I've done quite a bit of globe-trotting for someone my age, and I have NEVER had jetlag as severe as I do this week. My body is acting like some kind of insomniac two-year-old that refuses to get with the program.
Granted, this was one of the more challenging trips I've taken. When I visited Tropical Research Country (TRC) last year, I had just one layover and was ending my journey on the east coast of the US. Now "home" (ie where my parents and dog are) is farther west, and I had two layovers, including one that was hundreds of miles west of home, meaning I had to backtrack against a significant portion of the country. If all of that sounds confusing, this is how the trip went:
At what was 23:30h in Eastern time on Monday, I left my house in TRC for the 6 hour drive to TRC's capital city. I was hitching with an undergrad field course that was heading out the same day. We had lunch in the city, killed some time in the afternoon shopping, and had way too much time stuck in the stuffy, dark airport.
At the equivalent of 14:45 on Tuesday in Eastern time, I took off for an 8.5 hour overnight (left at 23:45 TRC time) flight to European Hub City.
Landed in European Hub City at 6:30 local time on Wednesday, 23:30 Tuesday night in eastern time.
Had a 3 hour layover there, then boarded a 10 hour flight to American Hub City (which is farther west than my final destination). Landed at 13:30 local time on Wednesday, which was 20:30 for the time my body was used to.
Scheduled for a 5 hour layover. Did customs and all that jazz, stressed over what to eat and made a few false starts at procuring a meal. Ended up doing well with food, but only because I got scared at how weak/fuzzyheaded I felt.
Huge thunderstorms hit, delaying the flight another 3 hours.
At 22:00 Eastern timeWednesday night, board final flight. Land at 23:45 local time at Regional Hub City. Greet family, gather bags, embark on one hour drive home and finally walk in the door at 1:00 Thursday morning (eastern), about 49 hours after I left my house in TRC.
Discover my dad has moved all of my clothes into storage while I was gone, have exhausted emotional meltdown about lack of immediately accessible clean underwear.
Call Match at 2 AM having said emotional meltdown about underwear.
Am calmed from hysterics to hiccuping sobs by Match, hang up and cry myself to sleep around 3:00 Thursday morning.
Wretched body is wide awake at 5:30 Thursday morning.
Am more numb that sleepy for all of Thursday. Notice on my drive home from lunch with Mom that I REALLY was too bleary to be on the road.
Put myself to bed at 21:15 Thursday night.
Proceed to sleep, but with wake-ups at midnight, 2:00, and finally wide awake at 2:45.
Kill time on the internet (y'all, do you realize how FAST the internet is in this country???). Try to log into HBOGo only to realize the online account I'd been "borrowing" was canceled at some point while I was gone. Switch to catching up on magazines until 5:00 Friday morning.
Log in to write rambling and only arguably coherent blog post at 5:05.
And here we meet.
Oh, and I DO have clean underwear now. Just in case you were worried.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
EDs in Novels?
Thanks so much for the support you ladies have shown me after I went AWOL for a few months; every single comment on the last post absolutely brightened my day.
Question:
Can anyone think of a novel that features a character that has/had an eating disorder, but sort of as a subplot (ie, not a traditional "sickness and then recovery" narrative a la Hunger Point, The Best Little Girl in the World, etc)? I guess the caveat here is that I have in mind books that treat the issue as a serious but not ridiculed component of someone's life (not the "oh that flakey skinny chick must anorexic, ick" approach that seems to provide some sick comic relief in occasional books and movies).
Not sure if I explained that quite right, but let me know if you can think of any titles? I much appreciate your input.
Flying home tomorrow...love y'all.
Question:
Can anyone think of a novel that features a character that has/had an eating disorder, but sort of as a subplot (ie, not a traditional "sickness and then recovery" narrative a la Hunger Point, The Best Little Girl in the World, etc)? I guess the caveat here is that I have in mind books that treat the issue as a serious but not ridiculed component of someone's life (not the "oh that flakey skinny chick must anorexic, ick" approach that seems to provide some sick comic relief in occasional books and movies).
Not sure if I explained that quite right, but let me know if you can think of any titles? I much appreciate your input.
Flying home tomorrow...love y'all.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Been a while
So . . . I don't really feel like I deserve to have anyone reading this blog anymore, since I went completely AWOL from writing and reading ED blogs during this field research session. I've stayed in touch with a few people, but feel a lot of guilt about avoiding the blogosphere. I can't explain it exactly, but I try *so* hard to compartmentalize and be purely in "researcher/scientist" mode when I'm in the field. I guess I worry that if I keep up with ED blogs during my time out here, I don't give myself a chance to shed those obsessions and end up distracting myself from my research.
