GORUCK CHALLENGE

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy.

yep.

Life is weird.

A lot is going on at work… I’ll be there a year in April, and it’s been a rough year in about a thousand different ways. I’ve been re-evaluating my position there regarding where I want to be, where I am, where I’ve been. It hasn’t been looking good for them, and I’ve seriously been thinking about updating my resume and putting it out there. Just in case.

So. Of course, the controller has to take a new interest in me.

We’ve actually talked. Had real discussions about the service department’s accounting practices and procedures. Things that make me think I want to stay… for at least another six months.

—————

I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo in April. I’m not planning on doing much in Camp, but I do want to try translating my best Drarry fanfic. Even if it’s something as simple as finding and replacing every instance of Harry and Draco’s names with the Ukrainian equivalent. I’m also thinking that I’ll dump in whatever words I know and worry about verb tenses and cases later.  It’s a start. There’re a few authors who have done Ukrainian fanfic for Potter, Teen Wolf, and Supernatural. Worst case scenario, I’ll leave a comment on a recent story and ask them to beta read.

—————

I turn 41 tomorrow and Mom’s 24th (!!!!) anniversary was yesterday. It was rough this year. The uptick in Ukrainian lessons and finalising the trip to Lviv have been kicking my ass - emotionally as much as mentally.  It’s been a strange few months.

—————-

I’ve been working out and running from Zombies. Doing things I never thought I’d do, like eating fucking yogurt and ENJOYING it. I’ve even been cutting back on the Coke. Me. I used to have a three can a day habit. Now I’m maybe having one a day.

I even managed to break the treadmill so we replaced it with a Bowflex Max. I didn’t buy into the hype - but it’s a stair stepper / elliptical thing that doesn’t take up a whole lot of room and it was the same price as a nice treadmill. That thing is a bitch. I can’t even do the “MAX” interval training thing: 14 minutes 3 times a week and you’ll lose a billion pounds in a month! I’m basically walking on it for a half hour at a whack. It’s much harder than a treadmill, that’s for sure.

I even decided to sign up for GORUCK University. It’s a bunch of classes on how to create a rucking environment and then there’s a GORUCK Light Challenge and a 5K Ruck. 7 hours of Good Livin’ in MAY. MAY 2016. LIKE TWO MONTHS FROM NOW.

I am so fucked.

But, I’m doing something right: I’m down almost 10 pounds in like two weeks and I don’t feel like it’s been a huge change to get there.

So there’s that.

Whee!

 

Posted by Matty on 03/19 at 09:41 PM
#threewordsGORUCKGORUCK CHALLENGEpolyglot in trainingTravelPermalink

Saturday, February 13, 2016

I can’t believe I just did that…

potterhead 5eva

Living on unemployment for a year has definitely taught us how to be more aware of every dollar we spend.

Working closer to home, not having to pay MA income tax on my salary, and getting a small ‘bonus’ for not needing health insurance from my employer has resulted in my finally getting to live the life I really want to live. (It doesn’t hurt that I turn 41 next month and I can’t get rid of the little voice in my head that keeps telling me that I’m getting closer to the age my mother was when she died…)

We’re taking two major vacations practically back-to-back and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s going to take FOREVER for them to get here.

First, we’re going to Ukraine. I found my grandparents’ villages and will be going to check them out, plus spending some time in the absolutely GORGEOUS city of Lviv.

I’m going to focus on getting my grandmother’s birth certificate in the coming weeks - I have a photo of it (from the researcher I hired), but I want the real thing. After I manage to get my grubby little paws on that, I’m going to apply for Ukrainian citizenship. What’s the worst they can say, no? If they say yes - and depending on the outcome of our election - I may not come home.

Then… we’re going to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!

It also marks our long-awaited return to London!!!!! We were supposed to go in 2013 for a wedding and then I got laid off. Since then, we’ve put off the trip to stay closer to home and rebuild our savings. The exchange rate right now is still ridiculously prohibitive (1 GBP is almost 1.50 USD—contrast that to Ukraine: 1 UAH is .04 USD), so it’s been easier to justify putting the trip off.

