First, my apologies for lack of updates, and lack of conclusions to the two "series" I have going on (one on education, the other on career confusion). I blame a combination of approaching end of semester crunch, recent mood issues, and Thanksgiving vacation.
Speaking of which! Last Wednesday, I drove up to Syracuse to spend Thanksgiving with my stepfather, David, and his wife, Dorita. It was a lovely time. Whenever I go up to New York--either to visit them in Syracuse, or help at the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo--I find it remarkably easy to leave behind almost all the troubles and cares from Connecticut. The first cause of this is an almost total lack of outside communication--while they have internet, their computers are pretty slow, and they don't watch TV or listen to a lot of radio (do I need to explain a lack of communication at a Renn Faire?). Secondly, I'm there with a purpose--at the Ren Faire, it's to sell and generally help out. In Syracuse, it's to spend quality time. I always end up having fun, learning a lot, and wishing that there wasn't a 4+ hour drive from here to there.
Here is a "short" list of what I learned on this trip:
[1] Coin-operated car washes are SO. MUCH. FUN.
[2] How to wash dishes by hand.
[2a] Washing dishes by hand can be relaxing and almost enjoyable.
[3] David would have gone into science if not for the math; instead he got a Bachelors Degree in Psychology, Eastern Philosophy, and Anthropology.
[3] How to make a Chocolate Mocha Cake...the RIGHT way.
[4] In baking, precise measurements are overrated.
[5] Price Chopper has the best guilty pleasures: on one past trip, I learned about their Four Cheese Artisan Bread; on this trip, I discovered cheddar cheese bagels.
[6] Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is an awesome NPR show. It's The Daily Show, complete with celebrities and real news, put on the radio and turned into a call-in quiz show.
[7] Bruce Campbell knows a surprising amount about Barbie.
[8] David brought Mom and I to visit his father when I was no older than three. This is the closest I've gotten to meeting a "direct" grandparent. I have no memory of it.
[9] A pie without butter is still real pie...but only barely.
[10] Ending a visit with a loved one never gets easier as you grow up. It does, in fact, get harder.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Achtung! Revisited
See? I told you I’d get back to you.
1. What is the quality of experience I want to have as I earn a living?
2. What gifts do I want to give to life as I toil at challenging tasks that are interesting to me?
3. What capacities do I want to develop in myself while doing my work?
One question at a time, one post at a time.
What is the quality of experience I want to have as I earn a living?
This is the hardest question to answer. How do you qualify quality? Number of hours you work at something? What gets done in those hours? How much money you make? What kind of projects you work on? Who you work for? Who you don’t work for? It’s a highly subjective question.
Let’s start with the basic priorities of what I want in a job, and go through those.
Creativity
I want to be able to play with the problem or objective, look at it from different angles, analyze it, take it apart and put it back together. Brainstorm in a group, brainstorm by myself. My favorite assignments in school, ever, were those from Advertising class, where we took a campaign or slogan or advertisement and took it apart to analyze, critique, and possibly correct it.
If my job consists of doing the same thing, over and over again, with no input from my brain, no chance to be fun or different or creative at all, I might as well be a robot. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have that much problem with a job like that—I’d just settle into a groove and let my mind wander and let the hours go by. But I’d also stagnate, and I wouldn’t have fun. I know everyone says they wants a fun job…but is that such a bad thing to want? To not just be happy about work, but be excited about it, be gleeful about it?
I want a job where I take my work with me wherever I go—in a good way. Not because I can’t let things “stay at the office” or because there’s a looming deadline that’s stressing me out, but because the problem is so interesting, so fun to think about, that I just want to keep turning it over in my head and finding new ways to go about it.
Freedom
This priority may actually be the most important. It also got me laughed at at work. Someone asked me what I wanted to do “later” (as in after college), and I said I wanted to work from home. They laughed at me. Not in a straight-on mean way, but in a condescending “That is too funny, you’re joking, right?” way. I’m still a little bitter about it, especially it’s just not as outrageous as an idea as it used to be.
In this world, working from is growing less unusual, and less impossible. The technology that exists is astounding—you can conference from home via phone, conference call, instant messenger, or video chat. You can access work files from home, updating them from home within seconds so your coworkers can run with your changes, either from the office or from their own home. Anyone can buy a combination printer, scanner, copier and fax and have all those capabilities in their office at home, without even taking up that much space. Wifi is becoming more abundant and cellular signals more widely available, while laptops and even printers are growing smaller, so you can access files and work on projects from home, from Starbucks, from the park, from your hotel, from almost anywhere. You can go down to Staples or Kinkos and get your brochures, presentations, or booklets printed out and put together in record time.
The physical office is becoming less and less necessary as time goes by, technology improves, and priorities change.
You know why I want to work from home? It’s not because I hate driving, it’s not because I don’t like people, it’s not because the idea of a cubicle makes me sick. None of those things are true. I want to work from home because I plan on having a home that I love, that is comfortable and beautiful and home. I find the idea that we have to spend so many hours away from our homes in order to afford our homes positively absurd. I plan on working hard, on saving and scrimping and budgeting, on busting my butt in order to have a house that is as close to my dream home as is fiscally possible. And after working so hard for it, I want to spend time in it. Because dammit, that’s the point.
So. I want freedom to do work at my own pace, in my own space. To go at projects or problems in the manner that works best for me, whatever that means. I don’t want someone breathing down my neck, I don’t want insane deadlines that only insane people can meet (normal deadlines are okay, even if I’m not normal), I don’t want to be forced to work with people I can’t stand, who I just don’t jive with. I want to be able to start work when I’m actually awake, not when I have to be at the office, and work until I’m done, not until the office closes up for the day.
