Calorie-Free Powder is not suited for strenuous exercise

I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy a completely synthetically engineered glass of a sugary drink. Powdered lemonade, powdered fruit punch, powdered semi-orange-juice-like-but-not-really powder...all delicious. But i mostly use these powders to drink more water, because, really, forcing myself to drink water when I am not thirsty or eating is kind of hard for me.


To save a mere 30 cents or so, I bought the generic version of Crystal Light Fruit Punch Drink Mix, shown here:

mm..it's like my childhood condensed into a teeny packet of sugar-flavored methdust!

I like this stuff. It compels me to drink large quantities of it while unseemingly consuming large quanitites of water. Yes, I'm also consuming large quantities of aspartame and/or Splenda (i've never even looked to see what the artificial sweetener is), but that's irrelevent and beside the point.

Anyway, As i finally took the time to glance at something more on the box besides the name, I stumbled upon these interesting little tidbits the marketic execs at Great Value Headquarters decided to stick on there:

Well, that's nice of them, in case I was thoroughly confused about how I wanted to drink my faux fruit punch. But seriously, let's analyze their suggestions.

1.) A picnic in the park. I can totally swing with this. Good idea, marketing people! This fruity drink is refreshing and totally easy to dump into a pitcher of water for you and someone else who hasn't had real fruit punch since they were eleven. The other party would probably be happy to know of your health-conscious decision, assuming you let them know they're not actually drinking real fruit punch. If you don't, you're a real ass.

2.) Your kid's soccer game. Okay, so picture this: your recreational soccer team, The Bumblebees, just had a hard loss against The Thunderbolts, and you're totally bummed. Actually, you really got your asses kicked...it was like 0-7 and the other team was just passing the ball around at one point, maybe even kicking it to you guys and then falling into fits of convulsions so somebody on your team could dribble down the field and find their way into the goal. Anyway, you guys lost badly. But wait! There's light at the end of this tunnel, and that's the treats the moms bring at the end of the games. Usually it's something like Gatorade and packets of Gushers, so you'll be replacing your deep-seeded depression over defeat with a sugar-high that'll have you hanging from the chandelier when you get home. Wait, what the fuck is this stuff? Mom, why are you dumping that disgusting red powder into that jug of water? Can't we all just have Powerade? Why are you handing this shit out in little dixie cups? Basically, as a mom, if you're that calorie-conscious that you impose your shitty drink that you've accepted as delicious because you're an adult onto not only your child, but his/her entire soccer team, you fail as a parent. Give them what they want, lady. Hawaiian punch. In separate cans. They've got a few years left to drink that crap before it goes straight to their asses.

3.) An energetic hike up the mountains. This one is a serious "WTF?" You spend an eight hour trek huffing and puffing up a significant incline with your significant other, and you decide to take a break for some food. I'm not a nutritionist or anything, but I've heard something along the lines that calories give you energy. So, honey, did you bring us anything nourishing? Well, no. I thought that after all this intense cardio-work we could have a nice pitcher of CALORIE FREE FLAVORED WATER!! Fuck sandwiches, fuck trail mix, we're going to lose 5 pounds today whether it kills us. We're not even going to drink refreshing, regular water. We're going to dump artificial sweeteners into it until sweet powder comes out of our eyes and bleeds from our toes. Now keep hiking, you fairy-boyfriend.

I guess I thought a little too much about this, but the entire concept was so laughable I had to devote an entire post to it. Some things just leave an impression on you.

Dusty's brush with death

My frantic mother came home last night telling me that our cat, Dusty, was MIA.



If any of you have a normal family you might know that this, for cats, is not a big deal. Cats tend to mosey in a direction for 10 minutes before realizing they're lost and tend to just kind of find their way back. I told my mom to relax, and after 12 years of having two previous cats who were famous for wandering, I figured it wasn't a big deal.



But to quell her fears, I trekked around the neighborhood, kitty treats in hand, calling for the cat while shaking the treat bin. It was like a distressed mexican fiesta...for felines.



No luck. This tactic usually worked for my previous cats, so I started to get a little worried. However, one of those cats was obsessed with me, so he lived to respond to my every beck and call. (I'm not kidding. He used to throw himself at my bedroom door for hours until I let him in.) Regardless, I gave him the benefit of the kitty doubt and went inside to make dinner. My mom, meanwhile, was a total wreck.



One think you need to understand about my mom is that she's a nurse, so she's incredibly caring and nurturing, which pretty much makes her the greatest mom in the entire world. However, she has chosen to make her cats honorary children, so she must nurture the shit out of them as well. Which, by the way, they totally love. Dusty waits patiently outside her bedroom door every morning in hopes she'll emerge sometime soon. He doesn't have too many things to fill out his day.



