Lunch Break

Mmm... leftover pizza with chicken, bacon, mushrooms, and onions from Cabana. I just left the office a moment ago and was this tempted to run by Taco Bell for this thing which I had seen on a commercial last night and have been thinking about ever since. But since I packed my lunch (which isn't dreadfully healthy, but at least smaller in portion and probably a winner compared to my other option) and I've been doing this whole mantra thing where I tell myself "you are stronger than you think you are" when I do things like run, climb, or open the refrigerator door and it really works - I didn't go and it felt awesome. I read about mantras in Lauren's running magazine (she's running the Country Music half-Marathon this weekend) and closed my eyes and tried to think of what I would need to tell myself in order to keep going and it was "you are stronger than you think you are" and that has been incredibly profound.

Speaking of profound, while I've been babysitting for the Doolittles, I will occasionally take time to read a book of hers that's laying around called "French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure" just because I remember it being a buzz book a year or so ago and I thought, "why not see what it has to say?" It's been an interesting read so far, but there was something in particular that I read yesterday about a secret that every French woman knows about the pleasure of food - that it's the first bite that is the most enjoyable, and not the last. And I sat there and thought, for at least twenty minutes, about that statement and how I wish I had known that all my life - because it's SO true. There's no reason to get seconds and overeat if the best part was NOT the last but the FIRST! Wow. I could probably go without reading the rest of the book just knowing that - seriously.

Anyways, this has been nice break from working on a reflection paper that's due tomorrow that I thought would be a little bit easier than it's turning out to be, considering she gave us little to no direction on what exactly to reflect about. So, I'm trying to write my paper in such a way so as to show how taking this course has really given foundation and grounding to what I thought I knew and felt about service-learning; it's helped me to see what works and what doesn't work, how to even beginning planning and creating a course; what steps go into building successful community partnerships, and actually integrating the subject material into the service and vice versa.

Fabulous, now if only I could just write that.