DamiTrice

my thoughts on the process in 1 place :)
I find thinking of it as a game makes the language learning a bit less stressful and it’s easier then to actually use what I’ve learned without obsessing about perfect speech.
still finding the hardest thing in going from the lessons to using what I’ve learned is remembering the distinction between 2 words that are phonetically the same but tonally different.

Good luck and Jia You :) 2 days ago

wa hey! it’s finished!
I thought I had ~15 more lessons, but those turned out to be culture notes from the booklet that accompanies the hard copy.
on to Phase 2 of Pimsleur Chinese.

still (still still) need to sit down to some character study, but definitely appreciating the oral/aural learning. 2 days ago

C25K-1 60/90*20min+walk
youch my legs are feeling it this morning. I was all excited b/c the last couple days my glutes have been telling me they got a real workout last week. Today I’m feeling less of the ‘my muscles have gotten a workout’ feeling and more a serious discomfort in the way of agonized ‘how could you torment me in this fashion’ deep fatigue-y ache and it’s my quads mostly with a bit in my calves. Maybe I pounded the pavement harder today? I think I went pretty well overall and in terms of working on pushing from legs and hips instead of upper body, but I didn’t get into that wonderfully flow-y/glidey feeling run really. I took a side trip to loop through a park that has some ally-oops (how /do/ you spell that?) – quick up-and-down’s – and the walks there were all tile – maybe that affected things? or it could just be the more running. Now I’m trying to decide if I need to leave an extra day for my legs to rest, or if I can aim to go again on Wednesday. Guess I’ll see.

oh, and the ‘people’ note – I was out on the road 5 minutes earlier than last time and for some reason, there were a lot more cars and people out today – not even the excuse of the turn of the month… maybe just the Monday thing. I really do need to try for closer to 6 than 6:30. But the sunshine with the turn of the season has been soooo nice. ahhhh. here’s to the mysteries, small and big, of tomorrow.

oh, and feeling lovely and wide awake (other then the ow-my-legs! feeling), just in time to shower, do some schoolwork and then go teach 1 week ago

so… I missed Tuesday… and Wednesday… and Thursday…
made it out this morning though

and early enough to go on the streets, roaming about. Had to retrace a bit at the end, but finished on the road past the veggie stand again – picked up peppers, cucumbers, broccoli (ish), tomatoes.

C25K-1 60/90+walk

Started the day out well – even made it to the bank and out before lunch (miracle!)... don’t quite have the work in the bag, but it started well. :) and it’s not over yet. 1 week ago

Last week I was out and about 4 days Tues-Fri
This weekend I was lamenting that my sleep and activity schedule has gotten so turned around, sleeping really late and going to bed later and later each night.
Last night I managed to go to bed at a reasonable-ish hour (it’s harder, of course, when I’ve slept really late that day and so it feels like I’ve barely been up and my body doesn’t really want to sleep) and amid some rather odd half sleeping half waking dreams, woke up through dozey lands and made it up and out to run by 6:30. Went to the new walk I discovered last week… I’m a bit divided about it. It’s lots closer, but also lots shorter than the other place I’ve been going. It’s a bit under a mile around, and there aren’t too many winding paths to wander. I may try up through the wood next time, but that, though small, is rather steep. Maybe I’ll save it for the days when I don’t get up and out early enough to roam the roads.

pushed myself this morning and was able to run from my bottom half more than pushing from the top half. Felt good a couple times, but my lungs were yelling at me. Last split I dropped off half way through speed wise and finished at a bare jog. But it was nice to be out and going early. Maybe tomorrow an early walk through the woods? Have to catch the bus at 7 but maybe if I can get out for 30 minutes it will help cement the early morning habit.

oh! so, end of WHX route C25K-1 plus walk fore and aft. 2.87miles 41min 2 weeks ago

one thing that might help is, if you start thinking something negative, try to think of a way to flip it around so you see the positive. Like, instead of ‘it’s so tough’ maybe ‘this is a great challenge that will help me to grow’...

maybe that sounds dippy.
I’ve struggled with this as well – sometimes I do better than others at seeing the positive side. And sometimes I’m laughing and grumbling under my breath at my attempt at a positive statement, but it’s also helped me to see the humor in myself and my own out look.

