Anticipation

It's just a workout, right? Nothing to be scared of. Twenty minutes of pain is no big deal. After all, if I can do this (multiple times) without falling on my face a few deadlifts and kettlebell presses are nothing. Right?

(Photo stolen from the fabulous and talented Randall Setzler.)

300

Finding 300 reasons that my doing the Spartan Challenge, which starts in just over a week, is absolutely insane would not be particularly difficult. Much less difficult than actually completing it. This thing terrifies me, specifically the benchmark workout. Last year's video. Feel free to pause that at 34 seconds in where it lists the workout. This, my friend, makes the I Am Crossfit workout look like a short stroll to the gelato shop.

BUT I am not focusing on this. I am not focusing on the fact that I still can't do a pullup, that I hate box jumps or that just watching those floor wipers makes we want to cry. Instead I'm focusing on the fact that while it will kick my ass it can only make me better. Stronger. And hey, look, a kettlebell portion! I can do that...hell, if I can keep running and rucking and tackling during the 79th minute of a rugby match, I can do all of this. Because I Am CrossFit.

Baby Calves

Okay, I promised Mrs. Juicebox a blog post, and a blog post she will get. A promise of this nature, especially one made while at a Dooce book signing, is not something one can default on.


These are baby calves, just a few weeks old, born on my family's farm. They frolic. They nurse. They huddle down in the grass to hide and when the flies are bothering them they flap their ears in the most floppy and adorable way possible. Baby calves do not indulge in self pity. Unlike me. Over the past weeks I've been indulging in more than my fair. Long, dramatic, ridiculous story short: I got dumped. The guy I was crazy about decided he didn't want to play anymore and knocked over the lego castle he'd built up under me.
Broken hearts happen. They happen to lots of people all the time. It sucks, but the world keeps moving, and it certainly doesn't make me special. But I did find that letting myself be not okay for a while helped and now I am better. Not 100% better, but still better. At my parent's this weekend I remembered that I am strong enough to be on my own. For a few weeks I forgot that. And while the rejection still stings and I still miss him, I know I don't need him. For now, that's pretty good.

Sometimes you come across some amazing things on the web. These collages on flickr are certainly one of them.

Lately my life hasn't been something I want to blog about. Even my own internal monolouge is starting to sound whiny to me. In brief, I'm still at the bar, still without any strong prospects in my field and really not liking either. Being used to being a high achiever this stage of my life seems particularly dim, though compared to many people's situations I'm on top of the world. So I try not to complain, though the effort is rarely particularly effective.

Serious rugby is over for the fall. We lost one cup match, I twisted my ankle, and won the second, in which I didn't get to play. Defensively we've come together as a team, though no one would deny that our pack is probably the lightest club side pack in the country. What size is an average women's prop in a D1 top 16 team, anyway? Guess I'll have to pay attention when Austin hosts the Women's Round of 16 in a week and a half.

teenage angst

Just got off working a double shift and don't have much in the way of a capacity for coherence at the moment. It may be the delirium induced by spending over ten hours in the bar today, but I ran across Mortified today and think that it's a great idea. Especially since they're starting a "chapter" here in Austin. Airing my teenage angst in public sounds fabulously therapeutic. I've been back over some of my journals that they're talking about and read some of the truly horrid poetry I wrote. The only word to truly describe them is hilarious. Hilarious in an excruciatingly uncomfortable way that makes me exceptionally happy to no longer be a teenager.

re:

"If there is anything I could tell prospective lawyers it would be, don't go right out of undergrad. Don't even take just one year off. Do something else for at least 3 or 4 years. If you still want to go back, then you probably want it bad enough not to resent it before you're through."

I'd say that applies in science as well. (Mrs. Juicebox is exceptionally good at articulating things that I also am dealing with or thinking. Particularly in response to certain Dooce posts.) If there is anything I regret it would be coming to graduate school straight out of undergrad. I wasn't ready. No one is at 21. So I find myself cutting my time at UT short and still wondering if that nagging little voice is right about mastering out of the program being failure. Not to mention the mass amount of uncertainty in a large swath of things going on or about to occur in my life. Truly, though, I can't complain; I wound up in Austin and this city has been good enough to provide me with amazing friends and a million opportunites I haven't even begun to explore. I just wish I could shake that negative little voice.

thesis count: 32 pages, 61 citations, experiments in progress

everything I know to do

Spent the weekend mostly trying to avoid completely freaking out about everything I need to do between now and May. It's like it all decided to drop out of the sky on me at once. Thursday night I left neuro class with the distinct feeling that I was in way over my head after a discussion about the physics of electrical current and resistance. Way over my head. So I started making solutions; I need to use my time and my resources more effectively. And make small goals for myself. If I look at the entire mountain I'll freeze in fear; focusing on the next rock makes it seem much more managable.

Friday as I was headed into the Gregory Gym to grab a smoothie between discussion sections I passed a sign advertising "swim like a fish." On an impulse I signed up for swimming lessons. I've been around the water most of my life and can get by just fine, but have never learned anything anywhere near resembling form. I figure I can learn to swim for fitness; having to focus on my breathing will be a big help for rugby and my aerobic abilities. Plus being in the water is just calming for me. So I had my first class today. There are about five other adults ranging in age from mid-college to mid-50s. Our instructor is probably twenty years old, started taking swimming lessons at the age of six, and has spent her entire life in the water on a regular basis. I feel like I'm missing out on something not having had that opportunity as a kid. The first class involved learning the basics of breathing and kicking. As I was focusing on not inhaling water it became pretty plain what the truly important things in life. I think I could really get into this.

thesis count: 29 pages, 54 citations