Howdy !

It's been a crazy week in Melbourne since the last email with the largest earthquake ever recorded, mobs of angry protesters and of course, the fun and joy that comes with a pandemic. More on all that below...

As always, a small favour, if I may? Could you forward this newsletter to just 3 people that you think would like one of the articles? It helps A LOT! If you're the friend reading this, click the link below to join! Glad to have you here!

In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Creative - Interviewing Lahiru - Expert educator & side-hustle king
• Gadgets & Tech - New Kindle Paperwhite (~$239)
• Read - I think you're fat (~11min)
• Watch - Why humans are mainly right-handed (~8min)
• Quote - When you say you want more freedom from the world, you may just need freedom from your past self.

Week in the life

The week for me began like any other: with lots of clinical work. However, my very first surgical list was with a medical school friend who is an eye surgeon. It was out first list working together and I have to say, it's so much fun working with friends. Mainly because it's partly a catch up and partly the fact that in these lists you can ask for feedback and actually improve on technique. Most people don't give nice feedback or sugar coat things. Good friends aren't afraid of that, so it was a treat.

As a city, Melbourne saw some awful things last week with lots violent protests shutting down the city and the Westgate Bridge (when I was trying to get home no less!). It was disappointing to see and topped off by the largest earthquake in history for a place in the world where they're relatively rare (it hit 5.8 on the scale). At least the memes that came out of it were good. I've left all ID info for the ones with a clear source. Some are just hard to track down who did them. None were by me!

Now for some context, while some buildings were damaged, majority of what happened included things falling off shelves. Lune is a bakery that does amazing croissants and currently everything is blamed on Dan Andrews, our current state Premiere (or governor if you like).

On to other photography related news, looks like AFL grand finals mean by my previous photo got shared quite a lot. More over on the blog...

Creative update

randInt EP016: Interviewing Lahiru - Expert educator & side-hustle king

https://open.spotify.com/episode/317HCUjT8mCU2byQ80UCkP?si=cb48a72cd0ce4923

It's time for yet another episode and this time it's with Lahiru, a fellow anaesthetist who works on a wide range of projects on the side.

This is our second interview episode where we allowed ourselves to go off script a bit to keep things more natural. Also, this is the first time that the podcast and the Youtube video have launched at the same time!

Lahiru's experience in clinical anaesthesia, education and doing side-hustles means that this episode is packed full of take-aways such as how to combat imposter syndrome, balance work and other projects and to focus on things that you find interesting. I would love to know what you thought of this episode!

Gadgets & Tech

New Kindle Paperwhite (~$239)

https://amzn.to/3i7Trds

As you might be aware, I love eBooks and audiobooks and the Kindle has been my device of choice for years. One thing that used to annoy me is the lack of USB-C so I can just use 1 charger for all my devices and the fact that I like to read before bed and the backlight was quite blue.

Both those issues are now fixed with the latest edition!!! Otherwise, it's still the same Kindle as before. If you've been waiting to buy one, well worth it. If you already have one, it may not be for you since you might not care about the 2 issues I have with the old one.

• Luminar Neo - The newest image editor from Skylum! Looks to have some awesome features. Currently on early bird pricing.
• Logitech Brio - Significantly upped my Zoom game and podcast production value with this webcam. Also great for windows to login with Windows Hello

Read

How to Live (~$15)

https://sive.rs/h

I know I've mentioned Derek Sivers many times in the past but his stuff is just so good!

This is his latest book that he is self-publishing that I literally got moments ago. Already I'm liking it. Derek spent 4 years writing and then cutting down everything sentence by sentence to the shortest form and it shows. It's a pretty easy read but it's impactful,, conflicting and messy- just like life. In a way, it's modern day philosophy.

You might also like

• Ego is the Enemy - If Sivers espouses a form of modern day philosophy, Ryan Holiday looks to the ancient Stoics.

Watch

Why humans are mainly right-handed (~8min)

https://youtu.be/vb11oOHYNXM

Stumbled across this video recently which goes onto explore handedness as a concept. Turns out, we've probably been right-handed for millenia!

Interestingly, it also talks about the advantages of being left-handed and why it's still such a rare phenomena.

Quote I'm pondering

“When you say you want more freedom from the world,

you may just need freedom from your past self.”

– Derek Sivers

Just a quote from the first chapter of the new Sivers book that stood out to me. It feels strangely true, doesn't it? Most people want to be free not to run away per se, but to be different from where you are now. (I'm sure if you're trapped in a prison, it might be a bit different).

I find that quote liberating: you don't have to quit your job/run to another country/go into witness protection programs, you can simply work on yourself to get closer to freedom...

Well , that's all for this week! Let me know what you thought as feedback is always welcome!

Have an amazing week ahead!

- Raffy

PS - What was your favourite part of this email? Let me know with 1 click! I read the survey every week and tweak things as requested!

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