No problem!

Yay, you!

Report: weighed (no change, grr, even though I ate low yesterday), got no exercise, but I have class tomorrow and hoping to make it as back is somewhat better. Gotta run, too, so I'll see you tomorrow!

I've never been to Gambier, but I am familiar with Mount Vernon. I know someone who teaches at Mount Vernon Nazarene College, and I used to visit him there. You and Jane have been on a lot of campus visits at this point. Do you think she is afraid to commit to a decision? How is she doing emotionally these days?

I used to get a lot of spontaneous, unexplained muscle pulls, too, along with all sorts of assorted aches and pains I couldn't account for. Isn't it amazing how core strength has so many unanticipated benefits? Is your back feeling better now?


What thoughts run through your mind when you see that your weight is so close to your hard stop? What exactly is it that freaks you out so much? What are you telling yourself would happen if you do happen to exceed that hard stop (which is pretty inevitable at some point)?


Some additional people were invited, plus word of mouth brought in some more. I would imagine it will get bigger every week.

I would guess that your son is unusual in being able to make that transition so successfully. One of the criticisms about tracking, of course, is that it consigns certain students to a lower level of achievement and precludes certain opportunities later on, simply because the student wasn't at the appropriate level of readiness at the time that the tracks were initially assigned.

Tracking is definitely beneficial for the high-aptitude kids, except for the few cases in which someone gets put in the "fast track" but is unprepared for it and falls behind. In theory (if not always in practice), tracking is also good for the lowest-aptitude students, because they get put in smaller classes, with more personal attention, with a curriculum that challenges them without overwhelming them, and they are not constantly being compared against higher-achieving students with whom they can not realistically compete. It's the group in the middle, statistically the largest group, whose needs are least likely to be met by tracking, largely because they lose the benefit of having the example of the higher-achieving students to aspire to. And, in their case, many of them COULD realistically benefit from being compared to those who outperform them. But ALL of the benefits of tracking are, of course, predicated on the assumption that aptitude can be accurately measured and therefore tracks can be appropriately assigned, which is often not the case. IQ tests and academic achievement tests of all kinds are far from perfectly reliable and make bad predictions about future achievement in around 40% of cases, on average. There will be both false positives (kids whose test scores suggest they can do work that they actually will not be able to do, resulting in being placed in a track that is too demanding for them) and false negatives (kids whose test scores underestimate their abilities, placing them in tracks that will prevent them from achieving up to their full potential). And IQ scores can vary substantially over time, which is obviously a problem, considering that tracking is based on a "snapshot" taken at one point in time, and once kids get assigned to a lower track, they get further and further behind, making it less and less likely that they will ever be able to move out of that track. But tracking, though far from perfect, is generally better than the old system of letting the gifted kids skip grades, while making the lower-aptitude students repeat grades. Both of those practices are extremely problematic, because cognitive development is not strongly correlated with emotional/social development and is not correlated at all with physical development. So, when you let kids skip grades, they are thrust into social groups they are not at all ready for. (The valedictorian of my college class was 12 years old. I always wondered what her social life was like!) And repeated failure isn't much better when it means that students will be grouped with others who are substantially younger and smaller.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the pressure would come from the parents of the students who would have the most to lose if that second track was eliminated. But I think four tracks is pretty unusual. Three is most typical.

Your kids are anecdotal evidence to support the theory behind tracking. When it works the way it should, based on an accurate assessment of aptitude, and when the result is a curriculum that is challenging enough to spur students to aim high without overwhelming and frustrating them, everyone benefits.

Eliminating the tracking, and thereby homogenizing the curriculum while simultaneously diversifying the make-up of the class, has the effect of producing regression to the mean. That is, the performance of the lowest performing students will move UP toward the mean, while the performance of the top-performing students will move DOWN toward the mean. This is obviously not in the best interests of the more capable students, but there is clearly a political undertone here. Tracking smacks of elitism and creates a tiered social system (in your case, a FOUR-class society!) that some people object to. So your elitist, suspicious mind is right on track!! :D I LOL about your comment about lying with statistics. It's just a matter of perspective. Depending on what position you are trying to advance, you either focus on measures of central tendency (measures of "typicality") like the mean, OR you focus on the shape of the distribution as a whole, particularly honing in on the number of individuals who fall in the tails (the extremes) of the curve rather than the center. Both perspectives are "right", and neither of them is lying, except perhaps by omission. :smug:

That is one of my favorite lectures, because everyone instantly identifies with it and can think of examples from their own life. I can't count the number of times I have been excited about something when it was still far off but come to anticipate it with sick dread when the event is on the horizon.

