Nope, totally wasn’t like this when I had my wisdom teeth taken out. My anesthetic was local. Uh huh.
Monthly Archive: February 2012
Like an overworked dough
The last 48 hours or so have been pretty busy for me. In preparation for the dinner party I was having at my place I had to do a pretty good job cleaning my place. That job spanned Friday and Saturday. And today I had a run in the morning, followed by bread class in the afternoon. Class was especially draining today because we were working with a high hydration dough that was sensitive to over-mixing when using the machine. As a result, we had to knead the suckers by hand. Since it was a wet dough kneading wasn’t an option at the beginning. We really had to kind of pick it up and slam the dough back on the table. Class was quite fascinating to listen to: talk talk talk SLAM talk talk SLAM talk SLAM. All of that slamming of the dough on the table really drained us all. By the end of the class I felt zonked out. From there I visited the parents just to drop off some of the bread, but right after dinner I couldn’t help but just nap on their couch. I had nothing left in the tank.
So, no, I still haven’t learned my lesson. I wrote about these same conditions a few weeks ago. Maybe I should bring coffee into class, or something with a fairly high carb content. I speculated about it before but I haven’t implemented anything yet. All of this is only going to get way tougher once my running distances start increasing. Ah hell, and just think about CrossFit that I have to squeeze in on Monday along with improv practice. I’m overworking myself entirely, like a dough with over-developed gluten.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.
Un-gellin’
It’s a few days after the fact, but I might as well mention what happened on Saturday. A buddy of mine from university invited me to his birthday party way over yonder in Kitchener-Waterloo. Despite it being a fair drive from Toronto I decided to go. The party was interesting. It took me a while to come out of my shell, but I eventually got around to mingling. I ended up running into a few people from my old class. Catching up with each of them was fascinating. At this point, we’re all now years removed from our last university experiences, and yet upon reconnecting it’s like not much changed.
For a good chunk of the party I ended up talking to a classmate who was once the class rep. Back then I didn’t really talk to him all that much. If I think about it the number of words I spoke to him at the party outweigh those I spoke to him during the six years I was there at UW. That’s crazy. Now, we got around to lamenting the fact that on the whole our class didn’t really gel. And really, how could it? On the whole, there was hardly any time for us to breathe. How could I have known that the class rep dude is actually a really fascinating conversationalist? We really only ended up connecting well with people that were pretty much in our immediate circles. What else could we do? And now it’s only through chance that some of the looser connections are reappearing. People come and go. I get that. As much as it was interesting hearing updates about other classmates not there, I felt that it was better to focus on the one connection and start building that up. Why spread the net wide to capture many people?
Epic fail
It’s been a long time since this last happened, but I had a bit of a meltdown at work. No, I didn’t fall into sobs or anything of the sort, but my mind fell into a haze and I had to shut myself off for a little bit just as a matter of self-protection. Work has been a little bit overwhelming over the span of a few days and with a deadline approaching rather quickly the threat of failure was really starting to freak me out. Luckily, enough colleagues and one of my managers were able to talk me away from the proverbial ledge. Still, it took me an hour or two as well as a good walk around the building for me to calm myself and return to a productive state.
For me, my big take away from this experience was just a greater awareness of how I tend to approach the idea of failure. It is one hell of a scary thing, and I’m quite sure that most people have issues with it. I mean, who likes failing? I think that people will naturally gravitate toward activities that allow them to avoid failure. Still, the act of failing provides such unique learning opportunities that it should almost be embraced when possible, know what I mean? In my case, I resist it so much and when I get close to it I fall into a panic state. Then, when I’m past it I end up in such a state of relief. It’s predictable. If there’s one thing that I need to work on, it’s that I need to be a bit more fearless and just accept failure if it happens. Easier said than done, for sure. All the same, I can’t let my fear of failure take over. There’s no point in being in a state of paralysis. Better to just get in there. The only way out is through, right?