and here’s a random, potentially metaphorical picture to brighten things ;) 2 weeks ago

so, it’s one of the golden weeks of the year – national holiday with 3 weekdays off – for me this actually means a full week with no scheduled work since my classes are on Monday and Tuesday… of course, we had to do make up classes last Saturday and Sunday, so it’s minus a weekend… and then there’s the teacher’s burden of piles’o’grading that needs to be done along with lesson planning and starting to work on our common final exams…

buuuuuut I’m getting off track. Anyway, haven’t been running this week, but after 2 straight days of hanging out in my apartment reading and doing not very physical things, Tuesday night my body was screaming at me to do something taxing and my spirit joined in as it was one of those evenings where the wind seemed to be calling for company. So Tuesday I went on this seemingly compulsive, speedy 1-2 hour walk all over and returned at just the right point, when my legs and feet were starting to feel a need to stop functioning. Then yesterday I went here there and everywhere with a friend – some fun errandy-ish stops that started with a rare visit to Starbucks (Valencia mocha frappacino!!! yum! did not know they had those!) and a roam around a big bookstore I’d not previously been to before, ending with meeting up with everyone else in our teaching group for a fun and delicious dinner. Tonight i went out again, though earlier than Tuesday and happened upon a great place for running (morning OR evening!!!) as well as a lovely wood that meanders over the side of a hill between university campuses and apartment buildings, protected enough that there are barely any road sounds or exhaust fumes and it has this powerful, lovely woodsy smell of evergreens.

So 3 great days of activity. Need to do more work (lots more!!) before vacation week is over, but for this goal, I think this is a start of a beautiful friendship. The running’s been so hard to get to that I’m hesitating to make any exercise goals right now, but if I did, I’d re-emphasize this one and say maybe if I could get out every day for a long, random walkabout for at least an hour, I’d be in good shape… in more ways than one. And certainly better shape than the last year+ in which I’ve spent multiple days in my apartment reading. Reading is (or at least can be) constructive, but inactivity is not healthy! Here me, Self?! And I’m so much more content and energized when I’m physically as well as mentally active.

guess I’ll see what tomorrow brings. maybe running on my new-found path or up through the woods….... 2 weeks ago

still going – I tend to do a bunch on the days I’m traveling to campus and not so much on other days – this is something I’d like to change so I’m getting closer to a lesson a day with an extra here or there.

I’m finding repeating lessons sometimes helps – at around lesson 20 it felt like the difficulty meter suddenly jumped – perhaps there are more words being introduced that I’m not familiar with so I can’t focus on just a few new ones? I’m not doing any counting, but anyway. I’ve repeated a couple lessons at different points when a couple days have gone between lessons and found I had a more solid grasp on the words than I’d had immediately following the 1st time through (hope that made sense). I feel like I should have blasted all the way through this Phase 1 set and be well into Phase 2 by now, but I need to be more consistent for that; plus I have to remind myself that my language learning has skipped all over the place according to necessity and repetition of experiences (the reverse of ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it’ – use it repeatedly, especially within a short time period, and it /really/ sticks with you).

I’m trying not to be bugged – to think of the potential usefulness – by the fact that the last couple lessons have thrown in a couple words/phrases that are only used in Hong Kong and not on the mainland, but I’m wishing they could have put those in some kind of HK supplement and stuck to mainland Mandarin… I say this wondering what my ‘little bro’ in HK would say to that, but anyway… I’ve only spent 4 traveling days in HK compared to 5.5+ years in the mainland… and do all travelers studying Mandarin plan a stopover in HK? Ah, I don’t know, maybe they do and I’m just out of the jetset loop.

So my meandering thoughts aside, still loving the Pimsleur. Tonight I reviewed lesson 24 and did lesson 25 on a great if damp early evening walk through the city, with a bonus of finding a wood and a good place to run that are very close to where I live (wa hey and huzzah!!). I’m halfway (!!!) through Phase I of Pimsleur Chinese – Phase II is already loaded on my iPod as encouragement and added push, and Phase III is in my audible library ready and waiting. Maybe I need to sit down to that writing/Chinese character study I was thinking about?? But for now my biggest focus is on the oral and getting more study in. 2 weeks ago

You are a child of God :-) 1 month ago

this has been driving me nuts for at least a month – messmessmess! Well, it’s a mix. For once my kitchen is only a bit messy with a very small, respectably sized pile of dirty dishes. The problem is big and small bits of clutter here there and everywhere.

