Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Gym, more detailed than you need to know


This is what my leg looks like now. Yes, it is, shut up.

So I went to the University's gym on Monday for the first time. I went up to a (hot) trainer guy and was all,

"Hey, can you help me out? I don't know what to do."

And he was all (hot),

"You don't have a routine? It's your first day, then? Okay. Warm up on a bike and I'll design a routine for you."

So I went and got bored on a stationary bike (usually when I'm on one, I have my laptop handy to watch sitcoms), and then I went back over to the (hot) trainer guy. He weighed me, asked my age, how much water I drink, my opinion on tuques with pom-poms on them, etc. etc.

"So what's your goal? What do you want to achieve?"
"I want, you know, muscles!"
"Muscle mass? [hot, slightly entertained smile] Okay. Glutes back, hold on to the machine here, five minutes."

After the stair stepper it was lower abs, then leg curls and extensions, and then... squats.

The squats are where three years of LesMills classes proved their worth**. First the (hot) trainer guy had me do twelve squats. Then he gave me a 20-pund dumbbell and told me to do eight more, but stopped me after two. He walked with me over to the barbell (!!) and said,

"I don't usually do this, but you're strong. It usually takes people a month at the gym to get to this level. Think you can do it?"

The barbell looked huge and I was all, "Ummmm, how much does that weigh?", but it was just 20kg, so that was fine. Eventually another (hot) trainer guy came over and they decided together that I could squat with the barbell plus another 15kg. I wasn't sure about the last five, but it was okay.

When I say it was okay, I don't mean it was easy. I mean I went all the way down and got a little bit stuck there after a few reps, and needed a tiny bit of help getting back up. Not a lot of help, but just a smidge, to get past the first bit. Also there was a constant stream of,

"Face up!"
"Glutes all the way back!"
"Face up!"
"Squeeze your knees!" (Squeeze? My knees?)
"Face up, look up!"
"...five... six, no, I didn't like that one, do it right or don't do it, six, better..."

At that point I fell in love. We want a June wedding.

And as for the knees, apparently I let my them bend inwards when the going gets hard. This is annoying because a BodyPump instructor pointed that out to me like, a year ago. I thought I'd taken care of that. Damn.

Then I did some other painful things, was released from the gym, and flopped over on a near patch of grass to eat my protein jello*** and do my homework before going back to my faculty to tidy up and attend class.

Phew.


** Actually, they pay off all the time. Other people's abs get sore from laughing.

*** I came up with it just this week. I made rum-flavored jello, but added powdered milk, almond extract, vanilla extract and protein powder. The protein powder separated and made a delicious layer on the top and it was AWESOME.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

3rd semester, GO!

This is what I spend a lot of my time looking at. Once you've seen the face, you ALWAYS see the face.


I started my third semester at university two weeks ago. It's okay, so far.

Most days I get in pretty early (9:00 or 7:30 AM) and finish sort of late (8:00 or 9:30 PM). I chose this schedule because it's Monday-Friday, so I can still go to the gym on Saturdays. The only thing is, on Saturday I was too tired to go**. I might as well have gone, though, because once I woke up in the morning I couldn't get back to sleep anyway. I employed my time in a half-assed study session instead.

I joined the gym at school, along with a friend. So we can pop off during our free time, do some bench presses while looking at pictures of boob-y models posing on weight machines, and run back to our respective classes, all in the time it takes you to blink! But only if you take a nap between the beginning and end of the blink, obviously. Otherwise we mightn't make it.

So anyway, I had five classes originally, but dropped Math because my teacher was... well, she was quite something:

Teacher: Look at this sequence. It oscillates between increments of ten and seven. Add ten, then add seven, then add ten... okay?
Me: Um, but that goes against the definition you just wrote. That sequence diverges, and the definition is that it doesn't diverge.
Teacher: Huh? Oh, you're right. That's a good observation. Add a little note next to it in your notebook, that it works this way, too, so you don't get confused. It just doesn't say so in the definition.
Me: Ohmygod.

Yep, her examples were always helpful. Like this other one:

Teacher: So what's the general term of this sequence? Let's see. To get the first term we could do this... squared... minus two... but that won't give us the second term... if we divide it... Okay, then. [Wites one board: As we can see here, in some cases it is hard to figure out the general term of a sequence****.] So, on to the next example!

I was left with four classes and days punctuated with long stretches of nothingness in the middle, so I signed up for another class, preforming a complicated e-mail operation in which I arranged to take lectures with one class and lab with another (due to schedule problems). I also signed up for another class thinking I wouldn't get it anyway (five people wanting the one spot left) but SURPRISE, I got into both classes.

