IMM #6 – In my Mailbox January, 22th 2012

I have a Premiere this week! I tried to make an IMM Video for this week. Even tho I was stuttering and talking nonsense all the way I’m still proud of myself that I did it!

So please be patient with me, I promise that I will practice and the Videos will get better in the Future .

The Books I am Talking about in the Video:

The Fault in our Stars by John Green
Komm, süßer Tod by Wolf Haas
Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe
Die göttliche Komödie (The Divine Comedy)  by Dante Alighieri
Feuer und Stein (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon
The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama (The Boy in the striped Pyjamas) by John Boyne
Baby’s in Black by Arne Bellstorf (May 8,2012)
Bloody Chester by Jt Petty & Hilary Florido (July 3, 2012)
Michael Recycle and the Tree Top Cops by Alexandra Colombo (March 20, 2012)
Change comes to Dinner by Katherine Gustafson (May 8, 2012)
The Unseen by Heather Graham (March 27, 2012)
Naomi and the Horse flavored T-shirt by Dan Boehl

The new Season of Project Runway

Friday night started the first Episode of the 8th Season of Project Runway. I was so excited when I saw that it is back again. It is so interesting to watch and gives me so many ideas for myself and I think I even learned a little of it for my own sewing projects.

Basically it stayed as it was. Heidi Klum is again hosting the show, Tim Gun is on her side and Nina Garcia is back in the jury too. 17 new Designers are competing against each other for the first price to be able to launch their own fashion line. The first one of them is already out too. It was a cute girl with dreadlocks whos name I forgot. I don’t totally understand the jury’s decision because her dress was cute and compaired to the dress this other guy named Casanova made, it was much better. At least her model wasnt half naked on the runway. But yeah, it’s the judges who decide who wins and who loses. I’m still curious how the other designers will develop and what new challenges they will have.

This weeks challenge was, that everyone had to pick one piece of clothing out of their suitcases to incorporate it into a new outfit and then, after they chose – they had to pass it to the person who stood right next to the. You can imagine that this resulted in a few shocked faces . Some of the outfits looked nice, some worse and in the end one had to go. We will see who is next.

Now to something else. Just in case you didn’t already see it by yourself I want to tell you, that I am making good progress in my reading challenges since summer holidays started. Normally I update it right after I finished another book (otherwise I might forget about it and that would be bad) so it is pretty up to date.

Other than that I think I didn’t have a lot of progress lately on my life list. If I remember right, I just finished one more thing on it (finishing a cosplay costume and wear it to a convention).

My plans for the day and nutrition are still working out fine and I did some more sports. That’s it for today. Trying to do blogging more regularly again but not every day so maybe every 2-3 days.

Picture by cloudzilla

The next attempt of planning

So, two days ago I made a mistake. I felt like I gained weight and I stepped on the scale – and I was right! Argh! So immediately after I got over the first shock I started with a sports active workout.

Before that, I already decided to change a little in my life because when my summer holidays started, I first was totally stressed out. I wanted to be done with my costumes for the first two conventions on time (I’m planning on writing something about them in a later post). After that I felt a big relief and did hardly anything except sitting in front of the pc and sleeping really long. But now im already nearly a month into the holidays and I finally decided that it’s time to change it and to give the days a bit more  meaning again. So I started a new attempt of planning my life.

It worked out pretty fine already in my holidays in february so I thought I give it another try. First I made a plan to structure my day and then I made a plan for my nutrition as I realised, that I either ate out (what is unhealty and expensive) or ate nearly the same every day.  Also there was the scale-problem I talked about above. Ok, it’s not that I gained a ton or so, but I don’t feel good with it. And no, I’m not in danger for an eating disorder or something like that.

So the last two days I lived my life after my plans and so far it works out pretty well. I’m not going 100% strictly after the plans (that wouldn’t be possible anyway) but all in all with little adjustments on the way it works.

One good thing about the plan is, that I can see in the evening what I accomplished during the day.  That motivates me and makes me feel proud. And I get more of the stuff that interests me and I want to do in one day (and I have LOADS of interests). Because of the plan my room looks cleaner, I ate healthy, I learned a little bit more Java, I started thinking about an idea for a Fanart, searched for a job and started a new music related project. The project consists of 2 guitar-learning-books I got from the library yesterday and a guitar I borrowed from my flatmate. I also practiced already twice. It’s exciting, I just hope that my fingers will soon build some horny skin because at the moment it hurts a little. But I guess thats the price you have to pay if you want to learn the guitar. I’m curious how long I will stick to it.