BUT! One partial solution may be in its beginnings. After searching the city for a 2 drawer file cabinet to no avail, I have at last acquired one from a foreign couple who are going back to the US this year. Not sure why it’s so difficult to find file cabinets as this provincial capital has loads of offices – maybe they all order them online so it’s not worth it for the stores to keep them in stock? I’m hoping this purchase will not add to the clutter but instead will help me by providing a place in which to organize my class notes, as well as important documents that always seem to be floating around in odd places.

A big thing that would help my sense of equilibrium is that I’ve had a pile of broken computer equipment sitting on my couch since shortly after an electrical surge broke it and I really need to get it out of here. I’ve been planning to take it to the friend of a friend who has helped me with computer problems in the past in the hopes he would want to buy it to see if it was fixable or had salvageable parts, but the idea of transporting it backwards up a one way street without a vehicle of my own has seemed too daunting to figure out a way around it. I just need to do it at some point – maybe see if he can come pick it up.

And I’ve been wanting to start eating dinner at a table again and currently my table is in my office acting as a repository for all my class materials and my living room has an extra sofa – everything is a long story, and I tend to think I’ll have a use for everything, so now I’m trying to figure ways to juggle furniture around the various rooms of my small apartment in a way in which all the pieces will be useful and not abused by el gatos (my 2 oh-so quiet and oh-so destructive cats).

yesterday I did some shifting and moved the file cabinet into my office, ejecting a bitty bit of a sectional leather-ish sofa to the little back porch/sun-room/drying room. I was surprised how much of a difference that seemed to make in my mental outlook (why am I such a prisoner to my environment and emotions??), along with washing parts of the office and kitchen floors.

And look, I’m sitting in my office again, which I haven’t done in a while, residing primarily on my living room couch – I’m starting to think this is both a bad idea and a bad habit.

So… the seesaw (almost like better the ‘seasaw’ that I started typing originally) that is life in general and that reflected in the shape of my apartment.

I need some people to start hanging out here – now that would be cool – a trip back in the direction of the wonderfully communal life that is college residency.

So today… I don’t have a plan and I think I need to make one. Three things are hoped for, or maybe 4:

- school work – class prep
- cleaning/organizing + laundry
- my own studies – Chinese and GRE math review
- guitar

and Bible reading and prayer – I want to say ‘of course,’ but with current irregularity of this at present I should probably make it thing #5 :)

Is anyone out there really able to separate the goals in their lives? They always seem so interconnected to me that I can’t avoid, in addition to my wordy rambling, talking about different goals as they coexist with and impact each other. 1 month ago

I know – that sounds like an ad. I was trying to remember when I first heard about Pimsleur’s technique and the audio programs that had come out of it – I think it was back when I was looking for more tools to study Turkish – wish I’d used the Pimsleur program for Turkce too, but I’m not sure it was available at that point in time (2003?). Well, and there is the question of whether I would have gotten as much out of it prior to an immersion experience such as the one I’ve been living for the last 5 1/2 years, but it’s very possible the game-like set up of the program would have helped me overcome my bad habits with regard to language programs. At this point I think I’m deciding that I think the best way to learn a language is using this kind of program coupled with immersion and followed by textbook study after the student has an internalized sense of the sounds of the language and how it’s used daily – looking back on it, I really hate, or at the very least am seriously disappointed by, every classroom based language class I’ve taken in the past – don’t worry, this disappointment is hugely connected to disappointment with myself and my lack of discipline and lousy study skills.

I have a friend who is studying biblical languages right now and when I mentioned my experientially-based hypotheses he thought it was a case of difference in learning styles, and while I think that’s partly true, I also wonder – he certainly has a much much stronger grasp on grammar terminology and on the grammar of the languages he’s studied, but I’m not so sure he could have a conversation/steady communication in them in between the pauses to consider the different rules. Of course, we’ve studied none of the same languages, so it’s difficult to test this hypothesis. I’m withholding conclusion and certainly not judging either of us on this, just trying to find my way in practice as well as theory.

