(no subject)
New Year, Old Habits
The New Year is like the phoenix, the legendary bird that rose from its own ashes; it gives us the annual opportunity to rebuild the smoldering wreckage from the previous year’s failures.
We can throw out the cement-like remains of the holiday fruitcake and give the South Beach Diet another go. We can reevaluate who we love and who we love to hate, and totally de-friend from our MySpace accounts those losers who screwed us over in 2004. We get to start from scratch, and set new goals - or for those of us without the ability or inclination to achieve goals, make resolutions we don’t intend to keep.
More than just a “new year,” for many of us this is a chance for many new beginnings in all parts of life. For me here at UCLA, it is a new quarter, with new classes. In my apartment, I have a new heating system, no longer forced at night to walk to the bathroom and pee with my mittens on. I have a new iPod, a closet full of new sweaters, and perhaps the item most symbolic of change, a new 2005 calendar, just full of empty dates - which is just the way I like it.
Most exciting to me, however, is the newly-refurbished UCLA gym, which appears to be about one-hundred forty seven thousand times the size of the old one. Sure, it was a year and a half behind schedule. But it has finally arrived, full of machines to build my muscles and full of mirrors in which to admire them - thereby building that ego, as well.
But while the gym serves to the health of most of my body, there’s one part that suffers indelibly: my fingernails.
I have ugly, ravaged, deplorable fingernails. Since birth and probably a little bit in the uterus, I have bitten them, often down to a harmless nub. I suspect I was born with an errant gene that makes me chew on them, but really cannibalize is the more accurate word - I’m also one of those skin-biters, who rips pieces of cuticle and exposes some parts of the phalanges intended to remain sub-dermal.
It’s one of my most vile habits, and every New Year, though I make solemn promises and swear oaths on bibles and goat blood-covered altars, I can’t seem to stop myself from breaking it a week later, often in a maelstrom of bits of nail and flesh. I have tried wearing gloves, though the few that aren’t too awkward and bulky to wear while taking notes are often uncomfortably feminine. I have about three different bottles of Nibble-No-More, a foul-tasting fluid is supposed to deter nail-biting. Unfortunately, it did nothing to stop me from biting - though I hated it at first, I’ve developed a taste for it now, and when I wear it now, it only reminds me of how much I still want to bite my nails.
The times I do the worst damage are often when I’m sitting, but cannot divert my attention - this includes riding in cars, watching a movie in a theatre, or attending lecture. However, I manage quite a bit of carnage at the gym, as well. I chew gum and check out the hot guy with a faux-hawk, but neither helps eradicate the excess energy I have between sets.
Interestingly enough, the new UCLA gym is putting in its atrium a stand, where fellow gym-goers can purchase … hamburgers. Apparently, some think-tank decided that, rather than sell smoothies or fitness bars, a greasy pound of meat on a mayonnaise-laden bun would better serve the health-conscious public. Even Krispy Kreme is probably more healthful.
And it is the room of cardio equipment that faces it straight-on through large glass windows. Isn’t that cruel punishment? It’s like putting a butcher shop next to a morgue, there’s something incongruous about the conjunction. And the smell of frying meat, I would think, would be a natural deterrent to working out, as citronella is to insects. Personally, I don’t see how this will benefit anyone who goes to the Wooden Center.
…except, of course, me. The way I look at it, I’ll be less likely to put my fingernails to my mouth if there’s already an enormous bite of ground beef and several assorted condiments in it. This could be the solution to my nail-biting affliction for which I’ve been searching for so long!
Of course, with all that fat and grease, it doesn’t bode well at all for my fitness regime.
But hey, there’s always the next New Year, right?
The New Year is like the phoenix, the legendary bird that rose from its own ashes; it gives us the annual opportunity to rebuild the smoldering wreckage from the previous year’s failures.
We can throw out the cement-like remains of the holiday fruitcake and give the South Beach Diet another go. We can reevaluate who we love and who we love to hate, and totally de-friend from our MySpace accounts those losers who screwed us over in 2004. We get to start from scratch, and set new goals - or for those of us without the ability or inclination to achieve goals, make resolutions we don’t intend to keep.
More than just a “new year,” for many of us this is a chance for many new beginnings in all parts of life. For me here at UCLA, it is a new quarter, with new classes. In my apartment, I have a new heating system, no longer forced at night to walk to the bathroom and pee with my mittens on. I have a new iPod, a closet full of new sweaters, and perhaps the item most symbolic of change, a new 2005 calendar, just full of empty dates - which is just the way I like it.
Most exciting to me, however, is the newly-refurbished UCLA gym, which appears to be about one-hundred forty seven thousand times the size of the old one. Sure, it was a year and a half behind schedule. But it has finally arrived, full of machines to build my muscles and full of mirrors in which to admire them - thereby building that ego, as well.
But while the gym serves to the health of most of my body, there’s one part that suffers indelibly: my fingernails.
I have ugly, ravaged, deplorable fingernails. Since birth and probably a little bit in the uterus, I have bitten them, often down to a harmless nub. I suspect I was born with an errant gene that makes me chew on them, but really cannibalize is the more accurate word - I’m also one of those skin-biters, who rips pieces of cuticle and exposes some parts of the phalanges intended to remain sub-dermal.
It’s one of my most vile habits, and every New Year, though I make solemn promises and swear oaths on bibles and goat blood-covered altars, I can’t seem to stop myself from breaking it a week later, often in a maelstrom of bits of nail and flesh. I have tried wearing gloves, though the few that aren’t too awkward and bulky to wear while taking notes are often uncomfortably feminine. I have about three different bottles of Nibble-No-More, a foul-tasting fluid is supposed to deter nail-biting. Unfortunately, it did nothing to stop me from biting - though I hated it at first, I’ve developed a taste for it now, and when I wear it now, it only reminds me of how much I still want to bite my nails.
The times I do the worst damage are often when I’m sitting, but cannot divert my attention - this includes riding in cars, watching a movie in a theatre, or attending lecture. However, I manage quite a bit of carnage at the gym, as well. I chew gum and check out the hot guy with a faux-hawk, but neither helps eradicate the excess energy I have between sets.
Interestingly enough, the new UCLA gym is putting in its atrium a stand, where fellow gym-goers can purchase … hamburgers. Apparently, some think-tank decided that, rather than sell smoothies or fitness bars, a greasy pound of meat on a mayonnaise-laden bun would better serve the health-conscious public. Even Krispy Kreme is probably more healthful.
And it is the room of cardio equipment that faces it straight-on through large glass windows. Isn’t that cruel punishment? It’s like putting a butcher shop next to a morgue, there’s something incongruous about the conjunction. And the smell of frying meat, I would think, would be a natural deterrent to working out, as citronella is to insects. Personally, I don’t see how this will benefit anyone who goes to the Wooden Center.
…except, of course, me. The way I look at it, I’ll be less likely to put my fingernails to my mouth if there’s already an enormous bite of ground beef and several assorted condiments in it. This could be the solution to my nail-biting affliction for which I’ve been searching for so long!
Of course, with all that fat and grease, it doesn’t bode well at all for my fitness regime.
But hey, there’s always the next New Year, right?