First things first – thanks for all the visits and to my followers who now number in the triple digits for the first time.
Also, five new countries have come out to play over the past few days, so kalimera to Cyprus, bienvenidos to Spain, valkommen to Sweden, kyo tzo pa ti to Myanmar, and…to Nigeria, you are home to so many languages so I’ll just stick with welcome.
Today was one of those days I always dread.
Tomorrow is the first day of classes for the semester and I already have jitters even though it’s over twelve hours until my first class. Having only been back for four days, I feel totally unprepared. I haven’t even color-coordinated my notebooks, and after reading the syllabi for these classes, am puzzled at why I chose these classes, but I’m sure I’ll like them (or learn to).
But even worse?
The first day back at the gym after a hiatus.
It’s always the worst. You can lift a pin or swim eighty laps, but either way immediately afterwards you feel sick to your stomach. I know this, because it’s happened to me more than once. When I was an undergrad at UMass, I loved everything about campus aside from the gym situation. There were 2 gyms on campus and each were about the size of my apartment. You had to sign up for a treadmill hours in advance, sometimes a whole day during a peak week. So, I gave up on the gym since it was inevitably a 2-hour workout, with approximately 90 minutes of time spent waiting for machines and weights. In my senior year, a Planet Fitness opened up in Hadley, which was offering discounted memberships and oddly enough, pizza and tootsie rolls. The facility was massive and even during busy hours, you could easily find a treadmill. After my first workout there, I didn’t even make it home before I threw up on myself. And to make matters worse, I was driving at the same time, and then I stopped at a major town intersection and did it again. The only saving grace was that it was nighttime, but there was still a stain on the pavement in the Hillel parking lot for the next week or so (sorry about that – my shirt was in desperate need of being wrung out). At home in Baltimore, I don’t have access to a gym, only the weight room at the country club, which is pretty inadequate, but still, during a break from school and gym, after my first workout there, it happened again, only this time on the highway and in my mom’s car (sorry, again). Even when I attempted to start again after Lights Out and before the semester’s end, walking down the stairs at the SERF was an ordeal, and resulted in much dry-heaving in the bushes outside.
Today I ran and lifted weights, left the gym, went home and had dinner, and realized…
Nothing.
I beat the curse today! Yes, it was a freezing walk home, but at no point was there any nausea, or anything. I wonder what that means. Also, thinking about it, it’s only been about 6 days since I last exercised, so maybe my body isn’t totally in sedentary mode yet. Of course, that does nothing about my body image/how I perceive myself.
But at least I’m feeling fine.
Except for the foot I will put in my mouth after I puke during my first class of the semester tomorrow.
That’s So Jacob 