Don't ask the past to last

TJ pointed out I haven't written in a while. He doesn't usually read my blog, so that surprised me. Of course, then I realized that in 2 short weeks he will be Unemployed Man. Yes, he finally quit the job that has been making him unhappy for the past 2 years. And I am proud of him for that - it takes a lot to walk away from a paycheck when you don't have the next one lined up. That's one of the nice things about being married (or for that matter, any committed relationship where you share money). One of us can quit our sucky job and take some time to find a new better one, without The Man coming to repossess The Peanut.

Here's a blog post about eeeevil Banana Republic that made me bust a gut laughing. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I'm finally done with my wretched Technical Writing class, in which we did hardly any Technical Writing and a lot of English 101. I did well on my Writing Portfolio (yay) and got the highest score in the class for our last in-class writing exercise (impressive considering my total studying time was about 5 minutes). So I'll end up with a decent grade, but really, I'm just relieved to be done. It annoyed me way too much. I did appreciate practicing my writing and learning about visual design and a bit about writing instructions and process descriptions. But the class seemed just so much about "what does the professor want" and less about learning for its own sake. On the bright side, I am now much more thoughtful about the status reports and other writing I do at work. So it wasn't a total loss. I guess now that I am *choosing* to take classes, I have very high expectations. Yes, I'm *that* snotty student with the bad attitude.

I now have two new obsessions, stemming from my recent purchase of an older Xbox for a very low price from the Micronews, our classified ads site. The first is Dance Dance Revolution, something I've played on more than one occasion with Kristin, and once with Kristine as well in Las Vegas this summer. It's nice to be able to play in the privacy of one's own home, where embarassing acts of un-coordinated flailing around are hidden from everyone except Spike and Peanut who can't laugh at me because they're DOGS. I wouldn't go so far as to call it exercise but it beats sitting on the couch.

The second "game" I bought is Yourself! Fitness, which features a virtual personal trainer named Maya who gives you a different workout each time based on your fitness goals and performance on fitness evaluations. I hate working out so any unique gadget that gets me off my butt (one of those that doesn't fit into Banana Republic pants, see link above) is a good thing. My fitness evaluation and first workout with Maya went well today. Though she was pretty mean about making me do 2 minutes of jumping jacks. I also had to do 50 squats (aced that thanks to aforementioned butt) and 40 girl pushups (could barely do 20) for the eval. Ugh, I'm in so much worse shape than I was when working out with Nelson before the wedding. I hate to represent the cliche about married life! My next workout with Maya is tomorrow, for 30 minutes. I'm starting out slow since I'm really in that gym-hating frame of mind right now.

And I started following the Weight Watchers plan again (they should pay me now, for the amount of money I've spent there over the years!). Through empirical evidence, (yes, I know I'm slow to pick this up) I realize I actually need to change the way I always eat, not just go on a diet for some short term goal. So I'll never be able to eat "whatever I want", which is kind of sad, but just the way things are, I guess. Of course, if I ever get back to running, I can be a bit more lax about it. But alas, that time is not now.

I'm sort of happy to get back into this frame of mind before the other 10000000 people do this in a month. And I will probably avoid the gym for a while until that craziness subsides. Anyway, wish me luck (again). I can't believe I've undone all the good work I did earlier this year. It's amazing how quickly that happens. Next time I'll be smarter about it. (Lord knows, even lab rats learn from their experiences...)