Monthly Archives: May 2015

Lazy Sunday

Hello! I’m currently hanging out outside of Philz Coffee, sipping a mint iced tea.

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I went to a spin class this morning and Philz is really close so I figured I’d stop in and get some work done. It would be significantly more pleasant if the people next to me weren’t smoking though…

The spin class was awesome! I tried a new local studio-Uforia. It had super high Yelp reviews, and it lived up to my expectations! The instructor was full of energy and the room was hopping! I will definitely be back! Another plus-they give out blueberries and cold towels after class. I never realized how heavenly a cold towel could be!

In terms of the tea-it’s full of fresh mint! I can’t really do coffee or caffeine very much right now which is why I went with the mint tea. Tastes like summer though!

I’m currently in the final push of the year-luckily my schedule isn’t too bad. I only have 2 finals and a low-key take home final, and no projects, just normal problem sets. Plus, plenty of time to study because my finals are actually spaced out!

I wanted to share some pictures from this past week.

This past Thursday was my last day of Bio lab-we went to a biological reserve to do research, and it was beautiful weather for the last day!

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In other life news, I threw an alumni tea party for my sorority yesterday. Throwing an event means I’m in charge of the food-and I went to Costco for the goods! 8 lbs of strawberries!

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I got berries, pita chips and hummus, fancy brie, a cheese platter, whole grain crackers, a veggie platter, madelines, and blueberry coffeecake bites. It was quite the success!

In terms of normal food-here’s a breakfast-hard boiled eggs and mango post-Crossfit:

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Another lunch salad of chicken+hummus.

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Snack-loving the summer fruit right now!

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That’s all I have for now! I’m thinking about getting an acai bowl for lunch since I’ve never had one!

The Aftermath of Murph

So. I no longer have the ability to use my upper body. Every where from my elbows and ribs up to my shoulders is insanely sore. It’s weird because with arms, it’s easy to not move your arms too much while just sitting still, and I feel like the pain that will happen if I move makes me not move, which makes me stiffer. Ouch. I really wanted to try a new spin studio today but it’s one of the ones that involves weird moves on the bike. I went for a run this morning, and even that was death for my shoulders (…right??) I decided it was a no go.

I’m currently in the process of doing my stats homework and deleting pictures from my phone. It was brought to my attention a couple of times in the past week that it is not normal to have over 8000 pictures on your phone so I’m working on that. Also I have an embarrassing number of selfies, and that’s kind of obnoxious. I’ve only made it through like 1000-it’s going to take a while!

I haven’t done a very normal blog post lately. I feel like I’ve just sort of been a zombie, and to be honest nothing too exciting has been going on! I’m just in that end of quarter grind right now.

So…food pictures?

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This is what I’ve been having for lunch. A salad with chicken (grilled from home this week!) and hummus which you can’t see. Plus a fruit bar for something sweet!

After lunch today I was craving cake. But I didn’t have cake so I went back to my room and ate a banana and a million blackberries.

At breakfast today I finally tried coffee for the first time since my stomach issues! “Try” is a bit of a generous term here. I had like 1/3 packet of instant decaf in a mug of soy milk. So not a lot of coffee, but it was nice to have a warm beverage that vaguely reminded me of coffee! And my stomach didn’t die which is always a plus.

Last night after spin I stopped at Safeway for a salad for dinner because it was on my way back. I had a BBQ ranch salad with chicken, and then I got froyo because it was next door and it’s the best froyo ever.

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The last food picture I have is dinner tonight! Caesar salad, grilled chicken, roasted carrots.

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The little cup is cheesy potatoes with corn but I wasn’t really feeling it.

So that’s what is up with me right now. Nothing fun or exciting unfortunately! 2 weeks until summer though!

Murph+Lesson Learned

I’m popping in SUPER fast because I desperately need sleep. I figured out I have about 120 hours of sleep debt from this quarter thus far? Cool. Casually dying over here.

