Tag: Planet Fitness

A symmetrical birthday

Another year, another trip around the sun.

Turning 22 doesn’t offer nearly as many significant things to talk about as the ‘milestone’ 21, where drinking and properly oriented drivers’ licenses were officially on the table.

I won’t be starting this post off with a deep, important-sounding remark on the different milestones one hits in life.

Rather, 22 mainly stands out because… It’s symmetrical? I guess?

To be fair, 22 does have some things going for it. Most notably the fact that I’ll be graduating from college during that year. Yikes.

All of that is pretty forward thinking, though. Today there aren’t a whole lot of exciting things going on, as I’ll be saving the friend gatherings for later in the year when more people are back in town.

What I have gotten is a lovely breakfast made by my younger sister:

Homemade waffles with fruit compote and whipped cream? I’ve been spoiled.

And a couple of birthday gifts from the family that I definitely did not know about from being in the store with them.

That would be ridiculous! I was honestly, truly surprised.

Aly must know me real well if she thought to get me a Mimikyu-related gift again, totally without my input.

As much as it messes with my head that Sun and Moon came out almost three years ago, my love for this Pikachu lookalike remains strong. Even if I had to pull a Scizor out to take advantage of her weakness.

While Mimikyu and that new Switch controller are the main physical gifts I’ve gotten thus far, I have been eagerly watching all of the digital presents from various organizations roll in.

Like this cute little email from Nintendo helping me celebrate with all those Marro brahs:

C’mon Bowser don’t be like that. Have some cake with your son.

Unfortunately platinum coins mean basically nothing next to gold coins, which would allow me to buy new video games.

Just give me more gold coins, Nintendo. I promise I’ll keep shilling for you if I can buy more games.

Until you do, I’ll just go back to Planet Fitness for my free water bottle.

I think it’s hilarious that my gym wants me to go spend my birthday working out as I’m sitting around eating ice cream cake, but to be fair I am planning on going tomorrow.

So I might actually use a free water bottle, as silly as that is.

At the very least water seems reasonable as an immediate necessity to keep my body working, which gives it an edge over this offer from Facebook:

I get the sentiment here, getting members to create fundraisers for nonprofit organizations. It’s a nice goal in-and-of itself.

But one dollar? Seriously, Mark?

Pretty sure you could stand to offer a bit more of a generous care package all things considered. I know you have a bajillion users and that money stacks up in the long-run, but even something like $5 would look less silly as a ‘present.’

…

Alright, I’ll stop fruitlessly complaining at social media companies. I just honestly don’t have all that much more to say. After breakfast we went out for a bit to visit my Grandpa and buy special pasta ingredients for dinner.

We were greeted by a little bit of rain while out shopping, keeping up the tradition of water falling on my birthday.

Though it wasn’t near as bad as my 20th when I brought attention to the issue on the blog.

So that’s not an exciting direction to head down. Nor is all the homework that I’ll unfortunately be stuck doing tonight due to deadlines that leave no room for extensive birthday fun.

I think I’ll just wrap things up here, then. Get back to relaxing, spending some time with family and… Yeah, homework.

Just one more semester and I’ll never have to deal with that again.

As usual, thank you all for the support here on the blog and in my real life endeavors. Particularly to my old colleague/friend Ashlyn Ramirez who gave me shout outs on all the social media platforms unexpectedly.

That girl works hard, she deserves a little extra support!

But for all the rest of you as well, hope you’ll stick around for however many birthdays are still to come.

A super palate cleanser

Yesterday I vented all about how stressed I was by the end of the semester fast approaching.

However… That didn’t wind up being the end of the story.

After finishing that blog post at school and coming home, I proceeded to do a ton of my homework late into the night. Doing so alleviated a lot of my anxiety about being able to get things done.

As did watching the Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketch about spam.

I’m not even sure the sketch itself was THAT funny, but watching my dad lose his shit the second it came on was amazing and definitely killed me.

Stuff like that helped keep me balanced today, to the point that tonight I’m feeling way better about life. Enough to work through the idiocy of my Sensation and Perception class this morning.

If you saw the tweet I wrote, you’ll understand.

A professor just straight up refuse to accept the final draft of my research paper early because “he didn’t want to lose it,” as if that would be my fault.

Alright dude don’t come crying to me when you have at least 35 papers to grade on the last day of the semester.

— Jason Rochlin (@jdrochlin) December 4, 2018

Yeah.

It also made me feel better enough to justify spending extra time getting into writing on the old blog here!

Which completely defeats the purpose of my giving myself the out yesterday… But hey. I did say I have messed up priorities there.

I would also argue that going to the gym tonight helped me burn off some of the stress. Which yes, I know makes this into just another post-gym posting for me.

