still sick

turns out i'm still sick.
eric brought me flowers earlier this week.
and then sat with me every day this week while we studied
to make sure i drank fluids.
he's swell.
i lost my voice on wednesday and still haven't
quite got it back yet. but i'm doing better.

i had my only final today.
i am now done with classes for
my phd.
i think the exam went well. hopefully i'll
find out soon.

i haven't run in a week.
its pretty amazing to watch your muscles
atrophy is so short a time period. boo.
now its time to really focus
on getting healthy.

happy rest of finals week all!
may health and brain power
be with you!

lack of motion blues

this is what my morning felt like.

it was supposed to snow here in austin this morning. i woke up to find that the heater had turned off and our house was cold. i went running (i would have done that even if the heater was on, but i digress). and actually, i am now sad that i didn't stay out longer. i'm acutely feeling the affects of not running much for the last week and a half. i get sad and start longing for fresh air regardless of how cold said air is. i know its weird but its as though something is missig from my life...because in fact it is missing from my life. i may just have to go running again this afternoon.

tonight is the stake christmas party, which means i get to listen to christmas music!

i hate being sick

so i finally went to the doctor yesterday and he said i had some sort of post-flu bronchial inflammation or something like that. i ran a few miles on monday morning and thought i was going to hack up a lung afterward, and i ran a few miles this morning...but otherwise, i haven't really done anything since thanksgiving day. and now its messing with my body.

i've always heard people say that when they start working out they feel like they eat all the time. well, i consider that normal. my appetite has died in the last week and its rather disorienting. that and i'm definitely starting to notice the lack of active meditation time in my life. it makes me grumpy.

on a brighter note, i have recently gotten more sleep in one night than i did in three nights earlier this semester. and my lungs and cough are starting to feel a bit better. ironically all of this combined with having had unstructured training this semester has made me itchy to race again. and its made me very itchy to be back on the trails.

on success

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

thanksgiving in sf

dad took the day before thanksgiving off to hang out with his kids. as eric and i were the only individual meeting the criteria at the house at that point, we took dad on a trip up mt. diablo.

at the top, eric and i got into a fight. it wasn't pretty.

but we made up.
then eric decided it would be fun to wear women's sunglasses. he let me borrow his visor in return.

thanksgiving morning we did a turkey trot of sorts. here's the crowd at the start. the competition was stiff. eric almost killed afterward, but he had agreed to "picking up the pace" so there's not much he could do. chris and julia won by quite a bit. dad did a pretty stellar job considering his minimalist training schedule heading into the race.

the family (and soon to be family) was all in sf for thanksgiving next year. my friend nicole and my parents' friend lisa also joined us. fortunately the noobs were a little slow on the uptake of the take-some-and-pass procedure around the table, but they caught on quickly. eventually everyone was stuffed and napping.

i started running a fever of over 100 degrees before we commenced eating. by friday morning it was up to 101 degrees. fortunately eric got sick too so we got to spend the day being sick together. my fever went down temporarily and we made it into berkeley to eat at my favorite restaurant (cafe gratitude) and meet up with anthony for a few minutes.

on the way home (sort of) we stopped to see the oakland temple. it was dark, so the picture isn't particularly breathtaking, but if you get a chance to see it in person at night or during the data, its beautiful.

we got back to austin saturday night. i still have a pretty nasty cough and i'm keeping my fingers crossed that its not bronchitis. illness aside, i had a pretty stellar weekend.

this week is the last week of classes. i'm focused on getting done with my class and getting healthy. i tried running today for the first time since thanksgiving day. unfortunately a cold front rolled in last night though, which meant my lungs were not having it. i hate being sick. it happens so infrequently that i'm not very good at dealing with it. bleh.

hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving!

passed!

i passed my qualifying exams last thursday. its been kind of surreal. i'm glad to have that hurdle out of the way though. i actually got 8 hours of sleep for the first time in a couple months on thursday night.

friday night, brooke, jason, eric and i went out to dinner and then wandered around south congress. brooke and jason showed us this neat little hotel that was nest in a neighborhood a block off of congress. we walked onto the grounds and there was an amazing calm there. experiences like this seem to abound in austin. there are all sorts of gems to explore around every corner. before we went home we stopped at the cupcake trailer (on s. congres), bought cupcakes and then sat and listened to bluegrass. it was a very enjoyable "austin" evening.

apparently people don't like running with me. they tend to come running with me once and say they're find...and then later i find out they call it a death run. well, two weekends ago eric came out running with me, called it a death run and then i just assumed that was the end of it. until friday night, he made a comment to the effect of 'after we go running tomorrow...' that just about blew me out of the water. so he came running with me again this past weekend, this time for a little longer. i've never had someone come running with me repeatedly like this. its fun.

later saturday afternoon, i got to experience ikea for the first time. its kind of neat how they lay out all the show rooms/kitchens/etc. i definitely recommend allowing a decent amount of time to take it all in though. the store is huge!

i have my last mid-term tomorrow. back to studying for me.

canoeing and the cathedral of junk

meet eric

dart, me and eric taking town lake by canoe

eric and i in the cathedral of junk

boys are good at making lots of noise

the cathedral of junk is multi-storied in more ways than one

the main entrance

saturday was a beautiful day for these adventures. its been crunch time in my world lately, hence the lack of posts. my proposal defense is on thursday. aaahhh!