Operation MM(f)PF — goes global? May 29, 2009

I’m a month in to my most recent get-fit-lose-b-school-weight regimen, and I’m happy to report that, though not as quickly as I’d like, I am making progress. To date, I’m at least 2kg down, and definitely feeling generally leaner and stronger. It’s been pretty challenging to keep within the 1600 cal/day limit, especially given that this beautiful country is full of incredible, affordable wines, and I definitely don’t always feel motivated to go to the gym EVERY day (I do, though — I’m afraid if I miss for a second, I’ll lose my momentum and be back in Fat Pants City within 24 hours…). However, I’ve been sticking pretty faithfully to my goals and lifestyle adjustments, and yeah, I also think that the distance from the MBPoW has been absolutely critical to my success — I can literally count on one hand the number of beers I’ve had since I started this project. Whoa. Talk about a lifestyle change!!

But here’s the thing — every time I recount to someone the trials, tribulations, and varied humiliations that go along with this project (28.75% body fat? REALLY?? — and let’s not even TALK about the mortifying arm jiggle that accompanies every freaking shoulder exercise I do, ugh — my roommate here calls them “Bingo Wings,” which is only hilarious until I see my own wings jiggling away in one of my gym’s nine million mirrors, and then it just makes me really, really sad), they invariably tell me that they feel inspired to get started as well. I have a girlfriend here in CT who’s planning to join a gym, I’ve got my roommate thinking about calories (taking a page out of Lauren’s book, when she kicked my a** so hard 3 summers ago!!), and Laura in Boston, Megan in NC, and Stella in MN are all threatening to start their very own MM(f)PF personal revolutions. Which, of course, I think is totally awesome.

What’s funny about this is that all I ever say is the same thing — this is hard, my body hates me, I miss pizza and beer, I was humiliated for xyz reason at the gym today, etc. But behind all of that, I guess my message gets somehow translated to: DO IT!! (Really? All my whining and complaining doesn’t just put you off and send you right back to the bar??)

Of course, as we know, I have a notorious problem with say/do ratio — I mean, how long have I been complaining about my pants NOT fitting?? (Um, yeah, that’s still mostly true, even if I am feeling leaner and stronger. A** fat is stubborn, man!) And obviously, I can now enjoy a total surplus of free time that really, really makes it easy to force my self to go to the gym (every. single. day.). But it took me the better part of a year to get really, really serious about this. And why? We KNOW I had the time in Spain, even if not in NY. And even in NY, I could (COULD!) have made it a priority (in fact, I still have a Bally’s membership in Brooklyn that I never ever used and that I keep forgetting to cancel — oops!!). But no. It’s much easier to whine, complain, bemoan an ever-diminishing wardrobe (due to an inability to FIT any of the clothing presently owned), and then have a second serving of pasta with cream sauce and another freaking beer. (Obviously, most of us LOVE the Path of Least Resistance, and I’m no exception!!) What it finally took for me to get serious was that even my so-called Fat Pants were on the cusp of not fitting, and I thought, wow, okay, I’ve let this go too far. Enough is enough, dammit!!

However, I know from my conversations with friends that I am far from alone in my frustrations with myself and my current state of fitness (um, lack thereof). My proposal is this: let’s set some collective goals for, what?, the end of the year? I mean, I’d LOVE to be bikini ready by the time I get back to the US, but, erm… Yeah. My trainer told me that it would be pretty unrealistic to drop from 28.75% to 20% body fat in just about 10 weeks, so… That’s not going to happen. But it could happen by, I don’t know, December? I hope?

Oh, and to any potential nay-sayers, let me just say: really, this is about feeling good and comfortable in my body. I don’t like to be squishy and pudgy and out of shape. As Megan would say, I don’t like to put on my favorite pair of jeans and feel like a stuffed sausage! So yeah, fine, women are always under a lot of pressure to be leaner, skinnier, more perfect, blah blah blah. But I think we can agree that MOST women (maybe all of them?) really, really like it when their favorite pair of jeans look kickass on their asses, right? And THAT is what I’m talking about. (My Citizens jeans, specifically, haven’t fit for about 2 years. And they’re my favorite and I love them and they WILL fit again!!)

Anyway, never fear, non-OMM(f)PF-participants. I am NOT going to convert Sin Logica into a weight loss blog, even if it is ALL I’m really thinking about at the moment (um, yeah — I think we know that I have a tendency to obsess… I can’t tell you how many times a day I think about how many calories I’ve consumed… and actually, I’m hoping that goes away before it becomes a real sickness — plus, it just sort of makes me uninteresting, doesn’t it?). I will continue to chronicle, as ever, my life as a b-school student/exchange student/etc.

