A Major Problem of Humanity Solved!

Play the song and enjoy this fantastic video! It'll put you in the right mood before reading the remainder of the post. I promise :-)

There is one problem that majority of people experience every day. What's worse, that problem sometimes greatly impacts the whole day. What is it? The problem of waking up in the morning! You know it very well. You set the alarm and plan to wake up at a given time. When the alarm goes off, you push the snooze button to sleep for just 10 more minutes. After the 10 minutes... you do the same. It's so hard to wake up and get things going. Imagine, wouldn't it be wonderful just to wake up and start the day with a big smile?

So, why is it so difficult to wake up? Turns out that the difficulty of waking up depends on the sleep phase you are in. If you are  in deep sleep and immediately interrupt it, you feel tired and your mental ability is greatly reduced. You'd like to go back to the beautiful dream... This is what typically happens in the morning. If you are, however, in light sleep, then awakening is very easy, because your body is ready go. What if there was a way of determining when you are in light sleep and then starting the alarm?

I've got good news for you. Personally I think it's one of the coolest uses of smartphones. There are applications that can track your sleep cycle and wake up when you are in light sleep. They analyze your movements in bed and rely on a simple principle: if you don't move, you are in deep sleep; if you move a lot, you are in light sleep. Instead of setting the alarm for a fixed time, you let the application wake you up within certain time window. For example, if the time window is 30 minutes and you have to wake up at 7:30 at the latest, it will wake you up at the most suitable moment between 7:00 and 7:30.

I'm really excited about that, because I've been testing Sleep as Android for several nights and I woke up without any problem. You can find similar applications by searching for sleep in Google Play for Android/App Store for Apple devices/App World for Blackberry.

Learning a New Language? This Is How I Do It!

It's been a while since I wrote my last post. I've got good excuses, though! Let's go back in time and see what happened. Well, majority of people travel in August. But I got to the conclusion that the weather in Canada is still very nice in August. So instead of traveling I decided to stay in Waterloo, work hard on my research, and party with friends. Then, most of September I was away; traveling around Europe. Among others, I went to Portugal, Spain (including Majorca!), and Italy. As usually, thanks to CouchSurfing and GzowskiClub I met very generous and adventurous people. As the weather in southern Europe is great in September, it was another summer month for me. That was definitely good strategy for prolonging the summer. Now, I'm back to Canada, and besides doing research and supervising students, I am learning Portuguese. How cool is that?

Learning a new language is always a great adventure. In fact, it's not just about the language. You learn a lot about another culture, you get the opportunity to meet new people, and experience another country. Ideally, you'd like to move to that country to learn the language. In many cases, it's not that easy. Houston, we've got a problem! My grandma used to say that there are no problems, there are only solutions. Let's focus on solutions then. Throughout the years I came up with a combination of techniques that helped me learn English, German, and Swedish. Now, I'm employing them to learn Portuguese. Truth to be told, I never used German and forgot it. Polish is my native language, I'm fluent in English and can still understand a good part of Swedish. After Portuguese, I'd like to pick up some Spanish and maybe French.

The main idea is to immerse yourself into the new language. Anything you can do to learn counts. Here is how I do it:

• Know why you learn. To be successful at something you need to have an ultimate goal. You need to know why you want to achieve it and what benefits it will bring. This is very important to stay motivated and eager to learn. Learning a new language is typically a huge time commitment. Think about the goal, write it down, and read it whenever you feel too lazy to learn. For example, one of my goals in life is to play in a Brazilian soap-opera :-)
  To those Canadians who don't care about French classes. I just wanted to tell you that Paris is chock-full of beautiful models! I met some of them, and well, too bad they didn't speak English.
• Find a language course. If the language you want to learn is popular (like English or Spanish), you can almost always find teachers and schools in your area. Alternatively, you can learn a language on your own. I know it's possible, because I taught myself Swedish. In that case, you need to buy textbooks, workbooks, and to find (non-)professional teachers to help you.
• Find a group of interest. Try to find other people who want to learn the same language and practice with them. Meetup is good place to find local communities, language exchange meetings, and conversation classes. You can find language events on CouchSurfing. There are also lots of online communities, such as LiveMocha and SharedTalk. I haven't used the last two websites, but heard good things about each of them.
• Find penpals. Thanks to the Internet, it's very easy to find people located in the country of your interest. When I started learning Swedish, I used ICQ to find a random Swedish partner. These days you can use other websites like Facebook, MSN, Badoo. If you are looking for random penpals, you may have to message a lot of them before you get a good response. But hey, that's fun! Of course if you want to make the search less random, use LiveMocha or SharedTalk. You can practice with your penpal every day. It's especially useful to practice informal language, writing, speaking, and listening. Skype allows for audio chats with good voice quality. I ask penpals to type/speak in their native language. I do my best to reply in the same language. At the beginning it's difficult, so if I cannot, I reply in the language I know.
• Ask friends for help. If your local friends speak the language you want to learn, schedule meetings with them. Those meeting are invaluable for improving your accent, speaking, and listening skills. Ask your friends to speak only the native language. In practice, you would be switching between languages at the beginning.
• Radio. Internet gives you access to all the radio stations in the world. Isn't it wondeful? TuneIn is one of such websites. Find a radio station where they talk all the time. It can be fun, it can be boring. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you listen to the language whenever possible (several hours a day). At the beginning you don't understand anything, but after several days you will see that you can recognize certain phrases. Even if I don't understand the phrases, I repeat them to myself.
• Music. Listen to the music in the language you want to learn. Check out the lyrics, try to sing along. If you like the music, it'll be a fun way for learning catchy phrases very quickly. The lyrics are not necessarily the best source of vocabulary, but they are also not the worst one.
• Subtitles. When watching a movie use subtitles in the language you want to learn. To be honest, I never liked switching my attention between the movie and the subtitles, but it's a way of relating subtitles to what you see.
• Online translators and dictionaries. Those are essential for translating words and phrases. They are especially useful when you learn the language on your own and when practicing with a penpal. These days, however, you can get much more from online translators. Personally I really like Google Translate. While its translations are not perfect, it has a great speech synthesizer. It can fluently read phrases in any language it offers. I use it a lot to work on my accent.
• Record yourself. This is something I actually do. It's very hard to improve your accent unless you hear how it sounds. What you think it sounds like is very different from how it sounds to others. You can record yourself and later record a native speaker reading the same text. Compare and try to fix the problems with accent.
• Travel. If you cannot move to the country to practice the foreign language you're learning, do your best to visit it from time to time. There are always multiple opportunities.

