Everythings alright. Yes, Everythings fine.

Oh I got a check+.  It was not, however, on the paper I posted.  It was on the previous journal.  That journal was basically a analytical writing on a article he gave us.  It not only required analysis but also arguement and citation practice.  It was a very technical journal.  I am glad I earned a check+ on that one.  Now on to the check I earned on the journal #4 which is the one I posted.  For the record I cant think of a single ounce of information I might have left out of it.  The writing is acceptable, still only earning me a check is a little mmmmm.  I really am proud of the check though.  The journal I posted is basically our thesis for what our final paper will be.  Since the posting I have polished it a little and I’m now much more focused on an audience and what kind of information they will require. 

So wednesday we officially picked out our topics via that journal and the following friday our first rough draft was due.  I freaked at this because I also had a chemistry quiz for that friday.  Luckily, I had been doing a little research and already had a good book source for my paper.  Well I complained alot, but I finished it thursday afternoon.  This left all of thursday night to study for chemistry.  When friday rolled around I handed in the paper, after breaking two copier machines.  About half the students in the class were absent.  The other half though had their papers written also.  The two in my study group had pretty good papers.  They were both only about 3 pages (minimum required length is 4).  One girl didnt realize she had to write it in a specific comparative analysis style, so I showed her in the book where the two examples were.  Hers was well written despite not being the correct format.  The other fellow had a good paper also.  It was about the effects of illegal immigration in some manner. 

Thinking about that guys topic just made me want to switch mine to racism.  Yesterday I opened the mailbox to find a copy of Newsweek magazine.  Rachael’s mother orders this and it still gets sent to our house.  Maybe I should start a subscription to the Limbaugh letter and have it mailed to Ron’s.  Anyway I just went and got said magazine and I think I’m about to do a practice analysis on this rascism article.  So if you are not prepared to read my point of view on the newsweek racism article. You might want to X.

It caught my attention out of the mailbox because It has a giant baby face on it.  At first I noticed the baby is white and thought sheesh you evil little white baby.  Then I realized they had to use a white baby because the letters used in the title “IS YOUR BABY RACIST?: Exploring the roots of discrimination. are black.  Flipping through this magazine is hilarious.  Hmm article on Ted kenneday No thanks.  Next article is by Jon Meacham who is often on the MSNBC show Morning Joe.  It’s about Afghanistan.   The international page consisted of Muslims blowing things up in the Caucasus of Russia. (Caucasi?)  Finishing with a story on just “Why Leaders in Israel are so Corrupt.” 

This brings me to my favorite page in the entire magazine.  When I saw it yesterday I almost tore it out.  Its on page 17, which starts a section of the magazine called The Take.  The first essay of the take is one written by Jonathan Alter, and titled “Cheney’s misguided morality’”  I bet you’ll have trouble figuring out Mr. Alter’s point of view.  The picture that so anamored me looks like this.  Dick Cheney in a suit that undoubtedly costs as much as my car, meaning it looks very nice on him and I’m proud of him for being able to afford it.  I am no good at judging the costs of watches.  His arm is raised a little in this picture which clearly shows off the mans phat bling watch.  Why is his arm raised?  His arms is a little raised because he is using that arm to cut a piece of obviously rare steak thats lying on a cutting bord in front of him.  The cutting board is just covered in blood.  There is so much blood that if you didnt look hard you would think he is operating on a pig.  The look on Cheney’s face as he is cutting into this bloody piece of meat is priceless, you can almost see his jowls quiver in anticipation, and his focus reminds me of my dog when she gets a squirrel tree’de, Unwavering.  The caption  to the pictures reads.  “I am” which was cheneys response to the question on Fox News Sunday “So even in theses cases where the CIA investigators went beyond the specific legal authorization your OK with it?  I just wish they could have been preparing steak on  Fox News Sunday.  Then Cheney could have said “I am” and popped a real bloody piece of beef right in his mouth and just held it there with a little pink juice running down his chin. 

Ok I am going to abandon this racist thing because my fingers are tired.  I got a 100% on my first chemistry quiz.

Will this get a check+ ?

