redfiona99

Work is being stressy, mostly for reasons that can be summed up as "no one speaks to each other" and "when people don't like a decision they just chip away at it for the next 3 years until everyone else is sick of arguing."

Unfortunately for everyone, the people trying the last trick do not know that my Grandmother once didn't speak to someone she lived with for 10 years. My stubbornness, once activated, is a powerful thing. They have activated it twice in one week. And much like an allergic reaction, reactivation within a short space of time aggravates the reaction.

The other reason work is stressy is that I am on holiday for 2 weeks from next Tuesday. As you can imagine, the "oh but there are no other gaps in your calendar for two weeks" really oddly timed meetings have begun. And today I have had my first "oh sure, [real name redacted] has booked that whole week as AL, but I'm sure if I book a meeting she will attend." More unfortunate because this is an overseas colleague who has been told to make the appointment with me because she's over. I will feed her one of my colleagues instead. (This is more frustrating because I know the meeting planner will have told her that I am already booked when she made the meeting. This particular overseas department have a rep for pulling this stunt. I will however be able to go, "terribly sorry, on holiday with no internet access".)

So the good news is that work are sending me to a really cool conference.

The bad news is they're insisting on black and white as the colours, which means a black suit for me, for a conference at the end of July. Not a problem, except the buying of the item (because I do not own a black suit). Fine, I'm sure somewhere will be selling them.

What I want to know, is how broiled am I going to be in a suit in Anaheim at the end of July.

Sometimes I leave myself notes about what I should post about next. This time I have left myself the gloriously vague note of "the shoe problem". Cue confused me now wondering what past me meant.

I think she meant my problem with what I've seen described as "goth boots" and what my grandmother referred to as "clodhoppers" or "clonk boots". You know the things, 1+ inch thick heels, black, excess of buckles and nonsense.

My problem is not that I don't like them. I do. They help me understand what covetousness means. I wants them.

I spent large chunks of my teenage years and early twenties wanting them and not having the money for them.

I now have the money for them, but find that I can't justify buying them because it's not like I go out anywhere suitable to wear them.

But then there's this little voice going "everywhere is suitable for them". And me going "it'd better be at that price!"

I don't have an angel and a devil on my shoulder, I have an accountant and 15 year old me.

For those celebrating - merry Christmas

For those not celebrating - happy Sunday!

As you may or may not know, I have been trying to incorporate some yoga into my gyming, partly for the stretching and partly for the meditation aspects. Flat is too untidy to yoga so I do it in the gym.

All well and good.

So last Friday, I did my work out, then went to yoga-ificate.

Stretches went fine so I did my 5 minute meditation.

I thought it went fine.

Cue trainer who introduced me to floor slams and is trying to fix my squats coming over nearly keeling over laughing. Apparently someone had come up to him to tell him that someone was asleep in the gym. He looked over, realised it was me and went "don't worry, she's not asleep."

He is marginally amazed that you can meditate in the gym but it's noisy not distracting.

Also, given some of the other weird stuff people do, I don't think my meditating is the worst thing going on.

I want to start with saying that if you prefer Working From Home, I will happily stick up for you in an argument, but I am so glad we're back in the office.

Work have switched to hybrid working for our role. Interestingly, they've also switched to hybrid for my old job, which is interesting after 4 years of them insisting that was impossible (basically 3/4 of that dept. can't work from home so it was decided that the remaining 1/4 wouldn't either).

For me, that's great, I live in a 1 bedroom flat, I do not enjoy working from home because I have enough space for 1 laptop and no screens, and really, I need at least 1 extra screen. In the office, I have 2 screens, a comfortable table and better lighting. So much better for me.

I admit that I probably wouldn't feel quite so enthusiastic if I didn't have the 2nd shortest commute of my colleagues, but basically, I get up at 7 am 3 days a week and 8 am the other two. This system works for me.

The other bonus is, because other people don't like being in the office, and I've chosen Monday and Friday as two of my days, there's so few people at work when I am that it's almost as quiet as my flat.

(There will be 3 posts today, sorry about that)

So I was going to go to the gym, a theme which will unite the posts, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go via the city centre or directly there.

In the end, I decided to go via the city centre because I wanted a chicken and bacon sandwich. Cue me running to a team of guerrilla sticker removes. The rat-lickers had decided to stickerificate the centre of Birmingham.

Removing the stickers was undoubtedly childish and pointless but it made me feel better.

To do list for this weekend

1 - attend virtual conference running on Georgia (US) time zone
2 - attend fencing competition, that I could only attend because physical attendance at (1) was cancelled
3 - watch the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

3/3 achieved but only due to whichever demon looks after the clumsy and foolish.

1 - the chaos started on Friday. Conference attendance no longer happening so I got switched to virtual attendance. Not a problem.

Conference website crashes when I try to log on, but I finally get in half an hour late.

