I seem to go through phases where I either work like a dog to get stuff done or I don’t feel like doing anything at all. I really don’t feel like doing much now. Maybe I’m trying to recover from the work I did this past semester, but this past semester was probably the least stressful as of late. It’s just there are things I would like to get done but I just can’t bring myself to do them. However, if I don’t get them done, I don’t get paid (for my job), and I won’t get my degree (for school). Fear is a great motivator. It worked a lot with racing when I was too scared to run poorly or lose to someone. I’ll be back at full strength soon.
Progress on stuff for my job has been steady and I have been getting done what my supervisor wants me to, but I feel I could work at a much faster pace if I wanted to. The same goes for my masters project where I have to set up a CAD drawing of a rocket so that it can be fed into a mesh generator. I’ve read some manuals and done some of the tutorials, but there is still a lot more to learn before I really understand. The rocket grid/mesh I have to work with is way more complex than the simpler tutorial examples and I want to understand how to get the grid ready for meshing before I head back to school. I really don’t want to run out of time. I may be a lab TA or grader next semester so that may eat into my time even more.
Somehow I managed a 4.0 again this semester. I’m not sure how that happened, but I did it and it will give me some leeway this coming semester if I plan to continue as a PhD. I’ll still be able to get a B in one class and a B+ in the other to maintain a 3.7 average in seven classes. Hopefully that won’t be the case, but I can do it and still get away with it (I think). There are so many rules and committees and stuff that you have to get through so the requirements are much more than objective and straightforward. Regardless, it’s going to be tough going.
This was probably the most un-Christmas-like Christmas ever. We had no tree, no decorations, almost no presents, and we weren’t even home. It seems each year we do less and less. When I was in elementary school we put up the tree shortly after Thanksgiving and tons of decorations. It was a big and exciting event each time. We would put up an extensive O-gauge railroad around the tree too. This would usually involve a trip to this giant model train store in Suffolk or Portsmouth to get new cars and track. My mom would also make a zillion different kinds of Christmas cookies. Christmas day would also be a huge deal too and it seemed that there were always piles of presents. There was always a particular Lego set that I wanted and I would spend all day putting it together and playing with it.
Then, as each year went by, the excitement seemed to decrease. Along with it, the train set disappeared, along with fewer decorations and not as many cookies. I guess this year just bottomed out completely with no tree at all. The past few years we did get a real tree instead of an artificial, but we would wait until the last minute to get one, sometimes even on Christmas Eve, when you could get an unwanted tree in the gutter for free. It doesn’t really matter as much to me anymore and the enjoyment is more centered around being at home rather than school and seeing my family, which I don’t get to that often while I am at school.
This year we went to Tampa since we had family that moved to the area and my grandparents were also visiting them. It was weird since my aunt on my mom’s side just moved there and an uncle on my dad’s side had moved there as well. That was a strange coincidence. We wound up splitting the time between both places, which made for a fair amount of driving since my uncle lived out in the middle of nowhere. The weather was warm and it was nice to see some family I hadn’t seen in awhile. It seems that nearly every neighborhood in the area was gated with a guard shack, which was weird. All the surrounding roads have no shoulders, no sidewalks, and tons of cars, making running a pain. Fortunately, my uncle’s neighborhood was big enough I could get most of my runs done within the entire “compound”. The warm weather made things more enjoyable.
I didn’t really do all that much during the four days that we were in Florida, mainly just hanging out in the backyard of my aunt’s or uncle’s place since it was so nice. The first day was just spent recovering from the trip since we got up at 4AM for the flight. It took me nearly two whole days to feel normal again from that. One day we took a road trip around the area and went across the Sunshine Skyway bridge and ate lunch at a brewpub in Ybor City. I shared a beer sampler with my uncle and got this massive smoked salmon sandwich which was excellent. Since I don’t drink that much it was also the first time I had several different beers at the same time (with the sampler) and was surprised to find that I liked the lighter ales and lagers more than the stouts and porters. Of course these were all brewed by the same place, so others may be better, but it was still interesting because until then, most stuff tasted the same when taken by itself.
We also went to an Indian casino and flushed about $150 down the toilet at the slot machines. I don’t know why we went there, it was the biggest waste I’ve ever seen.
The trip back was much better than the way out since I convinced my dad to leave later than 3AM (which is what he wanted to do). We left at a more sane 12 hours later and got home that night. I got dinner at this barbecue place in the Charlotte airport which was still serving the same fried pickles with every meal that I had a couple years ago. Pickles seem like a weird thing to fry.
I’ve been slowly starting back up for a winter/spring training cycle but have been feeling really tight as of late. Maybe I’m just not used to doing what I did for the past five years. I remember Keith saying something over the summer that after four or five years of competing and training at a high level that something is going to give. Some people are better adapted to it than others and are probably able to hang on for longer, but sooner or later your body wants a break. I’ve had some knee thing going on for the past two years and I almost feel that it might be damaged permanently in some way. Some days are much better than others so I try to go how I feel. That seems to work better than forcing through every workout or race regardless of how I feel.
That’s about the highlight of my break so far. Now I have two weeks to get some stuff done before school starts again. I have a feeling some big changes are in store for the future and I’ve got to do my best to ensure they turn out well.
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