Another Girl Bitching About Her Weight

It's been a little over a year since my last post. In many ways I've changed. But unfortunately, in others--some of which I am not very proud of and don't quite understand--I haven't changed at all.

Before I started writing this post, I knew what I wanted to write about: my body image. A subject that girls never seem to exhaust. As much as I like to think of myself as a maverick, outside of the confines of feminine stereotypes, it appears that I'm as much of an ordinary, unremarkable 22-year-old female as all the other 22-year-old females in the world. I am a victim of my body image. The issue stands before me like an unsurpassable road block. I just can't seem to find my way around it. When I wake up, it's there. As I go throughout my day, it's there. When I go to bed, it's there. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see my body as if it were in a fun house mirror. But there is a creeping suspicion in the back of my mind that my body actually looks like that.

What's remarkable is that when I opened my blog page for the first time in months, my very last blog post from June 2009 caught my eye. The title of it: "Life on a Diet". And here I am, over a year later, armed with a degree from Stanford University, supposedly educated in the ways of the world, supposedly equipped with the tools necessary to look past the physical. But I am more consumed by my body image now than I have ever been, even a year ago when I started that diet. That diet, of course, died out quickly, along with the hope that I will actually lose the 30 pounds that I want to. Because the truth is, I may hate my body, but if there is one thing I hate worse than my body, it's the gym, and diets, and anything I would have to do to render a change. If I really cared that much about my body, wouldn't I do the necessary to change it? That's what a certain ex boyfriend used to tell me. But somehow when he said it, it just hurt me more than helped me. As annoying as it is for a girl to fish for compliments from her boyfriend, it's a fact of life. And the response a girl does not want to hear is: "If you don't like it, go to the gym and do something about it." I'll be damned if that makes me feel better. I'll tell you what I want to hear: "Oh, honey, you're perfect the way you are. Just shut up about it. You're perfect." In other words, I want nothing more than to be lied to. It's much more comfortable than the sensation I get everyday when my mind eats at me for not being skinny enough, and thinking no man will ever love me because I'm not sexy. Four years at Stanford should have taught me that there are men out there who look past the physical. However--and this is not necessarily because of Stanford, but perhaps in spite of it--I have come to believe the opposite. I don't know where I am receiving my information. I know it's utter bullshit.

I should be intelligent enough to filter out what the media tells me. I should know that the girls on The Hills are not regular girls, that it is unrealistic of me to strive to look like the models in Elle, that the girl I saw in Wal Mart may be skinnier than me, but that that doesn't make her better than me. But over time my mind, which seems to have a personality of its own, has convinced me that if I don't achieve the most fundamental feminine attribute--a slim figure--nothing else about me matters. I may have a great sense of humor, I may be intelligent, I may have the most charming personality on earth (which I don't), but none of those matter until I can attract the opposite sex at the most fundamental level.

And why is it such a priority for me to attract the opposite sex? Why is my biological clock (or whatever that bullshit is) pressuring me to appeal to men when my mind tells me to focus on my personal goals? As I get older, or maybe just because I'm entering a transition period in my life, my mind becomes more and more muddled. I feel like there are a lot of undefined forces fighting to dominate my mind. Biology vs. logic, head vs. heart, practicality vs. my dreams. To be honest, I do not feel at the top of my game. I certainly have felt at the top of my game before. But I have come to believe that something happened to me within the last couple of years that changed me. I have devolved from the education-loving, idealistic shirker of societal norms into a confused, insecure teenager who is completely obsessed with her looks.

It's funny. I never thought I would become like this. The other day my mom caught me checking out my side profile in the mirror (the cursed muffin top!) and told me that I am vain. Me? Vain? I never thought anyone would ever think that about me. I have never cared what people thought about me so much as I do now. In reality, I'm not vain. I am just so consumed with self-loathing that I obsess over it. I look at myself in the mirror, pinpoint each physical attribute that I want to change, and allow my mind to ruminate over self-criticisms. That, in my mind, is not vanity. That is masochism.

In the end, I just want to be beautiful. More importantly, I want to feel beautiful. But instead, I find myself buying clothes that will hide the parts of my body I consider to be fat, I put on make up everyday without fail because I fear being seen as I really am, I dress up as fashionably as I can in order to make up for what I consider to be the drab, dumpy person underneath. So many people tell me I exude confidence. To me, that is just laughable.

