Year: 2017

Hidden Gem

An old synagogue nestled between skyscrapers in Tel Aviv.

Old Customs House

Old customs house, Tel Aviv, on my favourite time of year. It’s sporting some new graffiti artwork now.

This evening…

… I didn’t feel like going for my scheduled 5k because it was hot, and I spent most of the day on my feet at a friend’s wedding, so I was tired and pretty sore. But I dragged my ass to the gym, put in my 5k (I hate treadmill runs), and was rewarded with this view on my way back:

There’s never a run that’s not worth it.

The State of Affairs

  • I’ve been running 25k per week for a few weeks now, with a 10k long run included.
  • I’ve started doing daily push-ups for the past week (30 per day). I still need to get back to doing strength exercises.
  • I’ve been reading a lot more and writing a lot more. After a bit of a slump, I decided to give the Streaks app a chance. It’s been helping keeping me on track so far.
  • My second draft has been going in some ways better than expected, in others worse. I hated rewriting my university papers, and I thought that rewriting a 120K word novel would be a pain, but for some reason it isn’t a hassle at all. The first four chapters were simple fixes, but I hit a giant plot hole that I hadn’t noticed once I reached chapter 5. I trashed chapter 5 and chapter 6 completely, writing them from scratch (on the bright side they’re much shorter and better now), and it looks like chapter 7 is going to have to undergo the same treatment. Writing a novel is a process, and I’ve learned a few things about writing since I started, which means that scenes that I wrote almost two years (!) ago just don’t work right now. At least I’m enjoying the process so far, though it is a rather lonely one.
  • Gratuitous photo of a gorgeous Tel Aviv summer sunset from yesterday’s 7k:

    Hello Sailor!

    Bought this years ago and don’t remember the exact limited edition it was, but even the simplest Sailor nib writes like a dream.