Monthly Archives: February 2009

Let me see that thong!

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20

Today was a good but academically unproductive day. I’m really tired now, so I’m going to do bullets.

  • I tried to get up early and do work, but I went back to bed. I’m pretty sleep-deprived, so I figured that I might as well give my body what it was demanding.
  • Stephanie, a girl from the Physics department, and I went to lunch at the apparent “best” Chinese restaurant in the Cham-bana area. I think I should qualify “best” by mentioning that you’re supposed to order off the Chinese menu. I don’t read Chinese, so I just got kung pao tofu.
  • I ordered Baking for Dummies, which finally came in the mail today! I’m excited to read it and learn how to avoid cupcake eruptions.
  • Roommate Tina sent us a huge box filled with delicious baked goods, which I already dove into…head first.

  • She also wrote us an awesome letter, wherein she described her super-fast first Half Marathon (1:49 Gun time). Most amazing of all, she ended up giving a ride to an Ethiopian who was looking for the starting line. Apparently, this man’s name is Worku Beyi, and he is an elite runner. And he and his wife, Buzunesh Deba, won their respective races. And then he introduced Roommate Tina to all his elite runner friends and said he’d call her when he was in town for races. Why doesn’t anything like that ever happen to me?!?
  • [Tina--I don't know if you read my blog, but I miss you! And thanks for the package. It made my day! Come to Illinois and spoon with me!]
  • I ran 5.47 miles with an average pace of 9:19 per mile. I’m pretty satisfied with it, though I am truly starting to get depressed by the weather.
  • To celebrate National Pancake Week, I made the boyfriend a ton of banana pancakes for dinner. (He ate them all.) By contrast, I attempted kim chi jigae for the first time. It turned out well.


  • Are you missing your thong? The boyfriend found one mixed in with his laundry today. He stealthily went back to the laundry room and slipped the thong back into the dryer…but not before I took pictures. So in case you are looking for your thong, here’s the one we found, and now you know where to find it. No worries, we did not purloin your butt-floss.


No joke. That looks uncomfortable.
  • Dan came over and helped us get rid of leftovers in the fridge. He also participated in the communal rite of procrastination, while watching MANswers on Spike and massaging his tight hamstrings with The Stick.

I’m glad you enjoyed my responses to your questions. Feel free to ask me more, and props to Lea for coming out of lurker-dom and commenting. I strongly encourage all lurkers to comment and say “Hi” because 1) I appreciate that you read my blog and 2) if you don’t identify yourself, I’ll just see your multiple visits on Google Analytics and assume that you’re a dirty, creepy pervert with an Asian fetish.

Q&A time!

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Today was another off-day from running because I have to get up so early to tutor James. I’m excited to have an uninterrupted morning tomorrow because I want to have a good run. Let’s hope the weather behaves.

Tonight, I made paella from a bastardized Martha Stewart recipe. It turned out pretty well, even with ingredients from Meijer, everyone’s favorite box store.


Apparently, I talk about myself so much on this blog that no one has burning questions! I suppose this is good, though perhaps incriminating for my future in academia. Nevertheless, I did get some questions, which I will attempt to answer now:

Selba: ” Any tips for running since I’ve always got problem with the feeling of flame in my chest whenever I run?”

Unfortunately, Selba, I have no theories as to what could be causing a flame-like sensation in your chest. Hopefully, you’re not having a slowly-unfolding heart attack! As for other running tips, I don’t think I have anything especially profound. I would just like to highlight the importance of making sure to pee before you go out for a run. It can make for an uncomfortable, awkward situation. (Like the time I ended up running into a Parisian café, looking wildly for a bathroom and unintentionally giving an even worse name to Asian tourists.)

Pearl: “how about coming to san dieGOOOOO for spring break? :D ”

I would totally come to San Diego, if it weren’t so far away. I love San Diego, which is saying something because I am deathly afraid of California and its earthquakes, mudslides, wild fires, and escaped tigers that maul people to death. (Plus, I’m intimidated by all the beautiful, fit Californians.) I might just have to come during the summer though. Want to host me?

Emily: “do you have a favorite pre-run or pre-race snack?“

I like to eat crunchy peanut butter on a rice cake. Or sometimes…just the peanut butter.

RunningLaur: “When you do intervals, do you jog inbetween or walk?”

