Category Archives: Food

Blah. And some more blah.

Posted on 17 June 2010 | 2 comments

I need to start writing here consistently, and I need to finish the two book reviews that I started when I was in Florida. I need to paint the house. I need to finish the floors. I need to plan for next years’ classes. I need to work on my dissertation and meet with Debbie tomorrow. I need to spend time running. I need to write my presentation for the PCA conference in October. I need to revise a couple of essays and send them out to try to get them published. I need to give time to my friends and family. It’s slightly overwhelming, and all of this in a summer that I thought might be relaxed. I need to not be so overwhelmed by all of my activities, commitments, and self-assigned bullshit.

But, first, I need to finish these end of course assessments for the IEI at Ball State, which is where I have a summer assistantship.I am having a hard time getting motivated because it’s a bit intimidating to make assessments for courses you’ve never taught and probably never will teach, though I’d love to teach in the IEI. I think it would be very satisfying. As for my summer work, it’s different. It’s challenging. It’s fulfilling.

It’s different because I have never considered how to teach a language in a very short amount of time to someone who doesn’t speak it, much less if that person is beginning college or graduate school, which I think are very different considerations. I am not sure that it is as important to teach a graduate student how to keep a daily planner as it is to teach the same skill to a 19-year-old college freshman. All college freshman should have to take a study skills class, regardless of their ability to speak English or not.

It’s challenging because I have some very definite ideas about what students should know when they enter an English 103 or 104 classroom, and my ideas don’t necessarily jive with what the IEI instructors can accomplish in their seven or eight courses, which I believe are taught in seven weeks each. I could be wrong. Anyway, the classes go from fundamental (or survival) through communicative to academic. My task for this week is to design reading assessments for each course to test the learning outcomes for each class. This task is challenging when I have only learning outcomes, and no real grasp on or feel for the students. I said today when I was talking to the director of the IEI that this is challenging for me because I view language acquisition to be a much more organic process than academia views it to be. Think about how you learned language. Did you ever take an end of course assessment? Probably not, but then again, you weren’t trying to acquire a language in a few short months; you had years to do it.

Finally, it’s fulfilling because the end result is that people are equipped with one more skill that will make their lives in the US a little easier. I can imagine nothing more intimidating than being in a new culture without having command of the language of that culture. I by no means believe that all Americans should be required to speak English; we are far too diverse of a culture to require that. I do, however, believe that going to school at an American institution requires that you be able to speak, read, listen to, and write the predominant language of that institution and to be able to do it well. Particularly, the humanities require this. I am still trying to decide if getting a science, math, or another non-language-intensive degree should require a command of English, since we are in the US (I suppose the predominant language at some American universities is Spanish, Portuguese, or French?). I am leaning toward no, but it’s up for debate. At any rate, this summer work is fulfilling, too, because it’s forcing me to have to reconsider all those things I think about language. And, I am learning new things every day. Very good.

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I am at a point where I just want to lose weight, which makes me a very bad fat studies scholar. I love food too much. I love good healthy vegan cooking way too much. I could seriously eat all day long, but then I’d have to run all day long. And my foot’s been really funky, so I haven’t run at all, only walked. And not much.

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I want to write a list poem about freedom, or imprisonment as outlined in Sarah’s post. I just need time.

2 Comments

Posted in Dissertation, Fat, Food, IEI, Pedagogy, Reading, Running, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

Sunday, June 13

Posted on 8 June 2010 | 3 comments

Sunday, June 13 will mark one year of taking life seriously. It will be one year ago on Saturday, June 13 that I weighed myself when I got home from family vacation and decided it was time to do something about my lifestyle. I think the weight, a magical 256.4 pounds on my brother’s bathroom scale, was just the quantitative evidence of the feelings I had been having for quite some time. I have never been one to gauge my health or my happiness by a number on a scale, but I had been feeling particularly unhappy with myself for quite some time. This feeling of unrest had more to do with my inability to find clothes that fit, my disappointment with my level of physical fitness, and my general feeling of blah. I knew I needed to make some changes, so I said to myself that my changes were not going to be about losing weight, but about getting to a place in which I felt good both physically and emotionally. On Sunday June 14, 2009, I started running. Actually, what I started doing was walking. Slowly. I started by running 30 seconds to a minute and walking a minute in between each “run.” I built up to “running” 13.1 miles on May 8, 2010. I didn’t get the time I wanted, but I finished, and as a side perk my blood pressure is lower than normal, I’ve lost 40 pounds, and I feel a million times better.

