Forcing myself to eat sushi

is my latest life effort. My first (and only) experience with the questionable food was 3 years ago at a work function (for my last day, I think) at the Harmony Buffet. I don't think it was very high quality food. Anyways, one of my exchange buddies eats nothing but sushi, largely because she claims it is very healthy. Let's consider the facts:

California Sushi Roll:
- rice: check
- seaweed: unknown amount of calories, but really
- avocade: suppose to be good for you?
- cucumber: check
- crab meat: can't be that bad, right
- a little bit of mayonnaise, salt, or sugar: bad

So I tried some on campus the other day, instead of getting my usual pizza or Harveys. I only ate half of it, which was nice because it filled me up quite well. I took the remains home and am eating the leftovers now. Rice doesn't keep well apparently (it's just kind of hard) and I'm not entirely sure that it's safe to eat leftover sushi? I put it in the fridge! Anyways, I don't totally LIKE it yet, but it's not all that bad!

Have I Ever Told You About My Veins

Because they're fairly unusual. It just so happens that they are ridiculously tiny and all located conspicuously over arteries. When I went to give blood with Matt, Mom, Vish, Chris, and maybe some others that I'm forgetting about now (it was a few years ago) they tried in vain for 20 minutes or so to find a suitable vein but ended up rejecting me. Last year I went for a physical at my doctor's office, and told the previous story to the nurse. She laughed, implying that the nurses at the blood clinic don't know what they're doing and that she would have no trouble drawing a blood sample. 10 minutes later, she had given up, too. They decided I was young so they didn't really need to test my blood.

I seem to have less trouble with IVs, though they usually need to be inserted into the back of my hand (when I got my wisdom teeth out) or in my wrist (at my most recent hospital visit).

The girl at the blood clinic rather rudely implied that maybe if I worked out my arms more my veins would be more accessible. I took offense.

Happy New Year!

I don't have any resolutions that I plan to stick by, but here are some random thoughts on general goals / improvements I would like to have in the grand old era of 2007:

1) Stick to my budget
- I made one for the summer of 2006, and then adapted it for the school year 2006/2007. So far it has been going quite well. I am about $1000 under budget for the first semester of school, and that's a nice feeling. So I guess you could say my goal for next semester would be the same level of saving. Most of my money in 2007 will be going towards (in no particular order): books/school fees, cost of living from Jan-May (food, cable, etc.), cancun trip, europe trip, buying car from parents, extra accounting course fees (for the CA requirements), moving fees to Toronto, first/last month's rent in Toronto (not excited for this).

2) Excel at work
- Hopefully I'll have work to do! If they start me off not doing anything, that's not a good thing for me. I need to be motivated and busy from the beginning or I'll get used to doing nothing! Of course I would overcome this onset laziness, because I don't want to be unemployed!

3) Find a good balance between serious and care-free
- I used to be all the former, now I'm almost all the later. Balance is needed.

4) Continue being social
- As a sidebar to #3, it's worth noting that I've become ridiculously social in the last year. Sometimes I'm still shy, usually when tired, but most of the time I put myself out there, meet lots of new people, organize social gatherings, etc. This has been a great change in my life because I've made so many new friends, and I enjoy being a "go to" kind of person who always knows everyone, and what the plans are.

5) Health stuff
- This is a pretty typical resolution. Eat less, exercise more darn it!

6) Life-long learning
- Read at least X number of books. Suggestions on how high this number should be?
- Read The Economist at least once a month, or keep up on current events in some other fashion.
- Take up some kind of enriching hobby (gardening? cooking? 2nd language?)

7) Fashion
- stayed tanned (still not vacuous, I promise) and fashionable

Randoms

- Rewatched the premiere of The Nine which I had dismissed as silly the first time that I read/surfed through it. Much better if you actually pay attention - who knew! Still not sure I'm sold on the premise or the quality of the writing but we shall see.

- Home for Thanksgiving. This hardly seems worth mentioning because the only people likely to read this are the people that actually saw me there, but anyways. I made a pie! And did part of a puzzle, and some homework, and watched some Lost DVD extras and other miscellaneous TV. It was a great weekend; nice to be home.

- I've decided that I dislike Sarah Paulson on Studio 60 as much as Amanda Peet. Can we please get some female lead replacements here?!

- Heroes was great again this week, IMO. Possibly the best episode yet! I'm intrigued to see where pretty much all the subplots go. If there had to be a weak link it would probably be the Ali Larter 'evil twin' character, but even so I'm interested to know what the rules are behind her activation.

- SO much going on the next couple of weeks. Oct 13: Tax Assignment due, and then the week of the 24th two exams and two assignments due. Fun fun! Not to mention the silly Athabasca course I still need to complete by Oct 31st or pay for the extension.

- May possibly take up cooking as a mild to moderate hobby. Buying lots of healthy foods and things that require cooking when I go to the grocery store these days.

- Trying to drink less milk in favor of water these days. I know it's good for your bones (and oh so delicious) but at 200 calories a glass I don't have the room for it! I'm trying to limit my calories to around 1200/day. Plus it's bad for your complexion.

- I read an article in my mom's Women's World that cited drinking water as a legitimate diet in itself. Apparently if you chug a full glass before each meal, you're metabolism automatically speeds up and less calories are turned into fat. Plus it fills you up and so you generally eat around 15% less than you would otherwise. I'm not really trying to diet here or anything, just the more I work out the more it motivates me not to spoil it by eating junk foods.