jennyaxe | Awakening with the spring

That's what I'm doing. I feel like I've spent this winter deep in the earth, resting and waiting for the sun to wake me. And now it has.

Thanks to everyone who congratulated me on the new job, and my apologies for not responding to you before. Reason: see above.

I've got two weeks left at the old job. I'll basically be completing some documentation and handing over stuff to a few people, and that's all. Then it's cake and farewells and I'm out of it.

On Saturday last week I went to a QiGong session. There's a particular QiGong style that's called "Bijun"; it's also known as "medicinal QiGong". First we spent an hour going through the first half of the exercises. The thing that amazed me was that while I spent a full hour standing up, I felt no pain! I don't recall when I last stood for an hour without needing extra pain killers and/or being in severe pain. Or, rather, I do - it was during the first few times in a ritual circle.

Once we'd sat down for our tea break, though, the pain did come, so I took a pain killer. During the tea I found out that one of the other women also had endometriosis, though she got the infertility without physical pain variety.

After tea, we went on first with the second part of the programme, and then we did the complete programme. It all takes about half an hour including relaxation at the start and self-massage at the end. Immediately afterwards I felt full of energy and planned to take Skutt out for a *long* ride outside. Knowing myself and my limitations, though, I decided to go home and eat something first and then sit and make sure the energy wasn't just a temporary thing.

Which it was. After an hour or two I got terribly tired and the pain came back, so I didn't go riding after all. Since Gnapp doesn't depend on me actually doing anything useful, such as cleaning out Skutt's bedding or anything like that, it's not a catastrophy for her if I feel too bad to go out there. But with any luck the qigong will work and I'll get stronger and more able to help out.

Yesterday I did the qigong programme once. It's a bit harder when there's no teacher to look at to see how the moves are done. We got a CD to listen to, which helps, and a page of stick-figures showing the motions, but it still wasn't easy. I find it hard to stay relaxed and focused at the same time - I tend to tense up when I try to focus on the movements, and then the movements get jerky and too fast. But I suppose it'll improve with practice. I did get some pain afterwards, but it's hard to know whether that's from the qigong or if it's because I spent most of the day bent over a table making and cutting out patterns for a dress I'm making for a friend...

In other news, my home Xemacs doesn't want to post using ljupdate, but the one at work will.