No way!

So I didn’t do any exercise between Saturday and yesterday, and felt all icky as a result. To be fair I just haven’t had time – with all the stress lately I’ve been battling to focus and get my work done.

To add to that it seems that people realised that I was leaving soon and we’ve had a steady stream of people in the lab. I would be annoyed but they were all people I wanted to see. And as much as several hours discussing the biological and psychological implications of studying the paranormal/supernatural was probably a giant waste of time, I’m pretty sure that in some small way my life was enriched as a result! I guess it all falls into enjoying the university experience as a whole, rather than being too focussed.

Anyway back on topic, last night after dinner I decided to go off to the gym. It was awesome! I should stop going more often! Basically I cycled and almost died (it seems I can run OR cycle, but developing both sets of muscle just doesn’t happen) and then I figured I’d do a short run, just to give the other muscles a reminder as to their existence. I have also been having really nasty dreams (and insomnia) lately so I figured exhaustion could help my situation somewhat (It didn’t really as I wound up dreaming that I had to put on makeup in an abattoir before going goth clubbing in fieldwork clothes…).

So I ran a little bit and thought ‘hey! this is supposed to be a sprint, why is it so easy?'’ so I ran a little bit faster. And faster. and faster. I was tired, but I kept doing things like wondering if I could do one  more minute, or run at a steeper incline, or actually max out the treadmill speed-wise (almost! I think it maxes out at 15km/h and I was going at 14.2 but that involved sprinting and gasping and stitches after a very little while). and before I’d noticed it I had finished the 20 minute thing and I was all hyped up to run further.

So I did. Admittedly, I was listening to Trivium which is so energetic I had to keep going, but before I knew it I had run about 30 % further than normal!

I think that’s what I love the most about the whole gym thing. Those random moments when you realise that those scary things aren’t so bad after all! Like doing a shoulder-balancey thing in Pilates, or cycling an extra 10 km, or actually doing a pull-up (I almost did one the other day! the friendly body-builders were very supportive!).

And now I must go and pack the big scary 4x4 and get it home before tai chi!

Oh, and this is officially my favourite music video ever (right now!) the song is awesome too!

Tales of doom (or it it Boom?)

vs


(Yes, more LOLcats. So sue me.)

I'm kind of fluttering between attitudes at the moment. On the one hand I am in severe pain - after the two hour-long torture session yesterday morning, followed by an hour of tai chi (with extra stretching - ouch!) last night (it was AWESOME! They let me play with a sword and I only hit myself in the head with it once!) I was pretty much unable to move this morning.

Of course I had a 9am session with the trainer of doom (from now I will call him TOD) so I managed to sort of fall out of bed (I'm ok as long as I don't bend my knees, so getting up from sitting, or sitting from standing hurts. A lot. Walking up stairs is slow but ok, downstairs not ok at all...), eat breakfast (not wanting to risk a repeat of yesterday's lunch-inhale), play with my dogs (slowly) and get myself there.

I met the TOD who was WAY too chirpy and I told him that I was in pain and it was all his fault. He laughed, lead me to a treadmill and blamed the tai chi. And then he made me run.

Here I must mention something. I have "one of those faces." you know, the face that says "I care! I love to listen. Tell me all your troubles oh random stranger and I will listen and sympathise and agree with everything you say." And generally I like the way that I meet very interesting people through their tendency to meet me and spill out their troubles. Of course trying to pass my drivers test while the examiner went on about her divorce and subsequent relationships was a bonus (I don't think she watched me too closely), while working at a vet, it is generally a bad thing (where you end up listening to things like: "And then he stroked the dog and it vomited and he just knew... and that was my fifteenth pet. My sixteenth was a kitten named Fluffy..."

Once people get to know me they tend to notice my total lack of tact and ability to give usable advice and then they can confide in me and I will not repeat what they tell me and I will sympathise because I actually do care.

But when I am trying to run on rather achy legs and not die, I am not particularly sympathetic about anything other than my own unhappiness. so when TOD decided to tell me about his girl-troubles I was most bemused. I mean I'm all for small-talk as long as I can breathe, but when you refer to your sex life as "doing the Boom-Boom" and discuss all four girlfriends in detail... I just want to fall off the treadmill. On the plus side my gasping at the effort stopped my natural response which would be to giggle uncontrollably and leave the room with tears streaming down my face.