I don't know if that actually works. Things have been okay; could have been better and could have been worse. So I'm sorry if I haven't been as supportive as I should have in the blog world.
I'm going home in three days, and even though I've been here in Tropical Research Country for four months now, the time has flown by. As I'm inching closer to "real life" again (whatever that is, right?), I can already feel my anxiety about food/exercise stuff ratcheting up.
I have no idea where my weight is. Okay, by "no idea" I mean I don't know a finely measured number, but I guess I do have some idea. I suspect it edged down a bit, judging by the fit of my pants/belt, but not dramatically, and I did do better with keeping up calories than pretty much any other field session. This was mostly because this time I was living in a house, with access to a full kitchen and my own meal prep (as opposed to relying upon dining hall offerings). My formal exercise has been a bit lower than in the States, going to try to push it down a bit farther in re-establishing my routines Stateside.
Remote field stations are such weird places from a sociological/psychological standpoint. You have a small group of 20-somethings thousands of miles from home, hundreds of miles from a city, dealing with a foreign setting and culture, isolated with only each other for company 24/7. It's almost like being in a spaceship, except with really awesome tropical birds in the background.
Anyone who has ever watched a reality TV show knows better than to underestimate the drama that a small group of 20-somethings can generate with virtually no outside stimuli.
I've been lucky enough to get along with pretty much everybody, although there are a few people whom I try to minimize my time with. My housemate is pretty moody, but I've learned not to take it personally. I'm pretty sure another PhD student here is bulimic. I got very, very close to one person here over the past few months (that's a long story), and am still moping about them leaving for another job last week. It's also the "lull period" between spring and summer waves of researchers, so the place feels kind of empty overall. I'm pretty lonely and will be ready to go home on Tuesday/Wednesday (yes, two full days in trucks and trains and planes to get from here to home).
So I guess this is just my reintro post; I plan to be back to reading/updating in the blog world more regularly again. I hope you all know how much your support has always meant to me, and hope my hiatus didn't lose too many people--although that definitely wouldn't be undeserved.
Love y'all.
I don't know if that actually works. Things have been okay; could have been better and could have been worse. So I'm sorry if I haven't been as supportive as I should have in the blog world.
I'm going home in three days, and even though I've been here in Tropical Research Country for four months now, the time has flown by. As I'm inching closer to "real life" again (whatever that is, right?), I can already feel my anxiety about food/exercise stuff ratcheting up.
I have no idea where my weight is. Okay, by "no idea" I mean I don't know a finely measured number, but I guess I do have some idea. I suspect it edged down a bit, judging by the fit of my pants/belt, but not dramatically, and I did do better with keeping up calories than pretty much any other field session. This was mostly because this time I was living in a house, with access to a full kitchen and my own meal prep (as opposed to relying upon dining hall offerings). My formal exercise has been a bit lower than in the States, going to try to push it down a bit farther in re-establishing my routines Stateside.
Remote field stations are such weird places from a sociological/psychological standpoint. You have a small group of 20-somethings thousands of miles from home, hundreds of miles from a city, dealing with a foreign setting and culture, isolated with only each other for company 24/7. It's almost like being in a spaceship, except with really awesome tropical birds in the background.
Anyone who has ever watched a reality TV show knows better than to underestimate the drama that a small group of 20-somethings can generate with virtually no outside stimuli.
I've been lucky enough to get along with pretty much everybody, although there are a few people whom I try to minimize my time with. My housemate is pretty moody, but I've learned not to take it personally. I'm pretty sure another PhD student here is bulimic. I got very, very close to one person here over the past few months (that's a long story), and am still moping about them leaving for another job last week. It's also the "lull period" between spring and summer waves of researchers, so the place feels kind of empty overall. I'm pretty lonely and will be ready to go home on Tuesday/Wednesday (yes, two full days in trucks and trains and planes to get from here to home).
So I guess this is just my reintro post; I plan to be back to reading/updating in the blog world more regularly again. I hope you all know how much your support has always meant to me, and hope my hiatus didn't lose too many people--although that definitely wouldn't be undeserved.
Love y'all.
Friday, March 1, 2013
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2013
I'm sure everyone reading this blog is already aware of this, but it's National Eating Disorders Awareness week....PostSecret had a few ED secrets this week, not all of them positive. The most recovery-oriented:
I know I haven't updated lately...things are going okay, not perfect but okay. I haven't been around blogland much, when I'm in field research mode I really try to keep myself in that zone more than anything, for better or worse. I'll try to update soon, though. Love y'all, as always.