I don’t mean I want to sleep until noon, read e-mails and idly type up some bullshit in my pajamas from the kitchen table, ignore the directions or ideas from my superiors or coworkers and do whatever the hell I feel like instead, or wait until 3 a.m. before a major presentation to rush and get everything done. I would get “dressed on purpose” every morning, get up and officially start the day at a reasonable time, have a home office that was dedicated to work and not play, do what I was directed to do and get things done on time.
My own space, my own pace, my own hours, my own way of going about my job. Give me all of these, and I will be a very loyal employee. I will work my ass off for you, I will respect rules and directions and deadlines, I will put in however long it takes to get the problem solved or the project done. I just want the freedom to do my job as is best for me.
Salary
I wish this didn’t have to be a priority, that I could just have a job I love without worrying or caring if it makes enough to cover the bills. Don’t we all wish for that? So, when looking for a job, one of the possible deal breakers will be salary, and if it’s enough to cover rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, gas, etc. That is, until I sell a dozen novels and become a millionaire who can do whatever she damn well pleases.
So, what is the quality of experience I want to have as I earn a living? I want a job that involves being creative, that lets me work from home (or anywhere else), that pays well enough to cover the bills. That’s the best I can come to answering that question, I think. A quality of experience that lets me do what I love, in a place I love, while making enough to have the things I love.
Answer to question two coming soon!
1. What is the quality of experience I want to have as I earn a living?
2. What gifts do I want to give to life as I toil at challenging tasks that are interesting to me?
3. What capacities do I want to develop in myself while doing my work?
One question at a time, one post at a time.
What is the quality of experience I want to have as I earn a living?
This is the hardest question to answer. How do you qualify quality? Number of hours you work at something? What gets done in those hours? How much money you make? What kind of projects you work on? Who you work for? Who you don’t work for? It’s a highly subjective question.
Let’s start with the basic priorities of what I want in a job, and go through those.
Creativity
I want to be able to play with the problem or objective, look at it from different angles, analyze it, take it apart and put it back together. Brainstorm in a group, brainstorm by myself. My favorite assignments in school, ever, were those from Advertising class, where we took a campaign or slogan or advertisement and took it apart to analyze, critique, and possibly correct it.
If my job consists of doing the same thing, over and over again, with no input from my brain, no chance to be fun or different or creative at all, I might as well be a robot. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have that much problem with a job like that—I’d just settle into a groove and let my mind wander and let the hours go by. But I’d also stagnate, and I wouldn’t have fun. I know everyone says they wants a fun job…but is that such a bad thing to want? To not just be happy about work, but be excited about it, be gleeful about it?
I want a job where I take my work with me wherever I go—in a good way. Not because I can’t let things “stay at the office” or because there’s a looming deadline that’s stressing me out, but because the problem is so interesting, so fun to think about, that I just want to keep turning it over in my head and finding new ways to go about it.
Freedom
This priority may actually be the most important. It also got me laughed at at work. Someone asked me what I wanted to do “later” (as in after college), and I said I wanted to work from home. They laughed at me. Not in a straight-on mean way, but in a condescending “That is too funny, you’re joking, right?” way. I’m still a little bitter about it, especially it’s just not as outrageous as an idea as it used to be.
In this world, working from is growing less unusual, and less impossible. The technology that exists is astounding—you can conference from home via phone, conference call, instant messenger, or video chat. You can access work files from home, updating them from home within seconds so your coworkers can run with your changes, either from the office or from their own home. Anyone can buy a combination printer, scanner, copier and fax and have all those capabilities in their office at home, without even taking up that much space. Wifi is becoming more abundant and cellular signals more widely available, while laptops and even printers are growing smaller, so you can access files and work on projects from home, from Starbucks, from the park, from your hotel, from almost anywhere. You can go down to Staples or Kinkos and get your brochures, presentations, or booklets printed out and put together in record time.
The physical office is becoming less and less necessary as time goes by, technology improves, and priorities change.
You know why I want to work from home? It’s not because I hate driving, it’s not because I don’t like people, it’s not because the idea of a cubicle makes me sick. None of those things are true. I want to work from home because I plan on having a home that I love, that is comfortable and beautiful and home. I find the idea that we have to spend so many hours away from our homes in order to afford our homes positively absurd. I plan on working hard, on saving and scrimping and budgeting, on busting my butt in order to have a house that is as close to my dream home as is fiscally possible. And after working so hard for it, I want to spend time in it. Because dammit, that’s the point.
So. I want freedom to do work at my own pace, in my own space. To go at projects or problems in the manner that works best for me, whatever that means. I don’t want someone breathing down my neck, I don’t want insane deadlines that only insane people can meet (normal deadlines are okay, even if I’m not normal), I don’t want to be forced to work with people I can’t stand, who I just don’t jive with. I want to be able to start work when I’m actually awake, not when I have to be at the office, and work until I’m done, not until the office closes up for the day.
I don’t mean I want to sleep until noon, read e-mails and idly type up some bullshit in my pajamas from the kitchen table, ignore the directions or ideas from my superiors or coworkers and do whatever the hell I feel like instead, or wait until 3 a.m. before a major presentation to rush and get everything done. I would get “dressed on purpose” every morning, get up and officially start the day at a reasonable time, have a home office that was dedicated to work and not play, do what I was directed to do and get things done on time.
My own space, my own pace, my own hours, my own way of going about my job. Give me all of these, and I will be a very loyal employee. I will work my ass off for you, I will respect rules and directions and deadlines, I will put in however long it takes to get the problem solved or the project done. I just want the freedom to do my job as is best for me.
