The Desert of My Dreams

I’m going to start posting private posts again. I’m using a different password so either leave a comment or email me for the password.

What a great way to start the weekend – I finally got to 80 pounds! Technically, I’m down 80.6 pounds since January 2007, which is pretty amazing given this statistic:

Only about 20 percent of obese or overweight people who lose at least 10 percent of their initial body weight can keep it off for at least a year.

I don’t have much else to say other than I’m pretty excited and proud of myself. Yay me!

Can’t wait for 90.

ONE MORE TIME!

As I was working out this evening, my iPod played Silence, one of my favorite Sarah McLachlan songs and one that I haven’t listened to in a while. I’ve listened to that song countless times but I don’t remember really listening to the lyrics or thinking much about them:

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
and I wanted to believe
that I’d get caught up
when the rage in me subsides

One of the reasons why I adore Sarah and her music is that she always seems to come up with lyrics that just summarize so much of my life experiences – my truths. And even when I’ve listened to a song a million times, I can come back to it and find something new like I did tonight.

I’ve been having a weird past few weeks – I seem to bounce back and forth between extreme optimism and extreme pessimism. I’m getting close to turning 30, which is making me wonder about what I have and haven’t accomplished in the past decade and what I really want out of my life in the next decade. As tough as the last decade has been, it has been the best ten years of my life. I may think I didn’t get enough done but I have to remind myself of where I started.

Shortly after I turned ten, my family ended up in the US and my parents lost everything they had ever worked for in Kuwait. Nothing makes a decade suckier than going through puberty, all while trying to forge a new life in a new country, learning a new language, and oh yeah your parents are now suddenly broke. SURPRISE! I can’t think of a situation more suited for building rage in a kid. My teens may have been the worst years of my life but things started turning around in my twenties – I became a citizen, voted for the first time, graduated from college without any student loan debt, went to grad school and met some amazing people, graduated from grad school with a hefty student loan debt :), moved to the Bay Area, got the sort of job that I didn’t think somebody of my background could ever attain, and lost a bunch of weight. Not bad for the girl who had to figure out on her own how and when to study for the SATs and how to go to college for free.

I don’t have everything figured out yet and the rage in me hasn’t totally subsided but I do think I’m getting there. Once I stop beating myself up about what I haven’t accomplished before my 30th birthday, I’ve got a pretty good feeling about this new decade. I think (well at least hope) that this will be the decade where I finally reach my goal weight. And I’m hoping this will be the decade where I finally meet some new people out here (it seems hard to believe that I’ve lived here for three and a half years and am still about as lonely as when I first got here) and manage to find that guy whom I’m going to share the rest of my life with. Mulder & Scully are great for cuddles but they’re not so great for intelligent conversations. I want the next ten years to be the time when I grow my career, feel fulfilled in my work, and secure my financial future – pay off my student loans and buy a cute little condo. And I want to get more serious about all the creative things that make me me – my art, photography, and writing.

So far, 2010 has been promising. I think I might finally be back on track for losing weight (as opposed to maintaining my weight or gaining and losing the same five pounds). I’m back to running 2 – 3 times a week for 3 to 4.5 miles and my leg doesn’t seem to be bothering me as much. And I’m really really looking forward to Maui in March. :)

I’ve been spending some time this summer (and by time I mean a few nights in June and a total hiatus in July) writing some reflective essays. I’ve always dreamed of writing a book and I’m hoping to eventually compile the essays into a manuscript. I have no idea if my work is good enough to be published (or if anyone would be remotely interested in reading my writing- given the popularity of this blog, I’m not holding my breath for a bestseller), but I think I would be satisfied with even just making something and getting it made into a book using a site like Lulu or Blurb. As I was writing tonight, I was thinking that it may be fun (and productive) to share some of my work and get some constructive criticism on it. Of course I’m not ready to share any of it with the entire world. When the right time comes, I may post a few snippets here as private posts. If you think you might be interested in reading these snippets, feel free to leave a comment on this post and I’ll eventually email you a password.

