Sunday, March 16, 2008

I'm back from the dead! Satan says hi...

So, turns out blogging is hard when you’re a full time student and have a lame job AND training for a race as well. So, I guess I haven’t updated since school started a couple months ago. Well, then. If I have any readers left, I’m sorry. Send me your address, and I’ll… send you a fruit basket, or something.
School is tough, but I’m keeping it together. There have been tons and tons of presentations, and movies, and extra credit lectures and stuff that I would have loved to go to, but, my work hours are essentially on the schedule as WHENEVER YOU’RE NOT IN CLASS, so I have to miss, you know, all of them.
On my plate right now, I have classes (14 hours weekly), work (22 hours weekly), homework (5-7 hours weekly), bowling league (3 hours weekly), unicycling (4 hours weekly + whatever extra time I can scrounge up), gym training (3 hours weekly), writers guild (2 hours weekly), rape crisis center (48 hours monthly), household chores (2 hours weekly), girlfriend time (probably 10 hours weekly), and any other recreation I can find (3 hours weekly, usually on weekends before I get dressed). Then, of course, sleep (not enough) and food (not enough). There’s also a lot I could/should be doing for MENSA and the Freemasons, but both are temporarily on hiatus, until I have more money, and when I don’t have class every Tuesday.
It’s a lot. It’s hard for me to slow down. Whenever I leave work, and one of the girls says to me, “have a good day off,” I always reply that just because I’m not at Rite Aid doesn’t mean I get the day off. I’m a busy, important fellow, and I demand respect!



Anyway, it looks like I’ll have a little more free time this week, because I’ll have to cut most of my exercise. I ended up in the ER after having chest pains for about 12 hours. I got checked out, hooked up to an EKG, and everything. Here’s what the PA-C said.
“Well, with the EKG, we can tell if there’s dead tissue in your heart, or if certain areas of it aren’t functioning, or if certain parts are working harder than they should, based on the pattern of spikes. But with yours, there isn’t a pattern of spikes. It’s all spikes.”
My heart is made of spikes.
The diagnosis was pericarditis, which is a viral inflammation of the lining of my heart. Not too serious, just scary as all hell. It’s my heart! If that virus were to spread, the two closest things would be my heart muscle and my lungs. And I need those to live.
So, I just have to take it easy until the inflammation goes down, not get my heart rate up, and swallow a couple of pills three times a day for two weeks.
My dad just did his qualifier, and Kyle is riding his 2nd day right now. If we get it together, we should be able to register by the end of the month! I’m getting more and more excited about the event, and nervous every moment I’m not unicycling. But, it’s just been so cold, and so snowy, I just can’t be out there all the time. We’ve had something like 135 inches of snow this season, and so cars can’t see around corners at all. Basically, even though I have no problem riding in the snow, I would prefer not get hit by a car.
I did map out a 2 mile loop around town that I can practice on without having to plan on a long trip. As soon as the snow recedes, and I clean up the captain, and my heart gets better, I’m going to shoot for 10 laps in 90 minutes.
Well, I’ve got bowling. Cheers!

Note: The picture is from a scavenger hunt I did a month ago. One of the items was for “picture with someone famous,” and I have a big Ride The Lobster promo banner in my apartment. One short girl on the left is trainer girlfriend Courtney.

Also, remember that protein sand I had a while back? Well, Monday, I had a tooth extracted, so solids weren't for me for a day or two, so I had another one. It's really not bad.