Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Gym time today: 1 hour and change.

I just did Turbo Kick today, because my legs were still a bit sore from whatever else I did in the past few days, and I didn't want to push things too hard... But I ran a mile after class (8:00 pace, lvl 2 incline) to make myself feel better about only attending one out of the three I originally planned. >_>

Things that happened today:
-My dad bought a used laptop for me for school! There were some good deals on eBay, and the one we got was especially discounted because it has like, one stuck pixel, but I really don't care about that.
-I booked a flight for my mom and I to go to my school's general grad student welcome event thingy in a few weeks. We're going to go to that and then stick around for a few days to look at housing.
-I finished reading the book I got Fro for her birthday. It's just a short little thing, but I like to give books a test-read before giving them to people... This one seemed good enough, though, so now I have more of her gift set! I think I might get her a gift card or something as well, or maybe just write a nice note. I won't get to see her much once I move, so I'd like to let her know how much I appreciate her as a friend.
-I read maybe a third of The Course of Love by Alain de Botton. I can't decide whether I like or dislike this book. There are some parts I find rather disagreeable, but some parts are nice, if only because they're more succinct explanations of concepts I'd have trouble putting into words myself. I typed up some of the excerpts I thought were interesting to J, so here's one of them:

The world upsets, disappoints, frustrates, and hurts us in countless ways at every turn. It delays us, rejects our creative endeavors, overlooks us for promotions, rewards idiots, and smashes our ambitions on its bleak, relentless shoals. And almost invariably we can't complain about any of it. It's too difficult to tease out who may really be to blame-- and to dangerous to complain even when we know for certain (lest we be fired or laughed at).

There is only one person to whom we can expose our catalogue of grievances, one person who can be the recipient of all our accumulated rage at the injustices and imperfections of our lives. It is of course the height of absurdity to blame them. But this is to misunderstand the rules under which love operates. It is because we cannot scream at the forces who are really responsible that we get angry with those we are sure will best tolerate us for blaming them. We take it out on the very nicest, most sympathetic, most loyal people in the vicinity, the ones least likely to have harmed us, but the ones most likely to stick around while we pitilessly rant at them.

The accusations we make of our lovers make no particular sense. We would utter such unfair things to no one else on earth. But our wild charges are a peculiar proof of intimacy and trust, a symptom of love itself-- and in their own way a perverted manifestation of commitment. Whereas we can say something sensible and polite to any stranger, it is only in the presence of the lover we wholeheartedly believe in that can we we dare to be extravagantly and boundlessly unreasonable.

Kind of hurts, how true this can be. I try to complain very little to anybody outside my innermost circle, but with the people close to me, I do feel comfortable enough to just... let loose, I guess. Not that I have that much to complain about, usually... Mostly it's just lingering feels, not anything new. And I prefer to adopt a productive attitude about it, and use the complaint for reflection so that I can better understand how I handle things, at least when I can. Certainly there are times when I just want to vent, but I guess it doesn't happen as frequently as it used to. I find it more helpful when I have someone to use as a sounding board, so that I can sort of think aloud and make some kind of progress in my thoughts without getting actual advice. Someone to challenge me and ask me questions without being overly judgemental or critical...

I was in an affectionate mood today, although I didn't really do anything about it. Thoughts in that vein were going through my head a lot while I was running, though. They were nice, in a way, but I felt weird about having them, since I'm generally not super affectionate...

Here's a video Jasper showed me. It's sort of depressing, but it's interesting.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Gym time today: 1 hour.

I went to Bootcamp today, but I was pretty sleepy the whole time. I'm not sure I cared for the instructor... she was that sort of sassy, loud, "YEAH LOOK HOW CRAZY STRONG WE ARE" kind of person and it was a little obnoxious. Too much cheesy feel-good stuff for me. It felt... overly motivational, if that's even a thing.

Had my second to last therapy appointment today as well. I guess we'll wrap things up next week. I'm not totally sure what the last session will be like. Also not sure what the grand takeaway from all this is. My therapist seems to want me to loosen my grip on my emotions, but I don't feel like it's overly tight.

