Education Report

Education Report 2015-10-31

Happy Halloween!

This week I have a lot more information for tracking my progress.

I did fall short in a couple of areas, which I ascribe to these main reasons:

1. This is my first week of tracking my progress. I've been developing some new habits, which got better over the week.
2. Halloween messed with my Friday and Saturday, meaning I couldn't quite catch up at the end.
3. I accidentally invested too much time into French and Toastmasters.

I also had enough "other" useful activities, such as time developing this chart and time studying economics and entrepreneurship. Taking this into account I'd only be about 3 hours short. Counting the extra French and Toastmasters time, this is only a 1 hr shortfall.

So there's certainly some improvement needed, but it was a decent try for the first week.

On Monday I'll put together a new plan, which will need to accommodate NaNoWriMo if I can swing it. I may need to have a moderate NaNoWriMo goal, though, so that I can keep working on the various subjects that are important to me.

Check-In: 2015-10-30 (Friday)

Diet: WIN! (fruit, vegetables, moderate added sugar)
Exercise: PASS (walking)
Sleep: PASS (regular hours)
Mindfulness: WIN! (meditation)
Love and Support: WIN! (French, toastmaster, visiting with friends, corresponding with family)

I'm going to publish my education report tomorrow afternoon. I have a few hours to finish up and a Halloween event tonight which is disrupting my time a little.

I've been continuing the fruit and vegetable campaign. Sugar has been a little high but it's Halloween. I'll worry about that more next week, and my current intake is moderate, not out-of-control.

I've been wanting to get to yoga again but haven't managed to quite get there in the last couple of days. But I did get some meditation done, and a good amount of walking. I'm not sleeping super long, but I'm at least staying consistent. Maybe tomorrow night I'll get a longer sleep.

My second round of French classes started up last night. There's a couple of old faces and a couple of new ones. This afternoon I walked downtown to talk to one of the toastmasters--we just needed to follow up on the paperwork from my first speech to get credit for it. It was generous of him to take some time out of his day for that. I also dropped by Startup Edmonton to see what opportunities I have for engaging in the community. It seems like I won't be able to rent space there right off the bat, but it sounds like there's some really interesting community events, like hacker days and entrepreneurship workshops. So I'll have to look around a little more for spaces.

All in all, it's a good week. My habits are slowly building for getting more productive study time though this week might be a bit weak. At least it is now being quantified and can be corrected. I'm going to take some credit for the errands I ran today--looking into the Startup space legitimately counts as part of my self-education program. It's just a question of how to log the hours.

But I'll get into all of that tomorrow.

Check-In: 2015-10-28 (Wednesday)

Diet: WIN! (fruit, vegetables, low added sugar)
Exercise: WIN! (walking... so much walking, yoga)
Sleep: PASS (adequate sleep, stable wake-up times)
Mindfulness WIN! (meditation, yoga, general mindfulness)
Love and Support: PASS (visiting with friends, corresponding with family, Toastmasters)

Good scores for today.

I've managed to improve my diet again, and did some yoga a couple of days ago. Last night I went to a concert next to Faculté St. Jean and decided, in a fit of madness, to walk. It was at least an hour and a half each way, making for an epic walk. I also received my Monarch Migration badge from Fitbit, which is earned by reaching 2500 total miles.

I've been sleeping reasonably well. Getting to bed a little earlier would help but the sleep I'm getting is sufficient, and I wake up at a fairly stable time these days. It helps to wake up to The Current, which usually has at least one interview that I want to listen to.

I've managed to get some actual meditation in, which is a nice feeling. I don't know why it's so hard to remember to take a minute to relax. You'd think that would be easy. But it's also easy to fall into the habit of wanting to keep my brain active non-stop.

I'm a little light on Love and Support, though I have been in contact with friends recently and family right at the moment. :) I will also be visiting friends tonight, so that should nicely top up the socialization fuel tanks.

