DIZZY BUTTZ
This year is apparently all about the weird dreams. I’ve had a lot so far, but I’ve only remembered a few in full.
Last night’s was one of them (and lucky for you, it was fairly short).
In the dream, I’ve somehow convinced Nate to go skydiving with me, and we drive for hours to get to this secluded, exclusive skydiving resort type thing. Everyone there is like some sort of elite skydiver and is super serious about all things skydiving, but I feel confident because I’d been skydiving before and thus knew some of the basics at least.
We stand in this group with a bunch of other dudes who are going to dive and our instructor, who is the most serious of them all, points to this giant carwash thing and tells us all that we need to go through it before we go up in the air.
I’m a little bit confused by this, and as Nate and I are going through the carwash, I mention to the instructor that I’d gone skydiving before and that we didn’t have to go through a carwash to do so.
And the dude gets extremely huffy and says, “well, I guess you contaminated the sky, then!”
And then I woke up.
So yeah.
Pro tip: if you’re ever about to go skydiving, make sure to run yourself through a carwash first so that you don’t contaminate the sky.
????????
BobSponge
Nostalgia, anyone? [had to link a new one ’cause the old one got taken down]
I recognize about 97% of these. I used to watch a lot of Spongebob.
Sorry, it’s been a crappy day and this is all I’ve got right now.
Unpopular Opinion:
Mr. Brightside is not The Killers’ best song. Their best song is Run for Cover, hands down. Before Run for Cover came out, their best song was When You Were Young.
Sorry, just wanted to say that.
Party time in SeaTac? MORE LIKE PARTY TIME ACROSS THE STREET FROM SEATAC
Hi.
So today was supposed to be pretty crappy, because while my flight from Lewiston got into Seattle around 10 this morning, my flight from Seattle to Calgary is supposed to leave tomorrow around 11. I was originally planning on just hanging out in the airport and getting some work done (and not sleeping), since there weren’t any other really good options.
And really, that’s not terrible. SeaTac is a pretty great airport. Lots of places to wander if I got bored, that giant food court thing with the ceiling-high windows, and a decent number of places to sit. I figured if I could find an outlet to camp at, I’d be fine.
BUT THEN, PLOT TWIST!
I learned that because my flights were more than 17 hours apart (I think that was the cutoff time?), my checked luggage would only go through to Seattle. I’d have to pick it up there and the re-check it in closer to my flight to Calgary.
And on the plane from Lewiston to Seattle, I realized what this would probably mean: the baggage claim area is not in the cool part of the airport. It’s in the tiny basement thing that’s 70% luggage carousels, 20% luggage hauling SeaTac dudes (baggage bros?), and 10% benches that are taken up by sleeping families.
And since I had to claim my bag, that meant leaving the airport part of the airport and going down there. And staying there for ~24 hours.
Noooooooot as fun.
So I call my mom and we figure out there’s a hotel like right across the street (literally, it turns out), so I pack up my crap and head over there (and feel really stupid taking the bus shuttle because it is, literally, right across the street from SeaTac).
Picture? Picture!
GIANT ROOM WITH GIANT KING-SIZE BED.
Got Subway, worked on stuff for classes, and watched crappy Seattle TV all night.
‘Twas much more enjoyable than the SeaTac airport could have been.
I CAN RUN!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So the weather in Moscow today sucked (rain). I went to the UI Rec Center to do my walking because even four hours on a treadmill beats walking in rain.
I did 13 miles walking, and as I was doing so, I realized two things:
1. I had the treadmill set on 0 incline. Ever since I got hurt back in August, I’ve had to have the treadmill set at least at 1.5 incline, because this injury, whatever it is, is strange as hell, and a slightly inclined treadmill always resulted in less pain than a “flat” one. Not today. The flat felt good.
2. In fact, there was no pain. At all. I still get twinges every once in a while, especially when walking, but not today. No pain.
So I decided to stop the treadmill at 13 miles, change my pedometer stride from “walk” to “run,” and gave running a shot.
And it worked! Nothing broke/snapped/died. I ran two miles before deciding to stop before anything did break/snap/die.
