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Last Tuesday our team at Twitter (the EEASy team), was scheduled to go an offsite after weeks/weekends of working on launching EEASy. I'd say that, after the 7-night Alaska offsite that I helped organize earlier this year with the Data Products team, my bar has become super high. But, given that Dobromir was the one organizing it, I knew it was going to be good!

Dobromir kept the offsite specifics as a suprise. As noon it was time for us to head out of the office, and little did we know that we were on our way to the airport - the first time I ever go to the airport without know where I was flying - exciting!

At SFO with absolutely no idea where we're going. This is going to be fun! #twitter #offsite pic.twitter.com/ZcIjwbPP5z

— Islam El-Ashi (@ielashi) June 21, 2016

Dobromir organized a treasure hunt for us where he gave us clues on activities we had to do.

Off we go! #its_too_eeasy pic.twitter.com/ZCxjLpf1sI

— Team EEASy (@team_eeasy) June 21, 2016

I embarrassed myself to help gain some of these points, but I won't dig into that. Some of those moments are found here 🙂

Admittedly, I was very skeptical about our trip to Vegas. Before this offsite I had been to Vegas twice and I swore to not come back - it's a fake place with little substance and much trouble. That skepticism subconsciously carried over to the first couple of hours of our stay there. I didn't feel like it was right, and couldn't wait to be back. It took me some time to loosen up and to enjoy the company that I was very fortunate to have, and then the fun began!

One of my goals this month was to get a workout routine for myself sorted out. I haven't been exercising as much as I would like. While I "workout" often, these workouts are generally very soft and, at best, do a good job of warming me up. The only exception to that are the yoga classes I take in the office with Deb Burkman - she's amazing!

This month I decided to solve this problem the professional way. I searched for a personal trainer to help me with my exercise routine with particular focus on my flexibility and muscle tightness. Personal training is not cheap. In fact, it was going to cost me more money than what I currently pay for rent, but an investment in your health is a worthwhile investment.

The main reason I wanted to focus on my flexibility and muscle tightness is due to the injury I had in my right shoulder. It's a long story and I'll leave to another post, but my shoulder got injured first in August 2014 in Egypt, then much more seriously in February 2015 in a flying trapeze class.

My body has been, and still is, prone to injury, and that's largely due to how tight my body is. It's been getting better with yoga and acroyoga, but definitely a lot of room for improvement.

Unfortunately, my shoulder got injured again last Sunday - the first setback to my shoulder since I had my surgery in March 2015 🙁 How did it happen? I threw a basketball. That's it. I felt like something got displaced and there was acute pain that lasted for about 15 seconds until I managed to put things back in place.

I visited an orthopedist and the nature of the injury is still unknown. I did an x-ray but that wasn't revealing. I will be doing an MRI soon to see what could be wrong.

Also, to make things even better, I suffered from food poisoning the day before yesterday 🙁

FOMO, or the "fear of missing out", is something that I used to feel very regularly. I know that, as I am writing these very words, that there is some event, some gathering, some festival, some hackathon, or some "thing" is out there right now that if I attend I would find incredibly rewarding, but I am unfortunately not there. Even worse, I have no idea where, what, and when these events are.

Reflecting and meditating has been helping me appreciate the moment and the present wherever that is, and that certainly helps, but that's also a double-edged sword. Just because I am content with where I am in the present doesn't mean that I shouldn't seek things that would make my time even better and more worthwhile.

I am at fault, and I know that. I don't actively seek events or gatherings to go to, despite how rewarding some of them were for me. Last weekend, I decided to rebel against this lazy person that I am. Rather than actively seek events though, I decided to automate that process. I wrote this nifty little script that finds interesting events on EventBrite and automagically adds them to an "Events" calendar on my behalf.

Here's how the initial version looks:

It's certainly not amazing, but not bad for a first iteration! Now whenever I want to make the most out of a day, I can just check out this calendar to see if there's somewhere worthwhile to go. Just yesterday I ended up going to a meetup on Non-Gaming Virtual Reality, which was super interesting - I would've not known about it if wasn't on my calendar.

