Random Musings on Being Home and Whatever Else Comes to Mind While I'm Sitting Here

Don't mind the Fall Out Boy-esque title to this post. It just happened. Normally, I prefer a concise title. But the current one seems to reflect my general mood right now.

So! I'm home! I know I technically already posted something after being home, but it wasn't really about being home, so it doesn't count as much. You know, I cannot believe it's Thursday. The days are flying by me without me having a chance to say anything about it. They just disappear! I swear!

Well, as far as news goes, I am (as you might have heard) on a diet. A really rockin' and effective diet, but as a first time dieter, I'm absolutely dying. Now first let me explain how this diet works. It's called Ideal Protein, and it's a phased dieting system where you start off cutting out not just sugar, and not just carbs, and not just fat ... but all three. That's right, folks. I'm on SERIOUS restrictions here. A typical day looks like this:

Breakfast: Protein shake, or Ideal Protein pancakes

Lunch: 5 oz. of some protein, and 2 cups of vegetables

Snack: Some Ideal Protein snack, such as apple cinnamon soy puffs, peanut balls, barbecue chips, or lemon bars. ***

Dinner: 5 oz. of some protein, and 2 cups of vegetables

In case you hadn't noticed, yes, this diet (in the phase I'm in right now) is fruit free. And I drink so much water that I'm in the bathroom like 4 times an hour. It's kind of heinous. As far as other rules go, I don't have to eat everything exactly when it says to eat it. Often, I only have a cup of veggies during meals and use the other cup to stave off the hunger monster during other times of the day (since I am basically a 100% all-the-time-hungry kind of girl. Really. Little known fact: I am rarely not hungry). I'm also allowed to eat as much lettuce as I want! (Yes, my diet now matches my rabbit-teeth, thank you for noticing :D) Often, we (since my mom, dad, sister, aunt, and grandma are also on the diet) boil some rhubarb chunks and serve them up with Splenda, cinnamon, and a dash of vanilla. It kinda tastes like pie at first, and then eventually it's so sour and you've eaten it so many times that it starts to lose a little bit of its glory. We also have cabbage with rice vinegar, Splenda, and soy sauce. This is pretty tasty as well--for diet food.

That's becoming quite the caveat in my eating experiences recently. Such as, "It's good ... for diet food." Because who are we kidding, THIS CRAP ISN'T GOOD. It's just good enough that we're willing to choke it down for a few weeks to get rockin' beach bods (and yes, that's what I plan on having).

So how does this diet work? Well, basically because you're eating, like, nothing, your body goes into ketosis. Ketosis is when your body stops running on the food you're taking in and starts running on the fat that's stored on your body. You stay on this until you've achieved 90% of your weight loss goal, and then move onto the next phase. I haven't watched the video for it to explain all the scientific mumbo jumbo, but I know it also gives your pancreas a rest, and is enormously effective. I've never felt so in control of my weight before. Just to give you an idea of how effective this is, my grandma has lost 60 lbs. since January, and she is skinnier now than she's been in my whole memory. She's tried so many diets, but this one actually worked. And basically as soon as you start getting chunky again, you just go back into ketosis (and the Ideal Protein products aren't actually necessary for this) for a little while, and bam--the weight's gone. I've only been doing it for a couple of days, and I haven't been religious about my scale-checking, but I'll let you know how it goes after a week. I'm so excited!

Oh! I almost forgot! You might have noticed a few stars/asterisks (***) after my snack section in the daily menu. Let me explain: these are some of those "for diet food" snacks. For example, with those barbecue chips, there's a weird, meaty aftertaste (apparently that's what protein tastes like. Yum). Now, I've managed to put up the things that are actually really good for diet food. I haven't had the apple cinnamon soy puffs yet, but I hear they're pretty bomb. The peanut balls ... well, they're kind of like peanut butter around a malt ball (ex. a Whopper), but it's slightly more granular than a malt ball. And those little puppies are delicious. I would eat them by the bucket if they were eat-as-much-as-you-want. The lemon bars are actually like granola bars, but they're lemon poppyseed, so the inside's all grainy and poppyseedy, and then there's a lemon frosting-like thing that it's been dipped in. Oh, baby, it's really good ... for diet food. What I didn't mention were the puddings (even my mom, with an experienced dieter's stomach of steel can barely choke those down without serious doctoring). And in case I didn't clarify, those barbecue chips could curl your big-toe hair (assuming it isn't already curled ... ).

