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

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 19 – The Movies and the Pub

Day 19 of Challenge 2.0 started later than I planned (again) and wasn’t as productive as I hoped but at least it was relaxed. I did my Sports Active Workout and in the afternoon there looked a guy at our free room and then I went to Uni. There we had 3 presentations today and they all were pretty boring. Not just because the people didn’t do well. Two of the groups did well I think, but the topics aren’t that spectacular to create excitement. The third one was held by only one girl that was searching for pdf documents and opening them constantly during the presentation. It was painfull to watch.

In the evening I went to the cinema and watched Shutter Island. It was pretty nice and you were constantly thinking about what was going on (in a good way). Just a few parts of it were a little bit too long-winded. After that we went to a Pub what was fun too.

And as I already said, that I wasn’t productive during the day I had to write my homework for tomorrow after all that. Yes, I know. It’s my own fault. But nevertheless, I did it – and now I am really tired. So see you tomorrow at Day 20 (wow, time flies by!).

Challenge 2.0, Day 16 – The Peter Pan Syndrom

Day 16 of Challenge 2.0. I did again no Sports Active. I tried all day to motivate myself to do some work for my presentation tomorrow and managed to do it half an hour ago. At least I realised that my part of the presentation is interesting. I have to compare the movie The Lost Boys (a vampire movie of 1987) with Peter Pan and the God Pan. Interestingly there are surprisingly many of connections between these. I wouldn’t have thought that beforehand. Hopefully I can talk long enough about all that tomorrow and in a way that all the people outside my head understand it too.

During research for that I also found the Peter Pan Syndrom. It is for men who don’t want to grow up. It seems that this is actual an illness. I think at least one of my ex’s is a possible candidate for this one.

Today morning I had my english class again. Again with a presentation but this one was much better than the one last week. Also the woman from last weeks presentation wasn’t around at all and it suddenly was much more quiet during class. That was nice.

In the evening I was supposed to have another class but the teacher was stuck in London caused by the volcano ash cloud so there was no class today. More time for me to work on my presentation….NOT.

I better go to bed now and sleep a night over my presentation and polish it tomorrow morning. See you at Day 17 (hopefully).

Picture by tipoyock

Challenge 2.0, Day 13 – The Tiredness

Day 13 of Challenge 2.0 began really early at 7:30. Yes, I know that’s not THAT early normally. But I went to bed too late (yes, it’s my own fault) so that I had just 5 hours of sleep and I woke up a few times during these 5 hours (not my fault). For that I was pretty fit all day but I had a few moments (in class for example) where I had to fight against sleep.

After my first class and just before my second and third class I went for lunch with a really good friend of mine (I think I spoke about that last week already). I enjoy it a lot every time we meet for lunch (or anywhere else). We always have so much to talk about and it is so great fun everytime.

I haven’t done a Sports Active Workout today. I planned to do it right after I finish the post, but I’m so exhausted already that I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll just do the belly exercises when I’m in bed.

Tomorrow I’ll go see my mates fashion show (If you want to see it too: Mon Ami – Theobaldg. 9, 1060 Wien) and to a pub afterwards. Exciting! See you then at Day 14 (second week done!!).

Picture by ibm4381

Challengen 2.0, Day 12 – The Walk in the Rain

Day 12 of Challenge 2.0 was as cold and rainy as the past few days of the week. I tried to ignore it and managed to do that pretty well but that backfired at me later in the day when I went to an info event and had to walk a few minutes to get there – and I didn’t bring an umbrella. So the way became pretty uncomfortable and wet as it was raining pretty heavily.

Later in the evening I finally finished the first book. Woho. The first book to fill in at my 50 books Challenge. Also I need it for a presentation end of may so two things in one.

In the evening I did my Sporsts Active Workout. Other than that there happened not a lot today so I stop here now. See you at Day 13.

