Kat in the Hat

I'm so happy it's finally sunny outside. All those clouds were boring! Not to mention they seriously hindered my ability to take pictures outside (everything comes out flat when there's no contrast of light and shadow). It's still ridiculously windy, but that makes it kind of fun. :) So praise God for sunshine!!

Vulcan
Speaking of photography, I went up to the Vulcan statue for the first time this weekend and took pictures. :) It was incredibly windy, especially up on the observation deck. I almost blew away!! It was still really overcast that day, but the view was incredible and I got some good shots (hopefully). I just finished that roll of film, so I'll know the results this week or next.

Cross Fit
So, one of my friends recently got his instructor certification for Cross Fit. He asked the dojo in general (he's also my sensei) if anyone would be willing to start doing Cross Fit so he could get some practice as an instructor. For those of you who don't know, Cross Fit is a workout program that's designed to build muscle movements you need for life, and the workouts are always changing so you never get bored (and your muscles don't stall in growth). I'd done a few workouts for funsies with him and one or two others, and none of those had been too terribly taxing. So I said, "Sure, that sounds like fun."

First two official workouts included running laps outside. I have a love-hate relationship with running. First time wasn't so bad, because I ran at my usual cross-country, I've-got-to-keep-this-up-for-3-miles pace, which is basically a brisk jog. Turns out you're supposed to run as fast as you can for as long as you can. So I did that the second time, and barely made it halfway through the first lap before I started lagging. By the third lap, when I heard the "motivating" claps of my "friend," I wasn't sure who to hate: him for telling me to pick it up or me for agreeing to do this.

I'm not sure I would call it "fun" anymore, but I don't actually hate it either - if I did, I'd just stop. It's a good challenge, and I want to see how quickly I improve. (I do wish the workouts weren't so similar to my strength training class workouts, though.)

School
After heartily avoiding it for several weeks (since almost the beginning of the semester, in fact), I finally started working on my oral review study guide. Yes, I know, I'm a procrastinator. But at least I didn't wait until the week before! I've still got... two weeks, I think? >_> The point is... I started. And it was actually kind of fun to go relearn some of this stuff! Guess that means I chose the right major. ;) And, since I've written papers on some of the study guide topics before, it was relatively simple to answer a couple of the questions; just had to re-read the papers. They're pretty good, actually. I can see where they need improvement, but I'm proud of the work I did on those.

Part of my homework for my Human Sexuality class was to watch about an hour of MTV. I was not at all pleased with that part of the assignment - I despise MTV. And after watching an hour of "Fantasy Factory," I feel completely justified in my prejudice. Nobody should be watching this mind-numbing crap. How is it entertaining to watch two guys in fat suits race around a dirt bike course they built indoors for no good reason?? The show seems to be built around the antics of these few workers - why do they even have such a big warehouse/"factory"? - because I couldn't discern any purpose at all. Waste of time.

Your Turn!
I was talking to one of my friends at dinner the other night, and we got on the topic of nicknames. We're both named Kaitlin (hers is spelled with a C), but she goes by Caity and I, for the longest time, refused to let anyone shorten my name. That's gradually become less of an issue for me, though there are a couple nicknames that I refuse to acknowledge or allow.

I just thought it was interesting how we had different attitudes about our full names and our nicknames, and thought about the stories behind some of our nicknames. I go by "Dora" with some of my friends; I got that one in high school Spanish, because I was pretty good at Spanish and looked a little like Dora the Explorer. "Kat," the nickname in this post's title, is so far only used by one person; he chose that when I shut him down on another nickname.

How do you feel about having a nickname? What's the weirdest, funniest, or most interesting nickname you've had, and why was it given to you?

Looking forward to reading your responses! Have a great week.