I really liked this movie.  It’s not perfect, and doesn’t have any big stars in it.  But its story really hits home and has a lot of truth in it.  The movie starts out at a “Fat Acceptance” meeting, basically a group of fat people trying to get the world to accept them and not look down on them – promoting fat acceptance.  One girl, Lydia, wants to start a Fat Acceptance Walking Group, and is shunned a bit on this idea.  The group claims that they are trying to get the world to see them as normal, not shelter themselves from the world.  Shortly after this, Darcy walks into the meeting.  She is very slim, and everyone stares as she walks in, finally asking her what she is doing there.  She is a recovering anorexic and sees herself as fat, so she feels like she belongs.  Lydia tries to stick up for her, but the others decide she has no business being there and asks her to leave, so she does.

Darcy and Lydia later talk to each other and become friends.  Their friendship is what most of the movie is about.  As I watched the movie, I saw it express a lot of the same frustrations that I’ve had most of my life.  The movie covers friendship between women and the struggles that we face.  Appearance is so important in society today.  It’s ridiculous how far it goes.  Yes, we should be healthy.  But here’s what’s frustrating… the same society that pushes us to be thin and/or healthy, that promotes model bodies as an ideal, also pushes things at us like fast food or huge portion sizes in restaurants – dishes laden with cheese, sugar, sauce, and tons of calories.  Yet we are expected to somehow balance all of that with the ideal size society encourages us to be, all the while dealing with Western culture’s habit of building social events around food as well.  Is it any wonder that women (and men as well) have such a low self-image sometimes?

I’ve struggled with this so much recently.  I diet and lose weight during the week, only to have to face eating out over the weekend, then weigh myself on Monday morning having gained the same weight back.  I know this is my own fault.  I know there’s no one else to blame.  And it has brought me to tears, frustration, and feeling completely hopeless and like a total failure on more than one occasion.  When I see that number on the scale and know that it is about the same as it has been for months, there is absolutely nothing that can make me feel any better.  Nothing that will make the feeling of knowing that I have failed again and again go away.

Disfigured covers those feelings, from more than one perspective.  There are a lot of facets to how we feel about our bodies, and I like how this movie faces pretty much all of them.  There are two points in the movie that honestly really said a lot to me.  One is a time when Lydia and Darcy are talking, and they realize that neither one of them can picture themselves with an ideal body.  They don’t know what that would look like for either of them.  They can’t imagine having a body that would be exactly what they want.  And I realized that I am the same way.  As much as I hate my body and fight with it and what it looks like… I don’t even know what me having the “perfect” body would look like.  What does that say about us?  Society has us striving to be such an arbitrary ideal that even we don’t know what that ideal is… we just know it’s not us now.  We just know that our body isn’t perfect, so we hate it.  But what if we fix it, what then?  Chances are, we’ll still hate it.  Look at the people that get plastic surgery to “fix” their bodies and end up just getting more and more plastic surgery.

The other moment in the movie that said a lot to me was actually a combination of several moments, truthfully.  When Darcy was first reaching out to Lydia, Lydia was suspicious.  Darcy finally admitted that she was just trying to be her friend and didn’t really know how.  This is so true for girls.  It’s difficult for us.  Society has an ideal picture of what we should look like, and we look at girls that to us seem closer to that than we are and it’s hard not to feel envious of them.  Plus, in some ways we feel like we should capture every guy’s attention, so this makes every other girl competition for that, making it even harder to be friends.  Darcy and Lydia struggled with their friendship throughout the movie, finally culminating in a conversation that left them not speaking much to each other.  The scene where one of them tries to reach out to repair their relationship was intense and left me in tears, knowing exactly what was being felt because I have felt it so much myself at times.

I feel like I need a disclaimer on what I’m about to say next.  Trust me, I’m an advocate of being healthy.  I know I don’t do that great a job of it myself, but I know that it matters.  But sometimes, I think we try to hard and obsess over it too much.  Be active and don’t go crazy with what you eat.  Personally, I think that’s enough.  But lately, I see so much calorie-counting (whether it be what we eat or what we burn at the gym), weight-watching, and in general so much talk about all of it, all the time, that I think it takes over actually being able to enjoy our lives.  Who knows, maybe it’s just me and I’m doing it wrong.  (Please, feel free to comment, but DON’T give me your advice on losing weight or being healthy.  I’m discovering that everyone thinks they know the best way to do it or what anyone else might be doing wrong, and I have no interest in hearing your thoughts on how to do it.)  But lately, I know that going through every day being obsessed with how many calories I have eaten or burned, how many glasses of water I’ve drank, or how many pounds I see on the scale is making me a little crazy.  I’ll probably keep doing it, because I do care too much about how many pounds are on the scale, and I don’t really know another way to fix that.  But still, I think it’s a bit crazy.

