The Paleo, 30 Day, Primal Hybrid Diet Thing

My family is on the “eat whatever you want whenever you want" diet.

Unless what you want to eat involves sugar.

Or grains. Or dairy. Or alcohol. Or preservatives. Or Legumes.  Or soy. Or processed food. Or vegetables oils.

But other than that, you can eat whatever your heart desires. My parents have been doing it since the second of the year and I have been doing it since I got back last Tuesday.

I first heard about this crazy diet (although the powers that be tout it as a “lifestyle”) last April and filed it away as a good thing to do that was probably way too hard for me to figure out.

Last semester I read (part of) the book The Primal Diet. After that, I couldn’t eat grains without thinking about what the terrible levels of insulin were doing to my body. I avoided grains as much as I could and would go for a week or two without eating any and then I would have to eat fast food or something.

I sent the book to my mom and she read it. And then she read more about the Paleo Diet and the 30 Day Challenge. They pretty much are the same kind thing except the Primal Diet allows you to eat dairy. And each have different nuances and things they emphasize. We are mostly doing the 30 Day Challenge. You follow the rules strictly for 30 days and then start adding in food to see what makes you feel crappy and what your body processes well.

Here’s a quick summary of what happens to you when you stop eating grains, processed foods and everything else: you feel terrible. You start detoxing. Two days in I had a massive headache, stomachache and was incredibly tired. My parents felt the same and one night, my dad came downstairs and was shaking really badly.

Then you start feeling pretty great. I haven’t really been doing it long enough to flaunt how incredible I feel, but my I haven’t had any acid reflux since Tuesday, and I haven’t taken any medicine, which is a huge deal for me. My stomach has basically been acidic for most of my life but got way worse the summer before I started college. My stomach also feels flatter like there’s less fat there. Not that I am saying I was fat at all but it seems like there's less.

So that gets me started thinking (read: complaining): “I feel pretty good. I had chili and my stomach isn’t on fire. This is awesome… and now I want a coke. And a giant pretzel. And a glazed doughnut. And nachos. Crap. There’s no way I can do this.”

Then my mom chimes in, “Oh I want buttery popcorn.”  So then, I also want popcorn. And we just stare at each other sadly and distract ourselves with the TV or a book.

Really, most all of my family’s success in this endeavor belongs to my mom. She has been cooking up a storm every day for lunch and dinner. It has to be exhausting. She is almost constantly grocery shopping, washing and cutting fruits and veggies, looking up recipes, cooking and cleaning. 

We have eaten a mix of weird/new things and old things made in new ways. We’ve had butternut squash (not a fan) cauliflower mixed in a food processor so it becomes almost like mashed potatoes, chili without beans, stuffed egg plant (I surprised myself by not hating that), chicken in several different ways and sooo many fruits and veggies.

Here’s a small sample of the weirdness that has crossed my plate:

Guess which one of these food tastes like celery? 

It looks like green beans, steak and mashed potatoes right??????
Haha nope

Did you guess the white stuff? You’re right! It’s actually ground up celery root. I was not a fan. For whatever weird reason, celery gives me a headache.

So here’s to hoping my family can continue on our 2013 healthy eating kick. 

My Friends Are The Best

I haven’t forgotten about my blog. This is just a quick update to assure you that I haven’t forgotten. Since my last post, I haven’t really done very much.

I mean I did graduate. And not more than 6 hours after I did, my parents began packing away my things to move them. It was terribly tragic, and I pouted like a little kid. I’m not proud of it, but it happened.

I didn’t actually move until a week later with my car full of clothes. And I spent the time in Chicago doing almost nothing except reading. I finished Les Miserables (and saw the movie… awesome) and then started on about a book a day pace until I acquired the most recent installment of the Song Of Ice and Fire Series: A Dance with Dragons (Game of Thrones #5). And that is a much slower pace of reading. I keep up with Goodreads, marking what I’ve read, pretty frequently and if you like to read at all, you should too.

I celebrated a low key Christmas with the family. My parents made a fantastic Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch. Those two can cook.

Michelle and I hung out for a few more days and then headed back to Kansas. And seriously, I have the best friends. You might think you do, but really, mine are so great. They have pushed me to think of so many creative way to say awesome and cool because they are so awesome and so cool. The following is probably a cheesy synopsis of my time in Kansas and the friends I saw.

Beth and I at Sandbar!

I started out by staying with Beth, one of my best friends born from long hours at volleyball tournaments and more-than-hectic newspaper work days. Notably missing from this time was Molly, but such is life. They are definitely my funny friends. I almost never stop laughing when I’m with them. However I enjoyed my deep chats with Beth about our soon-to-be journeys abroad, literature, relationships, benefits of singledom, and American Girl Dolls. I walked away with three new books I’m looking forward to reading. One evening, we even skipped over to Lawrence for dinner with a great friend and then got glowing drinks at Sandbar.

