House Keeping

Could it be what we need is a backbone?  Could it be what we need is a backbone?  We want to believe that we tried.  Falling asleep is the weight of their eyes.  Slips away.

-“Spineless”, Jealousy Curve

I feel that I should leave you with songs that I enjoy.  Call it the gift of musical knowledge.

Finals week has been going well; in fact, I’d be willing to say that it has been the most enjoyable week of university thus far.  Each night, the cafeteria serves doughnuts and sweet cakes with coffee and tea.  My entire house will get together and try to seat fourteen of us at one circular table.  We end up sitting on each others laps and sharing chairs so that we can all be together, and it is well worth it.

The finals themselves haven’t been too difficult.  Yes, I spent much of the weekend and days past studying, but with plenty of breaks and times to visit with the friends that I will not see for a while.  There are two people in my house that I am particularly close to.  One left yesterday, and the other will not be coming back next semester because (get this) he’s going to Paris, Milan, London, and New York to do modelling work.  Remember that link I posted a while ago of the modelling pictures by my friend Aaron?  Well, this is him.  He was recently signed with NEXT New York, and they’re sending him to Europe for two months or so next semester.  So, he’s skipping out on second semester and will be back in the fall.  I’m so proud of him, and he’ll have a lovely time.  But I will miss him very much.  Much more than he’ll know.

Meanwhile in life, though, I’ve been reading, crocheting hats, and facing the fact that I will be back at home for three weeks.  I was writing in my diary about going home, and I mentioned that I feel like Harry Potter whenever he has to go back to the Dursleys for the summer.  That is exactly how I feel.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my friends back home and my family, but I simply can’t be at home for extended periods of time.  My bed is uncomfortable there, there’s so much noise, cat and dog fur clings to everything (even though I love them, it’s hard to look nice), and my family just…. well, we’re very different people.  It’s difficult for me to be myself around them or to talk to them about anything that interests me.  I try to talk about politics, but they only watch Fox News and are brainwashed by singular media (which, as a note, I collect my news from BBC each day, NPR, and random news stories and newspapers.  I prefer not to watch televised news or get anything from a single source).  I try to talk about crafting, but my mum doesn’t understand my version of style or crafts or painting.  I try to talk about current events, but their ignorance and closed-minded thinking shines through.  I love them; I just can’t be with them all of the time.

Remember, I’m very introverted, too.  My mum is very extroverted.  She needs to constantly be around me in order to feel close and wants me out in the living room and kitchen talking with her and watching the same television shows (which, mind you, are full of bias or sad looking animals.  And, seeing as how I lack empathy, that doesn’t quite work for me).  She doesn’t understand that, not only do I not need to talk to someone in order to feel close to them, but I would rather stay in my room and not talk at all if there is no reason to.  It’s something that she will never understand, as extroverts never understand introverts.  Luckily, I understand her, and I try (even though it kills me) to appease her and make her feel loved.  It’s the least I can do, and at the same time, the very most.

Yes, I fully admit that I’m a bitch, and a cold-hearted one at that.

Meanwhile in life, though, I saw The Princess and the Frog with my dorm-house yesterday, and it was quite enjoyable.  I may or may not write a review for it in the near future.  I’m also currently reading “French Women Don’t Get Fat” by Mireille Guiliano.  Though I haven’t finished it yet, I recommend it if you are looking into health books.  And, remember, health.  Not diet.  I don’t play into diet books or the like, as I think they’re total rubbish.  If you want to lose weight, push that our of your mind and try to get healthy instead.  After all, weight loss is only a side-effect of being healthy.  Once I finish the book, I’ll write a real review on it, as well.

Wow, one paragraph, and I’ve already promised to write two reviews.  While I’m at it, I may as well write a review for some music or something, though I think I’ll leave you with another musical quote instead.  And, should you catch an interest, that would be wonderful.

I hate to see a friend of mine,

Laughing out loud when she’s crying inside,

But you’ve got your pride.

-“Jealous of the Moon”, Nickel Creek

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Thanksgiving Break

It’s Tuesday, and I’m missing Kirksville.  My mum stresses me beyond all reason, and my waterbed is no longer as comfortable as it used to be.  My dorm bed has spoiled me, which is an odd statement to make.  Usually, people complain about those things…

Meanwhile, I finally got a car–my step-dad’s old Explorer.  It’s not much, but it will get me from point A to B, it has working heating, and the CD player is… well, there.  It’s not the best, trust me, but I’m still pretty happy with it.  The only downside was that it took a little time at the Licensing bureau to get all of the paper work ready.  And after that, I just renewed my license.  Ha Cha Cha–and it was a much better picture than last time.

