Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Learning How to Be Still and a PT update
About 3 weeks ago, I realized that I wasn't getting the best use out of my 24hour Fitness membership. I got a great deal on it (19.99 a month), but it's not such a great deal when you're paying for nothing. I decided to motivate myself the best way I could, by getting Ed to use a free week's pass to the gym so that I could have company :). Using the machines with him was nice enough, but I was still feeling frustrated with being unable to work out how I wanted to. We ended his week of gym using by trying out the Sunday yoga class that I had been too intimidated to try alone.
It was surprisingly unintimidating and I loved how relaxed the atmosphere was. The last time I had tried Yoga was at Berkeley, and I just remember feeling like I didn't know what I was doing and not really wanting to be there. This was different in a very good way. Though Ed's visit at my gym ended that day, my experience with Yoga was just beginning.
The next Thursday I went to the other Yoga class, expecting a similar experience. It ended up that this was a much more challenging class, with more emphasis on making Yoga a work out (the hard things during Sunday's class were the warm-ups here) but I still really enjoyed it.
Since that first week, I have been attending both the Sunday and Thursday classes and have really been enjoying them. I still really struggle through a lot of the poses, but am really liking many aspects of Yoga. I like how it is so relaxed, and yet is still very challenging. I like not wearing shoes when I'm active and being in the darkened room. And I like that I feel like I am getting all over stronger in a very positive way. I have hope that Yoga will somehow help my leg but, even if it doesn't, it is so nice to be doing something somewhat active that does not at all make my leg worse. That alone is great.
Ed has also gotten us a 9 week class of Pilates which will start next weekend, and I am also going to begin going to Pilates on Monday nights, so I will be doing Yoga and Pilates four days a week. Hopefully it will make me a better, stretchier, stronger person and someday, a better runner.
I have also now gone to 2 sessions of PT and am cautiously optimistic about that as well. The Doctor actually seems to really 'get' what's going on with my leg, and has made some enlightening 'discoveries' about my leg that I had sensed but never had diagnosed. What he explained is that, because of my leg injury (he thinks its most likely Piriformis Syndrome) my other leg muscles have gotten lazy and stopped working as they should. They will work for a little while but will give up quickly and force other muscles to do the work they weren't designed to do, which makes the leg tire out quickly. He also noticed that when I was lying down and he put pressure on the left side of my lower back, my muscles don't give like they should (i.e. when he pokes me, my body should sort of bounce but instead it just stays still). Also, my left (injured) leg is about half as flexible as my right.
So far, my treatment has be very different from the last time. The doctor spends most of his time putting pressure on my very lower back along my spine and having me push my leg into his hand (sounds odd, but apparently it's supposed to help). After he does that he hooks me up to this machine that sends pulses through my lower back while I lie on an ice pack with my legs elevated. He said he noticed that my leg is getting a little less tight (and more responsive. After my second session, he taught me just two exercises/stretches that I'm supposed to do a few times a day. One is called the ankle fight, where I cross my ankles and push them against each other. The other thing I'm supposed to do is stretch my hamstrings.
No difference in my pain yet, but I'm guessing it will take more than a few weeks to get results.
Hopefully between PT, Yoga, and Pilates, good things are on the horizon for me.
For now, I'm trying to be content with where I am and enjoying learning many new things.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Help! I’m Being Sucked into a Negative Black Hole… Throw Me a Number Line!
by Dad on Parenting, Worksheets (from dadsworksheets.com)
A Negative Number Black Hole Consuming the Universe (Especially M&Ms)
I suppose as a kid, it’s tough to focus on learning something new when your dad tells you that the entire universe might be erased by a minus sign.
We’d pretty much exhausted the positive integer subtraction worksheets, but had a high-motivation goal on the table involving another iPod download here, so something had to fill the gap in the space-time continuum… I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to toss out one of the introductory subtraction pages on negative numbers because I had the time to introduce the concept and work through a few examples.
