Meetings of Two Sorts

Today was my first official thesis committee meeting, during which I presented my research project, gave some preliminary results, and let my committee members question me about various aspects of the study design.  Events like that can go either positively or painfully, but I have some good profs and I got supportive feedback and helpful comments, I felt like I handled the interrogation portion well (it was conducted fairly) and was really pleased with how the meeting went overall.

And tomorrow I have a meeting of a different kind: Match!  Going up for my monthly weekend visit to see The Boy, can't wait. We're celebrating my birthday as well, and this time around I will actually loosen up and allow it to be special (see last post for background).  Except he pretty much spoils me to the max all the time, not sure if he can possibly ramp it up in honor of birthday, but will be fun to watch him try. ;p

Long drive to get to him, though, 12 hours on the road, and I have some sleep debt built up, so this post shall be brief.  I wish I'd taken better care of myself leading up to this trip, because I feel like crap and am a bit worried that I won't be as much fun as I'd like this weekend.  I handled the last trip really well, though (although I was also doing better ed-wise leading up to that visit than I am now), and hopefully this one will go smoothly also, as far as dealing with being out of routine and such.

Great Expectations

It can't be real that my stomach has grown bigger and flabbier even as the number on the scale has gone down, right?  I really wish my head were screwed on straight.

I've been watching the series Breaking Bad (I'm only starting Season 2, no spoilers in comments please!), and really identify with the character Pinkman.  He had tons of opportunities and potential, but he got off on a bad track and now he's trapped and can't quite figure out how he got in so far over his head.

I had a little bit of a meltdown last night.  I hate birthdays and holidays, because there's such an expectation to be happy and fun, and I am so bad at that.  And thus I feel like a failure.  It wasn't a bad day, really, was ordinary, but because there is this implied sense that it should be extraordinary some how, and I wasn't comfortable with doing/allowing that, I felt really depressed and bad about myself.  I ended up breaking down crying on the phone with Match, bless his heart, and never really fully explained why.  How did a nice boy like him end up with a nut like me?

Dysfunctional moment of the day: Mom asked me to read her some calorie information from packages at the grocery store, because it was printed too small for her to see without her reading glasses.

Slight win of the day: having a high-ish calorie (even with nonfat milk, etc) drink at Starbucks, liquid calories are still a huge challenge/novelty for me.  It was damn good.

Annual Fail

I really stink at birthdays.

I just feel like such a failure at being a real person when my mom asks over and over again what I want to do, and I don't want to go out to eat, I don't want a cake, I don't want to go to a movie that interferes with my workout schedule, and I don't want anything that she really wants to give me to feel/show that she's a caring parent.

Incongruous Mix of Feelings

I'm back!!! Anyone still here?  Touched down just before midnight last night, still a little zonked and culture-shocked from being back stateside (ie adjusting to being around Americans again, I find us a bit annoying after I've grown used to being around people in my research country. although no offense to all my US readers, I am vastly overgeneralizing and have proportionate degrees of sleep debt and incoherence going on. I just get annoyed when people whine about what are really minor inconveniences when I just left a place where a tin roof  with not *too* many rust holes is a status symbol), but made it out with no illness or injury and lots of great stories.

Good news:
My trip was a HUGE success, my research is going better than I ever could have hoped.  I have fantabulous data results, am making connections in the country, improving my language skills, and having tons of incredible adventures/experiences.

Bad news was that my eating sucked while I was there, and I pushed way more than I needed to physically.  I didn't lose as much weight as I did on my trip over the summer, but that's mostly because it was a shorter trip, I think the rate of loss was about the same.  I wasn't there long enough for it to do a ton to me physically (although, seeing as how I never regained all the lost summer weight, a bit of lost fall weight put me below what I was when I returned from that last trip), but my head is in a very shakey place, I have such a hard time figuring out how to get back on track once I'm home, after I've shifted back into restrictive mode and proved to myself how little I "need" to get by on (which is a fallacy, because if I was getting what I needed I wouldn't be shedding pounds and feeling like a shit taco, would I?).

All that to say: today is an incongruous mix of feelings.  Extremely elated about my work, yet pretty damn disheartened and depressed at how I completely fail to handle something (food) that seems to come natural to so many people.

It's one of those "cry behind your sunglasses in the grocery store" days, and I'm just really, really tired of this.

Popcorn, Morning Texts, and Weekend Reading

A few random notes from the weekend:

-It made my day when the old lady I've befriended at the gym asked me to add her on Facebook.

-Over the last 24 hours, some member of my family has chosen to have popcorn for each and every one of the 3 traditional meals,  Meaning someone (Littlebro) had it for breakfast, someone else (Mom) for lunch, someone else (Cammy, lol) for dinner, etc.

-Match woke me up this morning with a text asking if we could play the "Things I Love About Cammy" game.

-Despite the fact that I've had 4 extra days in the country to get work done, I've mostly been finishing the 2nd season of True Blood and reading backposts on the Mental Floss blogs.

-It finally feels like fall outside! I'm afraid I'll miss the most beautiful part of the season while I'm on my trip, but oh well...back in time for the holidays at least.

-I have almost perfected a recipe for a protein powder muffincookiething.

-Poor G. has seen my suitcases sitting out and ready to go for days now and can't settle down, because he *knows* what that signal portends...

-I am disturbed and concerned by how dolled-up and mature the girls are that post on Littlebro's Facebook page.  Stay away from my innocent baby brother!  Wait, he's 15 now?  Holy crap.  Still think they look like they're trying to be too grown up.

-The new book put out by the Daily Show, Earth, is fantabulously hilarious, literal laugh out louds on almost every page.

-So far it looks like everything is a go with finally leaving for my trip as rescheduled, fingers crossed!

--It Happened!

So, as some of you may have noticed from my commenting activity on other blogs, I am not, in fact, out in the field right now.  Remember my conclusion in my last post that "shit happens"?  Well this is proof of point!  There were some last minute complications with transporting my equipment down to the site, so we were delayed a few days.

I was nowhere near as stressed as I thought I would be in that situation, with less than 24 hours notice of the change.  I held onto my cool the whole time, sort of surprised myself, and I know that in the long run this is just a blip that shouldn't affect any outcomes.

And actually, I'm kind of glad.  I have the weekend to spend with my family and talk to Match before I take off.  I was actually feeling quite sorry for myself on Thursday, because during the week I'm mostly here working from home alone, and I was getting major lonelies being so isolated in the days leading up to leaving everyone I love for several weeks.

So, that's the update, hope everyone is having a great weekend!