Stretched Thin

This hankering for a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's means only one thing - I'm extremely stressed out.

Is it the fact that I've gotten very little sleep in the last few days? Maybe, but I doubt that; I only give up sleep for things I truly love.

Is it the fact that I've had some experiments, including a big (and expensive) animal experiment, fail recently? Potentially, but like 90% of all experiments fail anyway, so it's hard to get attached to the notion that they work properly the first time.

Is it the fact that I've got mucho responsibilities with IV now? Doubt it - I love that stuff ... it's like crack to me.

Is it the fact that I'm trying to teach my undergrad to do stuff that I don't even know how to do or troubleshoot? Maybe, but there's something exciting about teaching on the fly. And I do have a great group of people around me to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

Is it the fact that my already lengthy to do list keeps growing longer daily? I don't know about that one; there's something hopeful about a long list of things to do - it means you have somewhere to go and some idea of how to get there.

Is it the fact that I've set myself up for this lofty goal of running the dish, and truly believe that my delusions of grandeur will come true? Again, I doubt it. The delusions of grandeur give me hope.

Is it the fact that I have too many things that I love doing on my plate? That's the answer. I care so much about each thing I'm invested in that I stress about doing things right and getting things done. I pour 120% of myself into things. You try the math - 120% of myself times a flobbity-gillion commitments makes no sense. I wish I had more than two settings - I wish I could pour 80% of myself into something, even 35% sometimes. I may not know much about myself, but I do know this - I'm either 120% in something, or I'm not in it at all.

I know a lot of other people feel this way too, so I feel kind of bad for complaining. But in a way, complaining is incredibly cathartic. When I started writing this post, I was convinced that everything was stressing me out. But when I spelled out every activity on my plate, I realized how much I enjoy each of them. Two and a half more weeks with the undergrad. Then maybe things will calm down.

A Day In The Life

Hike Time: 1 hour, 15
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: mid 60s

It may be a little to early in this journey to share with you what a typical day in my life is like. But I'm going to anyway, because this is my blog and I'll post what I want to (post what I want to, post what I want to ... you would post too if you had a blog too! [to the tune of It's My Party by Lesley Gore] ... I am a nerd)!

6:03 amere on the floor and the day had begun - I'd shower, get ready, have breakfast, and - Alarm goes off; hit snooze
If you've been paying any attention, you might have noticed that I changed my wake-up time so it would be daddy-approved.

6:12 am - Hit snooze (again)
I used to never be a snooze girl; in fact, the old me would scoff at the dependence I now have on that tiny button. When I first started college, I would set my alarm to 6 am (I was always stuck with an 8 am class). As soon as that alarm went off, my feet w be totally awake and ready for the day by the time I got to class.

Then, my lovely, spectacular, amazing blessing of a single room mysteriously started to flood. As a result, I moved in with my friend Megan, who loved the snooze button. At first, it was annoying, but I was usually awake before her anyway. In fact, I think that she missed more class the semester I lived with her than any other time in college; I would encourage her to keep on sleeping because she always sounded so sick when she woke up!

The summer after my freshman year at DePauw, I lived with (and worked with ... and socialized with ...) my best friend Kristin. Kristin was another snooze-a-holic. Since we had to be at work at the same time anyway, I didn't bother setting my own alarm and instead relied on hers to wake me up. Little did I know the damage that was to be done on my sleeping habits. Every morning was a concert of alarms, in nine minute intervals. Once the alarms began, Kristin chimed in with a groan, closely followed by a slap on the alarm clock. While Megan may have broke me into snoozing, Kristin made it a habit of mine. Before I knew it, my own groans were joining in the concert each morning.

I hit the peak of my dependence on the snooze sometime last year. I had the goal of getting up and working out each morning, so I would set my alarm for two hours earlier than when I had to be at work. Instead of waking up and working out, however, I'd hit the snooze for two hours and, as a result, feel exnhausted the rest of the day. So I guess another upside of this whole endeavor of mine is that I'll have to break my addiction to the snooze button; there's no way I'll set my alarm two hours earlier than the already God-forsaken time of 6:03 am.
Wow. I can talk a lot about something as small as a snooze button.

