Sunday, April 18, 2010

Just because you're educated doesn't mean you're not stupid

The Gregorian calendar--the calendar system used by the Western World--was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Gregorian calendar was created to ensure that all Catholic churches were celebrating Easter (among a few other movable observences) on the same day. It's predecessor, the Julian calendar, had been in use since 45BCE when Julius Caesar (of the 'Et tu, Brute?' fame) reformed the old Roman Calendar to include a leap year. Prior to this change, the Romans would add a month to the calendar pretty much when they (and by 'they' I mean 'the senate') felt like it to realign themselves with the sun. Not only did this allow for years to be extended for political and not seasonal reasons, but a few forgetful Senate sessions and Satunalia was being held in summer (for those who are not as geeky as me, Christmas was moved to December to replace the Satunalia fesitval and entice the pagans away from the old Roman gods). Besides, a degree in advanced mathematics is pretty much needed to understand the old Roman Calendar. The Roman calendar was based on old Greek lunar calendars, those on Egyptian and Persian calendars... There's even a theory that Stonehenge was a giant calendar and carbon dating puts it at 2500ish BCE. It is safe to say then that calendars have played a part in the creation of civilization and that reading one is something any educated person is capable of doing.

Well, I'm not.

Today is April 18th, exactly one week before I'm supposed to run the 10K and exactly two weeks before I thought I was supposed to run the 10K. For some unknown reason, I added a week to the calendar and was completely unawares of exactly when my impending doom is. Instead of pushing through the head cold this past week, I was a complete wimp and am now futher behind where I wanted to be a week before the run. Egads! Crap on a cracker! Please, no! I'm doing what, when?!? It was never my intention to run the whole 10K (just most of it) but after a week of struggling to breath and a Saturday night spent eating pizza (with a salad) and watching Doctor Who (amazing, by the way, Matt Smith is incredible!! I still miss David Tennant, and always will, but I think Matt, critized by many before the first episode for being too young, will succeed in following DT where many other [older] actors would have failed. Edit: I just deleted 13 additional sentences about Doctor Who... I think I need to start another blog called Redorkulous so I can geek out over there and not here), I'm pretty much where I was two weeks ago. I also seem to be having problems with my new shoes and I don't have the time to return them and try a new pair. Again: Egads! Crap on a cracker! Please, no!

What was already a fairly emotionally stressful weekend (a friend's brother died in a car crash, my cousin in Ireland had a beautiful baby girl, I've been up and down all weekend) is now ending with a resigned *sigh* and the knowledge that although I will finish the 10K, I will not achieve my interval time goal. It takes a bit of the wind out of your sails when that happens.

All because I apparently don't know how to read a calendar.

Happy February, everyone!

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