guitar player's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
ertyu
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by ertyu »

what do you plan to do with math and stats? asking because the studies you're talking about seem like something manageable for me to do. also, why open university vs any other long-distance degree from a british uni? is it cheaper? (asking this because was also considering long distance studies)

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

@ertyu, thanks for asking!

I don't plan much more than exposing myself to serendipitous events associated with studying maths and stats. Of course, I can generate plenty of ideas and plans where it would be a desirable and logical steps to have such a degree, but well who knows what the future is going to bring.

I also hope to enjoy it. In primary/high school, I would be taking my new maths textbooks and go through them before the beginning of the school year, particularly keen to spot the anecdotes like the one about rice and chessboard and geometric growth etc.

Finally, studying maths and stats should structure my thinking better hopefully. There are plenty of interesting subjects, but I feel most of them are about being exposed to and absorbing information and there is already so much free information around. Studying mathematics and statistics feels more like learning the way effective thinking can be done, language of science sort of approach. It should hopefully be useful going through it, the same way one can run a marathon only by the means of running a lot beforehand. For that matter I have also considered philosophy, but the philosophy degree with Open University does not appeal to me.

The reason for thinking about getting another degree in the first place (I have two MA degrees now), is that in Scotland when you earn below £25000/annum you can get a part time fee bursary so you don't have to pay for your studies. There are some conditions re nationality and residence, and another one where you must have never obtained a similar grant elsewhere in EU from a public body. I happen to fulfill all these, particularly because my education was either funded by taxes rather than bursaries (public higher education), and partly through a private grant. I am not sure I would ever decide to go to uni if I had to pay for it :)

OU has a good reputation if it comes to Mathematics and Statistics. As I have recently managed to confirm, due to the status of Open University as a distance learning institution, it is possible to actually study with them full time (i.e. doing 120 credits/year) and still have it funded by Scottish Gov. I am not sure if I want to do it as I work 40h/week (though according to my time saving calculations somewhere above more like 32h/week). However a colleague who does IT with OU told me that the first year tends to be easy, so I might tackle the first year this way.

I have never looked at any uni other than OU so not sure if it would be possible to pull something like this off with another institution.

Also, if you are into collecting certificates, doing 1/3 of the course gives you a 'Certificate in so and so', 2/3 'Diploma in so and so' and 3/3 'Bachelor in so and so'.

ertyu
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by ertyu »

I researched this a while ago, and as far as i remember the uni of shefflield has a long distance MA in stats and they are not alone. there were 3 tracks: stats-math, stats-bio, and stats-finance. but i am sure more degrees can be found via ucas. Not that you need to look, seems like you're satisfied with OU as an option - I was just curious. Also, the uk.. association of chartered statisticians? Some name like that - they hold exams you can self-study for and then when you pass them it's the equivalent of a ba degree or some such. I researched this 4-5 years ago but i'm sure the chartered statisticians and their exams are alive and well. I still remember they disallow formula sheets because if you understand what the formula does, you shouldn't have any problems memorizing it - i find this sort of strict educational traditionalism quite refreshing in comparison to all the woo-woo wishy-washy crap that is education nowadays. I come from a traditional educational system, too, and you can tell. I have respect for knowing your shit. all of this was a long way to say that there are pockets within stats where they do believe they're teaching you to think.

anyway, that's where i was coming from with this. studying sounds fun, and this grant scotland gives is frankly amazing. sounds like an awesome plan to me, enjoy!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Oh this is cool about self study to take an exam with the Institute of Chartered Statisticians / Royal Statistical Society and get granted an equivalent of a BA degree. I am going to research it, thanks! Did you end up pursuing some other learning route?

Yeah I am happy with OU. Also, I think the way SAAS (Scottish Awards Agency for Scotland) is structured, they would not fund a degree from a non-Scottish University. OU qualifies for the SAAS grant I think because it is predominantly a distance learning institution, so as such it spans across the UK and has offices in each of the UK countries.

ertyu
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by ertyu »

Yes, royal statistical society is exactly it. There are also long-distance year-long courses (by unis) that prepare you for the exams, which allows you to study for the exams in a year - so it's a cheaper shortcut to a traditional BA in stats if you don't want to self-study.

