One year off smokes!
One year ago, I was a heavy smoker. I didn't intend to quit smoking as a part of 2011's resolutions, but I did and I still remember it as if it was yesterday. I chose to go cold turkey about it and it paid off. Having been through this experience after 14 years as a smoker empowers me to advice all of you with an addiction to give up too. I will summarize the process (or common sense, if you please): As far as I can remember, I didn't experience much mood swings (Maybe Michelle can possibly remember this part better than me.) and everything went smoothly, apart from the first 3 days, where my mind kept constantly drifting to the thoughts of cigarettes.
The first month was possibly the worst part of it all. After every meal, I found myself craving for smokes and constantly looking for a pack of cigarettes as if I still carried one with me.
I've never developed the habit of smoking while having coffee or alcohol, so that didn't cause me much of a "reaction" as it seems to affect a good number of people when they stop smoking and have a coffee or go out drinking. It is also said that your senses improve after you quit, but I must be honest here - I didn't experience big changes. Maybe they occurred, but I just didn't notice them at all. Around 4 months after quiting, I came to Portugal to visit my family and while being around my mother (who is also a heavy smoker,) the smell of smoke and seeing her smoke made me uncomfortable. I often wished to pick up a cigarette right there (and sometimes later those days, I often thought to myself "Maybe just a few cigarettes while on holidays wouldn't cause me to become addicted and I can conitnue non-smokert then". This is obviously your brain bullshiting you and I am glad I had enough self-control and determination to remain out of this nicotine inflicted dependency.) Over the last 8 months, the number of times I still thought about cigarettes decreased drastically to the point that weeks went by without a single thought and especially approaching the 1 year milestone, I have not had any problems being next to smokers. In fact, at this stage, the smoke is starting to annoy me, not make me want to have one at all. Even when I do think about smokes (such as when I get a big and tasty meal) the thought doesn't stick around for longer, it's kind of just a memory reflex of food+nictoine high.
One of the downsides of giving up smoking is that of getting fat by replacing your smoking addiction by other addictions, such as food, sweets or something else unhealthy (or a combination of all the previous.) After I moved to Cambridge, I became addicted to indian food and curries in general -- a bright new world of spices and tastes, which, as we all know, is heavily caloric. On the other hand, my company offers chocolate, soft-drinks, fruit, crisps and cakes for free, which also helped my weight gains. So since I moved out of Portugal in August 2008, my weight increased in 46kgs (7.24 stones); Of which, 30kg (4.30 stones) were gained only since I quited smoking 1 year ago.
I saw this happening in sheer light of day, but I still didn't try to prevent it. I thought that the most important at this stage, is to battle the addiction of the nicotine and as for the next year, I can make my new year's resolutions to become healthier by eating healthier and exercising more often, and this is surely on my plans. I will, hereby, name the year of 2012, the fitness year. I will embrace new eating habits (including a low-carb diet for starters.) and continuing on the gym, not just paying but actually using it.
In summary: Quiting smoking is a hard-decision, but one that is less scary than most people seem to think. It has some downsides, such as Mood swings during the first month-ish or gaining weight by replacing the smoking addiction with the addiction to eat, but it pays off. The positive aspects are health, more money in your pocket and a good all-around increase to your self-confidence.
Realistically speaking, I don't rule out the possibility of becoming a smoker again, but, I hardly believe in the possibility anymore these days.
Thanks fo reading and enjoy a great and happy 2012!
Created: 2011-11-10 00:50:15, updated 2012-01-01 16:22:24
perma:2011-11-10-one-year-off-smokes
tags:General general general
The Python Blogging Toolkit
In the past, I've used wordpress as my blogging platform of choice. It's almost an operating system for bloggers and it has everything one might want or need.
Later, I decided to learn python's Django framework in an attempt to write a wordpress-like platform to meet all my obscure requirements. It turns out the challenge was pretty interesting, but not at all worth the cause.
Over the past week, I have been working on a very simple script project that I believe will be my future blogging toolkit. For lack of a more pompous name, I've named it tpbtk aka The Python Blogging Toolkit. It was written from scratch based on some ideas that I had been cooking and is yet far from being entirely useful. While there is not much intention in making this a world-class blogging tool, I will try to improve it as best as I can.
Here's a highlight of it's features:
Drawbacks:
tpbtk @ bitbucket.
Created: 2011-10-16 13:46:16
perma:2011-10-16-the-python-blogging-toolkit
tags:General general general
Avast, me hearties!
I've created (and subsequently disburdened from) several blogs by now. I also seem to remember that each of them would start with a post similar to this one, depicting how many futile attempts have gone into trying to create a blog in a not-so-distant past. The expectations are generally high but they also generally fall short of the best intentions to pursue its continuity.
While my expectations are far from trying to make a living off of blogging, I have, however, the "undisclosed" ambition to create a reader-base of hackers and security researchers joining synnergies to drive and foster creativity and food for thought. I wish to challenge myself as much as everybody else in my reader base, but more importantly, to be able to share information in an acessible format.
-- Goncalo
Created: 2011-10-16 13:46:13
perma:2011-10-16-avast-me-hearties
tags:General general general