At least I'm not buying crack

My weekend was very plesant for a change. Highlights include:

- Actually enjoying the Magic tourney on Saturday. Frankly, I've outgrown it and I know I need to stop sometime soon in order to free up time for more important things. But I did enjoy the pre-release. I'm gonna miss those guys.
- Watching 'Fun with Dick and Jane' on Saturday. Vastly better than I expected. Best bit: The voice changing doodads.
- Buying books on Saturday. Every month I promise myself that this is the last time I will bankrupt myself at a bookstore. It never is. I love books. The guy at Exclusive Books made me feel much better about my book habit when he said: "At least you're not buying crack." I have decided to make this my new mantra.
- Swimming with Jude on Sunday. Jude has finally relented and is allowing us to teach him how to swim. He is doing very well.

Weigh-in: current weight - 85.5kgs. That's a loss of 800g! I'm chuffed. Sugar is total 33.5 - 23% of total points. I am starting to feel as if my goal of 14 points is a bit drastic. Maybe I should chop it up into mini-goals. So this week my goal is to eat less than 30 points of sugar.

Cajun ribs and militant weather

Well, despite my best efforts I'm still hopelessly behind in my studies and not much better with work.

 

D and I drove to Durban yesterday to pick up stock for tommorrow's Magic Pre-release. Why is it that every time we drive to Durban the weather suddenly turns militant? Pouring with rain all the way. And I'm nervous in cars as it is. Grrrr.

 

Anyway, we had dinner with Mandy and James and avoided the sale at Exclusive Books ( mmmm....books.... ) I am not allowed to buy any more books till May. Well, maybe one or two...

 

I had Cajun Ribs. They were yummy and I didn't even break my diet! Yay! Go me!

Diversions

I have promised myself a few days to catch up at work so I'll probably be a bit sporadic post-wise. Just two things I think you should check out:

For those other Sims fans out there (you know who you are) the new GameSpy preview series for the Open for Business expansion is up. I thoroughly enjoyed their previous preview sets and this one seems like a worthy successor.

And for those of us you just need a little inspiration, check out One Red Paperclip. Awesome.

Wash, rinse, repeat

I am in dire need of a diversion in my life. I am chronically bored. The only thing that keeps me sane these days is gym and studying (and only because I find the material interesting).

 

My day is as follows:

 

Get up

Go to work

Work

Study

Work

Try to study - some twit will phone with some stupid problem they could fix themselves and interrupt just as I'm getting interested.

Work

Go to gym

Go home

Make dinner

Watch TV

Sleep

 

I need something new. A hobby or somesuch. Problem is, I am so busy on my mission to self improve it feels like I'm waiting for the end of Phase 1 (The Diet) until I tackle anything else.

 

I don't know what my next move should be.

Thou shall not abuse bandwidth. Or sugar.

So the weekend is over and I'm back at work - worse luck. I'm currently trying to juggle the demands of my job, studying and finishing my character for RP tonight ( a task that is made somewhat harder by the fact I lent my Player's Handbook to Sean ).

Sunday's weigh-in was not as good as I had hoped. I only lost 300g. Current weight is 86.3kg. This despite having eaten less over the past week. Ah, well, it'll come right. Sugar remains an issue. Total sugary food consumption was at it's highest yet at a total of 38.5 points. This means that sugar accounts for roughly 30% of my weekly calorie intake. Yipes. Not Good.

Went to gym yesterday and had breakfast at Kauai, yummy. I had the fruit salad with museli, honey and yogurt with a Yoga Berry smoothie. Delicious.

Those observant souls among you may have noticed that my blog has something new. A button. Normally I am vehemently anti-button. Anti-'Bandwidth Abuse' in general, really. I figure that people go to blogs to read the posts or see the pics not to be bombarded with advertising that's irrelevant to content. Now, I understand that certain sites need the adverts to keep an otherwise free resource going and that is all very well and good. BUT - when the good folks at Blogger give you space for free I wonder at the ethics of advertising on their dime webspace-wise. I also have a lot of sympathy for those of us who are on dial-up (hopefully I will quit this sorry state soon, once Telkom get their act together). It costs us money to download this rubbish.

I am perfectly alright with links that are relevant to content and in some way expand on the contents of the site you were looking at - students who link to their school etc. But otherwise this stuff just annoys me.

Now, as to why I have made an exception for Gutenberg - these guys deserve it and need all the support they can get. It's a really worthwhile project.