Anyway, my mom's instincts told her that Dusty was somewhere in the house, while my dad was galumphing around declaring the cat "Coyote Food," which wasn't helping things. My mother set out ripping her hair out while simultaneously scouring every nook and cranny for her baby.



Lo and behold, Dusty had curled up under a couch in the basement, and he was NOT a happy camper. He looked something like this:'

Yes, Dusty was found completely disoriented and sitting in his own piss.

Mom dragged him out of his self-declared grave and immediately took him to the emergency vet, where they found bite marks on his stomach and back, indicating some extremely large and extremely hungry creature which much larger teeth attempted to eat Dusty during the night. I imagine this is a traumatizing experience.


Hopefully my cat has not completely lost his mental stability and is able to much a full physical and emotional recovery, and we definitely will be sealing the kitty door up for good. Mittens, our other cat, may disapprove, but I'd rather have him cry and whine in the house (which he CAN and WILL do) for three years while staring longingly at the front door he cannot open with his little kitty paws than find his kitty skeleton in the backyard.


Poor little kitty. At least he's ok!

My short lived burrito-rolling career

It's been about two months and I've called it quits with the burrito rolling business. Yes, my friends, I am out. This chaotically run Chipotle that has disgraced the coveted number one title of being the first in Connecticut needs to be shut down, bulldozed, and reopened as something better. Qdoba, perhaps?

So, I left.


And now with my newfound free time, I had more fun this weekend than I have the past 2 or so months combined. I missed going out, even just drinking, and I'm glad i have my life back.

and now i'm ready to move back into UConn. I'm sitting here watching America's Got Talent with my mom, and this show sucks. It's not only incredibly boring, but nobody on the show actually has...well, talent. That makes for a poor premise and even poorer result.

Thusly, I have poured my passions into writing for the Journal Inquirer...or at least, whatever passion i have left for doing work when I'd rather be outside. And recently, I've been writing an article about peaches and all the fabulous things to do with them. What i've learned: peaches are definitely just peaches, and there's nothing more to do with them than you probably originally thought.

So yes, this is a lame post and I'm sorry, but without a camera in-hand 24/7 (I feel awkward photographing every detail of my life), pictures might be rare. Maybe I'll start drawing..maybe I won't, since I have no talent whatsoever in that area.

Au Revior!

Working and Interning

It has been a BUSY past few days!

Training for my new job at Chipotle began last Saturday, and it's already shaping up to be my favorite job. I LOVE the people there, and while I may not be making as much money as I was at Friendly's, I'm so much happier. Our training basically consisted of us rolling burritos for HOURS, but somehow it was fun, the managers are SO nice (I actually consider myself friends with one of them, something I'd never thought I'd say), and the atmosphere is just basically great. I'm so much happier now, I actually enjoy going to work.

My job is an incredibly diverse group of people, but they're all great. One of my favorite people there is Queen, a late thirty (maybe early forty)-something-year-old woman who calls her bosom her "treasure trove." She doesn't carry a purse, but instead keeps all her money and belongings in her bra with the warning to potential pickpockets that they can "reach on in there if they really wanna."

I appreciate the training Friendly's gave me. Some of the people who have never worked in a restaurant before were amazed at how much cleaning we did, but I more than expected it. A manager actually told me I was doing a great job, and it was so nice just to be reinforced. I never got that kind of positive encouragement at Friendly's and I worked just as hard.

ANYWAY, my internship at the Journal Inquirer also started today. Which was...interesting. My first assignment was to give a preview of the Enfield Memorial Day Parade, and about 20 minutes after my interview with the organizor and the mayor, I deleted all my notes. Awesome. My boss told me that it happens to everyone, but I still couldn't believe I made such a grievous mistake so early. I have to call everyone back tomorrow.

To make up for it I got some great interviews for my next story, which was covering a Bluegrass Concert meant to raise donations for the Safe Net Commission, a non-profit that accepts food donations for the hungry in the Stafford Springs area. Talking to the reverend who organized the whole thing was so inspiring. It made me realize that some people are just altruistic to be good people. He completely did not have to do this, but he took it upon himself to bring the idea to his own area (which, by the way, he was completely new to) and he was so nice about answering all my questions. Then, the lady at Safe Net i spoke to insisted that all the credit be given to him and her name not even be mentioned! It was so heartwarming.

Tomorrow is going to be even busier, because I have my internship and then I go straight to work. Busy, Busy! I like it though, i'm so bored at home.

Have a super night.

Bye Bye, UConn

Well, my last exam is tomorrow and then it's goodbye to UConn. Every time summer rolls around I get a little sad. I LOVE school to death, and summer just isn't the same. I don't have that friends at home that some other people have because I didn't go to public school, so summer to me equals working, interning, and hanging out with parents a lot. I go out, but I just miss school so much when I'm there and it's not the same.

Two weekends ago was the infamous spring weekend here, and this picture pretty much sums it up.

