bitter magnet

it's 12 C (53 F) right now. that's the warmest it's been since,...well i dont' remember...sometime in November?

well it was especially great cuz i went jogging (Science-Harvard, and to/fro SP), which was a total of 5 miles, in about 53 minutes. I was so excited, it had been exactly 2 months since I last was able to jog outside! it was amazing..i felt so great afterwards. at first it was difficult but then soon i seemed to get the hang of it. the shoes totally help, especially now that i'm conscious about how i step and everything.

anyway, the weather was so warm, it was weird! and what was even stranger was that the Charles River was still about 90% frozen over..it was only melted near the Harvard docks.

anyway, there was a ton of free food in the SP lobby right when i got back, and i snagged some potato salad, wraps, and cookies for michael. he's on his way over right now...we're going to eat lunch and then head over to the cambridge side galleria to cash in on my coupon. hurray! :)

well today's gonna be a busy day. i have to go to Old Navy (yes, have to) since i have a $5 off coupon that expires tomorrow. i can't turn down free money! i also want to go running today. it's supposed to get up to 8 degrees C and sunny (46 F). woo-hoo.

oh, and yesterday they started construction right outside SP, on Sidney Street. It was HELLA loud (my apartment felt like it was bouncing up and down) but at least it was during the afternoon (around 3pm). however this morning i was awakened at around 6 am by recurring sounds in that same area. I look out the window and see that they have stopped working, but that they had put steel planks on top of the construction area (so that cars can drive over it). So basically now whenever a car drives past on Sidney Street (right below my apartment) you can totally hear it. Especially when it's a huge truck..it practically shakes the building. Argh! Oh well...considering i have to get up around 6:30-7am on Mon-Thurs anyway, i guess it's not a big deal....

ok, well it's been 3 weeks since i've started my PE classes, and i can happily say they are whipping my ass into shape. :) i haven't missed a single one, amazingly enough! although i do worry about not getting enough sleep (i usually go to bed around 12:30 or 1 and get up at 6:30 or 7, so that's only about 6 hours average). oh well, i'll catch up on the weekends. :)

just had to say..this evening i finally got my new special shoes (the Saucony stability shoes). i tried them on and they fit great...they look excellent too! immediately i went on the treadmill at SP, and proceeded to run 3.6 miles in 35 minutes (the first 30 min i ran at 6.2mph, then later i just cooled down at 5mph). it was such a rush...it was the first time i had run since December 28, so of course i was way excited to run after a two-month hiatus.

anyway hopefully i gradually start running again...i plan to try to run 3-4 miles or so on the weekends, since i already have PE classes Mon-Thurs.

so today i finally ran another experiment. i'm so glad to be getting data again, and analysing it....it's great to get a lot of work done once in a while.

well, as usual (ok, not usual, but for this year and the last) valentine's day is sort of anti-climactic for Michael & I, in that our 6-month (and this year, our 18-month) anniversary happens to be the day before, so we just celebrate that instead. fine with me! :)

ok, so yesterday (Friday the 13th) marked 18-months (!!) since Michael & I have been together. So of course we were going to go out to dinner to celebrate. We planned on taking the #1 bus to the restaurant, since it happened to be nearby. But he surprised me--he actually went and rented a Mini zipcar! (It was totally cool by the way..the inside looks completely different from any other car). Then he drove me to the corner of Mass Ave & Memorial Drive, stopped the car and he said, "I wrote you a message, can you find it?" At first I was confused and thought he was talking about somewhere inside the car. Then he was like, "Look outside.." and I looked up and saw that on the top floor of Ashdown (in front of his window), there was a huge sign in lights that said "M (heart) A". Awww! The letters were in white lights, the heart was in red. Talk about sweet!! I was totally taken away..no one had ever done anything like that for me. I swear, Michael never ceases to amaze me..he is the best!! :)

Anyway, after that we headed to Botucatu, a Peruvian/Brazilian restaurant in the South End. After spending sometime trying to find parking that wouldn't get us towed, we finally had a chance to sit down and eat. We got fried plantains as an appetizer (Michael had never had them before, but he liked them), which were good. I had the XimXim, which was basically chicken with coconut/tomato sauce. Michael tried and didn't like it (he said it was bitter) but I thought it was okay. Michael had a chicken dish as well, that came with french fries. Both our plates came with a large side of rice with black beans, so we had to get a take-home bag. By that time we were really full that we didn't need dessert.