In fact, as I sit here writing this, I’m pretty sure every part of my body except my injured leg is sore (probably from trying to compensate for it while running, haha).
So there’s that.
I’m going to try to take it slow—which is really difficult for me—but I will work back up to 10k. I will do more half marathons.
I will do my marathon.
Solar FAIL!
Huh. Interesting.
Claudia’s First Weird Dream of the New Year
This is actually a dream I had two nights ago, but since yesterday was dedicated to my walking stats, I had to wait a day to describe this nonsense to you.
And since I’m all sure you just love reading about others’ dreams, let’s get right to it.
This dream felt super realistic and actually felt like it was quite long, so I probably forgot a good portion of it, but here’s what I recall:
I’m with this young girl (she’s maybe four or five…I’m bad at ages…she’s black and has pigtails) and we’re wandering around what I think is the outskirts of Calgary. It’s not too hot or too cold out, so it’s probably fall or something. We start hearing this metallic “clink! clink!” sound coming from just beyond a grassy hill, so we climb it to see if we can figure out where the noise is coming from.
Once we get to the top of the little hill, we can see that it slopes down on the other side into a wide valley. At the bottom of this valley there’s this strange rectangular fenced-in plot where someone is growing pinecones. The pinecones aren’t growing on trees but rather on vines, and it’s the sound of these pinecones falling off and hitting exposed irrigation pipes that is making the metallic clinking noise we were hearing.
We go down into the valley to investigate this weird plot of vine pinecones (vinecones???). There’s a paved path that runs down the middle of the plot and goes in both directions along the valley floor. The little girl kind of wanders off in one direction on the path; I go in the other direction but have to stop and turn around because the path almost immediately runs into a flooded, swampy area.
I catch up with the little girl and we head across the valley to the other side where the ground starts to slope up again. The girl is saying that she’s pretty sure she knows where we are, especially if there’s a highway nearby. I look towards the top of the sloping hill and notice a concrete noise barrier. I tell the girl that the noise barrier is probably next to a highway and that we should climb up and see to make sure.
So we start climbing the hill, but it quickly gets pretty steep and muddy and I tell the girl that because of my messed up leg, I probably shouldn’t climb any higher and that she should go alone. She seems cool with this, so I just climb to the top of a drainage pipe and hold on to some exposed wires (??) while the girl keeps climbing.
As she gets higher, some dude appears a little bit above her on the hill and tells her that she shouldn’t be climbing it. But before either of us can react, the guy loses his footing and falls into a pool of lava that is sitting at the mouth of the drainage pipe that I’m standing on. He quickly burns up and dissolves in the lava.
This doesn’t deter the little girl’s climbing; she keeps going. Then another little girl appears above her. This girl’s a little older (she actually kind of looks like Eleven from Stranger Things) and she keeps warning us that we shouldn’t climb the hill. My little girl doesn’t listen and keeps climbing. So the Eleven-esque girl finally goes, “I’m sorry I have to do this,” and pushes my little girl off the side of the hill. She also lands in the lava, but it doesn’t instantly kill her like it did with the guy. She’s just on her back in it, yelling “ow!” over and over again.
I get down off the drainage pipe and help her out of the lava. She doesn’t have any burn marks or anything, and after a second of standing up, she says very calmly: “I remember almost everything I used to know.”
Then another guy shows up. He’s in the valley (not on the hill) on the path and he’s walking this tiny little puff ball of a dog. I am, for some reason, absolutely terrified of this dog. I scream, “EVERYBODY RUN, HE’S GOT A DOG!” and just bolt in the other direction down the path. The dog starts chasing me, and the guy starts chasing the dog. He keeps hollering, “just let me get him across the border, and everything will be fine!”
Then I woke up.
It was the most “realistic”-feeling dream I’ve had in a while. It also had its own soundtrack, which was kind of cool. Not sure if it was music I’d heard at some point or stuff my brain was making up, though.
Odd news.
Walking 2017
HAPPY NEW YEAR, BUTT-MONGERS!
