Note of the Living Deb

I recently learned about the 75 Hard Challenge (#75Hard), a trendy "transformative mental toughness program." It requires you to, every day for 75 consecutive days:
* Follow a diet (of your choosing, but with no alcohol or cheat meals).
* Complete two 45-minute workouts, one of which must be outdoors.
* Take a progress picture.
* Drink 1 gallon of water.
* Read 10 pages of a self-help book (audiobooks don't count).

If you miss any of these things, you reset to day 1.

In response to this, the 75 Soft Challenge has been created. It requires you to, every day for 75 consecutive days, do your best to:
* Eat well, avoiding alcohol, except for social occasions.
* Complete one 45-minute workout, with one day of active recovery each week.
* Drink 3 liters of water.
* Read 10 pages of any book.

If you miss any of these things, take a break or try an alternative approach.

Or another version I've seen:
* Eat 90% healthy.
* Do a workout of 30+ minutes 4 days a week.
* Take a picture on day 1 and day 75.
* Pray or meditate 5 minutes a day.
* Read or listen to personal development 10 minutes a day.

I am not taking on any of these challenges. I had already decided on my own daily goals for this year because daily goals gives me a clear deadline (bedtime) that somehow motivates me. And I've learned that if I make the minimum goals super easy, I will actually do them. So, every day for a full year, I am to:
* Walk at least 1 mile.
* Do at least one other exercise thing:
- do 1 set of calisthenics
- dance to two songs
- play VR golf
- work on learning to juggle
(Ideally, I will get in two sets of each of 5 calisthenic exercises I have picked out each week plus 2 sessions practicing juggling.)
* Do at least one lesson on DuoLingo.

It's okay to miss one day per week on any or all of these things. And to not be a moron if I'm sick or injured, and to not freak out if I have no electricity or whatever. Today, for example, I have walked/jogged just over the 1-mile minimum because brrr! I've danced to 1 song, and done 1 set of countertop pushups and one set of leg extensions. I still have DuoLingo in my future.

It goes without saying that I will be doing a lot of reading; I do not need to discipline myself to do this. This year I'm doing the 52 Book Club's 2024 Reading Challenge (#the52bookclub, #the52bookclub2024), reading books recommended by friends, and trying to get in some books about or set in countries I have not read books for. Today, for example, I've read from a book about a guy with a penguin research internship in Antarctica (Among Penguins) and a sci fi book Robin likes (The Peripheral).

I do have food and water goals, but I'm not focusing on them in this sort of way at this time.

So I guess my plan could be called 313 Squishy-Soft Challenge. (The 313 comes from 365 days minus 1 day/week.)

Here's a quote I really like (I can't find who created it):

"Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do, not a punishment for what you ate."

But my brain proposes these wacky responses:

* Yes, I should find ways to make the punishment more fun.

* No, right, everyone should exercise, even if they don't eat too much, because exercise is good for you. So it's really a punishment for living a life of leisure.

* "Exercise" in itself means something you should do. Celebrating is something you (ideally) want to do (I admit that some celebrations are no fun for at least some of the people involved). So this quote should be about activity, not exercise.

* And, well sure, some activity actually is fun. Stretching feels really good sometimes, like after waking up in the morning and after sitting too long. I like dancing to music. And of course it's obvious just how many movements I like to celebrate whenever something's aching or broken and I can't do those things.

* Oh yeah? Well what about all the aching the day after the celebrations, huh?

* And what about when we celebrate things that it turns out our bodies can't do after all?

It all started when I decided I wanted a heart-rate monitor. I was hoping I could find one cheap, but no, they are generally part of large expensive packages and they don't necessarily let me actually see my current heart rate as I'm running but they do love to keep track of my whereabouts on GPS. No. I guess I'm some kind of weirdo.

It occurred to me that heart-rate monitors for kids might be cheaper. And might fit better on my tiny wrist. No, that's not really a thing, either. (I think there was some kind of thing for kids with health problems, but it didn't look like what I wanted.)