And now I hurt. Leia and I were doing our twice-daily stretches in the lab (I will beat these silly short hamstrings of mine!) and I couldn't even get into the stretching poses without using my arms to push my legs into position. I had my legs crossed earlier and I only managed that by literally picking up one leg and pushing it over the other...

And poor Leia has had to put up with me. Because guess what:

And I whine. A lot. Now more than ever. And the poor girl has had to put up with my random ramblings on the awesomeness of tai chi, the pain of whatever TOD has made me do this time, the fact that the guy I really have a thing for went to her high school and a great deal of whining about the pain...

Yesterday she finally caved and told me to suck it up and shut up.

Sorry Leia, you rock. And thanks for knowing all the weird muscle groups and stretches that stop it hurting quite so much... And for listening to all my rubbish!

And of course I apologise in advance for my attitude tomorrow after I go and finish off this morning's exercises this evening and then have another session with TOD tomorrow!

If I ever get around to getting a sword I'll let you try it out!

OK, so should we do pros and cons?

First things first... oh my word I nearly died! I went to my appointment with the personal trainer of doom this morning, and only finished TWO HOURS later! That's including a lot of painful squats and stretchy-type exercises, 20 minutes of running and a 'cool off' of running for half an hour (well I walked 90 % of it because I honestly thought I was going to die...).

And he wants another session tomorrow. Kill. Me. Now.

To be honest, I asked him to push me, I told him what I wanted and he's basically helping me with the things I struggle with, and as a relatively clueless gym-goer I'm loving having some direction. I just wish it didn't hurt so much. And I have Tai Chi tonight so I might just die.

I went off to get a new hair straightener the other day (Vidal Sassoon is AWESOME!) and ran into a promotion for Victoria Jackson products. Apparently they're launching in South Africa and so they need to get it all hyped and so on. I got an awesome kit of a brush set + carry case, an incredible eyeshadow set (well the box is incredible, you push a button and it opens...), 12 adorable mini-lipglosses and a bronzer.

I usually don't use bronzer because I have never been able to find one that didn't make it look like I'd had a nasty encounter with the self-tan, but this one is fantastic! I used some today and Leia said that the gym nightmare must have worked because I looked all glowy :)

And the lip-glosses are the cutest things ever and they're super-nourishing and I love the colours! Bearing in mind that the single gloss I fell in love with at Bobbi Brown cost something around R200 (and I didn't get it) getting 12 of them as a free gift for getting the set is so much better! Cute, no?

And Leia decided that she likes my hair all poofy-curly and she's gone off to a prelab so I'm off to seize the opportunity to plug in my straightener while she's not here to yell at me!

Lazy eye... lazy tongue... lazy leg?

So Tai Chi was totally awesome as usual again last night! I may have scared the teacher a bit because he asked me after class if I was enjoying Tai Chi and I think my enthusiasm may have scared him slightly...

Anyway after making walking a little bit more complicated we finally learned some new steps because one of the beginner guys did something I can't pronounce that included aspects of Tai Chi and so he was getting bored and asked the teacher and i joined in. I can't remember past the first two steps but it was fun after doing the same 5 or so for a week...

The other interesting part was watching the teacher prioritising students. Prioritising is a bad word for it, but basically he would ignore the people who were there for the first time (I sidestepped this issue during my first lesson by asking questions ALL the time!) or the people who weren't trying too hard. So basically the people next to me were doing things upside down or backwards or missing steps entirely and he let it slide, and just told them to make sure they were expressing themselves and to try and 'feel the energy' and other abstract concepts.

The new guy who is totally better than me was picked on for not making his stance stable enough (I was picked on for that as well, but not as much) and I was corrected for the tiniest things like how I held my head or if my hands were too far apart or if my toes pointed in or not. This suited me well because I'm really loving the way that it's slow enough for me to really concentrate on getting each step right.

Anyway the whole point was, when we were walking I was stopped because whenever I balanced on y left leg and then stepped out with my right, he could hear my right foot landing. One a wooden floor! bearing in mind that the stance is something like this: (you start on the back foot and step out transferring your weight to the front foot once it's in position)Do you see why he might hear something when i put my foot down (and said foot is wearing running shoes with thick soles which doesn't help I don't think).

As it happens when I start on my right foot there's no problem, so basically my left leg isn't strong enough to control my entire body, complete with shifting centre of gravity until I'm ready to stand on my right leg. Weird.

