gratitude

 today was a rest day so I didn't really do anything but go shopping with my mom to look for a new computer. 

but being the end of the year I figure I'd reflect on all the things and people I'm grateful for in the past year

My family is at the top of the list. Getting to come home has been really nice and I feel like I've been able to refocus and head into the new year with purpose and clarity. I feel really fortunate to have my parents and my sister and my grandparents. I've received so much guidance and support and inspiration and I try to do my best, for myself, but also because of them.

It's occurring to me that this could very quickly become an extremely long post.

I'm thankful for camp and everyone there. Especially Todd. It gives my life so much purpose and joy.

I'm thankful for the climbing gym where I spend most of my time.

I'm thankful for my friends who have shown me kindness and make life more enjoyable.

Here's to running big miles and making lots of art in the new year!

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up early and run 17 miles and then later I'll paint one of the pieces I've been working on.

commit to the bit

 I have one of those little boards in my room at my parent's house with the little magnet stylus and you place it on the tablet and it draws up magnetic filings that you can write and draw with. And every year I pick something to write on it on new year's. this past year the word was "record". I'm not exactly sure how long I've been doing this. Maybe since I've moved to charlottesville. I can't remember what the other words were. I probably have posts about them. 

I'm not even completely sure that I change the words on new years. It might just be when I'm home.

Anyway the word was record for this year because I wanted to do a better job of blogging and recording things as they happened. Like I got on Strava this year which helped me record my running and I think that was really successful. 

I think this year I might choose the phrase, "commit to the bit" and for me that means making a plan and sticking to it no matter how ridiculous it is. Being fully invested in your chosen course of action. At camp we also talk a lot about "bits" and doing little jokes and routines and things. That's one of my favorite parts of it. 

Yeah, this year I want to commit to the bit of running 3,000 miles in a year, climbing a bunch, and whittling a lot. And also keeping up the blogging I've been doing. 

One thing I've realized since being home is that it's easy to do these things if I really stay focused and don't let myself get distracted by a lot of other stuff. If I start doing too much else then I feel tired and the fatigue builds and builds until I end up not doing the stuff I really like doing. 

In my first week of being here I remember being so tired that I was seriously thinking about just giving up running seriously and committing to climbing. That seems absurd now but I realize that I was just really really tired. Now that I've been able to rest that seems ridiculous. 

anyway, we'll do our best.

sanding- did more sanding and listening to strong bad emails. the pieces are looking pretty good and ready to be painted. I also started on script for a little episode to make during the summer.

running- I felt a little tired but it was so warm out and I ended up having a good workout where I tried to run really hard on some roads around the neighborhood. They are some of the first loops I ever run so it's exciting to try to get the records for them on Strava. I got one and was 2nd in another and then the third one was into a pretty strong headwind so I was only 5th but it was still encouraging. I was running close to 5 min pace and that's pretty exciting to be doing that in workouts again for distances that are almost a mile. I think I'm getting really fit.

fun thought

Seneca once said, "to a ship with no destination, all winds are unfavorable"

Unless, like, you're just stoked about the wind, right? Like, I got this big ol' sail on this bad boy, let's catch some major gusts. right? I'm just in it for an easy breezy time. Don't get bummed that you aren't headed the right way when you're just enjoying the motion of the ocean, sen-dog.

what a view

 tasks

run 12 miles- did that! Ran out Fort Lynne road and to the end of Antioch. Got the course record for the big steep hill on Fort Lynne by the church. I think I first ran up that hill in 2005 and when I was home for Easter in the spring I got the record for it. Then about a month or so later a guy who lives less than a mile from it took it back from me. I thought maybe I had a chance to get it today and ran my hardest. I was surprised to get the record by as much as I did but then I checked the wind speed and direction and realized that I had a pretty good tailwind today and actually a pretty decent headwind back in the spring so that makes sense. By the end of the run today I was feeling pretty tired but that it was a hilly one. 

whittling and sanding- Someone made an 8 hour youtube video that has every Strong Bad email and all of the DVD commentary the creators did when they made DVD versions (which I own!). So I put that on and did a bunch of sanding and work on the little wooden figures I'm making. Sometime in the past I carved a little duck/bird thing for my mom and I was looking at it today and realized I could go over it again with some finer grit sandpapers. I spent almost an hour working on it and by the end I didn't think it looked that much better. I think it's mostly due to the fact that the wood doesn't have much of a defined grain and the sanding would have brought it out but there wasn't that much to bring out to begin with. It was still a fun little challenge to work on. 

