I did get to see Loquatia again, at dinner, so today wasn't all that bad.

I've been trying to regulate my caloric intake (the dining halls post nutrition facts this year). While good for teaching me to add large numbers in my head quickly, it is posing many challenges. Yesterday the challenge was my Latin teacher bringing in homemade baklava. Today it was the fact that it was a festival day and the special foods don't list nutrition facts. And then there was the caramel apple pie.

I suck at this. But I did at least manage only about 2400 calories yesterday, which considering that I estimate I burn 2800 (lots of walking around) is kind of good. My goal is 2000 a day.

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So yesterday I had recitation for Biostats. Determined not to be as confused as last time, I took copious detailed notes on my laptop, step-by-step instructions and a guide in Excel itself. At the end of the class, she handed back quizzes (I got a 59 on mine. Yikes) and I rushed to pack up and get mine before the crush of half the class (of 125) got theirs. I then went to Hoco and to Ryter's for the evening, watched the first season of Heroes and speculated wildly as to the nature of the next season (but it looks like there will be superhero-teen lovin', so it's gotta be fun).

Then I got home, opened my computer, received a "YOU HAVE FLAWS ON YOUR DISK" message, clicked "fix" and came back in five minutes...

It rebooted my computer. Completely. What's more, in my rush I neglected to actually save my notes, figuring they would be there when I next opened the laptop. I lost everything.

So I grabbed some stuff off the website and frantically IMed Maritima, who is also in Biostats, and asked her for help. She's basically walked me through half this stuff. My lack of notes made this assignment take me a total of five hours, four of which were spent on one problem which I couldn't figure out at all.

But thanks to Maritima and my willingness to accept defeat on one problem, it was finished in the end. Thank god.

The thing is, I like statistics in itself; I don't like the fact that my TA has a new baby so she doesn't give a shit about teaching us, or grading us. My last assignment? She didn't grade the graph because I put it on a separate page. I mean, come on. Take off a point if it bugs you. But don't just not grade it. She claimed that she couldn't find things so if she had to hunt for it she gave it a 0, but honestly, how hard is it to get to that question where the graph should be and read "See page 3," and turn to page 3, where the graph is?

And that's not all she did that on-- I got a sixty, seventy with scaling, and I bet if she had spent more than a minute on each paper I could have gotten at least ten points higher. And she didn't bother to tell me what I did wrong, either. I guess I have to guess.

She says repeatedly that she hates statistics, hates grading, won't come in except for her very limited office hours, and is only doing this for the money because of the baby and because she's a graduate student. Okay. I get that she needs money, but really. This is all my stats professor could find???

Bah...

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Meanwhile I am debating how to ask my dad for a small allowance so I can do fun things on the weekends sometimes, or go out to eat once in a while. I mean, he knows I can't work with school stuff, and I do like to do things for fun besides surf Fark, read blogs and pester Ryter. I think I'll ask for $15 a week but hope for $10 and settle for $5 if I must. $5 would mean I get to eat out once a month and go on an (inexpensive) trip once a month. $10 would mean the same but eating out twice a month, or saving it; $15 would mean I could actually save up some money for the holidays.

My biggest concern is that the geniuses at UNH decided this year that finals end the week before Christmas. My last one is the 21st. Sure, vacation lasts until the 21st of January but guess what? Stores don't need help in January. They need help in December. If I go to a store and say I can start work on the 26th they'll say, "Sorry, no can do." Last year TJ Maxx really didn't need me after the ninth.

So that means I won't make any money at all over the winter break, and I don't really know what to do. I need a source of income, but I don't have the time to work during the year... The only thing I can think of is baby-sitting, but I hate, hate, hate advertising myself as a baby-sitter, and I don't really know any families in the area. Financially, I am screwed unless Daddy gives me an allowance.

He probably will understand. So what is my concern? I bet he ties it to my grades, as in, "Get a B or higher or the money goes away." And seeing as I am in Organic and Biostats, that means that it may very well go away and I'm screwed again.

Maybe if I suggest that I may need to take a year off and work otherwise... The only thing worse for Daddy than failing grades would be skipping a year. Something about "never going back."

"Dónde están los cahones?" *

There are a million and one online blogs/discussion forums/whatever all dedicated to discussing obesity. I read one, a particularly mean one, and although I don't want to reply to them since they really don't care and will shoot me down anyway, I want to complain somewhere.

