First entry of 2020.

Salam w.b.t and hi guys.

Wowowowo…look at this. Last entry was back in July 2019, nearly 9 months ago!

How are you doing?

As we are well aware, world has been overwhelmed with Covid-19 pandemic. I don’t want to discuss about it this time, but I would like to highlight that now we have plenty of time. I came across this recently, and it hits me hard.

As one of a start, I am writing this entry. Let's consider this as a warm up, shall we? Hehehe :)

First, I am still in Doha, Qatar. I returned from an offshore rig on Thursday, 26th March. Since then, I have been standby in Doha.

The Corniche, Doha

Second, I am staying in a tower in Doha known as Fourty Four Tower, Westbay with my three housemates. I have been living here for nearly 1 year and 3 months. I moved here sometimes in December 2018. However, I hardly recognised this place, let alone Doha as Home. It is been a long time since I arrived in Doha, will be 4 years by end of 2020. To me, it is like a temporary place or a transit. I identified the main reason is, I don’t have any emotional connection to this country.

Unlike Australia, a tiny bit of my heart always remained there in Perth. It always feel good when in Perth.

Kings Park, Perth shot before my graduation day. 

Third, similar in Malaysia, Qatar also implementing the Restrict Movement Order. Since my returned from rig on Thursday, I have been filling up my time since then with some activities.

• Finished fasting to cover for days I missed last Ramadhan.
• Managed to finish the book written by Michelle Obama, Becoming. I have been dragging since Jan, Feb, and finished it on 30th March. Really inspiring. From time to time, watched the speech of both Barack and Michelle Obama on the Youtube.

  

  "For me, becoming isn't about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end" - Michelle Obama.

• LinkedIn has been offer free learning course for one month. So, I finished several courses and one of it is the Cert Prep: Project Management Professional. I am interested to advance as a project engineer, so I took this course to understand what is it about as well as a way to enhance my knowledge on project management. The link is here if you are interested to learn it: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/cert-prep-project-management-professional-pmp/welcome
• Watched the Self Made on Netflix. Based on the real life story of Madam CJ Walker.
• Watched Dilwale. To me, the storyline is nothing extraordinary. The only thing standout was the songs, Gerua and Janam Janam. Of course, the scenery of Gerua video shot in Iceland made it famous. Breathtaking view.
• This is the latest one, just finished it last night. Crash Landing On You. Oh My…., as always, Korean dramas always make the heart of the audience fluttered, romance in the air, the imagination of love way too perfect. And I am not excluded. While watching the series, I have been reminding myself to hold myself together. This is drama, not reality. Hahaha…well, still cannot get over it.

  

  The main actors are too perfect to be real. Also, Switzerland, now is in my must visit country list. 

• Well now, adding to the list is writing this entry.

Fourth, I have been trying to adopt a healthy lifestyle slowly.

I have started running since February 2020. What drives me this time? It was thebody weight. Before going to offshore rig, at the check in counter, we will take the body weight as well as the bag weight. For body weight, there is no limit but this time, when I checked-in in early of January, it was 60kg. At the screen, it was 132lb, at that time it did not register in my head. Normally was 126-127lb and I did not bother too much. After seeing 132lb, I immediately made a conversion and it was 60kg!

What! Where is this extra weight coming from?!

Then I made self-reflection of my lifestyle in the last 6-7 months. Several points I realized were;

Rig with the sunrise background

• I have been working offshore half of the time last year, to be specific from June 2019 until February 2020. In offshore, less physical demanding unlike land rigs. There is a gym provided, but I was not interested to go there. I finished my working shift, straight go to sleep.
• I also realised, I hardly sweat at any given time when doing any physical works. At the same time, I kinda have short breathing, and one rig personnel asked me if I am a smoker. As he said, it is normal for a smoker. These alarmed me.
• Apart from that, food provided in offshore facilities are marvelous. If you have a poor self-control, you can eat anything at any time, which I did.
• Reward to myself in terms of food. This is a major flaw. Every single time, once I completed any jobs, achieved something, I always treat myself a good food. For example, came back to Doha after finish my hitches, I will go for good food. I will eat as much as I can, don’t care the price. Indirectly, I treated it similar to revenge of not having decent food at the rigs. Buy expensive drinks, normally from Starbucks. Hot chocolate, Frappuccino of various flavours, various sizes, cakes and cookies. I convinced myself, "Well, I deserved this after long hitches". 
• My housemate, Claudia has created a Netflix account for me. So I can watch the TV at any time. I have spent nearly 50% of my days being sedentary in the couch watching Netflix while eating food ordered online.

All these combined together has made me heavier than I should. I used to maintain around 55kg without any exercise or physical activities. At the same time without I realised, my blouses, jeans also started to become tight at certain areas like shoulder, back, hips and they were no longer comfortable. I stopped wearing those for some times unconsciously. In the meantime it was winter, I wore shirts and big pants covered with winter jackets. That’s why I did not pay much attention.

My colleagues in Dukhan where we had pizza, McDonald last March. We walked nearly 2km from the rig to the Dukhan local shopping place.

This self-reflections, led me to change my lifestyle slowly. First, I started with slow jog in Westbay. It was tough and my body, muscles, legs all were in pain after I managed to intermittently ran for 6km. The day after, I did not want to run in open area as my body was so much in pain. Otherwise, it will look like I am hopping on the road instead of jogging. So I decided to go to gym. It was great, alternately cycling and running on treadmill. I went home in Feb for 4 weeks, I have been running every day for ~6km with 6-7km/hr. pace. My body, muscles, legs are now get used to it.

I really enjoyed the sweat came out from the exercise.

Now due to movement restriction, I decided to work out in my room for at least one hour. I did the dance workout following the Youtube. Again, I want to keep my body moving and sweating. Try to keep this going and once the situation back to normal, I am planning to hit back to the gym. I bought the body weigh scale recently, and weigh my body from time to time. I managed to maintain between 55-56kg. It will be 56.5 kg if I ate too much. I am planning to reduce a bit more at least 52-53kg, at least my BMI will fall within a good range.

Yep, I think that’s pretty much of what's going on with me now.

I have a lot of things going on in my mind which I would like to share with the readers. I will try to keep this blog alive.

Thank you for reading and be safe all.

P/S - Feel free to let me know if you have any questions related to anything, UWA, Perth, Doha, Schlumberger, Drilling, anything.