Then we did curl-ups or if you like, sit-ups.  We have two minutes to do as many as we can.  I did 44, which is the minimum for my age group.  It just wasn’t a good day for sit-ups for me.

Then we did push-ups.  Again, we have two minutes to do as many as we can.  I always reach the “as many as I can” well before the two minutes are over.  I’ve never been good at push-ups.  This time I did 17, which is good for me.  I only have to do 13, so I’m quite pleased with my results on this part.

And then finally, we did the run, the part everyone dreads the most.  We have to run 1.5 miles.  For my age group I have 16 minutes and some odd seconds to do it in, but I was aiming at 15:30 and then I felt I was doing well enough I could maybe do it in 15:00 minutes.  But I did it in 15:18 instead.  So it was a little disappointing for me, but I passed.  I passed everything.  So that’s good.  Now I don’t have to do it again for six months–theoretically–due to the climate here, it’ll probably be in March.  And it was warm (I don’t know the temperature, but when I say “warm” I mean anything between 85F and 99F) and humid.  And I’ve never run well in humid weather.  So I guess I should be satisfied.

Today I’ve been a little sore, but that will pass.  If I ever stop working so many hours (I’ve been working between 60 and 70 hours a week) I’m going to go back to swimming at the pool.  If I can get off by 1700 (5:00 p.m.) every night, I can go to the pool for an hour or so before supper and home.  If I work hard, maybe I can swim the PRT next spring.  That would be cool.  No more running and wheezing and my lungs hurting!  (Hopefully that won’t happen with swimming.)

I also got sick yesterday with a migraine that didn’t respond to medication, even two doses of migraine medication (Zomig).  Up until now, Zomig has worked just fine.  So I had to go home early, and today I still have a headache, but since I’m 90%  better I’ve been ignoring it.  I’ve been really tired and sluggish today, though.  I hope tomorrow’s better–I have a real busy day tomorrow, with a big project to do that I’ve been putting off and which is due tomorrow.  (Isn’t it amazing how many things you find to do when you’re avoiding a particular task?  You can be so productive and get so much done when you’re getting everything but what’s truly important done.)  So tomorrow I have to get it done.

And I have to be at work tomorrow at 0500, so I think I’ll call it a night.  Good night.

I have several posts about our vacation back in May that have been sitting in my drafts folder in the admin part of my blog all this time.  Someday I plan on posting them–it’ll probably be in the archives section.  What held up my posting originally was putting pictures on the blog.  It’s not that easy to put pictures on but when you have to deal with Linux and servers and Picasso it’s harder, and it also takes a lot of time.

And then we moved this summer.  And then I’ve been working 12 hour days, 60 hour weeks at work all summer, and it’s only getting busier.  And I’m trying to get my EXW pin.  And Jeremy and I started Arabic classes 4 hours a week.  We’re only doing 2 now, but it still seems a lot.  And I’ve been doing a lot of swimming, and I’m still doing taekwondo, so I’ve been very busy.  Also I got to see my cousin, Lawrence, several times this summer.  He’s in the Navy and the ship he’s on pulled into Bahrain for a port visit several times.  It was real nice to see him.

So this is why I haven’t been writing my blog.  But maybe I can find time to squeeze out a short post now and again.

For an update on what’s going on in Bahrain:

It’s almost Eid Al-Fitr or The Feast of Breaking the Fast.  This is three days that’s expected to start 30 September.  Our building has been putting up lights in preparation for it.  So have a lot of other places.  Eid Al-Fitr, or Eid as it’s called, celebrates the end of Ramadan.  Ramadan is a holy month to Muslims and has lasted the entire month of September.  (It starts 11 days earlier every year due to the Islamic calendar being a lunar one instead of a solar one.)  During Ramadan Muslims pray extra and read the Koran extra and fast.  They abstain from eating, drinking (including water), smoking, chewing gum, and having sex during daylight hours.  After dark they can eat.  And they do.  The meal is called Iftar (breaking the fast–the same word as for breakfast).  They all work fewer hours during Ramadan and the restaurants are closed during the day.  And while non-Muslims are not required to fast it is a civil offense to eat, drink, smoke, or chew gum in public during the day.  If caught you get a big fine and if non-US military (because of status-of-forces agreement) you can get thrown in jail and you stay there until Ramadan and Eid is over.