It's unfortunate that such a bright mind like my own is spending 85% of the day obsessing over such bullshit as weight and appearance. I am hoping that this is all nothing more than a product of my age. I hope that I will get past all of this. Because it has been nearly a year and a half since I started obsessing over my weight, and rather than diminish, my obsession has only increased.

I applaud anyone who has made it to the end of this post. If anyone has any opinions on the matter, please feel free to share with me. It always helps to have some solidarity. I know many girls go through this same thing, but that does not take away from the sense of loneliness that we all have while struggling through it.

Life on a Diet

My life has become significantly less interesting in the last several weeks, due largely to the fact that I have decided to go on a diet. And let me tell you, this is a miserable time for me. Two blog entries ago I dedicated multiple paragraphs to the subject of food. All of the foods I mentioned in those paragraphs are now on my black list of untouchables. I have been reduced to eating nothing more than breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I haven't had chocolate or sweets or dessert for weeks. I have resorted to eating bananas when I want something sweet. I have lost count of how many bananas I've eaten, that's how desperate I am. My favorite chocolate with a squirrel on the wrapper is history, flan is a no-no, blueberry muffins from Castano are out of the question. All of the pleasure I got out of life has been taken away from me... by me. People say that the longer I go without chocolate and sweets, the more I will forget about them. Not so. The longer I go without them, the more time I spend fantasizing about them.

My life could be worse, I know. But damn, I didn't realize how much delicious junk I put into my body until I took it all away from myself. I guess I will have to channel the extra energy I spend fantasizing about food toward something more productive, like watching movies. This whole movie project has turned into something of an obsession (that's usually how I roll when I get interested in something), and I have watched over 40 movies in the past two months. I'm a movie-watching machine. Too bad movies don't taste good.

Complacency

It's midterms week. I have a 5-6 page paper (written in Spanish) due tomorrow and just started writing it today. I feel a sense of kindship with my classmates because most of them haven't even started. That's what happens when your Politics and Culture in Chile class sucks and your professor sucks even worse. Professor Subercaseaux is annoying for a number of reasons, the number one reason being that he repeats "No es cierto?" literally every 10 seconds. He also talks like he's got a mouth full of mashed potatoes, has all white hair except for his eyebrows and moustache, and assigns us presentations only to interrupt us every sentence to go off on a 10-minute-long boring-ass tangent. But like one of my classmates told me yesterday, bitching about it doesn't help. I disagree with that, since bitching significantly lifts my spirits, but I guess listening to someone bitch isn't quite as entertaining as being the one doing the bitching.

Facundo went back to Argentina last night, so now that he is gone I have much more free time to dedicate to my latest project: watching movies. My goal is to watch all the "greats", or at least the movies that people talk about a lot. Not quite as ambitious a project as working on a llama farm or landing an internship, but rejection certainly lower's one's standards. So far I have watched Traffic, Volver, Constantine, Mona Lisa Smile, Babel, Amelie, Kill Bill, Donnie Darko, and V for Vendetta. Not a very impressive list, but I'm working on it. Tonight I am going to rent the Matrix, even though Keanu Reeves is an annoying and sucky actor. My goal is to become more "well-read" with regards to movies. I have never been much of a movie person because they usually bore the hell out of me, but I am trying to turn a new leaf.

As you might be able to tell from my latest blog posts, I am becoming complacent. It could be because I have been in Chile long enough so that I am now in a place to take it for granted. I think I have stopped paying attention to my surroundings and am living in the future, waiting for summer to come around so I can go home. Earlier this year, especially around the time Tahir Shah came around, I was chomping at the bit to get started on projects and planning my near future. But that inspiration has worn off due to rejections and the numbing power of time. To be honest, I am quite disappointed in myself at this point. I am not developing any new projects, going on any interesting trips, doing anything at all. I spent awhile looking at grad schools the other day, but that's about it. I think maybe I have been here too long and there is nothing here left for me to discover. Maybe I just need to move on with my life as soon as possible. Whatever it is, I do not like the feeling of complacency, and I hate taking things for granted when I know I am going to miss them when they are gone. Oh, the human condition. I wish there were something I could do to avoid it.