I did not end up studying because I didn't see a clear why / career path. But given how I have recently found myself unemployed, I wonder if I shouldn't reconsider.

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

June 2020 Update

On finances

I have to mention that in the previous financial updates I have not included the pension contributions in our income. They are included here.

June 2020

Net income:

£3306.84

Expenses:

Accommodation: £338.30
Bills + food: £133.32
Council tax: £67.50
Other: £197.8

Total: £736.92

Savings rate: 77.72%

Assets:

ISAs (Dogs of the FTSE100 shares): £31174
Cash: £18046
LISAs: £10000
Foreign cash/investments: £15338
Retirement accounts: £5456

Total: £80014

Holidays are over

It was great to have 4 weeks of holidays - a mini retirement. We decompressed, ran an over half marathon, cycled quite a bit, did one 100km cycle, read books, ate lots of greens from the garden.

On exercise

For now I have settled on doing 200 push-up burpees daily. It takes me about 15min and I love it. Usually the following 15min are a cooling down period. In the past I would go for a cold shower straight away but turns out I would still be overheated (sweating) after the shower. So recently I have been experimenting with doing 5-10 sun salutations after the burpees to cool down, and then a shower. Seems to work better.

DW started doing push-up burpees as well, she's at 8repsx25min every other day. She seems to be very happy with her improving definition. I am super happy with the development, because if she sticks to it we'll be able to do more stuff together.

On mushrooms

We had two flushes of golder oyster mushrooms and one flush of lion's mane. The mushroom season in Scotland is about to begin, I can see chanterelles and boletes pinning. Actually we had our first suede bolete a day or two ago.

---

Generally life is great at the moment, I will try really really hard to keep things the way they are when I am back to work.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Due to some circumstances I have been asked to give up my room. I consider it mostly an office, gym and space to meditate/reflect/think. I also do night duties sleeping there on some days, in the last year I earned about £950 net from it. It is mostly undisturbed sleep, I have been called in the evening to explain or fix something maybe twice in the last year.

Two options were presented:

1) 'move in' with DW, this would mean no need to pay for accommodation on my part and would reduce our bare expenses (food, bills, accommodation) to below £4600/year, wow! But we would only have one room which is not the largest (¬11.5 m2), so I would need to think hard how to sort it out logistically. For example, putting my bike maintenance stuff in the common garage on the estate, stuff for gardening in a common space by the garden etc.

2) get a room in another house, a huge Victorian mansion indeed. The room is very secluded and larger than the one I have now, maybe ¬20 m2. It is quieter - only one flatmate vs 3 at present. The opportunity to do the night duty would be close to nil.

I would personally go for option 1. It was quite joyful to see on firecalc that we could reach FI in 0.9 (4%WR) -1.9 (3%WR) years with that level of expenses, even though it is inherently tied to the workplace so difficult/impossible to replicate elsewhere. It would be a good challenge as well to suddenly need to get compressed to a smaller space.

We had a chat with DW and she got quite anxious about keeping all the stuff in one room. So for now I am going to get the other room. I will forgo something like £70/month from night duty which I used to consider a bonus.

The whole situation was though an impulse to start tidying up and downsizing. Yesterday, we have sorted out a box of documents. Today I might go through my wardrobe.

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

July 2020 update

On finances

The month was pretty similar to the last month. I had a brief look at the numbers, we got a bit less income because of our June hols (so no accidental overtime hours etc.). Accommodation, services and food are constant, although we did buy some fish from a fishmonger that comes here weekly, this was around £10. Salmon was nice, smoked mackerel is hermetically packed so still in the fridge.

