I R Monster

You know something is wrong with you when people are afraid of you, and it got me thinking and I've come to the realisation that I have a severe lack of control over the amount of force I utilise. I have come to dread to game of touch footy, reason because people complain against me for using too much force... In fact I think I get that/will get that reaction in almost all social team sports games I play. I seem to accidentally hurt a lot of people... and I swear it must run in the family somehow, cos my brother had similar problems I think :P. It makes me afraid of making physical contact with anyone, particularly girls... I've accidentally hurt someone from a nudge, to a poke, a slap on the back and all sorts of relatively normal gestures.

I've even hurt myself because I got over-excited once... Last year at UF camp, we were playing dodgeball... And I managed to give myself an extremely bad grass burn on my knee that I still have quite a big scar from now. I crouched down as I pegged the ball and being overexcited I scrapped my knee on the grass... Didn't notice the burn until like 30 minutes later until I calmed down from the excitement...

It's probably a result of simply excessive amounts of adrenaline I guess... But yeah... When people tell you they are genuinely afraid of you when you play sports... You know its a bit of a problem...

See, if a task requires me to be gentle and controlled then I can force myself to do it but most of the time there are no restrictions... And I will inevitably use excessive force. I mean this problem even carries over to my talking and me playing instruments or in any activity I could potentially get excited over... I can talk really quitely and suddenly just talk like a megaphone... and when I play guitar I always get told that I'm strumming ridiculously hard... yet I feel like I'm just playing normally.

But yeah... I don't think there is any kind of way of restraining it... Which is kind of annoying... So yes... I hate playing mixed touch footy... cos I always end up hurting someone...

I mean I am much better at individual sports/challenges that require no restraint whatsoever, particularly full body exercises... Stuff like obstacle courses and rockclimbing or just running around like crazy or martial arts. The reason for that is probably the fact that I do not need to restrain or be gentle because I don't need to make contact or friendly contact with anyone...

But nyeah... I dunno... Random thought...

Shaolin Long Fist

Today, I started learning shaolin long fist kung fu. I reckon I picked up the basics pretty quickly since I did karate like... 5 years ago... but at least I still remembered all the basic stuff from karate haha. It shall be very interesting, hopefully I don't get too many bruises though :P Makes you think quick though, which is good :P An architect rarely has to think quick, they can take all day if they like. But martial artist only get a fraction of the second from seeing a punch and getting hit by the punch to decide what to do to it, so we think quick :P And I learn something practical, it grants me the ability to defend and protect which makes me feel... secure... to a point. At least I know that I will gain the ability to protect something precious and I won't die as easy trying :P although I don't intend to throw myself at life threatening situations anytime soon, at least I know I will be able to should the case call for it (and I hope it never does).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a violent person. I just like to be able to successfully defend something, and chose a martial art form that best suits my character :P

Holiday Sleeping Patterns...

Holidays would be the worst time of the year for my physical body I reckon. Why do I say that? Because of my extremely retarded sleeping and eating patterns during holiday periods. With no uni and no work, there is no reason to sleep early and no reason to wake up early... Hence I sleep LATE and wake up even later. When I say late I mean I've drifted from sleeping at 1am ish from the start of the holidays, to sleeping at 4:30am last night... which... is pretty bad... I woke up at 2:30pm this morning... so that's horrendous lol... church on sundays is the only thing that brings my week back into relative alignment but even then, I still sleep at 1:30am and sometimes 2am.. to wake up at 8am... either way holidays are really unhealthy for me. Because I'm only awake at those hours I only eat about 2 meals a day... so... thats also very unhealthy... While I'm working or at uni I eat 3 and sometimes even 4 meals a day and sleep at or before 12am... and waking at 7-8am... and if I have 8 am starts at uni or work then I sleep sometimes at around 10-11pm which is an incredible feat for those of you who know me and my nocturnal tendencies. So yes... I'm sure I've gotten skinner than I was at the start of the holidays, and I was already skinny then... Probably lost abit of muscle as well from the lack of physical exercise... At least I have work next week :P

Alive DVD

A week or so ago I bought the Alive DVD by Louie Giglio, who is the same guy that did the Indescribable DVD that I blogged about a few weeks ago. While the Indescribable DVD talked about the greatness and power of God glorified in the stars above, the Alive DVD was about the intricacies of our human body. Again, I encourage people to watch it of course, and although he didn't have as many incredible images like the Indescribable DVD, he talks about some pretty important stuff. There was two parts to the DVD, first part was explaining how there has to be a God, no doubt about that. Watch for yourself. Now if there is a God and there is, then heaven and hell also exists. The second part of the DVD explains eternal life, heaven and hell, and also dispels some myths amongst non-believing populations about how to gain that eternal life. Great stuff. I won't go into any details and stuff which would spoil the DVD should you go get it yourself or ask to borrow it. But yeah... I believe last time in the blog post, I told you guys about that image he showed in the DVD of the Whirlpool Galaxy. Well, this time, go look up laminin. It is a protein compound in your body that adheres and holds every part of your body together. The very glue of your existence. But yer.. go watch it.