I'm taking Learning off the list for now, since I have the weekly Education Reports now. It's a close race right now, but I'm still in the running. If I can get a few hours of studying in this afternoon I should still be on target for Friday.

Learning Targets

It's the start of a new week, I have a new plan, and I am optimistic.

Over the weekend, in a conversation with my family, I decided to set some more concrete goals for my education. Because pacing results is difficult--each "class" would need a unique set of hard-to-quantify goals--I'm going to try using time goals instead. This week, I am going to log my hours invested into different learning activities and aim to meet the following targets:

AI: 4 hours (all class or study time)
French: 4 hours (includes class time when they are running)
Toastmasters: 2 hours (1 hour preparation, 1 hour participation)
Writing: 4 hours (must be professional blog or fiction)
Game: 4 hours (can include meetings, learning to use Unity, etc.)
Yoga/Meditation: 5 hours (can include work on starting the business)

Total: 23 hours (not intentional, I swear)
Daily: 4.6 hours

Twenty hours is a totally reasonable target. Some people would argue it's too low. But I want to start this new program with some success, and I ought to be able to hit all of these. I may not, but at least I'll be able to see exactly how much I'm failing by. This also gives me some room for chores, errands, etc.

Check-In: 2015-10-26 (Monday)

Diet: PASS (fruit and vegetables, moderate added sugar)
Exercise: PASS (walking)
Sleep: WIN! (getting reasonable rest at reasonable times)
Mindfulness: PASS (general mindfulness)
Love and Support: WIN! (visiting with friends, corresponding with family)
Learning: PASS (rest / new approach)

I had a restful and social weekend this weekend. I had Sunday dinner with my friends Shane, Dean, and Jim. We have now started watching Twin Peaks as our Sunday TV, since I haven't seen it before and I keep hearing good things about it. Very unusual in its approach and very engaging. I'm enjoying it so far.

I'm managing to keep diet, exercise, and sleep on a reasonably even keel. Some improvements are needed to push them back in to solid wins across the board, but they are holding. I'm going to keep working on them, and I am optimistic that I'll be able to do well with them this week. We'll see.

The main area I want to work on it learning. This weekend I took a deliberate break, because I find that defining week days as work days and weekends as rest days is really successful. My failure in the last few weeks is to allow too many week days to be rest days. Sometimes I had a good reason, but I think I became a little too casual about it. Though the cold/sore throat I had did knock me down for a week or so, so I won't beat myself up about. Self-flagellation is rarely a solution to a problem.

The solution that I'm going to try is much more positive and reasonable, hopefully. I'm going to set some concrete goals for the education report so I can be a little more objective. This will hopefully result in concrete victories which will boost my spirits. I'm going to be moderate at first in the interest of getting some victories, and then I can ramp up the goals.

More on that in a post later today.

Education Report

Education Report 2015-10-24 (Saturday)

AI: PASS (only barely, but I did poke at this a bit)

French: WIN! (end of session one!)

Toastmasters: WIN! (could have done better, but good learning experience)

Writing: PASS (toastmasters)

Game: PASS (meeting with team)

A bit of improvement this week, which is a good sign given that this was election week and I had a medical test that disrupted a couple of mornings. Still much to improve, though.

Next week I'll definitely need to work on the AI course. I did take a quick look, though, and refreshed myself on where I was at. I also remembered that I was enjoying the course, which is key to getting back into it.

I'll have to be a bit careful with French. We have finished session one and will have a short break before session two. I may try to write a short essay in French this week just to keep in-practice, or maybe I'll go through my notes and review some of the new vocabulary. But I attended every session and did every homework assignment, which might be a first for me in any course ever. So I'm calling that a win.