Except this time the topic I wanted to delve into is only related to going to the gym.

While working out tonight I spent some time listening to the Nerdsync podcast. I’m positive I’ve talked about them before in one of my “YouTube Recommendations” posts, but in essence Nerdsync is a YouTube channel that I came across while getting more into the comic book scene over the summer which really thrives on intellectual takes on subjects in (mostly) superhero comics.

Highly recommended.

After getting through all of the video content there I discovered there was a podcast starring the channel’s main head Scott and his friends Chris and Bryce. Since then I’ve been listening through the ~130 episode backlog during my daily commutes.

Episode 89, which I happened to be listening to while lifting weights, was one of their recurring Trivia Challenge podcasts where the three guys make up quizzes for one another based on obscure comic book or pop culture stuff.

Through the episode I discovered something so hilarious that it not only killed off more of my stress, but also probably added a few years onto my lifespan.

In the golden age of DC Comics, around the 1950s, there was a series of stories under the title of “Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen.” It’s one of Scott’s favorite things and has become one of mine as well because it’s quite literally the goofiest stuff you’ve ever seen Superman involved with, to the point that most of it doesn’t even sound real.

That’s the case with this particular Jimmy Olsen comic, Volume 113 from June of 1956.

In essence, this was a story in which Superman tried to convince Jimmy he was in a dream after the reporter accidentally got a photo of Clark Kent changing into the superhero attire. He did so by doing ridiculous things like duplicating eggs.

If that wasn’t already wild enough, take a look at the cover in which everything is exactly the same… Except Superman is upside-down.

Image and story summary are all from the DC Wikia, by the way.

Yet even if that’s a trustworthy source, I still cannot believe that this is an actual thing that exists. Not only is it a ridiculous premise, but the fact that they decided Superman being upside-down was whacky enough to grace the cover of the book is astounding to me.

He flies! It’s not weird that he can turn upside down!

Everything is just… So good about this.

So, so good.

After hearing that this excited I needed to share it with the world. Because hopefully it can help you all feel better about life as it has for me.

Featured Image courtesy of Roland Tanglao via Wikimedia Commons

We kindred few

The longer I’ve been going to the gym regularly, the more I’ve started to pick up on patterns of attendance amongst gym patrons.

Also, yes, this is yet another random post about my reflections on going to the gym that I’m using as a crutch on a night where I didn’t know what else to write about and happened to come up with a vague idea while actually at the gym. Figured I’d lampshade this post now and get it out-of-the-way.

Also also, yes, I’ve said ‘gym’ five times at this point, less than 100 words in.

It’s just going to be that kind of post.

Shattered fourth wall aside, let’s get into business patterns like I established up top.

For the most part I’ve noticed the same kind of thing repeatedly. During the week, particularly Mondays and Tuesdays, a lot more folks are at the gym later in the afternoon than earlier in the day — though I admittedly haven’t gone super early in the morning to check that timeframe.

But then on the weekends, and Fridays to some extent, it’s empty at night during the same periods that are booming during the week.

Though on the surface level this difference seems a little bizarre, it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about general work week scheduling.

During the week, anyone who doesn’t get up before the sun rises to work out as a wake-up maneuver is stuck in work or school for hours on end during the day. Thus they have to go to the gym at night.

Hell I’m personally a victim of long day scheduling even this semester. My Tuesdays and Wednesdays have me out from 11:00 a.m. to at least 7:00 p.m., not encompassing the drive home. Even on my shorter Mondays and Thursdays I’m not home until at least 3:00 p.m. or so.

The weekends, however, are different.

Nobody wants to necessarily go to the gym over the weekends. Those are the free days where people spend time with their families, go out to do chores or whatever they might want/have to do when not stuck in true obligations.

So unless you’re a real gym nut, or trying to keep yourself honest and get better like me, why would you go on the weekends?

To be fair I don’t even really go until late at night on the weekends despite having most of my days open because I just get lazy. I spent time with my family, I play video games, etc.

That’s how I wind up in the gym at 7:00 p.m. with a relatively small slice of gym goers, from my experience.

It winds up being a funny experience to me because I stare around at the odd collection of vaguely goth-looking girls on the exercise bikes, somewhat heavy gentlemen doing squats between the rows of machines, old folks meandering on treadmills with their walkers set next to the apparatus and so many others thinking…

What are you all doing here on a Saturday night?

Which of course leads me to the inevitable conclusions that I, too, am at the gym on a Saturday night alongside all of them. Dealing with the newly ordered machines, avoiding the construction in the bathrooms and just sweating away. To whatever ends they might be aiming for.

I do sort of wish I could just walk up and ask for their stories without it being bizarre or creepy. Perhaps I will one day if I want to do a story about that for some outlet I land in.

