Internal Monologue: To Run or Not to Run?

5/10-

Last night, I'd stayed up until about 4 a.m. working on this blog.  That sounds like a terrible idea but it actually worked out very well- I woke up at about 12 today, feeling totally rested and energized.  Since it's Mother's Day, I called my Mom and talked to her for a while, before attempting to take a shower, and failing since there was no hot water.

For lunch, I stopped at a little restaurant and pointed at a picture (with an English description underneath!) of shrimp won tons in soup.  The soup was the same as you get anywhere; basic chicken stock with some spring onions and maybe some other green thing, seaweed or bok choy, but the dumplings were fantastic.  The shrimp was chopped but not ground in with breading or other filler crap, and had lemongrass and ginger in it, which made it wonderful.

After lunch I walked over towards the Museum of Contemporary Art and passed an art installation on the way, which was interesting.

Sadly, the Museum itself was closed on Mondays.  I wandered around the streets and through market alleyways before going into the D building, where I found a shop where I could "test" nail polish remover by removing the polish from all of my nails.  I was trying to decide what to do then and realized that I still had a lot of energy and I didn't have any idea of what to do with it.  It was too late to go to another museum, and they'd probably all be closed, and it was too cloudy to go see the Taipei 101 building. 

As I was thinking about it, I noticed that the weather was actually perfect for running; slightly chilly and breezy but not really cold.  Weather is one of my main excuses for not going running, the other two I use most frequently are: exhaustion and that my stomach isn't right (either too full or too hungry- it sounds strange, but it's actually very hard to find the exact hunger level to run on).  I couldn't use any of these excuses as I was energized and my stomach, for once, was at that perfect point.  The only problem was that I didn't want to.  I tried rationalizing with myself;

"You slightly twisted your ankle a while ago and can still vaguely feel it- you don't want to injure yourself more." 
"Yes, but you can only even feel it if you move your ankle in an awkward sideways manner that you wouldn't do when you run AND the pavement here is surprisingly even and good." 
"Yeah, but I just really don't want to."
"Stop being so lazy and pathetic!"
"That's mean- you're a jerk."
"I'm sorry, that was out of line, it's just that you'll feel so much better if you do, and you'll sleep better, just put your running clothes on- you can do it!"
"Okay, I'll just change and go.  Just change and go before I can change my mind."

So I did.  And I was right.  I went for a decent run (about 50 minutes run/walk) and it was okay and I did feel better afterwards, especially after a shower.  I got some noodles and pork dumpling thing for dinner that looked pretty disgusting but actually tasted okay, and then went back to the hostel where I've been busy working on my blog and relaxing by: painting my nails with clear polish, enjoying another cup of homemade hot chocolate, reading "The Motorcycle Diaries" and using a face mask I bought in Tokyo at Muji, a cool minimalist store.  I'd been proud of myself at the time because I only bought two things at Muji, a mini foundation pump for my makeup that I actually needed, and these face masks that came in a set of 5 for something like $1.50.  The reason I couldn't resist them was because they came in a tiny bag, each one looking like a large, flat, round white pill.  You saturate the "pill" with a face oil, which makes them unroll and then you put it on your face like a regular mask.