In Toastmasters I didn't prepare enough for the meeting, so I'm calling my win based on the idea that: 1) everyone really enjoyed my introduction to the meeting, 2) I've learned a lot about what to do better next time. I'm going to sign up for the toastmaster role again in a few weeks so I can apply what I learned. Mistakes are valuable if you learn from them, and punishing if you just sit around feeling guilty about them. But I'm optimistic that I can turn this into learning. And people really did enjoy my introduction. So I'm calling that my writing credit for the week too.

We had a good discussion with the game team. The next step is mostly in other peoples' hands, though I'll make sure I do something useful this coming week. That might be a review of productivity tools like Trello to see if there's a good system we can use for tracking our documents and conversations. Email is good for some forms of communication but not ideal for others.

Because this is the first week where I'm taking a pass in all categories (even if it's a pretty slim margin on the AI course), the image I'm posting this week is a victory image. The photo is from a ride called Slotzilla in the Vegas downtown: you get to zipline above the crowds. It's a bit awkward (I spent a chunk of it going backwards), but a good rush. This week was exactly that: a bit awkward, but a good rush of some modest success.

Check-In: 2015-10-23 (Friday)

Diet: WIN! (fruit and veggies, relatively low added sugar)
Exercise: PASS (walking, miscellaneous exercise)
Sleep: WIN! (good sleep last night)
Mindfulness: PASS (general mindfulness)
Love and Support: WIN! (visiting with friends, corresponding with family)
Learning: WIN! (French, a little bit of AI, economics)

Since Jason is back in town, we were able to have a table-top gaming session with a bunch of friends, many of whom I haven't seen in a while. So that was good.

I woke up extra-early to prepare for my ultrasound yesterday morning, but the appointment was cancelled due to a sick technician and moved to today. As a result, I was really tired last night and got a great sleep. The scan is now done and I'll hopefully hear from my doctor in a little while. Or maybe I won't, if everything looks good--so maybe I should hope I don't hear from her? That's actually a poor practice, that we know from game design isn't good--failing to respond to input creates a lack of feedback, which makes players (or patients) worried that their controls have stopped working. Games have to message clearly to players that input has been received, and I would prefer if medicine worked the same way. Otherwise, the difference between "You're fine" and "Your paperwork vanished in the bureaucracy" looks the same.

Anyway, my symptoms are now so mild I'm not too concerned about it.

I managed to do some sorting of notes for classes today. Since I haven't worked on the AI class in a couple of weeks, diving right back in again is tricky, and my notes are a mess. So I'm going to get back into it by first reviewing and tidying my notes in order to remember what I've already covered. I did take a quick look at the video again, though, so I at least remember what we were talking about and some details of the exercise. It's mathy, which is challenging, but also a brain-muscle I haven't used in a while. Good stuff.

I'm meeting with the game design team tonight. We'll have to discuss what we're hoping to accomplish with the project in light of the challenges of being an independent game designer right now. That doesn't mean we're going to stop working on it, but we need to be realistic about our expectations, and we need to consider options for making it stand out from the crowd somehow.

I'll get my education report out a little later today, after the meeting. For now, I must dash.

Check-In: 2015-10-21 (Wednesday)

Diet: PASS (fruit and vegetable could be a little higher, added sugar could be lower)
Exercise: WIN! (walking, miscellaneous exercise)
Sleep: PASS (could be earlier, could be longer, but is currently adequate)
Mindfulness: PASS (could do more meditating, though general mindfulness is good)
Love and Support: WIN! (walking buddy back, corresponding with family, French, Toastmasters)
Learning: PASS (French, Toastmasters)

The theme of this check-in is relief. The election is finally over, so it'll be easier to remain calm on that front and get enthusiastic about my own projects again.

My health also seems better today. My sore throat is finally gone, my gall symptoms are barely noticeable, and I've felt much more motivated today than I have for about a week--even when compared to just yesterday.

I was a little unprepared for my role as toastmaster today, though I did okay. I will sign up for toastmaster again in a few weeks and give it another go; I think I'll be able to do a much better job next time.

