I didn’t really put my to-do list in it’s place from yesterday, but overall I feel today has been pretty alright, even with the news of the December schedule finally being released.

 

I had breakfast this morning with Zane then dashed out the door. The bike to school was nice. It’s becoming more of a warm up than a workout. With the doors fixed for the break room I was able to drop my backpack off without issue, even retrieving a bottle of water from my stash.

 

Terri was waiting for me when I got to the gym. We went to the back room where she had me focus on upper body with core thrown in at the end. My triceps are the worst. But that’s nothing I didn’t already know.

 

She also had me go through different exercises, instructing me to do as many as I could, with my max reps being 20. I was able to do the full twenty for all but two of the exercises. The dips I could only get up to 10, and then surprisingly the leg raises, my last exercises for the session, I was only able to get to 7.

 

I wonder if that has anything to do with biking the six-ish miles to the gym and then doing the previous core exercises. I would have liked to at least have gotten to 10. A nice solid number. Seven just seems so eh to me. It’s an odd number though, and those guys are weird.

 

Oh well.

 

After stretching I bit I sat outside finishing off my water bottle and enjoying the morning, watching people coming and going from the gym, going about their day.

 

Eventually I got back on the bike and went back to school. I’ve finding the rhythm for traveling on the bike. I know when traffic starts to pick up on certain streets, when to expect the school buses to be coming. What times the sun will be in my eyes, and what directions to avoid. I have duly noted all of the potholes.

 

Frank and Seth were in the break room when I got there. We actually had a pleasant conversation this morning rather than bitching about the work environment, so that was really nice. I had a protein bar with more water before changing and heading to lab, which was uneventful.

 

The few questions I had I was able to answer fine.

 

I did spend a bit of time looking at bandanas, and then purchasing four new ones. The other night when I went to dry the clothes at the laundry mat I think I lost my favorite bandana. The one without holes in it. I can’t find it anywhere and I know that I pulled it out of the dryer along with my compression sleeve. It’s not in the car though, and I didn’t see it when I was putting things away.

 

I wanted to wait until Friday to do this, but honestly there isn’t a difference between doing it now, and then, except that by doing it today I might be able to get them before the end of the week. I’m super hoping. I feel so awkward without my bandana. ;-;

 

I did expand on my color selection. I got purple, red, green, and blue. I am hoping that I like them. I told Zane that I’m going to feel not right about spending the money on the bandanas until they come in and I try them out. It’s just like my car, or the shoes, or the stuff for the bike. Until I fall in love with it, until I feel like the money was well spent and a good investment, I’m going to have iffy feelings about it.

 

So that’s in the works.

 

While I was in lab I got a reply from Marcus. I had sent him a message this morning asking if I could do more of a chibi style for his commission rather than a more formal / serious style. He was ok with the change so I went ahead and started working on the pattern.

 

I wasn’t able to finish it before heading home, but I got almost all of it done. Just some lettering left to figure out.

 

I biked home. Another good ride which left me hungry. I had my salad almost as soon as I walked in the door along with more water. I called Paul, the Verizon dude, and got more information from him, mainly the actual costs of the phones.

 

The denial will last for roughly three to six months, and even then our credit with Verizon would be “reviewed” so there would still be the chance of the payment plan being denied, so there’s really no point in waiting for that to clear.

 

We’re still able to turn our old phones in for store credit, and there’s a $50 rebate on Zane’s phone, so that could help negate a fair amount of the initial expense.

 

Zane went online through his employee thing and checked the discounts on the phones he’s able to buy 3^rd party. The deals on those phones aren’t as good as the deal we would be getting in the store, so Friday we’re going to set that up. Hopefully.

 

That was my main thing for today, along with the pattern. I finished that off and sent it to Marcus for his opinion. He asked if it could be changed to include another character, which, yeah, it can. But that totally negates all of the work I did. Lame. >.<;

 

I told him I could change it but I wouldn’t be able to finish the new pattern today. I also said I would most likely sketch it out first to get his approval on the concept before turning it into a pattern. He was fine with that.

 

I like my original pattern, which I based off of a cute cartoon of Smaug. I think I’m going to stitch it for myself eventually. The new concept for Marcus is to have a chibi version of Smaug and Bilbo fighting over a gold coin with the title of The Hobbit underneath them, possibly in a frame, but I’m not sure on that yet.

