Recent Happenings
Apr. 22nd, 2010 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthI am determined not to have two months pass again, just cause I end up forgetting so much of what I do, and since the point of my LJ is to help me remember the things that I do, it is silly if I let it sit. Anyway, it gets more intimidating to write a post the longer I take, it's self-perpetuating.
April is typically one of my slowest months. It's after the grants season has ended, but before I have to do all my pre-summer evaluation stuff, and as a result, I can do things like I have the last two years (09 and 08) when I wandered out of the city for weeks. This year, thankfully, I didn't have to do that (both of those trips were required and in some ways not all that much fun).
This April has been much more casual and fun. I joined the New York Botanical Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in my own name for the first time. NYBG is one of the closest public fun things close to my house (it takes me about an hour to get there, I can walk there in just under two hours if I'm feeling ambitious) and I love spring flowers, so I've already gone there three times in the last month. I've only made it to the Met once, but I'm tentatively planning on going tomorrow. I've mostly been putting it off cause I really, really want to go to afternoon tea, but I'm just not sure I have the money, and I want to see how my finances for April finishing falling out before I make up my mind.
Mostly, things have been uneventful. I've been working 10 to 20 hours a week, getting done the things that I need to get done (for the most part). I'm having the pleasant experience that right now, there is only one e-mail in my work inbox - I've taken care of everything else - and I could take care of that one in just a few minutes if I was just being slightly less lazy - as it is, I'm gonna do it tomorrow. It literally is 5 minutes worth of work.
One nice thing to the month was a visit by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thelisafaerie, who spent a weekend with me. It was great to get to see her; aside from when she was working I don't think we stopped talking the entire 48 hours. Also, at the work event she was at, she encountered a friend of hers who turns out to be GMing a game in Brooklyn. She put the two of us in contact; he runs about once a month on a flexible schedule, and also does weekly "if most people can, game; if most people can't, board games" - which, really, works pretty much perfectly for me. I couldn't make the first one, but I extracted a promise of an invitation to the next session, made it clear that I understand that gaming groups don't always jibe and that it might not be workout and that wouldn't be an issue (though hopefully it won't be a problem at all!) and exchanged our opinions on the Mets. I don't know, it feels like a great sign that we're both Mets fans, and anyway, he seemed like a cool, friendly, casual gamer type guy - which is a sort I think I can game with pretty happily.
Speaking of the Mets, my third game of the season is tonight. It feels like it's gonna be warmer than the last game, which was on Monday and was fine (and we won) except for a rather driving wind. Opening day was awesome too, of course, but I already wrote about that in my previous post. :) I'm feeling pretty good about this season, not cause it's going well, but because after last year, I just don't care if we win or lose. I really learned that I enjoy the games, and I love my team, regardless of whether we're getting our asses kicked, and that means I'm very sanguine our current losing record. Win or lose, I'm a Mets fan, period.
The other thing that stands out as an event this month is a visit to my dad. Right afterthelisafaerie left, I drove out to Sussex to see dad as a member of the chorus in a production of Pirates of Penzance. It was a pretty good production considering it was just a community college, and dad looked like he was enjoying himself, so all in all I was glad that I went.
I also had a nice dinner withbakanekotoo, who I hadn't seen since January. Between my busy season and her busy season, we just couldn't figure out a time to meet. I'm hoping it won't be so long next time! :)
Lastly, we had a bit of a scare with my grandfather - they found a spot on his lungs on an x-ray - but after a cat scan on Monday, we've now established it's not cancer or anything else, and that's very reassuring, cause I was kinda worried.
I resumed working on my Golden Age novel on April 1st. This has been going both good and not good. My re-reading of the manuscript revealed that the middle section of the novel (which is what I'm working on now) really needs a ton of work. Thus, in three weeks, I've only gotten through editing one chapter. This involved reading the chapter, which had sections from the points of view of both my main characters. I decided that the pov sections for Marie were, well, terrible, so I ripped them out wholesale. I then edited the John sections, and wrote brand new Marie sections. This turned out to be 8000 words of new writing, which I guess is why it took so long, but man, it felt like I was CRAWLING. I've finally made it to the next chapter, which is at least entirely from M's point of view, but it's also a disaster area. I had to reintegrate some of the information from the sections I had cut, but I'm also cutting huge swaths from this chapter - and mashing it together at high speed with the next chapter - and all in all, I'm feeling a little intimidated by how much work I feel like the novel still needs. Especially problematic is that I really, really need to get the word count for the novel down (the first draft was right around 210k words) but so far, despite all my efforts, I've only managed to cut 7k words (it was over 10k words until I had to add a bunch to the previous chapter). For now I'm not worrying about it, because ultimately I don't intend THIS version of the novel to be "the one" - this is never going to an editor, an agent, or a publisher.
