work hard, play hard

I am so physically tired right now, and it feels marvelous.  It's been a long time since I've trained for a big race (nearly a year since my last marathon - jeez!), not that I'm doing that right now, but I did go for a really nice, relaxing 10 mile run down and around Lake Merritt yesterday.  It'd been so long since I did a decently long run, and I kind of just wanted to make sure I could still do it.  Plus, it's so meditative just letting your mind wander while you scoot around town, and it's really fun to cover so much ground in a relatively short amount of time.

So yesterday, I woke up, drank some tea and had a little snack, and headed down to the lake, in downtown Oakland.  I did one lap around, and the sun was shining and the sky was blue, and they're finally almost done working on the new pedestrian path and bridge they've been building for the past several years.  It looks really nice, and you can go all the way around the lake on the same path now, without having to switch around and dodge orange construction cones and all that.

I probably ran for something like an hour and a half, felt totally comfortable and good (I remembered to put my Body Glide on before I left!), and was even able to pick it up on the last stretch, finishing in a sprint of glory at the corner of Grand Avenue and Lakeside Drive.  Then I walked over to Whole Foods and treated myself to a cherry chocolate cashew bar and a yummy latte as I walked and cooled down for a bit, hopped on BART, and was back at my door within two hours of when I left.  It was a really, really nice morning, and I slept like a rock last night.

Today, we had an excellent frisbee game.  There were only 5 of us who showed up, due to various people being out of town, but there was a huge group of barbecuin' frisbee playin' hipsters already hanging out at our park.  These guys were SO East Bay, it was really funny.  They all had tattoos and neon short shorts and generally looked like they just stepped out of 1982 (the guy with the sweatband and mutton chops, in particular).  And a bunch of their friends were just hanging out, drinking beer, having a picnic and playing weird 80s hipster music (plus plenty of the Black Keys, at least).  They could have been jerks, like "we're too cool for you" types, but it turned out they were really friendly and totally happy to have us play with them, and they learned all of our names and actually included us in the game.  (Which is much more than I can say for the last frisbee group we ran into - they "let" us "play" with them, but they never actually threw it to us, and I really didn't have a good time that time.)

So it was very fun, and we played for almost two hours, and now I'm very pleasantly exhausted.  I'm going over to some friends' place to play test a board game in a few minutes, despite the fact that I'm nearly ready to fall asleep, but I guess it's probably not a good idea to go to bed at 7:00, and I'm sure I'll have a good time, anyway.

What a nice, restful-but-exhausting weekend!  And now I'm feeling ready to tackle the week.  Work hard, play hard, I guess!

Correction: sunny and crisp, but still a little weird

I accidentally just ran 9 miles.  It turns out there are only so many bridges that cross the Charles River, so if you miss one, your run might end up longer than expected... but that's great!  I planned a route of about 8 miles, apparently missed a bridge somewhere, and instead wound up with 9 miles, which was just about perfect.  Napa Valley is coming up in exactly 4 months, so I'm feeling good about the fact that I can still do 9 miles perfectly comfortably.  There are some things I had kind of forgotten about marathon training though...

1) Running in the cold.  The first 1-2 miles are a little uncomfortable, but then you get nice and warmed up, and it feels fantastic.  45 degrees is perfect weather for shorts and a t-shirt, if you can believe it. ;)  After 5 or so more miles, though, it's like my body finds a new equilibrium and remembers that it's 45 degrees out.  So then I usually alternate between feeling perfect and being a little chilly for the last few miles.  If I'm going longer than 10 miles in the cold (which hasn't happened in several years, so I had forgotten this), I really have to wear running tights and/or a long sleeve shirt, though.  10 is about my limit in shorts and a t-shirt once the temperature starts dropping.

2) Chafing.  Ok, I didn't forget that chafing happens, but I sort of forgot the reality of chafing.  When you're starting to get a little tired and feeling like you'd like to be done running now, please, it's not much fun when some part of your body is getting raw from rubbing against some piece of clothing.  A reminder that Body Glide is your friend.

3) Getting ready for a marathon is all about training your legs to deal with the stress.  I never, ever have cardiovascular difficulties during longer runs; it's always my legs that do the complaining.  Today it was my left hamstring a little bit (because I ran a 5K in San Diego this week, and am still a little bit sore, embarrassingly) and then my right calf a tiny bit (probably because I was a little dehydrated).  Things I have learned about my musculature from running so much is that my hamstrings are perpetually tight, they only get more so unless I stretch a little bit, and if I don't stretch an adequate amount, I end up with a back spasm at some point.  I have also learned that my calves threaten to cramp up if I'm not hydrated enough.  And if I get really dehydrated, they do cramp, and that is mi-se-ra-ble.

Enough running talk.  You know, Boston is very nice.  I did my 9 miles up and down the Charles River, and it was quite pretty.  It still feels somewhat weird and foreign, and I can't really imagine living here, but the sun was shining and it was such a quintessentially fall day today that I found myself scooting along with a grin on my face.  The fall leaves are gorgeous, and the buildings are all red and brown brick, and I really like cities that have a river winding through them.  It's very Old World, in a very nice way.

Well.  I'm going to try to get some grading done before the plenary talk at 5:45, and I am going to sleep so well tonight.  (I slept great last night, too.  Now that I'm adjusted to the 3 hour difference, it's time to go back to the west coast.  At least I'll have the end of Daylight Saving Time helping me out on the way back.)  Tomorrow I've got a full morning of talks again, until 12:30.  Then I think I'll walk around Boston a bit and take some pictures before I catch my flight around 6:00 tomorrow night.  And the magic of time zones is such that I'll get back to San Francisco at 9:40 after a 6.5 hour flight.

And so I bid you adieu, until tomorrow when I'm killing time in an airport, most likely.

Some Sundays are pretty perfect.

I have no complaints about today.  I have few complaints in general, really, but today is pretty fantastic so far.  I had something like 20 people over last night for homemade deep dish pizza, and it was so fun.  I hope everyone else had a good time, because I had a really good time.  I love cooking for people, and I have the greatest friends in the world, and the pizza was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.  The funniest part was probably that almost everyone who came brought a six-pack of beer, so the entire bottom half of our fridge was full of beer, but we worked our way through most of it over the course of about 6 hours.  And 5 pizzas!  5 of 'em!  Grad students are a hungry, beer-guzzling people, it turns out.  I was also really pleased that the dogs were overall quite well behaved.  A lot of the people here were dog people, so they seemed comfortable with them and were good about petting and patting them when they deserved it and telling them to get their noses away from the food when they deserved that, and the dogs were so happy to have so many people here.  I think a good time was had by all.

So despite all the revelry, I was really good about drinking lots of water, and I woke up feeling weirdly good this morning.  I did about 6.5 miles up in the hills yesterday, and we're playing frisbee this afternoon, so I didn't want to overdo it, but I felt better than I expected to, and I did a good, quick little 5.5 miles with the dogs this morning.  It is a gorgeous day out.  The sun is shining and there's a nice, cool breeze, and it's somehow beautifully warm and cool at the same time.

Now I'm home and I made myself some coffee and pancakes and I put on some new music I treated myself to - the weekend before last, after frisbee, one of my friends invited me to an impromptu concert thing in San Francisco.  And despite the fact that it was Sunday night I had plenty of things to do, I went anyway, and I was so glad I did.  So anyway, I bought the EP by the girl we saw, and it's really nice Sunday morning pancake music.  I don't think she was intending that, but it works.