Unfortunately, as far as my young charge was concerned, negative numbers might as well have come from Mars. Or worse. Much, much worse.
“Negative numbers? How do you have minus something?”
“It’s not like having something, it’s more like owing somebody something… Pretend I give you ten M&Ms, and you say you’ll give me ten back later. It’s kind of like you have negative M&Ms because you have to give them to me later.”
“But I have ten M&Ms because you just gave them to me.”
“No, pretend you ate them.”
Pause of imminent doom.
“No I didn’t. Here, I’m pretend giving them back. I don’t want negative M&Ms”.
The more I talked, the more negative numbers sounded not just odd, but down right scary. Numbers that can cancel out other numbers? Sudden risk to the global candy supply? By the time I exposed that Bank of America might, without asking, take money out of your bank account for overdraft fees, my daughter was pretty sure the world was coming to an end. I’m fairly certain the Birds and the Bees conversation is going to be feel like a walk in the park after all this. For half an hour we danced around the growing risk of explosion from the matter-antimatter annihilation of the numbers I created. Micro-black holes at the Large Hadron Collider had nothing on me here.
Before we plunged across the event horizon into a stretchy existence shredding demise, I gave up talking and my old friend, the trusty number line, pulled us back to safety. In these situations, you don’t know you’re on solid ground until you hear, “Oh that’s it? That’s easy!” in your ears. Thank you, Mr. Number Line… The world is safe from antimatter M&Ms and overdraft charges for now.
And, thinking about it, maybe I’ll just wait a while more on the Birds and the Bees, too.
_______________________________
*I was looking for a good worksheet for my students on negative numbers (they're actually taking to them quite well!) and found this, which amused me : ) * Number lines (and thermometers- which are arguably vertical number lines) are quite amazing indeed!
On fitness news, I have my first PT appointment today!!! Wohoo! Hopefully it goes well :)
A Negative Number Black Hole Consuming the Universe (Especially M&Ms)
I suppose as a kid, it’s tough to focus on learning something new when your dad tells you that the entire universe might be erased by a minus sign.
We’d pretty much exhausted the positive integer subtraction worksheets, but had a high-motivation goal on the table involving another iPod download here, so something had to fill the gap in the space-time continuum… I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to toss out one of the introductory subtraction pages on negative numbers because I had the time to introduce the concept and work through a few examples.
Unfortunately, as far as my young charge was concerned, negative numbers might as well have come from Mars. Or worse. Much, much worse.
“Negative numbers? How do you have minus something?”
“It’s not like having something, it’s more like owing somebody something… Pretend I give you ten M&Ms, and you say you’ll give me ten back later. It’s kind of like you have negative M&Ms because you have to give them to me later.”
“But I have ten M&Ms because you just gave them to me.”
“No, pretend you ate them.”
Pause of imminent doom.
“No I didn’t. Here, I’m pretend giving them back. I don’t want negative M&Ms”.
The more I talked, the more negative numbers sounded not just odd, but down right scary. Numbers that can cancel out other numbers? Sudden risk to the global candy supply? By the time I exposed that Bank of America might, without asking, take money out of your bank account for overdraft fees, my daughter was pretty sure the world was coming to an end. I’m fairly certain the Birds and the Bees conversation is going to be feel like a walk in the park after all this. For half an hour we danced around the growing risk of explosion from the matter-antimatter annihilation of the numbers I created. Micro-black holes at the Large Hadron Collider had nothing on me here.
Before we plunged across the event horizon into a stretchy existence shredding demise, I gave up talking and my old friend, the trusty number line, pulled us back to safety. In these situations, you don’t know you’re on solid ground until you hear, “Oh that’s it? That’s easy!” in your ears. Thank you, Mr. Number Line… The world is safe from antimatter M&Ms and overdraft charges for now.
And, thinking about it, maybe I’ll just wait a while more on the Birds and the Bees, too.
_______________________________
*I was looking for a good worksheet for my students on negative numbers (they're actually taking to them quite well!) and found this, which amused me : ) * Number lines (and thermometers- which are arguably vertical number lines) are quite amazing indeed!
