What Rejection Does to a Girl

Hello readers,

So, one of the many things that happened while I was not writing the blog regularly (so basically, from February until now) was that I was nominated by a professor to apply for a highly prestigious and selective undergraduate research program at my school. I was highly attracted to the program, and so I asked this professor if she would write the recommendation letter necessary for the application. She agreed, and asked for my application essay so she could keep it in mind as she wrote her letter. Not only did she want the essay for that purpose, but she also wanted to be able to look it over and offer me suggestions. Additionally, she sent me a Word document full of guidelines for writing the essay. We met to discuss it, and she told me all about how she saw me as doing research in the future, being a great candidate for a Fulbright research fellowship, teaching at the university level, working in the field continuing research as a profession, et cetera. So she helped me completely reform my essay, and I figured I was getting a pretty glowing recommendation letter from her, in addition to the nomination, and she's a fellow in the program. She wholly approved of the essay, and so I sent in my application and hoped for the best. The one thing I was worried about was my first semester grades. They weren't fabulous, to say the least. Simply put, I should not have been in Chemistry or Calculus II for Engineers (I'm a languages and arts girl. Come on. What was I doing?!), and I should have worked harder in Philosophy. But I hoped that they would wait for second semester grades to come along, since I knew that they would a) show off what I'm good at, and b) be much, much improved.

I'd been anticipating news recently since a few of my friends who had also applied reported that they'd been rejected via email, and I had not yet received any emails or correspondence. Yesterday, I received word. I had been rejected, but invited to join the program as an affiliate, which seems like a weird in-between distinction where you're invited to the special events and whatnot, and you get guidance applying for other programs this group offers, but you don't get to do the paid research and work with a mentor-professor- which was the big draw of the program. It's not bad, since just to be an affiliate was a selective process as well, and it's better than nothing. But really? Special guidance with applications and invites to certain events? That's what I'm getting?

Readers, in case you can't tell, this was a blow. My father had told me, not unkindly, that he didn't think I had a shot because of my first semester GPA. My mother told me that they'd had no expectations (meaning that they weren't disappointed in me at all), and neither should I have had any. I so badly wanted to prove them wrong and prove that I am worthy of all the kinds of special distinctions and opportunities that I've had up until now in my education and other things. I wanted to have a special place in college and make things like they used to be. I'm not unhappy where I am, but I really wanted this. What's more is that I had started to dream up possibilities and plans and figure out where I was headed next, based on my getting into this. I didn't consider myself "in," but...

And then I know a girl from my high school who also applied to the program. If she gets in, pardon my language, but I will be royally pissed. I knew her all throughout high school. Nothing about her strikes me as passionate or committed. Sure, she's very intelligent. But come on. What does she really care about enough to put in three years' of research and then use it to make a difference? I have passion. I know what I want to research, and I care about stuff enough to put in that kind of work and make it valuable.

But I digress. Those were the kinds of thoughts running through my head last night. My classmate is a perfectly nice girl, and I don't actually know her that well. Maybe she does have passions. Maybe she does really care about stuff. I shouldn't judge her like that. But it is extremely frustrating. Things are just not going according to plan, and lots of stuff just keeps changing. I feel like I'm having a bit of a quarter/fifth-life crisis.

Then last night, I had a bit of a revelation. This will probably show you how privileged I've been thus far, and that I've had it relatively easy, but bear with me; I have something to say. First, I had to remind myself that there are far greater tragedies than an upper-middle-class girl being rejected from a prestigious research program at an elite university. Reality check. Then, I realized that I was just gonna have to work my ass off harder than I ever have before, plain and simple. This is the start of a new girl, the Imara 2.0, if you will. This is a test. How determined am I to prove myself and make myself a better, smarter, fitter, wiser, stronger person? How will I create my own opportunities? How will I distinguish myself from the pack? This Imara will go back to school having read more and knowing more than the rest of her peers. This Imara will go back to school healthier, leaner, and dare I say, sexier than she was in May. This Imara will know herself better than she ever has before. And this Imara will be a better student, friend, athlete, sister, and worker than she was last August when this all started.

