Well I’m back at work after a week of staycation. I could definitely get used to being unemployed and can definitely see the allure. At least for a little while I guess. We didn’t do all that much on my time off. Jess and I went to the Henry Doorly Zoo last Wednesday. I haven’t gone since I was a little kid, over 25 years or so ago so I had no idea what was even there. It was pretty neat but the middle of Winter isn’t the greatest time of year to go to the zoo. I bet we were one of about 10-15 people in the entire zoo that day. The inside stuff was pretty cool but I would say that the better part of it was basically closed because the animals were put away somewhere. I thought the best part was when were trying to take a picture with a silverback gorilla and he ran and all of a sudden he smashed the glass with his fist and Jessica screamed. The jungle was pretty neat as well even if it took a little while after walking in before my glasses kept fogging over and I could see. I liked how you could walk through the jungle areas and go right up to little monkeys and stuff. I definitely think it’s worth a visit again when it warms up.
Other than that not much happened. Jess and I went and had dinner in Waverly with some old friends of hers. I just met them but it was a pretty good time and a pretty good dinner. I need to make more of an attempt to get out there and do more stuff like that because if I’m left to my own devices I can really be a recluse hermit and I kind of lose touch with people after a while.
The marathon training was going pretty well until midway through last week when I broke my 4 week streak of doing all my training. I’ve got to get back at it this morning after work in the gym to get my mileage in. I’m starting to doubt whether I really want to do the training to do the full marathon because of how much time it takes and how I always end up in so much pain. I still want to do at least one full marathon but my max seems to be more around the half marathon range. Jess is going to do the half when I do the full. Depending on some other things we might run it in Pittsburgh because her sister is going to run the half there but that is still undecided.
Jessica had an interview with the university a couple weeks ago. She thought that she didn’t get it but now it turns out that she’s still in the running. I guess there are so many people involved in the decision that it’s like molasses in Winter to make a decision. I’m crossing my fingers. The pay isn’t that great but there’s benefits as well as free school that comes with it so she could get the Natural Resources degree that a lot of places are looking for so she could get a job later on that she really wants.
I better get back to my school work. I’m not doing well in one of the classes so I need to buckle down a little. I read about a technique on the internet where you set a timer for like 15 or 20 minutes and really buckle down during that time and then when the time is up mess around for 15 or 20 minutes or so. During an 8 hour period I get a good 4 hours of good work in and don’t burn out like trying to study for 4 hours straight would. It works well when I’m working the desk at work when there’s a lot of dead time but I really need to set up a quiet study area at home. There’s just too much noise and distraction sometimes there.