Just one more note

Ok, so just one more note, brief(and that doesn't happen often) about the events in the news that have transpired the past week. What's really going on? People are just going off their knockers for all kinds of dumbness and nonsense (and when I say dumbness and nonsense, yeah I am talking about tea parties. Oh yes, I am. Because when I see and hear the people who are on the tea "brewhaha" brouhaha, it seems I find more underlying and subtle (and at times not so subtle messages) in their tea talk instead of a single and solid message for the purpose of their protest and disgust. I heard more of everything (in people's messages, tones, eggings) that of which was nothing related to taxing but their "true" feelings. I mean, tell me how you really feel next time ya dig? Reading between the lines was so obvious that the pollen floating and flying in the wind could see it (and I think I am insulting the pollen while I am it).

Wowsers

Wowsers, I did not realize the gap from my last entry to now, and given how I manage to average about 15 posts a month thus far, I have a feeling I will miss my average target. This is fine and dandy with me, especially given how April seems to be in overdrive. Classes end officially next week, and finals are right around the corner, and I have been lucky to have classes in which the finals were in the form of presentations and papers, sans 1. But don't be fooled by that, I am learning that the hard way. But regardless, I had to cancel plans I had made like 2 weeks (2 weeks in advance mind you) last weekend for Easter weekend to fix that particular homework. What happened was I received back a homework assignment pretty darn late, and it made a pretty big impact in preventing me even starting the next homework assignment related to it (because of all those wonderful mistakes in it), and that next assignment was due the following week. To make matters worse, when I was actually considering saying f it and take off out of town, a pretty bad thunderstorm, with big bad winds, clouds, thunder and nearby tornadoes(as in next state over, but I take these things seriously, ok?) swept through the area,which all but made a mice out of me and made me stay in at the crib. Needless to say, the very next day, around 3:30pm, I went into my icebox (a.k.a. my lab office) and stayed there until 3:30am the next morning. As you can see, its not as if I had hot dates lined up to compensate for said stay in the lab. It was pretty cool, I got a lot work of done that I probably would not normally do on any other given weekend. (Correction, THAT I HAVE NEVER DONE SINCE I HAVE BEEN IN GRAD SCHOOL). Hopefully I will be able to maximize either my Saturday or Sunday with said diligence. I just always loved, since I have been in school (taking it back to even my elementary days) when it seemed that throughout the semester the workload had always been lightweight like a feather, and all of a sudden with a month of school left to go, all the elephants and wildebeests seem to come down the grassy plains to give me some very unnecessary headaches and stress. But I have been doing good, and I have been getting by ok, even though my hair has taken a beaten. I didn't realize how real my hair would get without having put any kind of chemical relaxers in my hair since the new year has been in play (and since November if you want to get all technical and stuff). I can't wait though until school is out for me, because then all I have to look forward to is packing like crazy and driving like crazy and turning around and getting ready for this summer internship. Ha, so this is what I signed up for eh? Its cool though, ya dig? Well its back to trying to refocus my mind to keep working for another 5 to 10 hours on this homework assignment that's actually due today that I just started on, like today. (That's how time consuming the last 2 homeworks I had for this same class has been for me.In addition, I have averaged being in a computer lab on this computer program for at least 8 hours everyday this week.)Wish me luck, and hopefully by the end of next week, I will be able to start winding down, in the form of eating less paper and porcupine quills, perhaps, you know?

