Marathon Madness

Once upon a time, the fates got together and conspired to make a special day. This day is April 20th, which this year happened to fall on a Monday. And not just any Monday... but Marathon Monday.

For those of you who do not (or have never) lived in the Greater Boston area, this is the day of the Boston Marathon. While some athletes work toward this moment their entire lives... the rest of us use this as an excuse to drink and party. The day is even called "Patriot's Day," but no one observes April 20th for that purpose.

This year, we have the distinct pleasure of not only dealing with hundreds of thousands of belligerent drunks, but also pot-heads as 4/20 is pretty much their holy day. Throw skinheads (today is Hitler's birthday) and psychos (today is also the Columbine anniversary), and you have a full cast of shenanigans just itching to happen.

I want to point out that I am lame. While festivities were raging, I was sitting around sober. I'm also in our school's computer lab doing homework now... at 6:20 in the afternoon.

Happy Marathon Monday, world.

Life changes

Well, here I am again to make an addendum to my New Year's Resolutions. My initial decision was to be less selfish - to give more to other people. It's too vague, though, so I offer an amendment:

Be less selfish, but fix my life again.

I realized that my cavalier attitude toward sex has surpassed even Samantha Jones. Once might even call it an addiction. In the past couple months, I've gotten my share of sex. And the only person it failed to please was me.

I'm sure all my former-church friends are going, "See! Told you it wouldn't be satisfying!" Those people are retarded, and they are missing the point. Sex is awesome, and I will never, ever give it up. I love who I am, kthxbai.

At what cost, however, have I become this overly sexual libertine? Well, from what I can tell (and given my past few dates), it's all been at the cost of romance.

Take my situation with FitRec. He's a genuinely romantic person (albeit one I wouldn't want to date). But because I was so interested in the sex, I only realized we weren't compatible at all only AFTER we screwed.

That's not a good way to date.


So I'm going to violate my own rule ("Always have sex on the first date") and shun my attitudes ("Sex is just sex - fuck emotions"). It's time I committed to the person that I should really be happy with - myself. And maybe a few cute sex-less dates on the way.



P.s. Rainman and I have been texting. This is baaaaaad for me, but I can't stop myself. I'm such a masochist - I don't think we've ever spoken where I didn't feel the sudden urge to go home and swallow everything in the medicine cabinet.

I don't know what to do there.

Save the last dance for me

Today, Tuft's University held their ballroom competition... which went fantastically. In the end, we ended up walking away with ribbons, a smile on our faces, and sore muscles... everywhere.

The thing I notice about dance is that no one seems to take is seriously. We call competitive ballroom dancing, "dancesport," but the first comment one usually gets is, "Ballroom isn't really a sport."

... really? Really? How do you define sport? A physically draining activity that challenges your ability to perform a task or a skill that you have learned and practiced ad nauseam in order to score points? You have coaches and team that you rely on for support to win? You gain a sense of accomplishment when you win, but strive to improve when you lose?


Interestingly enough, in ballroom we physically exert ourselves to the point of falling down, doing skills and moves we've practiced for months or years, to win points and place against other couples. We have large teams of dancers all working and practicing together. In short, it's the same thing. Ballroom=sport.

I'll give you this: ballroom is less manly than football or basketball. Then again, how manly can those activities be? I see more ass-slaps and homoeroticism during a game/match than in a trashy teen-fanfic story. Perhaps they are more mainstream, or even more heterosexual. But that doesn't make them better at all.

Side note: Contrary to popular belief, there are many straight ballroom dancers. Are there a plethora of homos? Yes... but not an overwhelming majority.


Ballroom is also a fantastic way to lose weight. I apparently burn anywhere from 250-500 calories an hour. How can you beat that? I get to lose weight like crazy doing something I love to do, which is actually a lot of fun? Win-win, really.



To anyone who thinks this isn't a difficult sport: Do a few laps of quickstep at 50+ BPM and tell me that's not genuine fatigue. If you make it halfway around the floor, then color me impressed.


Interesting article on this: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/dec/25/ballroom_dancing_gaining_favor_next_potential_olym/

Enjoy. Deep down, we all just want to feel a little glamorous sometime.

Disorderly eating?

I think I have a problem with eating (don't read as "eating disorder"). To be clear from the beginning, I absolutely love food. Love it, love it, love it. Food and me get along well together.

During the week, however, I just... don't eat. It's not that I don't want to. I just forget. On a day like today, between getting up right before class, being in class, and doing homework later, it's no wonder that I could easily get up tomorrow and remember that I haven't eaten since Sunday.

*ick* My body must be so confused. I keep alternating between binge-eating my emotions and starving myself accidentally for days.

Can't be healthy - I think I'm going to go eat a cracker or two. Perhaps a little water.

New Roach-hell

I'm sitting in my linear algebra class in the basement of the math-science building(s) on campus. Bored and sleepy, I'm staring around for something to look at. And guess what delectable little morsel I find?

Yes... a huge cockroach. The photo doesn't do this thing justice - you would think things like this would be fucking extinct. It was like the Godfather of roaches. Biggest little fucker I've ever seen.

I don't know how I feel about spending so much time in an environment that even cockroaches can't survive.

*shivers*

Fail

I just saw a group of girls teaching a freshman boy how to smoke his first cigarette.

*facepalm* Wake me up when humanity actually has a fighting chance, kthnxbai.

Confessions of a lost runner

So those of you who have been following along, I've started going the gym. And it hurts. But at least I have a new toy to keep my mind on other things while I make myself hurt all over (bet you'll never guess what it is).

One of the things I've noticed about my gym excursions is that I'm into the same kinds of things exclusively. Once upon a time, I used to be a runner - cross country, in fact. So where do I end up? On the treadmill. But I never go on the track; in fact, I hate it. I never did track in school, nor do I intend to now.

The treadmill is the closest thing I can find to cross country. Like my days of romping thorough the woods and mud, the treadmill is a long-distance style of running. You can change the speed at will, but mostly you run as a constant pace for a long period of time. The television in front of you ensures that you are always entertained by new images. The machine I use even cheers for me and tells me how much I have left until I'm done - kind of like an electronic fan/spectator in the crowd near the finish line.




It's bad for me, I know - it'll hurt my joints, etc. And it's probably not a good workout to gain muscle mass and core strength for ice skating. But (secretly) I have dreams of grandeur... like running a/the marathon one day.

My Monday/Wednesday/Fridays, however, will have to do until I decide that 30 minutes at the gym has equipped me for a 26 mile run. That's fortunately very, very far off.