So it has become my tradition that on the first day of the new year, I dedicate my blog post to reviewing the previous year’s walking mileage. And this one is particularly special to me, because I was able to set a new personal record for the number of miles walked in a year—a personal record that surpassed my previous personal record by more than 1,300 miles.
So let’s do it! Here are my walking stats for January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.
- Total number of walks: 314
- Total mileage: 5,100
- Total number of steps: 11,130,160
- Total calories burned: 367,250
- Total walking time (minutes): 71,361.10 [that’s about 49.56 days]
- Average speed (mph) per walk: 4.26
5,100 miles is approximately the (great circle) distance between Kyoto, Japan and Seattle, WA, or between Athens, Greece, and Cape Town, South Africa.
That’s a serious distance, yo. That’s across the Pacific Ocean.
My goal was to walk 5,000 miles last year, and I managed to surpass that by 100 miles. That’s pretty cool.
I mean, this goal took some serious commitment. It might not seem like it was that big of a deal, but it really did take a lot of time, energy, pain, and persistence.
(Mostly pain.)
I walked 15+ miles in temperatures as low as -18 ℉ and as high as 96 ℉ (and shorter distances in temperatures as low as -29 ℉). I walked during serious wind. Serious snow. Serious rain. I walked when there were air quality warnings out because of the smoke during the summer. I walked when I really didn’t feel like it and would have much preferred staying home and being a lazy fart. I turned my feet into angry, gross callouses. Nearly every part of my body was in pain at some point or another due to all the walking. I was getting up at 4 AM to go on those longer 30-mile walks in the summer. Anyone who knows me knows that 4 AM is a bed time, not a “get up” time. I walked a maximum of 50 miles in one day in July. There were a good number of days where I spent more time walking than I did sleeping.
I really want to put this in perspective, because it was a lot of walking. If I had divided that 5,100 miles into daily walks, I would have had to walk 13.97 miles a day. Every single day. I obviously didn’t do that, but that’s what it breaks down to.
Same thing with the time commitment. I spent 49.56 days walking. That’s 49.56 24-hour periods. That’s a lot of time. 71,361.10 minutes is about 1,189.35 hours. Again, if I were to divide that equally across the 365 days of the year, that would be a time commitment of 3.26 hours a day. Every single day. That’s a big-ass time commitment. You can do a lot of things in 3.26 hours.
I’m sorry. I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging, because I don’t want to brag. This was just a really big deal for me. You don’t spend 49.56 days doing something if it’s not a big deal for you.
Here’s the mileage breakdown by month and by day of the week.
July was serious business.
One other thing I wanted to do: so as I’m sure you’re all aware because I won’t shut up about it, I mangled my quad (?) back in August while walking. I never went to the doctor because doctors are scary, so I actually don’t know what I did to it. But based on the amount of pain and how long it’s still taking to heal*, I’m just going to say that I tore the muscle.
But anyway, this really slowed down my walking speed (and still is, unfortunately). I was consistently around the 4.8, 4.9 MPH range in July and early August before I got hurt. I wanted to see how visible this injury was if I were to plot my MPH by walking date. So I did. Can you guess where the injury happened?
Haha, wow. That’s super obvious (and super depressing). The speed appears to be gradually increasing again, but it’s taking way longer than I’d like to do so. I really hope I’ll be able to get back to my 4.9 MPH pace.
Anyway. I promised Nate and my mom that I wouldn’t try to beat this record of 5,100 miles for 2018 (I’ll also be teaching two classes this first semester, one of which is going to take a lot of prep since I’ve never taught it before), so I doubt I’ll even get close to that mileage again.
But I’m proud of the 5,100. It’s nice to know that I can do it.
*The healing process probably would have been faster if I hadn’t taken two days off after the injury and then went right back to daily 15-mile walks, but that’s how I roll.
Claudia’s 365 Days of Music: Year 8 – A Review
Holy crapples, it’s the eighth year of this music project. I’d have to say that 2017 has been the best year for music thus far, so let’s GET DOWN TO IT BITCHES and go for the end of the year music review.
