Worries

I haven’t posted an update to this blog in almost three months, which is crazy when you think about it because i’m two-thirds of the way through what should be the final semester of my Masters degree. So if anything, I should be posting more frequently than ever, on account of being so interested and inspired by all the things I’m learning. But I am having such a hard time of it.

This semester has been really tough, and a lot of what I’m covering in class is very detached from what I was initially interested in when I applied for the degree. In a way, I think I’m having a crisis of confidence. I’m not convinced anymore that I’m in the right game. Maybe it’s because I have three Economics classes this semester, two of which are pretty hardcore in terms of Maths (I’m more of a pop-Economics fan, things along the line of Naked Economics or Freakonomics). Maybe it’s not. Either way, I’m finding myself both incredibly stressed out and incredibly bored.

That’s really frightening to me. Because even at the end of this degree, it’s going to be so hard to get a job. Some of my most talented friends are way more specialised in their background than I am, and are so good at what they can do, and even they are having a lot of trouble finding anything. So finding any job at all is going to be one thing, but finding a job I’m interested in doing? I’m starting to get scared for my chances. Also, I may not have mentioned it, but in 49 days I’m moving to a country where I barely speak the primary language. Even more daunting!

I think most of this comes down to being scared, because for the first time in a long time, I don’t know what my next step is. It’s not clearly defined, and I am a planner. Not knowing frightens me. What I do know is that I’m really starting to move my focus away from just food and nutrition, and am broadening my interest towards urban health in general. So that’s something. I also expect that moving to Chile will give me some perspective on this privileged panic.

I am 90% sure (with a 95% CI) that all of my uncertainty and nervous energy comes down to the fact that I’m in the last few weeks of my degree, I’m scared that I’m not doing well enough in my Maths classes, I’m scared that I find them boring, and I’m scared about what to do next in my life. University can really suck the fun out of things you find interesting, and I should take that into account too. 

Maybe I’ll just take a three month break, start sending unsolicited essays and photos to National Geographic, and pick my Health career back up at the start of next year. I guess we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I cannot wait for that drunk girl to stop singing out the front of my apartment so I can finally get some sleep.

I got a quarter of the way through this two-day juice cleanse and got myself some lunch. Five hours in I developed a crazy migraine; the instructions suggested that this might be from caffeine withdrawal, and considering that I usually have a cup of coffee and about 15 litres of tea every day, they may have had a point. I was also really, really spacey and MEAN. Now, I’m a bit of a mean girl at the best of times, but around lunchtime, after drinking my second carefully measured glass, I started responding with everything that was said to me with so much venom that I was surprising myself. My housemate and his boyfriend gave me the kit (?) for my birthday, and I only just got around to going through with it this weekend. I posted about my cleanse-related headache and crankiness on Twitter, and was told that apparently Phil Jamieson just came off a THREE day juice cleanse and has never looked better. I’m kind of in awe - I honestly don’t know how he managed. Consuming nothing but 250ml of juice concentrate and water each day is evidently not something I can stand. I fell asleep at around 2pm, which is unusual for me, and woke up at 4pm ready to murder somebody. I’m not usually one for crash diets or these sorts of quick fixes. I knew going into the cleanse that it was silly, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do and it wasn’t. So there you go.

View in High Quality →

I got a quarter of the way through this two-day juice cleanse and got myself some lunch. Five hours in I developed a crazy migraine; the instructions suggested that this might be from caffeine withdrawal, and considering that I usually have a cup of coffee and about 15 litres of tea every day, they may have had a point. I was also really, really spacey and MEAN. Now, I’m a bit of a mean girl at the best of times, but around lunchtime, after drinking my second carefully measured glass, I started responding with everything that was said to me with so much venom that I was surprising myself.

My housemate and his boyfriend gave me the kit (?) for my birthday, and I only just got around to going through with it this weekend. I posted about my cleanse-related headache and crankiness on Twitter, and was told that apparently Phil Jamieson just came off a THREE day juice cleanse and has never looked better. I’m kind of in awe - I honestly don’t know how he managed. Consuming nothing but 250ml of juice concentrate and water each day is evidently not something I can stand. I fell asleep at around 2pm, which is unusual for me, and woke up at 4pm ready to murder somebody.

