Rowan: A Completely Expected Journey

[Erick the Red]

reading Diamond Age and having all sorts of freaky thoughts about nanotechnology.  THE FUTURE AND STUFF.  

 

I knew I liked you.

 

Oh, and great job with all the other stuff.  Transitions are very tricky -- you can re-establish healthy habits, or break them.

[Jakkals]

Great first week.

 

Good luck on the job hunting. 

[rowan]

WEEK TWO IS ALMOST OVER.

 

And yes I disappeared for another few days, but that wasn't because I dropped the challenge - it was because I was all nervous about showing up here without a story chapter, even though I was spending all my time writing other things and also job applications.  So maybe I just wont stress about that.  Anyhow, here's the deal for Week 2:

 

Workouts: 3/3!  Yes! Go me!

 

Writing: 4/7.  Got kind of ill and lethargic for a bit, and also just having a hard time getting motivated to write this week.  I'm back on track though!

 

Budget/Money: I have applied to a bajillion jobs.  I was also pretty good with money, but there were two occasions where I ended up spending WAY MORE than I wanted or expected to, going out to dinner with friends who I hadn't seen in months.  Oh well.  I overdrew my account ONCE, and immediately fixed it.  I have one job interview scheduled for this week, and a check on the way that should see me through the month.  Grrr MUST BECOME EMPLOYED RIGHT NOW.

 

Eating: Pretty good!

Day 1: one english muffin

Day 2: -

Day 3: -

Day 4: -

Day 5: -

Day 6: four pieces sourdough toast, english muffin, two slices pizza, hamburger bun.

Day 7: -

 

So...good?  Good.  Again, I'll take it. Hoping to keep the steady pace going this week, and keep slugging away at this leveling up thing.  Feeling a little exhausted from stress, jobhunting, and trying to visit every single friend I have in New York in an effort to reestablish my social life.  Trying not to get sick.  Keeping my chin up.  Living the dream.  

[Big_Show]

Looks like a busy week, well done on your progress.  Good luck for the interview!

[Erick the Red]

Good job with the bread goal.  Five of seven days is good improvement.

[cavemom]

Rowan, you've had transitions, and a lot of stuff up in the air, and you're still going strong.  Still awesome, as always.

[Phayze]

Yeah, don't do the stressing thing. Nobody here is going to judge you for prioritizing money-seeking over story time.

Looking good! Week 3 is here, now kick it in the shins and make it call you mamma!

[rowan]

WOW!  EXPLOSION! 

 

I'm still here.  Posting has been pretty no bueno this time around, as some of you may have noticed, but I'm toiling away in my batcave, toeing the line and keeping my head down, and dayumm if it hasn't started to produce results.

 

I just finished my last workout of the week, and its GETTING EASIER. I already ramped it up for this last week, so right now my workout is two rounds of:

 

22 squats

11 knee pushups

22 lunges

12 dumbell rows (10 lb)

30 sec plank

40 jumping jacks

20 Russian Twists

 

I think its time to turn up the heat again.  I am so frikkin' proud of myself on this count - my calendar for the month of January is just COVERED in workout stickers, and hey guess what I broke down and measured myself today because my body is starting to FEEL different, and I have lost a whole frikkin inch on my waist.  WAT.  

 

Which brings me to my next thing of awesome.  One of the reasons that I noticed physical changes in myself is that I have been shopping for and trying on Real People Business Clothes, because I THINK I GOT A JOB!  Hooray!  The first interview I walked into involved the guy basically bursting out laughing, then leaning into the next room and telling the vice president of the company that they had to hire me, and if they didn't have a job for me they needed to create one.  Two interviews up the ladder happened in the next twenty four hours, and now I am waiting on a phone call regarding "next steps," which I think means I'm hired?  I think?  This is my first grown-up job where I'm not going to be in a restaurant, and I feel kind of silly and embarrassed about it but I am SO BEYOND STOKED to be a receptionist at a hip little company and be able to wear my own clothes and have lunch breaks and go to the bathroom whenever I want and SIT DOWN and maybe even read or do writing at my desk?  This sounds like a heaven beyond all conception, and added to that I'm going to have HEALTH INSURANCE and a SHORT COMMUTE and NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS OFF and A SET WORK SCHEDULE  and now I am going to go and melt into a pile of ecstatic protoplasm.  

 

Writing is going well too - I've been doing a daily blog that I'm happy about, and starting to make some real headway in novel revision.  Killing some darlings, but it feels good and its freeing up a lot of space in the narrative and solving a lot of problems.  And I'm also doing short story revisions for publication.  So, my writing brain has been on hyperdrive, and I LOVE IT.  That's the main reason why I haven't been around here too much - but I want to be here more!  A thrice weekly check in?  After each workout?  Mebbe.

