iatetheyeti: Digging Deeper

[iatetheyeti]

 

 

 

 

 

Who am I?

 

It might be that some day soon I'll get the proper answer to that question.

 

It might be that day is years away.

 

I can't say I'm in much of a rush to get there.

 

 

Pseudo-philosophical babble aside... At the time of writing this, I'm a twenty two year old student with a bit of a spare tyre and lungs that only seem to work at a fraction of what they should be working at. On this site I've adopted the name Yeti, though I'm not unusually tall nor overly hirsute. And I do not thrive in the cold. Hypothermia and I have become close acquaintances over the years. If anything, I'm more a dwarf, short, compact, and with a love of shiny things. At the moment I'm a student in my third year of an adventure tourism management BA, and through university I have learned, and become, so much more.

 

Not an over-dramatic observation either.

 

Rewind back a few years and you'll find a near-silent, greasy haired, chubby teenager with zero self-esteem or confidence, wrapped in the midst of clinical depression, crippling social and general anxiety, paranoia, anger issues, and a few other unsavoury things. Everything came to a climax during 2010, and in the last few months of that year began, ever so slowly, to get better.

 

I spent a little over five months volunteering in a country park before moving on to a six month contract at a museum, yet in the September of 2011 I entered my first year of uni almost mute, scared all over again. Didn't speak more than three words in a row to my housemate for all of a month. Kept my hat on and my head down in lectures. Didn't really venture out along unless it was at night. And then I moved out of my little room and into a smaller room a few roads down with a guy and the girl who would become one of my closest friends.

 

That was the catalyst.

 

Since then I've gained enough confidence to first join the uni clubs (mountaineering, paddling, biking), then progress to being on the committee of the mountaineering club. From there I became a class rep, spent a short and disastrous term as student vice president, and now hold the role of secretary in the newly establish student association. I have a fairly active social life, I've almost completely beaten my general anxiety into the ground and the social one is almost there, I have far more confidence even if I still don't think highly of myself, and though I still have bad patches, I'm now able to manage my depression well enough to begin to build the life I want to have.

 

The result is this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do I do?

 

Not doing something to fill the hours, but doing something to feel alive.

 

 

I have a deep love of adventure sports, one of the reasons I picked that particular version of the video up there. Mountain biking, both cross country and downhill, is something I thrive on. There's something about taking your bike through the wilds and back country of an XC run or going all out and just shredding it on some of the crazy technical features on a DH track that just does it for me. Adrenaline junkie? Probably, but just look...

 

 

 

 

I also climb, which will be the focus of a lot of my workouts. At the moment I'm climbing at around a UK 5b grade, though apparently my local climbing wall sets routes that are actually harder than advertised, so that's only a rough guess. Couldn't say what bouldering grade I'm at, though it isn't overly high. Not that I mind, I'm relatively new as far as these things go, and my climbing experience on actual rock is limited to maybe a couple of weeks' worth of days down the local glen and a week in France on some lovely limestone. Spread that over the three years I've actually been climbing... It's been mostly indoors for me.

 

 

  

One of my favourite views, one of my most difficult first attempts completed first time around...

 

 

Then there's paddling. Admittedly, I'm more a flat water paddler than anything else right now. I love the white water stuff, but I'm not much good at staying upright or facing downriver in anything beyond grade two water. While I may not be much good in the cold considering my tendency to become hypothermic easily no matter what I wear, I've enjoyed skiing since I was something like eight or nine, give or take, and I enjoy snowboarding when I actually get the chance to do it. The more sedate activities I enjoy are hiking, power kiting (and kite-boarding), and slack lining.

 

 

 

Why?

 

Why do this?

 

Why change?

 

Why go to so much effort?

 

 

 

 

Well hey, why not use some of this shiny university training to actually make some sense of why I feel the need to change. Of why I need to change now. According to Maslow, if not all of the lower four sets of needs are met then it will cause psychological unrest within a person. I can testify that this is indeed the case. Going by this, not even all of my biological and physical needs are being met. Sure, I'm breathing, I'm eating and drinking as best I can, and I have a roof over my head. But my sleeping pattern is shot to hell, and we're not even going into the subject of sex...

 

Therein lies my first and most basic of intrinsic motivations: Get my life in order to sort out my sleep pattern (and honestly, wouldn't rule out the other one either).

 

Shifting on up to the next level, I know my need for stability isn't being met on either a physical or mental level. Again, the motivation here is intrinsic.

 

And then we move on to the level that is, perhaps, one I will never be able to salvage. My relationship with my family is strained at best with the exception of my brother and gran. I've only ever held down one quite turbulent and short relationship and can honestly say I have no idea how to even approach the idea of another. If we switch work group for uni group, well, it does get a little better. I have some amazingly solid friendships inside and outside of that group. That makes this motivation both intrinsic and extrinsic, I'd like to sort my life out in order to feel better about myself, but I'd also like to be able to feel more secure in my current relationships and begin new ones, the latter of which isn't so much for my own good, but something I want.

 

I can just take the whole other two levels and work them into tens of motivations.

 

Those, while being some of the most desirable things to achieve, will almost certainly be in the long term.

 

The thing is, I want not only to climb harder, paddle further, bike bigger, and hike longer, but I want to look better, feel better. I want to look at myself in the mirror without having a bombardment of negative thoughts. I want to be everything I know I can become. And there's nothing wrong with that. It took a while to convince myself of it, but it's ok to go after what I want.

 

 

 

And I'm going to do what about it?

 

 

​Work my ass off, and while we're doing the cliché bit, I'm gonna have fun doing it. Stress is definitely of the bad here, and something I need to work on reducing in a major way. So I'm going to take some NF advice and construct myself some levels, do the RPG thing. I'm estimating that, all in all, I'm shooting for level three, and this will be the battlelog that takes me to that level. So what is my level three?

• Graduate from university with a BA Hons. degree
• Have £100 in a dedicated savings account
• Have a full time job
• Be able to swim five lengths without stopping
• Be able to do a pull-up
• Climb consistently at a 6a level
• Have ridden the Fort William downhill track from start to end without crashing
• Have a photograph published
• Be able to do five full pistol squats on each leg
• Visited one European country that I haven't been to before
• Climb Ben Nevis
• Become proficient with one film editing software
• Start my plant-life sleeve
• Meditate regularly
• Be able to cook at least five authentic Chinese recipes properly

 

It might not look like much, and it might look like a lot. Either way, I don't have a set time to do it, it just happens to be what I'm working towards just now. When I can check off everything on that list, I reach my level three, and I finally upgrade my bronze dagger and leathers for a pair of short swords and some chain mail, and who knows, there may even be some extra swag involved. This battlelog will keep a record of workouts, yes, and it will serve as somewhere I can vent and plan and get plans out and wax philosophical about motivation and deeper meanings... Anything.

 

Life goes here.

 

 

[iatetheyeti]

 

Valentine's Day, and the first thing that I wake up to is the sound of gifts begin exchanged loudly in the room below my bed. When I eventually emerge, I get the gushy boyfriend telling me of their plans and what will undoubtedly happen for him tonight. Such is living with a couple. Again. Guys, I'm happy for you and all, but...

 

 

 

*ahem*

 

The Food Segment

 

I had my alarm set for 8:30am, a reasonable time for a day off of uni. I got woken up over an hour early once more not only by 6's crashing around (yeah... kinda referring to the house mates by room number now...), but by our resident couple in the living room. From what I could gather the cause of it all was down to V-day gifts. Awesome, guys, but not at 7am, ok? Predictably enough I slept through my alarm, though only by a little over fifteen minutes.

 

Started the day with the usual mug of coffee, which according to the packet is 91 calories per sachet (I have a weakness for mocha, so...). It's also a significant amount of sugar (14% of the government standard RDA...). What that means is that once this box is finished, it's back onto the plain black coffee for me, with maybe a splash of milk. As much as I love the mocha sachets, it really isn't a good thing that they make up 90% of my coffee intake, not with numbers like that.

 

...not to mention it will save me £2.99 per week!

 

Lunch wasn't exactly fantastic in regards to stats either. I didn't check at the time, but a tin of the cheapest chicken soup combined with the cheapest noodles? Somehow I'm thinking that isn't a nutritious option here.

 

For dinner, however... Oh, I created the most amazing thing I've eaten in a long time. Mango chicken curry.

 

 

So here we have the drastically improvised ingredients:

 

2 x chicken breast

1 x red onion

1 x white onion

2 x cloves of garlic

1 x mango

1 x large tub of natural yoghurt

1 x chilli

1 x jar of lazy ginger

curry powder

cumin

mango chutney (the local didn't have another mango...)

rice vinegar

sugar (went unused)

 

 

 

The veg goes in first, cooks up nicely, and the spices are added while there's still oil in the pan. By this point it smelled rather nice, even with the curry powder as a substitute for the home made powder I ran out of...

 

 

Everything bar the chicken and chutney is in now, and it looks... interesting. Smelled like a curry, tasted amazing, but looked really quite awful. A further ten minutes of simmering didn't improve the looks much, but then what can you do about that?

 

 

And when you need more kick to your curry (and that's coming from someone who can't handle the heat well!)...

 

 

 

It looks awful, but dear gods did it taste heavenly. An amazing blend of sweet and spicy with chicken that turned out to be really quite moist despite being in the pan longer than it should have been. I made enough for two portions and ended up dumping it all on the plate, squeezing it into the rice ring as best I could. Only half a portion remains now, and by tomorrow it will be long gone. Can't leave something like that lying around! Next time I'll have the money and foresight to get all the proper ingredients, and hopefully it will turn out just as good, if not better.

 

 

 

The Exercise Segment

 

I'm going to push the yoga to one side and focus on the walking today. Or, more accurately, the lack of. Sure, I got off of the sofa and walked the ten minutes to the village shop and the ten minutes right the way back, but that shouldn't be all I get most days by a long shot. Structured properly, I should have somewhere in the region of fifteen to sixteen hours between getting up and going to sleep. As a general rule, I never do any uni/SA work after 7pm unless things are getting desperate. Apart from anything else, I kind of lose the ability to function on a higher level. Assuming a midnight bedtime, that leaves five whole hours. Five, as of just now, wasted hours.

 

And what do you know, I just so happen to love walking at night.

