Terrible title.
I haven't really been inspired to blog lately as American life is nothing new to me but I have missed writing them. I'll try to start doing one every other week or so to keep in touch with everybody back in Nepal; hopefully my life in America is more interesting to you all than it is to me. Writer's block is a pretty fairly powerful phenomenon and I have started to write this blog 4-5 times only to completely blank when I stare at the empty template. My brain is still feeling unable to formulate a thought but hopefully if I ramble long enough it will feel cohesive. I can't conjure up a good transition sentence so I'll just jump right in:
I've recently abandoned vegetarianism and reintroduced fish and seafood into my diet to become a pescatarian, a term I've ever been fond of. Pescatarianism sounds more like an offbeat political philosophy advocating for fish rights than a diet that includes fish products. I remained vegetarian for the first few weeks of being back which was brutal. Everything is so bland in the USA and few restaurants in my area offer anything remotely appetizing and vegetarian. I went to Wilmington, NC, a coastal city renowned for its seafood, to pick up my brother from college last week and decided early on that I wasn't going to miss out on delectable seafood. We went to a seafood restaurant for dinner and ordered buffalo shrimp. I was apprehensive to dig in when it arrived but shrimp tasted exactly as I remembered them. Feeling emboldened, I then ordered a crab cake sandwich which turned out to be mushy and underwhelming. I was concerned about the aftereffects of eating these foods after not having any meat/fish for probably eight months but experienced no discomfort. We went to Wrightsville Beach the next morning where I hadn't been back to since our family vacationed there fifteen years ago. The area was EXACTLY as I remembered it being to an almost eerie degree. I normally have a really good memory about places but here I was able to recall minute details such as the condo we stayed in, where the grocery store was, where the restaurants we ate at were, fifteen years later. I have eaten much fish/seafood since as I don't trust myself to cook it properly but did eat shrimp and fish at Bonefish Grill on Mother's Day. I don't remember if I gave Bonefish a pass when I ranted about chain restaurants in a previous blog but the food is pretty good. They were unfortunately out of everything I wanted (grouper, trout, mahi mahi, salmon) so I went for sea bass, really good. The additional protein makes weightlifting much easier, which I've been doing here or there since being back and rejoining a gym. I swallowed my ego and started attending one of those YMCA classes that are 80-90% female. Bodypump! Laugh all you want but I have gotten a lot stronger in the last month. Those classes are intense.
As soon as I got back to the States I committed myself to running the half marathon that I resolved to do back around late December by signing up for a race in Chicago on June 9th. After racing, we are catching a White Sox-Astros game on the south side (Cubs out of town..) before driving up to Cincinnati for a Reds-Tigers game. I'm excited to see live baseball even though I have shifted my sports passion onto basketball and soccer. I have been in a training regimen for the last month that has been kicking my tail but gotten me into really good running shape. I started stretching my runs a mile or two every week and banged out eleven miles this past Sunday for the longest run of my life. My father is a maniac marathoner who also prescribed weekly 'speed work' exercises, basically near sprints for 1/2 mile stretches with recovery laps thrown in between, which I'm told builds endurance and strengthens mental resolve but I really feel like it's just to torture me. The relationship between running and I is extremely volatile; some days I hate it and find myself thinking evil thoughts and other days it feels effortless and is over in a flash. I've been fortunate to avoid any big injuries, only having a sore something or other almost every day ranging from foot/calf/quad/toe and almost always with my right leg. My time goal is 1 hour and 42 minutes, which would have me running at a 7:50/mile pace. I don't know if this is a 'good or bad' time but it's what I'm comfortable doing. Everybody has been asking if I plan on running a full marathon next: no. Long distance runners areinsane, depraved dedicated humans who have much higher tolerances for pain and boredom than I do. I have a healthy respect for anyone that would put their bodies through a grueling gauntlet of blood, sweat and tears only to be rewarded with an oversized t-shirt and a small medal denoting their achievement. I'll still run but can't see myself ever doing a full marathon unless there's some huge monetary incentive. Plus I just look foolish when running; for some reason I run with my tongue sticking out, kind of like how Michael Jordan played basketball, only mine is the opposite of cool, looking more like a panting dog than a world class athlete. I do it involuntarily and just roll with it now. I felt stupid as soon as I posted 'half marathon' as one of three 2012 goals but it looks like I'm going to deliver. Cooking (goal #2) is underway but I'm not happy with any of the Nepali food I have made. I'm a bit behind on goal #3 (reading 50 books), which I thought would be the easiest to fulfill. Too many sports on TV back in America, but with soccer ending and the nightly NBA schedule getting lighter I should be able to get back on track.
My tongue thing looks nothing like that., imagine the opposite
(Sports the rest of the way..)
Chelsea FC recently won the UEFA Champions League in the most improbable fashion, ending my 14-year drought (Chicago Bulls, 1998) as a sports fan without one of my teams winning a major championship. Chelsea went from firing their first-year manager midseason (and eating the remainder of his massive contract) to being the kings of Europe while pissing off the fans of basically every other team in the world. Whether it was due to their racist, involuntary anti-smoking model captain to Lord Didier perhaps embellishing a take down or two to their unlimited splashing of money, everybody seems to hate Chelsea: Americans, Nepalis, Indians and ESPECIALLY every British fellow that I became acquainted with at the Irish Pub in Nepal. This of course makes their victory so much sweeter to me after having to endure countless ribbings and lectures on how deplorable Chelsea are. I've always pulled for the villains in movies and have grown weary of athletes/teams that win 'the right way'. In related news, I've developed a huge affinity for the boxer Floyd Mayweather, perhaps the most despicable high-profile athlete in the world not named John Terry. I like to be entertained, I don't care how they are as humans when they're not on TV. CHAMPIONS!
