I have not yet made it into this week yet. I got up at 5:30AM as per usual and decided to go with it. I have been making perfect oatmeal for about a week now: it makes me eager to get out of bed and go for it. I went downstairs and the washing machine was stuck, broken down again. I pulled out all the danged, soaking clothes and hung them up. But first, I made the most perfect oatmeal (they call it porridge here) and ate it out of the pan. It was perfect.
We had to go to the bank to open a tax-free savings account for Yoko and apply for credit cards. Then I went on to work and the girls stay back at the mall.
This weekend was fine too: we road bicycles and I ran. We went to Costco. I saw a very good film on BBC4 called 'The Market: A Tale of Trade'. It was a Turkish movie, in Turkish, obviously. Just a fabulous ending. Nothing is ever resolved in real life, why do we demand it of films? I like it when I'm left pondering something at the end.
I traded emails with my supervisors about my data set and I think I managed to make a case for it, one that they even find compelling at this point, which is a shock. And then I saw a job in the US that I could do, no problem. A teaching position at a small university in Statesboro, GA. I looked at Statesboro on Google maps and felt the pull. There was a Wendy's. Wendy's is a place you could just go to, I thought. How bizarre. I asked Yoko which she preferred, America or Japan. She thought for a second and said, 'Europe.' Well, me too. I guess. I would be happy in Statesboro for about a day and then I would start getting fat, find the job suffocating, and hate the boredom of life there. But it flickered in my mind a bit.
My weight loss chugs along and I am empowered to finish this time. I realised that in the past, I have just stopped my diet, but this time I am going to finish. The important thing to decide now is what that means. I think it means that I would like to be between 74-76 kgs. My average, not just hitting it once. I will do that first based on my morning weight, and when I achieve that, I will shift it to my weight after having dinner, which is usually between .5-1 kgs above my morning weight. I have to make it through my trip to Aberdeen without going crazy (already planning how this will happen) and then going to Spain. If I make it through the Spain trip and teaching the Friday afterwards without falling off the horse, I will have arrived.
I should also mention I will certainly be in Chicago for the Religion and Spirituality in Society conference in February. Got the okay from my supervisors and think it will be worth my time. Plus, I'll be home for my mom's birthday — first time in like eight years.