Off my ASS for …myself – Week 10

Starting weight: 186.4 lbs
Last week’s weight: 171.6 lbs
Current weight: 169.4
Weight loss this week: 2.2 lbs
Total weight loss: 17.0 lbs

I finally got sick of putting up with my increasingly baggy size 12 pants, so I went shopping with a friend today. Size 10 was actually a little too big, and size 8 (which I haven’t worn since high school) was a *little* too tight…but I went with the 8 since I plan on losing more weight and pants always get loose once you wear them a bit. So fuck yeah, back to a size 8. Feeling pretty awesome about that.

The quarter is over, so after I do a bunch of housekeeping things (Yes, Dad, that includes taxes and getting new tires!), I’m going to check out UW’s gym. I hear it’s really nice, and I’m technically paying for it anyway, so might as well go. Someone told me some machines allow you to hook up your iPod to watch videos from a personal TV screen. Guess who’s going to burn calories while watching House and America’s Next Top Model!

Wait, screw that. I can totally manage to play Pokemon while on an elliptical machine.

For the early birds

I’ll be on Atheists Talk, a radio show produced by the Minnesota Atheists, tomorrow morning. I’ll be discussing my upcoming speaking tour in MN, and give a preview of my talk about feminism and atheism. Here’s the information for listening:

Listen to AM 950 KTNF on Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio 952-946-6205 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 952-946-6205 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, or send an e-mail to [email protected]This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it during the live show.

Remember it’s daylights savings tonight! …Because I totally forgot. Good thing I was reminded before the show’s calling me when I’m still asleep.

…Though I’m not going to lie, I’m probably going back to sleep after the interview.

Well, this is new

My mom texted me at 7:15am to let me know the Washington coast had a tsunami advisory. Apparently my groggy reply that I was fine didn’t make her feel better, because she then called me since she and my grandparents were convinced I was going to drown in my basement apartment. Oddly me saying “I live on top of a hill” was more comforting to her than the fact that Seattle isn’t on the Washington coast – it’s on the Puget Sound.

Haha, love you, Mom.

Though it is odd how differently we react to natural disasters we’re not used to. Massive thunderstorm? Go watch the lightning on the deck. Tornado? Stare at the cool green sky before running to the basement. Tsunami? HOLY FUCKBALLS! I’m going to pee my pants if/when an earthquake hits nearby.

Anyway, I don’t know if I have any readers who live in Japan or have family there, but best wishes to Japan. I hope everything there is okay. Same goes to anyone who actually is getting hit by a tsunami.

And you can all stop telling me it was my fault – I swear I was wearing modest pajamas.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Blag Hag!

Awwww, my little blog is growing up! It came into the world exactly two years ago, after I was extremely bored. I guess that reason can apply to many humans as well.Does this mean this is the start of my blog’s Terrible Twos? I apologize ahead of time if I start making crankier posts than usual, waking readers up in the middle of the night, and leaving my stuff scattered across the living room floor. …Wait, I do that last one already.

I’m celebrating my finishing my research presentation and studying for/taking my Statistical and Computational Genomics final exam. Oh yeah, I know you’re jealous. But if you want to have a celebration on your own, feel free to party in the comments. And if you want to give my blog a present… I heard she really likes it when people share posts they liked with their friends.

Oh, and do you know what the most exciting part is? It’s time for another Blag Hag Census! I’ll get a survey up when this quarter is done so I can crunch the numbers over spring break. And now I know enough Python that I can actually write code to analyze the data instead of slaving away in Excel! I’m almost as excited for that as I am for playing Pokemon.

…What, doesn’t everyone like data like I do?

Happy Belated International Women’s Day!

Man, do I fail at feminist blogging or what, missing this holiday? Oh well, such are the consequences of slaving away in the laboratory. I have absolutely no idea what has happened in the world in the last week or so. Wars could have started for all I know. I mean, I don’t even understand all of these Charlie Sheen memes!

Anyway, let’s have a belated celebration with an open thread. Discuss what women you look up to and have been most influential in your life. They can be famous, friends, family – but explain why they mean so much to you.

Dear Everyone Who’s Buying Pokemon Black/White Today

I hate you.

