Weeknotes - 2025-W38
On Tuesday, I caught the Demon slayer movie at Escape and I was happy that I managed to catch it before it went out of screens. Demon slayer was one of the mangas that I binge read in the months just after I lost my FIL. I didn’t know how else to fill the “free” time that I had and I resorted to binging 3 mangas in that time - Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia and One Punch Man.
And of the 3, Demon Slayer is my favourite. It has such a wonderful storyline interspersed with a lot of great fight scenes and a wonderful score to tie it all together. The movie did the manga a lot of justice.
This week, after 3 long weeks, we got back to Badminton. The gap meant a reduced skill level, but I was super happy to be back at the courts again. I felt quite sluggish and didn’t connect a lot of the shots that I should have, but hey, I’m no PV Sindhu 😁
This week marked yet another reset at the gym with a fresh new sheet (reference). Lots more strength left to build, and I’m so glad that I made this investment on myself. In comparison to mainstream gyms, its quite a lot of money spent per month and both Prasanna and I were quite hesitant about it at first. But looking back, I think it is one of the best things that both of us have done this year - to take our health and our strength building more seriously.
Because of this, so many things in the everyday mundanity is easier. Our bodies just “function” much better on any day and we’re able to move it in many ways without a fear of straining this, or paining that. And that feels like such a privilege.
The week otherwise was quiet and a back-to-work kind of a situation - we got a bunch of things done this week.
✨ HIGHLIGHT ✨
After many (new) moons, I finally got out on a star gazing party with Chennai Astronomy club! I was initially supposed to go with my parents, but they had to cancel in the last minute because of other travel plans and I really happy that my coach and a dear friend were able to come in their place.
The location about a 2h drive from Chennai to a place where there was really low light pollution and we had a great time learning and sharing with the rest of the folks there who are all super serious professionals in the field. Both of the folks that I went with (and even me to a large extent) are n00bs at this field - but it is our shared love for the cosmos that allowed us to sit there, in near pitch darkness, and look up at the skies. Also it was bonus that my coach and I got to have a really nice long conversation about how each of us got to where we are, with our mindsets; and talk about everything from Religion, to Periyar, to Ambedkar all the way to Marcus Aurelius.
Back in the skies, we were able to look at Saturn in its ringed beauty along with what we think is Titan (one of Saturn’s largest moons) and also the Andromeda galaxy. Unfortunately the clouds played spoilt sport by around 1AM and that ended our session (which was initially supposed to go up to 3/4AM).
It still humbles me to no end that we’re able to see light from a galaxy that is ~ 2.5 million light years away from us. So the light that we see on those telescopes, was light that left Andromeda 25,00,000 years ago. It is not light from Andromeda in the present. So in some ways, we are actually looking into the past when we see such old light. We actually have no way (I think) of telling if Andromeda even exists in our present.
So what really is time? (Mandatory reading if this mini rant interested you)
A short one this week, but yet another fulfilled week. Back to the grind tomorrow. Till next week 👋🏻