Salary
I wish this didn’t have to be a priority, that I could just have a job I love without worrying or caring if it makes enough to cover the bills. Don’t we all wish for that? So, when looking for a job, one of the possible deal breakers will be salary, and if it’s enough to cover rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, gas, etc. That is, until I sell a dozen novels and become a millionaire who can do whatever she damn well pleases.
So, what is the quality of experience I want to have as I earn a living? I want a job that involves being creative, that lets me work from home (or anywhere else), that pays well enough to cover the bills. That’s the best I can come to answering that question, I think. A quality of experience that lets me do what I love, in a place I love, while making enough to have the things I love.
Answer to question two coming soon!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Great Calorie War of Aught-Nine.
At the beginning of this past year, I got two new things: an iPod Touch (thanks to Christmas money), and a free application called Lose It!. Lose It! is a tool for tracking what and how much you eat, how much you exercise, and what you weigh. I made a New Years resolution to lose weight and become healthier. The first time I entered my weight, it was 162 lbs. At 5’6”, that’s not obese—in fact, while at the high end of the “normal” BMI range, it’s technically not even overweight. It was still more than I wanted to weigh, however, especially since almost none of it was muscle.
For some reason, I decided that the best way to go about things was to eat less. Not eat better, or exercise more (or, for me, exercise at all), but just lower the amount of calories I was consuming. Despite logic, despite having a brain in my head, despite having a brand new program at work that taught us about metabolism and how cutting calories only works when you also work out to jump-start the burning of fat instead of muscle.
Obviously, this didn’t really work—especially since this was one of the worst winters I’ve ever gone through. I’m not good at winters as it is, and this one was long, it was cold, it was wet, and it included a death in the family. My great uncle Bill—my de facto grandfather, as all four of my biological grandparents had passed away before I was born—died in mid-February. It was the first time I had ever lost someone besides a cat. Needless to say, February did not go well in terms of…well, anything.
By May, I had gotten my act a little more together—I was doing better at cutting out calories, and best of all, I started exercising! After a year and a half of working at Curves, I finally got over my weird problem with working out at the same time as members, and started working out every night I worked. Funnily enough, the weight starting coming off a little quicker. Imagine!
Still, I was being dumb about food. I was still obsessing more over calorie count than anything else, such as, I don’t know, ingredients, protein, trans fat, sodium, etc. I had gotten it into my head that calories were evil, no matter what they were attached to, so less was always better than more. Period.
Ryan helped me get over that thinking in June. One day, while out shopping, we decided it was time to grab some dinner and head home. Ryan wanted to get Moe’s, which is like a combination of Subway and Taco Bell—you go down an assembly line and put together a taco, burrito, nachos, etc one step at a time. I consulted my little app, and said no, too many calories in a burrito, but how about McDonald’s?
The look he gave me was about the same as a smack upside the head. I was turning down a real wheat tortilla, real grilled chicken, real beans, real vegetables…for McDonald’s. WHAT THE FUCK.
That very night, after returning home and consuming my delicious, nutritious, not-McDonald’s dinner, I tinkered with my app. I changed it from “lose weight” to “maintain weight.” This was a trick to have a higher calorie “budget,” so there would be this big red bar if I went over a set number of calories. I had decided to start concentrating on quality over quantity.
Except I was still concerned with quantity. I started picking out healthier foods, but I was still concerned over not eating too much, no matter what it was. I opened up Excel (one of my favorite toys ever) and made myself a little chart for tracking daily calorie counts. One column would show the day’s number, and another column would show the difference from the previous day—had I gone up or down? By how much?
I saw this as a tool for keeping myself in check, making sure my counts didn’t start creeping up with the “freedom” I had given myself. Looking back, I just replaced one way of yelling at myself with another—there may not be a red bar anywhere on the screen, but there was still a number, and I was giving that number more power than I was giving myself.
Over the summer and into the fall, I’ve been making better food choices, and I’ve eased up on the tracking. The Excel chart ran out of space as of October 10, and I didn’t extend it. That was the last day I counted up my calorie count. October 26 was the last day I entered calorie information into the iPod app. At first I just forgot to, but it’s become intentional.
I realized that, if I kept up with the counting and monitoring and self-checking, I was going to end up with an eating disorder. Not because I hate my body, not because I need control over something, but because I can lose myself in obsession over keeping track of things perfectly, to the last detail. When I entered calorie information, I fretted over amounts, worrying that if I was off, I was doing something wrong. If I that red bar came up, if I was just a few calories up from one day to the next, I would guilt the hell out of myself. And that’s just bullshit.
I’m eating healthier now than I was six months ago, or even three months ago. Before I buy something at the grocery store, I check the label—not just for calories, but for protein, fiber, trans and saturated fat, sodium, vitamins and minerals. I check the ingredients for whole grains instead of “enriched flour”, sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, real salt instead of MSG. I choose foods with real ingredients over foods with lower calorie counts, because I’m finally choosing quality over quantity.
Do I always eat perfectly? No. Do I sometimes eat fast food? Yes. But far, far less than I used to, and I choose different things off the menu. Do I still enjoy chocolate and alcohol and other treats? Yes, but only with or after a real dinner with real food, only as a treat, not an integral part of my day’s menu.
And you know what? I’ve been losing weight. I’ve been losing fat. I’m down to 153 lbs. My waist is making a comeback, and the Curves circuit doesn’t tire me out as much as it used to. And something interesting I discovered—I’m less hungry when I wake up in the morning after I eat real food instead of fake food. With the real freedom I’ve given myself, I feel happy when I eat instead of guilty, I feel really free and in control of what goes into my body for the first time in a long time.
