Guess what. I have to eat healthy now. And I hate it.
But, it's fine because the rest of my life is going pretty well and it provides for a decent topic for a blog post, since I guess it's amusing to have a guide to eating healthy by someone who, you know, has no actual expertise on eating healthy. Is that amusing? I hope so, because I don't have any other ideas for a blog post.
So, why is eating healthy the worst? As far as I can tell, it's due to a whole lot of reasons that pile up on top of you and make it bad. Number one: I love food, food is beautiful, food is not other people, God I really love food. Number two: I love salt. And fat and sugar and carbs and starch. They are the heart and essence of food and I love them. Number three: Food is freaking everywhere, did you know this? I followed like a hundred food blogs on Tumblr and they are always posting pictures of cupcakes and pasta and I feel bad unfollowing them because, you know, they're doing such a nice job, I don't want to discourage them. Also, every place is filled with food, in the real world, all the stores and check out counters and stupid other people eating bags of chips in every location. ALSO MOST IMPORTANTLY you APPARENTLY need food to live, so, you can't really avoid it.
Number four: when you've been eating terribly for a good chunk of years and it's made you fat and gross and whatever, as it has to me, the entire world seems to be plotting to make you feel terrible in your brain area about yourself, and any attempt to change your diet in any direction gets rained down upon with bad feelings because of this. Which is not really helpful if bad feelings already rain down upon you for other reasons.
Anyway. So... those are the reasons that eating healthy is like, an impossible mountain to climb, because every time you get to the foot of it, somebody comes up to you on one side and offers you a plate of fries, and somebody comes up to you on the other side and says, "15 Reasons Why You Suck and Any Endeavor to Change That Will Fail!" Both of those people are Buzzfeed articles, half the time. Sorry this blog post isn't making any sense by the way; I just finished watching this TV show about characters who talk really fast and annoyingly and they're rubbing off on me.
OK. So, I've avoided "going on a diet" (I hate that phrase. Ugh. It makes me feel weird) until now because of (vague gestures to the above paragraphs) all of that nonsense. But then I heard that apparently I have high cholesterol or something, I honestly don't know the specific words because as soon as I started hearing the report my brain started formulating a plan to make myself seem like a Good Fat Person Who Will Redeem Herself From This Fate of Bad Health. Which is, by the way, the worst plan, because it usually leads to a nervous breakdown within a couple of days, the solution to which is, guess what? Warm brownies and ice cream. Just a circular path back to overeating.
The solution to that vicious circle is not where you'd think to look for it, which is, with a doctor or nutritionist, or a health food blog, or that annoying person in the comments section of that Reddit post that how did you even get there, it's just a bunch of guys talking about how much they hate fat people, but pretending they're concerned for your health. Ugh. How did they get here? Anyway. The solution is not with them. Because they want you to be like Chris Traeger on Parks and Rec, or if you don't know who that is, they want you to replace your addiction to sugary foods with an addiction to proving yourself as a good thin healthy person. It doesn't work and it's pointless.
Annoyingly, you can't NOT listen to them, either, because they're in your head now. Every time your stomach growls they're yelling "NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS," which is by far the stupidest thing I've heard about dieting. (That's a lie; I'm sure I've heard stupider things.) If you crumble feta cheese on your salad one of them links you to a Buzzfeed article, yes, they link you to an article in your HEAD, that's titled, "50 Reasons Why Adding Cheese to Salad Basically Means You're Eating A Block of Velveeta Cheese Now." And then you feel like you're standing on a shore in front of an ocean of Weight Watchers pamphlets and chia seeds and you're going to drown in it, so you go back to the boardwalk behind the shore, and as everyone knows boardwalks are full of greasy foods. Back to square freaking one again.
So you have to get rid of them. You can't start climbing the mountain until you get rid of at least one of the annoying guys on the bottom. Your body's constant yelling of "whatever, I'm getting cheese fries" is much easier to work with than the other annoying guy. So get rid of that other annoying guy. Stop demonizing food, even high fructose corn syrup. It's just food, it's just chemicals, it isn't The Highest Sin and it isn't proof that you're a bad person and it isn't the Mr. Hyde you give into and it doesn't make you that character on the sitcom that gets a cheap laugh track for a second. It's just a bunch of molecules that can mess around with the molecules in your body in different ways. And stop demonizing yourself. You won't be worthless no matter how much you weigh and how unhealthy the food you eat is.
