And to your left...

Life stuff
* I have no clue how my coworkers manage sometimes. My one coworker makes as much as me, sometimes even fewer hours, is a single mom w/ two kids, and is about to get kicked out of her apartment. Gods, I wish I could help her(think I'm going to talk hours with her and see if she wants some of mine, I've got money saved. Either way, I've already got unopened toys from my collection I'm gonna give her kids for the holidays. Her daughter's into Monster High and her son into superheroes, perfect!).

* Three weeks in and my brother is reporting he's lost 9lb. already in boot camp. Brb, sending him more Powerbars, lol. Though apparently they did feed them lobster and steak for the USMC's birthday. Guess there was some benefit to him going earlier(original ship date would have been Nov. 11th)

* Speaking of, gotta poolee function tomorrow to celebrate that(late, as ball and parties were going on last week). Cake, ceremony thing, and a 92-year old vet to talk to us about the war.

* Possibly TMI: Took out my nipple piercings after five years of having them and, goddamn, feels weird seeing my boobs sans metal.

Running stuff
* Ran the marathon Sunday, it is now Friday and they still haven't posted the results. First they said Monday, then moved it to Thursday, and now they say today... we'll see. For a marathon that seems to want to compete with Richmond and OBX, they're really fucking up with this.

* Likely gonna sign up for the Seashore Nature Trail 50K. It'd, obviously, be my first ultramarathon and is in a month. I think I could manage it, just keep up training.

* Bought new running shoes yesterday. Basically brought my old pair and was all "just give me the same exact ones", lol. These, for reference. Love 'em.

* Visited my lil sis this past weekend and ran a 10k together(ish). I finished 20 minutes ahead of her, but it was still fun. Report incoming.

* Also while there, I met her boyfriend(kinda her first) making me the one who had to report on him to the rest of the family, lol. Dude is a giant, 6'2" and not scrawny, and I've found myself describing him as a cowboy!Thor(ish) in appearance and demeanor(granted, only meeting him long enough to have dinner).

* Also, also, went with her and her friend who was also visiting to the Virginia Safari Park, aka her work. She's one of the safari animal people. I got drooled on by a camel, my bucket stolen by a bison, pet all the baby llamas I could, called a blackbuck an asshole, and had all her coworkers be all 'whut' over finding out I was both related to and older than her#. It was fun.

# people think we look nothing alike. Once had the same teacher at the same time for nearly a year before it clicked for her that having seen us with the same parents and having the same last name made it likely we were sisters, lol.

* Rizzles has taken over my life, don't send help. Lol, seriously though, this fandom is so full of lesbian, it's just wonderful.

* That aside, excluding reading fanfics(which, some of those things are so long I almost wanna count them), updated my read list for the year. Have a lot of unread books to get through, though recs always welcome! Also, discussion of anything on the list!

* Ran 15 miles for the first time in awhile today, just 5(might just push it for 22 instead) more until I'll consider myself "ready" for the marathon. Plan an 18mi long run this coming week, 14mi the week after, then at least 20mi followed by tapering. Given how, aside from hungry and tired, I didn't feel too torn down by today's run, I'm feeling pretty good and like I'll actually be able to do this! :D

* I suddenly want a tortoise.

...again. When I was little I'd try to smuggle the baby ones from my grandmother's house. She always seemed to have a few(owned a pet store) at any given time.

* Why are SkyFlakes, the best, not sold everywhere(or, at least some type of scallion-type crackers)? Always good.

Holy fuck, this was fun. Was fifth woman to finish, placed first for my age group(women 20-24) and while I was a good ~4 minutes 30 seconds slower than my best 5k, that was to be expected, happy enough with how I did.

Basically, the Military Challenge is a 5k obstacle course/mud run. It had stormed most the night before so the course was extra muddy(they actually had a truck stuck in the mud at one point) and there were roughly two dozen obstacles.

( (biggish)Course map and report )

I was at work talking with my manager and a higher up when I started to feel really hungry, then I started to get nauseous, then my vision started getting fuzzy until I could no longer see but could still hear, then... I guess I fainted, passed out, whatever you want to call it.

Was all over really fast but they made me go to the doctor(at their expense, thankfully... they drew a lot of blood and stuff, so I can't imagine the cost), my coworker who's a former EMS nurse took me. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with me, just didn't eat enough/get enough water today, so the only real concern is about the back of my head having hit that concrete floor. Only time will tell there.

