cryptomancy

So my challenge has hit an unexpected hiccup in that I just found out that my 18 year old cat who has been a part of my life for 10 years is in full renal failure and we don't know how much time we have left. I'm probably going to drop out of this challenge, keep doing my thing, but with as low pressure as possible because I'm not getting much sleep. It might sound silly because I am talking about a cat but she is seriously the closest thing I have or ever will have to a child and this is actually a hugely stressful time for us.

Ditto this!

Good job! I'll look for your new thread! I also learned a lot about myself this challenge, I wish you luck in the next!!!

Oh man! Do it! I love Bioshock costumes!!!

Love it!!!!

So I finished my first six week challenge here with some success! How about that! But no time to sit back and feel all proud of myself and crap, let's get moving. Especially because there are more goals to be reached! My overall goal is the vague "feel better/stronger" thing and to get back into fencing, but I'm outlining a few challenges that will help me in that direction. Challenge the first! Just keep running. I got set back a couple of weeks on my C25K due to conventions I had to work and poor time management with school starting back up. I (re)started week 7 today, and I'm going to finish that up in a couple of weeks. For the remainder of the challenge I will focus on improving my 5k, working on speed and form. It is my goal to get my 5k speed down to 30 minutes, which is what I should be running time-wise in a couple of weeks, it's just making sure I cover all the distance in the allotted time. I may need to reevaluate this one midway and see if I need to push myself harder. I want to get my 5k nice and solid so I can move on to a 5k to 10k training program in the next challenge. Challenge the second! Let's get some specific strength challenges going. I had fun with the beginner bodyweight circuit last challenge but once I hit the "good enough" level I didn't really know how to push myself properly. I'm going to keep going with strength training 3 days per week but I'm going to sub out my squats and planks with a couple of those goofy challenges that are always floating around. I have a feeling that ab challenge is going to utterly wreck me so we'll see and maybe I'll switch to a different one. Challenge the third! BRING YOUR STUPID LUNCH TO SCHOOL, STUPID. This is pretty self-explanatory. Since I started school I've been really bad about eating crap from vending machines or fast food because I can't be bothered to bring it with me. This has got to stop. If I can just make up some big bowls of pasta salad or somesuch and bring a tupperware with me to school I will save myself money, calories, and heartache. Especially on days when I have opera rehearsals and am stuck at school from 8am until 6:30pm (and that's just the physical time on campus, not even counting the hour+ commute I have on the bus each way). Life Challenge: Yep I still need to learn my quintet. So for those who read my last challenge, you already know but those who don't: I managed to get cast in a professional production in one of my dream roles this December: Queen of the Night in Mozart's the Magic Flute. Wow, yay, right? Definitely! But I have some seriously fast singing in German to nail down and I've got to get that nice and solid going into rehearsals in November. I'm currently preparing another role that performs sooner but that's with school so we have a lot more rehearsal time and leniency and I'm in general less worried about it. Of course we'll see if I still feel that way closer to performance time.

Okay, so let's finish this baby up, yes? First of all, I did take some progress pics so I'll share them. The image is pretty big but I didn't want to shrink it much more because the detail was really getting lost and it looked pretty bad. So the first is taken technically a week before I started the challenge, because when I started the challenge I was already one week into my C25K. If you want more progress photos, I also took one at the beginning of the challenge as well as at the three week mark and you can see those here. Starting school about halfway through the challenge really proved a difficult hurdle. Fortunately I had made a lot of progress in the beginning, so it wasn't as bad a hurdle as it could have been. I did end up falling a week behind on my C25K because of a couple of conventions I had to work which really messed with my schedule. I don't feel super great about where things ended up in that I only just finished week 6, but I do feel pretty great about the fact that I just ran for 25 minutes straight this morning and plan to move forward and do it all week next week! I'm going to give myself a solid B in my running goal. +1 STA! As far as my strength training, my goal of sticking to it 3 days per week tanked a bit on the last couple of weeks. I only got one day in last week and this week I did two out of three. Otherwise I was very consistent and I definitely noticed huge improvement in my strength and endurance. Still can't do grownup pushups but that's why there's next challenge. I'm giving myself a B here too, despite the hiccups I made more progress than I imagined I could. +1 STR! Sugary drinks: no Kool Aid all six weeks! Yeah! I did splurge a couple of times and have sodas on special occasions, but for the most part I drank water and loved it. I'm giving myself an A in this one! +1 CON! Learning my quintet...well, hm. I learned about half of it cold, but I also got cast in another opera in the last couple of weeks and am learning new rep for that as well (it's early opera and very very difficult for me personally to memorize) AND have been assigned three new art songs for private lessons so I'm juggling quite a bit at the moment music-wise. I'm going to give myself a C because it's still not memorized, but I actually have a lot more music in my head right now +1 WIS Most of all, I think I learned a lot about myself and what I do and don't like and am now more prepared for future challenges. Thanks everyone for all your support, you've been amazing! Definitely looking forward to learning and growing with you all from here on out! EXCELSIOR!

Great work on the 28 minute 5k and don't feel bad about not editing your story, we love reading the stories nonetheless dude! I can't wait to read about all of GoodDoug's adventures in the Necromancer's domain!!!

I LOVE your excel spreadsheet. Especially the Street Fighter picture

19 perfect means that you had to have a bunch more that weren't perfect but still passable! I think you just need to believe in yourself. Fast food is really hard to give up but if that's what you want then you will do it! Onward to next challenge! Can't wait to see you dominate the next challenge

Nice work! I hope you hit a couple goals in your crunch time but don't push yourself too hard! Remember we have another challenge coming up so think forward You've done some really great work this challenge, looking forward to your end report.

I love that quote! I think I should get it tattooed on my forehead. Or you know, printed on a nice little card I can look at whenever I start thinking that opera is just not practical enough XD

It really is this moment where suddenly everything clicks and makes me go "hey this running thing is actually a thing I do now!" and it's awesome! If someone would have told me a month ago that I'd be able to do it I would be highly skeptical. But the steady progress really makes it not seem so awful. Update time: It's been another rough week. I'm determined to get myself together this week because I missed all my strength training days and one running day last week. Getting up this early is an extreme challenge...especially because it means I have to go to bed early and I have NEVER been very good at doing that. I went to a gaming convention this past weekend and spent the entire time eating fried food and drinking beer so hey it happens and I'm just going to move on looking toward the future and staying positive!

Healing people with your mind sounds like a pretty great way to phrase it. All the things you're doing is the kind of thing that would utterly terrify me if I had to do it, lol!!! And I wouldn't be able to hold a heart without making some kind of Game of Thrones joke XD anyway GREAT WORK! My weight has also leveled off but I'm okay with it for now. Good to see you with a positive attitude about it (and about just about everything!)

Well first of all sorry to hear about Woodrow's illness. Second, it sounds like you've been staying on course pretty well! I definitely had a 70% (or less) week for exercise this week so we'll just have to immediately bounce back!