Late Night Racquetball and Other Stuff

I can't believe it's already mid-March! Just think 8-9 more weeks till the end of the semester before finals. Are you ready? By the way, good luck to everyone who is studying for their mid-terms or have taken them already.

Daylight savings threw me off this morning, but the good thing is that Monday I don't have class till 11:15am. Still, I love Spring, especially since the days get longer and we're finally beginning to see the snow melt from Valentine's Day. Being from down state snow lasting for almost a whole month without melting is truly an interesting phenomenon. To me, the 16 inches that we got here in the Capital Region is a lot of snow, but not as much as Oneonta! I know this sounds crazy, but just once in my life I'd to experience what Oneonta experienced this winter with 12 feet of snow. Ofcourse the situation was very serious considering Oneonta and several other cities in this upstate area were declared disaster areas, but I wonder what it would be like to open my front door and see a wall of snow! I wonder what it would be like to go to the second floor of the building and walk out the window with snow shoes on. :D

Over the break late last month I took advantage of the snow and went cross-country skiing. I'm terrible at having long boards of wood strapped to my feet and made to coordinate movement with them going downhill, but it sure can be fun going through trails on premade tracks in the snow! There are a bunch of little places to go xc skiing just 30 - 45 minutes out from Albany and even if the snow is melting here, typically snow sticks around for a while in other locations near by.

Anyway, one of my favorite things to do on campus is going to the SEFCU Arena and playing racquetball late at night. For those of you who may never have experienced racquetball it's a lot of fun! The racquet is shorter and more narrow than a tennis racquet and the ball is typically this blue bouncy ball. The court consists of four walls, a tall ceiling, with an observatory and a entrance that looks like mini-door. This game is extremely intense. It moves very fast and the ball can be harder to follow than a pinball machine!

I was reading an article on CNN about a study a neurologist from Columbia University just released findings of about how excercise boost brain power. According to the study they had "systematically examined the different regions of the hippocampus and identified which region is most affected by exercise" and compared their findings between areas of growth in brain of mice who excercised with a MRI scan of the human who excercised. The findings from this study suggests that people grow new brain cells when they exercise!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/03/12/exercise.memory.reut/index.html

So... racquetball isn't just a great way to excercise but it may actually be helping me recharge my brain as well!

If you're interested in using the fitness facilities on campus you don't have go late at night like I do. The Physical Education Building and the SEFCU Arena are open from 7:30am - midnight during week days. They have a swimming pool, a bubble where you can play indoor tennis, intramural basketball, indoor running track, and a fitness center with equipment to tone your muscles or work out the cardiovascular side of your body, (like the treadmill, stationary bike, rowing machine). For more information check out their webpage:

http://www.albany.edu/recreation/recmain.html