In other news—

Work is getting better. Slowly. I’m being forced to spend a week in Phoenix with our Assistant Controller at some Timberline National Users Conference. We were supposed to drive together to the airport and then we were supposed to share a hotel room. We haven’t even registered for the conference yet, and she’s already driven me to the point of wanting to murder her. I got out of sharing a ride (we live in opposite directions) and sharing a room (5 AM Ukrainian lessons 5 days a week), but I’m still not overly happy that I have to go with her. To be honest, I’m still a little butthurt that she was hired and that I wasn’t promoted. It’s the third time I’ve been passed over for a promotion because I’m too good at my current position… although part of the reason they’re sending me is so that I can learn more about the software and using it for construction as opposed to HVAC service. Who knows what that means for my future with the company… I can only hope that she burns out quickly and I can jump into her job. I’m not so sure I want to work under her.

I’ve started working out again, too. Back to the gym two days a week. The end goal is to attempt a GORUCK Challenge again. The short-term goal is to lose some weight and fit back into my fencing gear. Yeah. I’m going to start fencing again. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed it. 

The Ukrainian lessons are going well - I’ve decided to work with two tutors. I’m still using my italki tutor and I’m using one from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. They’re about $15 USD/hr. and doing 3 days with Svetlana and 2 days with Oksana has been better than I thought it would be. I’m being forced to do more active learning (homework) and they’re actually complimenting each other. It’s insane how the class content seems to have aligned itself without any input from me. Plus, I’m supplementing those with independent work from a textbook I found on Amazon and a grammar reference book. I WILL BE FLUENT-ISH BY OUR TRIP! It feels good to say that. Really good.

Ahhhh… it feels good to be blogging again. But that also reminds me, I never wrote my New Year / Three Words post.

Obviously, UKRAINIAN is the first one. This encompasses cooking, reading about the culture, our trip, and my continued efforts in learning the language.

The second is HEALTH. That includes doing the Zombie 5K app (with the end goal to actually run a 5K), meeting with my personal trainer, and fencing. I should also add that I’m meeting with a nutritionist soon. I have the eating habits of a 5 year old… if that. The GORUCK Challenge won’t be until 2017, but I definitely need a year of intense work to be ready for it.

The third, I’ve been waffling on because I don’t want to reuse the same word over and over, but I really do want to keep focussing on my WRITING. Here, there, and everywhere!

Posted by Matty on 02/13 at 12:17 PM
#threewordsGORUCK CHALLENGEpolyglot in trainingso many fandomsPermalink

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Christmas movie marathon!

I’m making J sit through a Martin Freeman Christmas movie double feature: Love Actually and Nativity.

I have some friends who absolutely hate, and I mean HATE, Love Actually and I’m not going to pretend it’s a cinematic masterpiece. It is, in fact, a big steaming pile of shit, but Martin Freeman as a body double cracks me the fuck up. (It just aired on AMC and they edited out his bits (HA!), so if you’re curious, catch it on Netflix.)

——

Last year, Silent P gave me a t-shirt that says “Admitting you’re an asshole is the first step.”

It’s a size smaller than I normally wear, and I never wore it before I started working out.

I may not have lost any weight during the past year, but the shape of my body has definitely changed.

So, I wore the shirt the other day and decided to take a selfie.

25 attempts later, I gave up.

I never, ever, ever, ever, EVER, thought I’d say this, but I was uncomfortable posting any of the good ones because they made my tits look HUGE.

Like porn star, silicone implant, huge.

Losing weight and growing boobs.

Even if I never survive a GORUCK Challenge, working out has definitely been worth it.

Posted by Matty on 12/21 at 07:47 PM
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Sunday, July 14, 2013

I think it’s a three patch problem

yes, that’s a fully clothed belly flop into the Charles

Since a huge part of the GORUCK Tough family believes that what happens at the Challenges stay at the Challenge, I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow of what happened.