Yep, even then, my approach motivation outweighed my avoidance motivation. However, that has now changed. :( Right at the moment, I think I am at the true ambivalence point. I am frozen, stuck, confused, and stressed by the feeling of absolute indecision.:?:

Yep, the two are definitely related. So I need that vitamin D, being that I qualify as a "thin woman"!!! :D Seriously, I know that my frame is small and my bones are delicate, so this is a legitimate concern.

But good to know you'd have had my back if it became necessary!!

post 2 of 2

Hopefully tomorrow you will reap the benefits of your restrained eating! Hope you back improved enough to let you do your exercise class.

my report: weight was down .4 this morning, but that will definitely change tomorrow. Had a bad eating day today, eating 7-8 NS desserts tonight as I struggled with my absolute ambivalence about the dating issue. I also have to make another big decision. I got asked today to take over a class at another campus, for a colleague who has a medical emergency. I think it would be for the rest of the semester. This would involve a lot of time and travel and stress, and I have to decide by tomorrow. If I need to get ready to take over someone else's course by next week, I may need to spend the weekend doing that instead of spending it with my eharmony match. Had a personal training session today (but I'm sure it was not nearly enough to burn up the extra calories I ate today). Blech.

Hope you had a better day than I did!!

We've probably visited upwards of two dozen campuses! No, it's not so much that she's afraid to commit -- it's that a lot of schools take it as a sign of high interest if you've visited, so it's almost part of the application process. And because of various timing issues, some of the schools she thought she'd be most interested in are ones that she couldn't visit until late in the process, like Davidson. We would have liked to combine the visits to Emory and Davidson, but Davidson's admissions office wasn't during Jane's winter break, and we couldn't do both of them during a normal weekend without her missing school, and she's missed so much school this year already, so we ended up visiting Davidson after she'd already finished her applications. And in a few cases, she ended up having to make a second visit, like to Kenyon to complete the interview. Now she's waiting to hear which schools she gets accepted at, and I think she's trying to not think too hard about which is her top choice at this point until she knows what her choices are.

I can still feel the pull a little, but it's just a twinge. I'm up and dressed for my class this morning. :)

Actually the thing I really would hate is having to set my sig file back to zero! LOL!

Yes, he was unusual. His teachers used to comment on his work ethic pretty much consistently. One of his teachers told me she'd once caught him in his academic study hall -- a supported study hall -- looking at some other kids who were goofing off and clearly thinking "What do these fools think this is?" I don't know how easy it is for kids to move out of the standards track. I doubt it's any coincidence that Michael was one of the ones who did and he happens to be from an intact, high-expectations family with significant resources of pretty much every kind. Other than developmentally disabled students, most of the kids in standards classes at Sycamore are from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Probably the most common complaint I hear from other parents in our school district is that Sycamore serves the gifted and the kids on IEPs superbly but not enough attention is paid to the issues of the kids in the middle. I can't speak to it from personal experience, but from the outside looking in it seems like crap. :) We have like a 98% graduation rate and something like 95% go on to some sort of post-hs education. Sycamore prepares students so well that it's very common for kids to report their freshman year of college feels like "13th grade." Michael graduated with a 2.8 at Sycamore -- his grades have gone up more than half a point in college, and I've heard more similar stories than the opposite. What more can you really expect from a school than that? A special parent group for the parents of kids in the middle? Trips to Europe that are only for kids who don't take AP European History or five years of Spanish? But again, I didn't really have a kid in the middle.

Gotta go to class -- want to submit this so I don't lose it, but I'll be back later! (later) Okay, back. Man, class kicked my butt this morning. 30/30 circuits where we were supposed to push as hard as we could during the work period, then rest. 30 seconds sounded like a long time to rest, but I was literally out of breath the entire time.

