Week Notes – Feb 12 to Mar 15 2026
- Has it been almost a month since the last week notes? What is time, anyway?
- ☃️ There was a sequence of above freezing temperature days, so it started to look like Spring is knocking at our door. The Rideau Canal Skating rink closed, most of the urban ski trails also closed for the season already.
- 🎿 But, the last weeks of February were still very snowy, so I did complete a Level 2 Classic Ski Class and a Classic Ski Workshop “Help with Hills”. I am not that afraid of going down a slope anymore. And I got a bit better with my gliding and pole coordination. And right when I started to understand the ski mechanics better, the snow was gone and the season was over. Well, I will be ready for the next winter.
- ⛸️ I completed my Level 3 Ice Skating class as well. I got better at using both edges in 1-foot glides and around a circle. Also, backwards skating felt less impossible, but I still haven’t got to the point where I could do backwards cross-overs. And that’s fine, I’m happy with what I can do so far, which is light-years away from when I started ice skating in 2019. I’m so glad I didn’t give up and kept coming back to ice skating every winter, regardless of how challenging it was.
- 🎭 I’ve had varying degrees of energy levels since the beginning of the year. Some days I feel tired overall, and all I can do is go to work, keep up with the bare minimum of house/life chores and maybe read a bit before sleeping. And that low energy state goes on for a week or so, and then suddenly there is a week when my energy is back to more normal levels. I blame it on perimenopause, because I keep doing all the good things: meditation, yoga, exercise, balanced diet.
- We finally got an opening to see a Family Doctor! We used to have one but when the pandemic started, the doctor went back to his home country, and me and my husband had to navigate the health system here using the walk-in clinics when needed. That helped me get in contact with some specialists, but now I have the chance again to do a full check-up, and it makes contacting the specialists easier.
- 📖 These past weeks I focused more on reading books rather than reading online articles.
- 📕 I finished reading “Babel-17” by Samuel Delaney for my local book club. Classic sci-fi written in the 60s, truly ahead of its time, with a strong female protagonist, queer normative, seeds of cyberpunk with psychedelic vibes. Very weird!
- 🌳 We were gifted with a bonsai!
📺 Cool Videos:
- Movie: Battle Beyond the Stars (1980): I heard about this movie on the podcast Starship Alexandria by Emma Newman and Adrian Tchaikovsky. Watch the movie before listening to the podcast (unless you want spoilers from a 45-year-old movie). It’s one of those low-budget 80s gems that’s brilliant in its ridiculousness in a cheesy sci-fi universe. Special effects are by young James Cameron, and the spaceships are all unique made with model miniatures. Also, soundtrack by young James Horner, who later composed one of favourites (from the movie Krull).
- AI and War by ColdFusion: we are living in a dystopia 😶
- The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew by Veritasium: fascinating story of someone trying to exploit open source code?
- You are a better writer than AI. (Yes, you.) by josh (with parentheses): Excellent video essay about LLMs!
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#weeknotes #skiing #iceskating
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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.