On fitness news, I have my first PT appointment today!!! Wohoo! Hopefully it goes well :)
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
A white and slippery winter
Wow...it's been a while since I've posted :) I've been keeping up with all of you, but life has been busy and unexciting enough that I haven't been keeping up here.
Life has been much of the same, lots of working (though I'm getting better at taking some time off in the evenings) and not much on the leg front. After waiting to no avail for a call from my new doctor, I called and made another appointment a few weeks ago and got seen again. This time he had me run on a treadmill for about a mile and a half and examined me before and after to see if that shed any light. Not too much, but he wants to go forward with a piriformis diagnosis and get me PT for that and for a weak ankle that might also be contributing. I was supposed to get a perscription for the PT in the mail last week but, as of Saturday, there was nothing, so hopefully it'll be waiting for me on my return.
All of CA (and more or less all of the country in fact) has been battered by storms these last few weeks, which made for some gorgeous scenes of 'winter wonderland'. Imagine my surprise driving to school last week and seeing snow all over the surrounding hills and mountains. We had gorgeous views from the playground and much excitment over a puddle that had frozen over during the night ("It looks like glass!!!!" One of my students shouted with glee, holding up a shard of ice and then hurling it onto the asphalt to let it shatter). The snow didn't last long but really made it feel like winter.
On Ed and my journey down to So Cal to visit my family for Christmas, we made a stop in Visalia, Ed's hometown, to visit with his brother and sister in law and to celebrate the holidays with them and his mother. We decided to take advantage of Visalia's proximity to Sequoia Natinoal Park, and planned a snow day for Sunday with a romantic overnight in a small cottage in the town of Three Rivers.
Ed, his brother and I, after picking up chains for his car, headed to the Park, despite a storm advisory for the area. We paid our park entrance and headed up the mountain. After about 15 minutes of driving it began to rain. As the temperature dropped the rain froze, and small balls of hail poured down on the car. In not too much longer, it became a thick blanket of snow.
At about this point, the car ceased to do exactly as it was told. Namely, it started sliding around a little. Now, I am not exactly the most adventurous person out there. Especially when it comes to a feeling of being out of control. We continued to inch along the rood, hoping for the promised turnout to apply the chains (well, cables actually) that we had purchased, but soon I could take the slipping around no longer. Becoming just a teensy bit hysterical, I demanded we stop the car where it was, in the middle of the road, and get those cables put on.
Standing in the steady snowfall with the cables laid out on the ground, we began appreciating too late the first directions "please apply cables to the car before the actual need arises, to ensure proper fit." Ends up, neither Ed nor Ed's brother (not to mention myself) had any idea how to put these things on. As the directions became soaked with falling snow, I saw the wonderful sight of a park ranger vehicle pulling up behind us. "You folks need help?" he asked. I immediately jumped in, telling him we would love assistance. With a few quick explanations, we soon realized we had been trying to put on the cables completely wrong and started anew, getting them secured in 15 minutes or so. With a friendly wave, the ranger was off and we climbed back into the safe and now snow capable car.
Or so I thought.
Despite the addition of cables, the back wheels (that were wearing the special gear) were going in a different and somewhat horizontal direction comared to the front. Naturally, I didn't take this sensation calmly. We stopped at the official chain spot and the boys tightened up the chains and I suggested, with the snow still coming down heavily, that we should turn around. I was convinced that it would be much better as we got further into the snow area so on we went.
our new driving conditions
the snow coming down
Trying to keep my panic to a minimum, I clasped Ed's hand as we continued up the beautiful snowy mountain. As we got to a turn in the road, the wheels lost traction and we got stuck. Ed got out and pushed and got the car moving again. Again I suggested that perhaps, with the storm, stranding ourselves on a mountain wasn't be best idea. Again, I was turned down. We got stuck one more time (and freed once again by Ed) and inched ever closer to our new, closer destination of the Giant Forest Museum.
a roadside observor
I told the boys that I would be asking a Ranger for a ride back down the mountain, as there was no way I trusted this car to make it down the mountain, which was acknowledged with a smile, and, finally, we arrived.
