Tag: time

Baseline

I did the baseline for my fitness test today. And I was rather at my worst. It hadn’t been long enough since I had eaten, so the running portions had me wondering all throughout them if I weren’t going to hurl on the street. I started menstruating right in the middle of it all, and had to use the bathroom quickly during one of the rest times – talk about being exhausted on the first place, with all the menstruation prep that’s been going on in my body. It was mid-afternoon in Houston, Tx, right near the start of summer – temperature was 86°F with a feels like of 93°F. Plus, the entire running section had almost no coverage at all from the sun, so I was running on bright concrete in full, blazing, direct sunlight. Talk about hot. And then, I had some measuring difficulties with both runs, thinking I had reached the end of the run, then suddenly realizing I hadn’t, and having to jump back into the run to finish it. That added annoying time to both runs, which are judged by their times, by the way.

So, I was miserably tired, undigested, out in the stupid afternoon humid heat of Houston, and I messed up my measurements twice, adding time to my runs. Plus, I had an improved setup for the sit-ups, but I only have 15lb dumbbells, and, though they helped significantly in helping hold my feet in place, they moved around a whole lot more than a human’s knees and hands pinning down my feet would have done.

And yet… I still only had the push-ups as my one area that didn’t pass the test. And that already was 100% expected to be an area that didn’t pass. But all the other areas, despite my being at my worst, still passed! And, if I had gotten the bare minimum requirement for the push-ups, my scores were high enough that I would have passed the entire test.

And so, my training began this evening for my push-up preparations. I obtained coaching from the gym owner on Saturday, as to how to proceed regarding my terrible push-ups abilities. And I put those plans into action today. I need to be able to do 20 push-ups comfortably for me to be satisfied for this test, but I technically only need to move up from ten to 14 as my baseline. Nonetheless, that’s a 40% increase. And my goal is actually a 100% increase… but I know I can make it happen. The only question is a matter of how long it will take.

Also, separately, now that I have these specific fitness goals towards which to work now…, what are my financial gain goals towards which to work right now? Because those have an absolute max of three more weeks to get sorted for, at least, the next four months.

Post-a-day 2021

Music and love

I shared tonight the song I wrote this week. I had in my head that it needed to be touched up somehow, but it turned out to be perfect for me as it was already. I just had to play it all together at once, when my un-callused fingers had rested and could handle playing again. 😛

But I really like the song. And it is in a different way from most of the others. This song is about heartbreak on a human level, and a heartbreak that we all share at some point in life: the heartbreak others don’t see in our lives, the hidden heartbreak.

My heart is aching like it’s breaking

And not only just for me.

How many hearts are the same today

For the things we just don’t see?

Thus goes the chorus. And how utterly true it is.

However, I believe that, though life can be terribly difficult and painful at times, when we operate on a foundation of love, and we make love our aim, our every breath, our life, life is beyond worth it all. I am grateful for this life and for all the love I find and am able to produce and experience within it.

Gratitude, Universe ❤

P.S. Tonight at 21:21:21,

It was the 21st second

Of the 21st minute

Of the 21st hour

Of the 21st day

Of the 21st year

Of the 21st century

Rather baller, huh? 😉

Post-a-day 2021

Fitness vs Fatness

Am I at the focus, or is something else the A-liner? Fitness or Fatness? Lately, I have not been at the center – my health and well-being, this body that carries my soul, my spirit, in this lifetime. Lately, my tongue’s and memory’s desires have been the center of my food. It is no wonder I have had much more fatness than fitness in my life lately.

I have been wanting it more and more, but have yet to turn the tides fully over the past several months… I wonder what has been missing for me to do that… is it a question of self-worth in the midst of having to create self-motivation to create the time and the energy and effort for fitness all on my own? I think I have always reached out somehow when I have gotten to a point in fitness/fatness at which I do not want to be any longer. But turning to the groups is not exactly an option right now where I live, and also how I live (aka I can’t afford to spend the money on the one place where I could do the group fitness right now). But I also do not genuinely want to reach out this time. I want to resolve whatever this has been within me that I continue to have stop me from fitting myself (as I like to say in my head… or, also, fitnessing myself). And so, I will not join that gym. Right now, I’m a bit too tired to function effectively enough to work through all of this, but I intend to continue this conversation with myself tomorrow, and to search for and find those uncomfortable parts that I have allowed to run me for these past several years.

At that, goodnight! 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Music Therapy

For some reason, I always seem to forget how important and how valuable playing music is to my life.

I get into these ruts of not feeling like putting forth the effort to play music on any of my instruments, because it’s usually just before bed that I have the real time to spend doing it, and I’m so tired that I want to get as much sleep as possible before I wake early the next day.

And then the one or two nights like that get me in the habit of not playing (and singing), and I go weeks or months without doing any music of my own.