In case I haven’t mentioned it, my birthday is coming up! And I’m going to Kauai, did I tell you I’m going to Kauai? I’m going to Kauai! I’m soooo excited about this birthday and this trip – I feel like I can’t stop talking about it or thinking about it. In case you’re just as excited about my birthday and feeling the sudden urge to give me a gift (in all likelihood, you’re probably wondering who is this person whose blog happens to be in my RSS reader? Noor? What Noor? What is this Noor you speak of?), here are the gifts I’ll appreciate (in no particular order):

• clothes – losing a lot of weight is great but I have to keep giving away clothes to the Goodwill. Gift certificates to help me replenish my wardrobe would be very much appreciated. REI, Banana Republic, Eddie Bauer, and J Crew are current favorites. I don’t like shopping at huge department stores but I can usually find something at Macy’s and Nordstrom.
• workout clothes – I spend a lot of time working out and even though I’m not an athlete, I like wearing workout clothes that make me feel like one! :) Gift certificates to REI, Macy’s (I’ve found that they sell some awesome Adidas workout pants that actually have pockets), Nike Store, and Title Nine would help in this area.
• personal training at 24 Hour Fitness – I haven’t had a personal trainer in over a year so some sessions with a personal trainer would help me freshen my resistance training routine
• spa/massage time – Of the few spas I’ve tried in the Bay Area, I really like Preston Wynne (in Saratoga) and The Four Seasons (in East Palo Alto) but I’m open to trying other places. I’m also staying here in Kauai so getting me some spa time while I’m on vacation would be pretty awesome, too.

And here are gifts that I don’t want (really I would much rather you didn’t get me anything at all than one of these):

• chocolate (or anything else that I love and can’t resist) – I love chocolate but I don’t want any large amounts of chocolate around (maybe if you get me a small single-serving of something, then maybe maybe I won’t hate you and think you’re an evil vindictive person who is trying to derail my progress)
• knickknacks – unless it is something totally awesome and I’m going to be like, “OMG THAT IS SO AWESOME,” I’m not a huge fan of knickknacks and I really hate clutter so save your candles/picture frames/etc for another person
• jewelry – I like jewelry but it isn’t something super useful that I need. I’d much rather you got me something from the above list.

I have a bunch of items floating in my head that are unrelated on the surface but I’m starting to see as following a common theme. Here are a few decisions and cravings I’ve been pondering over the past few days:

