Tanaka · Bat

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Wow, so I'm finally back. Things have been... busy and kind of awful. One of my advisers informed me I was going to get kicked out of graduate school if I didn't get my act together, and it's still not really together, although I have been reading like a maniac. One of my friends and fellow graduate student said this is a scare tactic this particular professor often deploys to make us reach our full potential, but I don't know. Mmmm, turn-of-the-century literary criticism in Japanese. Hurrah. Good times here.
I've been jogging pretty regularly, but I've only managed to lose like 4 pounds. I haven't been eating well. I need to work on this. But again, I get stressed out and I go for the food. Sesame Honey Cashews from Trader Joe's and 70% cocoa chocolate bars this time around, which is better than Haagen Daaz, but still... not good. I wish I was stronger, but somehow I'm not. I'm scared if I don't give into myself when I crave things that I'll go overboard and stop eating. I can't seem to find a fine line between extremes.
And my husband is unintentionally making me feel terrible! We were flipping channels and some station had a picture of Sharon Stone's thigh cellulite on the screen... and my husband looks at it and says, "Ew."
I looked at him and paused for a moment before saying, "You know, I'm about a hundred times worse than that."
To which my husband replied (with no hesitation, to his credit) "Yeah, but you're YOUNG." By which I suppose he meant my bum wasn't wrinkly as well as full of cellulite. Still, not sure I feel better.
And self-esteem issues at school! This same Prof who is saying I'm going to get kicked out is telling me I need to build my confidence. And then Prof tells me I need to learn how to read and to write. And I catch myself prefacing every statement I make with, "Well, I'm not sure I understand this correctly..." or "Well, I may be wrong, but..." I used to preface everything I said in an academic setting with phrases like this until a German friend told me I just sounded like a fool and it wasn't necessary. Pretty much what I'm being told again now. But how am I supposed to be confident when everyone else is so much smarter than I am?
So... yeah... I feel like instead of moving forward in dealing with a lot of my issues I'm actually falling back into old patterns.
Well, upwards on onwards, I suppose. Goal for tomorrow: lots of green tea and water... no honey-sesame cashews. Although tomorrow we have the end-of-the-year school picnic, so I'm pretty well screwed.

Had a death in the family... I don't quite feel like writing yet... but maybe now I can start getting back on track. I kind of have to, with school and everything.
It occurred to me in dealing with this that my family doesn't handle grief well. It's strange, I get all effusive and melodramatic about the tiniest things, yet when something really serious happens, I just kind of shut down and deal with it on my own. My mom's whole side of the family is like that... and I never realized I was like that, too. My husband says it's unhealthy and he's worried, but I don't know how else to deal with stuff. I don't *want* to talk about it.
I suppose I should, then maybe I wouldn't binge-eat. I gained 50 pounds in like 3 months after my grandfather died 4 years ago (that'd be the weight I'm trying to get off now).
Well... at least this time I've been obsessively eating almonds and cashews instead of sugary crap. I suppose that's a step in the right direction?
I'm kind of all over the place right now, but I'll try and write again soon.

My iPod crashed and told me I needed to restore it.
I feel like a little piece of me died.
And the restore isn't working.
I feel like such a computer-illiterate dork.

The mood on my campus now is so subdued. We haven't been running tours for prospective students, I don't think, because this time of year I normally see several a day, and now: nothing. We have a university memorial for those at VT later this week. I don't know, I hope support helps healing start in Virginia, but I feel like we can't really understand what they're going through. There are police everywhere on our campus, which is unnerving enough. At another university campus in Chicago, the school was apparently locked down after threats yesterday.
My diet was heading more towards back on track today. I had some wine again today, and somehow when I drink wine I end up not getting enough water. So, my goal for the next two weeks is: no alcohol, lots and lots of water!!
I did jog outside today with my dog, though. He's put on some weight too. We both did very well, and I was pleased.
I've got to go write some responses for my professor now for the books I was supposed to be reading but haven't. I think I'm kind of a prime example of what not to do in graduate school.

I haven't posted in awhile. On top of my parents coming to visit, and that stress, there were the horrific events at VT, which of course have shocked the entire nation. They've raised a few serious issues for me. First, I want to be a college professor, and so anything like that makes me think a bit more about life on campus and how to interact with students. More serious, however, has been the fact that the man responsible was Asian. My husband is Asian. Today was his day off, and we went to a Border's together, and a woman asked me why I was with him. I didn't even know what to say. Of course, we've had people make a few (and far between) remarks because we're interracial, but this time it was just especially disturbing. But maybe I'm over-reacting.
Point is, I've been reflecting a lot over this, and I'm really worried about stereotyping that will almost inevitably take place now. My department is "East Asian Languages and Cultures." That includes, of course, Korea; many of my very dear friends (and some of my favorite professors!) are Korean. Seeing and hearing how this has affected them has also been difficult.
The killer talked about how he did it for his "brothers and sisters" or something like that (couldn't read/watch too much of this...). He's made it much harder for so many people under the mistaken idea he was helping them.
One looming silence in all of this for me is that of his family. Granted, they shouldn't have to issue any kind of statement or answer questions, in my opinion. After a point, your child is an adult, and s/he is responsible for their own decisions. You cannot blame the parents--rest assured they would have stopped this if they could. But what disturbs me is their absence in the coverage of the story. Maybe that's good. But I hope, I truly hope, that some one in the FBI or something is in touch with them, and they have had warning before some of this material has been made public. They have a burden to bear alone, isolated from any community, and certainly they will to a certain extent blame themselves. This is not to minimalize the pain and suffering of those who lost friends or loved ones. I just really, really want to point out that what happened at VT was the act of an individual, and to extend the blame to families, to nations, or even global regions, is seriously misguided, and fills me with depression about the future.
What can we learn from this, and how can we prevent it from happening again? It's a fine line between this and over-reaction. And thinking of all these things, and thinking of all the lives that were so senselessly and brutally destroyed, and all pain so many people are in tonight, I can't help but despair over the future. I am profoundly sad, and I am also terrified.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be back to my usual frivolous postings on how I'm failing at my diet, and how, oddly enough, my reading lists aren't getting themselves done while I fool around online.
I wish you all the best, and peace, tonight.
K

Today just sucks. I didn't get any work or translation done. I've been the epitome of lazy.
Going to bed, tomorrow will be a new day, and hopefully unparalleled in its productivity.