I'd blocked the afternoon out at work, but everyone decided that "[real name redacted] is in a meeting" on Teams means I am available to be called. Normally, I'd just type them a message going "in a meeting, will call when available". Unfortunately, because of the way Teams is set up, it shuts off the talk I am in. This happens, I get rid of the people who decided a phone call was needed for something that could have been an email. Return to conference just in time to hear "[something out company does] is useless in situation", without any of the context. Cue panic.

Thankfully, talk was recorded and have been able to listen today.

The other talk I missed for similarly reasons is also up on the website so I will survive.

2 - the fencing competition is an odd set up, teams of 1 epeeist, 1 foilist and 1 sabreur and at least 1 of the 3 has to be female. (As you can imagine, that means most teams only have 1 woman because fencing needs more women.)

I was going to be in the US so didn't have a team. Tell the organiser that I will be available, there's already one team who needs a female foilist (their foilist was poached to go ref in France) so I am loaned out to them.

Different team need a female epeeist and ask 3 days later. It is explained to them that I am already on a team. There is sulking.

Competition rolls round - ack 1 of my teammates is 18. I am now old enough to be my teammates mother.

It goes well, we win a silver (after a stewards's enquiry about the indicators [goal difference but for hits scored Vs hits received]).

It goes badly; teammate dislocated his thumb, I make two opponents cry and slash another one across the wrist.

I also miss one of the talks at (1) that I have to hear but see previous re fools and clumsy people, and it's been recorded.

3 - so I can see a different set of talks at conference (1) I had to listen to the Grand Prix on the radio. BBC app started late so I was 10 minutes behind. I think the main problem is that the stewards made the wrong decision first and then had to fix it.

TW: Calories, weight, that general sort of thing

So summer 2019, the government decided to do something about the "obesity crisis". Of course, they didn't do anything useful like increasing the accessibility of sports facilities or anything, no, instead they put out posters describing how the recommended daily allowance of calories should be split out between breakfast, midday meal and evening meal.

And, as usual, if I ate as much as the government recommended, I would gain weight, despite already being nearly 2 stone overweight. Because that's the problem with RDAs, they are so general that they suit almost no-one.

In my case, I am short enough that my maintenance calories are below the RDA, even as heavy as I am. And I am by no means the shortest person in Birmingham (or anywhere else) so I'm not the only person who would become less healthy by following the government's health advice. This is why its so stupid to use calories as a way of giving public health information (and I speak as someone who is big on the "calories in, calories out" principle on account of, you know, science*). Much though I am not a "veggie, veggie yay" person, those campaigns at least made sense. Everyone could do with more veggies. This calorie information, even for people who its not wrong for, is borderline un-actionable, and mostly is going to make people who already struggle with stuff struggle more, whether that stuff be eating disorders or overweight-guilt.

* Exercise might not be able to out-work a terrible diet, but it can definitely function against a mediocre one ;)

So, I don't lift weights to music. I know why people do it, but I learnt my lesson when I injured myself while deadlifting when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was on the gym radio (if you know me, you know precisely where in the song it all went horribly wrong).

The reason you want music, or anger, or whatever else, is to pump you up, to give your lifts that extra oomph, whether that's because you're going for a new 1-rep max, or because your fingers want to give out mid-way through a set of ten.

Since I can't do music, I tend to go for anger, but I like to be careful. Me fuming may be able to lift 10 kg heavier but she can also get 10 kg more injured. What I want is a small, unimportant thing to get annoyed about. For instance, my 10 rep max was originally set while fuming at people being in the way of the squat rack meaning I'd have to deadlift first and, because it would be a new max, would probably mean I wouldn't set a new max on the squat*. It was supposed to be 1 x 10 x 60 kg, then 2 x 10 x 55 kg. It ended up being 3 x 10 x 60 kg, because I had rage to burn.

But you can't rely on people getting in your way all the time (except for when you want a squat rack, then you basically can (disgruntled face)), so I have some fall back annoyances I use to get myself pumped up. The traditional one, when Bournemouth were in the Premiership, was annoyance at the praise they were getting when they were a terribly set-up team that got lucky. English football commentators are seduced by attacking football and are unfairly willing to overlook defensive frailty (mumblety grumblety no-one defends anymore, everything that's wrong with modern football etc). It's perfect - something utterly unimportant that I can get cheerfully annoyed at.

The thing I find amusing is how much my mind wanders once I'm there in the annoyed place. One time, I was happily deadlifting (not PB level but maybe 10 kg underneath it), annoyed on that occasion by Arsenal. And my mind completely drifted till I realised I was rage-lifting at Banlieue 13 - Ultimatum (District 13 - Ultimatum I think's the English name), and the idea that Damien would get another girlfriend if Lola was interested in him. Why would you do that? I had not previously considered 'shipping as a source of ideas for rage lifting but it shouldn't be discounted.

*when squatting I need to pay too much attention to my form to require anger.