I'll be working on improving this over time. I'll think about other areas in my life that I can better optimize too.

I am going all in on classes at the Techshop this month. So far I signed up for the following:

• Vacuum forming
• Making a metal rose
• Magnet Printing
• Making a leather wallet
• Woodshop SBU

There's no particular direction or agenda behind these classes. Each one of the classes above opens a new domain of knowledge that I am currently very unfamiliar with. Hopefully some inspiration comes out of it.

I am feeling this very strong sense of willpower lately. This morning, for example, I forced myself to wake up at 6am to see the sunrise despite heading to bed fairly late. Why? Because I know that behind this barrier of laziness in the morning there's something out there that makes my day feel amazing.

Waking up in the morning is one habit I plan to stick to. In fact, a couple of days ago I created a page where I list my habits and started to track how well I am sticking to them via a spreadsheet. Am I going overboard by doing this? I don't think so. Moving forward I want to be very deliberate with my behavior. I want to choose what to do and what not do very consciously.

With that in mind, and in the light of this new month, I also want to be deliberate about how I plan to spend it. I don't want to over plan, especially because I am very new to this and don't want to over do it.

Things to understand

• Business: I want to be more business-savvy. When I watched "The Big Short" I felt like an idiot who doesn't understand what's going on in the world, and that was the one key thing Larry Smith was trying to teach us in his economics class back in Waterloo. I need to fix that. I want to have a better understanding of the world economy and what's happening around me.
• Nutrition: what does it mean to eat well? What's good for you and what's not? I have some understanding of this based on hear-say (e.g. that sugar is bad for you), but I want to understand at a deeper level the different effects of food on your body.
• The Internet: this sounds rather embarrassing, but I am unsatisfied with my understanding of how the internet works. More specifically, how two computers communicate at a fundamental level. E.g. what is a connection? What does it mean to have an open connection between two computers?

Things to explore

• Techshop Classes: I still have coupons for nine more classes at the Techshop, and I better make use of them this month. In a later post I'll dive deeper into what classes I plan to take.
• Mindset: a few days ago when I spent 45 minutes singing I felt very zen. I almost felt like I was on drugs. In some way I felt like I was altering my mindset by singing. I want to explore what other exercises one can do to in that space.
• Exercise: while I do workout, it's very unstructured and I can be long stretches of time/days not working out at all. I'd like to put some structure to it by the end of this month.

That's it for now. More to come.

اليوم هو اليوم الثالث على التوالي الذي أستيقظ فيه في البكور لمشاهدة شروق الشمس. منذ عودتي إلى سان فرانسيكو و أنا أشعر بالاختلاف. أشعر بسكينة لست معتاد عليها و أشعر بقوة في الإرادة لم أشهدها منذ زمن. لا أدري سبب هذا التغيير الذي حدث بي. ربما هي نتاج رحلتي إلى القاهرة و أبي ظبي و برلين.

في الأيام الثلاث الماضية استيقظت بنيّة جعل هذا اليوم يوما مثاليا و متكاملا. في صباح اليوم على سبيل المثال بعد شروق الشمس كرّست ساعة من وقتي للغناء. يقال أن الغناء غذاء الروح، و بلا شك شعرت بهذا اليوم. غنيت موشح "لما بدا يتثنّى" مرارا و تكرارا. شعرت بسعادة غامرة في بداية اليوم و التي ملأت باقي يومي بالبهجة و السكينة.

في الأيام الماضية بدا لي أن السعادة لا تتطلب الكثير بالنسبة لي. اكتشفت أن بعض السلوكيات البسيطة كالاستيقاظ مبكرا و مشاهدة شروق الشمس و تكريس وقتا لتنمية الجانب الروحي تمنحني السكينة التي أبحث عنها.

قوة الإرادة التي أشعر بها الآن تحثّني على تحويل هذه السلوكيات إلى عادات، و أولها ستكون الاستيقاظ مبكرا و مشاهدة شروق الشمس.

و أخيرا، هذا هو الموشح الذي استمعت له صباح اليوم.

Today has been an ideal day in many ways. I woke up at 5.20am, watched the sunrise, did some writing, did some rope skipping and exercises, went to work early, was very mindful and productive at work, went to a yoga class after work, and I was a vegetarian.