fun thought

    I had an idea as I working today for some videos to create in the summer. There's this trend going around recently where a bunch of guys sit around a table and two players on opposite ends of the table take turns placing random objects on the table as if they are competing in this very intricate and tense high-stakes game. So like one guy will place a tea cup on the table very carefully and then the next guy will put a wedge of cheese in the tea cup but then the first guy will stick a fork in the cheese in the tea cup and everyone will act surprised like this was some brilliant play and reversal. Anyway, I was thinking about that and I was thinking about shows like Yu-Gi-Oh where the characters will have this very intense battle in a card game and the rules don't really make any sense but it's very dramatic and the monsters and creatures look very cool and exciting and all that. So my plan is if I end up making a bunch of these little wooden creatures and objects and shapes and whatever and painting them then we'll stage these battles between two counselors as if they dueling with these weird wooden characters or whatever. And we'll act like it's this exciting camp game that gets played all the time but really the rules are just whatever makes for an entertaining video. And we'll have some protagonist who always wins despite all odds and reason.

that'd be fun.

sanding sanding sanding

 tasks

sanding the projects-- started sanding and it went well. working my way through the grits. Sanding isn't nearly as fun as whittling but I think these will look really good when they're done. Excited to see how they turn out. It's also really nice to listen to music while sanding. A great way to start the day

running- ran 12 miles and felt really good. I've definitely improved my endurance in the past 5 weeks. I'm excited to finish this month with over 300 miles and will finish the year with 2,500 miles total recorded on Strava. It was actually more but I don't want to do the work of figuring it out. 

Oh I also did a little bit of lifting in the morning and before going to run. It felt good. I'll try to keep that going.

fun thought:

One time I took this John Milton class and the professor randomly outlined three things that some old dude said you need to be a good person and one of them was memory and I forgot the rest.

Awards Ceremony for Counselors 2023

1- call to order and attendance. group photo

2-short speech from the incumbent Counselor of the Week

3- the counselor of the week will run the Survivor Style voting

4- announce the winner and they claim their trophy

5- all previous winners will recite the ceremonial poem

    When old age shall this generation waste,

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." 

40 degrees is warm now

 Tasks for the Day

-run 12 miles. 

    Did this. Felt good. I was excited to wear a t-shirt to run and initially started with gloves but immediately realized I'd be too warm with them. Still wore some thin tights. It was a mostly easy run with two segments where I ran hard to try to get the course record on Strava. I got them! That was fun. I haven't been doing formal workouts for a few weeks but I think focusing on doing more miles has been helpful. Also, the weather has just been too bad lately to really attempt a workout. It was an effort to just get out the door some days. But I feel stronger for it.

-do some whittling

    When I was in charlottesville I picked up a few scrap pieces of wood and used my knife to shape them a little today. All that's really left is to sand them which is not my favorite part but I'll feel good to have made these little doo-dads. I'm not really sure what they are. Doo-dads is a good word. Trinkets. Googaws. Figurines? Just some little wooden pieces that I might give away or give as gifts or give as awards to the counselors this summer.

I didn't do much else for the rest of the day. I was really tired after running and eating and laid down for a bit. It feels good to be able to recover and rest a lot. I'm a lot more motivated to run when I'm able to rest so well between. I'd like to spend more time in Harrisonburg. It feels like I'm only able to come a handful of times throughout the year. I'm pretty busy on weekends these days and the summer doesn't let up much. 

fun thought of the day:

I'm going to be a billion seconds old on January 2nd, 2023 at approximately 5:14 pm

went to charlottesville to climb

today was a good day that went by really fast. woke up and drove to charlottesville. climbed for about 4 hours and felt surprisingly strong. ran 12 miles on the north spur of the Rivanna Trail. drove back and ate and watched the wire.

brought back some whittling supplies and will do some of that this week 

ran 16 miles for Christmas

got some great gifts, ate some great food, spent the day with my family :)

it's easy to run in terrible weather

it feels like an event. something special. something brave and new.

and so the conditions were never really the obstacle to begin with. it's the attitude we bring that counts. 

how do you be like someone else

 You can't think your way into feeling different. You can only change how you feel by actions.

I think that's true. And I think if you want to be different or be like someone else I think you have to do the things they do, the way they do them. For the most part I think what anyone tells you or whatever you end up hearing is mostly useless if you don't end up changing your routine and what your body is physically doing. 

By the same token, if you're in a system that tells you where to be and when, like a job or a school, that's going to have a direct effect on who you are. It's going to mold you. And none of that is accidental. What you're supposed to be when you are in those spaces and doing your tasks is all serving a well-defined end.

It's why I don't put much stock in the idea that you can place yourself within a system and subvert it. You can't rely too much on this idea that there's an inner you that exists independent of everything you're doing and everything going on around you. Actions have outcomes, no matter how mundane, and you are what you do. 

I just don't want to end up living a lie, y'know

I don't want to reach some point where I realize that everything I thought was important doesn't matter at all. 

Well, I mean, I guess it could also be liberating too. Like if you end up realizing something that feels more important. You can never know for sure that you're not living a lie. But maybe you can have some sense of whether you enjoyed it or not. I do think you can know how you felt about it. And right now I feel good about it. 

even more faces

more faces

some collaborative comics with smriti

some dude

helena beans