All in all, I thought this was a great movie and expressed how girls (and guys, even) struggle with self image and how much we feel forced to obsess over it.  Honestly, the world would be a better place if we all just tried to do what I said above – be active and don’t go crazy with what you eat.  But sadly, I don’t think we’ll be there anytime soon.

After staying up late drinking in Canada on Friday, we slept in for a while Saturday morning, then headed back to grab lunch and some beers before heading back to the falls area.  We ended up trying out a brewpub called Taps on Queen.  It turned out to be a pretty neat place.  We tried all of their beers and got the deal of the day, a pepperoni pizza and wings.  Their beer that we liked best by far was one that tasted like gingerbread.  Yum!

After lunch, we headed back to check out the falls in the daylight.  I had pre-purchased fun passes for Clifton Hill, which included the SkyWheel, Movieland, Ghost Blasters, and Galaxy Golf.  We headed to the SkyWheel first to see the falls from, well, the sky.  The view was pretty great, actually.  We were in an enclosed glass (well, see-through, anyway) car that was temperature-controlled.  We went around several times and could see both the falls from the top of the wheel.  We actually got two trips included with our passes, and we planned to go back at night to try it again, but ran out of time.  Oh well.

After that we walked around a bit to check out the rest of Clifton Hill and use our passes for the other attractions.  We ogled at wax celebrities in Movieland, shot up ghosts at Ghost Blasters, and putted around in black light at Galaxy Golf.  All in all, it was a fun little place to hang out and not a bad deal for $20 for all of those things.  We compared the Clifton Hill area to kind of a Vegas for kids.  It was definitely a strip, but much more family friendly.  Oh, we also spotted a beaver hanging out on a corner that Ricky wanted me to get my picture taken with, but when we walked by there he was gone.  I did, however, manage to pick up a BeaverTail to try.  Pretty yummy stuff.

We left Clifton Hill and ventured around the falls area.  We got plenty of walking in!  We saw the falls from several different vantage points, and I got some great pictures, even some with the rainbows formed at the falls.  Gorgeous.  After that, we headed back to America to do some shopping at the outlet mall that was near our hotel, then headed back to the hotel to claim our free appetizer and bottle of wine at the restaurant there.  (See, more and more free stuff with the Groupon!)  We kind of made it a quiet evening (ok, we went back to the room and I fell asleep) since we knew we’d have to get up the next morning to check out and leave for our Sunday brunch.

Ah, yes… Sunday brunch.  Easter brunch, actually, and I’m not sure I could think of a better place to have it.  I made a reservation for the Sunday brunch buffet at the Skylon Tower.  The brunch was ok… plenty to pick from, but the view was fantastic.  We got there early enough to get a table with a view of both the American and Canadian falls.  It was fabulous.

Seeing as Sunday was our last day there, we ventured around a bit more, then headed back to the airport to board our tiny plane back home.  All in all, it was a great little weekend trip, and I was glad to be able to see Niagara Falls once more!

The Groupon we got was for the Four Points by Sheraton in Niagara Falls, NY. Yes, we stayed on the American side of the falls. The location really wasn’t bad, though, and it was a great hotel. Our only complaint was the thin walls and that the doors would slam if you just let them close by themselves. That made for a couple of noisy mornings, but other than that it was great. Our Groupon got us the hotel room for under $100 per night, $30 in slot machine play at the nearby casino, and a free bottle of wine and appetizer from the restaurant in the hotel. This was all times two since we stayed for two nights. We also got a bonus of $10 more each at the casino since we had to sign up for new cards there, and our waitress at the hotel restaurant let us use our free wine and appetizer card another time as well, so a total of three bottles of wine! We love free stuff. Our hotel also had free wi-fi and a view of the Niagara River from our room. Nice!

