This morning I read about the Plessy versus Ferguson and Brown versus Board of Education for THE FIRST TIME EVER. If you’re new around here, let me remind you that I’m in my second semester of a doctoral program. I successfully completed K-12 education, a BA, a BS, a teaching credential, and a Master’s degree. No where in that education was I charged with learning about anything post World War II. I remember complaining about this in high school. While I’ve been familiarized with issues of the Civil Rights Movement by my family and generally educated people around me, this is a serious problem in my understanding of the world. Up until last semester, all of my education was at private school. I’m not writing this to attack any of my previous educational institutions. They were good places that taught me a lot, but how much they didn’t teach me is a huge part of what I’m learning now. Honestly, I feel like issues of race, class, and power are being opened in a whole new way for me in graduate school. The things I’m learning are causing me to think about things totally differently, and I love it. I’m a minority, but I’ve always been conscious to never “play the race card”. I’m kind of now deciding that I was socialized not to “play that card” and as a result, I am just now learning a lot about and beginning to understand things I’ve navigated my entire life regarding race and class. So much to learn, and so thankful for the opportunity to learn it. This class is quite possibly one of the best classes I’ve ever taken.
Why I Wear Fishnets and Paint My Nails Blue
I’ve always worn fishnets. For some reason, I was never willing to give this piece of clothing over to the hookers. Social constructs say this item of clothing is really only for street walkers and loose women. Well, I am neither, and I wear fishnets. My husband doesn’t believe me, but I’m telling you, they do add a thin layer of warmth under pants. They also add nice texture to an outfit with an appropriate length hemline. The length of appropriateness is also socially constructed, but do as you will. Mine are always appropriate in my eyes, though my dear friends often point out that my lack of height makes almost anything appropriate.
Anyway, on to the fingernails. Around the time I got my acceptance letter to grad school (which is surprisingly coming up on 1 year ago), I decided I was going to start doing some of the “irresponsible” things graduate students could get away with. This included wearing jeans and t-shirts most days and painting my nails ridiculous colors. Like all things in life, I hate pastel colors on my nails. I’ll go from black to purple to green, and rarely are my nails without paint.
I figure my days are numbered with both fishnets and obnoxious colored finger nails. Eventually I’ll get a big-girl-grown-up-job where I can no longer get away with this sort of stuff, right? Or maybe not, and I’ll still be doing this at 50. Just in case, I’m living it up for now. There you have it. Pretty much the long and the short list of the “irresponsible” grad school practices in which I take part.
Paleo Chinese Food
After a serious hankering for Chinese food the other day, and then being sadly disappointed at the quality of the meat at the Chinese food restaurant we visited, I decided it was time to explore some Paleo Chinese food recipes. Note that the pictures here are from the websites I found the recipes. I always forget to take pictures of my own food.
Chicken and Vegetable “Lo Mein”
I used pork because we just bought a pig. I also used crimini mushrooms because I was too lazy to go to another grocery store for shiitake. Wheat-free tamari can be used in place of coconut aminos. Coconut aminos are super hard to find. The magical land of Boulder carries them all over the place, but I could not find them in California. This was pretty good. Obviously not really lo mein because there’s no noodles, but still tasty.
This recipe is also from the people who wrote the cookbook I’ll be trying out this year. Super excited!
Spicy Mongolian Beef Lettuce Wraps:
Was SUPER excited about this recipe because Mongolian Beef is my favorite Chinese food. However, I don’t think it really tasted like Mongolian Beef. I also think I did something wrong somewhere along the way because my meat was kind of watery. There was no caramelizing like the recipe says. I’ll need to try again another time and see if I can get it better. Regardless, it tasted good. A little honey in this, so not good for a Whole 30 program, but just fine for regular old maintenance.
This one is super good. Really fresh. I cooked the chicken in butter to get a nice browning on it. Needs veggies though, and I think I will put cashews in next time…or I’ll just make cashew chicken.
Again, I used pork because we’ve got 200# of the stuff. Also had issues because I was too lazy to go to another store to get the dried chili peppers. We just used red pepper flakes instead. Not quite the same, but not bad. The directions here are a little confusing, but I just threw it all in there.
Lots of Asian food this week. My new cookbook comes this week, so we’ll be trying other new stuff next week as well. Pretty exciting!
Diet>Sleep>Exercise
I try to live by this:
Meaning I keep my diet in line first and foremost. If my diet gets out of control, then my sleep and training get messed up. I don’t sleep as well, and my workouts are sad. Similarly, if I’m not getting enough sleep, training is counterproductive to my goals. If I haven’t slept enough, I believe it’s better for me to rest than to go to the gym again. I think sleep gets left out of too many equations. People will stick to a diet and kill themselves at the gym, but not get the rest and sleep their bodies need.