After dinner, Michael was kind enough to go drop the car off in Boston, while I stayed in SP to finish his present. By the time he got to SP, it was just in time. I finally gave the "finished product" to him..a little red scrapbook of our past year together (on the cover it had a framed picture of us, that said "Michael & Anita, February 2004". It followed perfectly from what I did last year (for our 6-month anniversary i had given Michael a scrapbook that said "Michael & Anita, Annual Report - February 2003".) You see the thing is, although Michael & I started going out in August 2002, we actually met in February (on 02/02/02, if you can believe it). Soon after that, we were project partners in 6.730, then later qual-studying buddies, and then during the summer we just spent a lot of time together (going to see plays on the commons, LSC movies, and finally Montreal). so i basically put a scrapbook together of all these things that we had done in that year, and it turned out really cool (Michael really liked it). So this year I got the idea to do something similar, and it actually turned out pretty well. This time it came out better though, since (1) for the pictures, i used a high-quality printer on HP photo-paper, instead of my crappy deskjet on Xerox paper, and 2) i used a lot of stickers & decals for the title lettering and for other stuff and 3) each page had a cool-looking background (i used several different kinds of paper from the arts store) Anyway, when it was finally finished, Michael really liked it, he said it was "really professional looking." :)

..which is the reason i haven't posted in a while! :) On Monday the PE classes started, so that took some getting used to. Plus I still have my chiropractic & physical therapy appts (about 3-4 a week), which take up a lot of time.

Anyway, updates: the Pilates class (MW 7:30) and the Group Cycling (or "Spinning", from TuTh 7:00am) are excellent. This Pilates class is much better than the (free) one i took through PE last quarter. I don't know if it's because the instructor is better, because it's Intermediate (as opposed to "Beginning") Pilates, or because we actually have more time (1 hour as opposed to 40 minutes). And the Spinning class was a kick-ass workout...imagine, an hour of just straight cycling! I going to have really strong quads now. :) Oh, and after the cycling class i had strength training, where i realized that i have very weak triceps (well, i already had some clue about that..). And strangely enough, afterwards i felt very awake (even though i had only 5 hours of sleep) and less hungry. It's totally true-- exercise makes me have more energy, and less of an appetite. I wonder what the physical reason for that is..it totally doesn't make sense to me! Oh well, why question something that works? ;-)

P.S. The weather was amazing today ! Especially seeing the sunrise at 7am...the rest of the day was sunny as well. On the way back from my chiropractor appointment today, i didn't even need a hat or gloves! It's 7 C (44 F) right now, which is probably the highest it's been in several weeks. I am so grateful!

ok, through my incredible brilliance i managed to knock out all the power in my office (and the next). Argh. Thing is, it was freezing in my office, and I made the lame mistake of plugging in the space heater into the regular office outlet (instead of using the one on the extension cord that leads to an outlet in the hall). The thing is, there's only like 20 Amps available per 2 offices, and the space heaters (there's one in the next office too) suck up a lot of energy. This has happened before, when Niamh went to boil some hot water and that sent it over the edge. We were all warned about this, and i knew very well of it, but i was just not thinking straight i guess. Poor Joyce and Joerg had to end up going home since there computers were off and they couldn't do anything. I feel really lame, but what else can i do. :(

Well at least that is the benefit of having a laptop..i can still email and waste time on a battery. yay!

i just want to note that the weather is *amazing* today. right now, it's 6 C, feels like 2 C. It was awesome biking to work this morning..it was actually sunny and everything!

