A love affair re-visitied and a gained appreciation

As mentioned about three months ago, I have a love affair with carbohydrates. Mostly I have a problem with fresh out of the oven bread and pasta. I have not touched pasta for three months up until the other day. Yes, I did succumb. It was sitting on my counter and just looked so tempting, oh, and my roommate made it for dinner. Later in the week I made a box of pasta and ate it all. I knew when making it that I probably would. I felt bad, but I was tempted and ate it. I know I should not have, but it is no use beating myself up over it. I even have a stash under my bed which is lovingly refered to as the contraband stash. This houses most of the food items which I can eat sparingly. Really, it has things like pie mixes, chocolate chips, etc. Now that I do not HAVE to eat chicken at every meal for two reasons 1. my blood work came back markedly better than expected and 2. there are other ways to get protein than just eating chicken. When I was first told that I could not have pasta it was a huge shock to the system. I LOVE pasta. It is my favorite food group. I was told that being addicted to carbs is as hard as being addicted to alcohol. Ouch. It was very hard for the first little while, especially since for the first few weeks all I was eating was chicken. I have since discovered many other ways to get protein and now it is not so much of a chore to eat chicken. I can make it when I want, stick it in the fridge and munch on it. There is some great whole wheat flat bread which I have discovered which two slices have the same amount of carbs and calories as one slice of regular bread has. Yikes. It is actually surprisingly good. Deffinatly not something to go out of my way for, but for making sandwiches or toast with cinnemon butter on it, it does its job. Also, yogurt is a great stand by. I practically live on the stuff. I eat it for breakfast and many times as an afternoon snack. It is a great way to get protein as well as calcium since I do not drink milk. I sware by soy milk, and have ever since my senior year of high school nine years ago when I discovered that my body did not like the idea of milk. I now am quite opposed to the flavor the regular milk. At the time, although not a fan of the stuff it was a bitter sweat good-bye as when I was little my sister would warm some milk up for me and bring it into me when telling me shadow stories. I love chicken tenderloins. I generally bake them frozen since I am too lazy to defrost them when there are directions right on the package of how to bake it when frozen. I will bake with different things in/on it, and there have been few times when it has not come out very well. Some of the things that I use (not necessarily all at the same time) include bell peppers in all their varieties (I like the color as well as the flavor of each of the options), green pepper (I hate trying to cut a regular onion), and many different spices. Some of these spices include but are not limited to: pultry seasoning, mexican, taco, oregino, paprika, rosemary, cilantro and others.
Yes, I did succum, but I am now content for another period of time. For the most part I do not even miss it. I'm not really tempted my it much. I think one ofthe hardest (which I just might partake in) is on Saturday when I bring fresh bread and jam to work for my team since I promised them a treat for hitting out goal. When we hit a goal (or I just feel like it) I will bring treats. These have included bread, brownies and cookies. I love to cook and bake, but I am always afraid that when I bake I might wind up eating the whole thing, which is why it is great to have a team and roommates to share them with.

MAT

I have been preparing to take the MAT or Miller Analogies Test, which is similar to but not the same as the GRE or Graduate Readiness Exam. The thing about the MAT is that it is strictly analogies, which is great since half of my major is English and there is no Math involved. when I went to set an appointment to take the thing they told me that they give it on one of these two days. I looked at the lady and said, well, that is not going to work. I am at work at that time. Then she said another time and I said, um.. or that either, I'm in class. Then a third option and I said, nope, I'm in a meeting. Good heavens I thought, I am REALLY busy. Finally I pulled up my calandar and said "Well, I can do it this day or this day and at this specific time, oh and I need time and a half." I then had to march over to the Disability Resource Center to get my advisor to write up a letter to be sent to the MAT company to get permission to give me the hour and a half. I am scheduled to take the exam on November 2. I am really quite excited to take it in a really rather scared kind of way. I 'should' theoretically hear back on whether or not I get extra time within a few days. This should not be a problem due to the fact that I have an official diagnosis of my dyslexia as well as a problem with processing. For my program I need to score within at minimum the 40th % of everyone who takes it.

Options

On Tuesday I took a test in a class that I felt oaky about, but when the test scores came back, they left something to be desired. I felt mass amounts of stress at that point. I have to carry a GPA of 3.0 in order to get into the Graduate program that I really want to get into. I feel very stressed this semester. Some days it feels as though all that I can do is endure. Push forward. Any time that I think about giving up, I think about all that I have accomplished and all of the people that believe in me. I graduated high school with a 1.7, with my AA carrying a 2.02, and am now carrying a 3.0. I have never worked as hard or have been as proud of myself as I am at this moment. I keep trying to convince myself that even if I do not get into the program I will be happy knowing that I gave it my all. Truth be told however, I do not know that I can be happy knowing that I came *this* close to getting into the program of my dreams. I have met and exceeded every expectation that have been set before me. I should not have graduated high school and I did. I should not have graduated from junior college, and I did. I should not be graduating in May with my BS degree, and to think that I am studying for graduate school. I tend to set my mind on something and not giving up until I get it. It is almost like giving a dog their favorite toy. However, after receiving my test score I cried, and cried. How am I ever going to get through this, I wondered. The next day I spoke with my boss and another gentleman at work and inquired about other career options just incase I can not get into the program of my dreams. Neither of them wanted to talk about it. In fact, they looked at me and said that if I wanted it has badly as they knew I did, that I would get it. What a relief that was. Someone, two someones in fact, believed in me. They believed in me so much so that they are helping me find a job that will help me get a great refrence for grad-school... and the rest of my life.

Studying

As the life of a college student goes, I have a test this next week. Here we are Saturday and what am I doing... well, at this very moment you would be partly right if you said writing this post, but the other part is that I am studying. Yup, I am studying AND writing this post. As I have mentioned multiple times, I have a LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen. The beauty of this is that I have my lecture notes, audio which has been uploaded to my computer, and then to my ipod and have my instructors lecture notes. Yup, I have many things combined to help me study. I love having these options.
Today at work one of my coworkers found a pillow that said "All you need is the right pair of shoes," tragically tho I was having a hard time reading correctly today (thank you dyslexia) and I could not understand why that was so perfect for me. For days like today, having the ability to have the lectures on audio is great.