Total songs: 365
Total time: 24 hours and 29 minutes
Total size: 2.54 GB
Mean song length: 4:02.25
The Five Stars
Listed in order of acquisition!
Infectious by Tobu
Running Away by The Royal Foundry
Run for Cover by The Killers
Life by Tobu
Golden Dandelions by Barns Courtney
The five most beautiful/touching songs of the year:
Planet Earth II Suite by Hans Zimmer
Jupiter from “The Planets” for 5 Pianos by The 5 Browns
Desert Symphony by The Piano Guys
Beautiful Calgary by Jaimie Stewart
Paradis Perdus by Christine and the Queens
The Overall Top Five
Running Away by The Royal Foundry
What can I even say about this song? This song is perfection. PERFECTION. I heard it on an Alberta Energy YouTube ad and knew I had to have it. That SYNTH. That CHORUS. NNNNNF I LOVE ALL OF IT
Infectious by Tobu
There is so much energy and forward momentum in this song. It puts me in a walking mood, which is always a good indication that I really like a song. It also WHOMPS your eardrums when you play it loud enough, which is fantastic.
Golden Dandelions by Barns Courtney
I originally had this at number four behind Run for Cover, but I changed it just at the last minute because I can’t get enough of this song right now. There’s something otherworldly about his voice and the tone of this song that’s very unique. And catchy. And sing-along-able.
Run for Cover by The Killers
I mentioned this when I first downloaded this song in July, but there’s such an odd mood to this song that makes it so appealing. It’s got this like frantic, anxious urgency behind the lyrics that’s really hard to describe (“frantic, anxious urgency” doesn’t quite do it), but that’s really relatable somehow. I dig it.
Life by Tobu
Tobu and his energy-filled songs, yo. This one’s not nearly at the level of Infectious, but I love the way he layers the different components of his songs so that they build to an awesome mix at the end. Life is a really good example of that done very well.
YEAR NINE COMETH
LAST PEDESTRIAN RANT OF 2017
So.
Palouse Mall.
Good ol’ Palouse Mall.
It’s good to know that they’re still piling all of the snow from the plowed parking lot onto the one sidewalk that runs from the highway crosswalk to the Walmart.
OH WAIT THAT’S NOT GOOD AT ALL.
List of reasons why this pisses me off:
Come on. It’s the Palouse Mall. Even when Moscow’s running at capacity with all the students, I’ve never seen that parking lot completely full. There is no reason that this excess snow can’t just be shoveled into the parking spaces right in front of the sidewalk rather than onto the sidewalk itself.
It’s December. The students are currently gone. There are about 80 people* who live in Moscow right now. Even more reason why filling up a few parking spaces with snow is not going to be a huge issue.
People. Still. Walk. To. Walmart. I know walking is OMG SO HARD IN THE WINTER DURR HURR GET A CAR, but some people still rely on it for their main source of transportation. And there are really only two** ways to get to Walmart from Moscow: take the trail or take the sidewalk in front of the Palouse Mall. I walked on the trail today and it was an icy death trap. I tried to walk on the sidewalk in front of the Palouse Mall today, but it was covered in piles of snow. So neither of these options are great for walkers, especially when they have to carry bags of stuff back home from Walmart.
Also, if your solution to the above problem is “use public transportation,” I need to remind you again that this is Moscow. Public transportation is free, which is great, but it doesn’t run on the weekends. Or on holidays. Or past 5 PM. So that’s not always an option, my dudes.
It’s just…it’s like…don’t people think about these things? Are we really this car-centric?
UGH.
*A slight underestimation. But you get my point.
**I guess you could go through the mall and bypass most of that sidewalk, but that’s a little out of the way if you’re in a hurry. Also, then you have to cross that parking lot, which is a death trap for pedestrians. Don’t even get me started on that.
PHONES
AAAAAAAAAAAA MY MOM GOT ME THOSE BOSE HEADPHONES
I swear to god I didn’t tell her about them. The only place I’ve explicitly mentioned them are here on my blogs, and you can be damn sure I haven’t gotten those blogs posted prior to today.