My writing teacher is a “Journal” guy.  he grades them with the pre-kindergarten grading style of Check-, check, or check+.  So far I have recieved a check, and a check-.  The check- I got hit me real hard, and it was my fault I couldnt argue. The third Journal I wrote my ass off I’ll get that back tomorrow.  This is our 4th journal.  Lol thats my working title.

Christopher Schafer, Journal #4

ENG-W233-03 September 9^th 2009.

 

To Beat, or not to Beat

 

     I am writing my papers this semester on the anxiety disorders of children and how to best treat them.  There are three reasons for me choosing this topic over my other two choices.  The first reason is audience; I will be directing this paper towards pediatricians.  Being a pre-pharmacy student practicing writing to doctors as an audience will be helpful in my future.  The second reason I chose this topic relates to content.  There will undoubtedly be pharmaceuticals mentioned in this topic.  Again, all the writing practice I can receive in dealing with pharmaceuticals would be advantageous.  The third reason is more personal.  I expect to have children one day, and if the topic should arise in their upbringing, I would like to be as informed as possible. I believe this reason helps to insure proper neutrality in researching.

     After doing some research on anxiety disorders I came to believe that I myself probably had one as a child and may to this day still have one.  My life has been a hard road, and I wonder if I had been diagnosed and drugged as a child, would things have turned out better or worse?  Later in life I worked with a girl who was on xanax.  Xanax is a commonly prescribed drug to calm anxious children.  She sold these pills.  They make you feel drunk.  I asked myself could this drug be good for children.  My girlfriend works with special needs children daily at her job.  These children’s special needs consist of someone showing them how to act like humans, because their parents failed at it.  This consists mostly of teaching them social skills.  Some of the children are medicated, all of the children are 3-5 years old.  I have a lot of personal experience in this topic range it seems.  I do not think that is a bad thing since some of the experiences have been good and some of them have been bad.

     Controversial points to this topic deal mainly with the medication aspect.  Some people will think it is not right to drug a child no matter what the symptoms are like.  Others will feel that it is unhealthy to let this anxiety fester if it can be treated with medication.  In my research I found that an alternative to drugs, and in most cases paired with medication , is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or CBT.  CBT is a logic based counseling process that uses the patients logic to control anxiety symptoms.  There is a controversy then over which treatment is better.  Those three controversies are the most prevalent in this topic.

     There are questions that should lead to answers.  I would like to know if medication in anyway stunts social growth, can it lead to addiction problems later in life?  How effective is CBT, how effective is medication, how effective are the two combined?  What are the negatives and positives of no treatment at all?  What are the negatives and positives of over-treatment?  Questions like these will lead to more questions, hopefully I will find some answers to both.

       Research over this topic will be challenging.  Trouble finding an abundance of journal entries on Ebscohost bodes poorly.  I am determined to find the research.  I’ll just have to dig a little bit deeper than I’m used to. I am still positive I can find the required research material for all 4 papers. The pinnacle source will hopefully be an interview given by me to a person who was medicated at a young age.  The questions for this interview will be based on quality of life, and used to humanize the paper. 

     Sources I am considering for my comparative analysis will consist of a book, an internet source, and a periodical.  I want to analyze the effects positive and negative of CBT by itself, as well as effects of medication by itself.  I have already gathered a periodical from the Canadian journal of psychology. This journal article relates the effectiveness of CBT when used with medication.  So my book and internet source will have to give me the effects of each treatment type by itself.  Hopefully I can find a book with both of the effects in it.  If that is the case I will make the internet source cover something else.  There are plenty of authoritative medical sites to find good solid numbers on …Maybe. 

    

 

 

 

Works cited:

Liashko, Vitaly, Katharin Manassis.  “Medicated Anxious Children:  Characteristics and Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Response.”  Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 11(2003):  741-8.  Print.

OMG school is crazy!

School is crazy! This is known.  I would love to catch you all up on my life, but my writing teacher thinks I should be spending at least three hours a day on his class.  I like him but it’s alot. W233 out harded chm115 which so far im finding surprisingly calming.  I’ll have to write after the first quiz to really let you know tho.  It’s gonna be all its cracked up to be I’m sure.

Honey wake up its time for school.

