Dolly Parton's Principle
The bigger they are, the harder it is to see your shoes.

Workouts

I am not the person that I was when I came to Austin.
Sure, I changed in the last six months. But it is not that change.
It is an intrinsic change. A change of the mental attitude.
Especially over the last 2 months.

Its that I started going to the gym. Regularly. Very regularly.
No. It is not a New Year resolution meant to be broken. It is something that I plan to do for a long time.

Back in India, I never used to find time to go to the gym. However long the day used to be. I always ended up finding some excuse not to go. Either it was this interesting book to read, or the movie to go, or the match to watch or academic work to be done. And all around I saw people going there, earnestly, leaving a very guilty hole in my heart.
But that didnt change me.

In Austin, what started the transformation was the weather, I would say. It was comfortably more cooler to exert myself in such sweaty activities. It started with plain jogging. My timing of classes also helped me in that I never had any early morning classes. But as the days progressed by, they became colder, and I became busier, and then I had to stop it once and for all. It never occured to me to go to the gym.

One fine day, after the semester was over, my friends invited me to play racketball.
Me, a complete novice, playing racketball, looked as out of place blue in brite red. I, of course, ended up banging my head and twisting my ankle. A swollen head, not much unlike what you would see in a Tom and Jerry Cartoon developed. That firm imprint on my mind, literally, forced me never to play it again.
After that Accident, I wandered around to the work out lounge, and grabbed the near exercycle.

It began with that. For the past 40 days.

Now every day, I manage to find the ubiquitous one hour that I cant do anything else; and I wander over to the gym for an hour on the treadmill, crowd permitting.
Even though I get physically tired, I get mentally alert, very alert. Enough even for a 3 hour long lecture.

Atleast I wont feel guilty about all the free pizzas I eat.