Seems like my skin has been mostly okay for a few days. Acne's not too bad... I've been trying to wash my face twice a day, or once a day at least. Maybe I just need to get back into the habits I had in high school... Wash my face twice a day, use a mask once a week, change my pillow case every couple days... It seems like so much effort now, compared to how it felt then. >_>

Have been listening to a lot of classical music tonight. Right now I'm listening to "Serenade" by Franz Schubert. It reminds me of playing Dink Smallwood when I was a kid.

My dad would get Dink Smallwood games for my brother and I to play, and we had a lot of fun with them. I think he might have downloaded them at work and burned them to CDs, because we only had dial-up at home... It's making me nostalgic, and I kind of want to play the original game again. I'm off work tomorrow, so maybe I'll do that... or maybe I'll bike around the neighborhood... or read a book... I dunno. In all likelihood I'll probably just sleep in and then muddle around on the computer and go to the gym for three hours. >_>

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Gym time today: 40 minutes...?

I think I walked ~2 miles today pushing the baby to the library in the stroller, but I went to the gym to run on the treadmill later. Ran 1.5 miles (8:27 minute mile pace, lvl 1.5 incline), walked 1 mile (3mph, incline between 3 and 10), and ran another 0.5 miles (8:00 minute mile pace, lvl 1.5 incline), then walked for... I dunno, like another quarter of a mile, until the calorie counter said I'd burned 300. Running seems to go by faster when I listen to certain songs, so maybe that's the trick...

Babysitting today was longer than I expected, because I forgot I agreed to babysit for six hours instead of the normal 3.5. It was fine, though, and I had fun with the baby. We were very silly today, and laughed a lot. I tried to record a little video of some of it, for muh memories, but apparently that made everything I did 50% less funny to the baby.

Hrmmm, I guess not too much else happened today. Oh, an envelope I put out to be mailed FINALLY got picked up by the mailman. My dad said he thinks we have a new guy who's kind of clueless, because I put the envelope out LAST WEEK and it didn't get picked up until today... Hopefully this new dude has figured things out. -__-

I think I'm having allergy issues right now. I've been sniffling and sneezing since I finished running. I don't know what I might be reacting to, though... or why it would only act up after running. :S I took a Zyrtec though, so I'm really hoping that will help. Gonna be very hard to sleep otherwise.

This song was free on Google Play and I've been listening to it a bit. The chorus sounds... sort of generic I guess, but I like the rest. The music video is silly.

"A Love Song" by Ladyhawke.

It all began innocent as love can be
In every word, you gave it all to me
'Cause this is what a love song sounds like

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

Gym time today: 3 hours.

Mat Pilates, Cycle Fusion, and CSI today. Made it through all three okay, but was getting pretty hungry towards the end. Working out bumped my mood up noticeably. I wonder if I got the weekend blahs from not going to the gym... -__-

I made nutloaf again today. So good. @[email protected] Took me the whole two hours between my hospice visit earlier today and the time I went to the gym, though. I'm not sure which part of it is so time-consuming. Maybe skinning the almonds? You're supposed to blanch them to make skinning easier, but some of mine were a bit stubborn and I had to put more hot water on them before their skins would loosen. I also had to make a second pot of rice, because I was making two batches and forgot I'd need extra rice. >_>

Cooking was nice, though. I put on my music, and my parents were off doing their own thing, so I got to hop around the kitchen to "Night Fever" by the Bee Gees, among other songs...


I've been enjoying cooking more, lately. I also finally sewed some buttons onto my jackets last night, and took a walk outside. On my walk, I saw a torn flyer advertising an unnamed personal trainer who described themselves as the "BEST TRAINER ALIVE." I imagined this anonymous person killing other personal trainers in some kind of Highlander-esque ascension to the top. I haven't actually seen that movie, but my imagination did its best. On the rest of my walk I thought about high school and how I felt back then. I also thought about how I was wandering around in the dark by myself, and how I probably wouldn't have a very good chance of defending myself if someone jumped out of the bushes and accosted me. Luckily that didn't happen.

On Saturday I had writing group in the morning, though I couldn't stay long because of the talk I was going to afterwards. I read one of the little pieces I'd written for the "write every day" prompt though. It was received well. I was so sleep deprived that I could barely understand the words well enough to read them out, though. I'm surprised I stumbled through it as coherently as I did.