Elena and I before NYE

I then headed to Elena’s house to stay and prepared for New Years Eve at Power and Light. We bought passes that got us free food and drinks all night. We hopped around to a few bars but spent most of the time dancing at Shark Bar. I haven’t danced really since high school dances, but Elena lovingly danced in my presence all night without making fun of me. She is one of my best friends in the best and weirdest way. Statements like, “Your hair feels so weird. Please just go buy conditioner” are complete normal and welcome. It’s gratifying to have someone know all of your strengths plus depths of your weaknesses and love you fully anyway.

An old but good picture of Kellie (left), Lindsey (right)
and I.

I stayed the nights bookending my trip to Manhattan at one of my oldest friends house, Kellie. Kellie and I are kinda mostly the same person. Our relationship was build on a foundation of a mutual love of Harry Potter (she can go toe-to-toe with me in terms of love for and knowledge of the books and movies) and evolved into a friendship I know can last the test of time and distance. And we spent our time pouring over our shared tasted in (super awesome) books and television shows. If I find something nerdy and awesome to read, Kellie is the first person I tell. And I have seen and read so much just because she told me it was good. Also notably missing was Lindsey, but we still love her dearly even though she’s so far away.

I did journey to Manhattan for a few days to watch the Fiesta Bowl (and suffered excruciating heartbreak). While I was there I stayed with a more recently acquired, but nonetheless wonderful, friend Alex Reinecke. We met while I was student teaching at East campus where he is an actual teacher. We had strange and splendid conversations on life, love, teaching and basically just whatever. He’s definitely one of the good guys. He and his roommates allowed me to stay for several days without batting an eye. These boys are so welcoming; they have people so constantly in and out, it makes it slightly difficult to figure out who actually lives there and who just visits frequently. Overall, my time in Manhattan was very relaxed; I spent a little time visiting some other pretty great friends and accidentally bumping into family. (Sorry you don't have a picture Alex!)

Those are by no means all my friends, they were just the ones who were able to open their homes and beds/couches to me during my stay. I have so many supportive, loving, and flat out spectacular people in my life. I've always known it, but this trip to Kansas really made me appreciate how wonderful they are and how lucky I am. 

Student Teaching Musings

First and foremost.
This:

It's obviously the most important thing in this post.

I had such a great time cheering the Cats on all year, especially last week in very close proximity to two great friends.

I'm working on getting my family to Arizona. It's a completely necessary, reasonable request, really.

In the meantime, I am startlingly close to being done with student teaching and done with college as a whole.

Countdown to graduation: T-5 days.

This time comes with overwhelmingly mixed reactions.

The first is relief.

I did it.

I am done with undergrad. It feels nice to know that have been successful in my endeavors to become a teacher. I have passed all my classes, passed all my tests, even passed my portfolio (I think! Update 12/4/12 I officially passed). And it feels fantastic. I can actually get a teaching job in a month if I wanted to.

Which inevitably leads to: “Holy crap. I can actually be a teacher. Someone would actually let me teach in front of kids. Alone. With no real teacher there to bail me out.”

And the scarier part is after, I think, “I might actually be able to pull that off. I think I might be ‘ready’” Certainly, I don’t know everything, and I will make many mistakes. But I’m as ready as I can possibly be.

And then I feel relief I am not looking for a job next semester and get excited about going to Italy again.

But the prospect of leaving my students half way through the year is so sad. I get this ball of melancholy tight in my chest whenever I think about them going on without me. I work with such great kids that I genuinely want to see them through their freshman year. And I was not expecting that, at all. At the beginning of the year, I thought I would be dying to leave.

But I’m not. I love these kids.

No semester is perfect, but they are genuinely good, smart, inquisitive people who could really do great things with their lives if they choose to. I really believe that every single one of them could do something spectacular with their lives. Maybe that’s the naïveté that accompanies being a new teacher, but I don’t think it’s wholly a bad thing. Everyone needs someone who believes they are special.

Part of the reason these kids are so well behaved and great is because I had the chance to work with a fabulous cooperating teaching, Kathie Bartlett. She was such an exceptional model for me all year.

She reaches this fantastic balance of being strict with the kids and loving them. She sets high expectations but is there every step of the way to help the kids reach them. I saw all semester just how much she genuinely cares about the kids. She does such great things with her students, making them feel comfortable sharing ideas and not always being correct. She always tells the students “it’s okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them.” And I always felt like this applied to me too.

She was always there to encourage me, help me, and make me better. I am so grateful for everything I learned in her room.

