personal Development blogger and a great inspiration to me over the past few years, who has since made the shift to a raw food diet (not happening for me any time soon, I’m afraid), and Tony Robbins, who’s probably the most energetic person in the entire world. In particular, Robbins continually promotes a vegetarian diet in his books and tapes, and I certainly can’t argue with the results he’s obtained!

Simply put, any doubts you might have over whether vegetables can provide enough fuel for the body must surely disappear once you see the guy in action. His energy levels are through the roof, and at six foot eight, there’s a lot of him to move!

But there’s no point in talking about the potential benefits from a health perspective, nor reading up on it, since there are so many sources on both sides. The only way I can see whether the diet works is to try it, and so I’m doing that right now. At the moment, I haven’t noticed much difference. I’m feeling more drowsy these days, but I don’t put it on the diet at all, rather my lack of sleep.

The other major reason for making the switch are the vast numbers of environmental reasons for doing so. It prompted me to make a speech about it recently. One person making the change won’t make any difference to our environment. In fact, if I care so much about the environment, I might as well just kill myself. However, I believe that a diet consisting of factory-bred farm animals is clearly damaging the environment more than Al Gore or any meat eating environmentalists would care to admit, and this change is by far the biggest shift that needs to take place if the climate crisis is going to ever be solved.

All the statistics will support the shift to a predominantly plant eating society, the standout one for me is the 100,000 litres of water that goes to produce a mere 1kg of beef. It demonstrates above all the unsustainability of the sheer amount of meat we get through. For a further reference check out this TED video from Mark Bittman. We cannot keep eating this much meat as a society. I thought that statistic alone might have made a difference with my speech, but sadly I was mistaken. For me however, that statistic was what finally persuaded me to try.

I guess that just leading by example will hopefully encourage others to try at least. That’s all you can ask of anyone. People I’ve spoken to have been pretty defeatist about the whole vegetarian thing, not that anyone seems to care anyway. But they simply say: “Nah, I couldn’t do that,” without even having given it a shot. I would probably have said the same thing in the past, seeing as I adore meat, so I can’t really blame them. But once you do try, you might find it to be easier than expected – I certainly have.

I won’t pretend that being a vegetarian is at all convenient, least of all in an apartment in which cooking is practically impossible. Vegetarianism is after all, a reduction of the available food choices you have available. But it’s been surprisingly easy to stick to it, and I know that if enough people do make the change, then it will become a lot more convenient in time. If there are enough people who are vegetarian (I’m curious to know of the current percentage of the population that are), then the same restaurants that aren’t really providing enough in the way of vegetarian choices will be forced to do so. And what they’re currently doing in the way of meat substitutes is pretty good too. It will all get better with time, I’m sure.

It’s by no means set in stone at this time, and those burger cravings will be hard to avoid, but it is looking good. I made the change slowly, first eliminating beef around two months ago, then finally making the change after Dragon Boat.

Ultimately, such a switch is a personal decision, and one I wouldn’t try to force anyone into. Yet I urge anyone reading this to consider it at least. Read up on it as much as you can, and make an informed decision about whether you’ll continue to eat meat, and not simply continuing to eat it because everyone else is.

Euro 2008 and Wimbledon

Euro 2008 recently finished, and I’m glad that Spain won.

I managed not to watch a single match in this tournament, which sort of makes a mockery of my claim to be a football fan! I know that if I were back in England, I would have watched almost all of the matches, but with the late matches here starting at 2.45, almost the worst possible time, I decided against watching any of them. Particularly with England not being present, the tournament held little interest for me, and I would have had to make special trips to bars or pubs here to catch the games.

I maintain that I will only watch matches involving the Mighty Arsenal, and otherwise, I’ll only watch the more important games, such as the recent Champions League final, which are kindly repeated by the broadcasters here.

Instead, I took to watching Wimbledon, and tennis for me has always been the more obviously entertaining spectator sport. I can’t quite explain how football has this stranglehold over the worldwide audience, and for me, it’s somewhat down to the build-up of tension that other sports can never really match. But in matches that don’t involve teams that I care greatly about (such as the Euros), football often falls short on an aesthetic level. (Having said that, reports have shown Euro 2008 to be one of the best tournaments in recent years. Don’t ask me, I wouldn’t know.)

It’s down to the lack of teams these days that are willing to play the beautiful game as Pele intended. We have Chelsea, Liverpool, the direness that is the Italian national team as three teams that demonstrate that playing dirty and boring brings results. And on the other side, we have Arsene Wenger, stubborn to a fault, determined to play sexy football, and unfortunately for the neutrals, not bringing in the trophies for Arsenal. That’s why I’m in one sense glad that both Manchester United and Spain managed to prevail this season, as their players are always trying to play more entertaining football.