 

I cooked bacon since I didn’t want to have to do that in the morning for my breakfast. I also cooked a burger because food. I showered at some point and also logged my riding since I haven’t been using RunKeeper to track my travels. I get impatient waiting for it to start up. I’m not sure if it’s a wifi issue or a processor issue with the phone. I’m hoping whatever is causing the lag goes away since I’ll have better coverage with Verizon as well as a more up-to-date device. #firstworldproblems

 

I did look up the difference between male and female bikes, as well as the difference between male and female bike seats.

 

So… the difference for the bikes themselves has to do with the cross bar. Guy bikes normally have a straight bar while girl bikes have a bar that is angled down. This actually doesn’t have any mechanical function. Like… it’s not because girls bike differently or anatomically need the bar to be angled differently.

 

It’s actually due to the fact that when biking first became popular girls still wore skirts and dresses more often than not. Wearing pants was a huge no-no, so having to lift their legs over the crossbar was pretty scandalous what with showing off so much leg and stuff. And I mean, come on, if you saw that ankle you had to get married and stuff. Talk about moving fast on a first date…

 

So the cross bar on girl bikes was angled down so girls didn’t to lift their leg as high to get onto the bike. That’s seriously the only difference. It was to accommodate fashion. And actually with cycling picking up more, a lot of female bikes have a straight cross bar just like guy bikes, with the differences being in the dimensions to support the shorter torso / arm length of females.

 

As for the seats. Since females typically have a wider pelvic structure “female” seats tend to be wider, however some girls find “male” seats to be more comfortable, and vice versa for guys. Some like the wider cushion.

 

I actually just switched out the seat that was originally on Zane’s bike for the one that was on Frank’s bike; a female seat. I actually don’t like it much. I feel like it puts more pressure on my sit bones and it actually becomes sort of painful on the longer rides. I feel like I can’t bike as strongly because of the discomfort. I can’t use as much force or power because the seat isn’t distributing the pressure properly, or at least not the way that Zane’s seat did, which is a guy’s seat.

 

I’m most likely going to switch the seats back. Not right now since it’s already 11:30, but before next week.

 

I ended up napping. That seems to be a new habit. I get so tired about six-ish hours after the gym. Not just tired like I can keep going I just need a cup of coffee. This is like, “The apartment could be on fire and I wouldn’t care I’m not leaving the bed and you can’t make me,” sort of tired. Zane came home but let me sleep for roughly three hours.

 

Eventually he woke me up. He also cooked dinner because he’s amazing like that.

 

I was setting up the computer to do some grading, but the internet was being hardcore lame. It took me 15 minutes just to get my Google Drive documents open. Motivation killed.

 

I did check my work email. The schedule for December finally came out. Zane wanted to get money from the ATM to put on the laundry card. I originally had gotten a $20 to do that, but the laundry had to be dried elsewhere because there wasn’t money on the card and we couldn’t leave the clothes wet overnight. That meant I had to use the $20 at the laundry mat, which normally isn’t a big deal because I would have gotten three $5s back, but for some reason the machine turned my entire $20 into quarters, which I can’t use to put on the laundry card for the apartment… Arg.

 

At the moment I don’t have anything clean to wear to bike to work in tomorrow. Not cool, and so not going to happen. Zane said that I could use his card to get another $20. I can put the money on the card when the office opens, do laundry, and still have some time to kill before having to go to work. Everything ought to work out. Fingers crossed.

 

Since I was out I stopped at the school to grab the schedule off of the server. It sucks. I would be working 5pm to 1am for the CRI1 labs. I’m really hoping that it goes down to one lab. With it being the holiday season a lot of people take leaves of absence to go back home and stuff. Shading and Lighting is 1pm until 9pm, which isn’t bad, but still would be lame if I’m working until 1am because I wouldn’t be getting home until around 2am, and not getting to sleep until at least 3am most likely 5am. I haven’t figured out when I want to schedule my training with Terri in this giant mess.

 

I will most likely try to keep it on Wednesday. I’ll have a better idea on Monday what the labs will actually be like. Hopefully there’s only one. >.<;

 

That’s it though. The kitchen is a mess. I’m not going to clean it until tomorrow morning. Same with my to-do list. I’m tired again. Sleep sounds good.