I’m not usually one for crash diets or these sorts of quick fixes. I knew going into the cleanse that it was silly, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do and it wasn’t. So there you go.

Even though individual energy requirements obviously differ depending on things such as height and daily activity (here’s a guide), 5088 kJ per pizza is still a huge number. Putting that figure in such big type makes it seem reasonable, but let’s compare - I’m going to use CalorieKing as a guide here. A chicken burrito is around 2700 kJ; a foot-long Subway Melt is around 2900 kJ; three fresh salmon sushi rolls are around 2100 kJ; even a whole tub of butter chicken is around 3000 kJ, which is quite a lot, but still far less than Domino’s Prawn Supreme. If you must have this pizza, please stop yourself at four slices.

View in High Quality →

Even though individual energy requirements obviously differ depending on things such as height and daily activity (here’s a guide), 5088 kJ per pizza is still a huge number. Putting that figure in such big type makes it seem reasonable, but let’s compare - I’m going to use CalorieKing as a guide here. A chicken burrito is around 2700 kJ; a foot-long Subway Melt is around 2900 kJ; three fresh salmon sushi rolls are around 2100 kJ; even a whole tub of butter chicken is around 3000 kJ, which is quite a lot, but still far less than Domino’s Prawn Supreme.

If you must have this pizza, please stop yourself at four slices.

The article I wrote a little while ago for Humans in Design has gotten a couple of comments from former residents of Cathall estate. →

I’m honoured to get their input, even if one person was offended, which I feel terrible about. I honestly never meant the article to be a negative comment on residents at all, just an observation of different outcomes and the suggestion that perhaps building design had some influence.

I invited both people to contact me if they would like to be interviewed for the further research I plan to undertake in this area. Hopefully they get in touch, that sort of primary source material would be invaluable.

ummok: Pecans are awesome. Most days I'll mix some pecans with a few almonds, some flavoured wholegrain Sakata (for salt) and some raisins (for sweet) to make a really great in-between meals snack. Healthy, easy, and filling.

I can get behind this snack, it sounds delicious!

I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I’m a little late to the party on some nuts. As mentioned, I only tried pecans for the first time on Friday, and walnuts I only gave serious consideration to last week. I’d been an almond and cashew girl up to that point, but now my pesto range has opened up considerably.

Ask to have the cream on the side at Max Brenner, this is what it gets you. I have been very quiet here lately, partly because I’ve had summer holidays from university, and partly because I took too long between posts and got too overwhelmed at the idea of posting anything new. I’ll try and be better. At the moment, I’m house-sitting out in the country for one of my work colleagues. Let me tell you, there is nothing better as a good diet kick-start than moving yourself to a new environment. Living in my apartment, I tend to impulse-buy chocolate, not eat it, and wind up with a hoard of snacks in the cupboard. This is bad, because I’ll eventually eat it out of guilt (though not all at once, mind you), and that is just a terrible habit to be in. Staying in somebody else’s house has worked as a clean slate, firstly because they are healthy eaters themselves, but also because they didn’t leave the fridge and cupboard stocked, so I had to buy everything I wanted to eat. Inspired by the good diets of the owners, I only bought healthy things when I went to the store, and have managed a sort of mini-cleanse in the process. Not only have I not eaten chocolate for the past week and a half, I haven’t wanted to. Even when dinner guests brought a box of Lindt Lindor Balls over, I didn’t eat a single one. Usually the first step of any diet is to go through your cupboard and throw out anything you have in there that is unhealthy. This is always the hardest part for me (the second hardest is actually making myself move my body towards a gym, but that gets easier the more often you do it). I feel so guilty wasting food, even if I never should have bought it in the first place, so throwing food away - even unhealthy food, is so excruciatingly difficult. I usually end up bargaining with myself that I’ll leave it where it is, but absolutely will not eat it. Totally unrealistic. I always end up eating it. So this physical transportation away from my own kitchen has been excellent - I have even discovered pecans as a new snack (I had somehow managed to get through 27 years of my life without ever eating one). As unrealistic as it is to leave bad food in the cupboard under the promise to yourself that you won’t eat it, a life swap program isn’t entirely realistic either. The only thing to do is bite the bullet and empty your cupboard. Just like a band-aid, do it quickly; grab a bag and throw the sugar in. Even thought it might seem like a good Samaritan thing to do, don’t donate the junk food to homeless shelters either. That’s just passing off bad nutrition to people who really need healthy food. Put your candy bars in the bin, as much as it hurts. It may be a good lesson in not spending money on bad food.  Alternatively, find out who of your friends live in the country and convince them to go on holiday, leaving their cupboard bare.

