A new challenge...

Well, I got back to school fine and all but forgot one very important thing: my camera! I must have left it at my grandmother's house and I'm so bummed that I won't be able to share the gazillion pictures I took over the last few days. Luckily I have my old one at school, so once that's charged up I'll use that until I next go to my grandmothers.

(I did see an ad I really liked on the train back to school though, and snapped a picture on my phone:

It's really hard to read it (I was at the other end of the carriage and my phone has terrible photo resolution anyway), but it says:

"The loudmouth next to you would sound better with a British accent")

When I was with my grandmother we went to Whole Foods and I bought a bunch of snack-y stuff for school with the intention of a) making trail mix and b) having some dessert-like-things-that-aren't-dessert for lent (ie dried fruit). I'm glad I got all the food, but I realised when I got back to school that I have so much...stuff. Everywhere. I'm on a meal plan at school but I still have a box practically big enough for me to fit in full of food (under my bed). I have enough tea to last for about 3 years (I have 3 boxes with 60 tea bags each plus about 16 boxes (I'm not kidding) each with 20 tea bags plus a bunch of loose tea). I have enough protein powder for 6ish months (I'll be back to see my grandmother in 6 weeks). I have about 12 pairs of trousers (okay, 14, I just counted). I must have at least 15 pairs of shoes. Urgh. SO MUCH STUFF!

Anyway, I've always been a bit of a hoarder and there's no where near my college where I can buy "proper" food (it's all fast food places) (and I'm paranoid about running out of snacks)...but I barely eat the snacks I have (I snack...a lot, but mostly on the junk food/sweets I end up buying). I found a bag of pecans that went off in 2009 (luckily they were still fine) and I have things I'm sure I've had since freshman/first year. I'm graduating at the end of this year and I'd really like to not have to cart all this food etc to law school (I'm also really really bad at throwing stuff that's still "good" away).

So...for this month I'm challenging myself not to buy anything/spend money (other than essentials...things I need for school (notebooks and textbooks), "medicine" (the NuvaRing and the things my dermatologist has prescribed) and social events that I really can't get out of (I already promised to go to a Superbowl party this weekend at someone's house and we're getting those parents a small gift which I obviously need to contribute to). Anyway, in a weird way I'm looking forward to it! (And I'm also looking forward to working my way through all the food and tea I have here, in healthy moderation of course!) I'll let you all know how I get on!

February Goals

Thesis - I stopped tracking how many pages I've read, but I must be at around 30. I'm still working on the background section, but should have it done by the end of tomorrow.

Food - I got what I needed to make up the trail mix and made it up. Hopefully I'll have some pictures tomorrow, but it contains: cereal, granola, pecans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, yoghurt covered cranberries, crystalized ginger. I might also add some goldenberries or chocolate covered goji berries when the arrive!

Exercise - I didn't get a chance to hit the gym today, but I did go on my first run since my ankle injury yesterday, which was great! I'm a bit sore from it now though (which I can't believe).

Sleep - I slept through almost the whole of last night which is good for me! And no naps today so hopefully I'll sleep tonight.

Skin - yada yada, following her recommendations and not changing what I'm doing.

Resolutions - I wore my back support for the first time this month today! Yay!

Life Goals

So, the topic for my blog today is kind of a big idea.

Remember my boyfriend got that A- that he was so happy about? Well, he got an email today telling him that there'd been a mathematical error and he'd actually only gotten a B+. (Needless to say he was really upset yada yada, but in the end it was all resolved and they ended up changing it back to an A-, yay!). During my attempts to cheer him up we started talking about our goals for our lives over the next ten years, and we each choose three important things. Mine were...

1. To be graduate from law school successfully and get a good job in a related field.

2. To remain healthy, slim and strong.

3. To be in a happy, successful relationship (hopefully married and hopefully to my incredible boyfriend).

I also read a slightly morbid article called "How the Top Five Regrets of the Dying Can Aid the Living":

1.“I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

2. “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

3. “I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.”

