12/24/08

It's another Christmas, with another aunt, and once again I am upset because of something someone said to me over something I decided to eat. I have always been pretty happy with myself, fairly comfortable in my own skin, in almost every sphere - but not with my body. I've been told that I was fat since I was 6. It may have been true then, I hardly remember, but it certain was not 6 years later when I came home from boarding school at the first time. M weight has always yo-yoed. Plump at the beginning of the school year, not, or perhaps just less so at the end. Rock bottom, defined by my worst (heaviest) weight yet, come at the end of the summer following my freshman year of college. 180 pounds. And I was miserable.

Before that, I hit 170 during my year off after high school. I lost 20 Ibs in the months between February and June. How? I walked, and skipped meals, and never drank more than half a bottle of anything other than water at a time. I would sometimes save the same bottle of Fanta for days, only allowing myself a sip after hours of self-restraint. My mother, the one person who had supported me through puberty against the rest of the world when they told me how fat I was - I've seen pictures, I don't know who describes that as fat - was suddenly my biggest cheerleader in my weight-loss effort. I don't know if she knew for a fact that all I allowed myself to eat was a sandwich in the morning and a tiny dinner at night (never a full plate, always before 6pm). The really sad thing is that I don't know if she would have protested. I was losing weight and that was all that mattered.

I gained it all back during that first year at college. I think I lost some in the middle, I know I tried, but it was all back by the summertime, and by the time my vacation ended, I had added on 10 extra big-ones. There were crying jags, so many of them, when people commented on how much weight I had gained. Sometimes rudely, especially if they were Nigerian, other times they were just too surprised to hide their expressions. I would swear I would lose the weight, start starving myself all over again. The thing with long-time starvation though (at least as I have found) is that you can only do it once. After that it becomes frustrating, and much harder not to binge. After those 30 extra pounds caused the demise of what I think would have been a great relationship - or maybe that guy was just a douche bag and he didn't decide that the fact that I was fat eclipsed the connection we had had while talking all summer; no wait, that's the same thing - I decided I would make them disappear. I bought running shoes, went to the gym 6 days a week without fail, started lifting weights, . . . 4 months later I had lost 10 pounds, maybe 12, and I was looking pretty good. My mother seemed happier to see me than she had in a long time - "You've done so well", she said," except for this" and grabbed at my belly. It was then I realized that shopping with her still wouldn't be as fun as I imagined it could be, should be, not unless I had a washboard.

I kept the weight off for the rest of the year, but had fallen off the wagon by the following Christmas. I was depressed. Same guy, different problem. No, scratch that, same problem, just articulated differently. Again I wasn't good enough. I still suspect that I would have been, if I was just a little skinner. It bothers me that I think that, but it's true. Lost some of the weight again, maybe five pounds this time, thought I stayed stable during the summer but apparently not. Lost some at the beginning of this year. The scale upstairs says I've gained another 5. I think I will withhold judgment till I see what the scale in my dorm room has to say. Either way, I won't be happy. I try not to eat, and it doesn't work. I have made it to the gym all of one time in the last 4 months. Some of it is that I've been busy, some of it is that I've been lazy, some of it is that I think I have given up on myself. If only I had not eaten that cupcake last night, I wouldn't have had to hear that I am getting "fatter and fatter, I wouldn't have spent the whole of today fighting back tears. Something has to change - at this point I am no longer sure what.

I read an article the other day - I am always reading articles - about intuitive eating. There is only one rule - you give yourself no rules. Nothing is off limits, everything in moderation. Eat breakfast, something small if you're not hungry, and after that eat only when you are. Stop when you are satisfied, not full, just happy and make good choices. Perhaps I should try this, see what happens, and make sure no one is around to ruin my spirits when I decide to indulge in a cupcake. Maybe I've found the magic bullet - Merry Christmas to me.

Ugh

A friend of mine sent me this link because it made her blood boil. I must say that I feel the same way.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7526158.stm

So for some reason, the fact that there are poor white people is newsworthy. Why? Does something in their genetic code dictate that they be less susceptible to poverty, to the whims of life on earth than the rest of us?

The fact that someone felt the need to create a charity that specifically caters to the needs of a particular race in a country with so much overwhelming poverty just disgusts me.

"Today, the ANC government provides a safety net of social grants and basic services for all South Africans who need them, but Afrikaners have lost the privileges they once enjoyed."