Aside from my daily drivels, I’ve been cutting more and more meat out of my diet lately, and now I’m down to about one serving of meat per week.  It’s much healthier for you to cut down on meat, which is why I’m doing it (none of that obsessive PETA crap).  I’ll most likely be a vegetarian at the start of the new year.  That will give me a lovely goal for 2010.  I’m sure I’ll do fine keeping it up, especially with Aaron encouraging me; he’s already a vegetarian and often informs me that I might as well become one.

The cool thing with cutting down on meat, though, is that I’ve actually lost weight.  I lost six pounds (which really isn’t all that much), but I did lose two inches around my waist and went down a full dress size.  So, after getting home, I had to stop by the mall to get new jeans.  Size eleven definitely feels nice.  Plus, I actually treated myself to some Levi’s skinny jeans instead of Walmart’s sorry excuse for trousers.  So, much to Rebecca’s liking, I now have fitting jeans.

And pause.

Why would Rebecca care if I bought new jeans?  Well, it wasn’t the new jeans part, but she’s been trying to get me to buy Levi’s for the past three months now.  They’re good quality; I won’t deny that.  It’s just that, when I had looked at the Levi’s store a year ago, they didn’t have any skinny jeans above a size nine, and nothing in talls.  Being the five foot nine giant that I am, I was in serious need of thirteen talls.  But, now, not only do they have all sizes in skinny jeans and in talls, but I could buy the elevens.  Awesome time, seriously.

Anyway, time for dinner, even though it seems to early at 17.17; I like that time.  My mum made spinach lasagne for me, which is nice.  I’m honestly surprised that she has become receptive of my attempts at limiting meat.  That, or she just feels bad that I had to eat a chicken sandwich yesterday and it upset my stomach since it was too much meat.

Either way, I’m happy.  Let’s just wait and see how Thanksgiving goes, though.  After all–it is the holiday that’s celebrated with turkey…

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Skinny Bitch Review

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve probably heard the title Skinny Bitch thrown around once or twice.  Granted, you may not know what Skinny Bitch pertains to, but you’ve most likely heard of it nonetheless.

Skinny Bitch is a health book by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, two former Ford fashion models who have helped counsel models, athletes, and actors using their method of weight loss.  The book stresses that health leads to weight loss and not the other way around, and gives a smart-mouthed approach to getting in shape.  The back cover of the book basically sums it up:

“Stop being a moron and start getting skinny!  If you can’t take one more day of self-loathing, you’re ready to hear the truth: You cannot keep shovelling the same crap into your mouth every day and expect to lose weight.  Authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin are your new smart-mouthed girlfriends who won’t mince words and will finally tell you the truth about what you’re feeding yourself.  And they’ll guide you on making intelligent and educated decisions about food.  They may be bitches, but they are skinny bitches.  And you’ll be one too–after you get with the program and start eating right.”

I first heard about the book around a year ago and immediately bought it.  Unlike dieting books or fad eating habits, it actually pertained to vegetarianism and veganism because of health related issues rather than the usual “don’t eat meat–you kill animals” argument that I kept hearing.  It also had strong arguments for eating organic materials and really thinking about what you were eating and how those chemicals are going to affect you later.

So, I ended up reading the book over the winter and spring, and I must say that it honestly did change my eating habits.   It was direct about eating meat and its consequences, and it encouraged me to start eating only three or so servings of meat per week (a more healthy level when compared to my former three servings per day).  I also enjoyed that it was more about health in choosing to be vegan rather than just the Peta crap.

Though it ended up having a full chapter about animal cruelty while advocating veganism, it was interesting to point out the health concerns associated with animal cruelty.  When animals get scared, they produce more hormones, and upon hearing other animals dying in line, these hormones sky-rocket immediately before slaughter.  These hormones are still in the animals after death, and we end up eating them.  It’s one of the reasons that animal meat can make your heart-rate increase (not to mention the animal fats).

Another interesting thing pointed out was that high levels of protein are actually really bad for you (take that, Atkins).  Americans and Europeans eat several servings of meat per day.  In comparison, the rest of the world usually limits its meat intake to three times per week.  This is much healthier for your body since it decreases the amount of urea in your body.  The big thing about urea is that, when you eat large levels of protein, your body’s digestive process produces nitrogen waste in the form of urea.  Urea itself must be removed the from the body immediately, as it’s toxic.  So, have problems peeing to much?  Maybe you should lay off the meat.  It’s flooding your body with urea, and your body needs to use the restroom because of it.

Skinny Bitch also highlighted statistics of health when comparing meat eaters to vegetarians, how our bodies are not meant to digest meat, and how the government basically doesn’t give a shit about what’s in your food.  It stresses taking eating into your own hands, which we should anyway but rarely do.

Generally, if you are at all interested in losing weight, getting healthy, vegetarianism, veganism, or learning to filter your food, I highly recommend this book.  Just be prepared for some strong language and getting yelled at constantly by the authors.

Hopefully you’ll find this book interesting; I certainly have.  Enjoy.

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