Saving rate must have been around 75%

Covid is battering my FTSE dogs so the net worth might be at the same level like the last month. I don't really like to look at the shares price every month because it makes me too emotional, ha! So I will try to think of another way of recording it. Or just log in once a year to deposit more cash.

The financial crisis made me think about the mental framework I apply to my investments. I started in 2019 following the Dogs of the Dow strategy applied to FTSE100. A way to look at my investing is that every year I plant a tree that is going to grow and start fruiting 10-20 years from now. So now would be the stage of pruning where my two trees appear smaller but will grow a lot in the future.

Long term, I will try to modify this strategy somehow so that I don't pay that much stamp duty. In the UK Stamp Duty is a flat 0.5% tax paid on purchasing most stocks (no capital gain tax as all is tax sheltered). So, if I had say £200.000 worth Dogs of the FTSE portfolio and had to sell all the dogs and buy new ones one year, I would have to pay £1000 for it! Not nice, would be great to have positions for longer than one year.

DW and I spend now a lot of time decoupling our lifestyle from the money economy, so that those investments become less and less immediately important.

On mushrooms

I feel that the mushroom season has not yet started in Scotland, this year is a bit slow. Every time we go in the woods though we find some:

- suede boletes
- charcoal burners (I have learned about them this season, they are delicious, really great texture)
- chanterelles (only starting to come up now really)
- ametyst deceivers (not much food from them but look beautiful in food)
- DW seems to have luck with field mushrooms which are basically wild champinioni
- I found one Penny Bun (king bolete)! These ones are so delicious.

We also have a beautifully sawdust grown Lion's mane! DW improved technique of incubating, maybe I will try to post a photo. I really look forward to eating this.

On other foods

Raspberries are all over the place, though admittedly mostly quite small.

Our peas and broadbeans were a great success this year, and all the rest of foods we grew! Beetroots are super sweet, and even gherkins and tomatoes bear fruit (we grow them outside in Scotland, not easy on these plants!)

I love the new potatoes we have. And man this season I eat so much butter, but then I counterbalance with wheelbarrows of greens, like sometimes two loaded plates of greens before the actual calories.

On microwave cooking

The kitchen here can be busy because so many people use it at times. We got very skilled with microwave cooking. Boiled potatoes are excellent and take 10-20min. Salmon was okay, although you won't get the crusty skin. Veggie stews work fine. For red meat I would probably prefer slow cooker.

On exercise and IF

I have been doing intermittent fasting for the past maybe couple of months? Got DW on board as well. I am cheating slightly in that I drink coffee each morning, so sometimes only start eating late afternoon. She drinks no coffee and normally eats past noon, although sometimes later.

We are also happy with the burpees! I am now habitually doing 200 burpees with wide-hand-pushups everyday. Body changes to be observed quite regularly. I have been doing burpees according to Jacob's training schedule for maybe 8 months and generally look quite athletic. Now experimenting further, tights become more defined and chest fuller, and the line between hip and abs can sometimes look like photoshopped. Only 30min / day (including cooling down / shower). Highly recommend. DW is now at 9-burpee sets for 22min. Sometimes she tells me she struggles with motivation, I tell her she can always revert to 25x8 sets. But her body changes quite a bit as well and I think she likes it, so she will probably stick to it.

On accommodation

In about a week I am going to be moving to that old Victorian mansion I have mentioned in an earlier post.

On studying

'Overshoot' by Catton left a lasting impression. I often find myself looking at writings or videos / interviews of Mollison, Geoff and recently Holmgren. I think I like their communication style in this order: Holmgren>Geoff>Mollison. I think if I were to communicate this stuff, I would be closest to Mollison though, ha!

So I have been thinking about permaculture and design and all that, because I have this plan of starting studying with Open University after summer and they have for example a degree in design. But I come to a conclusion that I will nevertheless go with my initial idea of studying Maths and Stats. Just seems more fundamental, and I like learning languages. Perhaps Maths and Stats is the most permaculture-like subject to study, since it can be applied literally everywhere.

