Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A plea and a pledge

Please, please, please let me never turn into a person who speaks lots of corporate drivel, with no words of value coming out of my mouth. Nor let me string together sentences as if they came out of a random phrase generator iphone app.

I pledge never to enjoy going to meetings to speak about meetings, or even consider subjecting someone else to this act. And I will never use the word "kimono", other than in a sentence about Japanese clothing.

I fear that spending a lot of time in a big corporation (or government) can do this to people, but I refuse to become a victim. I will maintain my sanity and continue to hold meaningful conversations without the need of a laser pointer and PowerPoint presentation, in order to get things done.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Bad habits

I've been a bad blogger recently. Although I can be accused of laziness on the writing side, I've been trying to address laziness of a different sort. After several years of sitting comatose in front of the television and realising that "surfing" the net is not classed as a sport, I've decided to try and use my personal time a little more productively... by going to the gym.

I'm not quite sure what's come over me recently, but it's suddenly hit me that I can no longer sit on my behind, eat lots of burgers or a sneaky midnight kebab, followed by a full fry-up the next day, and wonder why my trousers are pinching me in places that they shouldn't be. The days of getting away with it are over.

Another contributing factor was pure shame. The other weekend I went to support a friend who was running a quarter marathon and did fantastic. The shame part came as I watched people of all shapes and ages embarking upon a 6 or 12 mile run, including an old granny running with her walking stick. To make matters worse, the building I live in has its own gym, literally 20 steps from my front door, that I've never quite managed to get to for the past seven months.

I used to be really good at going to the gym, doing sports and I was always on my bike... until I discovered cars and started working. I knew it had been a while, but I only realised how long it had actually been when I pulled out my gym wear and it brought me straight back to the days of school PE class. Think grey 90's marl. Very bad.

So for the past three weeks, I have been going to the gym three times a week and am actually starting to enjoy it (the best part is getting to watch the food channel). On top of that I am eating yoghurt and fruit instead of crisps and cake, and my clothes are starting to pinch a lot less. I also updated my sports attire last week. It's amazing the sweat-free, ultra light materials that you can get in the 21st century! I do still love my marls though.