whoa, nelly

I'm in a precarious situation. As of late, I've been really pushing myself with my running. I didn't always, but I like figuring out and reaching my limits. The 1 mile race felt good, especially when I was able to beat my goal time. But I have a half marathon coming up in a week and a half, and I'm a little worried about whether I've pushed too much too early. And then I still have 17 weeks until the marathon. I don't think my current training paces are sustainable. And yet every time I go out for a run with a plan to rein it in, it's like I'm incapable of running slower. What am I trying to prove? Need to figure this out fast, or my poor body will force my hand.

what the hell, facebook

Sometimes I get freaked out by technology. I wonder what Facebook knows about me to encourage me to like certain things or friend certain people. Case in point: yesterday I was checking my newsfeed on my phone, and at the top was "someone you might know," and it was the immature young man I dated last year. Remember, the one who invited me over for dinner, and then didn't know how to make dinner? The one I couldn't break up with when I wanted to because an irish girl couldn't break up with an irish boy on St. Patrick's Day? The one who told me when my life became stable I should contact him again? Yeah, that one. We don't know anyone in common, I never friended him or any of his friends. How does Facebook know this about me? Weird. Very weird.

every time I hear that song...

...the one where the singer talks about not wanting to do anything all day, just lay in bed and stare at the fan, that one? You know it?

Every time I hear it, I want to punch the singer in the face. I don't know why it incites so much anger in me, probably because I've been sick to my stomach for days, maybe weeks?, because I'm so tired. And I'm even getting a decent(ish) amount of sleep. Seriously, if I were a parent, I probably would hunt the guy down.

I think the part, though, that makes me the crabbiest is that then he goes on to say that tomorrow he'll work out and meet a nice girl and have nice sex and then he'll get a college degree. Really?

I need to get over it, because it is a dumb song by a stupid singer. I guess this is why I should stick with public radio. And maybe schedule a massage. And some therapy.

dead grandmothers

No, not mine. Well, I guess since mine are, in fact, dead that this would include mine. But one died in the summer when I was in middle school and one died after the semester was over in grad school. A friend on Facebook posted some recent 'research' about the danger to relatives of college students at the end of the term and during finals.

A link to the report is here.

I would have liked an excuse not to come in to work and grade today, as it is just beautiful out. Instead, I'll stare wistfully out the window and remind myself that in six weeks, I'll be really really done with the semester.

over ambitious

I've been pretty aggressive with my running training plan lately. I'd like to drop some time from my last marathon, and know I need to do more with tempo runs, hills, intervals, and weights to get there. It caught up to me last week in a wretched 12 miler. I don't think I've ever had a more awful run. My legs were heavy and tight, my hamstrings and calves cramped up about 2 miles in, and I had to stop several times to catch my breath and stretch. I almost never stop (save for red lights of course) on a run, so that was really unusual for me. I got home and was pretty worried about the upcoming half marathon, given such a rotten long run.

And then I realized that when I typed up my training plan, I skipped the week of 5/23 - it just wasn't on my plan. Which was stupid, but meant I had an extra week before the half and got to redo 12. Though I was a little disappointed I didn't get to start tapering this week - it would have been nice to only have to run 9 for my long run - I was anxious for a second shot at the longer distance. I had a race on Thursday - a 1 mile - and ran pretty fast, but didn't have other tough workouts this week. So I was a little worried about my legs recovering from the race, but made a goal to keep running this week, no matter if I had to slow way down.

And I was gifted a beautiful morning today to have at it. It was a much, much better run, no stops this time, and even kept pace pretty close to where I'd like to be. Not quite, but closer. And now I'm feeling so much better about the race.

So today I'm thankful for second chances. Even the small, meaningless ones.

awkward

A colleague of mine has spent the school year singing the praises of a fellow professor. He's in another department, and my colleague thinks we'd be a great couple. Probably because we're both single.

A couple weeks ago, she arranged a set-up under the guise of a regular old happy hour. I was excited for the happy hour, as I was looking forward to meeting some folks outside my department, and this was the first social gathering (department or not) of the year. For me, at least. I was not as excited about the set-up, especially considering that everyone there knew it was a set-up save the guy involved.

Clearly, these colleagues trying to set me up have been paired off for a really long time and have no idea how to organize a decent set up. Man, was it ever uncomfortable. There were about 10 people there, and when prof in question arrived a little later than the others and was at the other end of the table, I could overhear my colleague scheming to get us sitting next to each other. People started orchestrating all sorts of moves until I was across from prof in question. But I could still overhear folks chirping about how it was going and feeding prof in question with all sorts of stupid info about me. I felt like I was in a fishbowl and simply could not focus on carrying on a decent conversation.

He seemed fine, really. A vegan, which is complicated. But he was interesting enough. But really, even my own prince charming likely wouldn't have made an impression because I was hyperaware of the awkwardness.

Next.

friday book review: children of the dust bowl

better late than never...

Stanley, J. (1993). Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp. New York: Random House.

I taught this book this term upon recommendation of a colleague. She'd used it in the course before, and since I completely trust her judgment, I went ahead and included it. I loved it. The story of the resilient Okies (the inspiration for The Grapes of Wrath) is inspiring. And it has some really amazing photographs, including that one Dorthea Lange pic of the mother and her three children. You know the one.

One of my classes loved the book, stating that they learned a great deal and that it piqued their interest enough to go out and read other nonfiction books about the Dust Bowl, and one had already started reading The Grapes of Wrath, which is high praise from a bunch of grad students with no free time.

My other class did not like it. They are my undergrads, and generally a harder group to please. They had a hard time with every book we read together after The Hunger Games, and thought this was just boring. I get it - it's not like THG. But it makes me worried, though, that this well-written book was "so boring" to a bunch of teachers who will spend far more of their time working with nonfiction texts with children in math, social studies, science, and in language arts too, now that most publishers have wised up and are about 60% nonfiction. We've talked about this, but I'm worried about it.

But I loved the book. It's a keeper.