Science Monkey

Although my friend Amy betrayed me and didn’t show, I went to yoga last night after work. It just about killed me. Not really, but I was hurting something bad. I got through the first 45 minutes just fine when whammo! I hit a wall and was running on fumes for the remainder of the class (another hour). I would sit down for a minute or so and get my heartrate back under control, but as soon as I stood up I’d get lightheaded, especially if the next pose involved bending over. Not like curtain-over-your-eyes-gonna-pass-out lightheaded, but I was a little dizzy. I’ve learned two things from last night’s experience:
1. Don’t wait another three-plus months for the next class.
2. Perhaps hot yoga at night isn’t the best thing for me, especially after riding my bike home from work on a hot afternoon.

When I weighed myself this morning I was down about five pounds from when I weighed myself yesterday morning. I’m thinking that it’s not *all* actual weight loss. At least half a pound has to be water weight, right? Heh…maybe a little more than that.

I’m planning to go tomorrow (Sunday) morning to the 10 o’clock class. Despite all my griping and anecdotes about nearly dying, it’s really a lot of fun and you’ll feel pretty great afterwards. I’ll even pop for your first class if you want to come join me. Don’t worry about looking foolish…there’s no way you’ll be worse at it than I am.

Happy Saturday. I’m off to do some errands and take a nap, then I fear I’ll be on WoW much of the night. Yay!

Just a brief note this morning, because I’ve got a ton to do at work. I’m planning to go to Big Ron’s tonight at 6 for hot yoga. Emma and I went out to breakfast this morning and saw our friend Amy, who also goes to yoga (like me, however, she hasn’t been recently). She was planning to go, so Emma encouraged me to go also. So I am. It’s a lot of fun so you should come. Get there a little early and you can help Amy and me claim the back row.

It wasn’t too bad this morning. I survived, which always beats the alternative. My arms were pretty sore all afternoon and my legs are starting to tighten up now, but it was a good workout. I wish I could go every day, but their times are pretty incompatible with getting any work done during the week. I could go at either 8:30 and lose the morning — class until 10:30, home and shower by 11 or 11:30, and I’m not to work until almost noon — or rush home after work to catch the 6 PM class. Maybe once a week (or so) I can plan to leave work earlier in the afternoon and go to the 6 PM class. Wednesdays might work.

Speaking of Wednesdays, Emma and I have our first piano lessons on Wednesday! We bought an electric piano (a Yamaha PX-700, I think) over the weekend and had previously found a friend who is willing to try and teach us. He’s getting his master’s in music (possibly music education), so he *should* be able to do it. Maybe I’ll break out my French horn, too, instead of letting it collect dust on the floor of my office. Well, the case is collecting dust. The horn is in beautiful condition.

I’m fairly pleased with the development of these hobbies. I’m riding my bike more, learning to play the piano, and getting more regular exercise. If only I could throw in a martial art, I’d feel all badass. Oh, and get sailing again. Damn, I miss sailing. I was looking into building a boat this past weekend, but I don’t think I have any convenient space to build it. Our shed is full of stuff, naturally. I could use the converted garage room, but I don’t know how I’d get the boat out once I was finished. I need to think about it some more…

Happy day off, for those of you playing hookey tomorrow. I’ll be at work for the morning, at least, and am hoping to just treat it like a regular day. I’ve got plenty of work, but feel free to come distract me if you’re at the building and bored.

I’m off to hot yoga, for the first time this calendar year. I haven’t been in about four weeks, so this is going to be most unpleasant, I fear. I’ll feel good afterwards…maybe if I keep telling myself that, I’ll believe it.

Hola, everybody. This has been a busy past few days and I’ve been either too busy or too tired to sit and stare at my computer longer. Since I last wrote, I’ve been to hot yoga again, watched UF win the SEC champsionship in football, and had an interesting thesis committee meeting. Not in that order, actually, but that’s the order I want to write about them in. The order in which I want to write about them? That doesn’t sound right. Whatever.

I went to hot yoga again yesterday (Saturday) morning and, yet again, enjoyed myself. Not so much during the class, actually, but afterwards. I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels to walk out of the hot room into a cool, drizzly morning. I’m feeling pretty good between yoga classes, as well…my muscles ache a bit, but I feel like I’m…I don’t know. Better. More alert. Taller, if that makes any sense.  At any rate, I highly recommend it. My plan is to continue going twice a week through December and then buy myself a membership in the new year, assuming I’m still going.  It’s moderately expensive, so I want to be sure I’m going to use the classes I buy. This past class I saw a friend of mine there, which was really nice. Well, not so much a friend as an acquaintance. She’s one of our favorite waitresses at the 43rd Street Deli (on 13th Street), where Emma and I love to have breakfast on the weekends.

