26.2 days until boston

it is that time of year again...i just bought my plane tickets to boston for marathon weekend. i'll be there 4/17-4/21 so if you'll be in town, let me know. i'm not taking classes this semester so i shouldn't have to hole myself up in some coffee shop again to do work.

training for the race is going pretty well, but i definitely think i'll be ready to taper soon. my weekly mileage was over 70 miles last week. my legs are really tired but the pace isn't suffering too much. i'm back to my weekly yoga classes and i can feel that i haven't been practicing for a couple weeks. my balance feels a little off in some of the poses, which is kind of interesting.

i was pondering last night how my housemates never cease to amaze me (in a good way). there's a lot i've been trying to process in my head for the past week and last night my housemate emily patiently listened as i sorted things out out loud. talk therapy is good.

i can see!

its been about 7 days, but i can see now. i'm not exactly sure what happened, but i wasn't able to put my contacts in for the last week. my mom thought it might be a corneal abrasion, but i went to the doctor and was told that it wasn't. that doctor then sent me to another doctor who told me that i didn't have a corneal abrasion, that my contacts fit very well and that that they (my contacts) looked like they were in great condition. he gave me antibiotic eyedrops and said to take them with my contacts in for a couple days and if that didn't work to go to the contact people and ask them to polish my lenses.

well, i got impatient and brought my contacts to the contact people today (day 2) because i was getting sick of not being able to see (for some reason the left lense of my glasses has a prescription much lower than it should) and my contacts probably needed a polish anyway. i'm glad i was impatient because now i can see and my contact doesn't feel like its scratching anymore. the colors! the definition! the world is so beautiful!

pictures of thoughts

a bunch of years ago, i read an article that said if you have a lot on your mind you should make a collage and then look at it. apparently based on what's going on in your head, you'll be attracted to words, colors, quotes, images that have themes, and you can tell what is going to happen in your life. i read this sometime around freshman year in college and for a good six years or so afterward made collages...and i'm not talking about a collage on a piece of construction paper. mine covered large portions of walls in my room.

about four years ago, i took pictures of the last collage and then took it down. i haven't made one (large or small) since. there has been a lot running through my mind the last month or so though, and there is a blank wall in my room where i don't want to hang pictures (in the framed sense)...so i have been thinking that it might be time for another very large collage in my life. maybe it will help to get some of the ideas out of my head and into images and phrases.

tea tasting

my talk went well on friday...except for the bit when they put up the wrong slides so i gave my talk based on an old version of the slides (which i had not practiced with). fortunately, people told me afterward i gave a good talk after the awkward pause i took initially when i realized the slides were wrong. i was glad that i had practiced the talk so many times that i could give it regardless of what was appearing on the screen!

yesterday was my last day in colorado, alberto, deanna (my labmate) and i headed to boulder and did some tea tasting at the celestial seasonings headquarters. it was delicious. afterward we got in touch with our inner lunch ladies and donned hairnets to go on a tour of the processing plant. the mint room was pretty awesome and cleared your sinuses instantly.we grabbed lunch after our tour at bimbamboo (17th and pearl, boulder) on rory's recommendation. the food was great. if you're in the area, check it out. as an aside, i've now been told by two different boulderites (one who's known me for years, the other i met at the conference) in the last two weeks or so that i should move to boulder. i'm thinking its a sign. postdoc?

i arrived back in austin tired and happy last night. jason and i went and got pie to celebrate the last hour or so of pi day and i have spent today thoroughly enjoying the first day of spring break. happy belated pi day to all!

more colorado

colorado is still cold...but otherwise sunny and generally fantastic. yesterday morning we went to a restaurant called toast for breakfast. julia was trying to hide from the camera in the picture below because she wanted everyone to focus on how cool her french toast was.


after breakfast, we took finn (chris and julia's dog) for a run in washington park. it was gorgeous outside.



today, i went skiing at a-basin with alberto, one of my friends from the ride to alaska who also happens to do motion analysis related work. he's going to be at the conference with me this week. this is me at the top of montezuma bowl.


we got stuck on the lift for awhile, and ended up taking pictures to kill time. everyone cheered when we eventually started again.


this is alberto and i at the end of the day. it was a gorgeous day to ski!

it is all fun and games until...

the tube to your camelback freezes. brrrrr.

i'm in denver now, and chris (the little bro) and i spent today skiing at copper mountain.


i think we need to work on our action photography when our fingers are frozen though because most of our action shots ended up looking like this:

yep, that's chris. despite our lack of ability to properly document (or feel our fingers), spending time with my brother made me feel like a kid again.

music

i've got a link for you today, instead of a photo. my morning yoga instructor always plans some sort of instrumental music quietly in the background during class. today she had on a group called helios to which i took quite a liking.

i mentioned that i'm reading the art of happiness. well, one of the things they talk about earlier in the book is how you can view things as positive or negative (as opposed to sinful, for example). if things are positive they lead you to a greater state of happiness, and if they are negative, they take you away from that state. i went to bed around 10:30 last night, fully aware that i would be missing a party (in my house) but also knowing that i would be getting up before 5a to start my day. after hearing about some of what happened last night (i think my house is out-of-control this semester, and i don't think i'm the only one who thinks that), i realized something. sometimes i make decisions using some sort of logical reasoning not having anything to do with happiness, but rather with practicality (if i stayed up until 2a, i may or may not be comepletely exhausted when i got up at 4:45a). later (sometimes much later), however, i realize that the decisions, which at the time seemed neither positive or negative, were in fact positive ones.

photos

my housemate jakub and i at trudy's

this whole resolution to put more pictures in my blog is making me not write as frequently. it has been a pretty exciting last week. rory came to town and i was able to spend some time with him and his friend jim. saturday was a work day for my coop and after a very chilly 20-mile morning run, i had the good fortune to be outside working in the garden for the rest of the day. saturday night my housemates and i did the usual post-work day trip to trudy's, a local restuarant and bar with yummy mexican food.

my housemate leo and i enjoyed the queso at trudy's

sunday was the austin kite festival. it is just like it sounds. the city closes the streets through zilker park and thousands of people go fly kites. it was gorgeous afternoon but there wasn't as much wind as was needed to fly a heavier kite. after many attempts, we gave up and decided to just watch all the other kites. unfortunately i don't have pictures of this because although i brought my camera, it turned out the battery wasn't charged. don't worry, i remedied that problem last night, so now i don't have any excuses.

i recently started reading the art of happiness by the dalai lama. i'm learning a lot from it, but i also feel like i'm reading someone explaining my life (or maybe the way i deal with life). its fascinating. and it makes sense. i'll try to give a full report and/or impression when i finish.

leo (my housemate seen in one of the above pictures) is from brazil and he's heading home tomorrow, so there will be much celebrating and merrymaking tonight (to celebrate his time here, not to celebrate him leaving).