i have a couple of bones to pick

So first off... if you're paying less than $3 a loaf for bread, chances are high that you're eating high fructose corn syrup. Even if the bread is trying to pass itself off as wheat and healthy, it's really not: it's going to have bleached flower and HFCS. One must pay at least $4 a loaf to get bread that has honey or sugar in it instead of HFCS. My biggest concern is that i don't want to pay $4 a loaf and discover that the wheat or 7-grain that i just purchased tastes like cardboard and makes me want to spit it out and let the whole loaf mold so i can feel all right about throwing it out. This is a waste of my precious time and money.

Secondly, i came home, and saw the end of Ironman, and it was meh. i plan to watch it but right now i'm just too mad because i got on WoW and was invited to Naxx where we merely wiped repeatedly on the same boss for an hour. And a friend promised to tank some heroics for me but he wouldn't stop complaining about his new slutty gf. So i'm trying to tell him to stop asking out slutty girls and he won't listen to me. He decides instead to get off WoW, after leaving me hanging for half an hour, and continue to try to call his gf, who is talking on her phone to another guy.

Anyway, it occurs to me while i'm watching Ironman that Stan Lee totally ripped off Robert Heinlein. i mention in guild chat that i didn't like the movie Starship Troopers because of the gratuitous boob shots and the fact that the grunts were all supposed to be wearing outfits just like in Ironman. No one says "good point" or "that would have been awesome... an entire army of Ironmen fighting bugs." No, the new guildees that suddenly appeared while i was taking time off because i was tired of being the only person that was on (save one or two others that don't even talk to me), says "What's wrong with T&A?" And the friend who's complaining about his slutty gf says it's okay for girls to be sluts if they want to. Then he complains about how hard it is to be a virgin because all of his friends aren't and tease him about it. What an idiot.

i am so tired of trying to have fun and just getting mad and depressed.

Cto5k W6D3 Complete!

I'm sure there are those of you who are wondering what happened to my Tuesday workout. Well, to be perfectly honest, i wasn't feeling well, and it seemed more important to blog and then get to work on time. i wasn't exactly sure why i felt less than at my best: i mean, i still had energy, but i have had a runny nose and frog in my throat on and off for weeks (that i attribute to the cold weather and running in it). But at work i could tell that my back was more sensitive than usual and i just felt... meh.

On Thursday it was still cold, too cold for me to feel comfortable to running outside at least (i like it to be in the 40s at the lowest), so i headed to the gym again. The workout was twenty-five minutes straight (wow, i was thinking it was twenty!), and i felt like i was taking it easy for a change, but i kept my heartrate on target or a little below, and finished the workout feeling good. In fact, i ran 2.6 miles for the first time ever! i definitely feel like i'm making progress when it comes to how long i can run, and the distance is rising, but i still feel like i'm running at a snail's pace.

The discouraging thing is... i gained a pound. Now, per my Tuesday experience and the surprise that i got that night (early being the operative word here), i'm hoping that i am experiencing PQS (that is to say, Pasta Queen Syndrome, as archived here, here, and here, as well as in other entries, i'm sure) and will next week discover that i magically weigh 230, but i'm not going to hold my breath. The nice thing that i have discovered is that i'm getting my bubble butt back. No, i will never have a perfectly round toosh like Megan used to (pre-Alice and Joshua) and Katie does, but i am noticing a nice lift and rounding out due to the increased size and strength of my glutes, especially right after a run (before my muscles have started to relax again). To be perfectly honest, i had a hard time keeping my hands off after discovering this yesterday, it's really nice to discover, and it is progress... i haven't had a nice bum since i was doing Tae Bo six days a week.