6:21 am - Haul butt out of bed & get ready

6:30 am - Drive off to The Dish

6:45 am - Meet up with Kathy and Kristyn
I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to do this hike alone ... friends always make the hike go faster.

6:50 am - Begin hike
P-a-i-n-f-u-l. Two 3.5 mile hikes to do, less than 18 hour apart? My body is seriously confused. I still manage to make it up the killer hills without pausing (except on the plateaus of course). And it's the small victories that count.

7:25 am - The 'do or die' alarm goes off
Ah, the 'do or die' alarm. First introduced on July 30, 2007, the 'do or die' alarm's sole purpose is simple: alert the hiker when it is 7:25 am. Depending on pace and location, the hiker then decides whether or not to finish the entire loop or to turn back from current position. Today, the 'do or die' alarm went off after we had already passed the halfway point of the hike - the big dish. There was no turning back today; we'd either finish the loop (99.9% likelihood) or die trying (0.1% likelihood).

8:05 am - Finish hike
The hike is an interesting place to people watch. Today, a group of four older women passed us (going the other direction of course, lest we be shamed by 60-70 year old women). They were chatting with each other, full of life and laughter. I hope that it was a little peak into my own future; I can only hope to blessed with such good health and strong friendships in my later stages of life.

Also, I know it's unlucky for a black cat to cross your path, but what about a jackrabbit?

8:25 am - Shower & Breakfast

8:50 am - Drive to Work

8:59 am - Parked
Just like on Friday ... interesting ...

9:05 am - The workday begins
The air conditioning for our floor is broken. On a hot day, this normally wouldn't bother me too much, as I can hide out in the cold room if I get too hot (that's how I survived a hot, humid, and sticky summer in New York City). But today, the air conditioning is broken in a different way - it's stuck on freezing and no one can figure out how to turn it off. As a result, I'm not entirely sure if my desk is located in my normal room, or has been moved into the cold room as a prank.

Despite the near freezing temperatures, work still continues as normal. During the morning, I set up an ELISA, work with my undergrad to do a Midi Prep, and analyze data in preparation for my meeting with my boss (who is also conveniently and confusingly named Olivia). With all this running around in the morning, jumping from experiment to experiment, you'd think I'd warm up. But that's definitely not the case.

12:00 pm - Lunch!
Ah, lunch. It used to be the time where I ate some food. Now it's the time where I eat some food, and blog. Oh how my life has changed ;).

1:00 pm - Meeting with PI
I have a very attentive boss. Not over-attentive, mind you; definitely not to the point of micro-managing. We have weekly meetings with each other, which I find highly useful in keeping me accountable for doing work; I feel like I've got to have something new to show her each week, so I have do to some work in the time between our meetings. Often, I find myself scrambling to analyze data and find some meaning in that data the morning before our meetings. So far, she's been incredibly helpful with troubleshooting and giving me suggestions of next-step experiments that I can do.

We have a whole hour scheduled for our meeting, but we rarely use more than 15 minutes of that time. Today, we managed to talk about all of my experiments from the past week, all of my undergrads experiments from the past week, the plans for my med student who is working with me, and whether or not I should switch my thesis project ... all in 10 minutes. How's that for efficiency?

1:10 pm - Back to work ...
Mmmmm ... lab smells delicious. I mean, CRAP, lab smells delicious. One of my labmates brought in carrot cake, in the shape of stars, with do-it-yourself cream cheese frosting. Could there be anything else more tempting? One of my labmates, Stacie, grabs one and digs in, gushing over how good it is. And I'm sure it is - all food cut into cute shapes is yummy. I immediately start to pout. She asks: "Oh, so it's more than just a hiking thing?" "Yeah, it's more than just a hiking thing", I reply. Apparently, it's the most masochistic thing I can do. And I didn't think it could get much worse - I am a grad student after all.

