Triathlon, calories, and moot court

I don't know where January has gone but apparently it's just about gone! It's hard to believe that I'm taking down our Christmas lights this weekend (we stopped turning them on last weekend) since it seems like not that long ago we were in Ohio and Michigan for Christmas.

We've been up to a few new things lately. First, triathlon training. Han is actively fundraising but I haven't had time to yet and aside from fundraising from family and friends I probably won't do a whole lot of it. Han and I have been running or biking or swimming (or some combination of them) several times a week. The cold weather lately (by cold I mean below freezing) has made me more reluctant to train, but I'm getting over that. We've particularly enjoyed long bike rides on Saturdays.

Another new thing is Han and I have been counting calories. We both want to lose a bit of weight so we've cut back to 1500 or less calories a day. Just counting the calories alone has made a mental difference-we must have been eating way more than 2000 a day previously. The act of counting alone has made me more aware of what I eat and when.

The third new thing is I'm busy with Moot Court coaching several nights a week now. That will continue until the first week of February. The problem this year involves the firing of a homosexual pastor in violation of his contract with the church and how that firing is treated under the First Amendment. It keeps me busy but the legal question is very interesting. It's a tough question: when a church promises by contract to play by certain rules and then breaks that promise, how does a secular court tell that religious entity what it must do given the First Amdendment? You also face questions like how does an anti-discrimination law apply to churches that don't want to, as some religious groups don't, hire women as ministers?

Lastly, I also ordered Wired for War today (using the gift certificate from Peter and Anne - thank you). It's a book about the way technology is changing the legal and moral landscape of war, which is of course a legal question right in (one of) my areas of interest. I heard about it on NPR today during an interview with the author and it sounds pretty fascinating. The reviews and online content I saw were similarly intriguing. I hope I can find time to read it sooner than later.

I hope you're all doing well. Brussels will have his second surgery for adrenal cancer next week. We hope it will go well and will keep you posted on his hopefully quick recovery.