Picture by Yulya Libkina

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 9 – The Writers Block

Day 9 of Challenge 2.0 today and I pretty much wasted it . I should have done a homework I was looking forward to do but when I sat down my head was suddenly empty. Nothing was there, no Idea popped into my head. It is due tomorrow, so I try it again tomorrow morning. Maybe my head works it out during the night. That happened a few times already. Once I was thinking about a problem at my programming homework all afternoon and couldn’t find the solution and when I was falling asleep in my bed at night, I suddenly saw the answer in front of me. I hope for that too today. I guess I just block myself because I put myself under too much pressure. I just don’t know how to release the pressure when the due date is knocking at the door.

Other than that I went to a class early in the morning where I lost some of my worries about the presentation I soon have to do in english (I hate presentations in general, doin it – for the first time – in english doesn’t make it better). That was because we heard the first presentation today and even if I try I will not be able to be worse than this woman.

Yes, I know, that sounds mean, but it really is the truth. She had such a bad pronunciation that you hardly could understand anything. Also she had a few funny mistakes in it. Yes, I’m aware of the fact, that everyone can make mistakes, especially when he or she is nervous. I’m sure I will talk a lot of nonsense when it is my turn. But she said stuff like “in the best fall” (she meant “in the best case” but used the german word “Fall”) and, when she couldn’t remember the word “counting” (or never knew, I don’t know) she said the german word “zählen” but not just the german word she said “zähling”, as if it would make the word english just when she adds the “-ing”. Yes, nevermind, I better stop now. I was just wondering.

Something very clever I did myself today happened in the evening. It’s a bit embarrassing. In the evening I normally have class. Today I didn’t really want to go out as it was raining and really cold but then motivated myself to go there, just to remember right before I was in front of the classroom door that the teacher mentioned something about that there is no class today. So I went there completely for nothing. That made me really happy (/sarcasm off).

The only little good thing I can remember about today is, that I, while I was on my way to the not-happening-class and back, read some pages of one of the books I have to read for Uni (and for my reading challenges). It was the book The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde.

I didn’t do any sport today as it was Sports Active Breakday and, as I already said, ugly weather. Tho I thought about doing some but I wanted to finish (start?) the homework (in what I didn’t succeed, as seen above). But I’ll do my belly exercises later right before going to bed. I found out that it’s nice to do them right before going to sleep as this reduces the time it takes me to warm myself up enough to be able to sleep (I have unfortunately this women-and-cold-feet-in-bed-problem).

Ok, enough ranting for today. See you at Day 10.

Picture by Brenda Annerl

Challenge 2.0, Day 8 – The Food Revolution Flash Mob

Day 8 of Challenge 2.0 today. It didn’t really happen much except that I realised around noon that a homework was due TODAY and panicked. I started it but couldn’t really motivate me to finish it. Now I’m still not done and have one hour left. I guess I won’t make it on time. Also I’m really tired already.

One reason why I am tire is, that I did a second Sports Active Workout today to finish two of my goals that were due today. So after the normal workout I did another step aerobic workout. That was fun but, as i said already, tiring.

I think I wrote about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution already yesterday a little, but I was in a hurry to go to a party, so I didn’t write much about it. (The party was by the way not really worth it, except that we watched Planet Terror what was nice. Wanted to see that movie for a while already.) So yesterday was the 3rd Episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and it seems that Jamie finally is making progress towards his ambitious goal. From the very beginning there was a radio dj of the local radio station who was totally against Jamie and his project. He wanted him gone. Last episode he had a bet running with Jamie that Jamie isn’t going to make it to teach 1000 people one healthy dish in one week. Jamie introduced him to some of his friends and people who have issues with obesity and at the end of the week the radio dj was Jamies 1000st person who learned a dish of him. I guess that’s called a success!

One thing Jamie also did was a Food Flash Mob. I really liked it and I couln’t get the song out of my head the whole day. Here you can watch the Flash Mob:

What do you think about that?

Today’s Summary:

1. Drink 1.5 Liters of Water: done (~2 Liters already)
2. Do Sports Active: done (2 Workouts!)
3. Belly Exercises: done (incl. in the first Sports Active Workout)

That’s it for today. Going to sleep now. Uni starts again tomorrow. See you then at Day 9.

Picture by Sir. Mo