Enough of talking about myself in the third person. Every day is another all-important step on the journey. Sure, mistakes will be made. And I welcome them as learning opportunities. But the time is now. The time is now to get up, get going, and move forward. The time is now to take my goals seriously, push myself, and accept the challenge. Every day I want to try and accomplish something new, or at least advance towards achieving one of my goals.

Here are my new mantras: Push yourself. Accept the challenge. Never settle. Make it all count.

Love,
Imara

P.S. In other news, I made cookies again, and my father specifically requested that I stop baking so much because "we really don't need it." That just means I'm really good at it and he can't resist it. :) Also, I jumped rope and did an unexpectedly very hard yoga video. I have a feeling that I will be sore tomorrow. Tough, because it'll be the last chance for me to go running before I have to take a few days off to go on a trip.

Music and fish

Hey all!


I know I just posted yesterday, but I forgot to include a selection of the songs I found myself listening to when I was baking. I basically just put my entire iTunes library on shuffle, and these are some of the songs that came up:


Rip Your Heart Out, Acute
Hometown Glory, Adele
Ventura Highway, America
Shadow, Ashlee Simpson (please don't judge me)
Black Water, The Doobie Brothers
Girl with One Eye, Florence + The Machine (does that make up for the Ashlee Simpson?)
The Second Time Around, Frank Sinatra
Eleanor Put Your Boots On, Franz Ferdinand
Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy, Glen Hansard (from the soundtrack to the movie Once)
Serious, Gwen Stefani
Curbside Prophet, Jason Mraz
Dancing in the Moonlight, King Harvest
Give Me Anything, The Maine
Put Your Head on My Shoulder, Michael Bublé
Giddy Up, NSYNC
City, Sara Bareilles
No Man's Woman, Sinead O'Connor
Atomism, White Light Riot


Overall, it was very chill, thoughtful music, leaning towards a little sad. Which was weird, because my first choice for baking/cooking is either something happy, funky and oldies, or folksy but upbeat. If you have suggestions, please let me know! I hear Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver are pretty good...


Tonight I was left to cook dinner for myself and my brothers. I went with individually packaged frozen tilapia in a lemon pepper marinade, to which I improvised and added a light Parmesan and panko crumb crust. All seemed to be going well, until a) I realized after the fish was almost done that I forgot to turn on the rice cooker, b) I almost gave myself a steam burn, and c) the fish was not done after the minimum cooking time, nor the maximum. It took nearly 20 minutes. And for tilapia, that worried me, because it is a very delicate fish that does not require a lot of baking. But eventually it seemed cooked enough, my brothers did not complain about any cold or slimy parts in their fillets, and no one has gotten sick yet *knock on wood*. No pictures because by the time the food was all ready to eat I was not going to run upstairs for my camera. 


Tomorrow may involve yet another batch of chocolate chips cookies, because an elderly family friend (basically, my surrogate grandmother) has requested half a recipe's worth for herself and her gentleman friend. The last cookies of last week's batch have been gone for a few days now, so we'll have another 3 dozen for a little road trip this weekend. Then I think I'll have to hold off on the cookies for a couple weeks, for the sake of my waistline and my parents'/my wallet (I am going to plow through ingredients like a madwoman if I keep this pace up). I'm also hoping to make pasta with pesto sauce for dinner tomorrow night. I will try to have photos of the process for that one. 


I applied for six jobs today, bringing my application total up to 8. I really hope that something comes through for me, and soon. I worry that I may be getting addicted to applications, though- even after I knew I'd exhausted my best options for the evening, I kept looking. Ack!


The word for tomorrow is efficiency. I spend a lot of time dallying and sitting on my butt when I could be doing lots of things- sending my résumé to a contact of mine who offered to pass it around if she heard of anything, returning my rented textbooks to their original online site, emailing old teachers and mentors, journaling, exercising, and so on. Hopefully tomorrow I can get up and get moving and get off this beautiful Mac of mine.


