Slowly making my way through the final weeks of the semester...I am about halfway through (two papers and one presentation to go) and am feeling surprisingly unstressed. Hopefully, my classes in the spring will be a smidge more enlightening. I've been pretty bored/unchallenged by the material so far, and am counting on things perking up a bit next semester.
I had a great talk with my advisor today while spending THREE hours in his office working on our paper. He had some interesting things to say about me, my program, and where I should go from here. I've been feeling pretty stressed about getting perfect grades and researching and publishing and doing everything right so that I have a shot at getting into the best doctoral programs, but he helped me put things in perspective a little more. Sometimes I need to take a step back and remind myself that I don't have to have the rest of my life planned out by 23. Although it would be nice.
I am in another total food rut with dinners. YOU GUYS. I HATE COOKING. I just can't do it. I wish I were a sophisticated foodie/Whole Foods shopper with advanced knowledge of squash and kale and steel cut oats and quinoa and other such wholesome things. Aside the fact that Whole Foods is categorically out of my budget and that squash makes me gag, it would be nice to be someone who gets excited about cooking and can get creative in the kitchen. I'm sick of everything I eat, but have no desire/inclination/capacity to think of doing things any differently. They say some people with EDs get obsessed with food, but for me it feels like the opposite; these days, food bores me to tears. If anyone has some spare time and would like a side job as a personal chef, hit me up. As for compensation....let's call it an unpaid internship.
Maybe slightly ironic transition: one of my bffs and I are going to see the new Hunger Games movie tonight. Shut up! I'm excited! I think Jennifer Lawrence is awesome. And Liam Hemsworth is adorable, minus Miley.
Glad to hear you're feeling relatively unstressed! And your advisor sounds really great. Re: food stuff, would it help to cook a big batch of something at once, then either eat that thing all week or freeze individual portions of it for later? Soups/stews work well this way, in my experience. But, you know, you could also just decide that it's okay to eat the same few things for dinner all the time, as long as you're covering all the food groups and getting a decent level of variety overall. There's no obligation to be creative and cook a new elaborate meal every night, and to be honest it's probably healthy that you don't want to think about food a whole lot.
ReplyDelete(I have paper revisions, a personal statement, 3 finals, and ~8 hours of work to go! Not too bad, all things considered.)
Great to hear that you're feeling pretty calm about the last push of the semester! I really hope your classes next semester are more intellectually stimulating for you! I'm glad you and your advisor had such a great conversation! The food part is hard; I definitely agree with E. I generally end up making two things in a big batch over the weekend, and then just go back and forth for the week. Interestingly, I was a total foodie at the height of my ED, looking at pics and recipes of food I was too terrified to eat, but now that I'm well-nourished, similar to you, I don't really think about it much. Do you have a crockpot? That could be an easy way to prep fun stuff in a big batch. And there are a lot of good recipes that would hopefully be tasty. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteMan oh man, do I ever understand the dinner dilemma. Like you, it's not so much a "oh, this food is safe" as it is "I have no desire to cook foods and food is boring." Because food is SO BORING, I generally can't find the energy to cook big batches of food and then eat off them for the week - but I have found crockpot meals to be amazing. They usually take all of like, 10 minutes to prepare (which I find acceptable for the minimal "reward" that it provides) and I can eat off them for a few days.
ReplyDeleteAlso, one thing I do to make sure it's not a safe food thing is do dinner out once a week. I, too, am in grad school, so budget-wise, it's usually fast food. But it's a welcome change from the usual pb&j, and it challenges me to eat fear foods.
(And if you're wondering - I've actually average about 2 fast food meals a week - fries and all - and have had zero change in my weight!)