Update!

It has been a good long while, and much has happened it feels like. When I was forcing myself to write everyday, I really did have a bloggers mind. I would have profound (in my view ^_^) thoughts and immediately start forming a beginning, middle, and end of a blog post. I think I really did become a bit better at writing. Once in a while, I'll think about writing a post, but literally have no clue when I would do that. Except for the wedding blogs (which I usually just rush through anyway), I haven't really kept up with my friends' blog or Google Reader. It's unfortunate, and I think I really do feel the lack in connectedness. Anyway...some bullets on what's been going on:

Wedding Shtuff
- Wedding planning has been simultaneously relaxed and scary. I decided on a lot of things very early on, making it more of a lull at the moment. But already the details of what's actually needs to happen is encroaching. In the end, the things that make it stressful are the things that arise out of the planning, nothing to do with colors, style, or logistics. Maybe it's my own sins, maybe it's Ben's, maybe it's our families'. Mostly though, it becomes painfully obvious how different Ben and I operate, making working together rough going, which is relatively new for us considering how smoothly everything else we've worked on has gone (e.g. Navs leadership). Yes, we are planners and are very organized individuals, but the nuances of how this is executed is different. On the whole though, this is a good thing and engagement is exactly that time when such things start being wrestled with and accepted.

- I've been having odd thoughts about my wedding dress. I think I'm largely over it now, but I really was struggling with loving my dress...and I never really thought I'd be that kind of a girl. It was the first dress I tried on. It's kinda an awkward, "I like you, but...I don't know if you're the one." I finally put pictures of it on my phone, and I think that's helped in some odd way to look at it all the time....I know, it's just a dress, an object, I'm weirded out too.

Health
- So I gots to get a colonoscopy next month. It was a bit jarring because of a number of factors, a big one being that I have absolutely not days off left for the year because of the wedding and honeymoon. I just need to take that day as unpaid leave, which isn't such a big deal, but I just hate having so little time off. Being a consultant can be so challenging, as they really count the hours you work.

Work
- I've been busy, and it's been somewhat fun, somewhat stressful. The people I share a tiny office with (including my manager) are fun to be around. There are days when we constantly sing random songs all day, all three of us. We all refer to the same movies and the same SNL skits. It's radically different from my previous project. I'm definitely more stressed though, and challenged more everyday. I've been given more responsibility in that I'm actually the only person on my current project and loosely managed by Josh (current manager's name). I speak with people in London mostly....I've been drinking some sort of caffeine on a daily basis. It's weird to work so hard, in an environment like this. I find myself missing thinking about other things aside from finance products, processes, systems and calculations.

That's a quick overview I guess. I hope to write more later!

Listing

I think Twitter has really changed the way I think about blogging, and it's making it really difficult to write out a complete blog post, since all my thoughts are compact and held in 140 characters. Thus, list-like posts have become a really attractive, though unoriginal, way to write. Also, I haven't been pushing myself to write everyday, so it's hard to know which inanities of life is really worth writing about.

-I am now a believer of Zicam. I had a 3 day cold instead of the usual 1 week. It's great!

-Ben met some more family over the weekend when we went to DC...and he's not done yet (I think he's got one more family set to go...and a few bachelor uncles). I counted it and I think I have about 57 people in my family which includes grandparents, their children, their grandchildren, and significant others. There was a bit of a Pascual reunion on Easter with other parts of the clan (as in second cousins...including my 21-year-old uncle). Honestly, as far as reunions go, it wasn't that large (though the size of an average Nav Nite!), and there were a lot of missing pieces, I mean, people. Of course though, there were tons of people there who knew who I was and probably carried me as a baby, but haven't seen me in 20 years or whenever it was they moved to America. The basic questions were asked, "Where did you go to school?" "What are you doing now?" "Where do you live?" "How's your brother?" (my brother was a bit of a superstar when we were growing up, being the first child of our generation...ever, on both the Pascual and Nakar side). Also, I didn't realize there were so many people in my family who went to Columbia and/or lived in NYC at some point in their lives. And Ben was a trooper as he had to endure similar questions from total strangers. I don't think I'm grateful enough because honestly in his place I'd probably freak out a little bit meeting and being with so much family for about 24 hours. I tell ya, he is THE boy you wanna bring home to yo momma. He also drove all 10 hours of the trip, so more props to him!

-Getting a haircut this Saturday from my Janet. Very excited about it.

-I love, LOVE Jewish holidays because Alternate Side Parking is suspended on those days, saving me about 20 minutes of time and heartache. Happy Yom Hashah!

