The Week In Review

I could make about a million excuses for why I haven't posted. "I'm too busy" is always at the top of the list ... but let's be honest, when have I let being busy stop me from doing anything that I want to do? "I'm tired" is another crowd favorite, but to be honest, I've been a little less tired recently, probably due to the fact that I'm exercising about 10000 times more than I usually do. "My dog ate my homework" doesn't really work for this situation, and is entirely non-plausible, since I don't even have a dog (although I would really like one!)

This week, the excuse is the following - "my undergrad is gone." Yes, my friends, although I complained for what seemed like an endless amount of time about having to take care of an undergrad all summer, the truth is that I miss the kid now. We had a nice thing going on when he was here - he worked as the hands, while I worked as the brain. While he busied himself around lab, scurrying here and there doing my bidding, I sat in my throne (ok, desk chair) watching the poor sap. To be more accurate, I was planning the next experiment for him and I to do; regardless, I spent about 80% of my day at the computer, giving me ample time to post. Now that he's gone, however, I have inherited the remainder of his project IN ADDITION to what I already had to do. My computer must miss me, as I now spend only about 5-10% of my day caressing its keyboard and staring dreamily at it's LCD screen.

In light of the severe decrease in computer time, I'm going to make this post super short and bullet point style:

• Sunday August 19th, 2007: What better way to celebrate turning the big 2-4 than a hike? Highlights of the day include me getting stuck on some 'cliffs' hiking up a narrow path at Muir Beach, making 'Sandford' (a model of Stanford made out of sand), getting pelted by water balloons by all the guys, miraculously getting a parking spot at Muir Woods near the entrance, using a fallen redwood as a slide (I'm pretty sure this is illegal), and strawberry noses (see below). All in all, it was a pretty sweet day. Although next time I'll make sure to limit the invites to a few close friends (see pic below) and not the entire Bay Area, who, if the traffic is any indication, were also coming to Muir Woods to celebrate my birthday.
  

• Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 & Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007: I know for sure that I hiked both days. I also know that I hiked on Tuesday instead of Monday because Joel and Jacob convinced me to take a break on Monday morning (I don't know why I gave in ... but it did feel nice to sleep in). What I can't remember is which day Amy Chambers joined me and we turned the hike around and went up counter-clockwise. Sadly, it's only been a week since these hikes happened and I already can't remember what went on. I have a really, really crappy memory.
  

• Saturday, August 25th, 2007: To switch things up a bit, Alissa, Xianne, Kristyn, and I took a run around the campus loop instead of hiking The Dish. The campus loop run goes around Campus Drive, and is slightly longer than The Dish (3.75 miles instead of 3.5 miles). The nice thing about Campus Loop? It's much more flat than the Dish. The not so nice thing about Campus Loop? Being seen in public by cars driving by. There are also no convenient stop markers that one can use to time their running segments. At first, we ran as far as I could before stopping. The first running interval was only 30 seconds long. I decided that I wanted to increase my interval time during the run. My longest stretch during the day was 1 min and 20 seconds. That desperately needs to improve. I'm sure we could have done Campus Loop a bit faster, though, if all the girls (myself included) weren't so into talking about weddings!
  
  
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Notice anything funky about last week's schedule? Yeah ... the MWF hike didn't really happen. There was a ton of shuffling around dates,this week. One thing you also won't notice in the mini-posts is that after both the Tuesday and Wednesday hikes, I came home, showered, and the fell back asleep. I didn't make it into lab until about 11 am each day - two hours later than normal. C'est la vie. At least I did 4 hikes last week.

Waaaaay Behind

Hey all.

Sorry I'm way behind I'm posting - they're coming, I promise.

Quick Update: My Birthday hike in Muir Woods was awesome, but the whole day of partying with the friends pooped me out! I ended up skipping Monday's hike, but I went today to make it up.

Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow morning.

And I Ran, I Ran So Far Away

Hike Time: 1 hour!!!
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Longest Running Stretch: 6 markers
Wavelengths Present: Nola, Xianne, Alissa, Kathy
Weight Update: 321.4 lbs

I'm starting to really like this running deal. I've never liked running just to run. Get me on a basketball court, hand me a baseball bat, or serve me a volleyball, and I'll run. But running just for the sake of running? Never liked it. Hated it in fact.

Running almost kept me from being valedictorian in high school. On my first day of high school, I walked onto campus and decided then and there that I was going to own this school; I had dreams of being valedictorian from day one. Quite ambitious for a fourteen year old. In my mind, only one class could possibly stand in the way of my goal - gym. It always has (and still does) seem silly that you get a grade for gym. My gym teacher employed an interesting pedagogy. We all started off the semester with 100 points, or his equivalent of a B. To get an A, you had to have 120 points by the end of the semester. The only way to gain points, however, was to be excellent at any given sport. If you won the tennis tournament, you got points. If you were on the winning basketball team, you won points. Every Wednesday, we would run a mile; if your mile time was under 8 minutes, you earned points. Most of my classmates started the semester with mile times well under 8 minutes; earning an A was easy enough for them - all they had to do was run a mile a week. I started the semester with 17 minute mile (I walked). By the end of the semester, I was running most of the mile, and my mile time had improved to 11 minutes per mile. I'd say that was pretty awesome progress. Apparently it wasn't enough progress for my gym teacher; my 6 minute improvement on my mile time gained me ZERO points towards my grade. Luckily, I'm a pretty good swimmer. I earned my A by swimming laps in the pool while the rest of my classmates got to enjoy a fun day by the pool. Unfortunately, my quest for number one wasn't hindered as much by gym class as it was by sexism and calculus. But that's a story for another day.

Admittedly, the first few stretches of running this hill are tough. After the first two or so, however, the running becomes much easier. The adrenaline is pumping, my muscles are supple, and my motivation has kicked into high gear. There's really no better high for me right now than finishing a running stretch. I may be tired, I may be gasping, but I feel lighter than air.

