Wrapping It Up: My Blog Assessment

For anyone who took the time to read my blog, even if you never commented–thanks. Anyone who mentioned my blog to someone or a post to me, or ever complimented my writing–thanks!

But now it is time to wrap this lovely blogging experience up. I must say, right away I felt comfortable writing with my own, opinionated voice. I didn’t mind sharing my own experiences when it came to food or how my interest in heath stemmed from concerns within my own family or my friends. I felt like what makes someone feel good about their body image is by default a personal and subjective experience, so I felt like there was no other way to discuss such a thing than from a personal angle–and I think it worked very well; some people may feel comfortable with having an athletic build, their muscles clearly defined, and others may find that unattractive and feel better being lean and only slightly toned.

I felt in general, health is universal; what constitutes good health, the foods that boost your immune system or energy level are commonplace. Having such a wealth of information available to me to supplement my blog topics made me comfortable candidly expressing my opinions as I could easily back them up.

What I liked about blogging was being able to write with my own voice–something considered to be frowned upon in traditional journalism. I also liked being able to pick my own topics and write about what interested me as well as what I thought would interest my readers. What I think also worked for me was a great use of visuals, especially personal shots of the food I was making or eating. I think with things like food, people are looking for pictures and expect to see something.

The place blogging has in the journalism world today is being a great place for young writers like myself to develop their voice and writing skills, especially if they hope to be writing editorials or have their own columns. I think blogging has also diversified what can be considered news or allowed people to write about topics that have had to be cut from news rooms due to budgeting restraints, like education, religion, or medicine.

I may continue this blog, but perhaps sporadically. I still continue with the same topic, as I feel it is something I will always be interested in/ concerned with.

Ciao!

Lucia

Why This Blog, Why This Topic

So I am writing this blog essentially for my online journalism class. I’ll be writing on it, for what is supposed to be everyday, for the minimum of a semester.

But I really enjoy health in general. Before I became a journalism/ English double major with a tag-a-long French minor, I was doing biochemistry. I really loved was I was doing. I thought at first I’d be a cancer research scientist, but by the time I was taking the level 1 and 2 biology courses I realized at the end of the day the human body fascinated me–how we worked, how we became sick, what essentially could make us well and keep us that way.

I was most interested in epidemiology at that point and thought I’d become an epidemiologist who was destined to fight the parasite problem back home in West Africa (my family is Sierra Leonean) after one particularly interesting video we watched in my bio lab. Long story short, that’s not what I’m studying now but I still love to read about it. If anything, I can always return to science and medicine in graduate school or in my career.

Personally, I also enjoy exercise and sports. I feel lucky that my parents got us into activities early on and were active with us, walking and running at the park or playing soccer, tennis, badminton, basketball, ballet and tap. My brother was in martial arts, something I joined in on later in my life (sparring frightened me at the time). Of course, you also probably end up liking most what you’re good at and I’m good at sports. I don’t play competitively right now and so I exercise for me, not in preparation for any season.

I’m also a picky eater. My siblings know I infamously hated most things people loved, and still dislike some of them: cheese, macaroni and cheese, yogurt, milk, apple juice, orange juice, bacon, BBQ sauce, etc. Some of it I simply disliked because it made me sick, and it wasn’t until I was older that I knew that I needed average amount of any dairy product and any excess made me sick. I was odd and loved things like carrots, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

When my mother and father were both diagnosed or at risk for high blood pressure that gave me further incentive to watch what I ate. Salt was no longer in our dishes and some highly salted meats went out as well. And everything still tasted fantastic. I find it baffling now the knee-jerk reaction to add salt to anything when there’s so many other kinds of seasonings available to create a great tasting, not-drab-at-all, and healthy dish.

I’ve also seen some people in my life affected by diabetes and I’ve felt coffee give me an instant headache and my mother felt palpitations from cappuccino. I’ve never been a fan of coffee and prefer tea. I apparently at an early age came home declaring to my mother that caffeine was a drug and no one should be eating it in our house after learning about addictive additives in elementary school.

I’ve learned to know my body really can’t tolerate high-processed foods or high in sugar or salt content foods either. My family doesn’t drink soda and lives for a bottle of water. I know even if I eat badly for too long, I literally can just feel terrible for days. So all in all, I’ve paid attention to my body and what goes into it either by force or by preference.

If you hate going to the gym, I’d say start small; walk and see how you feel afterward. Boston is a walkable city, so even if you’ve strolled to the Fens and back, consider how you feel. I was lucky that even when I couldn’t do much as I explained in my first entry, I still had the luxury of being able to walk where I needed to go because I am in Boston.

If you detest leafy greens or water is just “too tasteless” I’d say give it a week. A friend of mine named Evelyn actually stopped to speak to me and another friend in Centennial Common (a quad at my school) and tell us how she dropped soda and juice a few months ago and she feels great.

None of this is impossible.

Chow,

-Lucia

Hello World

I’m happy to finally make the time to write something. For my first post, I guess there isn’t much to say. I’ll explain why I chose to blog about this topic–health and food.

I know most people are extremely busy out there, especially the average college student who may only simply be enrolled in classes. I myself am overloading with 5 courses this semester, have a part-time, unpaid internship, am advertising manager for a student organization, write for my school paper, am an editor for a growing online campus fashion magazine, and still have to make time to eat, sleep, exercise, and breath.

Last fall, I did yoga. I had actually kept up with my New Year’s committment to begin exercising more in January 2008, but because of years of soccer finally catching up with me, I was having problems with one knee, then the other, and couldn’t run, let alone go up and down the stairs quickly.

I took a few months worth of physical therapy and went on co-op in the late summer. By then, unable to exercise, I found myself also sitting most of the time at home or in a newsroom for my co-op part-time jobs. I ended up screwing up my back as well.

This first post may sound like a bit of a downer–or a huge complaint–but I’m actually prety happy and pretty grateful. The therapists were all very kind and considerate and I quickly realized even if I wanted to escape the required workouts they gave me, my body wasn’t going let me get away with it, as I would regress or my progress with stagnate.

I really started to pay attention to my body. I felt accomplished when I simply biked for ten minutes, or moved on to leg presses, and then started to walk and lightly jog for a short period of time.

Yoga made me really trust my body again–especially my knees. Besides that fact that your instructor can ask you to try out some pretty daring maneuvers and you feel like you just climbed Mt. Everest if you can actually do one, all in all it was equal parts building my strength and clearing my mind.

The back came after all that, but in short, I was lucky a lot of that was during the summer; you’re taking two classes tops and are off on Fridays. I was on co-op during the fall and you do have a lot of down time. Though I was SGA Rep. for another organization at the time–and running from yoga to an e-board meeting did make me the butt of a few jokes–it was more feasible to keep up with it all.

I’m doing way more this semester and admit I’ve slipped. I can feel my body regressing and especially after not making club soccer–which seems like it was for the best, truly–I’ve declared it’s “eat-whatever-you-feel-like-week.”

But that was last week, it’s a Monday night and I have to finish a paper, but I’m also going to hopefully return to taking care of me.

Chow (ciao)

-Lucia

P.S. If you couldn’t tell, I like plays on words