I’m pretty sure that you’re supposed to jog during the rest parts of an interval workout, but I always walk because I’m tired! That said, the fact that I have to walk probably says that I’m doing my intervals too hard. Oh well, I’ll just walk and feel guilty about it…

Burp and Slurp: “do you ever think about learning korean? I know you are adopted, but do you feel the slightest…sentiment to korea?”

I really want to learn Korean, but first, I should focus on my French and currently, Latin. Nevertheless, I’ve learned a few things already. I can count to ten, and I know a variety of random words like pajun, woori jib, and halmoni. Today, I learned the word banchan. I want to get a pet and name it that.

In general, I am fairly indifferent about Korea, though I recently started a half-hearted search to find my birth parents because I think it would be interesting to meet them. (Plus, Matt did it, which I think is cool.)

TFH: “What is the last assigned and non-assigned reading you did? (Like books, articles, magazines. Blogs don’t count as reading. Nor do cereal boxes.)”

Most recently, I read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson about the Chicago World’s Fair. Unfortunately, this was back in January before classes started, and I haven’t had much time for pleasure reading since then. I also regularly read Runner’s World because I just got a subscription (after four years of saying, “I should subscribe to Runner’s World!”) The last assigned reading I did was excerpts from Du Bellay’s Deffence et Illustration de la langue francoyse earlier this afternoon. Then the professor confirmed that my reading of it was superficial at best. Crap.

Lucky Taste Buds: “if you could be any non-living thingy, what would you be and why??”

I would probably be cake because I’d be delicious and bring joy to many people’s lives…except for people on a diet and people with gluten intolerance.

Lori: “how did you start running and how long did it take you to be so fast!!”

I started running almost exactly four years ago when I decided to stop being a sedentary fat-ass during my first year of college. I asked my mom for a pair of properly-fitted running shoes for my birthday so that I felt obligated to use my fancy gear. Then I bought The Beginning Runner’s Handbook, which included a training program. It started out with “Run 30 seconds, walk 4 minutes & 30 seconds. Repeat seven times.” Eventually, it built up to “Run 60 minutes.”

I’ve been at about the same speed (about 10-minute miles) until just recently. Somehow, I’ve been able to push my speed down to 9:00 to 9:30 pace. This speed increase is fairly baffling, so I’m going to attribute it to my recent weight loss and more confidence to push myself into levels of discomfort. And, for the record, I’m really flattered that you described me as “so fast”!

Also from Lori: “and another burning question: what is your relationship with Dan? :p”

This is my relationship with Dan:

And this is how he describes us on his blog. It is perhaps one of the most meaningful compliments I’ve ever received:

“I went grocery shopping with Mica (grabbed some whole wheat pasta and tofu) who is always a joy and possibly my favorite person ever as both of us are some sort of irrational mix of internal racists and Kantian liberals.”

Anonymous: “Do people call you muscovite mica?”

No. Do people call you something besides “Anonymous”?

Finally, Dan surprised me tonight with a giant box of spinach and a bulk-sized oatmeal.

Then we blew off our work and looked up French department faculty on Facebook. For the moment, I am not doing my work, and life is good.

Warm day!

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Today, the high was in the 50′s, which basically felt like I was walking on the surface of the sun. It actually felt great to go outside for a run in mid-length capris and no hat or gloves.

In said attire, I did five 400-meter intervals with the following splits (and two minutes of rest in between):

  • 1.01-mile warm-up 10:04
  • Lap 1 1:58
  • Lap 2 1:58
  • Lap 3 1:43
  • Lap 4 1:55
  • Lap 5 1:57
  • 1.02-mile cool-down: 9:23

I’m too lazy to calculate the per-minute pace for those intervals, but I know that they are all under eight-minute miles, which is fine with me. Lap 3 was particularly fast because I ended up behind some fast, fit-looking girl with shiny hair. Without meaning to, I sped up quite a bit to pass her…only to stop and walk when my Garmin signaled the end of the interval. I’m sure she was shakin’ in her boots at my intimidating and lightning-fast presence.

In fantastic news, my friend Maria (of Jordan and Maria in Chicago) got a job today. Congratulations, Maria! The weather even warmed up in celebration of your success!

Unfortunately, I have nothing else very exciting to report because I am literally squashed by my work this week. Thus, I open the floor to you, readers!

Do you have a burning question for me?
Leave it in the comments, and I just may respond!