Exercises in Open-Mindedness

Open-mindedness is about being receptive to new ideas. Simple. Everyone is receptive up to a certain limit. This limit is what determines whether we call a person open-minded or close-minded. Now, why do I care about open-mindedness? Personally, I think open-mindedness is a great trait to have. Why?

• You can learn from the ideas of others and come up with better own ideas.
• It fosters creativity.
• You're more open to explore various topics, which can result in new hobbies, passions, and friendships.
• I think it's related to going out of comfort zone and trying out new things. As a result you become more adaptable to new situations and environments.
• It helps you to become a more interesting person. If you're open-minded, then you probably have knowledge about a variety of topics. It's great for discussions and socializing.

OK, cool. So if it's such a great trait, how to acquire it? Well, you're more or less open-minded. So it's not so much about acquiring but about exercising. I've been exercising my open-mindedness since April. I started with the How to Exercise an Open Mind article. Here I'm presenting the list of various exercises that stimulate the brain. Take it as inspiration!

Exploring Music Genres

• Zouk
• Mediterranean
• Japanese
• Dancehall
• Hawaiian

Reading

• The Design of Everyday Things. Learning about usability and design of the things that I typically don't pay attention to.
• The Flinch. Short, motivational book.
• Freakonomics. Provides scientific answers for questions like what is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool?
• The World Is Flat. Great book about globalization and its benefits.
• Seasteading countries and cities. Startup countries. Must read if you want to start your own country.
• In What Language Do Deaf People Think? Try to answer that question before reading the article!

Wikipedia Articles

• Lifestyle: Swinging (apparently it can be beneficial), Cargo Cult (must read!), Fetishization, Discordianism, Polyphasic sleep (check out if you want to decrease your sleeping time)
• Science: Diminishing Returns (the law is pretty famous and widely-applicable), Cognitive Psychology (it's about how we learn and understand things), Stereogram (see a hidden picture in a picture), Chameleon (they don't have ears but can still detect sounds)
• Art: Theremin (a very unusual instrument, check out The Legend of Zelda played on it), Avant-garde, Origami (some of origami techniques are applied in car air-bags and solar panels of satellites!)

Cooking

• Pierogies
• Asparagus creme
• Apple crumble with vanilla ice cream
• BBQ salmon and vegetables
• Broccoli soup
• Cheesecake
• Hash-browns

Volunteering with Gzowski Club

• Polish Day
• Negotiating discounts with a manicure/pedicure place
• Thinking about the mission of the club and creating the website
• Painting walls
• Delivering sandwiches
• KW Summer Latinfest

Traveling

• Exploring the Kitchener-Waterloo region
• Exploring Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga and other places in Southern Ontario
• Eurotrip
• Booked tickets to Brazil for the Carnival 2013 in Rio de Janeiro

Activities

• Hand walking
• Writing backwards
• Parkour

If you've got something to add to that list, I would be more than happy to see it!

Sustainable Global Lifestyle: Introduction

Several interesting things happened to me recently. First, I got a chance to travel a bit in Europe and Canada. The coolest thing about traveling is that besides discovering places you discover yourself. Second, I've been volunteering at KW Latinfest to help organize an event for the local community. Imagine a PhD student running around and asking for donations :-) Third, I was interviewed about my expat life. One of the questions was: what is home for you? It took me 10 good minutes to define home! Finally, I just started reading The World Is Flat, a book that Anna recommended me a while ago. All those things made me look at lifestyle from an unorthodox perspective. I've been thinking about designing global lifestyle for a while. The recent events worked as a thought catalyzer! This post is kind of random but has the potential to change your life.

Inspiration

Let's begin with the book as I found it highly inspiring. It's very fortunate that I looked into it right now. The World Is Flat investigates how globalization changed the world. You probably often hear that globalization is a bad, bad thing. But hey, instead of complaining, let's make the most of it! Globalization gives opportunities that have not been available to our ancestors. It can make the whole world your home.

1.0	2.0	3.0
before 1800	1800-2000	after 2000
Where does my country fit in the world?	Where does my corporation fit in the world?	Where do I fit in the world?

