if you're into the great out-of-doors and you are into gear and you haven't yet experienced steepandcheap, you'll need to check it out stat. i keep an eye on it from time to time (it gets kind of addicting, consider yourself warned), and yesterday, to my great delight, one of the featured items was a women's climbing harness. i got a new Black Diamond harness for $23+ s&h. and its orchid!
moving on...whatever that stomach bug i got two weeks ago was, it came back on sunday. jim and i went out for a run and had breakfast afterward. i got home, took a shower and started feeling nauseous. not too long later all the other fun stomach issues came along and then the fever set in (a measily 100.7oF). as i tend to be the kid that never gets sick and this is the second time this has happened recently (on top of the stomach issues at boston, which namely involved not being able to eat), i decided to go see a doctor. dr. dale, who is going on my list of best doctors ever for his preference to treat conservatively and not immediately try to stick a needle in me, told me to wait a couple more days and see what happens. while i think this would make a lot of people mad (what? no medicine?!), it made me quite happy (yes! no medicine!).
in the meantime, my mom suggested i lay off the fiber until my stomach settled down. the only problem with this advice is that i've been a vegetarian for going on ~12.5 years now. i eat a lot of fiber. so i stood in the kitchen this morning, thinking 'ah, i can have this for breakfast! no, too much fiber...well, then i'll have this for breakfast! no, still too much fiber' and so on. it was sad. eventually i just gave up...there was a huge bag of ripe mangoes in the fridge. resistance at that point was futile (but delicious!).
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
hold your own. know your name. go your own way.
and everything will be fine.
the title and line above are lyrics to a song i have been listening to a bunch lately. i heard it for the first time sitting out in hopkinton in the athlete's village before the start of the marathon on monday. at first i just liked the rhythm of the music--very mellow, very calming. ironically, once i started listening to the words i realized that i should listen to the advice.
i was going through my books last night figuring out what to take to half-price books and trade in, and i came across my journal from last year. reading through the entries from last summer, i found myself kind of amazed at what i had written. i wouldn't consider myself wise, but at least from the vantage point at which i currently sit, there was wisdom in my assessment of various situations at the time (it wasn't intentional). and i think that those insights apply to the present as well.
the title and line above are lyrics to a song i have been listening to a bunch lately. i heard it for the first time sitting out in hopkinton in the athlete's village before the start of the marathon on monday. at first i just liked the rhythm of the music--very mellow, very calming. ironically, once i started listening to the words i realized that i should listen to the advice.
i was going through my books last night figuring out what to take to half-price books and trade in, and i came across my journal from last year. reading through the entries from last summer, i found myself kind of amazed at what i had written. i wouldn't consider myself wise, but at least from the vantage point at which i currently sit, there was wisdom in my assessment of various situations at the time (it wasn't intentional). and i think that those insights apply to the present as well.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
boston 2009
construction of the finish line for the marathonwell, my trip to boston is coming to a close. it has been awesome. i have had a lot on my mind recently, and it was nice to get away for a little bit and have quiet to process everything.
i humbly retract the blog i posted recently about not looking back on last summer fondly. the comment was made in relation to something specific that happened recently in my life, which gave me pause. the conversations i've had in the last week or two helped me to see last summer was exactly what i expected and for that i am grateful. i didn't know specifically what would happen. i just knew that my life would be flipped upside down and that i would be challenged in whatever way i needed to be challenged. and that i was. its taken 8 months but i feel like i have a much better perspective on things and can now look back on the whole experience with a clear head. i continue to learn so much from my experiences and am eager to embrace changes in my life.
my housemate gokce has never been to boston and before i left, she told me to take lots of pictures. i said sure. then i arrived in boston and though, that's like telling someone to go home and take pictures of the city where she grew up. what do i take pictures of? what gives boston part of its magic for me is my history here. i have a lot of good memories and why i like going to this or that place has more to do with good times i have had there rather than the physical place itself.