Ugh. My parents went back to their hotel, from which they will leave early tomorrow morning. They've only been here since Thursday, but it feels like so long. I just get so tired with them here. My brother's still here, but he'll leave tomorrow morning, early, and then I can get back to normal. I ate horribly today--every single meal out. I tried to eat sensibly, but I still know I went waaaay over what I was supposed to have.
I am so tired right now. It's only 8:30, but I think I'll take a hot bath, read a bit, and go to bed.

Well, my parents are here visiting. My mom knows I'm on a diet, but of course she comes into my house bringing all kinds of food. Cheese and frozen chicken (that's OK) but then also JELLY BEANS and GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. She also brought an industrial-size case of candy hearts, I assume left over from Valentine's Day? What on earth am I going to do with those? There's enough there to last until next Valentine's. I was kind of strong: I took half of the jellybeans to school and gave them to my adviser, N. I took a box of girl scout cookies and gave them to my friend, Nick. Then I ate 5 girl scout cookies. I have a box and a half left in my fridge. Maybe if I only eat one a day? *sigh* Why did she do this to me? There's just no good way to handle my food issues--I feel so guilty throwing the things away and wasting food, but I feel so guilty eating them too,
In other news, I was expecting a thorough scolding from my advisers today, but didn't get it. Overall, feeling a bit more up about the dissertation project. Apparently, my teachers feel that I know what I'm doing even if I don't. The reading lists are the issue; but all I can do is read for those.
Tomorrow my parents want to go to Chinatown. Fine. I'm going to get a Peking duck. I LOVE Peking Duck. But that will probably be my lunch and my dinner.
And I had such a good workout today! I ran a half an hour on the treadmill without stopping, at 5.1. That doesn't sound like much (I used to run marathon-lengths), but I haven't been able to do that for awhile. And honestly, it's so embarrassing going to the university gym. There's all these cute little sorority girls in MAKE-UP (who works out in make-up, my goodness? I've seen them applying fresh make-up in the locker room BEFORE they go work out). They get on the treadmill next to me and just start jogging, and it looks so effortless. And then I'm on the next treadmill, panting, puffing, and imagining I look like a heifer (or an angry bull, my face gets so red).
This all sounds pretty down on myself, but actually, I'm not quite as self-conscious as I used to be. I know I'm working really hard to lose the weight, and that feels good.
Gonna hit the gym tomorrow morning before my parents get here. Or maybe I'll run with the dog. Either way, I'm going to try to go another half an hour tomorrow.
And I got one of those workout balls! Very excited to try that as well. I hear they're great for abs. I need that.

OK, so I joined Sparkpeople, and one of the things the site told me to do was keep a journal.
At various points throughout my life, I have tried to keep a journal... the last one I wrote in steadily was one I had in 4th grade. I thought I was so cool because it had a lock on it. Of course, anyone could open it. But I thought I was cool, and that was what was important.
So I'm really stressed out right now, but I'm also really unhappy. I need to finally lose this weight--not that I think that will suddenly make my life easier. But it seems like I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how I wish I were thin without doing enough about it. I have no energy, and mentally I'm just not there at all--I can't focus or get anything done at all.
I'm stressed because I'm a graduate student, and in theory I'm supposed to be prepping for my general exams so I can write my dissertation. Yeah. In theory. Not working out so well in practice. I have a meeting with two of my advisers on Friday and I know I'm going to get yelled at for not reading enough. But I've been so busy this year, planning presentations and workshops, and a bunch of other projects I've been involved with.
And I've been having a crisis about my topic. Nobody else besides me cares about illness in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s.
So... stressed about school and needing to lose weight. That's where I'm at right now.

You know, it's very strange. I've been lurking at a few communities (I said it before, but I'll say it again--I feel so creepy saying this). And today in one of the communities something really horrible happened. I feel guilty because I wasn't a member of this community, but I still feel very upset by what happened. None of this makes sense.
Also this afternoon, I was out walking my dog, and all of a sudden I heard this loud shot. I thought it was a car backfiring or fireworks or something. I live in Chicago, kind of on the south side, so that wouldn't be too unusual. My dog kind of freaks out, though. And all of a sudden there's people coming off a bus kind of hysterical, and sirens everywhere. Turns out a boy had been shot on the bus.
This was right down the street from my apartment. Right across from my apartment is a high school. The kids from this high school all seemed to know what had happened all at once (while I'm confusedly trying to calm down my dog). As I walked home I could hear them saying, "Some kid got shot," or, "Man, I knew that was gonna happen. You totally called it." None of them were upset, they were just chatting like it was some titillating piece of gossip. I felt strange for being so upset at what clearly didn't faze these kids.
Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I had a fairly sheltered upbringing. But death touches me in a very profound way, and today's been kind of disturbing.