New Healthy Chapter?

I know this is going to sound like the same old song and dance, but bear with me… I think I really truly am going to introduce exercise into my daily life.

Since last week I’ve gone to four group exercise classes (Zumba and other cardio things) and I really like it! Of course I’m the most out of shape person in the room and I have to stop to huff and puff a lot, but that’s why I’m going isn’t it!

I am very unhappy with my body right now. The last time I tried to exercise, I started gaining weight, gave up and said fuck it, and just started eating junk. Now I am even bigger. This cannot go on.

Here are some things that I am going to do that I think will help me succeed:

• Schedule exercise time in to my week and stick to it.
• Go to as many group exercise sessions as I can, I really love having a teacher and this is the next best thing to having a personal trainer. I find that I learn best in classroom settings and thought I could apply this to workouts, so far it is going great!
• Try to eat more healthily
• Drink (more) water? idk I already drink a lot of water since I am a singer, but I could probably squeeze some more in!
• Take progress photos every few weeks.

Here are some things I am NOT going to do:

• Weigh myself. Last time I tried to get in a healthy routine (May/June) I weighed myself obsessively, and when I saw the scale going up instead of down, I panicked. I think now that my weight was going up because I was probably eating even worse because I felt like I could afford the extra calories? It could have been muscle, IDK.
• Judge myself physically. Although I’m not happy with my body shape, I should stop being preoccupied about the fact that I am the fattest one in the group exercise class. If I am there working out and I am eating well, this should improve.
• Set my expectations too high. In May I kind of wanted immediate results, even though I know that is impossible. These unrealistic expectations led to my downfall.
• Always eat food (especially junk food) when Jacob is eating. We are on completely different schedules. Sometimes when I pick Jacob up from work (around 10 PM) he wants to eat because he did not get to eat at work. Usually I have already eaten dinner at a normal hour. It is completely reasonable for him to want to eat at this time, but usually I just join along and eat too. Absurd! If I have already had dinner I should not eat again! Usually it is not very healthy food anyway! I need to get out of the mentality of poor college kid, eat everything you can. I need to get out of that mindset NOW and set better habits for myself in the future.
• Along that same vein, I should not eat when I am not hungry just because I feel like it’s dinner time and I ought to. Today I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, an apple for dinner, and there happened to be cake at church choir so I had a small slice. When I got home I immediately started making dinner because I thought the apple wasn’t enough. Two weeks ago I would have eaten that pasta anyway. But tonight in the middle of cooking it I realized… I’m not really hungry. Which is a good thing, because it is 9 PM! I can put that pasta in the refrigerator and eat it tomorrow for lunch. This is a completely new concept for me.
• Take progress photos every day or two. This is TOO frequent. I will not see any changes in two days or maybe even two weeks. I will probably wait four to six weeks to take progress photos and even longer if I cannot see changes. Taking photos too frequently will be discouraging.
• Eat late at night. I hear this is bad for your metabolism or something
• Drink soda……. ok maybe every once in a while.

Let me clarify that I’m not doing this specifically to lose weight. I just want my clothes to fit again! Also, I want to be healthy. If I change my lifestyle this way and I stay the same size, so be it. It will be worth it to know that I am now practicing healthy habits.

So, here is what I am at now: I weigh about 10 1/2 stone, or 66.7 kilos, or 147 lbs. This is definitely the HIGH of my weight range. I have not weighed this much in two years. my lowest, if you are curious, was about 9 stone 4, 60 kilos, or 130 lbs about 13 months ago. Honestly, I’d be thrilled if I got back to that… but it is not necessary.

Here is what I looked like then:

And here is what I look like now:

Absolutely disgusting, isn’t it?

Well…. wish me luck!

Pablo Picasso

Ok, I just find this so hilarious I have to share it….

A few minutes ago Jacob and I were talking about Hitler and I said how I thought that if he had become a truly successful artist he probably wouldn’t have gone into politics and thus the Holocaust would never have happened.

Jacob replied, “But he was a good artist!”

I said, “Yeah sure he was a much better painter than most people on the street but he could not have measured up to his contemporaries like…” I thought back to Art History class. “Dalí, Picasso…”

“Picasso!” Jacob interjected. “Picasso wasn’t active then!”

“Yeah, he was active in like… the 20’s and 30’s!” I insisted.

“Nuh uh!”

“Yeah Picasso died in like the 1970’s!”

“No way. That’s not true,” Jacob replied.

I quickly google’d Picasso and confirmed his year of death as 1973. “Babe, what time did you think Picasso was active?”

Jacob didn’t really have any idea. “I don’t know, like the 1700’s.”

I couldn’t believe how absurd that guess was. “Just picture a Picasso painting right? That’s not 1700’s, they weren’t doing that shit back then, that’s some modernist shit with eyes everywhere and crazy lines!”

For visual comparison, here is a painting from “like, the 1700’s”. It is a portrait of King George III done in 1762 by Allan Ramsay

Here is Picasso’s portrait of Dora Maar, 1937

So yes, I can see where someone who has not taken an art history class or ever googled Pablo Picasso would not know his active years, but this is CLEARLY not Classical art 😛 This is Cubism!

