As I wrote in yesterday's blog, my environment and schedule as a master's candidate led to a number of problems. After working my way out of the chronic-pain cloud, I had to deal with the aftershocks of 18 months of bad medicine, no exercise, and daily Velveeta. I ate the Velveeta because 1) it was cheap; 2) its use required little to no culinary knowledge; and 3) okay, fine, it tasted pretty good to me. Master's students at my university made about $650 before taxes (EDIT: that figure is for the first year, the non-teaching year. Stipends bumped up to around $1,000 in the second year), and I was lucky to be married and have a second income to help with the food bills. Still, we were fairly strapped for cash, and neither of us had the time or energy to think about food prep. It was too easy to catch $1 burrito night at Senor Taco or split a pizza. I anesthetized myself with food during those months, and heavier foods meant that I would sleep fitfully but for a long time. It was also cheaper and less fussy (I thought) than preparing real meals.
My turning point happened in a dressing room in B. Moss at the Knoxville Center Mall. I had to buy a new pair of pants for a reading I was scheduled to give that weekend. Nothing else fit. And, as it happens, I had gotten too big to fit into the biggest of B. Moss pants. I had exceeded their definition of "largest size." What happened next is a blur of ice cream, nachos, and crying.
Here, I'm trying to tease apart two very different kinds of pain: the physical (the injury itself) and the emotional (feeling cumbersome and bloated, and then being "on display" three times a week teaching).
I had to immediately adjust my home work space (a generous term for the couch) so that I didn't round my back while reading, typing, or grading. I followed what my PT called the 30/30/30 rule: Every 30 minutes, take 30 seconds and focus 30 yards away. A stability ball and pilates mat took up residence in the corner of my (creepy, dusty) office. I scheduled time to prepare food on Sunday nights: six chicken breasts, broccoli, one dozen boiled eggs, and baggies of portioned oatmeal. And as much as I hate the company, I enrolled as a Sam's Club member. I could buy chicken and vegetables in bulk (and I often took friends with me so they could stock up).
Eating is a biological imperative, which is why I think it's so hard for people like me--people with troubled pasts with food--to reframe it. As I noted in this blog, I tend to be a teetotaler. All or nothing. I'll eat all the food, or I'll eat no food. I had to hedge this tendency, so I mixed two plans: IF (Intermittent Fasting) and grazing, via this plan. I still basically follow variations of both, and I find them to be flexible enough to fit into my life but firm enough to keep me from mindlessly consuming blocks of Velveeta. (Though in the last month, I've moved away from grazing, and I feel much better, so that part's in flux.)
Those who don't tote food or weight baggage are lucky. I do, though, and I had to find a sensible, sustainable way to fit food into my life, when so much of my life is spent sitting. (And with the uneven schedule most academics follow. It's never as clear as Monday-Friday, 9-5.) It sounds counter-intuitive to have a plan for eating, and I'm one of those people Pollan rails against in his books. Americans shouldn't require a plan in order to perform something so basic as eating, but with so many faux foods (and preposterous portions), I think it's an important discussion to have. And when your schedule and/or income seems to preclude fresh and healthy foods, I think it's even more important to talk about the care and feeding of the body.
8.3.12
Gravis, Gravitas
I gained 50 pounds in my first year and half of master's study. This isn't a tale of impostership or anxiety, how I ate my feelings because I just didn't belong. I was injured.
I didn't know how bad things had gotten until I went to the doctor for what I had complained was a sinus infection. The headaches were unstoppable. I hadn't slept in what felt like years. My neck was so stiff that I couldn't look to my right when pulling into traffic. I had slowly lost all of my peripheral vision.
Loss of sight isn't a symptom of a sinus infection. Even a really bad one.
Backstory: I think adjustment to graduate school is tough all over. While it's easier for some, it's tough for everyone. I don't know anyone who, in the midst of getting a master's degree, can say, "Oh, I feel like a perfectly confident and capable person right now!" The atmosphere just isn't conducive to confidence. Most programs are too short; once you feel comfortable with the script, you're done. (And, even then, it took me two years of doctoral study to really feel like I had caught on.)
