during my last race, i tripped and aggravated my IT band by proceeding to run 43 more miles. it took several weeks for it to feel normal again, but in the mean time my other IT band got aggravated. i haven't properly rehab-ed the other side though and this has come back to haunt me as lately its been very tight. i have cut back on the running and decided that i would also try only cycling in my small chain ring so that i'm not straining it too much by non-running activities. riding only in the small chain ring slowed my daily 7.5 mile commute to campus down a little bit this morning. that said, i arrived at work less annoyed at people in cars than normal. i liked that. i think i may stick with this slowing down thing.
though it is not necessarily reflected on my blog, i have been writing a lot the last couple weeks. i finished first drafts for the last two chapters of my dissertation and this week i'm working on edits to another one. when i send my advisor my revised draft tomorrow, i will commence editing the introduction to my dissertation. i'm actually enjoying writing at the moment because i'm getting to sit back and think more thoroughly about the meaning of my results. i feel fortunate that my job doesn't entail doing exactly the same thing everyday. at any given time i am somewhere in the brainstorm-propose-experiment-analyze-writepapertobepublished process, but fortunately, i'm constantly repeating this process with new data and new questions. this works out well because when i get sick of coding, its time to write. when i get sick of writing, its time to read, and when i get sick of that, its time to find subjects and interact with people again! (ironically, following this chain, when i get sick of people, i code again...hm) at this point, i'm thinking that my defense will end up being in april...which means my dissertation will leave my hands and head to my committee in just over a month. its a good thing i'm enjoying writing because there's a lot to do!
on a completely different note, i just finished reading two interesting books. one was called 'harvest for hope' by jane goodall. part of the reason i find her fascinating is because i've been to gombe stream national park in tananzia where she did all her chimpanzee research. to me, it was a magical place. her book reflects on the state of food production in the world, with a lot of references to what is currently happening in the united states. while she tries to remain hopeful, much of the book has a rather bleak outlook (warranted or not), unfortunately. she definitely supports the case for eating local organic food. if you've never read anything in this area (none of michael pollan's books, for example), you might find this interesting.
the other book i finished was 'how to live well without a car' by chris balish. in many ways i hope to be able to live without a car at some point and rely on walking and biking to get places. the book did cause me to reflect, but not necessarily in the way i would have thought. the author makes suggestions about moving to within a certain distance of work, for example, so that you can get to work without your car and about how you can grocery shop on a bike. i had never really thought of issues like this in the way he expressed them; i had simply gone out and done them because they fit with my lifestyle. so it was interesting to have someone else point out other reasons for adopting habits i already had and to have a few more suggestions of things to try that are already along the lines of my appreciation for walking and biking everywhere. if nothing else, i suppose the book has inspired me to enjoy my 7.5 mile commute to campus even when its cold because at least i am in touch with nature and not stuck in traffic on the freeway!
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