Oh - and the Lohan thing is just too funny to miss :)

It's another diet post. Thin people can stop reading now.

Okay, so Dreamweaver put up a post about her diet today. I am chuffed that she is doing so well (I'm sure that I wouldn't have the discipline for it). Towards the end of her post she mentioned a question I asked her quite some time ago about the reasons she wanted to change. I have tried for some time to come up with a clearer way to ask that question because, to me, the two alternatives are not as similar as they first appear. Let me explain:

The two reasons for change diet-wise produce a lot of the same response - people who feel them go on diets, work out etc. and may even produce similar thoughts like 'wishing I was thin', 'fantasising about being thin'. They are, however, VERY different.

I think the real distinction lie in your feelings about those to states: being fat and being thin and the depth of your feelings about them.

Being FAT

The person who hates being fat feels emotions like shame, anger, disgust, self-hatred, disappointment. They think negative thoughts when they see themselves in the mirror and tend to give themselves a rough time when they cheat on diets or skip workouts. They see themselves as a fat person. The intensity of 'fat' feelings are high.

I am a person who'd love being thin...I rarely feel bad about being overweight. My feelings towards myself are similar to those a good friend would feel if they had a friend who had made a mistake. I feel sorry that I have to deal with the consequences of this mistake and I do not deny that the situation I find myself in is the result of my own poor choices but I don't beat myself up over it. Everyone makes mistakes and bad choices and I tend to look ahead to better days rather than dwell on the extra pounds now. My 'fat' feelings are of fairly low intensity.

Being THIN

I honestly think that a lot of people don't want to be thin. They want to be anti-fat. Often I will hear people talk about how they would love to be thin but they don't seem to attach a lot of thought to it. Talking to them about being thin doesn't seem to evoke the same passion as talking about being fat. It's more like a pleasant day-dream than a pressing reality. The intensity is low.

Being thin is more than just having a low body fat %. It is a mindset in which you value your own health, wellbeing and longevity above the pleasures of an unhealthy lifestyle. If you don't value your own health above chips or chocolate or lying on the couch watching TV you will stay fat. You may starve off the extra pounds and drop your body fat but inside you will still be a fat person and in time the body fat will come back. Thin is not a weight - it's a choice.

I am passionate about the 'thin' mindset. Exercise is a pleasure now. I LOVE the gym. I love making good food choices because everytime I do it is an affirmation of my own worth. Each time I do it is as if I were saying to myself: "Honey, I am making this choice because your life is worth more to me than a Kit-Kat." When I picture myself at a healthy weight I picture myself in the gym each day, eating good food and (this is important) being happy doing it. It's not a sacrifice to not eat junk because it's my choice. My 'thin' feelings are high intensity.

Now I don't think anyone is really either of these extremes. I still have times where my self-worth drops and the 'hate' thoughts come back. I stop gym and I eat the wrong stuff. Slowly though I am drifting in the 'thin thoughts' direction and I see improvements in how I feel about myself every day. I think most people with weight issues are somewhere inbetween. I do think, though, it is SO much easier to lose weight if the 'thin' lifestyle holds appeal.

Grey Day

I'm getting really busy now that my studies are back in full swing and our clients are returning from their holidays to mailboxes full of doctors' accounts that their schemes haven't paid for one reason or another. I wish I could just unplug the phone for an hour or two so that I can catch up on important things, like maintaining my blog.

Last night was fairly dull. First, it was off to Weight Watcher's for the obligatory weigh-in, it wasn't so bad. Turns out that she only corners you with enforced caring if you have put on weight. After that I did my first upper body workout of the year and am less than pleased. I am SUCH a Wendy. All the results I worked so hard for last year are pretty much gone. Then we went home, made dinner (ostrich wors and steamed veg - yum!) and watched the Simpsons and The Weakest Link. Mandy and James popped by for a while. It was nice to see them, I will miss them when they leave.

Other than that, the world continues to orbit the sun.

On the upside: The weather was cooler today.

Avoiding the People Who Care.

And so the heatwave continues.

I have Weight Watcher's today and I'm kind of dreading it. I feel terrible about this because everybody knows that I am a real believer in this program but my problem is more with the leader (and, to be honest, even that is not really her fault.)