Tennis on the other hand, is generally a lot more beautiful to watch. We’ll leave the women out of it, as the ladies tournament is clearly a fashion tournament masquerading as a professional sport. In fact, the women’s game is excruciatingly bad to watch, and it’s no wonder that the Williams sisters made it again, since the other players are a complete disgrace as professional athletes. Even the top players manage to double fault almost consistently given any sort of pressure. It’s horrible that in Taiwan they only seem to feature the Chinese players on the women’s draw, since the men’s game is always of a far higher quality.

The men’s final between Roger Federer, five time Wimbledon champion, and Rafael Nadal, his closest rival, was absolutely thrilling and one of the most incredible sporting events I’ve ever seen. It was nail biting sports at its greatest, a wonderful twisting final that could so easily have gone either way (and repeatedly did). While I did expect Nadal to win, especially after the first set, I was hoping for Federer to somehow show his class and scrape a victory. He almost did, coming back from two sets down in two of the most nerve racking tie breaks in history, but Nadal held his nerve to claim the victory he deserved.

It’s incredible that despite still being just 26 years of age, and still the world number one, we’re almost talking about Roger Federer being finished. But the intensity and aggression in his play was never quite there. Federer is an incredible champion, and at his best he elegantly glides around the court like a tennis God, making the impossible look effortless. Undoubtedly, he will be remembered as one of the all time greats. But what seemed to be his destiny – to be remembered as the greatest is now in doubt, not least from the player who has just beaten him – still only 22.

After years of dominance, he finally has a rival in Nadal who not only has come of age, but who has developed a playing style that is perfectly tailored to counter him. Nadal isn’t afraid to change his game to beat Federer, but is Federer prepared to do the same? I felt really sorry for Federer during the game – he generally uses his elegant single handed sliced backhand to move his opponent around the court, to buy himself time to unleash his huge forehand. But against Nadal, it was practically useless. I felt sorry for a guy, whose only weakness (and it barely qualifies as a weakness) was being exposed again and again, with backhands hitting the net time and time again throughout the match. It very much looked like Federer was a one dimensional player, relying on his serve and forehand, and this is inconceivable for a player of such infinite talent.

Federer is undoubtedly the superior grass player, and if he is able to rebuild his game, I really hope to see him win at Wimbledon again. Critics and fans are beginning to doubt him, but should Federer come back and win the US Open, and retain his Number One ranking, eclipsing Pete Sampras is very much within reach. I’m really looking forward to seeing this unfold – to see the previously unflappable Federer have to fight for his right to be remembered as a great. The ball is in his court.

Physical Goals

I thought I’d arrange my next physical goal, as I’ve really lost a lot of focus since Dragon Boat finished.

There are actually going to be two goals, as I want to bulk up as well as become fitter – not the same things.

I currently weigh just under 70kg, and I want to get that up to 75kg by the end of the year. That means I have to put on 1kg of muscle every month. Sounds a little unrealistic, I must say, but I have to try it out for the first month at least, to see how much of a change is realistic at all. This goal isn’t permanent – I know that these sorts of gains are possible, but I know that there are significant barriers to my achieving it.

Even though this goal might be unrealistic, I know that aiming for an unrealistic goal might give me better overall gains than to stay in my comfort zone. E.g. even if I put on only 3kg, it would be better than just aiming for 2kg and hitting it.

The second goal is to run the Taiwan International Marathon in December. This is also a six month goal. I don’t find running too boring, but running is difficult because it really requires that you keep improving week on week, as otherwise you’ll find the jump in distance difficult to make up. It reminds me in that sense of the programming, which I’m currently having trouble with. But if you take it slowly, you can make really nice encouraging progress. I know that six months is enough to prepare for the marathon, and I ran five miles earlier this week, which is a good start, along with three more runs of 30 minutes.

There’s a risk that these two goals are sort of against one another. Cardio, especially heavy cardio as it will be, soon enough, causes weight loss, my other goal is to gain weight. This is a definite problem, but since inertia is the biggest problem of all, for now, I don’t mind!

C10 Speech Complete! My Journey to Competent Communicator

I completed my C10 speech last Friday, and it feels like a huge weight off my shoulders. Looking at the new title I’ve been given, Competent Communicator, the title given to a Toastmaster who has completed his first manual of ten speeches, I still feel like I’m anything but competent!

I had a lot of fun delivering my C10 speech though! About three or so minutes from the end, I forgot my lines, and so I was winging it completely. I felt some sort of rush the whole time, a knowledge that I was about to be found out at any moment! No-one could tell that I forgot my lines, so I’m pleased with my performance. I don’t for a second condone my lack of preparation, but it was a welcome change from the usual struggle to complete my speech on time.

