untitled, more verbal refuse.

This week has been rather boring.  This is partly because I started studying for my qualifying exam, which is December 8.  So days are spent learning about how much I don't know, but will be required to know.  Daunting.

Other than that, it is raining.  It's a full on winter storm, where it rains all day.  The power even went out this morning, causing me to go to Crepeville and make sure that my laptop was just low on battery power and not dead.  Fortunately, the battery was just dead.  I think I'll back everything up today - music, photos, papers, whatever.  

I went to Jailhouse yesterday; it was rather demoralizing.  I wasn't feeling amazing - maybe because the conditions were horrendous, maybe because I had steroid infusion Wednesday, but most likely because I'm out of shape.  At any rate, I'm very sore today, especially my butt for some reason.  

I've been trying to pinpoint what it is about Jailhouse that has turned me off this year.  I think it could be all of the analysis of performance.  People comparing themselves to each other, talking about who's done what, who does what on this move.  What diets people are on, training schedules, why they didn't send, blah blah blah.  I used to think it was fun talking about that stuff - thinking about what I could do to climb harder, getting psyched.  I can also understand why it's fun for others.  But now I don't want to hear it.  Maybe it's because I have "real" physical things to worry about.  It's one thing to wish you were stronger, it's another to hope that you don't become disabled.  It's annoying to hear people bitch about why they aren't sending their projects, or what crappy rock climbers they are (especially when they're not crappy rock climbers - that one irritates me the most!).  

Maybe this is why I don't enjoy climbing videos or the climbing media these days either.

I just want to go and rock climb.  I don't want to hang in a harness, I don't want to overanalyze my performance and always come up short (which I would - I'll never be as good as I think I should or could be).  Hanging out with good people, doing a lot of moves in a row.  Going to cool places.  That's what I'm psyched on right now.

Naturally I berate myself: why don't you just not let it bother you?  Why don't you just ignore it?  well for some reason I can't, so for now, I'm changing directions for a little while so I can take a break from the pressure I place on myself.

Inevitably, I'll get psyched on climbing hard again and projecting stuff.  I think it's challenging emotionally and physically, and I'm sure I've grown a lot as a climber and as a person through projecting climbs.  As pointless as projecting (or even rock climbing in general) is, it teaches determination and patience, among other things.  Hopefully those skills translate into other life areas.  The trick, in my view, is to not let it dominate my self-image or world-view (or serve as a distraction from connecting), while using it as a tool to enrich my life.  Honestly if I didn't have climbing weekends and trips to look forward to, I'd be a very sad cookie.

Speaking of climbing trips to look forward to, there is talk of a trip to the creek in the spring with a solid partner, which would be rad.  It's quite a ways off though, so I don't want to get my hopes up too much.  It's always awesome being able to spend time somewhere with a steady partner who has similar goals.  Both parties tend to accomplish more, and the energy is positive and motivated.