Author: koalie

I am ♀, W3C staff since early 99, mum of a ♂since late 07.

Dream: my jellyfish iPhone

I had the silliest dream last night.

Puzzled Memoji

My iPhone had three new pages of app icons which were in fact photos from my camera roll. I had no idea this was possible and I was baffled how these had ended up there.

I was in my office, but instead of a floor, I was wading knee-hight through the Mediterranean sea, near the shore. Actually, I was standing between my desk and the shore. The configuration of my office was exactly as I know it, except there were no walls, no roof, no floor. Just the sea of shallow waters beneath me, and the beach unseen behind me.

My iPhone was huge. The size of six or nine iPads stitched together, and it was floating on the surface of the water. But it was normal. Everything seemed normal to me, then.

A breakthrough occurred: I had just realised that selecting several of my photos was what had turned them into the app shortcuts on the iPhone screen. Several pages of those. I just needed to undo that. But long-press on them did not remove them.

When I long-pressed, instead of jiggling the icons, the iPhone produced… a sunny-side-up egg with a side of bacon.

That’s not all.

The egg white had text written on it, but insufficient contrast, so I couldn’t read it.

That was very frustrating. Also, the ebb and flow made it hard for the egg-and-bacon to not jiggle on its own. And while the giant floating iPhone was unaffected by the wavelets, the egg-and-bacon quickly started to sink.

So I kept long-pressing the humongous floating iPhone, and it kept producing sunny side-up eggs and bacon, with insufficient text contrast, which kept sinking. No matter how hard I squinted, all I could make of the text were several undecipherable grey lines.

I woke up just as the iPhone had started to produce jelly and peanut butter sample containers in addition to more of the sunny-side-up egg and bacon. Upon waking, I was wondering how many more ingredients the iPhone had “in it”, and how the heck I was going to get rid of the photos turned into icons on the iPhone screens. The photos were not even great. I guess I’ll never know!

That’s it. That’s the dream.

I was neither hungry when I woke up, nor had I eaten breakfast before going to Zzzleep. I don’t know that you can turn camera roll photos into screen shortcuts either.

Exercising: 2022 review

2022 was the third year in a row after I started exercising daily. Before 2020, I was stubbornly against any form of exercise (I don’t even know why.) This is the review post of my exercising year 2022, following the review I wrote last year.

2022 was a good year. Not as impressive as 2021. I think I overdid it back then!

Raw numbers

I covered 2955 km (1,836 miles) walking and running.

I cycled 1315 km (817 miles) in 4 months.

I exercised 688 hours.

I engaged in 625 workouts.

To put in perspective some of these tallies (generated by the excellent and free Fitness Stats iOS app):

  • In 2022 I walked or ran more than I drove! 2900 km (1,800 miles) vs. 2500 km (1,500 miles)
  • 688 hours of exercise is equivalent to 28.6 days (roughly a month of February)
  • 625 workouts (25 fewer than last year) mean that on average I engaged in almost two different activities per day

Burnout and anemia

I became aware a few years back that I have anemia. I had been giving blood four times a year (following the recommendation for women) until I was advised that however generous I wanted to be, it was better to donate twice per year. I was medicated the first time this was diagnosed but it was just a temporary fix. My body does not absorb iron very well. And since hemoglobins carry the precious oxygen to muscles, anemia leads to fatigue. Meh. I also burned out at work after Summer. So I gradually ramped down exercising to a gentler degree.

My Apple Watch is my sidekick

I respond very well to the daily coaching of my Apple Watch. I start my “activities” on it, launch from it the music, podcasts or audiobooks that I listen to via my headphones (Apple AirPods Pro or Bose QC35, both of which have noise cancellation.) I heed its reminders, enter the monthly challenges, the limited edition challenges.

Monthly challenges

In 2022 again I earned all of the monthly challenges. They are determined based on recent activities and are meant to either keep you at the same level or elevate you a bit, so that at the end of the year you have improved.