But then I found a thing that did some other stuff I want:
* stop watch - so I can time my runs
* chime after 60 inactive minutes
* long battery life (not 16 hours, not 4 days, but 1 year)
* can do some stuff without syncing
* clock (time and date)

Bonus items:
* pedometer
* activity tracker (shows active minutes for the day)
* chore tracker (like Chore Wars)
* activities you can do when you achieve 60 active minutes for the day
* sleep tracker
* timers, like a 2-minute tooth-brushing timer

The ones I saw online were all super obnoxious, but at Target I found the Disney princess one that was just a mildly obnoxious color (pink) with subtle carvings of princesses. I wonder if I can cover it in black shoe polish and just have pink outlines of Disney princesses. I had read reviews that they were too small to fit on some kids wrists. So I asked if I could try it on before buying it. They must have fixed that because it fits me fine and has 10 more holes I could use to make it bigger (and 3 to make it smaller).

So, I got it. The official price is $80, but it's $60 at Target (minus $3 because I used my RedCard). So, not super cheap. But I now realize I might have been able to find a better deal online. (Also I should have gone for this black Spider Man one.)

Without syncing it, I can't use the stop watch, but I was able to get the ap for my iPad and sync to that. With a cute little robot icon. And then I went for a jog and timed it. Woot!

(If you want to find out more about this device, I recommend dcrainmaker's review.)

A friend of mine had the brilliant idea of getting season tickets to Texas Typhoon, a small water park that also has a ropes course, and then we go play on the ropes course every week for exercise.

Today was our first day, and thus a bit experimental. So many experiments!

What to wear - the ropes course requires regular clothes; the rest of the park, a swimsuit. My friend's idea to wear a swimsuit under her shorts was the winner.

Hat - I decided to wear my big, floppy sun hat. Then it turns out they make you wear a helmet on the ropes course. But they let me wear my hat under the helmet. Can you say, "Beauty Queen"? Oh, no need. I'm nevertheless going to say wearing a hat was a big win.

Drinks - Um, it's hot, and we need to not get sunstroke. But who wants to pay $3 per soda? We are bringing drinks and leaving them in the car. Drinking before, probably during, and after. They also have cold water fountains, but my friend doesn't like plain water.

Earrings - I wore earrings I wouldn't mind losing too much. And they didn't fall out! I still like this strategy.

Keys - I figured out how to wrap my key chain around my wristband--big win. I even remembered to take my flashlight (and other keys) off first. Yes!

Credit card - You can link your credit card to your wristband. Sounds like a good idea, but mine was in the car when I had my first opportunity. Now I'm wondering if I should link my favorite or a secondary credit card.

Lockers - They exist, but are not included in the season ticket price. My friend just put her things on top of the lockers--she calls this a big win. I put my things in the trunk of my car. I still don't have a favorite strategy.

Shoes - We need shoes for the ropes course, but can't have shoes on the water slides, but can wear any footwear we like in the other watery rides. I really liked having my sneakers on the ropes course. I liked that the soles are pretty thick and inflexible. But I forgot to plan what to do about the water. I wimped out on running around barefoot and just wore my sneakers, thinking they would dry out okay later and that I would bring my Teva sandals next time. My friend tried the barefoot thing and it seemed okay so long as you don't go too long in one stretch, but though she doesn't like plastic sandals, she is thinking about getting some. I was thinking I should just go barefoot and toughen my feet. But I also realized that I could bring my worn-out sneakers.

The ropes course does indeed use up all of our muscles as expected. I could feel my core muscles engaging, and one arm was quite rubbery at one point and then we did another thing where I had to stop and rest in the middle. Twice. (We didn't use squatting muscles.) I think there are three levels of courses (plus an extra free area where they don't make you wear a harness and helmet). We did most of the ground level. We did one part twice--the part where getting some momentum going was very helpful, and the second time we both basically ran all the way across. It was nice to see improvement right away. And I have LOTS of room for improvement.

Speaking of which, it took me a hilariously high number of tries to get on my inner tube on the lazy river. Normally, I flop on top and then flip over, but that wasn't working for me. My back-up strategy of coming up from the middle didn't work because the centers of the inner tubes are smaller than usual and I couldn't fit my bent legs through there. Fortunately my friend had a good strategy. I tried and failed it several times. Then she explained again in very detailed terms while demonstrating. I succeeded on my third try after that. I know! Lots of room for improvement. Especially if I want to succeed at looking as graceful as my friend did. I successfully dismounted on my first try, fortunately.

I do have what I think of as a pre-blister on one hand. It had that feeling where if you ignore it and keep doing what you're doing, it turns into a blister. But we stopped in time! Gloves or fingerless gloves of some kind (like people use at the gym) might be a good idea; I don't currently have any.