The book classifies globalization into 3 versions. In the era of Globalization 1.0 countries focused on conquering other countries, on acquiring more land and resources. Globalization 2.0 was defined by international corporations that struggled to be competitive and tried to find their place in the world. Globalization 3.0 started when new technologies speeded up the flow of information and allowed for global cooperation for each individual. Not only can you travel between two remote locations within hours, but also the physical location is less and less important. So, if the world is so available these days, how do I leverage that? Should I be competitive or take it slow and relax? What kind of lifestyle is available now that wasn't available in the past?

Desired Lifestyle

Picture this. Wouldn't it be cool to travel around the world for years and experience life on different continents? Imagine eating genuine Japanese sushi, or an genuine American hamburger cooked on 100 years old grease :-) How about making money in an expensive country, such as Switzerland, while staying in Thailand where the cost of living is much lower? Just by changing location your money is worth much more! Or maybe money doesn't matter, and all one needs is a tent and a ticket to the next destination?

Switzerland: a train ride in the Alps	Thailand: Phi Phi Islands

Recently, I was looking for answers to the above questions. Why? Because I've got some 600 days to finish my PhD and graduate :-) Also, I want to design a sustainable global lifestyle to combine permanent traveling with daily life. Let's break it down:

• sustainable - maintainable in the long-run.
• global - living in different locations on the Earth. Experiencing local culture, food, nature.
• lifestyle - a way of living life.

Such a lifestyle looks very attractive to me. I believe that you also find it attractive as long as you're a bit adventurous. Are you? Thanks to the technology, it is also achievable to many of us. It relies on thinking globally, acting locally. 

Thinking Globally, Acting Locally

The principle is fairly well known in business and environmental studies. Isn't it reasonable to apply it on a personal level?. Thinking globally means taking advantage of globalization. That includes cheap international flights, ability to work remotely, location independence, and geoarbitrage. Acting locally is about slow traveling, experiencing local culture, building local communities, sharing ideas, and possibly volunteering.

This post is an introduction to designing a sustainable global lifestyle. I'm planning to write a series of blog posts to explore topics on:

• various opportunities for working and traveling,
• living in multiple locations around the planet,
• finding a job to make geoarbitrage work.

Of course there are tons of materials on the web. The thing is that they are either generic or tell a personal story. My goal is to customize the content to a young (pre-)professional. Get ready for some cool posts and refreshing ideas!

Travel, Learn, and Improve

The one-week adventure is over! I finally found a lazy day to stay in bed and reflect a little bit on the recent trip. Together with Gzowski Club we went on a whirlwind tour around Europe. Within 9 days we visited Scotland (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Prestwick), Poland (Bydgoszcz, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Katowice, Sosnowiec, Krakow, Wieliczka), Spain (Girona, Barcelona), and Portugal (Lisbon). Wherever we went we heard something along the lines: you guys are ridiculous... but you are fun!

What was the goal of the trip? Besides the cultural exploration of Europe we wanted to experience the vibe of Eurocup 2012 - one of the largest events in the whole world. The trip was a great opportunity to meet old friends and to make new friendships. Everyone we met was extremely open, friendly, and added value to our trip. Guess what? We even received gifts! You'll find more details about the trip on Gzowski Club's website. This entry is my personal perspective on the journey. It is about new lessons I learned from traveling:

1. Travel light. That was my first time when I traveled overseas with only hand luggage. Total weight? Somewhere around 6kg. Still, some of the clothes remained unused. Do you need more? Doubtful. Get rid of all the crap that is not essential. Traveling light is much more convenient and faster: no need to wait in check-in lines, no extra charges, smaller chance of forgetting something. What if you find some cool stuff on the way? If you cannot pack it, just ship it to home address! We shipped a 10kg parcel to Canada.





2. Laptop or smartphone? Unless you have to work, forget about your laptop. It weights too much and doesn't add much to the trip. Take a smartphone if you have it. Typical applications that you need include Facebook, Couchsurfing, Skype, maps, email, getting boarding passes, alarm, taking notes, checking schedules, and weather forecast. You can conveniently do all of that on a smartphone. If you need a computer for a while, you'll find travelers who will help you.
3. Couchsurfing or hostels? I am a huge fan of CouchSurfing. I couchsurf whenever possible but at times a hostel is a better choice. Typically, it takes several days to find a person who can offer a couch. If time is of essence, choose a hostel or sleep on the beach. Also, if you like to party, you will find more people in hostels. Many hostels organize social events, such as dinners and pub-crawls. Occasionally, however, you'll find exceptional CouchSurfing hosts who are more fun than tens of hostel guests!





4. Be social. Meeting people is fun. Especially if you meet travelers and open-minded people with cool interests. Before visiting a destination contact your friends, post your plans on Facebook, message people on CouchSurfing. Meet people in bars and wherever you go. In hostels, make international friends. Once you get into the hostel, talk to everyone. Travelers like to... travel. Take their contact as soon as possible, otherwise it may be too late.
5. Access to the Internet. Figure out in advance where free connection is available. Usually, you can count on McDonald's, Starbucks, and public transit facilities. If you have time, search for local SIM cards with free/cheap access to the Internet.
6. Eurocup 2012. The event attracted hundreds of thousands of football fans to Poland and Ukraine. That was the biggest event I have ever participated in. It is amazing how the crowds change cities into different realities.





