slacker

My step counts for December haven't been auspicious:

12/1: 7,791
12/2: 5,770
12/3: 7,869
12/4: 7,979
12/5: 6,721
12/6: 8,083
12/7: 7,483
12/8: 8,060
12/9: 15,324 (the day I went hunting for my lamp)
12/10: 6,829 thus far

I'm going to try to break 20,000 steps tonight, but I'm not hopeful. There's been some precipitation today, and things are a bit slippery—probably more so on the mountain. (In fact, I might not even do the mountain.) I've also got a very achy right knee; the ache has been with me for over a week. It's more annoying than debilitating, but the pain is enough to dampen any motivation to walk long distances. Still, when I see the above numbers, I feel ashamed enough to want to push through the pain and get my steps in, by hook or by crook.

Back when my yeogwan was cloaked in darkness, I didn't bother to weigh myself, but I'm pretty sure I've gained a couple kilos from both eating and not exercising enough. I'm actually afraid to step on the scale right now. Vacation is going to have to be devoted to losing weight faster; one of my advanced students told me she'd somehow managed to lose 30 kg in two months—a claim I find dubious, but she's sticking to her story. If such rapid weight loss is possible without outright starving oneself, I might give her regime a try. Once I find out what it is, of course. Maybe she did the Christian Bale "Machinist" diet: "water, an apple, and one cup of coffee per day, with the occasional whiskey" (approximately 55-260 calories), according to Wikipedia. Yeah, I suppose that would do the trick, right?

Another reason for the lack of motivation is undoubtedly that it's crunch time: this is Week 15 at Dongguk University, and all I have left to do this week is to conduct final-exam reviews. Next week, on Monday and Tuesday, we've got the final exams, then on Thursday and Friday I've got back-to-back jjong-parties. I've been prepping review materials and exams, and next week I'll be grading, grading, and grading some more. I then have to gather my teaching materials, scan them, turn them into a massive PDF "portfolio," and upload that portfolio to an online FTP space for God-only-knows-what reason. All of this has to be done by a certain due date, otherwise I'll be cursed and flung into a Buddhist hell. Or something like that.

So it's almost as though December is a lost cause—a major step backward in terms of average step counts. Perhaps this is just my month to slack off. I'll do what I can to stay afloat with my walking stats, but to be honest, I'm really not expecting high numbers. Not until January.


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