Today (technically yesterday) was my third anniversary with Jacob!

We didn’t get each other any presents… I’d much rather us save the money! And anyway, I already have everything I want now that he lives here. Tonight Jacob told me “I’m glad I moved up here” (Columbia) and it really made me happy because he hasn’t come right out and said that very often. He keeps those kind of sentimental thing to himself for the most part.

Another adorable thing he said was “Thanks for three years!” and I said “You’re welcome, let’s do it again! Starting… now!”

😀 I am so happy. Today and in my life in general.

How to spell “definitely”

1. spell the prefix “de” as in descend, deduct, define.
2. spell “finite” as in there is a finite amount of something
3. spell the suffix “ly” as in quietly, surprisingly, quickly
4. add together de+finitely+ly
5. definitely

Breath vs Breathe

breath [brɛθ] noun. the air inhaled and exhaled in respiration. ex) I took a breath.

breathe [briːð] verb. to take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire. ex) I like to breathe fresh air.

I have a secret grammar blog at fuckinggrammar.tumblr.com

The Best Moments Of The 2012 London Olympics – Video | NBC Olympics

This video is just

this is how I feel about the Olympics every day of my life omg my jaw is on the floor and I think I shed a tear

The Best Moments Of The 2012 London Olympics – Video | NBC Olympics.

Jailbreak!

I have finally jailbroken my iPhone. I was always afraid to do it and mess something up, but this weekend I was convinced. So far I am loving it! My battery goes out about twice as fast, but it’s so cool and fun that the perks outweigh the battery life. Here are some sweet screenshots:
Lock screen

home screen

pull-down notification center

This is me writing a text from notification center!

The Olympics

I know this post is coming a little late, about eight and a half hours before the closing ceremonies of the XXX Olympiad began, but I’d just like to say: I really love the Olympics.

Summer, Winter, Para, Special, I’ll watch it all! I really loved the London Games this year. I’ll admit I thought the Beijing games were better in almost every aspect, but not by much. It was amazing to watch Michael Phelps blast away the record for most medals ever won by an Olympic athlete! It was fun to laugh at Ryan Lochte’s stupid quips and his ridiculous sapphire, diamond, and ruby grill. It was stunning to see McKayla Maroney’s vaults, tearjerking to see the displays of sportsmanship that occurred among these international athletes.

And of course it’s rather nice to see USA get like a bajillion medals and “win the Olympics”.

A couple of my surprise favorites from these games were:

• Weightlifting: I first decided to watch weightlifting when I heard about Team USA lifter Sarah Robles. She posted on reddit and has a great blog. She was in the final weight class which didn’t lift until a week into the games. For the first week I would watch other weight classes in both men’s and women’s weightlifting. It was awesome! Sarah Robles ended up coming in 7th in the weight class, which is so awesome for an American! We are not at all dominant in that sport. She will go far in Rio.
• Archery: I watched less of this than weightlifting and did not have a specific favorite to watch. Again, we are not dominant in this sport. But, we did get men’s team silver! I did enjoy watching Archery whenever it was on.
• Usain Bolt: I already knew Bolt was a great runner, but I was worried that he might be a cocky asshole like Ryan Lochte. Not so! Bolt is a great philanthropist and has a wonderful sense of humor and sportsmanship. I love this guy!
• Oscar Pistorius: Up until I watched an NBC biospot about Oscar, all he was to me was the controversial paralympic runner. After watching the biospot, though, I learned that he is a really great, nice, smart guy and genuinely a talented sprinter regardless of his physical differences. I was cheering for him in the track and field events, even though I was worried about the controversies that would arise if he won a medal. Well, he didn’t make it to the semifinal of the 400m, and South Africa came in like last place in the 4×400. Crisis averted. However, his bib-exchanging with James was one of the most touching things I’ve seen and I think it really showed what the Olympics is all about.
• Rhythmic Gymnastics: ok, so this isn’t a surprise really because I’ve always been a fan of rhythmic gymnastics, another sport in which America is not dominant (we didn’t even have a team; we sent one individual competitor but I didn’t even see her!). However, rhythmic gymnastics came on while Jacob and I were entertaining friends, and everyone really liked it! We muted the TV and put on dubstep… Let me tell you, it looked really cool to dubstep. The surprise for me with rhythmic gymnastics this year was that I was able to enjoy it with friends. Usually I am watching the Olympics all alone, as no one seems to be as interested as I am 😦

I sure do hope they stream the Paralympics online. I will watch as much as I can when I’m not in school! 15 days until the Para games and 543 days until the Winter games in Sochi!!

To end, here is a pic of me holding one of the torches from the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Songs I wrote

I should probably write on this blog since I’ve made it haha ok here are some art songs I wrote for school (not me singing)

1. Schwanenlied
2. The Coolin’

The Coolin’ is actually quite good