I think the reason we like weekend trips like this is because we tend to do more in one night than most people on a trip do in a few days. This was no exception. Our plane touched down around 10pm in Buffalo, and after picking up our rental car, we were ready to get started. We actually went straight to the falls and caught a glimpse of it lit up at night. We got a great view of the American falls and could see some of the Canadian side as well. After checking into our hotel, we took our coupons and headed to the casino. We came out $50 richer. $50 for free, not bad! We were still wide awake at this point, and since we knew there wasn’t much open on the New York side then (it was after midnight), we decided… Hey, let’s head to Canada. So we did.

We discovered that getting over the border costs a $3.25 toll (which we had to pay three times, unfortunately… One bad thing about staying in New York vs Canada) and involves not much more than handing over your passport and answering a few simple questions. There is also a much shorter line of cars to get in and out of the country at 1am than during the day. We drove around a bit and ended up parking on the street and finding a bar called Yank’s to chat with local bartenders and try some local beer. Not a bad end to the night… Or or first few hours in Niagara Falls.

Fast forward to adult life.  As an adult, what is your relationship to your parents?  Some people get along well with theirs.  Especially here in Indiana, it seems common to grow up, get married, have kids, and your parents have that grandparent relationship with your family.  Obviously not everyone falls victim to this situation (kidding, KIDDING).  But that is the relationship that a lot of parents then end up having… they still have a relationship with their kids, now grown, and become grandparents.  But how does your life and relationship with your parent or parents change when and as you grow up?  Do you continue to think similar to they do?  Everyone grows up and ends up thinking somewhat different than their parents – we are all different people, after all.  But some people tend to keep beliefs close to what their parents taught them, while others go in almost the opposite direction.  How does that affect you?  How does that affect your parents and your relationship with them?  As a person that tried to raise you to see things the way they do (and I think it’s hard for a parent to not raise a child at least a little bit that way), how do they respond when you start to see life differently?  Are they accepting of it, encouraging you to think about things and use your own critical thinking skills to come to terms with the world?  Or do they resist, even getting mad, that you don’t see things the same way as them?

It’s an interesting situation, and I’m sure difficult as a parent (I’m not one, so I can’t say firsthand).  But I imagine that when you have a child and raise them, you want them to be the very best… as you see the best.  The problem comes in when they determine that their best is not the same as yours.  Do you accept that and encourage them no matter what direction they go?  Or how do you handle that as a parent?

This post is definitely more questions than conclusions.  It’s honestly just something on my mind and questions I struggle with on my own.  I’m not a parent, but I have them.  My dad passed away a little over three years ago, and my mother is still alive.  She and I don’t always see eye to eye on things, and I tend to struggle with the best way to handle that.  I find it difficult to make decisions, even if I feel they are the best decisions, if she doesn’t agree with them.  As the person who brought me up and shaped me, something just doesn’t feel right when she disagrees with me.  Sometimes it’s hard to accept that I’m a grown-up now and that I am fully capable of making intelligent decisions on my own, even decisions that she may not agree with.  Even though she brought me up, it is my life and there are decisions that are mine alone, decisions that affect how my life plays out.  It can be very difficult to accept when you know that the person who formed you would make completely different decisions as the ones you are making and that your decisions have a negative effect on them, even if you can’t control that.

Sometimes you just have to live your own life.  People, even those you respect, love, and whose approval you want, will not always agree with you.  But it is your life, and your life alone.  It is no one else’s to live, and the decisions you make do not belong to anyone else to make.  It’s good to take other people’s opinions into account, but you can’t let those opinions affect you so much that you make a decision for them as opposed to for you.  You have no control over their reaction, even parents and loved ones.  The only thing you can do sometimes is just love them and live your own life the best way you know how.

Anyone else have this experience?  What is your relationship with your parents like?  Do they approve of your decisions?  How do you handle their reactions?  I’d be interested to know other people’s thoughts on the topic.

I know, I know… what I really need to do is just, well, BLOG.  Not make it all about the site design and brand and whatnot, but focus on the content.  And I’ll work on that.  I promise, I will.  I’m a good writer, I just don’t sit down to do it enough.  I worry too much about having an interesting topic and actually taking the time to sit down and write.  But it helps me when I do, and I get a lot of compliments that seem to indicate that I’m reasonably good at it as well.  Now, to just… do it.  Keep encouraging me, folks.  I’m working on it.

