Virtues of the Metric System

I think I'm going to start measuring things in kilometers. It really is impressive to report that last week I ran 6 kilometers of stairs in 35 min. and biked 20 kilometers in just over an hour. This morning I biked a quick 15 kilometers in about an hour. This really does seem more satisfying to me than reducing my distances to miles. So much so, that I don't think I'll make the conversion for you, I'll let you be more impressed than you ought to be at my statistics. I think that I'll keep reporting weight, however, in pounds. It's pretty humbling to have to report that generally I bench only around 25 kilograms (I have to do it without a spotter so I do less . . . besides, it's in kilograms!). Besides, keeping in mind that 1/2 a kilogram of cookies/sour cream/etc. is still MORE than 1 pound will definitely help me curb my consumption of said food items (I've only had a problem with this once this summer, let's just say, 1/2 a kilo of cookies really is too much even if you're really hungry).

Life is going well for me here in Russia. It's still not what I expected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I have more time than I initially thought I would and, as you'll see below, I'm working to keep myself busy. Right now my efforts to find things to do is taking up a lot of my time. I'm still going to the rowing canal about 4 times/week, but I still haven't been in a canoe and just went rowing once. The trainer I'm working with has me run or bike every day, then I lift weights a couple times a week.

The past week and a half I've been trying to work with the Russian Football Union to find a soccer team to coach. I haven't had any luck. I'm not ready to throw in the towel, but I think today I'll turn my attention to something else. I'm posting my resume on a website and am going to try to teach English for $. We'll see if I can have any luck with that, and maybe, out of all the things I'm trying to get going, something incredible will turn out.