when i come to boston, i tend to walk everywhere. i love walking. here are some of the things i've seen in the last few days:
swan boats in the public gardens
2009 boston marathon expo
harvard squareregardless, i did a lot of walking around boston and, always the lover of books, stopped in several bookstores to browse. at one store, i happened upon a used copy of planetwalker by john francis, the man i posted the ted video about somewhat recently. i've been reading it every chance i have gotten since. it is truly inspiring to me. i also tend to browse the travel writing sections and i picked up a copy of bill bryon's a walk in the woods and another book about a man who walked around the perimeter of ireland in one month with a fridge after making a drunken bet to a buddy one night. this common theme of books was not intentional. i was browsing for interesting things and after purchasing them i realized that everything talked about walking long distances and the experiences one has a long the way. before i found the second two books, i also saw this quote at the marathon expo:
it seemed quite fitting so i took a picture.i came to boston to run the marathon. i finished in 3:32 and change. the time was less than one minute off my pr for this course. it ended up being a beautiful day to run though a bit chilly towards the end. i think i went out a little two fast, but my splits were pretty even so i was happy about that. i felt better the last 4 or 5 miles than i have ever felt during that stretch of this course. i ususally don't have trouble taking in water and calories, but before i was half way through the race, my stomach shut down. i didn't want to eat or drink at all. i made myself do it, but it was rough.
after the race, i met up with michael, sarah, nick and kelly. we grabbed tea at barnes & noble so we could all warm up, and then we walked from kenmore to central to grab food and a drink at the asgard. i mentioned my stomach shutting down during the race, but i also didn't feel okay to eat for a few hours afterwards. i wanted the tea, but other than water, i didn't have anything to eat until we got to the asgard. as an aside, maybe it was something in the water because i saw a lot more people puking after this race than i have ever seen before. it was weird. don't worry, i wasn't that bad off.
ironically through all of this, my legs actually felt better post marathon of that pace than they ever have. my legs weren't tender when walking afterwards at all really and i felt like i could run some more. i'm sore this morning, but it doesn't seem too bad...i also haven't tried to walk down stairs yet though.
thank you for all your good luck wishes! it was a good race.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
stuffing
yesterday morning one of the women on the my ultra running group mailing list was bored at work and started a thread asking people to share what they had stuffed in their sports bras during races. this may sound silly, but sports bra hold lots of things other than boobs during long runs (more on that in a minute).
meanwhile one of my housemates sent a bunch of us a link to a website of an artist who did drawings which reminded her of the work of one of our housemates. we were writing back and forth about what we thought about the artist's work. there was an article in the new york times magazine last sunday about a website that links up "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies." i won't comment on what i think about the website, but the article was fascinating. then someone responds to the thread with something completely unrelated to the topic at hand and says she's scared to go into the kitchen to cook dinner because another housemate of ours might be there.
so for the rest of the afternoon, the emails i received went from "people are slamming things in my face" and "pot makes people aggressive" to "this one time, i stuck beef jerky in my bra ..." and (once the guys got involved) "i once stuck a water bottle in my spandex as i was headed into an aid station and had all the volunteers laughing hysterically." it was a pretty enjoyable afternoon of email reading for sure.
last night i also got to talk to todd on the phone for the first time in a few months. todd is my counterpart from texas 4000. he led the sierra route last summer while i led the rockies route. he graduated in december and has been globetrotting ever since. we've kept up with each other pretty well via instant messenger but it was nice to actually get to talk for a little bit since he was back in dallas for 48 hours. i'm looking forward to seeing him in a couple months for the ATLAS ride and hopefully sooner for general shenanigans in austin!
i decided to move out of my co-op for a couple months this summer. some friends have a place in hyde park (north of campus) and need someone for only june and july. my house manager said it was cool with her as long as i promised to come back (to the co-op) in august. i don't know yet if the opportunity to stay for next school year will come up anyways, so i'll deal with that when the time comes. it will be weird to not be living with at least 20 other people. yep, that's right, i've been around 20 other people constantly for the last two years and it has been fabulous. with some of the recent stuff going on in my house, which doesn't involve me, but let's be honest, its now effecting everyone, i've been wondering if it is time to move out. i haven't come to any firm conclusions though because there are a lot of great things about my house that i think i'd miss if i moved, but you adapt. anyway, the friends who i'll be moving in with this summer actually also did texas 4000 last summer, but they were all on the sierra route.
i head to boston tomorrow morning. i'm super excited. i keep getting asked what my predicted time is and like always, i've said i want to just run sub-3:40 to qualify again for next year. but when i was talking to todd last night i realized, i've been training my rearend off the last few months. my taper has been going well and i weigh ~15 lbs less now than i did last year when i ran my pr for the boston course. so really, who knows what will happen. i'll go run my heart out like i always do and we'll see how the numbers work out.
and don't worry. i'll take pictures and boston so you'll have something to look at soon...