Ergonomic injuries are cumulative, and by the time my second year--my teaching year--rolled around, I was experiencing a myriad of symptoms: blinding headaches, stiff neck and jaw, this strange alternation between rock-solid sleep (for 16-18 hours) and insomnia. And the weight gain, up to 60 pounds by that time. The doctors (and I saw many of them) chalked it up to stress (duh) and "chronic pain."
Nebulous term, "chronic pain." It means "pain that comes and goes, and we'll leave it at that because we're not sure why. Here's a pill designed specifically to treat such a problem. Take it and be in good health."
Maybe I'm a little cynical.
For a full year, November 2004 through November 2005, I took high doses of Amitriptyline, which intensified the insomnia and had the pleasant side effect of causing edema. The jaw pain was enough to warrant a spinal tap to check for meningitis (nope, and there's nothing like an unnecessary spinal tap to make you question all that's good and right in this world), and the headaches were sharp enough to warrant a brain scan (brain's there, for you doubters, and now I have photographic proof). The medicine knocked the edges off the pain; my body became a memory of ache: I could feel where it was supposed to hurt, but the pain was muffled.
Fast forward a bit: two more MRIs, vials and vials of blood work, and finally finally someone suggested I see a physical therapist. Diagnosis: weak lumbar. The lone cause of all that trauma was a loose core, which referred pain to my neck, jaw, and head and compressed an optical nerve. Three weeks of physical therapy, I came off the drugs, and my symptoms dwindled to only mild inconvenience. In my present still-sitting-most-of-the-time occupation, I have to work a few planks into my day to keep my core tight, or I'll get headaches. Hours a week slumped over books and first-year composition papers triggered a series of physical reactions that led to seeing a neurologist and a football team's worth of other specialists. And it all happened in about 18 months. More importantly, it still happens when I let my core work go too long. If I don't want to be broken in half, aching, and blinded by a pinched nerve, I have to listen to my body: feed it, move it, and give it a comfy place to create.
Once they finally figured out what was wrong with my broken body, I had to lose my 50-pound parting gift. I'll spend some time in the next few posts talking about the feeding habits of graduate students, per a conversation with a friend about the horribly unnatural things one must consume in order survive on $643 a month (pre-tax) and when reading for class on the bus home is considered "down time." Eating is, for me, is an emotional topic, since it's wrapped so tightly in cultural and social implications (and by its association with fat, which is a scary word for so many people. Hence the italics.).
I didn't know how bad things had gotten until I went to the doctor for what I had complained was a sinus infection. The headaches were unstoppable. I hadn't slept in what felt like years. My neck was so stiff that I couldn't look to my right when pulling into traffic. I had slowly lost all of my peripheral vision.
Loss of sight isn't a symptom of a sinus infection. Even a really bad one.
Backstory: I think adjustment to graduate school is tough all over. While it's easier for some, it's tough for everyone. I don't know anyone who, in the midst of getting a master's degree, can say, "Oh, I feel like a perfectly confident and capable person right now!" The atmosphere just isn't conducive to confidence. Most programs are too short; once you feel comfortable with the script, you're done. (And, even then, it took me two years of doctoral study to really feel like I had caught on.)
Ergonomic injuries are cumulative, and by the time my second year--my teaching year--rolled around, I was experiencing a myriad of symptoms: blinding headaches, stiff neck and jaw, this strange alternation between rock-solid sleep (for 16-18 hours) and insomnia. And the weight gain, up to 60 pounds by that time. The doctors (and I saw many of them) chalked it up to stress (duh) and "chronic pain."
Nebulous term, "chronic pain." It means "pain that comes and goes, and we'll leave it at that because we're not sure why. Here's a pill designed specifically to treat such a problem. Take it and be in good health."
Maybe I'm a little cynical.
For a full year, November 2004 through November 2005, I took high doses of Amitriptyline, which intensified the insomnia and had the pleasant side effect of causing edema. The jaw pain was enough to warrant a spinal tap to check for meningitis (nope, and there's nothing like an unnecessary spinal tap to make you question all that's good and right in this world), and the headaches were sharp enough to warrant a brain scan (brain's there, for you doubters, and now I have photographic proof). The medicine knocked the edges off the pain; my body became a memory of ache: I could feel where it was supposed to hurt, but the pain was muffled.