I'm starting to get really pumped for Napa Valley.  This is almost certainly premature, because it's in a little over 5 months, but I'm starting to get really excited about marathon training again.  I didn't know if that would ever happen again, because after each marathon, I've been ready for a mental break from running for a while.  I love it, but those 4 hour runs really cut into your life.  The thing about a 4 hour run is that it's a whole mental journey.  The physical exhaustion only really kicks in for the last 2-3 miles or so.  It's making yourself head out the door when you know you're going to be gone for 4 hours, and making yourself keep going when you get kind of bored and tired of running, that's the hard part.  And after you've broken through the mental barrier of knowing perfectly well that you are capable of running 26.2 miles, you don't even really get the mental charge that comes from the accomplishment itself anymore.  It almost becomes a bit of a chore: "Aw man, I'm supposed to do another 20 miler this weekend," like "Aw man, I really need to tackle that pile of laundry."

Anyway, now that it's been over a year since my last marathon, I'm totally ready and anxious to do another one.  It's been a long time since I ran 20 miles, long enough that I miss it.  There's something so meditative about settling into a pace and just holding it for several hours.  Your mind drifts all over the place, and then you get to the end and it almost feels like waking up from some weird dream.  Running that far is definitely a completely different experience, physically and mentally, from normal everyday runs.  And I have to be in a certain mental space to actively want to do that, and I am suddenly feeling like I'm in that mental space again.

I think it must have to do with how busy I am this semester.  It's my whole momentum phenomenon; now that I'm back to doing a lot of school work all the time, I'm just feeling generally more hard-core and like running 20 miles is probably a good idea.

Also, I really want to go run through Napa.  It's going to be so gorgeous, and the idea of running through the countryside early in the morning is just so appealing to me right now.

Running, running, running.  I didn't think this post was going to be about that.  I thought it was going to be about how I'm leaving for San Diego and Boston a week from today and I'm not ready for either of those conferences quite yet, but in a way this post is about the fact that I'm in a very good place, mentally, right now.  I have a lot to do, but I feel really good about it, for the most part, even though I could easily be freaking out if I let myself.  It's a good feeling to be at a place in my life where I can think about all the stuff I have to get done and just be ready to buckle down and do it without worrying about whether/how it will get done.  It will get done.  And I will do it.  But I'm not going to worry about it in the meantime.

And so some Sundays are pretty perfect.  You wake up without an alarm clock, take your dogs for a run through the Berkeley hills, fix yourself some coffee and pancakes, listen to some lovely piano music, and then you plan the rest of your week before you head out for some frisbee with your friends. I can't really think of a much better day than that.

a haiku from this morning

early morning run :


a childlike wonder before


the world is awake

******************

Unfortunately the childlike wonder has worn off and I need another cup of coffee to make it through my readings tonight.  This is what I get for having a fun weekend and getting no work done!

It is time.

It is time for another marathon.  It's been nearly a year now, and I'm getting antsy.  I'm also starting to think about the fact that I'm not going to be here that much longer, and there's at least one more race I told myself I'd do before I leave California:

Napa Valley.

I am going to run the Napa Valley Marathon in the spring.  Do you see that landscape?  I think this may be the perfect marathon for me, actually.  It's pretty rural, and I do so miss running through the countryside in the early morning peace and quiet with no one around.  It's got some rolling hills - enough to keep your legs working and help minimize cramping, but not enough to really slow you down. And at 3500 participants, it's not too big, not too small, but just right.  Enough people that you're never completely alone, but few enough that you're never trapped or figuring out how to maneuver and pass people in fanny packs.

So it's on.  I'm really gonna do it, and that gives me five months to get back in marathon shape, which is way more than enough.  (Actually about four months, since I'll have to reserve the last part of February for tapering, but that's still plenty, so I don't even have to start in seriously right away.)  I'll probably start adding in some 10-12 milers on the weekends in October and November, and then I can really start ramping it up starting in December.  The only thing that will be a drag is doing enough training if we have a wet rainy season this year, but I can handle it.

Napa Valley, here I come!

new good things

After reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (which is a really great read, whether you like running or not, but probably especially if you like running), I decided to cave and buy some Vibram FiveFingers shoes.  McDougall makes a really convincing (to me) argument that humans evolved to run mid-to-long distances, and they did it without all the fancy footwear we have today.  In fact, he presents a lot of scientific studies and statistics suggesting that running shoes tend to encourage bad running form, which ultimately results in more running related injuries.  The idea is that running shoes are so padded that you can run in them however you want and not feel the impact you should be feeling from your terrible form, so your biomechanics are sloppy and unnatural and it's bad on your body.

Anyway, I just picked these up at Any Mountain in Berkeley:

Vibram FiveFingers Bikila, the new model designed for running.

I know, they're totally goofy looking, but you know what?  They feel really good on my feet!  I've always loved walking around barefoot, and my favorite piece of footwear has long been a pair of flip flops, so it makes sense I would like these.  I'm planning to walk around in them for a week or so, play some frisbee in them and see how it goes, and then maybe I'll take them for a few quick spins around the block.  You're supposed to ease in to barefoot running very slowly, so I'll probably just add a few little one mile jaunts in these puppies to my normal mileage and see what happens.

Which brings me to another new good thing: we're playing frisbee at 3:00 today!!  Yay!  Lots of people said they're coming, and it'll be so fun to play again!  And the sun just came out, practically on cue for our game, so I'm getting really antsy and ready to run around!

In other New and Good news, our annual department meeting is tomorrow, classes are starting on Thursday, all of my friends are getting back into town so people are having "welcome back" get togethers, and I'm probably playing and singing at the Starry Plough open mic on Tuesday night with some friends.  This is a great week, and it's only Sunday!

(... going to England in June?)

Ok, so, I'm still going to England.  But I've also had a hell of a few days trying to get this qualifying paper done.  The problem is that I was really sure of what I was going to argue!  It all came together really nicely and made sense!

And then suddenly, yesterday morning when I was about to polish off my conclusion and submit it to my two readers, I re-checked one of my baseline measures and - oh hey, look at that, it had changed!  Substantially!  In such a way that I really don't think I can argue what I spent 20 pages arguing!

So now what?  Well, slight despair yesterday, for one thing.  But I think I was thinking about it the wrong way.  I was trying to think of a way that I could argue what I wanted to argue (especially since I already wrote a 20-page paper on it...) but then I thought, ok, be a real scientist about it.  If you're going to be a good scientist, trying to find a way to make your data fit what you want to say is the exact wrong thing to do.  But I wanted to argue that! my whiny inner voice kept protesting.  But no, grown-up real scientist voice has to say.  This is about being ethical and a good researcher and following the data wherever they take me instead of trying to use them for my own personal agenda.  Even if it's an interesting agenda and it would be much easier to ignore the thing I discovered yesterday, slap on a conclusion, and call it a day.

So now... I have decided to (try to) stop worrying about it and go back to the drawing board.  I'm gonna take a deep breath and try not to think about the fact that I've been staring at these numbers for 4 days straight and start. over.  With no assumptions or expectations, and just try to see what I would have (should have?) concluded if I had been looking at this newly discovered evidence from the beginning.

On a related note, a mental note for myself: when I'm started to feel a little overpressurized and panicky and like I need more time, often the best use of my time is actually to go for a run.  I finally went for one this morning and am feeling better now: more capable, confident, determined, clear-headed.  There's something so soul-cleansing about physical exertion.