Our society has taught us that food and sleep can be marginalized and exercise is only for some people. Food should be easy, convenient, and fast. Pop it in the microwave for a few minutes, add some water, or just open a package. It should come in individual packets that we can eat while we’re still working or sitting in front of a TV. Sleep is unnecessary. We’ll just regularly sacrifice sleep to work more or party or whatever. Sleeping a healthy amount is what old people do.
When did it become ok to cut corners when taking care of your body? When did society put more value on work and entertainment than on taking care of yourself? I just don’t get it. I can be the best student or the best worker. I can be the biggest success that ever was, but if I have not taken care of my body, I have failed. If I am unhealthy at my desk, and I have not spent quality time with my spouse, I have failed. There is so much you can do to take care of your body before you ever set food in a gym. Unfortunately, society tells us those things are for the weak or those who are not successful or those who are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to move up the ladder. I don’t think so. I think those are the people who have a far greater quality of life. I fail sometimes, but I’m trying to be one of those people.
Why I Don’t Run
*****Caveat*****
This is not a post hating on running. It’s a post about why I choose not to run. If you run, more power to you. Please don’t take offense to this.
Also, this is a long post. If you’re game, grab a beverage and settle in for a bit of a read.
*****Caveat*****
I went running today. If you know me well, you know this is odd.
I HATE running. The root is mostly a pride/mind game issue that I’m fully aware of, but, nonetheless, I hate running. When I run, I am highly aware of every muscle in my body and how much each one hurts. I get cramps in my sides almost immediately. I can’t breathe. My ears hurt. The back of my throat hurts. I’m thirsty, but if I have water, my stomach sloshes and then it hurts. It’s terrible. To this day, I get nervous before running. Like seriously nervous. Butterflies in my stomach, heart racing kind of nervous. Feel like I might throw up nervous.
This has been the status of my running for my whole life. For seven years in school we ran the mile every week. In 5th/6th grade, when we started running the mile, I ran about an 11-12 minute mile. By the time I graduated, I got down to an 8 or 9 minute mile. Improvement? Sure. But this was over 7 years of running a mile every week. Not much improvement if you ask me. Even in that last semester, I still don’t think I ran the entire mile without stopping. It was a whole lot of walking the curves and running the straights. The nervousness was definitely there then as well. A time or two, I got so worked up running that I practically hyperventilated and the coach took me off the track. On rare occasions we had to run 1.5 miles. Those days were TERRIBLE! There was lots of walking on those days.
BUT, I’m fairly interested in running the BolderBoulder Memorial Day Weekend. It’s a 10k, and I’ve never run that far before. But it’s a BIG event in Boulder. 28k people ran last year. Crazy. It just looks like a fun community event that I’d like to be a part of, so I want to do it at least once. I may even have a friend or two or three who may come here to run with me! There’s no pressure to be fast at this race. There are heats for all levels of fitness. Despite that, I got to thinking that perhaps I would train.
Now, I know NOTHING about running. Nothing. I got some advice to go out today and run at a slow pace, a pace at which I could keep up a conversation for the entire time. Another suggestion I was given was to not worry about distance. Instead, try to run as long as I could and focus on the amount of time I could run. This was new. I’d never done this before, and it was actually quite liberating. Since I didn’t have a time or distance goal, I was just out running. During that run, I thought about stuff, prayed for friends and family, and started thinking about this blog post. The app I was using checked in with me every mile, but otherwise, I had no idea of my pace/speed/distance. Though I was nervous before I began, there was no nervousness while running. I didn’t get all the physical manifestations of hating running I normally experience. It was different. I was trapped in the gym because of snow outside, but I kind of got to a point where I could see why people enjoy doing this outside.
I got to 3.1 miles in 41:32. This is by no means fast, but that wasn’t my goal. My goal was to keep running for as long as I could. Because I had long times in my head, I “ran” at a very slow pace. As far as muscles and cardio go, I could have easily kept going, but I was getting a blister on one foot. I don’t know how long I could have gone, but maybe I’ll find out in future runs. This was a pretty ok first run. This run was half the distance of the BolderBoulder. I was in no way dying. I could have run for plenty longer if not for that blister. This tells me serious running training isn’t all that necessary. I’m not after a stellar BolderBoulder time. I’m after having a good time at a community event with some friends.
Now, on to why I don’t run: running is not in line with my fitness goals. That’s it. I have nothing against running personally. I exercise to take care of the body God gifted me while I’m here, to be functionally fit, and to look good for myself and my husband. I want to be strong. I want muscle mass over being skinny. I’m 5’4” and weight 117 lbs. Weight loss is not one of my fitness goals. Keeping off weight is not one of my fitness goals either because I know the way I eat will not lead to weight gain. Due to my personal goals, running is not for me, just like some Crossfit workouts, and overtraining in general are not for me.
