Re: Internationalist
Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 12:49 am
Savings rate for December: 37.1%.
Books read: Confederacy of Dunces (Toole, definitely a funny book. Described in the blurb as laugh-out-loud funny, but I wouldn’t say that, for me I just really liked the cleverness of it and the absurdity of its protagonist), The Honorary Consul (Greene, ending a bit unsatisfying, but otherwise I really liked this one – struck me as a bit of a male fantasy book though, with lack of meaningful female characters and its preoccupation with whoring, mistresses, and ‘possessing’ women).
“It took him more than a few years of life in Buenos Aires before he began to realize that the existence of an exile did not make for simplicity – so many documents, so many visits to government offices. Simplicity belonged by right to those who were native-born, those who could take the conditions of life, however bizarre, for granted.”
I was in Dakar for a week, working. One of the benefits of work travel is the per diem, of which I managed to save a considerable amount.
We managed to keep spending largely in check for the month, until the final week. I won’t go into it here, but let’s just say some of our money will help someone out and will probably return to us medium term. Looks likely that DW will be returning to work, although the pay will be low and there will be some startup costs (visas). I made a neat little profit (realized profit, not hypothetical value profit) by making a good judgement on bitcoin, but that effectively just paid for the Christmas presents I ordered to be delivered to family back home.
One of the things that is perhaps good and bad about being an expat is the experience of the holiday season. It tends not to be stressful, there’s no build-up, there’s no expectation, at least here in Ethiopia I’m not bombarded with advertising. At the same time, though, spending Christmas with family is nice, so missing out on that is a downer. It’s easy to let Christmas turn into just another day – regular breakfast, lunch and dinner, wash dishes, read a book. I think this is not a good development – it’s nice to have rituals and festivals to give shape to the year, even as an atheist I recognize this.
I’m currently trialing fasting. I decided that for two days a week I will fast until the evening meal (the 5:2 kind of idea). During the fasting days, I haven’t been eating nothing, but restricted myself to say, some olives, a boiled egg, maybe a small piece of cheese. I have been surprised by how little the sensation of ‘hunger’ appears (that is, a growly stomach). Still, for the first four days of fasting I did feel pretty weird. Most noticeable was a slight feeling of clumsiness in my extremities – not severe, but a bit of an odd feeling. I also feel like maybe I had more difficulty concentrating, but my work is not particularly engaging, so when I’m fasting at work it’s difficult to say if I’m really concentrating less effectively than usual… Anyway, I seem to be mostly getting over these negative effects now, I think, but I’ll continue to evaluate the plan. Why fast? Well, I don’t need to lose weight, if anything I would like to regain some of the muscle I once had (yeah right, when TH settles down enough for me to consider an exercise plan again). It’s just something I figured I’d try after I’ve read numerous people advocating it – a ‘go with the crowd’ kind of thing. The warrior diet is in the ERE book, after all.
Net worth has been rising rapidly for the last few months. Part of this must be illusory though – when we moved into our current place we paid six months’ rent in advance. Absent rental payments, much of the paycheck has been socked into savings. I need to make another payment this month, although it’ll now be three months’ in advance. So absent market moves, NW will likely not increase in January. With my new and improved wealth-tracking spreadsheet, in a few months’ time I might be able to tack some pretty graphs into this journal.
Meanwhile, in Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ol-sandpit
Books read: Confederacy of Dunces (Toole, definitely a funny book. Described in the blurb as laugh-out-loud funny, but I wouldn’t say that, for me I just really liked the cleverness of it and the absurdity of its protagonist), The Honorary Consul (Greene, ending a bit unsatisfying, but otherwise I really liked this one – struck me as a bit of a male fantasy book though, with lack of meaningful female characters and its preoccupation with whoring, mistresses, and ‘possessing’ women).
“It took him more than a few years of life in Buenos Aires before he began to realize that the existence of an exile did not make for simplicity – so many documents, so many visits to government offices. Simplicity belonged by right to those who were native-born, those who could take the conditions of life, however bizarre, for granted.”
I was in Dakar for a week, working. One of the benefits of work travel is the per diem, of which I managed to save a considerable amount.
We managed to keep spending largely in check for the month, until the final week. I won’t go into it here, but let’s just say some of our money will help someone out and will probably return to us medium term. Looks likely that DW will be returning to work, although the pay will be low and there will be some startup costs (visas). I made a neat little profit (realized profit, not hypothetical value profit) by making a good judgement on bitcoin, but that effectively just paid for the Christmas presents I ordered to be delivered to family back home.
One of the things that is perhaps good and bad about being an expat is the experience of the holiday season. It tends not to be stressful, there’s no build-up, there’s no expectation, at least here in Ethiopia I’m not bombarded with advertising. At the same time, though, spending Christmas with family is nice, so missing out on that is a downer. It’s easy to let Christmas turn into just another day – regular breakfast, lunch and dinner, wash dishes, read a book. I think this is not a good development – it’s nice to have rituals and festivals to give shape to the year, even as an atheist I recognize this.
I’m currently trialing fasting. I decided that for two days a week I will fast until the evening meal (the 5:2 kind of idea). During the fasting days, I haven’t been eating nothing, but restricted myself to say, some olives, a boiled egg, maybe a small piece of cheese. I have been surprised by how little the sensation of ‘hunger’ appears (that is, a growly stomach). Still, for the first four days of fasting I did feel pretty weird. Most noticeable was a slight feeling of clumsiness in my extremities – not severe, but a bit of an odd feeling. I also feel like maybe I had more difficulty concentrating, but my work is not particularly engaging, so when I’m fasting at work it’s difficult to say if I’m really concentrating less effectively than usual… Anyway, I seem to be mostly getting over these negative effects now, I think, but I’ll continue to evaluate the plan. Why fast? Well, I don’t need to lose weight, if anything I would like to regain some of the muscle I once had (yeah right, when TH settles down enough for me to consider an exercise plan again). It’s just something I figured I’d try after I’ve read numerous people advocating it – a ‘go with the crowd’ kind of thing. The warrior diet is in the ERE book, after all.
Net worth has been rising rapidly for the last few months. Part of this must be illusory though – when we moved into our current place we paid six months’ rent in advance. Absent rental payments, much of the paycheck has been socked into savings. I need to make another payment this month, although it’ll now be three months’ in advance. So absent market moves, NW will likely not increase in January. With my new and improved wealth-tracking spreadsheet, in a few months’ time I might be able to tack some pretty graphs into this journal.
Meanwhile, in Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ol-sandpit