I suppose since it’s been a year, it’s time to set some new goals. One goal I had already set for this year was to run a marathon the fall after my 36th birthday. I am maintaining it as a goal by signing up for one on November 6. Here is my list of goals for this year from June 13, 2010 to June 12, 2011 (they are in no particular order):

  1. Finish the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon on November 6. Running, walking, or crawling.
  2. Shave my head on June 13 and on the 13th of every month all year long.
  3. Contemplate things outside of myself. Cultivate spiritual wholeness.
  4. Have 75% or more of my students grow one academic year’s worth of growth during the school year.
  5. Finish two chapters of my dissertation.
  6. Run 1000 miles (3 miles per day). Run and walk a combination of 3000 miles (10 miles per day).
  7. Go vegan. Stay at least lacto-vegetarian.
  8. Learn to say only what is necessary. Listen more than talk.
  9. Read one new book and one magazine from cover to cover each week. Follow the news, in print.
  10. Finish painting the outside of the house.

3 Comments

Posted in Dissertation, Fat, Food, Goals, Grace, New Year, Running, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan

Things I Am Afraid Of or My Phobias

Posted on 18 April 2010 | 5 comments

The title of this post sounds a bit like an essay that I would never assign to any of my critical writing classes, but it is one that I would assign every semester to any creative writing class I might teach. I think this is a fascinating topic for many reason. One: I think our phobias say a lot about who we are. Two: By writing about our phobias, we get to explore not only what we are afraid of, but also why we are afraid of it. Three: Who doesn’t love delving a little bit deeper into her own psyche just to find out that the irrational fears she faces everyday are possibly very rational. Here are my phobias that I would like to one day write about:

  1. Haphephobia: A fear of being touched—I don’t liked to be touched for pretty much any reason. I don’t like to hug people or to have them walk up next to me and put their arms around me. So, if you have ever received a hug from me, consider your self lucky.
  2. Vaccinophobia: A fear of vaccinations—I think vaccinations are a ridiculous waste of time and money. We have diseases for natural population control, and we have vaccinations so large pharmaceutical companies can make money. Plain as that.
  3. Scatophobia: A fear of fecal matter—I don’t mind my own poop, but yours better not come near me. Also, I have a dog who I think is scatophobic because he literally runs away from his poop every morning.
  4. Pnigophobia or Pnigerophobia: Fear of choking of being smothered—This actually also extends out into a fear of drowning. Really I am afraid of not being able to breathe: drowning, choking, asthma, suffocation, or strangling.
  5. Nyctohylophobia: Fear of dark wooded areas or of forests at night—This actually has more to do with a fear I used to have when I had my Jeep. Whenever I would have all the windows and doors off, I was always afraid a deer would jump in when I was driving past a cornfield. It would then proceed to bite me in the next or hoof me to death. Since I love to camp, I think my fear has more to do with the deer.
  6. Gephyrophobia or Gephydrophobia or Gephysrophobia: Fear of crossing bridges—This only applies to really high bridges in interstates: The Chicago Skyway, a bridge in Milwaukee, the bridge to South Padre, one in Corpus Christi, and one in Dayton.
  7. Emetophobia- Fear of vomiting—Seriously, I will bargain with God to keep from throwing up. Ew.
  8. And, probably my most serious fear whose name I cannot locate: falling through the upstairs  floor into the level below—When I lived in an apartment on any floor but the first, sometimes I would have difficulty falling to sleep at night because I would worry about my bed (with me in it) falling through the floor into the apartment below. I would imagine myself waking up in the first floor apartment with its inhabitants staring at me. Now, since our bedroom is just above the dining room table, I think that the bed might fall through and land on the table and then the whole lot of us will end up in the basement with the cat litter pans. Ugh.

So goes my list of irrational fears.

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I am thankful for people who understand my idiosyncrasies.

Food: I ate everything in sight. It happens on the first day of, and the few days leading up to, your period. Sue me.

Exercise: See above sentence. I was too lethargic to exercise. Tomorrow, though, I am going to kick the heck out of five miles.

5 Comments

Posted in Food, Just for Fun, Just Random Stuff, Personal, Relationships, Running, Writing

I Wanna Live Here. I Signed Up.

