a post ago I referred to one of my current mini-projects being a physical activity research project in which I'm a guinea pig... allow me to explain.
as a researcher myself, I'm quite sympathetic to the need to recruit participants to help collect data, so when i was approached to help out with a physical activity project I didn't hesitate. the object being to record your physical activity (or any activities, physical or otherwise) every hour of your waking day. Let me re-iterate that: EVERY FLIPPING HOUR OF EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF EVERY DAY FOR ONE WEEK.....Now, one might think that this sounds onerous - and one would be right. However, clearly my altruism clouded my ability to comprehend that when i signed up for the cause.
So last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, this alarm went off once during the day - to let us practice entering what physical activity (or otherwise) we'd been doing during the previous hour. There's a menu and in the first one you choose a broad category such as transport or the one that I most use house duties and/or childcare.... then it prompts you to get more specific (childcare or house duties or lawn/gardening duties)... and so on until you've got a nice specific task. Most of mine have been "sitting on my arse playing with a small child while singing nursery rhymes" - well not quite but you get my drift. I especially like the fact that you can enter in 'sexual activity' at which point it prompts you to report on whether it was 'passive, light' 'moderate, average' or 'heavy, vigorous, active'... now if one reports 'average' are you then commenting on the quality of said activity or merely the fact that you weren't putting a whole lot of effort in at the time. Who knows. Of course, if I do happen to have sex during the next seven days - which is the lifespan of this project - I'll either be a) lying and not recording it or b) making sure I have sex OUTSIDE of the allotted hours.... the alternative was actually to just record that I had 'vigorous sex' every hour - that'd give 'em something to think about now wouldn't it??
Anyway, so after completing 3 days of practice, things were going well. I was even 'informed' by the PDA on Sunday night that 'tomorrow is your first day' - it sounded quite excited.... so I was too. At 6am the following morning the alarm beeped and I inputed that I had been playing with a baby and eating during the last hour. 7am came and I inputted again... and so on and so forth. By 2pm, I was changing poo-ey nappy, the phone was ringing, charlotte was squirming and crying, the dog was whining for her dinner and .... you guessed it .... the bloody PDA alarm went off!!! I nearly flushed the bloody thing down the toilet.... and it's just gone downhill from there. How does one report on activity when within one hour I may (SIMULTANEOUSLY I might add), fold laundry while playing with charlotte, eati a snack, dress charlotte, put on my make-up and pack the nappy bag so we can get out of the house.....
I am now up to day three of the project and have another four days to go. there will be no sex - I'm too exhausted from reporting my physical activity to actually DO any....aaaaaaaaaaaaargh, there it goes again.....and here I am, sitting on my arse again being sedentary.... all this project has done for me is to point out what a lazy sod I am!! :) oh well, at least charlotte likes my singing...
