Not another (meat-free) blog

-ism of the day

2008-12-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

Reprimanding a student for hogging a sheet with group-work questions

Me: Why won't you show her the question sheet? You know, sharing is caring.

Student: But what if we were sharing needles? That wouldn't be very caring.

Me: (retires)

Food?

2008-11-18T18:58:00.000-08:00

My grandmother once told me I should live to eat, not eat to live.

My mantra of late has been, just eat what you can, whenever you have time, which is never, really. Something like that, I don't know. I'm a bit too malnourished to make sense of it myself.

The past few weeks have been a nightmare. I am transitioning into the wonderful world of teaching from the slightly-more-wonderful world of being a barista with no responsibilities except determining the proper brewing temperature for the perfect doppio. Since then, I have subsisted on:

Dunkin Donuts coffee, percolated
Clif Bars (lots and lots of Clif Bars)
Peanut butter sandwiches... every single day. For lunch. Cute, if I wasn't 23.
various snacks that comprise the remainder of my daily recommended caloric intake

The benefit of eating on the run is that I've successfully lost 5 lbs because the calories go out as quickly as they come in. The draw back of eating mostly fat and carbohydrate foods is that the 5 pounds I lost was muscle. I don't think I'll be seeing that for a while, especially since I have not run a mile in over three weeks. This summer, I was running nearly every day, between 4 and 13 miles a day (usually closer to 4 though). Now the most you'll get out of me is a half-hearted jog as I attempt to catch the one bus per half hour that stops in front of my school.

My per-hour income has more than quadrupled since I started teaching. But so has my blood pressure, commute time, blemishes and Clif bar wrappers. They say next year will be easier... hopefully by a factor of four.

Rant, etc.

2007-10-23T10:34:00.001-07:00

ATTENTION COFFEE STORE PATRONS:
If you order a quad-shot frozen mocha with whip cream, or any equally difficult drink, PLEASE TIP YOUR BARISTA. Last Friday, I must have made about 20 drinks in under half an hour (meaning I pulled at least twenty shots of espresso). Not ONE customer tipped! And all those people were going to the wine tasting next door... they're all just out for freebies.

Rule of thumb: If your drink costs $4, you should at LEAST be tipping $1, and you should always tip for any mixed drink. I get more tips for simple cups of coffee than I do for complicated espresso drinks. A barista's job is HARD work, and we put a lot of time and care into each and every beverage, regardless of whether you tip or not. And I make minimum wage, so I really rely on tips to pay bills and such.

One of the benefits of standing for 9 hours a day is that I can make myself fat-filled fully-hydrogenated chocolaty beverages, eat muffins and pastries for lunch and still manage to lose weight, all the while still bloating and PMSing like a raging bull (or cow, since bulls don't menstruate). Seriously. I eat like a monster, and since starting work I have consistently been 3 pounds lighter than before working.

On the downside, my skin is pissed off.

For all the health and wellness benefits that I received from my brief stint as a pesco-vega-tarian (that's my new word; meaning vegan plus fish), I should definitely reconsider. I've tried virtually every cheese in the store, and while I'll miss the St. Andre's Brie (best cheese in the world), I need to do something about this mid-adolescent boy skin. Mama D's muffins, the woman we buy our pastries from, have literally replaced all my muscle mass with fat. I haven't gained weight, but I have lost muscle tone. Boo.

And now for something completely different. I'm thinking of becoming an egg donor. More on that later, Mama D's oat bran muffin is about to put me in a sugar coma.

Working hard... or just making coffee all day?

2007-09-27T02:22:00.000-07:00

A little of both. I'm a barista now. Yay! In Italy, that would mean something, because there, "barista" is a viable career option. Here, it's what you do when you have a degree in anthropology. Minimum wage plus tips, which averages out to about ... $8 per hour. Yeah, New Yorkers aren't the most generous tippers, even in Ithaca where everything is wonderful and everyone is happy. The store is locally owned (read: not a commercial chain), and I love it, love the people.

I don't love the fact that I closed the store at 9:30 last night, and have to work at 7 this morning. I think that's illegal actually. I got about 4 hours of sleep.

Although I shudder at the thought of working for Starbucks, they do offer health insurance.
But they also have machines pulling their espresso... yuck. I think even my crappy espresso shots taste better than the Starbucks espressos. I guess their goal is to maintain uniformity in each of their beverages, and chose "below mediocre" as their mantra. You can't screw up mediocre!