So white Afrikaners receive help from the government like all other South Africans, and from their own special charity, but this is not enough - the Solidarity Union feels that the government does not realize that poverty isn't just a black problem. Basically, these people want to keep receiving the unfair privileges they had before. My real problem is with the underlying arrogance behind the assumption that they should.

I'm back!

I took a little break and made the blog private. I've decided to put it back. Hopefully people still come here from time to time . . . ha

A BIT OF PHYSICS HUMOUR

Sir Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Academy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, related the following story:

"Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."

The student had answered: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics.

At the end of five minutes, he hadn't written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building."

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."

"Fine," I said, "and others?"

"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and his
will give you the height of the building in barometer units."

"A very direct method."

"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g [gravity] at the street level and at the top of the building.

From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."

"On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".

"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem."

"Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

The name of the student was Neils Bohr

On personal expectations

I started drafting this post last night by way of pasting this poem in, but I couldn't come up with what sounded like a good intro, so I went to bed. Sitting in my psychology class this morning, I decided to ignore the professor and take a career quiz on the Princeton review website, which I now have unlimited access to since I signed up for MCAT classes.

I'll admit that I thought the quiz was a little silly while I took it. The questions were all would you rather be an (a) or a (b) - type things with a few questions about how you prefer to act/react when your peers don't accept your ideas or when a discussion is taking place. Nothing that would lead me to make a biased answer based on my conceptions of what a sensible person should act like. Consequently, I thought I was pretty honest with myself while filling the quiz out. Here's the thing. The quiz results came up, complete with character analysis and list of potential careers; and my heart sank a little when I didn't see "doctor" on the it. My second choice, (I'm a psychology major), was on it, as were a few other things that I have vaguely considered which I find interesting but doubt that I have any actual talent for (Actor, Journalist/Writer . . .that sort of thing), and a few childhood fantasies (Archaeologist). But not Doctor. Why would I make plans for four years of extra, very difficult (and very expensive!!) education for a career that apparently doesn't fit my personality? I started thinking yet again (I've been doing this a lot the past few months), about all the times my parents and older siblings have recently asked if I'm sure that this is what I want.

Of course, I went back and re - read the character analysis because obviously, something in there must have been wrong. Never mind that it seemed to fit the first time I skimmed through it. I must have missed something. Suddenly, "preferring to work in an environment with minimum interpretation and unexpected change" sounded a lot more like an insult. Doesn't that make me boring and/or fundamentally lazy and unwilling to meet challenges? ( I would just like to add at this point that this proves the quiz and its results are B.S.. Minimum interpretation?!! Clearly, whoever made this thing up has never observed a diagnosis - clinical or psychological). Other than that part, everything else seemed to fit, but their analysis also sounded to me like the kind of person a doctor would need to be. I mean research - oriented and structured? Sounds like any medical professional I ever met. So I read through the list again. Carefully. And there it was, right above professor and psychologist: PHYSICIAN. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. The surge of relief cannot be described concisely enough to fit the time frame I am working in. A minute after that I felt just a little amused with myself. None of the questions in this quiz could possibly be valid measures of personality, so why was I even tempted to rethink my career choices based on it? Of course this made of think of how easy it is to be swayed by the world and just how important it is to protect against that. The end result being that I remembered this post and this poem. I've been trying to figure out who/what I want to be when I grow up. I think this is it (at least some of it):


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!**

- Rudyard Kipling

**Replace with: a Woman, my daughter; an Adult, my child; Complete; my searching-pre-op offspring. Whatever it takes.

A little reminder

Amazing, isn't it? Our propensity to forget. I mean human beings in general. I am making the self - serving biased assumption that all people tend to do this; because if it's a special characteristic of mine, then I'm in big trouble. Twice a year, every year I get to this point. The semester is over, final grades are coming in, and once again, I am kicking myself in the head. I am amazed that I managed to do so well relative to the amount of work I put in; but insanely disappointed with myself for not working hard enough to do much better . . . again.

I am thinking about all the hours I spent watching television, or pretending to multi - task while watching television. I am obsessing over midterms; and dreaming about how much better off I would be if I had remembered this feeling in the six weeks prior to that half - term evaluation. I am wondering if this is all because I convinced myself quickly that I was never going to do much better than I did at the beginning of my college career - if I am following some kind of self - fulfilling prophecy.

