I ve been doing an 8 week fitness challenge.
today was the first day of week four.

It has been far more than just about fitness.

I have cut down dramatically on the amount of time i spent - no, WASTE - online. unimaginable but - yes - i spent time away from my laptop - why, I even go for walks in the forest without taking my mobile phone with me!!

I also say "NO" more often, express my feelings and my opinion loudly and steer clear of lots of unpleasant people without a guilty conscience.

Back to the fitness part now.

I've been working towards the goal of holding a 30 min light jog by the end of the 8 weeks. I need a new goal though as already managed to hold a jog for 30 mins by the end of the third week. Should I train towards a one hour jog (increase duration) or a half hour run (increase intensity)?

Today I went up a nearby hill for a short hike. I had spent most afternoon lying in the sun on my balcony. When I was going up, everyone else was coming down. I was on the top before it got dark, having all the beautiful sunset colours for myself.

When I came back home and started tidying up and emptying the extra room, for which we found a flatmate who he is moving in with us this week. As I was moving a bookshelf and its contents, an amazing thing happened, some folders slipped from my hands and there were my beginner's italian, french and german books all spilled on the floor.

my first thought was: I still have these?
second: why do I still have these?
third: I'll never need those beginner's books again!

fourth: O-M-G - those beginner's books look so basic to me now that I am advanced in those languages - biology and maths will look so basic to me when, in another ten years' time, I have my degree!

Yes, this beautiful moment when I spilled some beginner's books on the floor and realised how familiar and self explanatory the knowledge within them looks to me now, gave me two things:

firstly, a pile of books to bring to the second hand store
and
secondly, a whole new perspective on my current study subjects - by the grace of god and lots and lots of more all nighters studying, I shall one day look back with my practice licence on the wall and by some miracle think genetic code biology and random variables statistics sound so very basic.
(I know, i know... dream on, right?... but that's the same thing some people said when I wanted to be fluent in multiple foreign languages one day!)

And then I send some tears and went to sit zazen.

Bless you.