4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

5. “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

My thoughts:

1. I try to do this and one of my goals of this blog is to use it to reflect on what is important to me.

2. Haha, if only. That said, over the last year and a half I have tried to redress my work-life balance. I've tried to exercise more, I've made more time for my friends and the boyfriend and I are trying to make time for regular date-nights.

3. I try to do this. In some ways, I'm great at doing this. I'm good at telling my boyfriend and some other people how I feel. But, I do want to try to speak up a bit more about certain things (little things, like changing meeting times and locations). Often if you ask for things, you get them and generally there isn't much of a downside.

4. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I do still stay in touch with one of my closest friends from high school (Kirst), but I'm not too close with most of the rest of them though. In part it's because I'm doing such different things from most of them (most of them are working now because their degrees were only three years. Mine's 4 and then I'm doing another 3 of law school).

5. I'm not sure I get this one? I don't try to restrict myself from being happy at all and I'm always on the lookout for more ways of making myself happy.

Well, that's all from me! Tomorrow you'll get lots of photos from my Connecticut trip!

January Recap

January was an interesting month, with lots of highs and lows.

The Highs....

Exams and Grades

This was basically a month of exams, but at least I'm done now. I'm still waiting on one more grade (Econ), but my others were good, and I was really pleased with them. There's been a bit of stress because my boyfriends grades weren't as good as he was hoping they'd be (as always). He's a bit of a perfectionist and he's also not great at taking exams. Plus his writing style isn't...exactly the clearest. Anyway, it's been a bit stressful trying to make him feel better about that.

Thesis

I'm not sure if this should be a high or low. It's a low in that I'm miles way from finishing (so so far). But...it's a high in that I've at least started and I've come up with a plan to set weekly goals for myself.

And the Lows...

Food

My eating's been...so far from great this month. I seriously seriously need to work on eating less sugar. In a really weird way I'm looking forward to lent when I'm giving up dessert because then I'll have a big incentive not to eat sugar.

On the plus side the boyfriend and I got to cook a lot during the last week, and we made a bunch of really yummy dinners including shrimp, tomato sauce and pasta, chili con carne and rice and pork with apple sauce and pasta. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures because my camera was out of battery :(.

Exercise

I haven't gotten in anywhere near as much exercise as I'd like over the last month. I did get in some great weights workouts at the end of the month because I went with my boyfriend.

Goals For Next Month

Thesis

Set weekly goals

Feb 1-5: Write the background section and read 30 pages

Feb 6-12: Talk to my advisor, come up with an overview plan, [other things...]

Get a new sub-project (a few new compounds in the series I've already been working on)

Spend 2 days/week working in lab (probably Tuesday and Thursday)

Food

Lent is starting during February, so I'll be giving up desserts when that starts.

Two of my closest female friends have a pact to only eat dessert once a week starting at the beginning of next semester, so I'm going to start off doing that with them.

Trail mix - I'm going to make up some "healthy" (as healthy as it can be) trail mix. I'm going to put in cereal, pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds, golden berries, chocolate covered goji berries, yoghurt covered cranberries and some nuts. Does anyone have any other suggestions for what to put in?

Exercise

I'd like to get a regular exercise routine organized. I'm going to try to get one set up with my friends, because I'm far more likely to go when I'm going with others. I'd like to get a mix of cardio (~twice a week) and weights (~twice a week) and maybe pilates once a week.

Sleep

I'd like to try to sort out what's happened to my sleep schedule. I want to try to make whatever changes I need to make so that I'm not tired during the day and feeling like I could nod off at any moment.

Skin

My skin is looking at bit better, but still not anywhere near as good as I want it to be. The main problem now is the darkened pigmentation on my chin, which kinda looks like scars. I'm going to the dermatologist tomorrow, so one of my goals for this month is to follow whatever advice she gives me to reduce the pigmentation.