Well it’s sunday night and tomorrow starts my new semester.  I’m too overwhelmed by the thought of 4 classes and a part time job already.  It took me 7 minutes to type that sentence.  Thats how overwhelmed I am.  The job at Low Bob’s Discount tobacco is really turning out to be fantastic.  It is going to allo wme to have ample study time.  The best kind of study time also, the kind where your interupted every 3 minutes.  Most people dont like a lot of noise around them when they study as I understand it.  I, however, do.  I do some of my best studying at AA meetings when people are going around and just talking their hearts out I use the chatter as a white noise and it really helps me focus my thoughts.  That reminds me of the white noise phenomenom.  I used to get very bad sleep.  Now I get very good sleep.  There are several possible contributing factors for this, but my favorite is the addition of a fan into the room im sleeping in.  I also think the breeze is just as useful as the noise.  So if white noise can help a person sleep I think it can definetly be used to help a person study. 

I’m still doing yoga for about an hour a day.  This is turning into a habit.  It is also turning into the best part of most of my days.  To just take an hour out of everyday and do something that only benefits me in terms of health and meditation is really selfish and awesome.  I suggest everyone start meditating with stretches. It’s great!!!!

There is a pretty strong chance with school starting back up and me having to write mandatory 200level papers that I’m not going to blog for a consecutive 16 weeks.  If that happens Ill see you in the winter.  Wish me luck!!

10 months 27 days

Thats how long its been since I had a job.  If my typing is really odd today its because im typing on a laptop, and I’m not a big fan of proofreading, or punctuation. Back to the job part tho.  On September 11th of last year I quit my job at Papa John’s.  Quiting that job was the catalyst for me reattending college so I consider it a good move currently.  When the student loan money started coming in I was like whoa! I dont even need to work, and I can devote all my time to school.  After living that way for 9 months let me assure you that is not the case.  So for the last month or so I’ve been kicking around looking for things.  Everyone is talking about the nations huge unemployement rate, and I’m a felon due to bad early 20’s decisions.  So I figured my odds of finding a job were less than great.  10 years ago I worked at a cigarette store down the street from where me and Rachael live now.  They eventually fired me for stealing cigarettes but I got to know the owner fairly well, and although he fired me he still enjoyed my company.  So for the last 10 years I’ve been stopping in saying hi keeping in touch.  This last week one of their employees quit so I turned in my application just hoping for the best.  Before I turned it in I talked to the owner and apologized for my previous behavior.  3 days later I had the feeling it hadnt really gone that well so I went back in when I knew the owner was there.  In what I guess passed for an interview which started out with him saying “I’m not gonna hire you back Chris” and ended with “always card everyone”.  I apparently nailed it because 2 days later he called me and hired me ).  This job is perfect, and to be honest I can’t believe I got this lucky.  Most people dont strive to work at a cigarette store I know, but I’m taking a schedule of classes with 2 labs.  Retail in this place often involves many small 3 minute do nothing segments.  This is perfect studying time for me.  They also agreed to work around my school schedule which is great.  It’s gonna be about 25-27 hours a week 3 nights during the week and sundays.  which still leaves me a lot of my weekend.  The money is definetly going to blow my mind.  It’s not like they pay anyhting impressive, but for the last 10 months ive been living off about 200 dollars a month, after rent and everything came out of student aid.  now I’m gona have about 800 a month. Fantastic!! 

There is one scary aspect of the job tho.  In this bad economy so many people applied for this job, and they all come in while im working and ask about their applications.  Stephanie a girl I work with who got tired of lieing just started to tell them The position was filled and then points to me.  The looks of malice I have recieved have been a little bit daunting.  It’s a dog eat dog world out there.

6 Weeks later…..

Well Chemistry is finally over I took the last test yesterday.  Before taking the test I did a quick math check of my points and it turned out I would have to miss 80 out of 150 points on that test to lower my grade to a B.  Well with that kind of security blanket its hard to get stressed.  That being said notice I didnt do the math for that untill right before the test.  So the three days preceding the test I was as stressed as could be.  If this had been my last chemistry class I’de ever have I prolly would not have worked this hard.  This is the first of 5 Hard chemistry classes tho so I needed to make sure that I got as much out of this one as possible.  I ended up missing 8 points out of 150 on the test which gave me an overall class grade of about 97% Im pretty proud of that. 