Once you stop thinking of eating healthy as the Herculean task that you absolutely must do to make all the annoying people stop hating you, it's easier to listen to the genuine health advice of qualified nutritionists and stuff. Because that advice doesn't have to be followed as an exact rule; you can mold it to fit your life best, you can take your time adjusting to it and change your diet in baby steps. You can, if you want, say, "All right, I'm not changing my diet, but I will learn about what my diet consists of so that I understand what I'm doing exactly to my body." And you can do all that knowing that you're doing it for yourself. Because the whole toxic crappy shenanigans going on around dieting as a fat person is that you don't feel like you're doing it to be healthy, you feel like you're doing it just so you deserve to exist in the world. Thank you, entire mainstream media, for that particular idiosyncrasy in all our heads.
Anyway, I guess this was supposed to be a funny post, but I didn't really have an outline for it so I just followed where my stream of consciousness led and apparently, my stream of consciousness led to a very sappy and social-justice-y place. As I said, I am really not qualified to give diet advice, hence why there was no real, you know, diet advice in this post. I mean, you can't say I didn't warn you. It's right there in the title that I have no knowledge of this topic.
Here's hoping that I manage to come up with an idea for next week's post,
-Ariel
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
My Hilariously Embarrassing Old Journal Excerpts, PART THREE
Hello! So, I skipped the last two weeks. Why? Let's call it an unplanned hiatus instead of "I saw it was Wednesday at 11 pm and it was winter break so I went back to watching whatever animated show I was watching that week rather than write a blog post".
But I'm back now, since I'm back at school and therefore have some semblance of a schedule that puts me in the mindset of putting effort into things. And I was rummaging through my room last week and found what I'm calling gifts from God, aka two old notebooks from seventh and eighth grade (one of which has extra bits from ninth grade that are extra hilarious). They really brightened up my day and I hope that the carefully chosen excerpts I post here will brighten your day too, in how hilariously middle-school-y they are.
Let's start with a list of problems in my life that I made in seventh grade. They're incredibly vague. I could explain the backstories to some of them but I think they're funnier in their Vague Angst:
"Don't I deserve to get a reward for all my labor? No, unfortunately here is my reward:
1. An 87 in math on my interim report
2. Some fairly lame comments on my novel
3. the ultimate test in jealousy control
4. several lectures
5. pretty bad social class consideration
6. uncaring, secret-telling friends
7. stupid parents who have this notion that I'm 6 years old
8. stupid library with some idiot who keeps taking out The Sea of Monsters
9. sister with never-ending annoyingness
10. WRITER'S BLOCK
11. the horriblest wardrobe/musical selection EVER
12. technical difficulties for the rest of my LIFE"
Wow. As you can see, I was dealing with some pretty heavy problems there.
Luckily, anyone who pissed me off was on the receiving end of threats as serious as these:
"She acts like she's oh so cool but she's stupid and inconsiderate and mean and I would dump a bucket of pudding on her big head if I didn't know how much she liked pudding."
Yeah. A bucket of pudding. Watch out, world.
OK, in the middle of this notebook is... probably the best story I've ever written. It's called "[Name of Popular Girl I Inexplicably Hated], the Amazing Bouncing Ferret." The girl in question was really nice and never did anything bad to me, but I was under the impression that I was ~special~ for hating popular people. Anyway, I wrote a story about how she had a dream about being turned into a ferret (for obvious reasons) and then woke up and thought about how I was a danger to her social standing:
"That weirdo, Ariel Kalati. She scowled at the thought of her. She was the only girl in the grade- or so it seemed- who didn't worship her, or even desperately want to be her friend. Ariel just seemed to glare at her whenever they saw each other. Ariel had once tried to befriend her- back when she was a nerd- but now she'd given up. And too bad, too. Now she'd drifted up to that emo-wannabe place, and could have been useful."