Freezing at Work

Teaching Learn to Swim is a tough job. You get sick often and your attendance at work has to be consistent with as little interruption as possible since there are significantly low staff numbers. Unlike working at coles, where employees are like ants and are everywhere. Swimming Instructors cause great distress when one of them can't come to work. Today I taught at like 12:30 and was meant to be able to go home by 2:30, and by that time I was already out of my gear. But I was told to do an assessment at 3:15 and then was told to start the squads off because another teacher was outside doing another class and was behind. Then my boss tells me she wants me back in the water for 2 hours because another instructor was sick. So I reluctantly agreed and I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch yet so all I had eaten all day was 2 bowls of cereal and 3 eggs at like 10:30 or something. So my energy levels were rock bottom, and I was absolutely freezing, like struggling to speak coherently cold. My voice was shaking from the coldness... So I was in the water till 5:30... and I was hungry as heck. Unlike other jobs where you can eat on the job, you can't eat in the water (obviously) and even though your surrounded by water, you can't actually drink it. And since you lose energy at more than 4x in air... you just yer... die lol...

If we did chemistry, we know that the heat capacity of air is 1.012. Or if we use the volumetric heat capacity of air, it is 0.001297/ml. The volumetric heat capacity of water is 4.186/ml... The surface area of an average male is 1.9m^2, and if we multiply that by 0.01m just to consider the volume of stuff surrounding us, we have 0.019m^3 of space surrounding our body. If we convert that to cm^3 to make calculations easier, we get 19000cm^3 I think... (I'm just doing this off the top of my head)... so if the energy required for the body to heat up just the water touching your skin which is the 19000cm^3 of water, assuming the water is 28C and the body is 37C would be E=19000*4.186*9 (now I need a calculator) which equals 715.806 kJ. The same equation done with air would be E=19000*0.001297*9=221.787 J

Which means that room temperature water is 3227.44 times colder than room temperature air. Which means that you lose energy 3227.44 times faster when submerged in water than when you are in air. 28C air is quite comfortable as your body does not need to use much energy to maintain core temperature, in fact it's actually quite hot. 28C water is extremely cold if you are not exercising. Also remember that the water around you is constantly moving which means that the water that warms up around you gets washed away and you get cold again and continue losing heat. I had no energy left after not eating since breakfast so I was cold, very cold.

If the water was to be made to the level of comfort as if your in 21C A/C (E=19000*0.001297*16=394.288J) the water temperature would need to be body temperature (36.995C). I haven't done maths and chemistry in ages lol... But I still remember how to calculate this stuff. And water is cold stuff...

Neways... enough from me...

Slllloowww Days...

For some odd reason some days appear much slower than other days... It's particularly noticable at work too. Today was one of those royal sloth days. It seemed that classes would never end, and they just came one after another, after another... Why is that ay? I wasn't particularly tired, and although I've slowly lost enthusiasm as the day went on, it was just so slow... I was at work at 12:30 and I finished my last class at 5:30... and between 2:30 and 3:30 I have nothing and don't get paid, so I only taught for 4 hours today... I'm sure we have all experienced that kind of feeling. But I wonder if it had to do with my food... I've been trying to overload on carbohydrates, which means I've also been eating alot of junk food... Which have an adverse effect on blood glucose levels, which cause an increase in insulin, which result in the slowing down of the body, or making it tired and lethargic... Meh, I dunno... I have eaten about 1000 calories of junk food today tho... but hey...

Energy Overhaul...

I think I've finally realised the reasons why I get so cold so easily... The average male energy intake is like some 3000 calories... which is about 12600 Kj (I did it in my head so it might be wrong)... I have a tendency to skip meals... since i eat dinner at 8-9 and I sleep at 12-2... and i wake up at 9-11... I've missed breakfast already. But I know I definitely do not have a protein deficiency... but I need more calories... I probably take in about 2600 calories a day... so I'm thinking I need to double that....

Junk food diet here I come

Weak Immune System...

I think working as a swimming instructor makes your immune system incredibly weak... I say that because you are constantly being frozen so your bodily functions are impaired and you are also constant exposed to viruses and bacteria from the hundreds of kids every week. I swear that our (my colleagues and I) bodies are just barely able to hold off the endless waves of crap, and the ones that work for longer hours are almost constantly sick. Which means that chances are that when your body's immune system is pushed at any other time, your screwed and your bound to get sick... which is the case now... bleh... Only the second day and I know I'm going down big time...

Laziness

Man... although I've been at the pool 3 times a week almost every week this year to teach, I've only trained twice this year... All through high school I would train like 1-3 times a week and would be able to swim a 2-2.4km session with relative ease... Today I thought I'd join my old swimming buddies again for the second half of their hour long session after my last class which started at the same time (which goes for half an hour)... and by then there was only 500m left of their session as they swam the other 1.5km in the first half hour or something... and I was already buggered lol...

It is quite amazing how the body takes so long to train up... but as soon as you stop using it, it will degenerate so quickly to a weaker state. Also fitness in one medium doesn't seem to transfer over to other medium either, if you are a hardcore gymnast, you jump in a pool and you will be crap even if you know how to swim. I run alot, and although I don't have many opportunities to climb stuff, I do it when ever the opportunity arises, so I guess I should be pretty fit... But doing that half km of decent speed swimming, now I actually feel tired lol...

I reckon if I keep jumping in for the second half of their session every week I'll be back up there in a few weeks though...