Japanese class started last night! Really awesome stuff; the teacher seems to have a great knack for making people learn the correct way. No English, no romaji. From the start we'll be forced to understand what she's saying based on her emotion, lots of pointing to pictures, etc. Really fun... After only one class I've already picked up quite a lot.
Oh... the subject of this post is my name. She'd scold me for doing this, but it's ma-i-ke-ru-sa-n in romaji. "Maheekehroo sahn." Learn it, love it
I'm not sure what to make of what this does to my schedule. I woke up at 7am yesterday morning, ran, showered, ate breakfast, did everything I was going to get done "at home" (laundry. ran to post office) for the day, got to work at 11am, worked, left for class at 7pm, returned home at 10pm.
Just a friendly reminder to take five minutes right now to clean the funk from your mouse. The reduced friction will surely bring a smile on your face for many days to come.
I would wager a bet that these folks are pretty successful nowadays. Yes, school is dumb. I have learned more being out of school and in the workplace for four years (holy crap! I'm old) than I learned being in it for... Many more...
Unfortunately, we live in a society where a piece of paper gets you 75% more money. I'm certainly very grateful for the opportunities I was afforded and am thankful of my parents, but my question is WHY and WHEN did we get to operating like this? I know back in the day (long, long ago) there was real value to a degree. Nowadays? With the Internet, anyone is able to make something of themselves without homework or essays, yet enrollment is way up.
What can change? Will anything change? How can we make that change? This feels kind of like an empty rant, but it's something that bugs me... What do you think?
On second thought, maybe there ARE people who need the education? Business folk come to mind. None of them had any of the requisite skills when they left high school (or any idea what they wanted to do; "business" is a great fallback)... Folks in more "skilled" professions (computers, bicycle repair, whatever) did. Could this be a result of our economy over the past few decades? So much money, people don't know what to do with it, everybody wants to be some sort of contractor or Excel monkey to get their easy piece of the pie?
Talk about going off on a tangent... This post was fun, I should do some like these more often [at great risk of pissing folks off]. Please take it with a grain of salt; I'm not hating on anyone in particular, just our current society as a whole.
Following my 15-miler today, I realized that what might seem like the most inexpensive and environmentally friendly activity, really is not. Let's take a look at the breakdown of costs for today's run:
Shoes: $100. I get ~200 miles out of a pair of my Saucony Pro Grid Hurricane 10s so that comes out to $.50 per mile. Today's run? $7.50 in shoe wear. Energy: You cannot run 15 miles without energy supplements. I happen to choose Powerbar Gels. I shoot for one every three miles; four for today's run. They cost about $1.30 with tax. $1.30 x 4 = $5.20 in energy supplements. Ice: Since this was a paved run all the way, I've chosen to take an ice bath. A 10lb bag of "Premium Ice" (what's premium about it? I don't know) from Harris Teeter is $2.30 with tax. 10lb is not enough; I need 20lb. 2 x $2.30 = $4.60 in recovery ice. Recovery Drink: I'm a big fan of Endurox. It gives me that quick bit of energy I need after a run, it tastes good, and it has lots of good stuff in it. I typically buy jugs of it when they're on sale for $25ish. Each jug contains 28 servings. $25/28 = $.90 in recovery drink.
There are also the specialty socks, shorts, and watches. Since they don't really seem to wear out, I won't include them here, but they're worth mentioning. I'd say I run with about $200 worth of that stuff on at any time. In addition, there's the whole time is money thing and the amount of food I'll be consuming to make up for a 1500+ calorie burn... Sheesh!
Today's 15 mile run cost me $18.90. Luckily, we were able to run straight from the house, but there is usually driving [gas] involved in these longer runs as well. Maybe I'll take up bridge...
Who am I kidding? Running is great... It feels good (afterwards), has dropped 15lbs off my frame in just over a year, I like being/feeling healthy, and I love to compete. Onward, friends!