Finally, check out this perplexing and oddly-placed pocket on my shirt:

…I really want some barbecue.

FAT Tuesday.

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19

Without a doubt, today is Mardi with a little too much Gras, in the form of two sticks of butter. Unfortunately, it is also a day off from running, so I woke up this morning at 6am with plenty of time to make chocolate-chip cookies. I don’t usually make a habit of baking desserts at 6am on Tuesday mornings, but it was the second-half of Dan’s MA exam today. Plus, it was Fat Tuesday, which obviously calls for a batch of two-sticks-of-butter cookies.

Let me tell you: I’m not all that great at baking normally, but I am particularly rough before 8am. I managed to fling flour and bits of butter all over the kitchen, plus my brown sugar is particularly clumpy from moisture, so I had to fish around in the batter with my bare hands to find the clumps. (I really want some of those air-tight nice canisters to organize the pantry and be even more of a control freak than I already am.) The kitchen literally looked and sounded like a baking tornado this morning. My insufficient handmixer was whirring against the rock-solid brown sugar bricks, while I feebly attempted to combine the wet and dry ingredients without coating everything in flour. (Fail.)


Fortunately, the recipe is pretty idiot-proof, and the cookies turned out decently, if not a little too brown. The boyfriend seemed mildly enthusiastic to wake up to the smell of cookies, but he exhibited great willpower and didn’t eat any. I, on the other hand…


Unfortunately, this set the tone for the rest of the day, and I managed to snack on a ri-donc-u-lous amount of food. Tomorrow, I need to get my eating back under control because I was like a snack vacuum today, just inhaling everything in sight. Fortunately, Lent starts tomorrow, and though I am not Catholic, I might just have to practice 40 days of self-reflection and self-restraint. Here is what I should do:

  1. Refrain from eating PB out of the pantry. (I am really doing badly with this one.)
  2. Drink more water.
  3. Stop mindlessly snacking.

I apologize for sounding like a nutjob, but I don’t want to fall into an ill-timed period of stress-induced snacking, particularly with the impending arrival of spring clothes and bathing suits. I’ve worked [moderately] hard this year to lose some weight, and I want to keep it off.

Okay, enough girly ranting.

The boyfriend’s nice Valentine’s bouquet has finally kicked the bucket, and I had to pitch most of the flowers unceremoniously in the trash can. It feels kind of perverse to bury their dessicated remnants with eggshells and broccoli stalks while I’m making dinner, but I don’t know what else to do. Fortunately, the bouquet included some troopers, which are holding on for dear life:


In a typical “me” moment, this morning, I ran out the door of the apartment just in time to see the bus pull up at the other end of the block. Fortunately, the nice bus driver, who is apparently used to my frenzied morning trot for the bus, motioned for me to come anyway and then waited for me. I felt guilty for making him and all the passengers wait, so I literally went sprinting down the sidewalk, loaded with all my school supplies plus a bag full of cookies for Dan and my seminar. In truth, I wasn’t sprinting: I was actually clattering and banging down the sidewalk, with my unzipped coat flapping open and bag of cookies banging against my hip. By the time I got to the bus and screamed something incoherent at the bus driver like “THANKSFORWAITINGYOUPROBABLYTHINKI’MALWAYSLATE!!!”, he was laughing…a lot. Thanks, morning bus driver! You allowed me to get to Latin on time!

On that note, I should go to bed. Tomorrow, I will not eat everything in sight and will renew my willpower to get in shape for summer! Seriously, after this depressing Midwest winter, I really want to take full advantage of the warmer temperatures. Bathing suits, here I come! Who am I kidding? I am land-locked in the middle of central Illinois. Feel free to invite me to the beach!

[Hi, Catherine! I totally tried to get Harrison to agree to Memphis tonight. I want to eat barbecue and go to Graceland!]

Tagged and spooning

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So Michelle from Lucky Taste Buds gave me this Kreativ Blogger (Award), which apparently is so creative that it eschews rules of English spelling and punctuation. She also added me to her BlogRoll, which makes me feel quite special. (Thanks, lady!)

Nevertheless, I am quite honored to receive this award. I’d like to thank, first of all, the Academy. Also, my parents, the boyfriend, my brother-from-another-mother Dan, and roommate Tina. Oh, and I can’t forget crazy Joaquin Phoenix and French Fries! [Cue commercial music]


“This is because I can spell ‘konfusion’ with a K, and I can like it.” (Pop quiz: Who sings those lyrics? Hint: It’s a 9-minute song.)

