I haven't been dreaming lately, so last night's dream took me by surprise. It was a very vivid dream, and super intense. Kind of felt like a Malarone dream (post-apocalyptic, everything is ruined).
I dreamt I was on a cruise ship with friends, enjoying a relaxing time. The cruise ship started sinking and general chaos ensued, things flying around, everything tipping on its side and we started sliding into our watery doom. Then the ship righted itself, and we were in the cafe enjoying a cappuccino, discussing the almost-sinking, and then the ship started sinking again. We flew sideways down to the water, tables and coffees crashing into us. There was no saving us and we sank, ship and all.
I woke up with my face absolutely mashed into my pillow, groggy as hell.
Now I'm wondering what the dream means. My amateur interpretation would say it reveals a general uneasiness with how life is going, echoing my displeasure at my house not being sold yet (after it was sold, and the financing fell through and it was yanked back on the market) and this feeling of general malaise and despair.
It's odd, and makes me feel uneasy.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Math for real life
Because if I wasn't ranting, I'd be moping--here's something else that bugs me.
High school math.
Yes, that's right. I was a horrible math student, and even now would probably be barely math literate. I saw a drawing of long division yesterday and wondered how it worked, because it looked confusing as hell...Yep, pretty much math retarded.
And did taking trigonometry or advanced algebra help? Nope. It led to intense screaming matches with my dear mom, who was quite good at math but not so good at helping people who are bad at math. I had countless math tutors who were very helpful but still, I struggled. With a math tutor I got 60% on tests--a mark I rarely saw, because my other classes never dropped that low. It was a nightmare, I had extreme anxiety because of math, my test scores haunted my dreams.
I finally quit math in Grade 11, and halleleujah, the heavens opened up. My average went way up, and I was so much happier. I also think I may have dyscalcula, as I mix up phone number frequently and once wrote an entire trig test with each formula reversed. But, that's no excuse for struggling and being terrible at math apparently.
My solution to this? Turn basic-level math into a less-stigmatized course, called Math for Real Life. Balancing a household budget? Taxes? Having an employee? Being a contractor? All things that could REALLY be helpful when trying to live ''like an adult.'' Calculate your mortgage payments? How much of a downpayment should you put down? What is the amortization rate? What will the strata fees add to your mortgage and can you afford it?
Why don't we turn math into something ACTUALLY useful, instead of a living nightmare for us poor math-challenged folks. I would have taken a course like that and USED IT. Instead I whip out my calculator (suck that math teachers--I have never NOT used a calculator in real life) and pore of the details of my mortgage or what I should charge for my freelance writing per hour. And it works for me, but it would have been so much easier had someone taught me the basics of this.
Unstigmatize math and you'll make it way more user-friendly. Bonus: students who can calculate their timesheets at work, and figure out what wages they need in the workplace. Aspirations people!
High school math.
Yes, that's right. I was a horrible math student, and even now would probably be barely math literate. I saw a drawing of long division yesterday and wondered how it worked, because it looked confusing as hell...Yep, pretty much math retarded.
And did taking trigonometry or advanced algebra help? Nope. It led to intense screaming matches with my dear mom, who was quite good at math but not so good at helping people who are bad at math. I had countless math tutors who were very helpful but still, I struggled. With a math tutor I got 60% on tests--a mark I rarely saw, because my other classes never dropped that low. It was a nightmare, I had extreme anxiety because of math, my test scores haunted my dreams.
I finally quit math in Grade 11, and halleleujah, the heavens opened up. My average went way up, and I was so much happier. I also think I may have dyscalcula, as I mix up phone number frequently and once wrote an entire trig test with each formula reversed. But, that's no excuse for struggling and being terrible at math apparently.
My solution to this? Turn basic-level math into a less-stigmatized course, called Math for Real Life. Balancing a household budget? Taxes? Having an employee? Being a contractor? All things that could REALLY be helpful when trying to live ''like an adult.'' Calculate your mortgage payments? How much of a downpayment should you put down? What is the amortization rate? What will the strata fees add to your mortgage and can you afford it?
Why don't we turn math into something ACTUALLY useful, instead of a living nightmare for us poor math-challenged folks. I would have taken a course like that and USED IT. Instead I whip out my calculator (suck that math teachers--I have never NOT used a calculator in real life) and pore of the details of my mortgage or what I should charge for my freelance writing per hour. And it works for me, but it would have been so much easier had someone taught me the basics of this.
Unstigmatize math and you'll make it way more user-friendly. Bonus: students who can calculate their timesheets at work, and figure out what wages they need in the workplace. Aspirations people!