-It makes me glad that the skin tone on my hands is noticeably darker than the color of my desk, making me think I might have gotten a tan at some point.

-I still don't really like DC (...classic moment in the car with my uncle. I say, "Kind of reminds me of Boston..." *awkward look toward Ben), as in I don't think I'd be way excited to move there from NYC. I always go there to visit people, and not the city itself. Meanwhile, people are always going to NYC and sleeping over, while not necessarily visiting me. It's very telling of a city.

-I've been feeling really grateful today for the silliest things in my life. Which is more than I can say about yesterday, or even the entirety of last week. Amazing what a difference a day makes. Here's hoping I keep depending on Jesus tomorrow. Ephesians 3:20

Healthy Weight Loss plus Nouwen/Love/Loneliness

So I've lost about 10 lbs now, using the The Daily Plate. I'm amazed at how easy it has been for me to do, just because it's very convenient being at a computer all day. This is the graph of my progress (but because I'm a lady, I'm not going to publish the numbers that correspond ;-p). Weekends I usually don't log stuff in, and you can tell by the graph because it'll be the lowest weight I've ever been and then on Monday it goes up. Also a lot of the net calories on Fridays are weird, because I usually didn't finish off the day. But so far the process has really worked out overall as a balance between watching what I eat, and yet still being able to eat cookies ^_^. It's cool to see that a decrease in net calories (either eating less or exercising some off) really leads to a decrease in weight. Also, there's that huge loss on March 6th only because I finally got a weigh scale from craigslist and started to weigh myself every weekday.


Started reading "Reaching Out" by Henri Nouwen. Some really convicting quotes:

"Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other. They ask for gentle fearless space in which we can move to and from each other. As long as our loneliness brings us together with the hope that together we no longer will be alone, we castigate each other with our unfulfilled and unrealistic desires for oneness, inner tranquility and the uninterrupted experience of communion."

"But real oppenness to each other also means a real closedness, because only he who can hold a secret can safely share his knowledge...An inimate relationship between people not only asks for mutual openness but also for mutual respectful protection of each other's uniqueness."

"There is a false form of honesty that suggests that nothing should remain hidden and that everything should be said, expressed and communicated. This honesty can be very harmful, and if it does not harm, it at least makes relationship flat, superficial, empty and often very boring."

GAH! I am just utterly struck by my need for the Gospel to be true, otherwise I collapse into nothingness. Otherwise, I demand intimacy from other people, and suck them dry. Well, lets hope I grew out of that somewhat, but at the end of the day, I still struggle with knowing what is appropriate to find in community and what to ultimately find in God.

One of the women in our Fellowship Group is currently pregnant and might give birth any day now. She was remarking on how weird it is that as an adult, she has experienced all kinds of love (parents, sibling, friendship, husband) and then you have a baby, and that's a completely new kind of love. I'm only 23, and have not experienced all the kinds she has, and I think the more love I experience from people, the more wisdom I must have in knowing how to deal with that. Like everytime I start loving another person or start loving a person more, I realize that it just means I need to love God all the more. It doesn't necessarily mean I demote the person in my life, it means I must place God higher than even that. I think that's how the Church of Christ is built up to become more and more like God. That's really hard to figure out, especially with a heart that's so selfish and sinful. You start to realize how high, wide and deep God's love is, and his capacity to love is infinitely greater than I'll ever get to. It's kind of like looking at my grandparents and knowing how much they gave up for their children and grandchildren, and thinking..man, could I do that?..but times infinity.

I didn't grow up with any deep friendships. And I think that has a lot to do with what God thought was best for my maturity. Things like that aren't just throwaway facts of a terrible childhood, but crafted by God to be that way for His own glory.

This idea brings hope and comfort, but it doesn't make the pain of the process go away. That's what makes counseling so necessary. And as Nouwen points out: "The real spiritual guide is the one who, instead of advising us what to do or whom to go offers us a chance to stay alone and take the risk of entering into our own experience." Basically, don't waste your sorrows and ultimately deal with loneliness by entering into it with just you and God, and use the opportunity to see more of God and His glory and love. It's surprising how faithfully God shows up when we truly ask Him to.

Food Tracking and More about Art

Grace told me about The Daily Plate and it's pretty amazing. It's this free online tool (connected to the Live Strong organization with the yellow bands for cancer) that tracks the calories you eat and the calories you burn. I'm guessing they make money from advertising, and the people who become "Gold" members. It isn't perfect, but the database of food and exercise is really amazingly complete. Here is my profile so far! And if you really get into it, you can also do some of the online community stuff, and there's a "Daily Food Diary" where you can blog about food and how healthy you feel, etc. Tracking things can be really fun.