I'm it

2007-09-06T07:51:00.001-07:00

Since I don't have anyone else to tag, here are eight totally random* facts about me:

(*Disclaimer: may or may not be all that random)

1. I love pumpkins. EVERYTHING pumpkins! Halloween makes me go crazy, whenever I see something orange I just want to eat it up. SO happy to have found and modified the perfect vegan pumpkin pie recipe.

2. I have dermatillomania, and have scars all over my back and arms, probably my scalp as well. It started with my scalp when I was little, and just spread out from there. I also chew the skin off the inside of my cheeks and around my nails (but I don't bite my nails).

3. I might be obessive-compulsive about groceries as well.. whenever at the supermarket, I have to arrange the groceries on the conveyer according to how they have to be put away when they get home. Frozen foods with frozen/cold foods. Milk always packed with frozen foods. Eggs and bread together.

4. I am addicted to tweezers! I can't let my eyebrows grow out. And there are large patches on my leg that won't grow because I've plucked them so much. (Maybe I have trichotillomania as well... maybe OCD, but I won't admit it!)

5. I know every bone in the human body, and can identify most from just fragments. I can tell which side they came from as well. But so can everyone else in my forensics and osteology classes.

6. I watch judge shows and talk shows like it's my job. Not having cable since we moved to Ithaca is helping me curb this addiction.

7. I have a pajama shirt that I've been using for at least 16 or 17 years. It's worn completely thin, but the picture is still clear and it doesn't have any holes in it. It's a bear in pjs holding a cup of coffee, and underneath it says "I'll rise, but I refuse to shine."

8. I was the creepy goth girl once upon a time. Now I'm a corporate sell-out. Whenever I show my I.D. (Learner's permit with a picture of me as a 17-year-old), I feel embarassed. I turned bright red a few weeks ago when the girl behind the counter said "That doesn't look anything like you...." I didn't know if she was accusing me of using a fake I.D. or what, but apparently I blushed like mad.

Home in Ithaca

2007-08-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

On the veg front, I think I've made myself lactose intolerant. I had cut out virtually all milk and egg products for about two weeks (still using honey though-- I never said I was vegan!), but decided the other night to reward my dedication... with a pizza-sized quesadilla, split between Aaron and myself.

I have found myself completely drained of energy, and I blame the lack of animal protein. As an evolutionist, I know better than most that humans evolved as omnivores, our teeth and gut perfectly suited to both meat and plant foods. Our brain runs on fat and cholesterol, our muscles repair themselves with protein, our organs run on carbohydrates, but to ensure an adequate balance of all these things, I think meat is an absolute necessity. My on-the-go veganism has wiped me out, I don't lead a sedentary enough lifestyle to rely on solely plant matter.

So my new plan, although Aaron still questions my resolve, is to leave out all dairy, eggs, and meat with the exception of fish on rare occassions. Once I have more time to balance out my meals, I'm sure that my modified flexigan (flexible + vegan, aren't I clever?) diet will work out better, and I can ensure proper brain functioning with the supplement of animal-based fats and protein once a week or every other week.

Oh yes, and Ithaca? It's wonderful. Could surely use a job though, because I can't see myself paying rent next month with the money I have now.

The plural relationship

2007-08-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Big Love makes me want to be a fundamentalist Mormon. Although I'm sure it's not without its grievances, I would definitely benefit from another woman around the house. Or maybe I could just use a female friend.

Got a haircut today. Boyfriend does not like it. I love it. I have an interview at a law firm tomorrow. No clean clothes to wear. I often write lists of things that happen to me in paragraph format.

Of foot-aches and veganism

2007-08-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

Wednesday around noon I decided that eating egg and milk products was not unlike eating meat. My cheese is cheap, though, with the exception of one bar of cheese I bought under false impressions, rennet-free. My eggs not of the free-range variety, but they are vegetarian-fed (though I have plenty to say about so-called "free-range" hens). Even so, these products that I am consuming come from animals that are in the same slum conditions as meat-source animals.