(Edit: hahaha, it’s February 2019 and I’m looking back at this and laughing sadly because I STILL HAVEN’T POSTED THE DAMN BLOGS)
But she and I have some sort of weird psychic connection or something because when I told her “hey I found headphones I like but I’m not gonna tell you what they are,” she was like “lol too bad I’m going to brain hack you and read your thoughts so I can get you the exact headphones you want!”
And she did.
And here they are.
They’re SO GOOD. They’re also noise cancelling, which is always a plus.
YAY THANKS MOM
RES-RES-RESOLUTIONS
ALRIGHT, YOU TURD COMPASSES. 2017 is almost over. Let’s review the year’s resolutions and make some more for next year, huh?
2017 resolutions:
ACCOMPLISHED: The blogs. As always.
ACCOMPLISHED: The musics. As always.
ACCOMPLISHED: Walk either 4,000 miles (if I’m teaching all year) or 3,000 miles (if I’m not). I murdered this. I murdered this with a knife. More details to come on January 1st.
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: See if I can muscle my way into a more permanent lecturer position at U of C. This is something that’s mostly out of control, but hey, I can try. I’m still at the same level of permanency (that is, I’m still just a sessional instructor), but I keep getting re-hired at this level. Plus I’m getting two classes this coming semester instead of just one, so I’m hoping this will all lead to something more permanent soon. Come on, universe, do me a solid.
ACCOMPLISHED: Win NaNoWriMo 2017. For serious this time. It’s been too long. I actually won a NaNo for the first time since 2014! I like my story (sorta), too, so there’s that.
FAILED: Write more in general. Vague resolution is vague, but I guess I could narrow it down to either editing Prime or Arborhood. I did almost zero writing outside of NaNoWriMo this year. Unless you count the fanfic that’s nearly 150,000 words now. Which I do not.
FAILED: The blog archives. Get ‘em done. I did absolutely nothing involving my blog archives this year. Too busy.
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Along the same line as the previous resolution: figure out some sort of way to get my archives printed and bound. I’d love to have a hard copy of each year, sort of like an Encyclopedia of Eigenblogger thing. I didn’t get anything printed, but I did find an online service that would do so for relatively cheap (about $80 per years’ worth of blogs). So hopefully that will happen soon.
FAILED: Be a better wife for Nate. He’s the best husband I could ever ask for and I’m still getting used to this “wife” thing, so I definitely think there’s a lot of room for improvement as far as being as good to him as he is to me. I think I ended up being a worse wife than before, if that’s even possible. I don’t know how he puts up with me. He shouldn’t have to.
FAILED: STOP BEING GARBAGE. I AM STILL THE GARBAGE.
In my defense, my walking goal sucked a lot of my time, energy, and ability to care about anything else, hence a lot of those “FAILED” resolutions.
But I’ll try to be better this year. Let’s get to ‘er.
2018 Resolutions:
- Blog-a-ma-thon. I’m not sure if this really counts as a resolution since I do it every damn year anyway, but what the hell.
- Music-a-ma-thon. Again, I’m not sure if this really counts as a resolution since I do it every damn year…but what the hell.
- Walk 3,500 miles. I’d rather it was 4,000 miles, but I had to compromise with Nate because I really went overboard with the miles this year and he says I need to scale it back. He’s probably right. It took a lot of time to walk that much this year. And lots of pain. Lots and lots of pain.
- Do at least one of the following: run in the Calgary Marathon or walk 100 miles in a 24-hour period. I actually don’t know which of these would be harder, but I know that I’m currently terrified of running. I want to run. I dream about running. But I’m too scared to try it. So maybe the marathon will be out no matter what.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2018.
- Write more. I’ve had this damn resolution for like the past three years and VERY LITTLE WRITING HAS TAKEN PLACE. So let’s make it more concrete. I’m currently really into my NaNo story from this year. So let’s say that I’ll write at least 500 words a day, 4 days a week, until that story is “done.” Then I’ll edit 500 words a day, 4 days a week, it until it’s more “done.” I’ll keep editing it in this fashion until it’s where I want it. If by some miracle this whole process is completed before the end of 2018, I’ll do the same thing for Prime. Or Arborhood.