Resolutions

I've looked back at my resolutions for this month and I've haven't done too much on them. I'd like to continue working on my posture (with my back support - 30 minutes/day, working up to an hour or so/day), improving my clothes choices (I'm going to try to take photographs of my outfits twice a week) and epilating (more than I've been doing).

Part 1: More on New Years Resolutions

This week I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I achieved last year and what I want to achieve next year. I realised that (to me, probably not the rest of the world but w/e) I spent a lot of last year focussing on more "mental" things - amongst others, I spent time trying to tackle my anxiety (including my dislike of public speaking), time meditating/EmWave-ing and time practicing mindfulness. I still think that those things are all super important, and I definitely want to continue with them (and will) into the new year.

But...I also realised that there's a lot that I could do to improve my physical appearance, and I want to spend time this year focussing on that.

Posture

Posture has been a bit of an issue for me for a while. I've seen physios and doctors over the years, but have never really been able to stick to anything for long enough to noticeably improve my posture. I (apparently) have slight kyphosis and lordosis (excessive curvature of the spine), which doesn't help but should be fairly easily correctable.

From: http://tle.tafevc.com.au/toolbox/file/c53ab17c-6542-4c66-f587-3e2858a9d41f/1/805_009_2.zip/fit009_2_lr11/fit009_2_lr11_1a.htm

There are gazillions of studies showing how important good posture is for self-confidence, health, impression you make on other people etc etc, so I do think that this is an important thing to work on. In order to do that I'm going to do two things. Firstly, strengthening my abs should help - if my abs are stronger they'll be better able to support my spine, reducing the lordosis. Secondly, I have a rather strange contraption called "Shoulders Back". It's basically an elastic/mesh combo that you put around your back and shoulders and tighten slightly so that it holds your shoulders back therefore improving your posture. I'd like to try to wear it for 1-2 hours per day (although sometimes it starts to drive me insane because it kinda rubs under the arms).

This photo makes me look a bit deformed, but I was trying to take a picture of myself in the mirror reflected in another mirror, so it all got a bit confusing! Also, the "brace" has a bunch of velcro on it, so I don't like it wear it with tops that I really like in case it snags them!

Weight

I've talked about this a lot before, but at the moment I probably weigh about 133lbs (I'm five five). When I met my boyfriend (at the beginning of college) I was 122 lbs (but that was also because I hadn't eaten properly in about a month because I was worried about starting college). At the end of freshman year I was about 137 (eek!) and since then I've hovered around 130ish. Previously, my goal was to stay under 130, and I'd still like to achieve that (I'd like to be 124-125). That might end up changing throughout the year (I think I have a lot more muscle now, I'm not even sure if I could get down to 124, but we'll see). My main "problem area" is my stomach (which you can see in the picture). It used to be my legs, but running's sorted that out for me :D.

Clothes/Shoes

I have a lot of clothes and shoes, a lot of them randomly acquired from my mum/grandmother when they decided they didn't like them/they didn't fit them (we're all roughly the same size). I've realised that I'm not really growing out of things any more, so at some point (soon) I'm going to have to chuck some of the things I've had for 7+ years that sort of fit and have holes that are sort of not noticeable! I also have a lot of great clothes and shoes that I don't wear much because my wardrobe is so cluttered with all the other things. It's also so easy to just throw on sweatpants at college, but this year I'm going to make an effort to plan clothes and outfits better. I've got some awesome new clothes this Christmas, so I want to make the most of them!

Yay! Three new tops (brown, orange and purple), a new jacket (bright pink!!), two new pairs of trousers (orange and pink - I like bright colours!), London pjs, leopard boot liners, new orange leggings and brown bear socks! :)

[More on this to follow tomorrow...]

New Years Resolutions

So...it's 2012. It still hasn't quite sunk in.