Thank goodness it's a busy afternoon ... and most of the afternoon was spent in the animal facility (aka the sauna). I think I might need to eat a little bit more before I go down to deal with the mice; I got a little nauseous today. Of course, that also could be because our data is turning out exactly the opposite as what we expected. While I thought that bleeding mice would spoil my appetite, it did just the opposite. And those darn little carrot cake stars are still sitting there. I beg and plead for my labmates to finish them; but to no avail. I wonder if I can make my undegrad eat the rest ... he is supposed to to what I say after all :).

6:45 pm - Ranchin' It Up/Bible Study
There is about a one hour period of the day when it makes no sense for me to go home. In general, this is the hour previous to any engagement I have on campus. For example, today, I was finished with work at 6:30 pm (ugh, was not expecting to stay that long). I have Bible Study at the Ranch at 7:30 pm. I was not about to stay in lab - it was a bad day, and at this point I was hungry and grumpy and just plain unpleasant. Thankfully, Kristyn was headed over to The Ranch early. So I went early too, and crashed on the couch. Otherwise, it would have taken me 10-15 minutes to drive home, and 10-15 minutes to drive back onto campus. Thrity minutes at home is just not worth it that much to me.

10:30 pm - Off to JM's
I don't know why (ok, I do), but somehow I find myself crashing Kristyn's visit with Joel this evening. Jacob & Joel's apartment has become this black hole of time for me; I enter and before I know it, I've been there for hours, and it's sometime early in the morning, and I have to exert insane amounts of energy to leave. Tonight is no exception. I got to the door to head on out, and then ended up talking for another 15 minutes or so. Oh well, at least I get to 'sleep in' tomorrow. (Note: to some people, what I am considering as 'sleeping in' isn't anywhere close to their definition. But to me, getting two extra hours of sleep by waking up at 8 am instead of 6 am is definitely considered sleeping in!)

12:30 am - Home, home again
For some unknown and slightly ridiculous reason, the first thing I do when I get home is turn on the TV. Today, it's to watch the penultimate episode of Hell's Kitchen. I have a DVR, so I'm not entirely sure why I feel the need to watch this episode tonight, when I can just as easily watch it at my leisure. Either way, it gives me time to post.

Also, anyone else think it's kind of crazy that I'm leaving home at 6:30 am, and not really getting back for good until 12:30 am? When did I become such an anti-homebody?

1:30 am - Sleep - FINALLY!

And there you have it, a typical day in the life. Thank goodness I get to 'sleep in' tomorrow!

V is for Victory!

Hike Time: 1 hour, 15-20 min (we didn't time it exactly)
Amount of Hike Completed: THE WHOLE THING! (3.5 miles)
Temperature: mid 80s


July 29, 2007 is a day for the record books, folks. I finished the whole hike today! That's right, all 3.5 miles was decidedly OWNED by me (and my new shoes!)

Amy P., my new (and totally amazing!) roommate Anna, and Kathy all came along today. Amazingly enough, only one of the group (Kathy) had ever completed the hike. With water bottles in tow, we headed up the first hill. My goal today was to do at least as well as I had done on Friday - I wanted to stop at each plateau of the first two hills, and that's it - no other stops. My body, on the other hand, decided it didn't like this idea so much. I don't know if it was because I was sore from the first hike on Friday or because I was hiking in new shoes, but that first hill was just killer! My muscles tensed up in objection to hauling me up the hill, each of them throwing a little tantrum as if they were a two-year-old just denied a trinket at the market. I was not about to give into them. My body and my will seemed to strike a compromise as I took slower, more elongated steps up the hill, finishing both the first and second hills as I had on Friday - without stops in the middle.

As we started up the third hill, I started to feel really odd. My heart was actually in a little bit of pain, which freaked me out quite a bit. I placed my hand over my heart to check on it. Thumping loudly, it protest to all this action, asking "What the hell are you doing to me?" I quickly replied, "It's for your own good, deal with it." After that, I neither felt a twinge of pain or heard peep of complaint from my heart.

