Unearned privileges

I'm back in the big city with all the lovely pollen from all the beautiful flowers. I've also acquired a neti pot in an attempt to fight hay fever. It offers instant relief, but I haven't used it since I got back from my writing retreat last week. I'll keep you updated on how well it works in the long term.

I missed three things while I was in the teeny tiny house in the middle of nowhere. I didn't think of these things as privileges before the visit.

Trees and greenery
Apparently I struggle to live without trees. I especially like trees that are taller than me. It's not so much to ask in my opinion. I'm a shorty. From the little prefabricated houses you can't really see trees.You just see more little boxes. I was lucky to see a beautiful sunset at a guest house after I begged my friend to take me somewhere, anywhere to save me from cabin fever.

A beautiful sunset, but no big trees

Clean water
At home I just toddle over to the tap when I'm thirsty. Naturally the water tastes better (and is probably better for you) if you boil it first and then put it in the fridge to cool down, but it's perfectly possible to drink it. A little miscalculation in the amount of water at the beginning of the visit lead me to really appreciate being able to drink water whenever you feel like it since I felt I had to ration myself. The other water privilege only became apparent after a few showers. Little scratches became little sores. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to treat a serious injury there.

Silence
I didn't expect to have to add this to the list. The cliché of the quiet little village is a lie. Up to a point anyway. It's true that you don't hear the roar of city traffic, ambulance sirens or gunshots. The environment is quite quiet. This means that the doef-doef or the bass of noisy music carries beautifully; the houses are quite close together.

Little boxes

If you're like me, all the talk of little boxes will have made you remember the song. So I've added a link so you can listen to it. The first verse holds true, but unfortunately the people here don't all go to university. Some don't even finish school.

Master's
I remember seeing or reading about the downsides of rehab for addictions somewhere. Some people believe that rehab doesn't work since the people are taken away from temptation and weaned from using substances in an isolated environment. This does not necessarily help when they are returned to their ordinary environment. The same applies to the Biggest Loser programme. Many participants gain at least some of the weight back. It was easier to write when I had to face little temptation or irritation.

Project 36
Eating plan

Fun fact: eating food with a high fat content will make you gain weight

It's obvious, really. Since I've started visiting Marthie Leach I've eaten a low-fat diet. In the beginning I was a bit tragic about some foods that had to be moved to the only-eat-as-a-free-meal category, but my body has adapted. The week of eating snacks and "normal" food left me feeling fat.

Enter the dragon scale. The first weigh-in showed 2 kg more than when I left home. After eating my ordinary food and two days at home, it dropped to a 1 kg gain. Marthie Leach advocates a common sense approach to this - if you visit friends you will stray from your eating plan. Just remember to eat every two to three hours so that your body doesn't feel the need to hoard all the fat you're feeding it.

Gym
I haven't been there in a while. Must. Go. Back.

Writing retreat

Some of my blog readers are my friends (in other words, people I knew before starting to write this blog). The problem with having your friends on your blog is that they send you (nasty) emails or chats when they feel that you have not done your duty in keeping said blog updated. Benni, this update is for you!

Master's
I often hear of people going to "a retreat" to find or centre themselves. I always find this slightly ironic since a "retreat" is also a tactical move in battle where you choose to run away instead of facing more casualties. Since I'm battling with the Master's, I've done a bit of both this week. I'm visiting a friend who lives in the middle of nowhere.

I'm grateful that I managed to connect to the Internet today. My phone's network-based location is just "Southern" (mostly sunny). It doesn't even know that there is a (teeny weeny) town here. My friend isn't on leave so I work on the Master's in the day.

The view - it rained later in the afternoon

Part of the visit's success lies in the myriad of activities available: staring at the view or listening to the chickens. I can't even waste lots of time on the Internet since my network connection is precarious, to say the least. I can only connect to the web when the front door is closed and then only when my modem graciously agrees to function and not disconnect itself.