Yeah, they start identifying "gifted" kids in 4th grade and pull them out to the "resource room" for a class or two a day. I dislike the name. It just screams the idea that these kids are getting access to resources the rest of the student population doesn't. Jane was one of the kids being pulled out, and the classroom wasn't any different from any other classroom. The class were just moving faster in writing and math. Yeah, the system's a little screwy. In 4th grade, for the resource room, you have to have the test scores. By 7th grade, you can opt in -- kids who are performing can move into accelerated classes with a teacher recommendation at the Jr Hi, and any student can opt into any class in high school. But the problem is that if you don't get onto the accelerated math track in 4th grade when they've got the transition worked out, getting onto it later requires you to actually SKIP a year of math or wait to get on that track until High School, when you can take Geometry over the summer and then transition without skipping a year of math. Good god. I wonder where she is now? Have you ever googled her? That actually still happens with developmentally disabled students, sometimes with very unhappy results. With an IEP that supports it, parents can pretty much keep their kids at a school for EVER, which in one case meant a 15-yo boy with autism and Down Syndrome was riding the bus with kids as young as 5 and attending class with 10 year olds. They finally had to take him off the bus, as he was touching girls, but his parents believed it was helpful to him to be attending the same school he'd always attended so he stayed in the fourth grade the entire time my kids were at the elementary school.

Yeah, four seems like a lot. But my kids have used all four levels, so for us at least, it worked out. Because Sycamore serves both ends of the spectrum so well, it draws both groups into the district. We did a TON of research (surprise!) when we were moving out of the city before Michael started school, and we think it's the best system in town for both kids. We literally never had to fight the district once to get Michael's needs met, and the system served Jane about as perfectly as a large district could. There were other districts that would have served Jane as well -- some possibly better, because they're MUCH smaller and she would have likely been a standout -- but none that would have been as good for both. Those smaller districts tend to send their special needs kids to the larger districts nearby, who can afford to serve them more easily because they can take advantage of economies of scale. We didn't want that for Michael.

Exactly -- and I do see the major benefit to keeping those top-performers in the mainstream.

What decision do you feel you need to make? Answer in email if you want.

Good grief -- do you really have time to take another class on? Aren't you still taking on the classes of your colleague who's on sabbatical? Which campus would you have to be traveling to? Is there a benefit to you to taking this on? Is it three days a week you'd have to do this?

So, what were you thinking when you ate those desserts? Is there anywhere you can store your extra desserts -- maybe in your office at school? -- and just bring home enough to have just a couple days' worth on hand? I'm wondering if the desserts weren't as readily available in large amounts, you might find it helpful?

Jane is lucky to have you to take her on so many visits. Has she gotten over the mono yet? I'm glad she's not stressing unduly over the decision she has to make. I continue to be so impressed by how well she seems to know herself and what she wants and needs out of her education.

YAY!! Elyse, or Giselle?

Yeah, that would definitely suck!!

Your kids just sound too good to be TRUE!! You definitely did something right!

The graduation rate alone, not to mention the percentage who go on with their education, says that the middle kids are not being shortchanged in any meaningful way. That is a record that few high schools can claim. But people will always find something to whine about.

Believe me, I know what you mean. 30 seconds of rest is nothing. My heart rate stays elevated for my entire training sessions, and I'm often gasping for breath. But doesn't it feel really good in a strange sort of way?

Those are just the kind of systemic idiosyncrasies that get outsiders all riled up and screaming about elitism and discrimination. And in some ways they have a point. There just is no foolproof system, and there's really no way to give everyone "equal opportunity", no matter how politically correct that lofty goal might sound.

Nope, but I should try it. I believe she was Korean and had been sent to the US by the Korean government. Her major was physics, I think. I remember when she was announced as valedictorian that none of us had a clue who she was. But of course she had started college two years after the rest of us!

Those parents would have to be just plain delusional. There's no way that kid's needs could truly have been served.

No, it doesn't surprise me one iota that you would have so carefully researched the school districts. And obviously both of your kids reaped the benefits of your well-considered choice.



I'll email you tomorrow. I owe you one anyway. It's too late, and I'm too tired, to do it right now.



It would be doable, if not easily. My colleague is back, so that's not an issue. (Sabbaticals are just for one semester.) I'd be going to the Canton campus, about a 40 minute drive, and it would be two afternoons a week. The details haven't been finalized yet, but it's looking like I will be doing it. I would at least get paid well for it, which could even affect my retirement benefits (depending on how soon I retire), and it might not be for the whole semester. The person's medical prognosis is uncertain, and it is unknown how quickly she will be able to come back.

Part of the problem is that I didn't have any of those desserts on hand at all for a couple of weeks. (I ran out and didn't reorder, because of the issues I was having with them.) I just got a new order yesterday. But tonight I only ate one. I was going to put them in a closet I don't use regularly, but I like your idea better. I only have problems at night, so if the desserts are at school, the problem would be solved. As for what I was thinking, at first it was something along the lines of how I NEEDED the comfort. Then once I got going, I switched into thinking that I might as well just keep going and then start over the next day. In other words, old, bad, habits of thought.

my report: My weight was up 1.2 pounds this morning (no surprise at all). Did not exercise. Read my cards. Stayed perfectly OP all day. Ate everything slowly and mindfully. I am very hungry right now but am going to go to bed without getting into those desserts!