So now I spend many hours doing this:

But just on my left leg :)

As long as I dont end up like this guy from Lady in the Water...

On the plus side I wore my new black and pink boots today and everyone has loved them! And according to one of the masters students I was speaking to this smorning, gravitating to pink things is a sign of change. And I think change is a good thing!

Here's a photo from my phone because I'm too lazy to find a real camera and I know that if I dont post a picture I may be lynched!

Chicken or beef?

So after an AWESOME tai chi lesson yesterday that actually made me realise just how pathetic my ankles are (we did something called a "Tai-chi walk" which had a lot of swivelling and lunging and then swivelling the other way) and how I've picked up bad habits already, I woke up not feeling the whole Pilates thing this morning. On the plus side besides my original four different Tai chi steps, I can totally turn corners now!

So anyway, I managed to force myself out of my lovely warm blanket-cocoon and dragged myself off to the 8m pilates class. It's cold at 8 in the morning, so we get to wear our socks instead of being barefoot! Last week the instructor told us to wear more interesting socks - my lumo-giraffe socks weren't even close to the coolness of his retina-blasting yellow and red toe socks.

So today we lined up in our stripy or polka-dot socks and got started. I love the instructor. Seriously, if I could compress him down to an mp3 and have him on my ipod, the world's depression problem would vanish! Besides being a walking ken-doll with every muscle imaginable around a waistline that's about as wide as of one of my socks, he's also incredibly INCREDIBLY camp and he likes to have 'girl talks' with us.

It makes clenching your stomach muscles while throwing your arms and legs around incredibly difficult when you find him amusing. The others don't seem to have a problem, and I've been able to hide my giggling enough that he thinks I have no core muscles and therefore no sense of balance, when actually I'm just falling over from laughing too hard!

For instance he started off this morning by telling us about the gelling agents used in ice-cream and how they are also used in the manufacture of rubber. And there I was thinking they used algae in ice-cream and rubber came from trees. Either way before I could get confused he pointed to his stomach and said "So if you have a spare-tyre..." And I fell over.

Later someone was struggling and he went to her and said:
"do you feel like you want to kotch**?" she nodded, trying to maintain her position, and he continued:
"You see ladies, if you eat your nice bowl on jungle oats before pilates you're going to be bloated. Jungle oats is such a good breakfast, lots of slow release energy. Yip it tastes like snot, but it's so good for you. But then it sits there and you can't use the muscles because you're just squishing the snot around."
The lady who had been struggling started turning kind of green. I had given up and I was sitting on my mat refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

One of the 'teacher's pet' types chirped up with "but then what do we eat?"
"you eat that snotty jungle oats! No ladies, I don't want to know what you had for breakfast, sardines on toast... yes that's high in protein! Do we have to discuss the difference between carbs and protein again?" (he did, but I won't go into detail because there;s no way I can do any kind of justice to a muscled-up ex-gymnast in a shiny yellow singlet acting out farming).

Teachers pet started again with "but that means we must eat our breakfast at six in the morning?"
"Yes Tracey, you eat at six, or you don't eat and you have breakfast an hour after you exercise. Eat a banana, do you like green-yellow or yellow-yellow bananas?" we all mumbled something to show that we were listening while Tracey sat up straight and said "Yellow-yellow!"
"Oh dear Tracey! You're on the way for a fat attack!"

Anyway after an hour of complete entertainment Ken-doll broke the news that he's leaving to become 'cabin-crew' for an airline. So sad!

And now I have to start teaching on Wednesday mornings so I'll have to find a different pilates class to go to. Sad times!


*** kotch is a delightful term for vomit

Well this sucks!

So I woke up all raring to go this morning, to realsie that it was freezing cold and cloudy. So I made a cup of tea and poured milk on my cereal and went back to bed. When I got up again (lets not mention how many hours passed in between) I put my tea in the microwave, ate my cereal (hours of soaking makes for wesome Squillos!) and stared at te sky going why WHY? oh WHY?!?!? (in my head of course. I'm isolated. Not crazy).

A few hours later it began to clear and so I eagerly set out in search of some lizards. Three sites later I still hadn't so much as seen one of mine and the sun was setting so I came home and went for a run out of sheer frustration, and ended up even more frustrated. Turns out running up and down gravelly hills is slightly harder than the treadmill that I know and love.

And so I measured the lizards from yesterday and took a nap, only to wake up absolutely freezing about half an hour later.

