Visualize this

It's been so long that I've put up a post with substance. I have many little things to talk about, and I'm all over the place here, so I'm not bothering to even attempt smooth transitions. Be warned.

Yesterday I listened to a grad student and professor talk about the Bechdel Test. The student had just learned about it and the professor had never heard of it, but was excited by the idea and asked the student to send her links about it. Fandom is amazing and important, you guys. Just fuck academia. Seriously. Sometimes the ignorance, privilege, and prejudice makes me so angry. I don't judge the student or professor for not knowing about the Bechdel test before now. I am blaming The System. Hard. Fandom is important and fangirls are smart and clever and people need to understand this.

What with my elevated inflammation levels, the tendonitis in my right wrist has gotten pretty bad. I'm having problems just holding onto things with my that hand. Pens. Forks. Pieces of paper are particularly difficult. Monday and Tuesday saw me typing everything one-handed. Today I'm back to two-handed typing, but it's early in the day. If things start to hurt again, it's back to pecking. Probably three-quarters (if not more) of my social life is online, and even if it wasn't, it's not like I have the energy to do much with people in person right now. Mix exhaustion with slow typing and I'm pretty much not interacting with anyone except mckitterick. I adore him, but seclusion isn't helping my blues.

In a post about her experience with a recent unexpected purge of belongings, mildred_bobbin posted this mighty fine observation: "...the price for letting the clutter (mental or physical) get to the point (is) that a full clean sweep is the only way...to address it." This is a good thing for me to remember. I mustn't let things accumulate until they get horrible. Take care of the little things as they come. It makes dealing with the big (and unexpected) things so much easier.

One way to do that is by following the suggestions in this Whole9 article on six ways to avoid exercise-related injury. Avoiding injury is so much easier than recovering from it.

I'm not really digging Tai Chi. I think I could enjoy the movements, but the instructors (bless them) are a little too...imaginative? metaphorical? and I'm just not enjoying the classes and I don't feel I'm learning appropriately or adequately. The visualizations and pretend stuff was great at first. Pretend you're sitting on a horse, or you're reaching for a piece of fruit, or you're dragging your arm through water. Feel the horse, the fruit, the water. I understand this teaching style works for a lot of people, but at this stage I need some concrete information. Here are the particular muscle groups you want to activate for this movement. Here is the breathing pattern for this form. Here is where the movement originates and where it ends. To anyone who has taken Tai Chi classes before: Is an anatomically-focused teaching style unusual? Are most Tai Chi classes based on a sort of visualization technique?

Yesterday I was feeling in particular need of indulgence, so last night I skipped Tai Chi (there were numerous reasons I felt wretched and exhausted, it wasn't just that I didn't want to go to class) and made these chocolate chip blondies that drinkingcocoa mentioned on her LJ yesterday. I generally stay away from beans and legumes because of gut permeability issues, but I'm fine with occasional treats of things to which I am not actually, actively allergic. These blondies are even eggless, so I didn't have to use any of my duck eggs (which are expensive and sometimes scarce). Instead of chocolate chips (which usually have soy lecithin), I chopped up four squares of Alter Eco's Blackout Bar. They were fucking delicious. I ate half the pan.

I'm on a discussion panel this afternoon that's being organized by the Graduate School. They want us to talk about things that make us an effective graduate secretary. None of the questions they gave us for preparation deal with graduate students, though, except to ask how we track their progress to degree. All the other questions deal with faculty. How we get faculty to use new tracking systems. How we deal with problematic faculty. Fuck the faculty. I'm not here for the faculty. My number one priority is supporting graduate students, not graduate faculty. So guess who's going off script? CAN'T WAIT. *cracks knuckles*