A new school year approacheth!

There are only 3 days left until I begin my journey back to school into my new role as a residence advisor, and with that will come the need to be structured and efficient with my time. 

The first month will be a time of testing the waters and figuring out how my schedule balances with all that I will have on my plate: Academics, extracurriculars, a shift at work once per week, my social life, etc. I hope to find time to keep a regular blog entry going, and I hope to find some structure to some of my posts in addition to my more personal photojournalistic updates!

I am not sure what this may look like right now, but perhaps more food/nutrition/fitness-related posts will occur, or more focused "thought" posts. Regardless, I will do my best to keep a reasonable post pace!

Thinking and Eating

I do both of these things quite often.

Quite often, I find that the first (thinking) gets a little too muddled in the second (eating) at certain times. 

As an individual that tends to get emotional (excited, anxious, stressed, frustrated, morose) when it comes to thinking about any one thing for long periods of time, having myself mulling over something as simple-yet-complicated-and-important as eating always leads to a bit of a mental mess.

This post is not the first time that I have entertained these thoughts, but every so often it feels like I make a shift in my thinking, and things make a little more sense, feel a little more right, and get a little less frustrating; in the last week, I had a shift of this sort. Just a small one - but enough to decide to write about it! As I repeated my belief to someone that they should probably have some protein following their vigorous workout, and as I myself was mixing up a protein-y beverage to consume, I was met with a simple enough response: "I'm not hungry right now."

Hm. That's interesting, because my body craves food immediately after I exercise vigorously on most occasions - and I find that many people I encounter share similar sentiments. While I still believe that protein (amongst other nutrients) following vigorous exercise is important for re-building torn muscles and providing your body with a great deal of goodness, an oft-repeated message seemed to ring more true than usual: Not every body is the same.
Not every body feels the way mine does after I work out, or has the same cravings, or enjoys the same food, or is structurally the same as mine, or is going to build muscle or gain/lose weight the same way that mine does.

It seems so obvious, and I have shared these thoughts with others in the past - you can't expect the same results you see in someone else if you do exactly what they do, because you and that person are not the same! I get very caught up in thinking about how much I've exercised and what I'm eating and how I'm feeling and often realize (too late) that I've been subconsciously relating my own journey to someone else's (exercise regimen, dietary choices, muscle bulkiness, etc.).

My process of really thinking about what I ate began when I became a vegetarian, and then four months later began to exercise regularly (and vigorously) and improve my overall diet and think about what I need for a balanced lifestyle. Unfortunately, in my healthy decision making, I developed a tendency to decide a little too carefully about the aspects of my life that were improving my health, such as exercise and my eating choices. What I mean by this "overly-careful decision making" is that I would sometimes feel I hadn't "earned" certain treats if I hadn't worked hard enough that day (in my own eyes) or that I would become reluctant to enjoy snacks that looked as though their calorie count was "unreasonable" (I never counted calories, mind you, but sometimes one snack's worth of calories seems a little crazy, y'know?).

While I've not entirely escaped those ways of thinking, I have started to recognize that I don't need to be self-conscious if I want to have a snack but someone else doesn't want to have a snack at the same time - I am not glutinous for eating when someone else is not. Nor am I out of shape or unconditioned if my body is responding to exercise and food in a different way than someone else who is doing something similar to me - or even something entirely different. I cannot allow myself to think that a snack will automatically turn into unhealthily stored fat if I eat it without exercising extra to "earn it." It is not fair to me, when I work hard to be good to my body and my health and my well-being, to criticize myself for doing things that fall outside of the realm of "healthy lifestyle" once in a blue moon - or even more often than that. 

None of what I do for myself is going to be worth it if I cannot be happy along the way. Happy with me, and for me, and for others who are on their own journey that is different that mine. I deserve to be happy, and to share in my love for eating and exercising and achieving peace of mind with those that I care about - and those that I have not even met yet.

I would not say that I have ever been truly unhappy, but there have been dark patches in my healthy journey that left me with certain unhealthy mindsets that I have worked on and made brighter opportunities for learning and improving myself.

My goals have become healthier ones, and are less shaped by thinking that I have anyone to be accountable to other than myself. I cannot say that I do not think of others as I work to better myself, but I am becoming better at thinking of myself first.



This has been a somewhat long and potentially ramble-y post, but it felt like something I wanted to share and put into words I can look at in order to establish them more clearly in my mind! Thanks for taking any amount of time to read any number of the words here, and perhaps some of them will help you with your own "shift" in your thinking along your own journey.

