Fighting my age

I am definitely reaching that age. And how old is that age? Well, I suppose that it is different for all of us, but I am referring to that age when you feel your age. Well, this past summer, I felt 51. FIFTY-ONE!

It wasn't any one thing that made me feel my age. It was the accumulation of a lot of little things I think. Yes, time goes by much faster now. Yes, my knees have started to audibly complain when I bend them. Maybe most dramatically was my loss of energy. I don't have enough energy to grade. I don't feel up to painting the ceiling. I don't have the vigor to write on Xanga. It is all depressing.

Of course, I don't want to be a downer here on Xanga. I'm telling you all this because I've figured out what was wrong.

I don't exercise enough.

Yes, it was as simple as that. So since the first of August, I decided to fight the inexorable urge to give in to my age and have begun to exercise, again. On the first day, I huffed and puffed as I walked on a nearby trail for about an hour. I swear I was sweating like a pig. Oink, oink. How could I let myself get so out of shape? but I stuck to it, and in a week I was walking more briskly. By the third week I could walk and jog a bit. By the end of August, I could sustain a light jog for 45 minutes to an hour. Even M was impressed. You have such an obedient body. It responds exactly as it's supposed to.

I've lost nary an inch from my waist, but I have lost ten pounds, even as I have been lifting some light weights. Since muscle weighs more than fat, it means I've probably lost more than ten pounds of fat! Woo hoo! Anyway, since I'm doing butterflies with 25 pound dumbbells, I may develop cleavage to go along with my girlish figure. Nah... Too many inches in the waist yet...

Anyway, I feel a bit more peppy these days, thankfully, and just in time for football season! Hahahahahha!. So, I've been watching less drama--if you can believe it--and instead am listening to music when I squeeze in exercise time into my school schedule, although I still listen to J-pop. The song below by UVERworld keeps me going during my last legs when I jog. I focus on the beat and the legs keep churning.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Holy moly! I just realize that I haven't written an entry in over a month. Heck, in a couple of days, it'll be two months. Are you fonder of me now? Hehehehehehe

Oh well.... For those of you who care: I am not dead. I am alive and have spent perhaps the most unproductive summer of my life. Even in my youth when I did not produce anything, I at least read a book or two. Hmmmm. This is nothing to write home about.

Well, school is starting and I have to get back into gear. Hopefully, that will mean a bit more writing on Xanga as well, as I will need an excuse for my procrastinating ways. ")

Space Time Continuum

It's nice to realize that the space time continuum is consistent and time is still relevant. Do you remember--or perhaps still experiencing--the difference in the speed of time? When you are waiting for the end of the Fall semester, October and November seem to go by so slowly. And yet, when Winter break arrives, it seems to end in the blink of an eye.

Well, these days--and those of you working stiffs will probably agree--that time in general seems to have sped up. Have a deadline? It arrives in no time. Christmas? Is it here already? But I've come to realize that one's personal space time continuum remains constant. While time in general has sped up, this summer--when I'm really not doing much and just relaxing as I do some research at a leisurely pace--is going by at light speed. I swear, I go to sleep on Sunday night--actually Monday morning--and when I wake up its Thursday... THURSDAY! Who the heck deleted Tuesday and Wednesday?!?

What gives?

So while I'm pleased at the consistency of time, I'm beginning to get stressed--and losing some of that energy I thought I was recharging--because I am not accomplishing as much as I wanted to this summer. Ugh...

MacBook Pro

Okay, I got my MacBook from school over a month ago, but I haven't written anything about it because I wanted to see if I could get used to it, get a feel for it. I don't want to make any rash or uninformed comments.

Firstly, I have to admit that this Mac looks freakin' cool. And the 3D-like movement of windows and icons was rather mind-boggling at first: Deleted icons or files disappear in a puff of smoke... literally. Push F12 and a transparent Dashboard appears with clock, calendar, weather and calculator. Push F11 for Desktop and all the windows I have open scatter and disappear into the closest screen margin. So in terms of the visuals, this is a pretty slick machine. And it is fast. I can have a number of different applications running at the same time and none of them slow down, at least not that I can tell on the screen.