I think that a lot of the Muslims stay up all night partying with their families and sleep during the day.  Or at least they take a nap during the day.  I forgot to mention that they also all eat a meal just before daylight.  And sometimes they eat one in between Iftar and the morning one, but sometimes they combine the last two.  I forget what they’re called.  It’s definitely not uncommon for them to stay up past midnight.  And it seemed to me that they were doing a lot of shopping too.  But I should say that these Bahrainis like to stay up late any day of the year.  I think they all take naps.

I’m glad Ramadan’s almost over, but I’ll probably miss Eid.  I’ve been working until 1800 (6:00 p.m.) every night for the last several weeks and that won’t change very soon.  In fact in the short term I’ll probably have to work longer.  The locals are surprised that we aren’t getting off for Eid since it’s a big time of celebration and the whole country essentially shuts down and everyone visits their families and has fun.  But we only get American holidays off; we don’t get local holidays off.

One more thing I want to say and that is about the weather.  It’s been very hot during August and September.  The temperatures got up to the 40s Celcius with heat index (how it feels) in the 50s.  I think that’s around 130 Fahrenheit.  (It was not uncommon for the daytime temperature to be 108 or 117, etc., but the heat index was higher.)  And that’s not a dry heat–it’s humid in Bahrain.  Often when I go from air-conditioning to outside my glasses fog over and it’s a good five minutes or more before they unfog.  Sweat would just pour off of you after you’d been outside for more than ten minutes.  I mean literally pour.  Sweat would drip down your back, arms, legs, face, everything it could drip on.  It’d get in your eyes and sting them.  And you carry water around with you everywhere you go (unless you’re going somewhere off-base during the day during Ramadan, of course).  Even so, I don’t think it was as hot this year as last year.

But now it’s cooled down some.  It’s probably in the 90s F during the day and maybe it gets down to the high 80s at night.  I was walking outside tonight, and I thought it warm, but pleasant.  It was probably either low 90s or high 80s.  (So any whiners out there who think 90F is hot–come see me next summer.)

I’m going to go now as I need to get to bed.  I don’t want to, but I have to be at work at 0530 (5:30 a.m.) tomorrow. (Yuck.)  Hopefully I can start writing this blog again.  I’ve been asked by several people to start doing it again, so hopefully I can find (make) the time.  For the last year it has seemed that when I think I can’t get any busier, then I do get busier.  (shakes head)

P.S.  For the record we did a fun run September 11, and it was real hot.  It was a 5K.  I ran it in 37:18.  Again, let me say it was real hot, even though it was early morning.  But I didn’t quit; I kept running.  That last lap I was the only one still running.  Everyone else had either finished, quit, or was walking.

Today I ran mine in 33:50.  The last time I did one was in February (I was gone for the March one), and I did it in 32:40.  So I did it a little slower today.  But it was raining today, and the pavement was slippery.  I always sprint at the end of a run, and I couldn’t get up speed today because of the slipperiness of the pavement.  Just so you know, it wasn’t pouring–it was more of a drizzle.  But it still made everything wet.  We always get a free T-shirt out of it, so I have one more for my collection.

I also did a “fun walk” today.  April is sexual assault awareness month, and so they had a base walk to raise awareness about SAVI, which is the Sexual Assault Victim Intervention program.

• The Dept of the US Navy SAVI Program is a comprehensive, standardized, victim-sensitive system to prevent and respond to sexual assault Navy-wide.
• SAVI Provides:
  • Awareness and prevention education
  • Victim advocacy and intervention/direct services
  • Data collection
• The US Navy is the only service with a defined Sexual Assault Program with dedicated staff and funding at both headquarters and installation level.

The above bulleted information came from this website. You can also go here to find out more information.

We got a free T-shirt to wear and carried signs and walked around base shouting cadences.  Well, some people shouted.  It was more like chanting slogans.  They were based on actual Navy (running) cadences.  Like the following:

• Sexual assault is a crime
• If convicted you’ll do time

or

• “No” means no
• Not “maybe so”

or

• Everywhere we go
• People want to know
• Who we are
• So we tell them
• We are the advocates
• SAVI SAVI advocates
• We’re here to help you
• We’re here if you need us

After the walk SAVI sponsored a free barbecue for the base, so we got free lunch.  My legs were sore and so were my feet all the rest of the day.  But I have two free T-shirts now.