- Another resolution that’s PRIVATE!
- Seriously. Be a better wife for Nate. I tanked this last year. I need to rock it this year. He deserves more than I am.
FLIPPITY FLAP I AM CRAP
End o’ Year Survey
Hey so let’s do that survey thing I always do around this time of year.
What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?
Got injured due to physical activity? I was just going to put “got injured” but I’ve had bee stings and shit and whatnots and I guess those count as injuries, but this is the first time I’ve been actually injured to the point where it affected my physical performance.
Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
There will soon be a blog post regarding this!
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nopers.
Did anyone close to you die?
Annabelle. Poor little kitty.
What countries did you visit?
Does the US count? I think I always count it.
What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?
I said it last year and I’ll say it again: job security.
What date from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 22, the day I hit 5,000 walking miles.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
See above. That took a lot of work, yo.
What was your biggest failure?
Getting injured. Screw that nonsense. It slowed me down (literally), but did not prevent me from my goal.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
UGH WHY
What was the best thing you bought?
God, I don’t even know.
Where did most of your money go
Condo fees, groceries, tank tops from Walmart because I have a SERIOUS PROBLEM, cruise.
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Teaching! As always.
What song will always remind you of 2017?
Running Away by The Royal Foundry. So good.
What do you wish you’d done less of?
Getting injured, haha. Are you sensing a theme here?
How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas was yesterday. We hung out at Nate’s parents’ place and opened presents.
Did you fall in love in 2017?
Nope, but I stayed in love with the most wonderful man ever!
How many one-night stands?
Haha. Zero.
What was your favourite TV program?
I actually didn’t mind Iron Fist.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope.
What was the best book you read?
Did…did I read anything this year? I don’t think I read any fiction. Too busy walking.
What was your greatest musical discovery?
That will be revealed on the 31st!
What was your favourite film of this year?
Thor: Ragnarok was freaking awesome.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 29. Can’t remember what I did. Probably walked.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?
G E T T I N G S O M E J O B S E C U R I T Y
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?
“Cold.”
What kept you sane?
Sanity is for plebs.
Which celebrity/public figure(s) did you fancy the most?
Leibniz. Always and forever.
Who did you miss?
My mom and dad.
Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t think I met anyone new this year.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:
DON’T GET INJURED
Anosmia Adventures: Jelly Belly Edition
Heeeeeeeeeeey, Merry Christmas, people! Nate and I are down at his parents’ house in Crowsnest Pass. We did our present unwrapping earlier today, which afforded me yet another opportunity to see how weird anosmia can be sometimes.
Nate’s mom got a little package of Jelly Belly jellybeans. The package consisted of jellybeans in eight (I think?) different flavors. One of the flavors was “buttered popcorn,” so she tried that because it sounded weird.
And it apparently tasted freakishly like buttered popcorn.
Both Nate and his brother tried that flavor as well and confirmed a very distinct butter popcorn taste.
So I tried it, too.
It tasted like sugar.
I didn’t get any of that buttered popcorn flavor at all. In fact, all of the flavors (including coconut, blueberry, and green apple) tasted exactly the same to me: like sugar.
I don’t know what Jelly Belly uses to get their particular flavors, but it sure as hell ain’t something that a person’s taste buds alone can figure out.
Party time.
5,000 Miles Revisited
Sorry, but I want to talk about this some more.
I’m not proud of a lot of things I’ve done in my life. I’ve “accomplished” “things,” but none of them have really meant all that much, either to me or to others or to anyone.
But these 5,000 miles? I’m proud of it.
Listen. I am Captain Mediocrity when it comes to everything other than being 1) a stubborn bastard and 2) punishing my body because it’s a piece of trash. Walking 5,000 miles this year allowed me to combine both of these lovely talents.
While I will probably never see another year that was more ideal for achieving this goal than this one, there still were a lot of obstacles that tried their hardest to prevent said goal from being met. I had to stubbornly ignore or actively fight against these obstacles.