I know I haven't updated lately...things are going okay, not perfect but okay. I haven't been around blogland much, when I'm in field research mode I really try to keep myself in that zone more than anything, for better or worse. I'll try to update soon, though. Love y'all, as always.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Catch My Breath
T-minus 4.5 days until I leave the US for Tropical Research Country. I am a scatter, distracted mess. And it's been a while since you got a Randoms post. Sounds like a recipe for stream of conscious list-making to me:
-I stuck to the calorie boost enough days that it feels like the default/routine now, although I haven't stepped it up the increment that I planned. But I don't know how much I do/don't need to; I miss having D. for perspective. One benefit to this addictive personality type is that I form habits at the drop of a hat, and if I can just shove myself over the anxiety hump of making a change in the first place, I can usually make it stick in the long run. (Or maybe the short run; at least until something shakes my world up and I revert, that's a topic that needs more than a bullet point to delve into). Anyway, I'm going to a country where my immune system is going to need to be in kickass shape, so I'm trying to tell myself it's okay to be liberal with intake right now. We'll see.
-I got a new Kindle Fire today (thanks to my amazing grandpa, who couldn't stand for me to go several months without my beloved National Geographic subscription while I'm overseas), and it absorbed waaaay too much of the time I should've been putting into grant applications. I don't think I'd realized that it is really a tablet instead of a straight e-reader. It feels like a big Droid, which is a bit clunky for someone used to Apple products (unabashed Mac Snob, sorry), but it does a ton more than my old Kindle and overall I'm happy with it.
-#thatawkwardmomentwhen you are showing off your new Kindle to your mother and she scrolls over your digital copy of the Kama Sutra. For the love of all that is holy why me...
-I think I've confessed this on here before, but I am totally a sucker for pop songs (I draw the line at boy bands and Bieber! What a goon), and this one is the newest addition to my Recovery playlist:
"Shadow-boxing the other half" really hit home for me. Also, if you didn't see Clarkson sing the at Obama's inauguration earlier this week, you totally should. She starts off slow and really opens up at the end. I don't really care what mean media people say about her; I love that voice. The video above also made me want to finally get that wrist tattoo I've been thinking about forever now.
-Speaking of music, the 'Shazam' app has changed my life.
-I ate beef today for the first time in...years. I suppose this is an achievement for 'breaking a rule,' although my reasons for not eating beef have absolutely zero to do with calories. I could give you my spiel on how unsustainable factory-produced meat is, but I won't. Anywho, I was just thinking about how I sometimes miss roast beef sandwiches even though everything I know about how their made is a huge turn-off...and I reasoned that soon I'll be in a place where I won't have the chance to indulge any random food whims whatsoever, so I went to Subway and got a roast beef sandwich, damnit. And . . . it didn't really taste good to me. I remember that I used to love those things. So weird. I think my baseline anxiety is so high leading up to this trip that I'm just distracted and out of touch with most things and maybe am just not focusing enough on the world around me to cue into sensory details too acutely. Who knows. But I ate the damn sandwich.
-I have made zero progress with curbing exercise and thus have set myself up for a major anxietyfest when I show up at my field site late next week and am suddenly faced with much less opportunity to work out without having made any effort to ease myself into it at all.
I anticipate that going something like this:
-I've been sleeping an average of 4 hours per night for the last week. That whole plan to wean myself off of caffeine before my trip, because I can't have it in the field . . . JUST KIDDING. Couldn't let all those nice coconut mocha Keurig cups that Match bought me go to waste...
-Major good news on the writing front in my "real life." Can't say more here*, but it was pretty validating and exciting.
-*I'm pretty sure that most of the people that subscribe to this blog in private mode do know who I am in "real life," and at least 100% of the people that I know for sure still read definitely know. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the degree to which people I've met through this venue have continued to respect my pseudonymity and keep the two worlds separate; you ladies are amazing.
-GREAT NEWS: On my flight out next week, I have a five hour layover in Match City. We thought he had meetings all afternoon that day, but his adviser gave him the afternoon off so he's going to come over to the airport and hang with me. SO glad I get one more chance to see him before I go. It means another tearful goodbye, but it's worth it for even one more hug before I head off.
I have an early morning tomorrow and really should try to get a human amount of sleep tonight. I hope all is well for everyone, love y'all.
-I stuck to the calorie boost enough days that it feels like the default/routine now, although I haven't stepped it up the increment that I planned. But I don't know how much I do/don't need to; I miss having D. for perspective. One benefit to this addictive personality type is that I form habits at the drop of a hat, and if I can just shove myself over the anxiety hump of making a change in the first place, I can usually make it stick in the long run. (Or maybe the short run; at least until something shakes my world up and I revert, that's a topic that needs more than a bullet point to delve into). Anyway, I'm going to a country where my immune system is going to need to be in kickass shape, so I'm trying to tell myself it's okay to be liberal with intake right now. We'll see.
