Television

And we're back. It is a new year, a new decade actually, though some may argue that the new decade starts in 2011, I am not one of them. Since my last post I have pulled a week of all-nighters, had a horrible end to my horrible semester, slept almost 12 hours a night EVERY night during my holiday break, reunited with many long lost friends back home, started school back in Ann Arbor, and ventured north to snowboard with college friends. Yes, I have done many things and unfortunately running is not one of them. Let me tell you, once you stop running or whatever your new habit to form may be, it is incredibly hard to start again. Andrew and I want to pick up where we left off today, which means in about 45 minutes I will be lacing up for a 2 mile run in the snow and 20 degree weather after almost a month of absolutely no exercise. Lucky me. :)

So I failed miserably at making a new habit of running every day. That doesn't mean I am giving up. Between Andrew and I, we will motivate each other to pick up the training once again, we still have a race to run in May. And let me tell you, I am going to need all the help I can get because it is COLD outside. Luckily I managed not to gain any weight over the holidays, I even lost a few pounds. Yay for me, still very cold outside...

Anyway, while I will be continuing trying to form the running habit and train for my first ever 25K, or anything K for that matter, I have decided to move on to a new habit. Still working very hard at running of course, but let's be honest, if I keep stopping and restarting the running habit, we're all going to get bored. So to keep things interesting and to further improve my life, I have decided that watching television is going to be the habit to break.

And to figure out how I came to this decision let's rewind a bit through my day. Woke up at 8, went to my only Monday class from 9:30-10:30, went grocery shopping which took FOREVER due to some picture printing issues, finally got home at 1:45 STARVING, I decided to snack while unloading groceries. Well then a snack turned into sit down and watch some TV while I have a bowl of oatmeal for lunch which turned into unload groceries during commercials while I watch several episodes of a show I don't even like. In all I spent almost 3 hours watching television, a television show that I don't even like, when I could have been doing homework, or reading or doing other things to reduce my incredibly long to do list. But no, I watched TV, and why? Somehow it became a habit. When no one is home, I drown myself in television. I'll admit this was a habit of mine when I was in middle school. But since college I have drastically reduced my TV time, and even come to dislike TV. The sound of the television drives me insane. Even if the TV is on mute and I am in another room, I still know that it's on and it still drives me bonkers. And yet, I sat in front of that same irritating, noise making box today for 3 hours! But I know I am not alone. On average, Americans spend more than 4 hours a day watching television. 4 HOURS EVERY DAY! Let's do some math. 4 hrs/day x 7 days/week = 28 hours a week. That is more than a full day every week of TV. How about 4 hrs/day x 365 days/yr = 1460 hrs/yr x 1 day/24 hrs = 60 days and 20 hours per year = about 2 months. 2 entire months of every year is wasted for television. That statistic makes me sick. Think of the things you could accomplish in that 2 months. What would you do?

So television is going to be the habit to kick. Now, I have given up television before, for lent when I was in high school, twice. The first time was my freshman year. I remember because that was the year the war in Iraq started and I had NO CLUE anything was going on in Iraq until the day before the war. I also cheated during lent that year too. The day the statue came down, I was on spring break in Florida with my friends and their parents, I had to see it. I don't remember the second time I gave up TV but I know I did it a second time...

This is not lent though, this is a permanent habit that I am looking to break. Now, obviously I'm not going to go the rest of my life without watching T.V. So I have decided to give up television as a pass time. What does that mean, or what does that mean for me? It means that I will only be watching "my shows" on their designated nights. Sunday = Desperate Housewives, Monday = The Bachelor (thanks to my good friend Marie), and Thursday = Grey's Anatomy for a grand total of 4 hours of television PER WEEK. Now that still translates to over 200 hours of television a year, or about 8 days a year, but it is a huge improvement. The only question now is, can I keep it up?

By the way, I went running, didn't actually finish this blog post in that 45 minutes before Andrew showed up. The run wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Don't get me wrong, I still struggled, but for not working out AT ALL for the last month, 2 miles in the snow and cold was not hell. And the good news is, tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, and sunnier. Things are looking up.

Welcome to 2010.