It all began when I first joined some months ago. I joined for the booklets, pure and simple. I know the meetings work well for some people but they really aren't my thing. I just want to go, get my booklet for the week, maybe pick up a recipe sheet and leave. Now I wasn't even planning on starting the diet in ernest 'til 2006. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it but I knew I would be in the New Year. So for those first two meetings I put on weight. Then they closed for Christmas and I continued to pack on the pounds. My weight topped out at 91.3 and I have lost since then but according to my weigh-ins at meetings I have put on every week since I joined.

This has prompted her to go into hyper-supportive mode where she holds me up with long lectures giving advice such as "Focus on veggies.", "watch your portion sizes", blah, blah, blah. Now I know this is great for most of the other members, but I am really not interested. I don't need my portions adjusted. I know when I'm following the program and when I'm not (and I was cheating for ages, I am well aware of it.) I know she means well and does care about my progress.

It's my own fault really, I just don't know how to say "Shut up and leave me alone." in a loving, supportive way.

I'm melting! I'm melting!

Well, the African summer is here, no doubt about it. Writing this post is an act of sheer will, I am so tired I simply what to go home and sleep until the temperature drops to something less obscene. I have no idea how I will summon up the willpower for gym this afternoon.

Yesterday was not much cooler. We sweated out the workday and then proceeded to roleplaying which was probably the most lethargic character creation session I've ever been to. You can't blame us though, with the heat and the yummy lasagna the evening was doomed. Better luck next week.

I feel that I have done as much as I can today blog-wise. I'll try harder tommorrow.

By Jove! I do believe it's working!

I had a wonderful weekend. We had Magic on Saturday which was a bit boring but we got a fair amount of nice stuff done:

Went to go see The Brother's Grimm. Best bit - all the subtle fairy tale references.

Went to see Jarhead. Best bit - the whole thing was awesome. Loved it.

We went to gym. Still feel like a blob.

I finally got my study materials so I can start that today. I'm looking forward to it. I made a huge colour-coded study time table this weekend. I feel that perhaps I have gone too far organisation-wise. Mandy would probably love it though, so that's okay.

Made peri-peri salmon kebabs for dinner. This is the first time I have made anything with fish that didn't come out of a brightly coloured box. It was good-ish.

Best bit this weekend:

Weigh-in.

I have lost 4.7kgs since January 1st! Nearly 5kgs in two weeks. I am thrilled, but a part of me is concerned that it's too fast to be healthy. Current weight is 86.6kgs. My total sugary-foods points this week was 30 points which is less than last week but still much higher than my goal (14). I will need a new plan on how to tackle that.

Attack of Cheery-ness

I am so excited about my studies this year. Darius and I went to buy two of my prescribed books after work yesterday and they are facinating! I am battling to concentrate on work 'cause I'm so hooked. I wish I could have studied this stuff in first year instead of all those silly courses I had to do. I can't change the past though, so I'm prepared to let that go and just enjoy this year.
 
Other reason's I can just feel that 2006 is going to be an awesome year:
1. I was feeling guilty about buying the Franklin Planner. It was an exorbitant sum of money. After 13 days I have to say that I think it was worth every penny. I feel so productive and less stressed because I don't have to mentally waste energy on keeping track of pointless to-dos. It is one of the best things I have ever done for myself.
2. Sugar is losing it's hold already. I never thought it would go this fast. Today I could have had cookies for morning tea. I chose health bread because that's what I felt like. What? Me? Taking the healthy option? By choice? I never would have thought I'd see the day.
3. I am excited about my own wellbeing. I am enjoying the process of getting healthier. Gym is a pleasure I look forward to.
4. I am on top of things at work and have loads of plans for how to make 2006 the best business year ever.
5. Darius seems far more engaged at work and seems to be feeling more positive ( I hesitate to say it but I think some days he actually might be enjoying his job. Gasp.) I am so proud of him.
6. I'm interacting with my family more. I'm chatting to them and I know more about what's going on in their lives. It's awesome.
7. Mainly though it's my studies. I am so thrilled that I have the chance to learn this stuff.

I know it's a bit late but: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In other news:

D, Mandy, James and I went to see the Wallace and Gromit movie yesterday. I LOVED IT, it's impossible to pick a 'best bit' but these are my favs (in no particular order):

"May contain nuts"
"Pansy spray"
"Middle age spread"
"Claude Savagely"

Surprisingly all of my favorite bits had to do with the backgrounds in the movie, not the actual content. If nothing else, it's worth watching if just to look at the extraordinary attention to detail in the sets. So if you haven't seen it: go. And take your glasses.