Note: The ropes course does not open until 1:00 p.m. So we are basically doomed to do this in 100-degree heat. (Technically, my car told me it was not 100 degrees when I left the house, but it said it was 101 when I left to go home.) This early, our highs are supposed to average 95, then in the second half of summer, 99. But this year, we were hitting 100 by the end of May. Grr. Fortunately my friend and I are much better at handling heat than cold. So ha!

Cartoon of the Day - Today's Dilbert, Boiling an Ocean - "Dilbert: I told our boss his presentation had a low signal-to-noise ratio and he thought it was a compliment. Wally: I think you just invented my new favorite game."

Oh no.

Want to play that game? Hmm, I'm not coming up with anything myself.

I basically played games all day today. Woo hoo!

Compass Point: West

I just got this game yesterday and have been sucked into it ever since. It a Backyard Monsters kind of game: you build up your town to be pretty but also for combat. It's not as cute as Backyard Monsters. At all!

But it's kind of charming and Robin's playing it, so I got to learn some things the easy way from him, plus I got to tell him a couple of things he didn't know: one from paying attention and one from researching things on the web.

Later when my courthouse is to level 8, I can join Robin's posse. Fun times.

They try to pretend that all the fighting is really defensive and you are taking other settlements back from bad guys. But for some reason they then pay you tribute, so it doesn't really work. And then later you're fighting other players which is clearly just fighting for fun and profit.

DuoLingo

I'm still doing this. It's a good review and even a preview of a few things (I'm learning present and past perfect tenses--when you "have" and "had" done something--and a little bit of future tense). And I find I am actually learning some vocabulary words that I haven't seen much elsewhere, so that's nice.

I almost forgot to do it yesterday, which would have been a shame--today I got 12 lingots for a 120-day streak.

Circuit Training

According to some people (hi, Tam!), weight lifting is sort of like a game in that you can level up with practice.

We go to a gym with a circuit training area where you alternate between weight machines and step aerobics, switching from one station to the next when alerted by a special traffic signal. I go with Robin and Di and we socialize during the step-aerobic bits.

I actually made a chart of all the settings I like on the different machines so I don't waste too much time figuring out how to set it for my shape and so I start at the desired weight. Basically, once I can do 12 repetitions at one weight, I start at the next highest weight next time. I've actually leveled up at least once on each machine since we started at this new gym a couple of months ago. But since I'm so wimpy, leveling up often means a 25% or even 33% increase in weight, so these new levels are not coming quickly.

I didn't level up in anything today, but Monday I was below par after getting blood tested right after having donated blood a week earlier, so today was definitely better in comparison.

Dog Walking

I also walked my dog a couple of times. But without the dog since I don't have one.

Okay, I just took myself on a walk. People need walks, too! Well, we have indoor plumbing but do also need to move around. Notice that my other games all involve sitting. Even the circuit training involves sitting half the time. :-)

Today I enjoyed Messy Breakups with Exercise, which is not about exercising your way out of a breakup but about people telling other people they should exercise and about people lying about exercise and weight loss: "We are told that exercise will lead to weight loss when the research suggests no such thing." It's a fun rant.

"Even if exercise has health benefits, that doesn’t mean that anyone is required to do it, or that exercising creates some sort of health guarantee wherein you are immortal unless you get hit by a bus. Besides, there are lots of things that are shown to improve our odds for health and we can choose some of them if we want, but aren’t all obligated to do any of them. When we insist that people “owe” society healthy habits it very quickly becomes a slippery slope. If we “owe” society exercise do we also “owe” it 8 hours of sleep a night? A vegan diet? A paleo diet? To quit drinking? To not go skiing or play soccer or anything else that could get us hurt? Who gets to make these mandates? I recommend that people not try to tell others how to live unless they are super excited about someone else telling them how to live."

I don't have to deal with those problems, so it was a little educational to read this and the comments are great, too, though some are quite sad.

The thing that really stood out for me are how so many people do exercise they hate in order to lose weight, but then it doesn't make them lose weight--it's not working, so they quit in disgust.

The author says exercise doesn't make you lose weight, but that's not what it's for. What it's for is being healthier, feeling good, and having fun.

So what are your goals for exercise, and is your exercise working?

Jogging

My main goal for jogging is to be able to run faster and farther than I would otherwise in case I want or need to, like if I'm late for the bus. It definitely works for that. Actually, right now, I'm happy to just maintain my ability to run (slog) three whole miles in a row every week during the rest of summer because it's so hot.