However, when I look to the next version - which will involve completely rewriting the sections that relate to the Dreamlands, which is the intellectual property (though in the public domain) of HP Lovecraft. I've already got planned out what I'm going to do instead, and it'll work for the most part - not without some issues, but nothing I don't think I can work around. That, at least, is settled. When I look to the outline of the novel, both what I have edited and what I haven't edited, I see some major things that I'm going to have to cut. At least two whole chapters of what I've already edited probably won't make the cut, nor will my favorite chapter in the whole novel (from the point of view of my thinking it represents effective writing and I researched it extensively). The favorite chapter, at least, is perfectly set up to be the introduction to the sequel to this book (which I already know a basic outline of the plot for) - because in truth, this chapter doesn't really move along the plot for THIS book, but it does move along the plot for the next one. The problem is, it's the events that immediately precede one of the most important scenes for this book, so I'm feeling a bit worried about cutting it, and I really don't want to present it in an abbreviated form, and I don't like to start a chapter by saying "we had this big adventure that you're not going to hear about, but here's the stuff that matters!" ...the problem at it's core is that all of the chapters I've written at this point serve a purpose. The first chapter I think is going to have to go doesn't forward the plot along, but it introduces the two main characters, introduces them to each other, and establishes the basic outline of their relationship. I haven't been able to come up with a good way to do this while integrating stuff that matters, because by the time the things that matter start happening, the two characters have to already be well acquainted. (the events of the book cover about 8 months of time, from April to December 31st of 1942).
Ah well. I'm gonna have to figure it out. I've already cut one entire chapter, by the way: I can tell the difference between those that serve a purpose and those that don't. It's just figuring out how to consolidate and show the important pieces of the chapters without losing anything that matters. Hmm...
(by the way, I write things like this because they force me to think about what I'm working on and give me the chance to start pondering wholesale. I'm coming out of this with a couple ideas, which may not end up helping out, but it's a start...)
While I haven't made much progress in the weight loss department - I seem to be on a plateau at right around 153/4 (according to Mom's scale) or 156/7 (according to the scale at the gym, which I always use right after I finish working out and am therefore fairly heavy. I also got the opportunity to weigh myself naked first thing in the morning for the first time in, oh, 6 months or something, and was gratified to see that under those conditions I'm apparently just over 152 (according to dad's scale). All of this suggests a decent amount of progress: I started this round of working at it at the beginning of July last summer, when I weighed 163 lbs. (according to both Mom's scale and the scale at B and Ks). When I started at the gym, I was at 163 according to the gym scale, and 158 according to Mom's, so I've shed about 10 lbs. since I started, and I'm in much better shape.
Not only do I now try to do harder things in the same amount of time, I've also recently started working on doing more. I'm on a 3 days on/1 day off schedule now (though things keep coming up that mean that it's turning out in practice to be more like 3 days or 2 days on, 1 day off). When all goes as planned, these days are:
Day 1:
Elliptical for 30 minutes (30 min is the limit on aerobic equipment at the gym), raising the resistance every 30 sec, min, or 2 min until it's as hard as I can do (I aim for this level of difficult at about the 10 min left point). Depending on which of the ellipticals I use, the highest resistance is either 19 (as of today, on the machine I prefer) or 21 (the other elliptical as lower tension for no obvious reason).
Arm exercises. Using the cable crossover machine, I do all 9 of the arm exercises outlined on it's stickers. At least two exercises work each major muscle group in the arm and chest, and though I'm not getting better as fast as I'd liked, I've managed to get all of them to the point that I can manage at least the minimum weight on the machine (which is 20 lbs.); I've gotten my bicep curls up to 25 lbs. per arm, which is nice. I also try to do the chest press, where I'm up to 47.5 lbs...it's all progress, at least. All arm exercises are in 3 sets of 10 reps per arm.
Rowing machine. Last week, I tried the rowing machine for the first time. It's FUN! So I've added 10 min of rowing to my workout, on the highest resistance (which is still fairly easy, which I guess is reassuring).
Crunches: As many inclined situps (26 today) as I can manage, and then crunches. Recently added inclined leg lifts (currently 25 reps, but I'm trying for at least 30).