So, um, better stamina, better fitting clothes, but still in the same clothes, and still no decrease on the scale numbers. ): Maybe next week?

new name for the blog

Yes, i'm borrowing a phrase from Wordsworth, as well as using a word that i learned from Shelley. It seemed like it was time for a change, and i am breathing poetry at school right now. (:

just what is in the stimulus bill? (part 2)

Jamie Dupree has been up since the wee hours of the morning figuring out the answer to that very question. The obvious truth is that few if any are going to know all that is in it before it is voted on, not with the push to pass it through the House tonight because Pelosi has a trip that she's leaving on within the next couple of hours.

i wish i could dissect this, but i need to write a paper. ): Rest assured, i will be looking into this in more detail, whether the bill passes or not (like it's not going to pass, pfft). Meanwhile, the computer lab is freezing! Even though it's snowing outside it's colder in here than out there; it's like the air conditioner is on or something.

just what is in the stimulus bill?

i've been meaning to write on this for a while, listening to Boortz this morning on the way to class got me riled up.

Ever ask yourself why Obama wanted Daschle? Well it's because of his health care reforms as outlined in his book Critical. Boortz talked about this Bloomberg article. They basically want to federalize health care and take the decisions about care out of the hands of doctors (because they are apparently inept). This is what i was talking about a year ago in Sociology and everyone there thought it was a good idea. The federal government is going to get everyone's medical records on file electronically in a database. And, this won't be "painless" because senior citizens basically need to just accept the fact that they're getting old and realize that they're not going to be getting those surgeries anymore because they're not cost effective. This is the "much needed health care reform" that all the Democrats has been talking about, denying the elderly care and only providing care for anyone if it's cost effective. In other words, Joshua probably wouldn't have gotten those tests at all when he had the lump on his head.

More about the stimulus bill outlining just how our money is being wasted. Basically the only people getting relief directly are those who are on welfare and don't pay taxes to begin with. If i had the time i could probably dig more and find dirty fingerprints all over every one of these programs. The horrible thing is that these programs will not be temporary, they'll become part of the federal government, and few if any will stimulate the economy.

This is also on the heels of the bill that now pays for uninsured children's healthcare and is only the beginning. Of course, Obama signing this caused him to break his promise that he will wait five days before signing a bill into law. The way that he has been pushing the stimulus plan, do you think it will even take him three hours to sign it if it passes? No way, he'll be pulling out the pen within the hour. Of course, he's been touting this as an emergency, but that doesn't explain the other circumstances.

Why is the transparency important? Why does Obama want the stimulus package to be pushed through quickly? Because he doesn't want people to find out what's really in it, discover how vague the language is, the massive changes to government it would cause, the massive debt it would put us into, and start to speak out against it en masse. It's the same reason he wants the military to swear allegiance to him instead of the Constitution and to bring the Fairness Doctrine back. Obama wants bigger government, more control, and the freedom for himself alone to do what he decides is good for our country. His definition of what is good for our country scares me.

i hate February

i am really, really tired of being single. i don't know that i even have time to date, i barely get my homework done, and what i do read doesn't stay in my head long enough to pass a quiz on it. i'm tired all the time... last night i was falling asleep at the keyboard, so it's just as well that the people i meant to interact with were absent because i was in no shape for any real conversation. But still, i hate being alone. Of course, i always have been alone, so a part of me wonders how i can even know that i would like being in a couple. When i think back on those two weeks... i was mostly reveling in it, but a part of me knew that it couldn't last, that it wasn't real. And of course another Valentine's Day is about to pass, i still have never been on a date, i'm inundated with advertisements for roses and Vermont teddy bears and pajamagrams. i wish that it was all over with, because i hate the superficiality of all that junk, and yet i can't help wishing that just once i could experience that and actually feel some happiness about it. In U.S. Lit we read Dickinson, and our teacher confessed that she would love to receive one of the poems in a Valentine (might have been this one, i'm not sure). Today, in Brit Lit we read Lord Byron, and i felt the same.

i responded to a personal ad today: i thought it was written by someone i knew. For about an hour and a half i had some hope, not that i was expecting anything... but that hope is already gone. Anonymous e-mailed me back and isn't interested, and he isn't the guy that i thought he was. So do i pursue the guy (that i thought he was)? i've been thinking about it for a while. i don't want to be the pursuer, but i doubt he knows that i'm interested. i'm not even sure he's available.

