lisa bug's inkless thinks v.2

Motivation

Two excellent motivational tools:

   

This exam studying is so bad for one's health.  We've all been sleeping badly (often in spite of getting enough sleep, hours-wise), several of us have had upset stomachs or other symptoms of stress, and we've all been gaining weight through overeating and lack of exercise.  I present to you a conversation I had last night with one of my cohort (names changed to protect the guilty!):

Ginny: so one of my bad habits when
Ginny: stressed and studying is that i have to be constantly eating
Ginny: and in the last week and a half
Ginny: i have literally watched myself get fat
Ginny: its sooo sad
Hermione: omg
Ginny: right now i am eating m and ms
Hermione: i have been eating compulsively
Ginny: i know!
Ginny: ahh!
Hermione: i have a huge pack of jelly bellys
Ginny: oooh
Ginny: nice
Hermione: and this morning while i was freaking out i just kept eating them
Hermione: one after another
Ginny: yup
Hermione: when i finished one, i got another one
Ginny: i'm just like that
Ginny: only with me
Ginny: its chocolate
Ginny: and potato chips
Ginny: i ate a whole big bag of potato chips today hermione
Hermione: and then this afternoon when i was freaking out again, i made and ate four pancakes and then a bowl of egg salad and then a bowl of thai soup
Ginny: A WHOLE BAG
Hermione: hahahaha
Ginny: THE ENTIRE BAD
Ginny: BAG
Hermione: yeah... i ate a box of peanut butter cookies last week
Hermione: ones i made
Ginny: even the little bits at the bottom
Hermione: i was talking to myself the whole time
Ginny: i ate them all!
Ginny: me too!
Hermione: "you realize you are eating a whole stick of butter"
Hermione: "no... it's not really"
Hermione: "YES IT IS you idiot, you made them, you know it is"
Ginny: "you realize you ate the whole bag of chips"
Ginny: "no you didn't
Hermione "no it's not really, it's fine"
Hermione: hahahaha
Ginny: "there's one chip left"
Hermione: the voices in our heads are trying to kill us!
Ginny: "oh, might as well eat that one too!"
Ginny: ahhhhhhhh!
Ginny: i know!
Ginny: i have gained 5 pounds
Ginny: in one week
Ginny: that's a pound a day
Ginny: omg
Hermione: hahahaha
Hermione: i bet i have too
Ginny: by the time the test comes
Hermione: this is so bad
Ginny: i'll have gained ten pounds
Ginny: i won't be able to put my clothes on
Ginny: to come to take the test
Hermione: hahahahaha
Ginny: i know!
the spork 12: naked test!!!
Ginny: and you know all the guys are doing just fine!

I can't wait till the exam is over, if nothing else, so I can start exercising again and stop freaking out every day!

Thai vegan deliciousness

I love, love, love California Vegan. 

It's really crunch time now for studying (four full days left AAAAAAAHHHHH) and I'm not just convinced I'll fail, I'm bored with sitting around in my apartment, so this afternoon I went around thrift-shopping (bad for study time, but good for not-losing-it-completely mental state) and then came back and ordered lots of food for dinner even though I had a delicious soup on hand that I made a few days ago (spinach, onion, garlic, Parmesan, and egg).  I'm glad I did, though, because California Vegan always hits the spot, and their staff are so nice it's a pleasure to go there or order from them.  Tonight I had Tom Kha Kai (coconut-milk soy-chicken soup), Thai Yellow Curry with soy chicken, and Rad Nar with soy shrimp.  I love their soy "meats"--generally I'm very skeptical of those but I think theirs are very good.  (OH--I've just looked at their site and it seems they make their own soy meats.  No wonder they're so yummy.)  I'd had both the soup and the noodles before, but never the curry, and now I'm a fan of that as well.  I don't think I've ever eaten anything yet at California Vegan that I didn't love and want to eat past all logical level of fullness.  Every time I get their noodles I just eat and eat and eat, and then finally when my rational self wins out and I push the plate away, I wonder why on earth I didn't stop earlier--but the food is just that good.  It's not fancy, but it's really comforting and tasty and vegan (and I believe organic, too, when possible).

But I am seriously starting to think I am not going to pass this exam.  How could I have left so much studying till the last minute... but then, how could I not have?  I've been so burned out.  Bleh.  Can't WAIT till this summer is over.  As Linda and I were saying today, we're so over this test that we no longer care if we pass--we just want to get it over with so we can get on with our lives!!!!!

Thoughts and second thoughts

Okay, I've now been doing this way too long and need to get back to studying. But first, thoughts on TypePad. I like it. It's much more (and more easily) customizable than LiveJournal, and its interface is much cleaner and prettier--all of which makes sense since LJ is free and Typepad isn't. But I'm annoyed because none of the columns will go all the way down to the bottom of the page; they're just kind of dangling there. I'm currently testing a Plus membership, and if I upgraded to Pro ($15/month, kind of steep for my usage) I could actually go in and edit the CSS of the template, but as I don't know CSS that's of no use to me. It's really bothering me that I can't figure out how to make the columns go to the bottom of the page. $9/month for limited functionality?! Grr...

Test post

The last days of panic before quals have officially begun, as the exam is now one week from yesterday.  AAAAHHH!  And yet here I am taking a break by fiddling around with Typepad.  Why?  I don't know either, I just know I had a brain wave last night about how to redesign my site, and I was thinking I'd get started after my exam.  So, uh, apparently six days before it also counts as "after the exam."  Wow, I'm really losing my grip on math... or prepositions... or something.