Swamped

Not only have I been swamped with class work and research work, I've been swamped and stressed by life in general. I'm not sure how much of it is caused by my too-much-school-for-the past-6-years funk, but I definitely experienced a major dip in my "estado de animo" (as Ray once said) this week.

I'm not overwhelmed by the amount of homework or the material. I'm still sticking to my grad-school-is-easier-than-undergrad-and-funner-too hypothesis, at least for the time being. Despite this, I'm afflicted by a complete lack of motivation. Even more so than than this past Spring semester... or so many more before that. And even though I wasn't struggling with the course load, I dropped one of my classes. Not hard, not entirely a lot of work... just a lot of work that I didn't feel like doing. Why spend 5 hours a week working on a project that I am uninterested in when I could be outside?

I'm still trying to make progress in my Summer of Speed (and general fitness/get in shape time). I am speedier than before. I finished my first four weeks, the last of which was rough. I was upset, emotional and unmotivated. Cutting calories (being hungry all the time) and upping hours is rough.  I thought it was my third week, but midway through the week we checked my logs and realized I was in fact in the middle of a "rest" week that had not started restfully. That week helped me a lot more than I realized and it finished with me ready to hit the road again. Which I did. Week 5 was awesome, one of my top mileage/hours weeks ever. I wanted to up it another notch for week 6... but then work happened.

I was trying this new thing where I would spend more time doing things I like, including being outside and riding, and quit putting that stuff off for work. I realized how closely my estado de animo is tied with the amount of sunlight I get on a regular basis. It was going well, until the workshop. Another workshop. In early, out late, this past Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So much for another high mileage/hours week, so far I've gotten in 50 minutes. Not only that, but the stress and politics of the workshop have really gotten to me.

The good news is, I'm not going back until next Wednesday. 5 whole days without class or work. I hardly know what to do with myself... except I could clean the apartment, sit by the pool, finally finish Hillary's book (I'm almost to the Lewinsky thing), watch the world cup, watch the tour (man, my tivo is going to be busy!) and ride a lot, naturally. I'll be doing all that in Columbus with yet another visit to Will's parent's house, making it the 4th visit this summer and doubling the number of times I've been there ever in just a few weeks. Fortunately, it's become one of my favorite places to get away and the timing of this visit seems flawless. Not to mention we're kicking off the weekend at Sweetwater with many of our friends. I couldn't think of a better way to start my longest block of days off since... I can't remember when.

They're going to have to drag me back Wednesday morning. At least Wednesdays start with David's spinning class... my favorite spinning class.

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The Hand That Feeds

Last week Will, my sister and I went to the Nine Inch Nails concert. I have been a fan of NIN since I was about 13, which is the same age that I was when I started my "i love live music" kick. Who knows how many hundreds (possibly thousands?) of dollars were spent on me going to concerts all through middle and high school You name it, I was there... several Music Midtowns and 99x Big Day Outs (where I saw many more people than I could possibly name), Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Bush, No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins, Willie Nelson, BB King, Marc Anthony, even NSync (most expensive tickets to date - 75 each for the last row of Phillips arena - but not because I wanted to.)

It kinda stopped when I got to Tech, for many reasons I guess. The prices kept going up and I was always so busy that I didn't hear about concerts, much less make such an effort to keep tabs on music. The few that I did go to (Live, Fuel, Ludacris) were all free. There were several that I wanted to see, but the cost was ridiculous (and prohibitive?) so I just skipped those.

At one point a few months ago, though, I decided that I wasn't going to continue missing concerts of my favorites because of money. Just a short while after I said that, NIN announced another show (they played one last year that I skipped) so Will and I bought tickets almost immediately. I love that they cost just as much as they did the last time I went to a show (some 6 years ago), but these were the best seats I'd ever gotten.

So we headed to HiFi Buys. I was tempted to wear my pink shirt and floral skirt, but I didn't . We were pretty early and sat through the Bauhaus set. I remember why I am the exception, not the rule, to your general NIN fans. It really was as if all of these people had been frozen in time. We were hugely entertained by what some people think is appropriate to wear to a concert. Perhaps I should've asked to borrow Kristy's corset... although I'd probably be pushed to find fishnets and tacky boots on such short notice.

The music was, as always, amazing. Trent Reznor (whom I was infatuated with when I was younger) has aged more gracefully than his fans. He was sporting a new Will cut (buzz cut) as opposed to the JT cut (shaggy, but short). And he obviously had been to the gun show. They played a good range of all their songs. The show seemed a little short though (just under 2 hours) and they gave no encore. Weird... first concert I've ever been to without the whole encore thing.

One very noticeable change from 6 years ago was the integration of new technology into the show. It was more visual than ever before. The last time featured the band up against a backdrop that played visualizations. This time that same background was there, but had a noticeably higher resolution. In addition to that they dropped a screen of little led lights in front of the band from time to time and used that as well. At one point it was very matrix like, at another it looked like floating blood cells but then morphed into carbonation bubbles. Very cool. The show ended (somewhat abruptly, in my opinion) with this on the led screen:

I thought I heard a new song somewhere in the middle, or at least one that I'm not familiar with (the only one, possibly, although I admit I'm not up to date on my obsession). I distinctly remember him singing lines having to do with being rejected by the whole world, etc (as usual... definitely a recurring theme in his work). That kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, isn't thousands of people paying $50 each to see you proof of just the opposite? But then again, it is the formula that worked for him for so long, and the majority of his audience is still extremely angry (just asked the guy in the row in front of us... screaming his head off and gesturing... and all of his feelings multiplied by the astounding amount of pot he consumed in such a short amount of time). But, what about growing, maturing, trying something new? NIN spans several decades and generations now, the creator is in his 40s. I'd like to see some evolution. What about taking all that anger and making it productive? Or political? He is from New Orleans, and I know he hates "the man." I'd love to see him take it in that direction.