I am thinking about if I should pack this in a new Challenge or if I should look how it goes first… I will see. I first let it sit for a bit – oh, that rhymes and what rhymes is good! (That’s an insider for all german speaking people – you know who said that?)

I will not bother you with further details of my plans except you want to know anything more. In that case just ask me in the comments below!

picture by orangeacid

The First NAF-Excursion

Today was a really nice day. I met with my friends from NAF and we had a really fun afternoon/evening. Oh, I forgot. You might wonder what NAF is. So I better go back a bit and explain what it is and how it all started.

So, it all started back in October last year. I was at a birthdayparty and met a lot of nice people there. Some of them I added on Facebook. Every once in a while we exchanged messages, commented statuses, etc. One funny thing about that was, no matter what status one of four of us wrote, in the end the comments were allways food and eating related and a huge amount of them. Once for example we wrote 80 comments just about joghurt. Haha, I know, we are crazy. But that’s what made it so funny.

So one day we had one of these food discussions on facebook again – this time about tiramisu – and someone said something like “oh, wouldn’t it be nice, to sample all the different kinds of tiramisu we all mentioned?”. And all of us were “Yes, why not?”. So I invited the three of them over to my place to make/bring tiramisu. During the planning we had the idea to give the evening a theme and because of the tiramisu we decided for “Italy”. So me and the only guy both made a different version of tiramisu and the other two girls brought pasta salad. I tried to decorate my room a bit italian style and everyone tried to dress italian. The evening was a lot of fun and during eating we had the idea to set up a group for that, or give it a name. So we created a facebook group named NAF. NAF stands for “nicht anonyme Fresssüchtige” what means in english something like “not anonymous food addicts”. Not anonymous because obviously you can’t do anything anonymously on facebook . So this was the birth of NAF and the first meeting. Since then we had a few already with different themes and we always had a blast and a ton of ideas for new meetings.

One of the ideas was “Summer-Christmas”. We plan it for end of August and it should be a lot of fun. So today we met to go to the Donauinsel (an island on the danube) where we plan to do the Summer-Christmas and look for a good spot to do. We were successfull!

After that we decided to go for our first NAF-Excursion that was a trip to the city hall because in front of it there is a huge place where at the moment are a lot of food stands who offer loads of different kinds of meals from a lot of different countries. This was perfect for NAF! So we went there and tried some of the delicious stuff they offered. Sadly the portions are small and expensive but it was still worth it.

After that we ended the evening by going to a Beach bar at the danube – which we shared with about 15 other people because it’s pretty cool today – and drank a cocktail.

Looking forward to the next meeting and Summer-Christmas!

picture taken by Gloria at the NAF-Excursion

Challenge 2.0 – The Summary and The Challenge 23

Long time no see I would say. The last weeks were really busy and chaotic and I haven’t had the time and silence to write blogposts. Even tho it is still busy I want to try to blog more often again from now on especially because I have a new Challenge for you (or rather for me).

But before that, you for sure want to know what happened to my old Challenge 2.0. I bet you are curious if I managed to run the “dm Frauenlauf”. So what can I say… I did! I have a picture of me in the pretty running shirt we got with my finisher medal to prove:

I ran all the way and didn’t have to stop or walk in between and with a time of 0:37:15,9 I was still slow but about 3 min. faster than I thought I would be. I didn’t manage to do my two bonus goals that were

a) be in the first 1000 of my age range (I was 1106th) and

b) finish the run faster than the fastest nordic walker (she had a time of 35 Min. and something – how did she do that??!)

but I am still proud of myself that I tryed and finished it!

So I talked about a new Challenge already, now it’s time to specify it. Today I realised that I have only 23 days left until the first of three conventions, I want to attend, starts. As my cosplays will be with a bare midriff (at least 2 of them) I need to do a lot of sports until then to make my belly flat and showable. No, I don’t want to lose weight or something like that but I don’t want to show my belly the way it is, so I need to change it.

My Battleplan for the next 23 Days looks like this:

1. Do sport as often as possible, best case every day. An option would be one day running or swimming (especially because summer and 30° C finally arrived here!) and the next day sports active and so on.

2. Do belly exercises (again) as often as possible, best case also every day.

3. Eat as healthy as possible what means:

- as much vegetables and fruit as possible

- as little chocolate, cookies, fastfood and bad fat in general as possible

- trying to eat carbohydrates not to late in the day (maybe before 6 in the evening?)