Alright, so: who’s in? Who has a kickass, lose-that-ass, make-my-EFFING-pants-fit fitness goal to meet by the end of the year? And how are you going to do it? (Obviously, I won’t be able to keep up this personal trainer business for much longer. I love it, but man, even in SA it’s just not sustainably affordable…) And I’d love to hear some purple-faced, man-this-sucks anecdotes from those of you who are participating, because if we can’t laugh at this process, well… I think we’ll probably just cry.

A sense of purpose May 27, 2009

In my life prior to b-school, you probably heard me say, repeatedly, that I wished I could get by just working part time — you know, 20 hours or so a week, just enough for “a sense of purpose.” And what does that even mean? Well, to me it means that I’d have a good mix of obligation (somewhere I HAVE to be and things I HAVE to do when I get there) and free time; or rather, enough obligations to then be able to creatively FILL my free time, if that makes sense. I guess I mean order and structure, but also balance and liberty.

The reason I mention this is that I’ve finally nailed down what’s been so troublesome about this time in Cape Town. Yes, I’m lonely. Yes, it’s foreign here. But is that really it? To be honest… No, I don’t think so. I think if I were uber-busy with school (like I was 12 months ago, for example) I wouldn’t have TIME to feel so lonely and frustrated and culture-shocked.

What I’m missing here isn’t my home and isn’t my friends (though I DO miss you guys!!). What I’m missing is a sense of purpose. School occupies precious little of my time, and it’s (theoretically) the reason I’m here. I’ve made my gym project a serious part of my life here, but that, too, only occupies at MOST 2 hours of my day (more often an hour, though, if I’m being really honest). I’ve also made a special project of sharpening my cooking skills, but that, again, is really only 2 hours a day. And if I’m being really sincere, I would call these things self-indulgent side projects (which is reductive, I know, but reflects how I feel) — distractions, more than anything.

Most people I know would LOVE to have the time (er, the “problem”) that I have. They might even be content filling their time the way that I do (cooking, reading, gym-ing, etc). But I don’t know… I find myself wondering what’s WRONG with me, why I can’t be content with my lovely, simple life here. Is it Super Woman complex? Some kind of bizarre guilt that I’m not filling every hour of every day, AND trying to save the world? (Um, yes, probably.) Is it deeply acculturated American obsession with productivity? (Absolutely. You can’t divorce that sh** in a month.) Am I mad at myself for my own lack of creativity and discipline? (YES.)

In summary, I’m missing a sense of purpose. A raison d’etre, as it were. I feel convinced that the loneliness, discomfort, culture shock — ALL of it — would diminish radically if I felt like there was something I HAD to do here, some way that I HAD to fill my time.

The thing is — this SHOULD be enough. My life is lovely and beautiful here, and WHY should I be so obsessed with “productively” filling my time? Why can’t I just relax and enjoy it? Why do I NEED a sense of purpose? I wish I had an answer for that. I wish I could find that perfect center that they talk about in yoga and just BE here, in the moment, thankful for the time and unconcerned with how much I fill it.

I’m thinking there has to be a happy medium. Maybe I’ll content myself with filling my time the way I have been, or maybe I’ll find more “productive” ways to fill my time — hopefully, it’ll be a little bit of both. And sheesh, it’s not like I’ll EVER have this kind of time again, right? So maybe I need to let go of this whole sense of purpose business, at least for now, and just enjoy this beautiful city, eh?

Still homesick May 18, 2009

I wish I could report that 10 days have made a huge, life-altering difference in my experience of South Africa thus far. Alas, no. Don’t get me wrong — I’m definitely trying to make the best of things here. I’ve been excessively diligent about going to the gym (every. single. day. — oh, except Sundays, because they’re closed). I’ve been eating yummy, home-cooked, healthy meals. I’ve very nearly stopped drinking alcohol. I’m reading, watching movies, getting good sleep… And finally (finally!) beginning to make some very cool friends. I actually had social engagements on Friday, Saturday and Sunday — yay! (School, clearly, is a total afterthought — but didn’t we know that’s how it would be here, anyway? And let me just say: repeating Finance is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve EVER had. Ugh.)

