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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Mindy Kaling and Weekly Workout Summary

So Mindy Kaling
I hesitate to even share my Mindy Kaling thoughts, but I keep ruminating on them, so I'll share. Slash just try to work through them here. I just finished Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me and have been following The Mindy Project since the start. I like both of them. I just don't love them the way I expected to and am bothered by this for some reason.

I really want to like Mindy Kaling, in general. A kinda chubby woman of color in comedy! So important! Etc. Plus I probably assumed all the backlash she received was rooted in men generally fearing confident women and feeling uncomfortable with her shtick. And that backlash made her an underdog in my mind, which duh, more reason to root for!

But then I started watching The Mindy Project. And I was kind of like, hm, she's a little bit awful, but kind of awful in that likable way. Kind of. Other times just regular awful. Her quick one-liners are brilliant--biting, fast, and often unreacted to, just the way I like them. But the overarching theme of "Mindy as a romcom character" isn't subtle or ironic or satirical or something enough for me, and I find the almost-SATC shtick tiring at some points. I was willing to give the show some time to figure itself out though.

Then I read Mindy's memoir/story collection (in literally like 4 hours, tops, of reading--how the hell did something so short/with such little actual content get printed). And again, parts of it were funny, and there were lots of times where her commentary on simple life things really resonated with me. But I was left with this overall bad taste in my mouth about 20% into the book that kept up through the end. I finally realized what was bothering me mid-. The note I jotted down to myself: "problem with MK is that she knows all her flaws and clearly thinks they're adorable*, and then mentions them under the guise of self-deprecation. I don't like people who think they are above self-improvement!" And that's it, I think, what was bothering me with the book and with the show too. Mindy is supremely satisfied with herself, to the point of pretty much thinking she's perfect--which would be annoying on its own. But to intersperse all that confidence with false self-deprecation and an overwhelming dose of unrecognized privilege...just ugh. I can't stand people in real life who think they have nothing to improve on--or who kind of get they have flaws, but think they are endearing or what makes them "them" or something. I'm all about accepting flaws, but there are some things that can and should be improved. Self-improvement and self-examination is for everybody, not just for the un-awesome.

*Dan, my main (only?) reader, is likely rolling his eyes right now, knowing that I'm sometimes guilty of the same thing--I can definitely think my flaws are endearing. But I do try overall for self-improvement!

Weekly workout summary: November 12, 2012 - November 18, 2012
I'll add this in here because I really do want to keep up with them! And also because I had a good workout week which makes me proud. So let's see:

Monday: 3.5 miles @ 11:32 average pace. Pretty standard easy Monday run.

Tuesday: 75 minute vinyasa yoga class. Written about here!

Wednesday: off

Thursday: Another attempt at speed work - 4.3 miles. What the description said: "Speedwork Dist: 4 Mi, inc Warm; 3x800 in 4:59 w/400 jogs; Cool." What I did--1 mile warm up. Ran .5 mi in 5:04 (I stupidly didn't look at the time here to figure out whether to hurry or not), jogged for .25 mi, ran .5 mi in 4:49, jogged for .25 mi, ran .5 mi in 4:53, and then jogged as a cool down for about 1.3 miles (the way home). Those 800s were hard! But it felt really good to exert myself like that--I'm definitely enjoying the wiped feeling that speed work brings.

Friday: off. I would have liked to do a light cardio + strength session here, but I just couldn't muster the energy to do it Friday after work.

Saturday: 6.2 miles @ 11:35 average pace. Another beautiful fall Saturday for a run. Had a bit of an incident where I thought someone might be following me, but everything was fine, obviously. Too much Law & Order. I should buy some mace.

Sunday: 60 minute yoga class. This was a freebie "community class" with teacher trainees. So I can't really complain. I'll leave it as my normal Tuesday classes are definitely better!

Weekly mileage: 14 miles. 

I'm currently at my mom's house for Thanksgiving and have been enjoying a "cut back" week for mileage, aka a well-timed intentional laziness week to save my body and sanity. But I made it out for a 5.2 mi run today!

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