Well, it was gorgeous. After sitting in the museum, warming up and calming down, we headed out on a beautiful hike through this winter wonderland. The weather had lifted, with even some blue sky poking through, and we spent the next hour exploring a trail that went around a large meadow. Our trail shoes worked fine on the snowy trail, and the walk helped calm my nerves.
I relented to riding down the mountain again with the boys, on the condition that if the car slipped on our way down the hill in the parking lot, I was getting out and hitching a ride with a more capable vehicle.
Of course, the car did fine. The ride down was uneventful and unslippery, thanks to some effective salting and plowing of the roads, as well as the break in the storm. I read a book on the way down, my adrenaline decreasing with every twist in the road in which the car stayed firmly planted to its ground.
We made it to our final destination safe and sound and happy. It was a beautiful and overall enjoyable day in the mountain and it reminded me that I need to work on letting go sometimes and just enjoying the ride.
Life has been much of the same, lots of working (though I'm getting better at taking some time off in the evenings) and not much on the leg front. After waiting to no avail for a call from my new doctor, I called and made another appointment a few weeks ago and got seen again. This time he had me run on a treadmill for about a mile and a half and examined me before and after to see if that shed any light. Not too much, but he wants to go forward with a piriformis diagnosis and get me PT for that and for a weak ankle that might also be contributing. I was supposed to get a perscription for the PT in the mail last week but, as of Saturday, there was nothing, so hopefully it'll be waiting for me on my return.
All of CA (and more or less all of the country in fact) has been battered by storms these last few weeks, which made for some gorgeous scenes of 'winter wonderland'. Imagine my surprise driving to school last week and seeing snow all over the surrounding hills and mountains. We had gorgeous views from the playground and much excitment over a puddle that had frozen over during the night ("It looks like glass!!!!" One of my students shouted with glee, holding up a shard of ice and then hurling it onto the asphalt to let it shatter). The snow didn't last long but really made it feel like winter.
On Ed and my journey down to So Cal to visit my family for Christmas, we made a stop in Visalia, Ed's hometown, to visit with his brother and sister in law and to celebrate the holidays with them and his mother. We decided to take advantage of Visalia's proximity to Sequoia Natinoal Park, and planned a snow day for Sunday with a romantic overnight in a small cottage in the town of Three Rivers.
Ed, his brother and I, after picking up chains for his car, headed to the Park, despite a storm advisory for the area. We paid our park entrance and headed up the mountain. After about 15 minutes of driving it began to rain. As the temperature dropped the rain froze, and small balls of hail poured down on the car. In not too much longer, it became a thick blanket of snow.
At about this point, the car ceased to do exactly as it was told. Namely, it started sliding around a little. Now, I am not exactly the most adventurous person out there. Especially when it comes to a feeling of being out of control. We continued to inch along the rood, hoping for the promised turnout to apply the chains (well, cables actually) that we had purchased, but soon I could take the slipping around no longer. Becoming just a teensy bit hysterical, I demanded we stop the car where it was, in the middle of the road, and get those cables put on.
Standing in the steady snowfall with the cables laid out on the ground, we began appreciating too late the first directions "please apply cables to the car before the actual need arises, to ensure proper fit." Ends up, neither Ed nor Ed's brother (not to mention myself) had any idea how to put these things on. As the directions became soaked with falling snow, I saw the wonderful sight of a park ranger vehicle pulling up behind us. "You folks need help?" he asked. I immediately jumped in, telling him we would love assistance. With a few quick explanations, we soon realized we had been trying to put on the cables completely wrong and started anew, getting them secured in 15 minutes or so. With a friendly wave, the ranger was off and we climbed back into the safe and now snow capable car.
Or so I thought.
