Blogger shocked at his own work ethic

Here we are, the second week of classes, and already I have a couple of things to be proud of myself for. In an added bonus, some other cool things happened today that did not actually require any special effort on my part, but were welcomed nonetheless.

Let's start at the beginning, because that's what all the cool kids are doing these days. For the first time this semester, I actually walked into my physics class before 0800. (Yes, I will be using military time. Deal with it.) Not that I've ever missed anything substantial by being a couple of minutes late the past few times, but the fact that I actually managed to get out of bed at 0700 apparently boded well for the day. ("Boded"? Is that a word? *INTERNET SEARCH!* Huh, apparently it is.)

After returning from Intro to Comm, I decided that the fact that I'd gotten two emails on Tuesday telling me I had a package available for pickup wasn't a fluke, and that I should go pick up the other package. To my delight, it was the rest of the stuff I'd ordered from Valve a couple of weeks ago. I am now the proud owner of two Left 4 Dead movie posters ("The Last Stand" and "No Mercy," if you're curious), a Sentry Mechanical Firing Device mousepad which has a footprint almost as big as that of my computer, an Aperture Laboratories (A trusted friend in Science) coffee mug, and a GLaDOS hoodie. I topped it all off with a Sandvich from The Cutting Edge in West End.

Now we get to the good stuff. When I started running last semester I made myself a playlist of songs that I thought would be good to run to. While this worked out pretty well, I noticed yesterday after starting with two songs whose tempos nicely matched my running pace that I was a lot better at running (and also at forgetting how much the running hurt) when I could keep time with the music. After getting back from Intro to Film, I sat down with iTunes and my good old DB-60 and worked out a playlist of songs that had good running tempos. Wanting to test immediately how well this would work out, I proceeded to go run three miles. Continuously. Without stopping or making significant pace changes. (Except for the last eighteenth of a mile or so, where I doubled my stride length just for the hell of it.) I have never even come close to doing that before. I credit the music entirely for this. Hey Monday's "Run, Don't Walk" is quite possibly the best running song ever. (And while we're on the topic of artists I'd never heard of until this week, you might want to check out Owl City. You might find his stuff sickeningly saccharine, but I love it.)

The best part about the run was immediately afterwards. As I'm coming out of McComas, I spot the snack machine, and my stomach is all like "I WANT CHOCOLATE." So I slide my card and ask the machine for a Twix. It gets stuck. I give an exasperated sigh and walk to the side of the machine to give it a solid kick. Just as I'm about to deliver the blow, however, I hear a clunk. Cool, it somehow fell on its own. As I walk around to the front of the machine, I hear another clunk. Check it out, a karmic reward for my feat; two Twix bars for the price of one.

Can't stop the signal.

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SMike