I also want aerobic health benefits. When I was younger, I noticed that when I was doing a reasonable number of aerobic activities, my resting heart rate was 70, and when my ankle was sprained for a year, my resting heart rate was 80. I haven't measured my resting heart rate recently, but I'm happy just assuming that jogging helps.

Finally, I wouldn't quite say that I enjoy jogging like some people do. I enjoy running fast for about 20 seconds because I feel fast and macho and it's fun. But jogging while panting is not so fun. Still, I enjoy seeing how my neighbors are dealing with their yards (or having one-car driveways, or having windows taller than normal curtains) as I jog by and I also enjoy spacing out and thinking about things.

Ballroom Dance

This is just fun and also helps with aerobic health and balance. Since getting into dancing, I definitely keep my balance better in the situation where suddenly you come to a complete halt mid-step. And having good balance is probably good for reducing your chance of the dreaded breaking of one's hip.

Pilates Video

Doing many of the things in my video just feel good. It actually feels best when I do it after work (though I rarely do) because there is some good stretching and relaxing. Also you do stuff you don't normally do, like balance on your butt, or wave your legs around in the air while lying down that's kind of fun. And I get to point my toes and pretend I look elegant (except for when I'm falling over).

I feel like there are loads of health benefits too. I definitely breath hard sometimes. I use my core muscles, as might be expected, plus some other ones. There's loads of balancing practice, too.

Walking

I like walking. I like seeing things at that speed. I like to be able to stop and take a closer look at things. I like to be able to handle obstacles that are annoying on a wheeled vehicle. And getting up and getting blood pumping helps me feel less like a slug. Supposedly it's good for you, but I haven't noticed that being true for me. I'm guessing I've never gotten so out of shape that adding walking was an improvement.

Other benefits of walking include being able to get places and not worrying about parking (finding it or paying for it) or putting wear-and-tear on the car, buying more gas, and adding more pollution.

Strength Training

My favorite thing about strength training is getting stronger.

The first time I worked at summer camp was the main time I have experienced this benefit. The first week the counselors were all in one unit while we were getting trained. Then we moved to the units we were going to be working in during our first session. I was going to be in the same unit but a different tent, so I just carried my trunk over there. I was holding it by the handle on one end and resting the other end on my foot while I walked, thus allowing me to use my stronger leg muscles to move my trunk. Another counselor came up to me and said, "Oh, let me do that," and picked it up by the side handle like it was a suitcase and just walked it over, again, like it was a suitcase. I was amazed.

At the end of the summer, my dad came to pick me up and he offered to carry my trunk for me, but by then I was able to just pick it up by the two side handles and carry it myself like it was just a box of books. Fun! Also, it was easier to open the heavy doors at college.

And what was I doing at summer camp to make me so much stronger? One thing was carrying a big cooler full of ice. It was the cylindrical kind with a spigot at the bottom. Every morning we would bring one from our unit to the kitchen at breakfast to be filled with ice and then bring it back to be filled with water. Then we'd have cold water all day plus access to ice for first aid if necessary.

At first I'd take one handle while someone else took the other. We'd have to trade sides after a while. Then I would sometimes carry it by myself, holding it on the bottom. Then I would sometimes hold it by one handle and throw it over my shoulder. So macho!

I also swam a total of 10 miles that summer (various strokes, not just freestyle). And I might have practiced doing pull-ups on the rafters of the pavillion in the parking lot while we were waiting for the kids to come for a new session. (I definitely did that some of the summers.)

I think rock climbing is really effective, too. At least I can get a large number of my muscles to feel like jello after some crazy-short amount of time like five minutes, which seems amazing.

Tam likes weight training because it's so easy to see results. I haven't noticed this with weight training as much as I have with jogging, but that's definitely fun, too.

Oh, and you can get bigger muscles, not just stronger ones. I definitely got bigger biceps at summer camp. (And even though I'm female, I like seeing bigger muscles on me. I'm not immune to the thrills of feeling macho. At all.)

I also like being able to help people move. Moving sucks and I like when I can make a bunch of trips (generally up and down stairs) carrying boxes for people.

Blog Posts of the Day

I also enjoyed the post that inspired the one I quoted above, My Breakup with Exercise, which in turn was inspired by a speech the other author made! It's about learning that a moderate amount of exercise is a good amount--going overboard may seem better, but a reasonable amount is not nothing--it still has benefits.