2012 is going to be a big year for me with a lot of important changes, most notably that I'm graduating from college and starting law school. There are going to be lots more changes associated with those things:

• Not having the boyfriend around 24/7 (I'm going to law school, he's going...somewhere else, as of yet undecided, but almost certainly not the sleepy little town I'm going to be living in).
• Having to live in my own apartment (it's just not going to be the same as living in a dorm room).
• Cooking for myself (I can't wait to do this, but it's also going to be a big job!)
• And tonnes more things that I just haven't though of yet I'm sure!

Anyway, as always I've made a bunch of resolutions for this year (but, also as always I'm going to keep changing them around and being undecided and adding things for about a week):

• Blog resolutions:
• Blog three times a week and actually use my twitter account! (I just got it and it's all shiny and new - http://twitter.com/#!/jinxsjourney!)
• Post more pictures on my blog (at least once a week!)

• Personal Goals
• Learn the location of a new country every day (I already missed this one yesterday, but I'll do 2 today!). I know this is really weird, but I'm pretty terrible at knowing where countries are in the world (I realised yesterday I'm not even sure if I could point out some big/important counties like Japan...not good!).
• Write 52 letters/postcards.
• Run 6 "official" 5Ks

• Not failing at life resolutions (ie things I need to do to graduate from college)
• Find a summer internship
• Finish my thesis (actually do stuff in lab)
• Graduate with closer to a 3.4 than a 3.3 (I'm at 3.33 at the moment, so this will hopefully work out!)

• Couple Resolutions (with the boyfriend, obviously)
• Try to reduce sugar intake - only eat dessert at one meal/day
• Work out a minimum of 3 times a week
• Go out for a meal together at least once every three weeks
• Sleep together twice a week (sorry, I know that's TMI)
• One self-improvement type thing each month (chosen by the other person)

November Goals

This month I really need to focus on losing a couple pounds and making healthier food choices.

To that end:

1. I will do at least 2 cardio workouts and 1 strength workout per week. I will also do one pilates class per week (starting next week for the pilates).

2. I will post my lunch (hopefully) and dinner choices each day - the weekly menus are posted so hopefully I'll be able to make healthy choices in advance.

3. I will have no more than 2 snacks per day.

4. I will eat breakfast everyday (I used to do this without fail, and for some reason I've got bad at this recently).

5. I will take all my vitamins plus the "green pills" and cocoa beans every day.

Fingers crossed for this all working out! I'll try to post every day or every other day with an update on how I do!

PS I just weighed myself and I'm 135.6 lbs, so fingers crossed for getting below 130 by Christmas!

Goals for This Week!

The wonderful Ali nominated me to do the seven links "challenge". I'm working on it as we speak, so you'll see that soon!

On the goals/resolutions front, I completed my exercise goal for this week.

As of today, I am:

• Time: 4hrs, 29 minutes/3 hrs, 20 minutes
• Calories: 2347/2100 kcal
• Time in Zone 1: 2hr, 17 minutes/1hr, 20 minutes (it's totally fine to go over)
• Time in Zone 2: 1 hr, 31 minutes/1 hr, 30 minutes
• Time in Zone 3: 35 minutes/30 minutes.

On the food front...mindful eating is difficult. And I'm still looking for more advice on it. I got a book out of the library today, called Savour. It's written by a nutritionist and a Buddhist Monk and it's all about mindful eating. It's geared towards overweight people trying to lose weight (which I guess isn't exactly where I am), but so far it's still really interesting. I'll let you know how the book is.

I've been doing much better at holding my tummy it - it's definitely becoming closer to habit which is a good ting!

On the vitamin front I've done well. I missed one day, but that's not the too bad.

I'm not going to be picking my new goal to "bring back" till Wednesday, because I want to do each thing for a week!

Exercise!

I actually went to the gym today, which is good. I'm working hard to complete my "workout" that my heart rate monitor gave me for this week.

I have a polar FT60 monitor and it's great. It's really useful for me to be able to see where my heart rate is during different types of exercise (and it means that I can see how many calories I burn when I'm lifting weights!).