 

I know why I stopped, and that has mostly to do with location. My first few places were within the town itself, which is conveniently placed at the mouth of one of the most famous glens in the country. Cow Hill was my local nightly haunt. My first place was halfway up the thing, meaning I could summit in less than an hour and just sit and watch the town go by. My second place was a little further down, adding time to the the hike up, but providing a few additional entry options to mix it up a little. Third place was at the opposite end of town, meaning it would be just over two hours to summit, and usually I'd add in an extra hour just wandering along the glen fire road.

 

And now I live in the village somewhere in the region of three to five miles away. It takes me an hour, roughly, to walk into town. From there it would take me a further hour and half, at best, to summit Cow Hill (the closest hill). And no doubt I'd be hobbling on the way home, adding an extra half hour, give or take.

 

Apparently convenience is king.

 

What I do have here, however, is the route along the Caledonian canal. It takes ten minutes to reach the mouth of the locks, maybe half an hour to get to Banavie, and then it's on out into the dark.

 

Now, admittedly the good weather days and nights are lacking right now, but that should not be a barrier whatsoever. I'm Scottish. I spent twenty years of my life on the east coast where 'damp' was a perpetual state of being, and I've lived almost three years on the west coast where it's considered unusual weather if it isn't raining. All in all, I've spent most of my life in the rain, and suddenly I'm worried about getting a little wet? Not really on, is it? Funny thing is, when I actually get out there and start walking or biking, I enjoy it. So why not do it more?

 

 

 

 

The Mind Segment

 

The remainder of that 'mostly to do with location' bit fits in nicely here.

 

​As it happens, my current living situation is having a rather sizeable impact on pretty much everything right now. Don't get me wrong, I like my housemates, but things have sort of disintegrated, for lack of a better word. Two coupled off, and as a result they spend most of their time together. The other two spend a lot of time in their rooms, or they spend a lot of time in each other's rooms. I'm kind of dreading the very real fact that they could either have already gotten together or are close to doing so. Not only is it difficult enough living with just the one couple, but it's never a nice thing to see someone else get with the person you're attracted to. A pity we can't have more control over our hormones, because a house mate? Really? Not the most sensible option...

 

Anyway, my point is that there's very little socialisation going on compared to what there used to be. This has pros and cons. On the positive side, it means should I wish a early night then there is no chance I'll be kept awake by folks in the living room. It also means I have control over what I watch or listen to. Small things, really. On the negative side it means that I spend a lot of time in the living room alone or with one other house mate glued to their phone and not really wanting conversation. It means that whenever a group congregates in the kitchen, I end up being unintentionally (I hope) left out of conversation. It means that I see so little of anyone that I hang around in hope that someone will come through.

 

It isn't healthy. I know that, believe me, I know that. Unfortunately, everyone else lives in town and to a person just don't come out this way, leaving it on me to either walk or scrape together bus fare. Well, with two exceptions that live just up the road. Unfortunately this happens to be the couple I lived with last year, people I feel quite uncomfortable around unless there's more people present.

 

So, yeah, it has a noticeable impact. When everyone is out it's easier, I can put my mind to rest and either work or work out as I like.

 

I don't know a quick fix for this.

 

It would be nice to end on a happier note, so I'm going to leave this brilliant set of moves by American luger (if that's the right term) Kate Hanson right here:

 

[iatetheyeti]

 

 

Opening with that particular song for two reasons. One is that I can't stop listening to it lately, and the other is that it kind of come close to echoing how I've been feeling for most of today, the last couple of hours in particular. It's been a funny sort of day. But hey, let's go to the happy stuff first.

 

 

The Food Segment

 

Have to say, I reckon I did a lot better with the whole food thing today. Yeah, I started off with the same kind of coffee, but it was the last sachet of the box, so as of tomorrow I'm on the stuff with the lower calorie/sugar count. Lunch consisted of the leftover curry from last night complete with naan bread. And dinner, well, that was another epic.

 

Heh, somehow I managed to make fish fingers almost semi-posh. Certainly it looked like something that had no right to be in a student household. This time around I'm happy the ingredients were mostly fresh, exceptions being the fish fingers and store bought pasata. Most of them went into the sauce, something I quite literally threw together in an attempt to use up spare veg and add a little extra flavour to the dish. So without further ado, I present Posh Fish Fingers:

 

 

 

The bulk of the ingredients here:

 

1/2 sweet potato cut into rough chunks

1 small red onion, finely diced

1 de-seeded green chilli, finely diced

2 x crushed garlic cloves

2 x diced vine tomatoes

pasata

natural yoghurt

lemon pepper

parsley

cheap and nasty fish fingers

 

 

 

And lots of spinach, already being wilted down. Beneath that is a handful of broccoli.

 

 

 

Basically, while the spinach is wilting over the broccoli, the fish is in the oven, and the sweet potatoes in the microwave, everything else goes into the sauce. I used a little too much pasata here, though the only drawback of that was the sheer volume of sauce. onions and garlic went in first, cooked for five minutes, then everything else went in, including a spoonful of yoghurt.

 

I should really start using my DSLR for this, my phone takes shocking pictures...

 

 

 

And about ten to fifteen minutes later, depending on the spinach, you get this.

 

Morrison's cheapest fish fingers served on a bed of mashed sweet potato and wilted spinach with a spicy tomato sauce and a serving of broccoli.

 

...and a whole jug-full of sauce left over for future endeavours.

 

 

Sometimes I do wonder where I'm going with my diet. It doesn't really adhere to anything any more, and while that isn't such a bad thing, it isn't quite what I want. Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure where I'm aiming to go any more. I started off thinking the paleo diet would be best, but let's take a look:

 

 

 

We'll start from the bottom up. Meat is something I love eating, love cooking... just love, really. The only issue here is monetary right now. What I can afford might as well not be classed as meat for the most part. Sometimes I come away with bargain cuts from the reduced sections, but nowadays I frequent the frozen section, and the cheapest parts at that. It tastes different, and not in a good way, and when you check out the ingredients list on the back, well, for one thing, chicken isn't supposed to have an ingredients list now, is it?

 

Veg on the other hand, that's no issue on any front. Fortunately, one way or another, I can get my hands on enough decent quality stuff to last for a while. Fruit isn't so easy. It's expensive and there isn't all that much variety most of the time, not around here anyway.

 

My main issue comes with the peak of the pyramid. I can't stand nuts. I find them quite abhorrent for whatever reason (and this includes coconuts!). Weirdly, I love Toblerone, and we all know what that's made of... Now, while I do know that in an ideal world I could get by without even touching nuts, but unfortunately this is not the case.

 

(...and apparently there's something quite amusing about a gay woman stating her strong dislike of nuts. There is actually a person, a full grown adult, rolling around on the ground in front of me laughing so much I can't understand a word he's saying. I love my friends sometimes...)

 

My point is, I couldn't sustain my protein intake through meat alone, not with the way things are going now. And you know what? I love milk. I really love milk. That, and if I don't eat some kind of bread daily then horrific things start happening to my insides, something which I found out during one of my prior challenges here.

 

Which brings me neatly to the primal diet:

 

 

 

 

It's easy to apply the same kind of reasoning to this model, although it does had a certain allowance for milk and cheese (which I would also hate to leave out), again it comes down to how I get the protein and suchlike.

 

At this rate I reckon it'd be cheaper just to off one of the cows that live a stone's throw from my house. Or one of the deer that seem to like visiting. Or hey, even one of the geese that frequent the cow field for some bizarre reason. I think they've moved in, a whole flock of them, but I'm not sure why.

 

Anyway. As much as I'd like to follow a specific model (because it's easy, it has rules, I can blame them if I slip up), it's completely unrealistic for me right now. What I need to figure out before the start of the next challenge is what is going to be cost-effective, good for me, and still include things I enjoy eating.

 

 

The Exercise Segment

 

Well haven't things gotten awfully wordy... Just one of those days I guess. Alrighty. Again, I'm gonna skip over the workout today and delve right into figuring out what's going on for this next challenge. Funnily enough, it was the newest assassin mini-challenge that got me thinking about the way I've been setting my goals and why they haven't been yielding the results I'd like them to. Basically, I'm not doing it right. What I'm doing is floundering around, slipping and sliding without a clear idea of how I get to the top of the hill. Y'know, this:

 

 

 

This point is where I do the sensible thing, stop slipping and sliding, and find (or create) a path to use. The objective this time is to do a full pull-up. And hey look, there's already a defined point where I will know that I have achieved said goal. Improvement already. Why a pull-up? I have three reasons:

• It builds on muscles and movements used in climbing and bouldering. Also in biking. And in kayaking. I'm painfully familiar with the latter, I wrote a B graded essay on it last year.
• Vanity. Not ashamed to admit it. I would love to be one of the only women on my course who can do a pull-up.
• The challenge. I want to feel like I've earned the right to do it, weird as that might sound.

And that pretty much sums it up. My starting point, however, will be the slightly humbler but no less impressive chin-up. If, by the end of these seven weeks (I'm kicking off on Monday, why wait?), I can do a full chin-up (preferably three to five) then I know I'm on the right route and I'll know where to go next. If not, then all I need to is to keep doing what I'm doing.

 

There's a progression route from there as well. Sure, pull-ups by themselves are progression, then you get into the different grips, wide, narrow, and I'm sure others exist. And hey, muscle-ups are also a progression. It would be nice to build up the upper body and core strength to be able to pull off some gymnastic and parkour moves as well. I loved gymnastics as a kid, and let's face it, parkour is amazing:

 

 

 

 

As for the actual movements involved in these workouts, I'm not 100% yet, but it'll all be settled by Sunday night. I'm going to keep it as basic as possible, mostly bodyweight exercises with minimal weight involvement (because I only have minimal weight involvement...). To begin with I wondered if I should work in a routine that focuses more on the lower body, but considering I'm going to be walking/biking in and out of Fort William most days now I didn't think there was much point beyond having squats (BW and goblet). My legs work surprisingly well as it is, so there's that!

 

It'd be nice to actually get climbing once a week as well, but if that's to be the case then I need to wait until after the 7th March for the monies to come a-rolling in once more. Then just go for it, climbing partner or not, though admittedly it would be nice if she decided to reprise that particular role. Aside from anything else, it would be a good laugh and things would get interesting fast.