I had some weird ideas about how middle school social classes work... I guess I thought that popular girls were like scheming politicians trying to get voters to like them? Anyway, this story is my best work, besides maybe Stolen Hearts.
Oh man... another installment of "Ariel thinks she's good at French":
"J'ai algebre maintenant. Il me faut calculatrice. Tu as une calculator?"
Honestly... I managed to get the French word for calculator right the first time, how did I manage to get it wrong ONE SENTENCE LATER?
Also, to really give you the full experience of reading this notebook, I think you should know that in ninth grade, I got really mad that I didn't get the top grade in English Lit on one quiz, and went through this notebook and scrawled "I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN 100" every couple of pages. You know, in case you thought that my adorable personality quirks ended in middle school.
Well, I'd include some of the horrendous poems and songs I found, but they really require a more thorough understanding of the ridiculous context, which would require me detailing all the nonsense ideas I set up in my head, etc, so you won't get to read those wonderful works of art. They involved lines like "depressed footsteps" and "you only like Justin Bieber fans," so, that's what you were missing out on there.
So that's all I was able to find in these notebooks that makes sense and is funny instead of just depressing. All I can say is, to people who are my mom: When I make fun of my middle-school self, this doesn't mean I have low self-esteem. Oh, I have low self-esteem, but not because I was an obnoxious special snowflake in eighth grade. Me being an obnoxious special snowflake in eighth grade is just a source of endless amusement to me now.
Anyway, hope you guys at least somewhat enjoyed this post. I promise (not that my promises are really worth anything haha) to post again next week!
-Ariel
But I'm back now, since I'm back at school and therefore have some semblance of a schedule that puts me in the mindset of putting effort into things. And I was rummaging through my room last week and found what I'm calling gifts from God, aka two old notebooks from seventh and eighth grade (one of which has extra bits from ninth grade that are extra hilarious). They really brightened up my day and I hope that the carefully chosen excerpts I post here will brighten your day too, in how hilariously middle-school-y they are.
Let's start with a list of problems in my life that I made in seventh grade. They're incredibly vague. I could explain the backstories to some of them but I think they're funnier in their Vague Angst:
"Don't I deserve to get a reward for all my labor? No, unfortunately here is my reward:
1. An 87 in math on my interim report
2. Some fairly lame comments on my novel
3. the ultimate test in jealousy control
4. several lectures
5. pretty bad social class consideration
6. uncaring, secret-telling friends
7. stupid parents who have this notion that I'm 6 years old
8. stupid library with some idiot who keeps taking out The Sea of Monsters
9. sister with never-ending annoyingness
10. WRITER'S BLOCK
11. the horriblest wardrobe/musical selection EVER
12. technical difficulties for the rest of my LIFE"
Wow. As you can see, I was dealing with some pretty heavy problems there.
Luckily, anyone who pissed me off was on the receiving end of threats as serious as these:
"She acts like she's oh so cool but she's stupid and inconsiderate and mean and I would dump a bucket of pudding on her big head if I didn't know how much she liked pudding."
Yeah. A bucket of pudding. Watch out, world.
OK, in the middle of this notebook is... probably the best story I've ever written. It's called "[Name of Popular Girl I Inexplicably Hated], the Amazing Bouncing Ferret." The girl in question was really nice and never did anything bad to me, but I was under the impression that I was ~special~ for hating popular people. Anyway, I wrote a story about how she had a dream about being turned into a ferret (for obvious reasons) and then woke up and thought about how I was a danger to her social standing:
"That weirdo, Ariel Kalati. She scowled at the thought of her. She was the only girl in the grade- or so it seemed- who didn't worship her, or even desperately want to be her friend. Ariel just seemed to glare at her whenever they saw each other. Ariel had once tried to befriend her- back when she was a nerd- but now she'd given up. And too bad, too. Now she'd drifted up to that emo-wannabe place, and could have been useful."
I had some weird ideas about how middle school social classes work... I guess I thought that popular girls were like scheming politicians trying to get voters to like them? Anyway, this story is my best work, besides maybe Stolen Hearts.