So I went home this morning. I had planned to do Murph with home Crossfit. It’s actually my favorite Crossfit WOD. But then I thought they weren’t doing it so I signed up for a spin class. Turns out they were after all. Merp. It was a great spin class! Lots of push ups and arm stuff though. Then I went for a walk with my friend to catch up. She’s out of school and I’m jealous! We saw cats.

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I then came home and ate a Grilled Chicken and Peach salad+sweet potato chips and s’mores.

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And then I found out my regular Crossfit was ALSO doing Murph and despite killing my legs and arms that morning I couldn’t exactly pass that up. It ended up not feeling too bad despite the fact that I had done a lot that morning plus was sore from my run the previous day, but I was SLOW. I finished in 54:17. Which is significant given my best time is 44:xx. My running has gotten pretty slow lately as well which is fine for now. But I used a much smaller band for the pull ups so that was cool! The push ups were what killed me the most by far and I even did them on my knees….

The mistake I made was frantically scrambling around post-Murph stressing and rushing to an event that I didn’t really get to eat. When I finally got to the event, my body started freaking out and my blood sugar crashed and it was kind of scary. Luckily I had a Luna bar in my car and some chocolate soy milk that I threw in my bag post-workout which made me feel much better. I feel like normally this wouldn’t have been quite such a problem but with the sleep debt and stress and lingering illness it was just not good or smart.

And now it’s back to work. Or sleep. Just over 2 weeks left!

 

Saturday Night Out + Low-Key Run

Hello! I hope everyone is enjoying their respective weekends! My goal for this weekend was to finally catch up on sleep and that hasn’t happened as much as I would have liked, but it has still been a fun and relaxing weekend!

I’m currently working on Stats homework that is due tomorrow morning at 9am, so a good night’s sleep tonight is kind of out the window! I have to wait 30 minutes between online submissions, so it takes foreverrrr.

My Friday started out fairly hectically. 7am Crossfit (we did sets of 8 back squats lowering slowly, and I was sore from that!). Class. A much needed hour nap, followed by a frantic grocery trip and crafting for sorority events I had that night. I had to plan 2 different events for Friday alone, and 4 events total last week, which was insane.

Check out this new Trader Joe’s find-delicious!

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Event #1 was a New Member tea party, which was fun! Then I had to frantically craft for big-little reveal that night, before running off to a friend’s Wind Ensemble concert. I’ve been meaning to go since Freshman year but I’m a terrible person and only made it out nearly 3 years later! It was also my first time in the beautiful new concert hall we have on campus.

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I then had to sprint out and change for the event that I was planning. I basically had 10 minutes to race across campus twice plus change and gather my things which was interesting…

Reveal was a success! I made matching puzzle pieces.

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Saturday morning was so nice to have a weekend morning to myself. I can’t even remember the last weekend morning I had off. I slept in a little, but not as much as I would have liked or needed because I was stressing about getting laundry done before work! I threw my laundry in and then headed to the farmer’s market to stock up on cinnamon brown sugar sunflower seed butter. This farmer’s market is only May-December, so I was happy to be back! For breakfast, I got a vegan tamale.

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I worked at the vet all Saturday afternoon, before rushing off (a theme in my life right now it seems) to a dinner with friends. We went to a New Orleans restaurant that I’ve been meaning to try forever!

I also got carded for the first time for a delicious raspberry mojito.

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We got a fry assortment to start-sweet potato and cajun fries, fried okra, and fried artichokes. #healthy

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For my main course, I got vegan jambalaya, which was delicious and thankfully not too spicy.

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And finally-we went out to ice cream. I finally got to try a micro creamery that I’ve wanted to try forever (another common theme), and while it was delicious, it’s not as good as Tin Pot, my favorite place by far.

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Vanilla-salted caramel ice cream with caramel sauce.

It was so nice to have a girls night and make it to some places I’ve been meaning to try! My body sort of hated me for all the rich food though-while my stomach feels really good, it’s not difficult to irritate it at this point!

