Renga: Brickish

OK, so the cardio, I’ve found out what the issue was on the treadmill that went away when I shifted to the Elliptical. Apperantly, I’ve got knee problems of some sort. There’s some pain that runs straight down the center of my right knee when it’s in certain positions, and a general grinding feeling when I run. That explains why I didn’t like it. So I swapped to the elliptical/cross trainer because I can set it up to run like a bicycle, which I like. Granted, swinging my huge ass out behind me isn’t so great a view, but I could care less. Especially since I finally figured out how to use the book/magazine rack. Don’t know why, but that’s always evaded me. Either way, now I have an easy way to get myself to read everything I need to and get the cardio. Keep pedaling until i’ve read everything I need to read for the next day. Good system, and has worked out well so far.

Which I should mention that it has already dropped, along with another soda control attempt, has resulted in about a -3lb drop. Even if it is just a week, it’s still good results, and I intend to continue. I have also dropped my plans to pick up a second place to study because I’ve decided that I can’t afford it, nor can I really come up with a good reason beyond boredom. So, it’s off.

With the dojo at the moment though, I’m feeling a little… uncoupled? I don’t know. I don’t particularly like valentines day because every single relationship I’ve had has usually ended on a "Oh, we’re better as just friends" note or a realization I was dating someone who actually was insane, not just creatively insane.

Everyone, up to and including Sensei, has coupled up around me, leaving me entirely alone! Well, not alone, per se, but definitely without the usual access to people I have, namely, one on one. There’s my twin, my best friend, my friend Josh even managed to couple up from Iraq. Iraq. The sand trap, bummsville, ect. It’s enough to make someone’s head explode.

I don’t even know why it bothers me. I suppose it’s the inordinant amount of free time everyone else dating has caused. I mean, I can full clear most songs on Rock Band vocals now because of the time I’ve got doing nothing. (I should be in the Gym at least an hour of that, I know…) But, geez… I mean, how the hell much time can people spend latched onto each other?

Speaking of the gym though, I am kind of on the fence. I understand the correlation (and results) between increasing cardio, a good program and nutrition, but it’s rather hard to implement on a campus. I’ve done it before, but apperantly I’m having trouble pulling it off again. I need to find my old strength program from when I first started that had like a gazillion rowing motions in it. I like them, and they worked, so they stay, if I can find it.

So, I’m in the middle of another ferocious job hunt. Regardless of my habit of jumping jobs, I am continually able to land new ones with little to no trouble. I.E. I decided last Tuesday to drop the Content Specialist job, and switch up and I’m in the interview process right now, looking at either swallowing my personal ethics relating to my writing and staying at the Drury Website plus editing the school newspaper’s website, or becoming a research and office assistant in the Medival Studies department on campus and still doing the newspaper edit.

Switching means a $0.30 pay cut, but maintaining my ethics are worth far more than that. I personally seek to never reflect anything less than 90% of the truth in my writing. Even here where there are some exaggerations on my part just out of interest of readership, I’m still representing almost everything as accurately as possible with little addition or embellishment. Yes, the first post about bloodletting is true, though it’s actually done with really old red ink (Read: about 50 years) rather than our own blood.

Anyway, here’s the deal with the writing: I live across from several properties that the university owns in addition to my apartment complex and two others. I saw a student that I had written a very good, complimentary profile that made him sound almost perfect and a model student at that too. He was moonwalking drunk across ice in the middle of a road. Now, I normally consider this a normal college habit, but it still rang true: acting like this model student didn’t do anything wrong when I can see him do this is just… well, unethical. I can’t continue at a job that required me to do this. It’s actually really shamed me because as wel intentioned as everyone save for one is, I know that they all behave the same way, and whether or not it’s really a good idea to hold it against them, it’s a reflection on my ethics as a professional and reporting truth and facts. 

 That’s why I’m changing, and not to mention my boss is extremely strange. Even for me, she’s a little out there. Stacks styrofoam bowls and makes tops out of them and plays with them for one thing. Just… strange. I don’t like it, and there’s a lot of bad energy in the office that keeps making me feel terrible.