I did get a lot of questions about why I chose to go into the ocean fully clothed a while ago. All I could say at that point was there are a lot of Challenges where people wind up in water. I wanted to make sure my moisture wicking clothing would wick moisture, I wouldn’t get blisters from walking in wet socks and shoes, and what the ruck would do in water (hopefully outside of drowning me).

Well, this is why.

——

Yesterday, I went to The Dirty Girl mud race to cheer on a friend from the UCMB. I thought I wouldn’t be in good enough shape to do it, but judging from some of the competitors, I could have/should have joined in.

Well, I will next year.

While I was waiting for them to get out of the woods and into the part of the race I could see, I decided that I wanted to run the Manchester Road Race with a friend from elementary school and do a Zombie 10K with my gym buddy. (I’ve discovered that this sort of thing is better with friends.)

I’ve become one of “Them”... I never, in a billion years, thought that would happen. I played volleyball in high school and was in the Marching Band, but I’d never consider myself particularly active. (Marching band is hard work, Peanut Gallery, so don’t even go there.) I guess I can consider myself active now.
——

My friend in Belgium turned me on to a VPN program that lets you watch BBC shows as they air. This is huge to me because it looks like we get edited versions of Top Gear here (it’s like they cut out certain sections for the US audience) and today, Top Gear has Benedict fucking Cumberbatch on it. If I waited to watch it here, I’d have to wait an entire week. That’s just not acceptable when I have the power to watch it today.

Obsessed much? Or impatient?

Flip a coin.

——

Also… MY FIRST DAY OF WORK IS TOMORROW.

I never thought I’d be so happy to see a Monday in my life.

Posted by Matty on 07/14 at 12:18 PM
#threewordscompletely randomFriendsGORUCKGORUCK CHALLENGEUCONNPermalink

Sunday, July 07, 2013

For every sad, there is a happy

Martin's song

i love whomever made this!

I had that ‘refresher’ interview on Friday.

What a weird time… but I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s start at the beginning. Shall we?

It started with him emailing me. In it, he told me that he wrote me this really long email, but never sent it. Then he wanted to know how my job search was going.

Turns out, that after my interview with him at the end of May, he had to make a political hire. (Whether that’s a lie, I don’t know…)

So Friday’s interview was lunch off-site because he didn’t want to be anywhere in the building when we talked. Walls have ears and all that.

During the interview, he told me more than once that I was his first choice. I guess to prove that it was a political hire? Again, I don’t know…

We chatted. We laughed. We bonded.

He pulled out real-life financials, invoices, and reports and asked me to analyze them.

He pop quizzed me several times on accounting techniques. (He kept apologizing for it, but it was kind of funny. I apologized several times for rolling my eyes.)

He asked me how to fix a printer. (I’m fucking serious. It was pretty hilarious.)

He told me exactly what he wanted me to take ownership of.

He told me exactly what he expected of me when I started.

Then, without meaning to, he pulled a Sherlock when he asked me if I was OK with him singing in the office. (For reference, during Sherlock and John’s first meeting, Sherlock says, “I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for hours on end. would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”)

I wasn’t sure if I should laugh hysterically or hug him for that.

He said I should hear back from him soon. He wasn’t sure if the owners needed to be involved or not before he made a decision. (I don’t know if they need to be - they got the resume and gave it to him, so obviously, they liked me on some level.)

I don’t want to be to optimistic, but I’m hoping to hell this means that I’m getting an offer.

Soon.

——

After moping around this morning for too long, the Duke of Stud texted me. Didn’t exactly help, per se, but he distracted me and made me laugh for a little bit. I can’t complain about that.

We’re figuring us out. Day by day.

He’s getting better, but I still feel like he’s still a ticking time bomb.

I guess I’ve been burned by him too many times.

BUT…

He offered to do something like the GORUCK with me after the spring of 2014. I’m looking forward to that. It’ll be nice to do it with friends…

After we got done talking, I realized that while I didn’t do the PT with the team, I walked the entire thing with them (however many miles). WITH MY RUCK ON. IN 90 DEGREE WEATHER.

I guess that’s something to be proud of.

... and so I will be.

Posted by Matty on 07/07 at 02:49 PM
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