View in High Quality →

Ask to have the cream on the side at Max Brenner, this is what it gets you.

I have been very quiet here lately, partly because I’ve had summer holidays from university, and partly because I took too long between posts and got too overwhelmed at the idea of posting anything new. I’ll try and be better.

At the moment, I’m house-sitting out in the country for one of my work colleagues. Let me tell you, there is nothing better as a good diet kick-start than moving yourself to a new environment. Living in my apartment, I tend to impulse-buy chocolate, not eat it, and wind up with a hoard of snacks in the cupboard. This is bad, because I’ll eventually eat it out of guilt (though not all at once, mind you), and that is just a terrible habit to be in. Staying in somebody else’s house has worked as a clean slate, firstly because they are healthy eaters themselves, but also because they didn’t leave the fridge and cupboard stocked, so I had to buy everything I wanted to eat. Inspired by the good diets of the owners, I only bought healthy things when I went to the store, and have managed a sort of mini-cleanse in the process. Not only have I not eaten chocolate for the past week and a half, I haven’t wanted to. Even when dinner guests brought a box of Lindt Lindor Balls over, I didn’t eat a single one.

Usually the first step of any diet is to go through your cupboard and throw out anything you have in there that is unhealthy. This is always the hardest part for me (the second hardest is actually making myself move my body towards a gym, but that gets easier the more often you do it). I feel so guilty wasting food, even if I never should have bought it in the first place, so throwing food away - even unhealthy food, is so excruciatingly difficult. I usually end up bargaining with myself that I’ll leave it where it is, but absolutely will not eat it. Totally unrealistic. I always end up eating it. So this physical transportation away from my own kitchen has been excellent - I have even discovered pecans as a new snack (I had somehow managed to get through 27 years of my life without ever eating one).

As unrealistic as it is to leave bad food in the cupboard under the promise to yourself that you won’t eat it, a life swap program isn’t entirely realistic either. The only thing to do is bite the bullet and empty your cupboard. Just like a band-aid, do it quickly; grab a bag and throw the sugar in. Even thought it might seem like a good Samaritan thing to do, don’t donate the junk food to homeless shelters either. That’s just passing off bad nutrition to people who really need healthy food. Put your candy bars in the bin, as much as it hurts. It may be a good lesson in not spending money on bad food. 

Alternatively, find out who of your friends live in the country and convince them to go on holiday, leaving their cupboard bare.