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind Segment

 

I said it's been a weird day, right? Well, it has been. Got up right after my alarm, so there was that, and spent a lot of time alone before anyone else emerged. There were definitely some weird vibes going around leftover from last night, but for the most part it seemed ok. I could distract myself by getting on with work and watching the olympics. Then one of the others came back from work and things just went south again while the majority of us were eating dinner. I'd say it's like they all know something I don't, but it isn't like that, it is that. Now, I know that sounds petty. Thing is, I don't have any problem with the situation usually. Not everyone wants everyone to know everything, and that's something I can respect. What gets me is when it starts to impact on relationships and day-to-day interactions.

 

That's what this is doing, and it bothers me. I suspect it will bother me more when the other housemate gets back from their home visit, 'cause when I say 'they' I mean all of them.

 

That really does sound so petty...

 

I think maybe the issue here is that I might be expecting too much from them as a whole. One one level it comes back to them being younger and never really having had to take care of themselves before. Hell, some of them still don't really. On another level it comes down to having had completely different experiences of life so far. One was pretty much the party girl, one was the stereotypical good girl, one was the rich boarding school lad, and one had the kind of upbringing society would class as normal. 

 

And then you get the one with the mental illness, history of further education drop-outs, experience of psychiatric therapy, riddled with issues, and almost self-supporting out of necessity that may not have even existed back when the need seemed to arise.

 

The other day one of them told me, "You haven't had the life experience I've had." That struck a nerve with me, and while I'm being this honest, it's most likely the root of my unease right now. It bothers me that what passes as proper life experience is going out on the town, getting wasted, having one night stands, and having the best story to tell about it at the end of it all. Much as I dislike it, it bothers me that at times I wish I'd had that life because it might make it easier to fit in now.

 

...and then I think of how ridiculous that is, because I like where I am now, and I wouldn't have got here with any other path, I don't think.

 

So the point of this? When the shit comes down I don't actually want to work out. I don't want to be productive in any way. I don't want to do anything but hide from the feelings until they go away. That's the kind of thing I need to beat back and eradicate, because otherwise I'm never going to stop having these kinds of feelings. The reason I've typed all of that out is because it helps to get it out. It might be random passers-by reading, strangers I'll never have any contact with, but I don't care. It's out there, it's apart from me and I can move on.

 

As easy and as hard as that.

 

Afterwards? Well, I reckon I need to finish up with some positives, things I truly believe. Sure, they might be the same set of things over and over, but as long as they hold true does that really matter?

 

...I'm all emotioned out right now, I think. Have a humorous and slightly ridiculous reindeer for happies:

 

[iatetheyeti]

***MOTIVATION***

 

 

PAIN IS ONLY WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY

YOU ONLY GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN

GO HARD OR GO HOME

 

 

WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!

 

 

This is the motivation post. The excitement post. The determination post. This is the knowledge that tomorrow morning I get out of bed at 7am saying "I can. I will." And then I damn well do it.

 

It is where I purge my self loathing and insecurities through exercise, where I feel the burn of hard work as it strips away the fat, as it tears into the muscle. 

 

Exercise is honest. If you half-ass it, you get nothing. If you give it your all, you get it all back again.

 

This is where I say that things will be different this time.

 

This is where I know things will be different this time.

 

I am the difference.

 

I am the determination.

 

I am not working to create a new person, a new image. I am that person.

 

 

 

 

The Intro Segment

 

Seems a little like I was shouting up there, but hey, it's the happy, driven kind that will get results. I've spent pretty much all of today thinking things over, figuring things out. While I may not have been half-assing things, but I have not been giving it everything I have. If I had, then I reckon I'd actually be able to do proper pull-ups by now. But the point of all of this is not to look back and bemoan my lack of progress or what I could have done better or what I shouldn't have done at all. The point of this is to actually get a point, see the point, and then eat the point with liberal amounts of bacon.

 

So really the point of this entry is to discuss my last challenge, focus on the upcoming one and the bigger picture that comes with it, and talk motivation and the like.

 

 

 

 

 

The Challenge Speculation Section

 

When I look back at the past six weeks I don't feel particularly happy, but neither do I feel particularly bad. I did what I did and in the end I came through. So let's take a look back and do this week by week.

 

Week One - Getting the ball rolling

Food poisoning, excessive cold, and a headache that wouldn't go away. Honestly, not the worst start I could have had. It's fairly standard for me to have at least one thing physically wrong at any one time, so it's automatic to work through.

 

Week Two - Onwards, onwards

Sleepless nights and Red Bull mornings. Again, not such a bad time, given the sucky housemate situation.

 

Week Three - Hey there, drama

Family issues, major depression issues, and one particularly bad anniversary started the drama ball rolling. Bad week. Seriously bad week. This is where the whole 'doing it because I had to' issue crept in. Feb 3rd is always a bad day, has been since the early hours of that morning way back in 2010. I used the challenge in a way I've come to see is not that good, despite the fact that it actually worked.

 

Week Four - Not quite back yet...

Not so sure what was going on here, it was kind of between good and bad, here and not here. I was going through the motions.

 

Week Five - Normal service has resumed

Or so we'd have you believe. And yet no end of week update appeared, did it? I drifted in and out of here, I floated through through my workouts, followed my sleep routine blindly. I did it because I had to. I did it because it kept my mind focused on something else. Really, it's just a slightly healthier version of the repression that got me into so much trouble in the first place.

 

Week Six- Kick up the ass time

Does what it says on the time. I got pissed off with the whole thing, really only spent time on my thread for conversation of brief updates. Hell, I couldn't even bring myself to do the usual challenge review bit at the end I felt that negatively towards it. In some ways this challenge has been good for me, but for the most part I'm glad it's over. Heh, I've got pretty mixed feelings about it.

 

 

So, what about the goals? Where did I go wrong there?

 

I left things quite vague. That'll be fixed next time, especially in regards to the actual exercise based goals. There will be a stated goal, steps on how I'm going to reach that goal, how I'm going to record progress, and what will happen after that. I'll be using a similar template for the other challenges. I do not want to leave myself any room to slip back and start coasting again, because I know I'll do it. While I'm practically jumping up and down with impatience to start this whole thing tomorrow, I know that once the tiredness hits and the wall comes looming up I'll be tempted to take a shortcut or six. I know I'll be looking for an easier way.

 

And I know I have to be ready to tell myself to knuckle down and do it, dammit, that I have earned no less than the right to do everything I can do to make myself the best person I can be.

 

I have to make myself believe it as much as I do now.

 

 

 

The Bigger Picture Segment

 

Ok, so let's put this all into perspective. These challenges and what I do in between times. The mission statement I'm using just now is to prepare myself for the post-graduation years, and that's still true. I want to be in good physical and mental shape by the time graduation rolls around.

 

So we'll start with slightly shorter term physical aims:

• Do a pull-up (discussed before)
• Take yoga to the next level - it benefits the body and the mind
• Up my climbing game
• Ride the Fort William downhill track - it'll take physical training, skill specific training, and my head being in the right place

The ones I'll be focusing on for now will be the first two points, though they in turn will push towards the third point.

 

 

The Motivation/Mind Segment

 

Guys, I have seen some truly amazing things today. Not all of them were new to me, and not all of them were created as motivational aids but ended being that to me nonetheless.

 

I'm going to start with the one that had the most profound impact on me, and that is Ellen Page's HRC speech. Not gonna lie, I cried the first time I watched that. I still don't really have the words to describe how the sheer honesty and bravery got under my skin, but it did. Some of what she said hit home so hard, and although you could say I've had an easy time of it compared to thousands, millions of others out there, I've still experienced enough of that hell to feel the familiar bites of pain and fear as she described what so many people have to endure. In the end, what I took from that is this: If this one woman has the courage to stand up and say everything she did, to throw off the lies and honestly embrace who she is, then I must have the strength to do so to. Somewhere, I have the strength to be true to myself as well. And I will find it.

 

Just to switch it up a little, the next one is a two parter, an amazing ninja warrior training room project that inspires jealousy and admiration. Not only did this guy go and build what he needed to get the job done, he trained on it. Hard. He saw his goal and he went for it. You've got to admire that kind of drive.

 

The next one is something I found while browsing for a little additional inspiration. It's about as cliche as you can get, but somehow it works. The music, the words. Things we've all heard before, but when you read them and hear your own voice speaking out with such conviction, well, what can you do but listen? I'm going to write some of these things down and put them up where I can see.

 

And then one that I've seen before and will always, always watch again. I'm just going to leave the link here and let you decide for yourselves.

 

 

I feel like this would be a good stopping point. I'm tired, emotionally and physically. Still psyched for the fresh start tomorrow, but in turn craving some deep, deep sleep. 

[iatetheyeti]

The part in which some actual theory comes into the mix...

 

 

 

 

I know, right? And on a Monday as well. We have a module called expedition leadership and management, and right now we're covering leadership styles and motivational theory, the latter of which I find fascinating. We're not going into it all that deeply, but just far enough that we get to root around through the psychological aspects of it all. I love stuff like this, and I could quite happily spend a day or two solid just reading up and chasing down links, playing connect the dots.

 

We went quite in-depth on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but considering I managed to pick that up and run with it on my intro post, I reckon we're good there. No doubt I'll go into it again at some point when I'm feeling all reflection-y or have reached the next stage or something similar. I quite like the theory, it's simple, but can lead to some surprisingly insightful observations depending on which context you apply it to.

 

The other one we went into was Herzberg's Motivational-Hygiene Theory. This was a new one to me, and almost as fascinating as Maslow's Hierarchy. Essentially, Herzberg stated that there were two sides to things, the motivational factors and the hygiene factors. The former does what it says on the tine, the latter doesn't motivate by being present, but it would demotivate if it weren't present. Passive motivation, I guess. We were looking at it in an expedition context, so for example a motivating factor would be if the expedition was a pioneering one (so you would be among the first people to do something/be somewhere), or if you gained a certain skill set from it, or just a sense of personal achievement at the end of it all. Hygiene factors would include things like provision of PPE and interpersonal relations (particularly on shorter expeds). Heh, we had a hellish time trying to make the primarily business-based model fit an expedition context first thing in the morning with no additional coffee to help our brains!

 

It got me wondering whether or not I could bend the main given motivational factors to fit an individual situation, particularly that of mine. So without further ado...