The Road to Wellness: Swallowng the Bitter Pills

Lately I've been becoming more and more concerned about my health. Recently, my younger brother James has been hospitalised due to severe vomiting (so severe that he has burst a number of capilaries in his eyes thereby replacing all the white areas with a rather shocking red), he has some kind of gum infection around his wisdom teeth so they will have to be removed and he managed to get a very nasty case of rubella. My mother has been diagnosed with serious water retention and is unable to sleep because her arms keep losing circulation and alternating between mind blowing pain and no feeling at all (which she says is worse.) All of this, plus observation of various ailments in other people I know, has given me a new respect for my body and an uncomfortable awareness of the damage I've been doing to it for the past 8 years or so. Most of my thoughts have been revolving around macabre fantasies about me being hit by a car. I keep thinking about myself lying there about to die and what I would give in that moment to spend just one more day with the people I love. I feel so stupid that I have done so many things that have cost me not just days but weeks and possibly even years. I've allowed myself to become grossly overweight, I smoked for 8 years, I didn't exercise and I ate a big pile of garbage (nutritionally speaking). If I was to speak to my 'self-of-two-years-ago' I know that I would have heard all those silly excuses I hear from other people who refuse to take care of themselves:

I may get hit by a bus tomorrow, why should I plan for an old age I may never get?
(A bus may kill you. Hauling around 30kgs of excess flab: that WILL kill you. You prevent bus-related death by looking both ways before you cross the street why not do the same for disease-related death? )

Old age sucks, why should I care about losing the last couple of years? They will be awful anyway.
(Firstly, if you take care of your health old age needn't be physiologically destructive. Secondly, you will still be the same person when you are old with the same attachment to life you have now, with interests, passions and people who you care about. If you have lived well you will probably have more people who you love. Children, grandkids (great-grandkids?) - wouldn't you love to see them grow up, get married, start families of their own? I only need to see the joy in my grandfather whenever he spends time with his great-grandkids to know that while old age might be tough on the body it can more than make up for it in other ways.

I'm young now - I'll sort myself out later.
(This is the biggest load of trash I have ever heard. If a young person abuses their body it affects their quality of life. Period. I know a number of young people who complain of lower back pain, who are out of breath at the top of a flight of stairs, who don't sleep well and are on the fast track to heart failure. My stepfather died at 44 of heart disease. He had an infant son. He was so young.)

I guess why I took me so long to sort myself out was that I was so afraid of taking responsibility for my actions. By changing the way you live your life you are, in essence, admitting that the way you used to do things was a mistake. That's a bitter pill. I used to pretend that nothing was wrong and run the same horse-and-pony show I see so many overweight, unhealthy people do (I'm fine. No really, I'm happy this way. Really I'm sure. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.) I was given a dvd of family videos from gatherings this Christmas and I watched myself and thought: who did I think I was kidding? I'm huge. I'm uncomfortable. I can't believe that I thought that nobody would notice that I ballooned by about 10kgs a year. I was not okay. I'm still not. But I will be.

I've found my calling

Mandy was right, this is very close. Though I am not sure about the second one, I did Anthropology 101 and I HATED every minute of it! When I first went to Varsity I did Math.

You scored as Psychology. You should be a Psychology major! Psychology 100% Anthropology 83% Mathematics 83% Engineering 75% Journalism 75% Sociology 67% English 58% Philosophy 50% Biology 33% Linguistics 33% Chemistry 25% Theater 17% Dance 8% Art 8% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

Dice and Chuckles

So we are back to Roleplaying, now on Mondays at Mr. Smith's place. It was a blast last night.

 

Quote for the evening:

 

Sean: "I thought a glokenspiel was a toy gun."

 

Hehe.

Going, going, gone!

Along with the majority of my friends and family I've gone back on diet as of January first. I have gone with WW again for the reasons I listed in a previous post. So far my goals diet wise are to:

1. Increase my water intake to a healthier level
2. Reduce weight to within the healthy weight range for my height.
3. To spend no more than 14 points of my weekly points allowance on processed sugars.
4. Give up caffiene
5. Eat nothing after 8pm

You will probably notice that I have avoided numbers in my goals as far as possible - at least when it comes to my weight. Most goal-setting material recommends that you set defined, time-limited goals eg. I will lose 20kg by 31st December 2006. Now, I think that this method of goal setting is very valid and an excellent way to motivate yourself and prevent procrastination and non-commital behaviour but I have good reasons for not applying this strategy to my weight, I hope you will agree that I made the right call.