-I got a new Kindle Fire today (thanks to my amazing grandpa, who couldn't stand for me to go several months without my beloved National Geographic subscription while I'm overseas), and it absorbed waaaay too much of the time I should've been putting into grant applications. I don't think I'd realized that it is really a tablet instead of a straight e-reader. It feels like a big Droid, which is a bit clunky for someone used to Apple products (unabashed Mac Snob, sorry), but it does a ton more than my old Kindle and overall I'm happy with it.
-#thatawkwardmomentwhen you are showing off your new Kindle to your mother and she scrolls over your digital copy of the Kama Sutra. For the love of all that is holy why me...
-I think I've confessed this on here before, but I am totally a sucker for pop songs (I draw the line at boy bands and Bieber! What a goon), and this one is the newest addition to my Recovery playlist:
"Shadow-boxing the other half" really hit home for me. Also, if you didn't see Clarkson sing the at Obama's inauguration earlier this week, you totally should. She starts off slow and really opens up at the end. I don't really care what mean media people say about her; I love that voice. The video above also made me want to finally get that wrist tattoo I've been thinking about forever now.
-Speaking of music, the 'Shazam' app has changed my life.
-I ate beef today for the first time in...years. I suppose this is an achievement for 'breaking a rule,' although my reasons for not eating beef have absolutely zero to do with calories. I could give you my spiel on how unsustainable factory-produced meat is, but I won't. Anywho, I was just thinking about how I sometimes miss roast beef sandwiches even though everything I know about how their made is a huge turn-off...and I reasoned that soon I'll be in a place where I won't have the chance to indulge any random food whims whatsoever, so I went to Subway and got a roast beef sandwich, damnit. And . . . it didn't really taste good to me. I remember that I used to love those things. So weird. I think my baseline anxiety is so high leading up to this trip that I'm just distracted and out of touch with most things and maybe am just not focusing enough on the world around me to cue into sensory details too acutely. Who knows. But I ate the damn sandwich.
-I have made zero progress with curbing exercise and thus have set myself up for a major anxietyfest when I show up at my field site late next week and am suddenly faced with much less opportunity to work out without having made any effort to ease myself into it at all.
I anticipate that going something like this:
-I've been sleeping an average of 4 hours per night for the last week. That whole plan to wean myself off of caffeine before my trip, because I can't have it in the field . . . JUST KIDDING. Couldn't let all those nice coconut mocha Keurig cups that Match bought me go to waste...
-Major good news on the writing front in my "real life." Can't say more here*, but it was pretty validating and exciting.
-*I'm pretty sure that most of the people that subscribe to this blog in private mode do know who I am in "real life," and at least 100% of the people that I know for sure still read definitely know. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the degree to which people I've met through this venue have continued to respect my pseudonymity and keep the two worlds separate; you ladies are amazing.
-GREAT NEWS: On my flight out next week, I have a five hour layover in Match City. We thought he had meetings all afternoon that day, but his adviser gave him the afternoon off so he's going to come over to the airport and hang with me. SO glad I get one more chance to see him before I go. It means another tearful goodbye, but it's worth it for even one more hug before I head off.
I have an early morning tomorrow and really should try to get a human amount of sleep tonight. I hope all is well for everyone, love y'all.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Lightly
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.”
-Aldous Huxley, Island (1962)
Monday, January 21, 2013
Placebo gauntlet
Days into birth control placebo week: 2
Number of crying events by 10:30 this morning: 3
Number of other people I made cry this morning: 1
Pounds I feel like I've gained overnight via water weight: ~847.6
Ibuprofen popped for headache: 3
Weight of the imaginary truck that feels like it's rolling back and forth over my midsection: ~5 tons
How much this compares to the physical hassle of NOT taking my birth control and getting pregnant: Nothing
Having a private blog on which to vent my hormonally aggravated woes: Priceless
Sorry y'all.
(Disclaimer: although I am in whiny self-pity mode, I love my birth control and absolutely wouldn't dissuade anyone from going on it for whatever health reason. I really count the days (5 left!) until I go BACK on it during these infrequent weeks off).
Number of crying events by 10:30 this morning: 3
Number of other people I made cry this morning: 1
Pounds I feel like I've gained overnight via water weight: ~847.6
Ibuprofen popped for headache: 3
Weight of the imaginary truck that feels like it's rolling back and forth over my midsection: ~5 tons
How much this compares to the physical hassle of NOT taking my birth control and getting pregnant: Nothing
Having a private blog on which to vent my hormonally aggravated woes: Priceless
Sorry y'all.
(Disclaimer: although I am in whiny self-pity mode, I love my birth control and absolutely wouldn't dissuade anyone from going on it for whatever health reason. I really count the days (5 left!) until I go BACK on it during these infrequent weeks off).
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