Hello!
I hope you are well and adjusting better to the situations compared to previous weeks.
Last week was more of a mindf**k for me because of office work stuff but eventually, it all came to resolve and I caught up with my peace.
I had been working on my first online course (coming soon! Yay!!) in the past week and slowly getting better at seeing myself in front of a camera and communicating more clearly than before. But it’s an ongoing process as of now.
Anyway, not much to share on the creative side this week.
Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I didn’t move much further this week but still, small progress is progress –
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 50% done (Audible)
- Atomic Habits by James Clear – 30% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).
No progress on below ones this week –
- Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
- Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 50% done only (Kindle)
- Truck de India – 20% – (Kindle)
Current Yearly Tally – [Yearly goal – 24]
Read – 6 | In progress – 6 | Pending in Reading list – 4 | Yet to discover for reading for yearly goal – 8
That’s it for the personal updates.
Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.
Issue 190 // Week 26 // 2020
An app I loving again —
Duolingo – I’ve been playing around with Duolingo since way back half a decade ago. But didn’t see through my language learning until the end because of my own priorities.
This pandemic has given us unfathomable situations from getting weird news every other day OR being stuck in our homes for more than 3 months OR finding it difficult to maintain our relationships with family and loved ones. It all started to go south. But then I realised that even though I can’t control what’s happening in the world at large but I can control my own peace and sanity, it’s all in my head, If I can put my mind to new and constructive stuff, of course, I can get through these tough times.
Content Creation on scale, learning guitar and learning a new language became my main focus for good since past many weeks.
In the language learning part, Duolingo became my friend and I’ve been loving to learn a new language which is not a native Indian language. I’m loving the app’s implementation of gamification and cool ways to help you memorize the common words, phrases instead of normal language learning approaches like starting from ABCD of any language.
I’ll highlight recommend it to anyone trying to learn a new language (even just for fun! but I’m serious).
A movie I’m excited to watch —
Motherless Brooklyn – This is one movie which I was excited to see since it came out but It wasn’t available in India earlier. But recently I got to know that it’s coming on Amazon Prime Video in India. Now it’s already here. I got to know about this movie from Tim Ferriss podcast with Edward Norton sometime ago and it got me really curious that how much efforts Edward had to put to make this movie, even being a Hollywood Star. But as it was his dream project he took the road and made additional efforts to see it through.
This is a neo-noir drama based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Jonathan Lethem, assumed in the 1950s and Oh my god!! the Brooklyn bridge from that era is visualized very beautifully in this movie. Kudos to the DoP of the movie.
If you are in India and have Amazon Prime Video, you can watch here right now. I’m going to watch it this weekend (may give my review in next week’s post).
If my write up didn’t have you excited this trailer will –
A video I loved —
Sushant Singh Rajput’s Home tour – You can get a great idea about the man by seeing his house but you can get a deeper idea by conversing with the man and find how intellectual and thoughtful the man is (or rather was).
In this video, both his home and his conversation show how brilliant of an artist and an individual he was.
P.S.: If you loved Sushant and can get triggered by seeing him again on screen. Please skip this video. I love him too, but this is just my way of remembering him.
Music I’m loving —
Passionfruit by Drake – This song and the beat has been playing in the loop this past week. In my cycling rounds and runs. Love this beat.
Sometimes when you re-discover a song you loved but had forgotten, it gives a different kind of joy. This is one of those songs.
Check it out on YouTube –
Quote which I found meaningful –
Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.
— Wayne W. Dyer
Before saying “see you next week”
Here is a video I made on WWDC2020 and iOS highlights (Psss…it’s in Hindi and yeah I’m in quarantine haircut!) –
Until Next Saturday!
Thanks for reading.
Himanshu
About Author
I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.
Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!
No spam, ever. Only great stuff.
Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 190 // Week 26 // 2020
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