Today's rant on junk food blogging
I read a ton of other blogs for my own self-interest. They range from candy blogs, to horse blogs, to lifestyle blogs (exercise, weight loss, travel).
One thing I noticed, for those who wrote about active lifestyle blogs were often on a journey of weight-loss as well--and they all wrote about fast food. They proclaimed their (former or current) love of it, spoke about eating out at restaurants or fast-food joints 3X a week at least. They ate out for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They would visit one drive-thru (and oddly, a ton of them went through drive-thrus, never walk-ins. peculiar) and pick up a hamburger, fries and a coke, and then go to the Taco Hell and pick up a taco meal. They would consume all this food for one meal. Or, they'd have lunch at home, go to McDonald's for a 'snack' in the mid-afternoon consisting of a hamburger and fries and a pie--and then proceed to go home and eat a full dinner. ???? Do people really rely on fast food this much? How is this sane?
They ate in their car, not sitting down at a table. They would make special trips out to buy fast food junk, even if they had a perfectly good amount of food at home. Commercials triggered these impulse trips to get fries or a burger, apparently (it does--more on this below).
Also, eating out, whether it's junk or a good restaurant, is almost always unhealthy, and incredibly expensive. Two fast-food meals for dinner really adds up! Not to mention the toll you're paying on your body.
I even read some pretty silly entries, like how one person, in an attempt to curtail snacking while baking, was going to stop baking. But she would first make some holiday sugar cookies for a party--except, she bypassed the sugar cookie dough in the freezer section at the grocery store accidentally, so now she couldn't make the cookies. First of all, you buy dough to make sugar cookies? There's practically nothing in them. How lazy can you get to buy dough to make the cookies, and if you can't buy it, throw your hands up in helplessness 'oh, can't make them, too bad.' If you are this helpless at making holiday cookies, how does it translate to your real life? Take some ownership, people!
This, dear readers, is how people end up huge.
Also, I was watching TV yesterday (a novelty, since I don't have cable) and was astounded at how many fast-food joints commercials there were--yeah, it's been awhile since I watched TV. Wendy's "sea-salt natural fries" Pizza Hut ''full-family meal deals" McDonalds--everything, "KFC's ''crispy bucket meals'' Dairy Queen's flame-broiled burgers. It.never.ends. And these would run all together, so it's like a never-ending swarm of junk food on parade (MuchMusic channel, yeah I know, my first mistake).
Jeebus. No wonder people are fat.
One thing I noticed, for those who wrote about active lifestyle blogs were often on a journey of weight-loss as well--and they all wrote about fast food. They proclaimed their (former or current) love of it, spoke about eating out at restaurants or fast-food joints 3X a week at least. They ate out for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They would visit one drive-thru (and oddly, a ton of them went through drive-thrus, never walk-ins. peculiar) and pick up a hamburger, fries and a coke, and then go to the Taco Hell and pick up a taco meal. They would consume all this food for one meal. Or, they'd have lunch at home, go to McDonald's for a 'snack' in the mid-afternoon consisting of a hamburger and fries and a pie--and then proceed to go home and eat a full dinner. ???? Do people really rely on fast food this much? How is this sane?
They ate in their car, not sitting down at a table. They would make special trips out to buy fast food junk, even if they had a perfectly good amount of food at home. Commercials triggered these impulse trips to get fries or a burger, apparently (it does--more on this below).
Also, eating out, whether it's junk or a good restaurant, is almost always unhealthy, and incredibly expensive. Two fast-food meals for dinner really adds up! Not to mention the toll you're paying on your body.
I even read some pretty silly entries, like how one person, in an attempt to curtail snacking while baking, was going to stop baking. But she would first make some holiday sugar cookies for a party--except, she bypassed the sugar cookie dough in the freezer section at the grocery store accidentally, so now she couldn't make the cookies. First of all, you buy dough to make sugar cookies? There's practically nothing in them. How lazy can you get to buy dough to make the cookies, and if you can't buy it, throw your hands up in helplessness 'oh, can't make them, too bad.' If you are this helpless at making holiday cookies, how does it translate to your real life? Take some ownership, people!
This, dear readers, is how people end up huge.
Also, I was watching TV yesterday (a novelty, since I don't have cable) and was astounded at how many fast-food joints commercials there were--yeah, it's been awhile since I watched TV. Wendy's "sea-salt natural fries" Pizza Hut ''full-family meal deals" McDonalds--everything, "KFC's ''crispy bucket meals'' Dairy Queen's flame-broiled burgers. It.never.ends. And these would run all together, so it's like a never-ending swarm of junk food on parade (MuchMusic channel, yeah I know, my first mistake).
