I put this down to the fact that I’m in love with the idea of exercise rather than exercise itself. I love the smugness of being able to say I completed 63 days of Insanity, or went to the gym everyday for a week, or dug deep and lifted heavier than before.

During the new year trainer Allan was away on vacay and I shunned the gym even though I could very well work out on my own. Instead I’ve tried to make up for it by constantly going for yoga. I went to four classes this week and it’s been three so far since Monday. Which is great because the teachers at the studio now finally know my name. big whoop.

Records show that from August to December last year, I attended a grand total of seven classes –  I was busy juggling Insanity with regular PT sessions, aside from being plagued by the occasional bout of extreme indolence.

But now in the current frenzy I think I managed to get back to it quite well. I have not progressed very much in executing new arm balances and the only inversion I can do is a shoulderstand so I’m hoping I will at least keep going regularly and try to improve on more challenging poses.

I’m a bit ambivalent about the efficacy of yoga versus something more intense like a full PT session. I still love the feeling of sweating bucket loads in a hot class and feeling my heart pounding in my chest. But that could be misleading in terms of caloric burn. No way to find out except with a heart rate monitor, which I don’t yet own. But what I’m sure about is that nothing builds muscle better than just doing supersets and lifting in the gym. So tomorrow it’s time to start training insane again.

In terms of cardio, I found I did very well with Insanity but it was just exceedingly tiring. I don’t know if I can muster up the commitment and time to do the program again. After I finished the program in November I was trying to push myself to do an Insanity workout every few days just to get the heart pumping to the max but so far I have had limited success. The last time I heard Shaun T’s voice was over two weeks ago. I’ll see how it goes.

In the mean time, I hope everyone’s gotten off to a fit and flying 2012, yes that means all five of you still reading this blog.

There have been the requisite existential questions, the wheres, whys, what nexts. And there have been some realizations, which I often think is good. Coming to any sort of awakening, whether timely or delayed, is always a sign that at least one is moving somewhere.

I experienced some dissonance right around Christmas, as the impending hurtle toward 2012 jolted me into realization that I hadn’t really achieved much last year, meaning everything seemed to stagnate from 2009. That i think is partly a consequence of not setting anything concrete in advance, being of the impression at the time that adopting a laissez faire attitude toward resolutions and having no expectations can result in pleasant surprises.

Daniel Kahneman posits that our view of self and the world is shaped both by experience and memory and it is the remembering self that is the story teller of our lives through time. We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences. This is what distinguishes being happy in life and being happy with one’s life. We therefore think about the future not as experience but as anticipated memories.

I don’t know if there is still any advantage in thinking about future possibilities and the phrase ‘anticipated memories’ is so loaded I am loathe to even allude to it. But I have realized that self-actualization for me is more a need than a choice. So here I attempt to specify some goals. Also, it probably beats glossing over everything with a slick aphorism.

actively listen

verbalise thoughts in an elegant, if not coherent, form

practise retaining all that I learn

write more

My communication is overdue for some betterment, mainly because it is such an important means to my many ongoing ends. Also these are goals I know I can work with — though not necessarily succeed at — especially given my oft capricious nature.

As to judgement, tolerance, oversensitivity, empathy and all that heavy, good stuff, they never cease to plague me. But I can only hope that out of all this ongoing chaos, maybe one day a dancing star will emerge. Ok that last bit wasn’t really an aphorism, but it was clearly Nietzsche.

So anyway in the one week between the interview and the formal offer, I was constantly imagining my life in China. There was certainly a fair bit of apprehension, some excitement and I remember thinking with relief that Shanghai at least had a real Ikea store, and it looked pretty gargantuan when I passed it on the way to the airport for the flight home. But that was that.

Anyhow after that there were a few other opportunities that came my way and I duly gave each some attention, mainly to suss out the market and to practise interviewing. I think I’m pretty good at doling out the spiel now and am comfortable talking about myself.  My career might be suffering from inertia at times but I’ve never doubted that I am in a good place and it will likely continue to be that way — wherever I am — because I’m confident in my skills and competence.

On the other hand I think I have given up any expectation that things will turn out a certain way in other areas. I give up expecting that I will some day be married, I give up expecting that I will have kids. I give up the white picket fence dream. I’m not sure why but I really do feel that other people seem to have it easier than I do. I don’t know if it’s a defeatist attitude to take but that’s where I am right now. Not unhappy or downcast but a little  subdued and mellow, definitely some jading going on there.

To tell someone how you really feel about them, whether if it’s your heart bursting from good feelings, or how much you miss them. To simply put yourself out there, good side, bad side, gifts and flaws, knowing full well that your heart can be shattered and trampled on in an instant.

The experts and gurus say it is a risk the truly courageous take but you will never fully understand how intense it is until you find yourself on the edge with one foot of the cliff.