  • 366.7 km (11.8/d)
  • 17x double move goal
  • 31x close all rings
  • 15x double move goal
  • 3140 minutes (105/d)
  • 23902 kcal (797/d)
  • 31x close all rings
  • 5x double move goals
  • 22400 kcal (747/d)
  • 14x 700 kcal
  • 3x double move goals
  • 5 walking workouts

Notes: The first challenges of each quarter were not easy and required extra effort. In addition to these three (January, May, September), June was also difficult because burning almost 800 kcal everyday of the month on average required intense sessions during the weekends in order to make up for the work week where it’s usually harder to fit longer workouts. The last three of the year were really easy and I welcomed the break!

The January 2023 challenge is to cover at least 4 kilometers a day 14 times.

New gear

I got myself a nice pedal assist mountain bike 😍 early September.

Me next to my Nakamura eSummit 950 (picture by Daniel Dardailler)

Daniel asked me in the Spring if I might like to go biking with him once. To be honest, I wasn’t that chuffed and I said “sure, why not” but I didn’t think of it anymore until he asked again in the Summer. We finally went on the last day of August. It was A BLAST! We biked in the Esterel and I loved it so much that I bought my own e-mountain bike the same evening!

I bike as often as I can. With Daniel or not. To go places.

My longest and furthest cycling was on 13 November: 6 hours, 96 km (60 miles), elevation gain of 1067 meters (3,500 ft). I managed by saving as much battery as I could.

The advertised range of that e-bike is 80 km but in practice in the area it’s more accurate to plan circuits that do not exceed 50 km.

The part that was actual mountain biking was a small 9-kilometer area which I covered in less than 30 minutes! But going there was fun (and challenging) and going back along the coast was really beautiful. Great memory!

Aside: Even less use of my car

Since my teenage boy started high school in Cannes and takes the train I no longer have to drive him. I drove under 2500 km (1,500 miles) in 2022 and refueled only 3 times (180 liters).

I have continued walking, running (and now cycling) to places, to run errands, instead of driving which I do basically for grocery shopping.

Graphs

Daily average of exercise in 2022: 113 minutes (January peaked at 156 minutes per day on average)
Daily average of active energy in 2022: 747 kcal (January peaked at 925 kcal per day on average)
Daily average steps in 2022: 9,817 (January peaked at 16,712 steps per day on average)
Daily average running and walking distance in 2022: 8 km (January peaked at 14.3 km per day on average)
Daily average cycling in 2022: 31.5 km per day (August is misleading because I biked about 40 km on one day that month)
Activity graphs in 2022: move, exercise (both fluctuated), stand (steady at 19)

Weight graph for 2022: 63.12 kg on average, slight decrease

Strava’s year in sport

One of the perks of being a paying subscriber of the sports tracking app Strava is the yearly report. See below.

Cover
363 days active, walking as top sport
Top 1% of the most active (I’m among 100,000+ as Strava has over 100,000,000 users)
Fastest/longest activities: 22 km/h avg speed cycling, 5:41 min/km avg pace running, 96 km furthest cycling
Total elevation (34511 m)=and distance (2778 km)
Top photos
Strava’s year 2022 in sport

Gentler Streak’s activity recap

In 2022 Guillaume tipped me about this new (paid) app that focuses on gentle and optimal training. It’s not a social network. There are explainers, advice on food or training, and beautiful graphics.

Cover
Journey: body needs met on 355 days
Condition: optimal
States
363 days active, 618 workouts
Activities breakdown
571 hours total activities
Distance
Distance breakdown
Elevation
Elevation breakdown
Heart rate zones
Gentler Streak’s year 2022 recap

SportsTracker’s summary view

Here are some screenshots from the free app SportsTracker, which is very similar to Strava.