Fast forward a bit: two more MRIs, vials and vials of blood work, and finally finally someone suggested I see a physical therapist. Diagnosis: weak lumbar. The lone cause of all that trauma was a loose core, which referred pain to my neck, jaw, and head and compressed an optical nerve. Three weeks of physical therapy, I came off the drugs, and my symptoms dwindled to only mild inconvenience. In my present still-sitting-most-of-the-time occupation, I have to work a few planks into my day to keep my core tight, or I'll get headaches. Hours a week slumped over books and first-year composition papers triggered a series of physical reactions that led to seeing a neurologist and a football team's worth of other specialists. And it all happened in about 18 months. More importantly, it still happens when I let my core work go too long. If I don't want to be broken in half, aching, and blinded by a pinched nerve, I have to listen to my body: feed it, move it, and give it a comfy place to create.
Once they finally figured out what was wrong with my broken body, I had to lose my 50-pound parting gift. I'll spend some time in the next few posts talking about the feeding habits of graduate students, per a conversation with a friend about the horribly unnatural things one must consume in order survive on $643 a month (pre-tax) and when reading for class on the bus home is considered "down time." Eating is, for me, is an emotional topic, since it's wrapped so tightly in cultural and social implications (and by its association with fat, which is a scary word for so many people. Hence the italics.).
5.3.12
Passing the Marshmallow Test
I wish this were a post about s'mores.
I tend to fixate. When I have a goal, I focus sharply, usually to the detriment of other things. I drafted my dissertation in eight weeks during the summer of 2010, during which time I spoke to practically no one besides my husband and YMCA personnel. Reentry in August was difficult. I kept wondering where all those people came from.
Learning to balance has been a process of giving up things, where I'd measure my losses as collateral damage against what I hoped to achieve. Usually, it paid off. Taken whole, I've been the kind of 4 year old who would eat the marshmallow immediately, rationalizing that a marshmallow now is much superior to two marshmallows later.
Patience hasn't been my virtue: We moved to Ohio on a whim, a feather, and a promised scholarship. I put an offer on the first house we looked at in Raleigh. I will take off on a Friday without reservations or destinations (sometimes even remembering to feed the cats). I overcorrect with hyper-regimentation: We haven't taken a proper vacation in years. I'll drive my car until the repair exceeds the value (hail damage still intact). I'll schedule writing for a big project under deadline, and I'll hold to that schedule no matter how many "Coming home yet?" texts I get.
I used to cycle between EAT THE MARSHMALLOW NOW NOW NOW and NEVER EAT MARSHMALLOWS EVER.
Self-control is my practice, since I don't have the patience to sit through a one-hour yoga class. And I achieve the most when I stop looking. When my goals are periphery, they stop being singular and all-encompassing. When I fixate on my weight, I stop thinking about it, simplify my diet, and I lose it. Same with writing, relationships, the minutia of cleaning or repairing (see also: writing, relationships). Put this way: Focus is important, but I think intermittent focus is far more productive.
I'll particularize the experience by connecting it to my scholarship: I have to read, write, and publish. It's my job. Lore says that Assistant Professors burn out keeping up with the Publish or Perish dictate. I've heard horror tales about all-night writing sessions that lasted for years. It's like Scared Straight for Professors: Live clean, kid, or you'll start collecting milkmaid figurines and querying journals about guest editing a special issue on Hummel Pedagogies.
I won't postulate about conspicuous consumerism and how it contributes to people not only eating the marshmallow but taking out second mortgages to buy cases of marshmallows (to then eat immediately, preferably rapidly, and usually in a dark room). But I do think that American culture supports this pervasive sense of instant gratification. I'm certainly working to detrain myself. The academic market actually helps with its ridiculously long time lines. I work consistently, not anxiously, knowing that effort over time has to be a more productive--and healthier--approach than burning fast and intense.
