Ah, trips. A string of trips kept my busy pretty much the entire last two months: Disneyland, Vegas, Yosemite, and finally the motherbeast of all my vacations thus far: two weeks in Brazil.
Brazil: The TLDR and lessons learned:
1. Vacation constipation. You can run, but you can't hide.
2. Always carry your passport with you. Always.
#3 is a lesson; one that I'll introduce with an anecdote.
On our first night in Manaus, Janice and I were looked up and down by two men as we were walking to the grocery store. At first we shrugged it off, thinking it was just a slimy pair of guys. A minute later, we crossed the street and as we turned to look at them they were running in the opposite direction they had come from; one of them with a backpack in his hands and the other wielding a gun.
What. The heck. That could have been us! Stupid me for carrying my bigass Canon strapped around my neck- might as well have written "I AM A TOURIST-ROB ME" on my forehead. Thank goodness Nayson, brown as a local, was also walking with us and stared them down as they were eyeing Janice and me. Lesson learned:
3. If you ever feel unsafe in a foreign place, don't go out at night. If you happen to find yourself out at night, be vigilant and look like you belong.
Not going to talk expand too much on Brazil because nothing but a deeply invested post would do it justice. I don't have the capacity for that at the moment... I'll save it for another post. And anyway, I had planned to fashion this post as a resting place for my thoughts about the all too imminent future.
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Begin: Thoughts on the all too imminent future.
As the end of the week approaches, so does my move to LA. I'm excited yet apprehensive for the move as it marks the end of my 22 year residence in the great Northern California.
I'm ready to meet new people, but will miss being able to see loved ones every day. I'm ready to go back to school and learn things, but I know that all too soon I'm going to miss the freedom of my current schedule. Call me a geek but I get a little giddy at the thought of being able to study science again. I say this with caution though, as I know once the studying begins, it will pile on mercilessly. I have heard that that starting medical school is like "trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant." I can only imagine how overwhelming and copious the workload will be- but if it weren't stressful it wouldn't quite be medical school now would it.
As I enter a new stage of my life, I've been contemplating the things I could do with a fresh start. An aspect of my life I've been trying to get on the right track again is my running (no pun intended). Ever since ending high school, running has evoked in me a sense of both joy and despair. Joy because, well, running is my element. It's the only activity I've ever felt I truly "excelled" at and the only one that provides me with an emotional reverie to slip into during times of need. But sometimes when I reflect upon my post-high school relationship with running, it feels heavy. Having no coach to guide me, no team to run for, and no section championship to train left me feeling really... wasted. Like my potential for greatness was stymied by my own ineptitude. Sure, I ran a few races over my college career but they were all kind of dreary, half assed efforts. I never thoroughly trained for any race I ran. I'd like to change that.
A few weeks ago I signed Lloyd and I up for the "Awesome 80's race"in the Pasadena rose bowl on September 1st. After signing up for the race, I decided that it was time for me to actually put an invested effort into training again. So yesterday, I sat down with myself and had a little meeting. I planned out a workout schedule for month of August, and realized that this was the first time in my life I had done so.
For every race I have ever run, I had either prepared for it by having a coach tell me what to run (high school) or by running whatever I felt like each day (every single freakin race post-high school). Never have I actually made a workout schedule for myself until this one. Without a doubt I know that by nature of being a medical school student, there will be conflicts with this schedule. But I've realized that there are both pros and cons to the situation:
cons
-The sheer time it takes just to attend school is lengthy, making it hard to find the time and place to run
-Studying will take time (...duh) which means I will have less time time to run
-I've scheduled in a lot of 6am and 4pm workouts. 6AMs may be a pain in the ass to wake up for, and 4PMs in the LA heat may predestine me to unpleasant heat exhaustion
-No fremont older and no tilden park. WHERE am I going to run? I know that with time, I'll find some good areas but settling into a new hood and new hills may be rough. I know myself pretty well. And so I know that I will probably get lost as soon as I start exploring.
pros
-Running calms me. This is an infinite "pro" against med school stress
-I hear stories of those people who start waking up early every day and find they have more energy and focus during the day. I hope I'll be one of them...
-Despite "con" #3, I'm kind of excited at the idea of waking up early. I always feel good after a run, and the idea of beginning the day on a high note should resonate well throughout the day.
-Finally being able to meet new people means being able to meet people who also like to run with me some days!
-USC has a gym. For last resort late days at school, I suppose I can head there to get my fix.
OK, gonna finish this post quickly so I can zip out and get an 8 miler in: the remaining item I have on my list is to stay off Facebook until my move is down (so..Sunday?). I have too many things to take care of at home. No time to dilly dally online!
K, bye blog, thanks for listening to me rambling. As always, I reward you with pictures and media!
1. Haha which of these sounds like a phony professional..
2. at the 10 minute mark, I melt a little bit (thanks for the link, Theo). Hence the namesake of this post
edit:typ0s