My reason for becoming vegetarian is not one of empathy. Although now I would most likely not eat meat even if it came from a wild source, I found nothing wrong with slaughtering animals for food. We are intrinsically omnivorous. Our teeth, intestines, even bipedalism is indicative of a meat-and-plant-based diet. Anyone who tries to argue against this point obviously knows very little about herbivorous animal intestine morphology. My reason, therefore, was strictly because I am absolutely appalled by how disgusting the practice of raising animals for food is. It's dirty. It's wasteful. Our cows and chickens and pigs are being pumped full of antibiotics.

This is DANGEROUS, people! Seventy percent of all uncooked chicken carries a form of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria which is the DIRECT result of feeding them antibiotics. The anti-biotic resistant strain of E. coli, the one that makes it into the media so often, evolved out of similar unhealthy animal factory farms in Britain. Organic meat is only slightly better. The USDA does not have as stringent regulations on what is labeled "organic" as I would like. I think only about 70% of a product has to be organic for something to be labeled as such.

That being said, I am transitioning into veganism. Once all the cheese and milk and eggs are out of the apartment, I'm through. (Why be so hypocritical and eat these? Because they're already paid for. I'm not sending anyone a message by tossing them out, it would just be wasteful and irresponsible.) Overall I want to live a healthier lifestyle.

So that's where the foot aches come in. Aaron and I, on good days, go running. Summer has been a little difficult for the two of us to run together, mostly 4-5 mile runs on the Rail Trail (flat, boring), or 7-7.5 mile runs to the campus from home, or from the campus to the city and back to the campus. We did very well for a while running every day, but that tapered off. It's a little disheartening that I went from an 8-minute mile (40 minutes for a 5-mile run) down to a 9.5-10 minute mile (6 miles per hour), but at least I'm doing it. I was in great shape a year ago, 17% body fat, 10mm skin folds, four nicely-sculpted abdominal muscles poking through, toned arms... bleh. I'm soft now. Anyway, Noakes says distance first, speed later. Okay, I can try that.

Wednesday (8/8): 3 miles (27 min.)
Thursday (8/9): 6 miles [3 miles (27 min.), lost my towel and stopped to pick it up, 3 miles (30 min.)]
Friday (8/10): 6 miles (56 min.), stop for water, then .5 mile walk on 6% incline (10-11 min.)
Total for three days: 15 miles

And now my feet are sore as hell. I probably need new shoes, I got these Asics (GEL-Cumulus) in March and certainly have not put 500 miles on them yet. The cushioning seems a little... well, compressed and un-cushiony.

There. Veganism and foot pains are inextricably linked. My logic is not flawed, seriously.

Okay, so here's the deal...

2007-08-08T09:11:00.001-07:00

I hate "blogging." The very word is poison on my lips. It leaves a foul taste in my mouth, and the thought of entering a worldwide network of individuals brought together by the sheer need to say something, no matter of how little substance or significance, is revolting.

But I am not one to put myself on a tier higher than anyone else. Thus, I have opened a blog, hereafter known as my "public internet journal," my "pij," because the conjunction "blog" (for those of you who are unfamiliar with its parent word, similarly disturbing, "web log") sounds like a festering boil or tropical disease.

Who cares about me, or what I have to say? Not many people do, but to be fair, if you are a blogger, it probably means that no one cares about you either. Hence your need to start a blog and tell everyone the unsolicited details of your day. (Fifty potential new friends close my pij now... pij sounds a little dirty, doesn't it? I like it.)

So besides reading my inane ramblings, I will offer some things at least. I am a novice to baking and cooking, and I love both more than I love my cat. No, that's wrong. I love my cat, just not this morning when he threw up his breakfast and climbed up my back when I wouldn't feed him again.

My focus? Vegetarian cooking, of course! And my newest endeavor, vegan baking. It's amazing how much vegan baked goods taste like the real eggy/milky thing when you work at it. I'm learning how to modify traditional recipes without compromising the flavor and consistency of their tried-and-true ancestors. It's a task, but worth the trouble.

Likes: Sunny days, running, sleeping in on weekends (and weekdays), experimenting with seasonings, watching boyfriend smile through painfully overseasoned dinners, nursing said boyfriend's stomach the next day due to overseasoned dinner the night prior
Dislikes: Neighbors who open the door of their black Volkswagon and hit our car, then park two spaces down pretending like they didn't do it (I know it's you! You park in the same damn spot every day!)

Well, I suppose that's a misnomer

2007-08-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

...because this is just another blog!