I'M BAAAAAACKKKKKK!!!!!
I made it for a swim today. A quick klom at the Sports Centre, on second attempt after being phoned into a meeting just as I reached it at 12.38pm. Finally got there at 2.30.
Now, that may not seem like anything to write home about. But I'm a naturally active person and I've been sitting on my ass for two months almost solidly. (Actually, the ass itself is somewhat less than solid as a result.)
What you don't notice is how much 'physical' people deteriorate in that time. So brief, yet of such violence against the self that against it the decay of centuries is nothing.
Tonight I feel GREAT, buzzing with energy and inner strength; that half hour struggling along swim lanes has somehow relit the furnace. My flatmates have commented on how different I look. I'm 'myself' again. It's good to be back.
In two months hunched over a laptop or lecture desk, my shoulders have lost something like 6cm in lateral dimensions. My arms have shrunk to puny sticks; ruddy skin faded to blotchy whey. There's a perceptible beergut, and I've spent every day tired for as long as I can remember. I'm a shadow of my former self.
What I forgot was: this isn't me. I'm not a milquetoast academic; I'm an adventurer. My home is barrelling across deserts in a 4WD or grokking the electric neon night of a New Asia city, not the overcooked softness of the academic world. I like it here, but I don't belong here.
I see so many of them, young professors and postdocs old before their time; 35-year old men going on 80. They're not part of my worldview, and maybe that's why I dropped out of school at 16.
But for a few brief weeks, bound up in the hysteria of an MBA first term, I nearly became one. Soft. Rounded. Sunk in the custardy gloop of a pleasant, rarified life of thinking and writing.
And it nearly killed me. Only last week I went blotto for a full 24 hours, exhausted by the sitting and talking instead of moving and acting.
Ha. Almost got me.
But now the endorphins are awakening from their Autumnal slumber. Racing into my system. Electrifying my being. Bringing me back to life. I'm fizzing again.
You got me, but - not - quite.
I'm back.
Now, that may not seem like anything to write home about. But I'm a naturally active person and I've been sitting on my ass for two months almost solidly. (Actually, the ass itself is somewhat less than solid as a result.)
What you don't notice is how much 'physical' people deteriorate in that time. So brief, yet of such violence against the self that against it the decay of centuries is nothing.
Tonight I feel GREAT, buzzing with energy and inner strength; that half hour struggling along swim lanes has somehow relit the furnace. My flatmates have commented on how different I look. I'm 'myself' again. It's good to be back.
In two months hunched over a laptop or lecture desk, my shoulders have lost something like 6cm in lateral dimensions. My arms have shrunk to puny sticks; ruddy skin faded to blotchy whey. There's a perceptible beergut, and I've spent every day tired for as long as I can remember. I'm a shadow of my former self.
What I forgot was: this isn't me. I'm not a milquetoast academic; I'm an adventurer. My home is barrelling across deserts in a 4WD or grokking the electric neon night of a New Asia city, not the overcooked softness of the academic world. I like it here, but I don't belong here.
I see so many of them, young professors and postdocs old before their time; 35-year old men going on 80. They're not part of my worldview, and maybe that's why I dropped out of school at 16.
But for a few brief weeks, bound up in the hysteria of an MBA first term, I nearly became one. Soft. Rounded. Sunk in the custardy gloop of a pleasant, rarified life of thinking and writing.
And it nearly killed me. Only last week I went blotto for a full 24 hours, exhausted by the sitting and talking instead of moving and acting.
Ha. Almost got me.
But now the endorphins are awakening from their Autumnal slumber. Racing into my system. Electrifying my being. Bringing me back to life. I'm fizzing again.
You got me, but - not - quite.
I'm back.
Labels: Warwick University, WBS
posted by chrisworth at 6:49 PM
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