6 January 2006
First diary entry for the year! Tim and I went to the ANU gym on 3/1. It was the day the gym reopened after the Christmas break. I was a little bit disappointed with the equipment when we got there. I thought the equipment would be a lot nicer just from looking at the website. The gym reminds me of the horrible gym I went to with my friend a few months ago. I was surprised to find that the minimum weight on the leg press machine is 40 kg. I was a bit annoyed that there is no clear markings on the weights, it says 40/75 so I assume it's 40 kg. I'm not sure what the 75 was. The equipments are old and bulky and I even had difficulty adjusting them. Fortunately Tim was there with me so he was helping me with adjusting the seat/height. We were there for about an hour and I managed to do some strength training and some cardio exercises. This was the first time I went to the gym in about 10 days. The strange thing is I didn't feel tired at all while I was there and when Tim dragged me out of there I felt I could do another round of everything i just did. My muscles were really sore by the time we got home and I could barely walk.
We went to the gym again yesterday. I dicided that I'd try to go to the gym every second day instead of everyday because I can give the muscles a bit of rest in between. The gym was very crowded yesterday. Tim and I thought it was funny that we saw a couple of guys talking and hogging the machines on Tuesday and we saw them again yesterday and they were still talkin. Tim thought it was very funny when I asked him if some people go to the gym just to talk. I just thought that's a strange thing to do because every time I go to the gym I'm busy doing the exercises and I don't have time to talk.
When I was on a step machine, I noticed a woman who walked pass was walking a bit funny. She was talking to her friend but I noticed her walk was not quite normal. At first, I thought she had this hemiplegic gait (circumducting instead of swinging her affected leg) as well. I watched her very carefully for a while and noticed that one of her legs was covered in a skin colour stocking. The colour is almost exactly the same as the skin of her other leg so you can hardly notice it. I only noticed when she was doing some ab exercises on a fitball and I could see a little bit of crease on the stocking as she bends her knees. I suspect she has a prosthetic leg because when she straighten her knees, I could see that the two knees don't look the same and I could almost see the joint of the leg I suspect is an artificial one. I don't know if I have correctly spotted that because I thought if she'd be wearing long pants tpo cover it if she had a prosthetic leg.
Before I came to Canberra, I thought I had gotten over the ståge of feeling intimidated by people all the time. Now I feel I haven't actually quite got over that yet. I don't know if I'm being sensitive or the people in Canberra are particularly rude. I found that sometimes people on the street stared at me rudely when I'm limping. I found it strange that if I wear shorts and show my ankle bracce, people are more sympathetic because they often think i have a broken leg. However, if I wear jeans to cover my brace and wålk with a limp, it's not acceptable to people because I attract a lot of rude stares that wåy. I wonder if there was any studies done on this. Why is it more socially acceptable to have an orthopaedic injury but not an impairment caused by an ABI?
We went to the gym again yesterday. I dicided that I'd try to go to the gym every second day instead of everyday because I can give the muscles a bit of rest in between. The gym was very crowded yesterday. Tim and I thought it was funny that we saw a couple of guys talking and hogging the machines on Tuesday and we saw them again yesterday and they were still talkin. Tim thought it was very funny when I asked him if some people go to the gym just to talk. I just thought that's a strange thing to do because every time I go to the gym I'm busy doing the exercises and I don't have time to talk.
When I was on a step machine, I noticed a woman who walked pass was walking a bit funny. She was talking to her friend but I noticed her walk was not quite normal. At first, I thought she had this hemiplegic gait (circumducting instead of swinging her affected leg) as well. I watched her very carefully for a while and noticed that one of her legs was covered in a skin colour stocking. The colour is almost exactly the same as the skin of her other leg so you can hardly notice it. I only noticed when she was doing some ab exercises on a fitball and I could see a little bit of crease on the stocking as she bends her knees. I suspect she has a prosthetic leg because when she straighten her knees, I could see that the two knees don't look the same and I could almost see the joint of the leg I suspect is an artificial one. I don't know if I have correctly spotted that because I thought if she'd be wearing long pants tpo cover it if she had a prosthetic leg.
Before I came to Canberra, I thought I had gotten over the ståge of feeling intimidated by people all the time. Now I feel I haven't actually quite got over that yet. I don't know if I'm being sensitive or the people in Canberra are particularly rude. I found that sometimes people on the street stared at me rudely when I'm limping. I found it strange that if I wear shorts and show my ankle bracce, people are more sympathetic because they often think i have a broken leg. However, if I wear jeans to cover my brace and wålk with a limp, it's not acceptable to people because I attract a lot of rude stares that wåy. I wonder if there was any studies done on this. Why is it more socially acceptable to have an orthopaedic injury but not an impairment caused by an ABI?
posted by Teresa Liu at 7:27 PM
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