Oh, and re: this goal – I haven’t been using the programs every single day, but when I do I’m listening to 2-3 lessons and, as before, it seems to grow my vocabulary as well as my pronunciation in a way that’s noticeable with each 1/2 hour lesson. They do focus on tones in a way that is really really helpful, but also cement it into the mind so that it’s a natural part of speech instead of something I have to focus on when using words. Yay! I’m halfway through Mandarin Phase 1, with Phases 2 + 3 already waiting in my audible library. :D 1 month ago

60/90 * 8 (20 min) + 5min warmup and 10min cooldown. I ran /FAST/!! [note: speeds are relative to individual runner – please be kind!] :D and that last one especially my form felt awesome, pushing fast and driving motion from my hips – so smooth and gliding and perfect! I don’t know what I looked like – whether my form was as good as it felt + how it looks on someone who is overweight, but it felt good and invigorating and the start of something. Some of it was knowing I could push myself harder than I thought was okay before, after my time on Yulong Xueshan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) a couple weeks ago – not high for a mountain climber, but I felt the oxygen debt and by God’s true gift of grace and strength, kept going kept going kept going, slowly but surely and mostly steadily to the top platform at 4680m. didn’t want to get up this morning, but my ipod alarm, in its combination of high volume and persistence in ringing from the living room solidly woke me up and though I went back to bed to contemplate the wisdom of going for a run with a serious lack of sleep, the wakefulness gloriously persisted, along with the alarm I had labeled ‘you’ll be glad if u do’ and I started thinking it was possible, good, and even a grand way to start the day. So thankful for today’s run. Hoping it turns into more and regularly and maybe my gut won’t stick out so much! Oh, and checked my pace a couple times – one of my mid-way splits I was at 9:22 mile pace – the last one that felt so awesome was around 9:00 pace! and it felt so good! Way out of breath at the end of each running split, but ready to go again at the end of each walk. 1 month ago

with my schedule this term this is an extra important goal to work on – I s’ppose there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing some final lesson prep the morning before a class, but between bussing to the new campus and not having lots of time between when I’m getting home and leaving the next day for classes plus the fact that I haven’t been able to get a copy of the oral textbook the students have, it kind of throws a wrench in this crutch I’ve made of winging things when I’m busy with other things. Yeah, I’m rambling here, in addition to mixing metaphors in a great and terrible way – sorry. Anyway, I’ve squandered lots and lots of work time this week sinking down into the mess that my apartment is and the lack of activity, physical or social or spiritual, that I have opportunity for at present and I’m left with today for planning, unless I want to get into the blame game again tomorrow by doing work on the Sabbath – bad b/c it’s the sabbath and because it’s virtually last minute. So, prayng for strength to get lots done and be glad in it today, for a day of true rest in God tomorrow, for 2 great, blessed and blessing days of classes and then for a constructive productive week of unscheduled time after, working on school related stuff and on the other equally important if not equally urgent stuff I have on my list: Chinese, math for GRE, poli sci reading, running, guitar, people… 2 months ago

Loopdeloop-2nd right to river to zoo to Yunda – I love that anything after 6am feels like starting late now! and there’s still the freedom, as long as I’m started before 6:30, of running almost anywhere without worrying too much about traffic or car fumes (though there were a couple spots this morning when I had to wait for vehicles – the greater advantage of getting out by 5:30 – ‘tis). I’m frustrated that I’m out of shape and this isn’t easier. But remembering to run from my hips/pelvis – amazing the difference it makes and how often I still have more to give but I’m /feeling/ tired, so I’m pushing from my torso or my barely moving calves. It just changes both mentally and physically, how and how well I’m moving. Overall this is good and I was glad to be out there. tried out my golite running tights and of course they’re awesome. listening to Runrig – great morning company. now if I could just remember when I’m trying to drag myself out of bed that it’s worth it, that I will enjoy it, and that no matter what I think I look like I will be glad and oblivious once I get out there. 2 months ago

even small trips can be refreshing, getting out into a different environment for a couple days.
For water+activities, my brother has been on a couple trips to the North Carolina shore and have loved it and found it to be really reasonable, especially going at less common times for vacationers.

I hope you get a chance to go somewhere. I need to work on getting out and away too. Hoping to save up for a trip to Beijing in May for some touring and a race (that I’m not near in condition for… but here’s to goals!).

When you go (note the ‘when’ ;) ) take lots of pics! :D 2 months ago

well, so I’m getting bold – just voluntarily took on 4 more hours of teaching and associated preparation before classes even start. Also working more directly and seriously toward getting my grad school application assembled, working on running more regularly and eating better, and likewise, perhaps adding a more specific guitar goal, and seriously jumping up my abilities in communicating in Chinese. There’s the question of whether this is all too much… piling on after last semester’s relievingly better stress handling (by God’s manifest mercy!)... but there’s also the possibility that doing more, and all of it good stuff, will help.

