Monthly Archives: February 2015

I Am So Lucky To Be Here

Date: February 4, 2015

Author: astottler

Today, I planned out what classes I’m going to take next quarter. Oh, and the last 4 quarters of my time here. This is so crazy to me-I don’t have that much time here left. College has always felt endless.

I really want to take advantage of everything my university has to offer. This place really is amazing, and I am truly lucky to be here. It’s hard to appreciate it when I’m neck deep in homework, but the grind of core classes and sophomore year is behind me. I realized that this quarter may be my hardest academically of the quarters I have left, and it’s definitely nothing compared to my work last year. I really want to take advantage of everything college now that I’m not drowning. (That being said, we can talk later in the quarter during my week of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday midterms).

I’m in a really good place right now. I’m full of excited energy and ready and open to experience and learn new things.

And I really need to get out more! I’m trying to make it out to more events on campus. Last night I went to a diversity in Greek life panel, and tonight I went to a Global Health event.

I want to open my blog up a little bit more to more perspectives and ideas, so I want to share some of these things with you guys. The event was awesome-it was a combination of a concert and speakers talking about their global health experiences.

The band was really great, and the things some of the speakers talked about were really mind opening. One woman talked about her experience in Senegal over the summer doing research. When a possible case of ebola arrived at a nearby hospital, my school pulled her out of there early (she was there through a university program). One thing she said stuck with me-“When I was leaving, all these people who I had spent weeks working side by side with told me ‘Ebola is just part of life here. Why do you have to go?'” I think we take many things for granted, especially our health and healthcare. We are lucky enough to live in a place where ebola is not just part of life. We have the privilege of fearing it, because we are not constantly faced with it. That’s something to think about.

On the same vein, one of my favorite parts of being here is the amazing people I’ve met, who have completely changed my worldview and helped me grew as a person. People here come from completely different backgrounds and have had completely different experiences. I recognize how lucky I am that I get to live at a place with all these people, and that not everyone is as fortunate. I want to bring some of my experiences to you guys here on the blog, so I’m going to ask some people to guest post-look forward to those! My friend who organized the event tonight agreed to do a piece on public health, something she is very passionate about, and I have a couple of other ideas for posts. This is a healthy living blog, and I think part of being healthy is keeping an open mind and allowing oneself to see different perspectives.

Why I Like WIAW

Date: February 3, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! I have to say, my weeks are weird this quarter, but I’m embracing it. They’re very front heavy, which makes the week feel longer. I actually like it. I’m in a good place, and I’m trying to get more out of each day that I get to be here (this is the fear of being an upperclassman and realizing I only have just over a year left here). That being said, I’m still living in the ignorant bliss that is the period of time before any grades have actually been gotten back. Speaking of embracing this school, how about embracing this weather? While it’s supposed to rain this weekend, the weather here has been pretty much perfect lately. I can’t complain about this California sunshine! (Sorry to anyone on the East Coast right now with all those storms…)

Anyways, that was quite a long winded way of saying it’s Wednesday-yay! WIAW! Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

You want to know why I’m loving WIAW right now? Because when I’m posting less, or posting about specific things, I don’t get to share what I’ve been eating as much, so I get this accumulation of pictures that somehow seem silly to post if not on a Wednesday. WIAW is an excuse for a foodie photo dump, right?

Pancakes+eggs+mandarin oranges at breakfast. I think I’m officially no longer a syrup on pancakes person. Butter all the way-it may have something to do with the fact that I’m a syrup snob and really don’t like the dining hall corn syrup/maple syrup. Yuck. On another note, I just bought a vat of Grade B maple syrup at Whole Foods. More on that in a minute.

Pumpkin bread. This is from last Wednesday-my Wednesdays are long days so I needed a little pick me up between studying and my last class!

This dinner was 50/50. Tilapia with mango and cucumber was on point, as were the roasted carrots. I wasn’t a fan of the lentil puff pastry though.

More breakfast. I was across campus at the track and decided to stop somewhere different. While it may look very similar to the other breakfast, the pancakes there are far superior. They’re sort of vanilla-y.

Dining hall lunch-balsamic chicken salad, veggie flat bread, and broken rice with scallions. Plus roasted butternut squash.

This was dining hall chicken masala. And I have to say, they nailed it. The chicken was SO tender and flavorful. Well done.