I will pass this award onto five equally kreativ bloggers:

  • RunningLaur: Because she can decline like the best of them.
  • Bobbi: Because she’s Speedy McSpeederson.
  • Emily: Because she might actually be my twin-from-the-same-mother.
  • Em(ily): Because she folds lunch wraps professionally.
  • Pearl: Because she makes the best, crunchiest almond brittle ever.

I ran a steady four miles this morning. It was between 15 and 20 degrees when I went out, so when I got home, I was doubly damp from both sweat and snot dripping down my numb face. Awesome. Here are my splits:

  • Mile 1: 9:51
  • Mile 2: 9:15
  • Mile 3: 9:02
  • Mile 4: 8:48
  • 0.32-mile nubbin: 2:48

Pretty good for a snotty steady run!

And, before I forget, some gadget questions that need answering:

Michelle: I love my yogurt maker, which is basically a glorified incubator. It makes things easy though because you can just pour the milk-starter mixture into the jars and let it do its thing for 10 hours. (Plus two hours of refrigeration to calm the live cultures down.) I think that best of all, it allows me to be completely snobby about yogurt and pretend that I’m French. The boyfriend got mine from Williams Sonoma. It’s the EuroCuisine brand, which I believe is French. The instructions are awkwardly written in long run-on sentences, so I assume that they have been translated [poorly] from French.

Lori: I would highly recommend shelling out the money for a Garmin (though I got my 405 from my parents as a Christmas present. Thanks, Dad and Pat!) It takes a lot of the guesswork out of timing yourself, and I swear that I’m faster now that I can be neurotic about my precise mile-splits. At the very least, I push myself more now that I can get accurate times. It’s especially worth it now that Garmin has made the pairing agent Mac-compatible. I literally have to walk into the computer room after my run, and the Garmin syncs automatically with the USB pairing device while I stretch.

I didn’t get all my work done today, but I’m slogging away in a fairly diligent manner. Oh well, look what I can do!


Finally, do you have any suggestions for Spring Break? The boyfriend and I are thinking about taking a road trip (so no flying), and we’d like to go somewhere warm and reasonably-priced. Keep in mind that I’m NOT FUN (so not Las Vegas).

The return of fun!

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I spent several minutes yesterday learning to tie the “Ian Knot” from the Runner’s World article about shoelaces. I was skeptical about relearning to tie my shoes, but this knot is seriously great. I used it this morning on my run and it stayed tight the entire time, without having to double knot! Plus, it is more aesthetically pleasing than a floppy granny knot that gets all turned around.

It looks particularly nice with my new shoes:


When I showed the boyfriend my newly acquired skill, he said, “At first, I thought that was a really weird thing for someone to spend time learning. Then I thought, ‘No. It makes sense for you because it’s yet another thing that you can control in your environment.’” Oh well, control freaks are sexy; it’s a scientifically-proven fact.

This morning, Lena and I braved the chilly weather (15, felt like -1) for our weekly long run. We did 8.44 miles with the following splits:

  • Mile 1: 11:04
  • Mile 2: 10:16
  • Mile 3: 9:55
  • Mile 4: 10:13
  • Mile 5: 10:22
  • Mile 6: 10:24
  • Mile 7: 10:04
  • Mile 8: 10:05
  • .44 mile nubbin: 4:20
  • Total: 1:26:48

Today was a perfect day to break in my new shoes. The run went by really quickly since Lena and I chatted the entire time. Because we started from her apartment, we were able to trace the eastern portion of the Half Marathon course. I think at least 5,000 people are registered for the Half, so I’m not sure how crowded the course will be on race day. Part of the course winds through a local park which has fairly narrow sidewalks. I’m crossing my fingers that the crowds will have thinned out by that point because–hellz to the no–are people gonna’ cramp my Half Marathon style!

Somehow, Lena got pretty warm and started to peel off layers like an onion. By contrast, I kept on all my layers, including my two pairs of gloves, which made me feel like I had fat sausages for fingers. Oh well, I will take sausage-fingers any day, as long as I have a cool running buddy. Afterward, I even got to meet her cute kitties and see her apartment. Yay, friendship!