I've gotten some writing and planning done. For my visit it rained in the afternoons so I'm afraid that I tend to take a nap when the temperature goes down. On the other hand, the tactic of applying your derrière to the chair is working quite admirably; I've made notes and planned out notes and connections between two seemly disparate novels. On the other hand:

I've been sitting on the hard chair to the point where I've had to add a cushion

Project 36

The downside to there being nothing to do is that I’ve been snacking. Not the healthy Marthie Leach kind, the kind with fat and stuff (technical term describing my knowledge of unhealthy foods and my reluctance to think about what I’ve been munching): chips, my old friend chocolate and co.

You can't drink the tap water (without boiling and filtering it) and we miscalculated how much water I drink a day. Luckily we could made a supply run yesterday, but before that I was dabbling in carbonated sodas and lots of coffee to satisfy my liquid needs.

I'm a bit worried about my weigh-in when I get home >.<

Reunion coming up (update)

Final countdown
I started this blog in grand anticipation of my ten-year matric reunion. I was going to have a driver's licence, be much skinnier, and sommer (just because) for good measure be done with a pesky Magister Artium. So how far did I get?

Master's: not so good

Source: Wikimedia commons

My blog settings is that my blog should be for all ages. No parent should be horrified that their child accessed some Renoiresque girl's ranting about her degree and her weight. So I will use caution and only say:

<insert colourful language here>

Right, now that we've gotten that out of the way... When I started the blog I was adamant that if no chapters ensued by the end of the two months, I would give up the experiment and start job hunting. Guess what? It's five months on and yet, not a single complete chapter.  

<language containing even more of the picturesque>

I'm very tempted to give this whole thing up as a bad job. I'm thoroughly stuck and I'm being unfair to my good supervisor. And still, I'm stubborn. I don't want to give the whole thing up as a bad job. In other words, I'm extremely frustrated.

Project Nymphette: going well

Photo by Chris Mellows

 I have lost quite a bit of weight since the start of this project. I would guess at least 6 kg. According to the BMI, I still have 45 kg to go. They can forget about it. I've been that weight and it's just too skinny for me. I've lost most of the double chin. I can feel my ribs. I've lost clothing sizes. All this reminds me of a recent funny story.

Fun fact: you cannot wash shadows off

I don't always follow all the steps of my so-called beauty regime (just face  wash, toner and a cream), but I try to. I just wash my face by feel in the bath, but the toner and cream are usually applied while facing a mirror. Some time ago I started noticing that my neck seemed to be dirty. There were two (slightly) darker triangle-shaped spots that I just couldn't get clean. You guessed it, my bone structure is resurfacing and my collar bones and neck created some non-washable shadows.

Driver's licence
I haven't mentioned that part of the plan so far, since it does seem rather, well, embarrassing that I don't have one yet. It's a long story (all procrastination stories are). At any rate, I've returned to my driving instructor. Wish me luck

Support
My mom has been very sweet and I really appreciate it. I have more lurkers than followers, but the lurkers tend to encourage me in person on through gtalk. Thanks to everyone who takes an interest in the process!

Gnaws: more adventures in reducing jeans

Master's
No progress. See previous post.

Gnaws
I am very proud of myself. So far I have not introduced my pet rabbit into discussions of weight loss and dissertation writing. I'm officially blowing my cover. I am, according to a good friend of mine, a "crazy bunny lady". You see, I have a pet house rabbit. She roams through the house. Sometimes I think I have it wrong and that the bunny has me as her human. She sleeps on my bed if it so pleases her and she has attempted to devour the corners of my Master's notes. Unfortunately some of the attempts were successful.

I will spare you paragraphs describing how cute the bunny is and just add a photo instead.

The bunny in my rabbit hoodie by SIN BIN.

Anyway, she tried to help me by reducing the amount of material used in one pair of jeans even further (see Shrinking my jeans) by thoughtfully gnawing some rather large holes in them. Naturally, she chose the more expensive pair to devour. She also chose the areas in which to reduce coverage carefully.

• There are two holes located over the buttocks.
• She thoughtfully removed half a belt loop (presumably as an indication that I should apply myself to the sewing machine or a message to binge eat until the pants fit again). Perhaps it has become less comfortable to sit on my stomach.
• There's also a nice gash on my outside thigh. 
• She made no adjustments to the legs.

Finally, Abinger Harvest is mine!