I’m done worrying, I’m done guilting, I’m done obsessing. I’m done with putting the power of what I eat to a stupid little computer program. I’m done with not trusting myself.
I’m done counting.
BONUS SECTION!
In Case You're Curious/I Was Bored So Why Not:
The things I consume on a regular basis {plus flavors} (plus commentary) [plus nutrition]:
[o] V8 Fusion {Pomegranate Blueberry} [8 oz. has 100 calories, 100% daily value of vitamin C, no sugar added, and one full serving each of fruits and vegetables]
[o] Carnation Breakfast Essentials {Rich Milk Chocolate} [One bottle has 260 calories, 14 g of protein, 50% DV of vitamin C and Calcium, 45% DV of vitamin A, and 25% DV of vitamins B6, B12, D, E, K, and iron]
[o] Stonyfield Farm Yogurt Smoothies {Raspberry, Peach} [One 10 oz. bottle has 230 calories, 10 g of protein, 20% DV of vitamin B12, and is completely organic] (It also has a bit more sugar than I'd like (39 g), but it's the only smoothie I find delicious)
[o] Hood Milk (1%, sorry, just can't stand skim) [1 cup has 110 calories, 8 g of protein, 10% DV of vitamins A and C, 25% DV vitamin D, and 30% DV of calcium]
[o] Stouffer's Baked Chicken Breast (with mashed potatoes) [one dinner has 250 calories and 20 g of protein] with Green Giant Simply Steam No Sauce Baby Sweet Peas [2/3 cup package has 60 calories, 4 g of protein, and 15% DV of vitamin C]
[o] Woodchuck Draft Cider {Amber, Raspberry} (this is basically the only alcohol I consume, and it's, like, 3 a week. but DAMN is it refreshing) [one 12 oz. bottle has 200 calories)
[o] Guru Energy Drink {Superfruit} [one 12 oz. can has 180 calories, 1.5 g of protein, and just over 86 g of potassium. while it does include guarana, it’s pretty far down the ingredient list, which has is mostly comprised of water, juice concentrates (20% organic fruit juice!), and other natural substances such as echniacea, ginseng, and ginko biloba] (this is seriously good shit. tastes great (in my opinion), and it doesn’t jar you awake or give you the jitters)
[o] Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters {Cashew, Honey Roasted Peanut} [cashew: 1 oz. has 150 calories, 1 g of fiber, and 4 g of protein; honey roasted peanut: 1 oz. has 140 calories, 1 g of fiber and, 5 g of protein]
[o] Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with any brand of creamy peanut butter, generic grape jelly, and whole wheat bread [one sandwich has 350 calories, over 3 g of fiber, and 10 g of protein]
[o] Cashews, usually generic [1 oz has 170 calories and 5 g of protein]
[o] Vlasic Kosher Dill Snack'mmms [1 oz is about 2 gherkin-sized pickles and has 5 calories]
[o] Apples [under 100 calories, over 4 g of fiber, vitamins A and C and calcium]
[o] Baby Carrots, [1 cup has just over 50 calories, almost 3 g of fiber, over a gram of protein, vitamin C, and tons of vitamin A
[o] Mini Babybel Bonbel Cheese [1 piece has 70 calories, 5 g of protein, 6% DV of vitamin A and 15% DV of calcium]
[o] Sushi (tuna roll, shrimp sushi) [one 6 piece tuna roll has 184 calories, 2 g of fat, 24 g of protein, 3.5 g of fiber; one ounce of shrimp sushi has 30 calories, no fat, 6 g of protein, and 151 mg of omega-3 fatty acids] (I eat sushi about once a week, and it’s something I always look forward to. my regular order is one tuna roll and two pieces of shrimp sushi, for a grand total of 244 calories, 2 g of fat, 36 g of protein, and a ton of omega-2 fatty acids)
As you can see, REALLY not bad stuff. The only thing with high fructose corn syrup is the grape jelly, which is something I missed until after I had opened the jar (once this jar is finished, I’ll be buying a different brand, but I just can’t bring myself to toss the current jar). The "worst" food, calorie-wise, is cashews, and I rarely have that, and rarely more than a handful at a time. I don’t drink any soda, and the Guru is the only energy drink I touch, and that’s only a couple of times a week when I need to wake up a little faster I would naturally. I’m working on putting more protein and fiber into my diet, in the form of more cheese, yogurt, and fruits and vegetables. I also have a nightly supplement regiment of one super-B complex, one cal-mag-zinc, and one fish oil tablet.
For some reason, I decided that the best way to go about things was to eat less. Not eat better, or exercise more (or, for me, exercise at all), but just lower the amount of calories I was consuming. Despite logic, despite having a brain in my head, despite having a brand new program at work that taught us about metabolism and how cutting calories only works when you also work out to jump-start the burning of fat instead of muscle.
Obviously, this didn’t really work—especially since this was one of the worst winters I’ve ever gone through. I’m not good at winters as it is, and this one was long, it was cold, it was wet, and it included a death in the family. My great uncle Bill—my de facto grandfather, as all four of my biological grandparents had passed away before I was born—died in mid-February. It was the first time I had ever lost someone besides a cat. Needless to say, February did not go well in terms of…well, anything.
By May, I had gotten my act a little more together—I was doing better at cutting out calories, and best of all, I started exercising! After a year and a half of working at Curves, I finally got over my weird problem with working out at the same time as members, and started working out every night I worked. Funnily enough, the weight starting coming off a little quicker. Imagine!
Still, I was being dumb about food. I was still obsessing more over calorie count than anything else, such as, I don’t know, ingredients, protein, trans fat, sodium, etc. I had gotten it into my head that calories were evil, no matter what they were attached to, so less was always better than more. Period.
