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I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again, I believe people who are obese should have to pay more for health insurance and now I have found people to back me up:

ttp://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/whos-ready-for-a-fat-tax/?scp=6&sq=obesity&st=cse

When it comes down to it, obesity is a self-inflicted problem. There is only a small portion of the population that actually has a genetic pre-disposition towards becoming obese. Sociologists and politicians make all sorts of excuses for the obese- food deserts, low-incomes, poor education. While all of these factors are in fact real contributors to obesity, they are not the cause. The cause of obesity is one thing and one thing only- consuming too many calories without exercising. Does anyone ask themselves why in the early 20th century, with all of the poor, uneducated immigrants, obesity wasn’t rampant? How come there are educated and wealthy people that are obese (although fewer in number they do exist)?

Lack of education definitely does impact rates of obesity. But with articles in the newspaper and ads on TV everyday, you would really need to make a conscious effort to ignore health warnings and not know that eating a big Mac everyday is bad for you. I know all about food deserts- the lack of grocery stores within a certain radius, and here is what I have to say. I can’t speak for the rest of the country, but I will speak for NYC. Supermarkets are everywhere! And when there is no supermarket nearby, there is certainly a bus or train to take you to one. Where I grew up in Queens, they recently took away the last Key Food and replaced it with a Rite Aid. Do people in my neighborhood complain that we are in a food desert? No. Are we an obese community? No. And it is not because everyone is rich and has a car and drives far away. It is because there is access to public transportation and even people without cars can get to the nearest supermarket. However, food deserts cause big problems when in a poor neighborhood. There is still public transportation- but the will of the people is different. It is easier to blame the community for not providing the resources needed, then to seek out the resources yourself. The blame is put on someone else and individual’s shirk all responsibility for what goes into their body.

I can’t always afford the supermarket right across from my apartment, but I don’t sit and blame the city for not providing food subsidies so that I can afford the things i want.  I also don’t go to McDonald’s everyday for a meal (which is not even that cheap anymore!) I walk an extra mile just to go to Trader Joes to buy food that I can afford.  Sometimes I even lug bags of food 25 miles from White Plains all the way back to my apartment. I understand that not everyone is physically capable of doing this, but if you can’t take a bus a few blocks down to go to a grocery store, then you probably should not be living alone in the first place.

People need to take responsibility for their own health and actions and that is why there should be a tax on obesity. Findings released by the CDC found that “the prevalence of obesity rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, and medical costs climbed to about 9.1 percent of all U.S. medical costs.” How are we ever going to cut medical costs if we continue to allow preventable diseases to take over our health care system? We need to have a sense of shared responsibility here in order to ever move forward and work towards getting everyone health care. Everyone needs to do their part here.

Six years and $160,000 later, I finally figured out why I went to private school. I had no idea what was going on in  . Everyone at my high school had to go to an ivy league or they felt that their entire life was over. If you didn’t get into an ivy, you certainly had to go to an elite liberal arts private school like Amherst or Williams. Public school was for rejects. It was for underachievers. I was even breaking the mold by going to Skidmore. No one from my school ever went there and it was totally by chance that I did. I had no idea how to pick a school. You look in the Fiske guide, you see if your SATs are ok, you see what percentage of the population is of the opposite sex and you basically call it a day. In terms of majors and programs, I had no idea. They were all the same. It seemed as though all schools had the same majors. I picked my school based completely on superficial things. I visited Skidmore and it was one of the more beautiful places I had ever been and they had a great dance program. My SATS fit the book and most of all, I had no competition from my high school. Saratoga seemed like a cool place to spend 4 years (although I didn’t know just how cool at the time) and 2,700 people seemed like a good number of kids to do it with.

My freshman year I felt isolated and lonely. I missed New York. Saratoga seemed small (especially with no car or driving skills) and boring. Everyone was white and wore pastels and I was the girl from New York who wore black. Everyone seemed spoiled and not as smart and I pseudo wondered if the my high school had been right- if you don’t go ivy, go home. I thought about transferring to Cornell- I even had the application in my dorm room. I wasn’t turned off by the partying- we did plenty of that in high school. But it bothered me that no one ever did work. I worked hard, but the easiest day of high school was harder than my hardest day of college. I got straight A’s all freshman year, took naps almost everyday, and was usually more stressed about about the fact that I wasn’t stressed out than about actual work. For some reason, I feel that I needed that rush of anxiety from being overwhelmed to count as a sign that I was learning.