ok ok ok

So, as I sit in my on campus apartment watching the National Championship game, I realized that since its already past 11pm, I won't be going back to studying since I am trying to watch the game. Then I am still debating should I make my way over to Franklin Street for the excessive and hyperactive celebrations that will be going on after the game. Naw prolly not, I really am allergic to large crowds and the ignorance that can erupt at any moment. Its amazing how I did not lose my cool whatsoever while I was at the inauguration in January. I think if it wasn't for the fact that I was with my good friends, soror sisters, and honorary member, I would have been ready to go self-implode. So I said all that to say, I had a thought for my next blog topic, but my eyelids would not permit me to write it. So here goes tonight latest personal a-la-personal tat. I have never had a preference for guys, well any kind of explicit preference. This has been the case with the type of guys I have liked or fooled around with over the years. I don't know if it makes a difference whether there are certain defined qualities one would look for in a mate. I figure with some of my acquaintances, they would go for certain looks, certain lifestyle, or certain monetary attachments. But that never has been me. I think that my eclectic taste in men would have something to do with why I have issues with men as it is. I mean in general I go for black men and sometimes hispanic men(well just mainly Dominican, Puerto Rican from time to time, some others from time to time). I really don't have a height requirement, I realized that damn near any guy I meet over 95% of the time is going to be taller than me (I'm only 5'3). I seem to be a sucker for guys that wears glasses, I guess it just flashes intelligence to me (even though I know that's always the case). I also seem to like physics majors, ha go figure. I also have a tendency to be attracted to younger guys at this point or guys no older than 5 years than I am. So its like my cutoff period is 21-29 (maybe an exception for a 20 or a 30 year old). I remember this 34 year old man was trying to holla at me, the age thing bothered me from the get go but his stalker like tendencies even freaked me out even more. I also tend to gravitate to light skinned brothers, seems to be my Achilles heel at times (but don't think all the time), but even that doesn't trip me out too much. I do wonder why I seem to have a particular inkling for younger guys. Is it some kind of time warp I am stuck in, is it I really didn't realize the guy age, I was too busy oogling, or do my eyes really be playing tricks on me and people aren't quite as they seem? I blame that on the foods we eat with that last question about people not seeming to be quite who you thought they would be. But I will save that for another day. Well, the game is almost over, time for me to decide to go out and wonder about or just chill...

