Exercise Plans

I had hoped for a white Christmas, but the week ended up being warmer than expected and it didn’t snow again, so it wasn’t very white. However, from the classrooms at my junior high school I could see lettuce fields still covered with snow, so I got a taste of a white Christmas. It didn’t really feel like Christmas, though. I greeted students and teachers with “Merry Christmas,” but nobody returned the greeting, and at the end of the workday I just went shopping for food, went home for dinner, made dinner, and read until I fell asleep. Today is my last day of work, and I already finished my only class but we still have a closing ceremony.

I got my physical results back last week, but I looked at them for the first time this morning. The doctor told me that my weight was just right, but I actually put on a few pounds since last year, which brings me up to about 150, as heavy as I’ve ever been. Worse, I seem to have added a centimeter and a half to my waistline. What could be the cause? I was eating donuts about five times a week from the beginning of this academic year in March, but in the last 6 weeks I’ve probably only had the three times. I also was eating potato chips fairly regularly in that time, but I’ve cut back on those too. However, I’ve also cut back on my exercise. Aside from riding my bike to school, I haven’t done any exercise since October. Anyway, I need to start exercising.

What could I do for exercising? Biking is interesting, but I’m reluctant to do it when it’s freezing or dark, and it will probably be one if not both of those at most times that I could ride for the next two months at least. I like dancing, but I don’t know a suitable place to do it. Climbing is a pain because it’s at least a two-hour commitment, and it involves going back out in the cold, hence, a lot of will power. Those are the exercises that I’m interested in, but there’s also a zombie run app that sounds interesting. The main problem with it is that I’m not sure I would have enough willpower to do it at night or in the morning. If I did it in the morning, I would have to be back home by 7. That is when the sun rises, so I would be running in the dark and cold, which doesn’t sound very nice. Finally, there is interval training. If I did that inside, it would have to be in the evening so as not to disturb my neighbors. In the evening my willpower is low, so if there’s something else that I want or need to do, I’m more likely to do it.

In conclusion, I think I’m most likely to do climbing, but running also has potential depending on the effect that the app has on me. Also, I like the idea of running in the morning, although I would need to get some kind of running light. So I think I will try waking up earlier, maybe 6 AM (only half an hour earlier), and try the running app. I don’t want to do it when it’s raining, but maybe for the first week or two I’ll do it every other day. If I want to continue after that, I’ll buy some more clothes and increase the frequency. If not, I need to make the transition from work to the climbing gym as painless as possible. One way to do this would be to drive straight to the gym, but I couldn’t do that on every second Tuesday, assuming my boss allowed me to drive in the first place. It might be worth asking about, though. Maybe first I’ll try my other option—leaving straight from Active. This would require bringing extra clothes and changing either at Active or at the climbing gym. If I’m cycling, I should change at Active. Ah, there’s another problem—dinner. The earliest I could get to the gym is 5 PM, and on meeting days it would be later, which means I can’t eat until after 7. Climbing hungry is worse than climbing full in my experience, so I should eat dinner beforehand. But to get dinner I would have to either buy it at Tsuruya or a convenience store or take it to work. Maybe I could eat at Active.

Okay, so here’s the plan. Starting December 30^th, I’ll wake up at 6 and go running. There will likely be some disruptions—Wednesday I might go hiking, and the rest of the week I might travel, but I’ll get back to the routine as soon as possible. If I skip three days in a row, on the third day I will go climbing. If I have food, I’ll bring it to school and leave it in the car. If I keep the heat at minimal when I’m driving, it should be okay. From the third term, I think I’ll start leaving my backpack in the car anyway—I rarely need anything from it at home aside from my wallet and phone. I’ll take my climbing backpack to school on days that I climb, with a bag of spare clothes and a bag for lunch inside. I’ll change at school after saying goodbye. If I don’t have lunch, I’ll eat at Tsuruya; otherwise I’ll eat at work. In this way, I won’t be tempted to succumb to relaxing at home. Finally, if the weather is bad and I can't ride my bike, I'll relent to doing interval training at home.