meanwhile one of my housemates sent a bunch of us a link to a website of an artist who did drawings which reminded her of the work of one of our housemates. we were writing back and forth about what we thought about the artist's work. there was an article in the new york times magazine last sunday about a website that links up "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies." i won't comment on what i think about the website, but the article was fascinating. then someone responds to the thread with something completely unrelated to the topic at hand and says she's scared to go into the kitchen to cook dinner because another housemate of ours might be there.
so for the rest of the afternoon, the emails i received went from "people are slamming things in my face" and "pot makes people aggressive" to "this one time, i stuck beef jerky in my bra ..." and (once the guys got involved) "i once stuck a water bottle in my spandex as i was headed into an aid station and had all the volunteers laughing hysterically." it was a pretty enjoyable afternoon of email reading for sure.
last night i also got to talk to todd on the phone for the first time in a few months. todd is my counterpart from texas 4000. he led the sierra route last summer while i led the rockies route. he graduated in december and has been globetrotting ever since. we've kept up with each other pretty well via instant messenger but it was nice to actually get to talk for a little bit since he was back in dallas for 48 hours. i'm looking forward to seeing him in a couple months for the ATLAS ride and hopefully sooner for general shenanigans in austin!
i decided to move out of my co-op for a couple months this summer. some friends have a place in hyde park (north of campus) and need someone for only june and july. my house manager said it was cool with her as long as i promised to come back (to the co-op) in august. i don't know yet if the opportunity to stay for next school year will come up anyways, so i'll deal with that when the time comes. it will be weird to not be living with at least 20 other people. yep, that's right, i've been around 20 other people constantly for the last two years and it has been fabulous. with some of the recent stuff going on in my house, which doesn't involve me, but let's be honest, its now effecting everyone, i've been wondering if it is time to move out. i haven't come to any firm conclusions though because there are a lot of great things about my house that i think i'd miss if i moved, but you adapt. anyway, the friends who i'll be moving in with this summer actually also did texas 4000 last summer, but they were all on the sierra route.
i head to boston tomorrow morning. i'm super excited. i keep getting asked what my predicted time is and like always, i've said i want to just run sub-3:40 to qualify again for next year. but when i was talking to todd last night i realized, i've been training my rearend off the last few months. my taper has been going well and i weigh ~15 lbs less now than i did last year when i ran my pr for the boston course. so really, who knows what will happen. i'll go run my heart out like i always do and we'll see how the numbers work out.
and don't worry. i'll take pictures and boston so you'll have something to look at soon...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
ready, aim...
after two weeks of reading as much as i could find on stability of walking and running the scientific literature, i finally sent my dissertation aims proposal off to my advisor earlier this evening. so much work for a two page, singled spaced document, a quarter of which was references! if you are confused as to what i'm talking about, hopefully this will help. the goal of a phd is to be an independent researcher by the time you're done. in order to do that to prove that you are "worthy" of being an independent researcher, you have to successfully ask a few relevant questions about your field and then answer them. in general, you'll ask 3-5 questions, and each question will become a chapter in your dissertation. you can also think of these questions as "aims"--things you are trying to show/determine. so most of the hard work lies in figuring out what questions you want to ask. that's what i had to figure out by today.
the ol' gray matter is a little tired now, but its good. my advisor also told me he wanted my paper out by the end of may. i just got the last of the first round of comments back today, so i'll be spending the next week and a half working on draft 2.
on a different note, i met a friend of a friend last wednesday who asked me what running an ultra marathon was like. i told him it was like slow trail running meets hiking. from a recent article on ultra marathons, i think this guy did a good job describing what they're like mentally (at least consistent with my experiences):
Compared with the emotions involved in running a traditional marathon, Thomas Wong says, in which one feels a predictable cycle of pain and elation over the course of a few hours, a zen-like "nothing" overtakes his mind during an ultra. "Hope," he says, is the only "driving force."
lately during my runs, i've been meditating on the serenity prayer. it begins:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
i get frustrated with people or things sometimes, and my response (that i'm not proud of) is often to stop reaching out and making an effort to fix problems or connect with those people. its almost like i give up and start to accept that whatever it is will not change. i think i do this sometimes though at points when what i need more is the courage to try harder not the serenity to accept. a conversation i had earlier today, made me realize (or maybe reminded me) that there are things i cannot change when it comes to human relationships. a relationship can only change if both people try and if both people want it to.