FIRST MAN SEMESTER:  Up untill now Ive been playing with a large handicap.  My first semester back I took two classes which is only part time.  This summer class was all by itself.  In two weeks I quit playing around.  This semester I have 4 classes.  Two of them are going to be eXtreme.   Those two are my science classes.  Intro to plant biology will probably be the easier of the two.  The reason I say that is because the books for it only cost about $240.00.  It, like my chemistry class, has a lab associated with it.  To try to explain what a Lab means, Its basically like a 2nd class.  My chemistry class had a lab and out of a lab vs. lecture battle for which was harder or more time consuming Ide say the lab won.  My second science class horrifies me.  Its Chemistry 115 and its the reason I was still studying this summer knowing that I already had an A.  There are two branches of college chemistry at this level.  112 and 115.  112 is the way people who are going into careers where chemicals will be around.  Nurses, dentists, radiologists.  115 is for the people who plan on working directly with chemicals, or “chemists”. 112 deals with a lot of conceptual, how it works type studying.  115 Is a DO THE MATH type class.  This class also has a lab.  The reason I’m calling this my hardest class of the semester is because of its staggering book values of 450$ and a total of 5 books.  Not to mention the new TI-80ish calculator Im gonna have to buy. 

My last two classes are Economics and a 2nd writing class.  Of these two I’m most worried about the writing class.  I got an A in my 100 level class, but Some of that had to do with buttering up the teacher.  My papers were decent but if I had been dealing with a real stubborn teacher I easily could have gotten a B.  Writing is semi-subjective and therefore up to teacher whims more than most other subjects.  This is a 200 Level writing class and in theory I think its supposed to be getting me prepped for writing future hard science papers.  Hopefully that will take away quite a bit of the subjectiveness.  Either way writing on command has never been a strong suite of mine, and the far away due dates of “papers” leads to much procrastination on my part.  In retrospect I was thinking I shoul;d have waited untill my last semester before I took this class or maybe tried to take it over the summer.  But nope I’m taking it along with two sciences and their labs (.  My last class is Econ201 The book for this cost 15 dollars and is called “Common Sense Economics” Its the smallest book Ive ever seen and I think I could probably read it in two days, and I may.  When I was signing up for classes this semester with my advisor she told me I was taking a TV class.  I didnt want to be on TV so we changed it to an internet class.  The other day I was looking at my schedule and It still says TV.  Im not sure If Im supposed to be on tv or just watch it on tv.  Either way wierd huh.  I’m really hoping that Im not on TV.  If I dont get an A in this class because I refused to find the  4 hours a week I think it would take to get an A.   I’ll feel pretty stupid.

Finally blog time

Well these last three weeks have been hectic to say the least.  There is a good chance I’m just a whiner but I’ve been up to my elbows in chemistry for the last three weeks.  It might just seem busy to me because in my previous life I only had one obligation scheduled per month.  Any more than that and I used to just start ignoring them. 

I am awfully excited about my chemistry class.  It is 4 days a week from 11 to 1215.  BUT It has a lab which is three days a week from 8 am to 11. 