Speaking of languages, I have been refreshing my Spanish as a gift for DW. Sometimes we chat in Spanish. Also, DW's family and friends don't speak English so it might be an investment in the future. And English is a learned language for us both, I really don't mind which learned language to use for communication as long as the skill is there.

On music

Piano: I am quite slow with learning Gymnopedie 1 by Erik Satie, there is some (slow) progress though.
I have learned the piano line of Fyrsta by Olafur Arnalds and half learned 'Tomorrow's Song' by him.

Sometimes I play for people in the house and they seem to enjoy it. Particularly, some people with learning disabilities find it calming.

I borrowed a keyboard from someone so that I can plug my headphones and practice more. Playing on a keyboard it a joke compared to playing piano! But it works well enough to practice.

Playing guitar and singing is on the back burner now. I think I have guitar pretty much mastered, but I am a lousy singer.
Last edited by guitarplayer on Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

horsewoman
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by horsewoman »

If you want to improve your singing along with playing the piano, check out Mark Baxters YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/z_EYyWesCKQ
You probably play scales/arpeggios anyway to warm up (at least you should! ;), so why not do his humming and vocalising exercises along for a few minutes. His exercises are my favourites, I gained half an octave in vocal range through them.

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

I have actually looked him up sometime ago after you'd recommended him to someone else on the forum. This guy has so many videos, I watched a few and then got too overwhelmed. I can give it a try though, is falsetto allowed?

I probably have the most anti school learning technique if it comes to music. On the piano all I can play I have learned from youtube midi tutorials. Guitar mostly from watching others play and some DVD courses, and one music workshop I attended over a decade ago. That being said, I have been doing scales on a guitar some years ago quite systematically. Would be great to learn to read music fluently.

horsewoman
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by horsewoman »

Re: falsetto - absolutely, he regularly goes into falsetto himself in the exercises. To start, I'd pick one shorter video - maybe use a search in his channel for a particular problem/thing you want practice and play around with this exercise a few days.

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

My new space

I am setting myself up in the old victorian mansion room. It is going to be mostly a studio for DW and I, in the following sense:

* there is a handy wooden bench sitting right in the window, this will be a spot for DW to do oil painting.
* I have set up a station for practicing piano (I have an old keyboard and headphones to practice, a wee table and some boxes for my laptop to be behind and above the keyboard = see piano tutorials on youtube). There are two real nice sounding pianos upstairs in the house.
* I have this 'Line6' device for recording guitar and I intend to start doing it. The guitar hanger already fixed and guitar hanging on a wall.
* fixed a mirror onto a wall, can be useful for exercising
* got one unit into the big kitchen here and fixed a lock on it, I intend to start baking bread regularly in the kitchen and this is for my stuff there not to be taken away by random people (it would be nice to just have rules about it rather than a lock, but the head of the organisation seems to be quite laissez-faire about such things so well, lock it is).

on work/living arrangement

I am pondering my job this morning. There are quite a few people on the forum writing about 'soul sucking' jobs that they want to leave asap. I have been in this situation when I did market research for a corporation. I lasted only 6 months, not sure if I could go through a 'soul sucking' job until enough money for FI. My job feels more meaningful, however less paid. It has some perks though.

Sure, it can be annoying at times, in a way life can be annoying. There is a team of 15 people I try to manage, some of them are lousy at their jobs, some of them don't want to do exactly what has to be done. Others show initiative and come up with solutions I have not though of (because of lack of creativity or time). I deal with a few people with learning disabilities and / or mental health issues on a daily basis (the same people everyday). Mostly it is trying to break down the complexities of life for them so that they can go through it relatively happy and stress free, and fulfilled with various activities they participate in.

And I also live where I work. I am sure there are some psychodynamic management theories talking about leader as a proxy for a parent figure. Occasionally I feel like a parent (or what I imagine as being a parent since I have no kids), trying to guide everyone in their endeavours. Sometimes I finish 8h work and then just come over to play the piano and chat with the residents (they are much more interesting than staff most of the time). Or sometimes I have to do overtime, but it is paid and it is anyway just a matter of giving meds to people or preparing supper, helping someone wash their hair, really no rocket science.