I think that as a result of forgetting my speech, my execution was more natural this time around. On the whole however, my speech lacked a bit of focus. With the struggle with programming, I didn’t allow myself enough time to program. It was a sort of ‘generic inspirational speech’, but since I was winging my inspiring conclusion, it really lacked the impact I was hoping for.

I’m looking forward to a small break from Toastmasters. I have to wait a while for my new Advanced Manuals, so maybe I’ll be able to take part in some more Table Topics contests (I’ve only done about three and they were all awful).

The thing I’m most pleased with is that I reached my goal of completing my CC certificate by June. There were times when I really didn’t think that this would be possible, so somehow I feel like I’ve excelled myself. It’s sort of a nice inspiration for me because it demonstrates that setting a clear goal brings you 90% of the way to achieving it. The rate at which I attained CC, less than six months, is faster than most other people within Toastmasters, but I’m still hoping that I can get even more experience. I’m having a little trouble coming up with speech topics, however, and as I set such high standards for myself, it’s definitely something that is holding back my progress.

The knowledge that I can go up on stage and deliver an ad libbed speech, is a comfort to me, as it means I’ll be able to take more risks in speech preparation and hence get more vital stage experience. I think my new target will be to finish ten more speeches by the end of the year.

Toastmasters has been a great experience and has been a wonderful place to grow and build confidence that enters into other areas of my life. I feel like I’m building some sort of momentum. Getting to C10 is a huge relief, and a nice milestone for me. As I said in my speech, it’s exciting to see how far I’ve come, but even more exciting to imagine the speaker that I will become in the future.

Programming Goals

Programming was a struggle last month. I put in only around 25 hours, which is pretty pathetic, less than an hour a day on average. This must improve, but I want to see if I can enjoy the process a lot more this month. If I don’t ever enjoy programming, I’ll never be able to make it as a programmer!

First, I’ll quickly summarise how my programming is going. As seems traditional for newbie programmers, I decided to write my own calculator application on OS X. This seemed to be a modest goal, and I thought I would definitely be able to finish it in a month. After an enthusiastic start, I began to struggle a little. Instead of a standard calculator like Apple’s, I wanted to create a calculator more similar to that of Casio’s modern dual line display calculators. This proved to be a little tough, but I found the command line calculator bc, which seemed to provide the equation parsing tools that I desired.

Implementing this into my application seemed not to be a problem, but I wanted to remap some of the keys on the keyboard. In terms of functionality, bc already provides 90% of what I want it to do, I’d like to just clean up the error messages and other GUI issues.

That’s where I got stuck. I began to spend hours just staring at the screen, reading Apple’s dreadful documentation and the confusing Cocoa API. Furthermore, the application doesn’t really excite me as much any more. With Quicksilver integration, it would become something that I might use personally however, as Quicksilver’s built in calculator (also using bc) is a bit awkward for performing a string of calculations.

—

So that’s where I am after a month. Since another month may not even help enough, I’d like to change focus, and try to concentrate more on learning, rather than end product. The way I see it, the programming skills I currently have aren’t at the stage where I can actually realise my designs. It’s better to concentrate on improving those skills.

I’ve mentioned before the Now Habit by Neil Fiore. In this book, Fiore describes a technique in which he sets an upper limit on the hours one can work. It’s a form of reverse psychology. I’ll do the same – restricting output to five hours this week. In the process, I also hope to complete more quality hours instead of the staring at code or ‘research’ on the Internet that I’ve been doing, or just waiting for my timer to finish. In order to generate those quality hours, I’ll need to do more planning.

In addition, one of the things I’m going to do is to give myself a whole day off programming or any thoughts of programming. There were days last month where I didn’t do any programming and felt guilty about it. This time, I’m not only allowing myself to take a break, I’m enforcing it.

As for what I’ll be working on, I haven’t quite decided yet. I do want to finish my calculator, but some easier projects will be the way to go for this week.

July Rules and Goals

I can’t believe it’s already July. Half the year has gone, and I haven’t made much progress on the programming. I’m going to have to be far more productive from here on in.

One of the key things that I tend to do in my life is to set very tough conditions for myself. I think I’m going to be a little easier on myself this month, but at the same time, this is merely a strategy, as I’m hoping to achieve (much) more overall in terms of productivity.

Let’s start by addressing two of the big rules I set for myself last month.

Getting around the Internet problem is something that I’ve always struggled with. I’m not going to fight it this time, and see what happens. I’ll make a commitment to avoid some certain websites, such as YouTube, which waste far too much of my time.

The control over my sleeping is difficult to manage. I’ve conceeded that waking up at 6am has little benefit to me. Since I like to start the day with exercise, and the gym at Shi Da only opens at 8am, I’ll aim for 7.30 and head out to the gym at 8am.