I have no strong feelings towards Nigella Lawson. I never watch her shows, but she doesn’t infuriate me as she does some other people that I know. She just exists and I am aware of her. The above picture, her cover for Stylist magazine, is obviously (and boringly) creating some scandal for being too erotic (or at least so suggests the Daily Mail). a) Who cares? b) If this is worth talking about at all (which honestly, it isn’t), it’s only for the fact that she pretty successfully sums up how I feel about caramel as well. Alexander Chancellor from The Guardian thinks it’s disgusting, to which I’d like to direct him back to my first point. His post, however, which admonishes Lawson for the connotations of gluttony and indulgence that her picture apparently elicits, did lead me to discover something that actually is interesting, which is Eleni Nikolaidou and her book, Starvation Recipes. Nikolaidou spent over a year and a half compiling recipes and survival tips out of newspaper clippings from WWII-era Greece to publish in a book released earlier this year. Obviously Greece is not in great economic shape, and people are buying the book for its suggestions on how to get by in hard times. Unfortunately pretty much every article I found about it was from the same wire story, and I can’t find anywhere to buy the book online. I need to know more! Not that I’m doing so terribly myself, but these historical tips and suggestions of alternate uses for leftovers are just ingenious and completely fascinating to me. The fact that Nikolaidou’s book is doing so well in Greece is one one hand both tragic and depressing, considering the circumstances that the country is in for this to be such a useful resource. At the same time, I desperately want to read it, thanking my lucky situation that I don’t desperately need to read it.

View in High Quality →

I have no strong feelings towards Nigella Lawson. I never watch her shows, but she doesn’t infuriate me as she does some other people that I know. She just exists and I am aware of her. The above picture, her cover for Stylist magazine, is obviously (and boringly) creating some scandal for being too erotic (or at least so suggests the Daily Mail). a) Who cares? b) If this is worth talking about at all (which honestly, it isn’t), it’s only for the fact that she pretty successfully sums up how I feel about caramel as well.

Alexander Chancellor from The Guardian thinks it’s disgusting, to which I’d like to direct him back to my first point. His post, however, which admonishes Lawson for the connotations of gluttony and indulgence that her picture apparently elicits, did lead me to discover something that actually is interesting, which is Eleni Nikolaidou and her book, Starvation Recipes. Nikolaidou spent over a year and a half compiling recipes and survival tips out of newspaper clippings from WWII-era Greece to publish in a book released earlier this year. Obviously Greece is not in great economic shape, and people are buying the book for its suggestions on how to get by in hard times.

Unfortunately pretty much every article I found about it was from the same wire story, and I can’t find anywhere to buy the book online. I need to know more! Not that I’m doing so terribly myself, but these historical tips and suggestions of alternate uses for leftovers are just ingenious and completely fascinating to me. The fact that Nikolaidou’s book is doing so well in Greece is one one hand both tragic and depressing, considering the circumstances that the country is in for this to be such a useful resource. At the same time, I desperately want to read it, thanking my lucky situation that I don’t desperately need to read it.

surplus-plus: Squeezed while you watch. I can’t help but love this.

View in High Quality →

surplus-plus:

Squeezed while you watch.

I can’t help but love this.

“BRISBANE BRISBANE HARAJUKU GYOZA BLOG IT BRISBANE” - Erin. + It’s gimmicky as hell, but it works. However, I do wonder how far into their shifts the waitresses get before they dread anybody ordering Sake. + Dumplings are made fresh, are plumply filled and are pretty delicious. - Surprisingly expensive. I’ve been twice now (the curses of living around the corner) and both times have come away spending at least $35. That’s fine in itself, but I can’t help thinking about Shanghai Village in Melbourne where you can get 18 dumplings for $6.50, as opposed to five gyoza for $8. - It’s still fried food and beer. The sides are refreshing – pickled cabbage and Edamame nicely contrast the dumplings, which even when boiled are pretty heavy.

View in High Quality →

“BRISBANE BRISBANE HARAJUKU GYOZA BLOG IT BRISBANE” - Erin.

+ It’s gimmicky as hell, but it works. However, I do wonder how far into their shifts the waitresses get before they dread anybody ordering Sake.
+ Dumplings are made fresh, are plumply filled and are pretty delicious.

- Surprisingly expensive. I’ve been twice now (the curses of living around the corner) and both times have come away spending at least $35. That’s fine in itself, but I can’t help thinking about Shanghai Village in Melbourne where you can get 18 dumplings for $6.50, as opposed to five gyoza for $8.
- It’s still fried food and beer. The sides are refreshing – pickled cabbage and Edamame nicely contrast the dumplings, which even when boiled are pretty heavy.