• Growth - Given that this includes learning new skills, well, yeah, it can definitely be applied here. Yoga poses and pull-ups! Not to mention making improvements on time management skills...
• Work Itself - Again, yes. Exercising for the enjoyment of the exercise itself isn't uncommon at all. After all, if you hate an exercise and don't actually have to do it, chances are you're going to find something you do like and do that instead.
• Responsibility - To myself, that is. Given this is a solo scenario and all that. I'd say yes, but for me this would be less a motivator and more a hygiene factor. It will happen as I go, and I'd be put out if I didn't learn a little extra responsibility for myself, but it isn't high up on the list.
• Achievement - I do believe this may well be half of the whole point of this.
• Advancement - And this would be the other half of the whole point.
• Recognition - Not high up on the motivator list, but definitely there. 

Heh, a little self-confirmation that I am indeed doing this for the right reasons! Can't go wrong with a little self improvement, and speaking of...

 

 

The Photo/Stats Segement

 

So I did something I haven't done for a while and stood in front of the mirror with a camera to document those little problem areas. Or rather, that one large problem area...

 

 

Starting with the oh-so-lovely front view. Not the oblong of bulgy stuff. Unfortunately I don't think little V-lines I have are showing here. Probably because I kept the waistline of my thermals at a sensible height... Heh, either way, it's not quite as bad as it was, not from that angle anyway.

 

 

 

To give a little perspective on the general sticky-outiness of it all, to put it technically. 

 

 

 

And one I haven't done before, the back view! It's slightly distorted (as you'll see by the weirdness going on with my tattoo) due to the angle of the mirror and my awkward handling of the camera, but it gets the point across. A little excess poking out above the thermals there, but overall it isn't a bad starting point.

 

 

I'm not going to take photos too often, that's just get depressing. I'm thinking maybe I'll do it monthly for a little while and see if there are visible results. The callipers are telling me that I'm at around 28% body fat right now, which is average for a someone of my age and gender, but ideally I'd like to get that down to about 25%. That's going to be tricky considering it's all in the diet and I'm having certain financial issues, but hey, no one said it was going to happen overnight.

 

 

The Battle Log Segment

 

So, weirdly enough, today actually started exactly as I meant it to start. Weirder still, I was awake before my alarm and actually looking forward to it. Now, usually I have a routine on Monday and it goes a little something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well... replacing the whiskey with either coffee or Red Bull would make for the most technically accurate depiction, but hey, everything else in those images happens. Every Monday. Without fail.

 

But not for today. Today I woke up like this:

 

 

...That is actually my face... Heh, my friend stuck it on Facebook ages back with the ever so loving caption "Scary Tiff came to invade my tent, help!"

 

But in all seriousness, I actually felt motivated. I got up, lit the candles, switched on the xmas tree lights, and went to work. I think maybe that not going directly to the harsher, brighter light of my main room light worked wonders for easing me into the land of wakefulness. I did some yoga to warm up, two rounds of ten second reps for the following poses:

 

Mountain

Warrior 1, 3, 2

Eagle

Downward dog

Bridge

Chair

Pendant

 

The pendant pose did not last for ten seconds either time, but hey, I'm getting there. The eagle pose was new to me, and it took a few attempts to be able to balance it properly. I've since added a small collection of new poses, and I'm going to split them into the more strenuous ones and the less so, for rest days.

 

After that I moved on to push-up pyramids. I figured to begin with I'd start with going up to ten, but then I realised just how many push ups that would be... Lots. So I split it in half and went to five, meaning in total I did twenty five. Trying to focus on form and trying to do deep on every one was difficult, my body didn't thank me for it during, let me tell you. I know for a fact I didn't manage perfect form on more than a few, and I didn't go as deep as I'd like either. Still, that just means that I've picked a good starting point.

 

Didn't do anything else afterwards as I was running short on time, but I did have the bike ride in to get a little extra going. I pushed as hard as I could given my entire lack of gears right now, and apparently it worked because I was a sweaty mess by the time I got there. Thankfully I remembered the baby wipes and deodorant...

 

And look at that, ended on a positive note!

 

But here's a sleepy corgi anyway:

 

 

[iatetheyeti]

Wondrous things are happening...

 

Today I found out that one, and possibly more, of my photos is being used to advertise my university.

 

My photo is being published and used professionally, and I am getting credited in full.

 

What even is this?!

 

I just feel all...

 

 

 

 

 

The Exercise Segment

 

Woke up at 7am again, though I needed to actively prod myself to get out of bed. And it hurt. Oh gods did it hurt. A good hurt, but pain nonetheless. Still, I worked my way through my yoga, then proceeded on to shuffle through the weighted part of my routine and then attempted to do a proper chin-up. Failed, but hey, not the end of the world. I was barely able to lift the milk out of the fridge this morning, so the fact that I couldn't do a chin up or a static hang longer then 15 seconds does not surprise me whatsoever.

 

The will come with time and effort.

 

What I didn't do today, however, was cycle back home. Which is fair enough, my bike is worse for wear and cycling uphill with limited gears sucks. So we chucked it into the back of the van and drove.

 

Looking forward to tomorrow, can't say I'm not. An extra hour in bed and a lighter workout to ease the DOMS.

 

 

...and that's kind of it for today. I'm stupidly busy and tired as hell (headache plus strong painkillers plus still adjusting to this sleeping pattern equals one tired Yeti), but I wanted to make a little time for an update. I want to keep this as daily as possible.

 

[iatetheyeti]

Seriously quick one today as I'm feeling completely wiped out. PMS plus DOMS plus stress... Yeah. It's that good.

 

Today was an off day, so I went for a walk given that it wasn't raining and it wasn't as bitterly cold as it has been previously. Didn't take the camera though, I just wasn't feeling it. All I wanted to do was drift along in my own world, and that was pretty much what I did. After that I did my yoga routine, though it was tougher than I'd expected. More of a warm up needed for the next one!

 

I'll have a lively update tomorrow, it's the first of three nights volunteering for the Fort William Mountain Festival, so I should be bubbling with excitement, and that always leads to wordiness...

[iatetheyeti]

I am so very happy right now. Today started off horrifically, cramps and all, meaning I lay in bed well after my alarm feeling sorry for myself and wishing I didn't have a uterus. When I eventually dragged myself out of bed it was to catch the end of the ski-cross and some spectacular feats of bravery and stupidity. One cup of coffee later and I was bouncing, so I went off to do my workout.

 

On-day yoga for the warm up

Push-up pyramid

Negative chin-up pyramid

Chair dip sets

Static hang knees-up sets

Bodyweight squats

Weight plate raises

 

The yoga is going surprisingly well, even with the new poses. Sure, I wobble, and sure, I can't quite reach for some of them (standing splits, for example, would be hilarious for someone else to watch!), but overall things are good. My form is good for the most part as well.

 

I like pyramids, which is weird because I despised them when I was in kickboxing classes. Anyway, the push-up ones seemed to be going ok, so I figured I'd build up my negative reps like that and see how I did. As it is, my arms were shaking by the time I'd finished the nine, so evidently I picked a good place to start!

 

The knees-up thing was actually too easy, so next time I'm going to go for full on L-hang raises.

 

The weight plate raises were something I figured out during the previous challenge. The dumbbell weights I use have a fairly wide indentation, yet the depth is shallow enough that I have to work hard to hang on for any length of time. Just now I'm using 2.5kg weight plates and doing dual raises, and the reps I did today were enough to drive me most of the way to forearm pump, which is the result I was after.

 

 

In other news, I reckon I've actually got the start of a decent photography portfolio going on thanks to my uni. One of my photos is indeed being used as an advertisement for the uni, it's a black and white version of this one. I also have three new canvas prints that I don't get until next year, but belong to me nonetheless (on top of the one I've just reclaimed!). Now all I have to do is make sure I repeated this over and over... Heh, looking forward to the challenge.

 

 

 

And that's all for now, folks. I may or may not have an entry up tomorrow. If not, then Sunday night or Monday evening will most likely be the next one. When I say time will be short, I mean time will be short. So much to do, and so happy to do it (for a change!).

[iatetheyeti]

Well fancy that, an actual log entry for a change...

 

 

 

 

The Exercise Part:

 

I figured I needed to keep track of this somehow, considering I keep losing my little bits of paper every time I put them down, completely lose track of them ten seconds later, and consequently tear my room apart trying to find them.

 

There are a few things I've worked into my regular routine that I'm happy with and would like to keep:

• Plate raises
• Plank plate raises
• Plank dumbbell rows

A small few, but a few nonetheless.

 

The plate raises were primarily introduced to help with building grip for climbing. At this point, to build finger strength, I also have two and three finger hangs, both of which I discovered I could do only a few days ago. So on bar heavy days (as in pull up bar, unfortunately not weightlifting bar), they get thrown into the mix, and on bar light/no bar days, the plate raises, either plank or standing, do.

 

Now, the planking part. I stumbled across this, quite literally if you count the fact I was using stumbleupon.com at the time, a little while back and didn't think to give it a go until recently. I love them. It's helping me build balance, which is something I sorely need, and it's giving me a slightly different way to help build strength in my left arm in particular. That thing is lagging quite badly behind my right one, which I know I need to even out ASAP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above is the plate raise, below the dumbbell row. Excuse my poor form in the former, it should be almost identical to that in the latter. Not too sure what I was doing there, to be honest. Possibly trying to balance better...

 

Speaking of balance, I made a balance board!

 

Well, no, I didn't.

 

What I did was fall over one of my weight plates as it rested on one of those nuts to keep the weights in place on the bar. Then I had a brainwave and stood on it. Not the most unstable thing in the world, but enough so that it gives me a bit of work to do.

 

Heh, every little helps, to quote the mighty Tesco... Seriously though, with my whole ear/balance thing, I really do need all the help I can get. Yoga is doing a good job, but it isn't covering much ground for the amount of time I've been doing it.

 

 

The Mind Part

 

I'm happy.

 

And you know what? I'm not even freaked out by that.

 

...and I'm not freaked out about not being freaked out.

 

This is, I can honestly say, something I have never recalled feeling. It sounds pretty sad when said like that, and truth be told, it kind of is sad. Yeah, I've had happy days, lighter weeks, maybe even a month or two of not quite so intense anxiety and depressive moods, but never anything like this.

 

It's weird, because I've had to make what would normally be a pretty upsetting decision within the past two days which will involve stepping back from something I love doing, and yet I managed to approach it with a level head, weight out the pros and cons, and come to the sensible decision, not the one that would make most people happy. And let's face it, this decision will not make people happy. And yet I'm comfortable with it.

 

I put myself first, put my well being before a duty, and I feel good about it.