Gastronomical Meanderings

Today my host family invited Facundo over to cook dinner. He arrived at 7:30 and dinner wasn't ready until midnight, I kid you not. I hesitate to generalize, but I feel that Argentinians (or maybe it's just Facundo) do everything more slowly than molasses in January. Facundo started cooking, with me as his pathetically useless assistant, around 8:30 or 9:00. Soon after helping him make the apple cake dessert, I got tired and went to take a nap. I was awakened from my slumber at midnight and told that dinner was ready, which surprised me since Facundo had started cooking over three hours ago. I guess that's what happens when you make the lasagna noodles from scratch. But damn was it delicious.

Anyway, the evening of cooking got me to thinking about my eating habits and the way they evolve depending on where I am. When I was in Russia, my everyday food staples were hot chocolate and oatmeal in the morning, several Cokes and/or Fantas throughout the day, half a liter of grapefruit juice a day, chocolate tea cookies, and blinchiki (a lot like a crepe filled with cheese and mushrooms, or caviar, or honey). It's funny how the small snacks I bought shaped so much of my experience, and yet I had almost forgotten about them until today. My memories of Russia are laced with the taste of grapefruit juice and borscht and my favorite cookies. I think the foods I ate in Russia, and the foods I eat in any other part of the world I may be in, contribute a lot to my nostalgia. Sometimes I wish I could just buy one more carton of греипфруктовы сок to help me remember. Simple things like tasting a certain food can bring back floods of memories. Isn't that strange?

Here in Chile my staple foods have been blueberry muffins from Castaño, Pura Fruta mango-flavored ice cream, water with added flavor packets (I gave up on soda, remember?), and empanadas. And whenever I am in Argentina, it's something different, like Paso de los Toros soda (I made an exception in my soda diet for Paso de los Toros because it's my absolute favorite) and flan. Traveling the world has forced me to develop nuanced eating habits wherever I go, and it's really been interesting. It's impossible to maintain a stable diet when I am traveling, because whenever I go to another country the food supply changes. For instance, whenever I go back to the US, my diet changes dramatically. I start eating food that is much higher in fat, like hot wings, chocolate, Ramen noodles, pizza, fruit roll-ups (yeah I know, that is really pathetic, but I can't help it). I almost wish all of that food wasn't available to me, because it's so much unhealthier than the things I eat when I am living abroad. But if disgustingly fattening things like that are in front of my face, they will be eaten.

It's sad how quickly I have converted Facundo into a ravenous consumer of unhealthy US food products. His partiality to fried chicken has turned into an obsession; we have eaten KFC three times this week. I introduced him to Ramen noodles in a cup earlier in the week, and he was in love. I introduced him to Nutella (okay, not American, but still fattening) also, and we have gone through two jars in one week. He tried American-style marshmallows also and has gone through two packages of those this week. To my shock and awe he hasn't gained a single pound, whereas of course I eat the same amount of food, if not less, and end up gaining weight. Maybe when Facundo comes to the US and has a steady diet of pure shit for food, I will see some progress.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I have found it fascinating to introduce a foreigner to a whole new world of food that he never new existed. It has made me aware of the things I eat and the way they shape my life.

In other news, I caught a pigeon yesterday on Cerro San Cristobal. I will most certainly be posting photos as soon as possible.

Condoleezza Rice is a Bitch

Why does Stanford host all the best speakers when I am away? Earlier this week Condoleezza Rice had a Q&A in one of the dorms at Stanford, which I watched on YouTube. I was hoping some of the students would put her in her place, but instead she put them in their place. Damn bitch. During the Bush administration she authorized the use of waterboarding (definition according to Wikipedia: a form of torture consisting of immobilizing the victim on his/her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. By forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences drowning and is caused to believe they are about to die.) Sounds like torture to me. But according to Condi during the Q&A session, no, it's not torture, she would never authorize torture. Then she accused the students of not having done their homework and that they should keep their comments to themselves until they knew what they were talking about. And of course she referred to 9/11 as many times as is humanly possible. Whatever, Condi. You's a bitch.