Over the years, I realized that I was learning. Not only academically, but I was learning how to calm down a bit and learn without being overwhelmed. I took for granted the fact that teachers gave you so much attention, and answered their phones and returned emails and did everything they could to make your life easier and better. I definitely got close with a few of my teachers but I never realized until I left just how important and rare that kind of relationship is. I am now two years out of college and I am trying to complete my pre-med requirements. I didn’t want to go to NYU which would have been the smarter choice, but I didn’t feel it was necessary to spend another 30k on something I should have done as an undergrad. So I went to Hunter, the fraternal twin of my high school. Even though Hunter High School is an offset of the college, they could not be more different. The high-schools is an exclusive, intensely competitive elite cult while the college is just an overwhelming assortment of anyone and everything. My biology class was 750 people (more than my entire graduating class at SKidmore I might add).  I don’t need special attention. I know how to study and do well on my own. But that’s not the frustrating thing about Hunter. The thing is, they are understaffed everywhere, which leads everyone to be angry and it leads them to hire people who don’t know what they are talking about. I wish I could list all the incorrect advice I got from people, but that’s boring and doesn’t help my anger. No one picks up the phone. Whoever you call, you get a long pre-recorded message. Whenever you email someone, you get an automated reply. I’ve even gone to the pre-med counselor’s office multiple times to find that she has skipped her office hours for that day (never trust the director of anything- only the assistant director!). I’ve been closed out of all of the classes that I need. I’ve been denied acceptance into things because of one missing piece of paper that no one (or no machine) had told me about. Everything is a fight. Everything is a headache. All I want is to take these two classes and be done with it. I don’t care how much it costs. I am not applying for loans or financial aid, I will write you a check of any amount, just please let me into a class.

The battle was lost at Hunter and I am now back at a private school. But the whole thing has made me appreciate Skidmore (and my parents for sending me there) on a whole new level. I will donate money to that school as long as I have $5 in my pocket because they continue to help me and give back to their alum.

I just got back from a family vacation in Florida. As much as I love my parents, spending a few days with them without any breaks always makes me see their faults and I am trying to avoid adopting those characteristics. My parents are such New Yorkers. I have a great view of New Yorkers but some of the negative stereotypes are really true- they’re kind of cynical, they can never relax, they are judgmental and they look for the bad instead of the good. My family rented a house on the beach in Florida- it was a beautiful place with great food and everyone was in good spirits. My sister just got a new job, my nephew is adorable, the stars were out and shining and everything should have been wonderful. Yet somehow my parents still had to see the negative. My boyfriend tried to talk to my mom about how beautiful the stars were and somehow that conversation came back around to how F-ed up the world is. The world is here to enjoy. Obviously things everywhere are not ideal. America is not perfect but other countries are certainly worse. I am not saying we shouldn’t care about all of the bad things that go on around the world,but I’ve come to the realization that I can’t be held responsible to care about all of them, nor can I change all of them. I can’t just think about everything that goes on in the world that is wrong- war and genocide, starvation, torture, child abuse, etc. I can do my best to change a few things and I can be knowledgeable about the rest, but I am going to be seriously depressed and angry if I never think about anything else or enjoy the beauty that is in the world. We were given something beautiful and it is my choice to enjoy that. All I want in life is to be happy. I want to help other people but I don’t want to sacrifice my own happiness and I think that is something that my parents do. They take on the world’s problems as their own and you can’t do that. If you think about a small family like our own, how many problems there are, that is enough for a lifetime. Now if you take on the rest of the world’s problems in addition, you have no chance of being happy. i think i want to even stop reading the news, at least for the summer. I want to enjoy the sunshine and the beach and pretend that I am 15 again when i had no clue what was going on.

i am going to try not to be so judgmental and critical and i am going to try to see the best in people. I don’t want to be naive- some people are bad, but I think I can do a pretty fair assessment of people’s character. My friend just introduced me to a great blog and I’m going to quote #179 here, entitled “Talk to strangers”

Teaching you to fear strangers would be cynical. The generosity of unknown people will ease your burden on many occasions. Instead I want you to learn to gauge people’s intentions by listening to your gut instincts and recognizing subtle cues. Confidence in this skill will allow you to avoid the aberrant persons you encounter and embrace something much more common – the kindness of strangers.

from: http://prudentadviceformybabydaughter.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-10-22T13%3A27%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20

Being down in Florida, where everyone says hello whether they are mowing their lawn or riding by on their bike made me realize how closed off New Yorkers are. I think we are good people, but we forget how to be friendly to strangers. We forget that we are social beings and that we need other people to survive. We forget that not everyone is all bad. We think overly friendly people need therapy and that’s wrong. I thought that only people in beach towns said hello and were friendly but now I realize that this is how people live. People are relaxed and happy and friendly and I think there is a lot to be said for that.

i’m going to try not to complain so much but i will still put things out there that i don’t understand. i am going to try to live in the moment and be thankful for all that i have, instead of stressing about the things that i don’t have.

