Last month, I actively started reading the first Harry Potter book, “Philosopher’s Stone.” Every day during lunch, and sometimes at night, I read one chapter. Now I can say that I’ve basically finished it — I only have the last two chapters left. So I hope to finish this part tomorrow and begin the second one, “Chamber of Secrets.” Naturally, this book wasn’t very big, only 332 pages and 17 chapters, and I spent about twenty days reading it. Probably, I could’ve finished it a bit earlier if I hadn’t skipped some days. However, I still have some doubts about whether I can finish the remaining six books by the end of this year. Because those books are much bigger — for example, part 5, “Order of the Phoenix,” has around 800 pages, while the others are smaller, with about 400, 500, or 600 pages each.
Yesterday I had a busy and challenging day, so I was able to go to bed early at 11 PM after sharing my post. I don’t even remember how I fell asleep so fast when I dropped onto my bed. Unfortunately, it didn’t really help me wake up on time, because I was exhausted and hadn’t slept for more than 24 hours. Of course, it made me feel sleepy during the day, and everything seemed a little strange. So next time I need to be smarter and not skip sleep if I don’t want to feel the same way again. Overall, my oversleeping gave me a great opportunity to rest from yesterday’s worries and recover my energy.
In the early morning, at 2:30 AM, I went to the mosque across the quiet village streets with my relatives and neighbors. However, this visit to the mosque was quite different from my previous one from this post. Because this time, we didn’t walk randomly; instead, all the people from our street gathered at the very beginning of the village and walked together all the way to the mosque. But we didn’t just walk — from time to time, we randomly stopped for about 2–3 minutes and said “Takbir.” It continued for approximately fifteen minutes until we reached the mosque. When we arrived, other villagers from different streets were already waiting for us so everyone could say the final “Takbir” together before entering the mosque.
The weather wasn’t very good today. It was rainy and a bit cold. The temperature was lower than in previous days, around 20–22 degrees during the day. In the evening, the average temperature was approximately 18 degrees, and the forecast predicted around 16 degrees at night. So today I decided to skip my biking and drive to the village to celebrate Eid al-Adha. I’m sure it’s much more fun than riding my bike in low temperatures and getting cold.
After my workday, in the evening after dinner, I usually try to walk or just bike. So today I decided to clean my bike from the dust of yesterday’s trip and ride across the forest. But it wasn’t enjoyable enough; on the contrary, I felt annoyed and uncomfortable because of the surrounding habitat.
Today I spent more than two hours just watching YouTube Shorts. It pulled me in so strongly that I completely lost track of time. But I found an interesting channel with English-speaking prank videos, and I especially liked one short. I watched it many times and honestly lost count. It also reminded me of something from my own life when I mispronounced an English word.
Finally, today was Saturday, so I was able to take a little break from work worries and just relax. Luckily, I didn’t spend the day at home. Instead, I had a trip to my relatives in the Sabinsky district, where we spent approximately three hours. Of course, it wasn’t a whole-day visit because this time of year is quite busy for gardeners. Our relatives had also arrived from the city and were busy with their garden routine. So we didn’t want to take too much of their time or disturb them for too long. But at the same time, we couldn’t reschedule this visit for several reasons, so we decided to visit them today.
I woke up to the sound of a lawn mower machine, and the weather was a bit cloudy. Of course, I noticed it while I was still lying in bed, and honestly, it felt a bit unusual, maybe even a little sad, to see such a cloudy day. But that’s not the main thing that happened this morning. The most interesting and sad thing happened after my morning routine, when I started my work meeting with my colleagues, and during the meeting I listened to real Tatar swearing. I even heard some words for the first time, and it was hilarious.
After work, I had a great opportunity to drive my car across my district and visit a village near my city. Luckily, it wasn’t a long trip, and in total it took about twenty minutes both ways. But it was really enjoyable, even though the distance was short. Especially for me, since I really love driving. And the weather felt specially made for car rides — it played the main role in the whole experience. During the drive, I even noticed that the car didn’t feel like it was driving. On the contrary, it felt like it was flying above the road, bringing comfortable feelings without any extraneous noises.
In this post, I mentioned that I tried to repeat my bike ride route by walking. So today, I decided to compare my experience while I still don’t forget it. Honestly, my experiment was interesting and a bit stressful, but it showed me that walking is a much more labor-intensive process than bike riding. Of course, I already understood that before, but I didn’t really understand the numbers behind it — how many calories I’d lose, what average heart rates I’d reach, and other interesting parameters about my body.
Well, I want to begin with my work worries. In this post I wrote that I couldn't finish my task successfully and spent so much time on it. So I had some worries about it, and I had some doubts about what my team lead would say. Luckily, everything went great, and during our daily meeting, he just asked some questions that I responded to. In my opinion, those answers satisfied him. Also, he shared some observations that he noticed about that task, and it helped me too. Overall, today I was a lucky guy because I didn't ruin my morning.
I made one mistake because I went for a walk at 29 degrees. In my opinion, I picked the hottest time of the day around lunch. Also, I didn’t take water and didn’t cover my head. At first, when I walked across the forest, everything was okay. I didn’t feel anything unusual. I walked among the trees and enjoyed the shadows. But when I left the forest and walked around the open field under the sun, I felt that something happened to my fingers. My hands became red, and moving my fingers was a bit difficult. And I had a very strong feeling that I needed to drink water. Of course, it was unpleasant and a bit scary. I had never felt anything like that before.