Other downsides to this diet include:

• Price: each snack or other meal replacement item is $3 a pop. Which I suppose is okay because it's supposed to replace a meal, but at the same time ... yikes!
• Halitosis: one of the signs of ketosis is stinky breath. And it's not just your everyday stale morning breath. It's like someone parked a Port-O-Let in your mouth. Just sayin'.
• Fatigue: because your body is running on its own fat stores, you get pretty tired pretty easily. I haven't noticed this as much because I haven't really tried to do much since I got here, but my sister will vouch for this. I might also be having headaches, but there are other possible explanations for that too, so I'm not sure.
• Bathroom: I hate being in the bathroom. I will avoid it for as long as I possibly can, basically subduing the gotta-go feeling until the pipes are ready to burst. Unfortunately, because of the huge amount of water I need to be drinking in order to process all the protein I'm consuming, I'm in the bathroom all the time. (Think Zac Efron in 17 Again talking about being hungry, which, oddly enough, is also how I feel.)
• Being Hungry: my parents aren't having as hard of a time with this, but my sister and I are just on the verge of death with hunger. And since I have little to do, I have little to distract me. Also, I keep ending up at the grocery store where everything looks delicious. I have been craving homestyle mac'n'cheese for days now, and there's been a bag of rolls making googly eyes at me since Monday night.
• Cheating: on this diet, you can't cheat. You can't have a lovely cheat day and say, "Okay, well, I'm going to treat myself to a little bit of cake today because I've been doing so good these past few days!" No. You can't do that at all because it kicks you out of ketosis, and then you lose all your fat-burning momentum. It's not worth any of the things you're suffering (see list above) to suffer the effects of cheating. So that bowl of jelly beans that I've been hiding in the cabinet ... yeah. I can't even pop a couple of those because the sugar might throw my body out of ketosis and ruin everything. And my goal is to lose my 90% of my weight loss goal as fast as freaking possible so I can get back to eating real food.

So yeah. That's the stat on the diet. I hope it works, and quickly. I actually really think it's awesome, and ... yeah! Hoorah for diets! :)

I also went on a couple shopping trips over the past couple of days. My mom had a meeting up in Columbia, so my grandma and I hit the mall. I looked gross, and therefore had no intention of buying anything (plus I kind of expect to go down a size or so, and I don't want to buy clothes that are going to be too big in a couple of weeks) ... But I confess I did. Remember this Seventeen cover from like 2 years ago?

Me too. It's awesome, and the best part of the whole thing is that necklace that she is wearing. I have been coveting a necklace of such style--huge, flowers, multi-colored, kind of flat in the way that it lays on you--since I saw that cover. And I am proud to say that I finally have one. Now, it's not exactly what TSwizzle's got going on, and it's quite a bit more gold than that one. It's got a chain-mail-y base with these big gold flower charms that have fake diamonds in the middle of them, and then multicolored beads all over. Sounds ghastly, I'm sure. I'll take a pic on Sunday (when I will wear it for the first time) and post it so you can see what I really mean. It's quite the necklace, let me tell you.

I also managed to acquire a grand pair of shoes. I can't find a picture of them online (or the necklace), but I will probably also wear those on Sunday in which case there will also be a picture of them. They're darling. Floral, bright colors, a really nice brown leather for the straps, kind of a wedge-type heel, and a big yellowish green flower right on the front. Peep toes, of course. So cute. Can't wait for you to see them. They're more flattering than almost any shoe I've ever worn, not just because they make my feet look tiny, but because they just plain make my feet look good. And when do my feet ever look good?? Passable, sure, but good? Rare enough that I can't think of a time that they actually looked legitimately good. I'm stoked to wear them; I think they'll go together smashingly!

Hmmm .... other things, other things. Well, I've got a job, or should I say jobs, and some quite resume-pumping work at that. It's pretty exciting stuff.

Also, I can't believe it's Thursday/almost Friday. I feel like it was just this morning that I was thinking, "Wow, it's Tuesday! Josh flies out today! We were just sitting in his kitchen a week ago, being shocked that he was going to fly out in a week ... and now it's here!" Only now it's been two days since then, and I can't figure out how time is moving so quickly! I feel like I must be sleeping through my days or something. I guess they're all just so lack-luster (and I've been kind of not exactly changing my clothes too much every day) that they're all just melting together.