Anyway, I hope you continue to tune in and don’t get turned off by my seeming schizophrenia.  It’s really just a matter of having too many things going on at once, and that will (hopefully) calm down soon, especially upon my impending graduation.  But in the meantime, sit back, buckle your seatbelt, and just join me for the ride.

I woke up yesterday (I’m writing this a day later) and got dressed and went to grab some breakfast, which, along with lunch, is first come, first served.  I sat with three other people traveling alone.  One was a guy who was apparently a truck driver whose truck had broken down and was now taking the train to his destination.  I’m not sure of the entire story; I never really did get it.  But it was something along those lines.  And then an elderly gentleman who was traveling with his wife, who didn’t come down for breakfast.  I met her later that night, though, because I ended up at the same table with them at dinner as well.

Breakfast was pretty good, and I ended up venturing on from there to the observation car with my Kindle in hand.  All of the chairs were full, but by the time I bought some water and Motrin (I’ve had an ongoing dull headache off and on since boarding in Chicago), a couple had freed up, so I settled in for a bit with my book.  I started #4 of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and ended up finishing last night right before I went to bed.

After reading for a while in the observation car, I went back to my room and watched some TV for a while.  I’ve been trying to catch up on a few shows, but I can’t seem to sit still for long enough to concentrate on them.  I am, however, almost caught up now on Grey’s Anatomy.  I skipped lunch because I had been snacking and it seemed a bit too close to breakfast for me, but I signed up for a wine tasting in the afternoon, which later got cancelled.  Luckily there was a 5:00 spot open for dinner, because by that time I was getting hungry.

As mentioned, I had dinner with the same gentleman from breakfast, along with his wife and another lady who was traveling on her own.  It’s always interesting to hear people’s stories, and they seem to like hearing mine as well.  I get lots of questions about school and traveling, especially when I mention this is my first time on a train in the U.S., but that I have been on one in Russia.  The elderly couple seemed to have done a lot of traveling by train, and he mentioned that he had told his wife if she wanted to keep him young, keep him going on trains.

It’s hard to express how different traveling by train is.  I haven’t physically seen anything I didn’t expect, but I tend to get feelings that aren’t quite what I was expecting when I do something new.  To me, traveling by train had never really even been a consideration because you can get to places much faster by plane.  But on this trip, I’ve thought about a few things.  One is that (as corny as this probably sounds) traveling by train is like an allegory to life.  It’s no wonder that people usually travel by plane much more nowadays – our society had became a “hurry up and get there” society, not just in their travel plans, but in everything.  We often miss out on the interesting things that we run into along the way to our destination because we are in such a hurry to get there.  Same thing with traveling by train versus plane.  On a plane, you are always just in a hurry to get where you’re going and you never see the things in between.  I honestly had not really thought about the possible of enjoying the journey to my destination because I usually take a plane.  But being on a train is a reminder that there are things to enjoy on the journey from point A to point B.  And, in fact, everyone is way more relaxed, and so much nicer.  There is no pushing and shoving and lining up to be the first on the plane, no rush to get there.  And no being crammed into a tiny seat where you have no room to move.  Even the coach seats on the train or a lot bigger and more comfortable than a plane.  Plus you can get up and move around and enjoy it.  Everyone is more willing to get to know their fellow passengers and sit down and enjoy the ride.

(Side note: I’m quite distracted typing up this blog post right now because so far the scenery this morning is WAY better than anything I’ve seen so far. But more about that later!)

 “Life is a journey, not a destination.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I arrived into Chicago right about noon, and since the Megabus stop is right across the street from Chicago’s Union Station, I didn’t have very far to walk.  Thankfully, I found the Amtrak trains easily enough, checked in and got my ticket, checked my bag, and was directed to the Metropolitan Lounge since I had purchased a sleeper car ticket on my train to Seattle.  It’s funny, when you are in the Amtrak part of Union Station, it doesn’t really look a ton different than a regular subway station.  However, when you walk into the Metropolitan Lounge, you immediately notice how much nicer it is.  I checked in there and was given a pink ticket that would allow me to get back into the lounge if I decided to roam around (which I did).  The lounge is pretty nice, and very handy.  You can leave your bags there that you are taking with you in your train car but don’t want to carry around.  They also have free coffee, soft drinks, and snacks.  There are nice restrooms and comfy chairs, and you can actually board right from the lounge.  They get everyone together when they are ready to start boarding and lead them out to the train.

