voracious reader + full-time optimist
It was April 2017 when I visited New York for the first time; I was traveling with my family over the Easter break and I had taken a few days off work to accommodate for a nice full week in the city that never sleeps. [We did sleep, though. This is what walking for hours each day does to you.]
When I was setting my resolutions for 2020 (little had I known!), I was seeking mainly for things that would add value to my everyday life and spark joy. Yes, it sounds awfully Marie Kondo but it essentially true. As a result, one of the resolutions I settled one was “to read more non-fiction”.
I first got into podcasts when I started training for a half marathon last summer. Despite loving all the energy I’d get from my music playlists, running long distances could get quite… lonely. And you can only listen to the same Lizzo album on repeat for so long.
Netflix move over, it’s reading time. If you’re self-isolating (or social distancing, as the cool kids call it these days), reading is a great way to escape, switch off, take a break from the constant stream of updates and – often misinformed – social posts, and disappear into another world for a bit.
This is no ordinary love story.
The running app on my phone – I’m using the Nike Run Club one and loving it – may suggest that it all started back in April 2018.
Yet this is not the full story. Like a TV series romance that you watch slowly unravel for an agonizing period of weeks until it manifests itself, my running affair began on Tuesday, 13th February of the same year.
“Yesterday I had dinner with my best friend and his crazy girlfriend”, he says nonchalantly when I ask him what he’s been up to during the weekend.
This is to let you know that I have failed to complete the NaNoWriMo 2018 Challenge. What exactly is this, you might ask and rightly so. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a challenge that started in the US about ten years ago and has since spread to every corner of the world. Every year thousands of people vow to complete the arduous task of writing 50k words within a month, i.e. a short novel that has about the same length as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
Brunch in London is our national sport, right after queuing and doing small talk. If you live here, then you’re probably always on the lookout for a new brunch place to try – so many restaurants, so little time. Consistent with my generation, who chooses to invest on avocado toast and artisan coffee, here’s a handful of places that never fail to deliver.
According to Instagram, most of my top nine 2017 moments have my face in them as if I was an otherworldly beauty set to conquer planet earth. This, though, could not be any further from the reality.
These are my true top 2017 moments:
