Dames Who Dish

For at least the past five years I have resolved each new year not to make New Year’s Resolutions.  I feel like making a change in your life is something that you do because you want to make a change, not because the date on the calendar changes.  If you want to change something, you will do it whereas if you expect the calendar to do the changing for you, you will be disappointed.

This year, however, I decided to make a change to my anti-resolution resolve.  I figure why not make some fun, loose goals rather than resolutions.  The word resolution sounds so intimidating and restricting that I am replacing it with the word goals instead.  I am not into commitment enough to make resolutions.  Half the time I cannot even commit to social plans.   Here then are a few of my New Year’s Goals.

1. Stop eating Taco Doritos.  I have a problem.  I really need to cut back.  Eating the family-sized Taco Dorito bag in one sitting is pretty darn unhealthy.  I think this is an achievable goal since I will likely not be tempted to buy them once I return to the U.S. and have a kitchen again.

2. Participate in an organized fitness “race.”  Since I have a knack for losing spectacularly, I am not all that into athletic competition.  I have, however, gotten pretty into individual fitness activities like running and cycling, and I think I would feel a great sense of accomplishment if I completed a “race” this year.  The Tour de Donuts does await me in September, so this too could be an achievable goal.

3. Decide what I want to do with the rest of my life.  I will be turning 25 in 2012, so I should probably get my ducks in a row here.  At the moment, I am considering making a big switch and investing a bit of time and money into a second degree in nursing instead of an advanced degree in my current field.  I should probably figure that one out this year.

4. Do a century ride (100 miles) on my road bike.  Unless my life takes a particularly unexpected turn, I will almost definitely reach this goal this summer.  I don’t have any grand goals to combine my century ride with my fitness race goal, but rather I would like to get a nice, century training ride in.

I think these could be a good start for a commitment-phobe like me.

Recently I have been thinking a bit about the importance of being kind to yourself.  How often we tout the importance of being kind to others at our own expense.  How often we hear the phrase Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I think the golden rule needs a little makeover.  We should remember to be kind to ourselves too.  I know I am far from the only person who can say much worse things about and to myself than anyone could say to me.  Recently, however, I have turned over a new leaf, a new golden rule if you will: Do unto yourself as you would do to others. We each deserve the kindness and understanding that we strive to extend to our friends and family.

I have applied this philosophy to my life as of late.  I came here to Turkey with certain expectations for myself.  I was going to buckle down, learn Turkish, and prepare myself for the international relations job market.  Well, life got in the way.  I have had a series of unusual health problems that quite frankly sound like the storyboards of a TLC special if I start to compile the full list.  I do not think I even want to go into international relations or linguistics.  The bottom line here is that I failed to meet my expectations.  I invested a good deal of time, money, and hope into this trip, and if I were to compare those expectations with the outcome, I would have to admit defeat.  Under a lot of circumstances, I could beat myself up over that failure, but I do not want to.  I needed to come to Turkey and to have these (bad) experiences to bring me to where I am today.

I could regret so many things throughout my life, but I do not want to.  Recognizing that all my experiences – good and bad – shape who I am today is a philosophy by which I want to resole to live my life.  Sometimes I am going to change my mind and change my direction, and that is okay.  I, like everyone else, am just doing the best I can at any given time, and I deserve to benefit from the golden rule as much as everyone else.

Take that golden rule and apply it to yourself and not just to everyone around you.  Forgive yourself for something you did.  Heck, maybe even buy yourself a Christmas present this year.  Just remember to be kind to yourself and not just to everyone else.

Guilty pleasure time!

Mine?  Hermiting.  Grannying.  Being a crazy cat lady.  Chilling in my room.  Meditating over Facebook.

Okay, I do not meditate over Facebook, but I do enjoy spending quiet time by myself.  I am a introvert in the sense that I relax and recharge when I am by myself.  Ordinarily, I would find no fault with this behavior (although others have tried to guilt me about this, thereby making it a guilty pleasure in another sense), but given that I am living in Istanbul for a limited amount of time, I should probably cut back on my hermiting ways.

