Nom nom nom!

Food is essential to our lives. It is a source of our energy and a source of our belly's happiness. There's no doubt that a full belly is a happy belly. By the way, for all food-fanatics, here is a great site for you: http://foodporndaily.com/ Just remember to wipe the drool off your chin every now and then.

Food and I have never had a great relationship. What do I mean by this? First of all, it does not mean that I am anorexic or bulimic. Furthermore, it does not mean that I start yelling at my plate of food and it yells back at me. But it does mean that I have something to confess, something quite shameful and humiliating to confess as a 20-year old "grown-up".

I am a picky eater. I was picky since the day I was born, and am picky even now.

When I was living in Korea as a young child, for almost every meal, my mom prepared a bowl of rice and a bowl of soup for each person, and many delicious side dishes. I remember refusing to eat certain food despite my mom's wishes. If a side-dish had any kind of vegetables, especially mushrooms or tomatoes, I made sure my chopsticks never landed anywhere near the plate. If there were beans mixed in the rice, I would either pick them out individually, or pretend to eat them and spit them back out on a tissue paper. Fish was also a no-no. And the only fruit that I enjoyed were apples.

In the end, out of the seven to ten side dishes my mom served, I would only eat from two or three. How sad is that?

What is even worse was that I loved greasy, instant food. Eating a french fry from my McDonald Happy Meal was the best thing in the world! When my mom called Pelicana (a Korean version of KFC) to order fried chicken to be delivered, I thanked my mom and hugged her tight. Pizza was yummy too, as long as there were no peppers, no onions, no olives, no vegetables, period. And, of course, ramen noodles with egg (no vegetables) were the best!

My parents have tried to fix my terrible eating habits. My dad often commanded with his deep and authoritative voice that I needed to eat everything that my mom made. My mom fed me with her chopsticks and spoon, telling me to at least try it because it tastes good. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed.

Moving to United States did not do any good for my picky-ness either. The Korean food that my mom cooked looked even more gross now that I was surrounded by all the oily food that I want!

My aversion to, essentially, healthy food continued until college.

Starting college meant that I started eating more with my peers. By eating with my friends, I noticed how limited my choices were just because of my picky eating habits. And my plate of food was always less green than my friend's plate of food. It was embarrassing.

That was when I realized that I needed to try to eat from more food groups, to challenge myself to eat new food, and to just eat healthier in general. And funny enough, my taste buds were changing to fit my new goals. Now, when I eat a french fry from McDonald's, I can feel the grease dripping down my throat into my esophagus and clogging my arteries. And guess what, now I eat at McDonald's or other fast food restaurants only once or twice a year, when I have absolutely no choice. I have added onions, peppers, and other salad greens to my list of tasty vegetables. I also like strawberries, watermelon, oranges, clementines, and bananas! And I LOVE SUSHI!!! (Especially salmon ones)

In retrospect, the only reason why I never ate the vegetables, the fruits, or the fish was because they looked weird and I did not want to try them. I guess it's the fear of the unknown? Haha!

I have yet to try more food and discover new delightful tastes, and to completely fix my eating habits. But I am working on it, and by the time that I am a mom, hopefully I will not be picky and my children will not be as well.

Well, I hope your belly is always a happy belly that experiences a lot more variety of food than mine, and that this post didn't gross you out as much as the last one. Keke.

<3,
Margi

P.S. A special thank you to Yukun, for making sure that I have a healthier diet than I did before.

A Gush of Red

As I have said in my previous post, I had a couple of ideas about what I wanted to write for the next few posts... However, those ideas will be shelved for later as there is an important and unavoidable issue which has made itself present for me.

Lycanthropes, or simply werewolves, transform into terrible beasts once a month on a full moon.

Female homo sapiens, or just women, also transform into cranky "monsters" once a month.

With that said, I want to talk about my period. Period.

For those of you who are too squeamish to read about it, you can kindly wait for my next post. Or you can woman up (yes, I said woman up, not man up) and read it as it will contain some useful information. For those of you who are going through the same thing I'm going through right now, I feel you and I hope you eat lots of red meat, dried fruit, and other necessary iron-rich food.

So let's get some facts straight.

1. All women go through this, and the first period for a woman signifies that her body has matured enough to bear children.
   
2. Once a woman goes through her first period, her body goes through the menstrual cycle until menopause. An average menstrual cycle takes about 28 days and women have their period during 2~7 days of that cycle. (Wikipedia ftw)
   
3. When women menstruate, we're not actually bleeding pure blood (although a good majority of it is blood). We are shedding our uterine lining through our vaginas. And just in case there are people out there who actually think we pee and menstruate through the same hole, we don't. We have 3 holes: one for peeing, one for sex/menstruating, and one for pooping.