There must be something wrong with me. I just don’t get girls. I must be missing the gene that makes me capable of having girlfriends and being girly. Someone asked me if I was a tom boy the other day when I was growing up. I wasn’t offended because I don’t think he was mocking me, I just don’t have natural girl instincts. I don’t care about clothes or hair, I don’t know how to do my makeup very well, I HATE talking about ridiculous boy drama like if you should text back after an hour or 3 days. I don’t want to think about babies, in fact I don’t even want to babysit. I like playng with my nephew but that’s about it. But my biggest qualm lately, is that I have no interest in getting married anytime soon and it seems like I am the only 24 year old girl who feels that way.

It all started when my friend Greg proposed to his girlfriend right after we graduated college. This would have been semi-normal if she hadn’t just graduated from highschool. Eek. Totally weird but I am going to attribute that to them growing up in New Hampshire. They might even be cousins..who knows.  Two of my boyfriend’s friends just got engaged. One is in his late twenties which is totally normal and the other one is my boyfriend’s age which is terrifying. What’s worse is that his girlfriend is my age and she was ansy about him proposing. Is there something wrong with me? I love my boyfriend and we have been dating for four years and living together for a year and half and I don’t see myself getting engaged for at least 4 years. Apparently this is weird. I’ve already lost two ex-boyfriends to marriage, and that’s 50% of all my exes right there. When did this happen? Did I miss the memo that said you had to have dated everyone you’re ever going to date by the time you graduate college because from then on it’s just a race to the altar. Well I don’t run very fast and I certainly am not joining this race. My best friend has talked about marriage with her boyfriend (who i love) and my other best friend doesn’t understand the difference between living with someone and getting married.  That’s like saying what is the difference between hanging out with supermodels and homeless people?

I don’t want to seem like I have a negative view on marriage. My mom was married when she was 23 and is still happily married. But right now I still have my own life that is separate from my boyfriend’s and he has his. I don’t need to be involved in everything he does, and he doesn’t want to hang out with me and my friends all of the time either. We both are extremely motivated people with big goals and plans for our futures, and I feel like marriage would come in the way of that right now.  I don’t know where I’ll go to grad school and I don’t know where his business endeavors will lead him to, but I am certainly not going to stand in the way of his dreams and I am certainly not going to be bogged down by the stresses of marriage before I even have a career set up for myself. Living with your boyfriend is great (when he puts away his stuff of course). You have a roommate that is your best friend and of course you are going to fight, but you get over it, unlike petty nonsense that gets in the way of friendships. But marriage has so many more responsibilities. You have to be on the same page on everything in your life- where you want to live, what you want to spend your money on, how many kids you want to have, whether you want kids at all, bla bla bla. I don’t want to deal with this now. I haven’t even gotten to the step where I figure out what I want to do with my life.  I feel like it is easier for people who don’t see themselves as a career woman to want to settle down early on. They don’t really want to work and once they get married they won’t have to. But then what’s left? Kids? Sure but then what?

I want to have kids and I am certain I will be a great mom because my mom is a great mom and my grandma was the best person in the entire world. But for me to be a great mom, I know I need to have no regrets. I know that I have to satisfy my intellectual curiosity and travel the world and establish myself before I become a mom and devote myself entirely to my children. I know that I need to marry someone who will be a great husband but more importantly an even better father. And I know there is no way that I can know any of that right now. I think I”ll just have to accept that I am different and just watch as everyone passes me by. As long as the bf is on the same page, I guess I have nothing to worry about.