Addiction

Today was the first day I went running this week. I couldn't believe how strong I felt... like I could run - fast - for hours. I've been working a lot this week, and it's actually felt really great. I finally got clearance for my research (barely in the nick of time, since we have to present our qualifying paper research to the whole department on Monday...) so I've been at the preschool every day this week, running my speech perception experiment with little kids. They are so gosh darned cute. Some of them are so focused on the task and they try really really really hard to do a good job. Some of them couldn't care less and they just want to jabber and jabber. This one little girl told me, "I have a cat! She's like a grandma cat! Except she didn't have any babies." I took that to mean her cat was old. And then I tried to get her to listen to some more sounds. :)

Anyway, running. So I've been leaving the house around 8:00 this week, and getting home around 6:30 or 7:00, and that's a lot of working for me. (I have to say "for me", because of course Roger works way more than that, so it's all relative.) I can normally do at least some of my reading at home, so it feels less like work, but this week being out and about all day, and running back and forth between the preschool and my classes, and trying to keep 4-year-olds on task for several hours at a time has been exhausting and exhilarating all at once. It's been really fun, and I'm kind of looking forward to my presentation on Monday (after I put a few more hours' work into it). But running, running... I just haven't been getting up early enough to do it. I think it's great timing though, because I just realized today that it's only been a month since my marathon, so I should still be taking it somewhat easy anyway. The training rule of thumb is to take it easy for about as many days as miles in your last race - so for a 26.2 mile race, you should take it easy for about 26 days afterward. I think I took 4 days completely off after my race, and then I started going for easy runs again, and I felt totally fine, but I dunno, maybe a little tired. I think I had a little less spring in my step, but it was only really noticeable on the hills.

So today I headed up into the hills for a good, solid 7 mile run, at a good little clip, with my sweet dogs in tow. Poor guys have been home alone a lot this week, and only getting one decent walk a day, when I get home in the evening. They were so happy to be out running today. Just smiling and tilting their heads back like they were riding in a car with their heads out the window. I hadn't done a good Berkeley hills run in a while, so we went way up into the hills, around this gorgeous, wooded park with trails and trees and a creek. It rained last night, but the sun was coming out this morning, and Northern California in the winter is so green and lush, so the sun was streaming through the trees and the little rain drops falling off of the leaves were catching little glints of light and just sparkling as they fell to the ground. It was gorgeous, and so peaceful, and I just felt so good. Then we came downhill a little bit and went by Indian Rock Park, this big boulder with a little park area around it, and the view of the Bay literally stopped me in my tracks. I stopped, and stood, and looked, and breathed in the cold fall air, and I almost started crying, to tell you the truth. Here's an idea of what it looked like, poached from Google images:

As I stood there, perfectly still with nothing but the sound of my own breathing and the breeze rustling the leaves, I realized my whole body was just buzzing. I have no other way of describing it... I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and felt this strange, zen, buzzing calmness. I was so completely in the moment, and all I could feel was the chilly air and this very low key humming sensation just emanating from inside me. I know this sounds completely weird, but it was just... warmth, and light, and peace, and calmness, and like nothing else in the whole world mattered except that moment. I just looked down at the Bay, and looked at my dogs looking down at the Bay, like they too could stand there peacefully forever, and I was overwhelmed with the wonderfulness of being alive.

When I took off again, I realized that the buzzing sensation had to be my body's response to not running for a week and then suddenly getting hit with the endorphins of going for a long-ish, hard-ish run. I've talked before about how I feel sluggish if I don't run for a few days in a row, but if it goes longer than a few days, the sluggishness mostly goes away and I feel pretty normal. So from this strange slightly otherworldly experience, I think I must conclude that I am physically addicted to running. I've noticed it before, but today I think was the most extreme instantiation of it. I think I trained hard enough for long enough that I got really used to having that regular rush of endorphins, and then I suddenly took long enough off that I had minor withdrawal (in the form of sluggishness) for a few days before I readjusted, and then bounding up into the hills today must have made the normal endorphin rush much more potent than usual. Jeez, who needs drugs when you can go running?

Okay, it is noon and I need to take a shower and go by the grocery store and make some food for a pre-Thanksgiving potluck tonight. And I should probably crunch some numbers and work on my presentation for Monday. So that's all for now, but I'll do my best to write again soon, even though the semester is going to be somewhat insane from here on out...

Rolling with it.

Indeed I am rolling with it. Even though my 20-miler last weekend (as in, 8 days ago) went swimmingly and I wasn't sore or anything, I decided to take the day off running yesterday. Just for the heck of it. I ran 5 days last week, only taking Monday and Thursday off, for a total of around 40 miles for the week. That's a lot for me. And then on Saturday night, I had a mini adventure with some friends and found myself thinking, "I don't really feel like running tomorrow." And since my 20-miler had gone so great and I'm feeling pretty ready for this race with about a month to go, I decided to take the lack of enthusiasm as a sign that my body wanted some rest, and I just plum took the day off.

About that mini adventure. My friend John and his girlfriend found this crazy little thing called "Forage SF", which is a group of self-appointed foragers that collect food in the Bay Area. Basically there are so many fruit trees and edible plants here that it truly is a shame to not take advantage of it, so this underground market thing has sprung up to ameliorate the situation. Roger said eating stuff that fell off of trees is pretty much "against everything he stands for"... and it is... so a small group of us went to check it out without him. It was fairly interesting, and quite good, but also fairly expensive and quite packed, so I have no plans to go back. Fun to do once, but not worth the hassle of doing it again.

Anyway, they had this sign there.

It made me picture little kitties in harnesses, pulling a plow or something. But I didn't actually catch a glimpse of any working cats, so I unfortunately can't fill you in on any details there.

We have a working dog, though.

I don't know if you can tell what that is, so I will explain. Roger accidentally broke the dogs' water container the other day, and threw it outside so it didn't soak the whole living room. Rye decided he liked the challenge of working for his water, so he's been lying down and sticking his little tongue in as far as he can to get at the water. He has a new water bottle, mind you, he just likes the challenge, I guess.

And this is one of those pictures that makes me wish I had a better camera with me. The light was so lovely this evening, with the pink fog settling on the hills as the sun went down. It truly, truly feels like fall.

Why am I so tired?? I got a good amount of work done today, so that's good, but I didn't get quite as far as I wanted to on one project, so I've been staring at the computer for several hours now. I recorded stimuli for my qualifying paper experiment today (exciting!) and then I managed to find some scripts that split the words up into lots of individual sound files so I didn't have to do it by hand. Maybe half an hour of fiddling with scripts, but it saved me several hours of labeling and naming by hand, so it was totally and completely worth it. Now I need to edit the files so that they're all the same length and loudness, and that's the part I'm having trouble automating. (And no way am I editing several hundred sound files individually.) I think if I tackle it with fresh eyes tomorrow, it'll be easier.

I took a break to do some cooking this evening, and it was really nice. I made an Italian-style fish and bean stew (friggin' delicious) and some pesto to go with the loaf of bread I baked yesterday. Miss Suzy Homemaker, right here!

Well jeez. I'm pooped. I'm gonna stretch out my legs and go to bed.

Someone is murdering bunnies!

I'm sure animal control just loves hearing from this person.

The 'random pictures with phone camera' thing is working out well so far, don't you think?