7. Be flexible. About everything. Your flight may get delayed, your host may be away, your friend may have something urgent to do and can't meet you, your alarm clock may not go off, etc. It's not so much about having plan B, but about adjusting to the situation. Never have hard feelings. There is no reason to panic. Our flight got significantly delayed, we missed train stations, didn't have accommodation, yet we always handled the situation. People are good.
8. Traveling is about giving and taking. When you meet others, add value to their lives. How? Offer a stimulating conversation, contribute to the party, come up with ideas for outings. Don't be selfish, share whatever other people might need (especially international love :-) ). We brought a lot of swag from Canada and gave it away for free. No expectations, just bringing gifts for fun. We also received a lot from others: food, accommodation, drinks, gifts, help, and great times!
9. Don't say fuck yeah. This is a funny one. I like saying fuck yeah when something is obvious to me.  Avoid, however, saying this phrase to people whose English is not so good. They may understand that you said fuck you. Say hell yeah instead.
10. Remember about friends. Keep in touch with old and new friends. Send them an email, Facebook message, postcards, leave a souvenir. Everyone likes to know that you are thinking about them!

This trip is over. Huge thanks go to people that we met. Everywhere! Check out our photos on Facebook! So what will Kacper do next? That's unclear. Help him today to visit Caribbean!!!

Caveman-inspired Diet and Green Smoothies

I've been experimenting a lot recently. One of the things that I was experimenting with were my eating habits. For over two years I had gone to restaurants for lunch. I had also been eating bread for over two decades. I got bored of that food and started looking for meals that:

• have good nutritional values,
• are healthy and natural,
• take almost no time to prepare,
• are reasonably tasty,
• are affordable on a student budget :-)

After searching for a while I found the paleo diet. I decided to give it a try and cook for myself. That was a huge step cause my cooking skills were rather poor. Anyways, the basic idea of the paleo diet is simple: whatever was good for your ancestors before agricultural revolution (from 2.5 million to 10 000 years ago), is good for you. You should eat whatever your ancestors hunted or gathered (those who made a mistake died and were not your ancestors :-) ). Assumptions of the diet sound totally reasonable to me. I took it as a starting point and adjusted to my needs and lifestyle.

So how is life on the paleo diet? I think it's great now. At the beginning the food that I made tasted pretty bad. I didn't know what tastes go well each other. After 2-3 weeks of experiments I got to a meal plan that I really enjoy! First, I did a little research and carefully selected food items that contain the highest nutritional value on a given budget. I used websites like NutritionData, WHFoods, or Wikipedia. Here is a list of things that I buy:

• Fish and meat: fresh salmon, smoked salmon, cod, haddock, herring, chicken breast, turkey breast, beef.
• Vegetables: carrots, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, broccoli, romaine lettuce, collard greens, kale, spinach, dulse (sea vegetable), basil, mint.
• Fruits: blueberry, kiwi, grapefruit, orange, banana, blackberry, strawberry, apple, mango, pineapple, avocado, lemon, lime, cucumber, red peppers, tomatoes (yeah, the last three are not vegetables :-) ).
• Nuts: walnuts (but pecans and almonds are also good).
• Legumes: red beans, bean medley, falafel (made from chickpeas).
• Other: almond milk, eggs, cocoa, honey, dark chocolate.

Breakfast

Every breakfast includes leaves of romaine lettuce, nuts, carrots, and some other vegetable or fruit (e.g., cucumber, red pepper, tomato). All the veggies and fruits are raw. Also, each morning I make green smoothies (described later). Six times a week breakfast includes a boiled egg. Twice a week it includes smoked salmon, and twice a week herring. Total time: (includes preparing, eating, and cleaning up): 30 minutes.

Lunch/Dinner

I typically sauté fish/meat with spinach. I add dulse instead of salt to make the food salty. Avocado goes well with chicken and turkey breast. What I like about sautéing is that I haven't used any oil for several weeks. It's totally possible :-) At times, I bake fresh salmon as it contains a lot of fat and does not require extra oil. Each lunch/dinner includes a lot of fish or meat, otherwise I would be hungry. It also includes boiled vegetables (e.g., Brussels sprouts, asparagus, broccoli) and/or legumes. I use microwave instead of boiling the green veggies. I also add some spices to taste (e.g. curry goes well with poultry). Total time: 40 minutes.

Supper

Supper is very lightweight. It includes nuts, carrots, and fruits (e.g., kiwi, orange, strawberry, apple, pineapple, blueberry, banana, blackberry). Total time: 10 minutes.

Green Smoothies

Green smoothie is a smoothie made with green leafy vegetables. It sounds odd, but those leafy vegetables provide tons of vitamins. They are not so tasty on their own, so it's better to mix with fruits or nuts and to make a smoothie! You can also add raw eggs or avocados to make them even more smooth. Yep, you need a blender to make smoothies. I recently bought one for $10, which was a great investment. I confess that when I started making green smoothies, they tasted awful. Here are some good recipes that I encourage you to try:

1. collard greens, kale, mint, glass of almond milk, lots of blueberries.
2. collard greens, kale, mint, glass of almond milk, blackberries, strawberries.
3. collard greens, kale, mint, glass of almond milk, mango.
4. collard greens, kale, mint, glass of almond milk, pineapple.
5. collard greens, kale, mint, glass of almond milk, watermelon.
6. collard greens, kale, mint, glass of almond milk, apple.
7. collard greens, kale, mint, grapefruit, lemon/lime, lemon/lime zest, kiwi, banana.
8. collard greens, kale, mint, grapefruit, lemon/lime, lemon/lime zest, mango.
9. collard greens, kale, mint, grapefruit, lemon/lime, lemon/lime zest, pineapple.
10. collard greens, kale, mint, grapefruit, lemon/lime, lemon/lime zest, watermelon.
11. collard greens, kale, mint, grapefruit, lemon/lime, lemon/lime zest, orange, banana.
    
