things I've learned

kids let me bestow some wisdom upon your inexperienced minds
1) Never stash your pants in a tree on a run that you don't want to carry it. From personal experience I know that all this brings you when you get your pants on the way back is a very real fear that possibly every small living creature in an 4.3 mile radius has decided to live in your pants while you were gone and will now attack you on your way back home.
2) Don't pay $5.00 a day for iced coffee at Starbucks. Listen closely. Brew any kind of coffee. Its actually better if its yesterday's coffee because then its already room temperature. Get a cup with ice. Pour your coffee in the cup about halfway up. Fill the rest with milk or half and half if you like to go big. Put in flavored creamer or flavored syrup if you wish. Add some sugar (Splenda dissolves best in cold drinks) And taa-daa! Delicious flavored iced coffee!
3) If you feel sorta blah, bloated, achey, or tired-drink more water. Your pee should be clear except for in the morning, when it should be light yellow and basically odorless.
4) Your grades do not define you. Your grade is not a letter value placed to judge your value as a person, and sometimes they aren't even an accurate representation of the effort you put forth in a classroom. The older I get, the more professors I have, the more I realize just how subjective grades are. Grades are just a letter put forth from a human to attempt to put an objective value on your understanding of that human's teaching of a subject.
5) Do not turn on the radio to a "hit" radio station. You'll have nothing but regrets. And besides, this is 2012, get an ipod plug in for your car.
6) Don't shower everyday, or at the least, don't wash your hair everyday. Or if thats still gross to you, just don't shower in hot water. Hot water ruins the protective cuticle around your hairs. Which opens it up to damage, and then you get split ends. Cooler water keeps the cuticle nice and sealed. Washing with the shampoos they make nowadays can also dry out your hair. Your skin will be softer from either not washing everyday and from using colder water as well. Both hot water and soap dry out your skin.
7) If you want chocolate chip cookies, do not make the nestle tollhouse bag recipe. Seriously, theres better chocolate chip cookies. Have you ever gone to a restaurant or bakery where they make really good chocolate chip cookies? Does it ever look like the cookies that that bag recipe makes? No. Not even at the Nestle Tollhouse restaurant!
8) Also, if you're on a diet.... Great! Wonderful! I'm proud of you! I have a couple of DOs and DON'Ts for ya though.
DON'T use facebook as a public record of your diet. Nobody wants to know that you wish you could have dessert. You wouldn't be on a diet if you didn't want something else MORE than the dessert (to lose weight). So don't discourage yourself like that.
DON'T obsess over what you eat. Its sort of a miserable eating situation for everyone around you if you babble on and on about everything you eat. And even if you don't voice it, still I say don't obsess over it. If you mess up move on.
DO exercise. No, your diet will not make you lose a bunch of weight that you will keep off if you do not exercise. Bottom line of losing weight, you need to burn more fuel than you are eating or eat less than what your basal metabolic rate is. But scratch the latter because that's not safe or sustainable.
Bottom line- eat healthier, real foods and work out. And, if you actually work out, you'll require more and more calories and then you can eat whatever you want. Ahhh, the life of a runner.
9) Please drive safely. Lately, I've been paying more attention to my driving. Thinking of other people's motive for doing what they do on the road, good or bad- rather than just my own motives. I realized how selfish most driver are because they feel like they are alone, when in actuality they are interavting with other people in a very important way. Lives are at stake. Why is that lady laying on her horn and being so mean? Maybe she has a child in the car. Maybe she's going to lose a really important client if she's late. So why not let her go first? No rush, no grudge against another driver, no important event, no red light is worth the risk that YOU driving like a maniac brings. So, I don't care what douche bag cut you off, how bad you have to pee, how long your trip home feels. It's not worth your or anyone else's lives. Don't make risky moves driving. YOU be the responsible, safe one. I promise to do this too.