Master's
I took a week of completely undeserved doing-other-things time. This included the Great Wash (laundry and dishes), visiting Madam Marthie Leach the Awesome and sorting through papers. The Universe also responded to my wavering faith in the Master's degree by not allowing me to start gainful (in the monetary sense) employment in the corporate world. This message was delivered via a very kind and courteous you-are-not-the-successful-candidate email on Wednesday.

Today was a veritable triumph of endurance and sleuthing.  I broke through the conspiracy to halt my progress by finally going up to Unisa's library and making copies of the essays in Abinger Harvest by E. M. Forster. This sounds relatively simple, no?

Fun fact about me:

I have a bad knee.

In general it behaves itself, but it is not too happy with things like slopes. If you have never been to Unisa, the slopes look something like this:

View Larger Map

So halfway up the slope which my daring accomplice claimed: "was very short", both knees were very unhappy. Luckily a kind security officer assisted us and made us a special, dare I say it, disabled parking close to the entrance. Despite my stiffness and pain we continued on our brave search for the Essential Resource. We pressed through despite the queue and a general sense of slow moving. I limped my way to the shelf to miss, at first, and then find, with infinite relief, the book I've been looking for for over a month.

The essential resource

I should be mobile again soon - I've already started on the dicloflam (the disgusting generic of Cataflam, which works like a charm) and I hope to hobble less by tomorrow. I'll decide then if the whole shebang was worth it.

Gym
Murphy's law: if you go to the gym and walk far on the treadmill, you'll have to walk even further under less ideal conditions the next day.

Project 36
As discussed in my previous post, I had an appointment with Marthie Leach yesterday. I have mixed feelings about the results. My weight is up by 100g (which can be just winter clothing) and I've gained 0.5% body fat. I've discovered that your body retains fat when you get ill (and not just for heat as I supposed before).

Part of the joy in visiting Marthie Leach is that she is always supportive and always has ideas on how to handle whatever situation arises. The answer to my current need-to-feed problem is to eat popcorn. Live and learn. Act II Lightly Buttered popcorn (found in the local Spar in my case) is low in fat and high in volume. A whole pack of crunchy, warm deliciousness is the equivalent of two slices of bread (carbohydrate wise)!

I'm considering also posting recipes and low/no fat cooking tips. Leave a comment if you'd be interested :)

Picnic time

My blog deals with preparing for yea old reunion (do I really want to go?), the Master's (of much blergh at the moment) and, alas, losing weight. But then nice things like picnics happen. Hooray! They interfere with Project 36 since I end up eating things I shouldn't, but it's good for the soul. Also, everyone knows that birthday cake doesn't cause fat even if it's chocolate cake.

I love the Pretoria Botanical Gardens. I used to fly my kite there when I was even younger and shorter than I am today. I also have vague memories of bringing tadpoles home. More recently, my friends have birthday picnics and open-air meetings there. Also, I go there as an excuse to play with my camera.

Here are the results of the time spent not having a lovely time and chatting, but playing with said camera.

Yummy bones on a black plate

Soft and delicious fangs ...

... that you can have much fun with

Black birthday balloons

Shadow of a mohawk

More fun with mohawks and umbrellas

Silhouette time

A different mohawk than the umbrella candidate

The birthday girl playing with the balloons

Interview

Master's
Truth be told, this week was spent mostly in baggy pants and t-shirts - reading for the MA. I suppose that working at home has some downsides. I need people to stay human - and not only over weekends. For what's it's worth, I may have a bug or something. Today I did no work at all. Instead I got into my real-me clothes and went to a job interview instead. We'll see what happens - they are fans of Otaku magazine and I included some articles I wrote for them in my portfolio.


Gym and eating plan
In the general excitement of interacting with what is commonly known as the "real world", I omitted to eat my carbohydrate portion this morning. Instead I started my day with an egg. (yeah, it does get better, there is a point to this). So, having devoured proteins and one measly carbohydrate that slipped in I proceeded to the gym. Guess what happened?

Almost...

I was dizzy, felt nauseous and almost fell off. Thank goodness I had the sense to sit down and drink some Energade (1.5 carb portions). What happened? Low blood sugar? Stellar unfitness? Not eating my carbs?

