Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “feats”
Wow! It’s been a hectic semester for me. I have a ton of things I want to write about and have fallen behind on my blog. Oh well – life happens. The good news is that the things that have made the semester hectic are generally good things. I’m feeling really lucky with how wonderful my life is right now. I’m a bit overloaded with work (in exchange for a light spring semester), but other than that, there is absolutely nothing I can complain about. So with that, on to my life update.
Back in May, the week after I finished the spring semester of teaching, I saw my chance to do something fun and ran with it. The result: I spent a week doing activities in my discomfort zone.
Last June, under a bit of peer pressure and during a momentary lapse in sanity, I signed up for my first half-marathon, the Sedona Half-Marathon. Sedona is stunning, but it’s also at 4,500 ft elevation and very hilly – not exactly a bright choice of location for my first try. Last weekend, nearly 8 months later, it’s finally over. I made it!
For the past year, my goal has been to become a PADI open water scuba instructor (OWSI). Two weeks ago, I completed the PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC) and Instructor Exam (IE) in Utila, Honduras, and now I’m finally an instructor! In this post, I’ll recap the IDC and IE.
About a month ago I got to do something pretty awesome: I hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. Most people who do a Grand Canyon rim-to-rim hike put in months (if not years) of planning and physical preparation. For one thing, the trek is about 24 miles in total, so it’s fairly physically demanding. On top of that, I went in August. This time of year, temperatures at the bottom of the Grand Canyon often exceed 100F (about 38C). So you have to be in pretty good shape.
As I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts, part of my funemployment has been spent starting a small business. This business centers on adult novelty items (think things people buy for bachelorette parties or fun gag gifts) and the concept was the brainchild of my sister.
February 18, 2015 is the day that I checked into the hospital. I was partway through a fellowship in Washington, D.C. and when I went to work that day, the fellowship director (let’s call her AM) could tell something was wrong. It was a Wednesday, but it was the first day of work that week because Monday had been a holiday and Tuesday was a snow day. By that point, I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in 3 or 4 days and was in the midst of a full on breakdown.
Okay everyone, here we go. I have a plan. Well, kind of. It’s only for about 4 months and, as you’ll read below, it’s lacking in detail. But I don’t tend to plan that far ahead or in any detail (as you can tell from my impromptu Cozumel trip this week – more on that in a future post – and the fact that I quit my job with no backup option ready), so this is actually pretty good for me.
It’s been about 3 months since I quit my job. In that time, I’ve essentially pushed a reset button for my life. I’m remembering all the little things that give me joy, accepting and embracing all of my many quirks, and letting go of external pressures and expectations. And I’m enjoying every bit of it.
Exciting news! I wrote an article for SwimSwam about how athletes (and everybody else!) can help friends and teammates who have depression. Hopefully it helps keep the conversation about depression out in the open and gives some ideas to people who want to help their friends but worry that they’re doing it all wrong. Click here to read my article!
Hello friends! Glad those of you who prefer introspective content are still reading despite my rather glib posts lately. Actually, I’ve been planning this post for a couple of weeks, with the intention of writing something a bit more serious and personal – it’s just that serious posts take longer to write! But something happened yesterday that has made me want to write. So here we go.
It’s been about a month since I started working on my site and two weeks since it went live. Up to this point, I’ve left the About Me section empty, providing visitors with just two words: “Coming soon.” Very informative.