And then, every time I get back into it, I rediscover how massive a difference it makes for me and my sanity, my mental calm.

It is like meditation, while also being an active mental workout, figuring out the notes and all, and casually committing things to memory from it all… and also an emotional catharsis… so it’s cathartic meditative exercise for the mind and body.

And I somehow always forget that, and I let myself not play and sing… dope… cut it out. 😛

I think my whole concern is that I love it so much, I always end up playing for so long – like an hour or so – every time I play, and that’s a lot less time to sleep, especially when the alarm is sounding in only six or seven hours.

You know what I mean?

So, I want to work on that… maybe I can manage some playing during the daytime some days… or maybe find a few select songs that satisfy fully, so I can spend just five or ten minutes before bed, yet be fully satisfied…

We’ll see… that’s my goal for this month, musically – to figure that out.

Post-a-day 2019

My longest year so far

Thus ends the longest year of my life.  🙂

In my twentieth year of life, right at the end of it, I spent some time living and studying in France.  My birthday came and went while living there, effectively making my twentieth year of life shorter than any previous year – think birthday to birthday – by a full seven hours.  By the end of my twenty-first year, I had already spent several months living in the USA again, thereby making my twenty-first year seven hours longer – birthday to birthday – than the average year so far in my life (and 14 hours longer than my shortest year of life, which had been the year before it).

Last year, I found myself living half of my year (birthday to birthday year) in Japan.  Therefore, when my birthday came around in 2017, I completed my shortest year of life, its being a full 15 hours shorter than the usual (and eight hours shorter than my shortest year to that point).  Therefore, as I reach my birthday at midnight tonight, living again in the USA, I will be completing the longest year of my life – birthday to birthday, of course – with a full 15 hours more than usual (and 30 hours longer than my shortest year).

Cool, huh?

 

P.S.  Yes, of course I am excluding leap days, because they ruin the fun, and they don’t even make any sense in the first place.  A year is all about the Earth’s revolution around our sun, and a leap day is just a way to make up for the fact that it takes 365.25 (I think it’s actually 365.242189 to be exact) days to go ’round our sun, not just 365.  So, I’m just counting the approximate .25 with every year, instead of adding a whole extra day every fourth year.  Even if I did include leap days, then every leap day would cause the longest year of my life to be that year (and each of those would be equal to one another).  However, the shortest years of my life (still talking birthday to birthday) would remain the same, as they did not contain leap days.  To anyone with a birthday on February 29th – I mean you no injustice or discredit.

Post-a-day 2018

A different kind of Christmas gift-giving, I suppose

I’m not sure when or exactly how I stopped the regular giving of Christmas presents, but it feels like it has been a long and slow progression from standard present-giving to no present-giving at all.  This is not to say that I do not give love to my loved ones – I certainly do.  It is just that I give my love in the form of concern, interest, and time.  I plan out things for us to do together, and I get us to go do them together.  I find a way to get myself halfway across the country to be with the family members who have been on their own in recent years, missing the family.  And I make things like this seem like they are only natural, and why would anyone not do such a thing.  Not as a way to show off or anything, of course, but because they are just so easy to me.  Kind of like the ends justifying the effort, and therefore making the effort almost no strain at all.

And so far as giving physical presents are concerned, I do still give those from time to time in life.  However, I give them, because there I something I want to give to someone, there is something I want to do for someone.  It usually is not tied to any particular holiday or day.  It is tied merely to the fact that I care about the person, and there is something I want to give to him/her.  I re-made an acquaintance a few years ago, and, after only two meet-ups and discussions, I left a present at the person’s front door in secret.  It was a book I felt sure this person would love, and that I wanted this person to be able to experience, after our discussions together.  (Turns out that it was a total hit.) I’m not sure we ever saw one another again, due to various circumstances, but that was okay.  That is life sometimes.  The point was that I gave the present freely and genuinely, and expected and wished for nothing in return.  My only hope was that the book be enjoyed, and it was.

For me, that kind of thing is normal.  I give, because I want to give, and there usually is a something specific that I want to give.  At Christmas, I used to feel a need to give to everyone I know.  And I would be almost frustrated at being unable to do such a thing.  I guess this is how that situation has evolved over recent years, with last year, alone in Japan and with very little income, being a rather large factor in how Christmas looks this year for me.  When I accepted that it really wouldn’t work to do most anything physical for people, I suddenly noticed how I didn’t really like the whole situation in the first place.

