The school food hierarchy

It seems at an alternative health type school, we are all a bit freaky about our eating. Or perhaps we all just only pretend to be uber-healthy when in public, and secretly scarf down pints of ice cream at home (as I did tonight, but I don't mind telling you guys because I freakin' enjoyed it, damn it).

Anyway, it seems to be a cool acupuncture student you must:

Only eat home-cooked food (commercially prepared food is so last century).

Only eat organic food (duh).

Only eat Chinese-style food (because we're studying Chinese medicine, after all).

Only eat out of pyrex containers (because plastic is bad).

Only use the toaster oven to heat up said home-cooked Chinese-style food in said pyrex containers (because microwaves are evil).

Only use your own chopsticks that you bring from home (forks are for idiots).

Except for the bozos like me who bring in an Amy's frozen meal and nuke it in the microwave. Which I then eat with a good old-fashioned western-style fork. I felt so embarrassed at school yesterday with two frozen meals - one for lunch and one for dinner. The sodium! The laziness! The horror! Ah well. I guess I am not cool after all.

Perhaps in a week or two when the crushing exhaustion that comes with the start of the semester lifts I will start trying to cook for myself again. But for now, Amy's is all I can muster the energy for.

Scheduling

So, all that house cleaning that I was determined I was going to do on my break? Yeah, it didn't happen. I mean, some cleaning happened. Some closet clearing and such. But not the big spring clean that it really needed. And it is back to school tomorrow, so it is back to the time crunch.

Of course, instead of actually cleaning the whole house today, I have written myself out a detailed chore schedule, which I'm going to print and stick on the fridge. And oh yes, you betcha it has spaces for check marks to fill in when I have completed something.

Despite my love of study schedules, I am really not the type of person that loves to schedule the remainder of my time. I like to do things as I feel like them rather than have a routine. I like NOT knowing that Monday is laundry night, or whatever. I think it comes from my childhood, where we had a rigid meal schedule. I mean, sure, I liked casserole, but that didn't mean that I wanted to have it every Tuesday. Or fish sticks every Saturday. So I have generally lived a bit more free flowing than that. Which is fine and dandy if you have the time, but I don't any more. I don't have the time to catch up, because if I don't feel like emptying the dishwasher today, there's no freakin' time to spend tomorrow to do it.

But I also just cannot allow things to disintegrate around the house as I have done the past two semesters. I cannot be too embarrassed to have people come to my home. I cannot live like a slob any more. Thusly, the schedule.

On today's docket:

AM:

Go for a walk - not done, but I did some yardwork that I should have done yesterday, so I'm counting it as done as that's enough exercise for the day.

Laundry - check. Well, it's in the washer, but not completed.

Clean out kitty litter - check.

Clean shower - not yet

PM:

Buy groceries - not yet

Load today's dishes into dishwasher - not yet, or yesterday's dishes if I'm being honest

Clean kitchen surfaces - not yet

Take out garbage and recycling - not yet

Spend 6 mins* dusting/vacuuming - not yet

Do qi gong - not yet

Oh lordy. It seems such a huge and insurmountable list when it's written out. Maybe I'd better get on with it. At least today there's no work to get in the way so I can do things leisurely around the studying and hulu watching that is also going on.

*the 6 mins of dusting and vacuuming is because I have a handheld Dyson that I can use for both. And its battery only lasts for 6 minutes on one charge. The plan is to just go at a portion of the house until the battery dies. And the next day do the next portion of the house, and repeat on most days until eventually I am back to where I started.