That said, goddamn, that was kinda scary. I mean, for most the hospital visit I couldn't stop shaking. Don't think it helped matters that the higher up guy at work, the first one to my side since he was right there, was freaking out over it and saying things like "it looked like you had a seizure, your eyes went all wide"(probably when everything went black and I was trying to see).

So yeah, most exciting short, four hour, shift to date.

So, this weekend I took a trip with my father to Harrisonburg, VA to visit my cousin and run the Waynesboro Park-to-Park Half Marathon. My cousin and I planned to run it, my aunt(mother's sister) and father planned to walk it.

The Park-to-Park is a point-to-point run from Ridgeview Park to Stuart's Draft Park, on a course equaling 13.1 miles. While I've run that distance often enough, it was my first official half marathon. Also, something I totally didn't account for with living/training in my flat land city at sea level, my first time really running with near continuous, and sometimes large, hills and at a higher altitude.

That said, a rough report.
( Our parents are idiots... )

So, that all said, stats...
I finished at 1:51:41 giving me a 8:32/mi and placing me at 6th in my age group(20-29). I'm happy enough with it.

My cousin managed 2:25:43 with a 11:07/mi, about four minutes faster than she expected, and 59th for her age group(30-39).

My aunt and father finished at 3:21:40 and 3:21:41, respectively, for 15:24/mi and last for both their age group(s)(50-59) and beating just one person overall. Heh.

My car's inspection was rejected and it'd take at least 1k to fix and even then was sure to break down again, so I decided to scrap it. Was my first car, so kinda woe over it being gone. RIP Domi. Fyi, its name was Dominique, as in Demona from Gargoyle's human name, lol. Was a '97 Pontiac Sunfire. Got it in 2006, came with 140k miles already on it and a CD player that never worked, but *sigh*

Now to begin the unpleasant task of figuring out my transportation situation. I mean, I bike to work and there's several strip malls in a 3-4 mile radius of my house, so it's not exactly like I'm completely stuck. Yet, anything outside that radius(movie theaters, library, clubs, most people I know's homes, clothing stores I actually like, grocery store that actually carries a lot of what I need, and so on...) is at least 12 miles away. Not the worst distance, but still... this area doesn't lend itself well to the vehicleless. Never mind that I'm supposed to visit my sister, a five hour drive, this weekend.

That said, cars are fucking expensive and I'm really not looking forward to draining my moving funds on this. Blah.

Haven't posted here much anymore, might try to rectify that.

Lately I've just been... lots of ups and downs and nothing in particular. Have a million little projects I'm working on that make me feel productive yet at the same time I feel stuck and like I need something to happen. Yeah, vague paragraph is vague.

Mostly just distracting myself from the storm going on and being trapped inside right now so, some of which Tumblr folk have already have seen, ( a few drawings. )

It was hiding in Hong Kong.

Until yesterday it didn't really sink in for me just how unreligious mainland China is(for good reason, the government has issues with it). Yet, I spent yesterday in Hong Kong which, while being in China, is governed by a different set of rules, and found that it just seemed to keep popping up.

For example, I kept getting slightly turned around in this one area by Central and my 'oh shit, I've come this way already' point ended up being this big church which had this one priest(?) chilling by the main door who seemed amused whenever he saw me. This worked fine until I ran into another church that I assumed was the same one, despite lack of smirking man, making me lost. Oy. Never would have happened in Guangzhou since there's just the one church over on Shamian Island.

Any who, later on, while taking the metro, I was chatted up for a few stops and handed literature by a Jehovah's Witness, a French-Hong Kongese one at that! He seemed proud to tell me the number of Jehovah's Witness' in the US once he learned where I was from. Then, for noteworthy run-in number three, I was helped in getting to Shenzhen, after missing my train from Kowloon->Guangzhou straight through, by a pastor who lives there. He seemed an okay guy and had an impressive collection of stamps/pages in his passport from going through immigration nearly everyday to get to/from HK. Could have done without his 'You need to accept Jesus into your life to be happy' lines, though I figured it came with the territory for someone who moved to China "for God" and had "Jesus loves you! Amen!" on the back of his card.

Happy Chinese New Year/Valentine's Day!
Got back in Bangkok last night, here for a few more days. Woke early so my mind's still fuzzy and I can't think of much else to say at the moment, just hope everyone's day (week/month/year/life) is fantastic!