It's crazy to think my trip south is next weekend... I still need to get some plans down with people I want to visit... Some of them are sort of hard to get a hold of, so that's been an obstacle to scheduling stuff. I keep alternating between feeling excited and feeling nervous. >_>

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

"A bright day annoys the depressive. He, who has no abundance in himself, cannot see the beauty surrounding him. In our emotions, we experience the varying tensions between the actuality of the moment and the potentialities of our existence."

"In depressive delusion, history is experienced in its absolute irrevocability, the past as unpardonable guilt, the future as inevitable catastrophe, and the present as irreparable ruin."

Excerpts from Phenomenological Psychology by Erwin Walter Straus, I believe. My computer broke, so I'm using the old computer in the front room. It has a lot of my old documents and files on it, and the articles from my Humanistic Psychology class in 2011 are here, so I was looking through them. I wish I could read the full book, but it's $99 on Amazon...

Yesterday I went to a talk given by Drs. Paul and Eve Ekman about emotional awareness. None of it was really new to me, but I went with my friends, and I appreciated being able to spend time with them. We went to a really cool park afterwards, which I would post pictures of if my computer weren't broken. Becka and Joel talked a bit about some things they want to do when they start their family soon. They're so lucky to be in a position where they can do that... Fro and Mike talked a bit about having kids too, but they don't know if they'd be able to afford more than one. We discussed the pros and cons of having only children, and what our own sibling experiences had been like. My brother and I have some... problems... but it was nice to have a playmate as a child.

I tried to fix my sleep schedule last night, but I don't think it worked. I was still tired during the day even though I went to bed at around midnight and got up around 9.

Now I feel sort of strange-- quiet, contemplative, solemn. Listening to "Someone Great" by LCD Soundsystem and thinking about the past.

I wish that we could talk about it
But there, that's the problem
With someone new I couldn't start it
Too late for beginnings
---
The worst is all the lovely weather
I'm stunned, it's not raining
The coffee isn't even bitter
Because, what's the difference?

Sometimes when something happens to you, it seems almost unbelievable that everything else goes on as normal. The shifting of your personal world goes unacknowledged, and it forces you to face that uncomfortable fact it's so convenient to forget from day to day-- that outside of a small circle, you really don't matter, and life will move on without you if you don't keep up. I've never found any particular resolution in regards to this thought-- just accepted it and resolved to push forward so I don't fall behind. There is a sort of Romantic allure to breaking down and giving up, but I know no good would come of it. Outside of fiction, people who don't move on with their lives are just sort of sad and lonely and unfortunate to behold.

I don't feel on the edge of a breakdown or anything, just as a disclaimer. I guess I'm just thinking about this because of the song.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

Gym time today: 1 hour.

I signed up for Insanity today, but ended up sleeping in instead of going. Sooo when I did go to the gym, I just had to do my own thing. My gym was having some kind of mixer event today, so they gave me a goodie bag when I checked in. That was neat. I ran a mile (lvl 1.5 incline, 8:20 minute pace), walked a mile while holding 3 lb weights (did a little bicep/tricep stuff), and then ran 0.8 miles (lvl 2 incline, 8:20 minute pace). I proooooobably could have run a full second mile, but I wasn't feeling motivated anymore because the song I really liked ended. >.> After that, I did a tiny bit of stuff on the weight machines. I also stopped to look at some papers on the counter when I was on my way out, and a lady at the desk offered me a free facial since nobody had taken the time slot and they were doing free demos! That was pretty cool. She put a bunch of products on my face and rubbed them in and then washed them off and talked to me about what they were all doing. I remember almost none of it now, but my face felt very nice afterwards.

Started this entry like seven hours ago, and now I can't remember if I was going to write anything else. Whoops. I'll just end it here.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Gym time today: 2 hours.

I went to Mat Pilates and Turbo Kick today. I haven't done Turbo Kick in a month... it was so much fun, though. I think the first fifteen minutes of it were some of the most enjoyable parts of my day. Maybe I just like bouncing around in a room with loud, fast-paced music, haha.

"Loser Like Me" by Sixpence None the Richer.


The lyrics in this video are not totally accurate, but I think it's pretty self-evident what they actually are from listening.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!