Dave told me that some French dudes were kinda checking out my desk when I wasn't here. He commented that they were probably looking at my pictures and that the way my desk is laid out has a good vibe to it. I'm not sure what that really means, but man, if pictures are making people look at my desk, that's kind of creepy/cool. Every other person's desk I see is usually pretty bare, especially the consultants. But I guess I'm just the kind of person who likes to nest. Anyway, more likely the French dudes were just waiting to go see someone in an office. I think this bank has the best art put up that I've ever seen. That's against the 3 other financial institutions I've worked for. I've always wondered though how people decide to put one in a specific office. What if you were assigned an office and then you really didn't like the painting? I'm sure that's not really a problem though, considering most art they choose are innocuous.

It's a life goal of mine to own a Bob Ross painting. I used to watch the Joy of Painting in the Philippines because it was on early on Saturday mornings before the cartoons. They're just so peaceful and beautiful.

101st Post

This is my 101st post on this blog. It feels like forever ago when I started it, when really it's only been about 6 months or something like that.

So since I wrote out some of my food rules on here (and trust me there was a lot more), I feel like I really gotta mention the flip side of being healthy, excercise.


I totally asked my mom to mail me her old Jane Fonda workout videos (as in VHS, yes I have a VCR)...some of which are older than me. I didn't want to spend money. All of these are pictured in this commercial. I wanted to get it out there, because I feel soooooo silly when I do it. Sooo silly that I just wanted everyone to know so that if you see me you can definitely ask, "Hey Xaris, how's your Jane Fonda stuff going?" Really, I just wanted to bring it out into the light so that my shame would be no more. So there!

Food Rules

I've somewhat successfully been living out some rules I gave myself about food. I thought up these rules for both budgetary and health reasons. Slowly but surely these last few months I've been changing little habits, and I realized today how amazing it is that I'm happily eating a banana and not a 200 calorie (or worse) muffin off a street cart. It used to be really hard to resist a $1 muffin (or even a 75 cent bagel and cheese). Especially because it was only a dollar. Honestly though I don't think there has been a measurable improvement in health (unmeasurable would be my level of energy and general happiness), it has really worked on the financial side.

For example, first, I started bringing in my lunch and snacks to work 4 days a week. I say snacks, because those vending machine purchases can be really ridiculous when a) you could've gotten it for 80 cents cheaper buying in bulk at the grocery store; b) most foods (except maybe popcorn) from there are not healthy. After that I started replacing carb/sugar heavy snacks with fruit (I don't know if I'll ever be the type to eat celery or carrot sticks). I still have brie and crackers or those 110 calorie popcorn bags a couple times a week, but overall, I am amazed at how I don't really think about it anymore. It used to be really hard, especially since I work at a cube farm and around lunch time all kinds of awesome smells are floating around. It's also a lot easier to not buy a cookie, when I don't even leave my floor for lunch at all (vending machines on another floor and cafeteria downstairs once being temptation filled places).

For good and for bad, my co-worker Christine will invite me to walk down with her because she needs to buy lunch, and I usually don't get anything because I leave my wallet behind. It's a nice way for us to talk without everyone around us listening in. Unfortunately, one time I had a really strong reaction to the visual cues of a chocolate muffin sitting behind the glass at the cafeteria, and Christine impulsively bought it for me (I guess out of gratitude that I would walk down with her). She was unstoppable! GAH! My plan was foiled that day. I'm careful now not to even look at the things and distract myself with conversation when I'm with her. (Side note: When we went to the opera, Ben and I went to Carnegie Deli after the show and we sat right by the rotating cakes display. I was so distracted it was just ridiculous.)

It's still really hard to curb the feeling of hunger. But weirdly enough, because I fasted a few times (not for these reasons obviously, but spiritual ones), it kinda taught me to lose that sense of entitlement. Lose the sense that I should never be hungry. That's really ridiculous if you think about all the billions of people in the world who do go hungry. And something much more foundational, that man must not live by bread alone. So weird that I've basically had to re-create a reality with truths that I usually ignored. Totally making this process a part of sanctification.

I also figured out that it's impossible for me to go any lower than $300 a month for eating out. That's a lot I think, maybe not a lot for a single woman in NY, but it's a lot. And we're not talking about Chinese food or Subway here, I have good dinners out frequently and like really good dinners ($20-$30) at least twice a month. (umm...these are guesstimates and not based on my spreadsheets, though I did find out that I spend ~$20 on average every time I eat out). So I made a rule that I shouldn't eat out if I'm by myself or it should be below $10 AND splittable to 2 meals or below $5 (though that usually means it's unhealthy and I should avoid that). Those foot longs from Subway have been genius for this.