There are lots of things causing this fear, and i hate to admit it but mostly it comes from all the baggage of the past, all the ghosts of disappointments from before coming back to haunt me. How easy it is to get sucked in. But i realize that they are mine to bear and I have to take responsibility for them and deal with them. We are each responsible for ourselves and our well being. Realization is the easy part, what next?

So I’m going back to basics. I’m trying my hardest to take each day as it comes and not let my thoughts overrun everything. And tomorrow is a new day.

And things went pretty much according to plan. We had a very nice lunch of lamb stew and roast beef. I never knew this before but Penny Black has quite an impressive spread of mains and sandwiches.  And it was good.

Even at normal prices, I thought $14++ for the lamb stew and $16++ for mr P’s roast beef was exceedingly reasonable.

And a rare bonus these days — the place wasn’t crowded. We sat outside facing the river, watching the crowds ambling along on the opposite bank at the Asians Civilisation Museum. It was actually pretty hot out but with iced tea and beer we didn’t go wrong.

By about 3pm the entire stretch of the quay started filling up with fans and there was definitely a party atmosphere palpable in the air. Quite a few showed up in the smart All Blacks kit and there were a few brave souls who turned up in the ubiquitous yellow of the the Wallabies. For some reason Penny Black’s telecast of the game via ESPN was about 10 seconds behind whichever channel Harry’s next door had subscribed to. So fans next door started cheering each time a penalty was awarded, or the ball was given away or when New Zealand’s Nonu scored the first try, completely wiping any suspense of the game. Pretty funny but still… Anyway the kiwis were in their usual top form and Australia just couldn’t keep up. Pretty good score in the end. Looking forward to them demolishing les bleus next week!

Last week I’d been out with yenhan to Osteria Mozza and ate a crapload of bad carbs for dinner — dessert really is the killer. Come Thursday, despite all my best intentions I failed to get out of bed at the opportune time to make it to PT (I blame it on the rain that morning) so I decided some last minute remedial action was in order.

I skipped the fit test and went straight into day 2, which was ‘Plyometric Cardio Circuit’. I vaguely knew what plyometrics were and in my mind I just had visions of burpees, jumping jacks, maybe some compound push ups off a step board.

It started off with a brisk warm up of various high impact moves — jogging, Heisman’s, jumping jacks, mummy kicks, butt kicks, high knees — and I wanted to quit halfway through. This was the warm up.

After about 5 minutes of stretching after that, it swung full on into the insane part. This lasted about 20 minutes but I had to stop more than a few times, despite the 30 second water breaks in between. Each round consisted of suicide drills, power squats, mountain climbers, ski moves; and got increasingly faster with each round. If you don’t know what these exercises are and want to google, trust me, they’re as deadly as the names suggest. Try doing them non stop for 20 to 30 seconds each. There were a couple more rounds with other moves called switch kicks. Throughout the video Shaun T stresses not to sacrifice form — kicking high when necessary and more often than not engaging the core. But when you just want to collapse it is very hard to maintain proper form.

After my shower I struggled to pull on  my pants because my legs were just so tired.

The next day’s workout was called Cardio Power and Resistance and things were worse mainly because I found that my calf muscles were completely destroyed from day 1 — not used to jumping much.  cardio wise, I felt it wasn’t as intensive as the plyos but this had a fair amount of shoulder and tricep work, which i loved. Again, brought me near the brink of collapse.

So I was very glad when day 3 (or 4, since the fit test is considered day 1) was a recovery session — mostly yoga-style deep stretches. Frankly I wasn’t up for high impact jumping when my calves seemed to be as sore as ever.

Last night was the worst. Pure Cardio was on the sked and just the title alone should scare people. Because there were no. designated. breaks. at. all. The moves were similar to the plyo workout but they just came one after the other. I succumbed and took NUMEROUS breaks but took some comfort from the fact that the very fit people accompanying Shaun T in the video were stopping for breaks too. By the last two moves — I had no idea what I was doing. The last was push up jacks and I basically just keeled over on the floor thinking, kill me now.

But the good thing about it is boy do the endorphins kick in strong afterwards. They put me in such a good mood so I’ve been going to bed tired but content.

Tonight is another round of plyos, which actually refers to training the muscles by first stretching them, then contracting them to increase speed and power.

Fingers crossed that I won’t fall off the wagon on this one.

Anyway  two months in and mr P and I have slipped into something that’s very comfortable, routine even. In fact it got so comfortable so quickly that I had fleeting worries. But no use worrying about tomorrow. That’s what we have in common – being zen about what this is, what it might be. So that’s partly why it all feels very grown-up and unfussy. But I tell myself, this is it, a do over. All the lessons that I’ve learnt in the last two years, now is the time to put them into practice, and more importantly make them stick.

i’ve always believed that certain things happen for reasons we can’t fathom until much later. similarly people will drift in and out of our lives in a manner we cannot control. all we can do is just hang on for the ride, don’t hold on too tight, and scream when things get scary.

that’s what i’ve been thinking lately. when are things are right, they’re simple. and they’re good.