The main one was the weather. It was ridiculously cold at the beginning of this year (mainly in January and February). As in, “it’s dangerous to be outside for more than 10 minutes at a time” type of cold. There were a lot of painfully cold walks, one walk where I was sure I lost my toe inside my shoe due to frostbite, and a good number of days where I had to spend four hours on a treadmill to get my daily miles without dying in the cold.
Then the summer got ridiculously hot. “Ridiculously hot” for Calgary is like in the 80s, but when you’re walking 15 – 30 miles a day, that’s hot. I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go walking before the heat of the day set in and the sun hit its peak. 4:30 IN THE MORNING. THAT’S USUALLY WHEN I GO TO BED.
Not to mention the smoke from the wildfires. There were a decent number of days where I probably should not have been out walking for 4+ hours due to the air quality, but I did it anyway. Again: stubborn bastard + body punishment.
Another obstacle was time. A 15-mile walk takes me about 3.25 hours. A 30-mile walk takes me about 6.5 hours. That’s a big time commitment. I was able to do the 30-mile walks in July/early August when I wasn’t working, but the 15-mile walks were done year-round. And that time commitment doesn’t include “prep time” (getting dressed, taming my unruly monster of hair, putting on sunscreen or winter gear).
Seriously. Considering I walked 15 miles a day 6 days a week pretty consistently throughout the year, that’s a huge amount of my time spent on this goal. Even if you like doing something (and I love walking), reserving four hours for it every day is a big deal. It was like having 20-hour days most days in which to squeeze in everything else I had to do. Sleep was the thing that got sacrificed the most, I think.
A third obstacle? Physical limitations, I guess. During the first month of the near-daily 15-mile walks, my body was like OH GOD WHAT THE HELL, but then it got used to the extra work. It was fine for most of the year, too, but I noticed right around the beginning of November that it was really starting to affect me physically. I wasn’t tired per se, but I was getting pretty worn out. By that point, my body was like OKAY I GET IT YOU LIKE TO WALK CAN YOU PLEASE TONE IT DOWN NOW?
And then, of course, there was the injury. I’m not sure if this was actually caused by all the 30-mile walks in July/August or if it just happened to be one bad misstep that messed something up in there. Hell, I still don’t know exactly what I did to my leg because I hate going to the doctor, but I do know that it still hurts more than I was hoping it would this far out from the actual incident. My guess is that I tore a muscle. I’ve never had any sort of physical injury like this, so I have nothing against which to gauge its severity, but I can’t imagine a strain or a sprain or anything like that hurting as much and as long as this has. I just know it’s not my knee. And I am very grateful that it’s not my knee. But I didn’t let it stop me. I walked through a lot of pain right after I hurt it so that I wouldn’t get behind on my mileage. But I do want it to get better. I hate walking as slowly as I currently am and I really miss running. I suppose I could, you know, do the smart person thing and rest it once this year is over.
Anyway. Sorry. I don’t mean to brag or any of that kind of crap. I’m just glad I was able to make this goal. This goal has been the only thing that’s kept me going at some points in this year.
Christmas Music
Why hello there, fine human beings. It’s that Christmas-y time of year, I suppose, so let’s fill one of these worthless blog posts with a list. ‘Cause lists are fun.
Here are Christmas songs* ranked from favorite to least favorite, according to me (who else?). Some have comments. Some don’t. Deal with it.
So let’s rankity-rank-rank these bad boys.
Carol of the Bells
Carol of the Bells is fantastic. I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do. It was always my favorite song to play whenever we played Christmas music in band.
Jingle Bell Rock
This is such a chill, relaxing, Christmas-y song. I dig it.
Sleigh Ride
This is another one I like because of band. It’s such a fun song to play and is another quintessential Christmas song. Also brass.
Feliz Navidad
Yay, this song makes me happy. Upbeat, but also pretty chill. Unless you’re one of those people who screams the “I WANNA WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS” parts. Which we did in band, ‘cause you know, band geeks.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Silver Bells
Another band song!
Joy to the World
Christmas at Ground Zero
If the Weird Al Christmas song isn’t near the top of your list, what are you doing with your life?