 

I'm not even wondering where the guilt, rational, irrational, or otherwise has got to. I know I've made the right choice.

 

And I've got to wonder, is that what other people feel like? Is this what it's like to be free of the smog of fear and hurt and upset? Hell, even I've noticed I'm smiling more and I'm actually not feeling self-conscious about it. I've felt self-conscious about smiling for as long as I've had the nerve damage in my face. Years, basically.

 

Somewhere in my mind I know I might be celebrating a very short term phenomenon, you don't just get rid of depression with a snap of the fingers, after all. Yet for the most part I'm content to go with it, to allow myself this happiness and self-security for as long as it will last. I like this. I want to keep this. Yeah, I'm scared of losing it again, but now I know that this kind of thing can be achieved I know that I'll always have the strength to keep fighting for it whether things get a little worse or a lot worse.

 

It could well be in the way I've approached this latest challenge, which I admit was with far more positivity and the determination to do rather than to hope to do than previous ones. This in turn has spilled out into life.

 

I know the biggest challenge to this will be Monday. Monday is when I not only go back for a full day of lectures, but it is when I deliver the news of my choice, when I let people down. Well, not let people down as such, but that's the closest approximation I can get just now. Monday is going to be a full on day, and if I can come out of it feeling like I do now then I know that somewhere along the line I've won something, I've taken another step forward.

 

Except, you know what? Even if I come out of it feeling like crap I've still come forward more than I have in months, maybe even years.

 

And that's something that gives me a great amount of pride.

[Swampling]

Awesome. Just... awesome!

*hugs*

[iatetheyeti]

I spent quite a while trying to think up of a suitable metaphor for a mental collapse of sorts. Didn't work. Probably just as well, I mean, yeah, things have taken a turn that I didn't want to anticipate, but as it turns out, I think I'm actually prepared this time around. That is, I've taken the bull by the horns and treated it to a Glasgow kiss. My head hurts but I feel so much better.

 

 

"These useless days will add up to something, [for] these things are your becoming."

 

 

An interview with the astronaut Chris Hadfield popped up on my Facebook feed. Clicking on the link brought me to the article that went with it, which brought me to this particular quote. The words did what they were supposed to do, they made me think. That much was a given. What I didn't expect to happen was for them to ignite an area of my brain that hasn't been used since before I turned twenty. I spent a lot of my time through high school, and for a little over a year afterwards, venting about every issue in my life (depression, anxiety, sexuality, family, lack of social circle, and so on) by writing poetry.

 

That's not something I tell people.

 

...until now, I guess. Thing is, I was good at it. Good enough to get a couple of things published in long forgotten compilation books under a pseudonym I've disassociated my mind from, because damn, that was a long low point.

 

Though now I actually want to write something.

 

Weird how that works.

 

As for the phrase itself, well, it makes sense if you look at it from way up high. I'd say it's so easy to look back into the past and slot together all of the useless days, to build up what has become something more in the here and now. But it isn't always easy poking about back there, there are some skeletons in every closet that don't need clearing out as much as they need to just sit there, gathering dust. Maybe they belong to events we don't want to explain or justify or look at directly, but they serve to remind us of who we are, why we are, that we can beat some truly horrific shit and still come out and live our lives.

 

Maybe the words are on par with 'everything happens for a reason', which I have to say is a phrase I detest as much as I kind of believe it. Do I like to think of some of the things that happen 'for a reason'? No. Do I believe the implication that this 'reason' is a part of some grand plan that someone or something like God has laid out? No. What I believe is that shit happens, and it will either make us or break us. That encompasses everything, from the major disasters to the little screw-ups.

 

 

 

"But there's no sense crying
Over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
Till you run out of cake."

 

 

I'm listening to the playlist I made for cycling up hills (cleverly named UPHILL), and this song is on it. For such a snarky song, it's actually quite motivational.

 

And I am not out of cake just yet.

 

So the situation that's got me all flustered and frustrated is actually a ridiculous one when you look at it. I've been having problems with my bike gears for a while now, and it was down to a frayed cable. So one of my housemates took a look at it, back up my hypothesis, and noted that he'd had to tape a bit in place. I can't remember for the life of me why he had to do it, just that he did.

 

That bit was the bolt that held the gear cable in place, tensioned, all set up to switch gears.

 

That bit turned up absent (and really, what kind of a phrase is that?) this morning.

 

Disappointed isn't the word.

 

I spent a lot of time preparing for this ride, I got myself into the mindset that it was do or die, that no matter what misery the weather wanted to throw at me I'd go and do it anyway because I knew I could, because I wanted to do it. I'd got the gear cable, so I knew that would be just fine. I had my route, my timings, food and drink sorted, camera batteries charged, camera mount for the bike good to go. Everything was ready.

 

I was ready.

 

Admittedly I found it difficult to go to sleep, and I kept waking up at weird times. Yet when the 8am alarm rolled around I was actually keen to go. So I got up, put my kit on, and sneaked downstairs as quietly as one can with such a noisy staircase. I got my coffee on the go, fired the laptop up to call up a guide on changing gear cables as I'd never done it before, and hauled the bike out of the shed.

 

Everything went well until I tried to attach it at the transmission end and found that bolt missing.

 

Sure, I got peeved, but I figured hey, I've got another bike that's essentially a heap of spare parts, why not pinch the bolt from there? Except that the whole thing was rusted to hell. It was hard enough getting the thing out (at one point the words "Just loosen up, you shitpickle." escaped my mouth...), and then I found that I had only gotten part of it out. The other part had rusted clean through and was stuck.

 

So then I went hunting for my tub of spares.

 

Nothing.

 

The only other bolts I could find were all attached to bikes belonging to other people. Not ideal, can't go taking essential components from my housemates like that, kind of a dick move.

 

At that point I was really starting to lose it because I realised that if I couldn't replace the bolt then I couldn't go, and that wasn't something I was prepared to accept. I got pretty angry, angry enough to lash out at the garage wall (thankfully with a foot rather than a fist) and keep up a steady stream of some quite unusual swearing.

 

Right up until I called my bike a fuckmuffin.

 

I have no idea where that one came from.

 

Still, it made me laugh and made me realise enough was enough. I knew I was at a dead end with the bolt, so it was time to cut my loses and figure out how to make the best of the situation. On closer inspection I could see my bike needed a bit of TLC, so I made that my goal for today. Apart from anything else, the chain needs replacing and the disc brake pads need cleaning, because they wail like a banshee whenever I hit the back breaks.

 

Even with a new goal and accepting that I can't change the situation just now, I still feel... well, I don't know what I still feel. Frustrated, because I could have fixed this yesterday. Angry, because my mistake cost me what would have been an amazing day. Bitter, because I am my own support system for things like this, and sometimes I hate it. It's bad enough that I got so worked up in the first place, and now I want someone else to listen to me rant and whine and then tell me it'll all be ok?

 

Don't think so.

 

 

 

"Every broken enemy will know

that their opponent had to be invincible."

 

 

I'll cope. There's always a way, and sometimes you realise that just looking for a way to cope has actually done the job. Ignoring the feelings doesn't work, but then neither does embracing them all at once. It's better to keep things to a steady trickle, constantly processing and dealing until the river runs dry and you realise that it really is going to be ok.

 

My first step was getting my bike out of that shed and putting it up on the stand. I took the chain off, cleaned it, and got my replacement chain all ready. My next step would have been to take out the break pads, but somehow half of my toolkit has gone missing and I have nothing pincer-like to remove the pads. My solution? Calm the frustration, wait until a housemate makes an appearence ad enquire about borrowing some pliers.

 

...which would work just fine if everyone was here. The only ones that stayed for the weekend are still in bed.

 

So in order not to have that anger build back up, I left the task and moved on, knowing I'd return once I had the means to carry it out.

 

My next step is writing this.

 

I did hesitate, but then as much as I'm sure battle logs were originally intended solely for recording workouts and physical work, there is a mental aspect of getting healthy. I'd already stated earlier that I intended to use it for this as well as the physical side. Besides, it gives me the illusion that someone is actually listening (and if someone actually is, I could seriously hug you right now).

 

Once I've done this I'll go back to my bike, but this time with the purpose of clearing the mud off of it.

 

Maybe then a housemate will have emerged.

 

If not, then I'll probably sink some time into uni work.

 

I'm not going to plan too far ahead, just far enough that I know where my next step will land.

 

And I'll beat the negativity.

[iatetheyeti]

Update because eeeee...

 

This is mental preparation, and by that I mean the usual 'make ready the mind' kind of thing plus the preparation actually being mental.

 

Tomorrow I leave on a three day paddling expedition. The following is what I know:

• We're possibly going up the Great Glen Way
• We'll be in canoes
• We're paddling for three days, sleeping out for two nights

And that would be it.

 

 

 

 

That, unfortunately, is my university all over. Their communication is nothing short of awful at the best of times, and this is just taking the piss. We don't even know our route for sure. I mean, who the hell takes out a group of students without having first told them their route? Or anything at all, really... Sure, assumptions can be made. For example, if we're going up the Great Glen then chances are we'll be on flat water most, if not all, of the time. We'll have to portage quite a lot, so I'm going to need to bring my wheels (portage trolley = awesome investment). There hasn't been any kind of briefing for assessments or particular skills workshops, so therefore I will not be going in the water unless it's accidental. So basically, I won't be going in the water full stop. My canoe partner is a raft guide, fortunately, and while I'm actually shite in a canoe in comparison to a kayak, I'm good enough to keep the thing afloat through the kinds of water we'll be in.

 

All in all, none of us have got that much to go on.

 

So I'm packing as best I can and assuming that we're not going to end up doing capsize drills.

 

...I'm getting shivery just thinking about it.

 

 

This time around, it isn't the lack of information bothering me. It's the state of two things: My shoulder and my mind.

 

Easy one first.

 

I strained my shoulder a while back doing some odd variation of a pull-up. I also dented my doorframe with my head... Anyway. I've been taking it as easy as possible, and it seems to have paid off. Now I just have to worry about on the road maintenance, so to speak. Tomorrow is going to be a bitch, no two ways about it. I haven't paddled in forever, never mind in a canoe. Follow this by sleeping in a tent on the rock I always seem to find (which will either be poking me in the kidneys or the shoulder), and it doesn't look so good.

 

I figure stretching and yoga is the way forward.

 

Not much else I can do.