Despite the addition of cables, the back wheels (that were wearing the special gear) were going in a different and somewhat horizontal direction comared to the front. Naturally, I didn't take this sensation calmly. We stopped at the official chain spot and the boys tightened up the chains and I suggested, with the snow still coming down heavily, that we should turn around. I was convinced that it would be much better as we got further into the snow area so on we went.
our new driving conditions
the snow coming down
Trying to keep my panic to a minimum, I clasped Ed's hand as we continued up the beautiful snowy mountain. As we got to a turn in the road, the wheels lost traction and we got stuck. Ed got out and pushed and got the car moving again. Again I suggested that perhaps, with the storm, stranding ourselves on a mountain wasn't be best idea. Again, I was turned down. We got stuck one more time (and freed once again by Ed) and inched ever closer to our new, closer destination of the Giant Forest Museum.
a roadside observor
I told the boys that I would be asking a Ranger for a ride back down the mountain, as there was no way I trusted this car to make it down the mountain, which was acknowledged with a smile, and, finally, we arrived.
Well, it was gorgeous. After sitting in the museum, warming up and calming down, we headed out on a beautiful hike through this winter wonderland. The weather had lifted, with even some blue sky poking through, and we spent the next hour exploring a trail that went around a large meadow. Our trail shoes worked fine on the snowy trail, and the walk helped calm my nerves.
I relented to riding down the mountain again with the boys, on the condition that if the car slipped on our way down the hill in the parking lot, I was getting out and hitching a ride with a more capable vehicle.
Of course, the car did fine. The ride down was uneventful and unslippery, thanks to some effective salting and plowing of the roads, as well as the break in the storm. I read a book on the way down, my adrenaline decreasing with every twist in the road in which the car stayed firmly planted to its ground.
We made it to our final destination safe and sound and happy. It was a beautiful and overall enjoyable day in the mountain and it reminded me that I need to work on letting go sometimes and just enjoying the ride.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Majority Of Americans Never Use Physical Education After High School
[Nothing yet from the doctor, but here's a great 'article' from the onion :)]
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA—Kevin Higgins always hated gym class. Like many of his classmates, he questioned the relevance of things like "exercise" and "physical fitness," and wondered if these skills would ever provide any practical, real-world benefits. Though he endured more than 720 hours of gym over 12 years, the 32-year-old accounting clerk said Monday that he has still never used physical education once in his life.
"I don't know why they bothered teaching us all that stuff," said Higgins, who since graduating has not once encountered a situation that required him to move his body at a sustained pace or keep himself in healthy shape. "I mean, come on—when will I ever need to physically exert myself for an extended period of time?"
Higgins is not alone. According to a recent poll, nearly 85 percent of all Americans admitted that, since entering the real world, they have found very few reasons to utilize the concepts they learned in physical education. In fact, most high school graduates claim that despite their gym teachers' insistence that this knowledge would come in handy later in life, they have still never used bending, breaking a sweat, or coordination.
"I remember my gym teacher droning on and on about this thing called 'physical well-being,'" Higgins said. "I still don't even know what that means."
Many educators and high-ranking health officials maintain that it is essential for young adults to learn such valuable skills as participating in activities and interacting with peers, increasing the intake of oxygen and nutrients to the blood, going out of doors, and moving. However, thousands of Americans have nonetheless gone on to lead very successful lives without ever bringing their heart rate over 120 beats per minute.
Erica Burnstrom, a 28-year-old aeronautics engineer living in San Jose, CA, said that abstract concepts such as aerobic activity and raising one's knees above the hips in a rapid "pumping" motion have not added any appreciable value to her day-to-day life.
"I never use any of that stuff, like walking quickly for five minutes," said Burnstrom, who paused from using the Pythagorean identity to solve for the cosine of 71° and 144° in order to speak to reporters. "I understand that my phys-ed teacher needed to know all that stuff because that was his job, but I'm not some specialist who needs to lie flat, lift her torso into a sitting position, and then return to the original position for a living."
"I wish they'd have taught us useful things in gym, like sitting at a computer and ordering things," Burnstrom added.