I feel content, and it is this kind of contentment that I think can be "learned". When I woke up this morning, I decided that today was going to be a perfect day, and I think just the act of consciously deciding so was a big reason my day turned out this way. I expected my day to be great, and great it was. My day is in large part a function of my expectation.

On top of my expectation, I did small things to my day that had great impact on my contentment. Waking up early, doing a little bit of exercise, watching the sunrise - all these little things add a lot of meaning to me. I would like to spend more time identifying what these little things are that add a lot of meaning to me, and work on making them habits. More on that in future posts.

I feel like with my current travels my mind has been like a sandstorm. So many thoughts are in my head right now and I need to spend the time to sit with myself, as I am doing now, and ink my thoughts out.

Currently, I am in Berlin to see a few of my friends. Before that, I was in Abu Dhabi to attend the NYU Abu Dhabi hackathon, and before that I was in Egypt visiting family. Needless to say, each trip was a whole different world, and so much has happened in each of them that my mind is becoming very messy with all the thoughts, emotions, and exhaustion I have been experiencing.

Sunday I fly back to San Francisco - feels like I haven't been there in ages.

I am now in my hotel room in Abu Dhabi at NYU AD campus (gorgeous campus by the way). I am extremely exhausted. Last night I only slept for one hour to prepare for a talk that I gave today about Diraya, my education initiative. The talk went well, but unfortunately they really messed up my slides 🙁

Photos from the talk:

When I started writing this post, I was supposed to be on a flight to Istanbul. But, instead, I started writing it as I was sitting just outside of my home in San Francisco. In case you’re wondering why I am outside of the home, it’s because I forgot my keys. And, in case you’re wondering why I did not make my flight to Istanbul, well, it’s because I lost my passport.

Yes, I lost my passport. Not only that, but, of all places, I lost my passport while I was waiting to board the flight - seconds before boarding! The personnel called on my group to board, and I then noticed that my passport was missing. I almost ripped my bags apart looking for it. I almost disassembled the chair I was sitting on looking for it. I almost ripped out the carpets I walked on in case it magically fell underneath them, but it wasn’t there. I checked at the deli where I bought a salad shortly before my flight. It was gone, and gone was my flight.

Five minutes after the airline offloaded my luggage and the flight took off, I remembered that I threw my salad in the trash can just before they called on me to board, and in that trash can was my passport. Yes, as stupid as this sounds, I accidentally threw my passport in the trash can. As frustrating and silly as this experience was, I was at least glad I found the passport. Otherwise, I won't be where I am now. I am now at the airport waiting to board the same flight, except it's only 24 hours and $880 later. Ouch.

I feel quite zen actually about the whole experience. Accidents happen, and being more frustrated about them happening won't do any good. However, there were a couple of thoughts in my head about this whole experience.

How can I prevent this accident from happening again? How can I stop being forgetful?
My mind is definitely in a bizarre state lately. In the past six weeks I lost my retainer and my belt*. Yesterday I forgot my keys at home and the whole passport fiasco at the airport cost me anxiety, 24 hours of time I could've spent with family, and $880. Late last night I was with my travel agent on the phone working on my flight rebooking, only for my roommate Omar to realize the next morning that I dropped my debit card in the kitchen. It's clearly something to do with my state of mind lately. Possibly a combination of work and a few other things on my mind. I am not being present, and I need to explore avenues to change that.

As a security measure though, I'll be ordering bluetooth trackers to attach to my keys, passport, wallet, and bag. That way, an accident like the one yesterday would almost never happen again.

Why is this a problem to begin with?
Another thought I had was, why was this even a problem? Why do I need a physical document to identify myself, and without it I am an anonymous entity? Why isn't identification digital yet? I know the answer to this question is not so simple. Not all countries and airports have the resources to be equipped with a way to digitally identify people. And, even then, there are the security concerns that such a system can be hacked. But, I feel like these challenges are not that significant to overcome. Food for thought.

Now I better catch my flight, before I miss it again.

* How can one lose a belt? Seriously.