This desire of mine made me feel like I'd outgrown the whole experience. Will and I certainly stood out like sore thumbs, and while I enjoyed hearing all those songs that I know so well and that brought back so many memories, somewhere in the past few years I grew past identifying with them. And with sitting in between chain smokers just to catch an in-person glimpse of the person who creates the music that I admire so much.

But I don't know that I can ever outgrow enjoying live music, of any kind.

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Not Exactly Wedding Crashers

Last weekend two friends from the lab, Sara and Ian, got married in Huntsville so Will and I headed out there for the wedding. And since we're nerds, we decided to continue with our visits to aerospace museums by arriving early and checking out the U.S. Space and Rocket Museum that is located there.

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Originally uploaded by gatechcycling.

We left at about 730 on a rainy Friday afternoon. Will surprised me with earrings to match my pearl necklace, which was awesome because they matched perfectly with the dress I got to wear. We decided to take the shorter more scenic route, which first went up I-75 north.
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Originally uploaded by gatechcycling.

What's up I-75 north? My favorite place ever, Texas Roadhouse. But, since we had eaten there more than several times the past few weeks (just luck, I guess) we stopped at Provino's instead. The drive was nice took us through the southern part of the mountains in Georgia and Alabama, including Lookout Mountain parkway. We arrived at the hotel in Huntsville at midnight, which we then realized was 11pm Alabama time (yay!) but not before witnessing a really bad car wreck that somehow left my car mostly unscathed except for all the shattered glass all over it.

We woke up early and after asking for a later check out time, we headed to the museum. It was a pretty neat experience, and we got some neat pictures. The museum had some neat exhibits chronicling the history of space exploration, which I don't know as much about since I'm an aviation snob. Inside they had many historical documents, space suits, wind tunnel models, engines. They also had a neat exhibit that made me very disoriented and we rode the simulator which took us on a Martian roller coaster (ok, that was disappointing, we were hoping for something more realistic). Outside, they have many different rockets and spacecraft just sitting around, including 2 saturn 5s, one standing up so you can see how tall, and one lying on it's side. They also had a g force accelerator, which we went on (I didn't not enjoy that) and another ride similar to acrophobia, which neither of us wanted to ride.

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Originally uploaded by gatechcycling.

We headed back, changed, grabbed lunch at Chili's and headed to the church. We sat with other ASDLers and watched the nice (and short) ceremony, then headed to the reception (located in the church, as well). Sara and Ian looked awesome, and after a relatively calm (read: no alcohol and not much dancing) reception we piled back into the car and reversed the beautiful drive home.

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Originally uploaded by gatechcycling.

All in all, a pretty decent (but expensive... who would've guessed?) weekend.

Summer Days

This past weekend I spent the most amount of time outside that I had in a long time. And that was nice.

The weekend started with a trip to ABC with some of my classmates before heading to Columbus with Will to visit his parents again. I still contend that Sweetwater is better.
We spent the next 2 days hanging out, swimming, playing with the dogs, cycling and generally having a good time.

Monday morning we headed to the Silver Comet with Cameron. Craziest Silver Comet experience yet. It seems that since it was a holiday every idiot and their entire family was out there. It was even crowded well beyond the first 3-4 miles, which is unusual. There were plenty of instances of kids running into the path without looking, people swerving all over the place and in general just acting like they were driving, which is not good. We even passed a girl who had crashed and had to call the paramedics. I actually yelled at people several times. What about being at a place known to have cyclists traveling at 20 mph+ makes it seem like a good idea to stop in the middle of the road or intersection? Or let your kid run out infront of people traveling that fast? Ugh. I was a little disappointed because the Silver Comet is a place that I feel very comfortable riding and feel that in general I can relax a bit. It seems like perhaps that isn't the case anymore...

Following that we met up with my friend John, just back from sailing around the Caribbean for a bit and went to a cookout at my parent's house (they got a new grill) with lots of my favorite people, including Heather, my brother, sister, Becky, Alden, Kaya, the Wolffs and some of my sister's friend's parents. Good times.

The weekend was so fun that when I woke up to the alarm Tuesday morning, I was actually depressed. It becomes harder and harder to motivate myself for work or classes. I've made a pact to not bring any schoolwork home and to try to accomplish a lot during the week so I can take weekends completely off (although I never was good at working on stuff during the weekend to begin with). I hope this will help maintain my sanity so that I am not completely apathetic and unmotivated when the hellish Fall semester arrives.

Thankfully, tomorrow is the start of another weekend! This weekend we're traveling to Huntsville, Alabama for a wedding and we're going to continue our nerdy museum visits by checking out the Space and Rocket Museum there.

I'm pretty excited.