My biggest challenge

I am only 24 years old, and up to this point, I guess you can say I have had my share of ups and catastrophic downs. I feel that over the past 5 years, I have grown and changed as a person (since I have been on my own, not by choice though). I had to change schools in order to get my bachelors degree, had to disengage from certain family members in order to stay sane, decided on stalling going to work in order to get more education and so forth. But I think the biggest change I have had to deal with is facing the issues I have with my weight and my health. For the most part, I have been blessed not be affected with any serious health ailments. But I worry everyday about having too high cholesterol and somehow an early onset of cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. This is mainly because those 2 diseases are prevalent on my mother’s side of the family. And by me not knowing anything about the side of the family of the sperm that created me, makes me worry at times even more what other health conditions I could be more inclined to getting. That’s why, after I had spent a summer in Purdue for this research program, to change the way I eat. And even though I have not reached all the health goals I am aiming for, I feel that I have at least started down the right path. I have been trying to eat more fruits and vegetables in my diet everyday, cut down on fast food, and cut down on other foods high in sugar and fat. I do admit that a weakness I still have is eating burritos, particularly from Chipotle, but I am working on it (as my budget tells me so). I have for the most part stopped eating pork, cut down on the amount of red meat I eat, make most of my dinners from this healthy living cookbook I bought, and eat more turkey (turkey lunchmeat, turkey bacon, turkey burgers etc). And I have been trying to feverishly and passionately cut down on the foods that contain high fructose corn syrup (that stuff is the devil, even if there isn’t anything substantive that validates my claims of the pure evilness of this stuff) I do think at times I may eat too much at a meal setting and when I do run out of the healthy food, either because of lack of funds or time at the moment, end up resorting to eating food in the food court or Chipotle like foods to get by until I do get back to the grocery store. (At least at my last 2 grocery runs, I have not bought or ended up buying 1 thing at the most that HFCS in it, yay me!) But the one thing I have not been able to incorporate on a consistent basis is exercising. I feel that for me to have productive workouts I have to workout 2 hours everyday at a rec center, walking a mile on an inclined treadmill, doing the elliptical, arc trainers and sometimes bike, while doing many reps of triceps press, biceps, pull down, shoulder and chest press. To me, this is the kind of workout I could, even though I have to admit I don’t know how to exactly keep the intensity up after my body becomes adjusted to the workouts that I create. But that is beside the point, my biggest issue since I have been in grad school is overcoming the mentality I get when I get to working out like I do. I feel when I workout like I do intensely, I feel that I am not putting enough time into studying, because I seem to clock out early at night than I would usually do. So when I have this workout regime, by time the middle of the semester hits, I already feel behind in my class work or the workload has increased ridiculously that I feel I have to sacrifice working out, taking breaks during the day, or even reading the news in order to feel as if I am being productive doing my homework. And when I let this mentality set in, I end up ceasing to workout for weeks at a time, until something forces me to go back to the gym until the next round of my schoolwork mentality kicks in (usually finals or conclusion of major projects). So what is going to force me back to the gym this week, even though I have a ton of work to do? Stepping on my digital scale today, I somehow gained 8 or 9 pounds from the last time I was on there. And I have no idea how that happened, and its pretty startling just because the amount I weight now, I would be labeled by some as very overweight. But then I have this particularly linebacker type built body since I was a kid, and I don’t know. The only part of my body I feel insecure about is from my stomach on up, because I stopped doing sit-ups and now my gut just pushed out and I have the flabbiest arms ever. I do know that once for all, I want to feel better with the way I look, and at least be heart and cholesterol healthy if I can’t just drop the pants and shirt sizes. I said all that to say-um-well…other than I am actually pretty insecure about my body, which is totally the opposite of how I usually act (which is usually without a care in a world) and that once and for all I want my upper body to be muscular and not flabby like my lower body is. I know it won’t happen overnight, and I have to fight the urges of wanting to spend money on fast food and/or eating out, and for me and most importantly, exercising everyday, even if I can’t get to a rec center to workout. I am thinking that for the summer coming up while I am my internship, I am going to be on a salad diet, like all summer and see what happens. Well, my journey continues in trying to revolutionize how I eat and how I exercise. Stay tuned and wish me luck.

April Showers, Fools and I.D. Card part 2...

Picking up from part 1, so I am at the library, all the way on the top freaking floor going on a book safari for these books I needed for my research paper. I had a few of those back and forward moments looking for all the books because I didn't realize that the different call numbers on these books were all located on the same floor. So after obtaining all the books I needed, I proceeded to hop on back to the elevator, with books in one hand, backpack on thy shoulders and my student I.D. card in my other hand, ready to head to the circulation desk to checkout my latest books I found. While I was on the elevator heading down, I realized that the ride down was smooth (no one got on or off, no random elevator noises). So because of this smoothness, I started singing in the elevator (mind you it was just me), I believe I was singing “Here with Me” by Dido because that is one of my favorite songs to listen and sing to. So as the elevator stops on the 1st floor, I collect myself, and proceeded to get off the elevator. Some reason, I had to look out the elevator with caution, and as soon as I felt that all systems were a-go, I started to walk out of the elevator. But apparently the elevator either thought I was being too cautious getting off of it or it was in a bad mood or that the elevator doors just felt like hitting me. So yeah, the elevator door hits my left hand, which happen to hold my i.d. card, and next thing I knew, my i.d. card was out of my hands, apparently when the card fell, it fell in the gap in which the elevator door opens and closes along, and I could hear my i.d. card as it went down, echoing down the elevator shaft, singing to me (and I kid you not) "Bye, Bye, Bye" by N-Sync. I had this utter look of surprise, what the fuck and shitting bricks occurring all simultaneously. I could not believe what just happened with the elevator and what did to me and my student i.d. card. Realizing now that Houston we may have a problem, I had to go up to the circulation desk (Because that was the only way I was going to be able to check out these books)and ask for help. So I told the lady at the circulation desk what happened and she grabbed some keys and went to head to the basement to see if she could my i.d. card. So as she was gone, my mind was temporarily blank, to put it nicely. When she came back, she told me that the card probably ended up on the sub-sub-sub basement in the building and that they had no way of getting to it. (I was like shit). So she told me I am probably going to need to get an I.D. card, but that I could check out the library books by just showing another picture i.d. Well, because of my paranoia of losing my license/wallet really, I didn't have it on me, so I had to trek 2 buses back to my apartment to get my driver's license and trek another buses back to the library. I was able to get my library books, but in the midst of me getting back and forward, I realized that the building where my office is at automatically after 7pm (and it was already past 7pm) and that I needed card access to get to the floor my office is on. So I was like dammit, so first I had to trek back to my apartment and eat because my body was telling me that you might want to eat again, it’s been 12 hours already. After I ate, I was debating whether to take a chance to trek to my office, pray that the security guard was actually on duty, and use my infectious smile in hopes they would let me in. But in the long run, I decided to stay at the crib, read the books I had checked out for my research and jot some notes. But unfortunately, about 20 minutes later, I was knocked out on the couch, asleep. I had to go on ahead and call it a night at 10:30pm last night. But at least I woke up at 6am this morning to get the day going by getting my i.d. card replaced. (which is another side funny story in itself that I will save for a little later)

