(no subject)
Note: Rant. Skip if desired.
...
12:00 pm - This is ridiculous. I like food. Of all sorts, really. But when did that turn into thinking about it all the time and being practically unable to go to the canteen, the sweet potato stand, the grocery store and feeling that I have the...the duty to consume less? (In the long run, I only ever seem to eat more later, because surprise, surprise you get hungry). It's pretty much assumed that everyone female must be trying to lose weight, and most of these people are smaller than I am to begin with.
Argh, not even sure how to articulate this, and yes one should take a rational approach to health and I should just exercise more, but it's frustrating to have counters going in your head all the time, even if they're neither precise or accurate and more imagined than real, out of a sense of social pressure or I don't know what if nothing else. Then I get frustrated again and tell myself that I will go and eat another cornmeal pyramid from the staple foods window because I am perfectly entitled to do so, and on the way down the stairs see the sunlight glinting off the shoulder bones of girls outside the window and think that I really shouldn't have done that.
It's not rational, the rational response says that sure I've gained weight since coming here, but that was probably because I hardly exercised last term and now my roommate and I at least try and go to the gym fairly regularly and if I stick with regular exercise, I'm fine. I will never be one of the people who is alarmed by the prospect of swimming because "It makes your shoulders big!" or never wants to bicycle because it might do the same to your legs. (Note: real responses from a classmate), and in fact I don't want to be.
It's not rational, and I can try and ignore it or wave it away because it's not rational, but the fact that it's even there in the first place is a serious disappointment to my ten-year-old self who strongly disapproved of the silly things teenage girls worried about. The fact that I often eat meals by myself (not uncommon here) doesn't help with giving my subconscious extra room to play, and yes, one could bring body image and media and genetics a thousand other things into any discussion like this, and yes I'm venting, and yes, Dozie, I really do vent in a literary style if this is what you consider a literary style.
My ten-year-old-self was very strict about not falling for this sort of thing.
In Dinotopia, I believe the rule was "Eat to live, don't live to eat".
Augh. I have class.
...
12:41 pm - Well. That was cathartic. Haven't finished my baokan news reports, but feel rather better.I would have said it's awkward to even post this, but I self-censor even as I write, and no I'm not fishing for compliments, it's part of my general sense of wanting to tell stories to other people so they can become real. Not sure how to close this, I don't think I'm quite making sense.
...
12:00 pm - This is ridiculous. I like food. Of all sorts, really. But when did that turn into thinking about it all the time and being practically unable to go to the canteen, the sweet potato stand, the grocery store and feeling that I have the...the duty to consume less? (In the long run, I only ever seem to eat more later, because surprise, surprise you get hungry). It's pretty much assumed that everyone female must be trying to lose weight, and most of these people are smaller than I am to begin with.
Argh, not even sure how to articulate this, and yes one should take a rational approach to health and I should just exercise more, but it's frustrating to have counters going in your head all the time, even if they're neither precise or accurate and more imagined than real, out of a sense of social pressure or I don't know what if nothing else. Then I get frustrated again and tell myself that I will go and eat another cornmeal pyramid from the staple foods window because I am perfectly entitled to do so, and on the way down the stairs see the sunlight glinting off the shoulder bones of girls outside the window and think that I really shouldn't have done that.
It's not rational, the rational response says that sure I've gained weight since coming here, but that was probably because I hardly exercised last term and now my roommate and I at least try and go to the gym fairly regularly and if I stick with regular exercise, I'm fine. I will never be one of the people who is alarmed by the prospect of swimming because "It makes your shoulders big!" or never wants to bicycle because it might do the same to your legs. (Note: real responses from a classmate), and in fact I don't want to be.
It's not rational, and I can try and ignore it or wave it away because it's not rational, but the fact that it's even there in the first place is a serious disappointment to my ten-year-old self who strongly disapproved of the silly things teenage girls worried about. The fact that I often eat meals by myself (not uncommon here) doesn't help with giving my subconscious extra room to play, and yes, one could bring body image and media and genetics a thousand other things into any discussion like this, and yes I'm venting, and yes, Dozie, I really do vent in a literary style if this is what you consider a literary style.
My ten-year-old-self was very strict about not falling for this sort of thing.
In Dinotopia, I believe the rule was "Eat to live, don't live to eat".
Augh. I have class.
...
12:41 pm - Well. That was cathartic. Haven't finished my baokan news reports, but feel rather better.I would have said it's awkward to even post this, but I self-censor even as I write, and no I'm not fishing for compliments, it's part of my general sense of wanting to tell stories to other people so they can become real. Not sure how to close this, I don't think I'm quite making sense.