Due to the failure of these two rules, I feel like concluding that this process of setting rules for myself doesn’t really work. It’s easy to break these rules and beat myself up for it, so I feel that any rules I set cannot be too difficult to follow. In addition, the motivation behind these rules should always be very clear.

So I won’t try to do the sleep thing, nor explicitly manage the Internet this month at all. I’m going to shake things up a bit, and have some nice fun rules instead.

1. Take Sunday off. I think the constant pressure I’m feeling to program is getting to me. I’m rebelling against my self-enforced commitment to program as much as I can, and I’m becoming less productive and beginning to resent the programming. The no-programming Sunday should help me to enjoy life a little more and relieve pressure. It makes no practical difference, seeing as I only spent around an hour programming on Sundays anyway!

2. 20 minutes of ProVoc. The ProVoc will continue. I’m going to make use of ProVoc’s alternative testing methods, which I’ve been neglecting a lot of this time. Reading Chinese characters is a far more practical skill than writing, and testing reading is far more efficient. I’ll set a very manageable rule of 15 minutes a day of ProVoc, which I can spend on any testing system I want.

3. Once I turn off the wireless for the day, I cannot turn it back on until the following day. An almost pointless rule, it might seem (I’m hoping otherwise.) It’s certainly quirky. But I feel that this rule is empowering. First, it’s ridiculously easy to follow and abuse – if I want to bum around, I still have that option. But if I get to that state where I have been wasting too much time, then I can decide in an instant to turn off the wireless, and hence it’s all over for the day. It’s an interesting rule for me, and though I haven’t tested it, it again seems like another weapon I might use.

So, these three rules seem to be very much achievable. With these rules, I’m really doing an investigation to find lifestyle changes that work so well they seamlessly become a way of life for me. Again, I’m trying to keep the pressure off this month, after my previous failure.

Now for the goals.

As mentioned earlier, the programming goals will be treated separately, as this is surely the most important area of my life. So with regards to the other goals…

1. Run 12km. I’m currently training for the Taipei International Marathon in December, so I’ll be required to follow a training regime. I’ve chosen to follow this one by experienced marathon runner Jeff Galloway, and so I’ll need to be up to 7.5 miles by the end of this month. To represent the adherence to this regime, but without too much pressure (and allowing for flexibility), I’ll simply set the goal to run 12km once by the end of the month.

2. Wake up before 7.30am daily. Compared to 6am, this should be easy. 7.30 gives me enough time to get to the gym. But this is a goal, not a rule, so I won’t beat myself up if I don’t do it.

3. Write A1, A2 speeches. Although I’m not scheduled to deliver any speeches at all this month, I’d like to start writing my next set of speeches as soon as possible. I’ve a habit of leaving things until the last minute.

This should be a nice easy set of goals (apart from the sleep one). The real challenge will be the programming, so I’ll write that in another post. I need to be a lot more active in goal setting on this front. So that’s it for July. Already it seems like this will be a lot easier to follow than the June rules. I’m looking forward to success instead of failure this month!

June Goals Summary

It’s kind of embarrassing to mention that I failed many of the goals I set for myself in June. Still, I’m going to deal with it as a learning experience and see how I can improve on my goal setting in July.

I’ll start with the positives – ProVoc was not too much of a problem – only that learning the new words in the new semester will be taking up a lot more time. In addition, I’m pleased to have delivered my C8, C9 and C10 speeches this month, which exceeded my goals. Not bad at all!

But it didn’t get much better than that. The rules I set for myself fell apart a little. The sitting down Internet did work for a while, but then I got tired(!) and just abandoned it. I relied on the Internet a lot for my coding this month, so I felt it was uncomfortable to be on my feet all the time. Unfortunately, following that compromise, I found myself using the Internet a lot more in my free time, and started the endless loops of procrastination as a result.

It was predictable that the sleep schedule would fall apart. As my blog post mentioned, the night culture in Taiwan is something very difficult to shake off. Currently, Wimbledon is also an unexpected distraction. (Luckily I managed to avoid Euro 2008.) Without my support group in the Dragon Boat team to support me, it proved to be too difficult to wake up on time. Indeed, I suffered from insomnia and real difficulties with waking up across most of the month.

The programming probably deserves its own post. In short, I didn’t manage to write anywhere near 40 hours, and instead only did 26. Worse than the hours I put in are the distinct lack of any real result, other than the clarification of some Cocoa API ideas in my head. My beginner Calculator application is still not near completion, and I should have set a more modest goal to build up to it. But I did make some breakthroughs – I started to post on a forum, and for me, that’s a good shift – to make an effort to be part of the Mac developer community in the future.

I think that just about covers everything. I don’t want to dwell on this too much, nor beat myself up about. In fact, I’d rather just move onto July as soon as possible.