Blue Hills

I went for a jog in the Blue Hills with a meet up group this morning.  I mean, it wasn't billed as a jog, but these people were crazy!  It was about a 4.5 mile hike, and we went up this tall hill, down, then we jogged a quarter of the way around it, then ran up it again.  Then, we went down, jogged off to another hill, ran up that, went down, circled around, and climbed the top bit again.  By the end I was exhausted!  It was really good exercise and I feel like I had my workout for the day.

Today it's supposed to get up to 60! It's officially spring, hooray!  I think the honeymoon phase has worn off at work, I'm realizing that this is where I work now, and starting to settle in.  There are definitely some pro's and con's, and a certain amount of culture shock. Well, it was time for a change, and change it is!

Also, very unappealing, but I have a fungus on my stomach that blooms whenever I do anything aerobic.  My doctor just gave me a cream for it, which will hopefully help.  Yuck!

Mount Watatic

Spring is coming!  Tonight we spring forward, and tomorrow the sun will start to set nice and late. It's shoulder season for hiking, time for me to get back into it!  I went on a meet up for a kind of short hike in MA, Mt Watatic.  The mountain is like a 2000 footer and the hike has less than 700 feet elevation gain.  So, you go up hill for sure, but it's not that hard.  There was one woman in the group who struggled on the way up (not me, yay!) so we took a lot of stops.  It was 3 miles and took 2 1/2 hours in the end.  After we went for lunch and I had a burger.  I don't think it was a calorie reducing event.

It was a perfect day out - bluebird sky, a chill in the air, but not so cold that I needed a winter jacket, just my ninja hoodie and a t-shirt.

A very amazing thing happened at work - my new supervisor had a meeting with the president of the college, who's an MD.  She reported that I'd started, a little about me, and that I had just finished my doctorate. The president said that she thought my dissertation sounded interesting and she'd like to read more!!!  My mind was blown.  My supervisor saw the 130 pages and sent the abstract. I hope she liked it. Heck, I hope she read it.

Didn't put the weights down!

Today was our first snow storm of the year, ish.  It was really only like 6 inches.  Pretty wimpy.  But, due to the timing there was no way for me to get out of the parking lot and to work - even though they opened at 10:30.  The plow didn't even come until like 9:30!  So, I worked from home, which is always nice.  Ha!  My former crazy boss would never have allowed that - I'm so lucky that I got another non-crazy boss.

After work I was feeling lazy and was thinking of just sitting on the couch and watching Everest (I'm on a big Everest kick after reading into thin air, which was really good), but I got my lazy butt off the couch and to yoga.  I'm digging the new yoga studio, O2, they do really long sequences where you do one side for like 30 minutes and then the other side for 30 minutes.  It felt good :)

Last week I went to a barre class and I was actually able to hold the stupid weights up for the entire arm series!  2 pound weights, but whatever, I was psyched!  I did all of the exercises except one that was just really hard for me - it was basically warrior 3, which for some reason I can't do.  Anyhow, I think the working out is helping because I climbed at metro and finally got up a 10b clean again!

Spin

Somehow going to barre, yoga and spin doesn't inspire me to blog in the way other exercise does, though I feel like it should.  I went to spin class today and noticed for the first time that I wasn't dying in the class and it was almost like fun!  I guess I'm getting back into shape after the dissertation.  I've signed up for ballet class again on Friday, this will be ballet class #2 since the Bush administration (Bush 1).

Today I chaired my first faculty committee meeting!!  I think it went reasonably well.  I was a little nervous and talked too fast.  Hopefully next time will be a little less nervous.  Also, I had so much trouble with the copier, it kept jamming, and eventually I had to go to the copy center.  But, this lead to me accidentally leaving a sheet out of one of the packets.  Oops. Everyone was pretty good about it though, they were like "are you testing to see if we read it?"  Other than that, it went pretty well.  I've made suggestions ("suggestions," because really, we are doing them) for revisions to our letter format and no one objected, which was a win.  All and all, a success.  We'll see what the letters look like.

Skiing!

I went downhill skiing at nashoba valley today - it was so fun!  I had a real ski pass and was able to go on the big kid slopes.  The mountain is really just a hill - to find real mountains you have to go to NH or VT, but it was just the right amount for me.  I went down all of the blue trails (like 5 of them) and didn't fall or crash at all.  Win!  I was kind of eyeing the black diamond, but then decided maybe not my first time on skis on a mountain (ish) in like - well, a really long time.  I skied from about 9:30-2:30.  I'm pooped.

On the way down the mountains, at the steep parts I was definitely pretty snow plowey.  But on the flatter areas I could bring my skis parallel.  Will totally try more.

I think work is still going well.  There's definitely a different culture, which is taking some getting used to.  Also, I'm in the career center, and people keep asking me questions about how to get a job.  Ha!  If they knew my work history, they wouldn't.

More Spin

I'm really enjoying class pass - it's nice to be able to go to a variety of studios.  There's even crossfit, if I can work myself up to it!  Today I went to spin class - this one's near where I live and I'd been there before. They let you use biking shoes for free, which is a nice feature.  It was a good workout!  I don't love spin, but it's fine.  I mean, you sit on the bike, then you stand up, then you bop around a little.  This studio they post your rank in the class as a motivation tool, which gives me crossfit flashbacks.  At the end I wanted to throw up a little, so it was a good workout!  After class I got an email from the studio that I was number 30 of 32 in rank in the class.  I don't think that's good marketing.

The new job is still going well I think.  I haven't said anything amazingly stupid yet.  Today I went to a meeting with Harvard and MIT peeps where we had lunch and shared ideas.  Ha!  I felt cool :)

I watched Marie Kondo's netflix show about the magic of cleaning up, and all of a sudden I was throwing all my clothes in a pile on my bed.  It's crazy!  I'm going to see if I can follow the suggestions.  I have this idea of myself as someone who's messy, but maybe that could be revisited...

The guy who lives below me has a new boyfriend over.  I have the feeling I'm about to be treated to a little boy-on-boy action. Sigh.

Spin

I went to a new studio for spin class today, it wasn't too bad.  The place was like an oven, the mirrors were wet at the end!  After we left the studio, the woman at the front desk was like "sorry, forgot to turn on the AC..."  Anyhow, the class was only 45 minutes, which was good.  I feel like you can do anything for 45 minutes, even spin class.  I think I was able to adjust the tension a little higher this week than previous classes, and some if it was almost a little fun.  I'm going to try to keep going!

I'm almost finished with week 1 at the new job.  I think things are going well.  I'm starting to feel a little comfortable. I figured out the shortcut from the parking lot to my building.  I've stopped walking into other people's offices, thinking they are mine.  I baked biscotti last night, and brought them in for everyone - and they were gone by lunch.  So, I feel like they are my people!  And, I see some low hanging fruit in terms of changes to make to improve things, which is a little bit of a relief :)