Day 2:
Jogging. I set a timer for an hour, and jog for as much of it as I can. Most recently, this meant 43 minutes, but the last few jogs I've felt like I could do more. The problem is finding a route that it's flat enough. No matter what, I have to end with a rather wicked up hill (a recent achievement was the first time I jogged all the way up that hill, I've now done it three times), and I always worry that if I go to far, I won't have the energy to get all the way back, but I've made up my mind: tomorrow I'm going to push it. I'm gonna try to do an entire second lap of the track I've been using in the park. This track is about a mile long. There's a point doing that when I can bail about a third of the way in, but if I get past there, I'll have to go all the way around (though of course I could stop jogging...but...). Anyway, at this point I think that if I could go more than an hour, I would, but that hasn't happened yet. My records (all on different jogs) are 48 min running (the very first time!), 6.32 mph average (but only over 31 min), and 5.1 mi (also the first jog.) However, I've been getting better: my most recent jog was 43 min, 4.5 mi, 6/27 mph average pace.
Day 3:
I was doing the bike, but now none of the bikes will hold a book, so I've switched to the ark machine, which is basically an elliptical, except it forces you to step a bit higher (if you've used an elliptical that allows you to adjust incline, more like a high incline on an elliptical). I raise the resistance same as on the elliptical; current max is 26, but I only switched last week.
Leg exercises: I don't like to do the leg exercises earlier, because, well, I need to use these legs to do all those other things! I've been doing squats, quad and calf raises and lowers, butt exercises, and abductor/adductor. As with arms, 30 reps (10 reps in 3 sets). I've only recently added the legs, and they're not getting better that fast, but I'm working on it.
Rowing machine: same as day 1.
Crunches: same as day 1.
All in all, I'm feeling happy about things are going. In particular, the last few days I've started looking in the mirror and thinking I actually look pretty good. That's a nice change. :) Of course, it'll only last until I get used to how I look at this weight and fitness. Stupid bad self image. ;)
Anyway, I was mostly writing this to kill time til noon, when I let myself eat lunch. I got in everything I wanted to say, more or less, so later folks!
April is typically one of my slowest months. It's after the grants season has ended, but before I have to do all my pre-summer evaluation stuff, and as a result, I can do things like I have the last two years (09 and 08) when I wandered out of the city for weeks. This year, thankfully, I didn't have to do that (both of those trips were required and in some ways not all that much fun).
This April has been much more casual and fun. I joined the New York Botanical Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in my own name for the first time. NYBG is one of the closest public fun things close to my house (it takes me about an hour to get there, I can walk there in just under two hours if I'm feeling ambitious) and I love spring flowers, so I've already gone there three times in the last month. I've only made it to the Met once, but I'm tentatively planning on going tomorrow. I've mostly been putting it off cause I really, really want to go to afternoon tea, but I'm just not sure I have the money, and I want to see how my finances for April finishing falling out before I make up my mind.
Mostly, things have been uneventful. I've been working 10 to 20 hours a week, getting done the things that I need to get done (for the most part). I'm having the pleasant experience that right now, there is only one e-mail in my work inbox - I've taken care of everything else - and I could take care of that one in just a few minutes if I was just being slightly less lazy - as it is, I'm gonna do it tomorrow. It literally is 5 minutes worth of work.
One nice thing to the month was a visit by
thelisafaerie, who spent a weekend with me. It was great to get to see her; aside from when she was working I don't think we stopped talking the entire 48 hours. Also, at the work event she was at, she encountered a friend of hers who turns out to be GMing a game in Brooklyn. She put the two of us in contact; he runs about once a month on a flexible schedule, and also does weekly "if most people can, game; if most people can't, board games" - which, really, works pretty much perfectly for me. I couldn't make the first one, but I extracted a promise of an invitation to the next session, made it clear that I understand that gaming groups don't always jibe and that it might not be workout and that wouldn't be an issue (though hopefully it won't be a problem at all!) and exchanged our opinions on the Mets. I don't know, it feels like a great sign that we're both Mets fans, and anyway, he seemed like a cool, friendly, casual gamer type guy - which is a sort I think I can game with pretty happily. Speaking of the Mets, my third game of the season is tonight. It feels like it's gonna be warmer than the last game, which was on Monday and was fine (and we won) except for a rather driving wind. Opening day was awesome too, of course, but I already wrote about that in my previous post. :) I'm feeling pretty good about this season, not cause it's going well, but because after last year, I just don't care if we win or lose. I really learned that I enjoy the games, and I love my team, regardless of whether we're getting our asses kicked, and that means I'm very sanguine our current losing record. Win or lose, I'm a Mets fan, period.