Going to the lake house in Virginia for the weekend, enjoy the long weekend! (Americans!)
I haven't really been inspired to blog lately as American life is nothing new to me but I have missed writing them. I'll try to start doing one every other week or so to keep in touch with everybody back in Nepal; hopefully my life in America is more interesting to you all than it is to me. Writer's block is a pretty fairly powerful phenomenon and I have started to write this blog 4-5 times only to completely blank when I stare at the empty template. My brain is still feeling unable to formulate a thought but hopefully if I ramble long enough it will feel cohesive. I can't conjure up a good transition sentence so I'll just jump right in:
I've recently abandoned vegetarianism and reintroduced fish and seafood into my diet to become a pescatarian, a term I've ever been fond of. Pescatarianism sounds more like an offbeat political philosophy advocating for fish rights than a diet that includes fish products. I remained vegetarian for the first few weeks of being back which was brutal. Everything is so bland in the USA and few restaurants in my area offer anything remotely appetizing and vegetarian. I went to Wilmington, NC, a coastal city renowned for its seafood, to pick up my brother from college last week and decided early on that I wasn't going to miss out on delectable seafood. We went to a seafood restaurant for dinner and ordered buffalo shrimp. I was apprehensive to dig in when it arrived but shrimp tasted exactly as I remembered them. Feeling emboldened, I then ordered a crab cake sandwich which turned out to be mushy and underwhelming. I was concerned about the aftereffects of eating these foods after not having any meat/fish for probably eight months but experienced no discomfort. We went to Wrightsville Beach the next morning where I hadn't been back to since our family vacationed there fifteen years ago. The area was EXACTLY as I remembered it being to an almost eerie degree. I normally have a really good memory about places but here I was able to recall minute details such as the condo we stayed in, where the grocery store was, where the restaurants we ate at were, fifteen years later. I have eaten much fish/seafood since as I don't trust myself to cook it properly but did eat shrimp and fish at Bonefish Grill on Mother's Day. I don't remember if I gave Bonefish a pass when I ranted about chain restaurants in a previous blog but the food is pretty good. They were unfortunately out of everything I wanted (grouper, trout, mahi mahi, salmon) so I went for sea bass, really good. The additional protein makes weightlifting much easier, which I've been doing here or there since being back and rejoining a gym. I swallowed my ego and started attending one of those YMCA classes that are 80-90% female. Bodypump! Laugh all you want but I have gotten a lot stronger in the last month. Those classes are intense.
As soon as I got back to the States I committed myself to running the half marathon that I resolved to do back around late December by signing up for a race in Chicago on June 9th. After racing, we are catching a White Sox-Astros game on the south side (Cubs out of town..) before driving up to Cincinnati for a Reds-Tigers game. I'm excited to see live baseball even though I have shifted my sports passion onto basketball and soccer. I have been in a training regimen for the last month that has been kicking my tail but gotten me into really good running shape. I started stretching my runs a mile or two every week and banged out eleven miles this past Sunday for the longest run of my life. My father is a maniac marathoner who also prescribed weekly 'speed work' exercises, basically near sprints for 1/2 mile stretches with recovery laps thrown in between, which I'm told builds endurance and strengthens mental resolve but I really feel like it's just to torture me. The relationship between running and I is extremely volatile; some days I hate it and find myself thinking evil thoughts and other days it feels effortless and is over in a flash. I've been fortunate to avoid any big injuries, only having a sore something or other almost every day ranging from foot/calf/quad/toe and almost always with my right leg. My time goal is 1 hour and 42 minutes, which would have me running at a 7:50/mile pace. I don't know if this is a 'good or bad' time but it's what I'm comfortable doing. Everybody has been asking if I plan on running a full marathon next: no. Long distance runners are
My tongue thing looks nothing like that., imagine the opposite
(Sports the rest of the way..)
Chelsea FC recently won the UEFA Champions League in the most improbable fashion, ending my 14-year drought (Chicago Bulls, 1998) as a sports fan without one of my teams winning a major championship. Chelsea went from firing their first-year manager midseason (and eating the remainder of his massive contract) to being the kings of Europe while pissing off the fans of basically every other team in the world. Whether it was due to their racist, involuntary anti-smoking model captain to Lord Didier perhaps embellishing a take down or two to their unlimited splashing of money, everybody seems to hate Chelsea: Americans, Nepalis, Indians and ESPECIALLY every British fellow that I became acquainted with at the Irish Pub in Nepal. This of course makes their victory so much sweeter to me after having to endure countless ribbings and lectures on how deplorable Chelsea are. I've always pulled for the villains in movies and have grown weary of athletes/teams that win 'the right way'. In related news, I've developed a huge affinity for the boxer Floyd Mayweather, perhaps the most despicable high-profile athlete in the world not named John Terry. I like to be entertained, I don't care how they are as humans when they're not on TV. CHAMPIONS!
Going to the lake house in Virginia for the weekend, enjoy the long weekend! (Americans!)
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