I'm enjoying a quiet final evening of a long 4-day Easter weekend. And even though I spent it all by myself, it gave me lots of time to think. And I realized that I've allowed myself to become distracted from some of my goals I had set for myself, not least of which was being more physically active. Ever since I had a small spill on my scooter, which may have now been 4 weeks ago, I hadn't been doing any of the situps and pushups that I had been doing. And my walking had really gotten almost non-existent. So, this weekend I've refocused those efforts.
On Saturday, I decided that I wanted to go to the Westfield St. Lukes
mall. And I could have easily taken a bus. But I decided to walk there
instead. I'm including a map that shows the route and approximate
distance (in km). 3.7 km is roughly 2 1/4 miles. I'm not sure of the time, but 44 minutes is probably a good estimate. When I got there, the first thing I did was go to the cinema to see if anything was playing that I wanted to see. The new Spongebob movie was there, so I watched it, and it was ... meh. The TV show used to make me cackle, but the movie was really targeting a "different demographic," we'll say. After the movie, I did some shopping - and bought a fall jacket and a really awesome "leather" coat with a zip-in hoodie attachment. That will make scootering in the upcoming cooler weather a little more comfortable. So with my purchases, I decided to be lazy and take the bus home.
Today, I decided I wanted to get a USB charger cable for my iPod, and I knew I would head to the Dick Smith electronics store downtown. And I decided to walk that too. It's a fairly easy downhill walk the whole way. I got my cable, and some new earbuds, and then headed back. And I decided to walk back home too. On the way, I stopped at the Whitcoul's book store, and picked up the
Inferno paperback by Dan Brown, the author who wrote
DaVinci Code and
Angels and Demons. About the only reading I've done since I've been here has been technical or otherwise instructional, including starting into
The Joy of Cooking. So I decided I needed a new novel. I got that, and then made the trek home. As I said, the walk TO downtown is a nice, easy, downhill walk. But the walk FROM downtown is a nice, sometimes challenging, uphill walk. I've done it a few times before, but today seemed a bit more challenging. But I did it. And 2.6 km both ways works out to be just shy of 3 1/4 miles round trip.
Also today, I started back up with my pushups and situps. I have apps for both activities on my phone, and I opted to start from the very beginning with each all over again. And it's a good thing I did, because the Week 1-Day 1 programs were a bit of a challenge. Not TOO hard, but I could definitely tell it had been weeks since I had last done them. Now I just need to be more consistent.
I'm also trying to shift my focus onto more intellectual exercises too. Having an actual chair to sit at my desk with certainly helps. So instead of sprawled on the bed staying online, I'm going to try to hit my technical studies hard again. Because in my field, it's impossible to keep up. But I have to do the best I can to do just that.
Maybe someday my social life will actually become existent. But for now, I'm going to try to stop obsessing about how it HASN'T happened yet.
