Crunchie

I finished my Advanced III Spanish class last Wednesday, ending the eighth thirteen-week cycle in which I have haltingly and inexorably pursued my mastery of castellano. In the tortoise and the hare parable, I am definitely the tortoise, and I haven't finished the race yet. However, now having completed my course leaves me with the rest of the summer with no committed extracurricular activities. On Thursday I inaugurated a thirteen week commitment to physical activity, which seems to be a arc of activity that will be sustainable. My ventures into language have taught me the value of setting small goals. For example, if in 2001 when I started taking Spanish I had said to myself, by 2004 I would like to be able to argue in Spanish with an Argentinean boyfriend about the feminist critique of the marriage institution as it existed in medieval Europe, I would have thought, "I am setting myself an impossible task." Yet there I was in Borders last month, doing that very thing, in broken Spanish.

So, what this means in practice is that between now and September 2, I have committed myself to do something active every other day, or some reasonable approximation of that. Spreadsheets have been prepared for completion. Entries have been made in my Outlook calendar. Documentation will be kept contemporaneously. The idea is to alternate between swimming, weightlifting, walking and biking, with allowances made for vacations and travel days.

Anyhow, this was all meant as a lead-in to the workout I had in Crunch fitness on Thursday, when I and the said Argentinean fell victim to a slightly manipulative marketing strategy. I was going to explain why I thought Crunch fitness kind of sucked ass, and why I like my gym at the Y better, but I won't elaborate right now. Suffice it to say there is lots of red and purple and orange, loud techno music blasting, weird machines and lots of bulky men in the free weight room. I like the Y so much better. It has the feel of a real gym and not a fitness club. In fact it was a physical space built for physical activity, rather than the first floor of a cheesy apartment building built for various commercial uses. I think that was part of it.