Other things I’m thinking on:
- joining the Ultimate Frisbee crew somewhere in here
- contacting a woman who works with migrants who’ve come to the city and seeing if there’s any way I can help

and, as ever, I have lots of reading I’m working on and going to church regularly is starting to seem both more possible and more desirable – letting the past be past in that and seeing how I needed time away from the Body for God’s work and fellowship

adding small pieces of everything and not getting upset over missing my aim – continuing to take forward steps instead of being so afraid of past failure… that’s the thought… the hope… the prayer 2 months ago

We’re never too old for languages! I often use an audio program for this and so I can do it while I’m doing other things – great solution if you’re having trouble finding time. It does mean you’re working on listening/speaking and not on reading/writing at that time, but it helps give a good foundation.

Good luck and Happy Year of the Snake! :) 2 months ago

so I now own, thanks to an audible membership, the 1st 3 ‘Phases’ of Pimsleur’s Mandarin Chinese – I’ve bought them incrementally and have liked Pimsleur from the 1st time I used the copy from my home city’s library; every time I do a lesson I immediately notice a difference in my understanding and ability to speak – yes, notice. However (sigh), I haven’t even made it through the program’s Phase 1. Ridiculous…. about as ridiculous as comparing the time I’ve been in China with the level of my Chinese knowledge. So… goal is to get through all 3 phases before the end of term and to do some work on my reading/writing skills. 2 months ago

Wahey! we’re almost done with the Spring Festival vacation – classes start on Tuesday! – and re: this goal, it’s been a time of successful spurts and lazy stalls.

I washed a huge amount of dishes that had accumulated over the last part of the term and exams and grading while talking to a friend over skype – he was mostly patient about the problems with the sound on my computer, and it made the time zip by for me on a task I am seriously unfond of.

Later I cleaned out both refrigerators (they’re small! ;) ) of any old and moldering (truly – yuck!) food and some spilled sauces. As a result of this I’ve even been cooking my own meals the last while along with mostly keeping up with the dirty dishes.

Most recently I took everything out of the wardrobes and sorted and tried on and rehung and folded and bagged up so that now I have easily accessible only those clothes which really will get worn. Sounds like a minor thing, but it was getting ridiculous there for a while – thought I’d lost a couple items of clothing there. And I have a more realistic idea of what wearable clothes I have available.

The 2 related things that I’m stalled on now are sorting my notes into some files I picked up over break and getting ready for the new term, this last of which includes deciding what I’m keeping from last year and what I’m changing and getting materials ready for first classes. The fact that it’s Saturday and classes start on Tuesday illustrates, I think, one of my personal and clinging neuroses (yeah, I don’t know the clinical definition of this word, but at least from casual use it seems appropriate).

I think I’m looking forward to the new term. It always feels like a mini-eternity (new definitions of time and timelessness, wahey again) since I’ve seen the students from Fall term to Spring. It’ll be good to see them. And by God’s grace, I’m hoping that this term will reflect a slow change in attitude toward stress and getting things done that really seemed to start last term. Acceptance in part, and an ability to move forward more easily.

so this isn’t really about organizing my apartment, but about organizing my life I guess. :) Anybody out there??? ;) 2 months ago

I love this blog entry about Bible reading, titled Tolle Lege. It was cool, too, to read this confirmation of what I felt in reading Matthew the other day, and what I’ve felt in the last few years in finally (finally!) reading larger bits of scripture at a time: “When reading a whole book of the Bible in one or two sittings, you see things that you would have otherwise missed. At the end of Matthew, the authority and magnificence of Christ are poignant having read the Gospel from start to finish. One finishes the book and cannot help but to worship, such is the rhetorical force of the book read cover to cover. This is something that I did not “get” when reading a few chapters a day.”

“authority and magnificence” – he caught what I couldn’t quite put into words… reading Matthew and just being hit with “wow” and otherwise speechlessness.

