I first want to acknowledge and apologize for my lack of posts in the last week or so. I know as readers you expect there to be something new to read with relative regularity and frequency. My bad.
I could make some excuses and try to convince you that they were or are legitimate. They would still be only excuses.
Instead, I thought I would fill you in on a little of my world as of late. This is by no means as crazy as many others I know, this is just a little busy.
I signed up to participate in a massive experiment. Stanford School of Engineering is offering an Introduction to AI class online for free. I, along with 175,000 others have signed up to take this course. After I signed up for it I found out that they are also offering an Introduction to Databases class. As I currently work with databases for my regular job I thought this would be a good class to take and I would be able to work on it at work. Just to help you understand the massiveness of what I signed up for, there is one more class being offered that I didn’t sign up for. The three classes together constitute a full-time Stanford quality Masters load. I work full-time and do a half a dozen other things. Now we’re getting into the realm of a little bit nuts.
Along with that, my friends’ band has had a few public opportunities that out of support I felt compelled to attend, and they were all fun. There was also the monthly Blues Jam in there. I’ll post some pictures from last Friday’s band performance soon.
I’m also trying to get another blog off the ground and I have several illustrations I need to do.
To keep me sane through all this and to help me get through some of the more tedious reading and lectures, I try to exercise regularly. And now we get to the one thing that could derail everything.
I was exercising a couple of weeks ago, I had done my cardio and was working on some weight bearing exercises as well as some exercises for the core. In the process of doing one of these exercises I managed to pull something. It hurt right then but didn’t continue to manifest itself until a day or two later when prolonged use of one of the cardio machines resulted in me feeling pain. This went into the next couple of days and I tried to adjust my workout to something lighter and more along the active recovery line.
Though I was tired, I thought I was doing well and I might have been until just a few days ago when I attempted a fitness assessment. For not being at full capacity, I was pleased with the results of the test. I was not, however pleased that I was again feeling pain. Yet I still tried to exercise on Monday. That didn’t go as planned and I decided an extra day of rest would be good. I’m thinking I’m on the right track here, right up to where a muscle cramped and knotted so bad I wasn’t sure it was going to move again without great agony.
Now the injury is bad enough and I have sought additional diagnosis and support for it. What is most irritating and frustrating is some of the side effects. These aren’t the side effects of the other muscles compensating, these are the side effects of how exhausting pain can be. By the time I got to my desk at work after the muscle knotting up on me on my way to my car, I was exhausted. Totally ready for a nap. It was a 15 minute drive. The other thing I am noticing is how it impairs my ability to think. What is up with that? Its my body that’s messed up, not my brain it should be able to keep up. I have no doubt this has to do with the pain. It’s so exhausting that there is just not enough energy to keep the brain processing at it’s optimal level.
So that has been my world for the last couple of weeks. I will try to do better and get back on track with posting more regularly. Look for pictures of Horsefly and Big Idea soon.