biscottes!

No running? …I managed to hurt my foot. Plantar fasciitis. It’s ok, I will try again when I am back from China in September (!!). I can’t risk not being able to walk as I have a lot of hiking ahead of me.

In preparation for my trip, I tried to think of FODMAP-friendly stuff I could take with me. I wisely cut off my internet time-wasting websites for 24 hours this morning before I left the house, which meant when I got home at 8pm this evening, I couldn’t default to my slumped-in-front-of-my-laptop default (I use a Mac program called Self-Control, where you can set a blacklist of websites and then tell it how long you’re not allowed to access them for. It’s a life saver when working on essays).

So this evening, in the 2.5 hours I’ve been home, I:
– Washed and hung out laundry
– Made myself quesadillas for dinner
– Worked through 3 huge piles of washing up (some of it from the weekend-before-last)
– Baked FODMAP-friendly banana chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for my trip (I am not even going to pretend that they will last me longer than the flight, but that’s already a huge deal)
– Made biscottes (which the internet informs me are generally known as “Zwieback”” by English-speakers?). I was trying to think how I could transport low-FODMAPS bread to Guizhou (which is hot and humid) without it immediately going mouldy. I came up with the idea of turning a loaf of my favourite Alpine Sour Rye bread into biscottes, which as long as they’re sealed in an airtight box, should be ok. Dry rusks may not sound terribly appealing but they’ll be most welcome if my stomach gets upset from too many FODMAPs.

In case anyone ever wondered about how to make biscottes — leave your bread out for about 24 hours so it can dry out as much as possible first, then put them in the oven at 150 C for an hour (I’m tempted to put “or two” as I saw online to put them in for 1.5 hours, or 100 C for 3 hours — but I put mine in for an hour and they were perfect, if somewhat brown for the lower rack).

day 2 down, a hundred more to go

Today I did Chinese practice with Rinny for 5 hours, working on reading content from a contract dispute. I am now 80x better at reading contracts in Chinese. Did you know that “该” in a contract has nothing to do with 应该 but in fact is the formal way of saying 这? This crucial fact has been lacking from my knowledge base for YEARS and caused much confusion whenever a contract was dumped in front of me. [version for non-Chinese readers: “gai” is a character most habitually found as part of “yinggai”, which means “must”. But when written on its own in a more formal piece of writing, it means “this”. You can imagine how confused I was for a long time reading things that appeared to start with “MUST AGREEMENT IS BETWEEN PARTY AND PARTY B”.]

After some long-distance phone cajoling by James, I then changed and went for a “run”. “Recover-from-injury-physio-run-number-2” involved lots of charging up and down around trees. I really feel like an idiot in the park; I basically run like a dog would, with no apparent direction or purpose, and stop and start at what must appear completely arbitrary intervals.

Warm up: 5min
3x [90s walk, 45s run, 2min walk, 45s run]
Cool down: 10min
Spiky ball massage.

I might go again tomorrow, it was very pleasant… I got a little stitch at one point, which part of me was rather happy about, because that meant I am learning to breathe as I run again.

i did it!

I woke up an hour before my alarm, and it was already daylight, so with all my running gear so carefully prepared the night before, I gracefully stepped into my running shoes and was off!

(Once more, my apologies to those who would love to hear about my travels and couldn’t care less about my pathetic running)

Day 01:
5 min warm-up walk
[2 min walk + 30 sec run] x 6
10 min cool-down walk
followed by spiky massage ball on my lower back and deep glutes, and foam roller on my calves and shins.

And yes, it was wonderful. I have to keep this going.

motivationals

A long, long time ago, when I still lived in Fitzroy St, Fitzroy, and had no internet access other than my work BlackBerry Curve (and before that, my fiddly wee BlackBerry Pearl), I was trying to become a runner. James was at that time my platonic running buddy, and when he was not there to motivate me to run, I used to wake up in the morning and read running blogs on my BlackBerry, and reading about people’s runs made me want to leap up and get out there.

Fast forward 6 years and I have not been able to run for over half of that time. I still read running blogs, and belong to no fewer than 6 running groups on Facebook. But I think of myself as “used to be a runner”.

I was cleared to start running again a few weeks ago. Have I run yet? No. I am too tired, too busy, too unfit (yep that is one of my excuses). It’s not the right time, due to my job just starting and it’s winter and I’m travelling a lot, and also I’m only supposed to run on unmade tracks, not on pavement, and… The truth is I am not motivated.

And then tonight I was looking for something on my blog and hit a few running posts in a row. I suddenly remembered the joy and exhilaration. I need to get back out there… it’s 10pm now, but tomorrow morning, no excuses. I am writing it here so I don’t disappoint myself: Tomorrow morning, before work, I am going to Fitzroy Gardens to start my physio’s pathetic run-walk program (walk 2 minutes run 30 seconds woohooooo!)

doing things for me

My Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday went by so fast. I worked a lot and then went home and laid on the floor and ate and internetted.