The Lab:  When I first arrived at the lab I was definetly intimidated by it.  Not the beakers and bunsen burners mind you.  No what I was afraid of was the three straight hours of no smoking.  This fear even led to me trying to quit smoking a week before the class so that I wouldnt go thru withdrawals while holding an acid.  Well  I got there with my coffee and guess what, No drinks allowed in Lab.  So the lab turned into a personal hell scenario for me.  That first lab was boring indeed, firsts classes always are mostly sylabus studying.  It ended up taking only an hour and a half giving me a break between the lab and the lecture.  This break is frequent and annoys me.  I thought these classes worked out perfect because of the 15 minute break in between.  This break half the time turns out to be over an hour long.  It is nice to be able to actually leave campus ( and lose 8 am good parking spot) and go have coffee or work on some homework.  Although the one time I tried depending on this break it fell short after an unusually long lab.  The following Labs have all been better.  The First two were very basic the first was based around . Learning how to show scientific information.  The second was on slope, which I had never encountered before and was my first educational hurdle in the class.  I had friends in highschool who were in AP chemistry and I remembered them talking in the hall frequently about slope and other chemistry words.  It was almost like a wierd secret language.  They would use it all the time.  I think that probably helped them learn the information.  Anyway here i was looking at a one line equation of what this mysterious slope was.  It turned out to be exceptionally easy to learn.  The first two labs showed me a couple different things.  The first and most important was that we worked at our own paces.  THIS WAS GREAT!!! It ment I could just leave class whenever I wanted and go smoke.  The second thing was that I do not play well with other children.  This is only partially true.  A girl next to me in Lab whose name I still dont know was trying to partner up with me on the labs.  This is fine many people in class were doing it the teacher even suggested it.  I agreed thinking two minds is better than one.  THIS IS BLATANTLY FALSE!   Because of her questions My train of thought was completely destroyed and both those labs made little sense to me.  It wasnt that her questions were bad.  They were just badly timed maybe.  Also when im working thru something in my head and another person jumps back or forward in my thought process I hit like a mental loop.  Probably refered to as autism. On the thrid Lab I told her I was going to be doing them alone and she partnered up with the other girl next to me.  Every lab since then has been better and better.  When I work alone I hold a turtle pace.  I smoke every 40 minutes.  and Im thourough.  I scored 23/25 on the first two labs.  Ive had 25/25 since then. 

Lectures:  The Lectures are 4 days a week.  for an hour.  The daily home work and labs are always due at the end of it.  These are supposed to last till 1215.  But the generally are over by noon.  The home work is interesting.  Its usually 3-5 questions.  But you never know what your going to get.  As well as the 3-5 HW questions there are also book questions which relate to the homework questions.  The homework are always worth 15 points and a couple of them have had an extra credit point or two.  I have averaged a 13/15 on the HW, but the last 3 have all been 15/15.  See the thing is The teacher didnt make it as apparent as I would have liked that when answering HW questions were are not to make any mistake.  I swear hes grading off grammar for some of these.  Anyway I evolved and no longer make mistakes, which I might add is a handy skill.  Other than the Labs and the HW the only other grades will come from the tests. 

Tests:  This is a summer class.  It is six weeks long.  Fall chemistry is 16 weeks long.  We do not have a midterm or a final in this class.  We have three tests one every two weeks.  The first one has come and gone.  The Test was on a monday and on the previous friday he gave us the jist of the test.  It was going to be eight questions he told us and he went over what subject each question would be about.  I think I spent about 20 hours last weekend studying.  I knew from the Homework grades and the Lab grades that he was going to grade eXtremely tough.  See the thing is I want an A in this class.  for two reasons.  1 The more A’s I get the more I can look down on people(sarcasm). and 2  I will have 4 more chemistry classes after this one.  They will all use this one as a cornerstone.  If I dont have an A in this class how can I possibly get A’s in those classes.  This class is based on a 1000 point scale. or as I call it a kilopoint scale  LOOL. To get an A I will need to have over 900 points at the end of class.  On the first third of Labs and homework I was -13 points.  If I lost 20 points on this 150 ponit test.  Which would be an 80% I would be -33 points.  Thats 1/3 of the total point I could afford to lose.  When a test only has 8 questions but is worth 150 points I think it’s really easy to screw up something and lose 20 points quick.  Not knowing the basic concept of one of the questions would pretty much be an immeiate-20 points.  Well I tell you what, when test time came for the first time in my life I was not worried.  I knew all 8 concepts backwords and forwards.  After the 20 hour studying spree that is.  I sat down and took it and turned it in.  My mind is crazy so I kept imaganing things I butchered.  It took him 5 days to get them back.  I was expecting to get a 90%  IF my mind was wrong and I did as well as I knew I might have I might have gotten a perfect.  I didnt, but I did get a 97%.  I missed 5 points.  The class average was an 83% PWNED. 

Grade:  So now I have -18 points after the first 1/3 of class.  Then  after the tests grades came out and the nursing majors started just openly weeping he came up with an extra credit paper.  How many points is it worth? 15 yep 15.  I Finished it up last night and After I do some checking with smarter folks, expect to get all 15 points.  That could theoretically put me at -3 points.  I’de say thats a strong A.

Stay!

