Back into it

Running update:

After a week of feeling a bit wobbly, I'm back! No more tired muscles and nausea. I've run a 12 km total for today and yesterday - yay!

Today I went 7km, the farthest I have registered yet, although I think my trip to Finsbury Park last week was longer, it just didn't register properly with my new-found love, the nike+ gear. Anyway, it's an improvement, and I'm feeling more and more confident that my goal of 60km for August is doable (you can follow my progress in the little widget I've added on this page)!

It's actually a real satisfaction to have begun doing exercise again, and particularly the fact that this is a solo venture, it's something I am doing solely because I want to. Basketball is so easy to do sometimes, there are people waiting for me, I've made a commitment, it's what I've always done, etc. With this running deal, it's all about me and what I want to achieve, in terms of individual workouts and longer term goals such as getting back into a decent shape. Also trying to keep up in the challenges with other runners on the nike+ website is pretty 'inspiring', but that's another story :.)

Running was always such a chore when basketball was at its height, running around the 'lakes' in Copenhagen in rain and wind before a court training. I loathed it. Which makes it ever more surprising to actually be looking forward to going running now.

weather report

London is hot and oppressive. Humidity levels soaring and a pressure building behind my forehead as I keep pushing on.

This evening was sticky, heavy and sad. Unrelenting. The solitude of a 9th floor dwelling. Unusually, no voices on the street, just a darkening view of the city.

Unexpected bursts of light strike over the London skyline lit on an indigo sky from my window: Quick flashes of lightening, and within minutes the sky is the greyest of grey, thunder rumbling miles away, rolling through tunnels of skyscrapers, through the streets. Sharp lights getting more and more frequent on the back of that cover of pent-up magnetic power we have suffered these past days. The sky rips into milliseconds of white madness.



But where is the rain? Why do I still see all the iconic buildings so clearly, lit in their evening gowns? Where's the promised relief? I wait, not impatiently.

I fell the wind picking up, but no heavy clouds any where near. It would seem there's going to be no crescendo in North London tonight; the easterners are taking the brunt and the animation.

Lights flare, ever further east. The City of London is back to its old usual self; well known buildings lit in the now post-dusk sky, winking incessantly at me with a red eye.

run run run

I've started running, and what a hoot to be able to see your progress graphically.. A happy conjuncture of dissertation stress, a newly acquired gadget and having sat enough on my bum lately was "all" it took.

I'm happy to report that I've done 8,5km over the last couple of days as the beginning of a training programme I've set up. I'll let you know how I get on with it. So far It's been good, although I was very tired on the second to last km today. I always perk up in the end. Tomorrow I don't have a run, thank god, but I then on Saturday have a 6km trip coming up. Might take in Finsbury Park again; it was a good and exhausting trip up there last week.

US elections

Check out this hilarious video

And now this?!

Numbness is retreating in the summer sun.

What will be the end of it?

I guess it will end.

And all this before it even started.

Oh - and by the way..

I've quit.

anything but what i should do..

Today I have managed to clean up my laptop (i.e. delete accumulated crap, sort downloaded articles, move unnecessary but amusing pics from my desktop etc...), eat an abundance of Danish candy (own import!) and gaze out the window a fair few times. Plus text and call a number of people. Plus chat to my current stand-in flatmate.

I hope this is not how it'll be the next months.

I'd much rather be out and about.

Pooooor, poor, me. Sob.

I spoke with my flatmate who has relocated to our common native, strawberry sweet, 80s sunnies and summerdresses abundant country for the summer, but was back in London for a couple of business meetings.

After we had caught up on the last month's events and non-events (such as "no, he didn't call" and "no, I haven't done any work on my dissertation") on our indulgent blue couch, my flatmate proceeded to discuss her work situation. As anyone who knows me more than remotely will be aware of I am the type that relates to others by projecting their issues onto my on life, hoping to gain understanding of their situation and my own. She is working freelance with a number of companies while looking for a more standard job. I am looking to free myself from a more standard job to work with things that are true to my ideals and hopes. She is willing to relocate in pursuit of a great job (as am I, just for the record), and feels her time in transient London is approaching its end, she has done what she came for.

I am not sure that I have done what I came for. I have not completed my uni work (and as is clear from the above stated non-events I am not getting much closer to it either), I have a job in which I am learning numerous things (among others how to be a good, complacent worker in control of her emotion. I don't like it) but not the ones I want to deal with in my future career. I feel restricted by my choices, I want the freedom to pursue dreams. I'm confused. What dreams? I don't have any specific goals, I have notions and fuzzy ideas.

Opti-what?

Someone once said to me that he did not understand my optimism. Or rather, he could not understand how I could possibly continue to be an optimist. He couldn't live with the disappointments that inevitably follow.

I do get disappointed. I do get hurt, feel blue and sad, lonely and upset, but I wouldn't for anything give up the exhilaration and elation that I also get to feel at times. Granted, I realise that it will end, but at least I have that wonderful feeling for some time.