i think i'm ready for the "predictable cycle of pain and elation" on monday. in fact, i'm craving it. this marathon (boston) has never been about running a pr for me. every year it is about celebrating recovery and being happy, healthy and whole again. though it falls on the same weekend every year, the timing for this year's race in my life is ironically appropriate.
the ol' gray matter is a little tired now, but its good. my advisor also told me he wanted my paper out by the end of may. i just got the last of the first round of comments back today, so i'll be spending the next week and a half working on draft 2.
on a different note, i met a friend of a friend last wednesday who asked me what running an ultra marathon was like. i told him it was like slow trail running meets hiking. from a recent article on ultra marathons, i think this guy did a good job describing what they're like mentally (at least consistent with my experiences):
Compared with the emotions involved in running a traditional marathon, Thomas Wong says, in which one feels a predictable cycle of pain and elation over the course of a few hours, a zen-like "nothing" overtakes his mind during an ultra. "Hope," he says, is the only "driving force."
lately during my runs, i've been meditating on the serenity prayer. it begins:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
i get frustrated with people or things sometimes, and my response (that i'm not proud of) is often to stop reaching out and making an effort to fix problems or connect with those people. its almost like i give up and start to accept that whatever it is will not change. i think i do this sometimes though at points when what i need more is the courage to try harder not the serenity to accept. a conversation i had earlier today, made me realize (or maybe reminded me) that there are things i cannot change when it comes to human relationships. a relationship can only change if both people try and if both people want it to.
i think i'm ready for the "predictable cycle of pain and elation" on monday. in fact, i'm craving it. this marathon (boston) has never been about running a pr for me. every year it is about celebrating recovery and being happy, healthy and whole again. though it falls on the same weekend every year, the timing for this year's race in my life is ironically appropriate.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
hogs hunt
one of the things that texas has going for it currently is interesting easters. this is my second easter in texas. last year, i got up way too early and went for a long bike ride with mike (bf at the time), michelle (my labmate and training buddy) and michael (michelle's husband). afterward the four of us went out to lunch. later that day, mike and i had about 14 people over for dinner at his house. i think that day made it into my top 5 list of really great days. nothing particularly strange or life-changing happened, it was just a really fun day.
today will likely not even make the top 10, but its still been an interesting day. after the 32-hour sleep fest to start my weekend, i found it rather difficult to sleep last night. i spent most of saturday awake and reading, but wasn't into walking around much after that initial run. i was still having trouble eating too, so i just felt kind of weak. well, i woke up to a rather loud rain storm in the wee hours of this morning. by 6:20a, i'd had more than enough of laying in bed unable to sleep, so i just got up. i went to the 7:30a easter service at st. austin's. i think the homily was written just for me.
i got home from church to find one of my other housemates awake (that rarely happens in the early weekend hours), and we decided to go get breakfast. halfway to the restaurant we ran into our another housemate on her way home and she turned around and joined us on our easter breakfasting quest.
the rest of the day has been spent finishing 'running through the wall,' a book of short (true) stories by ultramarathoners about...ultramarathons. the day has turned out to be absolutely gorgeous, so most of that reading was done happily sprawled on a beach towel in the front yard. which brings me to future races...i'm signed up for the hogs hunt 50k in huntsville, tx on may 16th. it'll be my second 50k and 3rd ultra. i'm looking forward to it.
so i guess if today is a day for new beginnings (its easter), i'm eager to see what today's combination of activities means. in the mean time, its back to reading as much as i can about stability in walking and running because the aims for my dissertation are due in a couple days!
happy easter everyone!
today will likely not even make the top 10, but its still been an interesting day. after the 32-hour sleep fest to start my weekend, i found it rather difficult to sleep last night. i spent most of saturday awake and reading, but wasn't into walking around much after that initial run. i was still having trouble eating too, so i just felt kind of weak. well, i woke up to a rather loud rain storm in the wee hours of this morning. by 6:20a, i'd had more than enough of laying in bed unable to sleep, so i just got up. i went to the 7:30a easter service at st. austin's. i think the homily was written just for me.
i got home from church to find one of my other housemates awake (that rarely happens in the early weekend hours), and we decided to go get breakfast. halfway to the restaurant we ran into our another housemate on her way home and she turned around and joined us on our easter breakfasting quest.