Sunday morning, I went for a low-key 7 mile run. I wanted to go somewhere different, so I ended up finding a trail about 20 minutes south of here that went along the bay and down a creek. It was such a nice change of pace. It was also so nice to have no set run pace or distance goals. I sort of wanted to do between 6 and 8 miles, but I would have been fine with less. It’s easier to get through the miles when I’m in a new place and when I’m not forced to go faster or farther. I also intended to listen to my audiobook, but I’ve been loving music on my runs lately. I’ve been listening to the playlist from my 21st birthday party non-stop during workouts lately! I’m not complaining!

Post-run, I headed to Whole Foods for lunch since the dining halls were closed today.

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A salad with egg, soy beans, and carrots (random, I know), some orange chicken, and rice. Plus mango guava kombucha and AMAZING garlic mashed cauliflower! I need to make this this summer!

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And now it’s back to Stats homework!

Do you like running with or without a goal?

#365daysofselfies

Wow. It’s been a year since I started my selfie a day project with 2 of my friends. They dropped off a long time ago but I wanted to keep it up! All I can say is….wow. It’s already been a year?? I should technically be doing homework right now, but I just spent some time going  through the pictures because my selfie album was missing 2 more than I was expecting-but I found them, don’t worry! I actually missed 2 days out of the year, so I have 363 pictures. Sometimes when you’re in bed and realize you missed your selfie, it’s not worth it. Sometimes it is-but not always.

This whole project sounds kind of obnoxious-a selfie EVERY day??

I tell myself it’s not obnoxious because I’m not posting them on social media. With the possible exception of this blog post, depending. I still can’t believe a year has gone by. My project took me through DC, major life decisions, firsts, races, changes.

Another thing I learned? I will not age well. I swear my selfies have way more wrinkles than a year ago.

What started out as a silly project turned into so much more, something much nearer to my heart. While I’m one of those people who looks nearly the same in every picture, I feel like that almost makes it more interesting because I look to the background and the subtleties. It’s also an amazing reminder of what my life was like each and every day this past year, and as I get older, documenting these things is more important to me. As the year came to a close, I considered continuing but ultimately decided to just take selfies more regularly and end my complete year as it stands.

One of the most surprising things about this project was the sense of confidence I gained. We all have days where we feel crappy, feel bad about ourselves, and generally have low self esteem. Taking a good selfie can be a reminder of self love, and quite honestly it could turn my day around if I was feeling bad about myself. Additionally, the seflie project made me actually try and make myself more presentable on days where I would have just moped around all day. Looking presentable seriously does make you feel better. That being said, not all selfies show me as presentable. Like this one:

 

I’ve also got a lot better at taking selfies. I know how to work the angles, what the best lighting is, etc! That being said, remember when you see people’s selfies on social media, they are made to look better than people would likely look normally!

I really loved this project. I looked forward to what my selfie would be each day, what moment I would choose to capture. On that note, I want to share some of the big moments to show how much this really captured.

First vs. Last Day:

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Color run featuring the mustache I didn’t realize I had.

My sister’s college graduation:

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First metro ride in DC:

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First day of work at a real job:

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4th of July on the National Mall:

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Learning the hard way that running+DC summer requires sunscreen.

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Mount Vernon:

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Visiting long lost cousins in NY:

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Giants-Nats game:

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Leaving DC and lugging 100+ lbs of luggage through the cobbled streets of Georgetown:

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Half marathon:

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First CS assignment actually running:

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First Spin audition:

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New blog profile pic:

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THE GIANTS WIN:

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Halloween:

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Thanksgiving:

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Obsessed:

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Santa Run!

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Christmas:

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The first day of my many months-long illness:

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First day working at the vet!

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Post-long run:

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Winter quarter finals studying:

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Sorority recruitment:

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Half marathon:

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I practically live in the sub-basement of the Physics building:

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Turning 21:

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Softball!

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And finally, a side-by side at how much better my selfies are from the first week to the last:

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And also maybe that I’m a year older and better dressed?

A lot can change in a year!