On the plus side, nothing makes running worth it like rounding a corner and seeing four giraffe staring at you with totally bemused expressions before galloping off! And I did run further than I would have expected, although the hills still absolutely kill me. I have a slightly kinder route planned for tomorrow (except for the 2km climb to get to the start of it).

And, despite everything, I'm feeling pretty good! it's amazing when I think back to the depressed and tense person I was for the last few weeks! Looks like all I needed was to get out of the city and climbing some rocks!

do I LOOK like a people person?

I was at the gym the other night (the only thing keeping me sane right now) for the first time in a few days as I was pretty sick last weekend and i was enjoying myself. It was quite weird, I had expected it to be horrible, but evidently some degree of fitness had stuck and I was doing more than usual without feeling too tired.

I go at roughly the same time most days and so I've got to know the people who do the same. I don't know too much about them except the names I've allocated to them (The BFFs, old headband guy, rugby guy who looks like a certain cricket player but not, cool dreadlocks guy, the bodybuilder, the entourage, momkins and Tompkins and so on) but as a rule we don't try to get to know each other. I wear my headphones in the universal signal of "Leave me alone!" and most people get the message. I have nursing some new shiny blisters on my palms from the rowing machine so I went off to the circuit to finish up when along came little yellow t-shirt guy. He went straight to the middle of the circuit while I was about a third of the way through, which annoyed me but I ignored it.

Then he put WAAAAY too many weights on a machine, strained to lift the bar and let them clank back down- so loudly that I heard it clearly over my music. He repeated this several times until I looked up in confusion. He looked back and smiled and I smiled noncommittally and looked away. He started thumping and clanging weights again and I looked up in annoyance to find him staring again. I tried a sympathetic smile in the hope that it would make him go away. Instead he started talking to me.

I shrugged- the universal signal for "You moron I have headphones in and can't hear you and would gesticulate wildly but I'm currently moving weights around in a smooth and controlled manner as is says on the instruction board!" but he just kept talking. I shrugged again. Finally I pulled out one of the earphones and said
"what?"
"how's gym going for you today?"

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Finally after raising an eyebrow which made him repeat himself twice I decided on the polite route in the hope that it would make him leave me alone.
"It's OK, I'm having a good session thanks." he carried on chattering away and I left one ear open as if I was listening when actually I was just sending exasperated looks to Momkins who happened to be in the area, she nodded sympathetically and shrugged in the "rather you than me" gesture. Eventually I caught something vaguely interesting and asked him to repeat himself.

"I said I'm gymming to hard and you aren't working out hard enough!"
"WHAT?"
"Look at me, I'm all sweaty, you aren't!" I sighed.
"Well I'm wearing black, it's not exactly going to show up, now is it?" I didn't mention that his oh-so clingy polyester outfit was totally not breathable and that I was wearing a Nike magic-dry shirt, but I figured why extend a conversation when I was already adjusting my routine around him as he was still on his first machine and still unable to move the small scrap-yard's worth of weights he'd chosen. He smiles
"I'll bear that in mind... hmmm... wear dark colours..."

I moved to the weird oblique sit-up-but-not station (I'm sure it has a name) and the unthinkable happened. He asked me what I did and all about random stuff. When he asked if I cut up dead frogs I told him that I worked on lizards, which lead to him telling me all about how awesome anacondas are. I'm sure buddy. Moving on. When he asked what year I said "PhD" as shortly as possible. this guy was really not taking a hint!
"Oh! What's your thesis on?"
"Lizards."
"Oh really?" yes really, it's only the third time I've mentioned them. "Wow, not many girls like lizards."
"Well I do, and my friends are learning to like them too." at this he nodded seriously
"I bet you have a lot of friends!"
And no folks, don't think of this as me, with the sarcasm behind every second sentence - he was being sincere. I freaked out.

Well, freaked out in that I shrugged, replaced my earphones and turned to face the other way which is usual on that machine-thingy, so I wasn't being entirely rude).

Does anyone have any bright ideas on how I can get people to leave me alone at the gym? they would be greatly appreciated (ad not showering aLa Shield ads is totally out of the question)!

Scary body-builders

It's been a bad day and I don't want to talk about it, so I pulled out a draft from yesterday and decided to finish that instead.

So I have always been a little bit morbidly fascinated by body-builders. I spent a year working next door to a gym when I was around 18 or so, and I used to watch the crazy body-builders go in and out of the building, clutching those giant bottles of protein-shake powder and wearing clothes that barely fit.

