In a lull

[Just a better title for Meh.]

There's a time in your life where you think you will live forever. When 30 is old and 40 is like ancient. When marriage, children, career, health, insurance policy are all grown-up boring discussions and your life (at least mine) is all about walking the dog, rollerblading, and, later in life, climbing, running and all that. And when you do hear about bad things happening it's always in passing and always very very far away. And even when bad things are close, you can still look around you and identify your things, your rocks, your foundation or safety net. Like friends, family, favorite things or hobbies, things and people that you know will be around forever (or for a longer span than let's say, a year).

And then friends move away and NEVER keep in touch (and i mean AT ALL) in this dying age where Internet is available in most corners of this godforsaken earth. And you look around and you can count your friends (local) on at most the fingers of one hand.

And then you hear about somebody your age, that you went to school with, that has developed leukemia and has a very high chance of dying. Like soon. And it's not like other friends that have died about whom you could have said that they had it coming. This is like for real, pure, unasked, unexpected death. And if you don't have the benefit of a belief in heaven there's like nothing left. Fat worms eating your flesh at most.

And then you hear about somebody in the same graduate program that is insane. Certified or soon to be certified. And you look around and you hope that your hobbies and your friends (countable by the fingers of one hand) will keep you sane. And hope that you do not get injured again such that you can keep climbing and running (my elbow hurts! bad! and so does my ankle - must be all the Chinese new year food) because let's face it, these are the things that keep you sane in the absence of family, a real career and in the presence of DOUBT.

And because life as a phd student in a foreign country is one big hill that you need to keep on climbing consistently, you need a lot of Neverquits. And sometimes you just run out of Neverquits and all the shops that sell Neverquits (not to be mistaken with the shops that sell Moreballz) are closed because of .. chinese new year [?] It's that time when there's only one cure:


PS. I just wrote an entire page to justify the buying of [another] pair of shoes. Pfft.

Climbaprix [mandatory] post

[Seems that it is mandatory since everybody is doing it ... So here i go]
1st route. Couldn't start.
Weakness - not flexible enough; no will power to hang in there
Strength - did not storm out of the competition area and into the street vowing to never return

2nd route. Couldn't start.
Weakness - did not figure out the best starting position and opted for the "slam your body onto the wall then cannot move out of there" strategy
Strength - none. Since i decided on the previous route to hang in there, for this one there's no strength

3rd route. Took too many attempts to figure out how to start. Couldn't finish (ran out of time)
Weakness - My left hand could not cross to the crimp (that everybody held) - so it took me a lot of attempts to (a) figure out to match on the better hold (b) figure out to hook on starting hold. Not very decided about how to go up. Not very flexible when I finally figured how to go up. Ran out of time.
Strength - Figured out how to hook on starting hold. Knew that the ending needed a hook.

Overall: depressingly bad
Thoughts.

It's been over six months now since my elbow injury and even though it does not hurt that much or that often anymore (even though sometime a couple of weeks ago i could not hold my ipod in my hand), my left hand feels weak and out of sync with the rest of my body. Even more so, psychologically I do not trust my left hand at all, so I cannot hang on it, lock on it or jump from it. I cannot also use it as a catching hand (i.e jumping for a jug with my left hand). It does not help that i am fat now (56-57kg). I can't realize how i could climb when i had 64*.

It is hard for me to see others climb so well. Even though back home I was not used to relate myself to others, the singaporean system seems to have gotten to me (here they give grades following the Gauss curve). It is even more difficult to know that I was once in a good shape and now i truly suck. The thought that i will be gone for a month and a half (without climbing) freaks me out also.

It is also irritating and sad when I see the winner of the novice cat (an amazingly talented climber - as opposed to yours truly) is giving me friendly pats on the back "maybe you should rest" or "this is difficult for bigger people" :))


Measures.
Pull-ups. Finger strength. Stretch.

*I COULDN'T :)