I've had a pretty great weekend. It feels so much like fall here, which is somewhat surprising considering it pretty much always feels like fall here. But right now is especially fall-like. September and October have got to be the best months in Berkeley, because it's generally pleasantly cool instead of slightly unpleasantly cool. And there's even the possibility of it being actually warm, which is a bonus. Although I've heard that our weirdly cold weather is going to continue... but it's supposed to get up to 78 today, so I'm hoping that continues.

I had a great run yesterday! I was a little worried because a small group of us went out on Saturday night partly just for the heck of it, partly for a friend's birthday, and I was out until 11:30 and did a little too much celebrating. I only had like 2 or 3 beers, but that's actually a lot when you're supposed to run 20 miles in the morning. Then I woke up at dawn on Sunday and couldn't get back to sleep, so I eventually figured I might as well get out of bed and hit the road and see what happens. I was a little woozy, but I drank some water and ate a pancake left over from Saturday's breakfast and decided to go for it.

I've been taking the dogs with me for part of my long runs lately. It works out really well because they're good and tired after 10 miles or so, and then I can stop by home to drop them off, get a drink, maybe change clothes, and do some more. And then for the second half I don't have to worry about dogs and I can either let my mind wander or listen to music. Yesterday I had mapped out a run down and around Lake Merritt in Oakland, which comes to about 14 miles. So I decided to do 6 miles in North Berkeley with the dogs and then do the Lake Merritt part by myself.

I was a little worried at first because my stomach wasn't very happy for the first mile or so, but then I started feeling really good and finished the first 6 feeling great. Dropped the dogs off, ate some pita chips (mmmm salt), filled up my water bottle, and hit the road again. Let me try to find a picture of Lake Merritt...

There you go. That's what it looks like from up above. It's really pretty big - one lap along the water's edge is a little over 3 miles. And it's about 5 miles from my house to the lake, so running down and around it and then back home comes out to about 14. It was totally and completely worth it, though. When you run down College Avenue and then Broadway towards Oakland, it's mostly slightly downhill, so you see the small patch of tall buildings in the distance and then as you get closer to them, you start to see the lake and the beautiful trees and parks surrounding it through the buildings, and suddenly you're in this lovely little oasis in downtown Oakland.

I told you Oakland is nice!

So I am definitely doing that run again. (And again.) I also had the nice surprise of making a running friend. I ran into him just after passing the Rockridge BART station, so just on the border between Berkeley and Oakland, and he smiled and said "hello! beautiful day for a run!" or something like that, and I said something like, "it is, isn't it? I'm headed down and around the lake, how about you?" And he was too, which was somewhat surprising because we were still about 3 miles from the lake at that point. He was going considerably slower that I was, but I slowed down a bit and he sped up a bit and we chatted for a while, and he was a very, very nice guy. Probably about 50 or so, big bushy beard and smiling eyes, and he's been running for literally decades. So we talked running, and then we talked life, and he asked me about linguistics, and we talked about the differences between Chomsky and Lakoff, because that was the only passing knowledge he had about linguistics. It's funny for me to talk about Chomsky and Lakoff. First because I think Chomsky's an idiot and a jerk, but he's usually the only connection people have to linguistics. And second because Lakoff is also... a controversial figure, let's say... although I'm much more closely aligned with him linguistically than with Chomsky. And third because I know George Lakoff, like we stop and chat in the hallway when we see each other, and I say this not for the name-dropping aspect, believe it or not, but because "George Lakoff" the philosopher-linguist-politician is a totally different person from George, the guy I chat with in the hallway, and it's hard to talk about him as "George Lakoff", if you know what I mean. So I found myself having this conversation about "Lakoff" where I couldn't call the guy by his last name, like you're supposed to when you talk about a Big Thinker's ideas. I'm like, "Yeah, Chomsky basically thinks A B C, but George is like, no no no, X Y Z." But then I felt kinda like a jerk for calling him "George" instead of "Lakoff". Like, I wouldn't call Chomsky "Noam". Whatever.

And fourth, this conversation was particularly weird because generally I don't care or think about Chomsky or Lakoff. That's just not what I do. But it's hard to explain to people that I'm interested in sound patterns and models of learning and category abstraction... kind of a conversation stopper, usually.

Anyway, Martin With The Bushy Beard was really nice, and we did a lap around the lake together and exchanged email addresses before I headed home, so we might get together again in the future. The miles go by so much more quickly when you've got company.

The rest of my run was fine too. Although the slight uphill for 4 miles back into Berkeley kind of sucked, and I neglected to fill up my water bottle before leaving the lake area, and of course didn't see any water fountains on the way back home. As I ended the uphill portion and turned west toward my house, I found myself thinking, "Hmm, I kinda don't feel that good. My stomach's a little upset and my legs are kinda tired." And then I thought, "Dude, I just ran 19 miles. If I were feeling any better, that would be positively weird." So with that perspective, I realized that I felt pretty fantastic and I could suck it up for less than a mile back to my house.

And I feel so good today! This was my first 20-miler of this training cycle, and I thought it would knock me out more, but I didn't even stiffen up at all yesterday and am only very slightly stiff today. So I don't know what happened, but I'm feeling totally ready for this race (knock wood) and like life is pretty sweet.

Now I should probably get off of the computer, because I need a shower, and I'm going to the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park today! Life is pretty sweet.

What I want to be when I grow up.

(and up and up and up)

Running... languages... the usual...

I'm not sure where this blog entry is going, because I don't have anything in particular to say, so we'll just see what happens.

Well, for one thing, I had a really great run on Sunday. Sorry if my running talk gets old, but it truly is an important part of my life, so it naturally comes to mind when I think about what I've been doing lately. Not only is it a constant, structuring, stabilizing force in my life, it also serves as a demarcator of sorts; by being one thing that remains constant over the years, no matter where I go or what else I'm doing in my life, I can measure the rest of my life against it, in a way. There is always running, and so how my running is going directly relates to how the rest of my life is going. I go through periods where I don't run very much because I'm too busy doing other things, or because I'm feeling blah and don't have the motivation to get out the door. Thankfully both of those things occur rather infrequently, and for short periods of time, because getting out and moving has a huge impact on my mood. I honestly cannot remember the last time I got home from a run feeling worse than when I left the house.

But anyway, I had a great run on Sunday, because I did some speed work. I haven't done any speed work since we lived in Urbana, and it is so exhausting and so rewarding at the same time. There is something supremely satisfying about pushing your body beyond what it thinks is possible. Like, nanny nanny boo boo, body, I showed you, you can do it. It's such a triumph of will, and leaves you with that wonderfully spent feeling. First I did about 4.25 miles with the dogs so I didn't have to feel guilty about leaving them at home, and also to break up the run. Then I ran up to a middle school track in north Berkeley (2 miles) and did 2 x 400 meters, 3 x 800 meters, and 2 x 400 meters again, as fast as I could, for a total of 2.5 miles of speed work, followed by 2 more miles back home, bringing my Sunday total to somewhere around 10.75 miles. I was a little sore yesterday and today, but in a really great way, and my goal is to keep this up - long runs every other Sunday, alternating with speed work of increasing length/intensity until my marathon in October. The race is a pretty tough course; I've heard it's harder than the San Francisco Marathon, and that wasn't exactly cake, although it wasn't as bad as I expected. In any case, I would of course like to beat my previous PR of 3:54... and as of now, I'm thinking my secret secret goal will be 3:40, but that's probably far too optimistic. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I am getting so ridiculously excited to come home in August. In like, 3 weeks, that is! I am so tired of it being cold here. July in Berkeley seriously blows. I wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt today and I was chilly all day, but I'm still in disbelief and indignant and refusing to wear a jacket or turn the heater back on in July. It's July. Where are the frickin' mosquitoes and miserable temperatures? It all feels so wrong. So anyway, it will be fantastic to be legitimately hot again, even if you poor Midwesterners will probably be quite ready for the muggy 90 degree days to stop by then. I'm also really happy to be able to spend a few days in C-U and a few in Chicago; that's why it took me so long to plan this trip, because I have three very dear friends who will be in Chicago at various times in August, and I really want/need to see them all, so I had to find a time when all of our schedules could overlap. It will be a very quick trip, for sure, but I need some Midwest love before I embark on another year in California. Just gotta recharge those hometown batteries sometimes.

