Tuesday, February 13, 2018

T-SQL Tuesday #99 – Work-Life Balance

This month T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Aaron Bertrand (blog | twitter). For this month's T-SQL Tuesday, we are given two options. The first option is to write about something that we are passionate about outside of SQL and tech community. The second option is to write about T-SQL bad habit. Mr. Bertrand has a long list of them. For this entry, I choose to write about activities that I do outside SQL or tech community #sqlibrium.

Cooking

One activity that help me to decompress from a busy week at work is cooking. By no means, that I am a great, or even a good, cook. I love to research recipes online and try them. I would also try to experiments with the recipes, tweaking, substituting or adding ingredients. Cooking allows me to channel my inner creativity. Sure, there were times where the “experiments” end up to be disasters (plenty of times actually). Those times, I ended up ordering and eating take-out Pizza or Chinese food. But hey, Edison failed 9,999 times before he was successful in inventing the light bulb.

It also helps to cook something that you love eating. It will give you that extra motivation. One example, I love eating ramen noodle (Not the instant one. Although, I do get instant ramen fix once in a while). Recently, I embarked on ramen noodle making journey. After reading books, blogs, watching YouTube (I think you can almost learn about anything on YouTube nowadays) and attending a weekend class on "The Art of Ramen”, for several weeks I tried to experiments making ramen noodles. Earlier on, it was not pretty. But after several attempts, I was able to make Miso Ramen. Some of the pictures from one of the successful experiment:

Fresh Ramen Noodles

Fresh Ramen Noodles

Ramen with Pork and Egg

Ramen with Pork and Egg

Miso Ramen

Miso Ramen

It took a many failed attempts and several weeks. But I must say, success taste delicious (especially on cold winter days in New England).

Exercise

Health is very important. During the week, I try to run a few miles three times a week. I love running because when I am running, I am alone with my thoughts. There are times where I got great ideas during my runs. In addition to running, I also try to learn to play ice hockey. Mostly, I play in pick up games. It is a fun and great workout.

Last year, I got the opportunity to join a dragon boat team. We practiced and raced in 38th annual Boston dragon boat festival and 19th annual Rhode Island Chinese Dragon Boat Races and Taiwan Day Festival. We had a great coach and also a great group of people for teammates. We encouraged and build one another up. Just like any other team sport, team work is very important. It is not enough for each individual to have the paddling technique correct; the team need to be in sync as well. The practices were hard (there were lots of pains and aches in the first couple of practices. I felt aches on muscles that I didn’t even know existed), but I really enjoyed them. Our practice sessions were in Charles River. We have a great view of the city from the river. Most importantly, I enjoy the camaraderie.

AACA Dragon Boat Team

Source: AACA

How About You?

Would love to hear from others in the SQL communities on their activities outside SQL or tech community.

No comments:

Post a Comment