After the run, I came home and made apple-bran muffins, which sound and look kind of unappealing. Nevertheless, they received the Dan seal of approval, which is like five Michelin stars in my book:


This afternoon, I had a date with Julie to make crêpes at her apartment. She’s making them for her class in celebration of Mardi Gras, and she roped me in to help with the fairly labor-intensive process. Fortunately, she was unaware of last week’s cupcake disaster and thought I’d be a good sous-chef.

When I got to her apartment, I found her finishing a lunch of ratatouille and melted “bébé” Swiss on baguette slices. Obviously, I had to try some to make sure it wasn’t poisonous:


I won’t bore you with a play-by-play account of the afternoon, so here are some pictures:

The recipe, on France’s answer to loose-leaf paper:




Even with oil, the crêpes ended up sticking to this pan, so I recommend the non-stick variety.



I used the remaining batter to make a giant crêpe [pictured on the right]. Julie kept calling it my “steak”, but I kept hearing her say “stack”. Oh, things lost in translation…


Obviously, we had to test the crêpes to make sure they were safe for Julie’s students:



Julie was excited to melt Hershey Kisses on her crêpe. Then she said it was too sweet.


Then we did dishes. Julie wore gloves.


When I got home, I tried Madison’s recipe for spicy Thai chicken salad, except I used pork and omitted the cilantro. (The boyfriend hates cilantro. It makes me sad.) I also made broccoli with orange-sesame sauce:


And we decided that the rice cooker is so smart that it deserves its own throne and special hat. Really, it’s like a family member:


This weekend was quite productive, but I still have a lot to do, including research in this gi-gan-tor book:


Phew, that was a lot of photos. Bye!

Uneventful Saturday

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13

Today, as promised, I stayed in the apartment and did a lot of my reading. Unfortunately, I’m not as caught up on the research part of my workload. Nevertheless, being ahead in my week’s reading-load will help me get more done in the long run.

I woke up this morning to find the street covered in a light dusting of my favorite sky cocaine:


Nevertheless, I laced up my shoes and went out for a run. I ended up wearing my old pair because I didn’t want to ruin the unadulterated joy of new shoes with the crappy weather. Plus, I took it easy with a steady recovery run from yesterday’s impromptu tempo run:

  • Mile 1: 9:58
  • Mile 2: 9:46
  • Mile 3: 9:08
  • Mile 4: 9:11
  • 0.23-mile nubbin: 2:17

My legs were pretty tired, so I got rather depressed around the halfway point when the wind decided to pick up. The whole way home, I was fighting gusting winds around 30 miles per hour, with a wind chill in the low teens. This is certainly much warmer than some of the weather that we’ve had this winter, but today, I just wanted to sit down on the ground and cry about the never-ending winter. (I didn’t sit down and cry because I would have frozen to death.) I feel better now, but I seriously almost lost it mid-run. Oh well, I still managed to run one mile at 9:08, which is good for a steady day!

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, except for grocery shopping and dinner with the boyfriend and Dan. We went to Steak ‘N Shake, which was delicious as usual. Maybe I’ll have my birthday party there! Yesssssss.

For lack of anything else to write, here is an excerpt of my e-mail thread with Julie:

Julie: Hi mon petit chou à la crème
Me: What is a chou à la crème? Is it a type of pastry or a dish with
cabbage and cream?
Julie: Un chou à la crème is a pastry (see the pic in attachment). There’s no cabbage at all on it!lol!
Me: Oh, good. I’m glad you are not my little cabbage-flavored pastry
because that would be gross.
Julie: Of course not, you’re not smthg gross for me; you’re supposed to be yummy like a chou à la crème!lol!


Tomorrow, though the high is 23 degrees, I am going off of fun-hiatus and running with Lena. Then in the afternoon, Julie and I will make crêpes and watch Mamma Mia! (Which will be the 23943028432th viewing this year for me.)

And here’s another hilarious bad race picture that I just found in my photo library. It is from my first-ever race, the Monument Avenue 10K:

Do you like how the giant man and octogenarian lady don’t seem to be exerting themselves at all? Apparently, only I had a hard time with this 10K.

Two-day hiatus from fun.

