Standing

This weekend, the last group of people that I actually really know and was friends with in college are graduating. Congratulations to all of my friends at WM- including Absi, who gets to graduate from WM twice, but this time with a Masters.

I realized a few days ago that, with the absence of these folk to greet me whenever I return to Williamsburg, they have been replaced by... students at William and Mary whom I have taught at Woodberry. Awesome. Now I'm old. That thought works especially well today, as my back is killing me.

I've had pull-up bar that I can hang on a doorway for over a year now, but I haven't used it much this year because I don't really have a door with a proper frame that is tall enough. I mentioned this yesterday to Pete, and he made me feel REALLY smart by suggesting I just use the shorter door and bend my knees in order to keep my feet off the ground. That worked great, and so I celebrated by doing many rounds of pull ups throughout the day just because I could. This morning I remembered that I hadn't been regularly working out those specific muscles in my back when I awoke to the feeling of being crucified (not the hands and feet and blood and Christian allusion part, but the compressed-back-difficult-to-breathe part). It's slowly improving, but it's nice to have physical reminders of when I have been especially foolish.

One intelligent (I hope) thing I did the other day involved chucking my desk chair and converting my awesome worksstation into an even more awesome STANDING work station. Of course, being me and being extremely cheap, this is how I did it:

It's all surprisingly stable.

There have been a number of studies recently that say sitting down all day is bad for your health. I mostly just wanted to try out a different configuration, and so far it has vastly increased my productivity. My feet hurt terribly at the end of any given day, but I feel like eventually I will get used to it. Probably around the time I move out.

Speaking of which, I theoretically find out either tomorrow or the next day if I made it into the student apartment complex on campus. The odds are very good, but it would be nice to have confirmation that I have somewhere to live for the next year.