Oh man... another installment of "Ariel thinks she's good at French":
"J'ai algebre maintenant. Il me faut calculatrice. Tu as une calculator?"
Honestly... I managed to get the French word for calculator right the first time, how did I manage to get it wrong ONE SENTENCE LATER?
Also, to really give you the full experience of reading this notebook, I think you should know that in ninth grade, I got really mad that I didn't get the top grade in English Lit on one quiz, and went through this notebook and scrawled "I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN 100" every couple of pages. You know, in case you thought that my adorable personality quirks ended in middle school.
Well, I'd include some of the horrendous poems and songs I found, but they really require a more thorough understanding of the ridiculous context, which would require me detailing all the nonsense ideas I set up in my head, etc, so you won't get to read those wonderful works of art. They involved lines like "depressed footsteps" and "you only like Justin Bieber fans," so, that's what you were missing out on there.
So that's all I was able to find in these notebooks that makes sense and is funny instead of just depressing. All I can say is, to people who are my mom: When I make fun of my middle-school self, this doesn't mean I have low self-esteem. Oh, I have low self-esteem, but not because I was an obnoxious special snowflake in eighth grade. Me being an obnoxious special snowflake in eighth grade is just a source of endless amusement to me now.
Anyway, hope you guys at least somewhat enjoyed this post. I promise (not that my promises are really worth anything haha) to post again next week!
-Ariel
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Book Reviews 2015, Part Four
Well, I'm not really much for Big End of Year posts because it gives me too much stress to try and sum up a whole year. I make a memory jar throughout the year where I put mementos and I go through them on New Year's Eve, and that satisfies my need for summing up the whole year. (Although, I forgot to put in mementos starting in August, so I had to run around this afternoon looking for various things to represent the important events that happened in the last five months).
Anyway, so that's why this post isn't going to be like fanfare and trumpets about the greatness of 2015, or whatever. However, I do have my last book reviews to put up. My goal at the beginning of the year was to read 30 books, it might have been 36, don't remember, but I definitely shortened it to 30 when I remembered that I am a useless parasite who eats Tumblr all day. I'm tired, guys, I don't know what I'm writing even.
So, I, obviously, fell short of my goal, but I kind of almost made it? 20-something books? Obviously not counting books for school (well, three of them were technically for school but I counted them because they're cute and something I might have read anyway) or manuscripts I read for internships, or books I only started and never finished. If you count those, I read way more books.
Here's my last book review post, then! And yay 2015 is almost over, I guess, time is an illusion.
OCTOBER
17. George by Alex Gino
So, this book is about a trans girl named Melissa, and I particularly liked it because Melissa is actually ten years old. You don't see the story of transgender kids a lot in mainstream media. Anyway, this book was definitely not my reading level, it's meant for elementary school kids, but it was a really heartwarming story and very well written. I think I would have really liked it and learned a lot from it when I was nine or ten. I thought the main character Melissa was really sweet and I was rooting for her to be accepted throughout the book. The book also touches on a lot of important issues- gender identity, obviously, and prejudice, and how adults can mean well but make their children feel like they've done something wrong. I hope this book leads a new trend of trans representation in children's media, since it was a great start.
18. My Basmati Bat Mitzvah by Paula J. Freedman
This book was so good! Also a middle grade book (because honestly middle grade books are the best and I don't know why I ever read adult books or YA instead) and really good. It's about a girl named Tara who is planning her upcoming Bat Mitzvah while starting seventh grade. But she runs into some problems because her mom is Indian and as such, she feels split between her two cultures: Ashkenazi Jewish and Indian. She deals with problems like questioning her faith in God, awkward middle school romances, racism, and finding a way to unify the two sides of her heritage in time for her Bat Mitzvah. This was written really well, it was extremely captivating, and Tara was a wonderful narrator and protagonist. I also love seeing Jewish representation, especially Jewish representation that isn't strictly white Ashkenazi. And- there's a lot of good food descriptions. So, basically, amazing.