Mostly I liked this quote:

'For most of 2013 I was sedentary. I had multiple false starts as I tried to “get back into the gym.” Each time I returned, there was a new manager at the personal training company who would spot me on the elliptical and approach me, saying “Congratulations on taking the first step towards a better you!” or some bullshit like that.

'I wanted to punch them every time. I am already a better me. I have hobbies now. I have friends. I have a life.

'Then the manager would encourage me to try personal training because “beginners always need someone to show them how to do things properly.”

'“FUCK YOU, I am NOT a beginner,” I would think.'

I just want to get her a t-shirt to wear at the gym that says "I'm not a beginner" in the front and "I'm already a better me" on the back. Just like I want a t-shirt for the mall that says "I don't need any help" and one for bike riding that says "Please don't kill me."

I also enjoyed My Big Fat Marathon by the first writer again where she decides she wants to walk a marathon. I've never thought of doing that. I think now that I've heard of it, I want to do it myself someday.

'Then one day I got bored and restless which lead to me Googling terms like 300 pound marathon. What I found were a bunch of blogs where people had done marathons to lose weight and were devastated to have accomplished neither, and then a blog from a doctor who said that you should never attempt a marathon unless you are within 20% of your “ideal weight” Thirty minutes later I was committed to the Seattle Marathon, 31 minutes later my best friend, Kel, responded to me e-mail with “I’m in” and we were off to the races.'

I love that she responds with more of an "I'll show you" attitude than an "I guess you're right and I'm a loser" attitude. Raaga123 and I have discussed this choice with girls doing math as well. (Apparently research shows that most girls choose the latter attitude." My mom had the same "I'll show you" response for standardized tests when she was told that it's impossible to finish them.

'The question that people ask most is “You seriously want to do a marathon?!” My answer is that no, I really in no way want to do a marathon, but I want to be someone who has done a marathon and I’m not willing to buy a medal in a thrift store and lie my ass off, so let’s get to training for this bad boy.'

Another quote - 'What I am doing: Attempting to walk 26.2 miles, cross a finish line, receive a medal and a shirt that doesn’t fit, and be able to say that I completed a marathon.' - Mmm, tempting. Especially if it's in a pretty place I've never been to.

Week 3 of the step challenge went basically like week 2.

In week 4, I deliberately took a day of rest because the bottoms of my feet were hurting. Then I also not so deliberately failed to meet my goal one day. I just put it off and then got too sleepy and went to bed. And another day was a work day but it was a retreat at my boss's house, and my boss lives in my neighborhood, so the commute was much shorter. I wimped out and decided to treat that like a weekend day.

I've also already blown off the goal one day in week 5. Mostly, I'm doing well though, getting in more movement than I otherwise would.

**

Meanwhile, my sister's husband has just gotten some new role in the Society for Creative Anachronism (personal fighter for the Queen or something) and has decided to try to get into better shape and to inspire other people in his kingdom to do the same. I'm going to just let you read his whole challenge yourself:

Greeting unto the populace of the Middle Kingdom!

War will soon be upon us. Our mighty Dragon Army is needed once again. Who will join me in answering the call and MARCH TO WAR?

In order to better the health of the populace of the Middle Kingdom and to better prepare the Army for war, I, Warder Rurik the Red, Champion to HRM Amalie, do hereby offer the following challenge: How many troops can you march to war?

It is 400 miles from the Army Rally point to the battle field at Pennsic (my residence in approximately the center of the Kingdom). For each 400 miles you cover by walking, running, or by cycling (4 miles cycling = 1 mile marched), you deliver 1 soldier to the battlefield. This challenge is to occur over the next year, starting June, 1 2014 and ending on May 31, 2015. This challenge shall have the following rewards upon completion:

1. For each soldier delivered, a challenge coin shall be earned as follows:
1st soldier = Bronze coin
2nd soldier = Silver coin
3rd soldier = Gold coin
Each additional soldier = Gold coin

2. The first person to deliver a soldier to Pennsic shall also receive a scroll and the designation of advanced scout

3. The person who delivers the most soldier to Pennsic shall receive a scroll AND a $400 gift certificate to Son of Sandlar

So who will join me and help assemble the mighty Dragon Army?

The spreadsheet for tracking your progress can be found here. Reporting is on the honor system. Please enter your name to start...

We did a similar thing in grad school, which I liked.