- start again with drinking 1,5 litres of water a day(or more if it’s hot)

But that’s not all I have to do to prepair for the first convention. I also need to finish my Cosplays what means that I still have a lot of work ahead of me. I will keep you updated with my improvements.

Today’s Summary:

Sport & Nutrition:

3,25 km of running

~ 3 km of walking

decided for the stairs instead of the elevator: 2 times (upwards, I hardly ever use the elevator downwards)

Cosplays:

Didn’t do anything today. I’m not revealing what characters it will be already. You will have to stay tuned to find out.

Percentage of completion:

Cosplay 1: 40% done

Cosplay 2: 10% done

Cosplay 3: not decided for one yet

Other things to be done this week:

finish reading The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

write a Treatment

write a paper about the movie Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

buy shoes (woho so looking forward to that!)

 

Ok, that’s it for today. It got a long but hopefully not boring post. See you soon (hopefully tomorrow) with a new update.

Challenge 2.0, Day 10 – The Addiction Development

Challenge 2.0 Day 10. I’m in the two-digits, woho! .  Today morning I tried to write that homework I spoke about yesterday again and I managed to get something on paper. I wouldn’t say it’s good but at least I had something to hand hin.

When I went home I got some fresh vegetables from the grocery store and cooked a delicious meal with vegetables and fish and egg noodles. Yummie! I’m gonna make something like that more often.

In the evening I went to another class (algorithms and data structures – for the geeks among us) where I found a little hope that I understood what I am supposed to do later in the semester. That feels good. Just not sure how well it really will turn out in the end.

When I was back home I did todays Sports Active Workout which included Belly exercises already. After that I found something on the web that made me think that I might be developing a new addiction at the moment. The thing I found was the Vampire Series Challenge. One more Reading Challenge. To make the long story short – yes, I joined. I must be crazy. I think I’m addicted to Reading Challenges. But this one is soo awesome so I HAD to join. Is there a group for anonymous reading challenge addicts anywhere?

Other than that I saw a few joggers when I went to the last class and felt a bit guilty that I wasn’t running. But we also have really bad, rainy weather at the moment. Someone told me today, that it is going to be better at the end of the week. Then I’ll go running, I promise (to myself).

At the end of the day I played a few hands at Poker on Facebook with a friend. That was fun.

Ok, it’s late already (again) and I am tired, so I say Goodbye for today. See you at Day 11.

Picture by rick

Challenge 2.0, Day 6 – The Friends

Day 6 of Challenge 2.0 is over and I was on the run pretty much all day. It started at 9 in the morning when I went to a friend right after I got up to help him with some stuff.

The moment I was back home another friend of mine (the one I went running with yesterday) texted me to ask if I want to go for lunch with her. Indeed I wanted! So we met and went to the big yellow M fast food chain. It was really nice and fun.

On my way to lunch I realised, that I had to return a book to the library today what I nearly forgot. When I was back home from lunch another friend of mine contacted me to meet at the library as he had to return books too, so we set a time to meet.

About an hour later we met at the library and returned the books and looked up some new. I didn’t get me new ones as I still have more than enought to read at the moment.But during that time I was asked by my friend, if I want to go running with him on weekend. This running thing is starting to get rolling!

Then I went back home and did today’s Sports Active Workout. It was a good coincidence that there were a few belly exercises included in this today, so I didn’t have to do them seperately as I felt pretty tired already. Also I decided for the stairs instead of the elevator three times today (to go upwards, to go down I hardly ever use the elevator) what was a good feeling too.

Today’s Summary:

1. Drink 1.5 Liters of Water: done (2 Liters again)
2. Belly exercises: done
3. Sports Active: done

All in all I’m really tired now and that’s why I stop here today. See you tomorrow when the first week is completed with Day 7.

Picture by pocketwiley

Challenge 2.0, Day 4 – The White Jacket

Day 4 of Challenge 2.0 already. Time flies by when you have to do a lot and today I did a lot. In the morning a friend of mine came to visit. He needed help for his cosplay costume. So we first went to a shop that sells art supplies to buy a few things he needed to finish the costume. Then we had lunch at an italian restaurant that is one of my favourites. Everything is sooo delicious there. (For everyone in my area: Vapiano is highly recommended!)