Jeebus. No wonder people are fat.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Picky eaters=disordered?
In a break from my current moping, I found an article that links picky eating or historically picky eating to eating disorders.
Now, I think picky eating is different from restricted eating, due to gluten allergies or a host of other allergies (I have some allergies and yes, they do mildly restrict what I eat ...not enough to stop me from eating everything though!). From what I'm seeing, picky eating is primarily a first-world problem-obviously-and picky eaters predominantly love and/or require solely food that is bad for you, ie- junk food, fast food. They hate vegetables, fruit, whole grains, etc. They love overprocessed junk food; doughnuts, fries, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, pop-tarts, eggos, etc.
Now, my question is; if picky eating is an eating disorder, why does it take the form of ridiculously juvenile eating patterns? Afraid of vegetables? Hates fruit? WTF how does this mean eating disorder? And why do they *only* eat the greasy, fatty, sugar-laden junk foods that children like. And how does a person pick up this silly, childlike eating habit?
I admit, it would be nice to eat junk food all the time, but at a certain point, don't they feel like they're going to get rickets or scurvy? Jeebus, I feel terrible after a weekend chocolate binge. I also hate to say it, but my respect for people that refuse to eat anything adventurous or are 'afraid' to eat veggies/fruit totally dwindles to nothing. Grow up. Do you think other countries (save Americans, where this is most likely rampant) have this issue?
We're adults here, so get a life and learn to eat well. You don't have to eat bugs or fried scorpions or anything weird-but if we go out to dinner and you turn up your nose at stir-fries or currys or anything 'different' and order chicken tenders with fries, I'm not going to be impressed.
I have a friend who refuses to eat pasta with anything but red sauce, who threw out a doughnut because it was contaminated with powdered sugar from brushing next to another powdered-sugar doughnut (it was chocolate glazed), and who thought grain was a vegetable. It isn't. Trust me, that's also how many vegetables she ate (pasta).
Sidenote: People tend to get really annoyed with restrictive eaters (allergies) b/c they are an inconvenience, but the only annoyances I actually agree with are the 'holier than thou' types who give you the stare-down if they are eating tempeh and you are eating steak. Really people? Can't we all get along? (except those with baby-food tastes. Puh-leeze. Put down the McNuggets and grow up.)
Now, I think picky eating is different from restricted eating, due to gluten allergies or a host of other allergies (I have some allergies and yes, they do mildly restrict what I eat ...not enough to stop me from eating everything though!). From what I'm seeing, picky eating is primarily a first-world problem-obviously-and picky eaters predominantly love and/or require solely food that is bad for you, ie- junk food, fast food. They hate vegetables, fruit, whole grains, etc. They love overprocessed junk food; doughnuts, fries, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, pop-tarts, eggos, etc.
Now, my question is; if picky eating is an eating disorder, why does it take the form of ridiculously juvenile eating patterns? Afraid of vegetables? Hates fruit? WTF how does this mean eating disorder? And why do they *only* eat the greasy, fatty, sugar-laden junk foods that children like. And how does a person pick up this silly, childlike eating habit?
I admit, it would be nice to eat junk food all the time, but at a certain point, don't they feel like they're going to get rickets or scurvy? Jeebus, I feel terrible after a weekend chocolate binge. I also hate to say it, but my respect for people that refuse to eat anything adventurous or are 'afraid' to eat veggies/fruit totally dwindles to nothing. Grow up. Do you think other countries (save Americans, where this is most likely rampant) have this issue?
We're adults here, so get a life and learn to eat well. You don't have to eat bugs or fried scorpions or anything weird-but if we go out to dinner and you turn up your nose at stir-fries or currys or anything 'different' and order chicken tenders with fries, I'm not going to be impressed.
I have a friend who refuses to eat pasta with anything but red sauce, who threw out a doughnut because it was contaminated with powdered sugar from brushing next to another powdered-sugar doughnut (it was chocolate glazed), and who thought grain was a vegetable. It isn't. Trust me, that's also how many vegetables she ate (pasta).
Sidenote: People tend to get really annoyed with restrictive eaters (allergies) b/c they are an inconvenience, but the only annoyances I actually agree with are the 'holier than thou' types who give you the stare-down if they are eating tempeh and you are eating steak. Really people? Can't we all get along? (except those with baby-food tastes. Puh-leeze. Put down the McNuggets and grow up.)
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