Day 81, Whoops

So I made a mistake about the whole timeline of this project--it seems that things changed through the course of this thing and instead of the project ending on August 15th like I originally thought and mentioned before it will instead be ending on “Day 90”. So that would mean that, as of writing this, there are only nine more days in the project for Corry, David, and me.

Things are winding down, it seems, but things don’t seem to feel like they’re ending, oddly enough. I’m sure that’s because we still do have nine days left and in some ways that’s still quite a long time; many things can happen, and will happen I’m sure, and there’s still a lot of work to be done, so many things to explore and discover, so much more jumproping to do.

I’m hoping that within the next nine days that I’ll be able to partake in my final Indulgence Day and describe my reaction to those always interesting experiences. Perhaps there will be one last exploration of a new and unique (for me, at least) foodstuff for all of you. I’ve really enjoyed doing those and I’d like to continue trying exotic new things because variety is the spice of life and if your life isn’t spicy then there isn’t bound to be much fun to it, now is there?

Any ideas from all of you faithful readers as to what I should subject myself to in these last few weeks? Something crazily awesome, I hope, because going out with a bang is always the best way to go (I mean, really, who would want to go out with a whimper?).

Yesterday was Saturday and judo was fine for all that it was. It certainly was painful at some points but those instances were broken up by my getting to help teach some of the other younger students instead of being the guinea pig. I’ve never really taught anybody during the judo classes before so that was an entirely new and weird experience. I did my best to teach them correctly but I didn’t have the years of experience it like I do with karate at hand so it ended up being me there trying my best to explain the intricacies of one of the more basic throws, all the while my mouth was moving faster than my head (what an odd sensation that is, let me tell you). It’s also very complicated trying to teach someone how to throw a person when you’re the person being thrown. That takes multitasking to a whole other level.

So judo was fine, karate, on the other hand, wasn’t as cool. Funny that it takes getting punched in the ear twice, almost losing all ability to hear out of both ears, and turning my left wrist into a red, yellow, and green mess of a bruise to make me realize that there has got to be a sport or exercise driven activity that would be better for me physically, and mentally at that. Kung fu was giving me that satisfaction for a while but the money I was spending on tuition and the sixty mile trip to the school and back was becoming not worth it. That was hard to realize since I really enjoyed taking kung fu and I wish there was a school closer to my house but what are you going to do?

Perhaps I’ll take up yoga again. Or something else...knitting?

Day 76, Oh ho ho!

Well it seems that I forgot to mention on Sunday’s post some pain that I incurred on Saturday’s judo class. This came from the squats that we were made to do at the beginning of the class. Of course, these weren’t just any ordinary squats, either, but crazy, who-thought-of-that? kind of squats.

The squats we had to do were the kind where you and a partner stand back to back and hook your arms through the other persons so that you’re locked up next to each other. From there one person leans forward in their wide and, hopefully, stable stance until the other person is off of the ground, in the air, dangling from the other persons back. From that position the person still on the ground proceeds to squat down as low as they can without falling to their knees or onto their face and then stands back up again.

Fifty of these we had to do.

Now, why didn’t I mention this on Sundays post? Well, honestly, I didn’t notice any discomfort in my legs on Sunday. In fact, besides the whole slamming my knee into the ground pain I was riding on, my legs were feeling pretty okay. Okay, that is, until yesterday morning when I got back into my exercise routine.

The jumprope came first and if I wasn’t determined to get back into the swing of things I would have said, screw it, and laid back on the couch where my legs could rest and recover further. Like I planned earlier I only did about half of my normal jumprope workout routine but, man, was that enough to make me feel like my legs were turning to jelly and dying. It was almost funny and I found myself giggling whenever a sharp pain shot through my legs because it felt better than crying through the pain.

Work turned out to be an adventure as well. Working at a karate school demands a lot of standing and moving around as well as all of the physical activity that goes into teaching all of those kids. Physical activity including a lot of leg work. Luckily yesterday was light and I was able to take it easy on the kicks so there wasn’t much need to complain a whole lot yesterday.

Lesson learned: come late to judo so that I’ll conveniently miss the squats portion of the class because it doesn’t seem to be worth it. No sir, not at all.

Day 74, Add one more notch to the injury list

Gah, it just keeps growing longer and longer, doesn’t it?

Yesterday was Saturday, you all know what that means, right? That is right, folks, yesterday was judo day, or the day when I get to injure myself and then complain about it to all of you the next day. Which is today! Count yourselves as some of the lucky ones, most people never get to hear this. (Well anyone within earshot usually does hear about it but they generally don’t really care enough to have it register).

