Amy's Year in Review 2014

I enjoy looking over my life at the beginning of the New Year. It makes the time I spent living worth my while, by recognizing all I've learned and how much I've changed. Below is my list of Things I've Learned, Accomplishments, and Desires for 2015. To be honest, I don't know if the things I've learned in 2014 were actually during 2014 or if they were some time before that, but I think they're important so they're listed.

Things I've Learned

1) No human feeling is unique: everyone can experience the same emotions (on varying levels), and it is possible to feel a strong emotion repeatedly. This includes love. This year, I had a tough time changing my mindset from the idea that love is unique and highly exclusive to that it is common and shared.  The truth is, we can love deeply more than once and we love many people throughout our lives. While I kind of knew this from my relationships with friends and family members, being in a close relationship with someone else made the lesson stark: I had to understand that I am a part of a person's life, not the part. That was a tough pill to swallow ("What?! You mean I'm not the only person you've ever cared about?") However, while I've learned that love itself is common, I've also learned that what comes from love is special: the family you create, the lessons you learn about yourself, and the places it takes you.

2) Talking is better than walking. I am a person who tends to cut things off and be done with them when they aren't working out. I've discovered that it's worth communicating your issues/feelings before walking out, especially if the other person wants to meet you half way.

3) Be able to justify your actions. It's a really great feeling when someone calls you out on a "mistake" and you're able to list solid, logical reasons why you did what you did.

4) You look better when you admit to a mistake than when you try to cover it up. Yes, people want something done in a timely fashion, but - at the core of the issue - they want it done right. Asking for help when you don't know is key.

5) You're given "dumb" passes in life (people forgive you when you do something stupid), but they're limited - try not to use them all up at once.

6) Learn how to fix what you mess up, because messing up is a given.

7) Sometimes you can't fix everything, though, and you have let time do the work. We all have people who won't forgive us, items that we've caught on fire and will never get back, and money (ours or someone else's) that we've tossed out the window...I think there's a specific "dumb pass" for that...Regardless, we just have to hope time will heal all emotional wreckage.

8) My body and physical ambitions have changed. In my early 20s, I thought I had figured out the "formula" to get my body the way I wanted it. Now, however, I'm no longer in that stage of post-adolescent-but-still-have-adolescent-body-functionings, and that formula doesn't work anymore. My body responds differently to food than it used to. I'm also less tolerant of being hungry and I don't have the same fascination with body mechanics anymore (aka I'm not ok with eating only a handful of food for a meal and gyms don't stimulate me like they used to). The resulting physical change has been difficult for me to deal with and I have a feeling life isn't going to be generous as I get older.  I'm not giving up, but I'm also learning acceptance...

9) "Finding myself" is over. Thank. Goodness. I no longer look at each opportunity like, "THIS IS WHO I AM AND WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING WITH MY LIFE!" I have a complicated web of interests, but none of them are attached to my identity. I regard the "finding self" stage as the mental puberty of early adulthood: I had to go through it to solidify my identity, but I'm glad it's over.

10) Movies can engage a person intellectually on a deeper level than I expected. They can make you reflect upon your own morals, goals, and thinking patterns. They make you question society. This deeper thinking thing was a pleasant surprise for me. I thought you could only get it - truly - from books.


Accomplishments

Obtained a full-time job with benefits that pays me almost enough to live on (parents still help a little).

Found an apartment that only I live in. Sweet Jesus, I didn't think I'd see the day.

Read several books and watched many tv shows and movies. Who's culturally engaged ??-->>> this one!

Maintained a healthy relationship for over a year (personal record! victory dance!).


Desires/Things to Accomplish for 2015

I'm used to being broke around Christmas and not doing much. This year, I wasn't broke but I did not plan well. I felt like a scrooge when unexpected gifts were left on my desk at work and in my mailbox at home. Next year, I want to be more active about preparing for the holidays (Christmas shopping will happen and cards will be made ahead of time) and appreciate the celebrating on a religious level. I also want an Advent calendar and Jesse tree. Seriously, what's more fun than opening a tiny box every day for a month, pulling out a gift/ornament, and reading an accompanying story? Lots of things, I know, but it's still pretty great.

I want an art project and art skills! I can already see many of you slapping your foreheads - you probably remember the artistic attempts of Summer 2013? Well, I'm back to it again. Right now, the only thing on my list is a kinetic typography video. I'm hoping to have two more projects this year (cards don't count).

Professionally? I'd like to start doing more with communications. I'm going to push to help with the department newsletter and website more. Truth be told, I envy the BioComm department upstairs. I'm sure their lives are filled with tedious work, but I would love some of their technical and creative skill sets.

I struggled with my religion in 2014. I was barely going to Mass once a week, and I developed some riffs with Catholicism. I went as far as looking into various Protestant churches around the city, because I wasn't feeling like I fit in as a Catholic anymore. However, after I went to one such service, I left feeling empty. I immediately missed the richness of the Catholic church, its rituals, and its structure. I like ritual and structure, and I was very appreciative of the next Mass I attended. However, who's to say this couldn't happen again? Therefore, this year I want to read about and engage more with my faith: to start, four books on Catholicism/Christianity.

Health...I'm just keeping on keeping on. Maybe exercise a little more.

I want a group of friends...like from a club I join or something. I don't know if that will happen this year because I can already see myself being very busy. However, I think friends would be a positive addition to my life.


All right, so that is that for 2015. Lots of good stuff happened in 2014, so let's hope that goodness keeps rolling! Do you have any goals for this year or anything you learned from last year that you want to share? If so, please leave a comment or send me a message. Best to you all for 2015!

Attempt to Veg

When we last left off, I was not particularly excited to limit my animal product intake: this was a principal source of my nutrition! However, truth be told, I like experimenting with food and it's one reason I try different diets and tolerate extreme eating patterns...it's me going, "I wonder how my body will react if I..." I should note that I also like to test myself to see if I can handle something (like eating cranberries without any sweetners -- which I can!! And I like them this way!), but I probably get food poisoning (gentle and severe) more often than the average person.

Anyway, I decided to give the vegan diet a try. Except it wasn't vegan. It was more of a vegetable-fruit-flaxseed-salmon-maybe an egg-and quinoa diet. My vegetable and fruit intake sky-rocketed and my animal product intake plummeted. My feelings about this diet are positive overall, but I do have some negative experiences, all of which I will discuss.

Positive:

DIGESTION. Holy Mother, my digestion is AWESOME and this is a HUGE deal to me. Food does not hang around for long. I am able to feel empty and really, I encourage you to try a plant-only diet with ground flaxseed sometime. Not for long, maybe just a few days. But it is GREAT.

I really was eating too many eggs. It's nice to take a break from my old diet.

Not Sure/Neutral:

I am lighter. I may have lost 1-2 lbs only, but I feel that my body mass has changed. My muscle mass has gotten smaller. In some ways, it feels good to be lighter. I had been feeling swollen and large for a while and now I don't feel that way. I don't feel toned, but I don't feel huge either.

Negative:

Loss of energy, strength, and motivation. In the hospital, there are eight floors and my office is on the first. I used to climb stairs taking two at a time every day during my lunch hour. I would go from bottom to top 2-3 times a day. Lately, though, I've been making it to the fourth or fifth floor and have had to take a break. Yeah. Sometimes, if I have food in me, I can do it, but it still takes way more energy than it used to. I also used to do strengthening exercises before work (push-ups, squats, etc) and now I don't have the energy. Meat and eggs let me build muscle mass and maintain it. The calories lasted longer and gave me energy. Also, I actually wanted to exercise when I ate them. Now I'd rather read. I kind of miss the drive.

For right now, I like my partial-vegan diet. I'm not married to it and will deviate as I see fit, but for right now, it's all right. Like I said in the beginning, I'm an experimenter with food, so things for me change.

Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It (Book Review)

This book discusses exactly what it says: why human beings get fat and what they can do to change it. The author, Gary Taubes, wrote a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories, in which he discusses the same topic in scientific terms. I hear it's a hefty read. His fans asked him to write something similar, but for "lay" people...something they could actually get through and understand. So along came this book. Taubes's main argument is: carbohydrates make us fat. If you want to lose weight, eat more meat...specifically with higher amounts of fat. It follows the same line of thinking as Atkins and the Paleo Diet. He argues that it's more efficient for the body to operate on fat and protein than it is on carbohydrates. He backs it up with scientific studies and historical movements that have taken place in the US. For instance, he points out that since the introduction of the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet in the 1960s, the number of overweight individuals has actually increased. He also goes further back in history and talks about populations all over the world that became obese when they were introduced to sugar, flour, and other carbohydrate-rich food...because they were cheap and readily accessible. The most interesting point about this book is that the author challenges diet paradigms that Americans have come to believe as true. Some of these include:

1) obesity is caused by overeating; if you want to lose weight you have eat less than what you need (essentially starve yourself).

2) a healthy diet includes low-fat foods and carbohydrates

3) exercise promotes weight loss

Taubes argues that nutrition authorities keep pushing these ideas into our culture, even though evidence from numerous studies has proven them false. He offers counter-arguments to all of the above:

1) People don't get fat because they overeat - they overeat because their hormones make them put on weight and they're trying to fuel their bodies with energy to maintain that weight (in other words, they overeat because they are fat).

2) carbohydrates stimulate hormones to store fat if not immediately used for energy; high-(animal) fat diets are actually most efficient for humans. 

3) exercise is not effective for weight loss because it makes you hungrier and eat more. 

He argues against other paradigms as well, such as those dealing with the economics of carbohydrates and poverty/wealth in communities. 

The main point I want to make about this book is that it challenges ideas we (Americans) have come to believe as true, even though the roots of these beliefs may be founded on illogical and non-scientific reasoning. I'm a proponent of his book because I've found much of what he says to be true, particularly through my own trial and error experiments with diet and exercise. I remember often feeling frustrated that the typical advice (eat less, eat low-fat, exercise to lose weight) did not work for me. It left me irritable, uncomfortable, hungry, and shocked when my clothing size went up instead of down. The best thing about the book, though, is that Taubes backs up everything he says with evidence. It's cited throughout the book and there are pages of references in the back. He isn't pulling his information from nowhere.

Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It is an eye-opening read that will get you thinking about the food/diet industry and how we get the information we do. If you're interested in health and diet, I recommend it. I think Taubes offers sound advice people can actually live by.

Adventure: Durian Fruit in Tucson

The last time I had a durian fruit was in 2009 in a botany class taught by the famed Tim Allen. It's notorious for having a terrible smell but amazing-tasting flesh inside. "King of Fruits," I've heard it called and it grows in Southeast Asia. I became interested in eating one again when I discovered that Tucson had a large Asian market on the north side. I finally made it out there last weekend and bought myself a durian...which was definitely an adventure.

After finding my way around the surprisingly-organized grocery store (the Asian markets I'm familiar with are a bit of an overwhelming hodgepodge), I took a few laps around the produce section. However, after searching for 10 minutes, I couldn't find one anywhere. I asked one of the staff members, but he didn't speak English very well and said that they didn't sell them. Disappointed, I was about to leave.

But then I became determined. I had read on a blog post that they WERE there...so I looked it up on my phone and continued to wander. The writer said, "The most unusual fruit is inconspicuously placed in the far right back corner inside a freezer chest box. The chest box contains frozen durian fruit individually placed in green plastic netting."

I excitedly went to the back corner of the store and THERE THEY WERE! Dozens of durians!!

I pulled one out carefully - its spikes made it slightly dangerous. The checkout woman wrapped it in newspaper and then double-bagged it. I walked out very pleased with myself and my find. I felt like I was holding a treasure-bomb. 

I waited a day and a half to let it thaw out. Its frozen state kept it from smelling bad in my refrigerator, but I knew that I could not store it once I cut it open. I had been reading horror stories about people who had to throw out their fridges because the smell absorbed into the plastic.

I went outside at 7:00 in the morning on Sunday before work (and the day before trash day) with a huge knife, some newspaper and growing anticipation. I had no idea what I would find inside. 

I sliced it, but it was still frozen. When they are ripe and not frozen, they look like this:

Mine looked like this:

The photo is a little offensive, I understand. But I was so excited I didn't care! It still didn't smell because it was half-frozen. The inside is a cream and tasted like banana and vanilla custard. It was so delicious and well-worth the cost, trip, and risk of ruining my fridge. 

You can eat them plain or cook with them. It is popular to turn them into smoothies or shakes:

I don't know when I'll have a durian again...probably when I can get a bunch of people together and we can make a party out of it. That way we can eat it all together and maybe make shakes. The best time to buy them, by the way, is in the spring when they are in season and the prices are low ($10-15 vs $20-30). 

I also recommend buying them at least two days in advance to let them thaw, if they are frozen, and to eat it the night before trash day. I'm sure my roommates appreciated my planning on that one.