Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Lots of talking...

9/14/2007: 14.21-mile biking, 50:19, 16.9 mph
9/18/2007: 14.21-mile biking, 49:55, 17.1 mph

My high hopes of running in the evenings have produced little substance. I ran last week on Monday night, but since then I have not made the time to run. Fortunately, I have to bike just over 14 miles to and from work every day - except yesterday when I took the car, but there was a good reason - or else I would be in bad shape. As it is, I am in pretty good shape. I do think that running 5 miles and biking 14 miles each weekday may be more than my body can handle (on top of work responsibilities.) I'll find that balance, but for now I'm back to being a cyclist.

The lesson on Sunday went well. It's quite a change to go from a 25-30 member Elders' quorum in Irvine to a 15 member combined High Priest/Elders' quorum here. I got many compliments on my lesson. I heard that the Relief Society's version of the lesson was not as well presented. I think that may be a first in my experience - a priesthood lesson "outperforming" a relief society lesson. It may just be that the sister teaching the lesson tried to present all the material in the SWK manual (even though the "teaching helps" at the beginning warn against that.) In sum, my Sunday teaching went well.

My presentation on Monday went great. I took the car so I wouldn't have to worry about changing at work and so I would have the most amount of time to go over the PowerPoint one last time. I spoke for about 25-30 minutes and then answered 5 or 6 questions. Only two of the questions were really directed to the content of my presentation. The others were all tangential issues about enemy combatants and American foreign policy in general. Having participated in several job talks and presentations at UC Irvine, I was well-prepared for these "statements with a question tagged on at the end."

Right now I'm just trying to get a little more than "one day" ahead of my classes - so I'll end with this: Even though I have a great deal of work to do to even feel caught up, I am happier than I have been in more than 5 years. I am doing something I love and have a vision of my life that is settled and that I am excited about.

Maybe now I can start looking for a house,
Brad

1 comment:

Liz said...

I just talked to yet another former runner who is looking at double knee replacement surgery. Maybe not being able to run as much will turn out to be a good thing.

If you miss it too much, though, you could look into doing a triathlon. I hear if you don't drown during the swimming part (too many bodies churning up not enough water), it is a really cool experience.