Today, I had two pushers - Alissa pushing me to run farther, and Kathy pushing me to walk faster. After turning down a number of Alissa's propositions (like running up the hill that leads to the base of the Dish), I threw her a bone. There's a slight downhill stretch about 5 minutes past The Dish that I can run the majority of. On a good day, I can run the length of three markers. Today, I forgot where I normally start this running stretch, and started running a marker early, which led us to run the length of four running stretches at one go. As we reached the end of the fourth running stretch, Alissa asked how I was doing. To be honest, my knee was bothering me a bit, but I felt like I could keep on going. So, we ran a good portion of the downhill, and one marker past that. Six markers. That's probably about 1/3 of a mile, maybe more. It felt so exhilarating to run that long. The question now is whether or not I can continue to run that stretch on subsequent hikes.

After finishing the running bit, I walked the steep downhill portion backwards. That felt really nice on my calves, and gave them a nice little stretch before running again towards the bottom of the hill. I pacified Alissa's frequent running requests by trying to run up one of the final hills. After much mental "I think I can, I think I can", my body responded "nope, you can't." I made it about half-way. Next time, the goal is to get 5 feet farther than when I stopped the last time.

As we were walking up the final hill, we checked the time: 7:58 am. We had started at 7:00 am, so in order to finish in an hour, we powered it up the final hill, and ran down the steep hill that winds back to the guard's station. And when I say ran, I mean run. It wasn't any of the wimpy jogging we were doing during the hike, but a full on run that became almost sprint like the closer we got to the guard's station. The clocked turned to 8:00 am right after we stopped running. The whole 3.5 miles in an hour. To think that, when I started, it took 1 hr 20 minutes. My starting mile time was 22.8 minutes. Now, it's 17.14 minutes ... and not on a flat track like it was in high school. If only my high school gym teacher could see me now!

Long As God Can Grow It, My Hair

Hike Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Wavelengths Present: Nola, Kristyn, Xianne

Three weeks. I can't believe I've stuck with this three weeks. To the normal person, this probably seems like a short amount of time. But, believe me, it's a big deal to me. I've never stuck with anything exercise or diet wise past three weeks before. So it really didn't surprise me this morning that I hit a wall, that inevitable three-week wall I've spent my life banging my head against.

Walking up the hill this morning, my calves and hamstrings were contracted so tightly that every step I took was excruciating. I've got to take time to stretch before I head up those hills! I also had to pause at the top of the second hill, just to catch my breath; this was a downer, as I had thought I accomplished at least a little bit of something by cutting down the stops in the hike. When we got to the first running stretch, I even had to stop before we got to the road marker. It's as if my gas, will power, and motivational tanks all pooped out on me at once.

After a few running stretches, however, my legs warmed up. By the end of the hike, I was a little bummed that it was over. Even though it wasn't a personal record breaking time, or didn't involve adding more running to the routine, at least I did it. I made it to the three week wall. Will I push past the wall? I guess we'll see on Friday.

The main purpose of this post, however, isn't about the hike. Or about my struggles with eating well. It's about my hair. And this is going to be another one of those posts that makes me glad that I only shared this link with a prized few. Because I get to talk about embarrassing things, like my hair. How can hair be embarrassing, you ask? Read on, and trust me, you'll be glad you didn't share this link with anyone else either. Then again, don't read on if you ever, EVER want to look at me in the same way again. Or if you are easily grossed out and have a weak stomach.

I have a love/hate relationship with my hair. On the one hand, I absolutely adore my hair. It's a gorgeous color, has striking natural highlights (despite a few grad-school induced gray hairs), a lovely and controlled natural curl, and, although my hair is quite thin, there's buckets of it to work with. When I was younger, I used to desperately want straight hair; I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Now that I'm older, I realize how lucky I am to have this head of hair. If I want to go somewhere quickly, I don't have to spend a lot of time blow-drying and styling my hair - all I have to do is scrunch in the curls with about a palmful of mousse and voila! instant awesome hair. Total prep time: 30 seconds. Thanks to my straightening iron, I can also have straight hair whenever I want. In fact, I have sort of a pattern down. On a hike day, I can shower after running, throw some mousse in my wet hair, and head on off to work. On an off day, I can take about 15 minutes to straighten the semi-dirty hair; the amount of product that remains in my hair after a hike day is just enough to keep it nice and shiny on an off day. If I was ever asked what my favorite thing about my body is, I would probably say my legs. But my hair comes in a close second.

On the other hand, I hate my hair. Not the hair on my head, mind you, but the hair everywhere else on my body. I'm sure pretty much all women eventually detest the hair on the legs and underarms because society dictates that we should be hairless in the aforementioned areas. But I'm not just complaining about hair there. Oh no. Thanks to a lovely little bitch of a condition I have called PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), I have hair everywhere, especially in the least ladylike of places. I have hair on my back that would rival even the manliest of men. And, to put it nicely, I'd give any circus's bearded lady a run for her money. I also used to have the darkest of armhair you'd ever seen; check out my arms sometime now, however, and you'll find them smooth as a baby's bottom.

Given that I'm pretty much the female equivalent of Sasquatch, I'm pretty self-conscious about all of this hair. So much so that I have gone to great lengths to hide the fact that I'm a furry little beast. As I mentioned before, I used to have oodles of dark armhair. Not anymore, however. Before I headed off to my senior year of college, my mom accosted me with depilatory cream, and just like that, the hair was gone. I've never wanted to suffer through the awkward phase of growing my armhair back or explaining to people why my arms are now furry when they used to be smooth, so I've continued to do the weekly treatment with Nair (on my arms!) to avoid all awkwardness.

Luckily, the backhair only usually causes a problem one out of the four seasons of the year - summer. The most awkward part about the backhair, however, is that I can't quite reach it all. In college, I would have my friend Megan help me out before our sorority formals. We once tried waxing it off, but to no avail. While the hair was gone, my back broke out in a bunch of sores - my back seriously looked like it had been attacked by a swarm of bees. After that, it was onto depilatory creams. I had only my trusted friends help me out with this - usually Megan - when I was in college. When I moved out to CA, however, I didn't really have anyone close enough that I trusted to help me remove my back hair. I tried to avoid most activities requiring me to show off my back, but I ended up missing swimming too much and had to try other tactics. The tactic that eventually worked the best was simple - buy a spatula. With the spatula, I could reach otherwise uncharted territory on my back to make sure I was hair-free before any pool party.

Many, many more tactics have been employed to remove the oh-so-lovely facial hair - bleaching, Nads, electrolysis, laser hair removal, and shaving. Let's break these tactics down, shall we?