I’m teaching the dog to stay today.  This is going to be a fun one because it also involves heel.  So far she has mastered sit, lay down, and off.  Rachael is also teaching her roll-over which she does well but I don’t think she has mastered it yet.  Doing the dishes is going to be the next command after stay.  Rachael made a disciplinary spray bottle for luna and the change was immediatley noticeable.  For instance, when coming in from the back gate Luna normally takes this time to constantly jump and pull at people.  The first time I walked it with the spray bottle in my hand she never even so much as looked up.  This is great news because as long as the spray bottle is around she will not jump on children, that is the theory anyway.  I plan on testing that theory out later this week with the trashy neighbor kids.

Getting in shape for summer 2

So at the end of july Rachael and I are going to her family reunion camping trip in Wisconsin.   Rachael and I have been dating for about a year and a half.  In that year and a half I think I have put on about 25 lbs.  mmm maybe 30.  The good news is that she hasnt left me.  The bad news is she claims she also gained 10 lbs.  Well no one wants to be introduced to a bunch of new people looking all pudgie.  So since I have absolutely nothing going on right now I decided to get back into shape.  My goal is to lose 25 lbs before July 20th.  That will put me at my fighting weight of 185.  (I have never had a fight)

DIET; For breakfast everyday I am eating a medium sized bowl of raisin bran.  This is usually eatin at about 7 am as this is when I get up with Rachael for work. At aroud 10 am Im eating an apple.  This is really important, because when I dont eat a snack at this time I find that I eat lunch to early.  The 10 am snack allows me to put off lunch till at least noon but I try to hold out till 1.  Lunch has been consisting of raw vegetables generally onions, celery and carrots.  What I do is cut up a bunch of them on sunday and put them in a giant bowl.  I liberally add salt and pepper and graze from that bowl thru the week.  With the vegetables Im eating a fried egg sandwhich everyday.   Whole wheat bread 2 eggs and Miracle Whip ™  mmmm, getting hungry thinking about it right now.  As an afternoon snack I have a glass of juice for energy.  For dinner I eat whatever I make for dinner for Rachael.  Although I started to portion it normal.  For instance last night I made mexican yellow rice burritoes.  Usually when Rachael makes black beans and rice burritos I eat two of them.  Last night tho I only had one (although it was large it was no where near the amount of two).  We usually eat dinner around 6ish.  The times that I eat are important because they influence my metabolism.  I start it right in the morning and it runs all day.  At night I try to not snack after dinner.  Going to bed hungry is an acquired taste, but IMO a important one to develop.  It helps me sleep.  Its not hungry like OMG im hungry.  It’s more like a good feeling.  A feeling that lets you know that your plan is working.  Since I have a little over a month to lose this wieght I will be doing very little cheating.  But IMO cheating is not a horrible thing at all.  I prefer to cheat at strategic times tho.  That glass of juice that I drink after lunch is a great example of a good time to cheat.  Since I am drinking the juice for energy in effect any food would work.  So if I feel dietarily neglected I can easily have a can of pop instead.  Or even a blizzard from dairy queen.  This is important to me because it takes away the guilt that would normally be associated with cheating. 

EXERCISE;  anyone who has looked at how many calories are burned off running a mile may quickly become disgusted with the mere thought of exercise.  its like 11 calories.  Exercise is not a great way to lose weight.  It is however a great way to build muscle mass, and lung capacity.  Muscle mass and the lungs are like the digestive system, in that they use energy to work.  being fit and better breathing lead to a higher metabolism.  What a higher metabolism means is that you require more calories per day to maintain your weight.  I choose to do yoga for my exercise.  My biggest problem with exercise is that its boring as hell.  When I go to a yoga class it takes an hour.  The hour flies by and at the end I feel great.  At home is another story.  I have a 20-25 minute good routine that I have been doing twice a day for a week.  The routine is based around the core muscles, as well as leg stretches and arm strengthening.  I think it is the shortest routine I could design that works all the major muscles I wanted it to.  But now that I’ve set my 25 lbs goal I seriously thinking about doing it three or four times a day as opposed to 2. As I think about it twice before lunch and twice after lunch seems doable and the benefits will double.  The most important thing I get from doing yoga is not the muscle work tho.  Its the breathing.  I learned in yoga how important breathing is.  So as Im doing yoga I take long slow deep breaths.  This works the diaphram muscle.  Which is another one of those muscles we never think about that can help raise our metabolism.  I have found this deep breathing to be the best overall health benefit.  Along with yoga I also have an overly energetic puppy who requires alot of labor.  She gets walked at least 3 times a week and I like to take her on at least an hour long walk.  Because if I dont take her on a long enough walk shes apt to rip my face off.

