Hmmm.... Just a thought

What do you think was invented first, the knife or the fork?

Some comforting news...

Soo it's finals week and everyone's super stressed and there's no time to sleep and we wanna go home and yadda yadda yadda. All this usually results in late night snacks for me. For a while I've heard that you shouldn't eat late night snacks because you end up gaining more weight. Fortunately I found this article where Julie Bender, a dietician with Baylor University Medical Center debunks a bunch of food myths. She states that there are no "magic hours" and that we associate late night eating with weight gain because we don't eat enough during the day so we have to consume more calories at night. However, late night snacks tend to be junk foods. 

Here's the article if any of you are interested... http://seniorliving.about.com/od/exercisefitnes1/a/diet_exercise.htm

In the good old christmas spirit

This is so ridiculous yet hilarious

I never would have thought of something like this lol. The tiny tree in my dorm is plain old plastic. I wonder how long this took to make. More importantly, I wonder how long it will take for this tree to rot haha. 

Found this article quite horrifying... and entertaining

Take a look at this article on the "top ten fast food meals that make you fat"
http://www.mrcheapstuff.com/deals/2007/09/top-ten-fast-food-meals-that-make-you-fat/

As much as I like fast food I was so relieved to find that I've never had any of the meals listed. The kfc mashed potatoes with gravy looks nasty!

"But why don't you like it?!"

My friends and I were just discussing some of our pet peeves and one of them said "I hate it when I don't like a certain food and someone asks me why I don't like it. I don't know, there's no reason, you either like it or you don't!" Anyone get annoyed when someone asks you this? My nana always asks me why I don't like greens and all I can say is I don't like the taste, I just plain don't like it.

Craving some homemade guac...

Here's the recipe my mother and I use when we make guacamole...It's so yummy!

Perfect Guacamole Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1/2 red onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
• 1-2 serrano chiles, stems and seeds removed, minced
• 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of fresh lime or lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• A dash of freshly grated black pepper
• 1/2 ripe tomato, seeds and pulp removed, chopped

Garnish with red radishes or jicama. Serve with tortilla chips.

METHOD

1 Cut avocados in half. Remove seed. Scoop out avacado from the peel, put in a mixing bowl. 

2 Using a fork, mash the avocado. Add the chopped onion, cilantro, lime or lemon, salt and pepper and mash some more. Chili peppers vary individually in their hotness. So, start with a half of one chili pepper and add to the guacamole to your desired degree of hotness. Be careful handling the peppers; wash your hands thoroughly after handling and do not touch your eyes or the area near your eyes with your hands for several hours.

Keep the tomatoes separate until ready to serve.

Remember that much of this is done to taste because of the variability in the fresh ingredients. Start with this recipe and adjust to your taste.

3 Cover with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the guacamole to prevent oxidation from the air reaching it. Refrigerate until ready.

4 Just before serving, add the chopped tomato to the guacamole and mix.

D-hall

I've never eaten at any other school's dining hall, but from what I've heard, Skidmore's d-hall is amazing in comparison to your average college. While, I admit the food here is good, I'm getting pretty sick of it quite frankly. Do any of you guys feel the same? I just miss a home cooked meal I guess.... and fast food lol.

Just tried hummus for the first time...

and it's so good:)

Jerome Bruner.... God I just want to go home!

     In my "Blogging, E-text, and Me" class we learned about several theorists of the blogging and writing world. Out of all of them, Jerome Bruner influenced me the most. He valued identity but knew it wasn't understood. He emphasizes the idea that we are defined by our language. For example, you would be defined by your language if the grammar codes you learned at 2 or 3 didn't work when you went to school. You would be an outsider because of your language and thus defined by it. Bruner made me reflect upon my own language and the tone, vocabulary and slang I use and how my choice of words give a certain impression to people. I wondered how I would feel or act if I moved to another country that had a foreign language.
      Bruner also discusses the internet and how it provides public judgment to our individual identity like how many people "like" our status on Facebook or how many friends do we have on Myspace or how many followers do we have on Twitter? Bruner states that status or academic pedigree doesn't matter on the web and that people create extensions of themselves on the internet. He believes hat social networking glorifies the individual. Bruner caused me to reflect on my own Facebook page and whether it really glorifies myself or if it just plain embarrasses me. Will I look back on the page when I'm 50 and be proud? All I know is that I looked at my old Myspace page from when I was 14 a few weeks ago and wanted to strangle my 14 year old self, I was such an annoying little brat.
     Bruner states that education also constructs our identity. He elevates discussion over lecture and believes that educational knowledge is created by citizens as opposed some bank where you just reiterate the information onto a piece of paper. I like Bruner approach to education and how citizens create knowledge. I think his ideas would influence our current education system in a positive way. He influenced the way I view education. I used to just think that the teacher just makes you memorize facts and reiterate them, but now I think it's about creating meaning to something as a group and it's about going deeper into a topic using team work.