Once I checked in at the lounge, I wandered around the food court at the station and met up with gRegor for lunch.  I had just enough time to sit down and catch up with him over lunch, then I headed back to the lounge before my train started boarding.  The train actually was a bit late leaving, but we finally made it.  I got on and found the “roomette” that is mine for the duration.  (The duration being Monday morning when we get into Seattle.)  The roomette is actually pretty nice.  It’s just the right size for me.  I have two chairs that are definitely much bigger than an airline seat, with some space in between them and a little table that pulls out.  There’s also a shelf above my head that pulls down into a bed.  The two seats slide together to make a bed as well, so two people could stay in the room.  There are a couple of steps that are used to get into the top “bunk”, a tiny closet, and also temperature and lighting controls along with a power outlet.  All of this along with a nice big picture window to watch the country roll by.

Part of my reason for wanting to take this vacation alone was because, well, I’m an introvert.  And the last few weeks of working full-time and taking three MBA classes have been getting to me.  Ricky has been dealing with six4six stuff, so he has been stressed as well, and while I definitely miss him, being the introvert that I am, I was more than ready to retreat into my little roomette alone and watch the world go by for a few hours.  So I didn’t do any venturing outside of my train car until dinner time.

Meals are included in the price of a sleeper room, and they ask you early on in the ride which time you would like to pick to eat dinner.  So at my scheduled time, I headed down to the dining car.  Since I was alone, I was put at a table with a couple and a lady traveling alone as well.  They were very nice, and the guy even ended up buying my wine for me (alcoholic beverages are not included in the meal).  That impressed me, since he had just met me and I might never even see them again.  But it also seems to coincide with train travel… I mean, if you take a train you are not in a hurry to get to your destination and seemingly just more relaxed and open.  It’s practically the opposite of air travel, and definitely a welcome change.

Dinner was a lot of fun.  It was fun meeting the people I sat with and hearing their stories.  The couple was from Charlotte, NC, and they were also taking the train all the way to Seattle for vacation.  They talked about how this train was a much better experience than the trains they had taken from Charlotte.  Now that is a LONG train ride.  Charlotte to Charlottesville, VA to Chicago, then the Empire Builder (the train we are on) all the way to Seattle.  They seem to be enjoying it, though.  Well, except for their sub-par experiences on one of their other trains.  The lady traveling alone that also sat with them is from Maine, and she took a train to Boston and then on to Chicago before getting on the Empire Builder.  She is only going to Minneapolis, though, so she will reach her destination tonight.

Probably one of the most interesting things so far was meeting the lady who served us at dinner.  She has been working on Amtrak trains for 33 years.  (That’s longer than I’ve been alive!)  She was a hoot.  She made a little noise when she brought us our dinner, sort of a “doo-doo-doo” like a trumpet sound and claimed “you won’t get that in a restaurant”.  She told us stories about when she first started working on a train and they had just started allowing women to do it.  She got a conductor that didn’t think women could do it, and he was very rude to her.  So with the help of another train employee, they put a line of pancake syrup around the inside of the hat he had laying on the table one day.  He rushed by in a hurry to grab it and put it on, and they just sat back and watched and shook their heads.  He never knew who did it.

So far, this trip has been both relaxing and interesting.  I have to say that taking a train is much different from flying, and much more relaxed.  It takes longer, but if you have the time, I’d definitely say it’s worth it for the experience.  Choo choo!

I first heard about Hearthstone Coffee House & Pub last fall when I was in a sales and advertising class as a part of my MBA.  My final class project was a potential marketing campaign for a similar concept being put together by another local coffee company, and by doing some research someone in my class had found out about Hearthstone in the light of being a potential competitor.  I stumbled across their website/blog (yes, they had one even long before they opened) and found out about their New Year’s party (also a sort of grand opening).  I told Ricky about it, and he was interested in working with them.  So we visited during their soft opening week, and, well… were not immediately impressed.  While the layout and decor was impressive enough, with one side being a coffee bar and the other being a, well, bar (we didn’t even discover the bar until we walked around to the other side), it’s a neat plan.  However, being the critics we are, we found plenty to complain about.  For one, the girl that took my order didn’t even know how to run a credit card.  And their so-called “pint night” on Thursdays left something to be desired ($5 a pint is NOT a discount in my book).  Given all of this, we weren’t really sure how much we’d end up frequenting the place.