Seasonal hair
Yeah, my facial hair is almost seasonal. Every few months or so I’ll switch from having a clean look to the other extreme. It’s a common Asian thing where a heck of a lot of us just can’t grow decent facial hair, isn’t it? For me it takes a really long time to get to a good state. And due to the time invested I end up not shaving it all off right away. That’s how it goes, and I’m used to it. When it’s in a good state, at the very least it’s not patchy. I think it looks OK. It makes me look a bit more mature, and kind of fits with my serious/gruff demeanour. Inevitably, I’ll tire of the look though and I’ll get a sudden urge to shave it all off. When I do, I always feel strange. When I’m growing my hair out at least the change is very gradual. When I shave the hair off it’s all sudden. Just yesterday after shaving I couldn’t help but feel like I looked bizarre. Now, the day after, I still feel off but I’m getting more settled into the new look.
Yeah, I acknowledge that I’m being far too self-conscious about it. I’m the only one that cares about it. Time to move on.
Settling the score
It’s only natural that as we get deeper into the bread class my shaping gets better and better. Let’s compare three week’s worth of stuff:
The above were the results of week 2. We covered recipes for French bread as well as butter crust bread. The boule that I made ended up a tad wonky due to the cuts I made. I tried to make an epi but the end result seemed to remind me more of a mutant shark than a stalk of wheat. Lastly…I don’t think I’m a fan of lean breads.
On week 3 we made Vienna bread and oatmeal bread. The breads that I made are on the left racks, though I did help to score all of these loaves. I’m still trying to get a handle on scoring techniques. I think that I’m perhaps not going deep enough with some of my cuts. Or perhaps I’m not getting dramatic enough with them. For example the Z-pattern bread looks like I only did half-hearted Zs.
And this past week we did whole wheat bread and multigrain bread. I was a fan of how I scored the boule, but it sort of looks like the scoring didn’t go deep enough. I made another epi and this time it looked like a wheat stalk. The rest of the loaves were scored nicely, though I know there are improvements.
Overall, I know I’m getting better. Sometimes scoring bread is a tough prospect. Sometimes I have to be careful or else the blade gets caught in the dough. This is sort of telling me that I need to work on getting more surface tension. This would mean rolling the bread better and tighter. That way when I score the skin I’m not fighting against the dough. Well, I’ve still got a few weeks of class to get it right, but at least I know I’m on the right track.
Knockout combo
It’s about 5:30 in the morning, which means that I’ve been asleep for about 11.5 hours. Yesterday, as soon as I got home from my parents’ place I just plopped down on my bed and passed out. I really only had two activities. In the morning I had my run, and in the afternoon I had my bread class. Both are really draining but manageable on their own. What I didn’t anticipate was the effect that both would have put together. So yes, I fell asleep at 6, woke up briefly at 2 a.m. to turn off the lamp besides my bed, and now here I am feeling like I missed something important. I think next time I have to work on keeping my energy levels up…or perhaps rely on stimulants. I can’t afford to lose 1/8 of the weekend like this, you know what I mean? Argh.
All the pieces
My latest coaching gig began last night. It was the first night in a long time that I ran. If I think about it, it’s sort of embarrassing. I mean, to some extent I’m kind of an ambassador of sorts to the activity. And yet, there I was actually avoiding running for weeks. I was feeling a little bit shy to actually get out there. Well, shy or not, I just had to set that all aside. Compared to some of my previous clinics this is a relatively smaller one. All the same, I have to pump out the positivity. Every single bit matters, right?
On Monday night there was a really heavy dumping of snow in the Toronto area. By Tuesday the temperature rose well above freezing meaning that much of the snow had melted down into pools of slush on the sidewalks. During the run my clinic members gingerly sidestepped around everything. I tried to encourage them to just plow through the puddles. I set an example by doing so myself. I ended up with cold soaked shoes, but I didn’t mind. Nasty, but a good reminder about the joys of running through winter.
When I got back to the store, I got my street wear together and headed for the change room. As I sat down I started peeling off my cold socks. As I did my wrinkly shrivelled feet seemed to gasp for air. All of a sudden I had to just pause. I wasn’t about to cry or anything but I knew that there was a thought there that was begging for attention. I wasn’t really able to put it all together until I took a moment to focus. That’s when it finally came to me. The result was mildly melodramatic, but so damn eloquent. After my long absence from running, having done a run among everyone else at the store: I felt whole again.
Recent Comments