Thursday, January 10th (posted 1/10)

So far, It has been very awkward having my mom take photos every time I do something, because it never ends up being candid. It makes me feel kind of self-conscious because it has to be representative of that days activity.

Something I am glad about is the fact that today I caught up with the backlog I accumulated so far. It feels good to be almost done. As I am writing this, I have just submitted an AP World History essay rewrite I have been working on all week. This week has been sort of awful for a plethora of reasons.

One, I had to become accustomed to a normal sleeping schedule. In general this is a good thing. However, it is good to have time to do so, but this week has been so busy.

Two, this week has been busy. Every night, I have had to come home, do math homework for 30 minutes, do an activity for this project which can last 15-60 minutes, do two blog entries which can take up to 2 hours, and finally, fit in as much work as possible into my essay rewrite as I can. This has left me repeatedly getting into bed around 11:00. This doesn’t sound too bad actually, until one takes into account that I had no sleep to begin with starting off the week.

Three, my pain doesn’t end when school ends Friday. As soon as I arrive at home, my parents and I (and possibly my brother depending on his work schedule) are heading to Arizona. It is an aspect of my Dad’s birthday, and being in Arizona, while not my favorite thing to do, will be fine. But the fact that I have maybe 20 minutes to sit around waiting for my ride after school, and from there I must be in an airplane, then a car, and then finally arriving at my father’s friend’s house. Only there may I finally relax a little bit. It feels like I am not really in the clear until Saturday.

I am not asking for sympathy, and by the time you may be reading this I will be hopefully having better days. I really brought this upon myself. This project I postponed for ~4 months? And I did it– well, I could’ve shifted it one day forwards, but I would have to work on a Friday, and I am going to be on an airplane then. On second, thought, this really is the latest I could do it. Oh well. My essay was assigned the day break started, Friday, and we were given a week after. Honestly, this was completely fair, but there was no way I was going to be able to get work done during winter break, it would be next to impossible to focus. I would call myself a “compulsive procrastinator”

Its funny how this procrastination thing was part of my reasoning for choosing how I did my experiential blog, and the entire way through I was plagued by it. I didn’t really change myself, I just was a bit more healthy than I otherwise would’ve been.

Except, that may not be true. I am currently coping with my stress my drinking lots of water and eating lots of M&M’s so with all the working out, its essentially been cancelled out. So my experiential blog did not really turn out great. If I were to replicate this week, I wouldn’t have procrastinated it as much as I did. If I even could manage that.

Today was the last day of doing an activity, but I will follow up with a conclusion post.

Today, I went to the gym, which is probably the climax of all my experiences, the final test. I didn’t think I was going to spend much time doing workouts and I was just going to show up, have a photo taken, and try a few workout devices. However, my experience varied greatly from my expectation.

My mother goes to the gym most days of the week, and sort of walked me through what she has been doing. I also once went to the gym very often but I have sort of stopped– when I was younger it was kind of a novelty and exciting, but these days my initial impression is more of an “ugh, sounds sweaty and gross.” I still do not really like the atmosphere of the gym, and I never really did. At the Bay Club, there is a somewhat diverse crowd of people, let me run you through what these kinds of people were.

• The man who is being overly competitive

When I initially got on the treadmill, a man begins his workout on the neighboring one. I didn’t think much of this, and continue running. I go through cycles of going fast, going slow, going fast, going slow, but with transitions in between. Every time I sped up the belt I was running on, this guy seemed to do the same. It was kind of annoying, and I eventually went to my absolute limit of how fast I was comfortable running to one up him. Honestly I became just as petty as he was, and stooped to the same level. Despite all this, it could have been my imagination. I haven’t gone to the gym in a while, and sometimes the gym makes people think of mean, muscular, competitive, angry, and narcissistic people there. My mom wasn’t surprised because she said many people are competitive on the treadmills, but it could have been a coincidence that was all in my head.

• The scary teenagers

Even though I am 15, I sometimes forget that I am a teenager myself. There was a group of teenagers, the kind you’d see in a movie depicting a stereotype. They seemed to just be hanging out near the weights. I don’t recall them really being the type of teens who would go to our school, but I find it difficult to really explain why.

• Everyone else

There were also just a lot of normal people, whom I was glad to see. Real people trying to improve their fitness, and people who are not especially irritating or anything.

The first machine my mother wanted me to use was the rowing machine. Interestingly enough, I don’t remember the names of the others, or if they even had names. You pull the handle towards you, and bring it back. And then, you repeat. This one was fine, but gave my hands callouses.

I did a small handful of other machines, but then I told my mom I was going to use the treadmill. In total, I ran a bit over 1 and a half miles. I was sweaty and more than ready to go home afterward.