Whole Foods dinner-hihglights were the mushroom polenta and various colors of roasted sweet potatoes.

So…I’m kind of over the whole “eat a specific diet” thing (like Paleo, 100% real food, no sugar). One thing I’ve learned over my 2+ years of blogging about food is that 1. I don’t have time or energy for that and 2. It makes me freaking crazy. That being said, I wanted to shake things up a little and get more creative so I decided to roughly follow a new plan (note the word roughly-it’s very low key)-whole foods + unlimited chocolate. So to start my new healthy eating endeavor I went to Whole Foods and stocked up on mass amounts of quality chocolate. And Grade B maple syrup for homemade chocolate. Spoiler alert-the “plan” is going well. I like chocolate.

This is one of my favorite soups-and it’s really good cold the next day too (or maybe I’m just used to eating cold food out of tupperware at this point in my life). The best part is it has chunks of sweet potato!

On Superbowl Sunday, my eating schedule was bizarre. Lunch at 10:30, pizza at 3:30 (what meal is that even? Dinner?). I was a little hungry towards the end of the game so I went to the dining hall for a chicken fajita salad. This was quality guac.

Dining hall dinner-salad, stir fry tofu, sweet potato fries. Plus a mini corn and potato casserole. The reason for no picture? It slid off my plate and exploded on the floor. It took my a little time to gain the courage to grab another one!

And finally-one last breakfast! I brought back the berry compote! This is just cherries+blueberries boiled down. Full fat yogurt+berries+sunbutter. I missed this!

Wow guys, that was quite the roundup. I should get on here a little more often, shouldn’t I? I feel like this has been an eventful week in terms of life stuff, so I really should do more updates! Also I’m realizing as I grow up (…and that makes me sound young again) I’m gotten so much more introspective so maybe we’ll have some more reflective posts. That being said, everything is going well over here right now!

What is your favorite kind of chocolate (and where can I buy it??)?

Guadalupe River 5k 2015

Date: February 1, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Today I ran my first race of the year-the Super Guadalupe River Run. I did the 5k! If you’re interested, here’s last year’s recap.

First of all-I ran 2 5ks last winter. Guess how many times it rained in California last winter? 3. 2/3 were downpours on my race days. Go figure. It hasn’t rained here since early December, but earlier this week rained popped up in the forecast today. Seriously-what are the odds?? It ended up being the perfect day though-clear and cool. When I left campus, it was 38 but it warmed up a lot by the 9am start.

I had initially wanted to shoot for sub 26:00 for this race, but on race morning I had few expectations. I probably didn’t eat enough the night before, and since my caffeine incident earlier in the week I haven’t had much of a stomach for food in the mornings. I ate what I could and drank plenty of water.

Breakfast was a granola bar/oatmeal type of deal. I had it before my 5ks last year-it’s just mashed banana, cocoa powder, oats, and chia seeds.

Then, my mom picked me up and we made the drive down. I got there plenty early to pick up my race packet, so there was plenty of time to relax before the start.

By start time, I was actually feeling pretty strong, confident, and ready.

The game plan was to not go at death pace and to pace myself. This actually worked out really well! The race was fun, and over so quickly. Plus, I didn’t feel like I was really dying until the final push. There was another woman in just in front of me for the entire race, and I passed her right at the end.

My official time was 25:59 (although my Garmin measured a short course-I’m not complaining!) I ended up placing 4th in my division, 3 seconds from 3rd (the person I passed at the end must have started just after me). Overall, it was a good race. This is probably one of my favorite races. The fact that the t-shirts say “I earned my guacamole” (because it’s always on Super Bowl sunday) may have something to do with it!

And like I said, it was a good effort but never death. I’m looking forward to hopefully improving more for my 5k at the end of the month! I should do more 5ks!

Afterwards, my mom and I stopped at Panera for lunch(?). It was 10:30am and I had already had breakfast, so that totally counts as lunch, right?

I got a hummus chicken power bowl, which I added avocado to.

And also a blueberry scone. Yum!

I spent the rest of the day studying and watching the Super Bowl. What. A. Game. Go Patriots! That ending was just INSANE. My dorm had a little Super Bowl party and we were going crazy!

This may be bad after the fact but who were you rooting for?