The middle of the hike was pretty uneventful and honestly went by really quickly. In fact, after we hit The Dish, my heart rate had slowed down so much that I'm not even sure it was much different from my resting heart rate. Before I realized it, we were down near Junipero Serra. The end seemed so near - if we could watch the cars, drive by, we must be a) done with all the hills, and b) almost back to my car, right? Yeah, no. My false hope of being done with the hike was smashed was I saw a giant hill approaching. Luckily, my friend Kenny called me while I was struggling through the middle of the hill, so I had to take a pause to take his call. After that massive hill, an endless number of little hills seemed to follow; if this was a roller coaster ride, this would be the fun part - where your stomach jumps into your throat and you feel like you are about to be lifted out of your seat. However, this is no roller coaster ride; this takes effort, and burning quads, and huffing and puffing. On the upside, while I'm absolutely exhausted, I'm starting to feel like I've got the beginnings of the cutest butt you've ever seen.

We finally reach a part of the hike that looks familiar - we've reached the beginning again! I push myself towards the top of the last hill, and all four of us raised our hands victoriously as we begin the climb down the hill to end the 3.5 mile loop.

Everybody's Working On The Weekend ...

I have a love/hate relationship with going into lab on the weekends.

On one hand, I love that I get lab (mostly) to myself ... I can turn on the radio, sing loudly to the music, dance around a bit. Oh wait, I do that anyway ;). Free from the distractions of labmates, I can truly focus on my work and get my stuff done in a timely manner. I usually leave lab on the weekends feeling like I've accomplished something; at the very least, I feel like I might be able to graduate just a little bit sooner than I would if I only worked during the week. Also, as a bonus, the guilt that I feel for not working 24-7 (i.e. the grad student guilt), is decreased ever so slightly while I'm working on the weekends.

On the other hand, I hate coming into lab on the weekend. First of all, I hate that I bought into the lie that I'll graduate a little bit sooner if I work on the weekends. Second of all, I hate that I give into the guilt-trip of graduate school. Third of all, IT'S THE WEEKEND for crying out loud; even grad students deserve some sort of mental break every once and a while.

Of course, I might be bitter because I worked for four hours today in lab, and it looks like it was all for naught.

Holy Hunger, Batman!

Whoa. I feel like I could eat a horse right now. Seriously. I had a fruit smoothie for breakfast, a nice salad with chicken for lunch (like 1.5 hours ago) - what more do you need body? I know that you know that there is a bunch of brownie bites (mmmmmmm) on the other side of lab. And you know that I want them. And you might even know that I know that you know that I want them, if you know what I mean. But NO! They are totally unnecessary! Besides, I'm going out to dinner for a friend's birthday tonight! And there will be beer. And there will be fried items. So at the very least, I need to save my binge until then. In a word, body, would you please SHUT UP!

Also, I'm really tired. Like really, really tired. I've already dropped a whole box of tips on the floor and almost burnt down the building by leaving the dishes in the high temperature dryer too long. I hope this doesn't last long.

A Fresh Start

Hike Time: about an hour
Amount of Hike Completed: almost to the Big Dish, but had to turn around due to time constraints
Temperature: mid 60s

My alarm clock dutifully wakens me at 5:55 am. Why 5:55 am you ask, and not later? I'm asking myself that same question as I drag myself out of bed. If there's anyone to blame for this, it's my father. You see, he has this thing with even numbers ... he hates them. During family movie night (or any night around the television, which could honestly describe about any night of the week in the Hatton household), my father insists on changing the volume so that it's an odd number. This odd quirk of his proved to be quite annoying, as our TV regularly changes it's volume in increments of twos; if it's already on an even number, then you've got to try to delicately press the volume button to increase/decrease the volume by one. It's an art form really, and a skill I never thought I would need to possess. Now that I think about it, I think my dad has a thing about how to set your alarm clock as well ... I'm pretty sure this quirk involves not setting your alarm clock so that the time ends in 5 or 0 (for example, 6:00 = bad, 6:05 = bad, 6:03 = awesome, with the perfect synergy of not ending in 5 or 0 and ending in an odd number). So far, I'm sure I've managed to both make my dad proud and disappoint him in one foul swoop.

