coriander in pho

not a food blog

flowers on thin plant

  • Separating and removing

    One of my biggest mistakes that I keep repeating again and again is installing Slack on my phone.

    For those of you who are not familiar, Slack is an instant message service in which you can create multiple workspace and within each workspace you can create channels in it. Think… Discord (if you are young, young at heart, or not have been living inside a cave like I am because when I first tried Discord I felt like I’m the coolest kid ever. Note: I’m not a kid. I guess.) Or, WhatsApp on steroid (as if that place is not weird enough with families WhatsApp groups and whatnots.)

    Automattic is using Slack as its primary way to communicate/instant communication. For long-read format and announcements, we are using internal blogs (we called it “P2”.) These P2 blogs can be followed using WordPress’ Reader feature and emails.

    I have WordPress app on my phone and on my iPad. With my phone, I even have two WordPress apps — one is the stable version, another one is the beta version (for testing purposes.) I also have my work email inbox on my phone.

    But nothing beats the stress when Slack is there. Nothing.

    I can ignore emails and Readers. Slack? No. It’s like that dopamine rush in early mornings. Funny to call it “dopamine” because the whole thing starting to accumulate and caused stress on my end. Slack is like caffeine for my FOMO, and knowing me, it never ends well.

    I used to have Slack on my phone, then I installed it again because I thought I need it, then I uninstall it again because I found the whole thing causing stress, then I installed it again…

    I just uninstalled that app for the umpteenth times last night. I found myself getting irritated easily. I also noticed myself unable to focus, constantly feeling overwhelmed, and uninspired (“why on Earth I have to do this ughhhh.”)

    I’m also starting to make use of my iPad more. I have limited apps on my iPad because I use iPad mostly for drawing. The social media apps I have on this iPad are Youtube (not sure if Youtube a social media app or not,) and Pinterest. I do have work-related apps such as GitHub and and Zoom, but I rarely check them anyway.

    Also, by using my iPad more, I can reduce my social media consumption. Facebook is too weird and Twitter is too angry. I haven’t got the opportunity to clean my other social media accounts too (Tumblr and the likes) so let’s see. I kinda miss those “Tumblr aesthetics”, you know? I’m not sure if it was ever a thing, but I remember “Tumblr aesthetics” with rainbow gradients, sparkles, bokeh pictures, and cozy-feelings. I don’t know if it’s still there. TikTok starting to consume my time in a really unhealthy and ridiculous manner so I’m planning to reduce that too.

    These are the things I’m hoping to achieve with my iPad:

    • Draw more,
    • Read more, especially long-read format, articles, and blogs
    • Watch more relaxing and feel-good entertainment on Youtube and Netflix

    Another thing is, I’m “separating” myself from my phone in a physical sense. I used to put the phone next to me on my bedside table and it’s the, yes, you guessed it, first thing I reached every goddamn morning. I want to change that.

  • One of many reasons why I enjoy morning walks

    There is another cat, I called them “cow” because they have black-and-white coat. Cow was nowhere to be seen (then again, Cow usually appears in the afternoons/evenings.)

  • Saturday morning walk: Tasik Permaisuri Park

    Iskandar Puteri Garden

    Someone brought one big sack of bread and he shared it with other park goers to feed the fishes.

  • Penne pasta with tuna and grilled veggies

    At this point, it might be known that I really really like pumpkin.

    We had rice for dinner yesterday, and the day before, and I got so tired after a Zoom hangout with my colleagues (today is a full-meetings day.) I tried to come up with some quick and easy recipe, and as tempting as food delivery is, I tried to cut down on the expenses.

    I grabbed a quarter of pumpkin (not sure about the size. It was pre-cut. Uhhh, 1/6 of pumpkin? I guess,) half of broccoli, and red bell pepper. Cut them up to small pieces, and mix them together in a deep dish pan (brownies pan) with olive oil and some veggies seasonings.

    Put it in the oven for 30 minutes with 180°C in temperature.

    I then cooked penne pasta — I don’t check the amount and I’m suck at it. One of my biggest problems is to calculate the amount of pasta to cook. I tried to cook for four people, okay, and I usually ended up with pasta enough to feed the whole Roman battalion.

    Once the pasta is cooked, I sliced some garlic because it’s a must (I used 3-4 cloves.) Drained the pasta, then put olive oil in the pot. Heat the garlic, then I took a can of tuna and put it there too. I added a bit of pasta water to make the “sauce” then I added the pasta. I didn’t add a lot of salt because the pasta water is salty enough.

    Serve the pasta with grilled veggies. I really like the mellow sweetness from the pumpkin combined with the salty tuna. I’m thinking of making the grilled veggies again because it’s that good.

  • Exercising is a go!

    With the risk of jinxing things (because I tend to jinx stuffs whenever I talked about it,) I’m pretty proud to say that I’m starting doing exercise since early June.

    I haven’t done anything super intensive as I don’t think I would be able to do it (I once tried Stair Master equipment on my apartment’s gym and suffice to say, I almost passed out after trying it for 5 minutes.) Right now, my routine is 30 minutes of treadmill walk with 4.0 speed and 4.5 – 5.0 elevation.

    I usually do it in the morning time — I found it works better for me to release some kind of excess energy. I’m not sure if it’s excess energy or something else (SHOULD I BE WORRIED?) but I found my hands trembling in the morning and feeling restless whenever I’m not doing my exercise — whenever you found me referring myself as “a hamster in caffeine”, yep, this. Some said it’s a sugar rush (I usually take my morning coffee with sugar) so doing exercise helps me to get rid of the rush and focus better on my work.

    When I am unable to do treadmill in the morning for whatever reasons, I usually do yoga (I once shared the video a couple of posts before this) then do the walking in the afternoon.

    Right now, I’m also thinking of rechecking my meals. I really don’t want to do drastic no-carbs no-sugar no-salt method because: 1. I love food, and 2. You will find yourself trying to pry my beloved bread and rice from my cold dying hands. The key, I guess, is “moderation”. I really really can’t giving up tteokbokki, ramen, dim sum, and garlic bun. What I can do, though, is to be mindful of the portions and increase the protein and fibres.

    I’m actually tempted to buy whey protein powder, thanks to my friend — but I’m actually not super sure because I think my protein intake is already enough on daily basis (I usually have two half-boiled/hard-boiled eggs for breakfast) and adding whey protein to the pattern will be a moot point.

    How about you all? Do you have any methods on ensuring you are consuming enough nutrients on your meals and stay healthy? What is your favorite menu?

Quick blurbs

  • Saw this site mentioned the other day on Slack: neocities.org.

    Scroll down and you will see “Featured Sites”. Never knew it brings back early 2000s, and it makes me so, so happy.

bookmarks

the blogger

Nindya. Kapkap. she/her. Indonesian in Malaysia. Millennial. Lo-fi. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Murder mystery genre.

Currently feeling:

The current mood of retnonindya at www.imood.com

Part of blogroll.org

photoblog

  • Red onions
  • Urban rainbow
  • Sun and trees

reading

  • “Abdijiwo” by Retno Widya
  • “The Maid” by Nita Prose
  • The Liebermann Papers on BBCPlayer

current tunes

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