1) Bleaching: The most conventional way for women to deal with facial hair. When I just had the mustache, and not the oh-so-attractive mini-beard, this is what I would use. The weirdest thing about bleaching? It also bleached the skin underneath the hair, leaving you with multi-colored skin. I also tried bleaching my armhair, until it was forcibly removed by my mother. The smell is enough to knock you out though, so be careful while bleaching.

2) Nads: This little product is the reason for all of my disdain towards Australia. My mom bought some of this product from an infomercial once, and as soon as the package arrived, she attacked me with this goopy green substance. First con? It hurt like the dickens when my mom ripped the first strip of the product off. Second con? It didn't get all of my hair all at once, so she went at it again ... and again ... and again. I hate Australia.

3) Electrolysis: My mom has this friend - Shannon - whom she has me see to get electrolysis done. She swears that I'll love Shannon; I swear I can love no one who inflicts that much pain on me. Seriously, how can one be smiley while they're plucking out your hairs ONE by ONE with a jolt of electricity behind each bolt? I know I'm sounding kind of adverse to pain, but I'm promise I'm no wimp. I had the top of my lip done - one of the most sensitive areas to have hair removed - and it brought me to tears. The sad thing is, it takes MULTIPLE TREATMENTS to get rid of the hair SEMI-PERMAMENTLY.

4) Laser Hair Removal: For a Christmas present one year, my mom bought me laser hair removal treatments. With the exception of a little bit of embarrassment, the first time was totally fine. Other than a little discomfort, the treatment wasn't so bad. The worst part of it was having to grow out my mini-beard so that the doctor could see the hairs he had to remove. The second time I went to the treatment was a different story. I had no desire to go. I was feeling horrible about myself as it was, and having to grow out the mini-beard was not helping. I reverted back to being a 5-year-old and threw a little hissy fit - full of whining and crying and feeling sorry for myself - to get my mom to cancel the appointment. She was having none enough; I think in the world of hissy fits, I am the girl who cried wolf. When we arrived at the doctors office, I was so upset by the fact that I was there, that I couldn't stop crying. This inevitably made removing my hair with a laser more difficult. Whereas last time, it was only a mild discomfort, this time each shot of the laser felt like I was being stabbed with a dull knife. I felt so bad for the doctor. I can't imagine what it's like trying to calm down a crying woman who knows that you're the one responsible for causing her pain. Needless to say, I nixed the idea of laser hair removal right then and there.

5) Shaving: I held off as long as humanly possible before I gave into shaving. When I was a young girl, I got very excited about shaving my legs. I can still remember the first time I did it. I snuck into my parents bathroom and stole my mom's razor. It was one of the pink, disposable kind, with a single blade. I hid away in my bathroom and, stroke by stroke, the furry blondness of my legs gave way to . I felt more adult, like I was finally a woman. When my mom realized what I had done, she flipped out. "You're going to regret doing that so soon, because now you can never stop." I soon realized how right she was. My smooth legs lasted only a few days before dark stubble started speckling my thighs and calves. Ever since that moment, my legs have been married to the razor. So when the option of shaving my face came into the question, I was hesitant. I knew the consequences of such actions, but it served as a temporary solution.

However, since I apparently have the world's lowest pain tolerance, shaving soon became my only alternative. My mom bought me a man's electric razor for Christmas one year. "What am I going to tell my friends this is for?" I asked. "Shaving your legs, of course" she replied. I knew my friends were not that dumb, but I took the electric razor to college, where it remained hidden in my underwear drawer. Every morning I wake up, I have to check the status of my face. I'll shave if there's any chance that stubble will appear on my face during the day. On the occasional days when I forget, I make sure to avoid most social situations, and to keep both my hair and my head towards the floor. I honestly can say that I would wish this condition on no girl, not even my worst enemy.

This morning, while I was driving to work, I realized that I had forgotten the daily shave. It was really bad. I know objects in the side mirror look larger than they appear, but my mini beard was looking in full bloom from the side mirror. I debated for a while about whether or not to head back home before heading into work, to head home after work, or to suck it up and buy a razor to keep in my car. I chose the third option and drove up to the secret Safeway to purchase a pack of three disposable razors. One now lives in my car, for emergency situations. Another lives in my desk drawer at work - I'll only bust that one out when no one is looking and then run to the bathroom to shave in private. I'll have to figure out where to keep the third one. This I know for sure, I will never be in a situation again where I might have to face the shame of someone seeing the mini beard.

The saddest thing is that no matter how much weight I lose or how in shape I become, I'll still be plagued with this lovely problem. Maybe one day I'll suck it up and get the laser hair removal done, which is supposed to be permanent. I'm really not looking forward to sharing this fact with any future significant other. But I guess it's just another little quirk about me that someone will have to learn to love.

Talking 'bout My Motivation

Hike Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Nola, Meggers

Today was probably the hardest day for me to get out of bed. The weekend was hectic; there was pretty much no pause to the activity. On Saturday, I showed my friends and Anna around The City. We hit it all - SF MOMA, Coit Tower, Union Square, Haight-Asbury, Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Sunday (also known as my 24th birthday) was spent with lunch at Half Moon Bay, and then with a wine and dessert party at my place. My friends were leaving town Tuesday, so Monday was my last day with them and I didn't want to spend the entire day tired and grumpy. Plus, their flights were at 6:15 am and 7:30 am on Tuesday, which meant I would have to get up at 3:45 am the next day to take them to the airport! If I was going to be up then anyway, why hike today if I was likely going to hike tomorrow anyway? Since I had friends in town, I assumed that everyone else that normally joins me would assume that I wasn't hiking. This, of course, meant that I didn't have to show up at all really, because there would be no one waiting for me. Being curled up in bed didn't help the hiking cause either - my bed is my little haven of peace and comfort!

I struggled with whether or not to go for about 20 minutes. I kept on hitting the two snooze buttons (one on my phone, one on my alarm clock). Finally, 6:25 rolled around - do or die time. I groaned and forced myself out of the layers of cozy covers and got dressed. I knew that the most important thing for me to do was to keep up with the schedule - no deviations allowed. Megan had wanted to join me, but I was already running late, so I tried to sneak out the front door without waking her up. Believe it or not, I was kind of looking forward to spending some alone time. But I guess alone time was not in the cards for me today, because I woke up Megs on the way out the door. She asked me when I was leaving to hike. "Now" I said.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she said, annoyed.

