I spent much of the weekend doing prep stuff for the forthcoming training session on ‘technology’. Reading, thinking, writing. The good thing is that it didn’t feel like work, because I enjoyed it and wasn’t doing anything I wouldn’t normally do in my free time anyway – reading blogs and blogging.
It amuses me how when I started I was a bit dubious about this whole blogging ‘thing’, and now I have not one, but two blogs, and I am maintaining a wiki! Started the wiki ostensibly just to demonstrate to my colleagues how easy it is to use, but I’m enjoying having somewhere to keep ‘stuff’ (I’ve got a list of interesting/useful articles, and a list of wikis) and I’ll probably keep it going for as long as it seems worthwhile. The challenge will be to try and convince a colleague (or two, or three…) that they too want to play with, and contribute to, the wiki.
Still, I’ve been thinking about ways to incorporate more exercise into my routine. I enjoy walking, but the problem is my two horrible ankles that collapse under me at the worst possible times and cause the most blinding pain. Okay, maybe not THE MOST blinding pain (childbirth probably trumps ankle sprains?), but the pain of spraining/wrenching/twisting an ankle is usually enough to bring tears to my eyes. And that’s not taking into account the pain of the humiliation I feel when I go down like a sack of spuds in full view of passing motorists and pedestrians.
The other day while we were walking around campus on our lunch break, M and I saw (well we heard) a young woman fall over just like I do. One minute she was walking along, drinking her choc milk, the next there was this muffled crashing noise and a groan, and there she was sprawled on the ground, with her choc milk spilt next to her. I asked if she was okay, and she said, through gritted teeth, that she was fine, it was just her ankle. She picked herself up as quickly as she could and scurried away (as much as it is possible to scurry when your ankle is killing you). I could feel her pain and mortification at falling, for no apparent reason, in front of a pair of strangers.
So walking is not particularly fun, not when you have to be so conscious of every step because you’re paranoid that the next dent in the ground, the next slightly uneven paving stone, is going to be enough to put one of your ankles out. I’ve been trying to turn this consciousness of walking into a meditative practice – so that instead of rushing around madly I let myself be aware of my steps, my body, the surroundings – but although it’s been good (and I’ve been avoiding the sprains), it’s not exactly physically exerting. I wish I could swim (the weather is perfect for swimming at the moment), but I don’t know how.
Image from ‘Common basketball injuries‘
technorati tags: exercise, work-life-balance