(Matthew 16:15-19 ESV) 2 months ago

I’ve been reading the Epistles, trying to do 1 in a sitting – I get so much more out of them and find them making more complete sense this way – though I haven’t necessarily been reading every day – it seems to go in spurts of several days reading, then several days not. Anyway, night before last I was wracked by a few things and fell asleep praying at 2am, woke up at 4am (Howdy neighbor) and started reading Matthew, getting up to chapter 21 – some of this is personal spiritual issues and some of this is some heart-wrenching stuff one of my students has been struggling with – and the answers were there. Jesus speaks with such clear authority over and over and over again. Actually, I can’t quite remember why authority was part of the issue that needed resolving, but oh, my, it did. His authority and the clarity of how He came and reigns and will come again. I went to sleep at 7am yesterday morning and got up at 1pm – spent a bunch of time during the day doing some research re: grad school, with some assurance of the path, though also a reminder of the giving over to Him of the path and of my self. By 9pm I was feeling exhausted, partly due to allergy meds (something in the air) and went under fast. Mentioned in my running entry the blessing I found today in my downstairs neighbor waking me up just before 4am. I was nicely rested too after going to bed so early and I finished Matthew, reading chapters 21-28 – wow – earth shattering… no, Creation shattering, and most truly heart rending, though briefly told. It was only 5am so I paused a bit and then read chapter 6 in Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life which is talking about giving/offering our bodies as a sacrifice—consecrating this new Creation, not the old body, to God – that it is truly His. Some of Nee’s examples, while very simple, seem to grab my heart with a new realization of the depths of what scripture is speaking to. This time it was that idea of borrowing some money from a friend – you wouldn’t spend it any which way, but would use it carefully, remembering that it belongs to a friend… yeah, that seems really minor now, but in reading this morning the HS really used it to speak to my heart. even in considering grad school, I feel like I’m looking at it from a different plane of existence. Praying for truth in vision and love as well, as we ramp up to the beginning of the new semester – classes start on Tuesday!!!! Oh, Lord, that I would act and speak and even teach in love and a love that reflects and sees your glory even in carrying out earthly tasks. 2 months ago

this morning was grrrreat! So my neighbor is now helping me by waking me up around 4am – this time I went to bed at 9pm, so when they woke me up I was ready: did some reading (finished the book of Matthew for jaw dropping action and creation changing) and in a leisurely fashion got ready to run – out on the road at 5:29am easy peasy! went slow but remembered to drive my legs from my hips, not my upper body or my legs themselves – sooo different! got a cramp in the middle of the 4th split despite breathing out on the correct leg descent (it really does make a difference… just not to complete prevention I guess when this is my 2nd run after months of virtually nothing). Eased the cramp out with more rapid breathing (strangely enough), but ended the running portion after the 4th split so as not too push too hard too soon (last week I crashed for half the day after that Tuesday run). felt good over all and had energy remaining at the end to walk to the veggie mkt and home with a bounce in my step and lots of lovely fresh vegetables in my bag—2nd time I’ve been there this early, when the sellers are just arriving and putting out their vegetables – had to ask for things and my mind blanked on all these vegetable names that I’ve known for at least 4 years. :) still pitch black even now as I type this – nice being out so early though – could run /anywhere/ in the city without worrying about traffic or fumes or crowds of people – lovely! 2 months ago

Last week I got out MTW (once to the Western Mtns for a short but upwardly inclined walk; once to the driving range with some friends (I know, golf – surprisingly tiring though); once – well, not out, but active anyway – I did a tai chi/kick boxing video a friend passed on to me – not exactly strenuous, but worked the muscles, and yes, I maymaymay want to get into real tai chi! likelikelike!) and then hung around the house the rest of the week through yesterday (monday) – meets this goal, but not exactly a huuuge improvement, considering I’ve been sitting around the house a lot this vacation.

Today I was awake almost instantly upon alarm at 5:45 though I got up slowly. Out on the road at 6:25, started with a walk, intending to try to run 30min slow and steady, and see how it went. Ended up doing a version of my original run schedule – it’s been so long! – when I was about at the 5min mark, going strong, but feeling that exercise version of ready to die. So ‘twas 5/2*5+walk+veggie market – decided I wanted to make that last part of the routine, getting fresh veggies each run day for snacking and cooking, though I realized this morning it kind of limits my running route possibilities to ones that will have me finishing nearish to the lake unless I can memorize where all the mini veggie markets are in the neighborhood-ish. I know there’s one near the river, but I don’t know that they’d have everything I’d want to get. But I’ve got lots today – cucumbers, peppers, onions, something leafy that is hopefully lettuce, tomatoes, something similar to lan hua (less woody version of broccoli) but which I think is something else. I meant to get carrots and potatoes, but didn’t see the former and didn’t like the few of the latter that I saw – I actually beat most of the sellers to the market, but since it’s holiday week that’s understandable… but back to the activity report…

today…. I RAN!!!! :D

[hoping the pounding I gave my downstairs neighbor’s door a couple weeks ago at 4am will have lingering effects so that I can sleep the night and keep getting up in the morning (no, I did NOT wake them up :P )... and that I’ll keep up a measure of reasonable discipline so that I don’t let myself slack off in the running or in the schoolwork] 3 months ago