(I like it because it's pink! But, I'm pretty sure that any HRM would do the job!)

Anyway, like I said, my monitor gives me goals every week that adjust based on how well I did with my goals the week before.

This week my goals are:

• Time: 3 hrs, 20 minutes
• Calories: 2100 kcal
• Time in Zone 1: 1hr, 20 minutes
• Time in Zone 2: 1 hr, 30 minutes
• Time in Zone 3: 30 minutes

The different zones correspond to different heart rate intervals. I actually changed the original settings on the watch, because I didn't feel like they encouraged me to push myself at all (N.B. This is just what works for me, so I wouldn't advise anyone copy this). So, my current settings are:

Zone 1: 120 - 150

Zone 2: 151 - 170

Zone 3: 171 - 200.

As of today, I am:

• Time: 2hrs, 32 minutes/3 hrs, 20 minutes
• Calories: 1188/2100 kcal
• Time in Zone 1: 1hr, 40 minutes/1hr, 20 minutes (it's totally fine to go over)
• Time in Zone 2: 30 minutes/1 hr, 30 minutes
• Time in Zone 3: 17 minutes/30 minutes.

The other really really good thing about me going to the gym is it means that I'm not sitting around my room, bored. The real problem with that is that that's my "highest risk" time for mindless snacking. I've realised that I'm absolutely fine with food everyday up until the end of the day, after work, when I'm just sitting around watching TV. If I'm at the gym, I'm doing something, so I don't even think about food!

Resolutions and Review of Resolutions from Last Month

I’m a bit late with my resolutions post for this month, but here it is….

Resolutions from Last Month

Exercise – Swimming

This did not go well. I did definitely swim more than I otherwise would have, but not nearly enough. Swimming just takes so much time and I never feel like I get as good a workout as when I’m running or on the cross trainer. Also, with my new skincare regime I was reluctant to start mixing things up by getting my face covered in chlorine a few days a week. I am going to keep trying to swim more…

Food – Eating Beans

I did well on this one – I have beans almost every day for lunch and I really like them. (To me) They taste good and keep me full. I’m definitely going to keep having them for lunch

Other – ACT

This was good, I guess. “I guess” because I don’t think I’m far enough into the ACT book to see any big changes yet, but I am certainly getting through the book which is good. I’m going to keep working on this one.

Resolutions for This Month

Exercise – Heart Rate Monitor

I have my heart rate monitor, so for this month my resolution is going to be to complete my target exercise program on that every week.

Food – Eat Mindfully

I want to try to eat mindfully. I’m getting stuck in a really terrible rut with my food – I keep binging and eating crappy food, even though I know it’s not good for me, that it doesn’t make me feel good, and that I don’t even particularly enjoy it when I’m eating it. To me, mindfully is going to mean focusing on my eating – the tastes and textures of my food. It’s also going to mean no eating and snacking while I’m doing other things. If I want a snack, fine, but I’m not going to eat it while I’m on my computer or reading.

Other – Pull in Tummy When Standing

I posted on this earlier. This is both a vanity thing and I’ve also been told I should tuck my tummy in when I’m standing to support my back. My best friend is also trying to do this – so we’re going to be keeping an eye out for each other on this front

I’ve realized that I’m getting bad at some of my previous resolutions – I’m flossing my teeth less and taking my vitamins less. So, to that end, every week I’m going to pick a resolution that I liked and “bring it back” ie make sure I do that thing for one week. I am also going to be checking in on my resolutions weekly, to try to help keep myself motivated, and to update everyone on which resolution I’m “bringing back”. Haven’t decided which day I’m going to do that on, but probably sometime over the weekend.

This week I’m “bringing back” taking my vitamins every day.

Book Review

One of my (pseudo) resolutions this month was to read four books. So far I've finished one book, What the Dog Saw, (read about the second half) and read two other books (Freakanomics and Big City Eyes).