Speaking of that, I have a question if anybody’s actually reading this and has any opinion. There are a few people at the Deli who we talk and have fun with at the Deli who I’d like to hang out with more (and I think Emma would enjoy spending time with them, too), but is that weird? Is that an awkward transition? I don’t know. I think it’s odd, but I could be wrong. Like, “Here’s your tip and want to grab several beers next weekend?” Odd.
I went to the Fellers last night to watch the SEC championship game (woo!) and had a great time. My poor, heroic wife had to work a 24-hour shift yesterday, so I went stag. I do not think that I would have enjoyed this a year (or more) ago — going to spend time with people who she knows more than I do without her — but I did and am glad I did. In my excitement over the win last night (and my current attempts to avoid doing work), I’m refreshing the ESPN college football page about every 1.5 nanoseconds to see if any polls or computer rankings have been announced. I’d bet there’s an embargo until the official TV show tonight, but I could be wrong.

The last item I want to write about this afternoon was my committee meeting on Friday. I’ve been having a moderate amount of anxiety about my progress and the potential for any future progress in the lab, so after consultation with one of my committee members who I greatly admire, I put together a meeting so we could talk about where I am and where I’m going. We spent about an hour and a half going through the problems I’ve been having and the projects that I’m working on and then I briefly outlined where I want to go from here any the reasons why this is a good plan. They agreed with my overall plan, but I have a bit of a deadline looming. We’re going to meet again in March and if my current project hasn’t shown progress by then, they want me to switch to a less risky project, maybe a less exciting project but one with an extremely high chance of success. Several of my committee members actually mentioned to Tom their concern that I’m in my fourth year and am still working on something of a fishing project. At one point, someone asked if I had any publications yet and I replied, “No. Well, not in this lab. I have four from my year and a half as a tech.” Heh. Tom pointed out that there are several papers that we’re working on where I’ll be a coauthor, but I’m hesitant to count those until they start getting submitted. Or at least until I see a draft. There’s one manuscript, in fact, where all of the data collection was completed about three years ago, when I first started in the lab, and we have yet to finish writing it, let alone submit it anywhere. Allegedly one of our former postdocs is working on two manuscripts right now, but she’s been gone more than a year and I can’t imagine that we’re her highest priority. Sigh.
Overall, I thought it was a good meeting and we addressed many of my anxieties, so I’m pleased. I wish I was further along, with more papers out at this point, but I don’t feel so much like it’s completely my fault. I’m really at the point where I need to be moving forward in this lab or I need to change labs. Emma has two and a half years left on her residency, so that’s my outer limit. We’ll see how the next month or so goes.

At any rate, happy Sunday and happy December. I’ll type to you soon. Hot yoga Wednesday! 6 PM! Who’s game?

Oh, before I forget: WTDISTThursday: 12:15 PM. Friday: 11:15 AM (my committee meeting started at 11, although he did call to say he’d be late. One committee member observed that he was “glad to see Tom doesn’t discriminate. He’s late to everybody’s meetings.” Heh.)

Okay, so it was Hot Yoga Last Night, if you want to be picky. Don’t bother me with the details.

Earlier than I had planned, I found myself back at hot yoga. My mother-in-law called yesterday morning and said that she and a friend were going and that Ron was teaching. They felt I should have the “Ronny experience,” whatever that is. Unfortunately, Ron was out of town, so I had the “Nancy experience.” (Nancy is Ron’s wife) (It was fine)

I felt pretty good during the session…there was only one time I felt I was going to die, and even then I recovered reasonably well. I was able to stay in the hot room the entire session and participate in at least one repeat of each of the poses. Not bad. I think I’m going to buy a series next time I go, which should be next Saturday morning.

Hot Yoga: Saturday morning at 10. Be there or be square!

WTDISTY: 1 PM

Believe it or not, I went to a hot yoga class yesterday morning and enjoyed it. My mother-in-law has been taking classes at Big Ron’s Yoga College (a name that continues to amuse me) here in town for the past year. Every few weeks she tries to recruit someone in the family (or not in the family) to come with her, and this week I agreed. I’ve never taken a yoga class before, but I thought it might be fun. Well, not fun, exactly…I figured that if I went once I could avoid feeling guilty about not going again in the future. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed it, and am planning to go again next week.

The class is Bikram Yoga, about 100 minutes at 100 degrees F. The heat wasn’t too bad, actually, but the yoga was tiring. I managed through the first hour, but then had to take a break and step outside for a minute or so. I went back in after catching my breath and went through about half of the remaining exercises. Maybe a little less.

I’m going to try it again next week and if I still enjoy it, I think I’ll buy a month membership (or series of classes or whatever). We’ll see!