I tend to fixate. When I have a goal, I focus sharply, usually to the detriment of other things. I drafted my dissertation in eight weeks during the summer of 2010, during which time I spoke to practically no one besides my husband and YMCA personnel. Reentry in August was difficult. I kept wondering where all those people came from.
Learning to balance has been a process of giving up things, where I'd measure my losses as collateral damage against what I hoped to achieve. Usually, it paid off. Taken whole, I've been the kind of 4 year old who would eat the marshmallow immediately, rationalizing that a marshmallow now is much superior to two marshmallows later.
Patience hasn't been my virtue: We moved to Ohio on a whim, a feather, and a promised scholarship. I put an offer on the first house we looked at in Raleigh. I will take off on a Friday without reservations or destinations (sometimes even remembering to feed the cats). I overcorrect with hyper-regimentation: We haven't taken a proper vacation in years. I'll drive my car until the repair exceeds the value (hail damage still intact). I'll schedule writing for a big project under deadline, and I'll hold to that schedule no matter how many "Coming home yet?" texts I get.
I used to cycle between EAT THE MARSHMALLOW NOW NOW NOW and NEVER EAT MARSHMALLOWS EVER.
Self-control is my practice, since I don't have the patience to sit through a one-hour yoga class. And I achieve the most when I stop looking. When my goals are periphery, they stop being singular and all-encompassing. When I fixate on my weight, I stop thinking about it, simplify my diet, and I lose it. Same with writing, relationships, the minutia of cleaning or repairing (see also: writing, relationships). Put this way: Focus is important, but I think intermittent focus is far more productive.
I'll particularize the experience by connecting it to my scholarship: I have to read, write, and publish. It's my job. Lore says that Assistant Professors burn out keeping up with the Publish or Perish dictate. I've heard horror tales about all-night writing sessions that lasted for years. It's like Scared Straight for Professors: Live clean, kid, or you'll start collecting milkmaid figurines and querying journals about guest editing a special issue on Hummel Pedagogies.
I won't postulate about conspicuous consumerism and how it contributes to people not only eating the marshmallow but taking out second mortgages to buy cases of marshmallows (to then eat immediately, preferably rapidly, and usually in a dark room). But I do think that American culture supports this pervasive sense of instant gratification. I'm certainly working to detrain myself. The academic market actually helps with its ridiculously long time lines. I work consistently, not anxiously, knowing that effort over time has to be a more productive--and healthier--approach than burning fast and intense.
29.12.11
One Minute of Magical Thinking
11:30 p.m. Me, cross-legged on the floor of our terrible apartment in Cleveland, eating donuts until I made myself (very literally) sick. What happened in 2003 stayed in 2003. Fireworks in the parking lot. Fireworks or gun fire. At Harbor Crest, it was a toss-up.
We were living in Ohio the last time I made a formal New Year's Resolution. I quantified my goals. I made plans, people. I made plans for my plans. I reorganized my plans into hierarchies and timelines. I've always struggled with my weight and my relationship with food, and "lose weight" had made my resolution list since the early 1990s. I also needed to settle on a more stable life path, since working in an office wasn't satisfying and paid little. I needed to improve relationships with the people I loved. I had been married less than a year, and we were living in Section 8 housing in a very dangerous part of the city. We stepped over homeless people to get in the front doors of the complex. I was mugged. Twice. Directionless and drowning in bills, I hefted this anxiety onto the shoulders the people who cared the most. If anyone needed resolutions, it was me.
I bought a planner WITH POCKETS FOR MY PLANS.
On December 31st, 2003, I ate and drank my way across the city in a binge that would make Chris Farley proud. It's cool, I thought. Tomorrow's a clean slate. All fresh, with no mistakes in it. I hated Annie, but that line was my mantra for awhile.
The New Year's Resolution, constructed as it is in over-consumptive American culture, presumes blind optimism and magical thinking, all tied up in an arbitrary date and time. We can always be who we've always wanted to be next year, the next time, in the next week, because this time it's different. That's what I believed, at least. Just let me get through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. I know I'll want to eat and drink, and denying myself these human pleasures is inhumane. You don't have to point out my disordered thinking there. I see it.