Last night was the last French class for this session. It'll be starting up again on the 2nd I believe (I've already signed up for the next round). I've really been enjoying having classes to attend.

I will aim to have a better education report on Friday. If I'm not able to pull it together this time, I'll need to rethink my strategy and see if a change of plan is required, such as looking into Edmonton Startup again. I may look into it again anyway, just to get some space away from home that I can treat as a work/office area.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is coming up in November again. My friend Amber is going to participate and I think it would be wise for me to as well--provided I can still run my classes and other projects. But lately I have abandoned my fiction writing in favour of more practical skills, and it may be a mistake for me to do nothing in writing fiction prose. I'll have to see.

Anyway, I'm hoping my ability to motivate myself is going to improve again now that my health is recovered. I do enjoy life more when I'm enthusiastically pursuing my passions, as evidenced by how well today is going.

Education Report

Education Report 2015-10-17 (Saturday)

AI: IMPROVE

French: PASS

Toastmasters: PASS

Writing: PASS

Game: IMPROVE

Still a lot of work to do to get a solid education report. The main things are to put AI and Game back on the table.

In fairness, I'm holding off on the Game a bit right now because I need to meet with the rest of the group to talk about some of the advice I received from a former colleague named Zach who did the indie game thing as well recently.

Also, I have been mildly under the weather. The symptoms aren't bad, but it's enough that I'm finding my motivation flagging a little. My spirits are generally good, though, so I'm actually going to accept this week as reasonable, all things considered, and will look forward to hitting the books next week.

Check-In: 2015-10-17 (Saturday)

Diet: WIN! (fruit, vegetables, a bit high in added sugar but not terrible)
Exercise: PASS (walking, other miscellaneous exercise, rest)
Sleep: PASS (decent amounts, a tad late to bed but waking up rested at a good time)
Mindfulness: IMPROVE (could use some more meditation)
Love and Support: PASS (kung fu club, corresponding with family, French)
Learning: PASS (French, rest)

I've been a little under the weather this week, this time with a mildly sore throat. Symptoms are mild and I'm finding it a little hard to be motivated, but otherwise I'm feeling okay.

I've been paying attention to my diet again, and have increased the amount of green things and fruit substantially. I've been taking it easy with exercise, but I've been walking and even doing the odd chin-up or plank to supplement it.

I could use some good meditation time. It's hard to convince my brain to take 15 minutes now and again. This will take some practice. :)

My friend Jason is back in town this weekend, so I'll get my walking buddy back again. Otherwise, most of my social contact has been classes or texting.

Because of my low motivation, this wasn't the greatest week ever for learning objectives. Education Report to follow shortly will be unspectacular. On the plus side, the election will be over with soon, and if my health improves I should be able to do better next week.

Check-In: 2015-10-14 (Wednesday)

Diet: PASS (could increase fruit and vegetables, moderate added sugar)
Exercise: PASS (walking, rest)
Sleep: WIN! (still recovering from sleep disruptions, but making good progress)
Mindfulness: PASS (general mindfulness, occasional meditation)
Love and Support: WIN! (visiting with parents, corresponding with friends)
Learning: WIN! (French, Toastmasters)

I visited my family over the last few days, partly to get my tires changed for the winter (I store them in my parents' garage) and partly just for the visit.

Unfortunately, I had a really bad sleep while I was there. The bed was comfortable but I just couldn't sleep, as though I'd chugged a pot of strong coffee just before lying down. I did my best to just meditate and relax, and I think I eked out a few hours--enough that I was able to function the next day. Still, I decided to be careful about getting a good rest last night, and succeeded, so I'm feeling a little better today.

I had another good Toastmasters meeting this afternoon, and won table topics yet again. Apparently I'm a really good spontaneous speaker these days, given that I'm batting about 0.75 with these things. So that's cool. They've asked me to be toastmaster for next week, so that should be fun.