19. Kampung Boy by Lat
This one I technically read for class, but, OK, we barely discussed it in class and it's a cute graphic novel. It's a classic (well, from the 1950s anyway) from Malaysia. It's really sweet and simple. I don't know if I'd recommend it, because it's not super interesting, but it's a fun cute read for a kid for a bedtime story maybe. The graphics were endearingly simple, and the story was basically a coming-of-age story about a kid growing up in a rural village that was slowly being taken over by industrialization. I liked it.
NOVEMBER
20. If The Tabloids Are True What Are You by Matthea Harvey
I got to meet the poet who wrote this. She visited my "Poetry and the Book" class and gave a talk about her designs for the book. And she gave us all free copies! So I read it. It's a collection of really interesting poems. Just weird, cool stuff. Like, poems about different types of edgy mermaids and poems about girls who live in a glass factory and poems about fake tabloid headlines and poems that come in the form of pictures of ice cubes. It was just super fun and I don't know what the, like, grand purpose of the poetry was, but it was really a fun read.
DECEMBER
21. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Well, this read has been a long time coming. I've been a Neil Gaiman fan about forever, and I just never got around to reading one of his most famous books, Coraline. I finally read it this week and it's amazing, obviously. It's a very well-done horror book, and normally I don't like horror (I get super easily scared) but because it's Neil Gaiman, I really do not mind the horror parts. Which was the whole book. It's very scary. Don't read it if you're easily scared. That being said, the heroine, Coraline, is immensely brave and awesome and she made me feel less scared because she stood up to every scary thing. This book is just so imaginative and makes you feel alive and it keeps you on the edge of your seat constantly. And there's a talking cat who was pretty great.
So, yeah. Yes. That is it. I'm currently reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (very good so far) and I'll probably finish that by tomorrow so I'll probably round out the year at 22. Not... too disastrous? No, that's not low enough of a bar. This was not the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of humanity. It definitely is not that! In fact, it's probably not even, like, the 100th worst thing ever. Probably. See, I am being positive, I can think positive.
Here's hoping I read more books in 2016!
Have a happy New Year's Eve, if such a thing exists,
Ariel
Anyway, so that's why this post isn't going to be like fanfare and trumpets about the greatness of 2015, or whatever. However, I do have my last book reviews to put up. My goal at the beginning of the year was to read 30 books, it might have been 36, don't remember, but I definitely shortened it to 30 when I remembered that I am a useless parasite who eats Tumblr all day. I'm tired, guys, I don't know what I'm writing even.
So, I, obviously, fell short of my goal, but I kind of almost made it? 20-something books? Obviously not counting books for school (well, three of them were technically for school but I counted them because they're cute and something I might have read anyway) or manuscripts I read for internships, or books I only started and never finished. If you count those, I read way more books.
Here's my last book review post, then! And yay 2015 is almost over, I guess, time is an illusion.
OCTOBER
17. George by Alex Gino
So, this book is about a trans girl named Melissa, and I particularly liked it because Melissa is actually ten years old. You don't see the story of transgender kids a lot in mainstream media. Anyway, this book was definitely not my reading level, it's meant for elementary school kids, but it was a really heartwarming story and very well written. I think I would have really liked it and learned a lot from it when I was nine or ten. I thought the main character Melissa was really sweet and I was rooting for her to be accepted throughout the book. The book also touches on a lot of important issues- gender identity, obviously, and prejudice, and how adults can mean well but make their children feel like they've done something wrong. I hope this book leads a new trend of trans representation in children's media, since it was a great start.
18. My Basmati Bat Mitzvah by Paula J. Freedman
This book was so good! Also a middle grade book (because honestly middle grade books are the best and I don't know why I ever read adult books or YA instead) and really good. It's about a girl named Tara who is planning her upcoming Bat Mitzvah while starting seventh grade. But she runs into some problems because her mom is Indian and as such, she feels split between her two cultures: Ashkenazi Jewish and Indian. She deals with problems like questioning her faith in God, awkward middle school romances, racism, and finding a way to unify the two sides of her heritage in time for her Bat Mitzvah. This was written really well, it was extremely captivating, and Tara was a wonderful narrator and protagonist. I also love seeing Jewish representation, especially Jewish representation that isn't strictly white Ashkenazi. And- there's a lot of good food descriptions. So, basically, amazing.