Freakanomics – 7/10

I've read this before, but a long time ago. It pretty much fits perfectly into the "pseudo intellectual" category of books that I like. I did enjoy this book and it was interesting, but it wasn't fantastic. Aspects of it were very interesting, but I didn't love it. (Maybe because I'd read it before the ideas in it weren't so revolutionary?).

Big City Eyes – 5/10

This was a randomly chosen fiction book about a woman who moves to a small town to get away from the hustle and bustle of NY, and gets involved in solving a murder. I thought I’d really enjoy this book because the premise of it sounds pretty interesting (I’m kind of interested in the relationship between cities, suburbs and rural areas), but it was one of the slowest books I’ve read in a really long time. It took forever (2/3rds of the book) to get to the point where the murder even happened, which left the last third to solve it. I also didn’t really like the writing style too much.

In other news on my resolutions: I’ve been doing a really really really bad job at swimming. I’ve gone once in the last two weeks. Urgh. It’s just such a pain to go over there – the pool has pretty limited hours and I have to shower and wash my hair and get all the chlorine off after I swim (I have fairly sensitive skin, so I have to be sorta intense about getting the chlorine off). There are showers by the pool, but they’re open and mixed gender (in other words, I’m not taking off my swimming costume!), so it’s not very convenient. The other problem is that I don’t want to (can’t?) wear my heart rate monitor in the water. My watch gives me targets every week, and it’s more difficult to get to the targets if I’m not recording my time when I’m swimming. (It’s not impossible, and I’m probably just making excuses, but it is more difficult).

I’ve been doing well at eating beans though! And at doing my ACT, so that’s all good!

Resolutions and Review of Resolutions from Last Month

Last Months

My resolutions from last month went fairly well.

Food – Recording Food and Fiber

I did manage to record my food choices for seven days. The results were interesting – I tended to do fairly well on protein and fiber, and very well on salt. As per Ali’s suggestion, I was pretty much ignoring my “goal” for fat. I stayed within my recommended calories some days and not other days. For the most part I did well on that front though.

            With regards to making more “high-fiber” choices I’ve done okay. I’ve started eating a lot more beans and lentils which is good. We’re technically not allowed to have rice cookers at school, but I have one anyway. It’s great for cooking beans and lentils – it makes it much easier to cook them. I got “high-fiber” bread, but to be honest I wasn’t impressed with it at all (it was really awkwardly sweet). I’ve gotten back into taking psyllium which is great. I’ve also been trying to eat more high-fiber vegetables. Lastly, I’ve been buying wholewheat pasta, which is pretty good.

            I’m definitely going to keep making high fiber choices. I’m not sure about recording food – in some ways its really useful because it does help me to know where I stand with regards to how much I’m eating. On the other hand, I really don’t want to get obessesive with it.

Exercise – Rotex

            I’ve been spending a lot more time on the rotex at the gym, which is good. I’ve really enjoyed that and I think it’s good to spend time on both the running machine and the rotex. I find it really hard to keep my heart rate high enough on the rotex, but I can’t get it back down quickly enough on the running machine! (I talked to an exercise physiologist and good hooked up to a machine so he was able to determine my “optimum” for exercise. I’m meant to spend half an hour and do two minutes at >190 heart rate and then three minutes in the 160s.)

Exercise – Heart Rate Monitor

            I got a heart rate monitor.  It’s a polar FT60 in pink J. I really like it and I do think it’s helped me to push my exercise to another level. It’s also great because it means that it’s easier to compare my training across different types of exercise.

Other – Sunscreen

            Well, I still hate sunscreen, as predicted. I’ve sort of gotten into the habit of wearing it, or at least I’m doing better than before.  I still don’t like it, but I know that I should and I need to wear it. I’m going to keep trying to wear it throughout the summer.

Resolutions for next Month

Exercise

I need to swim more. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but during my exercise assessment I was told that my “weak point” is gas exchange between my blood and lungs. To improve that, I’m meant to swim or sing. Given that there’s no way I’m singing, I’m meant to be swimming. To that end, for the month of July I’m going to aim to spend one hour a week swimming.