"Because I just woke up" I retorted. I'm not the world's most pleasant person in the morning.

"Five minutes" she replied.

And in five minutes, Meggers and I were off. We got there a little late, but I didn't feel bad about it because I assumed no one else was joining me. As we walked up to the entrance, we passed Nola's car. I immediately felt bad about being so late - it's one of my biggest pet peeves and I hate to be late to anything. I hate being late so much, in fact, that I am usually 5-10 minutes early to any engagement that I have. Thankfully, Nola didn't mind so much, or at least didn't show it.

Since I had to get up so early the next morning to drive my friends to the airport, I had decided to do a hike on Tuesday as well. I wasn't sure whether my body would be able to run a hike, walk it the next day, and then run it again on Wednesday, so I decided that we'd walk this hike. It was kind of nice going back to walking the hike. I wish I could say that it was easier this time around than the first time, but to be honest, it wasn't really. The hills are still brutal. And it's not hard at all to walk the top part of the hike. In fact, I started to doubt whether or not this was doing me any good at all, and whether I was making any real progress. Instead of dwelling on this despondency, I decided that even though I couldn't see at the moment if this was doing me any good, I could not definitively prove that it was doing me any bad, so I might as well continue on.

I wish I could explain the drive that keeps me going. The hard thing is that it's rarely ever the same thing that gets me out of bed each morning. One day, I'll wake up and go because I'm tired of being so overweight. Another day, I'll wake up and go because I know I'm being held accountable by my friends. I've also gone because I know it's good for my health. I've even gotten out of bed for my future children; I want them to have a healthy influence in their life and I don't want to die early on in their lives.

[Here goes the honesty pact I made with myself again ... I would rather not share this on such a public forum, but I am because I said I would be.]

If I was truly honest with myself, however, I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for someone else - a whole lot of someone elses, actually. I'm doing this for men. When I was younger, I took quite a few low blows that have stuck to me like superglue. I don't think I have to elaborate about how cruel kids can be to each other. I wasn't even that fat as a young girl; I was just taller and a little bigger than everyone else. For me, becoming fat was self-fulfilling prophecy in a way; the more kids teased me about my weight, the more I turned to food for comfort, the bigger I became, and the cycle continued. I remember once, when I was about 13, the kids on my block all got together to play truth or dare. I had a crush on the cute boy that lived next door - he was older (14) and wiser (not really), but, to be honest, kind of a jerk. While playing truth or dare, he was dared to kiss me or my friend Emily. Anxiously, I awaited his decision. Then, after what seemed like ages, he decided: "Well, I've always wanted to know what blubber tastes like." I stormed off in tears, and turned back just in time to see him kissing Emily.

Low blow number two came around the same time of my life. For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to be in a relationship. Even at age 14, I wanted so badly to share my life with someone else, although I doubt my true desire to be in a relationship was really that well-intentioned; I'm pretty sure I just wanted my first kiss so I could share my story with the other girls. One day, while I was out on the town with my mother, Emily, and her mother, I decided to share my frustrations with the group. I don't remember much else of what was said to me, but I do remember the following words coming out of Emily's mother's mouth: "Well, honey, if you do get married, at least you'll know that he loves your for your brains and not your body." Nice.

The hardest low blow came from an unexpected source: my mother. My mom had always been my advocate, although often more than I wanted her to be. When kids started tormenting me in elementary school, she tried to put me on diets. I think I've been on and off diets since I was about 8 or 9. I've seen multiple doctors (nutritionists, endocrinologists, physical therapists ...), gone to exercise programs for overweight youngsters, you name it. Unfortunately for my mother, the more she pushed me to lose weight, the more I wanted to spite her by gaining it; all I wanted to do was be left alone. Even though it annoyed me to no end when I was younger, I knew deep down that she wanted the best for me, which is why this following statement caught me off guard. I was in high school, and warmed the bench while all my other girlfriends were starting the 'relationship' game. I went to talk to my mom about it, and her response to me was something along the lines of "No one will ever love you or marry you if you're fat." To this day, she claims that I have misinterpreted the meaning of what she said; she was just trying to be real with me about the world we live in. No matter what the intention (or the fact that we've struggled with this in our relationship and have now moved past it), it's still the one thing that I believe more than anything else in this world. Potentially more than I believe in God.

After years of struggling with trying to get myself past this belief, I think I've given in, so to say. If I believe in it so much, then why wasn't I doing something about it before? It's been about 10 years now since I've really wanted to be in a relationship, but have never been in one. So I guess it's about time I took my future in my own hands and did something about it, even if I know how untrue that statement is. Part of my struggle with this hike is inextricably linked with my struggle to love myself no matter what my outside looks like.

The funny thing is, though, that if any of the guys I know now decide to ask me out after I have lost all the weight, I'll probably turn them down. I doubt I'll be that different of a person after this, other than looks-wise, and if someone can't appreciate me for me the way I am now, then why should they after I've lost the weight? Seriously. Maybe I don't believe in that statement as much as I thought after all.

So, yes, as much as I hate to admit it, my motivation lies in changing my looks, with the end goal of getting a guy. How sad is that? But whatever my motivation is for a given day, week, month, or overall, at least it gets me up the mountain.

