Why I cycle

There are a lot of good reasons for cycling as much as possible. 

• You're saving the Earth by not creating carbon emissions through the use of a car.
• You're saving money by not buying petrol ($100/year to service your bike is far less than typical annual fuel costs).
• You're saving your health through regular exercise (after my first week of cycling, my resting heart rate went from between 85 and 90bpm to between 68 and 73bpm; that's a huge difference for just a week of riding every other day).
• You're saving money on a gym membership, because the time you would normally spend at the gym is being spent on exercise anyway.

These are all definite reasons for me to cycle, not to mention that finding a type of exercise which I enjoy and can do on a regular basis is particularly important for me because of my ADHD. I'm told that exercise is very good for it, and I noticed this before I even suspected that I had it. When I was at the gym four days per week, I was in a far better state than when I wasn't exercising. I'm basically like a puppy, in that if I don't get my daily walk I start to tear up the furinture. And your shoes.

But these reasons, while compelling in and of themselves, are not the main reason I cycle. Quite simply, I cycle because it feels good. I get a fully sensational experience - I get to see, hear, feel, and smell the world around me in ways I can't possibly get at the gym, or even on a slow walk. I enjoy the stiffness in my muscles the day after a particularly hard ride; it's a reminder that I'm doing something worth-while and that my body is responding to it.

When you think about it, enjoyment is really the only thing that works when it comes to changing your habits and doing more exercise. If you don't like what you're doing, you won't enjoy it and none of these "reasons" are going to be reason enough. So if you want to get healthier, rather than kicking yourself for avoiding the gym or the running and feeling bad about making excuses, try something else. No matter how good the exercise you're trying to make yourself do looks on paper, if you don't actually like it, you'll never get anywhere. Whereas if the whole point of it is to enjoy it while you're doing it, it'll feel less like hard work and all those benefits will be the cherry on top.

Of course, if you can't find any exercise you enjoy doing, then you'll just have to pick the one you hate least and bear it for all eternity.

Childhood influences

I've been reading Disney Princess Recovery, which is an excellent blog about dealing with media influences on children. Lately, it's had me thinking about my own Disney movie experiences, and why I didn't fall under the Princess spell as a child.

So, I wrote a list of my favourite Disney movies from when I was a kid. Here they are, in alphanumeric order:

• 101 Dalmations (original)
• Alice in Wonderland
• Basil: The Great Mouse Detective
• Dumbo
• The Fox and the Hound
• The Jungle Book
• Lady and the Tramp
• Peter Pan
• Pinocchio
• Robin Hood
• The Sword in the Stone

As you can see, none of my favourite movies had anything to do with princesses. Some of them involved romances and all but one had a male lead, but they were pretty much all just adventure flicks where the romance wasn't the central part of the story. The fact that I didn't really understand the difference between boys and girls would have helped, because while I knew that I fell into the category of "girl", which apparently had to do with what you carried in your trousers and determined whether you were allowed to wear skirts, I didn't really have any real concept of gender (I still don't feel particularly gendered to this day, to be perfectly honest, but I might write more on that later). So I had no problem with relating to the male leads in those movies.

I did see the Princess movies and I enjoyed them. I even played mermaid games, though in those I was the Mermaid Princess with magic powers who commanded a ninja-like army of mermen, whose tails I could conjure and turn into legs at will to improve their swimming or fighting abilities. I think this is where my imagination was influenced by Heman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Star Wars and other such things. I was also brought up on healthy doses of Greek Mythology, which helped in terms of imagining myself with Godlike powers and the kind of conniving that only ancient gods are capable of.

Basically, I was a tomboy. I had girl friends, but didn't play with them much. I tried to join in a game with barbies once, and was told off for holding the doll the wrong way. I thought the other girls were really stupid for being fussy about something so trivial, so I went back to the sandpit to throw sand at boys again. I was that kind of kid. And it's not like I didn't own Barbie dolls - I did. I just didn't understand why you had to hold them in a specific way to play with them.

I guess my parents were lucky in that regard - I just didn't care about what a girl "should" or "shouldn't" do. Then again, I had no attention span so it would have been difficult for me to care about anything other than HEY LOOK A SQUIRREL!

Logic ahead!

Premise 1: I get really irritated by stupididty.
Premise 2: I like to write about things that irritate me
Premise 3: The common cold is unbelievably stupid and irritating.
Conclusion: I'm going to write about the common cold!

I've got my first one for the year, and it's stupid. Allow me to list off the things that irritate me the most:

Having a blocked nose: If you can't breathe througy your nose, you can't do a lot of things properly. You can't speak properly, sleep properly, you can't eat properly. It's pretty bad. I'd say it's the worst part of being sick. Thank goodness for pseudoephedrine and the fact that it's available again!

Body aches: Pretty bad, but at least you can breathe and eat. I tend to get these with fever. It sucks, but resonds well to paracetamol and ibuprofen.

Nasal drips: Eeeeeeergh. Not fun to be woken up by. I'm just glad I don't have a post-nasal drip; that would be worse, and it can cause the next one.

Cough: Thankfully, I don't have this yet.

I guess the main irritations are the ones that keep you performing normal bodily things, and the main ones that get affected when you have a cold are sleeping and eating. I guess that's why I hate being sick and what I hate about it: Difficulty performing the basics.

I'm just glad this is a mild one, because I can mostly breathe and do most things without too much trouble. I'm just hoping it'll be completely over by tomorrow morning so that I can cycle in to work :-)

Why I don't read as much as I used to

I used to read a lot of books.  As I posted earlier, I get extremely vivid images when I read. Unfortunately, it means I become totally immersed in what I am reading and lose all track of time. Basically, I go into what's called hyperfocus. It's not something that one usually thinks of when considering various aspects of ADHD, but it's a very real one.

It's not a voluntary state to be in but it can be extremely useful. It's how I got through exams and tests as a student, and why I wouldn't have needed any special consideration even if I had been diagnosed earlier.

There are some problems with it, though. For one, I'm unaware of anything going on around me. I hope I won't be the kind of person who doesn't notice that their house is on fire, but there's no guarantee.

The problem with it not being entirely voluntary is that I can't always get at it when I want to. Like right now. I've spent about 20mins on this post, but I keep getting distracted by everything going on around me so I've totally forgotten where I was going with it. Again.

Weekend away

So, as the title suggests, I went away for the weekend! I went to a town called Grantville, which is near Philip Island. There were boardgames, there was fun, and there are photos!

The ceiling rose in my room

Jellies in the sea!

This little guy lives on a property down the street from where we stayed. Cutest lawnmower ever!!

The celing rose in one of the living areas was coming off the ceiling. Those brown bits are the glue.

This was in the downstairs loo. I thought it was gorgeous :-)

The view from the downstairs porch

The drink that my friend made for me. After I'd had most of it :-p