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bedlamsbardSo this past week I did something that might be kind of interesting, if you don't have much else going on. Along with my weekly (or so) to-do list (flocked), I wrote down some goals and some "it would be nice to...", because I thought I might actually have a better chance of getting them done than if I didn't write them down.
Now, I guess the to-do list itself has some interesting things on it, in that there are things that have been on there for weeks that haven't happened (including working on my thesis and grad school apps, um, whoops). But this week I put four things on there as goals:
1. go to bed before midnight every night this week
2. no solitaire at all this week
3. no food court this week (except for drinks)
4. at least one leaf a day for my Saroyan scarf
Some of this did not work out. The going to bed before midnight thing, that did not happen, although I'm nearly always in bed before 12:30; I think so far this semester I've only been awake till 1 am once or twice. It takes me about forty-five minutes to an hour to do a leaf for the scarf I'm working on, and usually I knit while I'm watching TV, so I have to be actually doing that during the day. This was somewhat off-put by the fact that I started doing homework while watching TV. Whoops. Since the goal with the scarf is to get it done, though, I revised it to myself as "at least seven leaves for the week", and, yeah, I got that done, probably due to the day where I watched Iron Man 2 and the BSG miniseries and knitted so much my hand cramped up.
The solitaire thing was because I was picking up a serious solitaire problem and it had to stop if I wanted to do anything else -- it had reached the point where I'd put on a podcast and just play solitaire for the next three hours. I could be knitting! And that was actually the idea -- the last time I was starting to pick up solitaire, I managed to train myself out of it by picking up my current WIP and knitting a row or so every time I had the itch to open up solitaire. I didn't really do that this time, but still: no solitaire this week, so that worked out.
Now, the food court thing is where it gets interesting. I didn't do this for health -- as I've mentioned before, I tend to not eat enough as it is, so I wasn't doing it because I need to eat healthier or to lose weight or that sort of thing. I more or less had two reasons: one, I have a tendence to hoard food. Pantry staples, unfortunately, which is great if you have an actual pantry, but not so great if you have a cupboard and a shelf in the fridge. I was hoping that if I wasn't eating as much at the food court, then I'd be cooking more and would be able to burn through some of what I have in my pantry. And two, because I have $500 Wavebucks for the semester and I've already gone through half of them -- and we're not yet halfway through the semester. (Now, this gets kind of interesting because there are actually only two places I eat in our reasonably impressive food court -- I am a very picky eater.) I was hoping that I'd be cooking every night or every other night, rather than cooking maybe once a week and reheating leftovers or going to the food court all the other days. (We have a dining hall, but I'm not very keen on it, especially at the dinner hour, because it gets very, very crowded and it is not at all a soothing environment.)
Yeah, not so much. I made cookies one night and apple crisp another day and pretty much subsisted off those and fruit. Oh, and granola, I'd bought granola at Whole Foods the weekend before. I don't like much frozen food, so I don't keep it around -- I went through the spring rolls I had in the freezer, I think I made pasta once, and...that was it. So, basically, I think I may have actually lost weight, which was not what I was going for. This week -- well, I was going to make dinner last night, but my roommate was in the kitchen and I was starving, so off I went to the food court to bring back a gyro and a slice of red velvet cake to devour while I watched BSG. Because I should eat at least two real meals a day. (Yesterday I missed breakfast and ate a bowl of apple crisp instead -- hey, it's got oats, it's got fruit, it counts, but I ate lunch and I ate dinner, so that's gotta count for something.)
Usually I go to the dining hall for breakfast, but I've been running late more and more in the mornings and right now I'm lucky enough to actually have breakfast items sitting around that can be prepared and eaten quickly -- granola, apple crisp, sometimes I have biscuits but not right now, so I haven't been going as much as I'm used to. The good thing about that is that I can use those swipes (I have eight a week) for lunch, which I usually only go to on Mondays (red beans and rice day) and Wednesdays (fried chicken and mac and chese, most of the time). I managed to freak my mother the hell out the other day by telling her how I wasn't eating much and I was feeling tired and wan and a little faint...while I was walking back from Whole Foods. I solved that by making a smoothie, which is something I'd like to do more of, but my immersion blender's a little noisy and I can't do it in the morning because I have to be up before any of my roommates. Obviously the answer is doing it the night before, but... *shrugs* Effort. The main problem with trying to cook your own meals in a shared space is that usually the hour in which you want to cook is the same hour in which your roommate also wants to cook. Or, alternate, you cook while everyone's out, and when they come back they make faces of disgust and go, "What is that smell?" And then you feel like NEVER EVER COOKING AGAIN.
(I've been paranoid all this week -- at some point you start thinking your paranoia is justified when you walk into a room and everyone in it walks out -- but according to MonthlyInfo I'm premenstrual, so that probably explains it. *sigh* Why can't I just get sad and bitchy and eat a lot of chocolate? Why do I have to feel like everyone hates me and I don't have any friends and I'm never going to accomplish anything? Okay, granted, I feel like that about fifty percent of the time anyway, but it gets worse.)