Good night, lovelies!
Imara


P.S. Here's a quote to keep you going, especially if you've encountered any difficult or challenging things lately: 

Things are only impossible until they're not.

Jean-Luc Picard, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

Adventures with Baking

Hello, readers!

In the past week, I have already accomplished three things on my baking list of resolutions. Yay! I've been fairly attentive to the news, using Time magazine as a way to catch up in detail on various big issues. I'm almost to my limit of NYTimes online articles for the month- :(. I am honestly considering accessing the daily paper through the archives, which I can get into via my school's research resources. A little bit backwards, but hey, I gotta get my news. I've applied for two jobs so far,  apparently my parents hooked me up with a babysitting gig in the neighborhood (yay cash job!), and I'm still looking for something that will get me big tips. I started reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen again. I'm almost halfway through it, but it is so dense. But I guess without having a job to speak of, I have plenty of time on my hands. I've also been going to bed early and getting up early. It feels great to have the whole day ahead of you. And I've more or less kicked my morning caffeine habit! My parents switched to decaf coffee in the house and I didn't even know it, so I think it had a placebo effect, and bam- no more headaches. Haven't gotten around to learning the piano yet, and the brothers are still in school, so haven't quite gotten to those resolutions yet. But everything else is more or less in progress.

So, now I'd like to detail some of my baking adventures. Last week, I made chocolate chip cookies, bread, and an incredibly delicious thing called blueberry buckle. The chocolate chip cookies are from a recipe that my mother got from a friend. The catch with these cookies is that you use instant pudding mix in the batter. If you'd like the recipe, please let me know. Somehow it makes them super-soft and chewy or something. Also, the trick to keeping the bottoms from burning and getting all hard is to cover the cookie sheets with undone brown paper bags (grocery bags work, as do lunch bags. One undone brown paper lunch bag actually covers one normal-sized cookie sheet) and then drop the dough on top of that. It  must help distribute the heat evenly or something. Don't really know why, but it does work! The cookies are incredible, especially when warm. To keep them soft, store them in an airtight container with a piece of bread (it's a great use of the heels of a loaf of bread, if no one in your house eats them). The bread gets hard, but the cookies won't. These cookies are so so SO good. I have a really hard time when I try to stop eating them. And they are NOT good for you (although my dad did say that they are good for your mental health). They are made with a whole pound of butter and a ton of brown and white granulated sugar- trust me, I creamed the two together myself. But the recipe makes 6 dozen- that's 72 cookies. So seriously, share them with people.
Here are some pictures of my cookie adventures:

 Yeah, you do need a REALLY big bowl when you combine the butter, sugar, and egg mixture with the flour mixture.

A couple days later, I baked bread. From scratch. Without a bread machine. WARNING: To all amateur bakers, bread is not something that you can just make when you've got a little bit of time. Maybe it was because I'm a first-timer, but it took me the better part of an afternoon. But if you don't screw anything up too badly, it is well worth it. I thought I may have horribly screwed it up when I didn't mix the shortening and the dry ingredients together before adding the yeast and very warm water. But, no way was I wasting 3 1/2 cups of flour plus two packets of yeast and 2 tablespoons of shortening and starting over. So I just mixed it all up with an electric mixer, and it turned out just fine. I love the smell of yeast- a local freeway went right by a yeast factory for a long time, and that smell means I'm headed into my city and going home. Unfortunately, the yeast factory closed, so now I am left with baking bread to get my kicks. Anyways, you should know that kneading is a pretty big effort- ten minutes solid. You have to knead a lot to activate the gluten. And you have to let the dough rise twice- once after kneading, and once after you've let the loaves rise in their pans unbaked. And then you finally bake it up. And boy, is it good. One loaf and probably 3/4 of the other are gone. Which is a good thing, because unless you're storing it, homemade bread will not last long because it has no preservatives. So eat it up and enjoy it!
More photos:

Mmm. Crusty, buttery, thick goodness. It makes great toast. It's just a Betty Crocker recipe, so if you have either the red or the really old orange Betty Crocker cookbook, it should be in there.

