Monday, August 20, 2007
- blushingallover helped me buy pants on Friday. It was a traumatizing, Goldilocks-esque experience. "These are too short", "these feel like sausage casings", "these have a kangaroo pouch in the front", etc. I ended up buying two pairs of "Sexy Secrets" tummy control pants. I told Beth that the "sexy secret" was when you unzipped your pants and your stomach went flub-flub-flub as it spilled out.

- On Friday night, I went to see my boyfriend's band play at a bar in Vancouver. dryad271 was there with her husband and we chatted about their experience at Lebowski Fest. For the character costume contest, she dressed up as an 8-year-old. They said somebody else dressed up as a Chinese man carrying two legs. ("A chinaman took them from me.")



- Yesterday I went to REI with Jazz where I bought this bag:



I think it will come in handy for my shorter jaunts around Europe during my travel break. My favorite part is the hideaway backpack straps.

- I also bought some Charmin To-Go (because you'll never know when you'll need soft, American toilet paper) and a travel clothesline.

- I found a cute tote bag at Salvation Army for $3. It's bright yellow with a single rainbow stripe down the middle.

- Last night we drank and played trivia. The questions were either way too easy or way too obscure-- not much in the middle. One of the questions in Cranium was, "Which eight-sided shape is popular on American roadways?" Everyone yelled, "Stop sign!" The answer was, "Octagon."

- I've been playing a lot of Scrabulous on Facebook. I won my first game with a score of 319 to 315.


And in the news...

Scientific American asks, "Can fat be fit?" Their answer: "Of course not, you fat idiot!"



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Posted by Gracie at 8:03 AM | 0 comments
Saturday, August 18, 2007
I volunteered for 278 hours at the library this summer. I got an $825 stipend from Oberlin to do this-- which means I earned about $3/hour.

Posted by Gracie at 8:32 AM | 0 comments
Friday, August 17, 2007
Couple sues doctor after daughter's obesity surgery

8/14/2007 3:12 PM
By David Yates

A Louisiana couple is suing a Port Neches doctor for ignoring their child after obesity surgery.

The couple claims they brought their obese daughter in for follow-up treatment on numerous occasions after her "lap band" surgery, but the doctor never took the time to personally evaluate the young girl.

Warren and Melissa Strother allege their daughter developed pancreatitis due "to the lack of appropriate care by Dr. Felix Spiegel."

They filed their medical-malpractice lawsuit against the local doctor with the Jefferson County District Court on Aug. 13.

According to the plaintiffs' original petition, the minor child was a patient under the care of Dr. Spiegel. On June 24, 2005, the girl was admitted to the Physicians Surgery of Houston, where Dr. Spiegel performed a Laparoscopic Gastric Banding, or better known as the lap band procedure.( Read more... )

-- More + source

The only comment on this article reads: "Poor kid. It's truly sad what some parents will put their kids though in order to be thin." Well-said.

Diet foods might cause kids to overeat


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The diet sodas and snacks so popular with
weight-conscious adults may backfire in children, if new animal research is
correct.

In experiments with juvenile rats, researchers at the University of
Alberta in Canada found that animals that became used to diet foods tended to
overeat during meals of regular-calorie animal chow.

This was true for normal-weight and obese rat pups, the researchers found. However, diet foods did not appear to have an overeating effect in adolescent rats.

This suggests that the foods have some unique effect in young animals, and possibly children, the study authors report in the journal Obesity.

They suspect that diet foods disrupted the young animals' ability to learn how various flavors correlate with calories. When they associate tastes, such as sweet or salty, with few calories, even a rich dessert may fail to fill them up as it otherwise would.

It's possible that children given artificially low-calorie snacks and diet sodas might not learn to properly regulate their food intake, according to lead study author Dr.
W. David Pierce.

"One thing is clear at this point," he said in a statement. "Young animals and perhaps children can be made to overeat when calorie-wise foods are offered on a daily basis, subverting the body's energy-balance system."

He and his colleagues recommend that parents give their children a
well-balanced diet of foods in their natural form, including naturally
low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables.

-- More + source

On a lighter note, here's a blog devoted to bike culture in Copenhagen, Denmark:

http://copenhagengirlsonbikes.blogspot.com/


"Social Documentary in High Heels", is one way this blog has been described. It's about bicycle culture in Copenhagen, Denmark. 35% of the population - 550,000 people - ride their bike to work or school each day. Bicycles are such an integral part
of our culture and there are many aesthetic aspects on the streets at any given moment.

Perhaps we can inspire people in other countries to commute by bicycle or
lobby for better bike conditions in their cities by providing a portrait of a
city that lives and breathes bikes.

At the very least, enjoy the view from our saddles.


Posted by Gracie at 8:35 PM | 0 comments

Mayzfang and I saw Waitress at one of Portland's many 21+ only pub theaters. How exclusive! We drank booze and ate pizza. The movie was cute but one part seemed particularly unrealistic: What woman in their right mind would end an affair with Captain Tightpants aka Nathan Fillion? Pff.

Anyway, if you want to see Keri Russell play a sad, poor, pregnant lady with a mean husband and some sassy friends, you'd like Waitress. Plus she makes out with Captain Tightpants and bakes lots of pies with humorous names.


Posted by Gracie at 8:35 PM | 0 comments
Monday, August 13, 2007
Eating s'mores + windy beach = marshmallow in your hair.










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Posted by Gracie at 1:03 PM | 0 comments

Wait... am I understanding this correctly? Is Sarah Schrag, Ariel Schrag's sister, going to Oberlin this fall? Along with Jake DeVito, Danny's son, who will be a sophomore? And you say Ed Helms (aka Andy from the Office) graduated from there, TOO?!

Man, the $40k+/year is almost (but not quite) worth all the name-dropping. /sarcasm

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Posted by Gracie at 6:45 AM | 0 comments