 

...though camp yoga is going to be interesting. It's pretty much a given that I will be the butt of a great many jokes, and there is a possibility that I may end up having to coach a select few to avoid them hurting themselves when they end up trying to do what I do. Neither of which I mind, truth be told. Someone has to provide camp entertainment!

 

 

As far as the whole mental state thing goes, well...

 

It's nothing all that serious, not compared to my usual 'woe-is-me' kinda thing. For the past handful of days I've had sleep issues. Either I'll struggle more than usual to get to sleep or to stay asleep, or I'll pass out within an hour of hitting the pillows and wake up a decent amount of time later absolutely exhausted. As a result not only am I tired, but the mood swings are back and I'm feeling a generally blue mood settle on me.

 

Hello again, depressive episode.

 

Now, this could go one of two ways. Either I'll get out on the water, have a blast, and come back happy, or the exact opposite will happen.

 

I'm trying not to think about it too much in case of the latter.

 

On the plus side, however, if the worst does happen then I have two full weeks of holidays to get over it before heading back to lectures. Sure, those two weeks I plan to cram in as much uni work as possible, but that doesn't mean there won't be space for a long hike or two, and if I get my bike fixed, a trail session. I'm hoping the good weather comes back. It's supposed to be nice for the next week or so, and by nice I mean no rain.

 

...something which I think is very much connected to my mood. It rained today, and I feel like shit. It was sunny yesterday and I was all people-loving and happy.

 

I did have a friend suggest I should maybe talk to a counsellor about it, but I've been there and done that way too many times. When it comes down to it, I know what's going to happen with weather shifts, I recognise my own indicators for good days and bad, I know most of what's going on with me, and I know how to cope with it. More counselling is likely to mess shit up rather than help.

 

And that brings me to rant/venting session over, I think. Just needed to get that lot out without physically talking someone's ear off and having an emotional splurge in the general vicinity of people...

 

Time to go pack, procrastinate, and cook a lot of chicken and veg pasta. I'll probably update this on Saturday, depending on how things go.

[iatetheyeti]

This is, for all intents and purposes, a photo essay...

 

 

In the beginning there was a halfway competent paddler, and that halfway competent paddler preferred sea kayaks and river boats to anything involving a canoe. Yet that paddler knew that she couldn't always get what she wanted, so she cracked open a can of MAN UP and got on with it, knowing it may well result in injury, shouting matches, and maybe death.

 

It didn't quite work out that way.

 

Wednesday morning started on a slightly crappy note. As it turns out, uni dry bags may well have shoulder straps, but they don't have waist straps, so when you pile in a load of kit and try and carry it anywhere, it hurts. The plan was for me to catch a lift in with a friend who lives two minutes up the road, but she didn't want to go in fifteen minutes earlier than she'd originally planned. I needed to in order to grab some extra kit.

 

On discovering the lack of waist strap, I opted out of cycling and into taking the bus, despite my lack of funds.

 

Some of the looks I got for lugging a drybag the size of me and a set of portage wheels... You'd think people who lived in the self-proclaimed adventure capital of the UK would have seen it before, but apparently not. Either way, I wasn't in the best mood when I got there. It didn't help that they completely changed the plans on us when we got there. Instead of doing the Great Glen Way from here to Inverness, we would drive an hour to Fort Augustus and paddle back to Fort William. In a minibus, that journey would kill me. For some stupid reason, ever since I got my driving license my travel sickness has come back. So I elected to go in the nine seater, and for some reason got a lot of abuse for it from the last person I would have expected.

 

Add that on to the instructor turning out to be a major asshat and you get a distinctly grouchy not-canoeist waiting to get into a canoe and go.

 

The first thing we noticed? Why, the danger of a learner driver, of course!

 

 

 

Seriously did not know L plates on boats were even a thing...

 

 

The day itself was actually decent, if a bit breezy. So we unloaded our canoes onto the pier, dragged our copious amounts of gear out of the bus and the car, and set to work preparing to set off.

 

 

 

...and someone decided to be awkward and use a sea kayak instead.

 

 

As it turns out, putting two lots of kit to last three days into one eighteen foot canoe is actually quite difficult. Getting into said canoe after having loaded it is also quite difficult. Trying to avoid the learner boat, the other canoes, and the kayak was tricky. We almost ploughed into said learner boat due to being rammed by Team Irish. Team Irish consisted of two white water paddlers who had never canoed before and didn't have a clue about steering. Lovely guys, but outright dangerous on the water at times...

 

Nonetheless, we managed to clear the vicinity of the Fort Augustus locks and paddle on down the canal with the wind at our backs and the sun taking the sting out of the breeze.

 

 

 

 

 

Tried for a canoe selfie with me and the raft guide. Didn't quite work out for me, though that's probably for the best!

 

 

We did have a couple of portages when we came on the other locks, the first of which proved that we hadn't a clue of how to go about things. Me and the raft guide managed to haul our laden beast out of the water and onto the pier, and then tried to attach the portage wheels. That in itself was awkward, but trying to wheel it up the ramp through two right angle turns and with a flat tyre?

 

Yeah...

 

Eventually we got there, and the others managed to haul their own boats as well.

 

And then, en mass, we stripped out of our thermals.

 

We did about 17km in a little over four hours, things were that good. And we found out that when we have no access to any music, we can, and we will, sing some of the most ridiculous songs:

 

Dumb ways to die

The duck song

Tarzan and Jane

 

...basically anything and everything. We had a bit of Whitesnake, a bit of Lady Gaga... We have a wide variety of tastes in the group. Luckily at that point the two supervising instructors were quite a ways behind, though one of them I know full well wouldn't have had any issues with joining in. She certainly didn't have a problem with us stopping for ice cream about half an hour away from Laggan Locks!

 

The women at that shop were amazing. We rocked up at about 4pm only to find out that it had closed at 2pm. Then something like a minute later the woman who owned the shop came out and said she would open up specially for us. So of course we piled in and gave them lots of money, and everyone left happy.

 

We got to the campsite in good time, though, and we were all in a good mood setting up camp.

 

 

 

"See this? See this nozzle? I'm blowing it."

 

 

 

The raft guide and his missus setting up nice and neatly...

 

 

 

The hammock broke. We all saw. We all laughed.

 

 

 

The view from camp as the sun went down.

 

 

 

My home for the two nights.

 

 

Once we stopped it got cold. Really cold. Luckily we'd all managed to set up our tents before the temperature dropped, and someone had even managed to get a proper fire going so we had some heat. As one of our Irish lads ever so cleverly pointed out, "The fire is hotter than the cold." Poor Kev. We do love him to bits, but he has a habit of coming out with gems like that, and us being the amazing friends that we are, never let him live down down.

 

A few rounds of burgers and sausages later, we decided that despite it being 9:30pm, we were tired and wanted to go to bed. So I entered my palace for the first time and realised that I didn't have enough headroom to sit upright, and I only just had enough room to lie down. Bear in mind I am a tiny person, about five four. I was also a freezing person, despite wearing actual clothing to bed for once.

 

No sleep was had that night.

 

The next day I got up sore and cold and hating everything and everyone.

 

And yet I managed to be the first one packed and ready to go, waiting for the raft guide to be all packed up.

 

We got into the water, noted the change in wind direction and temperature, and took a little longer to get into the mood of the paddle. It did take a while, but eventually we had to stop and let a particularly turbulent squall pass. Unfortunately no one took me up on building sandcastles...

 

 

 

 

I pull some ridiculously attractive faces when the camera gets turned on me...

 

 

 

 

 

Mascot duck!

 

 

What came after that was almost carnage. We pressed on, then encountered the force five winds that had been promised earlier in the day. We paddled into a hellishly strong headwind for a number of kilometres, one accompanied by waves and swell almost as big as me. The raft guide was pretty good about things, he knew I wasn't very confident in a canoe to begin with and decided the best course of action was to give me a little lecture on how the waves were formed and that kind of thing. I managed to learn something whilst fighting them! And then I surprised him by turning around with a massive grin on my face and telling him I was loving every minute of it.

 

Big waves on a loch?

 

Yes please!

 

Admittedly, I did get into the second camp in a foul mood. There was some sort of creepy ass fair forest a little way before Gairlochy, and most of the others not only stopped to look, but stayed there for ages. I got cold and grouchy, and by that point my shoulder was practically bellowing at me. It hurt like a bitch.

 

 

 

 

This is the last proper photo I took, camp on the second day. There are actually buildings in the background, one of which is a toilet/washroom block with heating. Guess which group had three keys? That's right! We got an exped where both camps had these, so not only could we actually take a dump in a civilised way, we could go and hide from the wind chill when it got too much! Heh, hardy adventure students that we are...

 

I went to bed before eight, and I ended up wearing all of my clothing, including the down jacket, hat, and gloves, inside my sleeping bag. Want to guess who still got cold? Yup, that's right...

 

Next day I was a bitch.

 

See, at the beginning we'd been given the choice of whether we wanted to do the river or the canal on the last day. I opted for canal considering my canoe experience is next to nothing and there was no way I wanted to run rapids in one of the things.

 

I'm not sure if I've explaining my river thing on here or not, so here it is.

 

I actually love rivers, same way I love waterfalls. Yet both scare the crap out of me in different ways. Waterfalls I get jittery even just walking near them. I came very close to drowning when I was seventeen, went right over a twenty five (ish) foot waterfall, hit ever rock on the way down, and got pinned under at the bottom for a while. Not. Fun.

 

Rivers... well, I can walk alongside 'em, love to do so, actually. Water, weirdly, considering, always helps calm me down and settle my thought processes. Actually paddling on rivers though? First time I did that I capsized and had my face dragged along the bottom of the river for a good while before I was able to pop the deck and escape. Not ashamed to say I'm actually shit-scared of paddling on them now, so going down one in a canoe? Heh, no. Just no.

 

But in the end there wasn't an option, so I had a quiet talk with the raft guide (who is actually a good friend, so I could be completely honest with him) before we got in. I told him that yeah, I'd probably be crabby, but he should continue to do as he'd been doing, telling me what to do and when so we didn't go over. I also told him that there was no chance in hell that I would be running the big rapid, the grade three at Torcastle. I would walk around it if I had to, but no way would I run it.

 

So we set off.

 

The first rapid was a tiny one, more a collection of midget waves and lumps and bumps. All the way down I was rigid from the waist up (gotta keep loose hips!) and the only thing I said was "fuckfuckfuckfuck" in a continuous stream under my breath.