There are many things about living here that I like. And there are many opportunities to learn stuff and excel at different things, if one wants to. There are very few deadlines to meet, the work environment is very low key.

So the motivation to quit the job would be something like 'is there anything else out there to be experienced' rather than 'oh please let me get this SWR number asap and I am done.'

But then, we have 7 weeks of holidays every year and 4 weeks of unpaid leave every second year, so maybe there is already enough time to experience other things!

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

On holidays

Yesterday DW and I came back from a cycle to the British east coast. We returned back by coast approaching Edinburgh and then south to our place, skipping Edinburgh. It was great and costed around 40£ in total for some 85% chocolate, a fish and chips and a few more pieces of food.

Did 290km in 4 days and DW feels strong about cycling with panniers which is brilliant.

We averaged 12.7 km/h which is slow but nevermind. The total climb was 2345m.

I was carrying about 14l of water and somehow this is all we needed for the trip (plus quite a bit of fruit). Not much, I know, and we have a bit dry lips.

Have found masses of penny buns and had mushroom supper nearly every evening.

Saw dolphins and an amazing sunrise against the coastal cliffs, and some other great views.

Had no coffee since Thursday morning until now (4 days)

On coffee

I have discovered that I suffer nearly no negative symptoms of skipping coffee if I pair it with a lifestyle change such as going on a cycling trip. Looks like coffee is very context dependent in my case. I think I used to know it but forgot, so a good reminder.

On studying

The vocational qualification I am doing is dragging slowly, my tutor is not off due to bereavement. I don't mind that very much since my work is 100% complete, I am just waiting for others to do their bit. I am just going to collect another free study day next Tuesday.

I am doing a very basic free course on counselling now. I needed to record a video for it, I did a simulation of a counselling session with DW. DW's problem was aphids on her plants giving her a headache. The course is meant to last until November but is very basic, I am half way done with it by now.

I have received textbooks for Essential Mathematics 1 and Introducing Statistics from the Open University. I think the official enrollment is still pending approval of the fee grant from the Scottish Gov, but I am already excited with the books.

Back when I was 19 I actually did a year of studying acoustics and sound directing at a physics department and then switched to Psychology, then PolSci. I am looking forward to studying STEM again.

On money

We barely spend any money these days other than the standard £520 for accommodation, services and food.

The shares that we own are now at around £29.2k which is about £1.5 down from the last time I checked. Hope it stays down until Feb next year when we inject another £20k.

Unpaid leave?

DW and I have been talking briefly about taking 4 weeks off in Jan or Feb 2021 and going to South America. This would be a winter escape and visiting some of DW's friends.

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

P.S. I almost forgot but I think this is important: I got my brother to read the ERE book :)

I recommended it for him to have more people to talk to about ERE in real life. Brother found it interesting and said that just like people write books about 'how to survive in the jungle for 2 week and don't perish', this book is about how to have more money and live peacefully in the concrete jungle of human existence. He finds some details too radical to apply which was expected. Also a very spot on observation about the book coming across as a radical escape away from consumptionism which it is. He also pointed out the USA-centrism of the book which is true and understandable.

Brother said that he would not see a point in always finding ways of solving problem without money just for the sake of not spending money. I think I will tackle this point in my response to him, and I will focus on
* the added value of the skill that is the ability to solve problems moneyless (or even pondering it the mental experiment style)
* educational value of being such a role model for children (he's got two children), sort of drawing on the 'millionaire next door' where it turns out that children of frugal millionaires turn out to be big spenders, which I think is partly because parents 'hide' their smart ways of dealing with money away from children.