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As part of my grand plan to play catch-up on my workload, I have called an indeterminate hiatus on fun. It is actually not indeterminate because I plan to go for a long run with Lena and then make ["mother-fucking"] crêpes with Julie on Sunday. Nevertheless, I sadly passed up on a trip to my favorite close-by bar tonight. That said, who wouldn’t want to pass up free peanuts for this fun-tastic night:


The boyfriend is reading about Physics, and I am reading about dialectal variation among migrant-groups in the UK. Also, I apparently look super Korean when I don’t shower and wear make-up. Sometimes, I even use my mad skills to help the boyfriend with his problem sets:

Tomorrow’s 9-mile group run with the Half Marathon training group was pushed back until Sunday afternoon, so I have decided instead to do a Sunday morning long run with Lena. Since tomorrow will be a steady day, I ran five miles today and tried to be speedy:

  • Mile 1: 9:58
  • Mile 2: 9:00
  • Mile 3: 8:39
  • Mile 4: 8:22
  • Mile 5: 8:34
  • 0.41-mile Nubbin: 3:39
  • Total time: 48:15

I’m pretty pleased with those splits, especially since I got one of my mile times down to 8:22! The end was a bit rough, but it was also in the mid-20′s and slightly windy. I haven’t been doing as much formal speed work as I had initially envisioned for the Half, but I have been trying to push the pace a little bit, such that I am consistently under 10-minute pace.

Hopefully, this will pay off in the Half Marathon, though I can’t decide if I want to set a time-goal or not. If I do, I will probably say something like under 2:10, which would sadly be a PR of over 35 minutes. (In my other Half, I walked…a lot.) Nevertheless, setting time-goals is probably dangerous because I will never forgive myself if I fail.

Today’s run brought my shoe mileage to about 416 miles in exactly four months, so I finally got my bum down to Body ‘N Sole for new shoes. [By the way, I really hate the 'N abbreviation for "And" because I am a language snob.] Both my shoes and the boyfriend’s shoes were on-sale for $69.99. I briefly toyed with the idea of getting the Adrenaline GTS 9, but since I’ve been consistently happy with my GTS 8‘s, I might as well stick with something I like for the Half. (This is why I never try Asics, though they have been suggested as an alternative to Brooks.) The boyfriend got cool Asics 2130‘s in University of Illinois colors. I’m jealous.

I had great plans to take a picture to compare the shiny new ones to my clearly used and loved old pair. Unfortunately, my old pair still looks pretty clean, and consequently, I don’t look very hardcore:

I plan on learning to tie my new pair correctly.

Tonight was “Clean out the fridge” night. Guess which dinner was mine:

Leftover chicken and pork tenderloin.
(Plus glazed carrots.)

Balsamic-glazed carrots, spinach, and scallion pancake.

Alright, it is time for bed. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as much reading done today as I would have liked, so I have to buckle down tomorrow. I’m even skipping Kick ‘N Core!

Q&A Time!

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Among the comments today, I received two somewhat frequently asked questions, so I thought I would answer them. Actually, no one asks me any particular questions with great frequency, but I thought I’d address two issues that may have sparked your curiosity:

First, Miss Sophia Lee from Burn and Slurp asked: “Do you live with your bf?“

I do, in fact, live with the boyfriend, whose name is Harrison. (I generally use “the boyfriend” because it makes him easily identifiable in posts. Otherwise, you might think Dan is my boyfriend because he also gets mentioned so frequently.) Anyway, cohabitation is a fairly recent development; we moved in together when we started grad school in the fall. Before that, we attended separate undergraduate institutions and were about 13 hours apart.

Second, Emily from The Health Nut asked: “Have you been to France before?“

I have been to France four times. Three of those were week-long vacations with family or friends. During the summer of 2007, I spent two months living in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and working as a stagiaire (intern) for the World Association of Newspapers. It was an interesting experience for many reasons, most of which ended up documented on an old blog. Nevertheless, I will share some of my pictures with you.

Large rabbits, 8 Euros each:

I lived on the 9th floor. The elevator was broken.

Every day, I got to run by the Eiffel Tower and this tourist-trap carousel:

Jean-Daniel is my fake French boyfriend.
He came to my high school on a two-week exchange.
He now smokes like a chimney and is an ardent young Socialist.


Toy boats in the Luxembourg gardens:


The catacombs:


Food porn:


It has been scientifically determined that I am a lame, un-fun person, so I probably didn’t take advantage of my time in Paris like I should have. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I spent a lot of time alone reading or taking random pictures. Most notably, I ran about 35+ miles a week, so I can say that I say a lot of Paris and a lot of Parisians, including the stinky homeless people who pee next to the Seine.