French class last night was a surprise. They had a photo exhibition on the subject of climate change, so we got free wine and cheese and then chatted about climate change. It was fun to have a topic to discuss rather than just having arbitrary drills.

I'm going to take a selfish evening of entertainment tonight to just relax and enjoy life. Tomorrow I'll take stock of my goals for the week and see what I need to accomplish to have a reasonable education report on Friday.

Check-In: 2015-10-11 (Sunday)

Diet: PASS (could increase fruit, but doing pretty well--and fruit has just been purchased)
Exercise: WIN! (walking, stretching, resting)
Sleep: WIN! (major victory: good sleep last night)
Mindfulness: PASS (meditation)
Love and Support: PASS (visiting with friends, corresponding with family)

I'm still a little stiff from yoga on Friday, but I've been getting a bit more stretching and exercise anyway. Last night I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep, but I did have a "lights out" before midnight and spent the time resting and meditating. I woke up at a decent hour this morning and feel reasonably well-rested. This is a strong start to my campaign to regain a healthy sleep pattern.

I'll be visiting my family Monday and Tuesday, so that should boost the Love and Support category.

Otherwise, I'm taking a day to rest up, enjoy life, and let the cares of the world deal with themselves for a while.

Education Report

Education Report 2015-10-09 (Friday)

AI: IMPROVE
French: WIN!
Toastmasters: IMPROVE
Writing: WIN!
Game: IMPROVE

So the results of this week's report is the reason why I'm going to start doing these every Friday. As you can see, I've got some success but need a lot more if this self-university plan is going to succeed.

French is going quite well. I have not only been attending classes, but I've been doing homework and went to a cultural event (a cafe) last Saturday.

I've been writing quite prolifically, though it has mostly been related to election issues and miscellaneous thoughts. Still, practice is practice, and I've been doing quite a lot of it. I do need to pick up on my blog, however.

I think a lot of this is down to sleep habits, though. I was not rested properly on Wednesday morning so I wasn't able to pull myself together for Toastmasters, and it's hard to be motivated when you are often groggy during the day. The good news is I've overcome sleep problems before, so a bit of effort should get me back on track.

I'm really finding this blogging process useful for my lifestyle, so here's hoping this will lead to focus and improvements in my education. Despite the many areas to improve, I'm optimistic.

Check-In: 2015-10-05 (Monday)

Diet: PASS (see below)
Exercise: WIN! (walking, rest)
Sleep: WIN! (catching up on disrupted cycle)
Mindfulness: IMPROVE (need more meditation: on the plus side, improving perspective)
Love and Support: WIN! (visiting with friends, corresponding with family, social events)

Everything is a little disrupted thanks to the gall bladder issues recently. I've had my sleep cycle disrupted, which in turn has disrupted many of my other healthy habits. Also, I've been trying to avoid too much fat in my diet for a little while. The upshot is I think I ate less than I should have this past weekend, though this is now correcting itself. I got extra food from dinner with my friends last night, I've had a good breakfast today, and I'll make sure I get plenty of food for the rest of the day.

I'm giving myself a win under exercise. While I haven't been getting a ton of exercise, I've been walking and deliberately taking a rest for the sake of my innards. Taking a break when pride would demand otherwise is wise, and therefore deserves a win rating. No good hurting yourself over pride.

Eh, screw it. I'm giving myself a win under Sleep too. I normally would call it a pass, but since I'm recovering from a major sleep disruption, this is a really good trend and worth celebrating.

I haven't been meditating much, and I have found it hard to meditate when attempting it, mainly due to how stressed I'm feeling about this election and the rampant fear and manipulation surrounding it. On the plus side, I've identified this and actively worked to restore a positive, generous, and optimistic spirit. This has worked quite well.

Part of the reason this has worked well is social contact. I've had some good correspondence with my family, I saw my friends last night, and on Saturday I went to a cafe hosted by L'Alliance Francaise and a meeting at the kung fu club. This nice big uptick in social contact has been good for my head space.