This time round I could feel that I was on the top for a long time, and began to anticipate the downturn. It doesn't make it any nicer, but at least I knew that it was happening.

Another of my tricky traits, I guess.

Had an experience the other day where I was encouraged to consider a number of those implications of religion on humans that I so enjoy reflecting upon. It's been ages since my little Asian friend has been around for me to discuss these things.

'Freeze!'

The grey skies outside my window nearly deterred me from actually leaving the flat, and a feeling of blandness kept me from any action. Not until I was 2½ hours late did something actually happen. I got up, grabbed my sweater, which serves as a coat sometimes, and finally heard the wellknown sound of the door slamming closed behind me in the empty stairwell. Time definately not on my side, I still walked slowly, with a blank mind, save for the images of a few people I passed on the street. I do that a lot these days, have a blank mind. It seems to help me to not have to deal with all those issues that would otherwise obscure sight of and the ability to deal with everyday life.

But it's a short-sighted thing to do, and I know it. It's been a long year, and this is not over.

Upside down you're turning me...

Just saw a lady with a pearl necklace and white shirt driving a cab and a guy sitting in the back wearing a football shirt and reading the newspaper. The world IS upside sometimes.

moods

It had been a perfectly normal day (that is, other than the fact that my desk buddy has been replaced by a new colleague, which is to be expected once in a while). I went to the cinema armed with tickets to a random movie a friend couldn't make, thinking that this would be a lovely evening - catch a flick and then zap on home, make dinner and just cosy up at home.

I didn't even check what screen the movie was on - everyone waving the a4 tickets were converging at a door marked "special screening", so I followed, sat down and settled in the deep, deep blue seats. The movie started, and vaguely remembering something like a cowboy on the add for the film thought that these black and white shots of couples kissing didn't quite match up. I was in the wrong cinema. I decided to give it a go (people kissing passionately in aesthetically pleasing b/w shots is alright), and the movie turned out to be about a new year's eve in LA, and a story revolving around two people (one with a newly broken and hurtful heart, the other on the emotional mend) randomly meeting and in a sweet, non-sticky manner, somehow helping each other with the places they are at. And showing love not as a rosy sweet-smelling situation of tender moments, but rather a painful and fleeting series of situations, consequences and occasionally pure moments. It was good. Funny. And I left feeling touched and disturbed in a way that thankfully more and more rarely sneaks up on me on the breeze.

So here I sit all in my lonesome, trying to put off something of which I am not yet aware.

Rites of passage.. or something.

You know those days, when everything just comes together, feelings feel the way they should, the soft breeze dances in your hair and time seems to stand still with reflections on what was, what wasn't and what never will be. And what will be.

Today was almost one of those. It started out that way, with amazing sunshine (and a little jogging trip), clouds of pink cherry petals on the trees and individual ones whirring to the ground, accummulating to create pink streams along the edges of the roads. Families walking their dogs, couples lying on the grass - everybody on the move in a most leisurely and content way.

I'm not sure if it was the setting or the fluctuating times we're all passing through, but a couple of brave and liberating acts down the road, things that should perhaps have remain unsaid have come to life, and the potential consequences are in a jarring contrast to the idyllic surroundings. A feeling of unrest remains with me yet, but the liberating kind, the one that can grow to become something beautiful, if given time to expand to its full potential.

The Idealist Champion

I know it's long, but bear with me...

With an ENFP score, I am an "Idealist":

"..passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are relatively rare, making up no more than 15 to 20 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers."

More to the point, I fall into the sub category of "Champion" (sounds cool!)

"Like the other Idealists, Champions are rather rare, say two or three percent of the population, but even more than the others they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty. They see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can't wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. And usually this is not simple storytelling; Champions often speak (or write) in the hope of revealing some truth about human experience, or of motivating others with their powerful convictions. Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events, along with their boundless enthusiasm and natural talent with language, makes them the most vivacious and inspiring of all the types.

Fiercely individualistic, Champions strive toward a kind of personal authenticity, and this intention always to be themselves is usually quite attractive to others. At the same time, Champions have outstanding intuitive powers and can tell what is going on inside of others, reading hidden emotions and giving special significance to words or actions. In fact, Champions are constantly scanning the social environment, and no intriguing character or silent motive is likely to escape their attention. Far more than the other Idealists, Champions are keen and probing observers of the people around them, and are capable of intense concentration on another individual. Their attention is rarely passive or casual. On the contrary, Champions tend to be extra sensitive and alert, always ready for emergencies, always on the lookout for what's possible.

Champions are good with people and usually have a wide range of personal relationships. They are warm and full of energy with their friends. They are likable and at ease with colleagues, and handle their employees or students with great skill. They are good in public and on the telephone, and are so spontaneous and dramatic that others love to be in their company. Champions are positive, exuberant people, and often their confidence in the goodness of life and of human nature makes good things happen."

This, I feel, is spooky. Or, actually surprising, that answering 72 yes/no questions can hit that close to home.