Differing definitions

I used to do a martial art, and part of that was a strength and conditioning (S&C) class. This class was a lot of fun, but it was hard-core. If you hadn't been doing it for a while, the warm-up alone was enough to nearly kill you. The rest of the class was designed to work the muscles in your body until you could barely walk, and if you didn't take showers with alternating hot and cold water that night you would not be able to make it down a flight of stairs the next day (going downward is most definitely more painful than going upward!).

I also have SVT, which means that my heart will happily beat at over 200bpm, just because it feels like it.

As a result of a few years of doing S&C on a weekly basis and having a wacky heart condition, I see "light", "moderate" and "hard" exercise differently to how most people seem to. Allow me to define the standard terms in my own words:

Light exersise (moderate walking pace; moderate cycling pace on flat ground): You aren't actually doing any work. You can hold a conversation, so you may as well be sitting all the couch and channel-surfing for all the good it's doing you.

Moderate exercise: Ok, your heart rate's up a little. You've now graduated to walking from the couch to the fridge as far as actual benefit goes.

Hard exercise: Finally, you got off your lazy arse and did something. It's a start.

You see, when I was at the gym my idea of actually doing work on the treadmill was the treadmill's idea of "STOP NOW YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE YOURSELF A HEART ATTACK!!!". My idea of a "working" heart rate is 170bpm or more, when apparently for my age it should be at around 155bpm.

Also thanks to S&C, I don't see exercise-induced muscular pain as any real kind of problem. For me, sore muscles are really just part of every-day live. You complain a little, but ultimately you just get on with things.

This means that I'm probably fitter than I think I am, but also that I'm harder on myself than I probably should be! None the less, I think I'll get back on my bicycle.

Happy commercialisation of love and discrimination against singles day!

I appear to have mixed views on Valentine's day. On the one hand, I hate how crazy people go over it. On the other hand, I love the idea of doing something special for someone you care for (regardless of their relationship to you).

So, I don't do anything big for it, but I do something, and I do it that week. The most I've ever done on V day was go out for coffee in the morning, though I would have done more had I not been restricted by other factors.

In any case, whether you're single or paired or other, enjoy the sentiment by telling someone you care that you do, whether they are a friend, lover, blood relation, or a person who has made your day easier in some way at some point.

Just don't get caught up in the hype - fist fights in florist shops are just unseemly.

Me: 1. Me: 0

So much of my life and keeping it functional is about beating myself at my own game. I have had to figure out how my own psychology works, and then how to get around it. Sometimes, I do this simply by appealing to my own vindictive nature. Other times, I have to just be aware of what sort of things are likely to get in my way (and this I learn from past experience).

I wrote recently about how having a new bike that's fully kitted out for any situation is all part of my plan for not having any excuses to take any transport other than a bike. Well, this is a big part of it. I figured out (from experience)  the sorts of excuses I'm likely to give when it comes to what sort of transport I take, and I worked around them.

A few years ago, I desperately needed to lose weight (I managed to gain about 20kg), so I joined the gym at school. Fortunately, I also had a car. So, I had no excuse NOT to go to the gym, as I could take my gym bag by car (dragging it along by bus would have put me off) and the gym was right there on campus so I had no reason at all not to go, as long as I had an hour free, which I did on most days.

The simple fact is that I am completely and utterly paranoid. I have absolutely no sense of how long things take, so the time I'm using up just getting to places is unbelievably important. I'm also forgetful and paranoid about being forgetful, so taking PT for an hour to get to work is out of the question, because what if I realise part-way that I'd left something at home?? No, just no.

The world isn't out to get me, I'm out to get myself. And I'm also out to thwart myself. And thwart the thwarting. Because I won't stand for any thwarting going on in MY head. I think my brain just exploded.

In any case: I'm self-aware, I'm paranoid, and I am also sneaky enough to be able to figure out ways around a lot of those neurose and get it to work most of the time!

Sleep habits

I do envy the way other people seem to be able to fall asleep. I tend to just lie there for ages, trying to find something to focus on that won't make me so tense that I'm lying there awake for hours.

I guess that's meditation. I sort of have to latch on to an idea and just follow it, and I'll eventually drift off. Unfortunately, in order to work, it needs to be a neutral idea; not something that will get me hyped up or angry or feel any strong emotion. It just needs to be something fairly bland that I can follow a long, like a trail into the land of sleep.

It's an absolute pain in the arse, especially when the person (or people) you're sharing a room with have clearly dozed of half a dozen times while you're still trying to get your brain to JUST SLOW DOWN. It's especially obvious if you're sharing a bed, because people tend to twitch in weird ways and click their jaws and do all sorts of things as they're drifting off. And then they snore.

If you haven't managed to fall asleep before the snoring starts, you're doomed. You can just hope that they'll enter the next phase of their sleep cycle soon and stop with the jack-hammer. Meanwhile, you just have to try not to focus on the angry train of thought about how they're asleep while you're not and how DARE THEY snore and interrupt your careful and strategic search for the PERFECT SLEEP MANTRA.

Why not think about the same thing each night, I hear you say? Because it's boring, that's why. No, seriously. It's like watching the same episode of the same TV show every single night before you go to sleep. Eventually, you'll want to ram your head through the damned screen. Except in this instance, your head is the TV, and that leads to really mind-boggling levels of recursion...

So, sleep is difficult to find. I need to go to bed at a reasonably similar hour every night and I need to meditate before I can get anywhere in that department. And then there are all the little things to deal with, like having all my limbs evenly covered, warm enough, not too warm, sheets not crinkled, etc etc ad nauseum.

No wonder I'm tired so much of the time :-/

Photos!

I've been wanting to publish more photography, so here are some photos I took on the last weekend of my holidays:

A pier at St Kilda Beach

Walkies!

Keeping Cool

People after my own heart :-)