No one is going to want me because of my history with depression and my apparent tendency to be a drama queen. Plus am i even really over my ex? /sigh i'm tired in so many different ways.

everyone unemplyed by March! including the prez and her...

Of course, most of the people who voted for Obama apparently don't even know who Pelosi is....

Cto5k W6D2 redux and negative musings

The first half of my workout was hard... i could feel my diaphragm in an unpleasant way and my calves were tight. Halfway through i got hot enough to take off my hoodie, did my walking interval, and the second half sailed by. i'm not saying that it was easier, but it wasn't a push to keep going anymore. My mind started wandering, i kept counting the laps and telling myself "# left to go" or "2/3 done" etc. i'd say it was the first time i could think about other things w/o worrying about losing my stride or forgetting the right way to breathe, it just came naturally. i probably didn't push myself hard enough, but then, i felt uncomfortable at the beginning and it was just enough that i was doing it without any shortcuts.

My teacher in U.S. Lit, however, had irritated me again. i raised my hand several times and she didn't call on me. How am i supposed to participate in class if she won't let me? i've been getting irritated far too easily lately, the other day a woman bought a bunch of stuff for a wedding, all of it half or 66% off, and she had the audacity to ask for an additional 10% discount due to the size of her order. i called the manager, who of course said no, and then later she asked about a yellow ticketed item that was missing a lid getting an additional discount. i explained that yellow ticket items are sold "as is" and that i can't mark them down any more, that it is already 66% off, and she said:

"You don't have to be ugly about it. We could just buy all of this somewhere else."

This in the midst of ringing up and wrapping over $500 worth of ugly merchandise for her daughter's wedding. Her daughter and--i presume--her sister said nothing; perhaps this sort of behavior is usual for her. i apologized, saying that i meant no offense, i wasn't trying to be rude, i only meant to explain... she was still snippy. She was buying over $1200 worth of stuff. Robert would have told her to just take her business somewhere else and gotten back in her face, i am not so rude. i barely held it together, though, i wanted to cry, or rant and rail, and it was very hard not to complain about it all night, but i was professional and just continued to do my job.

i don't know if i'm overtired or just getting fed up with people's superficiality. At the college, there's a work study position being advertised by the same man that i applied to last semester: he told me that he was going to call me if a position opened up. i'm not going to go in there and chew him out, beg for the job, why should i do that when it's obvious that he's rude and/or disorganized and/or a liar? Besides, work study doesn't last over the summer. i guess i'll have to continue working at Hobby Lobby and just take it until i can find something better.

Cto5k W6D1

/woot

So yesterday, as soon as my sole Tue / Thu class was over (at which we watched a very interesting video about Emily Dickinson), i headed over to Stoker Stadium to have my run. i said to myself: "Let's go for eight laps today." And so i did (for a total of 2.4 mi.).

i remembered to bring my shades, so i was happy. By the third lap i was halfway out of my zip up sweatshirt, so at the beginning of lap four i just tossed it into the grass beside my waterbottle. Five minutes felt way too short, eight minutes was over right when i was getting to the point where i wanted a break, and i thought i was done at that point and had a nice long cooldown walk... at which point the chimes sounded again. i had forgotten about the last five minutes! The cooldown was more than sufficient, i ran the last five minutes easily. Eighteen minutes of running? Pfft....

Anyway, i think running ten minute intervals is comfortable for me right now, which is good, because that's what i'm doing tomorrow. i still feel like i'm running "really really slowly," but i did run farther than ever, i do believe. Now, when will i be passing the 2.5 miles mark?

wow

i just stapled 17 pages together with my little keychain stapler. i'm amazed; that little thing is powerful.