Tuesday, October 21, 2008

More Muscles

Yesterday morning I succeeded in working on my job talk for a while, something I've been having a really hard time with. I have a big 14"x17" newsprint pad, and I did some brainstorming with a blue highlighter. Working in such a childish, cartoonish way was really helpful in taking the pressure off. Today, I need to type those notes in and seriously get down to work.

Around noon, I put some "special beans" in the crockpot. "Special beans" are a strange bean mix that we got at the Korean supermarket. Some are gigantic (but they always dissolve completely). Others that I can identify include black beans, red beans, chickpeas, and green peas. But there are other kinds in there also I think. It's a huge colorful bean mix, with which Pocket of Bolts likes to make vegetarian chili. We cook up the beans and then add TVP and lots of other tasty ingredients. It makes a delicious chili. Even though we're not vegetarians anymore, we still enjoy eating veg food sometimes. It gives the body a clean feeling.

After getting those started, I did another thing I had been avoiding--I went and did a lifting workout at the gym. I had done 25 lifting workouts and then stopped for several weeks. Then I was dreading starting again because I knew it would be really hard and I would have gotten weaker. I had gotten weaker. But as Pocket of Bolts said, the longer you wait the worse it will be. So I steeled myself and did it. Workout 26 was thankfully a "whole body" workout, which means that every part of me hurts, but no one part is excruciating.

I did not have a very productive afternoon, I must confess. Maybe I was tired from the workout. In any case, I wasted time. I thought listlessly about the bit of dissertation I'm supposed to be working on... but didn't actually work on it. The best I can say is that I did some reading for the Book of Changes seminar. Oh, and memorized a hexagram, "Fellowship", heaven over fire.

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