Have you ever heard of General Anxiety Disorder, otherwise known as GAD? Well, I’ve decided I have JAD- Jewish Anxiety Disorder. My dad is not jewish but the disease is only transmitted on the maternal side, from Jewish mother to daughter. It is characterized by extreme worries, irrational fears, the need to constantly be paranoid or anxious about something bad happening and of course the tourettes like use of the phrase “Be careful.” I used to talk to my grandmother twice a week and she managed to tell me to be careful 15 times in a single conversation. I was only 9 years old at the time-  I am not sure what I was being careful about. My grandmother’s constant use of the phrase has definitely made my mom paranoid. She is worried about everything I do. I remember before I went mountain biking she of course told me to be careful and when I smashed my knee open her response was  “I told you to be careful!” As if I wanted to go flying from my bike and have the wind knocked out of me while my knee gushed with blood. As if it could rally be attributed to be not being careful. I am not a very athletic person and most of it was my mom’s overgrown fear that I would hurt myself. She didn’t want me to play soccer because she was afraid I would break my ribs. True story. She certainly didn’t want me involved in football and even gymnastics began to scare her after a while. She told my boyfriend to be careful before he went to Hawaii to surf. He actually even told him yesterday to be careful before his soccer game.  I had no fears when I was a child-  I wanted to try everything. And now, I feel like an old lady. I am scared every time I go skiing that I am going to break a bone. I am afraid to do water sports and at this point I am almost scared to ride a bike. I am not mad at my mom, she got JAD from my grandma. But I am trying to calm down and try new things. I am trying to quell my borderline hypochondria  and tame my fear of life and just focus on the thrill and joys of life. It’s a pretty hard step though. Is anyone else with me?

Back in January I decided I wanted to be on gossip girl. Not really sure why other than the show is a guilty pleasure of mine(although it sharply went down hill in the winter). It was a great time and I met tons of cool people, literally had a free lunch and got paid about $20 an hour for a few hours of my time.  Since I’ve been pretty strapped for cash lately, I decided it might be a good idea to try it again since I am not taking summer classes. I had a great, albeit completely exhausting time but my view on the acting world has greatly changed. When I think of famous actors, I think “oh people who make way more money than they should to hang out on set with other awesome and hot actors.” That hasn’t really changed. But I had no idea just how little television actors actually do. Being a television actor is not like being in a play where you have to memorize lines and ques and spew out emotions at a certain time. Television actors shoot 20-60 seconds of footage at a time. In-between takes they are on their blackberries or getting their makeup touched up or waiting while someone grabs them a water. Blake Lively shot a scene on a horse with her puppy for about 20 minutes while her stunt double was there for two days doing all the work. The actors go back to their trailers in-between takes while their stand- ins wait there so the directors can fix the angles and the lighting. It’s unbelievable how many crew members and extras are needed to do the work of the actors on the show. The crew and the extras got picked up at 5:15 AM to be on set by 6AM and weren’t released until 7:30 PM. That is almost a 14 hour day not to mention most of them woke up before 4AM.

I know the big name actors are what “makes the show” and I would be fine with that if there were actually any acting involved. I thought the director just filmed the scene a few times from a few angles but I had no idea that they stop after every 10 lines. The actors don’t even memorize their lines. They take their script on set, glance at it real quick and then give it a go. Every tear is put in their eye. Every hair is strategically placed by a crew member. It’s kind of sickening actually. I’m not saying the final product isn’t worth it, I just didn’t realize how little skill was actually involved in being an actor.

On the other hand, I give the crew members and extras so much credit. After two 14-16 hour days in a polo field, using a porter pottie, and applying lip gloss every 20 minutes, I was exhausted. I am so happy to go back to my real job where I thought ten hour shifts and working overnights was bad.

I’m pretty sure the main actors on the show have become charactachures of their characters in real life. They all seem nice but dramatic and overly catered to and have completely lost a sense of reality, but then again, so have some of the extras. My first day on set I had to deal with a woman all day who would not stop talking about her days as a model and all of the fabulous background work she has done. She wouldn’t shut up about how she played a cougar in law and order and how much she loved the leading “teenage” boys in gossip girl. Meanwhile I’m thinking “Wow, you’re 40 and you are so obsessed with fame that you are willing to work 14 hours in one day, making no money, just so you can stand in the background? I have NO acting experience whatsoever and they let me do it so what does that say about your qualifications as an actress?

Girls and women trying to be actresses are the absolute worst. I did however spend the day with lots of great guys, some of which I think I might actually hang with another time. It was a great experience for me even if it was exhausting and I got slightly dumber from all the girl chatter, and it certainly changed my perception of how tv is made.  Would I want to be a tv actress at this point? Honestly, it seems kind of boring.