It’s like how I made strong efforts to figure out what kind of scarf a friend of mine would use, and made one for him for Christmas.  And he gave me some socks from home, that were socks for a type of shoe that I never even wear, and were a color that I definitely don’t even own (and on purpose).  We definitely discussed this all after the fact, and even laughed about it.  We just had totally different attitudes toward the gift-giving.  I had thought about giving him a good scarf a long time before Christmas.  Due to my laziness mostly, I believe, I didn’t end up making it until the week before Christmas, using Christmas as my back-up plan for giving him the scarf (kind of a no later than this date thing for giving him the scarf, because i might never do it otherwise).  But I had found out material and color and style and everything that would be appropriate and most helpful for his scarf.  He, on the other hand, had wanted to give me a Christmas present, and so looked for something that would be suitable for a Christmas present between new friends.  His gift was totally appropriate for such standards.  Quite frankly, though, spending time together would have been much more valuable to and appreciated by me than a pair of socks that have nothing to do with me.  Plus, it’s a better way of life, being less wasteful with our resources.  😛

Anyway, this all just has to do with the fact that I don’t like doing the mandatory or obligatory presents for holidays, and might even dislike it.  Yes, I like that it gives a specific opportunity to consider something special to give to another.  No, I don’t like how often we give/receive things no one seems to want or to find useful in life in our society right now.  And so I have let go of participating in it.  I think my dad’s side of the family will struggle for at least a few more years with the idea, still wondering why they should give to me, if I am not giving to them – hint: I have told them that I do not need anything given to me for Christmas or my birthday, but, if they desperately want to give me something, they can give me a pony.  I think a pony is the only thing for which I have asked for my birthday since I was around 13 or 14.  Not that I expect one, by any means, but it would be spectacular to have a pony given to me for my birthday.  Otherwise, there’s nothing that comes to mind without feeling wasteful in the world.

It kind of takes away a bit of the feeling of Christmas, not exchanging presents with everyone.  However, I currently am happy without the presents – all I ever really want is time together with the ones I love.  The presents are almost upsetting to me, considering my background with stuff and feeling incredibly wasteful if I ever get rid of anything.  I usually prefer receiving nothing, so I don’t have to feel bad at either not using it or at wanting to give it away or throw it away, when its time has really come to an end.

Post-a-day 2017

Handing it off to a better expert…?

Do you ever wonder about the appropriate time to pass something on to someone else to do?  Not that you are feeling lazy, and just don’t feel like making those copies, and so you give them to an assistant to do.  But like, in high school, when a friend of mine’s trumpet teacher told him that he had taught my friend everything he had to offer him, and so it was time my friend went to a different and better trumpet teacher.  That kind of situation.  Do we know when to do that in our own lives, when it is time to pass something onward to someone better at whatever it is?

I especially wonder if it makes a difference on the task.  If we want dinner in a certain part of town, we might easily call up or message a particular friend for recommendations.  For an appropriate computer purchase, we might consult someone we know who is into computers.

And if we are the one consulted for something similar, we typically do our best to help out, and, I believe, recommend someone else to ask, if we feel our thoughts aren’t sufficient help.  Do I know where to go eat around there?  Well, there’s this and this, but they’re usually packed on this night of the week.  I would check with so-and-so – they probably know several better options.

But do we do this with difficult things?  Do we ask ourselves, regarding the harder things in life, if we are the one best suited to handle the question or situation?  Do we let other things get in the way of asking for help, of asking the right person?  Things like embarrassment, pride, fear… do they win in the short-term of the situation, and a mediocre result is the best we find in the long-term outcome of the situation?  I suppose this ties in perfectly with the question of Do we ask for help when we need help?  Do we even ask ourselves often and honestly enough – and then answer honestly enough – if we need help?

 

Just some thoughts in my space tonight…

Post-a-day 2017

The impossible and a new look at time

Last night, as I was thinking on how the impossible had happened for me that day, and then hula classes I’d just asked two friends about helping me do, I got onto wondering about new beginnings and fresh starts.  I started to think about the idea of treating today as the beginning of my time in Japan.  Like how I’ve visited other countries, and then gone there later for several months to study, I can see Japan in that same sort of timeframe.

Yes, I came and did a semester in Japan before.  And, now, I’m back in Japan, but just for a semester.  In six months and a week, I’ll be finished, my semester over.  I only just arrived, and so have to get going with the things I want to do and see, and the relationships I’d like to build.  But, since I’ve been to Japan before (when I studied (read “worked”) here the last time), it should be easy to settle into place, and to start picking up the language again.

Sure, I remember that there were things that were really rough when I was here before, and I suspect things will be hard again.  However, it is only a single semester, and I’ll be so busy doing this and that (to make sure I get it all in, since I definitely didn’t last time), it’ll zoom by me quite quickly.  (So, I’d better get started, eh?)

Huh… I’m actually quite excited about my brief visit to Japan this semester.

Who’d’a thunk?

Who says we have to relate to time as directly sequential?

I thank my most recent audiobook for this beautiful thought idea – The Time Traveler’s Wife.

 

P.S.  I actually wrote this last night, as I just didn’t want to forget it for today’s post.  😛

Post-a-day 2017