_grace

Does anyone know of a place where you can pet a koala? Perhaps a petting zoo in Australia?

My job will change soon to involve a position with the Center for Servant Leadership where I work – this is the idea of helping form leaders who seek to empower others. I will be working with high school students to examine social justice issues and to get more involved in the community. The program actually started last year but now, half of my job will involve working on this project. I’m excited that this might be the beginning of making service and personal involvement and “random acts of kindness” more commonplace…at least in a few of my circles of influence. It’s also a challenge for me to keep looking for windows of opportunity!

I have kind of rebelled against working out for the past couple of years…I played college soccer and ran 100 miles in a month during college, and I ran a marathon in 2001, but then started a crazy gypsy phase where I moved around a lot, and I’ve just worked out inconsistently and sporadically ever since then. I also rebelled against friends and roommates who were obsessed with going to the gym. For some reason that has the opposite effect on me – instead of being competitive or getting inspired by their enthusiasm, I just quit. I think it’s the whole comparison thing – if you are going to make it a competition, I’ll just let you win. Unfortunately this makes me an unhealthy weakling. I’ve lost ten pounds since I started this job. I used to run 4 miles almost every morning at 5:30 a.m. Now running one mile seems like an eternity and getting up before 7 a.m. is impossible.

I saw a girl on that show “Made” on MTV yesterday who wanted to become a ballroom dancer. She was an ovarian cancer survivor and wanted to feel feminine again. Although she is now in remission, fighting the cancer had caused her to lose confidence in herself. As I was watching her I thought about how much confidence in myself I have lost since I stopped working out regularly. I don’t feel strong or healthy. I don’t want to just be skinny and weak…I want to be strong and athletic…and I miss the athlete in me.