Posted on 16 April 2010 | 2 comments

I was surfing around online yesterday and started fantasizing about living in Door County. More specifically, I imagined moving to Washington Island, though I am not sure what I would do for a job there. Hey, it’s a fantasy. It’s imaginary, so I can do whatever I want. I decided I want to live here. And then I thought, well, since this is a fantasy, I might choose this one. The only drawback is that it only has two bedrooms, so when people came to visit they could only come two at a time. 🙂

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I think I have been consumed by the running bug. I haven’t simply been bitten by it; it’s eating me alive, which isn’t a bad thing. Rather, I would say it is a very good thing. In fact, it’s such a good thing that I can honestly say I feel better than I have ever felt.

Even in high school when I swam all the time, I didn’t feel as healthy or as in tune with the world as I feel now. There is nothing that beats the feeling of running along next to the river, listening to the water slip past the jagged rocks slowly wearing them down, refining them. As I run, I think about how I, too, am being refined, polished.

Tomorrow is a 10 mile training run for the Indy-Mini which is only a few short weeks away on May 8. The 10 mile run is the longest training run on the plan, and I am going to try hard not to think about how it is only half as long as the longest run on the marathon training plan I have chosen. Really, there are twelve runs in the 18 week plan I have chosen that are longer than 10 miles. I just keep telling myself I can do it. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can, said the Little Engine.

Possibly the thing I love the most about running is the solitude of it. There is no way for me to deny that I love some time alone. In fact, I probably require more time alone than most people do, because it takes quite a bit of energy for me to be with people. There are some people I love to be around, who require little to no energy, but then there are others who just leave me feeling like a child’s new Christmas toy that has been played with until it doesn’t move anymore. A little rung out. In order to get over that feeling, sometimes I just need to get away.

On November 6, I am going to get away for about 5.5 or 6 hours while I run my first marathon. I know, I am a little obsessed with this topic right now, but I have to exult about the fact that I just registered for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. I spent $60 of my hard-earned money in order to run for a ridiculously long time. I suppose this will give me a measure of my ability to go the long haul. I think relying on my friends, like Molly and Nagelkirk, will be my biggest asset in this long, arduous process. I have to say that I am torn between wanting to rejoice and wanting to throw up.

Twenty-six point two miles.

26.2.

20+6+0.2

2 x 13.1

A really long way.

Here’s the course map: Marathon_Map_full_perspectiveWEB It should open quite nicely for you.

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Haphephobia: A morbid fear of being touched.

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I spent about two hours today working on my dissertation, and I plan to spend a couple more tonight. I think once I go through it one more time, it will be ready to send out to the committee. Excitement: I will send it out tonight.

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I am thankful for too many things to list today!

Food: banana, juice, short bread, iced coffee, bean/rice/veggie/cheese quesadilla, pasta, M&Ms

Exercise: walked the dogs two miles, eleven-mile bike ride

2 Comments

Posted in Biking, Dissertation, Food, Just for Fun, Relationships, Running

A Very Slow Run

Posted on 13 April 2010 | 8 comments

I decided this morning after trying to run four miles, and being very unsuccessful, that there are two things I will never do again. I will never skip my Sunday recovery run of three short, slow miles. I will never go out the door in the morning without first eating my banana, chewing my Gummi-Vites, and drinking my small glass of orange juice. I had no go juice, and I wasted a training run on recovering my muscles from Saturday. No wonder I have been so sluggish for the past couple of days; my muscles have been full of leftovers. I suppose it could’ve been the crappy way I ate yesterday, too.

Even though it probably doesn’t interest any of you nearly as much as it interests me, I have decided to run the November 6 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon for my first foray into an event that no one else in my family has completed. Neither my dad or my brother, in all of their athletic endeavors has done a race this long, so I am pretty excited about it. I wish I could get my brother on board with it, though. I think he would love it. But, I am pretty excited that two of my friends are thinking about being in for at least the half!

My goal this year is simply to finish the race. I am going to use this training plan.

Running.

Walking. Crawling. Rolling.

However I have to do it, I will finish. There is a 6 hour and 30 minute time limit on the course, so I have to walk or crawl at least 15 minutes a mile. Then next year, I can attempt to improve my time. If there is a next year.

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I am thankful for exercise of both mind and body.

Food: banana, juice, chocolate soy milk, one poptart, almonds, apple, pure bar, Mister Misty, candy bar, orange soda, cheese quesadilla, pasta with broccoli and homemade sauce

Exercise: walked the dogs, three hours of racquetball

8 Comments

Posted in Food, Running