Changeable.net

Not sure if this will be interesting to anybody, but… here is what is up in my life, thought I would share.

Interest 1: Recently I have gained an interest in teaching again. For a while I was pretty sure that this would absolutely not be what I did, but it was for a stupid reason– I knew too many teachers and I wanted to do my own thing. However… I do not know any English teachers, so I guess I would still be doing my own thing. I would love to go to the Graduate School of Education here at UCLA, it has a cool program that sounds right up my alley.
Struggle 1: I am not sure if I could get into that school here. Or any grad school for that matter. My GPA has FALLEN for sure since I transferred. And… all I have been taking are English classes. How can I teach a subject that I am apparently sucking in? Granted it would be at a middle school (most likely) or high school (maybe.) level so it’s not like I need all of those crazy analytical skills that I am lacking right now, but basically… School is hard right now. I seem to think that I am doing a good job, and yet I have failed to recieve an A on any essays or papers since I started here. Yes, there have been some high scores on a few quizzes and short assignments but those hardly count for anything anyway. Boo.

Interest 2: I have been trying to get more involved with my church in Long Beach and to have a bigger role in the positive changes that are taking place.
Struggle 2: I live in Los Angeles and I am still trying to adjust to my two lives.

Interest 3: I want to be more involved in Intervarsity and the other good things going on here on campus
Struggle 3: I am too connected to Long Beach and am not around nearly enough.

Interest 4: I really like my job a lot. It is convenient, it forces me to get work done, it pays well, I can work a lot of hours, I like this whole Class B license business, and the whole learning how to parallel park a 16 passenger van thing.
Struggle 4: If I was not working so much, maybe I would have more time for various ministry options, my writing/grad school prep, etc. But then I would not have money which I need in order to keep up with Rent etc.

Interest 5: I might be moving to a new apartment next year and am thinking over different roommate/apartment options. There are a couple apartments that I could live in which are still within walking distance of the school, and these apartments all involve cool people whom I would be happy to live with. These apartments are also between $100-$300 cheaper per month.
Struggle 5: I love my roommate, Kimberly (the other roommates are amazing too, but they are not going to be living in this apartment next year) and would be sad to leave her. I also love living so close to school because it enables me to come home during the day and sleep in for a few minutes longer. It certainly is not cheap to live here…

So… yes. Things are not necessarily bad right now; there are actually a lot of good things going on. I am just split in all of my decisions and feel a new wave of fickleness coming about.

Sometimes I pretend that I am still an athelete. I talk about going to the gym and feel good about myself for going to my workout class and whatnot, but today it finally ocurred to me what a joke it all is!
I briefly talked with one of my co-workers this past weekend about the good ol’ days in cross country (woohoo!) and track (EW!), because we ran some of the same courses, having gone to school not too far from each other. I was thinking more about those days this past weekend and I cannot believe how in shape I used to be! I certainly was never one of the TOP runners, but I still did the same workouts… I would run as much as 8-9 miles a day (minimum of 3) during the week, have races on Thursdays and Saturdays, and only rest up on Sundays, my day off from running. I would work real hard… and throw up several times throughout the season, have to get my shins taped up to keep the shin splints at bay, and go through several pairs of running shoes each year.
Sounds good, right?

Now, however… I am out of breath by the time I run to the gym. Once I get to the gym, if I actually choose to run, I will only run like 2.5 miles at most and it will take me thrity minutes. AND I will be dead tired because of it. Normally I’ll just do cycling instead, but I mostly just sit there, pedaling ever so slowly while staring at the personal television screen in front of me (the gym here at school is really nice) flipping from channel to channel.

Yes, I go to a workout class here, but… I choose the easy modifications for each exercise and sometimes just lay on the mat looking dumb and hoping the chick who teaches the class doesn’t see me while everyone else is working on those guts, butts, and thighs.

All of this just occured to me today while I was watching my roommate do a bunch of sit-ups and I was pretending to stretch. Then I looked down at my shoes and realized that these shoes are horribly old. Like. They were bought in the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school (I quit running that summer). Which was like. 4.5 years ago. Oops. (And whoa I just made myself feel old.
So yes, I am going to blame my laziness on my shoes. And since I am not shopping for a year… I guess I will have to take it easy until January 2008, out of respect for my poor feet that have to be protected from harsh workout conditions.

With this new mindset, maybe I won’t try so hard in Butts, guts, and thighs, because man, last week when I started to see black spots and worry about passing out… that was a bit embarassing.