If the barrage of lose-weight-fast advertisements in my email is any indication, others fall into the same pit. Hop on Blogger and search for "New Year's Resolutions." It'll take until next New Year's to get through them all.
New Year's offers endless opportunities for renewal, a dangerous and solipsistic reset button, the thrill of the quick reversal. I was once lost, fat, tired, totally out of control, and unhappy. Tomorrow, nay TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, I will be found, rested, totally in control, and content. As if by thinking that New Year's Eve is magical, we become magical.
There may be party hats to celebrate, but that doesn't make the new year significant to anyone but tax advisers. No seismic shift occurred between 11:59 and 12:00 on December 31st, 2003. The 10,000 calories I ate that day would still be there the next morning. So would the hangover. And the debt and disrupted relationships and lack of solid life plans.
I do put stock in reflection, however, and in continual self-improvement. Happiness is a sliding scale. Goals are useful when they're recognized as components of systemic thought and action. Motivation isn't as much of an extrinsic force as it is a fleeting glimpse of magic.
Making self-improvement reliant on the calendar ties closely to corporate needs to recoup profits after low holiday sales, and it explains why I won't be able to access the gym in January but why everything's back to normal in February. Advertisers say, We know you've overindulged in many ways since November. Let us help you. We care. I'm singling out weight-loss and debt-reduction services here, but the applications are broader than that. And there's nothing magical about shilling pills.
Hope springs eternal, sure, but it does so today and last week and for all time. It does so without the advertisements, without fanfare, without party hats. Change relies on consistency, and while magical thinking offers us many exciting fantasies, it's not reliable. To thrill in the daily toil of the doing disregards email promises for a tighter this or flatter that in four weeks, but it's exciting in its nearly limitless horizon.
We were living in Ohio the last time I made a formal New Year's Resolution. I quantified my goals. I made plans, people. I made plans for my plans. I reorganized my plans into hierarchies and timelines. I've always struggled with my weight and my relationship with food, and "lose weight" had made my resolution list since the early 1990s. I also needed to settle on a more stable life path, since working in an office wasn't satisfying and paid little. I needed to improve relationships with the people I loved. I had been married less than a year, and we were living in Section 8 housing in a very dangerous part of the city. We stepped over homeless people to get in the front doors of the complex. I was mugged. Twice. Directionless and drowning in bills, I hefted this anxiety onto the shoulders the people who cared the most. If anyone needed resolutions, it was me.
I bought a planner WITH POCKETS FOR MY PLANS.
On December 31st, 2003, I ate and drank my way across the city in a binge that would make Chris Farley proud. It's cool, I thought. Tomorrow's a clean slate. All fresh, with no mistakes in it. I hated Annie, but that line was my mantra for awhile.
The New Year's Resolution, constructed as it is in over-consumptive American culture, presumes blind optimism and magical thinking, all tied up in an arbitrary date and time. We can always be who we've always wanted to be next year, the next time, in the next week, because this time it's different. That's what I believed, at least. Just let me get through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. I know I'll want to eat and drink, and denying myself these human pleasures is inhumane. You don't have to point out my disordered thinking there. I see it.
If the barrage of lose-weight-fast advertisements in my email is any indication, others fall into the same pit. Hop on Blogger and search for "New Year's Resolutions." It'll take until next New Year's to get through them all.
New Year's offers endless opportunities for renewal, a dangerous and solipsistic reset button, the thrill of the quick reversal. I was once lost, fat, tired, totally out of control, and unhappy. Tomorrow, nay TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, I will be found, rested, totally in control, and content. As if by thinking that New Year's Eve is magical, we become magical.
There may be party hats to celebrate, but that doesn't make the new year significant to anyone but tax advisers. No seismic shift occurred between 11:59 and 12:00 on December 31st, 2003. The 10,000 calories I ate that day would still be there the next morning. So would the hangover. And the debt and disrupted relationships and lack of solid life plans.
