The person who didn’t want to do burpees in front of others for fear of being embarrassed (or filmed) filmed 2 of us doing burpees today. Revenge will be mine, and it will be sweet…
Lucky number 13 (Day 13)
Back to a single set again today, with a couple of colleagues to thank for that: it is sooo much easier when you’re not doing them alone, not just to push yourself a little harder but also to get a better rhythm. Thanks colleagues 
That said, seeing others do it reminds me just how badly I need to work on my form. Sigh. A burpee challenger’s work is never done.
All climbed out (Day 12)
I’m back to splitting my burpees into sets, but after the climbing session I got in today, I forgive me. In addition to managing a couple of runs that I would never even have fathomed a few weeks ago because of the inward slope, I also got to test out the higher walls: 17m. I’m not actually sure how high the walls I usually climb are, but they are certainly not 17m, and I only have attached the rope as I go about half the time, where the high walls (at least in this climbing gym) are always ropeless.
It was great, but now I’m soooo tiiiiiired.
1-1 in 1 (Day 11)
I shifted day 11 back into a single set
My form is still terrible though (note to self).
How do you like them apples?
I recently shared something I learned a long time ago with a colleague: there are as many varieties of grapefruits in the Caribbean as varieties of apples in North America. I don’t remember how that came up in conversation, but it floated back across my mind today while picking up some apples for one of my favourite dinners: filet mignon (of pork…if you’re interested, see my comment about the use of the term “filet mignon” in English versus French here) and cooked apples. The point is, there are lots of varieties of apples, and as a Canadian, I figure I should know a lot of them…but I don’t think I do. If you were to ask me to name as many types of apples as I could (which you haven’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway), MacIntosh and Granny Smith (my favourite) would clearly come first. Red delicious (“red” in France) come in soon after, since that’s what Luc usually uses for filet et pommes, and while I could name a few more, I couldn’t tell you anything about them. There were no “reds” today, so I went for Braeburn (which, incidentally, were absolutely excellent cooked). One alternative a couple of months ago was “canadas”. I haven’t the first clue what those are like, but I’m told that there are (or at least were at the time) too soft and starchy. Off the top of my head, it pretty much stops there… there’s golden something (golden delicious?). Oh, and I discovered “honey crunch” here a while ago, and I’ve already forgotten the two or three others I saw today. So how I do I like them apples? I don’t really know…
I spoke too soon (Day 10)
The trouble with saying something is going to happen a certain way, is that it often doesn’t. Climbing got cancelled again tonight (admittedly I wasn’t hugely motivated to go) and I didn’t have enough energy and/or motivation to stick to a single set today. So 5 down, 5 to go. Not much of a milestone celebration, but hey. It’s been a week of ups and downs, and a day with plenty of both. I’ll just keep on working to tip the balance so that the ups win out over the downs.
A little sketchy on the 9th (Day 9…still)
Number 9 wasn’t my best work, but I’m still patting myself on the back for sticking to a single set.
I’m also suddenly conscious of my choice of words in the post title…I wonder if people still say “sketchy”, and here’s why: I suspect that my English (and particularly my slang) has been stunted. I’ve been out of Canada for over 6 years now, speaking French more than 50% of the time, and speaking English mostly with non-anglophones (and of the anglophones, the majority are not Canadian, or even North American), so my slang is probably either outdated, or downright non-existent.
My friend Dave’s mom is from France, but has lived in Canada for 30 years or so. When Dave came to visit me several years ago, one of my friends commented that his French was perfect, but that he used really outdated expressions that were odd coming from someone our age. I wonder if that’s where my English is going…not to mention all the expressions I can no longer remember.
Actually, I master no languages really – at work we speak Frenglish, due to the fact that both marketing and the internet (software / web development…) contain unreasonable number quantities of English; further fueled by the pure bilingualism of the CEO, the fact that 90% of our clients work in English (keeping in mind, of course, the 87.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot), and that there has been a dramatic increase in the number (and proportion) of English speakers in the company I work for since I started (at which point I was the only one).
For good measure I like to through in a couple of words from other languages now and then, with the most frequent being (and now that I put this in writing, I bet it’s really annoying to other people) “ein moment bitte”. Actually, I bet I’m not even saying it right, but oh well.
So back to the subject at hand: tomorrow is the first big milestone I guess: day 10. Maybe I’ll celebrate by going out and climbing some walls
Losing track – already! (day 9)
Since I didn’t do my burpees at work today (where my burpee tracking calendar resides) I couldn’t remember what day I was on. Between that and losing count while doing my burpees on day 7, I’m thinking the Alzeimer’s (or perhaps the mad cow, for a little nod to William Shatner’s fantastic character in Boston Legal) is kicking in a bit too early for my liking.
So now that I’ve checked the blog to figure out what day I’m on, I’m bracing myself for 9…here goes!
Free hugs
The French don’t hug. Well, not often, and it’s mostly reserved for couples, although some people don’t freak out too much when anglos hug (or more specifically, when anglos hug Frenchies; I almost got myself into a lot of trouble with a hug once!). I think I’ll start this post with a tangent, and then come back to the reason I’m writing: anglos (or at least North Americans?) are often perceived (at least by the French) as fake, because we’re too nice to people, and its perceived as being, well, fake. The hug is one manifestation of that, and French people find it widely over-used (frankly, at times I agree). I suppose that it can be roughly (but only roughly) compared to our perception of the “bises” (the cheek-to-cheek kiss that is used as a greeting in France between men and women, and among women, but only rarely among men). Of course, the anglo use of the “bises” comes across as extraordinarily snobby, but actually living it takes some getting used to. I distinctly remember the heat flooding my face when someone I found attractive extended a cheek, that is until I got used to it, and discovered that even less emotion goes into the bises than goes into a hug, since the bises tends to be distributed more widely than hugs. Well, to be fair, some bises (just like some hugs) can be anything but cold and detached, but it’s different.
Where am I going with this…I have, to some extent – to a great extent even – over-adapted to French society, and sometimes feel downright strange in a hug. On the other hand, hugs between friends (particularly in France) have become that much more powerful, because they are so very rare (I remember the last one; it was me that offered it, and it was at least 6 months ago…maybe even a year). So when, during a particularly rough day, a good friend and colleague came around offering free hugs, you can not imagine the relief that I felt. I feel so lucky to have friends willing to go well out of cultural boundaries, see past the “falseness” that is perceived in a North American hug, and make everything better, if just for a few seconds.
Day 8
Not much to report…did my burpees in a meeting room again, because in the empty area I would have been on display to people in an all-glass meeting room that faces the empty space. The good news I got a shy fellow challengee to do them too. The bad news is, I’m not sure how many challengees are still in the game.
Oh, and the other good news is, I did my 8 in a row (although my form sucks, contrary to what one person told me a couple of days ago…but I’m pretty sure he was just trying to be nice) which makes sets of 10 (which seems like a bare minimum once day 100 starts approaching) seem feasible. One day (and one burpee…or at least one set) at a time though.
Hmm…seems I haven’t given up my strange love of parentheses and tangents.