One Long, Strange Trip

Hike Time: 1 hour, 4 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Kristyn, Ken

The story of this morning would not be complete without the story of last night, and boy, what a strange night it was. It all started at the Rose and Crown, a great little pub/restaurant in downtown Palo Alto. Anna, Ken, Amanda and her boyfriend Bill, and myself were in attendance for dinner; Amy P joined us later on. Since I had friends in town for the weekend, I splurged a little, ordering a cheeseburger, fries, and my absolute favorite beer in the world, Young's Oatmeal Stout. As usual, I started the night with good intentions - I could take my friends out for a drink, get them to meet some of my great Palo Alto friends, and still make it home in time to get a good night's rest for the next day's hike. But, like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

When Ken heard of my plans to limit myself to one beer that night, he was having none of it. He threw down the gauntlet: I match him beer for beer that and he would run the Dish with me the next morning. True to form, I accepted his offer - have you ever seen me turn down a friendly competition? And then the drinking started. I used to have such a tolerance for alcohol; but last night, I was feeling it after a beer and a half! But, as I was being stupidly competitive, I ignored this fact. The rest of the night is kind of a whirlwind. Before we left the Rose and Crown for Ken's, I was emboldened enough to 'borrow' some Hoegaarden glasses. At Kens, we all had a rip-roaring time playing liar's dice. Amy P had a hankering for pancakes, so I made the rest of the group pancakes while they enjoyed a dance party in the living room. And that's just the story fit to print! It was enough to wipe a girl out - I'm not used to this kind of fun on a Thursday! I laid down on Ken's futon to give my eyes a rest. Amy P asked me if I wanted to go home, but I assured her I would in just a minute.

At 6:03 am, my alarm went off. I opened my eyes and found myself snuggled up with an unfamiliar pillow. I turned over to peer out into the room. It took me a while before I realized where I was - asleep on the same futon I had settled myself into the night before! For some crazy reason, Ken was still up. I left his place, and picked him up a half an hour later to go hiking.

Remember how much I wasn't looking forward to hiking when I thought I was going to have to hike alone? Trust me, I was dreading this hike more than hiking alone. Kristyn called me early in the morning to see if I was still going. It was so tempting to say no. I had the beginnings of a hangover, was incredibly dehydrated, and barely got any sleep. To make sure I wouldn't be too dehydrated on the hike, I had chugged a bottle of water on the drive over, making the contents of my stomach sloshy and unsettled. To make matters worse, I had been bad the past week and was weighing myself every day, and hadn't seemed to be losing any weight. While I know that my primary goal is to be able to run the dish, and not lose weight, it had been incredibly discouraging. In spite of all the reasons not to, something inside of me pushed me onward.

After meeting up with Kristyn, the hike began. Kristyn and I walked the first hill; Ken ran (show off). The entire first half of the hike was a sad sight to see. On the running stretches, I would whimper the entire way, almost making it to the point of tears by time we reached the end of the stretch. All along the way, we had been playing a sort of leap frog with this woman hiker; on the running stretches, we'd cruise past her, but she would speed past us on the walking stretches. This fact began to bother all three of us - how were we keeping the same pace with a woman who was walking the entire dish? We pushed ourselves to run the length of three normal running stretches, and then sped walked down the last long hill, leaving her firmly in our dust.

Even though Alissa was gone this week, her "pusher" influence was still present; both Ken and Kristyn were pushing me to my limits this week, and I did my best to comply. Heck, I even went so far as to run halfway up one of the longer hills towards the end of the hike! As the three of us hit the final hill of the hike, Kristyn checked the time - we had been hiking for just under an hour. Inspired to beat my current best time of 1 hour, 5 minutes, we sped walked up the rest of the hill, down the last huge hill of the hike, and sprinted towards the entrance gate. Our time? One hour, four minutes. Not bad for someone with a hangover.

There was still one more thing looming over my head - the Friday weigh in. Since I had been cheating all week and weighing myself pretty much everyday, I wasn't expecting to have lost much weight this week. It was pretty disappointing, but at least I kept up with the hiking during the week, and that's really the point, right? Anyway, I was racking up excuses for why I hadn't lost weight this week in my head. The most positive one was, while I was losing weight at the same rate as last week, I was gaining weight in muscle mass at a similar rate, thus cancelling out the overall weight loss for the week. The least positive one was that I hadn't eaten as well this week, and that I would never, ever again be able to eat a hamburger, enjoy a beer (although it might be a while before that one), or snack on some coffee cake. I was pleasantly surprised when I jumped on the scale - 317.4. I had lost 4 pounds this week! That made my day.

And then I took the sweetest (short) nap I had ever taken. I still made it into lab by 10. I've never looker forward to sleeping more than I do right now.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Hike Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Nola, Kathy, Kristyn

Today is a freaking awesome day. If every day was like this, I would have no problem getting up at 6:03 am.

As usual, per a Wednesday, the morning began with a hike. Seeing as I was a little late for the 6:45 arrival time, I jogged from my car to the entrance area. Admittedly this was not the best idea, as I was exhausted by the time I reached the entrance - who knew Stanford Ave was a gradual incline? Once we got started hiking, I realized how hard the jogging is going to be on me. With two days of rest, I had no problem jogging again Monday morning; one day of rest between Monday and Wednesday, however, didn't seem like enough. I pushed through the pain, though and made sure that we only took one pause during the whole hike. I also decided that today, I'd try to run 2/2 intervals; that is, run the length of two markers and then walk the length of two markers. While I definitely did not do this the entire hike, I think I made progress in lengthening the time I spend running. What's slowing me down, though, is the pace of the walk that I take after running - it's kind of slooooooow. I'll have to work on that; it might help to have a recording of Alissa's voice in my ear pushing me to go faster.

The first good thing of the day happened during the hike. Kathy was able to identify the source of a problem she had been having in lab, a problem she had been plagued with for a few days. What can I say, the Dish gives you clarity!

As we were walking down the hill near the Gerona gate, Nola, Kristyn, and I ran to reach the bottom. Kristyn and I were giving suggestions to Kathy as to how to go about fixing the issue with her program will jogging along. All of the sudden, in a blur of grey & burnt orange, Kristyn sprinted past Nola and I. She sprinted so fast that her keys came falling out of her pocket! We were all in a fit of laughter as we reached the bottom of the hill and started our way up the last big hill of the hike. As we were trudging along, two women coming the opposite direction 'chastised' us for having too much fun. I 'apologized'. They thanked us for brightening their day, and we walked on.

When I got home from the hike, I took a lovely warm shower and then settled into my devotional. Today was a particularly good day, devotional-wise. I hate to admit this, but I kind of suck at reading the Bible by myself. I much prefer the small group Bible study; usually, other people have much more insight into the deeper meanings of each passage, or their day-to-day applications. My contributions in small group can be summed up as follows: "This caught my eye (insert verse). I don't know why. It's just interesting. Yeah, that's all I can say about that." It's rarely helpful to propelling further discussion on the matter. But boy, do I soak up the little tidbits of insight and wisdom from my peers. Today, however, I was in the zone. I felt like I found a way that the passage applied to my life, and it really spoke truth to my life. I spent a good portion of my time journaling about ways this passage has affected my life. Since I'm in the Psalms, I used the passage as a model for my prayer for the day. I wish every devotional could be like today's.

