I haven’t had the chance to update recently due to getting Covid-like symptoms and lingering persistent cough, even at this moment.
The cut to the chase, I lost all sense of smell and partial taste for a couple of weeks now.
To demonstrate how bad it was, I would usually be able to smell the fragrance of my shampoo but there was a point where even the shampoo had a stinky odour which totally surprised me and ultimately, I couldn’t smell a single thing soon after. Now, this is without flu or mucus blocking my nose which I found odd.
At the moment I’m still barely being able to smell and taste as before but it’s a lot better from a scale of 30 out of 100 probably.
I’ve never had this experience before and even after doing a few tests, I was Covid negative.
Not trying to into too much details, admittedly, I haven’t had the chance to rest properly while being sick and that could have taken a toll on my recovery.
I’ve been taking the goodness taste and smell for granted as I’ve been eating just for the sake of eating to be nourished.
In the midst of all these, a little ray of sunshine came about, not too long ago I wrote about Rubiks cubing here: https://elihong.com/learning-curves/
In my journey of cubing which I picked up from YouTube, I spent some time solving it for the longest time and then started to teach my daughter how to cube. I kind of did it because I never solved a cube or much less care much about it but probably after watching Max Park’s story on Netflix, it was inspiring enough for me to make that move forward.
Now with my daughter’s journey of cubing.
All this happened naturally and organically, as she had to learn the ropes and memorize a few algorithms.
Amidst all that struggle, she pressed on and had her fair share of giving up along the way, which was a lesson on its own for her, but it helped to have her learn perseverance.
As a parent, I try to encourage her, show her the ropes and allow her to learn from her mistakes. What precious moments!
Tonight, I’m a proud parent as she officially solved the cube herself and I had to resist the urge to tell her if she had a move wrong and allowed her to figure things out on her own.
It gives me great joy and satisfaction to be able to pass on something to a child and even more gratitude to see her running in the house celebrating this win.
Her smile, her confidence and all that oozing out of her was just extremely satisfying to watch.
I also realized what motivated her though and she mentioned that a friend of hers has an unsolved cube at her school and she wants to show her friend that the cube could be solved which was her prime motivation.
I said, if you can solve it, teach it to your friends too.
Now bearing in mind she has another friend who can solve a cube at sub 10 seconds, which is impressive.
For me it isn’t really about speed cubing but more so the journey of being able to pass on something.
I enjoy teaching and learning at the same time.
When learning, I try to be a good student.
When teaching, I try to guide and be a better teacher while learning as a student too.
In the process of teaching my daughter, I picked up nuances that made my cube solving slightly better.
So it’s actually pretty important to be able to teach immediately after learning a skill so that you can verify the truth and verify the quality of the content and flow.
That said, I better head and get some rest. With another month ahead before the closure of 2022, I hope to recover soon.