Hope you had a great day!

She seems to be mostly over the mono, though occasionally she is still fatigued when she shouldn't be -- a few hours after a full night's sleep, for instance -- but she's not complaining as much about difficulty concentrating. She performed a miracle the final two weeks of the semester and finals week and ended up with a 3.5 before weighting, which we hope shouldn't damage her with any of her schools given the mono, which her counselor discussed in her recommendation letter. We'd been pretty worried that her grades would drop so much that it would cause issues, but this is not far from her current cumulative, which is like a 3.8 unweighted.

Honestly, I think we're just lucky. We just got easy kids. Literally every bit of fretting we've had over our kids has been for something the kids themselves couldn't really control.

That's kind of how I feel, too, but since I haven't really had an average-kid parenting experience, I keep my mouth shut. :)

It does. Though when I'm starting the second of four five-station cycles and it's burpees AGAIN and I'm going to have them two more times after this... :stars:


Wow. Poor kid. I can't imagine how isolated she must have been.

Yeah, it was hard to know how Jacob's needs could ever really be served. Autism on top of Down Syndrome was just heartbreaking. He was in Jane's fourth grade class, and if any of the kids could get Jacob to say a word to them that was audible to his aide, the class won a pizza party (Jacob's favorite food) that week.

:::sigh::: You just never know...there's always the temptation to think, "what if instead we'd..." As it turned out, Michael didn't have needs as significant as we'd allowed for, and in retrospect, knowing her as I do now, Jane might have had an easier time at a smaller school. But you can't know.

Oh, I'm so glad! What a difference that must feel like right there! So that makes two days a week into long days for you? That kind of sucks, since you had such a crappy schedule last semester, but it sounds like you think you'll be able to work it out. Is it a class you've taught before? Something you will enjoy teaching, I hope?

All-righty, then. :)

Yeah, that 'I've blown today, might as well blow it big and get back on track tomorrow' is a tempting one.

Yay, you!

Report: weighed (down 1.6 to 2 under goal, and I absolutely do not deserve it even a little.) I will never understand why I can eat nice and low for three days and see zero movement on the scale and then go out to trivia and not do TOO badly but still -- wine, and a half a "lite" sub which really probably isn't all that lite, skipped the chips -- and drop a pound an a half. HUH? I'd been dreading getting on the scale this morning. Oh, well, I'll take it. Today's actually also a good day for me to have a low day again, so I'm going to aim low again today. In addition to my class I got a small amount of spontaneous exercise -- couldn't walk to class because it was actively raining, but I did walk to an appointment later -- and other than the wine/sub at trivia, I ate very reasonably. Ate slowly and sitting down, though I probably was pretty distracted during the sub -- not distracted enough to pick it up and munch the entire thing, though. I cut off a slice and ate that, cut off another slice and ate that, and when I got to half, I asked for a box, yay me.

Hope you had a great day!

That's great that she is feeling better, and even greater that the mono had such a minimal effect on her GPA! It's sad that college admissions have become so competitive that you have to worry that getting sick could impact her chances.

There definitely is such a thing as inborn temperament, and some kids are just inherently "easy". But I'm sure your kids have also been the beneficiaries of superb parenting!

Probably a smart choice on your part!

Yes, but then you feel so good when you finally STOP!!


I just tried Googling her, and I came across many journal articles that are written in a strange symbolic language that I assume is Korean. So it would appear that she has been successful at least intellectually--no surprise there!

Autism AND Down Syndrome would be an almost unsurmountable burden. My heart rate actually increased when I read about the pizza--I imagined how horrified and singled out I would have felt if my classmates had been given an incentive to get me to speak! ACK. But of course I was smart enough to recognize how humiliating that would have been.

Nope, you can't know, even with all the tests in the world. That's why tracking is such an iffy enterprise. But you are lucky that you had the resources to consider so many different options for your kids.