Things aren't just good at home though; things have also been falling into place at lab. There's only about a week left with my undergrad in lab. I've felt a little bit guilty because things haven't been working out exactly as I had planned for the summer - but to be honest, when do things EVER go as we've planned? To be honest, I felt like I failed him as a mentor. I shouldn't have felt that way. After all, there's no way for me to control whether or not experiments will work out; if I could, I would have graduated a long time ago! All that changed today, however. We got our sequences back for the construct we had been trying to clone all summer ... and we have positive clones! Five of them to be exact. Tying up the remainder of work he has to do during the summer should be pretty straight forward. When my boss stopped by lab to do her daily walk through, I got to share the good news with her; she smiled (a rarity), and said that I'd gotten a great amount of work done with Danny this summer.

Later on today, I was warming up my lunch - leftovers from the progressive dinner this weekend - and the excitement of the day caught up with me. Me being me, I jumped around a bit and did a little dance in the empty hallway. At least, I thought the hallway was empty; I turned around and was face to face with one of our post-docs. He gave a chuckle and said, in his slightly broken English "You excited." I blushed and nodded. And then I continued to dance.

That brings me about to now. But the awesome-ness of this day has just begun. I've got minimal experiments to do today. Then, I get to go shopping with Jasmine for food for IV. Then, I potentially get to grab some new music to listen to. Then, I get to clean my room (go ahead, make fun of me ... but cleaning is how I clear my head!). Then, it's off to the airport to pick up one of my best friends from undergrad.

I hope you all are blessed with as awesome a day as I have been!

Her Name Was Nola, She Was A Hiker

Hike Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Nola


Apologies for such a late post! But it turns out, this story takes two days to tell. Nola is just that special ...

Monday, August 6, 2007


I am rarely ever 100% certain of anything. Will I eat lunch today? 95% certain. Will my mom call me this week? 60% certain. Does gravity exist? 99.9% certain.

However, last night, after hearing of Kristyn's big plans for her morning and hearing hesitation in Kathy, I woke up with 100% certainty that I was hiking alone today. It made me a little bit nervous - would I be able to push myself to finish the whole hike? Would I push myself to run any of the hike? I didn't even have my iPod with me. How was I supposed to survive a 3.5 mile hike just thinking? After all, part of the reason I started this little endeavor of mine was to get me obsessing about something healthier than what I was obsessing about before!

My stomach churned a bit as I drove up Stanford Avenue; I was definitely NOT looking forward to this hike.

As I pulled up to park, I noticed a vaguely familiar, white Ford parked in front of me. I looked closer - Texas license plates! Nola was here. Relief washed over me; so much for being 100% certain that I was hiking alone.

I walked briskly to meet Nola at the bottom of the hill. Nola's undergraduate adviser had pestered her all through undergrad to exercise; "youth is wasted on the the young" her adviser would sigh. After joining me in this endeavor, Nola emailed her old adviser to let her know. Apparently, it's one of the few times Nola's adviser has been proud of her, other than being proud of her prodigious academic achievements, of course.


It's been a while since Nola and I spent time one-on-one. We used to meet more regularly, about once a month if memory serves. We had developed this lovely tradition of chatting over Indian food. After work, I'd swing by Nola's place to pick her up and whisk her away to Darbar, a cozy little restaurant behind the Shell station in downtown Palo Alto. Nola would carefully peruse the menu for the ideal dinner item. I was more predictable - pakora for an appetizer, butter chicken for an entree. We'd talk for what seemed like hours about anything that was on our minds, all the while chowing down our dishes; I'd tell you what we talked about, but "what happens at Darbar, stays at Darbar." I dare say that wasn't a single trip to Darbar that did not involve seconds on the rice or the naan. After we had (almost) licked our plates clean, we'd head on home for the evening, our stomachs so full they were almost bursting.

This morning, however, we were running on empty. I'm starting to think that it's a little silly to get up and go running without eating breakfast first; both Nola and I agree that we lose our appetite for breakfast after we've gone hiking. However, that would require getting up even earlier, and that's just plain out of the question. After powering through the first hill, we took our first (and only!) pause of the hike. I don't know what came over me, but after the oh-so-grueling second hill, I just kept on going. Nola noticed. "No pause?" she asked. Nope, no pause. I'm determined to make a bit of progress on each hike, even if it's as small as cutting one stop out of the hike.

And then, the running began. On Friday's hike, I had warned most of the group that I was planning on adding running to the hike regimen. Nola had been out of the loop on these plans, and I think I caught her a little bit by surprise. Today, however, we both knew that running was in the works. As usual, the first stretch of running was the hardest; my muscles were tired from dragging me up the hills, and this time, without that precious extra stop! Then on, it was kinda a piece of cake. I even added an extra sports bra to my hiking attire, making the running a little less painful.

From an outsider's perspective, our conversation must have seemed quite odd. On the walking stretches, the speed of our conversation outpaced our walking tempo by a few orders of magnitude. The running stretches, however, were filled with silence punctuated by my short gasping breaths; how anyone talks while running is beyond me. As we walked on, the cadence of our conversation seemed to increase, as if we were trying to make up for lost time.

Before we knew it, the hike was over and it was time to say our goodbyes. If there's anything I learned today, it's that I can be 100% certain that I have been blessed to have befriended such a lovely person as Nola.

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

In a sermon at MPPC a few weeks ago, I learned the following tidbit of information. The three phrases that people identified that they wanted to hear the most were the following:

1. I love you.
2. You are forgiven.
3. Supper is ready.

The first two are kind of givens; who doesn't need love and forgiveness? When our pastor told us the third, however, the congregation giggled. It got me thinking, however, about how paramount food is to our physical and emotional happiness and how large a role food plays in our lives.