The other thing that stands out as an event this month is a visit to my dad. Right after
thelisafaerie left, I drove out to Sussex to see dad as a member of the chorus in a production of Pirates of Penzance. It was a pretty good production considering it was just a community college, and dad looked like he was enjoying himself, so all in all I was glad that I went.I also had a nice dinner with
bakanekotoo, who I hadn't seen since January. Between my busy season and her busy season, we just couldn't figure out a time to meet. I'm hoping it won't be so long next time! :)Lastly, we had a bit of a scare with my grandfather - they found a spot on his lungs on an x-ray - but after a cat scan on Monday, we've now established it's not cancer or anything else, and that's very reassuring, cause I was kinda worried.
I resumed working on my Golden Age novel on April 1st. This has been going both good and not good. My re-reading of the manuscript revealed that the middle section of the novel (which is what I'm working on now) really needs a ton of work. Thus, in three weeks, I've only gotten through editing one chapter. This involved reading the chapter, which had sections from the points of view of both my main characters. I decided that the pov sections for Marie were, well, terrible, so I ripped them out wholesale. I then edited the John sections, and wrote brand new Marie sections. This turned out to be 8000 words of new writing, which I guess is why it took so long, but man, it felt like I was CRAWLING. I've finally made it to the next chapter, which is at least entirely from M's point of view, but it's also a disaster area. I had to reintegrate some of the information from the sections I had cut, but I'm also cutting huge swaths from this chapter - and mashing it together at high speed with the next chapter - and all in all, I'm feeling a little intimidated by how much work I feel like the novel still needs. Especially problematic is that I really, really need to get the word count for the novel down (the first draft was right around 210k words) but so far, despite all my efforts, I've only managed to cut 7k words (it was over 10k words until I had to add a bunch to the previous chapter). For now I'm not worrying about it, because ultimately I don't intend THIS version of the novel to be "the one" - this is never going to an editor, an agent, or a publisher.
However, when I look to the next version - which will involve completely rewriting the sections that relate to the Dreamlands, which is the intellectual property (though in the public domain) of HP Lovecraft. I've already got planned out what I'm going to do instead, and it'll work for the most part - not without some issues, but nothing I don't think I can work around. That, at least, is settled. When I look to the outline of the novel, both what I have edited and what I haven't edited, I see some major things that I'm going to have to cut. At least two whole chapters of what I've already edited probably won't make the cut, nor will my favorite chapter in the whole novel (from the point of view of my thinking it represents effective writing and I researched it extensively). The favorite chapter, at least, is perfectly set up to be the introduction to the sequel to this book (which I already know a basic outline of the plot for) - because in truth, this chapter doesn't really move along the plot for THIS book, but it does move along the plot for the next one. The problem is, it's the events that immediately precede one of the most important scenes for this book, so I'm feeling a bit worried about cutting it, and I really don't want to present it in an abbreviated form, and I don't like to start a chapter by saying "we had this big adventure that you're not going to hear about, but here's the stuff that matters!" ...the problem at it's core is that all of the chapters I've written at this point serve a purpose. The first chapter I think is going to have to go doesn't forward the plot along, but it introduces the two main characters, introduces them to each other, and establishes the basic outline of their relationship. I haven't been able to come up with a good way to do this while integrating stuff that matters, because by the time the things that matter start happening, the two characters have to already be well acquainted. (the events of the book cover about 8 months of time, from April to December 31st of 1942).
Ah well. I'm gonna have to figure it out. I've already cut one entire chapter, by the way: I can tell the difference between those that serve a purpose and those that don't. It's just figuring out how to consolidate and show the important pieces of the chapters without losing anything that matters. Hmm...
(by the way, I write things like this because they force me to think about what I'm working on and give me the chance to start pondering wholesale. I'm coming out of this with a couple ideas, which may not end up helping out, but it's a start...)
While I haven't made much progress in the weight loss department - I seem to be on a plateau at right around 153/4 (according to Mom's scale) or 156/7 (according to the scale at the gym, which I always use right after I finish working out and am therefore fairly heavy. I also got the opportunity to weigh myself naked first thing in the morning for the first time in, oh, 6 months or something, and was gratified to see that under those conditions I'm apparently just over 152 (according to dad's scale). All of this suggests a decent amount of progress: I started this round of working at it at the beginning of July last summer, when I weighed 163 lbs. (according to both Mom's scale and the scale at B and Ks). When I started at the gym, I was at 163 according to the gym scale, and 158 according to Mom's, so I've shed about 10 lbs. since I started, and I'm in much better shape.