After that we went back home, I had a short geek-break aka I played a short round of CS with some friends and then we packed all the stuff we needed and headed to the studio. First because I had to work there today and second because we had space and a sewing machine and stuff to work on the costume what was a white suit jacket (as seen in the work in progress picture). We didn’t finish it and finished a lot less than we hoped but at least the most difficult parts are done now, hopefully my friend will succeed in doing the rest. He has busy days ahead of him as the convention where he want’s to wear it is this weekend already!

In the evening I went home and read a few other blogs of people doing Life Lists and found some interesting stuff and motivation. Also I remembered some more items for my own Life List so I updated it a bit today. After that I was hungry but it also was late already so I was looking for something to eat but didn’t really want to cook anymore. I was tempted to just eat some cookies (as I am allowed again) but then decided for a soup with pasta and vegetables. I’m proud that I took the better option even tho the cookies would have been the faster and easier one.

As I mentioned yesterday, it is a Sports Active Breakday today so I didn’t do any but I’ll do my belly exercises right after I finished this post. At the moment I have 3 active things (actually 4 but one is the result of one of the others) on my Life List . They were for today:

1. Drink 1.5 Liters of Water: done
2. Do belly exercises: right after this post
3. Blogpost: obviously done

That means, my day is completed and I can head to bed now (a little too late again *sigh*). See you at Day 5.

Challenge 2.0, Day 1 – The New Challenge

So I started today with eating a crunchy chocolate muesli . Earlier I finally tried the Mini-Mozartkugeln I intended to try a month ago already. Just ate a few of them and very slowly. They are delicious. But I ate Salad too today, I want to keep up with that even tho the Challenge is over. Ok, this might have been the last time I am talking about chocolate (no promises about that, but I’ll try to not mention it too often).

Talking about the Challenge brings up my next thing I wanted to tell you. I gave you hints already the last few days that I am going to do a new Challenge now that the old one is over. It was fun doin it and it surprised me a lot of what I am able to. So today is Day one of Challenge 2.0 (the geek in me decided for that title). You might want to know now what this new Challenge is all about. No, it’s not about chocolate again. This time it’s about Sport. Not only Sport in general, I have an actual goal I want to reach.

On May 30th there is this running event. It’s called “dm Frauenlauf” (dm Women’s Run). There are two distances to choose from – 5 and 10 km. I’m not brave enough for the 10 km for my first run I want to do, so I decided for the 5 km. This will be hard enough for me anyway. So I’ll try to do Sport at least 5 times a week from now on. Either running or Sports Active or something else that comes my way. I am open for suggestions if you have any for me. I’d also love it, if you want to join anything of that. I know already of two of my friends who want to participate in the run too, so you are welcome to join. For the run there are of course only girls allowed but for the training everyone can join me. The more the better – more people, more fun. Today I already did some Sports Active to start well with the Challenge, I hope it’s not going to be too screwed up when Uni starts again. We will see.

There is one more thing I want to start today. Some kind of a Life List. I’m not totally sure if it’s going to be a 101 in 1001 (101 things in 1001 days) or a general Life List or a mix of both. Probably the last option. I’ll decide that right after I finished this post. Then I’m going to work on the List and put it online. One thing that is sure already, is that the participation in the run will be one thing on the list to be crossed off. Feel free to join me with that too (or help me reach one of the things on my list).

Do you have any suggestions for me? Support? Do you want to join? Drop me a line in the comments!

Happy Easter to all of you and see you tomorrow with Day 2! (wow, that feels a bit like a time warp to suddenly be back at Day 1)

Picture by magnetbox

Challenge Day 46 – The last Day!

Day 46 of my Challenge. That means that I made it! Woho, I’m so proud of myself and surprised about myself at the same time (I might have said that about once or twice already).

Other than that today didn’t happen much. I pretty much procrastinated most of the day and watched more or less stupid tv shows. I really should start doing stuff tomorrow.

So as soon as I finished writing this post I’m technically allowed to eat chocolate again but I think I’m going to wait until when I wake up again. Today, when I went grocery shopping I stood in front of the chocolate shelves for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what chocolate I want to have for my “first chocolate” that should be special. I decided for the Mini-Mozartkugeln I wanted to try about a month already now. In general I want to try to enjoy it more in the future and not just stuff it into me. Do you know what I mean?

So tomorrow I’ll announce my new Challenge. I’m not totally sure about all of the detail but you’ll see. See you tomorrow with the new Challenge!

Picture by darwinbell