Category: Musings

2020: midlife

I am going to turn 45 this year and I think I might be at midlife. More and more I feel it.

memoji-skeptical

I can’t say it’s because of the salt and pepper in my hair because that crept up on me several years ago. It isn’t either the wrinkles on my forehead and round my eyes – those came as I was raising my toddler. No, I am referring to physical signs that started last year :

  • Vision (1): my left eye now scores 10/10 while the right one remains at 12/10.
  • Vision (2): I used to see clearly real close (15 cm) but I now see clearly a little less close (20 cm). I continue to see clear real far.
  • Knee: my right knee aches now and then.
  • Right leg: I now can barely sit cross-legged and can most definitely no longer sit in the lotus position.
  • Periods: I’ve had only 4 inconsistent periods last year and none this year so far. I experience the unpleasant hot flashes almost every evening and at night.
  • Weight gain: unfortunately, another aspect of menopausal transition was weight gain. Far from being chubby, I rapidly gained enough weight (8 kilos or 16 pounds) that I had to put away a few of my favourite pants and skirts that were a strict size 36 (FR) or 4 (US), that the inside of my thighs now nearly touch each other, and that I have “love handles” (and no one to handle them but this is all right.)

There were also some hard realizations: people no longer call me miss, I have celebrated 21 years with my current employer, I can no longer learn as well and as fast as before.

What am I doing about it?

It took me a while to put two and two together, for starters, and to work on a plan.

I have a minimal plan of action to close all of my activity rings as much as possible. My smart watch sees that I do, although I’ve had it seven months so you could say it took me a while to make a plan. Better late than never!

screenshot of the apple watch showing the three activity rings closed

New Coralie exercises and tonight was the fourth day I jogged. I go with my dog who runs about four times more (and most times ends up splashing in the river along which we run). I run and walk for 20 or 30 minutes. Every evening so far I have run more than the previous day. This is encouraging! I’m keen on making steady progress.

That is all.

October 2020 update

I took this exercising plan very seriously and now it’s part of my daily routine \o/

How did it work?

  • I became addicted rather quickly, thankfully, because otherwise this would not have been a thing at all!
  • The other thing that helped was that I was also very curious and enthusiastic about my rapid and steady progress, therefore I was motivated.
  • And lastly, I set myself up for success: only non-ambitious goals, realistic expectations, and achievable plans. In practice for me it meant it had to be easy enough to do that I would not give up. For example, taking the dog out for a walk or run was good for me too. Or walking to the beach to eat a picnic. Or doing yoga or core training in the comfort of my living room, following a YouTube video series (yoga with Adriene, in my case).

It took me 6 months to lose that extra weight (it was in the vicinity of 10 kilos —20 pounds). some time in September I was able to put my favourite trousers again \o/

But there were other benefits that I discovered early on: more strength in the core, legs and arms, more mobility. Two concrete examples:

  1. When I started running I needed knee braces, especially for the right knee. That knee had been giving me grief for a few years and I didn’t think it could be fixed, but gaining strength did! After less than a month, I could feel the braces were no more useful. Since then, I no longer have knee pains, ever.
  2. My right hip gained mobility after a few months and I was able again to sit in cross-legged position without needing to lift up my leg to ease the pain. I now no longer have hip pain.

Stats

March:
Workouts: 30
Time: 15:06 (average: 00:30)
Kcal: 4579 (average: 152)
Runs: 19
Walk: 10
Fitness: 1

April:
Workouts: 63
Time: 26h59 (average: 00:25)
Kcal: 7622 (average: 120)
Runs: 26
Walk: 18
Fitness: 18

May:
Workouts: 79
Time: 45h21 (average: 00:34)
Kcal: 11797 (average: 149)
Runs: 23
Walk: 31
Fitness: 25

June:
Workouts: 54
Time: 35h15 (average: 00:39)
Kcal: 9200 (average: 170)
Runs: 16
Walk: 14
Fitness: 24

July:
Workouts: 67
Time: 45h12 (average: 00:40)
Kcal: 12451 (average: 185)
Runs: 18
Walk: 14
Fitness: 35

August:
Workouts: 46
Time: 23h02 (average: 00:30)
Kcal: 4764 (average: 103)
Runs: 4
Walk: 7
Fitness: 35

September:
Workouts: 60
Time: 35h14 (average: 00:35)
Kcal: 7312 (average: 121)
Runs: 4
Walk: 13
Fitness: 43

Individuals influencer of the Web at W3C –utopia?