Food

            I did have one, but I don’t remember it! I told my best friend what it was, so I’m going to see if she can remember!

Other

I’m deciding between trying to read four books over the month, going back to learning Chinese (my boyfriend is half Chinese, and it’s important to him that I try to learn it) or go back to doing my ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). I think I’m going to try to go back to the ACT and see how that works out. I got really anxious about my journey to DC, so I want to try to tackle that!

Ps Thank you to people leaving comments! I love hearing from other people :). (I haven't worked out to comment on comments on my blog yet though :S. Any help on that?)

I'm back...

[This is a looooong post! Feel free to skip bits]

So, as I said in my last post I've been really busy recently. I got back to the US on Monday evening and started lab work on Tuesday. My (super awesome!) best friend, who is also my roommate this summer, moved all my things into my room, but I still had to arrange/unpack everything when I got back.

The plane flight back to the US was kinda stressful - it was delayed by over an hour because of technical difficulty (not exactly a relaxing thing to hear if you already hate flying!) and pretty much every seat on it was taken, which also ups the stress of flying!

Lab
I started lab work on Tuesday, so didn't have a huge amount of time to relax. It was all going fine until my parents decided they didn't like me working on the project I was working on (and I agreed with them). I know that sounds totally ridiculous and like my parents are being way too interfering with my life, but the reason they stepped in is that my project had me working with lead oxide, which is pretty nasty stuff. Lead is a heavy metal which means that once it gets into your body it stays there and you can't (really) get it out. Excess heavy metals in the body have been linked to things like cancer and dementia, so it's sort of serious. Lead oxide is also worse for you than plain old lead, because lead oxide is a fine powder which "poofs" whenever you touch it or move it. [I was wearing a mask whenever I was using it, but of course none of that stuff is 100% effective]. I'm also especially worried because I like in an old English house, which means that the water in my house probably goes through lead pipes. As lead doesn't leave the body, it's entirely possible that I already have a higher lead concentration in my body than someone my age should have.
I talked to my supervisor about it and to say the least he wasn't overly pleased. To be honest I don't really blame him: he thinks its safe and the rest of the people in my lab all handle the stuff occasionally. I'm also the only undergraduate who has changed projects at all, and now I'm going to be changing my project twice. (He's also grading my thesis and is meant to be writing me a letter of recommendation for law school, so I don't really want to make him dislike me...).
Anyway, that whole thing was a bit tough to deal with - I felt caught between him and my parents. I am probably more health conscious than most people in my lab as well, so a lot of other people in my lab thought I was being ridiculous and paranoid. Regardless, the situation is hopefully somewhat resolved now. I'm going to be getting a new project on Monday and I'm just going to have to try really hard to impress my supervisor!

Roomates
My living arrangement for this summer is a three bedroom triple, which means that each of us has our own bedroom. I'm living with my best friend (fingers crossed that that doesn't mess up our friendship, I'm sure it won't) and another girl (Diza), who we're sort of friends with (we needed a third person to fill the triple). Anyway, this other girl is driving me nuts, and I've only lived with her for three days. She's incredibly needy and is an over protected only child. She will literally stand outside my locked bedroom door and talk at me. She insists on doing things like coming into my room and turning on my laptop so that I can hear a song she wants me to hear. She followed me into the bathroom yesterday so she could finish telling me about some inane thing. I don't want to be mean, and I do feel a little sympathetic (I think she's pretty lonely), but seriously! I need some personal space.
The other issue is that she doesn't get me. She's fairly different to me and has no sense of independence. She insists on coming to the gym with me (the gym is kinda my alone space) and she will talk and talk at me when I'm lifting proper weights (so I need to focus). She also refuses to push herself at all - she was lifting 5 lb weights, complaining that they were too light, but refusing to lift more in case she hurts herself. She also complains and complains and complains about how much she's hurting from the gym, which drives me nuts!
She's also working in a lab (not my lab, thank god! Lab is the only time she's not there chattering at me.) and everyone in her lab was sent an online quiz that was meant to determine how empathetic you are and how good you are with other people, reading other people's emotions even when they're hidden etc. She scored 16 or so, if you score below 20 that's a possible sign of autism (because you're that unaware about what other people are thinking/feeling). I scored 72ish (I'm a fairly empathetic person, even if it doesn't seem if from this rant), so clearly it's possible to do "well" on this thing.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, she's just driving me absolutely insane. I know it's not her fault, but she has zilch conception of public space and alone time.

