I am loving this journal 
Caution: it’s late and I’m tired and sleepy, for this following post, so I don’t know what will come out.
Saturday, Nov.6th, 2010.
I’m not sure I will get this change again in my life (I am one to believe that we chase after our chances, in a good amount of degree), but despite the momentary monotonous feeling of thinking over the same phd subject matter, from the morning until the night, and sometimes in my sleep too, I am truly grateful (is it Thanksgiving yet?) to have this opportunity of ‘free’ schedule, to structure my day around studying and training.
And dwelling upon the ancients’ virtuous life-model of taking care of ‘body’, ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’, perhaps the first two are fully functioned right now, in opposition to a grand majority of the human population, while the third will always be a constant struggle for anyone wandering on this planet earth.
With that being said, I wanted to share the fact that I really enjoy my research; it’s a combination of things I like, minus the training, and I find it a real challenge. It deals with the structure of public open urban spaces, definitions of ‘civic art’, and creating a new methodology of putting together quality public open spaces for the contemporary city. It blends architectural design, philosophical paradigms, form perception, and art theories. And this is important for me to note down, because all of 2009 was a constant question mark of “what the heck am I doing here in Milan”; needless to say that my presence here was a result of chain- events that unfolded not so harmoniously, accompanied with psychological mild turbulence :o
I’m probably writing all this down because I’ve been dealing with this phd all day today, from 10am until midnight, with a two hour break for training etc. Ughhhh :rolleyes:
But because I don’t want people (and myself, after years), to think that I’m a zombie that only studies and trains, here’s the latest painting I completed (about a month ago, but oh well): :o (it’s a Norman Rockwell reproduction)
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Ok, training, training:
> 25min warm up jog on grass (I love this park right near my residence - only two loops around for 25min)
> 10min dynamic stretching
> 5 x 30m A skips
> 5 x 30m B skips (I am doing these again, after Charlie told me to drop them, because I think I am doing them more correctly now, but I guess I should post another video soon)
> 5 x 30m running A’s leading into a 30m stride
> 5 x 30m scissor kicks leading into a 50-60m stride
> 3 x 4 pulls ups
> 4 x 10 dips
> about 200 abs (I was doing 1200 abs just a couple of weeks ago, I should bring my game back now… I wish I had a med ball here.)
Today was a “knee-check” day, and my verdict is: CHECK. (but I’ll stick on grass for the next couple of weeks - my park has a short hill too - I know, I’ll be careful)
p.s. John, that summary was awesome…
)