Post-contract traveling

This morning I had several thoughts, but by the time I arrived at school I could only really remember one. It snowed last night, about six inches, and it’s supposed to snow on and off this whole week without getting warm. Which means, I might actually have a white Christmas. I was trying to remember the last time I had a white Christmas—maybe one of those two times in Virginia, but before that I was probably in elementary school. I think in Russia I only had a white New Years’. Not that I really care about a white Christmas, as it will probably end up being a completely normal working day. I might go to the bar if someone will come with me or if I’m feeling particularly lonely like I was last year. It does look like I will have a decent lunch unlike last year—some kind of mayo tofu stir fry.

This weekend was another sacrificed to Stardew Valley. I did get ramen with Big D, went shopping, did some laundry, and even mixed up some cookie batter. But on the whole it was very unproductive. At this point in the game though, I only have three people to befriend and four objects to find, aside from which the game is pretty much just harvesting, selling, and expanding, so not very demanding. I’m thinking that after today or tomorrow I will probably just play casually.

I bought a game called Astroneers which looks really cool, but the frame rate is so low on my computer that it’s unplayable. I decided to keep it regardless with the idea that I will get a new computer before long. My current one turned four years old a few weeks ago. I decided that I will buy a new one after I secure a job at home.

Relevant to that, I’m thinking about buying my flight ticket as it looks like the prices might be going up. The earliest I would have to leave would be on Tuesday, March 24^th, but since the eikaiwa teachers have to work that day and I’m sure that they won’t have to leave until Wednesday, I should be okay to stay that long too. But where would I go? Kyoto is probably where I should go the most, but it’s really busy at that time and I’m not really interested. I haven’t been to the Kansai area at all, but there isn’t anything in particular that I want to see.

It looks like the cheapest ticket price is $680, and the soonest I could get that price would be on Monday the 30^th, which was when I was thinking about leaving anyway. I think ideally I would take my bike by train to the Kansai area, bike across Shikoku, and then finish in Hiroshima. If I did that though, I would only have three, maybe four days to travel and then sell my bike, which would be quite tight. On the other hand, if I can’t do biking, I don’t know what I would do between Wednesday and Monday. Actually, I could probably stay in Shiojiri or do local trips until Friday and then take a weekend trip somewhere (Takasaki, Karuizawa, or Yamanashi would all be fine), which would be chill. In conclusion, I need to work out where and when I’m going to sell my bike, which determines whether my plan is feasible or not. If I do the biking trip and end up behind schedule, I’ll just take the train to make up the difference.

Video games are like drugs

It turned out that I did get sick, and in fact I’m still recovering. I never felt too bad, but this weekend I made some poor food and activity choices which compounded with sickness to make me feel especially miserable. On the bright side, I’ve barely spent any time on the idle game. On the other hand, that’s because I’ve spent all my time on replaying Stardew Valley. It has had two large updates since I last played it almost three years ago, so there is some interesting new content, and I’m enjoying revisiting it because I haven’t played it in so long. At this point, I’ve already finished the interesting part of the game. In most of my games that make it past the first season, this is the point where I quit. Some endgame content has been added in the updates, but even so I don’t think I have a lot else to do in the game, so I expect that I’ll be finished with it by the time break starts next Friday. Which means that I’ll be able to start a new game for the winter holidays. >.> Or maybe I can get my act together and get back to programming. I think I’ve said it before and I’m still convinced that video games rob me of my thoughts as well as my time, and without thoughts I’m less likely to feel motivation or inspiration to improve. In short, video games are like drugs.

I’ve been investigating winter holiday travel destinations. This is my last chance to visit Kyoto, but I just can’t get excited about it. Kyoto has many famous places, but they are all temples. I think if I read a book about the history of Kyoto, it would be interesting to visit, but since I don’t see myself doing that between now and then, I think I will pass. I looked at Takayama and Kanazawa as I mentioned in my last post, but there wasn’t much of interest there either. So now I’m looking at Yokohama. There’s a Kirin brewery with tours, which would be interesting, and I think I would enjoy just walking around, especially around the pier area. The ramen factory is apparently a popular attraction, but it didn’t interest me until I saw that you can create your own ramen. There’s a Mitsubishi Industrial museum which sounds like a counterpart to my beloved Toyota Museum. Nearby, there’s an international mall. I think with three or four solid-looking activities, Yokohama is worth a visit. Now to see if I can recruit someone to go with me. There’s also the possibility of going skiing, but given the expense and my lack of enjoyment last time, I don’t think I will proactively seek a chance to do that. I’ve checked it off my list—that’s probably sufficient.