The guy who ran the shop next to where I worked was one such body-builder. I will call him Tim, because I can... Anyway Tim was absolutely gigantic, and he actually looked kid of chubby with giant arm muscles, because his stomach muscles were so big that under a t-shirt it looked kind of like a beer-gut (with associated moobs). I will always remember one day when I was chatting to him and I said something along the lines of "Oh, so you're so tough then?" and poked him in the 'moob' to emphasise my point. I almost broke my finger, he was as solid as a brick wall.

Over time I got quite fond of Tim and his tiny wife (body-building men, in my experience, tend to go for scrawny women who don't work out...) and their little girl, who was one of the cutest kids ever, despite the ADD and associated issues. Tim and I would go for tea occasionally, when my shift was over or if I went to the gym on days I wasn't working, and I remember watching him holding his teacup and wondering if he was going to squeeze it too hard and accidentally break it. I learned later that there were many drawbacks to his life-style (and he wasn't on steroids at all, those have a whole exciting bundle of consequences), such as that he battled to find clothes that were big enough, and that he got up two or three times a night to eat so that he wouldn't break down any of his muscle. And by eat, I mean a 6-egg omelette type meal.

Either way he was a lovely guy and I got very close to his whole family (although I had to stop spending time with his daughter when she had nightmares at 2am and called for me instead of her mom, three year-olds just aren't rational!) and I was sad when the shop I was working at relocated and I was moved to a different branch.

Anyway that was a good 5 years ago and I hadn't thought about them in a while, until I went to gym two nights ago to see a body-builder and entourage training. It consisted of the chief guy, who was massive, but obviously restricted his training to the gym because he was even more pasty-white than me, his tiny wife/girlfriend, and three or four wannabe-body-builders who watched his every move with awe. as it happened I was on the machine where you have to point your toes repeatedly (people spend hours developing these contraptions, so it must do SOMETHING) so I was able to watch their group.

I came to a few conclusions, some of which I had reached before, but had forgotten and revisited:

1. I don't understand the appeal of the 'sport' I find the participants hideous. Tim used to play videos of the contests and I would sit and shudder. And while I find the men incredibly unattractive, I think the women are even worse! We actually had a client at the videostore, years ago, who we all thought was a very in-shape guy. then joey went to the gym to find 'him' in the change-room, wearing a bikini.
2. As much as I don't get it, having too much muscle to get through a doorway really does it for some people. looking back I don't think I've ever seen a body-builder without an entourage and/or a significant other, even the ones on all kinds of steroids who were always moody and difficult (the steroids in the on-weeks make them go nuts, then they get frustrated in the off-weeks and that makes them cranky).
3. At least with all that muscle they'd probably be worse at yoga than me!

Anyway the main guy would lift something probably about the same weight as a small car, then his wife/girlfriend would rush forward and mop the sweat off his face. Not while he was holding the weights though, AFTER he's put them down. It would have been perfectly simple for her to hand hm the towel, but no... Although even just holding the towel would be disgusting, he was sweating a LOT.

Can anyone explain the appeal to me? I just don't get it!

Pretzelling with a purpose

So ever since my slightly over-enthusiastic Sunday morning at the gym I've been feeling very tired. I kept going but I found that while once I got into it I still enjoyed myself, I was tired and not doing very well and basically just not 'feeling' it. I had promised myself a while ago that while I may skip gym if I have something else planned (within reason) I am NOT allowed to skip just because I don't want to. I also end to feel really awful about myself if I skip gym and I battle to sleep. On Wednesday, after a particularly traumatising session on Tuesday (some guy TALKED to me! Did he not understand the universal signal of BACK OFF that I was sending out by wearing earphones?) I left university early so I figured I could go to gym before dinner rather than y usual of going before bed. I checked the little timetable I grabbed a few weeks ago and saw that there was a 6:30pm yoga class.

So I thought 'great! that's nice and while not gentle, not too strenuous and it's something different because I need a break from my usual routine!' so I went home, lay down for a bit, changed and headed off to yoga. Wow. I can't believe I said that!