Careers Workshops

After attending half of the Careers in Student Affairs Workshop and half of the Arts Careers Xploration, I do not know what I want to do with my life.

I attended only half of the first workshop because it overlapped (most unfortunately) with the second. It was disappointing for me to leave early, as I was engaged in the panelists' stories and their enthusiasm about their work at UBC made me feel excited as well.

I attended only half of the second careers exploration because it didn't pull me in - I suppose I was not mentally invested in it in the first place. So much discussion of careers and post-graduation plans works its way into my daily life that listening to some established individuals discuss how they recently transitioned from students to professionals was almost frustrating for me. There were descriptions of luck and chance and killing time after they received their degrees before landing the jobs they are currently in; however, something about it just didn't engage me. Perhaps it was that particular session about careers in marketing and communications that didn't 'speak to me', but I left before the second session so now we won't know!

Potential takeaways:

• People working at UBC in student affairs love their jobs and it made me excited.
• Working as a barista can be a good time-killer before being hired by a world-class marketing firm.

Personally, I think that those are adequate takeaways. With no goal in mind right now, I think the best I can do is continue on with what I'm doing and reach out to opportunities that pull me towards them. It is those that I believe will ultimately contribute (directly or indirectly) in some way to what I decide to make my next big step. I keep reminding myself that my first career or path does not have to be the only one I commit to, though I do want it to be a meaningful one that I can enjoy for some time and gain new skills and knowledge from.

My time as a member of the RHA has been something I've really enjoyed, perhaps it will take me somewhere I cannot see yet.

We shall see.

And so we begin.

I'm not quite sure how this blog will shape itself yet, but even with that it already is a reflection of my thoughts as of late.

My mind has been busy in a way that feels quite like trying to rearrange a room that has few possible alternative arrangements: I keep attending to the same items, playing with them, putting them aside, attending to others, then putting them aside, then trying to bring them together in some way that makes sense, eventually retiring to the original design and contemplating what to do next.

This thinking does not reflect a pattern applicable to all areas of my life (i.e., family, friends, health...), but it is reflective of thoughts of the next five years, the next ten years, of my life. There exist many possibilities I could pursue, and there exist many interests I already possess, but what I feel must exist and is also currently beyond my mind's visual field is a goal that can drive me forward into the next chapter of my life. Perhaps I do not need to decide upon my life-long career - as I may have anywhere from one to five to ten! - but I do feel I lack a vision towards which I can propel myself in the short-term that could mark the beginning of the journey.

Today I attended my third UBC Student Leadership Conference; my second attendance as a delegate (versus a volunteer who was unable to attend workshops or presentations). In my third year of studies, I have become more skilled in the art of choosing what sorts of activities will benefit my extracurricular involvements (such as council), and even my transition into a professional - but for this, only in a very general sense. "Network! Learn financial management. Gain experience, articulate it well. Learn project management..." These tips and the specifics that were presented with them are all very useful, but I do not know what direction to head in that I could begin to apply them.

My biggest takeaway today would be that my journey into leadership and the next phase of life will be ultimately easier to focus on if I understand my priorities, my goals, and do not fear my own greatness (or failure to achieve it). I cannot tell if I truly lack a goal or if I am blinded by fear of being inadequate in the pursuit of something I am passionate about. Recently, I've sought out the opinions of friends and family as to what they could see me doing that would result in my own success and, more importantly, happiness.
Nursing. Small business owner. Photojournalist.
These all make sense to me, but something is either lacking in or impeding the goal-making process for me. Do I not think these would bring me contentment? Are they unappealing in terms of salary? Do they somehow seem too "small" for me? Am I putting a glass ceiling on myself and in fact too afraid to pursue any of these? Does the idea of going through another Bachelor's degree simply dismiss them as options?

Perhaps all of those. I do not know what I want my career to me, but I believe I know these things about myself:

• I feel a passion for people in a way that can best be articulated as a sense of being fired-up in interpersonal relations with others, in mediating problem-solving between people, in listening and observing and trying to understand individuals.
• I believe I possess significant emotional intelligence.
• I think that I want to have an impact on not just a few, but many people; in a positive way. (Part of me struggles with a potential loss of quality of impact in doing so, however.)

It has felt cleansing to put these thoughts into words I can examine for myself, rather than trying to reorganize them in my mind endlessly. I have repeatedly expressed a desire to have my "ah-ha! moment", and to feel a "click" in my mind when I consider something that just makes sense to pursue.

Hopefully I can reach some peace on this matter soon, in whatever capacity that may be.