19. Kampung Boy by Lat
This one I technically read for class, but, OK, we barely discussed it in class and it's a cute graphic novel. It's a classic (well, from the 1950s anyway) from Malaysia. It's really sweet and simple. I don't know if I'd recommend it, because it's not super interesting, but it's a fun cute read for a kid for a bedtime story maybe. The graphics were endearingly simple, and the story was basically a coming-of-age story about a kid growing up in a rural village that was slowly being taken over by industrialization. I liked it.
NOVEMBER
20. If The Tabloids Are True What Are You by Matthea Harvey
I got to meet the poet who wrote this. She visited my "Poetry and the Book" class and gave a talk about her designs for the book. And she gave us all free copies! So I read it. It's a collection of really interesting poems. Just weird, cool stuff. Like, poems about different types of edgy mermaids and poems about girls who live in a glass factory and poems about fake tabloid headlines and poems that come in the form of pictures of ice cubes. It was just super fun and I don't know what the, like, grand purpose of the poetry was, but it was really a fun read.
DECEMBER
21. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Well, this read has been a long time coming. I've been a Neil Gaiman fan about forever, and I just never got around to reading one of his most famous books, Coraline. I finally read it this week and it's amazing, obviously. It's a very well-done horror book, and normally I don't like horror (I get super easily scared) but because it's Neil Gaiman, I really do not mind the horror parts. Which was the whole book. It's very scary. Don't read it if you're easily scared. That being said, the heroine, Coraline, is immensely brave and awesome and she made me feel less scared because she stood up to every scary thing. This book is just so imaginative and makes you feel alive and it keeps you on the edge of your seat constantly. And there's a talking cat who was pretty great.
So, yeah. Yes. That is it. I'm currently reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (very good so far) and I'll probably finish that by tomorrow so I'll probably round out the year at 22. Not... too disastrous? No, that's not low enough of a bar. This was not the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of humanity. It definitely is not that! In fact, it's probably not even, like, the 100th worst thing ever. Probably. See, I am being positive, I can think positive.
Here's hoping I read more books in 2016!
Have a happy New Year's Eve, if such a thing exists,
Ariel
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
A Few of the Ways I Managed to Procrastinate This Week
So, I'm super tired, and it's almost 11 right now and I've been putting this off for hours so whatever. This post is not going to be great.
This past week was "conference week" at my school. This is like finals week but instead we do big research papers. So it's been stressful. I imagine the rest of you college students and some high school students too have been suffering through finals and stuff too. And probably, you guys procrastinated as well.
So, what are the different ways to procrastinate? You think you've done them all? Ha ha ha, no. I've done them all, and it's pretty horrifying. Here are some of the more unique ones from this past couple of weeks:
1. Go through every Buzzfeed Food article and make a list of every intriguing food-related word in them. Then alphabetize the list.
2. Write streams of consciousnesses based on songs.
3. Make playlists for every possible imaginable mood.
4. Make a list of every ship I have for every fandom, then search those ships on Tumblr and save the first good fan-art of them I see to a folder on my desktop.
5. List Parks and Rec gifs that relate to my current situation.
6. Make a list of 25 things that you can list- like types of trees, spices, gemstones, etc. For each of those things, list 25. Then, look for them on Google Images and pick the artsiest photo.
7. Go to your list of every song you know (an obvious thing you would have from previous procrastination adventures) and pick out all the words from all the song titles and put them in alphabetical order.
8. Go to your Tumblr, or whatever social media account you have. On page 1 of it, imagine that your seventh-grade self is looking at it. On page 2, imagine your eighth grade self is looking at it. Etc.
9. List Parks and Rec episodes that will likely make you cry. Then watch them.
10. In fact, go ahead and watch the last episode of each Parks and Rec season, imagining that season one Leslie is watching them with you. Wow. She's come so far. *wipes away another tear*
11. Try and come up with words that start with every letter of the alphabet that would make an interesting theme for a room. Now, come up with words that start with aa, ab, ac, etc, through to zx, zy, zz, if those exist.