How Master Yoda Is Changing The Way I Think About Elections

This election, I have gotten more political than in any other. The reason for this is simple: I am more worried in this election than in any other.

But as an avid fan of Star Wars--at least until Jar Jar ungraced the silver screen--I can’t pour my energy into something based on fear without taking a moment to pause and wonder if this is the right thing to do.

As the short green dude said: fear, anger, and aggression are the dark side.

Sure, I feel that my fears are well-founded, and I believe my actions are good for my country. But that’s exactly when the dark side is at its most seductive: it starts with fighting for good things that you believe in, then convinces you to hate what threatens what you believe in, then turns you against your friends and family. Soon, you are a twisted reflection of your former self, representing everything you used to hate.

So I have decided to radically change my approach, before I go too far down this dark path. I have decided that efforts predicated on fear are toxic, and that my actions must now be predicated on calm, informed, and even loving thoughts.

While I am being deliberately silly and talking about these things in the context of Star Wars, let me be serious for a moment: every religion on Earth professes a love for fellow humanity. Some followers lose this message, of course, as we’ve seen with groups like ISIS, but that’s exactly the point: the dark side, rooted foremost in fear, is exactly what causes an extremist to lose sight of the messages of love in favour of the messages of hate.

So let me first of all apologize to my conservative-leaning friends and family: your values are a part of Canada’s identity, and that is precious to me. In fact, I share almost all of them. Liberty, democracy, justice, courage, safety, and most of all, family. These are things I value dearly. I believe my recent fear-motivated efforts have made me say things that might make this unclear. So let me state it explicitly again: these values are also my values. These are the reasons I love Canada and Canadians.

Second of all, I am now going to promote things I do want out of this election, rather than things I don’t want. Hopefully many Canadians will agree with me:

1. Election Reform. First and foremost, I would like to see more positive politics. I feel like every election in this country gets more divisive and angry, and I think this is being caused by our election system: when we vote, the winner takes all, and the loser has no voice. Both Stephen Harper and Rachel Notley had less than 50% of the popular vote, but essentially 100% of the political power. This creates a lot of fear, fear leads to anger, and anger leads to ugly politics. So as a positive solution, let’s fix this. There are other systems we can consider that gives better representation by population. Regardless of who gets in, let’s work on making our elections healthier, and protect the voices of all Canadians.
2. Democratic Rights. One of the things I fear is the ability for the government to take away a citizen’s right to vote. Bill C-51 makes that possible, and it has some dangerous loop-holes. Now I’m not saying all this in order to encourage fear, but merely to point out a potential threat that we need to deal with rationally. I am 100% in favour of protecting our country from terrorists and dangerous extremists, but we need to ensure that democracy--the right to vote--is not threatened. We need to protect the right of citizens to retain their vote, lest a future government abuse that power. The positive thing to campaign for is, therefore, democratic rights. Democratic rights are something Canadians of all political stripes can agree are important.
3. Economics Endorsed By Economists. Running a country is complicated, and involves a lot more work than a handful of random promises. As a non-economist, I don’t know if spending 10 million dollars on veterans is a lot, a little, or a giant financial mistake. It would literally take me years of online research to answer this question. This means I need to trust people who do this for a living. Organizations like the World Bank, the OECD, the Bank of Canada, and the IMF have economic research that is world-wide and decades-old. They know what they are talking about, so it’s worth getting their opinion.
4. Informed Voters. I accept that I make mistakes. Sometimes I become passionate about an idea, only to later discover that the idea was wrong. In order to make sure I vote well in this election, I want to be informed, so I can avoid making a mistake. I also think it would be good for all Canadian voters to be informed, because that will help Canada make a good decision, which is good not just for Canadians, but for all people in the world.

So here is my rationale for siding with the Liberal Party, at least for the moment--and if you disagree, please exercise your democratically-protected freedom to speak, a right I will defend for you even if I disagree with you.