Bread was probably the crowning achievement of my week because yeast is a little fussy to work with (they're not kidding when they say the water must be between 120 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit, by the way- too cold, the yeast won't activate; too hot, you'll kill it. You'll know when your dough doesn't rise.) and it was so time consuming. Also, the house smelled incredible. But a very special thing I made was a blueberry buckle. I first made one last summer with one of my best friends when we went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan together for a week. Since she's going to El Salvador for the summer and starting to save the world, we had to get together before she left to make this together. It's a Martha Stewart recipe (you can find it online), and it's actually not that hard. It does seem helpful to have extra hands though, so try making it with a friend! It's a very dense dessert, a cross between a cake and a cobbler. It's packed with blueberries, which are a superfood, so rationalize it that way when you want a slice with every meal.
Photo time:

Oh yeah. :)

I would love to tell you that I've been a Superwoman when it comes to making delicious food AND controlling my impulses to eat said food AND work off the delicious but more or less unhealthy food. But that has not been the case. Last week was a pretty bad week as far as exercising and food went. As the food intake and production went up, my exercise output went down. Waaayyy down. I like to blame it on the weather. My beautiful Midwestern state cannot decide if it wants to be summer or the bummer that is the early Midwestern spring (i.e., forty to fifty degrees and rainy). I honestly will go running if it is sunny and between 55- all right, 60- to 85 degrees, with not much wind. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm fussy that way. But I'm detoxing this week (see one of my early posts for a definition of my detox- little to no processed foods and a lot of water), and hoping that the weather holds out or that I can find a suitable alternative to running. Maybe I'll just have to suck it up and wear gloves when I bike in the cool weather. The most important thing is just doing something, especially on the days where you really have no motivation. You'll be very happy that you did afterwards, even if you weren't very happy while you were doing it.

Well, my darlings, I hope that you are having a lovely almost-summer and that you have set goals for yourself this summer- even if it's just to do something nice and relaxing for yourself. Keep in touch!

Love,
Imara

P.S. On deck this week for food: tilapia and pasta with pesto sauce. Also, HEALTHY pumpkin cookies and maybe cream cheese brownies. :)

Blog, Take 2

Let's try this again, shall we?
I set a big old goal for myself of blogging once a week. I didn't make it past February. BUT I'm going to restart it this summer!
I just moved back home for the summer. I think I had a very successful second semester- a BIG improvement over fall semester, thank goodness. I am a much happier person. I did not encounter the panic attacks and stress-induced insomnia that plagued me first semester. My grades are much better. I have a solid group of friends who help make my life better. Overall I kept up a healthier lifestyle than I had been living. So life is good.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm just going to sit around and let things pass me by this summer. I have big plans, and new resolutions. See the list below:
1. Work out and stay in shape. I have a habit of falling apart as soon as I move home and don't have the same routine I did when I was at school. No more. I will be utilizing my handy dandy to-do list almost every day this summer, and a workout will almost always be on the list. The gratification of crossing stuff off is that big a motivator for me.
2. Cook. I have compiled a list of recipes that I would like to try my hand at. The list has grown to the point that I probably need to do about two meals a week in order to have them all completed before I go back to school and lose all the convenience of a well-stocked kitchen and an accessible grocery store. So I will have to get moving.
3. Bake. This is separate from cooking for me. For me, cooking generally involves non-dessert items. Cooking is for meat and vegetables. Baking is for all that sugary stuff that you can't eat a lot of but you do anyways because it makes you happy. I am going to try to master some basics (chocolate chip cookies, apple pie, bread, a cake), and then move on to more fun stuff (lemon ricotta cake, ricotta pineapple pie, fudge, cinnamon pull-apart bread). All from scratch. I will post photos for this and the cooking resolution so you can see my progress.
4. Read the news. My beloved New York Times now requires a paid online subscription for unlimited access. :( So I will be attempting to read the majority of my local paper, and deciding whether or not the Times is worth my money.
5. Teach myself the piano. My dad received a DVD set of a learn-by-chords method, and I think I will give that a shot in the evenings.
6. Get a job and make all the money I spent this year at school back, plus some savings. ...good luck to me!
7. Read. I never had any time to read for fun at school. I am compiling a reading list for myself, including Water for Elephants, The Corrections, Love in the Time of Cholera, Half the Sky, The Fountainhead, and The Help. If you have suggestions, please put them in the comments below.
8. Play with my brothers and family more. It will get me active, out of the house, away from my beloved MacBook Pro, and forge a deeper bond with a couple of guys that just can't seem to stop getting bigger.
That's the list for now! If you have suggestions/encouragement/comments in general, PLEASE leave them below. There should be a way to comment as a guest if you don't have a Google account or are not on Blogger.
Happy Summer, everybody! Keep your eyes out for new posts.
With love,
Imara

