Before & After & Inbetween

Completing your doctorate is good for your career, but sadly not so much for your shape. To correct the physical result of my degree, I started doing body weight exercises regularly since last summer (thirty minutes on four days a week). By now I can sum up the results:

on the plus side:

1. my scale shows approx. 10 kg less (yay!)
2. I can run up the stairs up to the 3rd floor without getting out of breath (never could that before, so - wow!)
3. I actually manage pull-ups instead of "hanging limp like a dead pig"s (double-wow!)
4. my back aches are gone
5. my knee aches are gone (and I haven't stumbled or lost my balance anytime since last Autumn)
6. I've got a posture that (a) tempted my physician to compliments and (b) gets people in the supermarket to stay the step back required not to bump into me, my bags, or the produce I'm examining without me having to growl (wow-yay-finally!)

on the down side:

1. I learned that sore muscles can hurt like hell even when you don't move!
2. because my upper body circumference changed, I have to replace my blouses a size larger (whine for the money)
3. because waist and thigh circumferences changed, I have to replace my trousers a size smaller (whine for the money)
4. I have yet to find the courage to try on the (expensive) graduation suit and see if a good tailor can salvage it!

Overall, a thumbs up. I've finally found exercises that (a) work, (b) require a manageable amount of time, and (c) don't bore me to death. I'm going to continue them. Next target: consecutive pull-ups instead of single ones.

If you want to see what I write for a living, here's my latest research article (free abstract). You'll need a subscription (or access through a library or university network) for the full text. However, be warned: there's a distinct lack of talkative trees and explicit scenes in it! ;-)

Thanks to solo I'm now the proud owner of akk @ Dreamwidth, which I'm going to use as a full-fledged mirror to akk @ IJ. :)

They are currently in closed beta and you need an invite code to open an account of your own, but their implementation of open-id (you can just use your livejournal account for it and they even allow your open-id account up to 6 icons!) makes "foreign commenting" really easy. I also like the option of anonymous commenting with a captcha, in case of spam. That's better than just blocking ano-coms.

I used their nifty import feature to salvage all the comments left to my stories on Livejournal.
However, importing those from IJ didn't work (yet). But that's a known bug and I hope I can copy the IJ comments later on, once that one's sorted out.

I'm certainly curious about how this specific electric sheep turns out!

I felt rather down on New Years Eve. A lot of things I care not to repeat made 2009 a rather bleak prospect.
Today it snowed, covering all the dirt from the fireworks and I spotted first a kingfisher and later a grey heron along the flood pools.
It was the first time I saw a kingfisher in the wild and he traced my path for over fifteen minutes.
Grey herons aren't that uncommon around here, but to see one less than twenty meters away was special.

Well done, 2009. I'm impressed.
When least I expected it, you brought out the beauty!

( Wikipedia pictures of a kingfisher and a grey heron behind this cut )

wildilocks created a Wikipedia page comparing the various Livejournal code sites out there.

It's interesting to me that after LJ itself, IJ has the highest updated-in-the-last-24-hours rate despite being only on rank 6 in the total user count [site watched 26.3.2008; data from 23.3.2008]. :)

I just realized that I already had to tell no less than five people about how my Christmas went.
Since I am about to do copy & paste for it, I might as well just blog and be done with it.

( Christmas Spirit Kickaroo )