12. Plot out a musical based on Steven Universe.
13. Even better, write out all the lyrics to all the Steven Universe songs and come up with words that start with every single letter in every single song.
14. Might as well do a sing-along in your room to all the songs, too.
15. Take Parks and Rec trivia quizzes. Laugh at how easy they are, because you've seen every episode a thousand times at this point and know everything. ...Everything.
That's besides the usual procrastination... binge-watching my favorite shows, checking Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, taking Buzzfeed quizzes and reading Buzzfeed articles, searching Tumblr tags, reading way too much fan fiction, having an existential crisis, crying, giving speeches about the beautiful relationships in Avatar: the Last Airbender in the shower, and returning to websites I haven't been on in years just to see how they're doing.
And crying.
I hope that wasn't too boring. I couldn't think of anything else to write about, haha. But... good news! Despite all my procrastination, I finished all my conference papers! All I have left to do is pack my stuff, go to my last class tomorrow, and then I'm DONE FOR THE SEMESTER!
OK, sleep time now. :)
-Ariel
This past week was "conference week" at my school. This is like finals week but instead we do big research papers. So it's been stressful. I imagine the rest of you college students and some high school students too have been suffering through finals and stuff too. And probably, you guys procrastinated as well.
So, what are the different ways to procrastinate? You think you've done them all? Ha ha ha, no. I've done them all, and it's pretty horrifying. Here are some of the more unique ones from this past couple of weeks:
1. Go through every Buzzfeed Food article and make a list of every intriguing food-related word in them. Then alphabetize the list.
2. Write streams of consciousnesses based on songs.
3. Make playlists for every possible imaginable mood.
4. Make a list of every ship I have for every fandom, then search those ships on Tumblr and save the first good fan-art of them I see to a folder on my desktop.
5. List Parks and Rec gifs that relate to my current situation.
6. Make a list of 25 things that you can list- like types of trees, spices, gemstones, etc. For each of those things, list 25. Then, look for them on Google Images and pick the artsiest photo.
7. Go to your list of every song you know (an obvious thing you would have from previous procrastination adventures) and pick out all the words from all the song titles and put them in alphabetical order.
8. Go to your Tumblr, or whatever social media account you have. On page 1 of it, imagine that your seventh-grade self is looking at it. On page 2, imagine your eighth grade self is looking at it. Etc.
9. List Parks and Rec episodes that will likely make you cry. Then watch them.
10. In fact, go ahead and watch the last episode of each Parks and Rec season, imagining that season one Leslie is watching them with you. Wow. She's come so far. *wipes away another tear*
11. Try and come up with words that start with every letter of the alphabet that would make an interesting theme for a room. Now, come up with words that start with aa, ab, ac, etc, through to zx, zy, zz, if those exist.
12. Plot out a musical based on Steven Universe.
13. Even better, write out all the lyrics to all the Steven Universe songs and come up with words that start with every single letter in every single song.
14. Might as well do a sing-along in your room to all the songs, too.
15. Take Parks and Rec trivia quizzes. Laugh at how easy they are, because you've seen every episode a thousand times at this point and know everything. ...Everything.
That's besides the usual procrastination... binge-watching my favorite shows, checking Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, taking Buzzfeed quizzes and reading Buzzfeed articles, searching Tumblr tags, reading way too much fan fiction, having an existential crisis, crying, giving speeches about the beautiful relationships in Avatar: the Last Airbender in the shower, and returning to websites I haven't been on in years just to see how they're doing.
And crying.
I hope that wasn't too boring. I couldn't think of anything else to write about, haha. But... good news! Despite all my procrastination, I finished all my conference papers! All I have left to do is pack my stuff, go to my last class tomorrow, and then I'm DONE FOR THE SEMESTER!
OK, sleep time now. :)
-Ariel
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Me Complaining, Interspersed with Cute Animals
Hello all. I couldn't think of anything good to write about today, so I decided to just complain.