The screen itself is another story. I have a Toshiba with a Trubrite screen and it is nicer and sharper, I believe. But my eyes are so bad that, perhaps, I am not the best judge. Also, the results I am getting from burning DVDs are not the best. iDVD will burn DVDs that you can play on any DVD player and when I first saw it I was floored. Some of the menu options are out of this world--they move, play music, and all you have to do is drag and drop photo or video files into the drop zone and you're done. Very simple. But I soon learned there were some serious limitations to this "ease of use". On my PC, I use Nero to burn my DVDs--in case you're wondering, not everyone in my family can use a computer with ease, so I burn DVDs of the J drama they want to see. Anyway, on Nero I can custom control bitrate--that is the number of bytes per second to be played. On the Mac, I have only two options: Best performance and best quality. The lower the bitrate, the worse the video image, but I can see that the finished product on the Mac is not as good as what I have been doing on the PC even at a lower bitrate. I suppose it has to do with .avi files, because it seems that it doesn't handle interlacing very well, even though I have the apporpriate DivX codec. Hmmmm...

Another thing is my reliance on Windows terminology. I mean, what's a Dock? It took me a while to figure out that there is a row of icons of certain applications as well as specific projects and files currently in use. But why did they make the Dock default "hidden"? I was playing around with the machine for a good 3 hours before I finally realized how to reveal applications and files: Okay, iTunes... where did you go... um, Safari? Firefox? how do I see you again... When I was looking through the Help, they were talking about clicking on the icon in the Dock. The what? WTF is a Dock... I must have yelled at least 17 times...I finally figured out that if I drag the cursor toward the bottom edge of the screen, the Dock will pop up... They should NOT make the default hidden. They should show it so idiots like me now what to look for. And what is the function of Finder. What will it find for me? Is it like a search? I finally figured out it was just a jazzed up window where I can view my files. f I want to do a search, I have to use a completely different application, Spotlight. I was very confused at first.

Another big thing for me is the lack of Japanese fonts for word processing. As a Japanese teacher I like to use a lot of different fonts and there a quite a few for PC, from newpaper type to brush strokes. but there are virtually none for the Mac, about three basic fonts. Very boring.

Oh well, It's taken me over a month, but I think I've gotten used to it. I enlisted the help of a former student who helped me with a few things via e-mail, but I did most of the stuff myself. All guys are Tim Taylor at heart, right? And my conclusion is still inconclusive. But I have decided to try Boot Camp. It is an application that will split my hard drive in a way that will allow me to load Windows and use this machine as I would a PC, with the exception that I will have a lot more power: 2.16 Ghz cpu and 2 Gb memory. I'm installing it tomorrow. I giggle at the thought of doing my PC work with this kind of power!

If I reach Nirvana (I was going to say orgasm but I changed my mind), I will let you guys know.

P.S. Thanks to those of you who kicked my ass in my last post. I think it got my juices going.

Time out

A little break from TY and UCLA.

You know, I decided not to teach this summer. I could always use the money--especially with a 26 year-old step-son who still can't figure out what to do with his life, so he quits his job, moves out of his current living arrangement and comes from Japan for some R & R. When he returns in September he will be jobless and homeless. I'm waiting for him to ask me for a hand, but he probably won't ask. He'll probably wait for mommy to ask for him....

As I said, I could have used the extra cash, but a colleague of mine needs money more than me, so I decided to let her have the gig, and focus on my research. Getting a book out or even an article in a academic journal could lead to a raise. So this should be just as good... but I think I've already wasted all of June. WTF am I doing?!?

Can you tell me to get my butt in gear? Like give me a swift kick in the ass? I can take it... Right here----->