First of all. There are a lot of comments that divide up people into "healthy," "fat," and "anorexic/bulimic." Like anorexia means you're really, really skinny. Well, how's this for you- NOT EVERYONE WHO IS ANOREXIC IS SKINNY. Many of them started out actually overweight. When I was younger, I tried to be anorexic (Daddy figured it out and stopped me) because I am actually on the heavy side and it bothered me. Plenty of anorexics start out really overweight, especially middle-aged women. If an overweight woman never, ever eats in front of you, don't assume she's trying to hide her binging and goes home to eat mountains of food. She might actually be anorexic. Which is a bad way to loose weight and should not be considered as good because "at least she'll stop being so damn heavy."

Second. Yes, medical reasons are not an excuse to be overweight. Diseases that put you at risk of obesity don't mean that you won't be able to lose weight with diet and exercise. BUT. It makes it a LOT harder, and it's not their fault that it is more difficult. So cut them a bit more slack than you would your average eats-too-much-exercises-too-little person.

Third. People who are naturally thin, or who have always kept their weight down, don't realize what it's like to lose weight once you're already heavy. My parents and my sister are overweight, even more so than me. Dieting is one thing, though I'd like to see you try to diet when you're on a budget and can't afford healthy food, or when you're raising kids and they don't want to EAT healthy food, or when you're eating at a cafeteria where the healthy food is so damn nasty it drives you crazy. Also hard when you're living with people who are healthy, like my brother. My mom feels terrible making him eat diet food when he's at a healthy weight, but we always run out of the good food first, so Daddy eats the bad stuff. Also, if you're used to eating a lot, and go to eating a little, you will be hungry ALL THE TIME. Then you can't focus on school or work or anything because all you can think about is your stomach's noises.

Then there's exercising. Ever tried exercising when you loose your breath within five minutes or when your stomach/breasts bounce uncomfortably? It's miserable. And even besides that, consider this: A couple hours of exercising every day. When was the last time you thought to yourself, "Man, I always have a couple extra hours at the end of the day when I have absolutely nothing to do; no homework, no kids to chase, no work to do..."

I'm not saying that people shouldn't lose weight. I'm going to be a doctor, I'm the first to admit the healthy benefits of a proper weight. I'm just saying that I'm sick of people who have never, ever been overweight in their lives, who have never fought to loose weight or dealt with the pressure of the incredible inconvenience that losing weight is, going online under pseudonyms and talking about how "disgusting" and "lazy" overweight people are. My mother works almost non-stop at her job, telecommuting or at the office. Meanwhile she's spent the past 21 years caring for her kids as a working mom. She doesn't have TIME to devote to losing weight, because she's so busy... She's NOT lazy. Not in a million years. She just never had the time or energy to devote to losing weight after I was born, or The Brother after me. There are a lot of people out there who are overweight without being the sit-on-the-couch-and-never-move stereotype; they've just got different priorities. So all those people who rant on and on about "ugly fat chicks-" never "ugly fat men," no one cares about them- need to find themselves a pretty, perfect girl who'd rather go to the gym than care for her children or contribute to the household finances, and SHUT UP.

As a side note- any girl with a BMI of less than 23 is NOT FAT, and considering my own BMI, if I ever again hear a guy describe a stick-thin girl as "fat" because her abs are not rock-hard and she happened to have some unflattering pictures in a bikini due to an unfortunate pose, I will SIT ON HIM so he can appreciate the difference between rolls of skin with almost nothing in between them and my heavyset glory.

(Okay, so technically I'm only five to ten pounds from the high end of an appropriate weight range. I'm still in a heavier weight class than the kid I had in mind, so I fully intend to crush his rib cage if he jokes about that girl's weight again. He can, however, describe her hair as "dishwater blond" or her skin as "jaundiced" all he wants. Not that I would ever describe a girl that way. I'm just trying to offer him alternatives. He has to placate his girlfriend somehow.)

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One last thing: I would like to express the irony that last night I was offering out advice on dealing with guys. Bit like the blind leading the blind, or maybe the legally blind leading the completely so. on the plus side, I think I'm beginning to understand why a funny, silly, cute girl can best even me in the "can't get a date" arena, and it has absolutely nothing to do with weight.

It might have something to do with the fact that the most intelligent girl in the world can be amazingly unaware of what guys like in girls. I mean, I'm pretty clueless, but I at least know that the intelligence a guy seeks in a significant other is not an amazing ability to solve math problems at the speed of light, but rather a light in her eyes and wit in her tongue, and the ability to hold her own in a conversation.

The worst thing is knowing what guys are looking for, and not being able to provide it.

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*As stated by Mistake to Closer at lunch today....