Another thing is I've changed my breakfasts to be high in protein. My doctor suggested this because of some study. Anyway, so I microwave some egg whites in a bowl and eat it with some lunch meat (currently pepperoni) and a cup of Skim Plus milk. I usually don't want to eat in the mornings (being that I'm unhappy that I'm awake), so I generally don't care what I'm eating, I just know I have to eat breakfast.

Fridays are my free days. That's when I can spend money on all three meals of the day (as well as a big M&M cookie that I snack on throughout the day ^_^). I usually get an omelet and sausage from the cafeteria and some chocolate milk in the morning. My office building is attached to the mall so I get to go to the food court for lunch. Then I usually go to a restaurant with Benny for dinner. Weekends, I still try to eat in when I'm alone, but usually I'm out and about. But after a whole week of not buying food (except for a couple nights when I eat with someone), I feel truly free to spend money on food on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

There are several more rules, but those are the broad ones. That seems really restrictive, but really I like giving myself rules to follow. Growing up, I didn't have any real rules pertaining to anything, much more food, so to be able to do this for myself as an adult making my own decisions, it's extremely satisfying to know exactly what to do in a given situation. And since it's been a slow add on, it hasn't been traumatic at all. And it's easier to make little changes since there's a framework I'm working off of.

Health

OMG, really?? Oh man, if I were rich I think I'd waste a lot of money on things just because they're so cute. It reminds me of that site I found once with pictures of the stuff toy pandas...doing things...does anyone remember me showing you that?

Anyway, going to see the dermatologist today, and I'm excited to be able to leave work a little early. The bite area is kind of gross, and it hurts, but that's what's great about having a job where I sit all day.

So I got this deal in the mail for Ballys and it says I can invite friends to it for $19/month. So if you want the extremely cheap deal (for nyc anyway) let me know, and I'll hook you up. It's not a very convenient gym for me, but it could work. Also, my health insurance reimburses me so it's technically free (if I go to they gym 50 times in a 6 month period...it's unlikely, but I can dream). At $99 for a year, I can't really complain. My health insurance is awesome btw. I pay no premiums nor for any prescription costs, no deductible, just a copay. Kinda makes me want to go to the doctor more often.

That's it. I'm awesomely bored today.

The Job Effect

Sometimes I think God just jazzes life up to keep it from getting too boring.

I have this huge rash on my face, well technically below my face on my chin/neck area, right now...and it looks like it's spreading. Luckily enough, I had already scheduled an appointment a month ago with a new doctor for this Thursday. This really sucks and it makes everything I do from sleeping to sitting in on a meeting slightly awkward. I've called the doctor for an earlier appointment, but apparently there isn't one for a first-time visit/physical. So I walked around my office building looking for a pharmacy, ran into my boss who directed me to one behind this building, and found out about all these shops here. There's a really nice gym, a pet grooming store, and a Duane Reade where there was a really helpful pharmacist who told me to take Benadryl tonight. There are really nice riverside condo buildings too, and it definitely has that Roosevelt Island feel to it. This is weird though. I don't recall ever having an allergy in my life! I can't wait to get home, take this Benadryl and conk out. I hope it's better tomorrow.

Otherwise, I realized, my life would be pretty boring. Get up at 6am, get to work at 8:30am, do nothing all day, leave around 5-6pm, do something at night, sleep, do it over again. What a middling life it seems. Frankly, it's kinda what I was going for. But my past has exposed me to have wanted what's actually good for me only 10% of the time. I find myself always fighting from feeling mediocre and/or the coping mechanisms I've developed to escape from that kind of feeling. I find these last few weeks, God has given physical manifestations of this struggle (from this rash, to pimples, to actual sickness) which I'm not very used to, weakening my body and my will and strengthening my character and wisdom at the same time. For instance, this rash has been a really discouraging force in terms of having a real quiet time, resting in Christ which I usually do in the morning and at night, but it has shown me how much more I need it, as my mind wanders more easily to things that are not very helpful to think about. And whoa!, this rash started like on Sunday. I don't think wise people necessarily don't have to re-learn things they've learned before or not suffer things to build character, they're just more aware and recognize God faster and re-learn sooner rather than later. Wisdom is knowing your true self. Wisdom is recognizing that you're a fool, so that you can receive grace and truth from God.