Oooooh, I thought, will I be able to take all six classes and pass with proper grades? Or just, you know, pass? Should I drop one? If I drop Earth Sciences I'll have Mondays off... Okay, I'll do it! I'll drop a class!

So on Friday I was all set to drop Earth Sciences, but then I found out that the deadline was the day before. Why not publish that useful little tidbit on the Faculty's website? Gah!

So I have bitten off a lot, and it may prove to be more than I can chew. But it's like that time three weeks ago when I overestimated my hunger and accidentally made too much oatmeal: I buckled down and ate it anyway (okay, I ate most of it and the dog got the rest, but oatmeal is cheap and it's not wasted if it goes to someone furry who really wants it. Shhh!).


**I figured I'd need recovery time from lack of sleep. The day before, Friday, I fell asleep on the bus to school (standing up and constantly jerking awake), in Molecular Biology lab, in Fungi class and on the bus home. I stayed awake during both Plants lab and Animals lab, though! I mean, in Animals lab I fell asleep a few times while I was drawing a sponge, but that was just because the sponge was big and the structure got a bit repetitive. Other than that, I was fit as a fiddle.

**** When she wrote it her grammar was bad, too, but that got lost in translation.


This is really pretty. It's a (thin thin thin) slice of orange peel, dyed with Sudan III, a brownish-reddish, carcinogenic (!) dye. The oil in the peel got stained this here purty shade of orangey yellow that you're got yer eyes on.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Second-hand books (33, 34)

These books were both second-hand. Well, I'm not quite sure about The Daughter of Time, but the copy I read was a bit shabby and quite aged, so I'm guessing it is.

In the case of Fearless, my mom bought it recently at a used book store in the Centro. Those things are crazy. My mom had gone to lunch with some friends nearby, and I had gone elsewhere to buy some concert tickets*, and afterwards we met up to book-hunt. I couldn't call her phone (no service inside bookstores, apparently) so I walked into the first shop I saw, and found her working away at the Used English table. There was already a big pile of goodies already set aside.

So we worked away at opposite ends of the table, dissecting piles and remarking upon the findings ("Hey, another Sweet Valley Twins!" "Mmm"). Well, my mom worked, and I held up books which I thought were cool (an old Hardy Boys mystery, a book from the 1950s about raising babies, etc.). When we payed, there were enough books to fill her backpack.

Anyway, she bough Fearless either on that trip or on a subsequent one to the same store a few days later (she regretted leaving behind a book about Samuel Pepys which she had originally turned down because somewhat expensive).

Anyway.

Book 33: The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey.

This was really good (good characters, historical mystery, et.c etc.) but it was SO HARD to get through. I had to keep flipping back to the genealogical tree at the beginning to see who everybody was. And then there was the business of remembering who had claimed whose children were illegitimate and when, and whose mistress was where in what year, and who is Warwick? And who's Clarence? And Henry VII was the grandson of whose cousin again?

It all got to be too much so I put the book down for two days or so, and when I returned to it I'd forgotten whom most people were. Aagh.

And then it turned out that not only was there a genealogical tree at the front of the book, but a different one at the back. It would have been really helpful if I'd found it before I'd finished the novel.

Fearless, by Francine Pascal

Another Francine book! (number 12 was Hangin' Out with Cici). This was quick, entertaining and the writing style was good (I think the style would have better fit a short story, but it worked fine in the book, too). It's the first part of a series, and out of curiosity I read the plot for the next few books. They get pretty weird.

This one was good, though.




*but apparently they don't sell concert tickets on Sundays. Note to self: buy those soon or they'll run out. And Alestorm will probably never return *sob*

**They really did

Monday, August 15, 2011

1:00 PM - Productivity review

Bit of moss I photographed. See? Productive.

Things I could/should get done today:
  • Get medical exam done so I can join the University's gym
  • Get driver's license
  • Read about sponges (the animals, not the ones for washing dishes)
  • Transcribe Earth Sciences course notes and start on homework
  • Pay scholarship fee (twenty cents!)
  • Brush up on plant biology (vascular plant spores are haploid)
  • Go over Biology of the Fungi notes, and start on homework
  • Buy 8 freshwater fishes (live) for Animals lab

Things I've done today that could be considered (however remotely) productive:
  • Wash my yoga mat
  • Do a few bicep curls
  • Take photos (Moss: Week One) for Biology of Plants class
  • Make walnut butter
  • Listen to a CBC podcast about advertising (I'm learning)
  • Write for blog (will be greatly valued in future)

"To Do" lists have items of varying priority and urgency. If you spend a while doing the easy, non-urgent, non-essential things first, then you're still getting things done. You're being productive... by procrastinating!

