2013-52 Week 22

It’s the beginning of June and I missed it in May, so it’s time for a two month catch up in the Resolution Update! This is where I get to tell you all of my resolutions are in the process of crashing and burning. Don’t worry, it should be more fun than it sounds (I hope).

1) One blog post (longer) every week this year – With a few new epics, the two-parter on Ragnar and “Why I Game” mainly, I feel I’ve been doing a better job at writing some of the longer posts for which this format was meant. Then I have other weeks were I just wrote a few paragraphs on Saturday night. And then I made the mistake of looking at Google Analytics today (or maybe my mistake was turning on the analytics) and I had to remind myself that I’m not doing this for the page views (thank goodness). I will say that Jess has been doing markedly better with her recipes, as people are actually finding them via Google. Maybe I should be writing a food blog too. 🙂 And if you want to know why I’ve had James Brown’s “Living in America” stuck in my head the last few days, well you should go read her longest piece to date. – On Track.

2) Lose at least 20 pounds – Unfortunately the knee injury has take its toll, and I’m just recently getting things back under control. It turns out that having a runner’s appetite and not running will do bad things to you weight-wise. I had to shut down karate too as I just can’t jump or do a proper back stance with the way things are now. Next appointments are in mid-June, so I’m just going to have to focus on being really good until then. – Behind.
Current Loss: +3 lbs – On pace loss: -8.33 lbs

3) Run 400 miles – Thankfully I built a large buffer in the first few months, although that might have possibly caused my injury so maybe not. Hopefully whatever the problem is can be quickly cleaned up and I can get back on track soon. I actually did two short runs this week for the first time since Ragnar, a one mile run without tape and a two mile run with it. While I could complete them I’m not certain what I was doing could be called running, more of a speedy hobble since bending my right knee to any appreciable degree isn’t easy. As Jess has said often, I don’t do being injured well, but since the symptoms only really occur when I’m trying to run or go down stairs (basically put pressure or compress the joint) it’s been a little easier to deal with as it’s out of my mind a lot of the time. It has gotten bad enough that I’m considering swimming on a regular basis for exercise. – Ahead.
Current Mileage (Through May): 210.5 – On pace mileage: 166.67

4) Write an average of 500 words a day – Again, the epics helped and I am ahead of my modified goal of 250 words a day because of them. I don’t see reaching the 500 word mark, but who knows, maybe I’ll get inspired. Oh, and I wound up taking a No Credit in the online English class I was taking and blowing off the last two months. I just got tired of the lack of feedback, the lack of communication outside of the monthly couple thousand word screed complaining about his job and how certain students weren’t doing things the right way while then saying the majority were doing fine (then why complain to everyone, just deal with those students individually like a grown up), and the general lack of effort this professor put into his class. By the time I wrote the class off two months in I had gotten one grade out of seven projects (a perfect score, mind you) and I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. Not that the professor noticed, as doing any amount of work outside of posting the assignment and writing the occasional rant email was far beyond his interest. I’m just thankful that I had the option of taking it Credit/No Credit; I pity the poor students there that were taking the class for an actual grade and were hoping it would be useful in their life. Oh, and did I mention that in the two months I was in the class the professor did ZERO teaching? It was simply read this section of the book and then do this project. The man was basically stealing money from the University. Sorry, I should stop now . . . – Behind and Ahead.
Current Word Count (Through May): 39231 – On pace word count: 75000 – Modified on pace word count: 37500

Pardon me for the brief interlude here, but this seemed like the best place to put this aside since I just finished complaining about another professor. I got my latest evaluations back and think I scored my best ones yet as all of my scores averaged over a 6 (out of 7) with 95% of the class saying they would recommend me to their friends and that I was a very good instructor. In the past I have had a few comments and they have generally had a theme (one year was “I wish he taught all my classes”), but this year I got comments from half the class and they ranged to all areas of the class (mostly positive though). I did have one student who put all ones (I can infer this from the results sheet and the last comment in the packet, I don’t get their actual evaluations) and left a near unintelligible comment complaining about my lack of computing knowledge. I really have no idea what class they were attending, but considering every other student in the class gave me a 7/7 in “The instructor appears to know the subject matter well” category it’s obvious they were in la-la land. That being said, it is of course the one that is sticking with me, although the main thing that might be bothering me is that I didn’t pick up on this student or their attitude in class (although I had several students who didn’t attend class all that often, so it might have been one of them). I suppose I should just counter it in my head with the last part of another student’s comment, “He was never unable to answer a question.”

5) Read a book a month – Ah, now this one is totally on me. I’m almost done with my April book, which I went out of my comfort zone and have thus struggled a bit with setting the time aside for it. I have my May book all picked out and anticipate it going faster, but seeing as it’s June obviously I have a bit of catching up to do. Thankfully this will be the easiest one to catch up on, as I built a lot of buffer into this resolution. Oh, and as for why I’m having problems with the April book, I’ll keep you in suspense on that one until I do a book review on it. I’ll just say that it’s more a problem with me than the book for now. – Behind.

In all it’s been a rough two months for my resolutions. June might get a little better, but I don’t see things truly turning around for another month. I will say that I’ve certainly had an attitude adjustment and that these setbacks are not getting me down nearly as much as they might have in the past. Not entirely certain to what I should chalk that up, but I’ll be thankful for it anyway (and I’m sure Jess is too).

As for random updates, allergist appointment is also in mid-June as the next step in trying to figure out my esophagus issues, all the tests run by my regular doctor came back negative. I haven’t heard back from the Doctoral program but have to assume by this point that I didn’t make it in, there’s just not enough time left before the next semester that I can see them not having at least sent out the acceptance letters by now. And finally I have a new mystery opportunity that I would appreciate your prayers on, but I can’t say much more than that at the moment.

I don’t say it enough, but I really want to thank those of you that do read all of these updates. I hope to make them at least somewhat interesting and appreciate that you care enough to check them out regardless.

Weight Low: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 213.5 miles (+3 miles) Last year-to-date: 175.5 miles – Words-to-date: 40669 (+1438)