I even timed it – I’m on the new campus reeeeally late with more than an hour to wait between the end of my class and the bus’ departure back to the city. decided to walk through the strip of woods on the edge of campus and actually remembered to time it – 35 minute walk at good speed (not strolling) over some up and down terrain. Though I startled a few student couples loitering (yes, loitering – nice to be able to legitimately use that word) in the shadows of the trees, it was a nice walk, and felt so good to be among trees again. I neeeeed to get out of this city… maybe to someplace a bit like the pic! love this place, but I am surrounded by waaaay too much cement for too long. 5 months ago

Well, maybe it’s just the getting back into math – I remember loving math, though at times doing tons of problems for homework was a bother. Still there’s something about both the challenge of the problems and the simplicity in there being one definite answer. I’m working my way through a Kaplan GRE math prep book and while usually I’m not a keen supporter of exam prep materials, I needed something that would review the math concepts from pretty basic stuff all the way up through since it’s been so long since I’ve used any math. Even right after college I had forgotten a lot and now… well, it seemed impossible I’d remember anything. I’m actually finding as I read the review material that it comes back pretty quickly and I’ve been doing mostly really well on the exercises (I think the one section I did poorly on was Number Properties, although mostly it was due to carelessness (I know I know – that counts too – good reminder to read and think carefully!) ). I do miss having math as a regular part of my life. :) Hoping to pick up the pace with this stuff so I can register for the exam in the next week or 2. 5 months ago

3.92miles – 60/90 (c25k wk 1 sched) + walk + 90 high push-ups
this time around is like the reverse of the other times I’ve successfully completed a run training schedule – I would be going strong right up to the beginning of finals time and then lose the running in the midst of the end of term rush. This time I’m feeling a bit of a rush but it doesn’t feel as overwhelming as before – guess I’ll see how it feels at the end!!! – which I’ve been mentioning to everyone I guess – this term is just soooo very different from any other term I’ve taught. TYL!! So here I am, starting up running steadily again as I’m writing the students’ final exam, completing final grading, doing random end of term stuff. And I feel energized and hopeful and I’m enjoying stuff that I don’t always enjoy. There are some things, even small things, beyond understanding. 5 months ago

last day of November + first day of December – wa hey!
did this one off the old schedule 5/1×5 + walking back
was thankful in a way for my neighbor abandoning his cat outside overnight because he (the cat) finally gave up on meowing at his own door and came to mine – with my cats hissing back at him through the door and just being generally confused, I made it up a bit after 5:30am and out the door by 6am. cool and dark, but it was nice being out so early – a few vehicles and people out and about, but not crowded or fume-choking.
Feeling kind of wiped out right now, but hoping a shower will wake me up so I can start my Saturday off with some work before meeting a friend for lunch.
5.2miles Saturday morning – and 2 runs in 2 days!
Feels good!!! 5 months ago

at 6:00am I have a lot of trouble arguing myself out of bed when I have not been running – today makes TWICE this month!!! :PPPP
BUT, it makes TWICE this month!! :)
yeah, I’m messed up.
anyway, I made it out after giving up on it several times between alarm rings. out before 6:30 – hills and 60/90 and walked round the park and did 60 push ups along the way after. In shorts but was perfect for a run.
This isn’t really a running goal, butt yay for running.
Trying to decide if I should count as a first time for this goal the pissed off walk back from the bus Wednesday night – fastest walk short of a jog possible. I am so stinkin’ sick of buses! :P
on to the day :) 5 months ago

I’m setting the running goal aside for a bit, in favor of other priorities – work, study, GRE prep, people. I may still do some running for this goal, but I’m thinking even if I could do some long, fast walks this would be good. Hoping to continue staying on top of my work and in this more sane, even way than before, without having to worry about getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning to avoid exhaust fumes. It’s true, these could just be excuses, but I’m feeling at peace with setting it aside for a bit. 5 months ago