176.6 Gonna, Wanna, and Power!

Today was ESL day for me! You would love this group of people. What is so endearing to see is how they help each other without prompting from me. I complimented them on that this morning and they turned it into a compliment for me. How lucky I am to have them in my life.

Last week I asked them to write down what they wanted to learn from this class. I got quite an array of things including wanting to learn to use the computer and to get a job! One goal was to learn what wanna and gonna mean. So this morning that's what we tackled first. (Um, learning to use the computer and getting a job are going to have to be accomplished outside of this class!) The precise students in the group wanted to know which was better English. As I was explaining that going to and want to are the better forms, I heard myself self saying, "If you're gonna write a letter, you'd use going to and want to. But if you wanna just talk easily to someone, you'd probably just use wanna and gonna". I never realized how often I use gonna and wanna in my speech! How about this...I'm gonna reach my weight goal because I wanna be healthy!

Now I do work hard while I teach this class and I was thinking that I was having yet another hot flash because I was so warm. But then we got word that there was a power outage and the college was closing. (The classroom where we meet has a wall of windows so I wasn't aware that there was no light.) So I gottago home early! :)

198.6 Discomfort With Comfort Food

I really like to eat when I am sick. Unless I am nauseated, eating is one of the few good aspects of being sick. With this throat thing, I am not feeling sick to my stomach and I am missing the good old days (?) which led to a huge weight gain. I really wanted something cold today in spite of the fact that I had the chills last night and then woke up in the middle of the night in the midst of what my husband refers to as the condition of "the fever breaking". It reminded me of my old hot flashes that would interrupt my sleep...frequently. So today, when I was not sleeping or watching bad TV, I was thinking about the food I used to eat when I was sick. As a kid, my folks would buy Byerly Soda. I don't know if this was a local soda company, but it was a bubbly version of fruit juice with loads of added sugar. The only time they bought it was when one of us was sick. The other thing I remember is my mom making boiled custard that I would drink warm from a glass. I imagine it was an attempt to get lots of protein, along with sugar and milk, in me. Today I just wanted ice cream. We have Weight Watchers Ice Cream Bars in the freezer for Jeff. So far, I have never had even one. They are just too small to warrant eating the 100 extra calories. So, I finally remembered that you can buy fruit bars flavored with sweetener instead of sugar so, thanks to Jeff, I now have a stash of those. I have no clue what flavor the one I had was, but it felt great on my throat. Dreyers Fruit Bars @ only 25 calories!

When I was working at a college infirmary a few years ago there were special diets recommended for various illness. None of them featured boiled custard. None of them featured anything that came close to what I would call comfort food. But the students did get better. When I'm sick, somehow an apple just doesn't do it for me, nor does rice. I think I'll go get another fruit bar.