Many Americans claimed that once they finished high school, skills such as increasing joint mobility and building muscle strength were no longer necessary.
"If something needs to get from one place to another, I can just use my cell phone, or hop in the car. And I know they say that physical education promotes balance, but that's what my cane is for," said Miami, FL resident Keith Monahan, 32. "The only thing I still use from gym class is that occasionally I'll throw on some sweatpants while I'm sitting on the couch watching television. So I guess I learned that."
Omaha insurance salesman William Haylor, 43, said that when his 8-year-old son asked him how to do a chin-up, he realized that he had simply forgotten.
"I know I used to be able to do that, but for the life of me I can't remember," Haylor said. "They're really hard to do. I think that's why I stopped."
"I wish I could help him out," Haylor added. "But what's the point? He's never going to use it anyway."
In response to these findings, many Americans have urged the government to stop wasting millions of dollars on useless physical education programs and start focusing on real problems, such as obesity, arthritis, and chronic back pain.
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA—Kevin Higgins always hated gym class. Like many of his classmates, he questioned the relevance of things like "exercise" and "physical fitness," and wondered if these skills would ever provide any practical, real-world benefits. Though he endured more than 720 hours of gym over 12 years, the 32-year-old accounting clerk said Monday that he has still never used physical education once in his life.
"I don't know why they bothered teaching us all that stuff," said Higgins, who since graduating has not once encountered a situation that required him to move his body at a sustained pace or keep himself in healthy shape. "I mean, come on—when will I ever need to physically exert myself for an extended period of time?"
Higgins is not alone. According to a recent poll, nearly 85 percent of all Americans admitted that, since entering the real world, they have found very few reasons to utilize the concepts they learned in physical education. In fact, most high school graduates claim that despite their gym teachers' insistence that this knowledge would come in handy later in life, they have still never used bending, breaking a sweat, or coordination.
"I remember my gym teacher droning on and on about this thing called 'physical well-being,'" Higgins said. "I still don't even know what that means."
Many educators and high-ranking health officials maintain that it is essential for young adults to learn such valuable skills as participating in activities and interacting with peers, increasing the intake of oxygen and nutrients to the blood, going out of doors, and moving. However, thousands of Americans have nonetheless gone on to lead very successful lives without ever bringing their heart rate over 120 beats per minute.
Erica Burnstrom, a 28-year-old aeronautics engineer living in San Jose, CA, said that abstract concepts such as aerobic activity and raising one's knees above the hips in a rapid "pumping" motion have not added any appreciable value to her day-to-day life.
"I never use any of that stuff, like walking quickly for five minutes," said Burnstrom, who paused from using the Pythagorean identity to solve for the cosine of 71° and 144° in order to speak to reporters. "I understand that my phys-ed teacher needed to know all that stuff because that was his job, but I'm not some specialist who needs to lie flat, lift her torso into a sitting position, and then return to the original position for a living."
"I wish they'd have taught us useful things in gym, like sitting at a computer and ordering things," Burnstrom added.
Many Americans claimed that once they finished high school, skills such as increasing joint mobility and building muscle strength were no longer necessary.
"If something needs to get from one place to another, I can just use my cell phone, or hop in the car. And I know they say that physical education promotes balance, but that's what my cane is for," said Miami, FL resident Keith Monahan, 32. "The only thing I still use from gym class is that occasionally I'll throw on some sweatpants while I'm sitting on the couch watching television. So I guess I learned that."
Omaha insurance salesman William Haylor, 43, said that when his 8-year-old son asked him how to do a chin-up, he realized that he had simply forgotten.
"I know I used to be able to do that, but for the life of me I can't remember," Haylor said. "They're really hard to do. I think that's why I stopped."
"I wish I could help him out," Haylor added. "But what's the point? He's never going to use it anyway."
In response to these findings, many Americans have urged the government to stop wasting millions of dollars on useless physical education programs and start focusing on real problems, such as obesity, arthritis, and chronic back pain.
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