But for now, imagining little headcanons for each of them is plenty fun.

Plus there’s something vaguely unifying about the thought, even if most of my time is spent tunnel visioned on the routine I’ve set up for myself while listening to podcasts or watching videos.

Even if today all I found myself thinking about was whether they noticed my brand new haircut or not.

Got that pre-shower fuzzy forehead like damn.

I’m more than aware that slipping this photo in for the sake of confirming the existence of my new doo (which I feel the need to confirm for some reason) will make it appear as a featured image on social media, thus confusing everyone about the purpose of this post and making it seem as though I’m using myself as a weird bit of clickbait.

But uhh… Guess that’s just how it goes.

Good thing I’m the only one that worries myself over things like this, right?

Highlighting Photo Composition

Despite having finally gotten through my major roadblock of the week, the Learning and Memory unit 1 exam (which I aced by the way), I still have just. So much homework to do.

So I’m going to probably do some smaller, passing over-type posts for the next two days or so. After Wednesday I’ll be more free to do whatever, and that will be kicked off by another Fire Emblem Heroes post.

Because yeah. There’s another banner coming.

But this time it’s the Halloween banner.

I’m rather excited about that because Halloween rules. Plus they announced the characters and Myrrh will be there.

That’s quite literally a story for another day, though. About two days from now in fact.

For now I’m just going to do a quick update on a different assignment that’s somewhat more fun.

Remember the other day when I mentioned getting that project in my Visual Comm class that I’ve gotten three times in three different classes now? If not I literally just linked to the post in that sentence.

I’ve been trying to branch out and take photos that aren’t all centered on the Cal State Fullerton campus, which is what I did the other two times I’ve done this. The professor argued that we should be using the project to “look closer and see patterns in the world around us.”

So that’s what I’m doing. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Vertical Lines

A group of palm trees between the Kinesiology building and the Titan Bookstore. Likely going to be one of my only photos taken on-campus.

Horizontal Lines

A row of televisions set up at my Planet Fitness. Arguably some serious sensory overload, but I just pay attention to things on my phone anyway.

Diagonal Lines

Arguably two things: My household staircase or the ramp beside it. The latter is probably the more prominent element.

Alongside these lines, I also have to nab some pictures of shapes being prominent in pictures, as well as examples of the rule of thirds and of a Z-axis (in other words, something with objects in the foreground and background).

Out of everything I have juggling in my head right now, this assignment is arguably the easiest and most fun. So I figured the process would be worth briefly highlighting.

After all, perhaps it could help you also start to look at the patterns in the world you see every day.

Even though that’s super cheesy.

Implicit Exercise

Since I started going to the Gym this summer, I’ve slowly been building up my routine. Early on I just took a light walk on the treadmill for upwards of an hour to start building up my stamina after years of general inactivity.

But since then, I’ve diversified my portfolio a bit. At a much brisker pace, I’m now able to get about two-and-a-half miles in 45 minutes:

Followed by a bit of time lifting weights. Never did too much weight lifting back in high school gym classes because it always felt kind of pointless to me.

But I do want to be able to lift things. So it’s something I’ve picked up on more.

However, once school started up again, I found I wasn’t able to keep up the ‘every other day’ schedule I’d started over the summer. I’m more likely to skip over days when I find myself stuck on campus until 7 p.m. twice a week or doing homework.

Yet it seems as though my more exercise-driven mentality has managed to manifest itself in different places.

Now that I’m thinking about the fact that I’m trying to feel better, I’m taking more implicit exercise opportunities, as I’ve begun thinking about it.

For instance, parking further away from campus.

Parking is always a nightmare at Cal State Fullerton. It’s an unavoidable part of the commuter campus experience.

During the beginning of the semester it’s especially bad. Unless you get to school at 6:00 a.m., but that ain’t me. Everything starts to clear up around week three or four… It’s just that clearing up still means typically parking in the A-G lots on the far end of campus and walking in.

I used to find that to be a bit of a burden, but this semester it’s taken on a different air. The extra walk time back-and-forth feels a little healthier.

On top of that, I’ve also aimed to take the stairs more:

My two earliest classes are on the sixth floor of the Humanities and Social Sciences building. So, every morning from Monday through Thursday I’ve opted to walk up and down the stairs.

It’s still a bit of a drag, but it does feel better in a more cosmic sense than taking the elevator. Plus, it’s arguably a much faster means of travel.

My whole life I’ve been sort of a lazy bum, despite constantly hearing the ever-present cries of ‘diet and exercise’ being thrown around as ways to be healthier. Call it a side effect of my video game-centric lifestyle or what have you.

But I think I’ve finally come to understand what people mean when they talk about small lifestyle changes making a difference.

