The First Blood of 2015

*Warning: Crappy blog ahead.*

I wish I have twenty four more hours in my hand each day. 

It's been only a week since I got back from my two-week vacation in the Philippines and yet I couldn't have been more overwhelmed. 2015 filled my plate early on and I came unprepared. I have to conduct more tedious experiments, write a scientific paper for publication as soon as possible, study for graduate exams, study for my experiments, coursework, and I don't know -- rest and a movie or two, perhaps? 

Last year, my days were just spent on either doing experiment, sleeping, and exercising and I barely had time for anything else. This year is definitely busier that's why my time management skill set is screaming red and crying out for help. 

Gah. I can do this. 

The tradeoff to looking fit

There are so many benefits to gain from having a fit lifestyle. Better health, stronger physique, improved endurance, a happier mood and the most coveted of all -- better-looking body. Sculpted abs and toned limbs - probably 95% of the people who are into fitness aim for this and you all know I am one of them. Working out and eating clean gave me all these benefits but unfortunately it's still a raging battle between me and the sculpted body. One slip through a buffet meal can erase all the marks of hard work from your body. It's no secret that I want a body as toned as an athlete or the abs of a victoria's secret model so I try to workout and eat clean consistently, but when life gets busy or once cravings start I can no longer exercise as frequently as before. And then I get frustrated and feel fat immediately. I get pressured whenever there is a gathering which involves good food. Sometimes it's difficult for me to decide if I should just stay home and exercise or go to dinner with my friends. It's affecting my social health. 

Don't get me wrong. I don't blame fitness or all of it. It's my high expectations. I aim for the body of someone who makes a living from maintaining a toned and fit body while I am just a humble student who tries to juggle the lab and other parts of life. Clearly, my goal doesn't align with my lifestyle. I have to sort this out. Definitely, I won't give up this healthy lifestyle but I need to take it easy. I have to enjoy food, fat, and cravings from time to time or else I will feel deprived. I need to accept the fact that I don't need a sculpted set of abs in order to be successful in my profession. I need to lower my standards.

Am I on a growth spurt or what?

Okay. I have a situation. My digestion is on a roll nowadays. I AM ALWAYS HUNGRY.

Any food that I eat -- rice, oatmeal, fruits, fruit juice, milk -- makes my stomach full for only 1 hour. After that grace period, I start looking for food. 

HIIT and BURN - Okay this is my first hypothesis. There are several articles and studies claiming that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) can burn calories for up to 38 hours after a workout which means the metabolism also spikes up during that time frame. I didn't believe it at first, but I think I do now because I really get hungry the next day after my workout. And it's not even psychological because I really hear my stomach growl for food. 

EXPERIMENTS I am preparing for an upcoming conference in December which means my lab work is on its high nowadays. I don't want to call it cramming but I want to present the best set of results and a really good progress to the conference so I've been doing a lot of experiments on weekdays and even on weekends. My work really requires physical labor so I suspect that the hunger pangs mean that my body needs more fuel to function. 

COLD WEATHER This is not a valid hypothesis since I workout at home with a good heating system and it's not even winter yet. Haha. But I want hot coffee and baked sweet potato all the time. (Just saying) 

And just to clear it up: I never starve myself. I eat every time I feel hungry and that is the problem. I try my best to pack sweet potatoes and buy the friggin $2 banana from the convenience store but I cannot make sure that I'm eating healthy all the time. But if I don't monitor my snacks I'm gonna lose all the progress - NO! The best that I can do is learn to curb my hunger because I cannot remember the last time I felt full from a proper amount of meal and that banana is so expensive. 

My Korean Friends

Next week marks m y 8th month in Korea and for the nth time I want to say that time really flies so fast. Weather is becoming really cold these days and the foliage is getting to its peak. It’s beautiful. And just as the leaves are starting to change its colors, my life as well has been changing drastically when fall arrived. The pressure to deliver good experiment results doubled, if not tripled, as we prepare for several conferences wherein we will present our study to the research community. My professor is demanding more results which meant more time to spend in the lab. It’s tiring. 

I haven’t spoken about the Koreans that I mingle with everyday coz my judgment might be wrong, but after eight months of being with them I can now say that I genuinely like them. They cannot talk to me so much, but they try their best to be nice in whatever way that they can and it’s enough. I have become good friends with three Korean people who have helped me during the first months that I was struggling in Korea. And until now, whenever we get miserable with our experiments, they are my go-to people. We eat together, go to the lake together, drink together and all that. These might not be too much for them, but for me it meant the whole world. 

Having few people in the new city, you'll genuinely love them for showing you their town, for taking you in to their hearts, and for looking out for you. Which they will. Being the outsider, you'll rely on locals to aid your transition in adjusting to the new city, and their self-less kinship will warm your heart. Turns out, you can't rely on everyone, but someone will always be there for you. 

The sudden shift on the weather and the increasing stress made me realize that all my hardships in my research became very bearable because of these people. They cannot speak their minds but they let me feel through their actions that I have a friend in them. All those little things like buying donuts because they know I haven't had lunch yet, giving ginseng tea because I have cold, those beer nights because they want to cheer me up will never be forgotten. I am so glad that I am realizing these things as early as now. We might not meet again after graduation but I will do my best to cherish these people with the little time that I have.

Everyday People

"All the people we have met and all the people we have yet to meet, are meant to exist so we can find them, so we both could exchange a set of directions, which will guide us to the next place we are meant to go.

And as we go, we must always believe that maybe this could be our last stop. That maybe the next person we meet will not have a set of directions, that maybe they will have more, and that maybe they will offer us something beautiful enough to inspire us to stay."  -R.M. Drake