    
    

Sweet Smoothie 

I'm a big fan of chocolate and honey. Once a week I make a sweet smoothie to appreciate the taste of sugar. This is how it goes: glass of almond milk, cocoa, honey, dark chocolate, banana.

If you are into paleo diet or have any opinion about it, I would be glad to hear that. I'm always looking for new recipes!

Tips on Hunting for Cheap Flights

Original Photo by ArchDevil

The post on getting a free flight to Costa Rica received a lot of attention. It's clear to me that many readers of this blog are interested in cheap flights. Recently I was looking for cheap flights to Brazil and Europe. I learned a lot and want to share some of the observations. I know that those tips are very effective. How effective? A year ago I visited USA, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine for the cost of a direct flight from Toronto to Warsaw. This year I'll pay even much less for visiting Portugal, Spain, Poland,  France, and then going back to Canada. Update: I recently booked transatlantic flights: Toronto → Glasgow and Lisbon → Toronto for $273 in total! (a typical transatlantic return flight is 2-3 times more expensive) Convinced?

• Searching for flights takes time. This is the key requirement. If you want to find a flight in a great price, you'll have to do your homework and search multiple websites. Depending on how much $$$ you make per hour, it may be worth or not worth it. I'm a student so whenever I can save some money, I'm happy.
• Your location and destination matter. Check out local airlines and deals. For example, if you are in Europe, you can fly from Barcelona to Rome for $30 (final price) with low-cost airlines. Similar deals are probably possible in other parts of the world, but Europe is pretty much unbeatable. Having said that, if you fly to Europe, get the cheapest flight to anywhere in Europe and then travel by low-costs inside. Update: if you fly between Toronto and Europe checkout Air Transat and Sunwing. They offer increadibly cheap flights!
• Fly with low-cost airlines. Deals offered by low-cost airlines can be found only on their websites. You buy tickets directly from those airlines and there is no point in searching elsewhere. Find out where those airlines fly. I typically check airport information on Wikipedia to see what airlines go to places of my interest. Update: you can use WhichBudget, flycheapo, skyscanner, and Fly4free (Polish) to search for destinations of low-cost airlines.
• Check out multiple websites. If you cannot fly with low-cost airlines, check out traditional airlines on search engines like Kayak, Cheapoair, Expedia, and others. Compare prices with those shown on airlines' websites. You'll see that each website offers different price. Search with flexible dates and check nearby airports. Recently I've been playing with Matrix Airfare Search that can search for flights to/from multiple airports at once! Update: checkout Google Flights. Although limited (includes only certain airports), it is a fantastic website for analyzing how prices change over the year. Click the calendar icon.
• Take advantage of travel agents. These days people tell you to book flights online. Generally, it's a good idea but take a look at the deals offered by local travel agents. For example, Flight Centre has the Lowest Airfare Guarantee policy. It means that if you find a flight and their price is not lower, they'll match the price and will offer you a $20 voucher. You think that $20 is nothing. Sure, it's not much but it's enough to fly with low-costs in Europe! Also, if you make travel agents match the price several times, the $20 multiplies. Update: a lot depends on the agent who sells you the ticket. Bargain and ask for student discounts whenever possible (even if it's against their official policy).
• Monitor prices. Did you know that the price of a ticket depends on when you book it? Monitor prices for a week or two to see when it's best time book a ticket. How important is it? Well, I was looking for a flight from Paris to Toronto. One day it was $417, while the other day it was almost $600!
• Sign up for crowdsourced deals. There are more people who look for deals and are glad to share them. A great example for Toronto area is the YYZ deals blog. Recently they found out how to fly to Europe for $338 (final price). Update: as Tanjina pointed out in the comment, discount coupons are also useful. For example, check out wantacode.
• Get an ISIC card. International Student Identity Card can help you save money on food, air, train tickets, etc. In Canada it is offered by Travel Cuts and they have nice discounts (> 10%) if you have the card.
• Travel off the season. This is probably the most common tip, but it totally makes sense. Find out when the season starts and ends for a given destination. For example, in Europe it is typically from June to August. In Caribbean it is from December to May. If you fly to Europe during the season, you are almost guaranteed to pay twice as much as off the season. Update: as Justin suggested, if possible, avoid flying during holidays. Prices are much higher than usually.
• Take advantage of different currencies. Generally, it is best to use the currency of your credit card (to avoid possible exchange fees). Sometimes, however, it pays off to switch the currency. A year ago I saved $30 on switching from Canadian dollar to Icelandic krona when booking transatlantic flights between Europe and USA.
• Find more websites with travel tips. This blog post is by no means complete. Google for more tips and share them with others!

Success Engineering

Original Photo by Marcel Bak

I think that one can be successful at anything they really want. Anything? Anything! I don't know what you do in life, but I know that you can become anyone you want and you can achieve anything you want. During the last several weeks I've been looking into the topic of success. I wanted to understand it to have a system in place for achieving success. I also talked to some people that I consider successful. Interested in my findings? Read on.