I should have known it was going to end badly when the instructor was 20 minutes late. Actually I should have got out of there when ten minutes after the class was supposed to start, one of the people (all girls except one guy who was enjoying himself a little bit too much...) jumped up and very perkily announced that we should start warming up. Most of the rest of the people agreed and then proceeded to start doing all kinds of weird pseudo-dance moves, accompanied by some rather heavy breathing. I did yoga when I was in high-school so I was a little bit shocked to see some of what they were doing, as it was way beyond anything I'd ever done. Worried that I had stumbled into an advanced class I checked the timetable on the board, but it just said "Yoga" so I sat and tried to think calm thoughts.

The instructor (who I would have mistaken for just another soccer-mom if it wasn't for the way everyone else flocked around her, and the weird flowy scarves she was wearing) arrived after about 20 minutes and we got started. Firstly, it was TOTALLY an advanced class, in everything but name. secondly, having any kind of a sense of humour is very detrimental to having any kind of sense of balance! So I did my best, falling over periodically, particularly when the instructor tried to tell us stories of her training with "Swami Vanuatu" and how we should practice at home (yes, of course I want to twist my spine into unnatural positions with nobody around to help me!) as we become passionate about postures (and that's a quote).

When it got really insane I refused and sat and watched as I have fieldwork coming up, and chasing lizards with a broken wrist isn't a very good idea. At one stage they were doing the "little bird" or "crane" posture and I had to watch as one girl fell and landed beautifully on her collarbone with her knees still firmly wedged into her armpits. For some reason I was the only person doing any kind of sympathetic flinching!

There was also lots of twisting into weird positions and then somehow stretching your arms around to hold hands while your left arm is wrapped around your right knee which is somewhere around your left ear... i tried, I did not succeed and after two days i still ave trouble bending over or stretching to reach a high shelf or anything.

I am quite sad at the way it turned out. I did yoga in high school and absolutely loved it (although I used to go with friends who were just as giggly as me, so we spent most of the time falling over) and I think that a lot of the stuff they were doing was really cool, particularly in the impromptu warm-up session, where it was almost like watching dancers (with a lot of double-joints) practising. It's sad that I won't be returning to yoga classes there as I didn't feel safe or comfortable and I don't want to get hurt, and even if I try a different session it's with the same instructor and I really didn't like her. And Swami Vanuatu? Really?

At the same time I love going to gym, and I hated the fact that I left there feeling useless. and as long as I want to keep exercising I have to hold on to the fact that I actually do enjoy it and not that I don't feel good enough because I can't wrap my legs behind my head while holding myself up with one finger. Now it is Friday and I'm still sore though, so I guess the bits that I did manage were very effective!

Oh and it; feeing and pouring with rain here at the moment. What's up with that? It made for a very exciting walk through Braamfontein yesterday, but I'll write about that another time!

no pain no... sympathy?

So somehow, during 6 days of not going to gym because I was on antibiotics and feeling miserable, I declined to a point where I am less fit now than I was when I started going back to gym about 2 months ago. How on earth did that happen? I figure I am just 'blessed' with some kind of negative metabolism or something. It's really frustrating because I was really starting to enjoy gym and I could feel myself getting fitter and stuff before I was forced into taking a break. so I might as well keep going, no rain or sleet or... whatever!

So I went to gym last night, so this morning I woke up feeling a little bit sore... but i had decided last night (in a fit of serious thinking while trying to block out the Hallmark movie that my mom decided to watch) that I would go to the 8am class at the gym today. Last time I went to a class I couldn't walk for about a week, but I figured that I've been exercising regularly for a while so it might be ok.

So I got changed into my pyjama pants (I have black pyjama pants that make awesome gym clothes because they're comfy and loose-fitting and stuff) and t-shirt and shuffled off to the gm. The class was fun, it was basically using little weights and doing all kinds of weird things that hurt a bit at the time (and a lot more now), but at some stage about 10 minutes into the class one of my contact lenses decided to move around to the back of my eye. I couldn't find it to move it back, so I figured that I might as well carry on with no depth perception as the only alternative would be to drive home with only one useful eye, or phone my mother to come and fetch me, which wold have been simple considering that I realized I'd left my phone at home.

So I carried on, and it was mostly ok, except at one point when apparently my posture was wrong, but I couldn't see the instructor's hand signals to me, so she stopped the class, paused the awful ABBA-danceified soundtrack (honey honey!) and came over and corrected me. At this point I must point out that while we were all relatively young, we were all gross and panting and tired by then, the instructor was around 65 and hadn't broken a sweat yet. her hair (in a lovely coiffed drag-forward fake-blonde bob) was perfect and I got the feeling she could tow a cement truck with a rope round her forehead.

