Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Saturday Night Blog

Sheesh. So, I've decided that Fate has directed me to blog for you here tonight, at 9:07pm on this hip and happ'nen Saturd'ee in the Andrews-Canberra household, where there is just me on my lonesome. Housemate and her boyf are away, and aaaaaaall my friends in Canberra (all six of them, or however many there are... so I'm better at staying at the School of Music and practising than I am at making new friends, go figure) are either away on holiday, or working. Lame. But that will be fixed tomorrow, as Pippa and I are going to see SHREK! Woohoo! I'm hoping I saw the third Shrek. I'm pretty sure I would've. I vaguely remember it being a bit rubbish but funny never the less. Hang on, just got a text message.

Right, that was Bec. Moving on...

So, yeah. Fate. I was watching "Precious", which my friend lent me, and the disc is freaking broken! I got fifty minutes into the sodding thing and the DVD player refused to play it any more. I tried it in my laptop, as occasionally it will read things that my elitist DVD player won't, and no cheese! So, then I thought, "Bollocks. I was really looking forward to the end of that movie. What can I watch now?" Decided to venture over to the TV Shack website, which I love. They let you watch 78 minutes (I made that up - it's some number around that figure, but I can't remember, and who cares?) of TV shows per day. Love it. Was able to catch up on seeing the first season of Miranda, seeing the second season of Beautiful People, seeing some episodes of Community --and anyway, I went today, and it's been seized by Federal Agents! What the hell? Big red sticker saying, Seized! Seized! Seized! with federal police badges and big warnings in lawyer-ish talk about various clauses and other uninteresting things. How depressing! I thought that website must've been completely legitimate, what with their time limits and such. God, who cares if one can watch TV on the internet for free? I mean, for goodness' sake.

I remember a time when I couldn't buy my favourite TV shows on VHS for love nor money, so I had to WATCH a TELEVISION SET. And I remember that people would set their VCRs to record TV shows that they were going to miss because they'd be at netball or whatever, and then they'd watch them later, sometimes over and over again, and nobody cared because at least they were watching the shows! I really think all this copyright bullshit has been taken too far, and Stephen Fry has recorded an awesome podcast for the iTunes Festival about that very topic, in which he shares my point of view. Go to iTunes and search in the podcasts for Stephen Fry. It's a free download (as it fecking well should be). Bloody mad, this world. Intellectual Property is a pain in the ass.

As a musician, I shouldn't be saying that. But I'm saying it anyway.

This is my diet blog. So, yeah. I've discovered that sugar-free lemonade is not really all that tasty, but they've added so much sweetener that you're fooled into thinking it is. (But it's not. Don't be fooled.) Pepsi Max, all the way. Mama says it isn't good for you to drink all those bubbles but frankly, when you're on the Atkins diet, you need something to keep you entertained.

I don't think Pippa is enjoying the Atkins diet too much yet. I will find out tomorrow how she's going but yeah. She wasn't a fan of the Atkins Chocolate Decadence Bar, and if you don't have that in life, what do you really have? Hahaha. NOTHING!! Well, actually, when you get to Phase 2 (Ongoing), you can have cheesecake and Atkins chocolate. Which is awesome. And I don't have any. Damn.

Going to toddle off and continue reading my awesome new book: Greatest Mysteries of the Modern World, by John Pinkney (The Five Mile Press, 2004). A birthday present to myself. Loving it. Love all that freaky weird unexplained phenomena. Means I'm not sleeping too well, though, as it's freaking me out at nighttime! What a chicken, hey?

Cheerio.

Monday, July 5, 2010

As it turns out...

When I get busy, I get busy.

Phew! So I moved to Canberra and took up a Master of Music degree. That has been keeping me well out of trouble, I can tell you. Thanks to the Australian Government not prioritising post-graduate music degrees as essential learning (and I guess I can see their point), whenever I haven't been trying to learn German vocabulary or memorising song after song after song, I've been working in general administration, and trying to figure out how I'm going to juggle everything with the opera on next month (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with new prologue by Geoffrey Lancaster).

As soon as I got to Canberra, I really started using the Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food cookbook. I had begged and wheedled my sister to give to me for Christmas, and then never really embraced anything new in it. Since I had whittled my possessions down to few, and had a lot of time on my hands in the evenings when I first got here (social life in Hobart: amazing; social life in Canberra: not so amazing), I got cracking and experimenting with Jamie's miraculous book. What a lifesaver! Honestly, if you've never learned to cook, or you're feeling like you could benefit from any education in cooking, this is the book to get. It's a non-patronising way to look at time-honoured ways to prepare traditional dishes that everybody should know how to serve. I, for example, had never eaten or prepared an omelette before. Now I'm an expert!

But enough raving about the book. I got hooked on three of Jamie's pasta recipes, and just started preparing those over... and over... and over... and over... and over again. They are delicious, just so you know, and I love them. However, my body didn't. I began putting on the weight I'd lost last year (remember I went from 115.7 to 107-ish - fluctuated a lot), and felt tired, bloated, irritable... and my migraines were back in full force. Holy toledo. Wow. I was ill.

Then, somebody (a few somebodys, in fact) suggested I go on the Atkins diet. I'd heard of it, obviously, but had no idea what it was other than I'd heard a few people mocking it before. As it turns out, Atkins was developed for those suffering heart disease and diabetes by Dr Robert Atkins, an American doctor who just can't figure out why more people aren't on his diet because it's so good. (Well, not anymore. He's dead. Heart attack, ironically. Or so I've heard.) My periods were becoming awful, I was feeling terrible... and decided to give it a try.

Hallelujah!

My migraines are gone. All of the food triggers that trigger migraines in me are gone. I get migraines when I'm stressed, but now, because my mind is so clear and my body feels healthy, I recognise them as soon as they start and zap them with dissolvable Aspirin. My periods don't give me any grief at all (other than period pain - and unfortunately, that's normal for everybody). I HAVE LOST WEIGHT. I don't feel bloated. I never feel full (or "Stuffed", as they call it on The Sims 3). I have so much more energy. I am literally bouncing off the walls. (Okay, not literally. I've also managed to fall in love this year, so maybe that's contributing to the energy). I just feel so much BETTER!

Weight: 99.2

Status: Overjoyed.

Thank you, Dr. Atkins. Your diet has made me feel a lot better.

xxx