Tonight, food (more specifically, meatloaf) brought two friends even closer. Nola and I had some business to take care of; I'm taking over her role as NSO czar for IV grad this year and I had to learn all the tricks and tips. I suggested that we talk over dinner; more specifically, that we could talk while making dinner. Nola had been pestering me for a while to share my recipe for turkey meatloaf with her, so I figured, what to better way to share the recipe with Nola than to have her help me make it? This meatloaf is one of my favorite things to make. It's simple to make, incredibly tasty, and can make myself and entire week of dinners in one go. I was pleased to find out that Nola had been craving this meatloaf since Tracy and I had served it at small group ... in November.

Everything in Nola's apartment makes me feel like a giant. Everything from the salt shaker to the sponges to the guitar in the corner, even the dish rack (!), is pint-sized, much like it's owner. Just to poke a little fun (and because I was curious), I took a peek at the cabinets above her stove. They were filled with knick-knacks and some muffin pans; things Nola admitted she didn't use very often. Unfortunately for Nola, the counters are not as pint-sized as she would like; to mash the potatoes, Nola had to set the bowl on one of her bar stools. The counters, on the other hand, were the perfect height for someone as tall as myself; I guess there's still space for this giant in Nola's place.

While the night had been set aside to get down to business, I'd say we probably spent 15% of our conversational energies on NSO. I dare say that Nola and I together could probably spend days discussing the relative merits of mauve and turquoise. It always amazes me how one conversation can so smoothly change direction. One minute, you can be discussing bridesmaids dresses, and then somehow transition smoothly into whether or not vocal tonalities portray a certain 'vibe'.

If I didn't have to get up and hike tomorrow, I can almost guarantee you that I would still be at Nola's right now. I wonder what we would be talking about next. The Spanish Inquisition? Our ideal travel location? Ideal nail polish color for toe nails? It is so wonderful to have someone in my life that is so easy to talk to and enjoyable to talk with.

Running Like The Wind Blows

Hike Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Alissa, Amy C., Kathy, Kristyn, Nola, Xianne

Lots of stuff to cover today ... you might want to grab a snack before diving in!

First things first, I decided on a name for my groupies - The Wavelengths. Other potential names were the Dishettes (which was thrown out because there are some guy groupies) and The Satellites. I settled on the name the Wavelengths because: 1) it's quasi-related to The Dish, and 2) one infamous night between me & Kristin Briney that defined our friendship. I forget how it came up, but we in Chicago, staying at a friends place, and chatting late into the night. Somehow we got talking about light and the like (because we're nerdy) and how wavelengths were somehow related to friendship (Kristin, you might need to correct this story a bit, because I'm not telling it well and I don't remember it all. Long story short, this is what I remember from the conversation: "What's YOUR wavelength?"

And now, onto more important things ...

I think I need to update my specific aims, because I RAN (ok, jogged is more like the word) about 1/3 of the hike today. I kind of started on Specific Aim #3, totally bypassing Specific Aim #2. Not that these aims are set in stone, mind you, but I thought they'd be a good guideline.

Anyway, it felt gooooood to run, which kind of surprised me. After meeting up with the girls at 6:45, we all stretched and headed up the hills at 6:55. A few days before, Alissa "The Pusher" Murphy had suggested that we power walk up the hills. I nixed that idea immediately, and suggested instead that we walk up the hills, and then alternate running and walking to the posts marked "Recreational Path". I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to run up the hills at all - that goal seems very, very far away as I still feel like I'm going to die after I reach the top of the second hill.

After making it to the top of the third hill, the running began. The first stretch is slightly uphill, so it was a little bit of a push to make it to the road marker, especially with tired legs. At the beginning, I wasn't so sure that I would be able to keep up with the pace; I even discussed walking two marker lengths and then running one. However, I soon began to discover that the walking segment was enough to rest my legs (and my heart) enough to get me going for the next running segment.

As the running continued, I realized one major thing: I need a new and more supportive sports bra. For years of my life, I was definitely in the 80-85% of women who wore the wrong bra size. When I was growing up, I was totally jealous of the girls who could fill out a B, C, or D cup; I could barely fill an A for a long time. Eventually, I accepted the fact that I was flat-chested, and I moved on with my life. Throughout high school and college, I wore a B. I barely filled the cup, so I had to use those lovely chicken cutlet looking inserts to fill out my bra and most dresses I would wear. I never bothered to get measured again, because I figured I was way past puberty and there was no way the ladies were getting any bigger. Buying bras was always something I dreaded; as a big girl, you're expected to have a big chest. Consequently, few to no bras are available in a B cup. After much frustration searching for the right bra, I discovered that if I bought a bra a few sizes smaller, and used the bra extenders, I could fit a C cup. This was such a relief to me - finally I could get cuter bras!

On one of my semi-annual bra shopping trips, however, my world was turned upside-down. While perusing racks of lacy demis and plunging underwires, a sales lady came up to me and asked if I wanted to be measured.

"No thanks," I replied. "I've always worn a 44C."

"C?!?!" she exclaimed. "Honey, there is no way you've been fitting into a C! You have got to be all sorts of uncomfortable!"

"Um, kind of. But they don't make any B cups in a 48." I replied sheepishly.

"Girl, you've got to be kidding me. You're at least a double D!" she said.

Being the type of person that hates to be shown wrong, I asked her to measure me. I told her there was no way she'd measure me as a double D, a D, or a C. Getting fitted for a bra is one of the world's most uncomfortable experiences - and this was no exception. My sales lady was not as vertically endowed as myself, and thus, was about eye level with my chest. She also didn't have the longest arms in the world, and instead of asking me to pull the tape measure around myself, she buried her head into my chest and squeezed herself against me. It must have looked like a pretty intimate embrace to passers by. After taking the appropriate measurements, she stepped back from me and said: "46 D".

My jaw dropped. The flat-chested young woman I had been did a little jump for joy. I was so proud of this fact, that I let the world know. I told all of my friends - even my closest guy friends. I told my labmates. I told my mom. After I had bragged to just about everyone, I spend (probably) way too much money on really, really cute bras. But apparently, I DID NOT spend enough money on supportive sports bras, as I found out this morning.

While running, I also realized that my basketball injury (my sprained ankle) may not be completely healed; it got pretty sore near the end of the hike, but it feels fine now. It's always amazing to me how long it takes to heal a sprain. At least, I think my ankle was just a sprain; I never really had it X-rayed.