So here is something really great. I accidentally did a minor Amazon.com splurge the other day, and my books all got here today! I realized it was high time to get a real Spanish dictionary, since I think the Spanish thing is more than a passing phase and is hopefully here to stay, and then I saw this really fun looking book called "Street Spanish" that's all about slang in the different parts of the Spanish speaking world and comes with a CD! So of course I had to get that, I mean, come on. And then, (then!) I only needed to spend 60 cents to qualify for free Super Shipper Savings or whatever, so I had to get a book about French slang to complement my Spanish one. Mi pobrecito francés! No pude olvidarlo! (My poor French, I couldn't just forget it!) So today after I finished my Spanish homework I learned/was reminded how to say all sorts of inappropriate things in French, and it was quite fun.

I was also extremely pleased with myself today when we had a surprise in-class essay, and I filled up nearly a whole page, no dictionary, no problem. I probably made a few mistakes or said some things in a weird way, but it is so exciting to know that I have gone from being able to say next to nothing in Spanish just four weeks ago to being able to give a reasonably lengthy answer to the prompt, "Have you ever visited Latin America? If so, where have you been and what did you do? If not, where would you like to go and why?" Boo. Yah. Present perfect, imperfect, preterite, present, future, and conditional tenses all in one essay, baby. Now that is progress.

I'm also excited (and this part is a little silly) because I scheduled my next haircut today, and I'm totally going to practice my Spanish on my haircut lady. She is the cutest, sweetest little woman from Mexico, and she's so adorably self-concious of her English, and it's really not that bad at all. But the next time I see her, I'm gonna bust out the Spanish and let her laugh at how I have to say things in a weird way because I have no vocabulary, and it should be a good time, I think.

Okay, that's enough for now. Je vous aime tous et j'ai vraiment hâte de vous voir au mois d'août! Gros gros gros bisous!

The Year of 10,000 Miles

I've been a horrible delinquent blogger lately, and I really do apologize profusely. It's funny; I love reading other peoples' blogs, and when someone doesn't update for a while, I think, "Jeez, why won't they hurry up and update? I want to know what's going on in their life!" And I do realize that anyone who actually reads my blog has probably been saying that for weeks now.

It's just that time goes by so quickly! So very, very quickly! February was over far too soon, with the big conference we hosted on campus, and then me getting to deal with organizing and filing receipts for us to get reimbursed from our various sponsors, and now suddenly it's March and the rain is probably over until November, and I have to start really actually studying for my M.A. exam, and soon it'll be graduation, but I have so many papers to write and things to do in the meantime, but it'll all get done somehow. In other words, the rest of the semester is going to be busy busy busy.

There's lots of good news to report, though! For one, Roger finally got his raise! It's been so great having some spending money the past few weeks. I do really know that money isn't everything, and I really don't want to sound like I'm complaining, because we've been getting along just fine for past 18 months. But we have furniture now! We got an extra bed for our guest room, and some book shelves so we can put some things away and have some surfaces to set stuff on. I also got a weed whacker and went to town on the front lawn, so we didn't have a replay of last year. :) Although I really don't think the people in this neighborhood would care if our yard got a little out of hand.

Sidenote: our neighbors were blaring Michael Jackson today. Nothing like people rocking out to "Man in the Mirror" at 2:00 on a sunny Sunday afternoon! I like it that people around here do things like... play music. And have cookouts. And say hello to people walking by on the street. I think gentrifying areas are the place to be... such an interesting mix of all kinds of people, all living in the same few blocks.

Anyway. In addition to getting a raise, Roger's company is settled in San Francisco now, so it only takes him 40 minutes to get to work instead of an hour and 40! His commute is now a 10 minute walk, a 20 minute BART ride, and another 10 minute walk. That certainly makes me feel better about it, and I know that aspect of work is less draining for him now at least. This is not to say that I've been seeing him any more; on the contrary, they're working on signing another big contract, which means he's been getting home as late as ever. (I'm pretty sure he didn't make it home before 9:30 at all last week.) But I guess I should be getting more work done anyway, so I'm trying to just roll with it.

This past week was fun for me because we had our prospective students visiting. The people who were admitted for the incoming class in the fall were here, checking things out and seeing how they like the department. I really enjoy prospie week because I really like it here, and it's fun to meet new people and be able to honestly tell them that this is a great place to be. We had a girl from the U of I staying with us (which was the major impetus for us getting a guest bed last weekend), and I think she had a really good time. We also had a few people visiting with interests quite similar to mine, very lab-by types, and it'd be great to have more of those around. There was also a really sweet French guy who speaks a ton of languages, and I told him somewhat sheepishly that I selfishly want him to come here so I can keep my French up. His English was really phenomenal, too, and he seemed like he liked it here, so we'll see. I may be able to go back to actually actively improving my French instead of just trying to maintain it as best I can, and that would be nice. I feel bad for talking about him like he's some French language robot, though! He was actually a very nice guy with like, a personality and a sense of humor and everything. Not just a little help-Melinda-improve-her-French automaton...

Okay, that paragraph got away from me. Time for some running talk. I'm running the Oakland Half Marathon two weeks from today! It should be really fun, I think. I haven't done a race in a few months, and I haven't done a half marathon in a few years, and it's such a great distance. You're totally spent afterwards, but not totally trashed. It's a really satisfying level of exertion, as opposed to a crippling one. :) I guess I also need to hurry up and decide if I want to run San Francisco again this year. July will be here before I know it... maybe I'll wait and see how Oakland goes, and then sign up if I catch the Big M bug.

But running. While I was running yesterday, I realized that this summer will be my 10th anniversary of starting running. I've been at this craziness for 10 years! With varying degrees of intensity and commitment, of course. That first summer I ran every day. Then I kept it up regularly throughout high school, then trailed off for little spurts at a time during college, and only managed to run once or twice a week while I was in France. Then of course I got back from France, and we got Huck, and I started running with that little bugger alllll the time and ended up doing my first marathon.

So I was thinking about my mileage over the past 10 years. It definitely varies a lot... generally creeps up into the 30 miles per week range when I don't have anything better to do (over breaks, the summer), tends to sink down around 12-15 when I'm really busy or fighting a cold. But my guess was that I've probably averaged about 20/week over the past 10 years. That might be a little on the high side, but we'll go with 20. For 50 weeks a year, that's 1,000 miles per year! And for 10 years... that means I've run somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 miles!! Whoa. I mean, whoa. I really don't mean to toot my own horn (although this is my blog, so I guess I can say whatever I want and all), I just had no idea I was anywhere near that. I had no idea I'd been running for almost 10 years now, either.

