Junk Food

I try to eat as healthy as possible but I have a few foods I just can't help but give into from time to time.
When I was young I had an addiction with slurpees. It didn't matter what season it was, summer or winter, my sister and I would walk to 7-11 and get giant slurpees. In high school my friends who were on spare would go buy one for me and drop it off at which ever class I was in. That's how bad I would crave them. My second addiction are chips, I am definitely a salty food lover, over a sweet tooth kind of person. I like every kind basically, sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, barbecue, you name it! They are coming up with some crazy flavors these days, like hot wings! I haven't tried them but I have tried the stuffed potato flavor by Ruffles, one day when I was at subway,  and let me tell you, they were delicious, especially as a side to my sandwich! On the other hand, just because I am a salty food person, that does not mean I hate things like ice cream. I just crave those types of food less. If I were to have a sugary type food it would usually be some chocolate or cookies with my tea. I drink tea almost every day, especially green tea, it's good for the metabolism!  Very rarely though, if I feel like treating myself,  I will allow myself to eat a nanaimo bar! Those things are too darn good!

Being Greedy

My strong love for food is not understood by my family. My brother eats like a pig, he can eat an entire pizza and still be hungry. Normally after devouring what he can find in the fridge already made for him by my mother, he moves on to what I've made. You see, he is 21 years old, and very lazy. He basically lives off toast, cereal, or anything you can microwave because he refuses to make anything for himself, he thinks it's too much effort. Besides, when he tries (because my mom forces him to), he normally messes up. 21 years old and he pours the pasta in before he's boiled the water. 21 years old and he still has trouble with the electric can opener. I imagine you can see my point by now. My issue with this, is that I put effort into making my meals, and when I have extra, I put it into the fridge to heat up later. Or so I think. When I come home starving after work or school, I go to open the fridge and my meal is mysteriously gone. I've talked to him nicely about it several times asking him to leave my meals alone. He agrees, but doesn't seem to see the issue, he thinks food is food and that if it's there is should be eaten. The thing about my brother is what you say seems to go right in one ear and out the other. Instead of being kind about it the times following our talks, I normally get angry. Which leads to him telling me I am food obsessed. Maybe I am, so be it. I have just recently started to put sticky notes on my meals saying "ASHLEY'S!!!" so that he knows now what specifically he better not touch, or else!

Where to go to grab a bite to eat!

If you are struggling to pick a place to go out for a meal, go to Original Joe's! It is a fabulous place to eat. I live in the North, so the closest Original Joe's for me is right by Northland Mall. I have yet to try everything on the menu, but every time I go I have trouble deciding what I want to order because all of it sounds amazing! I usually try to order something that I wouldn't normally make, or know how to make, at home. I like to change things up quite often and be spontaneous! Original Joe's has amazing burgers, countless different options. They are also massive, and could probably feed two people. The lettuce wraps there are also delicious. But my ultimate favorite meal there that I've ordered, is the butter chicken. Indian food isn't for everyone, but if you are into that type of food I would highly recommend it! Just like the burger, the serving size is quite large, I always pack half of mine up to go, which is a bonus! It makes for a great lunch to heat up for the next day. If you're hungry right now, this is going to make you drool!

Food, Food, and More Food!

My love for food was never normal even from the start. When I was a baby I was very picky about what I was being fed. Infants normally eat that mushy baby food, I refused to do so. Instead, my mother was forced to feed me rice. Every day. I love rice, to this day it is my favorite food. It can go well with just about anything as a side, such as salmon for example. Or you can add into something, such as chili. Or you can make entire meals with rice as the main ingredient. One of my favorite meals is stir-frys. My stir-frys are mainly rice and a ton of vegetables, like carrots, onions, peppers, or pretty much whatever I have to use up in the fridge that wouldn't be odd to add in. I am not a huge meat eater, but I do normally add chicken or pork to make sure I'm getting protein. I also experiment quite a bit with sauces and spices. They are simple to make, healthy, and delicious. This is the one I made tonight!

