Bonjour, !

It has been a month since the last email! How have you all been? Let me know! What a month it has been! From a wonderful flight to UK, then Iceland, Greenland, France and much more. More on all that below, but as always...

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Week in the life

Aaahhhh.

That is simply how I'm feeling right now after nearly a month away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. It was a VERY relaxing holiday with less time running around and more time dedicated to enjoying a slower pace of things.

That said, it wasn't a month without some interesting things happening! More on the travels and everything else over on the blog...

Creative update

Don't like ironing? This is for you! Philips 8000 series All-in-one steam iron

Ok, you know you're old when you get excited about ironing products, but man, I have to say the Philips steam system thingy is good. So much so that I made a quick video about it before I left.

Gadgets/Tech

Airalo Travel eSim

Given that most phones for the last little while have eSim functionality, I went looking for an easy way to have data roaming while I travelled and Airalo was the service I ended up using. Essentially, you download the app, select the country and register an "eSim" right from your phone!

It was significantly cheaper than using roaming and meant I could be connected even in Greenland!

Other gadgets/tech

• Kaweco Sport - My current favourite fountain pen!
• Bose QuietComfort II earbuds - These aren't out yet, but the early reviews say these are the ONLY ear buds that can compete and beat over ear headphones for noise cancelling. That's amazing!

Read

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

Finally finished this book during my travels and after a bit of a confusing start, I have to say I did enjoy it overall.

It's a bit of a slow burn but it's essentially about how the perceived "story" of your life can have a dramatic impact on how you see things. Just like Storyworthy, I'm finding that more and more, our day-to-day life is shaped more by how we feel about it/see our own story than anything in objective reality.

It was an interesting read and very different to what I was expecting. The pacing is also oddly meditative because of how it oscillates from reflecting on life to some of the more exciting parts and back again.

Listen

SmoothChill radio

So my last hotel in London, The Hoxton, had this playing on the little radio when I entered the room and I have to say I loved the chilled-out vibes that's very reminiscent of the Chillout Sessions from years gone by.

I found that they have a free streaming online station so I've bookmarked it to listen to while getting some work done. Enjoy!

Quote I'm pondering

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

— Ernest Hemingway

I saw this while scrolling through Medium where I write some articles and it made me ponder about the work side of life. At the end of the day, most people I think would like to do something that they enjoy and find challenging enough that it's something that you can continually get meaningfully better at.

In that way, I suppose I am lucky as a doctor: things are always changing, and we intervene at more and more critical points. In a way, it's an infinite game: you can keep finding more and more challenge if you wish.

The other thing it made me realise is that all things artistic are also the same infinite game. There were plenty more amazing paintings since the Mona Lisa and plenty more music after many of Beethoven's symphonies.

The trick is to find something that you'd enjoy to apprentice at for a very long time...

Where do you sit on all that? Let me know by dropping me an email!

Thanks for reading after the month long break! Stay safe!

- Raffy

PS - Given it's been 2 years, I'll be going back through the feedback and tweaking things. Do you like/dislike the subtle changes this year? Let me know with 1 click! I read the survey every week (& keep tweaking things with your feedback!)

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