When I decided to do the Change Your Life Challenge I knew the first day would be the hardest. Not because it's the beginning but because Mondays are busy and long for me. I went with vegetarian because the vegan thing would be a lot more work during such a stressful week (my first final is coming up on Thursday).
I usually work 9-2, stop home for a bit then have class until 8:45 (which means I get home around 9:30). This typically means I eat nothing for breakfast, eat whatever junk I grab at lunch (especially during the busy holiday season), eat something little before class and end up picking up fast food after class.
I stopped at Publix on my way to work this morning (luckily I work right near one) and grabbed a few things. I picked up chocolate chip muffins (4 in the package, I shared with coworkers so I only have 1 left for tomorrow morning). I also grabbed a few lean cuisine meals that are veggie based.
Today I tried this one:
I liked it a lot but it wasn't very filling. Now I'm eating some tortellini with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese.
The big challenge will come when I'm hungry after leaving class tonight!
I very much want to use this blog regularly but I often feel at a loss about what to actually write about.
Thanks to some of the lovely ladies on twitter, I have a new reason to post.
Every month, the group of us will be doing a different week long challenge and blogging and/or tweeting about it.
First up,
Who: YOU (and anyone else you want to encourage to participate!)
What: Eat vegan or vegetarian (your choice), every meal for a full week (ahem...that's seven days, not five!)
When: November 29th, 2010 through December 6, 2010
Why: The idea is not only to challenge yourself to eat differently for a week, but also to use this time as a mini-detox from the Thanksgiving festivities.
Where: Anywhere and everywhere you eat!
If you are ready to participate in this challenge, then email changeyourlifechallenge@gmail.com and expect a challenge email update soon.
Got questions about the "Change Your Life Challenge"?
Email changeyourlifechallenge@gmail.com with any questions or concerns you have.
If you accept the challenge, post the challenge logo on your blog and encourage more people to scurry over here and sign up for the challenge, too!
(Text modified from M and/or J)
My biggest goal for this Summer was to read more. I have always loved to read but have found that since starting college, I have had little time to read during the school year or the Summers I've taken classes. I also have a lot of free time at work during the Summer so I figured increasing the amount I read would be easy. I have been reading, on average, 2 books a week. I have spent quite a bit of time at the Used Bookstore (in fact, I'm the mayor of it on Foursquare!) I've also used Bookmooch (a book trading site) extensively.
Despite my very full bookshelf, I often find myself frequenting book stores. Whenever I am in Mandarin, I make a point of stopping at Barnes and Noble. I've been interested in getting an e-reader for a while but had planned to wait and ask for one for Christmas. Then, a few weeks ago, I was in Barnes and Noble and saw that they were dropping the price of their e-reader, Nook, and releasing a wifi only version (as opposed to their wifi and 3G version). I played a little with the display model in the store (not for the first time) and started to think I might just buy myself one now, rather than wait for Christmas.
Sure enough, I decided to order the Nook later that day. I was beyond anxious for it to arrive and I'm sure I drove everyone crazy talking about it! By the time my Nook had arrived I had already set up Calibre (a fantastic program for organizing non B&N ebooks) and filled it with books. I received my Nook last Thursday night. I flew through a few books within the first few days.
The Nook is perfect for taking to work. The size is perfect, it fits in just about any purse and doesn't take up much room. I love the inclusion of the internet browser, even though that was just an extra to me in buying it. I also have found myself using the soduku more often than I thought I would. The Nook is great for people who like to read more than one book at a time because it will remember the last page you read in every book.
Some resources for Nook owners:
Nook on Twitter
InkMesh (a great search engine to compare pricing)
Mobile Reads Nook Forum
Nook Look (this site has backgrounds and wallpapers to download)
NookBoards Forum
Free online book sites (mostly older books, as they are now in the public domain)
Readprint
The Online Books Page
Mobile Read
Project Gutenberg
I'm internetless while dog/housesitting so I figured I'd do one of these posts while I have internet access and get it all off my chest.
First up, the view from "my" office at my internship! It was really rainy yesterday and the blinds were down but here we go:
And, now on to the links....
A few links related to the Summit Series that went on in DC this past weekend(which I posted about here):
10 Big Ideas from Summit Series
DC10 Has Arrived by Sean Carasso, the founder of Falling Whistles
A few tv/movie related articles:
Where Are the Women Comedy Writers on Late-Night TV?
Geena Davis' research on women in film and television (PDF) (hint: It's not good for the ladies)
And last, but certainly not least, Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks' new show premieres tomorrow night on FOX!
Another great post from Ben Casnocha: 50 Ways to Expose Yourself to Randomness.