But once again, I am mostly thinking about other people I know who have found themselves in the very situation I am in now; and just how different mine their individual situations are. These people have to worry about jobs, about sending money home to their families, about paying rent, buying clothing - these people are adults, with adult problems and adult responsibilities. I, on the other hand, are as my father likes to say, paid to be a full - time student. So what is my excuse for not doing the work I need to be doing? I don't have one. At some point I think I became overly confident; and then took the plunge into severe self - debilitation. Mostly, I think I'm just lazy.

And here is the point of this extremely whiny post.

Remember this, older self: you are not a cruiser. Never have been. Never will be. I suggest you get off your ass and get to work. Pronto.

Something told me to run

"It is what it is."

"What do you mean, 'It is what it is'? I want to know what you think".

I think . . . I don't know what I think.

There were so many thoughts racing around my head that I couldn't figure them all out myself, much less put them into words . . . The only clear feeling I had was that it was time to go home. There was nothing more to say.

"It is what it is", I said, and reached for my jeans.

It started when the phone rang. The annoying buzz cut into my subconscious just before it stopped. And then it rang again. And it rang again five minutes later. I suppose I could have ignored it, but since it just wouldn't stop, I thought it might be a good idea for him to answer the darn thing. It turned out to be nothing - someone he was supposed to be tutoring and was currently ignoring, supposedly because I was there - so everything should have continued as planned, but I just had to make a joke of the situation so I said something about hoping that the caller wasn't his woman on the side. And then it came. The brick out of the sky that ruined everything . . .

"If it was another woman I wouldn't tell you because she would be relevant."

Warning bells went off in my head.

Um. Ha-ha? Relevant? What the heck does that mean?

I chuckled in reply and tried to put things into perspective. I told myself it had just been a joke and nothing more. That it didn't matter anyway because he had told me who was calling, because he would have ignored the phone if I hadn't said something about it, because he had ignored the phone until I said something about it. Turns out a long habit of mistrust isn't that easy to break. The bells would not be silenced. I waited for the first break between kisses I could get.

"Are you seeing other people then?"

"Sorry, can't answer that question right now. I'm busy." More kissing.

"Come on."

"I really can't talk right now, I'm doing something very important."

"No seriously, are you?"

Why won't you just answer the question? Say no so that I can let it go and everything can be wonderful again.

But he didn't say no. He didn't say anything. He just rolled off me with a sigh and grabbed a shirt. And that was when it started. The feeling I am certain a telenovela character gets when her car engine cuts out over train tracks and the seat belt is stuck and she suddenly hears a loud hoot accompanied by insistent chugging as the light in the distance gets closer and brighter. The prenotion of inescapable disaster.

"So then, what do you want to know."

I want to know that I can trust you. But more than that right now I really don't want this to end.

"Nothing. I don't want to know anything." I back-pedaled furiously and tried for a seductive look. "Come over here."

"Nope. Too late. You obviously wanted to talk so let's talk."

"Alright then. Are you seeing other people?"

"Why would you ask me that?"

Because I've barely seen you all summer. Because you never call me. Because I don't want to be used and I need to know what you are thinking so I can act accordingly. Because I think I might be falling for you.

"Well, we haven't exactly talked about it, this thing we're doing, and whether or not it is exclusive . . . "

"Hmmm. I guess we've been seeing each other these past few months. Yeah. Seeing each other. You could call it that."

I got the distinct impression that he was weighing the thought . . . and not particularly enjoying the feel of it.

"So now you want to give it a name; put a label on it, on us."

What's wrong with that?

"No . . . I just want to know where we stand."

We talked about what I wanted, or rather, what I didn't want. And why. Why I did not want him seeing other people. I gave some bullshit answer about not liking to share. This didn't exactly feel like a good time to pour out the contents of my soul; to tell him that I could not stand the thought of his hands on another woman, that the thought of someone else touching him made me sick.

"Look. I like you, and I like hanging out with you and I'm not seeing anyone else. But if what you want is for me to be able to point you out in a crowd and say: 'That's my woman', I don't think I can. I can't. I'm sorry."

Silence.

So what have we been doing all this time? I'm good enough for you to fool around with but not for you to tell people I'm the one you're with?

I bit back the urge to ask the question burning on the tip of my tongue. Why can't you tell people I'm your woman? Is it the way I look? I felt like I should be angry, like I had every right to be angry. All I felt was a tightening in my chest and a sinking sensation in my stomach. I always knew it would come to this, didn't I? The oncoming train had hit, but it didn't bring me the relief that is rumored to come when you cross the divide. I felt a stronger need than ever to protect my feelings from discovery. So I rolled over to hide the sadness in my eyes, and just lay there, quietly. My heart felt like it was pounding even though it simultaneously seemed to have stopped.