I do put stock in reflection, however, and in continual self-improvement. Happiness is a sliding scale. Goals are useful when they're recognized as components of systemic thought and action. Motivation isn't as much of an extrinsic force as it is a fleeting glimpse of magic.
Making self-improvement reliant on the calendar ties closely to corporate needs to recoup profits after low holiday sales, and it explains why I won't be able to access the gym in January but why everything's back to normal in February. Advertisers say, We know you've overindulged in many ways since November. Let us help you. We care. I'm singling out weight-loss and debt-reduction services here, but the applications are broader than that. And there's nothing magical about shilling pills.
Hope springs eternal, sure, but it does so today and last week and for all time. It does so without the advertisements, without fanfare, without party hats. Change relies on consistency, and while magical thinking offers us many exciting fantasies, it's not reliable. To thrill in the daily toil of the doing disregards email promises for a tighter this or flatter that in four weeks, but it's exciting in its nearly limitless horizon.
22.12.11
For the Ladies
Someone found my blog by Googling "Buying an MLA suit," so I thought I'd toss up a quick note about the process.
I've also been talking to a few of my anguished female colleagues who are going on the market. Everyone's concerned about purchasing a well-fitting suit on a grad-student salary. I just perused Nordstrom's online, and I still (with the job) can't afford their $300-$400 suitings. I think there's a Nordstrom outlet in Durham, but if you don't have access to such things (as I didn't in Knoxville), that leaves you with local department stores like JC Penney and Marshall's and shopping online.
I've already mentioned how much I love JCP's Worthington seamless tanks under suits. They're not too low cut, you never have to worry about wayward lapels, and they're super easy to pack.
I had an issue buying suits because my body isn't proportional. I found Victoria's Secret's suits to be the right cut for my body. (Sans come-hither look, though I guess that might work for some people in some jobs in some departments.) I struggled with designers like Calvin Klein selling their suits in top/bottom sets, so I couldn't mix the sizes. VS's suits are sold as separate pieces, and the jackets are cut with a slight nip at the waist, so no boxy silhouette. I chose the trouser pant in one size larger than my regular size, but the jacket in my regular size fit just right. I caught the suits on sale (both pieces for $100). These VS suits don't boast the same fit and finish as the $400 Nordstrom pieces, but for $100, they offer everything I needed to feel put together and comfortable.
I'm in no way compensated for my review here. I'm sure I'll get some kind of cease and desist email from one of those companies, but in the meantime, maybe this info can help. Guys, apologies. I'm sure you have just as much trouble searching for well fitting and reasonably priced suits as we do, but I can't attest to the boxiness of your jackets.
I've also been talking to a few of my anguished female colleagues who are going on the market. Everyone's concerned about purchasing a well-fitting suit on a grad-student salary. I just perused Nordstrom's online, and I still (with the job) can't afford their $300-$400 suitings. I think there's a Nordstrom outlet in Durham, but if you don't have access to such things (as I didn't in Knoxville), that leaves you with local department stores like JC Penney and Marshall's and shopping online.
I've already mentioned how much I love JCP's Worthington seamless tanks under suits. They're not too low cut, you never have to worry about wayward lapels, and they're super easy to pack.
I had an issue buying suits because my body isn't proportional. I found Victoria's Secret's suits to be the right cut for my body. (Sans come-hither look, though I guess that might work for some people in some jobs in some departments.) I struggled with designers like Calvin Klein selling their suits in top/bottom sets, so I couldn't mix the sizes. VS's suits are sold as separate pieces, and the jackets are cut with a slight nip at the waist, so no boxy silhouette. I chose the trouser pant in one size larger than my regular size, but the jacket in my regular size fit just right. I caught the suits on sale (both pieces for $100). These VS suits don't boast the same fit and finish as the $400 Nordstrom pieces, but for $100, they offer everything I needed to feel put together and comfortable.
I'm in no way compensated for my review here. I'm sure I'll get some kind of cease and desist email from one of those companies, but in the meantime, maybe this info can help. Guys, apologies. I'm sure you have just as much trouble searching for well fitting and reasonably priced suits as we do, but I can't attest to the boxiness of your jackets.
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