Can individuals join the W3C? Yes. There is an item precisely on that in the W3C Membership page:

Can I join W3C as an individual?
Yes, by following the same procedure available to organizations. W3C does not have a class of Membership tailored to or priced for individuals. Indeed, the Membership fee is relatively small compared to the investment being made by the organization. Our processes are designed for organizational participation and we do not have the support structure to handle large numbers of individual members. […] Note that academics who are experts in a field may ask the Working Group Chair to be invited to join the Working Group as an Invited Expert.

We do allow individuals to join as organizations. It appears to be under the banner of the Startup Level; which fee ($2,250 / €1950) is for organizations of 10 or fewer employees, but is only available for the first 2 consecutive years of Membership. I have no idea what happens at the end of the second year of Membership of our individual who joined under the level of a Startup. But this is beside the point, anyway.

I’ve always been keen on the notion of individual W3C Members, as opposed to W3C Member organizations.

If I were not employed by W3C, I would want to join as an individual Member. Not just to show support, but to influence the Web at my level. As a user. By that, I mean from the perspective of the user, as opposed to the one of corporate or business strategy.

The question came up again at the public W3C Plenary session in Shenzhen last November. Look for “individual membership“. Alex Russell (a W3C TAG elected member) brought up the question and garnered replies from both Tim Berners-Lee (Director of W3C, inventor of the Web –my boss ♡ <swoon />) and Jeff Jaffe (W3C CEO).

As minuted, Alex’s points included professional affiliation (publicly affiliated w/ W3C), utility and the responsibilities it implies (one issue is we don’t have sufficient representation from UI).

As minuted, Tim’s points and support included receiving e-mail from people who want to join, prestige derived from being a Member, which could be limited to read-only membership, and would still allow one to see what’s going on; or a separate level where you’ve got a W3C account where you can be allowed to read-write. Tim, the Director, said “I’d be happy to revisit this.”

The question also came up mid-January outside of W3C. There was a discussion between a group of French-speaking actors of the Web, which started on Twitter and ended up on a web-based collaborative real-time editor, around the topic of Artisans du Web (Web craftspeople), and how they could assemble and represent their craft at W3C to further the progress of the Web.

I wonder who else, and how many, would join as an individual Member of W3C. And what role they’d want to play, which participation rights they’d expect.

Update 2014-02-20:

In Feb – May 2014, a task force open to the public is going to develop a proposal around a W3C Webizen Program. I have joined the task force today (it has not yet started, so if you’re keen on the topic, please, join!)

Quoting from the public wiki:

It was proposed during TPAC 2013 that we should have an Individual Membership program at W3C. W3C management concluded that we did not need a program which conferred the participation rights of Membership to individuals, since we already have Invited Experts.

Instead, we are looking to explore a “Webizen” program. For a nominal fee (e.g., $100 US per annum), the individual would get some benefits. This project will explore whether such a program is viable and want the benefits should be.

Sample benefits could include: user groups, user conferences, T-shirts, ID-cards, a path to provide user input to Working Groups, recognition as a Webizen for participants in W3C Working Groups and Community Groups.

To join: subscribe to public-webizen@w3.org

We are all potentially exceptional

In The Times’ publication of an Op-Ed article (A Plea for Caution From Russia) in the paper of Thursday 12 September, by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, I found this thought-provoking quote at the very end of the piece:

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.

To give further context, here is the rest of his words. I like to think that our being all different but equal is a universal truth, not an intention from a god.

Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Matin d’automne, le chaud et le froid

La cime des arbres, encore habillés de feuilles orange, semble s’embraser sous les rayons puissants du clair soleil de ce matin d’automne. Un beau contraste que cet orange cuivré sur le fond bleu du ciel. Alors que le jardin, dans l’ombre, est encore blanc et mat et que l’herbe est transie dans la rosée gelée. Quelques feuilles orange tombent, virevoltent dans l’air figé. Leur chute une tâche de lumière dansante et puis elles disparaissent tout à fait et se posent à l’ombre froide.