 

Also I went to the Natural History museum and saw the Neil Degrasse Tyson planetarium show DARK UNIVERSE, and my brain exploded.  I also met Lucy and touched giant space rocks and saw DINOSAURS!

[cavemom]

It sounds like things are going amazing, and I'm really excited for you about the job. 

[ShadowLion]

WOOT FOR WORKOUT STICKERS AND WRITING AND NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM AND NEXT STEPS!

 

OH, AND DID I SAY "WOOT" YET?

 

WOOT!

[Jakkals]

And all of a sudden I wish I had your life.

 

And the museum, and the planetarium.

 

Good luck on the job.

[shaar]

HOLY CRAP SO MUCH AWESOME?!?! Inches lost and JOB and NDT planetarium fantasticness... total WIN!!! Good for you, celebrate your recent victories!!!!

[Erick the Red]

Great update, great fitness progress, fabulous work news.  I am so happy for you.

[Phayze]

All of that is seriously awesome, but my brain exploded at the mention of Neil, because I'm such a fanboy that I'd totally go to NYC for no better reason than to see this planetarium of which you speak. I need you stay budgeting for that...

Awesome work on all the grandiose greatness! You're a BEAST, and the city fears you. ^^

[Spark]

ARGH I AM SLOW TO FIND PEOPLE.

 

I love your challenges! Flour is hard to cut out of ye olde diet. >.<

[rowan]

Thanks guys!  Things are really looking up for me, even as I speak.  I am sitting here at my little Batcave desk, just having finished a workout, and afraid to take a shower because the job people said they would call today and 

 

NEVER MIND JUST GOT THE CALL MID-SENTENCE GUESS WHAT I'M HIRED! It's a little less than i was hoping to make, but they're starting me on monday and hopefully I'll be able to edge into a raise soon.  SO THERE.  Take that, life!  I got a JERB!

 

WHEW.  Ok, official celebration/relaxation starts NOW.  Here's the week 3 wrapup:

 

workouts: 3/3 YISSS

 

writing: 4/7 I'LL TAKE IT

 

money: F#$% IT I'M EMPLOYED!  Going to be living VERRRY LEAN until the first paycheck though. Very very lean.

 

eating:

 

day 1: -

day 2: -

day 3: slice french bread

day 4: one slice cheese pizza

day 5: -

day 6: tons of bread w/ pate, one slice pizza, half bag loacker wafer cookies

day 7: sandwich on 2 slice sourdough

 

cool? Cool!  It's those nights out on the town that really get me, and have me buying cookies on the way home.  Ugh.  tracking has been good, and next challenge I should be able to tackle sugar! 

[ShadowLion]

Woohoo! Happy Dance!

 

 

CONGRATULATIONS!

[Jakkals]

  Ok, official celebration/relaxation starts NOW.  

 

Congratulations!!!!

 

And Woot!!!

 

And Awesome!!!!

 

Have Fun!!! (after the paycheck of course)

[Erick the Red]

Congratulations on the job offer.  How far is the work location?  Are you going to be walking/riding/biking?

[Spark]

Yay Rowan! Congrats on the new job!

 

[rowan]

BOOM YES  GOOO ROWAN!  Thanks for the good wishes everyone, 

 

Mr. Red: While my new location is a sensible biking DISTANCE, and could feasibly be walked to in about 45 minutes (through central park no less!) I will be taking ye olde subway, as bike riding in midtown manhattan is basically being asked to get run over by a taxi, and you can't bike through central park because I don't know why that is.  So, probably when the weather gets nicer I'll be walking home after work through the lovely park, laughing at the apocalyptic masses forcing themselves through the meat grinder of the subway.  Seriously, taking the subway home from midtown at my old job used to give me regular panic attacks.  

 

Also also, I finally got that check for the money I was expecting, so now I can pay rent and live like a normal person until I get my first paycheck!  Woot!

 

Did my last workout of the week today - feeling excellent, up to three rounds of the regular circuit, and I added in some overhead dumbell presses.  I'm making a lot of progress very quickly in terms of strength, and I'm hoping to start adding reps and maybe even things like jump squats - I want to keep these circuits tight, explosive, and just at the edge of what I can do three rounds of.  

 

Also also also.  Last night I had a sort of weird moment of insanity where I ate a doughnut AND a chocolate bar AND a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Felt pretty ill after that one.  Craving bread and sugar...and everything else...