These things are not for me because with all of these things comes cortisol. If you’re unfamiliar with it, I suggest reading here and here about how cortisol may be hindering your fitness goals as well. In short, elevated cortisol levels tell your body to hold on to fat and catabolize muscle. Bad stuff if you are trying to gain muscle mass or lose weight.
I want to look like this woman:
Tanya Wagner, female winner of the 2009 Crossfit games. Former PE teacher and now gym owner.
Not this woman:
Paula Radcliffe, world marathon record holder
Now, realistically, I’ll never look like either woman because both of them dedicate more to their sports than I anticipate I ever will. That’s ok with me, but if I’m picking one to look like. I want the first and not the second. And if your goal is to look like Paula Radcliffe, go for it. Again, I have nothing against it. It’s just not what I’m after. On a side note, I know there are women who will look at the first picture and shy away from muscles that big. I promise she worked REALLY HARD to get those muscles. You probably won’t ever work that hard. You’re not in danger. And if you do work that hard, you’ll be darn proud of those muscles.
What I do have against running is that society has sort of constructed it as the epitome of fitness. If you can run, you’re an athlete. If you can’t, you’re not. Plenty of people who are not all that fit and even overweight can run. Some of them even run marathons. That doesn’t mean they are healthy or fit. Similarly, plenty of people can pick up big heavy things, but are overweight and unhealthy. They are also not fit.
Now at the end of the last season of Biggest Loser, the contestants all ran a marathon. That’s awesome. Those people accomplished something. It takes a serious amount of dedication and determination to finish a marathon. These are people who were slaves to food and prisoners in their own bodies. This is truly something none of them ever thought possible. I will not take that away from them. I’ve never run a marathon, and likely never will. This is an accomplishment they will always have. Good for them. However, I will not call those people athletes as the show so often does. I will not call anyone who runs a marathon once as something to cross off their bucket list an athlete. To call these people athletes takes something away from both women pictured above and all others who truly are athletes.
There are plenty of people out there who, for them, running is accomplishing something they never thought possible. It helps them to overcome various trials of their past. Other people simply enjoy it. They like to be outside and the feeling of the wind rushing by as they run on a trail. There are many runners who are true athletes. Again, great. If those are your goals, what you want, and/or running makes you happy. Good for you. I’m glad you’ve found something that gives you that satisfaction and fulfillment. Know that I find that same or similar fulfillment when I’m swinging a kettle bell over my head or doing a deadlift. Running is not for me. Weight lifting and interval training are. It’s where I find the beast inside of me that wants to kill a workout and where I find that woman that knows she can tackle things she never would have thought possible on that track in high school.
A closing note to all those people like me out there reading this who HATE to run. It’s ok that you don’t like running. Not running does not mean that you will never be healthy or fit. It took me a long time to escape from this lie that I picked up somewhere along the way. In the last six months, I’ve gone out to run a mile three different times. Each time, it was no big deal. I picked up and did it. Today, I went out and ran three miles without stopping. It wasn’t that big of a deal. My limiting factor was a blister, not an inability to breathe or a cramp in my side. Was I super-fast on any of these runs? No, but I did them just fine. You don’t have to go to the gym and do 45-60 minutes of cardio multiple days of the week to be able to run or to be fit and healthy. In the past six months, I was in the gym maybe twice a week, and never for over an hour. I went out and ran three miles today. You don’t have to run if you don’t want to. And you certainly don’t have to be on a treadmill for hours every week to be able to run. Find what works for you, what you enjoy, and do it. If that’s running, awesome. If that’s not, don’t give up on yourself. Just explore until you find the activity that you love to do and you feel good doing. Find the exercise that enables you to find that inner beast. Discovering mine was one of my greatest accomplishments.
The Filthy Fifty
The Filthy Fifty scaled to the Filthy Twenty-Five for my first day back:
1 round, 25 reps each
Box jumps 18″
Jumping pull-ups
Kettle bell swings 15# (this was too light)
Walking Lunges
Sit-ups (Should have done knees to elbows)
Push press 30#
Back extensions
Dumbbell thrusters 10# (Again, too light)
Burpees
Jump rope
15:36
This was too easy, but a good welcome back. I should have increased weights and/or gone for the pack scaling of 35 reps. It was good to get back. We’ll see what the semester holds.
Cookbooks
I ordered a cookbook the other day. It’s the first one I’ve ever bought. I’ve had plenty of cookbooks that others have given me over the years. Cookbooks appear to be common wedding gifts or gifts in early years of marriage. That, or my family was trying to tell me something. When we moved, I got rid of almost all of them. We were moving into a tiny house, and since we went paleo, many sections of cookbooks were no longer of any use. This one though is full of recipes I will use and has beautiful pictures of all the dishes! I love it when cookbooks have pictures of the food! It’s a goal to cook through this cookbook this year. I’m going to make notes in it and have one of those “family” cookbooks. I’m SO excited!