Ryan helped me get over that thinking in June. One day, while out shopping, we decided it was time to grab some dinner and head home. Ryan wanted to get Moe’s, which is like a combination of Subway and Taco Bell—you go down an assembly line and put together a taco, burrito, nachos, etc one step at a time. I consulted my little app, and said no, too many calories in a burrito, but how about McDonald’s?
The look he gave me was about the same as a smack upside the head. I was turning down a real wheat tortilla, real grilled chicken, real beans, real vegetables…for McDonald’s. WHAT THE FUCK.
That very night, after returning home and consuming my delicious, nutritious, not-McDonald’s dinner, I tinkered with my app. I changed it from “lose weight” to “maintain weight.” This was a trick to have a higher calorie “budget,” so there would be this big red bar if I went over a set number of calories. I had decided to start concentrating on quality over quantity.
Except I was still concerned with quantity. I started picking out healthier foods, but I was still concerned over not eating too much, no matter what it was. I opened up Excel (one of my favorite toys ever) and made myself a little chart for tracking daily calorie counts. One column would show the day’s number, and another column would show the difference from the previous day—had I gone up or down? By how much?
I saw this as a tool for keeping myself in check, making sure my counts didn’t start creeping up with the “freedom” I had given myself. Looking back, I just replaced one way of yelling at myself with another—there may not be a red bar anywhere on the screen, but there was still a number, and I was giving that number more power than I was giving myself.
Over the summer and into the fall, I’ve been making better food choices, and I’ve eased up on the tracking. The Excel chart ran out of space as of October 10, and I didn’t extend it. That was the last day I counted up my calorie count. October 26 was the last day I entered calorie information into the iPod app. At first I just forgot to, but it’s become intentional.
I realized that, if I kept up with the counting and monitoring and self-checking, I was going to end up with an eating disorder. Not because I hate my body, not because I need control over something, but because I can lose myself in obsession over keeping track of things perfectly, to the last detail. When I entered calorie information, I fretted over amounts, worrying that if I was off, I was doing something wrong. If I that red bar came up, if I was just a few calories up from one day to the next, I would guilt the hell out of myself. And that’s just bullshit.
I’m eating healthier now than I was six months ago, or even three months ago. Before I buy something at the grocery store, I check the label—not just for calories, but for protein, fiber, trans and saturated fat, sodium, vitamins and minerals. I check the ingredients for whole grains instead of “enriched flour”, sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, real salt instead of MSG. I choose foods with real ingredients over foods with lower calorie counts, because I’m finally choosing quality over quantity.
Do I always eat perfectly? No. Do I sometimes eat fast food? Yes. But far, far less than I used to, and I choose different things off the menu. Do I still enjoy chocolate and alcohol and other treats? Yes, but only with or after a real dinner with real food, only as a treat, not an integral part of my day’s menu.
And you know what? I’ve been losing weight. I’ve been losing fat. I’m down to 153 lbs. My waist is making a comeback, and the Curves circuit doesn’t tire me out as much as it used to. And something interesting I discovered—I’m less hungry when I wake up in the morning after I eat real food instead of fake food. With the real freedom I’ve given myself, I feel happy when I eat instead of guilty, I feel really free and in control of what goes into my body for the first time in a long time.
I’m done worrying, I’m done guilting, I’m done obsessing. I’m done with putting the power of what I eat to a stupid little computer program. I’m done with not trusting myself.
I’m done counting.
BONUS SECTION!
In Case You're Curious/I Was Bored So Why Not:
The things I consume on a regular basis {plus flavors} (plus commentary) [plus nutrition]:
[o] V8 Fusion {Pomegranate Blueberry} [8 oz. has 100 calories, 100% daily value of vitamin C, no sugar added, and one full serving each of fruits and vegetables]
[o] Carnation Breakfast Essentials {Rich Milk Chocolate} [One bottle has 260 calories, 14 g of protein, 50% DV of vitamin C and Calcium, 45% DV of vitamin A, and 25% DV of vitamins B6, B12, D, E, K, and iron]
[o] Stonyfield Farm Yogurt Smoothies {Raspberry, Peach} [One 10 oz. bottle has 230 calories, 10 g of protein, 20% DV of vitamin B12, and is completely organic] (It also has a bit more sugar than I'd like (39 g), but it's the only smoothie I find delicious)
[o] Hood Milk (1%, sorry, just can't stand skim) [1 cup has 110 calories, 8 g of protein, 10% DV of vitamins A and C, 25% DV vitamin D, and 30% DV of calcium]
[o] Stouffer's Baked Chicken Breast (with mashed potatoes) [one dinner has 250 calories and 20 g of protein] with Green Giant Simply Steam No Sauce Baby Sweet Peas [2/3 cup package has 60 calories, 4 g of protein, and 15% DV of vitamin C]
[o] Woodchuck Draft Cider {Amber, Raspberry} (this is basically the only alcohol I consume, and it's, like, 3 a week. but DAMN is it refreshing) [one 12 oz. bottle has 200 calories)
[o] Guru Energy Drink {Superfruit} [one 12 oz. can has 180 calories, 1.5 g of protein, and just over 86 g of potassium. while it does include guarana, it’s pretty far down the ingredient list, which has is mostly comprised of water, juice concentrates (20% organic fruit juice!), and other natural substances such as echniacea, ginseng, and ginko biloba] (this is seriously good shit. tastes great (in my opinion), and it doesn’t jar you awake or give you the jitters)
[o] Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters {Cashew, Honey Roasted Peanut} [cashew: 1 oz. has 150 calories, 1 g of fiber, and 4 g of protein; honey roasted peanut: 1 oz. has 140 calories, 1 g of fiber and, 5 g of protein]