I don't know what weight is right for me. Traditionally, I suppose, I would look back at a time when I was healthy and use that weight as a guide. I was last thin in early high-school so I really don't feel that that weight will be at all accurate when applied to me today. I also want to do some exercise so I am not sure how much muscle mass I will gain. The whole purpose of losing weight, for me, is to regain my health and vitality and not so focused on how I look or whether I can wear size 2 jeans. For that reason I want to aim for a healthy weight and work on my body fat percentage rather than aim for a less than optimum result and then either be dissatisfied when I get to that goal or not reach it at all.

As for time limit, I want this to be about changing my lifestyle permanently. If I attach a time limit to weight loss it is as if I am saying that I only have to maintain the healthy patterns until that date. By attaching a deadline I fear I may be tempted to crash-diet in order to meet the goal if weight loss doesn't come as fast as I anticipated. I am happy with taking as long as it takes to do this in a healthy way. So as long as my weight comes down a little each week that's good enough for me.

I have decided to change my weigh-in day to Sundays instead of Tuesdays for reasons that can be the subject of another post. I also want to do a little report back on my progrss towards goal 3. I didn't get to the gym yesterday so I'm not sure how much I lost in my first week so I can only report on how many points of sugar I ate. Total for week one: 36.5. I blame the Mugg and Bean chocolate cake (19.5 points!). Believe it or not this is substantially less sugar than I used to eat so I see this as a huge step in the right direction.

Hmmm, Jude was right

This one was pretty much on the money. I'm a Metal Monkey chinese zodiac-wise.

Your Love Element Is Metal

In love, you inspire and respect your partner. For you, love is all about fusing together for one incredible life experience. You attract others with wit and a bit of flash. Your flirting style is defined by making others want and value you. Greatness and optimism are the cornerstones of your love life. You may let go too easily, but you never get weighed down by your past. You connect best with: Earth Avoid: Fire You and another Metal element: will control and smother each other

What Element Is Your Love?

Almost an activist, but not quite: The Story of My Life

I spent 3 and a half hours in a queue yesterday afternoon.

I have told everyone this in order to try and get some pity but so far my friends have been less than obliging. It was the first day of university registrations since the office closed for some kind of systems work in early December. I ask you, what kind of ridiculous institution has a huge systems upgrade in the middle of registrations? The spin off of this was that a multitude of students who would have registered in December were forced to register yesterday.

Imagine this:

Place: Room with lines of chairs set up like an auditorium.
Surroundings: Hot. Summer. Africa.

Once every half-hour or so somebody comes out of the registrations office to admit another 7 students or so. There is no water, no food, and if you get up to go to the loo the masses will surely take your spot. At first it was interesting to watch the room. The people at the back were smiling, talking, laughing, griping about inefficient service and 'Africa-Time'. Slowly, as you moved your attention forward they ceased to talk, moved less in their seats and stared ahead with the glassy look of the truly damned. You don't know why...until you've been there a while. For the first hour you are annoyed but in fairly good spirits. The next hour makes you feel like a postal worker just before they drop their bag, pull out a gun and, well, you know the rest. Shortly after, roughly around the time you begin to lose all feeling below the waist, desperation sets in and you lose the will to live. After that is just a blur.

I remember that moment when the guy came in and admitted my group into the registrations hall...I was so happy...until I saw the new block of chairs in there. There was a brief scare when the computers went down and the staff said we would have to return the next day. A group at the front formed a small protest movement (one thing South Africans do REALLY well) but they hadn't even agreed on a slogan or got a decent chant going before the systems came back up and the line started moving again. I will admit I was disappointed, that was the first diversion I'd had all afternoon.

Not long after that, I made the front of the queue and heard that golden word: 'Next!' only to spend a whole 5 minutes registering and sent of on my way. Complete anti-climax.

Thanks to Rebecca the nice nurse from Edendale, Wendy from gym, the guy from Correctional Services and the bloke who gave up his newspaper to us when he left. I miss you all already.

What's the point?