After the class (why do people clap at the end of a class?) I went and grabbed my stuff from the changeroom while avoiding making eye-contact with any of the people from the class who were now parading around naked. One of them said something to me and I explained that I live right down the road so it's easier for me to go home and shower there, particularly because I had to go and pick up my laptop anyway because I don't feel comfortable leaving it in my car or in a locker with a 20mm padlock... I also managed to sort out the evil contact lens and stop tripping over things

So I got home to find that for some reason we had no water! I managed to kind of get my hair wet with the trickle coming from the shower-head before it died completely. So I was stuck with a dilemma: do I stay home for the day (not an option considering that there was no water and therefore no functional toilets or taps- so besides not being able to go to the bathroom, coffee would be limited), or go and shower at the gym, bearing in mind that the naked people prancing around are the ones who just said goodbye to me!

So I did what any sensible person would do: I made coffee and toast and then went for a swim. Once I was certain that anyone who would recognise me would be gone from the gym I went back and showered on my way in to university. And on the way I poured coffee down my shirt. And then it started raining and I realized I'd forgotten a jacket. I also realized that I'd RSVPed yes to something last night and then forgotten to go.

Fortunately Luke was in his lab and he gave me a jacket and lots of sympathy and now I feel a lot better! Except that I can't lift my arms...

evil tracksuit people

Generally at the end of fieldwork I'm super-fit and feeling great, and then when I get home after a few weeks of sitting behind a desk and eating moms cooking (which is great, but generally when I'm away I eat much simpler food, and less meat, because I'm too lazy to cook much at the end of a long day) I'm right back to where I started. which means 2 things: 1. whenever I go to the field/on a fieldtrip the first few days are always really difficult. 2. I never feel as good about myself when I'm at home.

So on monday I went back to the gym and got a new contract. It was pretty expensive, althugh I got a lovely 20% student discount, so I figured that that would be a great motivator to get the best value out of said contract and make sure I go regularly. Which meant that I left home just after 5am on Tuesdayt morning and went off to gym. By the time I'd arrived, got past security (I didn't have a membership card yet) and got going it was almost 6, and after jogging a little bit I saw that the 6am class was starting, so I figured I go and join in.

Big mistake! Firstly it was a combination of cardio (stepping and suff), weights and random other exercises that involve all those core muscles that I think I was born without. They were also the kind of exercises that I might almost manage, except for the fact that we were expected to do them all with a whole pile of weights. When we finally got to put the weights down they strapped them to out ankles and made us do other stuff.We also got split into groups, and I was paired up with a lady who obviously runs 45 kilometres every morning before doing pilates and then aerobics and then spinning, all ebfore breakfast. She was the kind of person who would use the rest periods (when the rest of us were collapsed in a puddle of sweat) to do her own exercises. It just wasn't cool. I was tempted to slap her and say something along the lones of "yes, look at you. You're so fit! Oh wow. One day when something goes wrong on the flight to Mauritius or the Seychelles and you end up stranded on a deserted island, you'll regret your 0.2% body fat! You'll have to eat your own leg to provide energy for the 10km hops around the island that you'll probably want to do every morning." But I didn't, I just battled through, sharing pained looks with the other participants.

That afternoon and the following day, I could hardly walk. Jen had advised me to keep going to make it hurt less (I couldn't sit up to get otu of bed, couldn't sit, couldn't stand up...) so I went off to gym the next morning, avoided all calsses like the plague and managed a limping jog and a few weight machine before hobbling off to the showers. The rest of the next day was even worse! In the evening, after a long and quite hilarious lab where I couldn't sit down for 3 hours partly from busyness, but largely due to the pain, as well as Luke's not even veiled sarcasm) I went home, sank into a hot bath with this weird mustard homeopathic stuff I used to use for stiffness after hockey (not the ice variety, but normal on fields hockey) tournaments when I was at school.

So this mornign I woke up feeling fantastic. It was the weirdest thign! so I went off to gym, had a fantastic run dashed off to wits, and foudn that climbing stairs still hurts, but not too badly. Jen already gave me the 'told you so' talk, but I don't mind. So here's hoping it never gets that bad again. And also hoping that I manage to keep going every day without giving up because of the horrible soccer-moms with too much free time for exercise!

Oh, and I must also write about the monkeys, I keep forgetting!