Yesterday, I wanted to get a cup of tea. I like tea. It is good. I went to the teahouse on my campus and ordered a spiced plum tea to go. Sounds delicious, right. I then realized this cup of tea was filled to the absolute brim. I wanted to put honey in it, because I cannot enjoy even fruity tea without an extra sweetener. I also wanted to make the tea process quick so that I could head to my French class which was in 20 minutes. Because of said French class, I was holding a book, that I was reviewing last-minute for the quiz we had that day. Can you guess what happened next?
Let's take a break from the complaining:
OK, back to complaining: I attempted to spill out some of the tea. The presence of the book and the fact that I was holding the cup precariously over the garbage can led to boiling hot tea spilling all over my hands. And the floor and stuff. I cleaned the floor and valiantly actually put honey in the tea, then I picked up all my stuff and left. Then the pain kicked in. Then I Googled "how to take care of first degree burns." Then I went to a nearby sink and ran cold water over my hands. Then I cried a lot. Then I went to health services, still crying, and said in that horrible I'm-totally-not-crying-to-you-dear-complete-stranger voice, "Uh... hi... I spilled this tea on my hands, burned myself, can you help?"
Oh what's this? A kitten?
So, I did not get to take my French quiz, and now I have to make it up tomorrow, in addition to going to French class. Also, it's conference week (that's like finals week, only instead of finals, we write giant research papers) so that's great. Also, I'm exhausted and my throat hurts. Also, I have gross and painful burns on my hands (turns out some of the burns were second-degree, not first-degree), so it is difficult to do anything. Did you know that you need your hands to do most basic tasks?
WAIT is this kitten snuggled up inside a BOOT yes it is:
Anyway, that's about the end of my complaining. I want to hear your complaints in the comments, because it is a stressful time of year and I need to have more people join me in the complaining void. Now I'm going to go back to my eternal suffering. (Aka, easy, good life that had a cup of boiling tea poured on it)
also... hello small puppy
See you next week, when I'll still be in conference week hell. So, I don't know. Definitely see you in two weeks with a real post ideally?
-Ariel
Yesterday, I wanted to get a cup of tea. I like tea. It is good. I went to the teahouse on my campus and ordered a spiced plum tea to go. Sounds delicious, right. I then realized this cup of tea was filled to the absolute brim. I wanted to put honey in it, because I cannot enjoy even fruity tea without an extra sweetener. I also wanted to make the tea process quick so that I could head to my French class which was in 20 minutes. Because of said French class, I was holding a book, that I was reviewing last-minute for the quiz we had that day. Can you guess what happened next?
Let's take a break from the complaining:
OK, back to complaining: I attempted to spill out some of the tea. The presence of the book and the fact that I was holding the cup precariously over the garbage can led to boiling hot tea spilling all over my hands. And the floor and stuff. I cleaned the floor and valiantly actually put honey in the tea, then I picked up all my stuff and left. Then the pain kicked in. Then I Googled "how to take care of first degree burns." Then I went to a nearby sink and ran cold water over my hands. Then I cried a lot. Then I went to health services, still crying, and said in that horrible I'm-totally-not-crying-to-you-dear-complete-stranger voice, "Uh... hi... I spilled this tea on my hands, burned myself, can you help?"
Oh what's this? A kitten?
So, I did not get to take my French quiz, and now I have to make it up tomorrow, in addition to going to French class. Also, it's conference week (that's like finals week, only instead of finals, we write giant research papers) so that's great. Also, I'm exhausted and my throat hurts. Also, I have gross and painful burns on my hands (turns out some of the burns were second-degree, not first-degree), so it is difficult to do anything. Did you know that you need your hands to do most basic tasks?
WAIT is this kitten snuggled up inside a BOOT yes it is:
Anyway, that's about the end of my complaining. I want to hear your complaints in the comments, because it is a stressful time of year and I need to have more people join me in the complaining void. Now I'm going to go back to my eternal suffering. (Aka, easy, good life that had a cup of boiling tea poured on it)
also... hello small puppy
See you next week, when I'll still be in conference week hell. So, I don't know. Definitely see you in two weeks with a real post ideally?
-Ariel
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