Yeah, it's a stretch. Shut up.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Minute details, my wallet

I've attempted to relate every little bit of one of my last days on summer break. It got really tedious towards the middle. This isn't actually interesting, but I think I might appreciate reading later on, just so I know what I filled my days with (CliffNotes version: not much). I posted a little story at the end to make up for it.

* * *

Last night I stayed up until about one in the morning, eating bowl after bowl of frozen berries mixed with yogurt and topped with bits of walnut. It was one of those nights when I'm not sleepy at all until it hits me, very suddenly and very strongly. Usually I manage to brush my teeth and stumble to my room, but last night I just climbed into the guest bed, still in my clothes and dirty teeth.

There was a vicious mosquito in the room, and she bit me about several times (arm, other arm, under my chin, and two foiled attacks on my nose) until I took refuge under the covers. A normal mosquito might give up and gone away, but this mosquito kept buzzing around and trying to get at my nose while I was hiding. When I was almost out of oxygen I threw the covers aside, took a big breath and… the mosquito was gone. I think she died smothered by the bedclothes.

Ah, well, eye for eye. Life for bite, rather.

At eight in the morning I woke up to the sound of doggie nails clicking on the porch outside (love that). Then I picked up my laptop and tried to register for my classes next semester, but apparently all the other biology students were doing the same thing and all I got was "Error 503! Server overload! Hahaha on you!".

My throat hurt a bit when I swallowed, like there was still a walnut stuck in there. My stomach felt like the berries from last night had partied with the yogurt and trasmogrified into a brick. My breath stank. I wanted a mug of tea but went back to sleep instead.

The next time I woke up it was past three in the afternoon. I tried to register again ("Okay, I'll let you log in. Type in the class that you want to take… now press enter… now wait for it… wait for it… oh, sorry, the server timed out. Go on, try again. Oops, error 503! Server overload!").

Anyway, I got up and went to the kitchen and made my tea, read british gossip websites (Britney Spears lost weight while on tour, some celebrity couple I don't know had lunch at a fancy restaurant, another celebrity I don't know was photographed walking her dog). I made a sad substitute for Jaffa cakes to have with my tea: graham crackers spread with jam and topped with a few chocolate chips, then microwaved. Not really the same at all, but still tasty.

I scratched Maxie the Dog and gave her a dog cookie. I ate some cottage cheese with swiss chard. I drank more tea. I made and ate popcorn with parmesan cheese sprinkled over it. I watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother (Marshall and Lily got married). I read. Did a bit of exercise. Swept the floor of my room. Managed to finally register for my classes.

Now I'm lying on the carpet, the iPod is on random, my head is itchy.

One of those times when you don't seize the day, on purpose.

* * *

Here's something more entertaining as a reward for scrolling down the page (good on you!).

My wallet., featuring $20 and a Metrobús card.

I made my wallet out of playing cards because it folds up tiny and I can carry it in my pocket. People seems to get a real kick out of it, for some reason. They go "Ooooh, is that your wallet? Can I see it? Did you make it? That's so cool!" which is flattering but also disconcerting. I mean, I guess I think my wallet is cool, but not that cool.

Yet it's always the object of much adulation when people first see it. So much that I was in Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and pulled it out to pay for some socks and a caramel-scented sachet, and the dudes ahead of me in the queue started poking each other and going, "Look at her wallet! Look at her wallet! Look look look look!". I handed it over for closer inspection* and we exchanged 5 words or so, I got my wallet back and then I got on with my life.

So there I was getting on with my life, standing at the corner outside of the store, waiting to cross the street, when who should run up to me but one of the guys from Wal-Mart. He explained pantingly that I was "different" (gee, thanks. My goal in life is to fit in and be comfortably normal**, but that's okay, you didn't know) and he would have regretted it all day if he hadn't said anything. So now we've added each other on Facebook and nothing at all has become of it.

I mean, it's just a wallet, after all. Come on.



* That sounds like a stupid thing to do. Trust me, they weren't the types to bolt off with a wallet that's worth not much at all. I mean, they were with their mom and until they noticed my wallet, they had been playfully slapping each other.

** Well, it is. Being original is tiring, from what I gather. Artists and the like are always lopping off their ears because they just can't take it.