Now, to be fair, it's possible that some of this was from the summer before I left Job City. But most of it was surely due to Fellowship City's long winter, and my proximity to a place that made possibly the best scones I've ever had.
Two years ago, one of my colleagues came back from her fellowship year visibly fitter. Apparently, she exercised three to four times a week in addition to nearly finishing her book manuscript. Jeez.
Fortunately, I have a new secret weapon: A month ago, I went ahead and put much more on the credit card than I should have, and bought a new bike. It is light, shifts like a dream, fits me perfectly, and is an absolute joy to ride. In three days, I've put over 30 miles in it. It's likely that some of the novelty will wear off. But I'm about 20 minutes from getting on it again and riding the 4 miles to campus.Fifteen pounds. Yeesh.
8 comments:
Sounds like a natural reaction to living in the northern wilds. I bet your body readjusts to the more balmy southerly climes.
Oh! Hey!
so, the processing in the pic stumped me, but I backtracked through a couple of your blogs, and now I know who you are! Good to see you!
Say hi to J for me, 'kay? And hugs to you both.
As I believe I told you, I have also come back a bit curvier than I was when I left.
The question re: your colleague is, "Did she come back having found an ID?" 'Cause that's also a totally excellent use of a fellowship year.
To be precise, ID actually found me, not the other way around.
But to answer your question: she had one when she left, and married him during that year. And finished her MS. And lost 20 pounds. And accomplished enough to get early tenure when she returned.
Hmmm... I could swear I had a sense of personal accomplishment just a few minutes ago. Where could it have gone?
Well, screw this whole comparing yourself to other people thing anyway. I think you rock. I'm telling you: on my fellowship year, I neither lost weight nor finished a manuscript *nor* found romance. And yet it was a great fellowship year, as it sounds as though yours was, too. Awesome.
It may have something to do with having time to eat real meals since you weren't grading papers all day long either. I'm very jealous of your bike though. Have fun with it.
The bike is significantly better looking than I imagined when we were talking about it last night. Have fun with it!
M.
Fantastic! Your bike is gorgeous :) I'm just finishing up my PhD Dissertation, and if I didn't ride my bike on a regular basis, I would go nuts.
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