Not only do I now try to do harder things in the same amount of time, I've also recently started working on doing more. I'm on a 3 days on/1 day off schedule now (though things keep coming up that mean that it's turning out in practice to be more like 3 days or 2 days on, 1 day off). When all goes as planned, these days are:
Day 1:
Elliptical for 30 minutes (30 min is the limit on aerobic equipment at the gym), raising the resistance every 30 sec, min, or 2 min until it's as hard as I can do (I aim for this level of difficult at about the 10 min left point). Depending on which of the ellipticals I use, the highest resistance is either 19 (as of today, on the machine I prefer) or 21 (the other elliptical as lower tension for no obvious reason).
Arm exercises. Using the cable crossover machine, I do all 9 of the arm exercises outlined on it's stickers. At least two exercises work each major muscle group in the arm and chest, and though I'm not getting better as fast as I'd liked, I've managed to get all of them to the point that I can manage at least the minimum weight on the machine (which is 20 lbs.); I've gotten my bicep curls up to 25 lbs. per arm, which is nice. I also try to do the chest press, where I'm up to 47.5 lbs...it's all progress, at least. All arm exercises are in 3 sets of 10 reps per arm.
Rowing machine. Last week, I tried the rowing machine for the first time. It's FUN! So I've added 10 min of rowing to my workout, on the highest resistance (which is still fairly easy, which I guess is reassuring).
Crunches: As many inclined situps (26 today) as I can manage, and then crunches. Recently added inclined leg lifts (currently 25 reps, but I'm trying for at least 30).
Day 2:
Jogging. I set a timer for an hour, and jog for as much of it as I can. Most recently, this meant 43 minutes, but the last few jogs I've felt like I could do more. The problem is finding a route that it's flat enough. No matter what, I have to end with a rather wicked up hill (a recent achievement was the first time I jogged all the way up that hill, I've now done it three times), and I always worry that if I go to far, I won't have the energy to get all the way back, but I've made up my mind: tomorrow I'm going to push it. I'm gonna try to do an entire second lap of the track I've been using in the park. This track is about a mile long. There's a point doing that when I can bail about a third of the way in, but if I get past there, I'll have to go all the way around (though of course I could stop jogging...but...). Anyway, at this point I think that if I could go more than an hour, I would, but that hasn't happened yet. My records (all on different jogs) are 48 min running (the very first time!), 6.32 mph average (but only over 31 min), and 5.1 mi (also the first jog.) However, I've been getting better: my most recent jog was 43 min, 4.5 mi, 6/27 mph average pace.
Day 3:
I was doing the bike, but now none of the bikes will hold a book, so I've switched to the ark machine, which is basically an elliptical, except it forces you to step a bit higher (if you've used an elliptical that allows you to adjust incline, more like a high incline on an elliptical). I raise the resistance same as on the elliptical; current max is 26, but I only switched last week.
Leg exercises: I don't like to do the leg exercises earlier, because, well, I need to use these legs to do all those other things! I've been doing squats, quad and calf raises and lowers, butt exercises, and abductor/adductor. As with arms, 30 reps (10 reps in 3 sets). I've only recently added the legs, and they're not getting better that fast, but I'm working on it.
Rowing machine: same as day 1.
Crunches: same as day 1.
All in all, I'm feeling happy about things are going. In particular, the last few days I've started looking in the mirror and thinking I actually look pretty good. That's a nice change. :) Of course, it'll only last until I get used to how I look at this weight and fitness. Stupid bad self image. ;)
Anyway, I was mostly writing this to kill time til noon, when I let myself eat lunch. I got in everything I wanted to say, more or less, so later folks!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 04:55 pm (UTC)I row with my damper set to 7-ish, which makes it mostly a power-based workout.
You can also find the world rankings for different distances; it's always fun to test where you fall in them (I'm ranked about 35th in my categories).
I love the rowers, particularly because they're not AirDynes! :)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 02:52 pm (UTC)All I know about the "resistance" is that 10 feels harder than 1, and that the lever is kinda broken, so if I try to set it on anything other than 1 or 10, it falls down to one. That said, someone wedged a paper towel in it, and that seems to hold it in place, so once I know if it's a Concept2, I'll definitely figure out which level represents what I want - I think I'd be more interested in muscle power (I get plenty of cardio, I want my arms to be stronger!) so that'd be the higher settings, right?
The main thing I love about the rower is the way the wheel turning fans me, it's like the harder I work, the nicer breeze I get...just like if I was really rowing! And it feels great after a half hour on the elliptical... :)