 

...yeah.

 

About an hour and a half later we got to Torcastle to find the the river was running high. Completely different to the last time I'd seen it, and scarier looking too. We all got out and had a look, had a chat about it, and figured out who would be doing what. Everyone bar the sea kayaker ran it.

 

Including me.

 

The raft guide picked out a line and talked me through it, and I decided that yeah, I'd give this a go. Why? I honestly couldn't say. I was scared enough to be shaking, I had no confidence in my ability to paddle through, and I was firmly of the belief that we would go in.

 

So of course I got into the canoe.

 

The raft guide kept changing his mind about the line in the two minutes it took to paddle to the entrance. I yelled at him, told him to either make a choice or shut up and just tell me what paddle strokes to put in.

 

He told me to forward paddle, then shut up.

 

We hit the V, then hit the big wave at the bottom full on when we were supposed to go around it. Water slapped me in the face, and the canoe tipped. It really tipped. It tipped enough for one side to dip under and for us to take on half a river. I practically threw myself to the other side to balance us. We almost brained ourselves on a boulder the size of a small house. When I say almost, I mean we missed it by six inches or so. From there we almost smeared ourselves on the wall at the right angle turn, then came out into the calm only to be rammed full on by one of the instructors as he went out to rescue one of the lads who had gone over before us. They'd capsized.

 

And somehow we hadn't.

 

Maybe it doesn't sound much, but it was a huge thing for me.

 

To give you a little idea of what it was like:

 

 

This is one of the other pairs taking some pretty big air going over the start of it all...

 

 

I'm kinda peeved that there isn't any photographic evidence of me having done it. One of the instructors was taking pictures, then had to bail to help get the capsized two out of the water, just as we started our run. Nevertheless, I did it. Feels pretty damned good. That beast, in high water, is a grade three rapid, and a large one at that. What the photo doesn't show is the mess below and the right hand, right angle turn (or death on sharp rocks) at the bottom.

 

And somehow we got through intact.

 

So. Damn. Happy.

 

From there it was a case of an hour paddling down a calm bit of river. We only had one more mishap, one of the other pairs capsized about five minutes from the university. From there we landed at the slipway, hauled our kit up, and collapsed in a heap.

 

By that point I had no strength left in me. Still don't have much, truth be told. My left shoulder is a screaming ball of agony, and my right one is definitely twinging. I have sun burn on my face, arms, and back of the neck. I don't have legs, I have bruises. My lower back is in knots. I have some of the weirdest bruises on my arms, not to mention some mean twinges in my forearms that will turn to DOMS tomorrow.

 

...actually, I'll be surprised if I can even move tomorrow morning. I mean, a good night's sleep in a real, not to mention warm, bed? That's just asking for trouble.

 

All in all, it was kind of an intense trip. Not half bad preparation for this twenty five day exped...

 

I might have taken on a bit much here.

[iatetheyeti]

Can I do this?

 

Am I physically prepared? Mentally prepared?

 

 

 

I'm looking up motivational videos to try and fix my little slump...

 

 

 

Two consecutive entries? Heh, kinda weird, right?

 

I've been having some thoughts.

 

Dangerous territory...

 

Mostly it's about some issues that this canoe exped has kicked up for me regarding the massive upcoming trip, some general insecurities that I'm taking steps to try and resolve, and a bit of a plan for the two weeks of holidays that I've found myself with.

 

 

The BIG exped:

 

Not going to lie, I'm actually quite worried about this now.

 

You see, I've just come from an environment where I had next to no time to myself. That only came when night fell and I zipped myself into my sleeping bag. There was no reading break, no hour or two to relax and listen to music, nothing. We paddled together, we ate together, we did pretty much everything together. The only reason I was alone when I slept was because I had a one man tent.

 

Can I cope with that for twenty five days?

 

I don't know.

 

Presently, I need my own space. Funnily enough, the raft guide understands this perfectly. It isn't that I don't like people, it's that I either don't want them around all the time or can't have them around all of the time. I'm not by any means shy in a social situation with friends, but there are times when I don't want to talk, I just want to sit in the background and listen. My home is just that, and my room is my sanctuary. I won't set foot into yours unless explicitly invited.

 

Most of the time me and the raft guide spent in the canoe together was spent quietly. Sometimes we would speak, sometimes canoes would convene and we would have a conversation and a laugh, and yet most of the time the only words were him guiding my paddling and an affirmative from me.

 

He got it. He understood.

 

There's maybe one other person I know who gets it.

 

She won't be doing much of this exped.

 

In fact, most of my time will be spent with people I know only on a superficial level even after three years spent on the same course.

 

I hold no illusions about my place here, I'm not a particularly popular person. In fact, I'm not particularly well-liked.

 

I can handle this. It's being liked that I'm ill-equipped to handle.

 

That isn't the issue though. The issue is that I am faced with twenty five days in which my only time alone will be in my sleeping bag, and maybe when I wander off somewhere for the toilet. The issue is that I don't have any way of explaining my need for a little solitary time to people who have no idea about my personal life and issues. The issue is that I know that right now I wouldn't be able to cope.

 

So what do I do to make this different a little over a month and a half down the line?

 

Honestly? Hell if I know. I'm not so sure it can be prepared for, it's probably just something I've made into more of an issue than it actually is.

 

The flipside of that is my physical condition.

 

That canoe exped hurt.

 

And the big exped is about 60% paddling. Sure, it takes the pressure off of my hips and legs, but it piles it onto my back and shoulder and arms. And funnily enough, it isn't structured in order to ensure muscle groups get a set of rest days between uses. This is possibly the most difficult question I have to ask myself. With the mental stuff, I know that, if the worst comes to the worst, I can find a way of coping or I can talk to someone in the group, give them a crash course in why I'm acting like a tool. But if I can't physically cope with the demands set on me then that's another story. The only fate that awaits me should I break out there is a mountain rescue helicopter.

 

I have a dodgy knee that plays up whenever I go out hiking for a day. It hated my last hillwaking exped.

 

​I have ligament damage in my shoulder that seems to exacerbated by just about everything.

 

These are the top two pressing concerns alongside general fitness and keeping up with the pack. Given that it will be in summer(ish) time then there probably won't be much call to worry about my tendency towards hypothermia, nothing that a few additional layers alongside the spare layers won't fix. Unless I capsize. Then I'm probably screwed.

 

 

I don't know.

 

I think I'm just creating more problems and doubts for myself because I don't have anyone to talk things through with. The house is empty, the majority of the student population has gone home for the holidays, and I'm alone.

 

Not much fun, this alone business.

 

So to take my mind off it I'll most likely spend my time outside (alone) or watching things on Netflix (alone). This I know I can cope with though. I have an essay to focus on, a research project to focus on. I get happy when no one is around because I can turn my music up and sing along when the mood takes me. I can use the entire kitchen to cook and not worry about getting in anyone's way or running out of free rings on the hob.

 

Little things, but all good coping methods.

 

Basically, distract myself as much as possible and hope that I don't notice that I feel like crap.

 

 

 

As far as actual exercise goes, I'm not setting down any definite plans as of yet, but I've got a better idea of which direction to head in. Namely, upper body. Apparently my legs are amazing things that seem able to take on anything but kneeling down (seriously, that shit hurts and renders my circulation useless in about thirty seconds), yet my upper body is having a hard time catching up with that. In a way it works well with what I'm doing just now, but while these things are all well and good, I kind of need to inject some endurance training in there.

 

I think it means I'm going to have to get my kayak out at some point.

 

First, however, I need to find someone willing to go out with me, at least until I can reassure myself that I'm not a horrific paddler and I know I'll be able to get myself out of trouble.

 

Until then I have no idea, short of sitting on a chair and paddling in imaginary water for six hours.

 

...might have to try that, but maybe not for six hours. Half an hour sounds like a good start. It would give me a safe environment to practise a few more complicated strokes as well. Not so sure I want to do a high brace for the first time in six months or so in a sea loch. I reckon I'll give it a go and see where it gets me. Let's face it, not as if I'll have much else to do with my Sunday! That said, I suspect when I actually sit down to do it, my landlord will walk in unannounced...

 

Better that than some of the yoga I've been doing, I suppose!

 

If it doesn't kill me, it'll be something to add to my workouts in general, building the time up steadily as I go. Obviously it would be impractical to sit in a chair and pretend to paddle for six hours straight, but if I can get two hours twice a week or so then I'd be happy. It would be something, at least. And maybe when everyone gets back I can persuade someone to come paddler on real water with me. Maybe the raft guide would be game for it. I know I can bribe him with steak...

 

 

I doubt there will be another entry in here for a few days at least, though you never know with these things.

[iatetheyeti]

 

Boom.

 

End of challenge.

 

Now what?

 

 

Gotta say, I'm feeling pretty damned good. This challenge was not my most physically successful one, in fact, I kept it pretty mild. Unless we're talking yoga, because I have to say, I kind of dove head first into that one thanks to the beer yoga PVP. Got myself into some interesting situations with it, learned some shiny new poses that I will continue to work on, and had an excuse to drink alcohol. Not that I ever need one of those...

 

A couple of my favourites from the PVP:

 

 

Drunk hug. I can't remember what this is really called for the life of me, but I know I renamed it drunk hug. I mean, look at it.

 

I love it.

 

 

 

A variation of the little thunderbolt pose. That one was a bitch, and it took so many tried to get even that far, but it was definitely one of my better moments.

 

And a little outwith the PVP but still yoga-relevant, my other achievement:

 

 

The camel pose.

 

Ouch.

 

So where to next for my somewhat erratic yoga journey?

 

Arm balances.

 

Of course.

 

I've been working away at the pendant pose for a long time now, and I've never been all that successful with it. I have, however, enjoyed the challenge of attempting to do it, and I've always come away happy whenever I've gotten more than a second or two of actually balancing. So definitely much more yoga on the horizon. It might well keep me sane(ish) in the run up to this ridiculous monster exped.

 

 

So now I've got to figure out what I'm doing in the five weeks before this exped, and, most importantly, make a final decision on the exped itself.

 

Basically, I'm gonna have some fun. I'm still going to take part in the upcoming challenge, though I'll only be doing about four weeks of it before taking off into the wilderness. So the fun will be split into four rough areas.

