jabs

a jab (read shot in american english) in each arm this morning for a typhoid and hep a booster. a bit painful but exciting stuff. actually what is exciting about it is that it didn't cost me anything. i mean i paid 10 pounds for the travel visit, but nothing on top of that for the shots. score one for the nhs for that.

training

did i write that i decided to skate an inline marathon in may? giving myself less than 8 weeks to actually, specifically train for it?

it's a tad crazy. i know it is. but i'm liking my training. i mean it's hard and i'm finding a lot of obstacles, but i like working towards this goal.

i'm worried i might not complete the full distance in the allotted time. i'm worried that i can't find a great space to train on skates to prepare for it.

i've also come to realize i need to be eating better. and that it requires more food to train. and i want to be able to eat smoothies. and i think i'd benefit from putting protein powder into said shakes.

also i didn't really like the goo/gel energy supplement when i did the half, so now i'm thinking i might try the sport beans. jelly beans for training - so now i've been scouring ebay and amazon for sports beans, and powders, (and the magic bullet's lesser cousin). and the sad thing is that those all involve purchases. but it's not just for a random goal, this is working on my health and my eating and my exercising. and a life goal.

skating 10 miles yesterday, and following that with 20 minutes of zumba, and then 2.5 miles of ellipticaling felt great. now it's lengthening all of that. and finding a great place on this island to skate - to skate within the confines of a hilly, craig-pocked place, with crazy strong winds, and the tendency to rain.

i just hope i can keep up the training in a positive way.

chapter 1

last week i submitted (FINALLY) a draft of my chapter 1. it wasn't great. it rambled. but it was a complete draft. i now have comments in order to create a second draft. that is also exciting, if not quite overwhelming. opening up an edited draft from my supervisor this weekend, and really moreso today, was overwhelming to think of diving back into that chapter.

not necessarily because i want to avoid doing work, but i think it's because i really want to get the data collection for these first projects done. and i think that obstacle is really hindering my outlook on the entire writing project. we'll see how tomorrow gets on as it's self-scheduled as an editing day.

article

yesterday i submitted an article co-authored by myself and my supervisor from last year, David, to be reviewed for publication in Psychology of Music (the great journal in my field).
It took a lot of work to get it from dissertation to journal article, but i'm proud of how it's turned out.
Now i just hope that it goes through editorial review to be able to be published.
That would be amazing.

sunday skate

went to cramond to explore that as a skating option.

happily found a gorgeous 2.5 mile path along a river. it was paved and smooth and level and without cars.

the wind, however, going one way was crazy strong. that was rough. and my body is sore. but hopefully i can skate there again. the rain's supposed to come soon otherwise i wanted to go today. it is tough that i have to take the bus somewhere to be able to skate though. that's really prohibiting.

chapter 1

yesterday i completed the draft of chapter 1.

it's 18,000 + words and a beast of a repetitive, rambling thing. but i'm so glad that i've finally passed it over to adrian. . . at least for a few days.

may have taken me a lot longer than i thought, but hopefully that means it is better than it would have been.

uff. finally conquered that task.