That leads me to the second part of this post: my progress concerns. In studying the "Jiggle Factor" of my body, I’ve realized that the fat in my body really is centered around and added exclusively to my stomach and butt, which explain the abnormally high body fat readings though I can still show definition through my upper chest and arms when flexed and in the morning after I wake up. In other words, I’m getting screwy results by my body’s own natural habits. Now that’s not saying that i’m really like 8% or something. That’s rediculous. It’s just that it’s gathering and not going anywhere. Which stresses again the earlier mention of cardio and restricting my diet to some more healty foods. So, now that I’ve studied what is wrong, I can fix it.

But it’s not going to work without a measure of progress. Part of my problem in the Arts and in my body work is that I’m seeking progress, but not seeing it. So I need to find reliable ways of measure. For the arts, I already have a plan. I’m going to request permission to dual-enroll at another Dojo or MMA Gym as a way of getting the progress measure of competition. I’m going to stop lifting weights, and focus on Cardio, which I believe will get me going again as I don’t feel the need for weights.

For one, being a physically strong person directly contradicts many of the motions of my family’s Arts, and for another, I can push my 300 lb roomate across the room on a stool with little resistance on carpet. I think I’ve got the strength I need. Now I just need to get rid of the fat to show that it’s really there.

Happy Super Bowl?

*shrugs* so I blew off my diet that I had a handle on for the whole of two days between two superbowl parties. back on it tomorrow though. *nods* Totall will be, because I really enjoy it. Who knew knocking out everything liquid that wasn’t available 200 years ago would turn out to be really tasty? Milk, Tea and Water really do work out well for me. At least, until they’re not readily available. I’m still working on that whole "Soda" thing. And I will improve. In fact, I am improving! Excluding tonight, my soda consumption has dropped from about a 24 pack by volume down to about seven or so? I call that progress. Not to mention the near-instant loss of about half an inch from not having as much coursing through my system. The downside is that I haven’t had such a terrible headache as this since my senior year of high school when I was stressed about the whole college thing.

The plan for now on is to follow what I’ve done with liquids into food things. Namely, eliminating most processed food by trying to get rid of everything that would not have been available 200 years ago. So, that means if it wasn’t actually killed by a person, it’s out. It’s like some sort of freaky historical vegitarian thing. Notably, this does knock out my cheezit snackage, but I think that I can argue for them as "crackers" rather than cheeze-its. *shifty eyes*

So why 200 years? again, since that’s the rough age of my family’s martial art, it coincides with a lot of the things I’m beginning to hold up. Call it indoctrination, whatever, but a lot of the stuff isn’t too far off from what I grew up with. When I was younger, I often imagined my older self as a knight. Honorable, strong, chivalrous, and acted that way. So this isn’t really anything different for me–just a little more intense.

Granted, that does bring up some problems, namely the whole "honor" thing. One of my roomates severely insulted my martial and biological family in the same breath, and I had to walk to the other side of campus to avoid the urge to stab him on the spot. Deciding that witholding physical vengance was preferrable to jail time, I haven’t. I’ve simply treated him as socially dead (read: Silent Treatment). Childish, yes, but it’s the only thing I can do to keep myself from hearing him insult me or my families further and really giving me reason to go off on him. Notably, if this was 200 years ago, I would already have his head paraded about the village on a pike… *evil laugh* O.o;; Uh… moving on…

I suppose that this makes me seem rather… psychotic. I’m embellishing a little. Don’t worry. Really, the impulse was more like punching him in the face. With brass knuckles. And stuff. Lots of stuff. Still, I refuse to speak to him further until he apologizes.

But why? I’ve worked so hard to earn Sensei and the rest of the Uchideshi’s respect that it really hurts when anyone insults him in a non-joking manner. It feels more like an attack on me than it probably should. Same kind of goes for my biological family, but not so much. That’s more just attachment issues and protecting them.

Anyway, I’m going to continue this way until he apologizes. And the diet stuff. A little drama never hurt anyone, eh?