• my apartment lease – my lease comes up at the end of August and I’ve decided to renew my lease for another year, which is exciting news because I’ve moved every single year since 2004. Some years I even had multiple mini-moves – like the summer of 2005 when I interned in LA (moved my stuff from first Ann Arbor apartment to storage > moved a few items with me to LA > moved said few items back from LA to Michigan > moved all stuff from storage unit to second Ann Arbor apartment). My current apartment isn’t perfect – it is too cold in the winter (and the baseboard heating is inefficient and expensive), it is too hot in the summer (no A/C and my four fans aren’t much help when the temperatures go over 90 degrees), and the office and maintenance staff are nice but fairly incompetent (they seem to mean well but things never get fixed the first time around). But no apartment is perfect and aside from those factors, I really do like my apartment and the apartment community. My apartment is well-priced for the area (even after the 5% rent increase), I have a washer/dryer and dishwasher in the unit, the interior of the apartment was recently renovated and all of the appliances are fairly new, there are lots of trees and vegetation, I rarely hear my neighbors, I get plenty of sunlight (hence the heat in the summer), all of my windows overlook trees (Mulder hearts that), my corner balcony is huge, the pool is pretty nice and usually deserted, and it is a short commute to work/freeways/shopping. I’m relieved that I don’t have to pack up my stuff and move yet again or look for a new place (especially after last year’s exhausting search in the city) but there is still a part of me that feels weird about making a decision about an entire year. It’s funny because I’m usually pretty impulsive and come to such decisions pretty quickly (I don’t do the self-doubt/questioning thing as often as some of my friends). I keep thinking, “Wow, this is where I’ll be living for the next year. Another whole year of the same thing. This is my life right now and this is what it will be in the next year.” I crave change and I do have a love/hate relationship with moving/apartment hunting. I like looking at new places and changing my environment, but I also hate wasting time looking at dumps and the hassle of packing/unpacking. Even last night (when I was pretty sure that I don’t want to move), I stayed up until 1 am looking at apartments in Mountain View and Palo Alto on Craigslist.
• my ten year high school reunion – my 10 year high school reunion is coming up in August and I’ve decided not to go. When I was in high school, I had always planned on going to my 10 year reunion and even though I really hated high school, I was really looking forward to our ten year reunion. At the time, I always thought that by my 10 year reunion, I would have accomplished a lot of what I set out to accomplish with my life and it would be my way of getting revenge (in the logic that I-may-have-been-an-unpopular-dork-back-then-but-I’ve-accomplished-more-with-my-life-so-now-I’m-better-than-you). Even after ten years, I still haven’t matured and that (getting revenge by having the last laugh) is really about the only reason I would want to go (yes I am cocky enough to believe that I’ve fared better than many of my classmates). As I started thinking about it more, that really didn’t seem like a good reason to go – especially being that Southern Illinois is so far away from California, I don’t have another reason to go in August, and I’d rather spend the $600-700 expense ($400 airfare + $30-$60 airport parking or taxi + $65 reunion ticket + $200 new outfit) on something more important to me. It just seems silly to go all the way out there to prove a point, mostly to myself (and I already know where I’ve been and what I’ve done).
• planning a trip to Kauai – The whole reunion thing got me thinking about vacations and that I haven’t had a real one in a long time. I spend a lot of my vacation time and travel money going home to see my family. I love my family and value spending time with them but I also love travel and there really isn’t much to do or see when I’m in Edwardsville or St. Louis. I’ve decided that for my 29th birthday (March 12, 2009), I’m going to spend a week in Kauai (the oldest of the Hawaiian islands). I’ve never been to Hawaii so it was pretty overwhelming trying to decide which of the islands to visit. But after reading up on the islands, Kauai seems like a good fit – lots of hiking + beautiful scenery + beaches. I’m really craving this vacation and wish I could go right now (this very moment) but I’ve got plenty of planning to do before then. And partaking in such a treat only seems right to do on my birthday. I’m thinking I might stay at this Sheraton resort; it has good reviews on Yelp and Travelocity offers a well-priced hotel+air+rental car package. I’m planning on booking my trip sometime in the next month or so – as soon as I clear all of my boring expenses (renters/earthquake/auto insurance, routine auto maintenance, etc). This Kauai trip will be my first vacation alone and I’m so so excited!
• learning to swim – Despite always enjoying being in the water, I never learned how to swim as a child. I’ve always wanted to learn but various things got in the way (not enough time/resources, not wanting to wear a swimsuit, etc). I figure there is no way I can go to Hawaii without actually learning how to swim so this afternoon I took the first step. I went into the nearby YMCA and got some more info about their private swim lessons. I was ready to sign up but they made me fill out an “interest card” so I’m supposed to be hearing from them soon. I’m excited but nervous about it. At the same time, it is one of those things that I want to conquer and always thought I’d get done before I turned 30. I now have an extra incentive (the Kauai trip) to keep me motivated.
• buying an iPhone – I’ve been craving an iPhone ever since it came out last year and several of my coworkers and friends started carrying them. I never got one last year because I was stuck in a 2 year contract with Sprint and $600 seemed ridiculous for a phone, especially one that couldn’t connect to my Exchange (where my work email and main work and personal calendar lives). I still have about 9 months left on my contract with Sprint but after considering sunk costs (I have 9 months of Sprint service to pay which is actually more than the early termination fee) and utility (I’d get more utility by using an iPhone than my Razr), I’ve decided that I can’t wait another year – especially with GPS and connectivity to Exchange, which according to one of my coworkers is seamless. I was going to head out to one of the Palo Alto Apple Stores tonight (Friday) to get one but the lines were 2 to 3 hours long at either store (somehow I don’t feel right about making this purchase at an AT&T store). I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get my hands on one tonight but I’m going to try tomorrow afternoon or Sunday. It seems like things should finally quiet down by then.

then take my survey!

(oh and pass it on to your friends – thanks!)