Which brings us back to the fact that time is flying. It is freakin' flying, and I'm going to be 26 this year, and I already have little smile lines around my eyes and gray hair, and before I know it I'll have a PhD and we'll be moving away from California to god-knows-where.

Ferris Bueller totally had it right: Life moves by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.

The last good news thing I have to report is that I'm finally starting to run some subjects on my first real, full-scale research project (the one with the kids' voices and looking at the differences between boys and girls). I already have 7 people scheduled for this week, so I think I'll have fun data to play with really soon! (Yay data!)

Well, I have lots of reading to get done, so I should probably call it a night. I'm thinking about going home to Illinois in June before my crazy five hours-a-day Spanish class starts, so I'll keep y'all updated on that. Much, much love from the Golden State!

Much Ado About Nothing Much

Partially against my better judgment, I'm going to make a blog post! It's almost 10:00 a.m. as I sit down to write this, and I have to leave to go to Phorum soon (our weekly phonetics-phonology discussion group). Today is going to be weird... I have a weird schedule lined up. I already did my morning run with the dogs, and I normally have French practice on Mondays from 9:30 to 10:30 or so, but my conversation partner canceled on me today, and I now I don't quite know what to do with myself.

I have a ton of reading to get through this week, so I should probably be taking this 40 minutes to get to work on it, but I don't know if I could really get into a concentration groove enough to make it worth it. Phorum is 11:00 - 12:00, then I guess I'm going to come back home and do some reading, then there's a talk this evening from 4:00 to 5:30, followed by a wine and cheese reception. It's always hard to sneak out before the reception, so I'll probably hang around at that for a while and then come home to walk the dogs and do more reading.

I have a big paper due in the next two weeks that I'm so not ready to write. That's what all the reading's about. If I actually do background reading this week, writing the paper next week won't be quite as painful. I hope.

I had a good long weekend. Hardly did any work, which probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was nice to just hang out. Roger picked up a new router and two new video games at Best Buy, so he hooked up his Xbox to the router and the video projector and played video games all day Sunday. It was strangely comforting, having video game background noise!

I wasted some time at Barnes and Noble on Saturday, stopped by Joann Fabric and bought some new yarn, and started making myself a hat. This was probably also not the greatest idea, because now I'm slightly obsessed with finishing my hat (and scarf! and gloves!) right when I should be doing a lot of reading. But it's going to be so pretty and match the raincoat Roger got me for my birthday...

I also made a huge pot of chili yesterday, which totally hit the spot. Unfortunately, we're out of saltines, but it's been pretty darn good, just the same.

I kind of want to talk about running, so bear with me. The weather here is so unbelievably fantastically perfect for running, and I've been doing a lot of lit lately. Well. "A lot" is all relative, now isn't it? My mileage is still considerably lower than when I'm marathon training, because that one 15+ mile run every week makes a big difference in total mileage. But I'm doing 5 or 6 days a week, usually 4-6 miles at a time with one slightly longer run of 7 or 8 miles. Yesterday I did just shy of 7, and it was so nice. The fall leaves are just now starting to be really vibrant here, and the mornings are crisp and chilly, and something about the low angle of the sun just makes me feel... special when I head out for a run. I know that sounds really weird, but when I'm running with my dogs through the chilly, leafy Berkeley neighborhoods in the early morning, when hardly anyone else is out and I can see my breath and feel my skin tingling, I kind of feel like, "All of this is mine," like the fact that I'm out appreciating the beauty of it all means it belongs to me, and like I could conquer the world one run at a time if I really set my mind to it.

I'm getting much better at the hills, too. I used to avoid the hills at least a few days a week to give myself a break, but that's really hard to do around here. The only way to avoid them is to stay within a half mile radius immediately north and west of here, and that gets boring pretty quick, let me tell you. Also, all the rich people live in the hills, so that's where all the nice neighborhoods with the pretty leaves are. It also means fewer major streets and less traffic up there. So anyway, I've been hitting the hills almost every day, and I can feel it working different muscles and slowly getting easier. On the way up, I can feel it in my calves and my hips (running uphill strengthens your hips, isn't that funny?), and on the way down I feel it in my quads, since they do the bulk of the shock absorption.

But it's kind of like starting running all over again; maybe that's why I'm learning to love the hills. Running is hard at first. I remember starting out and only being able to go for about a mile at a time, and then being so sore and even sick to my stomach afterwards! I'm so stubborn, though. When I first started, I went every single day, which is pretty much the opposite of what you're supposed to do when you're starting out, but I was 15, so the rules are probably different. I would run down to the end of the street, which was about a mile, and then walk back. Then I got to the point where I could run down, turn around, and come back about halfway. Pretty soon, I could run all the way down and back, and then I had to start branching out.

I remember what it's like when you first catch your breath while you're running. When you first start out, it's miserable hard work, and you can't fathom how anyone could ever enjoy it. And then, one day, you're running, and you realize you've managed to catch your breath. And suddenly it all makes sense - this is why people can keep going for so many miles - they're not completely miserable the whole time!

It's easy to become complacent, though. On the one hand, I still love it that I can just head out for a run, and I feel very lucky that I find it so enjoyable and easy. On the other hand, it's very easy to quit pushing yourself. You find a comfortable pace and a comfortable distance, and that's where you stay. I put in my 4 - 6 miles every day, right around an 8:45/mile pace, probably, and that's that.

So the hills are good for me. Working different muscles and getting out of breath (even though I'm starting to catch my breath on the hills too!) is good for me. I am a big proponent of shaking things up.

Well, it's time for me to get ready to go. Lots of reading to do this afternoon, lots of chili to eat and tea to drink. I hope you're enjoying your fall too.

Heeeeere, house-y house-y house-y...

An update! Because I'm tired of scouring Craigslist for a place to live, but it's not quite time to walk the dogs yet.
Whaddya think? Maybe we'll just move to this here house in the Berkeley hills. Not a bad view, right? Let's check out the specs:

5 bed/4 bath
Rent: $14,800/month (not a typo)
Deposit: $28,000

Haha! Hahaha! Best part:

"Entertaining friends and clients in this unique and magnificent setting is a must. Are you a ROCK STAR, CEO or PRO ATHLETE? If so, this home is for you!"


Uhhhh yeah. We'll keeping looking for our 2 bedroom house with a postage stamp lawn that will still cost us a small fortune, thankyouverymuch.

In other news, um, nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm just wiling away the days reading random books and articles (but nothing important and/or related to school), running my dogs, and doing the occasional housework. I did laundry this week, that was exciting. Baked brownies and ate almost the whole pan by myself. Pulled weeds, trimmed bushes, and got a nice blister on the inside of my thumb.

The thing is, it doesn't even feel like summer. Yes, I'm languishing away, getting to that point in my boredom where even though I know there are things I could be doing, if I would try a bit harder to think of them, my motivation is flagging and I've gotten into a little rut of nothingness. And everyone knows that's what summer's all about. But summer just isn't summer without 90 degree heat and air that's thick and swampy with humidity. This Bay Area "summer" is just like Bay Area spring, and not really much different than Bay Area winter, to tell you the truth. Sure, it's only cloudy in the mornings now, and it blows out and clears up around 1:00 every afternoon, but it still only gets up to 65 during the day, and it's still cool enough to sleep with a blanket at night. I'm not complaining, per se - I do realize that would be rather ridiculous - but it's weird. I'm not used to wearing long pants and sometimes a sweater in June.

