Turning Frowns Upside Down... Saturday, November 27

The only real thing on my schedule today was to finish that advent calendar that I started for my nephews, the twins. But every time I sat down to work on it I was constantly distracted. Ok, so I wasn’t so distracted as I was just flat out unmotivated to work on it. I ended up distracting myself by cleaning the house. What?! Was I honestly more interested in scrubbing my toliet and picking out junk from the sink that doing some arts and crafts with my advent caldendar?! Apparently so. Actually, I found the calendar rather depressing to do. Christmas isn’t a big deal here in Korea. I’ve always regarded Christmas as a kind of family-overload, friends sipping on apple cider, and in-your-face decorations and Christmas carols playing non-stop. Christmas just isn’t the same here in Korea. It’s so… blah… and it always tends to feel like a Charlie Brown Christmas – lacking and brown.

I had tried to convince myself that this year would be different but with Snickers’ return date being questionable and me being overly distracted with other things on my plate, like tutoring and my upcoming fight, I’m not really looking forward to Christmas, yet again.

I thought that making an advent calendar for the twins would turn my frowns upside down but it hasn’t really worked. Making this advent calendar only served to remind me that my two nieces (my brother’s daughters) and family in Canada will be spending yet another Christmas without me.

What did work to turn my frowns upside down today though was putting my efforts towards my training. Headed into the boxing club to do some weight training and, oddly enough, did quite a lot of dancing too… hahaha. I had popped in my iPod, cranked up my tunes, and rocked it out for a bit. Dang… I miss the good old days when Milk Dud and I use to bust out our old skool break dancing moves and spend our time testing out new moves.

Heading into the club when it's closed means automatically being put on laundry duty, and yes, there were more than towels I had to fold and put away but I don't think you care to see my coach's undies... hahaha.

Me trying to look all relaxed after my 12km night run but don't be fooled, my heart was racing like a mile a minute.

And here's me trying to prove the efforts of my run -- one overly sweaty sweater despite running in chilly weather.

Later in the evening I went for a good run. I had anticipated going around midnight but ended up going around 9pm. Tonight marked the start of my “heavy runs” and by heavy runs I am referring to the winter wear I load up on for specific runs. When I go for a heavy run I wear a second-skin shirt and pants, sweater, and a wind-breaker winter jacket with matching pants. The whole outfit weighs in at about 6lbs. I love incorporating in a couple of heavy runs every week because the added weight helps me run faster on days I don’t load up on my running gear and it means I feel so much lighter at boxing. Sometimes I go a step further and strap on ankle weights, adding an additional 2lbs.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What makes Christmas feel like Christmas for you?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Bah humbug.
-- Scrooge