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
My Favorite Things
I don’t quite know how this became a Christmas song, but it is, and I like it, so there ya go.
A Holly Jolly Christmas
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy
I heard this in a Superstore last year and thought it was super cute.
Jingle Bells
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Winter Wonderland
Deck the Halls
Up on the Housetop
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Christmas Don’t Be Late
I’m just going to put this here.
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
NOT AS CUTE AS SANTA LOOKED A LOT LIKE DADDY
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
This song reminds me of my dad, because it was on the Christmas CD he always played while we opened presents.
Blue Christmas
Christmas Elvis > Regular Elvis. Also, reminds me of this.
Frosty the Snowman
FRIENDS DIE AND LIFE SUCKS
O Holy Night
Bored
Silent Night
BORED
White Christmas
This gives me flashbacks to Christmas with my dad, where he would always force me to watch White Christmas. I’m so done with that movie, yo.
Little Drummer Boy
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
NO GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD FFFFFFFFFFFF
*This list is limited to the songs I can remember at this moment, so yeah, keep that in mind.
FIVE. THOUSAND. MILES.
I did it, yo.
I hit 5,000 miles walked for the year.
I did it.
This goal has been work. This goal has been all-consuming, especially in the second half of the year when I really got serious about it. This goal has been very physically demanding at times. This goal led to an injury that I’m still freaking dealing with even though it happened back in August.
But it’s all been worth it. Because now I can say I’ve accomplished my goal. 5,000 miles in a year. How many people can say they’ve walked 5,000 miles in a year? It took me 356 days to do it…that’s an average of a little over 14 miles a day. Every day. That’s a lot.
Sorry for going on about this so long, but I usually fail at everything I try to do, so accomplishing this one goal, even though it is kinda stupid, means a lot to me.
Let’s see how many more miles I can get by the end of the year.
IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN
TOMORROW I WILL HIT 5,000 MILES
(assuming I don’t, you know, die in my sleep tonight)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
OOPS, THERE GOES MY TOENAIL
Remember back in July when I posted that picture of my wonky toenail? A reminder:
Well, today it finally fell off. Kinda.
I was walking earlier and felt something in my sock. This is not unusual; I’m always adopting little rock friends in my socks as I walk.
But when I got home and took off my shoes and socks, HEY LOOK, A TOENAIL!
Sorta.
The black toenail from the above picture just kind of held on to my toe while another better toenail grew beneath it. The black part is what finally fell off in my sock. Still have the good part, though.
(It’s super soft)
(Sorry, this is super gross)
END!
Chrimmas
It’s getting to be the holiday season, yo! Which means I’ve got these two 5 Second Film films going through my head at random times:
“God bless you, San-ta.”
Edit: hahahaha, I’ve never seen this one until now:
Miniature Fireplace Stabs-A-Lot Jesus is the stuff of nightmares.
All I want for Christmas is my WALKING GOAL
GUYS
I HAVE FEWER THAN 50 MILES TO WALK TO REACH MY GOAL OF 5,000 MILES
ALKSDFJALDFAHGDFFDLF
Happy Fartmas
So I have no idea when I’ll get these blogs posted.
And I had no idea if anyone of you out there reading this wants to get me a Christmas present.
But if you do, may I ask that you donate to a cat shelter or cat sanctuary instead?
Thank you!
FAKEY FAKEY
I’m super late in doing this, but I finally remembered to make my fake UI class schedule for next semester.
Y’know, like I always do.
COMMENCE!
M/W/F
CS 470: Artificial Intelligence (9:30 – 10:20)
PHIL 325: Historical Figures in Philosophy (11:30 – 12:20)
STAT 516: Applied Regression Modeling (12:30 – 1:20)
W
ENGL 582: Techniques of Fiction (3:30 – 6:20)
T/H
PEB 106: Wall Climbing (9:30 – 10:45)
CS 479: Data Science (12:30 – 1:45)
GEOG 401: Climatology (2:00 – 3:15)
Will I ever stop doing this?
No. The answer is no.
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