[o] Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with any brand of creamy peanut butter, generic grape jelly, and whole wheat bread [one sandwich has 350 calories, over 3 g of fiber, and 10 g of protein]
[o] Cashews, usually generic [1 oz has 170 calories and 5 g of protein]
[o] Vlasic Kosher Dill Snack'mmms [1 oz is about 2 gherkin-sized pickles and has 5 calories]
[o] Apples [under 100 calories, over 4 g of fiber, vitamins A and C and calcium]
[o] Baby Carrots, [1 cup has just over 50 calories, almost 3 g of fiber, over a gram of protein, vitamin C, and tons of vitamin A
[o] Mini Babybel Bonbel Cheese [1 piece has 70 calories, 5 g of protein, 6% DV of vitamin A and 15% DV of calcium]
[o] Sushi (tuna roll, shrimp sushi) [one 6 piece tuna roll has 184 calories, 2 g of fat, 24 g of protein, 3.5 g of fiber; one ounce of shrimp sushi has 30 calories, no fat, 6 g of protein, and 151 mg of omega-3 fatty acids] (I eat sushi about once a week, and it’s something I always look forward to. my regular order is one tuna roll and two pieces of shrimp sushi, for a grand total of 244 calories, 2 g of fat, 36 g of protein, and a ton of omega-2 fatty acids)
As you can see, REALLY not bad stuff. The only thing with high fructose corn syrup is the grape jelly, which is something I missed until after I had opened the jar (once this jar is finished, I’ll be buying a different brand, but I just can’t bring myself to toss the current jar). The "worst" food, calorie-wise, is cashews, and I rarely have that, and rarely more than a handful at a time. I don’t drink any soda, and the Guru is the only energy drink I touch, and that’s only a couple of times a week when I need to wake up a little faster I would naturally. I’m working on putting more protein and fiber into my diet, in the form of more cheese, yogurt, and fruits and vegetables. I also have a nightly supplement regiment of one super-B complex, one cal-mag-zinc, and one fish oil tablet.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Liam & Jer Progress: Nov. 7th, 2009
As of yesterday, my total word count for "final" chapters (all six of them) is 9,884.
(By "final" chapters, I mean the documents/text files that will eventually evolve into final drafts. I have many, many .docs and .txts that hold pieces of Liam & Jer, but these are older drafts, some dating back to my junior year of high school. These have either been drastically changed in to new chapters, stripped for parts, or scrapped altogether.)
Anyway. A word count of under 10,000 is...kinda pathetic. If you also keep in mind that I set myself a goal of adding 50,000 words this month in honor of NaNoWriMo...*gulp* I'm actually pretty confident that I will NOT meet this goal, but that's okay. I'd be happy if I had 20,000 words, or even 15,000. Anything that meant I actually added to it.
I recently took my outline and transferred them to index cards. My plan is to take the cards and figure out the exact order of events. This would seem easy--A then B then C, right?*--except that I'm toying with the idea of a few of the chapters being flashbacks, looking at Liam's or Jer's past to get some insight as to why they're doing this or acting like that. I'm afraid that it could make it messy, complicated, confusing, etc, but I'm also concerned with what might be missing if I don't include them. I currently suck at "looking back" in the middle of a scene, although you'd think the fact that I'm writing it in present tense would help. Of course, the fact that I'm thinking of trying to fit this big, messy puzzle piece into the whole thing instead of, you know, growing as a writer and learning to fix what needs fixing in my toolbox may also say something about me. That something may start with an "l" and rhyme with "hazy."
I'm also trying to find a time to dedicate to writing. I set on the task of finding this piece of time months ago, and I even had one for, oh, two weeks, but it's gotten harder. The free time I do have has to be divvied up between school assignments, errands and chores, seeing Mom, seeing Dad, being social (HA!), and getting some quality time with Ryan. These pieces of free time are currently: Sundays and Mondays until 4, and Wednesdays and Saturdays after noon. Sunday is currently my day to catch up on Mom-home chores and see Mom, and Monday is currently my only day to sleep in, which is very precious to me. Wednesdays and Saturdays, Ry and I do one of two things: do chores and errands, or have a few hours of dedicated WoWing, basically my only WoW time the entire week. WoW might sound like something worth sacrificing to get some writing in, and maybe it should be, but it's also a great stress-reliever, and a little bit of being social (getting friendlier with the Guildies).
Keep in mind that Writing Time would more or less HAVE to be at Starbucks, where I'm disconnected from the internet, and able to just plug in to my music and my little world. Sometimes just the act of Going To/Being At Starbucks is almost enough to click in to Writing Mode. So it's not just a set time I pull out the laptop and get down to business; it's a set time that I drive to Starbucks, get myself a drink and a snack, and settle down at a table. On Mondays and Sundays, there would have to be travel time built in to get back in time for work or D&D.
So, there. My current writing status/predicament. I'll try to post something opinionated and ranty tomorrow.
*Yes, Dad, I know about time not being linear, but in this particular story, it's going to be, okay? ;)
(By "final" chapters, I mean the documents/text files that will eventually evolve into final drafts. I have many, many .docs and .txts that hold pieces of Liam & Jer, but these are older drafts, some dating back to my junior year of high school. These have either been drastically changed in to new chapters, stripped for parts, or scrapped altogether.)
Anyway. A word count of under 10,000 is...kinda pathetic. If you also keep in mind that I set myself a goal of adding 50,000 words this month in honor of NaNoWriMo...*gulp* I'm actually pretty confident that I will NOT meet this goal, but that's okay. I'd be happy if I had 20,000 words, or even 15,000. Anything that meant I actually added to it.
