This was a rather full week here in Stanford. I spent a day in the spectacular WeWork in San Francisco with one of the other people in the lab. Afterwards, he signed us up for Barry’s bootcamp – it was my first time doing this and my, was it an experience! I was sore for 3 straight days afterwards!

It didn’t help that my brother arrived the next day and I took him on long walks to show the area/SF/ Stanford dish hike. I hadn’t seen him in over a year so it was nice to catch up and have some company, especially given how empty the place was feeling. It was also nice to show him some of the places in the area since he’s big on visiting headquarters and specific highlights in a city.

I had to change my return date by about 8 days and as a result, as you’re reading this, I have just over 2 weeks left here in the US! How time has flown! These past few weeks have been truly a bit more chaotic, not just with visitors but also with no specific tasks to anchor the days.

Looks like after decades of having such a fixed and rigid timetable, I can’t quite embrace the “fully” free model- some light structure is required for me to plan around 😂

Somehow, this all reminds me of the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” and how one of the characters talks about being “institutionalised”. It’s somewhat scary to think that while I’m at work, I often think about the things I’d do with all the free time one day. When given that free time, I literally don’t know what to do with it!

One thing this whole experience has taught me is that I need to free up time slowly. It’s a bit of a skill to be totally self motivated and to make a calendar that’s aligned with what you want to do. It seems simple in practice, but I don’t always want to go to the gym or do the hard thing. And reflecting on goals and the bigger picture mostly seems woo woo, even though it seems to be the key to spending the days well…

More food for thought for my last weeks here.