Work will do you that to you, Jesse.

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Kat! Happy second-day-of-your-new-age!

Jesse, um, at least you get enough sleep?

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MWAH! hi Nilly! It's lovely to see you. how are you?

For the record:

Kat, you're *tiny*. And I will shake you until you believe it. Aren't you smaller than me now?

AM NOT TINY. Am in fact still bigger than the standard for tiny which would be msbelle, clearly.

Laura, I originally lost weight because I couldn't do bound poses in yoga which was frustrating. There was just too much flesh. So I started to lose and yoga got easier (and I got much stronger too, so that made yoga easier). But the weight loss was triggered by wanting to do the things I couldn't.

Jilli, I'm sorry that you know what it's like to feel like a woman with an eating disorder, even if you don't. At this point, I can tell you almost to the ounce what I weigh each day and I can tell you when I'll gain or lose and what, exactly, I need to eat to accomplish that. So, yeah, not a good feeling for me and certainly not for you.

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Laura, I originally lost weight because I couldn't do bound poses in yoga which was frustrating. There was just too much flesh. So I started to lose and yoga got easier (and I got much stronger too, so that made yoga easier). But the weight loss was triggered by wanting to do the things I couldn't.

This is so awesome, Kat. I'm afraid my main motivation was always vanity, and once most of that disappeared, the extra weight got a bit too at home, here. I'm in the process of trying to convince myself I'd just like to get healthier and stronger, because I know I do, I just have to raise that to a level where I'd like it enough to do something about it.

In the case of the lady with the tumor, I think the jurors were able to gronk a tumor but not mental illness--which upsets me. Schizophrenia has medical causes and medical treatments and yet still gets treated like some sort of act. If anyone ever met someone with schizophrenia, they'd know you can't fake it. Doctors know, anyway.

It's truly awful, Cashmere. I know how hard you've had to advocate for your brother, in the past, and even then, you were lucky to get minimal care for him. I don't understand how people don't get that mental illness is a physical illness, in this day and age.

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Fine-yet-stressed-by-the-news, thanks, Kat. Can't work properly as a result (well, that's pretty much the whole country, not just me), so I'm thankful that there are summer classes I'm going to start to TA soon, because I'll have to concentrate on them, standing in front of students and all. You?

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I'm good, Nilly, thanks for asking. I still have to revise a paper for a Shakespeare class I'm taking (which I am loving!) and then write my thesis proposal for the committee. Not to mention I must also start reading for next semester's classes as I will be SWAMPED then.

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Cindy, don't get me wrong. I am glad I lost weight and I want to keep it off for competely vain reasons. But my wake up call was feeling like I couldn't do some things I should have been able to do in yoga. That and having someone in my life who was much bigger, like almost by 100 lbs, than I say something about how "big girls like us" should do things. Us, I thought!

So plenty of vanity.

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a paper for a Shakespeare class I'm taking

What's it about? I'm so embarrassingly ignorant when it comes to Shakespeare.

write my thesis proposal for the committee

Would I understand what it's about? Can it be explained in a few short sentences?

When does the next semester start? Here we aren't finished with the exams of the former semester yet.

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We aren't finished with this semester yet. The next one starts in September, but I'm taking a class on Victorian Literature and Science and another on Chaucer. Both reading intensive.

My paper on Shakespeare is looking at the plays that came immediately after the last minute save from an attempt on the King's life (called the Gunpowder Plot) including Macbeth and seeing the effect that the Plot had on the language of Jacobean theater with an eye toward what makes Macbeth different... it's a combo of history and lit analysis, with work on 2 plays that are rarely read in addition to Macbeth.

My thesis? I'm looking at cookbooks and housekeeping manuals from the 16th and 17th century to see if and how they had an impact on women's literacy. As women became more literate, they published more of these books so I want to see the impact on literacy and, ultimately, on culture. Though the time period might change, given the availability of early modern cookbooks.

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That's a fantastic thesis topic, Kat!

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