• Diet: Ensure I consume enough calories per day, and that they're mostly the good stuff.
• Bodyweight: Does what it says on the tin. Includes yoga.
• Outdoor playground: Mostly hiking, biking, paddling, and climbing. Also a little bit of parkour, because why not?
• Happy headspace: Sleep quality, mood and stress management, that sort of thing.

I gave up on the idea of structured training after finishing this challenge. Yeah, having some kind of guideline is good, but I work best when I've got almost maximum flexibility. Basically, if it doesn't rain, go outside. If it rains, do something you need to do inside. Like that. The dietary thing is built on what I noticed over the past six weeks. Most days I'm consuming what I'd judge to be a decent amount of calories, but there were more than a few where I had an alarmingly low consumption rate. This needs to be fixed before the exped, I can't be below a certain count on that because it'd be outright dangerous.

 

Luckily I've still got some time to sort things.

 

 

Since the challenge doesn't start until next week and I've got used to doing almost daily posts, I'm going to blather away in here for the time being. Maybe it'll form some kind of plan, and maybe it won't.

[iatetheyeti]

I tried something new with my workout today. Or rather, newish. Either way, it worked and now ouch. I could most definitely feel it in my legs from the moment I stopped, and I know that I'll feel it elsewhere tomorrow.

 

I came across a supposed "world's most efficient workout" on Stumbleupon, and I thought it looked pretty good so I gave it go. Set the timer for ten minutes, then did five reps of the following in circuits:

• Inverted row
• Prisoner squat
• Push up
• Lunges
• Inverted row with elevated feet
• Goblet squat
• Isometric push up
• Isometric inverted row with elevated feet
• Isometric goblet squat

 

It did call for explosive push ups, but my efforts were laughable. I can do one with ok form, three following with shite form, and then pathetic little hops that just hurt. So I did it with normal push ups instead. And the description given for the isometric exercises was to hold for three seconds at the top or bottom of the movement, depending on which one it was, for three seconds.

 

In the ten minutes I managed to circuits and even then the last set of rows and squats were poor form with shaky, shaky limbs.

 

So I'm going to keep it.

 

I'll do a bit of tweaking over the next few days, see if I can't get it into challenge shape. I reckon part of the BW goal would be two complete circuits within ten minutes, with perfect form, would do just nicely. Heh, nice to see something is coming together, even if I don't have many ideas right now.

 

Food-wise, things are improving steadily. I'm having less sugar cravings, less junkfood cravings (and no actual junk food for a while now), and I've managed to pack in quite a few healthy calories today. I've found an amazing lunch dish, one that never fails to get my mouth watering. One chicken breast, one handful of green beans, three reasonably sized mushrooms, and a lovely Moroccan spice blend that's been hiding in my cupboards for a while. Takes ten minutes to make, if that.

 

...and thanks to the wonder of supermarket reduced sections, I even had real strawberries to add to my recovery drink today.

 

Basically, all is well, I'm feeling physically good, and I have confidence that things will continue to improve on the mental side as well.

[iatetheyeti]

So I’m sitting on my sofa instead of summiting the Ben or cycling to Kinlochleven like I was supposed to be. Essentially, and unsurprisingly, I fucked up pretty badly yesterday.

 

I’d managed to get permission to do the full week on Monday, although it was agreed that I’d stick to routes where an instructor/staff/whoever was present so they could keep an eye on me. Understandable, considering the circumstances. And then yesterday happened.

 

We were due to give our expedition presentation. Now, I usually get nervous about these things because giving talks and the like is so far outside my comfort zone I can’t even laugh about it most of the time. Yesterday was worse. I’d had a bit of a panic attack in the early hours of Monday morning (got to love waking up at 4am unable to breathe because you’ve had the most ridiculous dream about your future…), and that ended up with me in the bathroom vomiting for all it was worth. Not usually something that happens to me after a panic attack. After that I hadn’t actually been able to keep anything solid down, but given my lack of any other symptoms of physical illness I decided it was stress and carried on like usual.

 

I guess maybe if I’d done something different, though I’m not sure what, I’d be out there today.

 

I managed to hold it together for the photo shoot, something that I didn’t know was happening and my anxiety decided it didn’t like.

 

And yet apparently running out midway through your own part of the presentation to throw up doesn’t really convince people that you’re medically fit for doing an expedition.

 

In short, I’ve had my leaving date pushed back to Saturday and I’ll only be doing five days in total, all of which will be spent in a sea kayak. While I’m glad that I can still do some of it, I’m really quite pissed off that I can’t do more. It’s probably stupid to feel like I’ve let myself down when so many of the circumstances that led to this have been ones beyond my control, but I do. It’s been so frustrating to be a part of this cycle where I get excited about what I’m about to do, disappointed when that changes, then get excited all over again when a new plan pops up to replace it, only to be pushed right back to disappointment when it inevitably changes for the worse.

 

I’d planned to do the full expedition, then got invited to my cousin’s wedding, meaning the last week would be impossible.

 

That was fine.

 

I’d planned to do the rest of it, then the qualification cap got put on the majority of the kayaking routes and I didn’t have those qualifications or the experiences.

 

That was less fine.

 

I’d planned to do the first week, apparently only allowed to do the kayaking because I’d spoken to our most experienced sea kayaker (student and five star leader) and he said he’d be more than happy for me to go along as well.

 

And then came my own little mess up.

 

Those haven’t been the only problems by far, the whole thing has been a planning disaster from the beginning. Kind of like the rest of the university, really, so I can’t say surprise is among the things that I’m feeling right now.

 

It just feels like so much shit has piled up and gone wrong recently, and I honestly don’t know how much more I can cope with if things continue the same way. Every time there’s a little high point, a lift in mood, or anything positive, there’s always something waiting around the corner. Between this, the fiasco with my end of year assignments and the exam, the usual family crap, and people just turning plain weird on me… I don’t know. I can’t figure most of it out, and I suspect most of it has come about as a result of my own failures in general.

 

The sooner it’s over, the better.

 

At this point, I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to the kayaking or dreading it. I know I’m dreading what’s coming after it, going back to live with my parents, even for a short while, is probably the last thing I need when I’m like this. I’m trying to put a good spin on it, I’ll see my brother, I’ll see everyone at this wedding, and after maybe two weeks or so I’ll be coming back up here for the mountain biking world cup and that’s been something I’ve been looking forward to for months.

 

So for the next couple of days I’ll spend time sorting out what crap I’ve got left in this house, figuring out what I can sell and what can just be ditched, trying not too think too much about anything, because somehow that shit always seems to get me into trouble.

[iatetheyeti]

...so this fell out of use quite a bit.

 

The past few months have been up and down for me in just about every way, and I have no idea whether or not it'll settle down now that I'm back living in the Highlands again. It might. It might not. It might do something else entirely. Either way, I've let a lot of things slip that I shouldn't have, resulting in a couple of wake up calls, one vaguely humorous, one unpleasant.

 

For starters, I mowed a lawn for the first time ever (at least, I don't remember ever doing it before, but who knows? My memory is crap). Verdict from K was that the lawn looked 'prime' and that I could take over mowing duties from him for the foreseeable future (dude separated his shoulder recently). Now, our front garden is pretty small, and a good portion of it is a short, steepish slope. The lawnmower is also fairly heavy. I managed to do the lawn without stopping, but I was struggling to get it back up the hill, and at the end I had to stop and regain my breath.

 

This is not good.

 

Now, due to a fairly unpleasant happening earlier in the year I've been on a light work/physio kind of routine. While this has helped my wrists and shoulder, it hasnt done anywhere else any favours.

 

Time to change it up, I think.

 

I'm back on the interesting coast, so walking shouldn't be a bother (I may also run. Shock. Horror...), and my bike is fully functional for the first time in over a year. So I have no excuses on that front. Might have to ease back in as far as weights are concerned, but I can live with that if I'm tiring myself out in other ways. At some point I need to comb through everything I have written down/typed up and figure what has worked best for me and how I can utilise it now in order to whip myself back into something resembling a physically fit human being.

 

I do have a plan on my Google Drive somewhere, just need to find it...

 

As for the other wake-up call, that was more on the mental side of things than the physical.

 

Basically, new housemates = severe anxiety increase.

 

I've got three former housemates sticking around (K, who isn't my biggest fan, L, who is indifferent to just about everything, and A, who is amazing), and next week the two newbies are coming in. I will be the only female in a house of young men. L is twenty one, but the others are teenagers and I suspect the new two will be really young as well.

 

I couldn't put a finger on a definite reason why the idea of new people prodded the anxiety demons awake, but if I had to take a guess it would be something to do with the events of this summer. Living with the parents was far from ideal, to say the least, which never helps things. My younger brother is in counselling (and being tested for Aspergers, which is stressing him out, which is stressing me out because I'm the one he talks to about it all). My older brother (so weird saying that, so very, very weird), the one who popped up out of nowhere back in May, told me last week that I am in fact an aunt.

 

I can count three occasions on which I was able to talk to someone about it properly, two of which fall into the last time I visited Fort William during the summer, one of which was last week (out for a meal with the extended family, lots of alcohol going around, stuff happens).

 

It helped, but it didn't help, if that makes any sense.

 

Unresolved issues are fun, right?

 

Anyway... I'm not sure what can be done about that, but I have to keep on trying to function like a normal person. I don't want to risk slipping down any further.

 

Heh, guess that means this log needs to become fully functional again. And I need to be far stricter with myself. So now that I've got all of that blather out of my system, I reckon I'll go away, cook some dinner, figure out a plan of action, and come back here tomorrow to lay it all out.

 

Then there will be no escaping.

[AshPS]

Sounds like one of these is in order my friend.

 

Glad to have you back Yeti. 

 

Prepared to hear what you've put together! 

[iatetheyeti]

Thanks Ash

 

I'm really hoping that getting a proper game plan means I'll actually be able to get my head back in said game, and hey, maybe then it'll all get a little easier.

[Muscle Professor]

F@#$ing awesome posts! You have tons of great info and inspiration in here. I will be stopping by to follow your posts.

[iatetheyeti]

Cheers mate Always good to know someone is finding something good in here!

[Muscle Professor]

Im surprised that their are not more people following this forum. I can see you take time and put a lot of thought into your posts.

[iatetheyeti]

Thank you. Honestly, half of the time I'm not even sure I'm making sense when I put these things together!

 

And I think I just have a talent for flying under the radar... 

[Muscle Professor]

Like radar from M.A.S.H. lol. your posts made plenty of sense and you come a crossed as a very passionate person to me.