Theory: My body has sided with the eating plan. It protests when it is not soothed and pampered with  enough sleep, regular carbohydrates and protein. I even looked at meat with fat on it and thought "ugh". The people at Litchi Living have really changed my life :)

Lazy day or lazy me?

Gym
After my own series of unfortunate events (nothing on the Lemony Snicket scale) I went back  to gym today. My routine starts with 10 to 15 minutes on the recumbent exercise bicycle. Sitting back and pedalling is better for my knees than peddling on the normal exercise bicycles. Don't ask me to explain; the biokineticists at the gym said so so it must be true.

Someone at bikerumor.com made a recumbent office bicycle, but that's not the model we have at my gym

I felt rather chirpy at the gym. For starters, my eating plan means that I have energy throughout the day so it didn't take Herculean willpower to do my exercises. I also show less leg in all my exercises - a few centimetres of leg have gone astray.

I decided against posting a picture showing how my tummy doesn't show since it would be too breast-oriented

After happily pedalling to nowhere (or "spinning" in gym speak) I have 10 to 15 minutes on the treadmill. My instructions are to work up a light sweat and not be out of breath. (See my cunning avoidance of mentioning my level of (un)fitness). What I did enjoy was a  new, smaller (by 5) answer to a little, annoying question the exercise machines love  to ask:

Funny how I can never get the answer to the last question

Master's
After being productive and feeling brainy all weekend, today was a wash out as far as working on the Master's was concerned. I read articles on Cracked.com. Snoozed in the sun. Got weekdays and weekend all mixed up. The guilt might make me attempt a second spate of productiveness tonight. Or I'll just be virtuous again tomorrow. After all, making an admission like this on the Internet means that some of the people who are unhealthily interested in my Master's progress can see it too...

This dilemma reminds me of the trouble dolls my mother gave me when she came back from her trip to America.

Cute, aren't they?

The idea is that you tell one trouble to each doll at night (my mom bought six so that's how many troubles I'm allowed to have a day). The dolls will help to solve your troubles. From owning my own trouble dolls I can add one extra smidgeon of information: you can only tell the dolls about the same trouble so many times before you start doing something about them.

Studying in Paradise

Master's
The house I live in now used to belong to my grandfather. He always said that he lived in Paradise with his friends, the birds. I have to agree. Today was a perfect autumn day. My clothes felt fresh and warm from drying in the sun. I had the privilege to work on my Master's in the garden under the Jacaranda. The day was mild enough that I had my head in the shade, but my legs could be poked out into the warm, soothing sun.

Ye olde techno peasant notebook in beautiful surroundings

Project 36
The only part that marred the effect of being able to study in utopic surroundings is that I'm ravenous most of the time. I kept on having to get up every so often to search for sustenance.Yep, I've gone from feeling hungry to starving. The first three weeks of following my eating plan were invested in forcing myself to eat regularly. Now I have more portions to eat, but I have to exercise self-control not to overeat. Vegetables cooked with only herbs and water don't count as portions - so my veggie intake has gone up quite a bit for those times when I just need to fill the stomach and not take in additional carbohydrates.

Supposedly the increase in hunger shows an increase in metabolism. I would be sceptic, but I've put in a valiant effort to remember the last time is that I was constantly hungry - my early teens. I don't think that this means that another growth spurt is on the way (pity, since a little extra height wouldn't hurt). But it is the kind of hunger that occurred just before the puppy fat went. Let's hope!

UPCON aftermath

As mentioned ever so briefly in my user profile, I tend to help with organising UPCON each year. This year's convention took place last weekend (7 and 8 May). Running around for the con also explains why I haven't updated my blog as frequently as usual.

Gluttony, lack of
The strangest part about being at a gaming convention was not to have an urge to suddenly consume large quantities of food. I expected at least one of the seven deadly sins this weekend, gluttony, and possibly wrath. As part of being chairperson of the Great Geek Collective (GGC) I was in and out of the kitchen to deposit money, check if the anime maids were still in one piece and occasionally hiding from the rest of the people at the convention.