The Boy
I miss him. A lot. It probably doesn't help my mood!

Food/Gym
My food has been okay, but not great. I need to go back to recording my food more. I have been doing okay at the whole high fiber options thing, but I still think I could push it further. Basically, my meals are good and generally very healthy but I eat too much crap and sugar between meals (marshmallows and chocolate), which is really bad (and I just measured my blood sugar - 144 - also really bad).
Tomorrow I am not going to eat chocolate, marshmallows or other candy.
In other food news its really tough to go shopping at school. There are no supermarkets near by. I'm going to try a grocery delivery service, and I've scheduled the delivery for Sunday, so fingers crossed for that!
With regards to exercise, I've been doing okay, but it's a real pain to have to go with this other girl all the time. I find it harder to exercise with her yapping in my ear. I did go swimming (alone) yesterday though, which felt fantastic. I haven't been swimming in ages (despite the fact that I'm meant to go to increase my oxygen transport ability - more on that at some other time).
My heart rate monitor also arrived! I've only used it once so far, but I got a really good workout with it. A few months ago I went to an exercise physiologist who did various tests on me and was able to determine my own max heart rate etc (and that my limitation is the rate at which I can transport oxygen/carbon dioxide from my lungs to my blood). Anyway, what he suggested (for me, this isn't universal) is to get my heart rate to 190+ for two minutes and then come down to 160ish for 2-3 minutes. I tried it on the rotex on Wednesday and it was really good!
I've also decided that I'm going to try to...swim twice a week, do gym-based cardio two or three times a week and lift weights twice a week (and have one rest day!).

Mental Health/Personal Development
I've gotten bad about doing my breathing every night, so I need to get back to doing that. HeartMath, the company I purchased it from, runs various webinars, so I've signed up for one of those on "Better Communication". I'm hoping it'll be interesting.

Resolutions
I'm doing okay with the resolutions. I've been fairly good at wearing sunscreen which is of course a good thing. I've gotten worse about doing my "old" things like taking vitamins and psyllium, so I need to get back to doing those kinds of things.

Tour Guiding
I have my first tour tomorrow! I'm not an official tour guide yet (the tour tomorrow is a practice tour to see if I'm up to scratch!). I'm a bit nervous about it, but fingers crossed! I'm going to spend part of tonight thinking about what I need/want to say! 

Ahh! This was a realllly long post! Sorry about that. Just had a lot I needed to write about!

Diet/I think this is my fourth post today

Oops.

Anyway, today was the first day of my food-logging resolution. I'm probably only going to be this for a week, if that, but I do want to get an idea of where my diet is. I started making much more conscious choices part way through the day, so lunch and dinner were pretty ridiculously healthy, which certainly isn't something I'd do at college. However, I figure that its good to see what it feels like to eat a more perfect diet. Plus, I know its getting pretty late, but I really want to look as good as possible for the boyfriends party. I'm trying to get the gym for the rest of this week, and maybe eat a little less. (I got to the gym today and went on the rotex. I was really hard work!)

Anyway, my calories/fat/protein etc for today were pretty good. My fat was very high, but that was in large part due to "good fats" (olive oil on my salad etc). I also think the protein "goal" is pretty ridiculous, so I need to work out how to change that. Anyway: