my new favorite word

I have a new favorite word. It is grrr.

Now, some of you may argue that grrr is not a word, but a sound. It definitely is the way I always tended to "say" it--as a low-throated growl like you'd hear coming from a dog. But thanks to Saj, pictured here, I now appreciate it as a word. A word that makes me laugh when I'm irritated, because Saj actually says the word like it's a word--more like it's spelled "gurr." It's the funniest thing to be irritated and complaining about something and hear a grrr come from Saj's mouth. I was just laughing about it coming up the stairs to my apartment and thought, Now that's blog-worthy.

In fact, the whole day today is blog worthy. I actually thought about writing a blog titled "research is fun!" I would have meant it, too. Of course, I have been working on getting ready for my dissertation research today instead of working on the papers that are due on Wednesday, and that makes a world of difference. I actually like thinking about and doing my wiki research, because it's interesting to me. I'm actually dreading (but probably going to do some tonight) doing the research and writing for my classes, because I'm just not interested in the topics. But after Wednesday I can forget about them, so I might as well just get them done.

It's also been a bright, sunny day in the seventies, and that makes me happy, too. It rained here for at least two days straight--I mean the pouring, flood the parks so the trees look like they're growing out of lakes kind of rain. During those days, I thought about writing a blog titled "death by drowning" and lamenting the worms that were all over the sidewalks. I only realized a month or two ago that they don't come out of their homes because they enjoy the rain and then scorch to death in the sun before they can get back in. It's the other way around--they drown in their homes--and that seems much worse to me, for some reason. And backwards.

But today's been a good day. So good, in fact, that while Dana's at work (and will perhaps meander over to my blog), I'm drinking the Blue Moon that she left in my fridge. (I owe you one!) Wishing, of course, that I had the Starbucks liqueur that I left in her fridge.

Happy Friday, everyone!

it's in! & more reception stuff...

I got a voicemail today telling me my wedding dress is in! The only problem is, I'm out here at school and can't guarantee that I'll be home until the evening of May 4 (although I'm still aiming for May 3). Since the wedding shower and my brothers' birthday celebrations are on May 5, I won't be able to go in for my fitting until Monday, May 7 at the earliest. That means mom won't be able to go with me--since I'll need alterations, I don't think it's wise to wait until the following weekend (which would leave less than a month before the wedding!). In fact, unless Julie's off during the day Monday or Tuesday or my sister ends up losing sleep (she works nights and sleeps days), I don't know if anyone will be able to go with me. That would be a big, big bummer, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

I also got a great question about the reception from one of my friends. She's looking for a sitter and wondered when it ends. Well, since we only have the pub for six hours, it'll end at approximately 8:30 or 9:00. Pretty early, I know, but it's going to be a very short ceremony and we'll be heading over to the pub immediately afterward (besides, most people need to work Monday). Yes, yes, yes, there will be a full meal, but it's buffet (hence the no choice rsvp card). We get a fish, a meat, and a poultry and there will be assorted sides (I'll make sure there are some good ones for vegetarians). There will also be entertainment, a bit different from traditional receptions, but you'll have to wait to find out what that is. Finally, there will be some dancing, but don't expect to get wild and crazy--Al wants to keep it nice and slow and mellow. Still, I think family + friends + us = fun, fun, fun!

Oh, and in case you're single and got an invite with your name only on it (no "and guest"), there's a reason for it, the same for the "no kids" thing: we are very limited on space, and it was either invite guests or invite you. We wanted you to be there! Still, if it's "I have to bring my new boyfriend that you don't know about or I just can't come," well...we'd probably maybe I hope be able to squeeze both of you in. The problem is, if everyone comes (which I know probably won't happen, but if) we will have exactly 120 including me and Al--the max we can have.

I am excited!!!! I am also tired since I got up at 2am to work, and probably will crash after the office and get up at 4am for tomorrow's work. Don't worry, my crazy hours are almost done for the summer. See you soon!

wine bottling

I may not have time to post my own blog about my weekend, but Dana has! She's also posted several pictures of Friday night's wine bottling/Wagon Wheel experience, which you can see here. I've stolen them, err, saved them to my computer and am posting a few of my fave shots in this very short blog. Just for some background info, we were bottling the wine that will serve as favors at my wedding--in just a few short weeks!

One thing Dana didn't blog about was the Natural Locz Dance Company's debut concert, which was Saturday night (after Union Street--not Station, as Dana blogged). Danny, the artistic director, is one of my best friends. The concert was wonderful, if you can believe a non-dancer's opinion, and afterwards he thanked just about everyone in the audience by making them stand up one by one and wave to everyone else while he talked about us. He made me cry. I'm just sorry that I was too exhausted to go to the afterglow and completely forgot to look for Marlon. Oops. See you in a couple of weeks, Danny!

Okay, have to run to get my hair cut.

gift registry

Gift registry info! For those of you that are interested, Alan and I registered for gifts yesterday at Macy's. We were also going to register at Home Depot, but it's a little hard to register for landscaping stuff (we plan to work a lot in the yard this summer).

It's so strange blogging about this--I feel like I'm begging for gifts. The fact of the matter is, I just couldn't get home to register earlier--or in time to put the info in the family shower invites. So here it is. And buy or not--the important thing to us is being able to celebrate our wedding with family and friends.

I'm a little tired and need to get up bright and early to work, so I'll blog more about my weekend later--perhaps even after May 3, the day I hope to drive home for good for the summer. Have a happy week!

tattoo number two?

So I've been toying with this idea lately (for the past month and a half) that I'd like another tattoo, probably in the form of some sort of armband. Perhaps needless to say, Al isn't really into the idea (he hates it). He doesn't want the tattoo to show at, perhaps, a wedding where I'm wearing a sleeveless dress. At least, that's what he says. He probably prefers that it never shows. Ever. Because he doesn't like tattoos. Last night, however, I got a preview of what such a tattoo might look like--especially if it was done by a very bad tattoo artist who was a bit too giggly while she was working.

Yesterday was a wonderful, procrastinatory day in which I spent way too much money, hung out with friends, and so far do not regret in the least (I'm doing my best to ward off the, "What in the world was I thinking because I couldn't afford the time or money I spent doing that" regrets that are almost inevitable in the life of a grad student). It started off the usual way for a Saturday with a workout on the elliptical machine and a Perkins breakfast with Dana. I spent much of the time bemoaning the work I needed to do. Then, as we were getting up to leave, I said, "I really want to go to New York & Company." I knew they were having a 40% off everything sale and, being one of my favorite stores, I was having a very hard time passing it up. It didn't take much for Dana to convince me that we should spend our afternoon shopping. Five hours and $250 later I had new unmentionables from Victoria's Secret, two new skirts, a tee-shirt, a purse, and a necklace from NY&Co., and two new pairs of wedding shoes (a pair of heels for the reception, flip-flops for the ceremony) from DSW Shoe Warehouse. Then, when we arrived home, I decided I wasn't possibly going to start working at 6:30 at night (it takes a while to drive to the city with a real mall--I felt like I was actually back at home in civilization while I was there), so told Dana I would pretty myself up and head on over to get an early start on our going-out plans for the evening.

I arrived at Dana's and Kate's apartment and soon everyone was there--everyone being us three and Stephanie and Scott. Sometime during the night, Dana pulled out a black Sharpie marker and decided to give Stephanie tattoos. I got one, too--an armband of viney leaves. It is bee-you-tee-ful--and still on my arm, although in all fairness I haven't tried to wash it off yet. The night was fun (well, except for the other people's party part--people whom I don't know and a party after which Kate was tired and decided to leave us) and included half a glass of ice-water being poured down my shirt, Dana losing a shoe, Stephanie finding out that she's really bad at table football, and Scott having parmesan cheese dandruff. Oh, and gyros bought from and prepared by two of my favorite students, one former and one current. Finally, a night worth writing about. I was worried that my life was getting boring!

No, my life is not boring, not all the time. I have another physical reminder of that (besides the pretty tattoo) in the form of a pulled leg muscle that runs, somehow, from my calf to my hamstring on my left leg. It's a bit painful with every step I take, and although I went to bed without the pain--and got up and wandered around a few times during the night without noticing anything--for some reason when I finally rolled out of bed at 9:30 this morning, it was there. I have no idea how I could have done something like that in my sleep, but I also know my memory cells were in no way damaged by last night's festivities. This is a mystery to me, one that I hope fades away by the time I try to work out tomorrow morning.

The end.

P.S. The pic, by the way, is of Dana and Kate, but not from last night. Don't worry. They still look pretty much the same. :)

i still...

i'm fading

all these words,
ideas,
other people's thoughts

they flood in
mercilessly assaulting that which was me

(the world is behind them
in this warpath they're on
so many fade out
fall in
declare victory
defeat
over a "non-existent" truth
they think they've found themselves)

this crowding in my head is getting tiresome
soon i'll start pushing back
they need to leave room
for me

tears of disappointment

I found out today that Al will be away from me for eight or nine days in July for training on a new printing press. He has to go somewhere on the east coast to learn how to fix the thing. This news is bitterly disappointing to me since we will be newlyweds and we'll already be spending months three through eleven (August through April) of our first year of marriage apart. It puts a damper on my anticipation about spending the summer with him. Why couldn't his company take him away after I leave to start the new school year?

venting

I'd like to take a few minutes out of my busy Thursday to vent about my feelings of inadequacy. I don't know what it is about today, but today I have felt groggy, un-energetic, and inconfident of myself, my intelligence, and my abilities to last in an academic world. Maybe it's the allergies or the fact that I've skipped two workouts this week, but I'm feeling off.

Anyway. For one of my classes, we spend most of our time workshopping the research papers and projects we're working on. I'm in a small group--three very smart, respectable guys and me--and we read each other what we've written so far and then give each other suggestions. Within this group of smart, smart people (did I mention they're smart?) I feel stupid, stupid, stupid. And like I'm on a different track than them and have different goals than them, even though we're all in the same PhD program. They asked me again today where I intend on publishing the paper that I'm working on, and honestly, I don't intend to publish this paper at all. It's just a month's worth of observations and one interview, and the "results" that will come out of it are hardly worth publishing, in my opinion. But between my group (two of whom, at least, believe everything we work on should be with the goal of publishing) and my newly-signed-on POS committee chair, I'm feeling like I'm going to have to try to publish it somewhere. That pressure is making me feel very out of place, very un-intelligent, very non-motivated in a "you don't belong here" sort of way.

So I'm discouraged. I don't see how I'm going to spin this into something that some journal somewhere would want to publish and find that journal within the next two weeks' time. That, in addition to writing the paper, doing the reading that needs to provide the theoretical background for the paper, writing up analyses of the readings for my other class (another twenty pages), and get everything extra that Dr. R wants me to do before I leave for home. And I'm desperately wanting it to be May 3rd or 4th, because on one of those two days I'll be on my way home, done with the worst of this, and be able to stay there--besides a honeymoon jaunt to Ireland--for three entire months. All I want to do is sleep. My eyes feel so heavy, and I got more than eight hours last night, so I'm pretty sure this is allergy-related lethargy. And my hair's bugging me since I decided not to shower today and it's feeling rather dirty. Okay. Only four more hours until I head home. I can do this.

Thanks for letting me vent. As if you had a choice.

forgetful

I just had the most bizarre dream. I opened the school newspaper to try to get at the crossword puzzle and things kept floating off the page at me and coming to life in my head. Comic strips were singing and dancing around. I don't even read comic strips. And it was in black and white, like the newspaper. I always dream in color. Anyway.

I forgot to blog about the funniest thing that happened to me yesterday. Rather, the funniest thing I almost did. I don't know where my head was, but I was very forgetful. Each semester, I cancel class and hold conferences with my students during one week. For the past few semesters I've been doing this when the students are working on their team projects--meeting with twelve teams is a lot easier on me than meeting with forty-six students individually. Yesterday I had to meet with three teams from each class--half of my students. I met with the teams, then proceeded to go to my office, gather my belongings, and walk to my car. I threw my stuff in the car, started the engine, and pulled open my purse to get out money and pay my parking bill. Trying to figure out how much I would need to pay, I glanced at the clock. It read 3:43, and since it's five or six minutes fast, it was actually about 3:37 or 3:38. My second class starts at 3:40. I had completely forgotten about them and was about to go home, leaving those three teams sitting around and wondering where I was.

I couldn't believe my forgetfulness. Since the parking garage is several minutes' walk from the building I teach in, I paid for my parking, drove to the parking ramp that is closest to my building, and ran out, not bothering to pay the meters (the ramp has meters; the garage has an attendant). I thought I would have to just take my chances and pay the $7.50 if I got a parking ticket. I arrived at class five minutes late. Instead of admitting my faux pas to the team I had scheduled the first meeting with, I told them, "Sorry I'm late, guys. I had to run to my car." Which wasn't completely a lie. I had run to my car, after all. I just didn't tell them I almost left them, that's all.

By the way, it's snowing. About half an inch so far. Ugh. But the weather channel said it's supposed to be sixty by next Tuesday.

april snow showers kill the flowers

A few weeks ago, the weather was beautiful. The grass turned green in a week. The flowers started blooming, and buds started growing on the trees. The nice weather, though, was just a tease. Sixties and seventies because thirties and forties again--fifty if we were lucky. And now there's a winter storm watch for my county. The rain we are getting now is supposed to turn to snow, and by tomorrow night/Thursday morning we may have four to eight inches of wet snow on the ground. Here's hoping the weather reports are drastically wrong this month. I want to see the flowers! I'm also hoping our geese don't get too cold--the goslings that were born here last year have returned and I really enjoy watching them knowing how small they were last year.

Other than the weather? I'm busy with meetings and homework and celebrations. The meetings are in preparation for the rest of my time in grad school, putting my committee together and getting my plan of study (POS) approved--that means they sign off on the classes I've taken and say I've had enough. The homework is just homework, and I'm trying to get it all done in the next two and a half weeks. And the celebrations are in honor of my friend. Last week, Stephanie defended her creative component and passed (a defense is a presentation and question/answer session, and her creative component is a project she had to complete in order to get her master's degree in addition to taking classes), so we had a celebration for her. Today, Dana defended her creative component and passed, so we're having a small celebration for her. We're combining her celebration with one for Scott, since he got his first article accepted at an academic journal. It'll just be dinner and drinks at the local Irish pub (we go all out). The posts this next two weeks will probably be sparse, so just stay tuned!

a glimpse of the future

I spent yesterday shirking my academic responsibilities and addressing envelopes for wedding invitations, which we'll mail out in two weeks. A version of this graphic plays a part in those. My invites, in case you were wondering (or will be, since you won't see them until they arrive in your mailboxes), were designed by my friend Dana. I'm sure Dana will take orders for other personalized designs if you want anything.

A few things about the invites, for those of you reading now and those of you who (I hope) read this blog in the future, once you get the invites:

• They say the wedding's in Farmington Hills. It's not. It's in Farmington. (Oops. My mistake.)
• Yes, the wedding's in a garden, which means it's outdoors and you'll be standing (not sitting) around in the grass. I plan on wearing flip flops--not heels--so that I don't sink into the ground at each step.
• The flip flops indicate a sense of informality, which I hope the invites do as well. I'm wearing a wedding dress and Al's planning on wearing a suit (let's hope he actually starts looking for it soon). You can wear what you want, as long as you're clothed.
• Yes, some walking will be involved--parking is only plentiful down by the pub (the reception site) and this will involve walking the four blocks to and from the ceremony site. You can do it. You've got two months to get in shape. And take some pics on the walk and send them to me after the wedding.
• In case of rain, check this blog. I'll post the decision whether (weather--ha!) to follow the rain plans or the let's-do-it-outdoors plans. Rain plans involve arriving at the pub at 2:30 instead of the ceremony site at 2:00. If there's rain, we'll get married in the pub.
• Yes, there is a meal at the reception, but you don't have a meal choice on the RSVP card because it's a buffet. Don't worry, they have good food. And yes, there is a full bar and no, it's not a cash bar. Al's not that cheap.
• We haven't registered yet, but plan to the week these invitations will be mailed (so if you're reading this after you received the invite, you may want to check more recent posts). The plan right now is to register at Macy's and Home Depot.

Eek! I'm getting married in two months! I'll be home for the summer in less than a month! I better stop shirking my academic responsibilities for today and start working on all that stuff I have to accomplish within the next month...

i miss you

frying pan -> fire

Eight days after I found out that I passed my portfolio exam and I'm as busy as ever. And from what I hear, it's only going to get worse...

My students have been oh-so-patient waiting for their grades. Some of them, I discovered, had a good reason for this: they never turned in the assignment (it was due a month ago). I've been averaging forty-five minutes to an hour per student this time around, but since I am grading between three and four items per student and giving them summaries of their grades for the entire semester, I don't think that's too bad. It just takes a lot of time. They've grown accustomed to getting their grades a few days after I promise them. I even got a great compliment from one of my students--he said I give very helpful comments on their papers and do much more than any other teacher he ever had. Another one of them also realized that I spend a lot of time and effort on their papers, and I think their "thanks" and compliments make it worth it (despite the 4 am hours). I'm getting close to being caught up on the grading, but it's taken a lot of my time this past week.

I also had my meeting with my advisor and Dr. R, the other professor who helped me on my portfolio, to go over the portfolio exam committee's comments. Basically, when I turned in my portfolio exam, five of the faculty got copies of my papers and had to read them, comment on them, and then meet and vote as either pass/fail. That meeting was on March 28, and it only lasted half an hour, which is good--no debate, all unanimous, all loved my research and want me to pursue it. I'm going to use the topic of my long paper as my dissertation topic. Basically, I'm studying how using wikis in the classroom (Wikipedia in particular, but I'm not going to hold myself to that narrow of a scope at this point) can assist students in writing for an audience. It looks like my dissertation will probably be a three-article dissertation, meaning I write three publishable articles and tie them together with an introduction, conclusion, and transitions instead of writing the traditional book-like dissertation.

My passing meant I need to try to get a ton of stuff done for the coming year within the next four weeks (before I go home for the summer). I need to put together my POS committee--five faculty members who will help me with my next set of exams (next year) and my dissertation, and who will ultimately vote and decide whether I get a PhD. I met with Dr. R. yesterday, hoping he would agree to be my chair, and he was enthusiastic about it until he found out that I may not want to pursue research, research, research for a living (I'm more interested in teaching, so any research I do will be for the purpose of furthering my own teaching abilities and helping others think about it, too). He'll let me know for sure tomorrow. If he says yes, we'll just have to figure out who the rest of them would be, and we have a pretty good idea about that now. If he says no, I'll have to find someone else to chair it--I have two ideas, but neither seem as good to me as him. I could understand if he said no, though; the reputation I build reflects on the chair of my committee, and he is known for high-quality research and publishing (a lot).

I'm also working on getting approval to actually do my research starting next semester. I have to fill out all of these forms and get approval from the Institutional Research Board (IRB) to do it, and since my one volunteer (so far) works at another institution, I'll have to get IRB approval from two different schools. IRB approval is required because of all of these psychological and medical tests done on people in the 1960s (?) without their knowledge or approval. In order to get the forms filled out, though, I have to write a plan out and go over it with Dr. R tomorrow, and then make sure it's okay with my research participant on Monday. I also need to try to recruit more participants. This type of research actually is exciting to me, and I wouldn't mind doing this and teaching as a career--hopefully, that got across to Dr. R and he will work with me. (Please? I know he won't read this, though, since I have all of two-three steady readers as of late.)

I'm also working on my project(s) for my two classes. I've been following a guy around while he works and taking notes on what he does, and I have to somehow turn this into a paper that (hopefully) I can publish someday. While I have to be vague about my research here because of confidentiality, I think I know how I'm going to structure/write the paper and what I'm going to write about. But the topic requires researching a new area of theory (us rhetoricians always have to use some type of theory to talk about our work), so for one of my classes I am going to write analytic reading logs to help familiarize myself with that theory. When I'm done with my blog, I have to prepare for my last time seeing my research participant--I'm interviewing him tomorrow, and I have to write up a list of interview questions so that I can get some input from my classmates. I want to know if I'm asking the right things. And this weekend is going to be writing, writing, writing parts of the paper (as well as reading the theory for it, too).

Tomorrow has yet a third appointment (one was with Dr. R, and two was the interview) because a prospective PhD student is visiting the university and three of us are taking him out for an early lunch. And there's my regularly-scheduled workout before that. I'm not used to Fridays being packed! Monday's the same way--some Mondays I don't even shower, but this Monday I'll be meeting to make sure I have enough classes to be able to be done with them next spring, as well as that meeting about this fall's research. I'm glad that tomorrow is full, though, because it will keep my mind off of Sadie. Tomorrow is the second anniversary of her death.

Okay, gotta write up those interview questions. Have a happy Thursday!

everyday heroes and crystal lite flavored feet

I am easily amused. Especially when I have been on the move for fourteen hours, am practially brain-dead, have seven more papers to grade and a book to finish reading. Yeah. Not all getting done today, I can assure you. Still, though, I can laugh at the little things. For instance. (Yes, I'm aware that's a sentence fragment. Don't care.)

Everyday Heroes
I noticed a public transit bus trying to get over into the left lane today while it was sitting at the light. That's not normal, so I perked up and paid attention. When the bus moved out of the way, I realized why it had been trying to get over. A new-ish (see, there's that pesky ish again) Ford Explorer was broken down in front of it. And at the precise moment that the bus pulled into the other lane, three guys started pushing the Explorer from behind. It was amusing, because they were all bobbing up and down in rhythm and their steps were tiny, yet they were running. The one on the right kept reaching down to pull up his sweat pants, which were threatening to stay behind on the road. They went around the corner and down the intersecting street, bobbing all the way. At one point, a girl popped out of the passenger side door and sat on the windowsill watching them and laughing--she must have been as amused as I was. These are the everyday heroes for that girl and (undoubtedly) the girl in the driver's seat (and things like this are the reason I will never own a Ford again).

Crystal Lite Flavored Feet
As I was pulling out of the parking garage, trying to get my money out to pay my bill, I noticed yellow chalk all over my purse. I couldn't figure out where it had come from, since I hadn't even been in a room that used chalk today--I taught in the computer lab, which has a whiteboard. Then I noticed it on my bag, on my car seat, and on the console between my front seats. Growing angrier by the second, I tried desperately to figure out where it could have come from. Had it been in the elevator? Had I leaned against it somehow? Was it all over the back of my coat, making me look like a fool? I did my best to wipe the chalk from my purse onto the carpet at my feet (what else could I do?), drove to the grocery store to pick up a few items, and reached into my bag to grab my shoes. When I teach in heels, I usually bring another pair of shoes to walk across campus in, but my extra choice of shoes today was a poor one; instead of being forty degrees when I left campus, it was a chilly thirty-six degrees and my flip flops just weren't doing the trick. It was only then that I realized what the "yellow chalk" was. I had used half a packet of Crystal Lite On-the-Go today (the whole thing is way too much for one bottle of water) and for some odd reason had thrown the open packet into my bag when I left the office. The fine powder coated everything in the bag, including the inside of my shoes. I walked into Hy-Vee with Crystal Lite flavored feet, and I can still smell my feet as I sit here typing this.

Bonus Buy
Here's a bonus amusement. The Comfort Suites hotel right across from my apartment complex recently changed ownership and became a Holiday Inn. They have brand new signs on the hotel and on the side of the road, and a message right under the road sign proudly states, "Welcome. Formally Comfort Suites." I wish I had my digital camera. I've always seen pictures of funny signs, but it's rare to see one on the side of the road where you live!

new me, part iv

I've been remiss in posting lately, I know. I've just been trying to catch up and keep up with schoolwork, since it's dawned on me (earlier than it usually does in the semester, which is actually a good thing) that school will be out in a month. Which means that I will need to be done with two papers and all of my grading. So I've been spending countless hours grading, a few hours doing homework/reading, and a few more doing more observations for research. And then I've been too tired to post.

Here I am, though, at posting number four of my new me series. And the results this month, my friends, are disappointing, although I expected them. So take this month as a lesson in what not to do when you're trying to lose weight.

Here's what I've done since new me part ii/iii:

March 5-11:
Calories burned: 690
Exercises done: Walked on track 3.5 miles (2 days); Walked, jogged, or hiked on treadmill 5.31 miles (2 days); Lifted weights 1 hour, 25 minutes (2 days)

March 12-18:
Calories burned: 560
Exercises done: Walked on track 0.5 mile (1 day); Walked, jogged, or hiked on treadmill 4.25 miles (1 day); Lifted weights 30 minutes (1 day)

March 19-25:
Calories burned: 1352
Exercises done: Walked on track 1.2 miles (2 days); Walked, jogged, or hiked on treadmill 7.98 miles (2 days); Lifted weights 35 minutes (1 day); Used elliptical machine 1.8 miles (1 day)

March 26-April 1:
Calories burned: 300
Exercises done: Walked on track or outside 6.42 miles (3 days); Lifted weights 1 hour, 15 minutes (2 days); Used elliptical machine 2 miles (1 day)

I didn't count calories this month, which was probably my biggest downfall. This partially had to do with the fact that Al came into town during spring break and my efforts at good eating went downhill and never came out of the valley. I also neglected to exercise while he was here, and missed two regularly scheduled days after he left, too. So it's no big surprise that I didn't make my goal of going a distance of twenty miles in one week, and I definitely didn't make my goal of sticking to a calorie limit. I did mangage (somehow) to fit into an old pair of pants and look decent, but that must have something to do with my muscles firming up and changing shape rather than loss of fat in my thighs (my first problem area when it comes to pants; my second is my stomach). My weight last month was 191, and this month it's an iffy 190 (my scale is old and kept oscillating between 189, 190, and the last few seconds--but I think because I was leaning forward and applying more pressure--191 again).

So it's back to the grindstone. Same goals as last month apply, only a vague "lose more weight than other months" is added to it (five pounds or more would be great). With the wedding getting so close, I'm going to take Dexatrim Natural and try to do so regularly. I took some last month, but so intermittently that I doubt it did any good. I tried looking at all of those other diet pills, but they scare me. All of those side effects and warnings, and I had a friend end up in the hospital once because she didn't know she wasn't supposed to drink Coke with her diet pills. Besides, I don't like pumping my body full of chemicals that aren't ibuprofen.

Okay, have to grade. This'll be at least a twelve hour workday. It'll be fun, fun, fun. (Sarcasm here. Hard to express through writing sometimes.)