This weekend in lieu of the zombie cardio room I went snowshoeing. Snowshoeing is everything good about being active. It starts with sunshine, works up a good sweat, takes a break for snowball fighting and tree identification, and ends with a particularly fulfilling whole-body exhaustion. Since I am not yet in good enough shape to carry on a conversation while snowshoeing, it also provided some nice quiet thoughtful time under big trees.

Quiet thoughtful time has not been my specialty lately. Lately I’ve been trying to finish my master’s thesis, and trying to figure out what to do after I finish my master’s thesis, and trying to learn lots of plants so that I know at least as much as the students in the plants class I’m teaching. I’ve also developed an unfortunate West Wing affliction that – since I have no TV – can only be treated with DVDs containing upwards of six programming hours that I tend to watch all in one go. I realize this is not the best use of my time, but the bearded guy brought the press woman that goldfish, which kind of got to me in an embarrassing way, and now I want to see what happens.

Anyway, the snowshoeing was good for thoughtfulness, and then at the top (or at least what we decided to call the top, which was perhaps not actually the highest point one might have reached) we ate cheese and nuts and bread, and it was satisfying in that way that food is only satisfying when you have just climbed up something. And then we ran down.