I recently took my outline and transferred them to index cards. My plan is to take the cards and figure out the exact order of events. This would seem easy--A then B then C, right?*--except that I'm toying with the idea of a few of the chapters being flashbacks, looking at Liam's or Jer's past to get some insight as to why they're doing this or acting like that. I'm afraid that it could make it messy, complicated, confusing, etc, but I'm also concerned with what might be missing if I don't include them. I currently suck at "looking back" in the middle of a scene, although you'd think the fact that I'm writing it in present tense would help. Of course, the fact that I'm thinking of trying to fit this big, messy puzzle piece into the whole thing instead of, you know, growing as a writer and learning to fix what needs fixing in my toolbox may also say something about me. That something may start with an "l" and rhyme with "hazy."
I'm also trying to find a time to dedicate to writing. I set on the task of finding this piece of time months ago, and I even had one for, oh, two weeks, but it's gotten harder. The free time I do have has to be divvied up between school assignments, errands and chores, seeing Mom, seeing Dad, being social (HA!), and getting some quality time with Ryan. These pieces of free time are currently: Sundays and Mondays until 4, and Wednesdays and Saturdays after noon. Sunday is currently my day to catch up on Mom-home chores and see Mom, and Monday is currently my only day to sleep in, which is very precious to me. Wednesdays and Saturdays, Ry and I do one of two things: do chores and errands, or have a few hours of dedicated WoWing, basically my only WoW time the entire week. WoW might sound like something worth sacrificing to get some writing in, and maybe it should be, but it's also a great stress-reliever, and a little bit of being social (getting friendlier with the Guildies).
Keep in mind that Writing Time would more or less HAVE to be at Starbucks, where I'm disconnected from the internet, and able to just plug in to my music and my little world. Sometimes just the act of Going To/Being At Starbucks is almost enough to click in to Writing Mode. So it's not just a set time I pull out the laptop and get down to business; it's a set time that I drive to Starbucks, get myself a drink and a snack, and settle down at a table. On Mondays and Sundays, there would have to be travel time built in to get back in time for work or D&D.
So, there. My current writing status/predicament. I'll try to post something opinionated and ranty tomorrow.
*Yes, Dad, I know about time not being linear, but in this particular story, it's going to be, okay? ;)
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Letting The Beetle Out.
About a month ago, I was eating dinner with my Dad, and I mentioned the music I had been listening to lately. I have this thing where I'll make a CD, either of one artist or a mix, and then listen to it over and over and over again. I'm one of those people who can do that without eventually hating the song.
I mentioned a few of the artists I had on this CD, and my Dad smirked.
"Earnest," he said. "Earnest, earnest, earnest."
He didn't make it sounds bad so much as...cute. As if these singers were children who are trying so hard to be real musicians, isn't that precious?
I get what he's saying--almost every song by these artists does have this earnest, urgent note to them. These songs have a message, this message is important, it is the most important message in the history of the world, we are the first people to sing about this message, and, by God, you will hear it and you will be moved. This attitude is great, until you've continued it for more than, say, one whole album, or three songs per album. Then it just feels...false. Not like the artist doesn't mean it--they do, don't you ever doubt it! But they mean it too much, to the point where it stops to mean anything to anyone else.
Ever since that smirk, there's been a beetle in the back of my mind, buzzing about earnest. After a few weeks of this, I've decided on something:
We need earnest.
I don't mean the global "we", the "we" of the whole world ("The citizens of all nations need to hear this so they can understand their mistakes!"). I mean my "we". We, the generation that straddles Generation X and Generation Z--those born in the 1980's but raised in the 1990's and 2000's.
I tend to think that we were raised in one of the most cynical decades in living memory. The business- and money-focused attitude of the 80's was still present, but the realization that this capitalist way of life could not be sustained was beginning to set in with all the tenderness of an elephant settling on an hollowed egg shell. Just listen to the music of the 1990's--Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam, The Offspring. Their lyrics span from subtle cynicism to blatant bitterness. Our country experienced The Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton's scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and many other events that divided and scarred the country in numerous ways.
And that was just the 1990's. For me, ages 4 to 14.
Even from the very beginning, the 2000's have been a hard decade. They've been hard on everyone, but imagine coming of age in them. The past 9 years have brought upon three highly publicized and controversial elections, and a war that has divided the country in a way that we haven't approached since the Civil War. We experienced the attacks on September 11, which are to many of my generation what Pearl Harbor was to our grandparents, what JFK's assassination was to our parents. Our economy has crashed, and millions have gone from a safe, middle-class lifestyle to poverty, losing their jobs, their insurance, their homes, the lives they had become accustomed and attached to.
If any other teenagers and children had parents even vaguely similar to mine, they grew up listening to rants and rambles, yelling and crying. We grew up with hands being thrown in the air and eyes being rolled with disgust and hopelessness. We grew up hearing things like "What is this world coming to?" and "I can't believe this is happening," or even "What are we going to do?"
Every generation grows up with the combined hope and threat that they will be in charge someday. They will be the ones to take the reigns, clean up the mess, change the course of civilization, and so on and so forth. Growing up hearing that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, being told in the same breath that "this will all be yours someday"...that's quite a bundle to be handed.
So it any wonder that we've been drawn to music that has our voice, our worries, our hopes, our frustration? Songs like the all-star cover of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, American Idiot, The Lovers Are Losing, and Land of Confusion?. Songs with lyrics like "We're the new face of failure/Prettier and younger, by not any better of", and "Burning down the capitols/Wisest of the animals" and "People can no longer cover their eyes"?