So yes I look forward to continue the dialogue with my brother on ERE topics :)

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

I got myself a dehydrator. I had some incentives for it:

* lots of wild food around at the moment, mostly wild mushrooms. Threading them on is time consuming / they fall off as the thread cuts through them
* I pay a flat rate for the organic food that is available here. There is lots of fruit that goes to waste, I plan to dry some of it. Also button mushrooms often go off, and some veggies.
* I pay flat rate for electricity
* I want to make some fancy foods like dried tomatoes in olive oil

Anyway, there is a nice story around getting the dehydrator. Initially I wanted to find one for free on freecycle or similar, but could not find anything. There were a few second hand on ebay but all auctions ending in 2-6 days. Then I checked Gumtree and there was one guy selling a used-only-once dehydrator for £15 which is more or less (probably a bit less than) half price. A cheap dehydrator for sure, not an Excalibur. But it was sitting in someone’s house for years unused so why not start using it?
The things was, the person was based in Glasgow which is around 45miles from my place. I spotted the ad two days ago and checked that the weather was going to be great yesterday. I briefly thought about cycling there with panniers, collecting and cycling back. Then DW came up with the same idea! It was a long but very beautiful day, very positively tired today (next day morning) and yes enjoying this cup of coffee!

basuragomi
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by basuragomi »

How is the biking infrastructure/attitude towards cyclists in Scotland? A long summer day bucolicly pedaling sounds like a lovely time. Your dehydrator can support your biking trips/general outdoor work as well now, by dehydrating entire meals. Curry dehydrates quite well.

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

@basuragomi, if you have any experience with dehydrating foods please share tips or point me to good resources online to read up. I am going to do my own research as well. The one I have got is the round one with a hole in the middle (not like e.g. excalibur), so not every dish is going to fit in.

Re the question: sustrans marked some cycling lanes, gathered old railway lines and country roads into a national network of cycling routes in the UK

https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/54.23573,-3.02784,7

It's pretty good, but as you can see relatively sparse in Scotland compared to other parts of the UK. There are quite a few railway lines that make great cycling paths. Otherwise sometimes you get a lane on the road, but these are not the best. I find the state of roads in the Scotland terrible, and they decay most / first on the edges i.e. where the cycling lanes are.

From the recent experience, cycling into Glasgow was quite a headache as I have been just following maps.me route to get us to the dehydrator. It took us through Motherwell which is one of the industrial towns of the Glasgow conglomeration and that was not the nicest experience. On the way back I decided to take the route 74 and cycle south to Larkhall, then heading east to our place. That turned out much better, in the beginning a cycle lane on the road, then a designated lane, then a bit of a relatively busy roads in the country and then just country roads.

The attitude varies. I cycled a lot in Austria in the past and there drivers were really careful. In the UK cycling is tolerable, but you still get a car passing right next to you every now and again. I cycled a lot in big towns and toured a bit so used to it, although of course can be stressful and especially when looking at the mounted phone and trying to follow a route. I just asked DW and she said she was quite stressed due to traffic for about 15% of our Glasgow escapade. The weather made up for it, and it was a bit surreal to have lunch in Glasgow which is so far, aware that we are just on a day trip.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

On dehydrating

The dehydrating season is full on. Yesterday I had a soup from dehydrated porcelain fungi. It was tasty but the mushrooms are not visually appealing when cooked (they are when growing on a decaying beech! like so https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=porcel ... &ia=images)

Today we are going to one place where we found heaps of porcini last year, let's see if it is too late or not.

I am definitely going to be giving drying fruit a go. And I am quite excited about possibly drying cheese (though it might melt?)

On job

There was a disruption of sorts at work. I can see how it happened, but it got me emotionally more detached from the job. This is significant, because I live on site so that sort of stuff affects life at work and also after work. I am going to be moving to a wee house that is on the periphery of the estate, so it will resemble more just a regular employment. I am still going to be paying super little for staying there, plus bills and food flat rate. I will not have the ca. £70 / month 'bonus' money that was related to the house I have been staying in until recently,but I don't mind forgoing it at this point.

