29 is divine! 29 is divine!

Since my last post I've turned 29, become a quiz master, and resumed my weightloss competition with my fat friend Ashley.

Turning 29
On CBC radio 1, there's a First Nations advice columnist, she answers letters people write in and her advice is unfailingly sage. Years ago she said that Native people believe that the stages or cycles of life are 7 years long. So every 7 years you enter a new phase. Around my birthday, I started thinking about where I am in life, where I'm going, what's different in my life now... I'm coming up on 30, I've been out of highschool for 10 years (no I don't think I'll be attending my reunion - I didn't like most of those people while I was there, and I don't keep up with more than 3 or 4 of them, and I really don't want to have to explain to the rest of them why I blocked them on Facebook). Anyway, I realized in looking back at things, that I really did enter a new phase of my life last year. I started playing rollerderby, running, started working in a job that I could see myself staying in for a long long time.... it just really seems like a lot has changed for me and for the better too.

Becoming a quizmaster
TT has held a quiz night once a month, for the last year. It's sooo much fun, you end up getting all hot around the collar about the most obscure stuff. I love to let my inner nerd out. Anyway, I had the most points in last year's competition and part of my 'prize' was that since TT is leaving us, I had to become the quizmaster. Last night was my first foray, and while, it wasn't an all around success, it was definitely a good start. Some of the categories were too hard, some too easy. When it was just right I could tell by the excited chatter, the debating. The perfect trivia question is one whose answer you have to deduce or you think you know but you're just not sure that it's right, it really gets you thinking.
Anyway, I already have ideas for questions for the next one, and plans for improving my technique. I'm going to start growing my mustache and then... Alex Trebeck.... watch out... I'm coming for your job!

My fat competition with my fat friend Ashley
Ashley's expanding by the second, it turns out that her failed attempts at losing weight during the last incarnation of the competition were actually successful attempts at maintaining her weight and once the competition ended, she ate her way to gargantuan proportions.
I'm actually not sure whether I gained or lost since we put our competition on hiatus. I have been skating twice a week and running twice a week all summer. So, while, I haven't been weighing myself or watching what I eat (well actually, I have been watching myself eat cake and cookies and fast food by the truckload), my clothes still fit well and I can fit through doorways (which is more than I can say for poor, fat Ashley).
I have to say, and maybe this is going to seem kind of Oprah-ish, but playing derby has altered my body image. I used to exercise and diet for vanity and health. Lately I've started to see my body as a vehicle, a means to an end, I just want to win, and I have to work my body really freakin' hard to make that happen. It's way more motivating. I don't know if my run club realizes this, but I work them waaaay harder when I have a game coming up.