I'm never fully able to get up when the alarm clock sounds. It's especially hard this particular morning, as I was unable to get to sleep last night; I don't know if it was the excitement of the beginnings of this adventure or the apprehension of having to wake up so darn early that kept me up. Either way, once my back-up alarm goes off and I hop out of bed, I immediately thank myself for the foresight to lay out my workout clothes last night. I would otherwise not be in any state to scrounge around my room for for the essentials - sports bra (check!), shorts (check!), shirt (check!), jacket (check!), sunscreen (check!), deodorant (check! check!), socks (check!), shoes ... Oh yeah, SHOES. Thanks to my laziness last night, I still have no idea where my workout shoes are. Thinking that they are still in the car, I make sure and grab a pair of tennis shoes (not the workout kind ... more like the I'm-cute-and-fashionable kind).

I check the clock - 6:05 am. Why again did I get up so early? I use my time wisely and squeeze in my daily devotional. It was a measly 15 minutes, but I've got a hike to get to God! At 6:20 am, I'm out the door, hopping into Rebel (my car, short for Rebel Without a Cause ... and yes, there's a story there too), and driving off.

After parking, I search my car (a.k.a. my second closet) for my workout shoes. After a thoroughly exhaustive search, I'm glad for my foresight to bring an extra pair of shoes; they may not be perfect, but they'll do. As planned, I'm the first one at The Dish. I know that Kathy, Kristyn, and Xianne are almost here, as I passed them on my way in. Alissa, Amy, and Rachel are joining me too. To be honest, I'm flabbergasted that so many people would wake their butts up early in the morning to join me in this little quest of mine. If I was a sap (like the rest of my family), I'm sure I'd have a good cry about it. But, alas, the sap in me only comes out to play on rare occasions. I do have to say though, a girl has got to consider herself pretty lucky to have friends like these.

After the group gathers at the bottom of the hike (Stanford & Junipera Serra entrance), we take off, with me in the lead. Almost instantly, I begin to regret not stretching (despite the number of posted signs that tell you how to stretch pre- and post-hike). My quads and calves are BURNING going up this hill. The huffing and puffing starts almost instantly. But I'm determined. I've got six girls behind me, and I can't let them down by giving up on the first hill of the first hike. So I forge on. We're all leaning forward at such an angle that it looks like we're trying to bite the ground. As we take the gentle bend in the hill, I see my first stopping point - a small plateau after the first hill has finished. My strides get longer and longer as I pull all 329 pounds of me up this hill (I weighed myself this morning for a little extra motivation). And then we reach the plateau - victory!

Victory was shored lived, however. The second hill awaited. It taunted me with its steepness - "you can't hike me in one go" it said! 'Not so!" I replied, and off we went. I'm really starting to feel the burn in my butt now. I've always had flat-butt syndrome, and it looks like the cure for it might be more dish hike! The girls and I have a laugh about how we will be known by our cute butts after all this is done. I start to slow down considerably near the end of the second hill. The girls seem to notice, and soon I'm surrounded by words of encouragement. At the end of the second hill, I pause for a moment to make sure the hill knows that it just got owned.

The first glimpse of The Dish comes at the top of the second hill. To commemorate the first hike and the beginnings of this journey, we pause to take a picture. Almost all of the key players are there - me, The Dish, and six of my support team, who I will need to dub with some sort of name. You know how Taylor Hicks (winner of season 5 of American Idol, and yes, I'm ashamed to know this) has his Soul Patrol? Something like that ...


The third hill is much less intense, so there's no pausing as we cruise past it and into the gently sloping hills leading to The Dish. About a month ago, The Dish was on fire. Well, not the The Dish itself, but you get the idea. Anyway, it smelled like barbequeue all the way along the hike. It was sort of eerily beautiful - and since I had my camera on me to commemorate the first hike, I stopped (briefly) to take a few pictures. The way the fire had burned the leave on the trees made the scenery look much more like fall than summer. For a brief moment, I remembered how beautiful fall was in the Midwest ...