I felt his fingers toying with my hair. He had always like my hair. The hand he placed on my hip reminded me just how much I liked it when he touched me.

"What's up?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing. What are you thinking?."

"If you want me to say 'That's my woman', I don't think I can. I can't".

The words echoed in my head, as they would continue to do for so long afterward. As they still do now. I wanted to reason with him, to beg even. To make him see that neither of us could be happy if we walked away from what we had had just moments before. I would try again on more than one occasion to undo what I had done. To fix the dreadful mistake I made with a single utterance. I would wonder how things would have turned out if the phone never rang, or if it had been on silent mode. If I had let myself be wrapped up enough in him not to hear the buzz, if alarm bells hadn't gone off in my head when I did.

So much else was said that night that I cannot remember now. He seemed concerned that I would think he had just used me for his fun. I promised not to turn him into a monster for my own comfort. He explained to me again how he had decided he couldn't be with anyone other than his ideal woman. He said he wished he had never decided on it in the first place. He told me again how much he enjoyed being with me. All I heard was that I wasn't up to snuff. He tried to guide me into being closer to his ideal, told me she would take what she wanted. I wondered how I could possibly try to take by force what he seemed so reluctant to give. I remember thinking that what I wanted most was for him to give it freely. To me. No questions asked. I'm sure we talked about his fear of being in a relationship. I seem to remember that him saying long ago that he wasn't good at them. I remember thinking I could make him see that that just wasn't true. He asked me again what I was thinking. I was thinking that it was over . . . again.

"It is what it is", I said, and reached for my jeans.

To new beginnings . . .

My previous attempts at prolonged, sustained writing have failed. Every last one. I have never kept a diary longer than few months, and by a few months I mean 4 or 5 days of feverish writing separated by month-and-a-half long pauses; and from what I hear that is quite unusual for a young lady of a my age.

The first blog I ever started was a group one, I think because I was worried that I wouldn't have enough to say on my own. I soon found that the people I had chosen to collaborate with either had much more to say than everyone else or nothing to say at all, leaving me with a blog run mostly by two members, who were pretty good friends and soon decided they could bounce ideas around without the added hassle of having to use spell - check.

This first foray into the blogosphere was born out of my increasing with frustration with the inadequate length of time left for discussion in an interesting class I was taking. I wanted to write the things I never had the time to say . . . difficult to do when the people you're working with are not reading the same things you are. This next attempt is a little different. For one thing, I am being a lot more honest with myself; and for another, the inspiration behind it is nothing like that for the first. I don't want to hold witty cyber - discussions with people I know about things I have seen or heard; I want an outlet for something I cannot as yet name.

I recently found a book on my roommate's desk containing letters written by successful women (such as Maya Angelou, Queen Noor, and Madeline Albright) to their younger selves. Reading the first few letters highlighted something that I have been grappling with a lot lately - the fact that nothing in life is certain, and that one often cannot possibly conceive what the future holds in store. Some people might find this concept exciting; I do not care for it. I like to have as much certainty in life as I can possibly attain, and the amount of time I spend studying train schedules each time I have to take a trip is testament to this fact. Yet even in my few years on this crazy planet, I have come to discover that the things I worry myself sick over turn out to be inconsequential in the light of subsequent problems or triumphs, and I can never quite figure out what I was so scared of in the first place.

The purpose of this blog then, is not to find myself - that would imply that something, some or all of me, was somehow misplaced, and this is not so - but to leave behind a trail of some sort, with breadcrumbs or broken bark, whatever it is trails are made with these days; something to remind me of where I've been and what I've done and what I've have seen and heard and provide some insight for whatever new and seemingly insurmountable obstacle I happen to be trembling before. That said, I do not intend to start another diary/journal. I think I'm too old for that now and I have never managed to see the use of recounting the day's events to myself . . . I was there, is that not enough? I neither assume, dear reader, that you want to hear all about every last happening of my life. For the most part, it isn't that interesting. I do hope that you will enjoy reading some of my thoughts, and perhaps even be moved enough to leave the occasional comment. Otherwise, this will serve as my letter to myself: long, wordy, and perhaps somewhat repetitive, but always just a little bit wiser than before.