Yup, a little messy. But amazingly fun. Saturday I had to wake up and play Oozeball, which is basically a weird form of volleyball in the mud. Seriously, your feet are submereg about 8 inches in a goopy muddy mess. My friends went balls-out for it, so I barely touched the ball.

On Monday I realized my team was in the paper. This picture also pretty much sums up how it went down. I stood on the side and looked bored, while the guys went nuts. I still had a great time, but hey, it was spring weekend and I was ready to continue with the festivities, not sit around in the mud all day.

This year was such a series of ups and downs. I broke up with my boyfriend, experienced the wonderfulness of being single, got seriously into running, and am learning to accept who I am. Yeah, my grades weren't stellar this semester, but classes were hard and I had so much fun. I definitely would not take back any of this year because I met so many new people and made so many amazing friends. Living in an apartment next year is going to be amazing, but I'll miss this dorm a lot. I'm making myself sad just thinking about leaving.

seeing me

I have this pair of jeans. They are a size 24 Anoname faded and distressed denim. I bought them when I was 98 pounds.

I will be the first to admit that now, several--to put it milldly--pounds heavier, these jeans do not fit anymore. If I suck in with all my might and don't mind that my newer and curvier body doesn't want to be in these teeny, tiny jeans, then I can wear them. I don't mind anymore that they don't fit.

I think what scares me is knowing my new size. I have yet to buy any jeans, although I did buy a pair of hollister shorts that actually fit. That aren't tight and a product of me being unwilling to accept who i am now. They fit, and that's good. But the process of searching for jeans, knowing that size has crept up, overwhelms me. it makes me sad, it makes me angry, it makes me wish I was back at 98 pounds. Everything fit, I didn't scrutinize myself endlessly in the mirror, my now-huge chest was deflated to a manaegeable size that was proportionate to my teeny, tiny body.

Seeing myself in pictures, in the mirror, in windows, I want to cry and I want to laugh and I want to accept that I am a new, healthy, happy me. I run 9 miles without a problem. I still overexercise. I stuff my face at times, and the rest of the times I consciously stop eating when I'm full. I haven't binged the way I used to in months, although I drunk eat and high-eat, and I'm acting like I've always wanted to be, and I'm caught between being happy to be happy and being happy because I'm the smallest person in the room. I drank like a sailor this spring weekend because I wanted to, and I didn't nurse my drink because I was scared of the calories. I acted like a college student, and that is a good thing. I can't have it both ways, I guess.

That is what I have to say. It feels good to externalize it for once.

mmmmm, spring.

Sorry it's been awhile, the last few weeks have been...hell, to put it mildly.

I had three exams last week, falling on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Basically, I had been studying since last Tuesday about (yeah, I get going early when it comes to studying) and my life had ceased to exist.

Enter study aide. As a blog that shares my experiences, I feel compelled to tell about my life in the most undiluted fashion possible, so I'm not going to filter myself. To study last week I tried Adderall. I took half a capsule one day at about 10:30 in the morning, and it DEFINITELY got me going...for a while. I ended up losing all motivation before I even wanted to study, so I decided the next day I'd take a little later. Big, big, HEINOUSLY HUGE mistake.

I stayed up until 7 in the morning. Laying in bed. Staring up at the bed above me. It was horrible. Strangely, however, after only about two hours of sleep I wasn't actually very tired, which worried me.

This brings us to Thursday. The week was already shitty; it was rainy and miserable, and I had been studying straight through it all. Nothing was good about the week. However, on Thursday it was like God put a halt on everything terrible and the clouds parted and it was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. After peeing my pants during class because I wanted to get out so badly, I literally booked it back to my dorm and into my running clothes. Not only was it freaking gorgeous out, but I hadn't run in about two weeks. I had only been going to the gym and using the Squirrelliptical (as Kath from http://www.katheats.com likes to call it). I was doing intervals of 2 minute rest and 1 minute intensity and was really liking it, so I stuck to it. By Thursday however, I was ready to run again.

And man, I ran. I covered ten glorious miles and loved (pretty much) every second of it.

The next day I ran another 4.5.

The next day was the TKE 5K for Autism Speaks. I had no intentions to run this, but I was up so I decided to head over. Everyone knows I run a lot nowadays, and so I was thinking I'd be pretty embarrassed if I ended up doing terrible on the run. However, to my surprise I ran it in 23:48 and took 4th for the girls! I actually thought I got 3rd place, but a sneaky little runner girl was way ahead of the two girls I saw in front of me, so i just missed the prizes. Oh well.

So now I just got back from another 8.25 miles and nobody is on campus because it's Easter Weekend. I didn't go home. Last time I went home I ended up just being super bored and fighting with my Dad a lot, so I decided to not go through the hassle. It's better this way.

Happy Easter Everyone!