Alissa and Kristyn had to break off early, due to other commitments (seriously though, who has other time commitments that early in the morning?) Though we were down two, the rest of us forged on. The topic for today's conversation: animals. Xianne and I regailed the group with stories from the trenches of the animal facility. Amy C. enlightened us about the Dog Whisperer. We all saw the world's largest squirrel ... whom we have appropriately named "Fatty". And speaking of squirrels, turns out Kathy has accidentally tortured a squirrel ... but I'll leave that story for her to tell, as she tells it best.

We didn't quite make it to the big dish today; we turned around at 7:30 am to make it back down to our cars and back home. After dropping Rachel off, I drove home, jumped in the shower, got dressed, and then got to what's most important - breakfast. Turns out, while I was prepared to start this whole endeavor, my fridge was not. After doing some searching, a smoothie with very frozen berries and very expired yogurt was my best bet. I hope I don't get food poisoning or something.

I was parked at work by 8:59 am. So what if I didn't quite make it in by 9 am? 9:03 is surely close enough ;-).

PS - It has taken me almost the whole day at lab to write this all down! Maybe this endeavor will require more time than I thought ... thank goodness for 30 minute incubations!

First Foibles

I never thought of myself as one who believes in signs of any kind, but I think there's something working against this lil' plan of mine. The evidence:

1. I'm up at 11:54 pm posting to the blog, and I have to get up at 6:00 am ... and I really like sleep. (ok, this isn't really a sign, it's really just my fault!)

2. I set two alarms for tomorrow morning. Or at least I think I did ... when I checked my cell phone alarm, I had set the alarm to 6:00 PM! Good thing I'm anal and double checked. While I'm sure oversleeping my first morning would make for a funny story to look back at later, I'm sure it wouldn't be funny to all the girls dragging their butts out outta bed to meet up with me tomorrow!

3. I can't find my workout shoes! I've searched everywhere in the apartment, and I've found all of my lovely flats (in practical colors like metallic silver and pink), my flip flops, my wedge heels (seriously, like I need an extra 3.5 inches in height!) ... but NO WORKOUT SHOES TO BE FOUND. Thus, I'm forced to fall asleep not knowing what shoes I'll be wearing in the morning! THE HORROR.

4. So, The Dish area was on fire about a month ago. You know how they call California 'The Golden State'? Turns out all that 'gold' on the hills is a whole lotta dead grass. And dead grass + no rain + heat = fire. Christi reminded me that they had closed the area after the fire; so I double checked that the hike area was opened. Thankfully it is (check here if you don't believe me!)

Despite all of these little foibles, I'm determined that tomorrow will be awesome. And, like my good friend Xianne reminded me: "Starting positive is half the battle won. The other half you can't take care of, but God most certainly will :)"

Enlisting the Troops

I figure I should record this email here for posterity's sake:

To all my girls near and far (Kristyn, Christi, Alissa, Xianne, Nola, Amy P, Amy C, Kathy, Lena, Lu-En, Rachel, Megan, Amanda, and Briney) ...

I'm officially fed up with being a big girl (the following pic: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30827917&id=22100018 made me realize how big I am ... although I should learn that I should never compare my size to Lena and Nola ... also, I want to be able to look hot in my maid of honor dress at Kristin's wedding). For those of you who have known me a while, this happens every once and a while, but I swear this time it's for good. And to ensure that this time it is for good, I'm enlisting you all - my closest girl friends near and far - to help me out, keep me accountable, and maybe enjoy some exercise with me at the same time (if you live close enough, that is).

My goal is simple: I want to be able to run The Dish (http://dish.stanford.edu). For those of you out-of-towners, here's what you need to know ... it's a 3.5 mile, hilly loop on the outskirts of Stanford's campus. It's a pretty well trafficked area, as there are massive amounts of hikers and runners that use it.