Well, I suppose now's the time to post. This has been really long-winded and silly and pointless, but that's what happening in my neck of the woods (thank you, Al Roker, and too many hours of the Today Show this morning for that little phrase) ... Toodlepip! :)

This Must End

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged anything in the past month. I owe this to the fact that I was overcome with some sort of self-consciousness since there were people (besides the people who always read it and/or hear about almost everything I write about anyways) who were reading it. I know you aren't judging me, so I don't know why I got so self-conscious about it, but I did and that's the truth. So I have about 50 (no actually it's only like 5) drafts piled up in Windows Live Writer that are just waiting to be finished, because I can't really compile my thoughts suitably. Basically I just didn't like what was coming out. However, I've come to the realization that I really need an outlet. I've been going crazy over the past couple weeks, and I think it's because I haven't taken the time to write my thoughts down and clear out all the excess gunk in my head so that I can actually function like a normal human being, which is what I'd really like to do with myself right about now. I can no longer keep these things to myself. The silence must end. NOW.

So I have a couple of things going through my head right now, the first of which is my sociology class. It's just Soc 111, nothing special. I mean, I really like the class and I think it's totally great, and I found out that Jake Heaps is in my class today, which is kind of interesting I suppose. Anyway, we had these big old papers due a couple of weeks ago and we just got them back today. Which wouldn't have been a big deal, except that I found out that my printer sabotaged me. For those of you who don't comprendo, here's what happened:

The Violent and Tragic Destruction of Page Four

Yeah. I turned that in. (Moment of Irony: "Dancing Through Life" from Wicked just came on my iTunes, and the line that says "mindless and careless" played right as I uploaded these photos. Well said, Fieyro. Thanks for pointing out my own idiocy.) I mean, do you see how heinous that looks?? It's so embarrassing that I let that slip under my radar. I should know better. This happened to me once in my first semester, and it was just as embarrassing, only less because I actually knew the person who was grading it. (Why is it more embarrassing when a stranger grades it??) But yeah. How could I let it happen? I remember being in such a hurry, and that I was a tiny bit late to class that day... Gosh. Lesson learned. I no longer trust my beast of a printer, not a bit.

In other news ... I had a great moment last night after Heather and I went on a walk last night. We ended up getting home at like 1:00, and I stayed up doing who knows what until like 1:30-1:45ish. I go into the dark bedroom and proceed to prepare myself for bed. Being that it was dark, I had to turn my lamp on, which totally woke Natalie up. I really didn't mean to, but I didn't adjust the angle of the lampshade as well as I thought I had, and it was terrible. To my surprise, however, she sits up a little bit and starts talking to me.

"What did you win?" she asks. I, of course, am confused as heck. What did I win? What on earth is she talking about?

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say back, continuing to change into my pj's.

"She had a Wheel of Fortune thing out there. What did you win?"

I still am extremely confused, but also extremely tired, so I kind of ignore the question and keep getting ready for bed.

"By the way," Natalie says to me, "This isn't dream talk. I'm awake."

Oh really?

I give some kind of non-committal response and go brush my teeth. By the time I'm done, she's asleep again and I go to sleep.

This, of course, is not the end of the story. As I'm putting on my makeup this morning, Natalie comes in to do the same and asks me, "When did you go to bed last night?" I tell her that it was 1:30, 1:45ish that I went to bed.

"Did I try to talk to you last night?"

Oh yes. Yes, you did. I told her this, at which point it became very funny. I admit, in the middle of the night, I was more confused than amused, though it was a funny moment. It was one of those moments when exhaustion made everything less funny rather than more funny. Once we were both fully aware that she was totally like, dream-talking to me, we both laughed. Like I said, it was funny.

This brings up something else that I'd like to talk about. Have you ever had a moment when you have been trying to nap, or have accidentally fallen asleep, or you're trying to go to bed, and then someone wakes you up or says, "Oh yeah, she's asleep," but you find yourself either suddenly conscious, or you simply hadn't fully fallen asleep? I know it's a confusing way to put it, but I think you understand. You're all intelligent folks. Have you ever noticed that whenever this happens, you often feel this sudden need to alert everyone around you to the fact that you're awake? It seems so important! They have to know that you weren't asleep. Never mind the fact that you're completely incoherent and the only thought that IS forming in your head is "I'm awake. They have to know I'm awake." All the while, you're just proving that you're totally not awake OR coherent. So silly, and yet it always seems like such an urgent matter... Funny.

In other good news, the BYU Bookstore had a $1 Book Sale! It was great. I didn't even know it was happening, and then this girl who was at a focus group that I went to (which I'll tell you about in two shakes) told us that she went to it. And I was like, "BOOKS FOR A DOLLAR? Sign me UP baby!" So I went with my awesome amiga Katie, during the time that I should have been in class... but the focus group was gonna make me 15 minutes late anyways, and I think it's so rude to interrupt class like that, especially a class with only like 30 people in it, that I just can't do it. So I skeeeeeped. Whatever. No big deal.

