Short Personal Life Update

I am back to taking long walks at night again. The weather is uncomfortable in the middle of the day, but fantastic in the evening. It's high time to begin a daily running program again. I recall that between 9th and 10th grade, I jogged 20 minutes up and down our lanes (we lived on what was once a farm, so the drive to the house was over 100 yards), a couple of times a week. Beginning in the summer after 10th grade, I was able to make the commitment to running every single day, which led to a natural increase in distance and improvement in speed. By the summer after 11th grade (2007), I could easily run 2 miles; that hardly felt like a workout, so a typical run would be 4 miles. I kept track for my curiosity's sake, and figured out that a good pace was 6:20-6:40 minutes per mile. If I was having a bad day and ran slower than 8mins/mile, the short stride hurt my knees, so I would reason that I had to be faster than that, or just give up. In short order I got up to where I was ready to take on 8-mile daily runs, but there simply wasn't enough time in the day to do that, during the schoolyear, so I backed off. After the end of Cross Country that fall, I slacked off (I can only ever run outside and in shorts and a t shirt, and the cold weather of winter made it miserable), and haven't been able to "get back" since.

Other than that consideration, I'm trying to balance not having internet at home with obligations requiring the use of the internet, such as printing out various financial information required for applications of various sorts, and the ubiquitous necessity to spend time career-searching.

I am thankful to God for the experience of being in a low-wage situation for the past 9 months, so that I could have the opportunity to balance my finances without the sensation of having any 'extra cash.' When I move on to make more in different positions, wherever I go from here, I'm undoubtedly going to carry with me my mentality about what food is worth buying, for example, and how driving routes affect gas usage. Having everything you feel like having without having to balance your income and expenses is no blessing in terms of inclining you to be responsible and thrifty. Far better to begin poor, whether you remain poor or become rich, than to go in the other direction. At least that's how I feel about it.

~ Rak Chazak