This has led some of my friends here to determine that if there were ever a zombie attack, I alone would survive.  I would just be chilling in my room oblivious to the maelstrom outside.  As long as the zombies didn’t reach the neighborhood near my university, I could even continue running at the gym.

When I do go out, I enjoy it, but I also thoroughly enjoy staying at home.  I cuddle up on my cheap, hard, dorm room bed with a cup of coffee and chill.  I will admit that a big part of the allure of my dorm room has been Skyping my long distance boyfriend, who I like to joke lives in my computer.  I will also readily admit that sometimes I just do not feel like braving the traffic here.  On my way home from the airport from my flight back from Greece, I sat on a bus for an ungodly amount of time while twenty+ lanes of traffic tried to squeeze their way onto the three lane bridge over the Bosphorus that connects Europe and Asia.  Sometimes I would rather commune with my computer than with the traffic.  Sad but true.

Tomorrow I will have to start back into a routine of going out a little more.  Why tomorrow?  Well, tomorrow classes here start back up after a two week break.  Unfortunately, this means that students will come back to the dorms, and the Internet will inevitably stop working in the evenings – and sometimes in the afternoons – and sometimes in the mornings – and sometimes for days on end.  I have been using this break to catch up as much as possible with my computer-dwelling boyfriend and my academic work that requires the Internet.  I know what will happen after break: her zaman Internet yok…..sonra ben üzgünüm.

So I hermited out over break.  I did go to Athens, which I think counts for something, and I ran 28 miles in about a week.  I’m aiming for a long run today – 10 miles, eek!  Then I am going to come back here, languish in the functional Internet, make myself a cup of coffee, and fulfill my role as the likeliest survivor of a zombie attack.

I have had this secret ambition to do a triathlon for years, but it never seems to work out.  I lived next door to Caitlin, the fitness instructor who inspired Abbie to run a 5k, for a semester, and her doing triathlons fascinated me.  Since the time we lived together, she has progressed from sprint triathlons (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run) to the full Ironman (2.4mi swim, 112mi bike, 26.2mi run).  She really is the inspiration that sparked my secret triathlon ambition.

For the most part I chicken out of any opportunity to enter triathlons.  I tell myself that my swimming is not up to par (quite true), that my running is too slow (it is quite slow), and that I am just not ready for this particular triathlon.  Unfortunately, every triathlon has become this particular triathlon.  I never get past that fear and actually sign up.

Now that I live in Istanbul, I honestly cannot adequately prepare for a triathlon here without access to a bike or pool, but what I do do is run.  Sure, it’s treadmill running, but I do it because it is the best I have.  I jog along for 10+ kilometers, and I imagine myself crossing finish lines.  Since I do not have my bike or a pool here, my fitness daydreams have taken a turn for the marathon.

As Jeannette posted, realistic goals are the healthiest, so I think I should amend my marathon daydream to a half marathon or 10k goal.  The 10k would be the best plan, but I am going to say that I want to do a half marathon because right now my body could survive a 10k.  With a little work, I could even complete it in a respectable time.  A half marathon, though, is something to work for, and that is what goals are about.

For me, participating in any fitness race is in itself something to work toward.  Signing up for one scares me half to death.  I am a terrible athlete and have no fond memories of gym class or the sports teams I was on when I was younger.  My one and only accomplishment in the year I played soccer was getting cranked in the knee with the ball (while I was daydreaming) and thereby “blocking” a goal.  Likewise, I played basketball for four years and never once scored a basket.  I was even at the end of the batting order in preschool T-ball.  Natural athleticism is something I do not possess.

However, I have worked myself up to a respectable fitness place.  I can run for over an hour.  I can bike 50+ miles at a good pace.  I have spinning and skiing instructor certifications.  I can totally do this half marathon.  Right?  I hope so.  I should do what Abbie has done and pick one next summer, but then I would have to take the plunge and register.  Stay tuned to see if I chicken out.