DW and I are sometimes talking about our future at the job here. The job itself is okay, I really like to hang out with the residents of the place (it is a care facility for adults with learning disabilities). I really don't like to spend much time with most of staff, ha!

On studying

I am about to start Maths and Stats with Open University (UK). Still quite excited, I went through the 'Algebra' Unit which is basically a high school refresher. I am going through 'Functions and Graphs' now. The course will officially start in the beginning of October. I haven't gotten any info about my funding being approved, but I assume it had been since I got many books posted etc.

DW enrolled into some python courses at edx.org (my understanding is that this is more or less like coursera). She occasionally mentions getting somehow qualified in mycology / mushrooms' picking / foraging. We look for courses but there is not much that brings a prospect of income, other than some pharmaceutical PhD programmes.

On real estate

On our recent cycling trip we rode through some of the industrial parts of Scotland around Glasgow. I have been looking at flats in these parts as they are very cheap. But man, the picture of it was so depressing (and it was a nice sunny day!). So I think I am going to spend less time looking at real estate browsers advertising real estate in those areas.

I would like to explore Govanhill and near southside in Glasgow, there are cheap properties there as well. Apparently some problems with rubbish and immigrants and many slum landlords. I wonder if DW and I could put up with it and at the same time be super close to great libraries and other venues. Plus, these flats are the old tenement flats and don't look as depressing as the social housing on the suburbs. Perhaps it would be good to move to a Muslim neighbourhood.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Monthly update

I have decided to report money matters in USD so that I am a bit more anonymous perhaps. I still work in Scotland and earn in £.

On money

Thinking about the last month, I am pretty sure the saving's rate was above 75 or 80%. DW and I are on some 110,000 USD at the moment. I read someone's rule of thumb here recently, this equates to 11 dollar a day for the rest of our lives, so still a little to little ;) That being said, yesterday evening we we were chatting about what alternative lifestyle (cycle touring, helpx etc) it could afford.

On studying

My grant for studying Maths and Stats has been officially approved. The grant is issued by a governmental organisation, so one way to think about it is that it is a $2300 tax return :) This has to be applied for every year so two more times until I get a BSc (if I make it!). And I cannot get it if I happen to earn more than $32200 / year (gross). So yes, I am definitely capitalising on the very curious setting I have here (i.e. don't earn much but spend very little = decent savings + such perks like this studying fee grant).

Anyway, I have gone through algebra, graphs and equations refreshers and now I am doing functions. I also got to learn about maxima software.

It's really a pleasure going through these refreshers, thinking about different forms of infinity and just playing with all those abstractions.

Now winter is slowly coming so this will keep me busy until the next gardening season is on.

DW booked herself an IELTS for Dec. A few reasons - she's thinking about going to school again (MSc, PhD) and it will also work for the purpose of getting the local passport. Also to become a more confident language user, I guess.

On dehydrating

I have been experimenting with dehydrating oranges, bananas and lots of mushrooms. The cheap dehydrator I got is not like an excalibur where you can create a big space for, say, a jug of yoghurt, so this limits the options.

Also, I only have access to shared kitchens with lots of people coming in and out and so it sits in my studio. This is not ideal because of constant humming noise. In a month I am moving to a little cottage where there is only one other person living. There I will just leave it in the kitchen, so problem solved.

On exercise

I have perhaps a 95% success rate with doing 200 pushup burpees everyday. I supplement this training with usual cycling places, going foraging, lots of being outdoors. I feel really good at the moment.

On food

Intermittent fasting is great. The system of having coffees in the morning and food in the afternoon works brilliant for me. Even without coffees it would work (I had learned about it on the last cycling trip).

We eat a lot of butter and salt I have to say, but also lots of veggies. I definitely would not mind eating olive oil and less salt (DW is slightly hooked on salt).

Anyone knows of research about saturated fats and salt intake as a health risk factor in highly physically active adults?

guitarplayer
Posts: 1299
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

It was very refreshing today to re-read about the origin of 'e'. Reading about functions.

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