First of all, what is success? Success is achievement of a goal. Most people have some goals, such as finishing school, doing a project, making money, traveling, having a family. Also, most people fail to achieve their goals. They settle on whatever is readily available to them. Of course, I failed many times too. Now things are much better. I believe there is a general framework for being successful:

Goal. Find out what you want. Goal should be a result of strong desire for something. The stronger the desire, the more likely success. If there is no desire, there is no success. I think it is very important to be as specific about the desired outcome as possible. More specific goals allow for designing better plans. If necessary, divide the goal into smaller subgoals. Use Kanban to keep track of all the goals.

Plan. Think what you need to achieve the goal and how to do that. Set a final deadline that you will not miss. Make a very detailed plan of action. I typically first create a bullet list of actions, and then schedule them in calendar. Stick to the schedule and be committed. If you don't do that, you'll fail.

If necessary, acquire additional resources. Find out different sources of knowledge (websites, forums, publications, people) and meet like-minded people. Think about the skills that you need to learn and how to acquire them.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. You heard it many times. If you want to be successful at one thing, other things will suffer. Make a list of things that will suffer and be aware of them.

Action. Execute the plan. In many cases that's the hardest part because it requires you to move your ass and do something. Take action immediately, do not wait for "perfect moment". It does not exist. Whatever you do, you'll refine it later as you get better.

Of course, you'll be tempted to procrastinate and to find lame excuses. Stay focused and motivated. You have to be persistent. You'll meet many obstacles, but don't get discouraged. Never take things personally. Be guided by your goal and think of all the benefits of achieving it. Remember, you get as much as you fight for.

Being motivated is not always easy. Approach the whole process with the right attitude like Nick Vujcic. Be positive and have faith in success. It's the attitude that discriminates successful from unsuccessful people. It gives spark to all the action.

Taking action usually means working hard. Successful people are successful because they are devoted to their goals, not because they are naturally talented. They put all their resources into finishing the task. They work hard, but you also have to work smart. If you work smart, you save time and achieve your goals quicker. Be productive.

You might think that some people are successful because they are lucky. But, what is luck? I like the definition of Randy Pausch. According to him luck is when preparation meets opportunity. You can be lucky only when you are ready for it. Being ready usually means working for success.

Result. When you perform an action, you'll see some results. At the beginning the results will not be shocking. Maybe it'll take months or years to see big results, but do not quit. Most people fail because they quit too early.

Thoughts. Reflect on the results and the whole process. Learn and improve. Often you need to adjust the plan as the conditions change.

Controlling the Brain with Sounds?

You are going to read about something you have probably never heard of. It sounds totally wicked: brainwave synchronization. What the hell is that? Let me explain some things first. When your brain is in a certain state, it generates waves with frequencies that are characteristic to that state. For example, if you have a deep dreamless sleep, your brain generates waves below 4 Hz  (Delta waves). Now, think about doing the reverse: let's stimulate the brain with certain frequencies and see what happens. Will it switch to that state? For example, can you fall asleep just by listening to certain sounds? Well, it might be the case.

The goal of brainwave synchronization is to induce intended brain-state by feeding the brain with frequencies that correspond to the intended state. Let's say I want to sleep, I play certain sound. I want to study and focus, I play another sound. I want to meditate, I play yet another sound. Does this work? Guess what? I tested it on myself! How? I narrowed my experiment to binaural beats. These are audio files that can be played on any computer. All I needed was my laptop and headphones. It is best to listen to binaural beats on headphones to eliminate distractions.

Here is the experiment. Almost every day I go to the lab to do research. Around 1pm I'm back from lunch. The hour from 1 to 2pm is the most lazy hour of the whole day. After eating food most of the blood flows to the stomach. There is less blood (and thus oxygen) in the brain. That is the reason why we are sleepy after eating lunch or dinner. Many times I took a nap as I was too sleepy to read and focus (fortunately we've got a sofa in the lab :-) ).

I decided to give a try to brainwave synchronization by listening to binaural beats. For that, I used a program called Gnaural. I was listening to the beats while reading papers. Every time I tried it, I always stayed focused. It is a weird stuff but seemed to work for me. It is hard to say something definitive as it might have been just placebo effect. In any case, what matters is that I can be productive after lunch. All I care about are the results.

There is a lot of stuff on Wikipedia about that topic. Not only I found it fascinating, but it also delivered good results. Feel free to try and experiment yourself. I would be interested in reading about your experience.

Motivational Sticky Notes

Several weeks ago we had a Valentines party at my place. It was a very cool crowd and I invited some friends to my room. A number of them paid attention to something that I no longer found unusual: motivational sticky notes. Majority of the people said they really liked the idea. Some asked me to send the quotes around. The idea is indeed pretty good and maybe you'll find it useful too.

First of all, motivational sticky notes is an old idea. I read about it on the Internet and wanted to give it a try. Like most good ideas, it is very simple: take a bunch of sticky notes, write motivational/inspirational quotes on them, and put the notes all over your place. Why the hell would you do that? I believe they help you to keep on track. They help me, at least.

The quotes usually express obvious things. And that's the problem :-) Many things in life are so obvious that you don't even remember them. What happens if you forget? You start acting in a way that is far from "the obvious". Let me give you an example. One of the quotes says "If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?" The obvious thing here is to experiment, go out of the comfort zone and see what happens. It's a great mindset in practice, because allows you to pick up new things with open mind. I guess you agree with me. Now, what happens if you don't internalize the quote? You are less likely to try out new things. Is there any benefit of that? I doubt it.