The irony? I've been known to eat for comfort. I had access to all kinds of food. I only drank three cans of fizzy cool drink over the course of the weekend and, this is very weird (also read the original meaning) for me, had no urges to eat chocolate of any kind. Apparently the hot cocoa and 70% dark chocolate that I'm allowed to imbibe have lain my milk chocolate addiction to rest. For now.

Anime maids (from the University of Pretoria's Society of Anime and Manga) and Gork in the background

Borg Queen costume
The logo for the GGC was designed by Sin Bin as was my outfit for UPCON. 

Logo as designed by Sin Bin

Unfortunately I didn't get round to building suitably awesome headgear to go with the outfit and the efforts to do so on Saturday morning were a flop. Note to self: buy cyber extensions when I see them next, much less effort. Good friends saved the day by carefully inserting fuses into my hair which later fell out all over the show. It was part of my evil plan, of course. Pick them up and be assimilated!

Neville saving the day

Project 36: Le Cutie of Borg
I should have anticipated a slight problem with my outfit. Since leaving my former employer I've dropped a whopping 5 kg. And last week's visit to the dietician showed that I've lost the amount of fat equivalent to  five blocks of butter (so far). I'm also no longer at risk for developing Type II Diabetes. Hooray!

The small problem was, well, that I was smaller than anticipated. The first set of measurements were sent through while I was still a contractor. My fitting was two or three weeks before the event and everything was a perfect fit. If Sin Bin had not cleverly bought along safety pins the pants would have fallen off. Even so, after the official costume competition I opted to put on my skirt again instead of the awesome pants since  that to which I ended up pinning the pants was also looser and threatening to go down with the ship. Thanks, but no thanks.

Photo by Duane Havenga

P.S. I love those gloves. They were warm as anything, but really added to the effect. And they rocked when the temperature dropped.

Master's
UPCON took up a lot of time as did sleeping. Chapter due by end of the month. No further extracurricular activities for me for the rest of the month. Another side effect of UPCON was getting bronchitis, so antibiotics-inspired writing, here we go!

Three bricks of butter

Master's
I've been advised that it's not most brilliant idea to post the topic of an unfinished Master's on the internet in case another sneaky, power-hungry Master's student runs off with it and finishes writing before I do. So if anyone was wondering, perchance, that's why I just refer to it as the Master's. Most of the time.

I made a classic mistake when I started writing the dissertation. I changed my methods. Usually I have a techno peasant notebook in which I happily scribble while I read and then I pick out pieces when I write the chapter. I tried to go all electronic this time. Now I'm back to yea old pen and paper for planning. My eyes seem to like me a lot more suddenly.

Note to self (aka to any Master's readers): do not change what works. Especially not for a (silly) idea.

Project 36
I  went back to the dietician, Marthie Leach, today. I've been doing the eating plan (nothing that makes you eat that much can be called a diet) for a little less than a week. I'm very pleased with the results of the hobbit lifestyle.

I didn't lose any weight, but I did lose 1,5% body fat. This is apparently the equivalent of three bricks of butter!

Inspiration to keep going

Gym
I actually went to gym yesterday. I skipped my friend, the adducer machine, last time so this time I was drawn to its awkward embrace. To anyone that has the good fortune not to know what these are, a picture:

Thigh adducer

Unlike the exercise balls (Getting the (exercise) ball to stand still and the (metaphorical) ball rolling) there is no attempt to romanticise this particular exercise. It's embarrassing. My gym has the decency to at least have you facing the wall with a photo mounted on it so that you have something to look at while you struggle to bring your thighs together.

1. Take one short lady (me).
2. Select your punishment (resistance).
3. Pull up the lever that brings the stirrups (what else can I call them?) close enough to swing your legs into them.
4. Sit on the seat.
5. Lift left leg up and swing it over and on to the stirrup.
6. Wiggle the derrière and make circles in the air with the right leg until it is in the other stirrup.
7. Brace yourself in the frog-on-its-back leg position.
8. Lower the lever that stops the machine from moving.
9. Slowly bring your knees closer to each other until you achieve the elusive mono thigh.
10. Slowly relax legs.
11. Repeat steps eight and nine 30 times in total.
12. Pull the stirrup lever up.
13. Elegantly swing a leg out of one stirrup.
14. Straddle one leg of the machine and hop on one leg until you are free of the machine.