The Beginning of My Love for Food

I am a rather tiny person. When I was younger I was especially short, small, and skinny for my age. At that time my obsession for food would have been hard to believe if you just looked at me. I probably looked like a starving child although I was quite the opposite. At six years old I would often be so eager to make food that I would take a chair from the kitchen table, slide it over to the counter area and climb up on the counter to grab whatever I needed to prepare some food. I was much too small to reach anything without doing so but I was rather stubborn and wanted to do things on my own without the help of anyone else. I remember my babysitters being rather shocked by my independence in the kitchen. My favorite thing to make back then, and still one of the best and easy things to make (although not overly healthy), nachos.  The only difference between when I was six and now, is that before I would never choose to eat some green mushy stuff (guacamole as most of us would know it as) which is now just about my favorite thing in the entire world!

Experiences Into Words

Honestly to compare anyone,  including myself, to Helen Keller is extremely difficult, nearly impossible really. Of course I have not experienced what it is like to be both deaf and blind. “The Story of My Life” gave my insight on what she went through but I still do not and cannot truly understand what her experiences must have been like. Helen’s life is so out of the ordinary. Her thoughts, feelings, and emotions are very separate from my own, therefore, my imagination and attempt to put myself in her shoes is really all I can do to try to understand her experiences.
Research shows that when an individual loses one of their senses, their other senses become stronger to compensate. It was clear to me that Helen’s sense of smell was exceptionally keen. She wrote with such detail. She could take something as simple as the smell of a flower and develop the idea into something so precise and marvelous. The touch and smell of things became engraved memories in her mind.  This differs so much from the way a regular individual experiences the simple things. Often those equipped with fully functioning senses, like myself, take the little things for granted  to the point where we don’t even notice the details around us.  And even if we do take the time to appreciate a moment, such as beautiful view of the mountains, we probably will never think about that particular moment again the same way and therefore we forget that experience. We are surrounded by a world that has countless exquisite moments and things, and we often do not even take the time or effort to truly appreciate even a fraction of those.
The fact that she was not only able to have the motivation to learn objects and words, but actually learned to speak is utterly remarkable. Especially the way in which she was able to do this through touching her teachers mouth and paying especially close attention to throat vibrations. I believe she is a genius. She was able to accomplish so much because of how determined she was. It is definitely eye opening to me because I can find myself becoming overwhelmed just writing up or typing out assignments, or reading through material. But to her “Knowledge is love and light and vision”.

Internet

I would first just like to start off with how astonished I am that there are people out there that are incredibly intelligent enough to create things like computers and the internet in the first place. I can’t even imagine what thoughts must go on in their brains, thoughts I would never be able to think of or understand in a million years. But that of course is off topic, I tend to do that very often, my friend Brandon always makes fun of me for it. See there I go again! Anyway, the internet is such a vast place; it is amazing the way people can connect all over the world. Information is so easily accessible to many of us nowadays, and has been for so long that I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to not have the internet. I mean the way my grandma talks about how she had to do research in school is incredibly different from the way we are able to retrieve information now. For example, mylifesaver.

Of course, there is no such thing as perfection. There is always a flaw, always the pros and cons, ups and downs to anything. You could argue countless negative ideas about the internet. For example, there is an excessive amount of information that isn’t child friendly on the internet that kids could browse at any time. But there is also an excessive amount of information that all people, no matter what age should not see. Race and gender, although they are issues that have become less prevalent over the years, are still existing problems. The subject is sensitive for many people, and I guess that’s why it really shocks me that some people are able to say some of the stuff they do. I do not find myself a judgmental person, but clearly some people are, especially when it comes to race and gender. This is seen quite often still today, even daily for some people. For example YouTube, some people may browse it daily when they are bored (in class) – just kidding, or when having trouble falling asleep they may just go to simply look up some calm music to help them pass out. The problem is, almost every single video will have some kind of inappropriate comment on it.

My boyfriend is black, I am white. We have discussed many of the racial stereotypes, while many of them may not seem too serious, such as black people liking watermelon or chicken. I am lucky that he has a pretty easy going personality and sense of humor because some of the stuff I watch on YouTube, for example these hilarious guys, can drop some jokes that may be offensive to different races, as well as gender differences, and I don’t want to offend him. What is appropriate? Where do we draw the line? It is something I think we as society may not think about as often as we should. While anonymity is good because it can allow people to be themselves, it is bad in the way it seems to lead to many harmful statements and attacks to certain groups of people. It’s a shame.