Even if I don’t actually get healthier from it, at the very least I feel better. That mentality is half the battle I’m sure!

Running on Empty

What’s this? Another blog post being written after I was at the gym?

Gee whiz. Who would’ve guessed.

But wait, this time my joking references to being at the gym serves more of a purpose than slyly telling the world that one day I’m going to be a swole boi. I actually have something gym-related to discuss!

Though briefly considering it’s not a super complex subject and also I’m hanging with people tonight. So won’t be spending a hell of a lot of time on this.

While my Featured Image for the day might look like an advertising picture for Planet Fitness, I assure you that it was taken more for the line of treadmills in the background than for the logo in the foreground. I just tried to angle my camera in such a way that I wouldn’t be grabbing anyone’s head, even from the back.

Because you know it’s a gym. Wouldn’t be right to accidentally point out anybody despite their anonymity to me personally.

I wanted to grab a photo of some of the treadmills because I had (what I feel was) an interesting observation.

Are public gyms vaguely totalitarian in design?

Now don’t click off just yet. I don’t actually have anything malicious to say about gyms. I’ve quite enjoyed actually regularly going to one for once in my life. Makes me feel good, feel fit. Spry even.

I just feel like there’s something kind of 1984-looking about a bunch of total strangers gathering together and standing next to one another, totally oblivious to one another’s struggles, each focusing on this strange pursuit of attractiveness our society forces upon us from birth.

…

What, too heavy?

Alright fine it’s not like I’m genuinely concerned the treadmills in the gym are powering some kind of mind control device in the back room. I just think it’s kind of bizarre to imagine.

Same thing often comes to mind when I’m stuck in traffic, actually. Looking around, seeing everyone in the bubble of their vehicles minding their own business.

I know there’s definitely a psychological idea about being enclosed in such a situation and how it effects one’s empathy in regards to other people… But it’s still pretty fascinating to just kind of see all those brain doodads in action.

Now I’m sure you must be wondering where I’m going with this.

Well.

I’m not really going anywhere with this.

I just wanted to pose that idea out into the aether. Seemed like a good space filler considering I spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies and eating pizza.

The antithesis of my gym workout I know. But what can I say. Hanging out with friends has its benefits.

That’s really about all I have to say on the matter actually, because I’m really enjoying re-watching Emperor’s New Groove.

So I guess if you’ve got any thoughts on the strange construction ethics of public gyms, let me know somewhere on the Internet.

Running and Gaming

I probably could have written up a blog post much earlier today when I wasn’t about to fall asleep while also taking the trash out.

But what can I say. Hollow Knight has enthralled me for easily the last six or so hours straight, so I lost track of time.

I’m not going to say I regret the loss or anything… Because boy is that game wonderful in every kind of way…

But yeah. This probably won’t be super long as a result.

Especially since the whole ‘falling asleep’ part of things stems out of my trip to the gym with mom today, which some of you might remember from this tweet I sent out in the middle of my run.

First day back at the gym in a long time and I’m pleased to report that I was still able to run that 20 minute mile on the treadmill like I could back in high school.

I hope you’re proud of me, Mr. Crump.

— Jason Rochlin (@jdrochlin) July 25, 2018

Mr. Crump is one of my high school gym teachers, if that wasn’t clear enough via context clues.

The trip is finally starting to hit me hard, so I might just pass out as soon as I finish this.

See I haven’t exactly been to the gym in a long time. I went fairly regularly about a year ago at the Cal State Fullerton Rec Center. Back then I made sure my schedule had a few open periods for me to head in there.

Then I found out about my low blood platelet count. Followed shortly after by a stint in the hospital with Meningitis.

Add onto that a busy class/work schedule and my trips to the gym became less and less frequent.

As you might imagine, that’s not exactly the healthiest reality. But it was reality for a bit.

Luckily I’ve finally decided to reverse course and go back to hitting the gym I registered for a membership at a local Planet Fitness where my mom and sister go, that way I have somewhere at home and on campus I could potentially go to.

That way I have no excuse.

Day one went quite well I’d say, even if I may have overdone it based on how wonky I felt for a while after. But hey, with this kind of a early result, who can complain?

Soon enough I’ll build up my stamina and branch out to more than just the treadmill. Then maybe I’ll be less wiped by the end of the day.

I’m just glad that I’ve hopefully found the motivation to go frequently again, that way I can start to feel better.

I’m also glad the Super Beard Bros exist, as they’re my favorite YouTube channel to watch while I run going back to those days at the CSUF gym.

Guess that’s a good possible question for this post that doesn’t need one. What do you all like to do when you’re at the gym? Listen to music? Watch TV? Watch videos? Listen to yourself pant and suffer?

Let me know! Could be something good for me to keep in mind for the future.