But yesterday I did spend an hour colour-matching whilst listening to podcasts. Colour-matching is a skill that is quite valuable in art conservation, and I was advised by a conservator I met at the Plastics course to get some paint chips and some basic acrylics, and just practice getting my eye in, since I’m about to spend 6 months nowhere near a conservation lab. I thought this was brilliant advice as it’s quite affordable and easy to do at home.

I looked forward to getting into this for days and days; I ordered the paints online as a birthday gift to myself — nothing but the best for Rosie, I got Golden heavy acrylics in 8 colours (two of which are black and white, so the challenge is working from your very standard red, yellow, green, blue, brown and ochre). I found a cheap set of white porcelain dishes at the op-shop, for mixing my colours. I ordered Resene paint chips from New Zealand (and they are beautiful!). I bought paintbrushes and I even found this lovely wooden tray at the op-shop, for $5, which proudly proclaims itself as “Langva, Made in Denmark, Water Wine Spirit and Heat Proof”, so I could easily move my painting gear around in my tiny cramped flat.

Finally the day came where I could collect my paints, take them home and begin! I finished work at 7pm so I’m pretty proud of myself for giving it a go when I got home (AND doing laundry, worr check me out).

It was really fun, for an hour, but then the reality of the artificial lighting under my desk lamp made me grumpy. You can get a colour to match just great under yellow light, but of course in white light it will look ridiculous.

I came home this evening and looked at the paints and was just too tired to bother. I hope that when work relents a little, and summer approaches, I will feel more enthusiastic. As it is, I’m heading to Guizhou in 4 days — Guizhou being the land of this…

— and climbing up this mountain

to reach this ruined fort

Sorry if the resolution is terrible, I’m updating from the “new” WordPress page instead of my usual old-fashioned one and I can’t check (really: can’t be bothered). Anyway, so that is part of my work these days, and I’m jolly excited about it, but I haven’t got much energy to do things for me. Must try harder.

Tomorrow maybe, I’ll succeed in doing something that isn’t work related!

the things i do for me

In the two+ months since I last updated (since Sydney) I:
– Interviewed and was selected for an amazing job
– Travelled to Hong Kong with said job
– Came back to Melbourne to cram for my next uni subject
– Travelled to the far-north-eastern-most point of Arnhem Land and spent a week in an Aboriginal arts centre
– Came back to Melbourne and did a course in conservation of plastics at Melbourne Museum
– Decorated my house in an attempt at procrastinating from uni assignments
– Thrashed out my assignments on Aboriginal art and finished uni for 2015 (much more to come in 2016 though)
– Started my new job in earnest.

But whilst all of the above would make fascinating blog posts, complete with interesting and/or beautiful photos and maybe even some meaningful reflections on art and culture…

…I’m posting now because I am needing to do the whole “today I did this for me” thing again to help me stay positive as I adapt to working very-much-full-time again and try not to lapse back into fatigue. Not very interesting for other people but very much a coping strategy for me!

SO this weekend:
– I got up early on Saturday and cleaned and tidied my house, ran down to Coles to pick up the groceries I pre-ordered online to avoid buying anything that wasn’t FODMAP-friendly (this strategy works wonders for me)
– Met with my new Chinese friend Rinny to smash out 6 (yes SIX) hours of Chinese conversation practice (the new job requires me to be able to talk about archaeology and Chinese history and UNESCO with fluency — isn’t that marvellous?)
– Watched 10 Things I Hate About You
– Read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (a wonderful hommage to The Jungle Book!)
– Failed to get to Bikram on Sunday morning, due to staying up late reading the above (I have lapsed in my Bikram practice and been maybe twice in three weeks, due to intermittent fatigue + working again being a bit much to combine, but I’m confident I’ll be back soon).
– Met my friend Kerry to see Trainwreck at the cinema (loved it)
– Came home and napped (I’ve been told to schedule naps in the day and not feel bad about it, and you know what, it’s so liberating!)
– Cooked low-FODMAPs coq au vin and ragu for the week’s lunches (plus a ton of white rice and hard-boiled eggs) (and can I just say that coq au vin is out of this world delicious for a low-FODMAPs recipe A+++).

Now it’s 9:30pm and time to wind things up for bed. Goals for the week:

– No panicking
– Practice Chinese every night (and not lazy writing or reading, proper speaking and listening!)
– Whether you think you can, or you think can’t, you’re right… so Rosie, know that you can.
– Maybe squeeze in a Bikram class.