Sunday, June 20, 2010

I am a morning runner

Definitely. I tried just about every time of the day, and my morning runs are by far the best ones. That’s it. It’s weird though because I am not a morning person. Really not. I will even go back to bed after my morning run if I have a chance. Yes, because some days I go really early; as soon as the sun is up, I will wake up and go running... to be back after my run, streched, showered and in bed by 7am...

Those early runs are the best though, and the days I get up and run early are also the best days. There is something about running in the crisp morning air. Seeing the world waking up. The smells. The silence. That very special morning light. The quietness. Being pretty much the only one out there, knowing most people are still asleep. It makes me feel special; and alive; and happy. Healthy and happy, is there a better way to start a day ?...

Monday, June 14, 2010

I don’t like flying

First of all it is one of the most polluting form of transportation, and second, it is the most annoying one. Well, especially leaving from Europe. The number of security checks we had to undergo before we could get on the plane is just ridiculous. They checked our passport / plane tickets at least 6 times, made us empty pretty much the entire carry-on baggage (you have to put aside keys, phone, wallet and change, laptop, camera... well there was only my book left in my bag...), not to mention their new thing with liquids...

Illusion of safety. That’s all it is. They can check all they want, if someone wants to blow up the plane, they will find a way. But today, everything seems to revolve around safety : medias show you nothing but terrible images of violence, war, crime, to make sure you are too scared to go see out there by yourself. They surround us with the Fear, to make us accept the unacceptable (more taxes, more wars, less freedom) and make sure all we do is buy more stuff that will make us feel better. More confortable. More alive. I own therefore I am.

Well that’s just a double bonus for all the politics and company owners : the Fear allows them to do pretty much what they want and on top of it, they’re making money off it ! They don’t really care about us, they don’t really care about anything but their own benefit in the short term. They don’t even care about their own kids. Otherwise would they put a lease on the next generation’s future like they do ? Who knows what will happen in the next few decades ? Will the next generation be responsible enough or will they even be able to take care of the nuclear waste we are producing today ? Will they have a chance to ever feel the taste of blue fin tuna before the 15% of what’s left in the water is definitely fished out ? Will they be able to enjoy the incredible experience of swimming with sharks before they go extinct ?

We have to realise today that some resources of this planet are coming to an end, and if we keep going this way, it will all to be gone or too badely polluted pretty soon. And it could all end up in the extinction of the human being and a lot of animal species. Earth will probably survive though, recovering slowly and creating new types of creatures, new ecosystems, new species. Let’s just hope the next “Superior Beings” will be less destructive and more attached to that beautiful home that Mother Earth gave them...

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Declutter 101

Apart from training for the triathlon,  I have done a lot of cleaning since we got to France. I cleaned my room (I still have a room at my mum’s house) and got rid of most of my stuff. A lot of clothes, an insane number of shoes, bags, purses, make-up, tons of books and papers and even jewells. My god I owned a lot of crap. I am not quite done yet and I hope to clear out even more stuff, but it already feels great. My closets are nice and almost empty. But now I have piles everywhere in my room. Of stuff to give away. And amazingly enough, it is not that easy to find associations that would take your stuff for free. They are really picky on what they take these days.

Because my piles were not big enough, I decided to go through my mum’s stuff as well. If I do own a lot of crap, my mum could easily fill 2 houses with what she stocks in this one. It is unbelievable. And because she has this much stuff, she usually can’t find what she needs, so she buys it again. When we were cleaning her office, I found half a dozen cutting knives, 4 staplers, 5 scotch tape dispensers, etc. I also found some boxes we packed when she moved out from the last house, 15 years ago. Unopened. It tooks us a whole day, but we did a very good job. We tossed about 10 bags of garbage, 2 boxes of books and random electronics. Now we can see the color of the wood on my mum’s desk. This is was room 1 of 7. We still have a lot of work to do...

I realise when I come back here how lucky I am to live away from this crazy consumming frenzy. We have been back for a week now and even though we don’t watch tv, I can feel the constant message urging you to buy more, to get more stuff, bigger stuff. It is everywhere. It is all the time. It is insane.

Everything here seems to be about getting more : more stuff, more good deals, more knowledge, more travels, even more friends (real or Facebook friends...). The quality doesn’t seem to matter so much as long as you get more stuff (you don’t need) and that they are good value. Which leads us to a society of waste. Today everything is disposable and everything comes in huge amount of packaging. When I get the garbage out at the end of the week, the volume of waste is bigger than the volume of food I bought !  How did we get to this much waste ? All these packages that will end up in landfills or burnt and turned into CO2! Do we really need this ? All these plastic wraps and containers that are made of petrol, the same petrol coming from oil companies that can’t even control a broken digging platform after a month and a half ? The news are talking about 12,000 to 19,000 gallons being released everyday in the Gulf of Mexico. The american are very angry. Most of them want to boycott BP. Why only BP ? Do you really think the other companies are any better ? Boycott petrol altogether ! Say no to plastic bags ! Get a green car ! Install solar panels ! Enough of these technologies we cannot control ! We can make a better world by consuming less and living more. Get outside ! This Saturday, go walking instead of spending the afternoon in a crowded mall or in front of your tv ! You will get much more life from being outside in the nature than from any stuff you will ever buy.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Cold weather

So in the end we took a whole week off running. Egypt is definitely not a place for sporty people. In a week there, we saw 2 people exercising. That is including us two.

Then a few days ago we arrived in France. Running here is a lot easier, you can find parks and also, the weather is chillier than Thailand. A lot chillier. Actually, it is really cold. We run in pants and sweater. Weird. 

We are also lucky to have a pool right next door to where we stay. It is only 25m long, it is indoor and it is pretty crowded, but we do enjoy it anyway (got a bit too spoiled in Thailand...). Plus, the lifeguards are also trainers and they are immensely useful. Everytime we go, they give me advices, training tips and they really do help me a lot improving my technique. We try to go 2 to 3 times a week.

Also yesterday, we got a couple of bicycles that we borrowed from my friends. This afternoon we are gonna go for a long ride along the Marne river. There are a lot of very cool places to go riding around here. Loads of bike lanes along the river, many parks, woods and forrests. The plan is to check them all out. That will be a lot of riding...