Up in the Gym Just Workin' on My Fitness

Thank you Fergie for that fine introduction! I wanted to drop by today and touch on where I am at fitness wise. There is a whole story to be told about me and fitness, which I will give a very brief version of. I was not always as fitness oriented as I am now. From middle school through high school, PE was an embarrassment. I was a chubby kid who ran 18 minute miles on a good day. In high school I joined color guard, which really is like taking up a sport, and accidentally started down a route of "surprise, I like to exercise". Then when I entered college I started exercising regularly to deal with stress. To the best of my ability I would schedule my academic classes around my gym classes. It was pretty sweet. And then, junior and senior year I discovered BodyAttack and I became a GYM RAT! I don't know what it was about this specific class, the instructors, the intense routines, but I loved it. I didn't care what I needed to do academically, that one hour class was my top priority. Oh, I have to skip dinner? Oh, I have to study for a final? Oh, I'm going to have to stay up until 6am to get all of my work done? Whatever! I'll worry about that post-BodyAttack. In fact, I was so dedicated to this class that one instructor told me I should become a certified instructor. Hard! Core! And I was totally into this idea, but I never looked into while I was there and then I moved back to California and blah de blah it never happened. I did, however, join a gym when I moved home, but by the time winter '10 I was in a rut and barely going. 

Then sometime in January I discovered Oxygen magazine and in February I bought my first one and for various reasons embarked on their plan of clean eating and strength training. And let me tell you, four months later I am HOOKED. I'm not as into strength training as I was/am BodyAttack, but I do love and appreciate where this current path is taking me. And honestly, even with only four months under my belt, I can tell I am in the best shape of my life.

At some point I will upload a calendar to give a better idea of how dedicated/into fitness I currently am. And hopefully as time goes on I will create and post videos about exercising and clean eating. Right now I am going strong because I have reunions coming up in a few weeks that I, vainly, want to look smoking hot for. But long term I think I will seriously look into 1.competing in figure competitions and 2. becoming a BodyAttack instructor. Because I do not want this to be a momentary, I was 22 and did this for a while change. I want this to be my life forever. For me, this was a lifestyle change.

The Importance of Female Friendship

(what a stuffy title!) For years I was one of those girls who routinely said "I don't have very many female friends. Guys are easier to get along with." And for the most part it still stands true; the proportion of male friends I have is much higher than that of female friends. (This girl, who wasn't my friend, once told me that it was b/c I'm physically attractive. As if my personality and wit was negligent/nonexistent. Gee, thanks.) Be that as it may, I have slowly become a strong proponent of female friendship. No matter how close a girl is to her male friends, there is always this breach in understanding. What holds meaning and significance and thus how we approach and view topics is very different. Let me put this into context. A major issue in my life for about the past year has been hair. We can stop right there, and evaluate that. Most men, after that line, would be ready to move on with a careless wave of their hand and a "Don't worry about it" or "I'm sure you'll figure it out." To them the topic is over; to me it is just starting and it is SERIOUS. Even if they discuss the topic with me, it still doesn't register to them how serious and upset I am by the topic. Because to a man, how can hair be a serious topic? And maybe it is a result of me choosing to be serious about topics that most others would find frivolous and inconsequential. And by others I mean men, because you know who else considers hair to be a serious topic? Many other women.

Good Gossip?

I was talking to my friend recently when she said, "Girl, I have some juicy gossip for you. You can't tell anyone!" Of course I took the bait 1. Because what gossip monger could resist? 2. She happens to be my favorite person to gossip with. So she began to tell me this tale of a mutual friend who, up to now, had a pretty solid reputation. (Before you get your knickers in a knot, let me preface, I personally do not hold much store by that kind of "reputation"; how does your sexual activity affect me? It doesn't.) She had rode the line of experience, shall we say, far better than most college students. She could be a virgin, she could be exceptionally experienced, she could be somewhere in between: no one quite knew. Until she hooked up with the wrong guy, who started to spread the word and she had to go around doing damage control/clear her name. (Or so I am told.) On the one hand, it was a solid piece of gossip. But what I found even more interesting was the reaction me and my friend had. It was not spiteful or gleeful or pitying, per se. My automatic response was "I can't believe this guy would do that to her". The girl is not my best friend, but she is a good person. She is super enjoyable to be around, she is funny, she does not take crap from anyone. In short everyone loves her. In turn, she just is not the girl you would expect to be the victim of gossip. (Though I cannot imagine her responding in victim fashion. I can imagine her berating him/him getting the cold shoulder from their mutual community.) Nevertheless, even though the gossip itself was potentially damaging to her reputation, all it did, for me, was bring up feelings of fondness about how much I like this chica bonita. I never considered gossip functioning in this way, as a means of evoking good feelings.

I think a majority of people use and interpret gossip in a way to make other people look and feel bad, about themselves and their actions, and in turn make themselves feel good. Especially women. And looking back, with this example as a reference, I do not find that aspect has even been a part of my gossiping. Do not get me wrong, I do gossip frequently and even my closest friends are not exempt from it, but I gossip because 1. I am nosy and enjoy hearing about other people's business/transgressions and 2. it reinforces that people are human. I like celebrity gossip because it tells me that they look just as washed out as I do when I do not wear foundation. I appreciate the fact that they like to wear sunglasses because they are dead tired yet need to run errands. I do that too! I like real life gossip for the same reason. I could care less if a girl slept with half the lacrosse team, but I do appreciate the fact that she has an affinity for muscular men and sex. I like muscular men too! Indeed, sometimes gossip inclines me more towards a person because now I know we have a little more in common.

And maybe I can take this stance because I have never been the victim, to my knowledge, of seriously hard hitting gossip. Oh wait, on second thought, I have. I think I can take this stance because I have a solid concept of who I am and I surround myself with people who have a solid concept of who I am and who they are. Even when we do gossip about each other, it is never vindictive, it is never to put the other person in a bad light. It is generally to point out what a hott mess we are and thereby why we are so fond of each other.

It is not to say that I think gossip is good, per se, but I do think that there can be positive forms of gossip.

Did I do it?...VIDEO!

Because with perseverance and bulldog-ish dedication, this girl GETS. IT. DONE.
Suck it technology.

Technically Speaking

a person's first post (it isn't) should be, well, about herself. Yes? Maybe a little definition on who I consider myself to be or about what I hope to gain from creating this space or even a brief overview of what this space is going to be about and explore. Maybe another time; all that sounds very trite and uninteresting to me right now. In fact, look at the header, I feel that tells a reader all the information he needs to know. No? Oh well. Now, what topic I do want to broach immediately is: HAIR!
No I don't mean the musical, though the original soundtrack was quite entertaining. But my hair. A big reason I created this space was to document my journey through hair. Do not get me wrong, this definitely is not a blog about my decision to go natural (b/c I haven't made any such decision), but I do go through various hair phases because I think hair is fun and I am young enough to deal with even the most haphazard of hair ventures. I should have started something like this blog back in December when I cut off all my hair for the first time [It went from shoulder length to Monica short: http://tinyurl.com/3boljme ] And let me tell you, it was super cute. Since then I have been going from short hair style to short hair style, a very fun and exploitative process, and I am only now realizing that I should document this! And so, here I am and from here we go forth.

[At this point I was supposed to upload a video. I am not tech savvy enough to do that yet. Working on it.]