You can read about my day-to-day progress on the following blog: http://oliviavsthedish.blogspot.com/. I'd appreciate it if you kept the link to yourself, as I'm likely to rant about other stuff than just the hike itself and how I'm doing. Also, I'm going to try and be pretty honest about how I'm feeling and the like, so I'd rather that the whole world not read about it ... well, random strangers may be OK, but I don't want it to get leaked to other people I know, if you get my gist ...

I'd appreciate any words of encouragement and some accountability (seriously, I may need a swift kick to the butt sometime, I promise I won't fault you for any harsh words about this, since I'm clearly asking for them).

Also, if anyone wants to meet up with me, I'm going tomorrow morning at 6:45 am. I'm sure you all can't wait to get up that early to hike with me ;).

Have a great day!
Olivia

PS - I should also note that I have some slight delusions of grandeur with this one. I've always wanted to write a book (seriously, since I was like 12, I've made various attempts to write the next great American novel). The books that I like, however, are always the non-fiction/quasi-autobiographical type ... so I have this idea that I can do this, lose a whole lotta weight, get my PhD in the meantime, and have done it with the encouragement of my best girlfriends. And I'll already have most of it written once I'm done (hence the blog) and records of your words of the encouragement (in the blog, and your comments on the blog). Olivia vs The Dish is not really only about my battle with the hike or with weight, but also my battle to get through the PhD ... blah blah blah. OK, enough of boring you with my delusions of grandeur. But maybe one day, when the book is published, we can all go on the daytime talk show circuit together :). So, save those dates in the future ;).

PPS - Sorry for such a long email, that this last PPS has made even longer.

Revival

What. A. Year.

First off, it should be clear that I didn't hike the dish as planned last year. I did make it all the way to The Dish on September 2, 2006 ... thus almost fulfilling Specific Aim #1. I didn't continue the whole hike because I had no idea how if the hike reconnects at Stanford Ave & Junipera Serra (it does) and how long it would take me (still have no idea there). Turns out, had I walked just a LITTLE BIT further on that first hike, I would have hit the part where it flattens out and becomes a nice little stroll.

Second, whoa. The last 11 months have been CRAZY. I wish I would have blogged throughout the year (despite not walking The Dish) to remember it all. Throughout the year, I became involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (which I'm now helping to run), successfully defended my thesis proposal, ran the Immunology Interview Weekend, had three students work with me (one rotation student, one undergrad, one med student), gave a talk at a national conference, lost a roommate, gained a new roommate, went to Disneyland, partied in SF with my brother, finished my programs course requirements, gave one of my best friends a tour of Hawaii ... all while battling (and currently winning the battle with) clinical depression. (This isn't even close to an exhaustive list ... whoa, it seriously baffles me to how I survived this year.)

Anyway, I find myself in the middle of one of the busiest and most amazing summers in my life. Have you ever heard the saying that if you want something done, give it to a busy person? (Turns out this is the direct quote, from Lucille Ball of all people - "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it." I wonder what prompted her to say this ...) Well, I want something done, and I'm a busy person. I'm also really the only person who can do this ... since it concerns my body. But whatever. (Man, sometimes I'm really not funny at all when I ramble). I want to lose weight ... and I want to begin my quest to run the dish again. Luckily, these two goals go hand in hand. So I'm going to start again. Tomorrow morning, 6:45 am. That dish has no idea what's coming.

Here's the plan:

Monday - morning hike, 6:45 am
Tuesday - rest, or some other exercise
Wednesday - morning hike, 6:45 am
Thursday - rest, or some other exercise
Friday - morning hike, 6:45 am
Saturday/Sunday - one hike, at any time of day :)

Here's the new Specific Aims (I am such a nerd!):

Specific Aim #1: Complete a dish hike.
-- Aim End Date: July 31, 2007

Specific Aim #2: Hike to the dish without totally losing my breath (and getting that icky/scary heart-in-your-throat feeling).
-- Aim End Date: December 2007

Specific Aim #3: Jog to the dish.
-- Aim End Date: PhD Graduation (???)