Under her careful guidance, I taught my unit on propaganda. I taught it during the election, so the timing was perfect. We spent the time studying the way propaganda is used, researching each candidate, and making our own propaganda. They were so creative. I was really impressed with the work they made. 

And even though I am looking forward to sleeping to a reasonable time in the morning again, waking up wasn't so bad because I every day I experienced something exciting and interesting. 

For all these reasons, I look to my last few days with a heavy heart. I don’t want to go. 

I know I have to. I know I’m moving on to a new adventure. But part of me will be with these kids at Manhattan High East Campus. Go Indians!

K-State Grad Taylor Mali is a spoken word poet and has two interesting/funny videos about teaching and “The the Impotence of Proofreading.”

I think every teacher and education major ever has had to watch this but for good reason.

Just as a warning, this video has innuendos and should be watched in a controlled context. But it’s highly hilarious. 

An Introduction

I’m jumping on the bandwagon. I’m going to another country, so common decency says I must write a blog so I can brag tell you all about my adventures through Europe. This is my first-ever attempt at keeping a blog. I thoroughly enjoy writing, so I hope I can update it regularly. But I make no promises. I do feel pressure (which I think is entirely of my own invention) to be a great writer because… I’m an English teacher, so I must be, right? Not quite. I have friends who write beautifully, whereas I write how I talk. I’ll send you to their blog if you’re looking for great pieces of prose. And so I’ll start.  

This blog starts as I say the first of many goodbyes.

I hate goodbyes. Or as I keep telling myself, goodbyes for now. I am very bad at them. So if I just disappear, sorry. It’s nothing personal. But I’ve likely saved you from waterworks. And I’m definitely coming back to visit, so I’ll see you soon.

On Saturdays, we wear purple.

I think what I’m most sad about leaving is Manhattan and the K-State family as a whole. I’m sure if I was a better writer, I could write an entire blog dedicated to everything wonderful about K-State and Manhattan, but I won’t. If you’re a part of it, you know. I don’t need to explain it to you. If you’ve never experienced it, I couldn’t do it justice. (I know because I tried.)

It took me a few months of living here to realize what an incredible place I was blessed enough to live in. I had no idea when I packed my bags and went to a school that I had sworn to hate, I would grow to love this incredible K-State family with all my heart. It makes me sad to think that, despite all the amazing places I want to live in the world, I may never live here again.

I’ve realized the best solution to this problem is to become fantastically rich and have at least two houses—one in Manhattan and one elsewhere. Being a teacher, my best hope is marrying rich. Ha. Or if you want to donate to my cause or have a house with me, let me know.

In spite of this reluctance to leaving the place I’ve called home for 3.5 years, I am ecstatic to start my European adventures. Before I can do that, I have to move “home.” I put it in quotes because I think home for me will really always be Kansas, and I’m going to Chicago, or to be more specific Grayslake, to live with my wonderful family until my departure on February 7^th.

A quick itinerary of my coming months:
Dec 8 10:30 a.m. Graduation 

Dec 15 or 16: Move to Chicago

New Years in Kansas

Feb 1-3: International Teaching Convention at UNI

Feb 7: Leave for Paris (arrive the 8^th)

Feb 16: Head to Italy

May 29: Return

I will be spending 9 days in Paris before heading to live with my host family in Italy. My “job” will be to teach them English. I don’t know exactly how this will work out, or what exactly I will do when I’m not working with them, but I supposed that’s the adventure.

            The family lives in a town called Turate, which is a Providence of Lake Como. (George Clooney lives there, and the Pope’s summerhouse is there; naturally, I’m going to become best friends with both of them.) From what Google Images has shown, it looks absolutely gorgeous. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of pictures when I get there.

Random Google Image of Lake Como

            My program ends about May 16^th, and I’m not 100% sure what I’ll be doing before I return. I have several thoughts that revolve around places like London or Prague, but if you have any suggestions, let me know.

            I’m sure this blog will also feature the occasional book review or recommendation, not to mention any fantastical poetry, thoughtful quotes, and random Internet finds. I expect it to be a hodge-podge of amateur photography (because as a student once told me, "words with no picture are sssssssooooo boring") and stories of my adventures stitched together with literature I love.

         

        If you’re wondering where the title of the blog comes from, it’s from one of my favorite poems by E.E. Cummings, who, contrary to popular belief, never changed his name to e.e. It was his editor. He always wanted to be E.E though I suppose that’s neither here nor there.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

          I have my own thoughts about this poem and reasons for choosing it as my title, but I’ll let you form your own opinions. Poetry is intensely personal. I find it most powerful when you let the words wash over you and uncover what the poem means to you. So I’ll leave you to it.