People internalize things through repetition. A very easy way to repeat things is to surround yourself by them. You repeat just by glancing through the notes. If one catches your eye, think about it for a few seconds. Paper notes seem to be more effective than virtual notes. People often post motivational/inspirational quotes on Facebook. It is pretty much useless, because you forget the quote as soon as you post it :-)

Where to find good quotes and questions? I recommend being creative and tailoring the quotes to what matters to you. Try to come up with some sentences and quote yourself. It's pretty cool to quote yourself :-) Another source of quotes are books and websites. One particular website that I like is a blog entry: 50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind.

Focus!

(CC) Original Photo by Metaveld BV

"Controlled focus is like a laser beam that can cut through anything that seems to be stopping you."

Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

A month ago I wrote a post on how I get things done. Since then, I have been measuring time spent on daily activities. My goal was very simple: to find out how I waste time and why. That was the first step to be more time-efficient. Unexpectedly, I found a technique that helps me stay focused. If you need to improve your attention span (and I know you do :-) ), you might find it useful.

The technique is very simple. That's probably the reason why it works so well for me. The idea is to log time and activity that you perform. It is important that you force yourself to do that whenever you switch focus. Whenever you want to perform a new activity, add an entry. Be honest with yourself. Adding a new entry should make you think whether to perform that activity. My sample log looks as follows:

Date	Time	Activity
Sat 28-01-2012	15:01:10	food
Sat 28-01-2012	16:08:43	limoncello
Sat 28-01-2012	16:40:22	blog
Sat 28-01-2012	16:45:11	limoncello
Sat 28-01-2012	16:55:03	blog
Sat 28-01-2012	17:00:07	limoncello

According to the log, I made and ate food at first. Later I was interleaving two activities: making limoncello and writing blog content. Note that during writing the blog, I didn't check Facebook or email. If I had wanted to do that, I would have had to add an entry.

Why does this technique work? I believe it's related to pain and pleasure. Adding those log entries is pain in the ass. The pain associated with it overshadows a possible pleasure associated with Facebook.

How to log entries? You can start with a piece of paper. Alternatively, you can also write them in a text file or on a cell phone. I like to automate life, so I created a program that automatically timestamps log entries and saves them in a text file. It works on Linux, but maybe you'll be lucky enough to use it on Mac. This console program is easy to use. Type: log food, or log blog, or log myEntry to add a new entry to the file log.txt in home directory. If you have no idea how to download and use the program, don't bother with it. Piece of paper is your best friend!

Road Trip: God Bless America

The adventurous Gzowski crew is back: Tom, Mike, and myself. We are back to Canada after driving 4500km for 5 days! 4 days of driving for 1 night of partying. How ridiculous is that? As we started driving on Sunday, I could not believe that we would end up in New Orleans. It was the most random excursion I've ever been to. My thoughts are still as chaotic as the trip and the previous post. I'm writing this blog post to share the best highlights from our cultural exploration of USA.

Road Trip

• Car (our new home). It took us about 30 hours to get to New Orleans. Mike's car was the place to drink, eat, sleep, live. We spent our first night on a Pizza Hut parking lot somewhere in Kentucky.  Mike was sleeping on driver's sleep, Tom in the trunk/back seat, and myself on the passenger's seat. The car was so comfortable that we decided to sleep there for two more nights! Apparently there are more people who share our passion to cars. We spent the second night on McDonald's parking lot in New Orleans. When we woke up, we spot a car next to ours. A girl approached our car and said: "Looks like we've got neighbors!" :-)
• Living the life. When you go on vacations, you brain goes on vacations as well. Basically, we spent a lot of money on random things, like a baseball cap, fedora, ponchos, various decorations, unnecessary food. We also bought a kettle, which was one of the best investments. We boiled water to make tea/coffee at each stop: McDonald's, Wallmart, Burger King. Although we had drinking water, we didn't have many opportunities to take a shower. After one day without shower, you notice that you look different. After 2-3 days, you just don't care.

• McDonald's. We are loving it. Besides their delectable hash browns, they offer free access to the Internet. McDonald's strategically located their restaurants at highway exits. It made keeping in touch with our friends very convenient. Unexpectedly, one night when we were writing postcards, McDonald's donated to us fries. How nice of them?

God Bless America

• No KFC in Kentucky. We didn't see any Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant as we were passing by Kentucky. Too bad! We badly wanted to try the forbidden-in-Canada double down sandwich. The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. We finally found the sandwich in Tennessee!

• Jack Daniels in a dry county. When we were driving through Tennessee, we noticed a sign saying "Jack Daniel's Distillery. A national historic site". Pretty cool! Although, I'm not a fan of whiskey, it was very interesting to see how they produce it. Apparently, it is a very slow and expensive process because alcohol is filtered drop by drop though charcoal. Nonetheless, the more interesting fact is that the distillery is located in a dry county. It is a county that forbids the sale of alcohol.
• Southern states. The trip was our first experience with southern states. They seemed like a totally different world to me. The states are very traditional (with lots of churches) and people are welcoming. I got the impression that the time slows down there and no one is in a rush. People speak with a distinctive accent that is initially hard to understand. Also, if you listen to the radio, you quickly notice that the only music they play is country :-)

Money-efficient Local Diet

• Greasy food. Together with Tom, we decided to think globally and act locally. We supported local economy by consuming tons of super-greasy food. No, I'm not talking about McDonald's and similar chains. Those are relatively healthy. I'm talking about food that contains 40-50% of saturated fat! There was so much fat that a paper bag was totally wet after keeping them for a while. We bought 2-3kg of super-greasy chicken legs to appreciate their unique taste for 2 days. On top of that, we had potatoes, or rather potato-butter. Unforgettable experience!