[Big_Show]

Just catching up - great news about the job, looks like life in NY is starting off well!

[Buff Brogan]

i finally found you!!!!

well, your thread at least. your "current challenge" in your signature had led me to believe you were only hanging out and watching this challenge....

 

now i get to finally catch up on what are to become of the heroine and owl

 

HELL YEAH!!! congrats on getting the job

 

awwww yeah 

[rowan]

heh, yeah, the heroine and the owl are kind of on hiatus right now due to writing overload - maybe I can scrounge up a few more updates before this challenge is up though - stranger things have happened.

 

Gotta say, it's amazing how quickly one's state of mind can spin around.  I had a great workout yesterday, and I went on a two mile run in the snow, and did a bunch of writing and generally felt great.  On the other hand, I've started binge-watching TV again, I worked through a bag of truffles in the last two days, and today I had my first day of training, which was very trial by fire.  I've never had a job that involved things like computers or telephones or paperwork before, and I kind of got pushed to the front lines, thrown under the bus, whatever.  then I got home and accepted my roommate's invitation to go for sushi, and there was two-for-one sake deals, and then on the way home she decided to buy us cheesecake, and then wanted to binge-watch more TV, and I just suddenly had this painfully clear vision of myself, sprawled on my couch in ill-fitting jeans, half drunk, stuffed to the gills with rice and chocolate, staring at a show I didn't particularly care about.

 

 All of a sudden, I was so, so angry.  Angry at myself, for making myself sick and slow.  Angry at myself because I felt weak.  Angry at my roommmate, because she has ceased struggling with her obesity, sedentary lifestyle, and TV addiction, and I wanted it to be her fault that I was letting myself go.  Like she had tricked me into eating a cheesecake the size of a hamburger, or threatened me into watching dumb TV when I should be writing, or cleaning, or learning, or training, or whatever.  I was angry because Bruce Wayne doesn't waste his life watching reruns of Top Chef, because Black Widow doesn't mindlessly shovel crap into her mouth, because the people I consider my heroes don't live this way.  I was angry at myself because I desperately wanted to blame it all on someone else.  I was angry because I'm carrying water weight and chocolate weight and sitting-on-my-ass weight, and I've never, ever in my life been able to get to a body fat percentage that I feel comfortable in.  I was angry at myself because I've lost strength, speed, stamina, I can barely speak Spanish anymore, I've never published a damn thing, and now I'm bending at the knee and becoming another grey person in a big grey tepid world.  

I got scared.  I was scared I would never make it.  I was scared that I was missing something, some part or circuit or chemical that meant I could never be the person I wanted to be.  I was scared that my writing was shit and no one would ever care about it except for me.  I was scared that I was going to wake up twenty years from now, just raise my head off up a mass-produced desk and wonder what the hell happened to me.  I was scared that all the work and dreaming and sweat and grit and hope and everything, all of it, was just nothing at all, and that this sad person was who I was always going to be, like a rubber band that stretches out of shape but always snaps back.

 

And I'm still scared.  It's not going away.  I thought it would go away, after a few hours, maybe if I hid in my room and tried to force myself to work, to strive, to be better, to rage against the grey.  It hasn't.  All i want to do is to turn on the TV and grab a bottle of wine and numb it all out.  All I want to do is punish myself and make things worse.  I know that it's not nearly as bad as it feels, and that this is just a passing shadow and tomorrow I'll be back on track, but christ right now it all feels like shit.

 

Tomorrow I will turn the fire hose on this shadow and figure out what's not working, what I need to change.  Tomorrow I'll be a scientist and a general and a hero and observe myself with clarity and compassion.  Tomorrow I'll sweat and lift and run and write, and call my friends and cook, tomorrow I'll look in the mirror and remember that twenty extra pounds of fat doesn't mean I'm weak.  Doing pushups on my knees doesn't mean I'm weak.  Missing a day of writing doesn't mean I'm weak.  

 

I may have not shed much fat this challenge, but I'm stronger.  I took a leap of faith across the continent and landed in a new job.  I have not missed a single workout.  I'm throwing myself into this class and learning my craft, pushing myself back into the forge over and over.  I forced myself to be brave and reach out to old friends.  I stayed here.   I went running in a snowstorm.  I can do this.  

[ShadowLion]

A weak person would not have written such a searingly honest post. A woman who was doomed to gray mediocrity would not have had the courage to look so unflinchingly at her actions and her fears and her failings.

If your writing was not clear and true and valuable it wouldn't have affected me as much as what you just wrote did.

Get back up tomorrow and kick ass, Ranger. You know how far you've come. You've got this.