There are two or three other cookbooks I may eventually get. We’ll see. This was the best paleo cookbook I found in the store the other day. I haven’t seen the inside of the others, and I don’t want to order sight unseen. I’ll keep you posted on my culinary experiments!
Prayer Cards
Last semester I started off asking for prayer requests each week. I wrote them down and carried a note card with me as I walked to school. This lasted about two months. Then the craziness of the semester hit, and I started taking the bus to school. By the time the semester slowed down, it was cold and snowy, and I continued to take the bus to school. Prayer time on the bus gets cut to about a third of what it is when I walk. Well, next week starts another semester. I’m not feeling stressed (yet), I’ve acclimated fairly well to the weather, and we’ve since purchased more appropriate cold weather wear. All this to say, I felt a burden to be praying again this week, and I want to pray for you. Prayer is something God knit very tightly in me. While I didn’t carry my prayer cards all last semester, I was often praying. I regularly pray when I get ready in the morning, walk, drive, sit in class, and when I disengage mentally from whatever book/article/internet site I am reading. Prayer is as natural to me as breathing. I don’t often think “I’m going to pray now”, but instead will notice that I’m praying after I’ve started. My relationship with God is at its best when I am regularly praying and in conversation with Him about my own life as well as the lives of those I love. It is a blessing to me to be allowed to intercede for you. How can I be praying for you in the next week? Let me know. It will go on my neon orange card. There’s always space for one more request.
Letter Writing
Writing letters is something that hardly anyone does anymore, and it makes me sad. In fact, aside from annual Christmas “letters”, I’m not sure I know one person who writes letters. I know three people who send occasional cards, but I think that’s the extent of people I know who write personal letters/cards/notes to people in the mail. Listen to me. I sound like a commercial for the post office. The onset of email and social networking like facebook and twitter take away a lot of the “need” for letters, but I’m still advocating. How many people do you send thoughtful e-mails to? How much do you really build a relationship in 140 characters? What relationship do you have that would benefit from some heartfelt communication?
I suppose I was socialized early in these practices. I wrote letters to a pen pal in New Zealand for years when I was a kid. My grandmother taught me the importance of thank you cards, and I hardly write only “love, Jessica” in cards I send to people. The summer I spent as a missionary in Hungary also taught me a lot about writing letters. It meant so much to me to get letters from people back home when I was away from them. When I taught, I made it a point to have my kids write letters every year. Sometimes to me, sometimes to themselves, sometimes to a family member. I think letter writing can be so cathartic.
Some really good friends of mine went to serve in Africa when I was in college. I faithfully wrote letters to them every month during their term. After they came back for their first furlough, they were here for quite a while. After their return, I had fallen into the trap of the internet and social media, and just didn’t write very much at all. Writing to them was good for me. It was a blessing to know that I was reminded often to pray over this family, and to know that I knew they prayed for me upon receiving my letters. It was a good time in my life, and I’ve decided to return to this practice. I just received their new address and am committing to write 12 letters in 2012. I suppose this is a weird sort of New Year’s resolution, but that’s not what I’m calling it. It’s just me being mindful to build my relationship with this family through handwritten letters, the kind you get excited about when you see them in the mail. Anyone want to join in? Maybe you’re not too keen on letter writing, but maybe there’s something else you used to do that you associate with good memories? Do you have a 12 in ’12 you want to participate in? Maybe it’s reading a book, exercising, visiting the beach, taking photographs, or playing on a playground. Whatever it is, it’s only once a month. I’d encourage you to try it out.
Photography
NOTE: I know nothing about photography. I am not hating on or calling anyone out. This is my thought process regarding photography and would love responses from those I know who love to be behind a camera.
It seems to me that being a photographer is pretty popular these days. Without even trying, I can rattle off the names of at least six professional photographers I know. If I tried harder, I imagine I could come up with at least six other names. These are people I know who actually have businesses from which they make money taking pictures of people. Then I know at least a dozen more people who I would call amateur photographers. They don’t have businesses, but they love taking pictures. They’re pictures look pretty cool to me, and people say they’re good. Remember, I don’t know anything about photography, so I’m not commenting on the skill level of any of these people amateur or professional.
So my question is this: What makes a photographer good? Can just about anyone take a great picture of a flower/beach/mountain? What is it that sets a photographer apart?
It seems that someone with pretty limited knowledge can take some pretty alright pictures with a plain old point-and-shoot and bombtastic pictures with expensive cameras and lenses and filters and other photographer stuff I don’t know anything about. I think there’s also something to do with a natural talent for framing a shot.
What do you think? Professional and amateur: What makes a photographer “good”? Good enough for people to pay them money? Is there a difference?
