Sunday, November 22, 2015

Further Escape

There are few things as effective as getting through examination marking for imparting the sensation of being cabined, cribbed and confined in extremis. I suppose it's do with the triple whammy of simultaneously needing to note salient errors, keep in mind the five aspects of the marking rubric - applying them as you go along - and think your way into whatever thought-world the candidate is wandering in. It's pretty intense, and when all this is compounded by virtually unreadable handwriting (as it was with the last script I looked at yesterday) it approaches the impossible.

How lovely it is then to get away from it all, as I did yesterday evening by taking out the family to celebrate Fifi's birthday, which we did in some style. And this evening by getting to the gym for the first time this month (to try and mitigate some of the damage done to the waistline by last night's provender.) I picked up some sort of muscle strain on our trip to Melaka & KL at the turn of the month and, advised forcefully by the Missus, thought it best to allow for a full recovery before hitting the elliptical trainer again - and I'm hoping I haven't strained anything this evening.

It's amazing how just a few minutes of physical effort seems to clear the cobwebs of the day. Surprisingly I managed the full 35 minutes without feeling too bad, but I noticed that my heart rate ended up around 174 - 176, which is higher than it's been in recent times for the same settings. Fortunately the old ticker appears to be none the worse for these exertions. Just hope it keeps going!

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