Speaking of French people, today Julie took me by complete surprise when she pinched my lower back and said, “MUFFIN TOP!” Right now, I may or may not regret having taught her that colorful American slang…

A tempo run was run by me.

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Most of today was fairly unremarkable. I got up early to start my day, and consequently, I was a bit sleepy and grouchy during my classes. Latin frustrated me to no end because we attempted to learn the passive voice, whereupon 75% of the class burst into fits of minor hysteria/ignorance.

For example, the brawny boy who is always drawing weird cartoons in his book asked the TA if “You were considering” was in the passive voice, I assume, because it had the verb “were” in it. The TA explained that “were” is an auxiliary verb and that the sentence was, in fact, active. Then the kid shrugged his shoulders and made a “Whatever. I think I’m right.” face. Then I cried a little on the inside.

Funny story: I looked over a paper that James was turning in about visionary companies, one of which was “War-Mart“, founded by the “Warton” family. I know that God punishes people who stereotype, but the Asian propensity towards confusing laterals (like [l]) and approximants (like the American “r” sound) never ceases to amuse me. (Liz, please correct me if I got my IPA wrong.) Really, James’ accent is quite endearing.

Since I had skipped running this morning (It was windy and cold.), I decided to go to the gym after my seminar. Unfortunately, it was even windier and colder, and as usual, I had a hard time convincing myself to run in the afternoon. Nevertheless, I had made a commitment to Dan to go to Kick ‘N Core, so I got my bum to the gym and ran on the treadmill. As a note to myself in the future: I must remember that I am way more likely to run in the morning than after I drag myself out of my seminars, ravenous and antsy.

As part of my re-introduction to speed work, I did a tempo run today on the treadmill. After a mile warm-up, I gradually increased the speed to 6.8 miles per hour (or around 8:49 pace), which I held for about 15 minutes. Then I ran a one-mile cool down with Dan around the track.

The tempo run felt decent, but I’m always terrible at determining my tempo pace. Unfortunately, the online pace calculators are not very effective since I have no “race pace”. I run everything at one speed, which is generally whatever I find comfortable on that given day. Consequently, the pace calculators always tell me something like “10:30 Tempo, 12:00 Long Run paces.” Hells to the no! When I did tempo runs a couple years ago, the high school track coach suggested that I shoot for 9:00 tempo pace. Now that I’m a bit faster, I will push it below 9:00 pace, but I’m not sure how fast to go. The boyfriend suggests 8:15. That sounds hard.

After my run, I changed sweat-soaked tee-shirt and went to Kick ‘N Core with Jessica and Dan, where I proceeded to soak my second shirt with sweat. No glamor here, ladies and gentlemen. In the class, there are always at least five beautiful, graceful Asian girls, wearing cute, sexy work-out clothes, with their glossy hair tied back in long, swishy ponytails.Unfortunately, I am usually standing right behind them, dripping sweat all over the place and not knowing how to shake my ass.

Today’s routine was pretty difficult, and I often wondered if I would make it through the 45-minute “Kick” part without collapsing from exhaustion. Fortunately, Jessica said that she felt the same way, though I’m not even sure that the overzealous kickboxers would notice two girls collapsing. We would probably just be trampled.

The “N Core” part of the class works on your core strength, and today’s session seemed to last an eternity. I have a hard time doing ab work, especially exercises that require me to lift my head off the ground while engaging my core. I always feel a lot of uncomfortable strain in my neck, so I hold my tongue to the roof of my mouth as a way to force the muscles to relax. Nevertheless, it’s uncomfortable and probably bad form.

In good news, the boyfriend made balsamic chicken with mushrooms tonight, which was nice because I probably would have fainted into the stove while cooking:


Unfortunately, the chicken was mostly raw on the inside, so we had to put it back in the pan and recook it. That’s okay; he gets an A for effort!

I have nothing else exciting to report. Starting tomorrow, I may call a moratorium on fun so that I can caught up on my reading and research. Wow, who wouldn’t look forward to that?!?

Okay, I won’t call a complete moratorium on fun–I’m going to get new shoes, especially after all of you confirmed that it is time to switch out the old ones. Spanks!