My new years resolutions for 2024

My new years resolutions for 2024

1. Eat less sugar. 

I for many years have done my best reduce my sugar intake. However, I until recently was not aware that carbohydrates like bread, pasta and rice contain a lot of sugar without even tasting sweet. 

I will do my best to avoid sugar and carbohydrates as much as possible. 

2. Exercise more. 

One thing that has been great about 2023 is the ability to frequently attend a gym, where I can do various exercises. There has been some exercises that I have really enjoyed doing including bench press, bicep curls and rowing. 

Due to my asthma crisis, opportunities to walk to different places have been pretty slim. Thankfully, I can fell my asthma improving going into the new year, and I hope by the start of spring that I be able to explore different places. 

3. Have more conversations in more languages.

For many years now, I have had a passion for learning certain languages. However, I am aware that I don't always give each language the same level of focus on each language.

I want to become conversational in more languages so that I can have more great conversations in my language exchange app.

4.Teach English. 

Since the Autumn of 2019, I have taught English to many foreign language students in face-to-face and online classes. 

One thing that I want to do this year is to teach English as often as possible. There are a couple of online jobs that I am interested in applying for and I hope to get them this year. 

I want to teach people from around the world and learn about different people from different cultures to enhance my work experience. 

Good luck with your resolutions. 

Happy New Year everyone!

My Dumbell Routine for asthma

I normally do 4x10 , 3x15 or 3x20 reps of the exercises below depending on difficuly and how strong I'm feeling at the time of the workout.  On the first 3, I focus on inhalation and second 3, I focus on exhalation

 Inhalation 

Bicep curls

Front raises

Side raises

Exhalation 

Squats

Oblique side bends

Lunges

After, I Normally like to do about 20 minutes of cardio to test how well my lungs are working.

Martin Cath 1938-2023

 

MARTIN CATH 1938-2023

Our beloved president of South Norwood Chess Club, Martin Cath, passed away at the age of 85 on 23 July 2023 peacefully in his home. 

Martin Cath was a long running president and member of the club who was amongst other things, a chairman, a treasurer, an inter-club tournament controller, a grader

I will always remember Martin as a consummate professional in everything he did both for the chess club and the West Thornton Community Association committee.  

He always spoke well of people and made sure that everybody around him felt welcome. 

He was an inter-club tournament controller for 36 years and a grader for 16 years. More than anything, he was a man with an impeccable love for the game of chess with a career spanning over 50 years.

My condolences to all of his friends and family.

Brazilian Portuguese: 4 years on.

It's been a little over 4 years since learning Brazilian Portuguese for the first time. A journey  It started out as nothing more than a curiosity after working for Brazilian managers in a charity shop in June 2019. It was the very first time that I had ever heard the language spoken in my life  and I was fascinated by it. I started learning the language on my app and I found myself enjoying the words and sounds of this beautiful language. When I announced that was learning Portuguese to my managers, they were both delighted that I was learning their language. For some reason, the head manager thought that I was learning the language because I wanted a Brazilian girlfriend. However, I was simply curious about the language and wanted to learn more about it. The head manager thought it would be a good idea for me to start teaching English to Brazilians in the local area. He made a small paper advertisement outside of the shop window for language exchange and suggested that I advertise in a magazine that was aimed at Brazilians living in England.

Afterwards, I received many requests for lessons, with the very first one being from a woman who attended the shop on one of my working days. We had a few language exchange sessions with each other. First in the local library, and then after in a coffee shop. I eventually had my first request from the magazine with my advertisement in it which led to a journey to London Victoria train station ,where I met a man who was originally from Rio de Janeiro. We discussed certain things between the two languages and topics that were found in the magazine which I had a copy of.

Since then, I have travelled to various places in London teaching English to Brazilians, thanks to the advertisement and my discovery of WhatsApp. 

I also want to thank my online Portuguese teacher living in Brazil for being a kind and informative teacher who normally explains things in good detail. and shows great patience in my learning of various concepts within the language.

Thanks to this journey, I can now look forward to a career as an online English teacher where I will be able to teach people around the world.

 My earphone miracle. 

One of the biggest difficulties of my life s been dealing with loud noises that you hear in.the street. Whether it's that police siren, whether it's that baby crying on the bus, or whether it's that dodgy car engine, loud noises has been literally on of the most debilitating thing s in my life... until now.

For my 36th birthday in 2022, I was given the very thing that may well prove to be the cure to my audio-sensitivities; noise cancelling earphones.

Noise cancelling earphones removes the excess noise of everything you hear, therefore, you can enjoy walking down the city without being incensed by Auditory Sensory Overload which has denied my enjoyment of various places and social events. Any body that knows anything about the autistic experience knows how debilitating Sensory Overload can be. Thankfully, years of sensory pain is finally over thanks to this wonderful piece of technology. This gift has been nothing short of life-changing as I have been simply unable to do enjoy certain events due to extreme noise and loud music.

I want to thank my mother and my sister who collectively purchased and  programmed the earphones so that I can enjoy them in conjunction with my Android phone. 

 

What's wrong with my lungs?

Normal lung vs Asthmatic lung

Hello everybody.

As some of you may already know. I have been constantly battling ongoing uncontrolled asthma symptoms since November 2020 when I suffered heavy influenza which lead to a chest infection. Although I didn't need to go to the hospital, the effects of the influenza that I had at the time still partly remains present in my body and especially my lungs.