Yesterdays class was a mighty interesting one--it started off as it normally does with all of the basic falls and rolls and then progressed onto a very fast-paced bout of something that I cannot recall the name of, something very Japanese, I’m sure. It was during this exercise that the first and worse of my few injuries took place. During one of these quick throws I had the misfortune to land first, with nearly all of my weight, on my left knee followed by the rest of my body. Now the whole goal of falling in the judo sense is to distribute the force impact on the ground over your entire body, whether it be landing on your side, your back, or your front you want to land flat and, oddly enough, slap the ground hard. Well, that didn’t happen in this case, on this particular throw (and by the head instructor, too, some kind of sadist, he has to be) which happened to be a hip throw where I was picked up and thrown over this persons hip, something went screwy with it all and I ended up driving my knee into the mat before the rest of my body.

To illustrate the throw, here’s a picture of something like it being done


Here’s another one


In this case I would have been the guy in blue, the one falling very rapidly and from a great height, to the floor.

So there was that. My knee has swollen up a bit and walking is painful but it shouldn’t last too long. I’m still young, right?

The other annoying injury is my neck which was full nelsoned into a tight bundle of dull neck pain. For those of you who don’t know this is what it looked like:



This was, again, done by the overenthusiastic head instructor and, man, was this one annoying. I could literally feel it pulling the muscles in my neck at the very same time as it was cutting off the flow of air into my throat. Let me tell you all this, if you ever have the chance to be suffocated while the back of your neck is stretched like taffy then, please, pass on it. It is so not fun.

Well, that was my yesterday. Here’s to hoping that todays exercises go well considering everything that’s been beaten up. Have a nice day and here’s to looking forward to next Saturday when I’m sure I’ll be going through a lot of this same exact stuff again.

:-)

Day 60, One month left!

Whoo-hoo, peoples!

And I never would have thought that I would make it to this point in the project--honestly I thought that after a month or so of it then I would have called it quits because of how hard it was--but no! here I am and there Corry and David are rocking this thing, saying that it will not defeat us, that we will prevail, we will charge ahead and become something better than ourselves. And we are, and we will.

Hmm, certainly not Mel Gibson in Braveheart but that’ll do nicely I think. Whatever it takes to give me that extra boost of energy and confidence for today and the next days of the week and month.

So I’ve been continuing on my downward slump of a mood here with all of this food business and I’ve yet to really pinpoint what exactly the cause of this funk is. At first I thought it was the tedium of my daily breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that was putting me in this mood and I still think that that may be a part of the problem--I’ve been finding myself missing some of the pre-project foods every now and then (and at weird, inexplicable time, too). There’s quite a lot you can do with vegetables and a little bit of elbow grease (or olive oil...olive oil tastes better than elbow grease) and I’m certainly willing to try anything once, especially when it’s the recipes Corry’s been giving me...yum, but those strong cravings for the boxed items in the freezer section can sneak up on ya and make you think bad things.

Curse them all, I’ll say now. CURSE THEM! ...Would it be too pessimistic or cynical to make that my mantra?

But now, ah a light up ahead, I think that I’m coming out of it with the realization (now? It’s only coming now) that all of this downtrodden gloominess about all of the food is all totally mental and that I don’t have to give in to those feelings of blahness about the food. Those pesky feelings do not control me, I control them, right? Right. Said and done, period.

So it’s going to be the start of a new week. Who here is excited? I know I am, and not just because the sharp, breath-catching pain I get whenever I walk is gone. Blame that one on the judo class. Whoever thought that being thrown over someone’s hip and back and landing on, oh, a half inch of very old padding would be painful? And why do I keep going to the class if I’m complaining about it every week? Maybe it’s the impact of the falls scrambling my brains inside my head and making me think every week that it’ll be different. That could be it, or, and I think that this is the reason, I do enjoy it despite all of its agonizing pain, and if that makes me a masochist then so be it.

Also, it’ll mean that we’re one step closer to August 15th. Now I’m not necessarily counting down the days until the end of the project, I’m trying to enjoy the journey here, but I’m planning a lot of changes in my life by that day, one of them being (and I’m most excited about this one) finding a new job, because I am so overdo for that that it’s not even funny. Celebrate with me.

I wonder what wonders will be in store for all of us this coming week. Let’s go and find out.