Wednesday, January 9th (posted 1/10)

Today, my goal was simple: to run. My route was the same as my route from the walk, I just wanted to go faster. Actually, “wanted” is kind of a strong word. I guess it was more that I needed to go faster.

I don’t really like running, like most people out there. It is all about enduring the pain until it is over. It requires a lot of motivation to do so, however. Unlike other exercises, I firmly believe that my limit when running is not because I am not strong enough to improve, like with weights. If you lift, for example, a dumbbell, you will find that your arms have a finite limit to what they can lift, and that is what stops you from lifting a heavier weight. With running, I believe that what limits your speed is willpower.

To elaborate, you have a lot of time to think when running. What stops me from going faster is not me being unable to, but determining that running faster is not worth it. I think if people could remove that bottleneck, they could run so much faster.

A moment in 8th grade comes to mind when trying to illustrate my point. I was running a timed mile, as we would every month. I would have been within my allotted time, and I was wrapping up the last lap. Then I thought to myself, “It would be pretty cool if I just sped up a ton, right now”. So, I did. I was already so tired, but instead of slowing down, I sped up substantially. I didn’t breathe during the 5 seconds I did this. I just ran incredibly fast with a sudden burst of speed. Of course, I was extremely tired right after it, and I had to lie down for a solid minute or two to recover. This proved to myself that the main limit on my running speed is how bad I wanted it. This realization didn’t really change much, however. I knew I could shave minutes off of my mile time, but I didn’t feel it would be worth it.

I always considered my speed above average, and have been proud to say that because my legs are substantially shorter than others’.

This activity was more like a jog. I didn’t like the idea of getting too tired and still having to worry about getting home. This is why treadmills are preferred by many. I was itching to try a treadmill instead, because when you want to stop, you can just stop and not worry about it. This is different for me because I kind of am spooked by treadmills.

One time, I didn’t notice someone had left a treadmill running so I stepped onto it. My leg was swiped off to the side briskly, and my previously broken arm in its cast landed hard on the side of the treadmill. Another time, I tripped on a treadmill. I was fine, but it was kind of frightening nonetheless.

When I got home, I began to look forward to the next day.

Tuesday, January 8th (posted 1/9)

The activity this Tuesday was a little basic, yet a very necessary inclusion to say the least. This has been the most enjoyable one so far. I would consider a walk like this one to be better for you than much of the other activities I have done or have yet to be completed, yet also isn’t something I dislike doing.

There is not much of an argument to be made with exercise– it typically is not enjoyable. For many people the pros outweigh the cons, but they do not enjoy it nonetheless. I feel like walking can be a sort of happy medium for those who aren’t extremely serious about going to the gym and working out extensively, yet feel like after remaining seated and/or static for long periods of time at school or work. Being active is good for your health, but many people don’t need to be extreme with their workouts.

Going on a walk around my neighborhood can be humbling because it lets you take time to look around and see your surroundings. Typically, the majority of times I am seeing my house and my neighborhood is when I am leaving or arriving at my family’s home due to my commitment to going to school every day.

I have grown to really appreciate where I live as I get older, and have begun to realize that I am very fortunate to live in a nice house in a nice area with nice schools. Nice. However, the physical beauty of where I live is often overlooked due to remaining indoors much of the time. Seeing the sky around the neighborhood is something that I don’t spend enough time admiring, even if it was seeming a bit cloudy.

I had a peaceful experience walking. It was less to work out or gain muscle, but to stay active, which was the whole goal to begin with. Staying active was the most crucial aspect, and this does this the best. It was both enjoyable and it fit the parameters. It has been my favorite activity so far by a long shot.

Overall, going on a walk around my neighborhood was pleasant. I saw some nice vegetation, views, and architecture. My mountainous neighborhood actually could have provided light interval training due to going up and down. It has been my favorite one thus far.

Monday, January 7th (posted 1/9)

Monday was definitely unorthodox to me, and the activity is not something I am able to see myself doing very often.

The activity in question happens to be yoga. I actually have a bit of underlying experience with the– sport? craft? workout? stretch? lifestyle?! I’m not really sure how to define yoga, so I will turn to Google.

Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India. Yoga is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophical traditions. There is a broad variety of yoga schools, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

I didn’t know that yoga originated from India, nor was I aware of such a prevalent religious connotation associated with the term. It is always nice to learn something new.

