FiredGoddessCathy WebGoddessCathy
[don't kid yourself]
[talk to me]


BLOG

    > archives
    > site feed

JOURNAL

PHOTOS

[boy]FRIENDS

TRAVEL


<-- my life, by webgoddesscathy -->


:: Friday, September 17, 2004 ::
Well, I've really done it now: I've got hairline fractures on at least one of my wrists and possibly on both. Way to go. So much for living life with passion. Now it's all about living life with the sexy wrist splints.

The doc gave me the option of getting a cast, but said the splints might be good enough as long as I'm careful. Careful? ME?

I guess I won't be playing Ultimate again anytime soon.

And then I tell my account director at work about it and he sends me this:

Nice.

On the positive side, Sarah discovered the errant end-table tag that DW added to my code that broke my homepage and travel pages. YAY Sarah!


:: Cathy 1:21 PM [+] :: 0 comments





So I screwed up my homepage and my travel section. Honestly, I don't know what I did that made it screw up. Hence, I'm not sure how to fix it. The few things that I've had time to try didn't work. And I'm a busy girl, so I haven't had the time that I need to just take a look at the table structure and see if it's that. Only, I didn't change the table structure, so it should be fine, theoretically. However, obviously I did something and I will fix it. Just be patient.


:: Cathy 5:07 AM [+] :: 0 comments




:: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 ::
In line with my "live life with passion" mantra, I played Ultimate Frisbee last night. And perhaps I had a little too much passion.

After an unglamorous fall to my ass, catching myself snow-boarding-wipe-out-style on the heels of my hands, I was possibly a little dazed to realize how much I'd actually hurt myself.

So now I sit typing awkwardly with my ultra-sexy wrist splint.
I'm off for x-rays tomorrow morning. I hope it wasn't my last Ultimate game, cause it was super fun! (If, by fun, I mean exhausting to the extreme for someone who hasn't exercised in about a xillion years.) Aside from the outstanding exercise, I met some great people!


:: Cathy 6:11 PM [+] :: 0 comments




:: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 ::
I read an editorial in eye magazine on the weekend about the ridiculous notion of objectivity and bias in the media. It points out the lengths that journalists and news agencies will go to in order to preserve a facade of objectivity.
"Clinging relentlessly to a misguided idea of what constitutes objectivity, political reporters in the mainstream are forever hesitant to point out patent absurdities. Instead, they strive for balance, a he-said/she-said structure that isn't often satisfactory: if a White House press briefing told reporters that the White House was in fact black, the reporters doing stand-ups outside the clearly white building would quote colour experts and lay out the 'sharply divided opinion' on the subject."
Ridiculous of course. But then I considered that it might be a little dangerous to go against the White House.

However, the he-said/she-said is getting on my nerves. Case in point, this story:
"A Dutch professor became the first recipient of a new Swedish science prize in the field of medical education research, the awarding body said Monday."
Now, why can't they just write about the FACT that a Dutch professor (Dutch clearly being the most intelligent people in the world) won this award? Why are they reporting that someone SAID that he won? Are they so afraid that they might be wrong? Are they saying that the REAL piece of news here is that an awarding body made an announcement?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that this journalist is any way at fault. Even had they written a different teaser paragraph, I know their editor would have rewritten it this way. I remember the formula writing that I learned in first-year newspaper reporting. I remember Joyce drilling this formula into my head and then understanding why it was that I found news stories to be so unimaginative.

Sometimes I'm really glad that I'm not in journalism.


:: Cathy 5:58 AM [+] :: 2 comments




:: Monday, September 13, 2004 ::
This morning I read a story about the trend in school cafeterias : stocking them with organic food.

The story <Diet: no more mystery meat!> talks about how wonderful it is that there are more options than pizza and candy in the cafeteria.

The problem is, it seems to tout organic food as if it is the only healthy alternative to grease or sugar. I can see the importance of stocking cafeterias with more healthy food. But why organic?

"'Organic' doesn't necessarily mean 'healthy,' and pigging out on natural foods won't help your waistline. But organic programs such as the one in Lincoln Elementary have successfully gotten children to eat more fruits and vegetables, which will help improve their health in the long run."