It's actually warmer today, though, and I think it's supposed to be in the 70's for the next few days. We might go into the city tomorrow and get croissants and coffee at some French bakery. Roger said someone from work brought in pastries from this place called La Boulange and the croissants were awesome - real French style, nice and golden brown and crispy on the outside and everything. So maybe we'll have a date!!


Well, I don't have much else to say. I will most definitely update as soon as we find a new place to live, though, and that should hopefully be sometime relatively soon. There are two houses I have my fingers crossed for right now, but I haven't heard back from either landlord, so that's probably not the best sign...

It's okay. Life is good and we will find something soon, and then I'll let you know all about it!

Approaching Normalcy

I am having a great weekend! Here is why:

- I sold my bike. A very cute girl came to pick it up yesterday, and she gave me $275 for it. I was pretty sad to see it go, but I decided to sell it for a few reasons. It was taking up so much space just sitting in our living room, and it was too heavy and cumbersomely shaped to hang it from the ceiling, like we did with Roger's. So it's just been sitting there, and our living room has been so cluttery, and the reason I haven't been riding it is that since I took Roger's awesome, incredibly lightweight, super fast road bike for a very short spin, I've been jonesing for an awesome road bike of my own. They're so expensive though, so I hadn't really thought about buying one yet... but I just realized last week that since we kind of have some money now, if I sold my bike, I could actually get an awesome new one in the near future. And what I really want to do is go for long, long rides up to Marin county with Roger on Saturdays. That would be a really fun thing for us to do together. So, up on Craigslist it went, and this girl contacted me. She was completely in love with it, and so so happy to come pick it up yesterday, so I'm glad it went to a good home, and to someone who will appreciate more than I have been lately.

- So yesterday, there I'm sitting with $275 burning a hole in my pocket... and just having got my City Car Share key a few days before... clearly time to go buy some stuff at Ikea. So I reserved a Prius and drove out to Ikea and got us some actual furniture for our house. I spent all the money... but our house is becoming a real people's house now! Here's the stuff I got:

(Office chair and desk for Roger.)


(Dining table and coat rack for the living room/entryway.)

*I'm* the most excited about the dining table, I think. That's not the exact one we got - ours has slightly darker wood, so it looks a little nicer - but it's just this cute little thing that'll fit perfect in the spot where my bike used to be!

That's not the exact desk I got Roger, either - his is dark brown/black on top, but just has four silver legs on bottom instead of the drawers. He made me laugh (to myself) yesterday. His "desk" thus far has been an ironing board in the living room. He's been sitting in our Ikea chair we got for $25 when we first moved in (it's like a cross between a lazy boy and a folding chair) with an ironing board next to him with his computer on it. At first it made me a little sad that he had an ironing board for a desk, but y'know, you do whatcha gotta do. We would make jokes about it at first like, "Rye, get out of Roger's office!" Anyway, I've been saying how I couldn't wait to get him a real desk and get the extra bedroom set up as an office for him, and he's been saying "no no, I'm totally fine like this! I even like it! it's more comfortable!" Well, yesterday when I dropped off the stuff at home, Roger wasn't here. But by the time I got home 20 minutes later, Roger had gotten back from the store, busted open the boxes, cleared a space in the extra room, and almost finished putting together the desk. Partially just because he's such a good little husband, but partially because I think he wanted a real person desk too.

So we put together everything but the dining room table and chairs last night, and our house is starting to look like a real house! It's very exciting. Once we make it the rest of the way there (i.e. straighten up the living room, get the table up, and get Roger all moved in to his new office), I will be un-embarrassed enough of our house to take pictures of it in its current state. :)

- Ok. I wanted to say one more reason why this weekend is good, and that is because I found a marathon training partner, and I'm meeting her for the first time today! I've been trolling Craigslist for a new running partner for almost two months now, and I saw this girl's ad, emailed her, and she emailed me right back with her phone number, so I called her, and we talked for like 10 minutes! It was so fun - I really like her, even though I haven't met her yet, and I'm meeting her for a run today.

Should I tell you the details of the run? ...I'll tell you the details of the run.

As you may know, I've been thinking about/wanting to train for the San Francisco Marathon this summer. The race is in very late July, so I haven't started ramping up my long runs quite yet. I did 13 miles about two weeks ago, and it was great, but that's the longest I've been since we moved here.

I saw this girl's ad, and she's training for her first marathon in April. She's running Big Sur, which is amazingly gorgeous. Here, you've got to see this: Big Sur homepage.

I definitely want to run this before we leave California, but I wasn't planning on doing it this year. Anyway, this girl is farther along in her training than I am, since the race is in April, so she's scheduled for 16 miles today. So... I'm gonna give it a shot. I think I can do it, and if I can't, I can always stop and walk. She said she's on the slow side, so I'll just take it easy and see how far I can make it. (I should be able to make it!) It's such an exciting day, though, because I'm taking BART to meet her in this little town I've never been to before. She's a florist in Walnut Creek, which is on the other side of the hills, away from the Bay, and she's doing a wedding there today, so I'm taking the train to meet her, and we're going to this trail I've never even heard of before. So much new stuff! So much adventure! I can't wait!

I think that's pretty much everything I wanted to say. Wait, no, we might be hosting a prospective grad student starting a week from today, and that's exciting too! I hope we get good new grad students for next year...

Ok, that's all. Maybe I'll have pictures of our house for you soon?

Happy March! Happy spring!

Semester #2 Has Begun

I've been lazy with the blog lately. I started my second semester of school last week, and I'm not at all into a routine yet. I haven't figured out yet when to do my homework and readings, when to have down time, when to do house work, when to walk the dogs. Well. The last one is taking care of itself, actually; with Roger leaving around 6:45 in the morning, Rye has decided that's when he needs to get up, too. So every morning when Roger's about to leave, Rye gets up to say goodbye to him, and then he stands right next to me and barks his little head off until I get out of bed. Really not an ideal situation. He is such a stubborn little fart. So I usually get up a little before 7:00 and dilly dally for about 15 minutes before the sun comes up, and then the dogs and I get in a run so I don't feel too terribly bad about leaving them alone all day. Then I shower and go to class, and usually get home around 4:00, it seems. Today I went grocery shopping and did the dishes, tomorrow I'm taking Huck to the vet for a check up, Friday I'm meeting someone for a run in the afternoon, so that means I'll try to get the dogs to the dog park in the morning so I don't have dog mom guilt.

I think I like my classes this semester, but it's a bit early to tell. This semester is extremely different from the last one in terms of subject material; last semester was very "experiment" heavy, in that I was mostly reading research articles all the time. This semester seems like it will involve a lot more problem sets and less reading. In case anyone's interested, here's what I'm taking: phonology (where we learn about analyzing the sound systems of languages), quantitative methods in linguistics (where we learn lots of statistics and how to analyze data), historical linguistics (how languages can change over time), cognitive linguistics (how the brain stores language... supposedly... I'm skeptical about this class), and I'm sitting in on experimental phonetics, where we get to play with high tech lab equipment to do things like measure pitch and air flow while people are talking. I'm particularly excited about the last one, since I don't actually have to worry about doing the work for a grade - I just get to play!