I already have two 15-16 hour days a week (because of having to travel to the Kent Campus for long meetings), and taking on that class would mean four long days. I decided not to do the class, though. They wanted me to take it over with no idea when it would end, since the professor I'd be replacing has an uncertain prognosis and could be back at any time--or not until the end of the semester. Because of that, they wanted me to use HER syllabus and lesson plans rather than my own. But when I checked out what she was doing, I knew there was no way I could adapt to her style. I had heard that her courses are perceived as very easy by the students and had even heard that several students had intentionally gone to the Canton campus to take the course in order to avoid taking it from me! And looking at her materials certainly confirmed that. Her lessons were absurdly basic, and her policies were so lenient (for instance, dropping the lowest test score--ridiculous in an upper division, majors course) that I just couldn't abide by them. Out of the 8 times the class was supposed to have met so far, they have met only 4 times. One of those times, they watched a video, and another time they did some kind of demonstration, so they've learned little if anything so far. One of my students is in that class, and I asked her if I could look at her lecture notes. She had a page and a half, when I would have produced 40-45 pages of notes by this point. All in all, it would have been an extremely stressful experience for me, so I decided to pass on it even though I know that leaves the campus, and especially the students, in the lurch.


And I did the same thing again tonight, after having a drink at happy hour and then talking to my "match" on the phone. (We had a good conversation, and he is coming up here on Saturday to see me.) It freaks me out to be "eating" my emotions that way, and it just has to stop. Tomorrow I am going to try eating all protein and see if it helps.

I'm definitely not feeling very YAY ME at the moment. :(

Well, like Beck says, your weight is always exactly what it is supposed to be, and when it seems otherwise, it's because you haven't identified all of the relevant variables. But I know exactly what you mean. I am very impressed by your description of how you ate the sub--very, very impressed!

report: weight was down .4 (but I'm sure it will shoot up tomorrow). Ate OP until evening and then fell apart. No exercise (have a training session in the morning).

Hope you had a great day and were rewarded for it on the scale

Is there any such thing? :D I really can only see all the mistakes I've made. Actually, I can't see them all, even -- Jane recently told me something I'd said to her when she was nine that I didn't even remember SAYING and that she had at the time taken deeply to heart.

I hadn't thought how that would strike you -- sorry! I'm pretty sure this would have been his parents' idea and on their dime -- they would have put that into his IEP. I do seriously doubt Jacob had any feelings of humiliation about it whatsoever. His cognitive level seemed to be extremely low. The rest of the kids would be working and he'd be sitting at a table with his aide working on a puzzle designed for toddlers. I literally never saw him without his aide, who went into the restroom with him.

Good grief. Well, I wouldn't worry too much about leaving people in the lurch -- it sounds like literally anyone could teach to that syllabus! :D

You mean like an Atkins thing? Aren't the NS desserts supposed to be low-glycemic -- are you thinking they're triggering cravings?



A couple of unplanned eating sessions going overboard on NS desserts is no reason to clobber yourself. You're doing LOTS of things very, very well. You're exercising, you're facing your anxieties, you're making good decisions when pressed to make a choice that wouldn't be good for you. A few extra desserts is not a catastrophe, even two days in a row.


Report: weighed (no change, 2 under goal), exercised this morning, am probably going to get more spontaneous exercise today because I won't have a car. Ate slowly, mindfully, pretty reasonably. Am aiming for a low day again today as we're invited to a Super Bowl party on Sunday.

That just makes you NORMAL. And don't you think it is significant that Jane is able to TELL you about how she was affected by what you said?

Nothing to be sorry about!! I was just musing about how different things are these days and wondering how, or if, my life would have been different if there had been IEPs and behavioral interventions and so forth.
LOL!! Yes, that's one way to look at it!

Yes, they are, but they definitely do induce cravings. EVERY single time I have overeaten to any substantial degree, it has been those darn desserts that I've gone overboard on. I did stick to all protein today, and it did help me feel more in control, which I definitely needed before my "big day" tomorrow.



You're right, and I was thinking along similar lines today. There is NOTHING that could possibly trigger more intense overeating urges than the possibility of a romantic relationship. So the very fact that I am not eating around the clock is a huge indicator of how far I have come. And I was able to eat very sparingly today despite being hungry all day long and despite the anticipation of tomorrow's date. And I am far more excited about tomorrow than I am nervous. I just marvel sometimes at how much I have changed.


YAY on being 2 pounds under goal! Why won't you have a car? Are you a football fan, or are you just a fan of Super Bowl parties? :) (I don't understand football at all and have no interest in figuring it out, but going to a Super Bowl party might be fun!)

my report: Was up a pound (no surprise there). Had a personal training session, which included a great feeling of accomplishment--I was watching a woman use the machine where you balance on your forearms with your weight suspended and then lift your legs up at a 90 degree angle to your torso to work your abs, and I commented to my trainer that I was amazed that a woman could do that. He said he thought I could do it, and of course I said there was NO WAY that I could even support my weight on my arms that way, no less lift my legs up. So he had me try it, and I did 30 reps!!!! :D That felt AWESOME! Ate all protein today and stayed under 1100 calories. Ate everything sitting down, slowly and mindfully.