Stardew Valley is a waste of time, but it has also inspired me to think a bit more about gardening and DIY to do in my future. Not that I’ve actually done so, but I’ve got the motivation in the back of my mind, hahah. I’m a bit bored today, so I might find some time this afternoon to look up some plants to grow.

Christmas Party

This morning I woke up at 5:30, sneezing and congested. Since I believe that Big D had similar symptoms this weekend, I suspect that I’m getting sick. I feel almost normal so it could just be allergies, although that would be ridiculous considering it was -7 outside at the time.

The Christmas Party at work went well. I actually enjoyed the first session, and the second session wasn’t painful. We went out for noodles afterwards. Takashi told us that the relative height at which you clink glasses is important in a Japanese toast. I didn’t know that. Before eating, we went to Toys-R-Us for me to buy hanafuda cards, but sadly I couldn’t find any. Next I will try looking at Daiso, and if I get a chance I’ll check out Hard Off, and if I still can’t find them I might just order them online.

I did some programming work this weekend, finally. But I ran into the snag of outdated libraries, and after I updated them, I couldn’t get at least one of them to work, so my code was broken. I’m not really motivated to put a lot of effort into fixing it today, so it might be Thursday before I get back to working on it. We’ll see though. When I realized that I was discouraged, I tried looking into playing a video game, and just couldn’t bring myself to commit. I did finally do the challenge in the idle game that makes 24 hour resets most profitable, so my time in that game should be reduced significantly.

After talking to my parents last night, I have an idea for my winter vacation. I might do the bus tour starting in Takayama and going up to Kanazawa. It’s too bad that I’ll miss out on the famous garden, but thinking about it that ship has probably already sailed considering the time that I have left in Japan.

Souvenirs

It snowed this morning. I ordered some fingerless gloves and an aviator’s cap from Amazon, and shortly thereafter I found my glove liners. I haven’t used them in a couple of months at least and they weren’t in the reasonable places, so I was happy to find them.

On Monday I did a bit of programming, but since then I have spent my free time playing the idle game or reading. I’m nearly caught up on a Harry Potter and Star Wars crossover. I really like this combination, and most Star Wars fanfiction for that matter, but there aren’t too many of them. Maybe I could try reading the actual published books… but that would cost money.

I’ve been thinking about souvenirs to take home lately. First, I definitely need to get some hanafuda cards. I can probably get them at a second-hand shop, or if I make a special trip then I can definitely get them at Toys R Us. It might be fun to go there anyway, at least once, to see what the Japanese version is like and maybe revisit some of my childhood Christmas spirit. When I went to Nagano on Sunday, I discovered that the Don Quixote across the street has many great souvenirs like sake flavored Kit Kats, sold inexpensively. I need to get a T-shirt for my brother at least, and who else I wonder…

What shall I do tomorrow? I’ll work on the challenges for the idle game, and if I complete them I’ll be able to make my resets 24 hours instead of 12, which should make it a little less time-consuming. I do want to get to the point where my memory program can read a file and display the text. I’ll probably play a bit of Mass Effect also. In the evening I’m going to Matsumoto for an open mic night where Big D will play.

Hanafuda

Well, I survived my presentation at the city meeting. It went pretty well, thanks to one teacher who really really likes to share her opinions. If she hadn’t been there, we might have finished all my possible points with time to spare, but since she did come, we only covered three points. Honestly since Monday I have felt sort of in a daze without a whole lot of thought beyond immediate concerns.

It snowed this morning, but it was too warm to stick. I had been thinking that I might make it through the winter without sealing up my house too much, but last night was rather cold and this morning the heater really did not do much good, so now I’m revisiting that resolution. I biked to school this morning thinking that it might be the last time, partially because my hands get really cold even with my hefty gloves. I need to make more effort in trying to find my glove liners, and I’m also planning to get some fingerless gloves to (hopefully) help a bit inside. I’d also like to replace my aviator’s cap if possible, but it looks expensive.

I got to watch some of my students play hanafuda (flower cards) today. This is a game that I found out about through anime, and I've played a flash version for many years on and off. It's a game of luck not unlike poker, but for some reason I find it much more appealing. It might be because the cards are more beautiful. Anyway, it was fun to watch them play.