I did manage to freak out at my mother about how I feel like all my friends hate me and why doesn't anyone ever want to spend time with me or go somewhere with me when I have been asking for the better part of a month and a half now (and which they said they were interested in), because at some point it really just seems like they hate you, but she told me I was just being paranoid, which I knew, and at that point I got really frustrated because obviously! ...my paranoia is so high maintenance. Or something. (Also...I am kind of on that edge where I feel like none of my roommates have said anything to me besides a really brusque, "Hi," for a few days, which isn't a hundred percent true, but it's somewhere around ninety percent true, and that's a really terrible feeling.)
Now, if I really wanted to set a more impressive goal, I'd take out twenty bucks cash-back from my grocery shopping every two weeks, then take my debit card out of my wallet before I go out. (Granted, I don't buy that much stuff -- BUT, when I'm anxious I go to the grocery store, and remember the above bit about food hoarding? Yeah, it can add up. This holds true for going to consignment shops and used bookstores, too. At this point, I wish I was spending $10 a week on eating out, I'd probably feel better about it.) Relatedly: yesterday I went to a used bookshop I don't usually go to because it's a bit more of a slog than the closer used bookshop. I had $11 in cash, and I told myself I could only spend that much but no more. And I bought a book! (Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke -- they had the second one too, and I own the third one but haven't read it -- wow, I really hope this is actually the first one -- but I thought I'd see if I liked it before I shelled out another $4. I was hoping for Sutcliff, but no dice; the one Sutcliff book they had was one I wasn't interested in. (She's hard to find in the U.S., anyway.)
See, the problem is that when I go for a walk, since I can't walk in the park (ducks. geese. I'm sorry, this is very awkward), I tend to go to nearby shops, which is why I end up going grocery shopping three times a week even if I don't need to.
Anyway. That is the state of the Bedlam. There are things that I need to do that I...haven't done. (Like, apply for grad school. Work on my thesis. Yesterday my second reader sat in on my Greek class and as soon as class was over I fled in case he tried to corner me and ask how my thesis was going. Hint: IT'S NOT. Since I haven't taken any of the books off my shelf since the last time I talked to my thesis advisor. I still don't have a third reader! ...okay, I just sent that e-mail, so we'll find out.)
Unrelatedly, I just had the thought that, huh, maybe it's not typical for an armed robbery to occur not far off-campus every few days. Even in a major city. New Orleans, man.
Now, I guess the to-do list itself has some interesting things on it, in that there are things that have been on there for weeks that haven't happened (including working on my thesis and grad school apps, um, whoops). But this week I put four things on there as goals:
1. go to bed before midnight every night this week
2. no solitaire at all this week
3. no food court this week (except for drinks)
4. at least one leaf a day for my Saroyan scarf
Some of this did not work out. The going to bed before midnight thing, that did not happen, although I'm nearly always in bed before 12:30; I think so far this semester I've only been awake till 1 am once or twice. It takes me about forty-five minutes to an hour to do a leaf for the scarf I'm working on, and usually I knit while I'm watching TV, so I have to be actually doing that during the day. This was somewhat off-put by the fact that I started doing homework while watching TV. Whoops. Since the goal with the scarf is to get it done, though, I revised it to myself as "at least seven leaves for the week", and, yeah, I got that done, probably due to the day where I watched Iron Man 2 and the BSG miniseries and knitted so much my hand cramped up.
The solitaire thing was because I was picking up a serious solitaire problem and it had to stop if I wanted to do anything else -- it had reached the point where I'd put on a podcast and just play solitaire for the next three hours. I could be knitting! And that was actually the idea -- the last time I was starting to pick up solitaire, I managed to train myself out of it by picking up my current WIP and knitting a row or so every time I had the itch to open up solitaire. I didn't really do that this time, but still: no solitaire this week, so that worked out.
Now, the food court thing is where it gets interesting. I didn't do this for health -- as I've mentioned before, I tend to not eat enough as it is, so I wasn't doing it because I need to eat healthier or to lose weight or that sort of thing. I more or less had two reasons: one, I have a tendence to hoard food. Pantry staples, unfortunately, which is great if you have an actual pantry, but not so great if you have a cupboard and a shelf in the fridge. I was hoping that if I wasn't eating as much at the food court, then I'd be cooking more and would be able to burn through some of what I have in my pantry. And two, because I have $500 Wavebucks for the semester and I've already gone through half of them -- and we're not yet halfway through the semester. (Now, this gets kind of interesting because there are actually only two places I eat in our reasonably impressive food court -- I am a very picky eater.) I was hoping that I'd be cooking every night or every other night, rather than cooking maybe once a week and reheating leftovers or going to the food court all the other days. (We have a dining hall, but I'm not very keen on it, especially at the dinner hour, because it gets very, very crowded and it is not at all a soothing environment.)