Yesterday, Mother-nature decided to punch me in the lower-guts to begin my monthly menstruation. Luckily enough, I was in the bathroom when I found out, so I did not ruin any of my clothes and my work chair was not stained with blood. However, with my "lucky" discovery came the excruciating pain, the cramps. Unfortunately, I am one of the many unlucky women who deal with cramps during their period. Mine always starts on the first day or second day of my period and ends after a day or two. I know that there are others who get longer-lasting cramps and some who don't get cramps at all. I'm envious of the latter but I am still grateful that the cramps do not last too long. But, of course, when I start feeling the cramps, I don't think about my situation that way because it feels like something extremely sharp is drilling my ovaries to smithereens and I just want to scream. During the two agonizing days, I chant my mantra, "I hate being a woman. I wish I was a man," and ibuprofen becomes my best friend.

Over the past 8 years, I have observed that my cycle takes about a month and I can easily predict when my period will be coming. There are also other symptoms that make it easier for me to prepare as I, without a doubt, have PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) the week before it begins. I become very emotional, unhappy, and even depressed. When I had a boyfriend, the week before my period I'd become very unhappy with him and complain about my problems with him to my friends. There have been several times where I had small fights/arguments with him because I was PMS'ing*. This time around, I did not PMS (or I may have without realizing), but there were times when I would cry while watching a very sad episode of a TV drama. As I'm not the only woman who PMS before her period, so I don't feel too bad. But I do get annoyed when men think "She has PMS, RUN!!!" because it's very offensive and rude to women. It's like men are dissing our very nature. I haven't met any jerks like that yet, but when I meet one that ever says anything similar to that, I'm going to make sure I smack his face.

Oh, and before I forget, a big thank-you to all my friends who repeatedly endure my PMS-induced complaints and etc. You guys rock for being there for me even in my crappiest mood and conditions.

I mentioned before that "I hate being a woman", and I must say, I don't quite agree with my own statement and feel sorry about saying it sometimes. I do think it's unfair that women have to go through monthly periods, and the pains of birthing a child. However, I am proud to be a woman. Women are amazing for having enough emotional, mental, and physical strength to bring life into the world. Of course, women can't do that without the help of men. However, men are not the ones going through the burden of carrying a baby for 9 months and sacrificing their body, their time, and their already-sensitive hormonal system. So, as I said, I'm proud to be a woman, but I just wish I didn't have such bad cramps during my period. Haha!

Well that ends my big rant. If you've read through it all, I hope you've gotten something out of it.

I promise that my next post will be about a more fun subject. You can also suggest what my next topic should be in the comments! Or ask a daring question for me to answer.

Until next time...

<3,
Margi

P.S. Let me know if I made any grammatical mistakes *cough cough* ;]

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* I use PMS as a verb but it is actually a noun.

An introduction...

Hello Internet!


As it is the first post to ever be posted on my new blog, I believe it is best to provide an introduction about who I am...


My first name is Margi. I am 20 years old, attending Brown University, and, currently, I happened to be immersed in a Korean Drama called "My Princess".


But those are merely three facts, and can't even be counted as a full introduction. I guess you can call that an introduction to the introduction.


To be honest, I don't know how to complete this introduction. But I know that I want to make this known from the very first post:


I have a couple of reasons for starting this blog:

1. I am a terrible writer. I have a strong background in science and math, however not in writing or articulating properly. Through this blog, I hope to fix that and become a better writer.
   
   
2. My past dream was to be a teacher (for chemistry), but I have strayed from that path and hopefully in a couple of years I will succeed as a computer programmer. In anycase, I have always believed in teaching what I know to others. In high school, I tutored little kids in math, and I have helped my friends for chemistry. Now, I can't really tutor anyone in any academic subject nor do I really have the right to teach anyone. Still, I do have years of experience as a student, as (dare-I-say) a woman, and as a lover. By posting about my experiences and what I've learned, I hope that someone will read it and get something out of my posts.
   
   
3. I want to keep a diary of all my thoughts and ideas. In the beginning of the summer, I discovered an old diary that I had, and reading what I wrote from back then was very refreshing. It gave me insight on who I was and how I changed. I hope to be able to observe those changes years later from now on. At least I know, this time I won't be writing about how much I love fried chicken. (On that note, I do still like fried chicken, especially the fried chicken from Korea!)

I have more minor reasons but as it is very late, and I do have to wake up early for my summer internship, I must be off! I do have a couple of ideas on what my next posts will be, so I will post soon.


For those of you who was bored enough to read my blog, or just curious enough to peek into my life, let me know what your thoughts are on any of my posts. Oh, and if you can give me tips on how to use Blogger, that'd be awesome too. 


<3,
Margi