 As I write this blog, I am still suffering form a tight chest, nasal congestion and a lot of fatigue.                 There are many places that I used to go to that I simply do no go now because of  my limited breathing.  My physical and mental co-ordination has been reduced. My day-to-day energy has dropped to an all time low. Although I am still able to live independently, what I can do on a daily basis has been reduced. 

The symptoms that I have suffered in the last two and a half years have been tight chest, coughing, sneezing, wheezing, shortness of breath, sweating and fatigue. So what has been going on with me all this time? 

On Thursday 4th May 2023, I had an appointment at my local hospital to learn about the results of the lung function test that I did on Wednesday 22nd March 2023. Did they find anything? Sort of. What they found was that there is a 'fixed swelling' in my airways which is limiting what comes in and out of the lungs. Therefore, I now know where in the lungs that I am having the problem, the very top of them. I have made a return to the gym recently and I realised when doing one of my workouts how sensitive the top of my chest, just below my neck was starting to become. Therefore, I can confirm that these findings are true. 

My medication has seen many changes within the last year, however, so far, none of them have significantly improved my condition. However, I am expecting to receive a new inhaler that is especially designed to open my airways so that more air can get in my lungs. I have guarded hope that this inhaler will be the begining of the end of this long and difficult time in my life and allow me to do more in life.

I have been told many remedies for cold and flu symptoms over the years. For me, only two have really had an immediate effect on my cold and flu symptoms; Vapor-rub and Olbus oil. I've realised that the only other thing that I can do when I am struck by cold or flu is to be patient with it. Unfortunately I seem to catch colds more than the average person and they also last longer. Many have lasted at least a month. Why is all this important? Quite simply, it's the biggest single cause of my asthma.

I cannot wait to go out to the places that I normally visited before this asthma crisis started and go out to eat, socialize and explore. However, at the moment, I cannot go to far outside my home without losing my breath.

Finally, I want to thank my family, especially for their support and understanding during this difficult time, the doctors and nurses who have been understanding and professional with me at all times and the language partners via social media that I have had who have kept me going not just in my language learning journey but also given me some people to talk too during this difficult time. I am hoping that it is not too long before I can be well enough to go outside and enjoy the places that I used to go (and many more too!) 

Richard Davis

 MY PLANS FOR 2023

1). Start an EFL course

Ever since I started teaching English to Brazilians living in England, thanks to my bosses' initiative to make an advert in a magazine, I have been thinking about how I can get an EFL teaching qualification. In late 2020, I found an online course which, if all is successful, will give me a qualification to teach online and even abroad. 

However, due to the pandemic and an influenza infection that has lead to over 2 years of uncontrolled asthma and restricted lung capacity, I have had to delay the start of this my course until I have felt well and strong enough to start something new. 

Once I have passed the course, I can look forward to teaching people from around the world through my laptop. 

2). Return to over-the-board chess

Another thing that has been delayed because of my health issues is my return to over-the-board chess after announcing that I am coming out of retirement on 5 August 2021. My reason for leaving real-life tournament chess was the fact that I thought that I would start a new career as an EFL teacher for certain. However, there were times last year where I thought about quitting my EFL career due to the stress of working with other people in a foreign language of which I had some unsuccessful relationships with. Since that time though, I have received compliments form some of my students who thanked me for my efforts in helping them with their English ,which have inspired me to take on the profession.

3). Keep going to the gym

One of my biggest struggles of my life is finding a gym that is suitable for my auditory sensory needs and is easily locatable. During the spring and summer of 2022, I had put on a lot of weight due to inactivity because of my uncontrolled asthma and having too many sweet foods. The doctors advised me to got the gym in order to try to lose some other the excess weight as this will help ease some of the symptoms.

Thankfully, I was in luck! In October 2202, I found a new gym located around the corner from my food shop; but what was even better was that it was very affordable and the music inside the gym was of a reasonable volume that did not offend my sensory processing.

My new gym has been a real blessing for me and I intend to go there as frequently as possible.  

4). Get back into meditation and yoga.

One thing that I was doing regularly prior to my volunteer work in 2019 was meditation and yoga. I first discovered meditation in December 2009 when I discovered a book on Amazon called 'The quiet' by Paul Wilson which spoke about the benefits of meditation and gave some basic but really life transforming practices for the readers to try for themselves. 

Since then, I have visited Buddhist centres to have meditation classes where I can talk to other people about their meditation experiences after the class. 

I first started to do regular yoga in the late summer of 2017 when I saw a flyer about Friday night yoga classes in a Hindu temple. The classes would normally last 2 hours and were free for everyone, although donations were encouraged. 

I've recently gone back into doing yoga at home. However, because of my uncontrolled asthma at the moment, I am only doing standing asanas in order to reduce the stress on my lungs.

5). Keep learning languages

One of the joys that I have had in my life over the years is learning foreign languages. From the days of learning French at school form the age of 10, to now being a daily language learner from the comfort of my own home. Learning languages means leaning about new groups of people and new cultures. It has also given me a higher level of confidence speaking to other people.

I have been learning Portuguese since encountering my Brazilian managers in my old volunteering job in 2019 and I have not looked back since. I am still using various materials to improve my Portuguese and I have now helped many Brazilians with their English as part of language exchange. I now have online Portuguese classes to make sure that I am making progress in the language.

I started 2022 by launching a life blog in Portuguese where I share various life and cultural experiences in the Portuguese language.  https://vidaricharddavis.blogspot.com/

I hope to take online classes in other languages too like Spanish and French so that I can improve my comprehension of those languages too.