So, I'm watching this funny little ImprovEverywhere video and, just as I'm about to close the page, I see my cousin! I called my mom and I'm pretty sure she thought I was crazy but she watched it too and said it must be her. Weird moment of the day.
From Politico:
Founder Elliott Bisnow, a 24-year-old Washington native and mastermind behind the Bisnow newsletters — which provide city-specific business news via e-mail — aims to gather some of the world’s top entrepreneurs and CEOs to, well, talk and have fun.
“The biggest difference between Summit Series and anything else — the biggest take-away,” said Bisnow, “is it’s all about friendship and fun and shared experience.” The Summit grew from a small skiing trip a couple years back, which he started simply by cold-calling up-and-coming CEOs.
“It’s all about collectivism, ‘how can I help you?’” Summit Series’ co-founder Jeff Rosenthal added.
The twice-yearly conference will draw 750 attendees and take place Thursday through Sunday at the JW Marriott. Various business leaders (and famous faces) will lead discussions on subjects ranging from relief work in Haiti to grass-roots fundraising to the power of storytelling to start-up investing. Attendees include musician John Legend, President Bill Clinton, Ted Turner, model Christy Turlington Burns, actress Kristen Bell, fashion designer Marc Ecko, the cast of MTV’s “The Buried Life" (sharing their stories at 1:30 a.m., another example of why this isn’t your typical business conference) and six NASA astronauts.
The official site
I LOVE this idea and have already been following the hastags on twitter: #summitseries and #DC10
I really enjoy listening to and learning about social entrepreneurs and this seems the perfect chance to do that. Tickets cost $3,500 and are invite only so it will be a long time before I can attend one of these events (this and TED are on my dream events list) but the idea is one I can't stop thinking about. Just today I was thinking about what a great experience How It Ends was last Summer and how much I enjoy the networking aspect of these events. I will actually be heading to Tampa after work tomorrow for the Florida Young Democrats convention and am excited to meet like minded Floridians!
Tonight I grabbed the newest issue of Folio Weekly and came across an article written by Julie Delegal so, instead of packing for this weekend's Florida Young Democrats convention, I decided to blog.
I thought Delegal's article on HB 1143 was right on and thought I would share some of it (I can't seem to find it online so I'm typing this from the May 11-17th issue of Folio Weekly).
"Crist has hundreds of thousands of reasons to veto HB 1143: hundreds of thousands of walking, breathing adult female Floridians whose party affiliations don't enter into the calculus of their private reproductive decisions. Retired columnist Ellen Goodman has written that one in three American women, between the ages of 18 and 40, have made the difficult decision to have an abortion. I'll venture to say that they didn't pull out their voter registration cards to do so, but they may need to pull them out at the polls this fall to keep their private reproductive decisions private."
"It's as if patients would have 160, mostly male, Florida lawmakers right there with them in their doctor's office, not only in the examination rooms, but in the accounting departments, too: HB 1143, if signed, would forbid companies that receive tax credits from offering employee health insurance plans that include abortion coverage."
"And if we open the door on OB/GYN visits, parity would demand we create a Viagra bill. If passed and signed by the Governor, the Viagra bill would require any man seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction to view (and pay for!) a video that follows a young sperm cell on its journey to babyhood. Conservatives love to blame the "breakdown of the traditional family" as the root of all societal evils, excepting those evils brought on by having to pay taxes, of course. But over the past few generations, we've witnessed the meteoric rise of the single-parent family. And notably, by and large, we're not talking about single father households. Women are already quite aware of the consequences of bringing children into the world, which is why they don't need to view (and pay for!) state-mandated ultrasounds to help them make their private decisions."
"But my Viagra bill would also include a stipulation analogous to the Stupak amendment to the national health care plan. Under Stupak, women who want abortion coverage as part of their medical insurance, whether subsidized by the federal government or not, must write an additional check for a separate abortion-coverage policy. Similarly, with my Viagra bill, those gentlemen who want to ensure continued function in their root delivery systems would simply write a check for the "Viagra rider." Sure, their employers would not about it. Privacy, schmivacy."
"But much like the oil spurting uncontrollably from beneath the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico, political pandering on reproductive issues has irretrievably polluted our process, and threatens to creep its slime more broadly, more insidiously and more damagingly than ever before....If we're going to have sensible leadership in the U.S. Senate, and if we want to keep the insidious spread of right-wing pandering out of the Governor's mansion, we'd better get cracking."
All that said, there is almost nothing that can get me to vote for Crist in November. I have emailed and called his office quite a few times regarding the bill but, at this point, what he does is totally unpredictable.