Additional clarifications have been added since this initial call: "Normal daily activities do not count, only additional planned exercise." So that's different from my current challenge where all walking counts. Also I have to keep track of walking and running separately.

Another clarification is you have to be a member of their kingdom, but I didn't find that out until I got permission to participate.

I yet decided on my personal goal (other than feeling like getting at least 400 miles would be ideal).

So, I am taking up my employer's challenge to walk 50,000 steps per week for six weeks. Though today I learned that we get to blow a week and still consider ourselves a success.

My baseline number of steps on work days (doing just the minimum of what I normally do) is about 6,000. If I also pace at the bus stop, like I learned to do when I first got my pedometer many years ago, that adds a couple/five hundred more. Walking during lunch adds two to three thousand more. And taking one of the two buses that drops me off on Duval instead of Cameron adds another three thousand. I found a bus stop for the trip home with three acceptable bus routes, so I just get on whichever of these buses comes first because I hate waiting for buses, hoping longingly that I will get to go home some day.

My baseline number of steps on weekend days is about 500. Because my hobbies mainly involve sitting.

So, since I work only 4 days per week, this really is a challenge, even if I don't ever get the good bus.

My strategy is to try for 10K steps each work day and 5K steps each weekend day for a total of 55K steps. This is a good compromise between a reasonable amount of steps for human health (supposedly 10K - 15K per day) and the amount I actually do.

One week has gone by and so far I have made all my goals, so that's been a nice surprise.

Work day strategies: pace at the bus stop and walk during lunch of course. (And I haven't been walking during lunch for the past couple of weeks previously, so that's still a good thing.) Then, if I catch the good bus, I walk around the block* a few times after I get home. Just every hour or two, I'll leave the house and walk around the block once, which is just over 500 steps. So I've actually been catching the good bus and thus barely achieving my goal most days; the day with the bad bus I walked 11,217 steps.

*Not my block. Like people who live on cul-de-sacs, walking around my block is complicated. For example, it is bounded by ten roads. But the block across the street is a tiny block bounded by four roads as expected. (I think Chikuru, Raaga123, and maybe Indigo Rose have a similar situation.) I've often told myself I should get up off my butt and walk around the block periodically, but I haven't actually done it until this week. (And I'm still not doing it once I've met my goal.)

Weekend days are rougher. One day I made an excuse to walk somewhere (to see if Old Navy has any of those nice t-shirts like I have--but no, those tissue-weight t-shirts are still in). One day I did my pilates video--the challenge folks have a converter where you select your activity, say what your heart rate was during the activity, and say how many minutes you were doing this activity, and it calculates a step equivalent. That turned out to be just over 3K steps. I already can't remember what I did the third day--I think I just paced a lot at home and walked around the block a few times.

So here is the summary:

Official challenge - 50K steps
My goals - 55K steps
My actual total - 58,571 steps

And what are the side effects? Anything good?

One side effect might be that I have more mosquito bites. Though it's spring, and I generally have more mosquito bites in spring anyway, so maybe not.

One is that I have a new blazer, because I stopped in at some other stores on the way home from Old Navy. Not sure if that's good or not yet.

I've noticed that all the other yards on the block are better than mine.

And if I have any neighbors who are looking out their windows a lot spying on everyone, then they are probably not having the best opinion of me. I mean, sometimes I walk in a wavy path instead of a straight path, like the girl in "True Stories," to get more steps, which might make me look a little crazy. At the very least, I might be a suspicious character, clearly checking out all those yards.

I think I have so far succeeded in not subconsciously deciding that since I am burning several extra calories each day, I can therefore eat several hundred extra calories to make up for that.

(Skip directly to the blog of the day for silly fun.)

Now it's really down to two candidates. We're so different and they're having trouble deciding, so they called us in (separately) to see how we'd do one of the actual job duties. This is my favorite kind of interview activity because it seems so relevant.

I looked at two actual petitions, talked about whether they should be accepted or denied and why (and what questions I would ask various parties), and then, for the one that was denied, sent an e-mail to the interviewers as if one was the student and the others were her advisors.

I think I did basically well, but did two things especially well. One is that I wanted to include a paragraph describing the student's options that I knew of, and I thought of one that the staff hadn't considered before. And one was saying that I didn't think it was my place to tell the student that they can ask their college to waive the requirement (some colleges really don't like to waive requirements); instead I would then include a paragraph recommending the talk to his or her departmental advisor for possible additional options. (That advisor would know whether it would be appropriate to request a waiver.) The folks at the table said they couldn't quite help wanting to tell the students about waivers, but admitted they would rather do it over the phone than via a written document.