April Showers, Fools, and blasted I.D. Card-part 1

I had one of those "Ain't that a b^&%*" moments yesterday afternoon and through the evening. So the day got kicked off by me debating should I goto the weekly seminar series hosted by my department or go meet with the fellowship representative who happen to be on campus on yesterday over at the graduate center. Even though I actually wanted to go see this particular environmental law professor speak, I knew I had to go meet the representative from my fellowship consortium, cause you know, they are paying my way to be here (i.e. THEY ARE THE ONLY REASON WHY I EVEN HAVE FUNDING FOR GRADUATE SCHOOL!). SO I went, and she was there, along with the diversity coordinator for the graduate school and the student affairs rep. So essentially, the conversation was initially about protocol, paperwork, tuition and stipend being paid and so forth. And for some reason, I felt I had to give the people there a "Let me tell how I really feel" dialogue. I don't know what possessed me, but it seemed as if something in my mind was telling me its time to open up and express how I have felt thus far at this institution during my first year of grad school. And I tell you, I didn't realize how easy it would be for me to open up about my frustrations and growing sense (at times) of apathy for the institution, the department, and my program in general. Everyone seem to have this look upon their faces of wow, I did not know that was how you really felt. Now the diversity coordinator, I had talked to him on several occasions of certain incidents that occurred and he offered me advice. I hadn't told him of all the "wonderful" events that happened to me this semester. Needless to say, they were telling me that I should not feel apathetic, I should be receiving better mentoring from my adviser, that I should probably have some kind of definitive research topic by now and other things I brought up. Long story short, I have felt so much better, so much opened, so much, like my old me, that I had repressed in some way since I have been here.

It felt gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!!!! Anyway, so after that meeting, I headed to my research lab, and proceeded to get to work on this research paper for one of my classes that I got to get done. Then when it got closer to 5pm, I headed off to the soccer fields because I had an intramural softball game. Of course for a second Wednesday in a roll, the weather was just downright dreary and wicked with light sprinkles of raindrops. I was not totally a happy camper because I just washed my hair the night before and usually am not a big fan of getting wet because normally I get sick afterward. So I get to the softball fields, started throwing around with one of my teammates, ready to play,when we found out that we didn't have a game because one of the teams had been consistently forfeiting. So we ended up scrimmaging with each other, and I had a great time because I was catching pop-ups, and fielding good and throwing even relatively well. I miss playing softball, a lot. So after the scrimmaging and someone helping me get my softball back after it was hit into the construction site next to the fields, I proceeded to head to the main library on campus to check out books for my research paper. And let the adventure begin...