As we reached the end of the hike, I saw the last sign (that I was running to at least), and I in the distance, up a small hill. Something came over me, and I ran that last stretch like there was no tomorrow. As we walked down that last hill, the desire to run came over me again.. I ran on the flat part of the hill until I reached the security booth. I guess I was definitely feeling the 'runner's high', because I also ran the two or so blocks back to my car.

Finally, it's Friday - and that means it's a weigh-in day! Since I now have two data points (nerd), I can start to chart my progress using WeightTracker 2.0 (a.k.a. Microsoft Excel). I've also plotted the goal weight loss line, which is 2 lbs/week. Without further ado ...



That's right, 7.4 lbs in 8 days! I'm pretty sure most of it is water weight and I'm totally sure that I won't keep on losing weight this quickly - it's just not sustainable. But I feel accomplished!

Speaking of feeling accomplished, how about the fact that I took 10 minutes off of the hike time today! Wait, let's put this in perspective - last Friday, we didn't even finish the hike. I only tried to run a portion of the hike on Wednesday. Today, I took 10 min off of the hike time and ran a 1/3 of it. I'm pretty sure the acceleration of pace that I've got going isn't sustainable (as Kathy said, there is no way I could do the hike in -5 minutes), but I should celebrate the fact that I'm doing so well with this! And I couldn't have done it without my Wavelengths. If only I knew about my plans, I'm pretty sure I could justify sleeping in and forgetting a day or two. With so many people cheering me on, it would break my heart to let them down!

Out Of Focus

All day long, I've been feeling off-kilter. My mind has been reeling since the moment I woke up.

At first, it was filled with simple, day-to-day questions: Did I pay the electricity bill? Do I have enough money for rent? What experiments will I be doing today? What experiments will my summer students do today? How are my mice doing? Do I have time to put away the dishes before I go to work? Do I need to grab the IV supplies for large group set-up tonight? What should I wear?

And the the spiral began: Am I being a good mentor to my students? Will I make a good teacher? Do I really want to teach? What if all my experiments fail and I prove my work to be a waste of time? Why am I doing a PhD again? Will I ever learn how to manage my money? Am I always going to rely on my parents for money? Am I ever going to be able to afford a house and kids? Am I ever going to have a house and kids? Am I ever going to get married? Is anyone going to ever be able to love someone as broken as myself? Are my motivations for this quest of mine on target? Am I doing this for myself and my health or am I doing this just for my looks? Do I really believe that I will never be loved if I'm this size?

Needless to say, it wasn't the best start to the day.

My mind was already exhausted by the time I came into lab, when the real thinking had to begin. Nevertheless, the day continued on the downward spiral that it started on. First, my undergrad's experiment didn't work out ... again. Then, I realized that a fairly silly mistake that I had made invalidated 2-3 weeks of work I had done. Seizing the opportunity to hit me while I'm down, the notoriously bitter graduate student in our lab decided to suck away all of the remaining hope I had in my project. Our big animal experiment is giving us the exact opposite result of our hypothesis, and even our even-keel boss seems disappointed. I just want to curl up in a little ball and cry.

I sat down at my computer to type this post to whine and to let it all out. I hate it when I get this way and I hate admitting it, especially in such a public (and permament) manner. I feel very exposed, as if I'm standing naked in the middle of a room of strangers. But I promised to be honest, so here it goes. I usually deal with being stressed in the following ways: 1) eat anything my heart desires, 2) cry about it with friends, 3) sleep, 4) drink. Today, I felt torn: I felt this burning desire to drive to Safeway, buy everything I've been keeping myself from eating, and binge until the wee morning hours. I also had a huge desire to go running - to sprint until I couldn't breathe and pass out from exhaustion. Clearly, running is the better option here; but both are pretty much going to extremes (how very like me to do as such). Unfortunately, neither of the options are really available to me, as I'm stuck in lab for the next few hours.

Like many members of my generation, it's hard to find me sans iPod. I can't imagine my day without it. To spice things up a little bit, I've been 'randomizing' what I listen to by closing my eyes and turning the click wheel in every which direction until I hit play. I generally don't even look at the screen to preview what music will be assailing my ears next. As I sat down to write this post, fed up with the day and with my lab and with my life at the moment, I randomized my playlist.

And then everything changed.

As the song started, it's familiar chords and melodies brought tears to my eyes; it was comfortable, like going home. The song, incidentally, was "Wonderful, Merciful, Savior" by Selah. If you've never listened to it, I'd urge you too - it's beautiful. Also, I'm a sucker for the piano, which is pretty highly featured in the song. At any rate, the song reminded me of something - I've been neglecting my devotionals this week. Before I started this quest, I had the goal of making a more consistent morning routine, including a daily devotional. I found that when I started my day with a devotional, the circumstances of my day didn't weigh as heavily on my shoulders as they did today. Focusing my mind on God in the morning focused the rest of my day on Him. I'm not saying that bad days didn't happen then, just that the stress of them didn't stick to me; instead, the stress just rolled off of me and I was able to be joyful despite my circumstances.

And so, beginning tomorrow, the daily devotional will make it's triumphant comeback to my morning routine. Seeing as I'm already cutting it close in the morning, I'll need an extra half an hour or so to give it the time it deserves (and to be honest, it deserves much more time than that). Maybe instead of waking up earlier, I'll just come into lab a little later, say 9:30 am. That seems more reasonable.

It's All In The Numbers

Hike Time: 1 hour, 20 minuutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s

I have done 4 hikes in the last 6 days. On those 4 hikes, I have completed the entire hike 3 times. I have also tried to run 1 hill, and made it 1/2-way up.

On the first hike, I had 6 people join me. On the second hike, I had 3 people join me. On the third hike, I had 2 people join me. On today's hike, I had 4 people (my lab manager Karine, labmate Lu-En, Tracy, and Nola) join me. All in all, I have hiked with 11 different women since Friday.

I start my morning with a shake that contains 4 strawberries, ~10 raspberries, ~20 blueberries, and one scoop of protein powder. In each scoop of protein powder, there are 26 grams of protein. I have eaten salad 9 times since Friday. I have eaten a sweets 0 times since I started this endeavor.

My starting weight was 329. Today's weight was 323. I have lost 6 pounds in 6 days.