I have not written a blog post in ages.
University life just kind of took over.
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| christmas dinner at lan's |
Since my last post, I had an amazing night
in London with Carla and Nicole in London. Got my results from essays and
coursework back. I think I am proud of my ethnography essay since it was on
Ebola, a topic that is very relevant at the moment and not many studies have
been done on the issue.
Apart from being super busy, I am enjoying
university very much (may be more the social aspect of it!) I had a slight
change of heart with my course. We are going more specific than the
introductory first term and that’s pretty great but I felt like I wanted to
learn more about the physical side.
I went through the whole process of
discussing a switch to EGID (BSc Environmental Geography and International
Development) the BA is not bad. I just felt may be I would benefit more taking
modules more on the environment side, seeing that I care a whole lot more about
the environment but still want the human aspect in it. Anyway, switching didn’t
went so well because I’m already half way through the year and missed some year
long module so the precondition for me to switch at the end of the year is :
getting good grades in the BA.
In the mean time, I’ve decided to master
ArcGIS and acquired some math skills. This involves taking two giant books out
of the library and many self-taught/computer lab sessions.
Joining the UEA Triathlon club is probably
one of the best choices I have made. It was tough at first. My first few weeks
with tri were just full of pain and mental breakdown. After a 2 hours swim
training, I literally broke down and cried in front of our coach because I was
so tired and disappointed of how slow I was. Since then, I’ve learnt to go at
my own pace and really doing the sport out of my own enjoyment. Positive
attitudes do help! I kept turning up to track, turbo, swim, circuit and the
occasional Park Run. Considering how much I hate running, I have improved quite
a lot.
Definitely think is down to the support of
having other people suffering with me! Emily has started joining me for a swim
and some training session which motivated me a lot more to turn up to things
even on days I felt like urrrgh, a slob!?
This term, we started off with a full 8
days of turbo. I did 7 of them and Mary went for 8. The best bit, of course,
was no way the constant pedaling indoor in humid sweat. We celebrated with a
Sufferfest social on Tuesday night the week after. It was hosted at #NTD03 and
I had a blast. There were around eight of us tri people and my flat mates. We
ended up playing all sorts of “Tri” drinking game, which involved a degree of
flexibility to pick up a carton box with your teeth. (I won :D , not alone
haha) Then it was just the case of freaking my flat mates out - 1,2,3, 10
pushups, 6,14 … In return, my tri friends freaked out about how nuts my flat
mates are! LCR was next and it was a fantastic night!
Emily is really my motivator at the moment.
Doing more swimming and turning up to training. Track sessions are often
difficult but they do help make me start running for the rest of the week.
Yesterday was probably the hardest track session I’ve done (felt like it anyway
=.=’’) We had to do 400m sprint, 200 jog and another 200 sprint. Now, normally,
I would say I gave it ago, as fast as I could… I cut down 2 seconds on my first
400m. Fought hard to keep going! By the third repeat I was getting out of
breath … The fourth was agonizing… but apparently, somehow I was literally
sprinting for 200m or so during my 400m, before crashing halfway. I mean I felt
like it was so slow and I had to stop but I came back and then people were
telling me how fast I was. Like what!?! I couldn’t breathe. Another 500m were
on the plate and gosh I had to keep running. With lots of encouragement I
pushed myself hard. My legs felt like it was going to fall off. The last lap
was absolute agony but I sufficed and pushed myself like mad on my last 200m.
Receiving some encouragements of how much I have improved from the coach and
everyone was definitely a bonus point! I think the improvement since my first
few tracks is finally showing. I’m quite pleased!
I went for a swim around 1.8k before coming
to track and then we had a film turbo, which lasted around 90 minutes. I am
quite done for the day now!
In a way, I am quite proud of myself for
trying to learn all this, on top of my main studies, training and having a job.
Hence, I am super busy at the moment. Some days I would feel great and some
days I would feel like the world is coming down on me. I think I am learning the
importance of rest, enjoyment of the things I do and having a balance fun time!
What I mean by this is limiting to just 2
days a week that I will go out to Tuesday @LCR and Saturday. As usual, I will
only drink so much that I can dance and sober up in the LCR before heading off
to bed for a good night sleep. Weekends are spent doing readings and lecture
notes. Any extra hours during the week should be doing the same thing. 5 hours
at least should be spent sitting down and working through ArcGIS. To make it
less boring, the shifts hour for my job would be scattered through out the day,
between my studies just so I don’t get so bored. Most importantly I need to
remember to get enough sleep!
Reading week is fast approaching. I need to really utilise this week to do some catch up on reading, start my essays and courseworks. Perhaps do more ArcGIS too.