Afterwards, they asked for the names of my supervisors in Business, Geosciences, and the Registrar's Office--they will contact those people in addition to the references I actually listed.

They hope to get back to me sometime next week, but admit that sometimes things take longer than you hope.

Blog Entry of the Day - Act Your Age - But Exercise like a Kid at 121 Seconds - The author explains that exercise doesn't have to be boring just because you're a grown up. "At what point did you decide that jumping through a hoop on an inflatable bouncing snail was no longer necessary?"

At the end is an illustrative video of him spending 121 seconds doing an exercise he calls the "circle of death," namely, jumping through a hula hoop on an inflatable bouncing snail. He is not good at this exercise, but it is fun and quite challenging, and, let's face it, hilarious.

He has several videos illustrating additional sample exercises for those of us who have forgotten how to be creative. The most hilarious one, in my opinion (not that I've watched them all yet) is the Choose a Body Part - Core exercise called the Ab-Matic 121. "It's a fresh take on an old favorite. Rather than just doing traditional sit-ups, these must be timed carefully to avoid being hit in the head with partially filled drink bottles. To increase the level of difficulty, you can have your housemates hit you periodically in the abdominal region with randomly selected objects." Unfortunately, this one comes with a warning not to try it at home. "What you are about to see was performed by a trained professional. Unfortunately, his training and profession are in an unrelated field." Yes, he is wearing a helmet. And yes, his kids are gleefully pommelling him with "randomly selected objects."

So far, I have not followed in the author's footsteps. I just sit in front of my computer watching his exercises. This is wrong.

Yesterday I went to my physical therapy appointment.

For my ankle, I got a home-treatment program which includes two stretches that are very similar to the ones I've been doing, but I'm supposed to do them for a whole minute instead of just 30 seconds. And there are two modified calf raises. What you do is get on a step and then raise yourself on your good ankle and lower yourself on your injured ankle. 15 times. 4 times a day.

It's actually not simple for most people to raise with one leg and lower with the other--it hurts your brain. But ballroom dance makes it easier for me because I've had loads of training in changing weight from one foot to the other at specific times. Waltz, for example: you're supposed to stay low during the first step, rise up on the second step, then lower again on the third step. Thank-you waltz!

That's with my knees straight. Then I'm supposed to do the same thing with my knees bent. In that position I suddenly become an incompetent beginner like everybody else! Apparently, I never extend my ankle with a bent knee while dancing.

Today my right calf aches. I don't know if it is from doing a couple of sets each of those calf lowerings or if it's from the very hard massage I got.

My physical therapist also had time to test my shoulder, and I'll be going back weekly for that.

I asked about preventative strategies. She said drink plenty of water, get plenty of the kinds of fat that are in fish oil, and get plenty of antioxidants like Vitamin C and Vitamin E. And don't turn around while in the driver's seat of your car and mess with things in the back seat.

"That's bad for you? But I love doing that!" In fact, this sort of movement is one of the few things I do that still causes pain. Which is the whole point of getting physical therapy! But it also hurts to raise my arm to the side, and either way the pain indicates an injury that is not healing by itself, so getting treatment is of course a good idea. (At least it worked perfectly last time, so I'm assuming it will be good again this time.)

For the heel problem, I'm supposed to hold off on jogging and long walks until it doesn't hurt. I had worked out that it's things I do that involve landing heel first that I regret the next day, but it's not landing on the heel that's the problem. It's pushing off afterwards that's the problem. This has given me ideas for a different way to limp. (Normally I'm not limping anymore, just when I first get up after sitting or sleeping a while.)

**

In other news it has been fabulously warm here. We had the air conditioning on once.

And then after work today I got to feel the cold front come in. Right after the gal I was walking with was saying how she was wishing it were a little cooler! So I got to be there when she got her wish!

When I got off the bus it was still grey and windy, and as I walked home, a few large drops of rain came down. I started to wonder if there would be a sudden downpour, but I made it home before that. And I got to drag Robin out into it (he's been disappointed in the warm weather) and we admired the fabulous pre-dusk lighting. With occasional lightning.

Quote of the Day

"The approaching storm
Swept in with blustering winds
Clearing out my mind.

"(Haiku written in my car before I left school.)"

-Ginny Lindzey