Increasing the Difficulty

So another week has passed and besides reporting to you all the events of the week, I am nearly at a loss of what to say.

The week went by quietly and quickly. Sara and I have continued Jillian Michaels and began level 2 on Monday. This was a significant increase in difficulty, but I can tell, now that we are on day 6, that I have gotten stronger and I have noticed changes in my health and physique. I also got some hand weights in this week which have upped the difficulty as well. To match the increase with Jillian, Archery fitness also upped the difficulty by increasing the weights that we use for lifting. So, safe to say, last Tuesday, I was more than a little tired. But as I said before, I feel healthier and stronger and I am always uplifted by my determination and will power.

Archery was a week of settling out my form as best I can for the next round of the BUTTS tournament in Cambridge tomorrow. I think it will definitely be one of my competition bests, but then that is being a bit presumptuous. It is also the first competition that Sara will shoot in. Expect and update and pictures next week from the competition. It should be lots of fun and a cheap way to see Cambridge.

I had my first tutorial this week with Dr. Jordan Bell. It was the first tutorial that I had had where you read your paper aloud during the tutorial. The tutorial overall went great and Dr. Bell is such a nice person. While my views remain unchanged, its classification has been refined. For our next tutorial, we will be discussing Functionalism and Qualia. Qualia is just a fancy way to describe the "raw feels" or the immediate subjective qualitative experience of an individual. What it is like to be yourself. So far the readings have been interesting and I look forward to discussing them further.

As for my major tutorial, that has finally been sorted. My tutor finally replied and she has excusably been deathly ill for the last two weeks. She suggested that they find me a new tutor and that is what the lovely ladies in the admissions office have been doing. My new tutor (as of yesterday) will be Dr. Emma Coleman-Jones and she specializes in infectious tropical diseases and nutritional anthropology. I will have 5 tutorials with her this term and then 3 tutorials next term. This term we will be focusing more on nutritional anthropology and looking at obesity and diabetes. Given that my mom is a physician's assistant at a bariatrics clinic, I will likely have a lot to discuss with her about it.

Finally, I would like to talk about a more personal matter. I've come to realize that perhaps, for the last many months, since about August really, I have been bottling up my emotions. I didn't even realize that I had started doing it. I would get sad or angry, I could even cry, but I didn't actually feel the emotions. I always regarded them with an odd sort of distance and not at all. Sometimes this was a good thing. It kept me level headed when a number of difficult problems arose. I was better able to let go of things beyond my control. I got so good at refraining from feeling those emotions that I bairly realized I was doing it. In the last couple months, I would look at these emotions with frustration. Because I believe in the power of catharsis. Sometimes you have to feel the sadness and really cry to let out the emotion. Or be angry. Because I was ignoring these feelings, it became more and more difficult to feel happiness and joy. Even when doing things or being with people I loved.

 Now I bring this up, not so everyone can give advice or sympathize, but because I feel like I have finally opened the bottle. Last night, I cried, truly cried for the first time in months. I was both simultaneously relieved and overjoyed. It was a very strange sensation. Today, I feel more refreshed and renewed than I have in awhile and maybe even a little happy.  I am telling you all this because I would like to mark this moment in my personal history, through this blog. It is a part of my adventures here and also a part of the self exploration that I am able to do here. I realize that sometimes I treat this blog with more honesty and openness than most. I guess it is because I trust you all. And I know that most of the people that read this are already the people I love.

On that note, I leave you until next time.

Adventures Await!

KH