Anyway, Stanford also hosted Colin Powell and one of the actors from The Office this year, among some other speakers I can't remember. Kinda sucks. At least during my first two years I took full advantage of all the celebrity speakers Stanford hosted. So far my list includes Bill Gates, Ted Koppel, Ralph Nader, Natalie Portman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I hope we have a good commencement speaker my senior year. Last year it was Oprah Winfrey, but the year before that it was some poet laureate no one had ever heard of. My ideal commencement speaker would be Jon Stewart, but that'll never happen, since he charges $300,000 per speech. What a sell-out.

My Emo Phase

I am disappointed in myself for having practically abandoned my blog. However, I feel that as of late I have nothing very positive or humorous to write. Instead, I seem to be going through an emo phase, and I would rather not indulge myself in broadcasting my sorrows to the public. Those things tend to come back and bite you in the ass. Or worse yet, when you get bored and decide to read back over past posts, you come across an embarrassing post moaning and groaning about how much your life sucks when it really doesn´t, and you kick yourself for having divulged that information to the free world. I would compare the feeling to the one I get whenever I look back on the Buff Bagot from 7th grade. When I was about 14, I went through the emo stage. I wore ¨punk¨ type shit, like spiked necklaces and arm warmers and Avril Lavigne ties and every other supremely embarrassing accessory you could possibly think of. When I look back on those times, I cringe with... I don´t know what it is I cringe with, but I would compare it to fingernails on a chalkboard. What´s funny about the 7th grade Buff Bagot was that she had nothing to be emo about other than having gone to a Catholic elementary school and being forced to go to confession every month. Other than that, I was middle class Whitey McWhitealot who attended mass every Saturday night and got good grades. What a hard knock life. At least nowadays when I am going through an emo phase I don´t dress like Avril Lavigne. I just mope a little and that´s about it. Nothing wrong with a little moping, right? Let me be mopey, damnit. And I´m sorry if my blog has lost some of its luster, but I am going through a not-so-funny phase. It´ll be back soon, I promise.

I Was Going to Write about Cats Sooner or Later...

It would be nice to be in the company of a cat right now. Street dogs just aren't the same since I'm not supposed to touch them, and Blacky (the neighbor cat) is very moody and ignores me a lot. Sometimes just having a silent companion does wonders for my mentality. Cats are so unassuming and undemanding (well, unless it's DeeDee when she gets needy, but she's retarded, so that's different). They lay next to you and purr and make you feel loved (well, except Marie, who growls and slaps you if you move while she is laying on you).

I also like dogs, and since I've been in Chile I've grown to like them more. My host sister's boyfriend has a little dog named Twister who comes over a lot and makes really sad faces so that I'll give him table scraps. Facundo's dogs are really cute too, especially Juana, who lays on her back on my lap.

But dogs just aren't the same as cats. You have to earn a cat's love. And since cats are so moody, when they express happiness it is extra rewarding. Every time I go back to Kansas, each of my cats has her particular way of expressing excitement at my return. The first to appear is always Mokie, who rolls around on the floor and makes little chirps of delight. Then Carmela, who slinks into the room, tail twitching (she's a very twitchy cat), and waits for me to pick her up and carry her over my shoulder. I also have to make her do her trick: falling to the floor on command. Then comes Bessie, the neurotic one, who also throws herself to the floor and rolls like crazy. Then, later on after all the other cats have greeted me, she sits on my lap and neurotically plays with my pant strings. She also likes to carry highlighters around, sit on top of them, and meow obsessively (I really don't know why she does that). Then comes Baby, the deaf princess, who stands at a distance and stares at me without moving. She always stays at a distance, but if I leave the room she follows me wherever I go. Marie and DeeDee never come to greet me. Marie is always outside and DeeDee is too retarded. Poor thing.

I always think it's weird when people tell me they don't like cats. I guess they just don't have the patience to understand a cat. There are some unpleasant cats, but I think that's just because they were not brought up in a nurturing environment in which they could develop a personality. That may sound like bullshit, but I think every one of my cats has something special and interesting about them, and I can't imagine anyone not liking them. Except, of course, Marie, the psycho one who slaps you if you get too close to her face. But cat slaps don't really hurt.