• 0% - 5% juice. What is the definition of juice? Who cares :-) We bought some liquid that resembled juice. When I think of it, it still tastes like a dish washing detergent.
• Law enforcement. To make sure that each of us appreciates the healthy food we made a law: You have to eat anything what is stereotypical American, greasy, unhealthy. Avoid fruits and vegetables. If someone offers the food to you, you have to eat it. You have the right to make the other person eat the same type of food.

New Orleans and Mardi Gras

• New Orleans. It is a very unique American city. It definitely has European flavor. It can be seen in the architecture, roads, and symbols.
• Mardi Gras. The festival is great party attended by thousands of tourists. They crowd the streets, wear beads, cheer, show their breasts, or shout "show us your tits!". In fact, it is a lot of fun and goes beyond what you can see in public places every day. Before going there, I had no idea what Mardi Gras is. It took us 4 days to drive there and back just to experience that one night. Was it worth it? Definitely! We also met a fair number of Canadians who were proudly singing O Canada. Among them, there was Tom's brother. We all celebrated the family reunion in New Orleans.

It is a long post but I must repeat a sentence that I heard hundreds of times: we are so fucking cool!

It Started with Breakfast...

I'm writing this blog post in the car. We have been driving for over 26 hours (with stops) from Kitchener to New Orleans. We are some 30km from Birmingham, Alabama.

Sunday
10:30am Wake-up. Tom is at my place. Last night we went to Mexican Fiesta - a Polish event in Cambridge; we also visited Guelph to check out what's going on there.

Tom: Good morning!
Kacper: Hey Tom!
Tom: I'm hungry, let's go for breakfast.
Kacper: Yeah, let's see who else wants to go... Looks like Mike is coming over.

Tom, Mike, and myself are members of Gzowski Club. We envisioned the club as a place for people who like to have a good time. We promote Polish culture among Canadian students in Ontario. We often hang out together and organize informal events.

Tom: What do you say about Phil's [club that hosts a retro night] tonight? Hmm, I'd like to do something exciting today...
Kacper: You know what? I've been thinking about doing something unusual for several days! I don't know what it is, but something that you don't do often... I just got a text message from Andrea. They also want to go to Phil's tonight.

Text from Mike: R u guys still hanging? Lets road trip somewhere!
Text from Kacper: We were just brainstorming. Come over now! Bring your passport, just in case.
Text from Mike: K ill be there in like 30-40mins. Dude niagra falls casino!!!!!

12:00pm We make a delectable breakfast: roasted salmon and fried bacon. I talk to my parents on Skype saying that Tom and Mike came over. We've got a car and we're looking for adventures. My parents seemed very happy to hear that! After the Skype call, together with Tom and Mike we are thinking about possible destinations. Oshawa? Ottawa? Montreal? New York? Chicago? Mexico?

Tom: Guys! My brother is in New Orleans. Mardi Gras festival is there. Let's go!
Kacper: Well, it's like 2 days of driving. Let's check flight tickets.

Tom and Mike are checking prices, while I'm packing my back pack. Flights to New Orleans are for $600-$700 per person. Unreasonable. We have no choice, we have to drive there. The trip is on.

Mike: Ok guys, I need to pack my stuff as well. Let's get into the car and drive to my place.

1:00pm We are at Mike's place. He packs his stuff and we decide to visit Kasia. In the meantime we message tens of other friends and update statuses on Facebook. Apparently, everybody is too busy to go for a trip of our lives. Mike's mom is a bit worried about him, but Mike decides to take things in his own hands :-)

2:00pm Tom packs his back pack. I upload some pictures on FB. Guys are singing the much-loved "Hangover" song.

Tom: One more thing. I've got a project deadline. I have to submit a project by 5pm. We need to go to Conestoga College to the computer lab.
Mike: Did you take your passport?
Tom: Oh, shit! My passport, thanks buddy!

3:00pm We are in the computer lab. Tom finishes the project, Mike checks directions from Kitchener to New Orleans, and I check hostels. According to Google Maps the route is 2023km long and it takes over 20 hours to get there. The road leads through the whole USA: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississipi, Louisiana. Pretty cool!

4:00pm Just before departing from Conestoga we accidentally meet our friend Anna. Funny, cause we've been texting that day for a while. That was the last moment to say bye!

4:05pm We are heading towards the border with USA in Detroit! Although we can't believe it, the trip is seriously on!

It was one of the coolest days in my life! We all 3 woke up in the morning without planning anything particular. We just wanted to go for breakfast, maybe to the club later. None of us expected setting off for a 2000km roadtrip to New Orleans. How COOL does that sound on a scale 1-10? :-)

It's extremely hard to find that spontaneous people. Similarly to you, each and every one of us has projects, work, and other commitments. Money? We are all students, so we are far from being millionaires. Let's see what adventures await us on this trip!