October 4, 2012: Me Day - Age 27

This year I started this tradition of taking a day to do a personal inventory on my birthday.

Wake up and watch the sun rise.

I got up at 6:30, sat on the roof, and watched the sun rise. Squirrels were surprised to see me up there, many dogs stirred early, and I knew peace.

Create a piece of art.

I made a timelapse video of the sunrise. The video lost more of the frames than I wanted. It was challenging to look straight ahead during the camera shots when I wanted to look at the squirrels and dogs and sunrays all around me. I hoped that a squirrel would come knock my phone off its precarious perch on the crest of the roof.

Measure physical stats and take fitness pictures.

Weight: 145.7 lbs
Body fat: 12.2%
Chest: 34.75"
Right arm: 12"
Left arm: 11.25"
Waist: 28"
Hips: 36"
Right leg: 21.50"
Left leg: 21"
Resting HR: 59 bpm


Measure my max push-ups and pull-ups.

37 push-ups: fast, strict, chin touching the ground.
20 pull-ups: fast, no kipping, chin above bar.
I felt a bit nauseous after testing both of those maxes. At least this is something I should always be able to easily test, even if I don't have weights around in future years.

Take a long walk.

I walked, book in hand, a couple miles in the morning slanty sun up to get blood tests, longboarded back home, and later walked up a mile to meet Chloe for dinner and back.

Read from a favorite book.

I went for The Bone Doll's Twin this time, kicking off the whole Tamír Triad, against which I sway powerlessly once I start reading. This book is so good that the first time I read it, ten years ago, I finished it immediately--and then reread it again the next day. Then, when Hidden Warrior came out, I reread this one, then read that one. Then The Oracle's Queen? Reread them all. Now I'm at it again, my work suffers, and my heart sings.

Get blood tests.

I always like getting blood tests at this LabCorp; Leo and I banter. He always talks about app ideas his friends have.

My Vitamin D is still low at 59.8--last year it was 83.5. SHBG is finally within range at 53.0, down from 70.1 last year. Iron saturation is returning to sanity at 36%, down from 79% just two months ago. HDL 74 (76 last year), LDL 139 (134), triglycerides 57 (46). Free testosterone is only 11.0. Fibrinogen activity is low at 192, although I don't know what that means. C-reactive protein is 0.11. Other stuff looks fine. I should probably work on a better way to show trends in these levels and understand what they mean, but I hate researching this stuff.

Count my possessions and get back down to 99.

I had to exorcise a dozen preciouses: clothes, cables, my magnet, two water bottles, etc. It was tough. I'm still at 99 things, which feels great.

Take stock of finances.

Finances are sufficient and I have more than I need. I have given up trying to be frugal this past year, but it appears I still don't know how to spend much money.

(If you're me, you get to see stats here. Since you're not me, you see nothing.)

Do Quantified Mind testing.

I started a monthly Aging battery on Quantified Mind, with the aim of tracking my horrifying and unstoppable cognitive decline. Next year I'll have some dismaying figures to report here. Exciting! (I can at least be curious about it.)

Call my family.

I had good conversations with Mom and Dad. Didn't talk to Bro yet, though.

Reflect on the past year

I sat down with my journal and evaluated three areas: what went well, what didn't go well, and how my relationships are now.

What went well? This past year, I:
  • Massively increased my motivation, goal-achievement, and productivity
  • Grew my confidence
  • Built the Skritter iPhone and iPad apps for Chinese and Japanese
  • Learned basic bouldering and top-roping
  • Built a treadmill desk as an experiment
  • Increased my endurance and strength: bench 145 -> 190, squat 215 -> 235, deadlift 240 -> 270
  • Went from a 37-second handstand against the wall to a 61-second freestanding handstand
  • Traveled for two weeks in Mexico and Guatemala
  • Learned Chinese: +386 字 (2955), +3197 词 (7291)
  • Wrote a book
  • Built a personal site
  • Hired two employees
  • Ran a half marathon in 1:56:01
  • Ran a 5K in 23:32
  • Learned to throw knives
  • Learned to longboard
  • Did two best man speeches, a packed meetup talk, and a plenary conference talk
  • Read 29 books
  • Went skydiving
  • Started rocking at lucid dreaming
  • Got down to 99 things
  • Started the Human Hacker House
  • Helped launch Quantified Mind
  • Pioneered a new method of cognitive testing QS experimentation
  • Investigated two vastly different ways of living life, both of which were the best yet
  • Saw all my relatives at the wedding, and also separately visited Mom, Dad twice, Bro, Chloe's parents, and George thrice
  • Went to NYC for the first time
  • Moved to Silicon Valley
  • Met a bunch of new people
  • Built a life with Chloe that aligns with both our dreams
What didn't go well? I:
  • Went from 137 lbs, 10.5% bodyfat to 145.7 lbs, 12.2% bodyfat (+3.4 lbs fat, +5.3 lbs muscle)
  • Have worse skin
  • Am continuing to bald
  • Let my Anki slide while focusing on Skritter
  • Practiced very little spoken Chinese
  • Haven't deepened any friendships outside of H3
  • Still don't have many great clothes that fit me
  • Still have not lived in China
  • Still have not figured out how to eat
  • Still have unsatisfactory transportation
  • Still do not remember to smile
  • Still do not speak clearly
  • Am sitting almost all day
How are my relationships?

Apart from my overwhelming love for Chloe, overall satisfaction with other relationships eluded me this year. I'm having good times with the people at hand, but most of my people are far. I seek deeper connections with friends and family. The acquaintance network suffices.

(The detailed list is me-only, too.)

Organize my files and computer desktop.

This took many hours this year, as I was badly disorganized. I collected all my pictures and put them on Snapjoy, collected and organized all my videos, put all my large files in CrashPlan, organized all my small files in Dropbox, cleared off my desktop, upgraded to Mountain Lion, saved every important file in the Chloe folder, and deleted many tens of thousands of junk files.

Phew. Next year I hope this doesn't take very long.

Add at least one tradition.

Well, I did at that, up from zero last year!

Destroy at least one habit.

I decided that my sleep experiments had to go. My sleep is always the same, so why experiment with eye masks and orange glasses and sun alarms in hope of picking up significant variance? There's no variance!

Extra this year

This year, I sat on Murphy Avenue and watched the sun set. Gorgeous. Then I had a romantic dinner at Rok Bistro with Chloe--can't believe I've never been there before. Ate lots of nearly raw meats, since I got to cook it. She also gave me a delicious caramel and salt macaroon and a dark chocolate custard mousse with strawberry.