Sincerely,

A certain blogger who is working in the lab and doing exams constantly and can’t play until Friday and wonders how she’s supposed to be the very best like no one ever was if she starts a week late, goddamnit

PS: YES I LIKE POKEMON DON’T JUDGE ME I’M A CHILD OF THE 90s

Off my ASS for …myself – Week 9

So, I decided I’d still keep updating you guys about my weight loss journey. Why? Because it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want. And because publicly stating my progress helps keep me on track, and I’ve been getting messages from people saying I helped encourage them to eat better/exercise too. So yay!

Starting weight: 186.4 lbs
Two weeks ago’s weight: 173.8 lbs
Current weight: 171.6 lbs
Weight loss these past two weeks: 2.2 lbs
Total weight loss: 14.8 lbs

Not bad, considering two weekends ago I was stuffing my face at the SSA SoCal summit, and last weekend I was stuffing my face with free food for grad student recruitment. But I’ve been exercising and eating well on all the other days, so I’m still making progress! So close to the 15 pound mark!

After the end of the quarter craziness is over, I definitely have to go clothes shopping. My pants have become unacceptably baggy. I’m almost another belt loop smaller – to a loop I’ve never used since I bought the belt in college.

If I keep up this rate, I should be really close to my high school weight by the AHA conference in April. In which case I’m totally buying a cute outfit, which I can justify because Chris Stedman wants to find an awesome Boston gay bar for his birthday. If you don’t dress up for the gays, who do you dress up for?

How do I hate thee, apartment? Let me count the ways

I live in a basement apartment. My landlord and his wife live upstairs in the main part of the house. I do like some things about it. It’s a great layout, more than enough space for me, and in a great location. But I’m starting to hate it so much that it’s driving me mad, and I need to rant.

  • Infested with spiders. Including fucking hobo spiders (Google it, if you’re brave – I’m not finding a link). I’m an arachnophobe. This is not good.
  • My landlord pops in constantly, and will even unlock my door and come in. I know this because he’s come by when I’m in the bathroom or getting out of the shower and not able to answer the door, and suddenly he’s coming in my apartment. What the fuck. I basically haven’t been able to watch porn since I moved here because I don’t want my landlord randomly popping in. Do you know how serious this is? I can’t watch porn!
  • Something was fucked up with our water, and he said he’d warn me when the repair people were coming later in the week. Instead he starts banging on my door at 7am to shut off my water. Guess who didn’t get to shower before work?
  • He and his wife apparently leave for California for 3 months out of the year, and they didn’t warn me at all. What do I do if something breaks?
  • I can’t reset my internet when it’s down (which is frequently, fuck you, Comcast) because the router is upstairs in his house.
  • And on that note, I have no control over the heat. I’ve been freezing my ass off all winter, even with a space heater. And when I told him that, he laughed and commented on how is female tennents are always cold.
  • I discovered I have a “No Parties” clause in my lease (my fault – didn’t notice it until I had already driven 2,000 miles to Seattle and was committed to the place). But his son or grandchildren who occasionally housesit for him play music loudly and dance and have parties until 3am on school nights.
  • He and his wife pay for 2/3 of the utilities, while I pay for 1/3, even though they use much more heat and electricity because they have a much bigger house.
  • He and his wife only pay for 1/2 of the internet/cable. “Why not 1/3…?” “Oh, it doesn’t depend on usage.” I’m sorry, but if we’re splitting things like roommates, it’s per person, not per household. Everyone uses it, everyone pays for it.
  • And now that he’s been away for a month, he says he and his wife are only paying 1/2 the utilities instead of 2/3 since they haven’t been using them. What the fuck? Do I get to log every day I’m out of town and not pay for those? How about the fact that I’m not here from 9am to 6pm, but he is and is using the heat and electricity then? Again, I’m fucked and it’s my fault – the lease just says we’ll split the utilities, but doesn’t specify how. Fuck.
  • Cherry on top: He’s a creationist, and he found out I’m an evolutionary biologist, and proceeded to awkwardly try to debate me for 20 minutes after giving me the Comcast bill. I can only imagine what he thinks when sorting our mail and seeing all my stuff from the Secular Student Alliance and Secular Coalition for America.

My landlord is nice and grandfatherly, which sort of makes it worse because I can’t just channel all of my rage at him. He brought me oranges and invited me to Christmas – rage deflected!

But I’m not even sure I can wait until the end of August to move out. Technically I can get out of here if I can find someone to sublease it… Guess who needs to find some unwitting summer intern?

Lesson of the day: Don’t lease from something you randomly saw on Craigslist even if you’re moving across the country, and read your lease carefully.