the rest of the day has been spent finishing 'running through the wall,' a book of short (true) stories by ultramarathoners about...ultramarathons. the day has turned out to be absolutely gorgeous, so most of that reading was done happily sprawled on a beach towel in the front yard. which brings me to future races...i'm signed up for the hogs hunt 50k in huntsville, tx on may 16th. it'll be my second 50k and 3rd ultra. i'm looking forward to it.
so i guess if today is a day for new beginnings (its easter), i'm eager to see what today's combination of activities means. in the mean time, its back to reading as much as i can about stability in walking and running because the aims for my dissertation are due in a couple days!
happy easter everyone!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
i'm alive!
this is no small feat. thursday night emily, hilda and i went down to barton springs for the full moon party (also known as night swimming). i was in bed by 11p but woke up a number of times that night feeling a tad nauseous. by 6a, the nausea was full blown and the diarrhea had started. then came the swings in body temperature and by noon, my muscles hurt so badly i just couldn't lay in any comfortable position. yesterday was spent mostly sleeping though i would occasionally wake up to use the loo and get myself some water. in total, i spent 32 hours in bed. i'm pretty impressed with that statistic.
i went for a run this morning (having not eaten anything in about 35 hours) and felt fine though a little weak. while i was cooking myself breakfast afterward i had to sit down while i was cutting stuff, but logic would suggest that i was probably weak from having not eaten in so long. i'm feeling better now that i have something in my stomach, but i think today is also going to be spent napping and sitting around not doing much of anything. there was lots of stuff to do this weekend, but honestly, i'm quite content to just be hanging out. i think i needed it after the craziness of the last month.
i went for a run this morning (having not eaten anything in about 35 hours) and felt fine though a little weak. while i was cooking myself breakfast afterward i had to sit down while i was cutting stuff, but logic would suggest that i was probably weak from having not eaten in so long. i'm feeling better now that i have something in my stomach, but i think today is also going to be spent napping and sitting around not doing much of anything. there was lots of stuff to do this weekend, but honestly, i'm quite content to just be hanging out. i think i needed it after the craziness of the last month.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
optimism
if you don't like hearing about the bike ride last summer, i suggest you not read this post.
i've recently arrived at the conclusion that optimism is a funny thing. i was pretty upset. no, that's a lie. i was very upset by the end of last summer, and people told me to give it a few months and that i would start to look back on it fondly. i was optimistic that that would happen. well, its been 9 months, and i can assure you that i look back on it with even less fondness than i used to. i ran into someone the other day for the first time since the summer and 48 hours later cried myself to sleep...again. i'm not going to lie, this sort of reaction to seeing people i spent so much time with upsets me. for the record, yes, the more time you put into something, the more you can get out of it. the part people seem to leave out of that though is that the more time you put into something, the more you can also be hurt by it. i'm still optimistic that after a few years have gone by i may look back on the whole experience in at least a slightly more positive light.
in the meantime though, i will continue to appreciate that the big guy upstairs has a sense of humor even if it takes me awhile to get the jokes.
i've recently arrived at the conclusion that optimism is a funny thing. i was pretty upset. no, that's a lie. i was very upset by the end of last summer, and people told me to give it a few months and that i would start to look back on it fondly. i was optimistic that that would happen. well, its been 9 months, and i can assure you that i look back on it with even less fondness than i used to. i ran into someone the other day for the first time since the summer and 48 hours later cried myself to sleep...again. i'm not going to lie, this sort of reaction to seeing people i spent so much time with upsets me. for the record, yes, the more time you put into something, the more you can get out of it. the part people seem to leave out of that though is that the more time you put into something, the more you can also be hurt by it. i'm still optimistic that after a few years have gone by i may look back on the whole experience in at least a slightly more positive light.
in the meantime though, i will continue to appreciate that the big guy upstairs has a sense of humor even if it takes me awhile to get the jokes.
Monday, April 6, 2009
itzhak perlman
dewi, hilda and i (left to right) at the concertthe itzhak perlman concert last night was fantastic! the music was great and itzhak is hilarious. i knew a lot of people who were going and we were wondering if we'd see each other because when you get student tickets, you can only buy two tickets per id. somehow we got lucky and four of us ended up all in a row with another couple people we knew seated a few seats down. and then i ran into everyone else during intermission. not that running into people made the music better, but it was fun.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
busy bee
poor form for not writing in over a week! its been kind of crazy. on monday in lab meeting my advisor looks and me and says he wants a write up of the aims of my disseration in two weeks...oh, and by the way, that's ~80% of the work for your dissertation proposal. me: great! thanks for the advanced warning!