Revistas

Hey blogosphere,
So in this entry, I pretty much want to talk about progress, and how I've actually been doing with my resolutions. Obviously, I'm failing a little bit on the blogging one, as I promised myself one entry a week and I think it's now been more than a week, possibly two weeks since I last posted. So I apologize.
Things have been progressing very well otherwise, though. I've been working out up to six days a week, and it seems that I have committed to core strengthening. That's a big step for me as I've always been one to focus more on the cardio than on any kind of muscular strength, and it appears that I have made that big step forward. Now, though, is the point where I feel I might be about to plateau. Right now, about three or four weeks after I've started this big new commitment, is when I need to step it up. My plan is to add reps or new exercises to my core strengthening and weight lifting routines, and to either extend or intensify my elliptical workouts. I also plan on adding running to my workouts a couple of times a week, rather than having to start all over with running in the spring as I have the past few years. I've gone running twice in the past two weeks on the treadmill, and I hate it a lot less than I did last year! So that'll be a nice way to crosstrain and push my body and confuse it a bit.
My food plan has been all right. After I attempted a one week mini-detox (remember: mostly whole foods, lots of fruits and veggies, no junk and little refined food, etc.), I loosened up quite a bit. And now I'm back to almost where I was before with my eating habits. Now, they're not awful- I don't eat a lot of fast food or chips or any of that. But, I do like to splurge on desserts, snack to excess (especially at night), and eat beyond the point of fullness. I need to revamp this. I'm going to bring back some of the detox restrictions and fix this whole snacking business. Either I need to snack less, or I need to snack better. I'm about to get a whole lot busier with work and rehearsals for a show, on top of all my regular class load, so I'm going to have to find a way to maximize my health and fitness efforts.
The plus side is that I really enjoy exercising. I know, you might be thinking, "Screw you," but really. I think I'm getting a little addicted to the endorphins that I get from doing it. My moods are pretty stable, I feel less stressed (although that could be because my workload hasn't really amped up yet), and I look forward to it. I haven't been able to see much results yet, but it's hard when you look at yourself in the mirror practically every day. The big test will be swimsuit shopping for spring break, in just about a month!
Speaking of maximizing my time, I need to work more efficiently. Recently I've realized just how much I check my Facebook. It's a little ridiculous when you reset your news feed to Most Recent and you've seen everything that's been posted in the last hour- multiple times. I will have so much more time for various activities- exercising, getting more work done, reading the New York Times- if I don't check it four times an hour. So, beginning tomorrow, I'm going to cut myself down to twice a day. All my important notifications get sent to my inbox anyways, so there's no need to check up on it if I haven't gotten anything important in my email. Which, by the way, I will keep checking compulsively because of all the important emails I receive regularly regarding my classes, rehearsals, work, and the like.
Then there's the issue of boys, and personal change beyond the physical. Things have certainly been progressing in the boy department- week by week I get a little bit further along. But I'm starting to have some real doubts about how this is all going, and if it's going too quickly and in a way that I really don't want it to go. I swear, I am not engaging in dangerous behaviors. Not even close. But I'm not making any real, personal connections. Everything feels very anonymous and weird. And that's definitely not what I want. I am very lucky to have a group of friends who are largely in the same place that I am, and from what I can gather we're having a lot of the same questions. 
I've come to the conclusion that I need to do some re-evaluation. I need to take a serious look at myself and ask myself some big questions, including: 1) What do you really want? 2) How are you going to achieve that? 3) What are you getting now? 4) Is it satisfying, and if so, in what way? 5) How do you really feel about it afterwards? 6) Do you really feel like you're moving anywhere? and other questions of a similar nature.
Luckily, I am going on a retreat next weekend which I think will really give me some time to reflect, especially in the context of my faith, and may possibly lead to some new relationships. This retreat is optional, so everyone who's on this retreat wants to be there. I think that will be a good sign.
So, here we are in February. Already a whole month plus after the New Year! Wasn't it just Christmas? It's time to do some reflection, re-evaluation, and revamping. I'll try and be better about blogging to keep you up on how this all goes!
With love,
Imara.
P.S. I also think that this all necessitates some patience. I'm only four weeks in and I'm all anxious about where it's going! Here's a really great quote about patience and changing yourself for the better:
"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew."- Saint Francis de Sales