Thank you, Bruner, for your input, but I think it's time we spend some time apart because frankly, I'm sick of you.

A post dedicated to my love

Oh, ramen noodles, how I love thee. What is about ramen that makes it so damn appealing to college students? Here's a list (in no particular order)
1. Cheap as dirt
2. Quick and easy to make (if you don't have a crappy microwave in your dorm like myself)
3. Tastes awesome
4. Endless Possibilities

Endless possibilities you ask? Check out these ramen based recipes. http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/12/01/100-awesome-ramen-recipes-for-starving-college-students/
Don't have a microwave? Just get a bag, break and smash the ramen, sprinkle the flavor powder in the bag, and you have a delicious snack... maybe not so delicious but beggars can't be choosers, right?

SUPER DUPER UNRELATED POST TIME!

So, last Sunday my english class and I saw the "The Social Network" a.k.a the facebook movie. Jesse Eisenberg broke out of his usual awkward character in " Adventureland" and  "Zombieland" and became angsty socially awkward character, Mark Zuckerberg. I found Marks character to be one of the most compelling because of his cockiness (is that a word?) and lack of concern during the court scenes (doodling on his papers). I felt bad for Eduardo (Edwardo?) and absolutely hated Sean Parker (though very well played by Justin Timberlake... what can't that guy do?). I had no clue the napster guy was involved with Facebook. Someone brought up to me how the movie's sexist. How those two girls found out Eduardo and Mark made Facebook and brought them into the bathroom for "business time." Basically most of the girls aside from Erica (Mark's ex-girlfriend) were portrayed as complete sluts. I'm not going into feminist mode, but I found that interesting. Did you guys know the Winklevoss twins were played by two different people? You had the one normal actor who looked like a twin and another completely different looking guy they put a face a winklevos twin face on with special effects. Apparently the director couldn't find real twins that looked enough like the actual Winklevos twins. Someone in class mentioned that the movie inspired them to make something big and the movie inspired me as well. Too bad I'm not a computer engineer but hey I'll think of something, right? Long story short: See "The Social Network"because there's a lot of drama, based on a true story (though fabricated), and great acting.

R.I.P. Diet. I hardly knew ye.

So, the diet is no more.... nor did it ever really start. Anyway, I've decided to start posting stuff about food instead of trying to avoid food (I'M NOT ANOREXIC). So yesterday was the harvest dinner. As I navigated through the hundreds of people and random people from town and sample stations (chocolate milk was sick!) I encountered a ridiculous amount of different kinds of food. Unfortunately I was reminded of how I'm a ridiculously picky eater. Out of all the food like squash and carrots and mashed potatoes and blah blah blah I only got the rice pilaf and chicken (Wow I just realized how boring this post. My friend who is reading over my shoulder just said "nothing about your life is interesting." Thanks for the pick me up, Emily) Anyway, are any of you picky eaters and how does it feel to live with this burden? Seeing so much food and realizing you can only eat a little of it is truly a tragedy in my eyes.

Okay now time to watch six feet under:)

STRESS!! AHH

As I was frantically trying to understand my sex/text reading assignment (Foucault has fried my brain) I began thinking about the correlation between stress and food.... as well as how the hell I'm going to get through this reading. The adjustment to college and even college life in general is full of stressors. I can't begin to tell you how messed up my sleep schedule is (I took a 5 hour nap today). Why do we turn to pigging out when we're stressed? And why is it that girls generally do it more? Which reminds me of my favorite pastime, eating my emotions with a huge tub of ice cream. Here's my opinion on the relationship between food.
FOOD=YUMMY
YUMMY=HAPPY
HAPPY=OPPOSITE OF STRESS
Therefore...
FOOD=OPPOSITE OF STRESS

What a surprise...

Followed my diet for only a day in a half. The food is just too good here! I wish I wasn't so picky about food and liked salad or spinach or something healthy. I suppose I'll have to try with the diet again this week so I can avoid making the same blog post about my failure. Even if I just stop drinking soda, that will be an accomplishment at this point, but don't expect much out of me.... wow I feel like Debbie Downer right now lol (not really laughing out loud, just chuckling to myself). Wish me luck!

The Final Supper

       Seeing that the world or at least the U.S. is absolutely obsessed with dieting and losing weight, I figure I might as well give it a try. I know the idea of blogging this sounds pretty lame, but maybe the fact that I'll be publishing my progress will motivate me enough to not screw up this whole "being healthy" shtick. I'm 5'5 and as for my starting weight... I'm so terrified of the scale I haven't checked in months, but I'll get on that. The goal: lose ten pounds. Will that happen? Most likely not, but it's worth a try! 

Since I want to start fresh in the morning and completely pig out today (hence, "the final supper" title), I'll start the whole diet and exercise crap tomorrow. Hopefully going cold turkey on my soda addiction won't be the death of me...