Swimming!

I went swimming today for the first time in, uh, let's just say a while. I swam 1000m in 21 minutes, which is much faster than I had expected to swim. I wish I were better at working out regularly. For one semester, I swam two or three times a week, and I felt great. But now all those benefits have been lost due to not working out and too much junk food. Sigh.

Side advertisement, I use a site called Fitocracy to track my workouts. It's a fun site because working out gives you points towards "leveling up". Leveling up doesn't really do anything, but it's an ego boost and a way to see progress happening even when you don't feel like your body's making progress. It's free, or you can sign up for a paid version. I use the free version; I think the paid one just has some more bells and whistles. If you're interested in joining, click here! (That's my referral link. I don't get money if you sign up through it, but if enough people use it I get a brief period of free access to the paid portion of the site.)

Today has not been a good day

I have been feeling angry and irritable all day for no reason. This has been happening more than I would like recently, and I am thinking it may be a sign of depression coming back. The reason why I hesitate to say this is because the sun has been shining more than usual over the past week, which usually correlates to a better mood for me. I also haven't been having anxiety problems, which is usually a more reliable way for me to track depression than depression symptoms themselves, which (in my opinion) are more subtle. On the other hand, I've had to take a 2.5 week break from running due to a hip injury. So maybe those balance out. Anyway, something to keep an eye on--I really hate feeling this way and would like to nail down and eliminate the cause.

I was going to do homework with friends with the super bowl on in the background, but plans fell through. So I was going to do homework alone (I have a paper due this week on top of my normal workload), but so far I have done nothing since dinner. Go Patriots, I guess, since I have family from New England. Can you tell how much of a football fan I am? (I have never watched a super bowl.)

About my hip: I've been having pain in my right hip joint/groin since about the middle of Christmas break. I was initially diagnosed with a hip strain by university health services, but after two weeks of rest and naproxen (an NSAID) didn't fix it, they are looking for another answer. It appears to be something muscular rather than structural (pressure hurts), so they scheduled an ultrasound for Thursday. The good news is that since running didn't seem to bring on pain, and stopping running didn't help much, I have official doctor go-ahead to run. So I went running this evening, only for 20 minutes, but still. I went a little over two miles, which is a decent pace for me (I know I'm slow). In terms of long-term running goals, I think the half-marathon I was planning to run at the end of March is out of the question at this point. So maybe I'll run the 10k they have at the same event.

Lastly, more good news: I've officially been matched with a child to pray for on Reece's Rainbow! Reece's Rainbow is an organization that helps to facilitate international adoption of children with special needs (with a focus on Down Syndrome). One of the ways to help, if you can't adopt or donate money, is to offer to pray specifically for one child every day. I emailed them, and they gave me Kurt. He's four and a half, and he has mild CP. That's him on the left. Isn't he cute? I kind of want him to be mine, but of course hope that he has a family by the time I'm old enough to have any children of my own.

Well, I need to go take a shower and then work on my philosophy paper. It's about Descartes, whom I happen to dislike very much. :/