My experience with yoga stems from 8th grade Physical Education, where Ms. Stiles, who wasn’t even my P.E. instructor, implemented a mandatory yoga session with her for 30-60 minutes every week or two. I recall this time always being extremely surreal, due to her rather ambitious and eccentric selection of music. This isn’t extremely relevant, but the music she played always resonated with me in a way that prevented me from fully interpreting the passing of time. These yoga lessons I endured seemed both instantaneous and everlasting, namely because what I heard coming from her speaker captivated me like a good book. My attention was held hostage with sounds that gave the impression of being serenaded by angelic voices. I really can’t get over what she would play, and I couldn’t tell if I liked it, but it took all the determination I could sum up to refocus my attention at the yoga itself.

This yoga experienced I have referenced prior to this was basic yet definitive. I am aware how to do a vast quantity of poses, however I also used some I found with a quick Google search to find the most popular ones.

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS809US809&ei=WDo4XJveI87C0PEP7cSCqAY&q=yoga+poses&oq=yoga+poses&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39j0l9.7474.8392..8558…0.0..0.156.739.0j6……0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71j0i131i67j0i67.xzb7mU47bog

I was unable to do a handstand, unfortunately.

Sunday, January 6th (posted 1/8)

This was the second day of my week long program, but the 3rd post. On Sunday, I decided to play soccer. As I am writing this past the day when I actually performed the activity, I am going to say this has been my least favorite one thus far. I believe that soccer, or football if you prefer, is the worst sport to play alone.

I actually spent nearly a decade playing soccer for the Del Mar Carmel Valley Sharks, but on the recreational team. Nonetheless, soccer has been part of my life for a quarter of (3 month seasons) 9 or 10 years. This year was the first year I didn’t participate in the recreational program, and opted to put more time into the referee program which I had also been doing for a few years by now. Being a referee made nice money.

My choice to exit the league was a decision I made as I saw my skill level to be severely outpaced more and more with each coming year. The truth is that little players would play for a decade if they weren’t a spectacular player. I don’t mean to say that I was “bad at soccer”. When I play with my friends in Weight Training sometimes, I find myself exceeding the average skill level of those involved. However I have no problem admitting that I am not a phenomenal player, and in recreational soccer, not many stayed in the league for 10 years if they didn’t find themselves especially gifted at the sport. I will never say I am “bad” at soccer, but it was just something that I did for fun. At my best, I am a good soccer player, but not a great one.

Feeling this way put a bit of a stigma in my head when my mother initially gave me the idea. I will likely always have a love-hate relationship with soccer for the rest of my life. Me being the way I am at the sport led to me feeling bad for myself during the season, like I was the worst athlete to ever walk Earth, but when I ceased playing, I realized how much of a bubble my conscience was consolidated in.

For these, I didn’t really want to do soccer as one of the activities. However, I just dealt with it, and kicked the ball around. It was pretty intensely deflated, and that was part of why I only did this one for ~15 minutes

When I got around to playing, I didn’t have much fun, and it felt kind of sad and boring just kicking around a semi-deflated ball through the legs of an outside bar in my family’s backyard. So far, I spent the least amount of time doing this activity because of this. It was unsatisfactory in all honesty.

Saturday, January 5th (posted 1/8)

With this somewhat large project looming over my head, it has slowly become more and more difficult to set it aside. My week was predetermined to be stressful by a multitude of factors, so it only added to a week in which I was already slightly plagued with anxiety.

As a result of my incessant thinking on the matter, I have begun to realize that my lazy ways extend to other facets of my life besides having a poor sleep schedule. On the day I am writing this (1/8), I have eaten extremely poorly and I’m feeling sort of bad about it. I wouldn’t exactly prefer to delve into the specifics, but I am entirely certain that it is unhealthy.

I have never been much worried much about my weight, probably due to my exceptional metabolism I likely have inherited due to simply being young. I still wouldn’t say I’m worried about overstepping the threshold into being overweight, but I am perturbed by the prospect of enduring ulterior health effect. Countless physical and mental ailments can occur to someone who is not paying proper attention to their health that are not immediately visible. I am concerned about the repercussions of not acquiring substantial nutrients, and following that, becoming ill.

Today, I partook in a bit of basketball. I have never been very skilled at basketball in any way, however I would consider myself proficient enough to join friends for a recreational game of basketball itself or another game utilizing a basketball (I am thinking of H.O.R.S.E. or Bumpout). I asked my mother to take a photo for this blog, but other than that I played alone. This consisted of just taking shoots to perfect both my form and, subsequently, my aim. The sport has been part of my life for a while now, which feels weird to say as I couldn’t think of one sport that I could be more genetically predisposed to be poor at– the truth is that tall people have an advantage in basketball, whether I like that or not. My basketball stint has really only composed of playing in Year One P.E., playing over the summer on my family’s hoop (which is over a decade old and has no net), both leading up to the present day, where I play with some friends in Weight Training.