Yeah, not so much. I made cookies one night and apple crisp another day and pretty much subsisted off those and fruit. Oh, and granola, I'd bought granola at Whole Foods the weekend before. I don't like much frozen food, so I don't keep it around -- I went through the spring rolls I had in the freezer, I think I made pasta once, and...that was it. So, basically, I think I may have actually lost weight, which was not what I was going for. This week -- well, I was going to make dinner last night, but my roommate was in the kitchen and I was starving, so off I went to the food court to bring back a gyro and a slice of red velvet cake to devour while I watched BSG. Because I should eat at least two real meals a day. (Yesterday I missed breakfast and ate a bowl of apple crisp instead -- hey, it's got oats, it's got fruit, it counts, but I ate lunch and I ate dinner, so that's gotta count for something.)
Usually I go to the dining hall for breakfast, but I've been running late more and more in the mornings and right now I'm lucky enough to actually have breakfast items sitting around that can be prepared and eaten quickly -- granola, apple crisp, sometimes I have biscuits but not right now, so I haven't been going as much as I'm used to. The good thing about that is that I can use those swipes (I have eight a week) for lunch, which I usually only go to on Mondays (red beans and rice day) and Wednesdays (fried chicken and mac and chese, most of the time). I managed to freak my mother the hell out the other day by telling her how I wasn't eating much and I was feeling tired and wan and a little faint...while I was walking back from Whole Foods. I solved that by making a smoothie, which is something I'd like to do more of, but my immersion blender's a little noisy and I can't do it in the morning because I have to be up before any of my roommates. Obviously the answer is doing it the night before, but... *shrugs* Effort. The main problem with trying to cook your own meals in a shared space is that usually the hour in which you want to cook is the same hour in which your roommate also wants to cook. Or, alternate, you cook while everyone's out, and when they come back they make faces of disgust and go, "What is that smell?" And then you feel like NEVER EVER COOKING AGAIN.
(I've been paranoid all this week -- at some point you start thinking your paranoia is justified when you walk into a room and everyone in it walks out -- but according to MonthlyInfo I'm premenstrual, so that probably explains it. *sigh* Why can't I just get sad and bitchy and eat a lot of chocolate? Why do I have to feel like everyone hates me and I don't have any friends and I'm never going to accomplish anything? Okay, granted, I feel like that about fifty percent of the time anyway, but it gets worse.)
I did manage to freak out at my mother about how I feel like all my friends hate me and why doesn't anyone ever want to spend time with me or go somewhere with me when I have been asking for the better part of a month and a half now (and which they said they were interested in), because at some point it really just seems like they hate you, but she told me I was just being paranoid, which I knew, and at that point I got really frustrated because obviously! ...my paranoia is so high maintenance. Or something. (Also...I am kind of on that edge where I feel like none of my roommates have said anything to me besides a really brusque, "Hi," for a few days, which isn't a hundred percent true, but it's somewhere around ninety percent true, and that's a really terrible feeling.)
Now, if I really wanted to set a more impressive goal, I'd take out twenty bucks cash-back from my grocery shopping every two weeks, then take my debit card out of my wallet before I go out. (Granted, I don't buy that much stuff -- BUT, when I'm anxious I go to the grocery store, and remember the above bit about food hoarding? Yeah, it can add up. This holds true for going to consignment shops and used bookstores, too. At this point, I wish I was spending $10 a week on eating out, I'd probably feel better about it.) Relatedly: yesterday I went to a used bookshop I don't usually go to because it's a bit more of a slog than the closer used bookshop. I had $11 in cash, and I told myself I could only spend that much but no more. And I bought a book! (Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke -- they had the second one too, and I own the third one but haven't read it -- wow, I really hope this is actually the first one -- but I thought I'd see if I liked it before I shelled out another $4. I was hoping for Sutcliff, but no dice; the one Sutcliff book they had was one I wasn't interested in. (She's hard to find in the U.S., anyway.)
See, the problem is that when I go for a walk, since I can't walk in the park (ducks. geese. I'm sorry, this is very awkward), I tend to go to nearby shops, which is why I end up going grocery shopping three times a week even if I don't need to.
Anyway. That is the state of the Bedlam. There are things that I need to do that I...haven't done. (Like, apply for grad school. Work on my thesis. Yesterday my second reader sat in on my Greek class and as soon as class was over I fled in case he tried to corner me and ask how my thesis was going. Hint: IT'S NOT. Since I haven't taken any of the books off my shelf since the last time I talked to my thesis advisor. I still don't have a third reader! ...okay, I just sent that e-mail, so we'll find out.)
Unrelatedly, I just had the thought that, huh, maybe it's not typical for an armed robbery to occur not far off-campus every few days. Even in a major city. New Orleans, man.