Fast forward past Christmas and a few weeks… Ricky has been very busy promoting and doing work for six4six and doesn’t have time for much else lately.  I, however, have been consumed with school and work for the most part, and appreciate a break and a friend now and then.  And I have found both at Hearthstone.  The faults that we discovered there to begin with have been rectified… credit cards are commonplace and pint nights are now 50% off.  And as an example, last week I found some friends there too.  My friend Jeremiah is a common patron at Hearthstone – I think he is in love with their chai.  Plus, Devin, the manager/co-founder/everything man has become a friend as well and always comes to chat when I am in.  I also can’t beat the fact that they are across the street from where I live… good coffee, good beer, free wi-fi… and I can stumble home if I drink too much.  Not much to dislike about that.

So here I am, once again… I think I have found my normal Thursday hangout spot.  Half-price pints, a place to do homework, and a friend.  Maybe it’s not for everyone, but I think if you try, it could be easy for anyone to find something to like about the place.  If you haven’t been here yet, give Hearthstone a shot.  You just might find something you weren’t expecting.

Now, the reason I didn’t tell people is because I already own an iPad.  And a Kindle Keyboard.  And an iPhone.  So do I really need a Kindle Fire?  The answer is no, I do not.  But here is why I bought it.  I’ve been looking for a while for a mobile computing device (something a bit bigger and more useful than my iPhone) that would fit comfortably in my purse and I could carry every day.  First, this was my netbook (I still own a Dell Mini 10v, although I hardly ever use it anymore).  Then when I got an iPad, it became that.  But after a while, I would stop carrying both of these.  They were still a bit too big to be a comfortable every day device for me.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my iPad.  It’s the absolute perfect device for traveling, and functioned as my computer even when I went to Russia.  It is super handy, and a great all-around portable computing device.  But still not quite an every day device.  I had honestly started carrying my Kindle Keyboard around in my purse with me so I could read.  But it still wasn’t quite enough, or really what I wanted.

I first got a used Kindle 2 from a friend not too long before the original Kindle Keyboard (aka the Kindle 3) came out.  I eventually gave the Kindle 2 to my mom (she doesn’t have wi-fi, so she needed one with 3G) and got myself a Kindle 3.  And, well, as a marketing MBA major, I’m pretty interested in brands and how they market themselves.  And Apple and Amazon are two that are pretty high up on my list.  I think they both do really well with both their marketing, customer service and support, and the quality of their products.  Trust me, if I don’t like a brand, I don’t easily use their product again.  Google, while for a while I was a pretty big fan of, is quickly going downhill lately, for various reason I may get into in another blog post eventually.  So anyway… I decided, since it really was selling for a pretty reasonable price, to invest in a Kindle Fire.

Here’s the short version, the verdict – I love it!  Amazon, once again, has not let me down.  Their device is not, by any means, an iPad.  But it does capitalize on the Kindle pretty well by adding tablet capabilities to it.  And their marketing ploy is pretty genius, if you ask me.  Sell the device while not making any profit on it.  But don’t sell it with the cord that allows users to put their own media on it… instead make it much easier for them to purchase yours.  Amazon has LOADS of readily available content… streaming movies, movies for sale or rent, books, music, apps, you name it.  It’s practically inevitable that for every Kindle Fire they sell, they will make plenty of profit back not from the device, but from their content that people will end up purchasing.  In business school we have a name for this… the “razor concept”.  We talked about it in my very first semester as a grad student.  Basically – it’s like you sell a razor at a really cheap price – so people will have to keep coming back and buying blades for it, which is where you end up making your real profit.  Amazon has done this perfectly.

So anyway… while enjoying my frivolous purchase, I’m also getting another taste of something from the techie side – Android.  Yes, I’m still a geek despite being an MBA.  Not only do I love the business aspect at work here (I wouldn’t really buy it just for that!), but I’m a gadget geek as well.  And this is just one more new device to play with.  Hey, it’s a hobby… don’t tell me you don’t have one too!