I've been asking myself lately why I continue to attend Weight Watchers if the system has failed for me in the past. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

I guess my real question is why I have been unable to continue a lifestyle change in the long term. Part of it is novelty I guess. I am attracted to novelty like a moth. I have developed an aversion to 'diets' and 'programs' lately because I know that I have no attention span to think of and if novelty is the only thing attracting me it is guaranteed not to work.

I also battle to follow diets when my life takes unexpected turns. I will be the first to admit I don't handle change well. Routine is my snuggle blanket and a well laid plan my ultimate goal. Mess with those things and my life goes into a bit of a spin. I think I need to work on that.

Other than those two things and I really can't understand why it is I battle with it. I really have a lot of faith in Weight Watcher's, it is flexible and easy, no weighing, no banned foods etc. and if you manage your points carefully you can eat a huge amount of food. I am convinced more than ever after watching Mandy on TLC that I'm on the right track but one downside of having large amounts of choice regarding what you eat is that the door to overindulgence is always open and a lot more depends on your good judgement. I like the fact that I have to practice making good choices about my food and I really think that will benefit me in the long run. It also is the type of system I can commit to in the long term. Hopefully as time goes by I will be able to re-introduce foods that i used to overdo, for the moment though I'm cutting them out. What I like about this system is that cutting stuff out is my choice. I am not a victim of my diet.

 

There, I think I've convinced myself.

Oh, and the recipe books kick ass.

Aaaaaarrrrrgggyhhhhh!

It isn't often that I rant. (Check my other posts if you doubt, ye of little faith). So without further ado I present:

South African Business Non-Sense (with a tip-of-the-hat to Dreamweaver)

I am SICK of the stupid excuses I get from companies as to why stuff is not done. My top peeves are:

"Miss. Awol is on leave"
This is NOT an excuse. The world does not stop turning just because you are in Latvia or wherever. It is the responsibility of the company to provide alternative means of completing your workload (temps, delegation, whatever) and your job to ensure that you explain your work so that it can be completed by someone else. This brings me to another point: if you know that your industry is insanely busy on a particular day / season. Don't take leave then. Simple. You want to work in an industry, deal with it. This is like Santa taking leave in December. Irish pub owners don't go on leave on St. Patrick's, teachers don't go on leave during final exams, accountants don't go on leave during tax season - and if they did I would want a VERY good explanation as to why.

"We've been very busy"
Tough. If an employee can't hack it, hire someone else or additional staff. Your problems are not mine.

"She is not at her desk"
Get off your fat ass, go over to the water cooler and call her. Otherwise, find out where she is and tell me when I can reach her. And don't say when she's back from leave.

My number-one-hit-the-roof-want-to-stab-someone-peeve:

"We will not do this the simpler/ more logical/ fairer / better way because it's company policy."
'Company policy' is NOT written in stone. There is always someone who can accommodate a unique case. Contrary to popular belief 'customer service' jobs are about finding ways to make customers happier not finding ways to produce lawsuits. I think perhaps employees should contemplate the fact that companies traditionally promote those people who have the initiative to point out faults in company systems and think of ways to improve them. 'Company policy' is just a way of saying 'I am too lazy to try and find a solution and create a satisfied customer for my employer.'

I want to go home - I am sick of dealing with idiots.

Pulling myself together

The past couple of days we've had Mandy and James staying with us. It's been great. Mandy and I have been feeding off each other's passion for organising things and have been writing resolutions, lists and goals for 2006. It's fab to have someone who doesn't look at me funny when I get excited about labels/lists/cool programs that track your 'womanly cycles' etc.

I'm firmly back on diet now - and I feel confident that I will be able to last the long haul this time. Mandy is on TLC and going through the detox phase and James is on a water fast so there is no rubbishy food in our home at the moment, just loads of fruit and low-gi carbs. Darius is eating potato chips and chuckling. Bastard.

I've been using the Franklin Planner since new year and I am passionately in love with it already. Darius had better watch out, I may run off with it to Bora Bora. I cannot explain how much more 'in control' my life feels now that I am keeping track of what I need to do in a FAR more comprehensive way.

I have decided on my next Big-Ticket purchase. ( The planner was my last one - shipping from the States is REALLY expensive. )

I want a dance mat for the Playstation. Now that is exercise I enjoy! I rented a mat and Dance Dance Revolution Max - I haven't  enjoyed myself so much since The Sims 2 was released. I suck, but in a fun way. And watching your friends make complete twits of themselves is like an added bonus.