penn

Random Bits about Leah

1. I always eat the blue m&ms first. I just don't like the color.

2. I like owning shot glasses that are a bit odd. And by that, I mean that I have shotglasses from the US Marine Corps, the University of Leiden, and the European Union. The EU one is my favorite. I never use them (shots are no fun), but I enjoy the quirky value.

3. I firmly believe that people should smile as they pass each other on the street.

Forming Habits

"Every day, I have to at least touch the door of the gym." I read this tip somewhere (I believe on The Happiness Project, but I'm not sure), and it has become a powerful idea for me.

The person in question was talking about how he makes sure that he sticks to his goal of exercising. For him, it is best to do something every day. But doing a workout every day was a bit of a tall order, so he instead decided that he must simply touch the door of the gym. Often, he said, he touched the gym door and then went inside; once you're there, you have overcome the inertia of going. Every once in awhile, he'd have an off day and end up not working out. But the very next day, he would get on the bandwagon when he had to go touch that gym door.

The advice is closely related to Gretchen Rubin's resolution keeping advice at The Happiness Project. For some people, "everything in moderation" works. For others, it's better to just never do something or do it every day. For Gretchen, she decided it was better to never eat her favorite chocolate chip cookie. If she allowed herself one per day, she'd end up eating more.

In that spirit, I've been trying to do _something_ physical every day. I play frisbee twice a week, so Sunday and Tuesday are already covered. But what to do on the rest of the days?

I've got free gym membership at the university. But that still didn't make me go regularly last year. I went once or twice a week, sometimes, and sometimes didn't go for weeks. This year, I've rented a gym locker ($100 for 8 months), and I've already started a habit of going more often. Instead of having to remember my gym bag, I just need to head over if I come up with a spare hour somewhere.

Today, I came home a bit early. My frisbee ended up being canceled due to severe weather warnings that never materialized. I needed to do something, but I was feeling lackadaisical. I decided I'd just go for a walk and maybe run if I felt like it. But I didn't have to if I didn't want to.

About twenty minutes into my walk, I ran into a friend of mine. We chatted for a bit, but she was on her way to a meeting, so I decided just to walk her home. I explained wanting to go running, and she said "well, I'm going about two miles away. Why don't you ride with me? Then you'll have to run home."

I took her up on her offer, and I'm quite glad. Tonight, a night where I was feeling lazy and didn't intend to go running, I ended up running my fastest ever in recent history. I ran the 1.9 miles home in 20 minutes! And to think that this personal best would not have been achieved had I not made the goal to do something each day. Once I got dressed up and out of the house, it really seemed a shame not to push myself a little. And a little extra push from my friend resulted in great payoffs.

I have a busy month or so ahead of me what with qualifying exams in school (the exams that decide whether or not I get to progress on to working on my PhD) and teaching. But I think the exercise is important, even if my exercise some days is to just go for a walk. The longer I do something every day, the better I can form my exercise habit.

The Age of Rembrandt

Interesting art review over at the NYTimes; the Met has put together a showing of all their Dutch art pieces from the 17th century. But rather than classifying them by artist (typical) or age (also typical), they have classified them by donor and age of acquisition. This is more thoroughly explained in the article. The author appears to take a dim view of this, but I think it would be really interesting.

From the article:

We also gain quick perspective on relative talent. To see Rembrandt next to Bartholomeus Breenbergh or Jacob Duck is to know in a flash who was ahead of the curve, and why.

On exhibit are 5 Vermeers and a number of Rembrandts. The Vermeers are the reason I must find a way to see this exhibit.

Guns

A year ago, one young man accidentally shot and killed his step-brother; recently, this young man was sentenced to two years of house arrest and some probation. It's a sad situation, to be sure, but I also find it thoroughly infuriating. My frustrations are best summed up in an email response from my older brother as we discussed the newspaper article:

Not to hammer home a point, but all this crap can be avoided by following the Four Rule:

Treat every gun like it's loaded
Never point a gun at something you wouldn't want to shoot
Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until ready to fire
Know your target

Looks like this guy broke three in a row.

It's so true, and it's such a simple thing to do. Whenever you pull a gun out to show someone, a few things should happen first. The magazine should be removed from the gun. The chamber should be cleared. And the gun should never be pointed toward anything you don't want to shoot.

Now, I'm not a huge gun nut. I don't think everyone needs to own a gun. But I firmly believe (as does my brother) that every school child should be taught gun safety. They should also be taught how to balance a checkbook, do basic first aid, and other such life skills, since parents in our society seem to have failed many of their children on some of the finer points of existence.

Some pictures from the Pac NW

We went canoeing:

I went with my friends Boone and Kim:

Why, yes, I do love canoeing:

More pictures of canoeing over at my flickr page (click on any of these photos to go to my flickr site).

Americana within a mile of my undergrad:

burnt out farm house:

Back safe

I am safely installed back in Ann Arbor (A2 to the locals).

Blog post with pictures forthcoming, but I still don't have the internet at home, so it will have to wait until tomorrow (I'm just wrapping up a quick email session at the library).

Being home was great. I saw people I loved, I had some mini adventures, I ate thai food (thanks, Jules!), I saw my little "niece" (who is not so tiny anymore), and I spent some quality time with my dog.

More soon :-)