Overall, I enjoyed the basketball part of today. I wouldn’t consider light running and shooting to be a full workout, but then again that really isn’t my goal. The major con to participating in some after school, on the weekends, or during a break like today is that fact that I really don’t have that much time to do activities like basketball. I feel like schoolwork handed out doesn’t much account for the other things that teens have to squeeze in to their lives, which overall can make it high maintenance.

Friday, January 4th (posted 1/7)

In all honesty, this blog has already become sort of contrary to the reason I had for doing it in the first place. The activity I did on Friday, yet here I am posting on Monday. It is clear to me that I have accumulated a sort of backlog in my blog days. I am hoping that the future is positive, and I begin to catch up. It is sort of ironic how my initial reasoning for choosing the topic was that I wanted to be less lazy and procrastinate less in hopes of seeing life from a healthier and less-stressed perspective. However, I am already procrastinating on an assignment based around the concept of ending my days of frivolous procrastination.

My sort of activity for today was to stretch. I am not sure if I would call simply stretching an exercise, but I believe it can be really beneficial if one stretches whenever they can. The action can prevent cramps, aches, and pains in general for me. With that said, I don’t really stretch.

Honestly, It’s not that I don’t know how to stretch, I dislike it, or anything but the fact that I don’t think. If I thought to myself to stretch once a day, I would one be lying because I don’t really think of things much in advance, which is definitely a major fault. I am cognizant of the benefits I may get from partaking in repetitive exercise like this, but I can’t bring myself to do it routinely.

I chose this as I thought it would be a good entry point into this week, as it doesn’t require much work on my part, and I am looking forward to easing into what I hope is a healthier lifestyle.

I started out by just doing lunges. I would extend my leg forward, and then I sort of contorted my body to give my leg a painless, full range of motion.

The next stretch I did was the “side oblique stretch”. I got it from the resource below. I found this resource to be more yoga poses than stretches. I guess these activities sort of intersect. I am also doing yoga this week, which will likely be very similar.

https://www.health.com/fitness/everyday-stretches

My favorite stretch is probably the lunge or the twisting back one. The lunge is good because I often hurt my legs when doing something active without stretching. This means pulling a muscle typically, which is a pain that can persist for a few days. My other favorite, which I have dubbed “the twisting back one” is where you can crack your back: a lot. This one always feels great to me, we do it in weight training every day. As I wrote this, I stood up and did it once more. I still don’t know what its called, but its like this but when you’re standing:

This is the image of me doing a poor lunge.

Something interesting I learned is that yoga and stretching cross paths often. Many yoga poses are just normal stretches, and many stretches are yoga poses. This makes me feel like yoga is just glorified stretching.

Friday, January 4th (posted 1/7)

Today, I am both setting the parameters for a week in which I will be stepping out of my comfort zone to try something new and explaining my decisions.

During the Winter Break, I found myself with a lot of spare time. I had an ten days to do as I pleased which I wouldn’t have had if it didn’t happen to be the holidays. Being 15, what better an idea than to sleep in and go to bed late? And that is exactly what I did.

I continuously stayed up long past what a normal person would perhaps deem reasonable, yet I was majorly unfazed. I would consequentially end up waking up late. My actions persisted, which simply amplified the growing issue. Although I enjoyed being lazy and lacking the need for much physical exertion, it put me into a sort of vegetative and sedentary state. I would wake up and eat a meal which didn’t really count as “breakfast”, but was of that nature nonetheless (I ate cereal past noon). I would sluggishly perform the rest of my morning duties, although inefficiently and reluctantly. Following this, I would skip lunch, and, depending on how bored I was, possibly eat a snack at around 5:00 to 6:00. I would later eat dinner, and even later I would shower and get to bed. However, going to bed was not incredibly relevant. I would stay up for hours past the time I crawled beneath my covers, and would only fall asleep against my own will. It definitely was not the best situation.

One morning, I had a sort of sudden realization of my unsavory lifestyle. I had finally gotten out of bed: at 1:30 PM. This was not necessarily something to be proud of. I was sort of ashamed of letting my life come to this within just a few days of freedom. I had even told my mother I would be getting out of bed at 10:00 AM that morning, but I fell laughably short of that target.

This had all effected me in a way that I wanted to change. It was no epiphany, but I felt that this wasn’t optimal in any way.

For my Experiential Blog, I have committed to discontinue my abysmal issue with being inactive and lazy. From January 4th to the 10th, I will participate in one different physical activity per day, and will write about it in this blog in the days following it. I am hoping that this makes me feel better as a whole, and I am able to see a new way of living without being ashamed of myself.

Thanks for looking at my blog!