Yes, the singers are earnest. Because we need earnest. We need hopeful. We need angry, we need dedicated, we need pissed off.
Every generation thinks it has it worse off than the one before, that it has better reason to be pissed off than the one before, that the previous ones will never understand what it is we're going through. To a degree, every generation is right.
Our grandparents were handed the Depression and World War II, bread lines and a military draft.
Our parents were handed Vietnam and its aftermath, Nixon and his lies.
We are handed the Iraq war, the aftermath of September 11, the bill for the environmental spending of the previous decades.
Every generation is given a country that is broken and needs to be made whole. And each time the country is handed down, like a quilt made by a forgotten ancestor, it is a little more threadbare, a little more stained, a little harder to patch up.
My generation currently has the ragged ends of yet another unwinnable war started by the previous controversial president, the worse economic recession in 20 years, an overburdened environment in danger of giving at any moment, state-by-state fights for basic human rights, and a political tug-of-war over our health insurance.
We need our own versions of Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Jackson Browne, The Clash, Bruce Springsteen--you want to tell me that they didn't want to move the world? That they didn't have a message that you are going to hear and by God learn from?
We need our songs filled with anger, frustration, worry, and hope. We need those voices articulating the feelings that we can not, made more poignant in ways that only music can accomplish. We need those emotions out where everyone can hear them.
We need earnest.
I mentioned a few of the artists I had on this CD, and my Dad smirked.
"Earnest," he said. "Earnest, earnest, earnest."
He didn't make it sounds bad so much as...cute. As if these singers were children who are trying so hard to be real musicians, isn't that precious?
I get what he's saying--almost every song by these artists does have this earnest, urgent note to them. These songs have a message, this message is important, it is the most important message in the history of the world, we are the first people to sing about this message, and, by God, you will hear it and you will be moved. This attitude is great, until you've continued it for more than, say, one whole album, or three songs per album. Then it just feels...false. Not like the artist doesn't mean it--they do, don't you ever doubt it! But they mean it too much, to the point where it stops to mean anything to anyone else.
Ever since that smirk, there's been a beetle in the back of my mind, buzzing about earnest. After a few weeks of this, I've decided on something:
We need earnest.
I don't mean the global "we", the "we" of the whole world ("The citizens of all nations need to hear this so they can understand their mistakes!"). I mean my "we". We, the generation that straddles Generation X and Generation Z--those born in the 1980's but raised in the 1990's and 2000's.
I tend to think that we were raised in one of the most cynical decades in living memory. The business- and money-focused attitude of the 80's was still present, but the realization that this capitalist way of life could not be sustained was beginning to set in with all the tenderness of an elephant settling on an hollowed egg shell. Just listen to the music of the 1990's--Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam, The Offspring. Their lyrics span from subtle cynicism to blatant bitterness. Our country experienced The Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton's scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and many other events that divided and scarred the country in numerous ways.
And that was just the 1990's. For me, ages 4 to 14.
Even from the very beginning, the 2000's have been a hard decade. They've been hard on everyone, but imagine coming of age in them. The past 9 years have brought upon three highly publicized and controversial elections, and a war that has divided the country in a way that we haven't approached since the Civil War. We experienced the attacks on September 11, which are to many of my generation what Pearl Harbor was to our grandparents, what JFK's assassination was to our parents. Our economy has crashed, and millions have gone from a safe, middle-class lifestyle to poverty, losing their jobs, their insurance, their homes, the lives they had become accustomed and attached to.
If any other teenagers and children had parents even vaguely similar to mine, they grew up listening to rants and rambles, yelling and crying. We grew up with hands being thrown in the air and eyes being rolled with disgust and hopelessness. We grew up hearing things like "What is this world coming to?" and "I can't believe this is happening," or even "What are we going to do?"
Every generation grows up with the combined hope and threat that they will be in charge someday. They will be the ones to take the reigns, clean up the mess, change the course of civilization, and so on and so forth. Growing up hearing that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, being told in the same breath that "this will all be yours someday"...that's quite a bundle to be handed.
So it any wonder that we've been drawn to music that has our voice, our worries, our hopes, our frustration? Songs like the all-star cover of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, American Idiot, The Lovers Are Losing, and Land of Confusion?. Songs with lyrics like "We're the new face of failure/Prettier and younger, by not any better of", and "Burning down the capitols/Wisest of the animals" and "People can no longer cover their eyes"?
Yes, the singers are earnest. Because we need earnest. We need hopeful. We need angry, we need dedicated, we need pissed off.
Every generation thinks it has it worse off than the one before, that it has better reason to be pissed off than the one before, that the previous ones will never understand what it is we're going through. To a degree, every generation is right.
Our grandparents were handed the Depression and World War II, bread lines and a military draft.
Our parents were handed Vietnam and its aftermath, Nixon and his lies.
We are handed the Iraq war, the aftermath of September 11, the bill for the environmental spending of the previous decades.
Every generation is given a country that is broken and needs to be made whole. And each time the country is handed down, like a quilt made by a forgotten ancestor, it is a little more threadbare, a little more stained, a little harder to patch up.
My generation currently has the ragged ends of yet another unwinnable war started by the previous controversial president, the worse economic recession in 20 years, an overburdened environment in danger of giving at any moment, state-by-state fights for basic human rights, and a political tug-of-war over our health insurance.
We need our own versions of Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Jackson Browne, The Clash, Bruce Springsteen--you want to tell me that they didn't want to move the world? That they didn't have a message that you are going to hear and by God learn from?
We need our songs filled with anger, frustration, worry, and hope. We need those voices articulating the feelings that we can not, made more poignant in ways that only music can accomplish. We need those emotions out where everyone can hear them.
We need earnest.
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