The car and computer science

Yesterday I was really tired and yet by 9 I was mentally psyched and couldn't stop thinking furiously until after 1:30 AM. I would have thought that I had drunk coffee, but I only had two matcha drinks, the latter before noon, so I doubt that that was the cause. It could have been a sugar rush caused by the surprisingly decent apple fritter I got from Family Mart—that seems the most logical explanation. But it also could have been caused by talking to my parents in combination with the mental high (is that a thing?) I got from finishing the Japanese exam.

In the end I completely wasted Saturday. I started a new game in Mass Effect as a soldier and have found the game much easier and am already past where I was in my last game. I also played an excessive amount of the idle game, finishing several challenges, but they took longer than they should have. I read a very little bit of Japanese and did no other studying.

Yesterday, of course, was the test. The train was much less crowded than last year going to the test—I still think that there must have been a later train that I couldn’t find. Coming back was worse than I remember though, being so packed that I didn’t feel comfortable eating my dinner standing up. The test was mostly fun, but I did get frustrated with a text about frogs and parasites. I almost finished all the questions on the reading section, and since there’s no penalty I guessed at the last few. The listening section was really hard though. At the test I met a guy that I knew from Matsumoto. He works as a translator for Epson, so I asked him a lot of questions about his job. From what he said, I could probably do a great job in that position. I haven’t written off the possibility, but I can’t imagine finding much fulfillment in translating endless documents that most people will never read.

At night, I talked with my parents about several things, most notably about my car in America and my Liberty plans. I had thought about buying my car back from my brother, but they seemed skeptical of this plan’s value. My thought was that it would save me the trouble of searching for a new car and let my brother do it instead, as he finds it enjoyable. I thought also that it might motivate him to save a bit of money to buy a car that he wants. My parents were skeptical that the second point would be effective at all, and mentioned that my plan might cause some timing issues. That’s not a problem because I wouldn’t need a car right away. But they also said that it wouldn’t be smart to buy the car back for the original price since my brother has gotten a lot of use out of it and had his dog ride it in. I really like the car, but I wouldn’t be keen on having dog smell or residue in my car. So at this point I’m thinking that I’ll go with our original plan and see how the car looks when I arrive in the US, and if I decide that it still looks good and I don’t want to look for another one, I’ll propose buying it back. I could probably live without it for the first six weeks, which should be long enough for my brother to find a new car.

As far as Liberty goes, I had been looking at some of the other content competency requirements. I’m close to qualifying for four areas—middle school English, high school English, ESL, and computer science. Middle school and high school English are similar,  but the latter requires an extra class or two, and I’d much rather student teach in a middle school than a high school. I’m not interested in ESL, partially because of the curriculum, partially because my experience should be a sufficient supplement if I had the chance for a job in that, and finally because I don’t want to student-teach ESL and potentially miss out on a more typical classroom experience. That leaves middle school English and computer science, which is my present dilemma.

Computer science may not even be possible because I’m supposed to have obtained a bachelor’s degree in my area of specialty. But it could be that my certificate from NC State in combination with fulfilling the competencies would be sufficient. With computer science, given that I test out of statistics and computer apps, I would only have to take 0-2 more classes.

But assuming that I’m approved to do the computer science specialty, what do the pros and cons look like?

+ Computer science would be a smoother student teaching experience.

+ Teaching computer science would be a nice transition into working in that field, if I decide to do that after getting the master’s.

+ Fulfilling the content competencies could be easier or more fun.

On the other hand:

+ English is, I suspect, more difficult to teach, so I would learn more from the courses.

+ Similarly, as far as I can tell, there aren’t any courses specifically geared toward teaching computer science, so the course load would be less relevant and interesting.

+ If I were to teach a different subject, I think that an experience in English would provide more transferrable skills.

So in essence: computer science = easier, more fun, skills transferable outside of education; English = more educational courses and more skills transferable inside of education. Laying this out didn’t help me feel more inclined either way, and I feel like I missed a few points, so I’ll have to keep thinking. Before I decide for sure, I should contact an advisor, confirm the possibility, and request a curriculum for the comp sci specialization.