An update or two

I've had a cold over the past few days, but it's been interesting. For once in my life, I had a cold that wasn't dramatically worse than everyone else's. In fact, my cold was milder than what some of my friends got. It was very strange. I hunkered down and prepared for the worst, and it never came. I'm tremendously grateful for that, of course... But also somewhat baffled. My nose is still runny but other than that I feel 100% normal. I even had some extra energy the other day, and that never happens.

Overall, I'm feeling quite good. I don't know what my current FEV 1 is, but I hope it's continuing to improve. I have been somewhat lax about exercise to my own detriment, and as much as I keep telling myself that I'm going to get up and go, it's so hard to be motivated. I can think of an excuse easily, and meanwhile the mucus is just building up and clogging my airways. I know it's bad for me, so why am I still so adverse to running? With the recent, well publicized deaths in our communities I feel slightly more motivation, but I still can't seem to do it. It would help if I could find some form of exercise I actually /like/, I suppose. I was very much into basketball when I was younger, but I'm too short now, and quite frankly, it's not fun to play when you're small and everyone else is massive. Running is my best option right now... Hence the catch 22 scenario. I hate running, but I hate it marginally less than I hate other forms of cardio exercise.

Other than that, life has been reasonable. Money continues to be a big problem in my family, and one that continues to provide most of my stress. I am very much feeling the money crunch right now. It would be so nice just to be able to buy books without counting coins, and I can no longer afford horseback riding. I'm not too upset about cutting down my retail expenses as I don't buy clothes very often anyway, though every so often I see a piece I want.

I've also thought quite a lot about travel lately. I want to take a year off to travel before embarking on the grad school process, but the feasibility of that is fast diminishing, as is the idea of taking a semester abroad. I'll look into financial aid for the studying abroad, but the travel won't have the benefit of school money. I want to see Australia while I'm still young and healthy. Another dream of mine is to visit Africa. For how, I can only hope that my parents will get jobs soon, and continue looking at internships and positions that I can fill part time.