Hope you had a great day!

Glad you felt more in control.

:)

Jane had an accident -- took out a fire hydrant. :) So if I don't have anything that requires a car, I let John take mine so Jane can have his, as she has late arrival (Seniors can choose late arrival or early dismissal if they have room for it) and as she seldom is able to leave school when the busses are leaving, she also would need to be picked up. I had two meetings yesterday, but both were within walking distance so I let her take the car. I have zero interest in football -- I just go for the party. :)

Yay, you! I'm trying to picture this machine...is this it? link Are you planning another all-protein day? I've found it takes three to destroy my cravings.

Report: weighed (no change, 2 under goal), did planned exercise yesterday but ended up getting a ride from Jane to my regular Friday happy hour -- she was home from school but wanted to go to the gym so she dropped me off -- so I didn't get the spontaneous I was expecting. Ate reasonably and sitting down, but realized I've gotten out of the habit of leaving a bite; must work on that.

Hope you have a great day and a great date!

I hope Jane wasn't hurt! I can't imagine what it would be like to have kids who are out driving. I'd be a nervous wreck, I suspect.

Thatta girl!! :D

Yep, that's it!!

Yes, I think I am going to do it for the next two or three days. I didn't today because of going out to lunch, and I am definitely struggling again tonight. My control feels very shaky.

I sometimes forget to leave a bite, too. It is distressing how easy it is to get out of a good habit. But yay you for the exercise and the reasonable eating.

Once again, it was GREAT fun--really great, I enjoy his company immensely--and left me feeling like a deflated balloon. Still struggling with ambivalence despite having such a good time, or maybe BECAUSE I had such a good time! I am incredibly tired. There seems to be a pattern here!

My weight was down .4, ate reasonably (including about 3/4 of a steak wrap for lunch, with the cheese and dressing left out), ate sitting down, was pretty mindful considering the distraction of good conversation at lunch, got minimal exercise. OK, I'm gonna round up my kitty and drag my tired butt off to bed now. Hope you had a good day!

Fortunately she's been able to learn some good young-driver lessons without herself or anyone else getting hurt. :)

How did you do in the end?

Is it just that you're so anxious that leaves you feeling like a deflated balloon? Or is it an introvertedness kind of thing -- you put so much energy out into socializing one-on-one that is takes a lot out of you?

It seems like your weight is pretty much where you want it right now -- you're under 130 again, I think, and have been?

Report: weighed (up 1.2 to .8 under goal, sigh, and there's the party tonight...avoidance motivation is catching up fast... No exercise, ate so-so -- went out for dinner before a play, ate pretty much what I'd planned, maybe slightly more, but then had a small wine-induced snackfest upon arrival home. Ah, well. I'm still under goal. :)

Who taught your kids to drive?

I went to bed instead of eating--yay me!

There's certainly an element of anxiety to it, but I think it's mostly your second scenario. Normally when I spend a lot of one-on-one time with someone, I let the other person do all the talking. In fact, most of my friends have been huge talkers (Bethy being perhaps the most extreme case), which takes the pressure off me. But this relationship is very even; I would guess we each talk about the same amount of time. So it just exhausts me--but at the time same pleases me immensely.

This morning I was up .6, back to 129.8. But, yes, I have been under 130 for a couple of weeks now.

I hope the party was enough fun to overcome that avoidance motivation! I ate well today (protein and veggies but no bad carbs) and am feeling more controlled. No exercise. I'm still really tired and need to get to bed.

My dad, mostly. He taught Michael almost singlehandedly, did quite a bit with Jane, too.

Yay, you!

Glad it's a good kind of exhausted!

Very nice!

We ended up only staying for most of the first half, then going home. I didn't eat too badly, didn't drink much.

Report: no change (.8 under goal), got up and went to class this morning, yay me, and now I'm HUNGRY so I'm going to have a good breakfast. Hm, maybe oatmeal...

Sorry i missed you last night. I fell asleep on the couch and then didn't want to do anyting that would wake me up too much to fall back asleep in my bed. I'm home sick today with an ocular migraine. I'll write tonight when hopefully I feel better.