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. 

Ranting

Ranting is something I find myself doing pretty regularly. That’s probably not healthy, but I find myself getting progressively pissed off with people and society. I understand that generally, people believe that you hold your own view of the world. That you have your own thoughts and feelings, and as long as you keep positive then you will maintain a relatively happy individual. I try to keep that in mind as much as possible, but to be completely honest, I find so much about the world hard to handle and hard to understand.

Maybe I am just a very sensitive and pessimistic person, I am sure some people reading this may think so. That’s fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  I just find that people can be quite self- centered and rude and don’t understand it. I mean understand that people can have a bad day, lose their temper every so often if they are hungry or tired or something like that.  What I don’t understand are people who are constantly trying to better only themselves or put other people down. It’s those people who are constantly choosing to use condescending tones when talking to other people that really get to me. Those people who just come off so coldhearted really make me question society. I know I am far from perfect but usually when I am rude to someone I feel bad almost immediately after. There are some people who just don’t seem to be impacted at all by how they treat others. I often life my life doing the exact opposite. I am one of those people that  will go out of my way to be there for someone,  dropping almost anything I have to do just to help out.  Like pick up a distraught or often drunk friend, in the middle of the night no matter how early I have to be up the next day. Maybe it’s because I’m a rather emotional person, that I’ve become like a magnet to people in need. Basically a an unpaid personal therapist. Don’t get me wrong, I never mind helping out a person.

 What I find crazy though, is that the minute that I am in the one in need, it seems like no one is there. To be fair, I am somewhat closed up, rather independent. Sometimes perhaps too independent to the point where I bottle things up over time until I explode. When I do, like I did a few days ago, the most I normally get from people is “Well.. cheer up!”.  What a fantastic response right? Like thanks a lot, as if I had the control over that. I mean if there was a button in my head that I could just press and then I would automatically feel better, I would.

 The other day in particular, I had a miniature breakdown, I had a terrible day at work where people were just flat out rude (that’s the thing you have to learn to get used to in the restaurant business though), a fight with my sister, and an overall lack of energy from the ongoing insomnia I am often faced with. My friend, who comes to me with almost all of her problems, no matter how minimal or serious, replies to my meltdown with “Oh jeeze, that really sucks!” . Now I don’t know if I should or should not be disappointed in this person. I don’t know if maybe I find myself fed up with people because I might be acting irrational. Perhaps I just expect too much from people?

A Day To Remember

I don’t know if any of you have been to Bora Bora, it’s honestly one of the most beautiful places to travel.  Google it if you haven’t been and you will see what I am talking about in regards to its beauty. It was an extremely expensive place to travel, one of our dinners was 700 dollars. It was a buffet and I am quite a glutton when it comes to food. Even if I had starved myself the entire day up until that buffet I would have been able to eat enough to make up for the price. Other than that, the expense was completely worth it in my eyes to experience the many things I did. I traveled there with some of my closest friends.

One particular day we decided to be risk takers, so we signed up to swim with sharks and sting rays. I’m not talking about being dropped into a tank with a few sharks and sting rays and having professionals monitor the situation. We were out in the middle of the ocean with countless sharks, and what seemed like an endless amount of sting rays. At first it was exhilarating, being so close to live sharks swimming just feet away from my own feet. The sting rays moved so smoothly in the water and would actually make contact with our bodies. I have explained that feeling the same way each time, it may sound very peculiar, but the sting rays felt like slimy pancakes up against my skin. It was definitely a creepy experience, I can’t say I was completely comfortable with the feeling but I am glad I did it. Then out of nowhere, the workers on the boat started throwing raw meat into the water for the sharks to eat. The second I saw that, panic set in. I was terrified that the sharks would chomp my feet instead of one of the pieces of meat. I was swimming as fast as I could back to the boat. That was enough of the ocean blue for me that day, I sat my butt down on that boat and stayed put. My friends all tormented me “Stop being such a chicken and get back in here.” “We are only going to be able to do this once so get out of the boat and take advantage of this!”  Being the stubborn person I am however, I didn't move a muscle until we had got back to the resort. 

Initial Greeting

Just setting up the blog for class.