While this is true, and while organic food can have many additional benefits for the environment, I object to the basic assumption that this article makes: that organic food is the only healthy alternative to greasy food. It doesn't even mention what "organic" means. The truth is that often "organic" doesn't mean much at all. And if getting healthful foods in school cafeterias is a cost issue, then perhaps we should first focus on cheaper healthful foods, since often (but not always) organic producers charge more for similar products.

I think we should first focus on providing accessible healthy food options for cafeterias (organic or otherwise) and reduce the bad eating habits of our children and then worry about improving that offering with well-chosen organic products.


:: Cathy 7:46 AM [+] :: 0 comments




:: Sunday, September 12, 2004 ::
So I got curious about why I'm feeling flabby. And I looked it up on my favourite thing, the web:

As a 150-lb (actually, I'm not sure about my weight, but it's a round number that's close enough to what I weigh), 5-foot-7-inch woman, my BMI is 23.5. Just barely in the "normal" range.

Doing light activity, I should eat approximately 1600 calories per day to maintain my weight (calculated at The Beehive).

Let's look at what I ate yesterday (I'm getting most of this information from CalorieCounter):

Brunch:
4 slices bread : 280 calories
butter 2 Tbsp: 200
cheese (1 oz): 114
orange juice (1cup): 107
tea with sugar/milk: 35

Snack:
Jet Fuel Coffee (2 cups of 1% milk?): 204

Dinner:
1 Grilled cheese sandwich (butter,cheese,bread): 300 (or more)
Deep n Delicious Cake (1/2 the cake, ugh): 800

Total: approx 2050 calories

Then, let's look at what I burned (I'm looking at Cool Nurse for info):

Walking 2mph (probably not even, as we were at the Cabbagetown Festival and we were sauntering) = 3.3/min = 390 calories

Watching TV = 145/hr? OK, seriously, this is no more strenuous than simply existing, so they MUST be talking about your basal metabolic rate and that's already taken into account in one's daily caloric intake. I mean, later in the page it says "sitting at rest = 1.6/hr". So I'm not counting this.

That means that I took in (and stored) 60 calories extra yesterday. It's as easy as that. And that's quite a normal food day for me (OK, eating half the cake is not normal. But if I hadn't eaten that, I'd have eaten something else). In fact, most days I'd say that I eat/drink much more than that (especially if I've gone out for drinks with a friend). But say I ate 100 calories too much every day (not tough to do). That means that I would gain 1 pound every month. (Info on calories-to-pounds). That's over 10 pounds a year!

Even if it had been a higher activity day, like if I'd played on my beach volleyball team for 100 minutes (and let's not kid ourselves that 6 people on the court is much exercise), I'd still have only burned 350 calories. Stll, better than nothing. And it means that I could eat an extra grilled cheese sandwich.

In this exercise of figuring out what I eat and exercise and all that, I've discovered that I'm not so bad, really. However, that's likely because I think about it from time to time and know something about it since my mom is a dietitian and drilled it into me as I was growing up.

But there are people who really think they're not overweight or unhealthy and they don't really pay much attention to what they eat or what they do in a day. Or maybe they do, but they have false ideas about what's good and bad for them. And that's how most of our population has gotten to be overweight. And that's how our healthcare system has become so overburdened.

Honestly, the number one reason/risk for healthcare problems is obesity. And I resent that I have to pay for people who abuse themselves, even in the face of so much public information on the subject. Same with smokers.

Genetic predisposition? Ya, I'm sorry for us: I have that problem too. I'm likely to develop diabetes as I get older. However, if I take care of myself now, the chances of this diminish.

I know I'm not perfect, but this is why I need to think about what I eat and how much I exercise. So that someday I will not be sitting in a hospital with a tube down my nose and an IV in my veins thinking "Dammit, I wish I'd taken better care of myself."

You don't have to be a neurotic person to care about your weight.

Now, take this exellent quiz and see what you actually know about weight loss. I thought I knew a lot, but some answers completely shocked me.


:: Cathy 7:41 AM [+] :: 4 comments



This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?