Broccoli

Hello, dear readers. And happy weekend! I hope that you are all keeping warm wherever you are.

As part of my healthy-eating kick this week (and hopefully the rest of the year), I have been trying to eat more vegetables. My vegetable options, however, are limited to broccoli, frozen veggie mixes from a bag, corn, and either steamed carrots, peas, or cauliflower. So I have eaten broccoli at at least one meal a day for about four days in a row now- the steamed carrots tend to be mushy, as do the veggie mixes. 

I didn't know I could get so sick of broccoli so quickly. Yes, I know it is a high-fiber food. Yes, I know that it has lots of vitamins in it. And I'm sure I'm benefiting from its sudden presence in my diet. But seriously, I'm getting sick of it. I was excited to have peas yesterday instead of broccoli. Today I put a little corn on my plate with the broccoli to mix it up a bit. Yet I have to admit, it's really starting to get old.

In better news, I took an abs class! The gym had a try-it-free night, so I went with a friend to give it a shot. I really, really liked it. I was sore the next day, but I figure that if I try to imitate that workout two to three times a week, plus attending the class once weekly, it will help me along in my fitness goals a lot. I already paid and registered for the class, so I think that the financial commitment will really make me physically commit to it.

Enough about that. What really got me thinking and reflecting the other night was a great conversation I had with a friend. We had originally meant to run over to the store quickly to get some snacks, but she suggested that we sit down and enjoy them there. And as often happens when you spontaneously take the time to let your mind and conversation flow freely, we ended up having a rather deep and personal talk about things like happiness and our New Year's resolutions. This talk was especially meaningful to me because this is a newer friend of mine, and I can't recall our really having a conversation like that yet.

So: happiness. Big topic, right? For my friend, this was very closely tied to her goals for the year. She said that her memories of happiness were all tied into major experiences she had- family vacations, major accomplishments, etc. What it came down to was that she decided she was going to do things that were going to make her happy, the things that she wants to do. 

She also talked about becoming the person that she wants to be. Readers, this is something that I feel like we read about a lot in magazines and see in self-help books and hear on morning talk shows. But it is true. I am a firm believer in the principle that we get back exactly what we put out to the world. If you are kind, optimistic, and helpful, you will be received positively and will receive kindness back to you. If you are mean, rude, and antisocial (and by antisocial I do not mean shy or introverted, I mean straight-up antisocial), you will have difficulty meeting people and making friends. Pretty simple, right? But beyond this karma-reminiscent idea, it gets a little more complicated. Besides being nice, polite, and welcoming, what other traits would you like to put out to the world? What do you think they will help you accomplish? How will they make you better? What will you get back from it? And how do you go about enacting such change?

I'm thinking it starts with actions- definite, concrete actions. For example, if you would like to be the kind of person who has and attracts a diverse group of people, join a club that is something you've never tried before but have always wanted to. Hold doors open for people. Chat people up in line. Sit next to somebody new in class and say hi. Or joke about the teacher. Or even complain about the reading- but in a lighthearted way; don't be too negative or pessimistic. These are suggestions that I myself need to take as well.

