Just before writing this, I was:

Chilling and having a homemade breakfast.

This past month, I achieved:

• Doing two more tech talks at work, and learning a bunch in the process
  • Seams in C# for my team
  • Context API at a Javascript crew meeting
• Went to two concerts
  • BØRNS
  • Alex Lahey 🤘
• Got sick again
• Went to two meetups:
  • Women in product management
  • IxDA Sydney chapter
• Started ANOTHER few books
  • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
  • A book on Buddhism whose name escapes me at the moment
• Kept reading
  • “The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet”

This past month, I learned:

To recognise the brain’s amazing ability to trick itself into believing that thoughts will translate directly into reality. This didn’t sink in until I’d read Dan Harris’ “10% Happier” and started catching my mind making terribly grim conclusions about things that were highly unlikely to come true.

This whole jumping-to-conclusions rang true when I had a second recurrence of tonsillitis, just two weeks after being hospitalised for it. When I woke up last Monday with swollen tonsils, I immediately jumped to assume that I would end up with quincy again, and that I’d have to go through all the horror from last time.

I had regular panic episodes throughout the time, but slowly adjusted to becoming okay with the possibility of ending up in hospital. Part of this was consciously controlling the things I could control: organising a list of things I’d need if I did have to go to hospital again, resting as much as I could, and doing activities that I enjoyed.

In the end, I recovered enough by Thursday that I was back to work on Friday, albeit with a date set to get my tonsils out. 15th of May is that date, so I’m bracing myself, but I’m confident that it will be all okay - and maybe even better.

Throughout, it’s been important to note that though I had convinced myself that I would end up in hospital within days, that never happened - it was entirely a fabrication of my mind. Slowly accepting the uncertainty of life is going to be huge for dealing with these situations going forward.

This past month, I got bored of:

Being bored.

But that’s OK, because I enjoyed:

Listening to and observing birds in natural spaces, whether that’s in the park around my house, or the Blue Mountains.

Today, something that made me happy was:

Coffee and hangs with the parents ☕️

Today, something I could’ve done better was:

Increased patience with my mum’s inability to use technology; it’s getting worse every time I visit I swear…

Tomorrow I’m going to:

Go to work and maybe go for a brisk walk when I get home.

In May, I’m looking forward to:

• Getting my tonsils out
• My friend’s graduation party
• Eurovision (five years of Eurovision parties with my uni friends!)
• There’s a 30-year anniversary dinner for the university degree I completed, so I guess that’ll be a bit of fun

In May, I’m going to make the positive change of:

Meditating every day for ten minutes. Earlier this week, I downloaded an app called Streaks, that has the explicit goal of getting you into regular habits.

One thing on my to-do list is:

Finishing the book on Flow!

One happy photo from the past month is:

This adorable latte-art-adorned coffee!

After this post, I’m going to:

Go help my parents move furniture around upstairs! Fun times.