Comment by PaulHoule

Re: the gym

I've always been quick on the weights, if you give me a workout plan I'll say something like "that's a great workout plan but it needs supersets" [1] It's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time that some people sit in the machines forever but it's steadily gotten worse. I complained to the head of the fitness center at my Uni two years ago about students sitting in the machines and scrolling on their phones.

Lately I've been going to Crunch and over there it seems 90% of the young people are wearing Airpods; lately I've been getting more assertive about asking "can I cut in?" when somebody has been sitting in the leg curl machine for 25 minutes but today it involves gesturing wildly like Brain from Inspector Gadget and having them take the pods out before I can make the ask, at least they are always polite about it.

It's bad enough that I picked up a copy of Enter the Kettlebell and a 35 pound kettlebell (an intimidating object right now) and will probably set up some TRX straps in my AV/VR/rec room. My fox wants me to do functional training anyway.

Re: grad students

I'm a non-academic with an academic background who works at a research university. My unit shares a kitchen with a bullpen of about 40 grad students so I wind up talking to them all the time. Pre-pandemic it seemed I could always get them to talk about what they were working on but this year many of them seem terribly inarticulate. The CSGU union saturates the area with posters that explain what they are doing for grad students that should be easy to read but I get the impression that some struggle.

[1] https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/what-is-a-superset