Anyways. I'm going around and I find all of these great books. Like FIVE great books that I want super bad. And I think to myself, "It's so great that I have been keeping my wallet in my backpack lately!" (I usually don't, because I usually leave it in my purse, also because I don't want to have money for food when I have food at home that I can eat.) And then I realize that no, I do not have my wallet. I had to lend Natalie some money last night so we could pay our electric bill and my wallet wasn't there. So I think, well if Katie has money with her, I can pay her back pronto once I get my wallet. Alas, Katie's wallet is not in her backpack either. Desperate for these books, I head to the register to beg this girl to hold the books for me. Then I see my friend Glen from Missouri who happens to work at the Bookstore. The girl, of course, tells me that she can't hold the books for me. I try to explain that it'll only be 15 minutes and I'll be back with my wallet. She still can't do it. Glen, naturally, hears my predicament and offers a suggestion: that I hide the books in a box underneath one of the tables and then put another box on top of it. So that's what I did. I then ran home to grab my wallet.

By this time, I've got a time crunch because I wanted to walk home from class with Rachel, so I needed to go and get my wallet, get back to the Bookstore, buy the books, and get back over to the sound circles in front of the JFSB at 12:50. Naturally, when I get home, my wallet is nowhere to be found. I look everywhere I can think of, including my bed and the closet where the washer and dryer are. But all my searching is in vain. I'm starting to get antsy, and my brain is saying, "God doesn't want you to have these books!" and my heart is fighting with my brain saying, "BUT IT'S GOOD TO HAVE BOOKS! AND THEY'RE ONLY A DOLLAR!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!" I start sending out frantic text messages to my roommates, trying to figure out if any of them saw it or know where it went. But it's no good. No one knows where my wallet is, and I'm starting to have horrible visions of people going under the table, pulling out the top box, and finding all five of my darling $1 books in the bottom box, then laughing as they twirl their curlicue mustaches and cradle my books beneath the sheath of their black cloak (total Bowler Hat Guy style). Terror was running through my veins. It was horrendous. Just as I'm about to give up, I see a bump under the rug. Lo, and behold, tis my wallet. So I ran back, retrieved my books from the box (you can't imagine my relief when I saw them there), purchased them, and ran to meet Rachel to walk home. It was great. Here's what I bought:

Snapshots by Michal Govrin

The Work of Print: Authorship and the English Text Trades 1660-1760 by Lisa Maruca

Sky in a Bottle by Peter Pesic

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris by Alicia Drake

Flaubert: A Biography by Frederick Brown

Quite the mix, wouldn't you say? I'm actually really excited about all of them. The first one, Snapshots, was translated from Hebrew, and it's written by an Israeli woman who has won every single one of Israel's literary awards. The Work of Print is more historical, and talks about the changing concept of authorship and print culture during the Enlightenment period. Then there's Sky in a Bottle, which is also kind of historical, and talks about the changing understanding of the answer to the question, "Why is the sky blue?" through history, art, science, and the works of classical philosophers. Sounds fascinating, no? The fourth one, The Beautiful Fall also sounds interesting. I've never read a book about fashion and stuff before, and it looks super cool. The last one, Flaubert, is probably going to be the hardest read of all, but we just learned about Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary in my French class, and it sounds like he had a kind of crazy life, and I'd like to understand more about him. So that'll be cool. But yeah ... pretty fun, huh? I'm stoked to read them. Also to amass a larger collection of books. I love books. Oh so very much.

Anyways, on to the focus group stuff. Today, as I was hanging with Rachel and Katie and we were chilling on some of the couches on the third floor and I'd accepted the fact that I was absolutely not going to get to take a nap when a man walks up to us and asks us if we're doing anything over the next hour and would we like to attend a focus group with some consultants from the East Coast. We said okay and followed him into a classroom where there were a couple people hanging out in front of some blueprints of the Wilk and a computer with a slideshow going on it.

The purpose of the focus group was to discuss how students use the Wilk currently, and what could be changed to make the Wilk more appealing to students, and what might draw them to the Wilk during the evenings, most particularly on the first floor in the Post Office/Bowling Alley/Outdoor Adventures area. It was actually really interesting to think about why I go the places I go in the Wilk, what kinds of changes I'd like to see, what kind of changes they're thinking of making, and what I liked and disliked about the proposed changes.

And let me tell you, those changes look COOL. The study won't be over until January, and then I'm sure it'll be some time before they actually put those changes into action and actual construction, but I really want to be here when they happen so I can actually use them. They really look awesome, and they could make that area down there so hoppin' I would probably never want to leave. Okay, that's a total exaggeration, but it is going to be awesome. Be so excited for the future, guys! It's gonna be FLYYYY :)