1. The Liberals promise to reform the election system. They aren’t endorsing a single solution yet, and that’s wise: this isn’t a change we want to make carelessly. It needs to involve all parties, and that’s what they’re promising to do.
2. The Liberals promise to close the loop-holes in Bill C-51. This won’t make Canada less secure, it will just make sure that your most precious right, the right to vote, is better protected.
3. The Liberal economic plan is endorsed by economists who have resumes that include the World Bank, the OECD, the Bank of Canada, and the IMF. Let me address concerns with this that both right-leaning and left-leaning Canadians may have:
1. Right-leaning Canadians may ask how it’s possible that an economic plan to take on debt could possibly be endorsed by leading economists. Isn’t debt the worst idea ever? As it turns out, no. Microsoft has debt. Apple has debt. Dow Chemical has debt. Debt is a useful financial tool used by businesses all the time. Bloated, unmanageable debt can be bad, yes. But world-class economists aren’t concerned about the debt outlined in the Liberal plan, so it’s okay--this is just a tool to make some wise investments that will get the economy back on track.
2. Left-leaning Canadians may ask if organizations like the World Bank and the IMF have common people’s interests at heart. Aren’t they just shills for big companies? As it turns out, no. Visit their websites. Every one of them is calling for more investment in the vulnerable people of the world. They support taking care of people who are vulnerable, because taking care of them gets them back into the economy. When you just let them suffer, they remain alienated from the economy and can’t contribute. Taking care of people isn’t just kind, it’s smart economics.
4. When I talked to a Liberal campaigner, he didn’t try to argue policy with me. He just suggested that I look at the party platforms online, and see which one sounded the most reasonable. This was a huge risk for him: for all he knew, I would side with a different party. But he didn’t just want my vote, he wanted my vote to be informed. And that’s the point here: I don’t care how you vote. I’ve given you my reasons for supporting the Liberals, but you might have a different opinion. I just want your vote to be informed.

To recap, let me again apologize for the fear that has gripped me recently. I apologize for anything hurtful or rude I may have said. Canada is a beautiful country, and Canadians are beautiful people.

As we go to the polls, let’s celebrate this most of all: we get to go to the polls.

And may the Force be with you, always.

Spending The Night In Emergency Is Good For The Soul

By Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (CCBRT Disability Hospital waiting room 1) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

First off: Don't worry, I am fine.

Now, the full story.

Starting around Wednesday and getting worse into Thursday, I felt a mild discomfort under my ribcage on the right side. It was especially noticeable when sitting, especially if I slouched.

I did a quick web search and the internet suggested it might be appendicitis, though fortunately I didn't have any other symptoms like fever or vomiting. Still, I decided not to take chances, and given that appendicitis can be dangerous even over night, I decided at around 11:00 pm on Thursday to go to Emergency.

The result is that my bloodwork and ECG came back normal, with a mild distortion in my bloodwork that potentially suggested a gall bladder issue. But the physician didn't feel that this was an urgent issue, recommended I avoid eating fatty meals for a while, and advised me to return to Emergency if I started to get fever, vomiting, or jaundice (because the area of discomfort is near the liver).

I initially turned down an ultrasound test, but I've since decided to play it safe and get one. I'll drop by the clinic on Monday to get one arranged.

But the result of this process was that I spent many hours over-night in a hospital waiting room and emergency ward, and I've decided that everyone should do this once in a while for the good of their soul. Because while I was there just as a precaution, some people were there with serious injuries. There was one moment where a stretcher rolled in with a woman crying as she followed it. A patient next to my bed in the emergency ward sounded like they were in significant pain and sometimes had laboured breathing.

There are two things I thought about for these hours:

1. How lucky I am to have good health.
2. How lucky I am to live in a country where hospitals just help you, no questions asked.

I went to Emergency for the sake of my body, but it turned out to be a wonderful treatment for my soul.