Calendar view showing big or small dots in a given colour (green for walking and hiking, pink for fitness-like activities, yellow fir running, grey for other)
Details of each activity type : walking, elliptical, stretching biking, other
Details of each activity type : yoga, hiking, cycling, running, swimming and dancing
Trends
13-month graph of fitness, fatigue and form
13-month graph of fitness, fatigue and form
SportsTracker’s summary view

Burnout

I’m still in between feeling ashamed and being OK about having crashed and burned at work. I’m recovering from a burnout that was long in coming and even the recovery is long in coming!

Manifestation

The few signs which undoubtedly called my attention to the fact that I was burning out were:

  • Scattered thoughts and inability to keep one thought in focus
  • Difficulty to comprehend what I was reading
  • General sudden sluggishness in even the most mundane habitual tasks
  • Loss of words
  • Loss of hair

In truth, the sudden and continued loss of hair is what worried me and got me to make an appointment at my doctor’s. I was quick to discard all of the rest as just a collateral of sustained work done in a period of rush, such as we all regularly have. I didn’t lose all of my hair but I was losing enough every time I touched it that after a few weeks (months, really) it really bothered me. My body gave me cause to worry and act on it, since I was ignoring all other signs.

Diagnostic

My doctor ordered blood sample analysis which returned that I was in perfect health, so having ruled out a physical disease focused on a disease of the mind. After a few questions I was offered to be off work on medical leave.

Break

The doctor gave me a two-week medical leave at first and then extended it by the week, or every few weeks, for a total of 8 weeks. I met with the doctor after each extension.

During what I thought was the last extension I got really anxious about going back to work. I felt I was not ready and worried a lot. I described to the doctor that I had been worried sick the whole time, that I felt I had just one go at this and that if I returned prematurely I feared it would have been all for nothing. The last extension of the medical leave he gave me was for three weeks.

All in all, I did a whole lot of nothing, except for exercising, and did it very slowly too. I wasn’t too sad, or too distressed. I didn’t miss work. I dreaded it as I wrote. The doctor gave me pills to try to sleep better and more efficiently but the two types I tried did not work. When I wasn’t on the bike, or running, or walking, I watched a TV show that my parents gave me as a birthday present. I didn’t have a lot of bandwidth and headspace for much else.

I would have liked to do more, be that reading, or drawing, or even thinking but it just didn’t happen and I was OK with it because I knew I just didn’t have it in me.

The break was good and beneficial. Every one around me, including at work,was so supportive I am very lucky and appreciate how blessed I am.

Return

After 8 weeks off, I returned to work. It was very overwhelming but everyone was very nice, and careful to NOT make me feel overwhelmed. There was a few thousands email in my various mail boxes. I still remembered how to work, my passwords, Zoom meeting room numbers and the likes.

For many weeks, I was still at loss for so many words. That was one of the most unexpected signs, to be frank. Especially in English where my vocabulary is rich and broad (not to brag!) Today even, to a lesser degree I continue to struggle, and words are at the tip of my tongue or fingers.

It took me 4 or 5 weeks to get back in most of the flow of work and another 1 or 2 to actually feel I was almost back.

“Almost”, because I feel that I’m not back to being myself (yet?) Things still take me much longer than before 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s as though something in my brain restricts it from being fully functional. Maybe it’s a built-in security until such time that I can be back to my previous self, speed and abilities. 

Addendum: Origins

2022-12-21 update: I had meant to include a section last night as part of this entry to shed a bit of light on the origins of my burnout, but I realize just now that I forgot it.

I had lost faith. It’s as simple as that. I could sustain a certain level of stress, anxiety, workload and frustration as long as I was *driven*. But when that got removed, the entire balance (however unhealthy and wrong) broke.

I won’t go into details but I will say that I realised that my voice was not heard, my actions had no impact and the weight of that was too much for me.

Addendum: Hope

2022-12-22 update: I might have some faith still. And if not faith, at least hope.

Since I returned, I mostly focused on the parts of work that don’t require faith but execution.

The organisation is changing so there is hope I can try to make a difference. I really like our mission. I feel I still have what my former manager (our former CEO, who left almost a month ago) referred to as “unfinished business”