But still… I don’t know. I’m just impatient to feel comfortable here, I guess, and extraordinarily homesick. Micah asked me — “homesick for where?” Ah, right… There isn’t any ONE place I would or could call home right now. Barcelona will never be the same, since most of my friends have now moved away. Boston hasn’t been home for almost 2 years now, and my friends there have also been steadily moving away. I definitely miss New York (a LOT!!), but wouldn’t necessarily point to it as the epicenter of my homesickness. I certainly can’t say that I’m homesick for Portland, since Portland has never been my home. So perhaps the argument could be that I simply feel the loss of a general home — but what is “home,” really? Much more than just a house, clearly — even more than just the place where I live, I think. A place where I have friends and a social life and feel reciprocal love and understanding, where people not only know but have participated in my stories, and I know and have participated in theirs, where I have my own stuff and my own car, and feel as comfortable alone as I do in the company of others… Maybe that’s what I’m missing. Whatever it is that I’m missing, it’s throwing a dark cloud over my time here, and making it nearly impossible for me to conjure a good mood. Not that I’m always in a BAD mood, per se… Just, I don’t know, I’m not in a very good mood — I’m mellow, morose, blue, unenthusiastic, whatever you want to call it. Which then drags on my motivation, making it harder for me to get out of the house and harder to break the cycle. Needless to say, I’m super frustrated with myself right now.

Incredibly, I’ve already been here over a month, and have just 9 weeks left. Which means that no matter how uncomfortable or “home”sick I may feel, it’ll all be over ridiculously soon, and then I start an even bigger, in many ways scarier, adventure (you know — the post-MBA career start, the entrepreneurial side bet, the Big Relationship, etc). So despite my sad tone, I’m committed to making an effort here, making some friends, and really getting something great out of this experience. I mean, really — when will I be living in Africa again? Maybe never? So I promise to write a more optimistic, hopeful, light-hearted blog next time. But for now, yeah… I’m pretty homesick — whatever that means.

Getting settled(-ish) May 8, 2009

So far, I’m still not feeling terribly settled in here, and I’m trying to remember if it took this long for me to feel comfortable in Spain — probably not, since I already knew Raul, and my social life with all the other MBAs kicked off nearly the moment I arrived. Here, it’s so very different — all of the other students are all already acquainted, and I’m the lone exchange student in the group. Don’t get me wrong — they’re all extremely friendly and approachable, and have been very welcoming. But they also have more course work than I do, and are still at that early, stress-y stage in the MBA. Having already been through that stage (and then some!) I can relate, but have no interest in re-tracing those stressed-out steps.

Luckily, Megan and David were here last week, so I got to pretend that I have a social life. We went to a few really great restaurants, a halfway decent club, and spent a wonderful afternoon last Sunday at Cape Point, the most South-Westerly point in Africa. Once again, rather than narrate, I’ll illustrate with photos. Of course, this is just a handful. It takes a year to upload these to the blog, so you can see the rest here.

Luckily, I have my new gym regimen to keep me busy (been there 9 out of the last 10 days! and it’s not getting ANY easier! wheeeee!), as well as fun veggie/vegan cooking projects. Earlier this week, I made some yummy soup from Laura’s blog, and my roommate made a delicious black bean one. (Yeah, it’s about to be winter here. Winter? In MAY? Yep — in the Southern Hemisphere, friends. Luckily, I think the winter here is more or less equivalent to, say, Santa Cruz or Barcelona, so it won’t be that bad. That said? Rain and fog are still indisputably soup weather.)

The thing is: I just can’t seem to get comfortable here. Yet. Maybe it’s the in-your-face racial divide. Maybe it’s the nine million cautionary tales I’ve already heard about walking the streets after dark (which is a big DON’T!!!!!) or getting in the informal taxis (think: giant gypsy cabs, like in vans, but with routes, and, if I understand correctly, more or less run by the mafia — probably totally safe, as so many people take them, but potentially a place to get mugged, stabbed, kidnapped…. too many years of watching Law and Order, methinks, and I can’t get myself to get in the damn things, so I’ve been paying for taxis to and from school — no public transportation… thank goodness it’s relatively cheap to do that!). Maybe it’s the WAY too present evidence of the difference between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Maybe it’s just that I don’t really have friends here yet. Maybe it’s the cats pissing in my room. (Did I mention there are FIVE of them??) Probably? It’s all of the above. Still, though, I know that this, ultimately, is an incredible experience, and that all of that discomfort must ultimately dissipate and leave my horizons broader than they were. Until then? Like I said: the gym, good eating, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of studying and business plan writing.