Getting in shape for summer

Other than a roughdraft of a paper I wrote for a class I was taking, I’m not sure If I’ve ever mentioned yoga on my blog here.  I have been doing(although I think the correct verb is learning) yoga for the last hmm…3 years.  It kinda started as a dare.  Some ladies who frequented the bar I was cooking at asked me to go they thought it would be a great time.  I was single at the time and tired of resorting to bar hopping hoping to meet that certain lady who would let me fall asleep with her.  I do not remember the first class.  I do remember being drastically out of shape.  I also remember the high that followed the hour-long routine.  It was a Saturday class at 9 a.m. most 26 year olds are sleeping saturday at 9 a.m. I’m told.  I however fell in love with yoga.   It felt so good to finally be doing something healthy in my life that I started taking a wednesday night class also.  During that first year I also made other changes to my habits.  I put myself on a rather strict diet.  I did not like to think of it as strict.  I liked to think of it as healthy.  Along with yoga during that year I fell in love with oatmeal.  I think the diet actually encompassed about 5 straight months.  For breakfast I would have a giant bowl of oatmeal.  This was not the quaker instant either, although it started out that way.  I bought a big container of oats and a bag of brown sugar.  This made about a month of breakfast for about 7 dollars.  I worked at a kennel during this period.  So after an early breakfast I would then spend the next 6 hours chasing dogs.  This job did include taking dogs on a .5 a mile nature walk.  I usually did about 5 walks a day on average.  I would get home from the kennel about noon and have lunch.  During this time is when I fell in love with whole wheat breads.  What turned me on to whole wheat breads was also what turned me onto eating breakfast.  We’ve all heard people say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but for 26 years I couldnt see why and therefore neglected to eat a good breakfast.  Then at some point I found out why.  Some of you may already know this, but I didnt.  It turns out that your digestive system uses energy (fat).  If you dont eat breakfast, those organs dont really turn on.  When you eat an early breakfast those organs turn on and use energy in effect increasing  the amount of calories you need to maintain a certain weight.  With that information.I tend to think of whole wheats this way;  If your digestive system uses energy to digest food , which it does,  Then eating a piece of white bread is kinda like walking a city block.  Whole grains which must be digested longer is like walking a city block up-hill.  Since I made that realization I have tried to be a label reader when it comes to breads.   So for lunch most days I would have a giant Whole wheat and tuna sandwhich.   Sometimes if I was out of tuna it would be hotdogs.  Some of you might be saying “hotdogs?” those dont sound healthy.  I beg to differ.  See evolution (ahem GOD) gave us these beautiful teeth called canines.  They are used to rip and tear flesh.  This is my logic when it comes to wether or not protein is a healthy diet food.  Hotdogs at the core are just a protein.  Even if they are the scarier parts of an animal.  The negative things about hotdogs are their fat content and all store brands seem to throw high fructose corn syrup into them also.  But the fat content and small amount of carbs in hotdogs is greatly outweighed by their price efficient protein levels.   Dinner was almost always the same.  As I said I worked as a cook at a resteraunt.  Every night I would have a 8 ounce piece of beef or fish.  With a 6 ounce serving of brocoli or asparagus.  This does in fact get extremely boring, but by the time it got too boring I was losing weight fairly well and didnt mind the monotony.  I would usually eat that dinner around 430 in the afternoon.  During the work night I would occasionally snack on things in the cooler.  These snacks were always vegetables or cheeses.  Rarely breads.   To keep myself sane I would generally go out with friends to a buffet on sundays.  I would eat quite a bit and get overly full, but that one day of splurging didnt seem to hurt anything.  I held this eating/yoga routine solid for at least 5 months.  I think I lost about 50 lbs.  O I also basically stopped drinking carbohydrates during this time.  This is when I became addicted to coffee.  I drank it black no cream no sugar.