BTW- just have to note that this spelt bread i bought at Trader Joe's (made with spelt flour instead of wheat flour) is amazingly good. probably one of the best breads i have ever tasted. it's has a sweet taste (there's molasses in it).. i think it's better than regular wheat/white bread. it was only $2.49, which is great since all the other special breads i bought at Whole Foods were like $4-something. I'll definitely be buying this one again!

oh, and as for the Krispy Kreme donuts--Michael had one last night (enjoyed it thoroughly), and Johnna had one as well. this morning, Michael had another one, for breakfast. :) He took two "for the road" in a tupperware container, whereas i took the remaining seven to work this morning and distributed them all amongst the sixth floor gang...everyone loved them (i was worried that they might have gone bad since they were from last night). and now the empty Krispy Kreme box lies in my office, just because i like the smell (it's amazing)! :)

well today was the first day of class, and it was indeed hectic. I had to get up early since i had a 10am class (but that didn't stop me from having a 3-egg cheese omelette with bacon for breakfast..). The class (6.461- Electromagnetic Fields, Forces, and Motion) seems pretty interesting...i'm sure it'll give me a better understand of stuff going on in my research..plus i really need to brush up on all those e-mag equations..i keep learning them and forgetting them :). Anyway, it's good because there is no textbook required, and they ended up rescheduling the class to be from MW 4-6 instead of TuTh 10-11. There will still be a recition on Tue 10-11..so that means that only one day of the week (tuesday) i will be rushing to get to class (my PE class ends at 8:30, after which i have to shower and then have breakfast).

anyways, at noon i had Japanese II, and that was interesting...it was difficult at first since the instructor just jumped right into conversation, as if we were just picking up from where we left off last semester (i realized that in ~2 month's time i had forgotten a lot of stuff..). i'll really have to review this week.

oh, and after that i went home for lunch, making some fajitas i had gotten in bag from Trader Joe's. they were good, but too spicy (for me anyways). after coming back to work and studying japanese for a bit, I went to the Z-center. Damn, it gets crowded as hell at 6pm. every single machine was taken, and everything was booked until 7pm (which is when i had to leave). But fortunately at 6:05 i saw that nobody was on this elliptical trainer (even though someone was signed up) so i just grabbed it (sneaky me..! ;-) ) I got kicked off at 6:30..but then i was available to find a stepper that no one was using (again, ppl sign up but then never show up for things). i left at 7pm, having burned 400 calories (woo-hoo), and not feeling tired at all. i wished i could have stayed longer, but whatever. i got my things together and then biked back home, showered, and ate dinner (salada with tuna & mayo) at an extremely fast pace, just in time for the SP House Meeting at 8pm.

the house meeting went well, we approved the budget and were done by 8:40pm (yay). And there were several krispy kreme donuts left over afterwards, so i took an entire box! i went all called michael and told him about it..he was excited. he'll be coming over in little while, so he'll get to have some. yay, i can't wait! :)

well i just thought i should add here that today (actually yesterday, Jan 30) i noticed that my sciatica pain (in my lower back and left leg) has gotten much better. today i must have walked a grand total of 2 hours (half hour to & from Boston Public Library, then 15 min in Trader Joes, and then from SP to Ashdown). i also biked for about 5 minutes (from Ashdown back to SP). i would have gone to the Z-Center, but apparently it closes at 9pm on Saturdays (!). Oh well, at least I got to spend some quality time with Michael instead (esp. since he has been feeling sick and all that).

anyways, in other news, you won't believe how eager i am to start exercising again. My PE classes start Feb 9 (hopefully I will get into the swimming class), and i will also be taking a group cycling class on Tues & Thurs mornings (i just bought a Bonus Pass for $70, which means i am free to take any Z-center class i want, in the 3rd Quarter). I plan on taking the Strength & Tone class and possibly a pilates or Yoga class. I'm excited. Hopefully with this i can lose the weight i've gained this past month (by not being able to do my usual 15-25 miles/week of running). i'm totally noticing it, and it's annoying. well, at least the good part of gaining weight is being able to lose it again. :)