on tuesday, my labmate deanna successfully defended her dissertation (above). i had a couple leis shipped from hawaii for the occasion. they conveniently matched not only deanna's outfit, but the rest of the lab's as well...somehow we'd all ended up wearing some shade of purple that day.
to celebrate afterward we went to flying saucer (above) for trivia night. my team tied for first but lost the final question. that's okay though because we still won a $35 gift certificate to go back this week!
on wednesday, i went to the first day of texas relays (sorry, i forgot my camera on this one) because the distance events were being run. in the women's 5k, there was less than a 1 SECOND difference between the first and second place finishers. i have never seen a 5k come down to the last second like that it was phenomena. then, the men's race had an exciting finish two with the first two guys finishing within seconds of each other. as i'm trying to incorporate some running gait into my dissertation, i figured watching these races was good preliminary data collection...or something like that. after the races, i joined some of my housemates at emily (another housemate)'s dance performance Poof! In Movement! at gregory gym (below, yes, that is a raquetball court).
on thursday, i finished the draft of the manuscript i had been working on and sent it off to my co-authors. yeah! i am hoping this gets turned around pretty fast, so we get it in press asap.
on friday i went to a beer tasting sponsored by dogfish head brewery with jim and kenan. the founder of the brewery was there and described each of the beers and how they came up with the ideas, names, art, ingredients, etc. grapevine market did cheese pairings for each of the tasting flights as well. the friends i was with home brew, which is apparently huge in austin, so when the guy from dogfish wasn't up there, i had my own personal question answerers. i learned a lot about how different types of beers are brewed and why. i decided that midas touch was my favorite of the evening.
saturday, i went out for my long run...13 miles. yes, that's right. it's taper time! woohoo! my legs felt like crap though and i was exhausted. i took a nap when i got home and felt a little better after that. then i joined, gokce, hilda and jesper for a classical guitar concert and some general hanging out and chatting about life.
today's palm sunday. since mass this morning, i've been getting through more reading for the ol' dissertation proposal, and tonight, i'm going to see itzhak perlman at bass concert hall with some roommates and friends from my department. its gorgeous outside, but at least i get to have my windows open and enjoy the breeze!
on tuesday, my labmate deanna successfully defended her dissertation (above). i had a couple leis shipped from hawaii for the occasion. they conveniently matched not only deanna's outfit, but the rest of the lab's as well...somehow we'd all ended up wearing some shade of purple that day.
to celebrate afterward we went to flying saucer (above) for trivia night. my team tied for first but lost the final question. that's okay though because we still won a $35 gift certificate to go back this week!on wednesday, i went to the first day of texas relays (sorry, i forgot my camera on this one) because the distance events were being run. in the women's 5k, there was less than a 1 SECOND difference between the first and second place finishers. i have never seen a 5k come down to the last second like that it was phenomena. then, the men's race had an exciting finish two with the first two guys finishing within seconds of each other. as i'm trying to incorporate some running gait into my dissertation, i figured watching these races was good preliminary data collection...or something like that. after the races, i joined some of my housemates at emily (another housemate)'s dance performance Poof! In Movement! at gregory gym (below, yes, that is a raquetball court).
on thursday, i finished the draft of the manuscript i had been working on and sent it off to my co-authors. yeah! i am hoping this gets turned around pretty fast, so we get it in press asap. 
on friday i went to a beer tasting sponsored by dogfish head brewery with jim and kenan. the founder of the brewery was there and described each of the beers and how they came up with the ideas, names, art, ingredients, etc. grapevine market did cheese pairings for each of the tasting flights as well. the friends i was with home brew, which is apparently huge in austin, so when the guy from dogfish wasn't up there, i had my own personal question answerers. i learned a lot about how different types of beers are brewed and why. i decided that midas touch was my favorite of the evening.saturday, i went out for my long run...13 miles. yes, that's right. it's taper time! woohoo! my legs felt like crap though and i was exhausted. i took a nap when i got home and felt a little better after that. then i joined, gokce, hilda and jesper for a classical guitar concert and some general hanging out and chatting about life.
today's palm sunday. since mass this morning, i've been getting through more reading for the ol' dissertation proposal, and tonight, i'm going to see itzhak perlman at bass concert hall with some roommates and friends from my department. its gorgeous outside, but at least i get to have my windows open and enjoy the breeze!
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