An improved Sunday

[morleyroarly]

I woke up feeling unmotivated and frustrated about my relentless push towards next Saturday's EIT exam. After a brief breakfast (and some exciting cat drama involving a window, a cat's tail, sharp claws, lots of yowling, and eventual forgiveness) I wandered up to the commercial cluster at Forbes & Murray for a caramel latte and some studying. I made a small amount of progress, primarily on shear & moment diagrams and matrix determinant expansion by cofactors.

I returned to the house feeling decidedly disconnected. I've been studying like crazy these past few weeks/months, and it's really wearing me down. Spending multiple days studying in the cafe has left me feeling blank and extremely consumerist - it seems my only way of interacting with Pittsburgh is through buying things. Pooh.

I was whining via IM with mercurialcirce and she was splendid enough to hook up a video/audio chat with a whole host of friends. Everyone was at microgravity and nicoletbns' lovely loft for a sleepover and I was able to live vicariously through the video camera, if only for a little while. THANK YOU to everyone who said hi, it really helped me feel more connected to you guys! I am SO looking forward to returning to San Francisco so I can host my own sleepovers :)

After the sleepover chat and a brief phone call from darling headlouse, I decided to get off my cranky ass and go climbing. Our local gym, the rather uncreatively-namedthe climbing wall, is a lovely little space with a nice array of bouldering problems. It's a lot more nook'd-n-crannie'd than the gyms I've used in San Francisco and Los Angeles - there's a whole partially-hidden inner room accessed by a narrow crack in the wall or by a 3' high tunnel (with routes!), an overhang room, and a few nice arches. I'm solidly back to V1/V2 climbing after only two nights at the gym, and I look forward to getting back to V4/V5 climbing this winter. The endorphin rush feels lovely, and the muscle burn ain't so bad either!

The gym is only 1.8 miles from home, and to top it all off, it's in the same building as the East End Food Co-Op, the slightly- smaller Pittsburgh equivalent of Rainbow Grocery. Tonight I treated myself to organic apple cider, two bars of chocolate, pear facial soap, whole grain hot breakfast cereal, organic pears, white tea pomegranate soda, and apricot-applesauce. Yum!

And now, time for a home-cooked meal of Indian food, courtesy of my roommate Jeff. The day feels remarkably less bitter and cranky than it did at the outset, hooray!

Comments

[jennconspiracy.livejournal.com]

That does sound like you turned that day around -- it's usually worth it to get off your cranky @ss and at least try. Congrats on what sounds like a really fun day (that climbing gym sounds awesome)!

[rubin110.livejournal.com]

It was good showing you around N&M's place. Rather interesting asking you to let Eli know we were leaving. Heh.

[w3bn3st0.livejournal.com]

When you return to the Freakapitol you'll have to drag me to a climbing gym and show me the ropes.