I missed the 30 reps since the machine only put the weight on one leg instead of both. How terrible.

Eat like a hobbit

Master's
Misery loves company as do struggling Master's students. (Is "struggling student" a tautology?) At any rate, my friend and fellow perseverer Anja started blogging again and says I inspired her to start up her blog, Coram publico, again.

It seems that I have finally relaxed and slept enough to start writing. I was starting to read Emma again when the whole of one chapter of my Master's flashed into my head. Parallel structures, parallel plots, love and marriage and structure cannot be two chapters! Luckily I have a MA notebook (the techno peasant version with a book and a pen) in which I noted my ideas so that they wouldn't go missing in the night. Hooray! It feels like I'm finally starting to get work done.

Project 36
My visit to the dietician went remarkably well. I do not feel that I will starve - instead I don't know how I'm going to eat so much. Apparently the way to lose weight and make the good old tum happy is to eat like a hobbit. Yep, my eating patterns were predicted by JRR Tolkien. Breakfast is to be eaten within an hour after surfacing from a night's sleep. Since I usually skip breakfast this is the worst part. Then follows elevenses, lunch, supper, dinner and a before-bed snack.

I've been attempting to do the portions a day. It's harder than I thought. Not because I feel that I'm being starved, but because I don't feel that I can eat as much and as often as expected. A few days of eating hobbit style have convinced me that the reason for eating as soon as possible after waking up is that it is the only way to eat so much in one day!

Sleep
Incidentally, Marthie Leach, the head dietician at Litchi Living made my day. I've lost 2 kg since I stopped working and started sleeping (1.5 weeks). That's right, sleeping your eight hours a night (or a bit more in my case at the moment) will make you lose weight. This explains why the care bears and any other creatures that inhabited fluffy clouds in the eighties were just cuddly and not "overweight" or "fat".

See, cute and cuddly!

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may diet

Master's
Over the weekend I read two books on comedy to jog my memory and tune in my mind.(I am aware that reading is not equal to writing, alas!)

Gym
I missed gym again. My excuse this time? Got stuck in traffic for 1.5 hours and finally couldn't get in since there was some inter-varsity sports thing going. It's a pity since I was looking forward to taking you through my next embarrassing exercise. I don't want to start writing about my exercises instead of doing them - so you'll have to wait to hear about more wonders of my exercise routine.

Project 36
The universe, in the form of a slightly  (she claims) inebriated mom at "the most wonderful party" is apparently guiding me to phone Litchi Living and make an appointment with one of their dieticians. Apparently while meandering her way through the Hazelwood food market (now in Menlopark) she spoke to the "nicest lady" who was, as I make it out, a family member of a friend or something of the sort. Naturally this recommendation needed verification so I visited their website.

I like their philosophy of eating well: "The good news is that the Litchi Living Lifestyle is easy, fun and dynamic; eat chocolate, ice-cream and sushi, drink wine AND loose [sic] weight."

I just happen to foresee a bout of depression in my future: "An individual consultation starts with an assessment of weight, height, fat percentage, recent blood tests, clinical signs of malnutrition, and normal dietary habits." I don't want to know what my fat percentage is!

Update
My appointment is tomorrow at 11:30. We who are about to diet, salute you.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

Despite good intentions, despite the blog... I succumbed to the wonders of ice cream today. You see, I figured that eating a Magnum mini once in a while couldn't do any harm. After all, have you seen the advertisements ?

Eva Longoria - the face of Magnum

I'm just sure that she doesn't give in to temptation and munch three mini Magnums in one day. That only works out to 1.5 usual Magnums, but still not a good idea. The next enemy this Easter is Lindt chocolate bunnies. Chocolate is my borg. "We are the Chocolate. You will assimilate us. Resistance is futile. We will go straight to your hips."

On another note - the sleeping is still not stopping. I slowly wake up, roll over and look at my cellphone (who still owns a watch?) and realise that half of the day is gone. What am I recovering from? Am I catching up on a year of sleep? Perhaps it's combined with my desire for chocolate and indicates that I'm ready to go into hibernation. I have heard that bears lose a lot of weight while hibernating...

P.S. Shaved my legs today