The actions, however, must be organic in nature. They must come from you. Don't change yourself just for the sake of change, or enact such change in a way that is not authentically you. There's no point in being false. You may hurt others and will definitely hurt yourself in the end.

For example, I would like to meet more boys. I could certainly meet more boys by wearing skimpy clothes, dancing very suggestively, drinking to excess, and freely giving out my number and offering...favors. But that, as my friends can tell you, is certainly not me. I dress with a certain degree of modesty. My body does not move like a hip-hop dancer's. I don't like losing control of my actions. And I'm not interested in promiscuous hook-ups. So, while I would meet plenty of boys this way, it would not be true to who I am. And if it's not true to who I am, isn't it counterproductive to my goal of becoming the person I want to be? Maybe you don't like everything about yourself right now. But you do still want to be you. Does that make sense?
I am proud to say that the other night was a step in that direction. My friends and I decided to wander and find someplace to go. And indeed we did! I consider it a good night. For one, I got out, which I consider an accomplishment. I also met and talked with some nice guys. It again proved to me that the opportunities are out there; you really just have to let go a little bit and take a risk.
So about a week into the real beginning of my New Year's resolutions, I'd say I'm making pretty good progress. I hope you are, too.
With love,
Imara 

Here it goes again

Hello, friends! (and I really mean friends, because you're the only ones reading this)
So today I began the fitness portion of my resolutions. So far, I've been very good about reading the newspaper, which was one of the resolutions that I mentioned in my previous post. The New York Times online is my best friend. I know A LOT about Tunisia. And Tucson.
But anyways, back to fitness. I just couldn't bring myself to get started until I got back into classes and a regular routine. And I have to say, I was pretty dang lazy the past couple of weeks. Physical activity was at a real minimum, and my nutrition was definitely not the best. But that's all changing starting today!
Before I go further:
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A FITNESS OR NUTRITION EXPERT BY ANY MEANS. THIS IS IN NO WAY AN ADVICE BLOG. I DO NOT EXPLICITLY ENDORSE ANY PROGRAM OR METHOD. I AM ONLY SHARING MY EXPERIENCE AND WHAT WILL HOPEFULLY WORK FOR ME.
Now that I've got that out of the way, I consider today a moderately good day on the fitness front. I had a really great workout, and my meal choices were rather healthy. I am trying to follow the food suggestions given by the Body By Glamour program. For the first week of the program you're supposed to "detox," but not like crazy, drink-grapefruit-juice-and-eat-nothing-but-wheatgrass kinda detox. The idea is "to eat as many whole foods as possible" and to lay off added sugar, salt, refined foods like bread and pasta, sweets, red meat, and fatty foods like cheese. So today, for lunch, I had fish, brown rice, broccoli, an apple, and some low-fat blueberry yogurt, and skim milk to drink. And I felt satisfied and healthy. It powered me through the hardest workout I've had in a long time. And then I had a banana post-workout and a similarly healthy dinner.
After dinner is where I have a hard time. I'm used to having dessert before bed, usually ice cream or pie or cookies or something. Since I didn't have dessert with my dinner, I found myself having a few holiday Hershey's kisses and Reese's cups that were left over in my desk before Christmas. I'm not beating myself up about it- four Hershey's kisses and two mini Reese's cups are not going to derail my whole fitness plan. But this pattern of being hungry after dinner and before bed is something that I'm going to have to work on. I may need to find a healthy nighttime snack to hold me over and keep myself from sneaking sweets late at night.
Enough with food and exercise. I'm back in classes tomorrow, which means that I get to work on another one of my resolutions: meeting more people! Don't get me wrong, I love the girls that I have right now, but I think we're all looking to expand our circle a little bit more. New people are always exciting. So here's to that!
I hope that you all have a great week doing whatever you're doing. Please comment so that I know you're reading this, but keep it anonymous.
And here's a quote for you to think about as you make and keep your resolutions:

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

Samuel Johnson
English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784) (from quotationspage.com)

Much love,
Imara