obsolete vernacular

Late last Oct I started a boot camp class. The description said it was for "all levels". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Everyone else was much more fit than me but I had resolved not to get competitive and to feel happy about doing my best. Which I did! I improved a lot, as you do when you start near rock bottom. After the class ended I went to one of the makeup sessions and then took a couple weeks off over the holidays. In early Jan. I started going again. In the six weeks of classes I missed one week because I was out of town, and one other class because I had spent a couple of hours shoveling snow and felt like my shoulders needed a break.

At the start of each session you do three exercises and at the end of the six weeks you do them again, to see how you've improved. My numbers were:

Push-ups in 1 minute - 28 (modified) at the start, 48 at the end
Squats in 1 minute - 35 at the start, 50 at the end
Plank - the one on your elbows not straight arms - for as long as you can hold it - at the start 1 min 6 sec, at the end 1 min 19 sec.

There were 9 women in class at the start, which quickly became 3 or 4. It's a 6 am class, it's winter, it's cold and dark. I didn't like any of that but I wanted to get better. After Marcie walked around and might ask "are those weights heavy enough?", I started picking up the next size up. (Not the big weights that the Superwomen used but not the lightest ones.) So it was very satisfying to see how much progress I made.

But there's a rub in this. The person who improves most gets a 30 min training session with Marcie. Marcie is like a whippet - she's tiny, probably weighs half of what I do, and is all muscle. I bet she can do one handed pushups without breaking a sweat. There were a few comments in class that made me feel like a couple women felt that I might have gamed it, not tried my hardest at the start. I probably could have done more squats but not 50. I definitely couldn't have done 48 push-ups.

I'm really happy to know how much I improved. \o/ go me! So I am thinking I will tell Marcie to give the free training session to Susan, aka Superwoman2. She will get a lot more out of it than I would. And she did improve a lot too, but she started out a lot better so she's more in the plateau phase of improvement.

Last Thursday I went on a night hike at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. The moonlight lit the landscape more brightly than you might expect. It was a clear night and pretty cold; we didn't see any animals, but it was still a lovely walk. We saw a beaver's lodge and area where they had created something of a dam with reeds (kind of like gardening).

Saturday night I sat next to a guy at the bar who told me, among other things, the he traps beavers (as a hobby). Apparently farmers ask him to do so. I asked him if he was going to pay for his meal with beaver skins thrown on the bar and we laughed but I was half serious. What is this, the fucking pioneer days?

Then I went home and watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which is one of the funnier comedies I've seen in a while. It kept having surprise actors like Frances McDormand and Alan Tudyk with a German accent, and Ken Jeong. Which reminds me, I should probably start a Community rewatch since the fourth season is back on Thursday night next week.

Some things:

I need to see this movie. (Link to trailer. Funnee!)

Sunday my roommate's car was broken into (because he left his GPS visible, bad idea). That evening when I was out in the neighborhood one of the guys across the street (where several generations of an Italian family live) started talking to me, apologizing if we heard any yelling, it seems his parents are divorcing. Then he went on to (over)share that he'd kicked his heroin habit.

Really our neighborhood is quite decent.

Echo Bazaar keeps getting better, the designers keep adding more content and it's continuously more creative. You're limited in the number of actions you can take in a day so I am stopped from spending too much time on it. If you like steampunk and choose your own adventure style games, check it out.

I finally saw HP 7.2! I was really pleased to see other characters besides Hermione the trio getting to show how skilled they were. And how much did I love McGonagall and Neville? OMG so much! It was also fun to see the movie with imaginarycircus and David, fellow fans and friends of many years. And Katie made blueberry cobbler! Yum.

I also finally finished A Dance with Dragons. Overall I liked it...but I thought more would happen? And I've had enough of Ramsey Bolton.

It seems like I had more to say but since I wanted to post on Monday and couldn't log on to LJ until today...oh well.

(cross-posted from my lj) (which I am about done with, how hard is it to keep a site up fercryinoutloud?)