Other developments in my life... my new running shoes came in today!! I'm going to go pick them up on Friday or Saturday and take them for a test run. I am so excited. I also seem to have found some potential running partners. Ok, here's a funny story. So I posted an ad to Craigslist looking for a marathon training partner. The first girl who emailed me back was talking about how she's working on her second bachelor's degree now and used to be a personal trainer. I'm thinking, all right, awesome. Somewhat serious about both school and running - my kind of chick, right? So we have this email exchange wherein it becomes clear to me that she honestly believes astronomy and astrology to be the same thing. It's not that she mixed up the words - that would be far more forgivable - no, she just started a second bachelor's in astronomy this semester because she thought it was astrology. Something along the lines of "I'm more interested in the spiritual aspects of astronomy, not all that physics and chemistry stuff." Yikes. Now, part of me says I should stop being so judgmental and give her another chance. But if I run with her once, it'll be harder to get rid of her in the future. And marathon training involves spending hours with someone. What am I, a person who clearly values science and science education very highly, going to have to talk about with someone who signed up for astronomy classes to like, predict what house is in Virgo this month or whatever?

Then girl #2 emails me, and she's from Orange County. First strike against her. She wants to train to run her first marathon with her dad and sister in May, and she's "starting from zero". Umm, you do know how long a marathon is, right? I would not recommend going from 0 to 26.2 in, uh, 12 weeks. The selfish part of me wants to try running with this girl anyway, but the concerned fellow runner part of me wants to forbid this girl from attempting this, since she's probably going to do some serious damage to her body if she actually goes through with it.

Anyway. I did find one person, this guy named Kevin who's originally from Michigan. I responded to his ad after being disappointed at my only two responses, and he's perfectly nice. He got a few other responses, too, so I might end up finding someone through the grapevine eventually.

I'm sorry if I bore everyone who reads this with my running talk.

I think we're going to join the City Car Share. The Bay Area has these cars (and trucks and vans) stationed all over the place, and when you sign up for this program, they send you a card that unlocks them. You go online and reserve one for whenever you want it, they send a signal to your card to allow it to unlock the car you signed up for, then record when you return the car, and you get charged $5/hour plus 40 cents/mile. Not bad at all. That way we can run errands more easily and maybe get out and explore a little bit, since it is very unclear whether there is a new car in our future any time soon. And lots of people apparently sign up for the car share while they wait to get a new car, and then end up so happy with the car share they forget about buying their own. Oh, the price includes all gas, maintenance, and insurance, and you can sign it out for 24 hours at a time at a flat rate of $40, if you want. The only drawback is we can't take the dogs in it... so we'll probably get a car eventually, but this will definitely do in the meantime.

I'm suddenly very tired of typing, so I'm going to get ready for bed now. I'll try to update again soon!

Pictures and Running

As promised, here is my picture post! This first one is of Jimmy actually playing poker during the tournament. He was "surprised and impressed" that I watched him play for so long. But of course I did! It was fun and interesting and definitely not something I'll have the opportunity to do very often.


The next one is the view from one of Jimmy's friend's room. Freaking amazing.


This is one of the beach. I didn't actually swim in the ocean, but I did walk in the sand for a while, and it was downright beautiful. The water was so turquoise, the sand so creamy.


The next one is a tank full of jellyfish. Random, I know, but one of the coolest things about this resort was that they have this awesome network of aquariums, with walkways going under, around, above, and through them, so the animals swim all around you. I thought this was a cool shot, even though it doesn't really capture the coolness of all the aquariums (aquaria?).


And finally, just because this picture is hilarious, here are my doggies earlier today. We went for a great run this morning, and then Rye discovered a new way to sleep in the sun; we call him the sun dial dog, because he literally scoots around the extra bedroom on the floor all day, following the path of the sun. If you catch him before about 10:00 am, the sunlight is still on the wall, not the floor, so he can't sleep in it yet. He used to just back up against the wall and wait for it to hit the floor, but since I've gotten home from my trip, I stacked my suitcase against the wall and, well, see for yourself:


I love it that Huck has this look on his face like, "Do you see this? You have got to be kidding me."

In other news, I was doubly inspired yesterday. While walking the dogs, these three girls ran by me, and my first reaction was a pang of jealousy; why do they have someone to run with and I don't? My second reaction was, "Wait, isn't the pollution level pretty high today?" And it was - yesterday it was in the high 90's, I believe, which is the yellow "sensitive individuals should consider limiting outdoor exertion" level. Usually when it gets in the high yellow zone, I don't run, since my chest used to get pretty tight on those days. But these girls were running in it just fine, apparently.

So the upshot of that brief encounter is 1) I went running today, even though the pollution index was like 105, and I was totally and completely fine. This is somewhat good and somewhat bad. On the one hand, it's great that I've adjusted my sensitivity to the pollution, since it apparently doesn't affect me like it did at first, and now I can run when the levels are higher. On the other hand... seriously? I'm used to having 2.5 micrometer particles gunking up my lungs now? That's depressing.

And 2) I got on this website called exercisefriends.com and started looking for a running partner. I found this girl who posted an "ad" a few years ago looking for a fellow 20-something female to train for the San Francisco Marathon with her, and I sent her an email to see if she's still living in Berkeley, still interested in training for SF '09, and if she might want to grab a cup of coffee to make sure neither of us are 45 year old creepy stalker dudes before we set up a running date. I'm really hoping I hear back from her soon!

Ok, that's all for now.

From Runner's World Online Today

"Everyone get a run in yesterday?

I did. And it was the most amazing run of my life.

No, nothing outwardly amazing happened—I wasn't moving very fast, didn't find a hundred dollar bill on a deserted street, wasn't running the full Boston Marathon course... My wife hadn't paid an elite to join me. The weather wasn't even that great.

It wasn't so remarkable inwardly, either. While I ran, my mind toggled through the usual laundry list of thoughts: bills to pay, projects to start (or finish), anxieties to face. Laundry. I didn't feel especially strong. I wasn't enjoying that effortless, fluid stride that sometimes comes like a gift.

I was just out there, putting in an easy 4 1/2 miles around the neighborhood on New Year's Day.

Only later, upon reflection, did it hit me: My run today was amazing not in spite of its mundane nature, but because of it.

In other words, my run today was great because it was my run. Today.

I'm one of the lucky few (and we are few, as a slice of the population) who is in on this wonderful, little secret: Running makes you feel good. It's good for you, in so many ways. And I'm doing it. I've been doing it so long, in fact, I've managed somehow to forget how incredible it is, that on any given day I can decide to go out and run, then do it. And come back feeling clearer, brighter, stronger, more relaxed.

It occurs to me that too often we take for granted these countless, everyday jaunts. The "in between" miles. We've been conditioned to see only milestone runs or marquee events as noteworthy or celebratory—running a PR, qualifying for Boston, doing a destination marathon or a relay like Hood to Coast.

All of those things are great, don't get me wrong. But as far as I'm concerned, in running as in life, true happiness lies in finding joy in seemingly smaller, more quotidian stuff. I'm not big into New Year's resolutions, but this year I just might have to adopt one: Remind myself every single day how lucky I am to be a runner.

Happy New Year, guys. Here's to many happy and healthy miles in 2009."

That pretty much says it all. Enjoy your run, everyone!

I'm also lucky enough to be headed off to a week in the Bahamas today, courtesy of the little bro, who's playing a big poker tournament there. I may be slightly incommunicado for the next few days, but I should be reachable by email, at least.

Happy New Year!